#i was going to make a series with informative posts between each round

[best-non-english-word-torunament]

What's the average language like?

This will be a giant of a post, because this is a subject that I really like. So much of what we think about language just isn't true when you look at the majority of them and I'm not even going into how the languages themselves are constructed, only the people speaking them, if that makes sense. It will make sense in a moment, I promise

First, let's discuss assumptions. When you think of the abstract idea of a language, what do you imagine?

How many speakers?

Where is it spoken geographically?

Do speakers of the language only speak that language or do they speak at least one other language? How many more languages?

Is the language tied to a state/country?

Is the language thriving or endangered?

In what domains is the language used? (home, school, higher education, administration and politics, in the workplace, in popular media...)

Is the language well documented and supported? Are there resources like dictionaries to look up words in, does google translate work for it, does Word/google docs work etc?

Is the language spoken or signed?

Is the language written down? Is it written down in a standardised way?

Do you see where I'm going with this? My perspective on what a language is has completely shifted after studying some linguistics, and this only covers language usage and spread, not how words and grammar work in different languages. Anyways, let's talk facts. (if no other sources are given the source is my uni lectures)

How many speakers does the average language have?

The median language has 7 600 native speakers.

7 600 people is the median number of speakers. Half the world's languages have more, half have less.

Most languages in this tournament have millions of speakers. But maybe that's relatively common? After all, half of the world's languages have more than 7 600 speakers. No.

94% of all languages have less than a million speakers.

Just so you know, big languages are far from the norm. There are 6700-6800 living languages in the world (according to ethnologue and glottolog, the two big language databases. I've taken the numbers for languages having a non-zero number of speakers and not being classed as extinct respectively. Both list more languages).

6% of 6700-6800 languages would be around 400 languages with more than a million speakers. Still a lot, but only a (loud) minority. It's enough to skew the average number of speakers per language upwards though. Counting 8 billion people and 6800 languages, that's almost 1.2 million people per language on average. The minority is Very loud.

Where are most languages spoken?

First of all, I'll present you with these graphs (data stolen from my professor's powerpoint) which I first showed in this post:

49% of all languages are spoken in Africa and Oceania, a disproportionately large amount compared to their population. On the other hand, Europe and Asia have disproportionally few languages, though Asia still has the largest amount of languages. Curious, considering Europe is often thought of as a place with many languages.

Sub-Saharan Africa is a very linguistically interesting place, but we need to talk about New Guinea. One island with 6.4 million people. Somehow over 800 languages. If you count the surrounding islands that's 7.1 million people and 1050 languages. Keep in mind that there are 6700-6800 languages in the world, so those 1050 make up more than a seventh of all languages. The average New Guinean language has less than 3000 speakers. Some are larger, but still less than 250 000 speakers. Remember, this is a seventh of all languages. It's a lot more common than the millions of speakers situation!

So yeah, many languages both in and outside New Guinea are spoken by few people in one or a few villages. Which is to say a small territory. But 7600 speakers spread over a big territory will have a hard time keeping their contact and language alive, so it's not surprising.

Moving on, lets talk about...

Bilingualism! Or multilingualism!

Is it common to speak two or more languages? Yes, it is. This is the situation in most of the world and has been the case historically. Fun fact: monolingual areas are uncommon historically and states which have become monolingual became so relatively recently.

One common thing is to learn a lingua franca in addition to your native language, a language that most people in the area know at least some of so you can use it to communicate with people speaking other languages than you.

As an example, I'm writing this in English which isn't my native language and some of you reading this won't have English as your native language either. Other examples are Swahili in large parts of eastern Africa and Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea (the autonomous state, not the entire island).

Speakers of minority languages often have to learn the majority language in the country too. It's difficult to live somewhere where most daily life takes place in one language without speaking at least some of it. This is the case for native people in colonised countries, immigrants and smaller ethnic groups just to mention a few situations. All countries don't have majority languages, but some are larger, more influential and used for things like administration, business and higher education. It's common for schooling to transition from local languages to a larger language or lingua franca in countries with many languages.

Another approach than the lingua franca is learning the language of villages or towns surrounding you, which is very common in New Guinea and certainly other parts of the world too. It's not unusual to know multiple languages, in some places in sub-saharan Africa people speak five or six languages on a village level. Monolingualism is a weird outlier.

Speaking of monolingualism, let's move on to...

Languages and countries

This is a big talking point, mostly because it affected my view of language before I started thinking about it. First of all, I'm going to talk about the nation state and how it impacts languages within it and the way people view language (mostly because it's a source of misconceptions which fall apart as soon as you start to think about them, but if you don't the misconceptions will stay). Then I'll move on to countries with lots of languages and what happens there instead.

So, the nation state

The idea is that the people of a nation state share a common culture, history, values and other such things, the most important here being language. We can all agree that this type of nationalism has done lots of harm to various minorities and migrants all over the world, but it's still an idea that has had and still has a big impact on especially the western world. The section on nation states will focus on the West, because that's the area I know enough about to feel comfortable writing about in this regard.

How do you see this in common conceptions of language? It's in statements and thoughts like this: In France people speak French (but what about Breton? Basque? Corsican? Various Arabics? Some of the other 15 indigenous and 18 non-indigenous languages established in France? What about people speaking French outside of France?), in the US people speak English (but what about the 197 living indigenous languages? Or the 34 established non-indigenous languages? And the many extinct indigenous languages forcibly killed by the promotion of English?).

In X country people speak X, except for the people who don't, but let's ignore them and pretend everyone speaks X. Which most might actually do if it's the single national language that's used everywhere, it's common to learn a second language after all.

This is of course a simplified (and eurocentric) picture, as many countries either have multiple national languages or recognise at least some minority languages and give them legal protection and rights to access certain services in their languages (like government agency information). Bi-/multilingual signage is common and getting more common, either on a regional or a national level. Maybe because we're finally getting ready to move on from one language, one people, one state and give indigenous languages the minimum of availability they need to survive.

I wrote a long section about how nation states affect language, but I realised that veered way off topic and should be its own post. The short version is that a language might become more standardised simply by being tied to a country and more mobility among the population leading to less prominent dialects. There's also been (and still is) lots of opression and attempts to wipe out minority (often indigenous) languages in the name of national unity. Lots of atrocities have been comitted. Sometimes the same processes of language loss happen without force, just by economic pressure and misconceptions about bilingualism.

What does this have to do with the average language?

I simply want to challenge two assumptions:

That all languages are these big national languages tied to a country

That it's common that only one language is spoken within a country. If you look closer there will be smaller languages, often indigenous and often endangered. There are also countries in the West where multiple languages hold equal or similar status (just look at Switzerland and its four official languages)

Starting with the second point, let's take a look at how Europe is weird about language again

Majority languges aren't universal

I'm going to present you with a list of the 10 countries with the most living languages, not counting immigrant languages (list taken from wikipedia, which has Ethnologue as the source):

Papua New Guinea, 840 languages

Indonesia, 707 languages

Nigeria, 517 languages

India, 447 languages

China, 302 languages

Mexico, 287 languages

Cameroon, 274 languages

Australia, 226 languages

United states, 219 languages

Brazil, 217 languages

DR Congo, 212 languages

Philippines, 183 languages

Malaysia, 133 languages

Chad, 130 languages

Tanzania, 125 languages

This further challenges the idea of one country one language. Usually there's a lingua franca, but it's not always a native language and it's not always the case that most are monolingual in it (like the US or Australia, both of which have non-indigenous languages as widespread lingua francas). Europe is the outlier here. People might use multiple languages in their day to day lives, which are spoken by a varying number of people.

In some cases the indigenous or smaller local languages are extremely disadvantaged compared to one official language (think the US, Australia and China), while in other places like Nigeria, several larger languages are widely used in their respective areas alongside local languages, with English as the official language even though it's spoken by few people.

It's actually pretty common in decolonised countries to use the colonial language as an official language to avoid favoring one ethnic group and their language over others. Others simply don't have an official language, while South Africa's strategy is having 12 official languages (there are 20 living indigenous languages and 11 non-indigenous languages in total, and one of the official ones is English, so not all languages are official with this strategy either). Indonesia handled decolonisation by picking a smaller language (a dialect of Malay spoken by around 10% at the time, avoiding favouring the Javanese aka the dominating ethnic group by picking their language), modifying it, and started using it as the new national language Indonesian. It's doing very well, but at the cost of many smaller languages.

Going back to the list, it's also interesting to compare the mean speaker number (if every language in a country was spoken by the same amount of people) and the median speaker number (half have more speakers, half have less). The median is always lower than the mean, often by a lot. This means that the languages in a country don't have similar speaker numbers, so one or a few languages with lots of speakers drive the average upwards while the majority of languages are small. Just like for the entire world.

The US and Australia stand out with 12 and 10 median speakers, respectively. About 110 languages in the US have 12 or fewer native speakers. The corresponding number for Australia is 113 languages with 10 or fewer speakers. There are some stable languages with few speakers documented, but they have/had between 40 and 60 speakers, so those numbers point towards a lot of indigenous languages dying very soon unless revitalisation efforts succeed quickly. This brings us to the topic of...

Endangered languages

This is an interesting tool called glottoscope made by Glottolog which you can play around with and view data on endangered languages and description status (which is the next heading).

I'll pull out some numbers for you:

Remember those 6700 languages in Glottolog? That's living languages. How many extinct languages are listed?

936 extinct languages. That's ~12,5% of the languages we know of. (Glottolog doesn't include reconstructed languages like Proto-Indo-European, only languages where we either have enough remaining texts to conclude it was a separate language or reliable account(s) that conclude the same. We can only assume that there are thousands of undocumented languages hiding in history that we'll never know of)

How many more are on the way to become extinct?

Well, only 36% (2800 languages) aren't threatened, which means that the other 64% are either extinct or facing different levels of threat

What makes a language threatened? The short answer is people not speaking the language, especially when it's not passed down to younger generations. The long answer of why that happens comes later.

306 languages are listed as nearly extinct and 412 more as moribound. That means that only the grandparent generation and older speak it and the chain of transmission to younger generations has broken. These two categories include 9,26% of all known languages.

The rest of all languages either fall into the threatened or shifting category. The threatened category means that the language is used by all generations but is losing speakers. The shifting category refers to languages where the parental generation speaks the language but their children don't. In both of these cases it's easier to revive the language, since parents can speak to the children at home instead of having to rely on external structures (for example classes in the heritage language taught like foreign language classes in schools).

Where are languages threatened?

This map is also from glottoscope and can be found here. I recommend playing around with it, you can zoom in and hover over every dot to see which language it represents. The colours signify threat level: green for not threatened, light green for threatened, orange for shifting, red for moribound and nearly extinct, and black for extinct. I'll come back to the shapes later.

As you can see, language death is more common in certain areas, like Australia, Siberia, North America and the Amazon, but it's still spread over the entire world.

Why are languages going extinct?

There are two important dimensions to the vigorousness of a language: The first is the number of speakers who claim the language as their own and speak it with each other. No speakers means no language. If all speakers move to different places or assimilate by shifting to a dominant language in the area (sometimes for work opportunities or for their childrens' future work opportunities. Sometimes because of which language(s) schools are taught in or disinterest from the children in the language and culture. Sometimes migration of an ethnic group for various reasons leads to language shifts. There are many complex reasons to why the link of transmission can break)

The other dimension, which ties into the first one, is the number of situations in which a language is used. There are many domains a language can be used in, like at home, in school, in the workplace, in politics and administration, in higher education, for international communication, in religious activities, in popular media like movies and music etc. When a language is no longer or never used in a particular domain, it might lose the associated vocabulary. When it becomes confined to a singular domain like the home, the usage goes down. The home is usually the last place an endangered language is spoken.

Usage in a domain is a reason to speak or hear the language. It's a reason to keep it alive. People also forget or get worse at languages they don't use. That's why a common revitalisation tactic is producing movies, radio programmes, news reporting, books and other media in a dying language. It gives people both reason and opportunity to use their language skills. Which language is used in schools is also important, as it keeps basic vocabulary for sciences and explaining the world alive. Another revitalisation tactic is making up new words to talk about modern concepts, some examples are the Kaqchikel word rub'eyna'oj from this tournament or creating advanced math vocabulary in Māori.

What does endangered languages have to do with the average language?

Trying to get this post back on track, these are some key points:

64% of all documented languages are either extinct or facing some level of threat. That's the majority of all language

Even excluding the extinct languages, the majority of languages are threatened or worse

This means that the average language is facing a loss of speakers, some more disastrous than others. Being a minority language in an increasingly globalized world is dangerous

Describing a language

Are you able to look up words from your native language in a thesaurus or a dictionary? What about figuring out how a certain piece of grammar works if you're unsure? Maybe you don't need that for your native language, but what about a second language you're learning?

If your native language is English, there are lots of resources, like online and book dictionaries/thesauruses or an extensive grammar (a book about how English grammar works). There's also a plethora of websites and courses to learn English, and large collections of written text or transcribed speech. If a linguist wants to know something about the English language there's an abundance of material. If someone wants to learn English it's easy and courses are offered in most parts of the world.

For other languages, the only published thing might be a list of 20 words and their translation into English or another lingua franca.

Let's take a look at the same map as earlier, but toggled to show documentation status in colour and endangerment status with shapes:

Here, the green signifies a long grammar and the light green a grammar. Both are extensive descriptions of the grammar in a language, but they differ in length. A long grammar has to contain over 300 pages and a grammar over 150. Orange is another type of grammar, namely a grammar sketch. Those are brief overviews of the main grammatical features or features that may be of interest for linguists, typically between 20 and 50 pages. The purpose isn't to be a complete grammar, only a starting point.

The red dots can signify a lot of things, but what they have in common is that there's no extensive description of the grammar. In those cases, the best description of the language might be a list of which sounds it contains, a paper about a specific feature, a collection of texts or recordings, a dictionary, a wordlist (much shorter than dictionaries) or just a mention that it exists.

Why are grammars and descriptions even important?

The better described a language is, the easier it is to learn it and study it. For a community facing language loss, it might be helpful to have a pedagogical grammar or a dictionary to help teach the language to new generation. If the language becomes extinct people might still be able to learn and revive it from the documentation (like current efforts with Manx). It also makes sure unique words or grammatical features as well as knowledge encoded in the language isn't lost even if the language is. It's a way of preserving language, both for research and later learning.

What's an average amount of descripion then?

36,2% of all documented languages have either a grammar or a long grammar. That's pretty good actually

38,2% of all documented languages would be marked by a red dot on this map, meaning that more languages than that don't have any kind of grammar at all, maybe only as little as a short list of words

The remaining 25,6% have a grammar sketch

So as you see, the well documented languages are in minority. On the brighter side, linguists are working hard at describing languages and if they keep going at the same rate as they have since the 1950s, they'll reach the maximum level of description by 2084. Progress!

Tying into both description of languages and domains where language is used...

What about technology and language?

There are many digital tools for language. Translation services, spelling and grammar checks in word processors, unicode characters for different scripts and more. I'm going to focus on the first two:

Did you know that there are only 133 languages on google translate? 103 more are in the process of being added, but that's still a tiny percentage of all languages. As in 2% right now and 3,5% once these other languages are added going with the 6700 language estimation.

Of course, this is for the most part a limination with translation technology. You need translated texts containing millions of words to train the algorithms on and the majority of languages don't have that much written text, let alone translated into English. The low number still surprised me.

There are 106 official language packs for Windows 10 and I counted 260 writing standards you can use for spelling checks in Word. Most were separate languages, but lots were different ways to write the same language, like US or British English. That's a vanishingly small amount. But then again:

Do all languages have a written standard?

No. That much is clear. But how many do? I'll just quote Ethnologue on this:

"The exact number of unwritten languages is hard to determine. Ethnologue (25th edition) has data to indicate that of the currently listed 7,168 living languages, 4,178 have a developed writing system. We don't always know, however, if the existing writing systems are widely used. That is, while an alphabet may exist there may not be very many people who are literate and actually using the alphabet. The remaining 2,990 are likely unwritten."

(note that Ethnologue classes 334 languages without speakers as living, since their definition of living language is having a function for a contemporary language community. I think that's a bad definition and that means it differs from figures earlier in the post)

Spoken vs signed

My last point about average languages is about signed languages, because they're just as much of a language as spoken ones. One common misconception is that signed languages reflect or mimic the spoken language in the area, but they don't. Grammar works differently and some similarities in metaphor might be the only thing the signed language has in common with spoken language in the area.

Another common misconception is that there's only one sign language and that all signers understand each other. That's false, signed languages are just as different from each other as spoken languages, except for some tendencies regarding similarity between certain signs which often mimic an action (signs for eating are similar in many unrelated sign languages for example).

Glottolog lists 141 Deaf sign languages and 76 Rural sign languages, which are the two types of signed language that become entire languages. The difference is in reach.

Rural signs originate in villages with a critical amount of deaf people (around 6) that make up a fully fledged language with complete grammar to communicate. Often large parts of the village learn tha language as well. There are probably more than 76, that's just the ones the linguist community knows of.

What's called Deaf sign languages became a thing in the 1750s when a French guy named Charles-Michel de l'Épóe systematised and built onto a rural sign from Paris to create a national sign language which was then taught in deaf schools for all deaf children in France. Other countries took after the deaf school model and now there's 141 deaf sign languages, each connected to a different country. Much easier to count than spoken languages.

Many were made from scratch (probably building on some rural sign), but some countries recruited teachers from other countries that already had a natinonal sign language and learnt that instead. Of course they changed over time and with influence from children's local signs or home signs (rudimentary signs to communicate with hearing family, not complete languages), so now there's sign language families! The largest one unsurprisingly comes from LSF (Langue des Signes Française, the French one) and has 63 members, among them ASL.

What does this have to do with average languages? Well, languages don't have to be spoken, they can be signed instead. Even if they make up a small share of languages, we shouldn't forget them.

Now for some final words

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you found this interesting and have learned something new! Languages are exciting and this doesn't even go inte the nitty gritty of how different languages can be in their grammar, sounds and vocabulary. Lots of this seem self evident if you think about it, but I remember how someone pointing out facts like this truly shifted my perspective on what the language situation in the world truly looks like. The average language is a lot smaller and diffrerent from the common idea of a language I had before.

Please reblog this post if you liked it. I spent lots of time writing it because I'm passionate about this subject, but I'd love if it spread past my followers

[strawberrystepmom]

touch me so i know i am still here | one

cw: description of murder. detective dante sparda x investigative journalist f!reader. | word count: 1.8k, reading time: approx. 7 min.

notes: for the purposes of this fic, dante's last name is sparda. i know this is not his canon last name. thanks for suspending disbelief for my sake <3 uh. this series is violent and dark but it's not heavy, it's actually pretty funny and cheeky considering the subject matter so i hope you like it!

this is the first part of a series. each post will contain warnings that pertain to that particular chapter. | part: two

Anxiety colors your every thought and movement, preventing your fingers from gripping the handle and opening the door to the bustling police station.  This is going to go one of two ways. You have a feeling you know which though saying it aloud feels like failure and even false confidence is better than none.

Internally bigging yourself, using every encouraging word you remember reading in a greeting card to build your defenses, you finally decide to enter the building and head straight to the desk at the front. Manned by a very serious looking woman, you immediately wonder again if you’ve made a mistake in coming at all.

No. Even if this fails, you did it for her and that’s what matters most of all.

Clearing your throat, you capture the attendant's gaze. “Can I help you?”

“I’d like to speak with Detective Sparda.”

The woman sitting at the desk, whose name tag proclaims that she is Trish, looks up from her computer with an intimidatingly perfect arched brow raised. “Do you think it’s 1975 or something? You don’t just walk into a police station and get to speak with whoever you want.”

You didn’t want it to have to come to this so you sigh, reaching into your pocket and pulling out your press credentials - a clear, protected badge with your picture and the name of the publication that currently employs you on it. Slapping the identification down, you smile at her. 

“I’m press. I have a few questions to ask him.”

She grumbles beneath her breath and leans forward in her chair, making a show of flicking her eyes between real you and photo you. Nodding, she collects your pass from you before you can protest. “I’m going to take this to make sure you stay there until I get back and don’t go nosing around like your types do.” She stands up, pushing away from the desk and rounding the corner. “Let me see if he’s around. It’s unlikely he’s even made it in today, it is Monday.”

Yeah, like 1:45 pm on a Monday, you think to yourself. Externally you chuckle quietly and shake your head, leaning against the desk in front of you gazing down at your feet.

This is a long shot and it has been since you hatched the idea a few weeks ago yet something in your gut has told you that he will be willing to listen to you. 

There have been very few moves made by the Angel Maker as the newspaper you once worked for called him in an effort to sensationalize the killings to sell copies. It has been 8 years since the last killing that was attributed to this man but every sense you have is telling you something is coming. There’s terror in the air and it sits heavily on your shoulders and settles right inside your chest every time you leave the house.

He’s still out there. He’s going to kill yet another woman if you don’t share what you’ve been working on since his last victim. 

Impatiently jiggling your foot, you shift your weight and groan under your breath. If this is a waste of time at the very least you’ll leave your number as unlikely as it is that the woman at the front desk will pass the information onto him. 

“And you’re sure you don’t remember that woman from somewhere?”

You hear the words faintly from down the hall, Trish’s poorly hushed words mingling with a deeper tone that laughs at her questioning.

“Nah, I’d remember one who looked like this,” you hear the faint jingle of what you believe is the keyring you keep your badge on when he speaks. “But thanks for being worried about me.”

Footsteps come closer and you straighten up, smoothing wrinkles out of the front of your blouse. Rounding the corner is the supermodel at the front desk and closely behind her is apparently…another supermodel?

You feel your eyes widen seeing who must be the detective and force them to return to normal, blinking tightly and encouraging a smile to cross your face. To say this man is good looking feels like an understatement. Good thing this is not the first time you’ve had very pretty men folding their arms over their chests while they strut in your direction.

“Fortunately for you, he managed to make it in today.” Trish whispers, sliding back into her chair effortlessly and tossing silken hair over her shoulder.

Did you accidentally stumble on a TV show set or something? 

“Dante Sparda, at your service,” the man offers with a grin while making it to your side. 

You look up at him and extend your hand, putting on your best and tightest business meaning smile.

“I have a tip that may interest you.”

He raises his eyebrows and tilts his head.

“And I may have one that int—” 

Trish bangs her desk phone down although it didn’t ring, interrupting whatever end was coming to Dante’s sentence. He raises his eyebrows and she shoots him a withering glance. 

This must be a common occurrence between them, a dynamic already taking shape that you make a mental note of.

You hate to be the bearer of bad news but…

“It’s about the Angel Maker.” Your voice is soft, a near whisper. 

The blonde next to you shuffles in her chair uncomfortably. The detective’s eyebrows fall, humor leaving his face like a bandit that has stolen the color in his cheeks on its way out. 

“I, uh…okay. Alright. Follow me.”

Clearing the way for you to walk the direction from which he just came, Trish raises her eyebrows behind your back, chuckling humorlessly. Either Dante just got played like an utter fool or you’re one - time will tell which. 

The walk to his office is brief and you don’t bother to make small talk, letting the heavy silence linger though you can tell it’s making the man beside you uncomfortable. There are three million questions running through his mind but the one he settles on the quickest comes out before he can stop it.

“Why’d you ask for me specifically?”

The two of you stop in your tracks in front of the office door with a plaque listing his name on it. You smile up at him, nodding your thanks when he swings the door open and let you enter first.

“Because it’s personal to you.”

Quite impolite to insinuate that he hasn’t evolved past this event. You do it anyway, reaching down for your bag and producing a large accordion folder from inside, unwinding the little tie keeping it shut without a second thought. Dante slides onto his desk and stares at you, arms folded over his chest.

“It’s personal to me too.” You slide a faded, bent newspaper in his direction. He glances down to see a grainy face smiling back at him but it’s unmistakably similar to yours. “That’s my sister. She was sixteen and brilliant and they found her with her skin ripped away from her scapula and shoulders to mimic wings with half of the hair on her head missing.”

Identical to how they found his mother fifteen years prior to the young woman that you clearly love so much.

Dante exhales sharply, impressed by how you’re keeping your composure and hoping he can borrow some of your courage while all of this is spread out in front of him. He was one of the first detectives out to the specific crime scene you mentioned but they took him off the case as soon as they realized who the killer most likely was.

“Too close to home,” Chief Morrison told him with a flap of his hand, flippant and busy as ever. He’s always been sure that the order to keep him off of all the cases having to do with the man who killed Eva came directly from the chief himself leaving it unable to be defied.

“I’m sorry.” 

You shrug at his apology.

“Isn’t everyone?” Collecting the clipping, you drag it back across the desk and clutch it in your lap. “But thank you. I know this isn’t easy for you either.” 

Taking a deep breath, you lean forward to meet the detective’s steel blue eyes. No you haven’t forgotten how beautiful he is so your face warms, cheeks flaming and stomach turning. There is still a job to be done regardless of his looks. 

“I know I’m going to sound absolutely insane but I think he’s going to move again soon.”

No doubt flashes through his eyes, only a bit of steely determination.

“Do you have any proof at all?”

You shake your head. “That’s why I need someone who has information that I can’t access. Suspects, case files, you know…the things they want the press to keep our grubby little hands off of.”

Sliding so that his legs dangle off of his desk next to you, Dante gazes down with a look you can’t quite determine even though you’ve had lots of practice in doing just that. He looks bewildered, amused, maybe even shocked about how full circle this may very well become. Unexpectedly, he chuckles. You flinch and shuffle where you sit. 

“So what you’re telling me is that I should risk my job and reputation to help you blow this case open once and for all based on a gut feeling that could be explained as lunch not settling well?”

Your face falls upon hearing your genius plan aloud and processing how harebrained the entire scheme was to begin with. There was a spark of hope in your heart that someone would understand why you want to put your grief and this fear to bed. Clearly you were mistaken.

“You can just say no if you aren’t interested, there’s no need to get personal.”

He chuckles again and leans down, arms still folded over his chest. Something about such a goofy grin at a moment like this makes you wanna say something downright venomous but staying quiet is the better option, leaving you to sniff unaffectedly.

“Oh, I’m going to help you. It takes some serious balls to come up with something like this and I’m not a complete asshole.” 

The look on your face tells him that you aren’t quite convinced yet. It doesn’t stop you from slipping a duplicate copy of the accordion folder you presented to him earlier out of your bag to point in his direction. You close your folder, unsmiling and keeping your eyes locked with him the entire time.

“All of my research and my contact information is in this folder. Read over it and get back to me.”

Turning to leave, you’re stopped when you feel the air in the room shift. The detective approaches you, holding your ID over your shoulder. 

“Don’t forget this.” 

You look up at him and offer a smile of thanks, taking it from between his fingers and ignoring the spark that rushes through you when the tips of them touch yours, slipping it back into your pocket.

“Thank you for your time, detective.”

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

a post about the gallifrey characters ages (at the start of the series) because it's been long enough since i've gone down this rabbit hole, so i'm doing it again

Leela: 50-100, we don't really know leela's age when she starts traveling with the doctor, but going off of loiuse jamesons age when she started playing her, mid 20s is a good guess, and we know that she spent at least 25 years on gallifrey married to andred (although, idk how i feel about that being the amount of time, given more time clearly passes for romana and the doctor, and the assumption is that the same amount of time is passing on gallifrey, if we go off that, she would be a few hundred years old at this point)

Romana: 400-500, we know that she's around 600 years younger than the doctor, and that the doctor is around 1000 by the time of his regeneration into the eighth doctor, then there's the undetermined amount of time between his regeneration and zagreus, so i'm giving about a 100 year buffer

Narvin: 600-900, as you may already know, this is the one that always trips me up when thinking about the ages of these characters because we don't really have much information on his age, i think the only actual number we get is that he's over 200 (but that number was in reference to cia training, so clearly he's a good bit older than that), we do know a few things though a) narvin by the time of the time war is older than his father was when he died, and we are told his father died relatively young, this isn't the most helpful since we don't know exactly how much time has passed over the course of the series or what is considered a young age for a time lord to die, it does point towards him not being too old since this is said during the time war, so presumably he is not older than his father was at the beginning of the series b) it's commented on a few times that this regeneration is wearing thin, which means that he's at least lived long enough in this body for it to seem appropriate for him to regenerate (not that he can anymore), but there are two factors to this that could possibly make it a little complicated 1) we don't actually know what regeneration he is on and 2) it's possible that due to his job and the risks associated with it, if he isn't on his first regeneration his first death happened pretty early in his life (though based on the way he talks about events in his past, i'm inclined to believe he's on his first, and i also like how that works with his whole can't regenerate thing), and, again given his job, it's expected that he keep up a young body rather than letting his current one age until the point of regeneration

and finally c) erasure, for the sake of this, i'm going to be assuming that narvin and the doctor here are both contemporary to each other, there's a relatively narrow span of time that erasure can take place in (after romana's departure and before the doctor's regeneration), this is at most a few years, which individual years don't matter too much in the scheme of time lord lifespans, anyway, for the sake of having a nice round number, lets say that at this point, romana is 200 (that'll either be relevant later, or i'll delete that bit and you won't have known it was there), we've already established that cia training takes 200 years (i'm choosing to believe that this means 100 years at the academy and 100 years in proper cia training) (also according to the inquiry he didn't seem to go straight from the academy to the cia, but there's really no way of telling how much time passed between the two, though iirc in later episodes it's implied that he wanted to join the cia when he was younger, so i can't imagine it's too much time), but by this point narvin has reached the rank of sub-coordinator, so he can't be that new to the cia, but he also says that he hasn't left gallifrey before this, while also saying that this mission would be better suited for a junior agent, if we take this to mean that junior agents are typically sent out for relatively simple field missions we can assume that narvin didn't spend much time as a junior agent if he never had to do that. i tried to figure out how long it would take him to get to this rank by figuring out how long it took vansell to become coordinator, but i don't really know if we have a timeline on that, we do know that he was coordinator by the fourth doctors time and while narvin was a cia cadet, so not entirely helpful. this is the point at which the numbers start to get a bit wibbly wobbly, because we can say he's at least 200 years old at this point, but we don't really know how long it took him to reach the rank of sub-coordinator in the cia, i'm inclined to say around 100 years given the above thing about not having left gallifrey, which would make him around 200 years older than romana, making him around 600 at the start of the series, but we also know that there was the whole project alpha thing, so that adds some time (50ish years???), and it's possible that he did spend longer in the cia before this point, so adding on another hundred years or so wouldn't be out of the question

Brax: 1000-2000, he definitely has the biggest age range out of these four, and honestly i could see him being a bit older, but this is what i'm gonna go with (i do lean more towards the 2000 end of this range though), so we have him being the doctors older brother to go off of, and with the doctor being a bit older than 1000 by zagreus, that would mean that brax is at least older than that, we also know that by romana's time at the academy he is pretty well established in time lord society, but has not yet started his political career, we don't know exactly how long he was an academy tutor for or how long it takes to get become a cardinal, but i'd say a few hundred years at least for each is a reasonable assumption, he also, of course, has had the time in between those things to build up his collection

[legitalicat]

Out of Time

Chapter 1 - "Along Blackwater Bay"

AN: This dedication has been removed. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoy your works.

If you love this header go check out zaldritzosrose for more amazing work! She is tagged on the series masterlist and on my welcome post!

Find the series Master list here!

Summary: Princess Y/N Velaryon awakes on the shore of Blackwater Bay confused, hurt, and alone. She is found and escorted to the Red Keep, where she learns the circumstances surrounding her awakening.

TW: memory loss, reader is AFAB, talks/descriptions of injury, first person POV because I suck at any other POV I am sorry

Word count: 3.7 K

I awoke on the shores of King’s Landing, the water from Blackwater Bay rushing up my lower legs. My heart was pounding as I sat up. There was no reasonable explanation as to how I ended up here. Last night I went to sleep in my bed, feeling rather warm and fuzzy from the wine I had consumed at dinner.

The early morning light was shining through the mist that was coming off the water. Slowly, I made my way into a standing position. My black dress was torn around the hem, soaked from the sea water. My muscles were sore and my bones stiff. Every breath I took felt as though I was being punched in the left side. I was near certain my brown hair was wild, no longer in the neat braid I most commonly kept it in.

There weren’t any citizens on the shores this time of morning. For many, they would have already went out in their boats to begin their fishing for the day. The others, it was simply too early to start the day. However, I did see two city watchmen doing their rounds on the docks.

“Excuse me!” I shouted to them, waving my arms. They approached me, their gold cloaks shining in the sun. I recognized neither of them.

“Princess Y/N?” One asked as he stopped in front of me. I nodded softly. “Come with us.”

I could not really tell which guardsmen they were. They were in full armor, donning a helm and chainmail covering all but their eyes. Being roughly the same height as each other, that wasn’t even helpful to determine who I was following. However, I knew that nobody wearing golden cloaks would bring any harm to me. My stepfather would have their heads if my mother didn’t get to them first.

So, I made the only decision I could make in this instance. Silence laid over us like a thick fog as I walked with them through the city streets. One in front of me, one behind me, their hands on the swords at all times. We went to the barracks at which point they told me to stay in the front room. The one that had walked in front of me went off , I suppose to inform his commander of this situation, while the other man stood in the room with me. It was not long before there were a few other watchmen and even a serving girl to sit with me.

Nobody dared to speak to me other than what was necessary. Even when I threatened them with my status, first born child of the heir to the Iron Throne and betrothed to her heir, so that one day I would be Queen, did not loosen their tongues. None of my questions were answered. All that was said was that my mother would answer any question I had.

They spent longer than I thought necessary preparing a carriage to take me up to the Red Keep. I was almost certain I heard their commander send a small group of men to shut down the streets between here and the Red Keep but that couldn’t be right. Never had the streets been closed because of my travels, as there had never been a time that I was in danger. Once he received word that all the streets were closed and nobody would be looking to the street, I was put into a carriage.

My ride to the Red Keep was done with the singular maid in the carriage with me, one watchmen controlling the carriage, and three others riding around on horseback. They weren’t brought to my precession until after I was already in my seat. And still, nobody spoke to me. I could only glance out the windows at the city to try to see the citizens of King’s Landing, but it seemed though I had heard the Watch’s Commander correctly and the men did completely empty the streets.

It was midday by the time that the carriage stopped in front of the door to the keep. The door was opened and I was offered a hand to help me out. It was the first protocol that had been kept in my presence. And now that I was on the ground, I finally saw the first people besides the Gold Cloaks and the maid.

At the top of the stairs stood my mother, my step grandmother holding her hand tightly as they both looked at the carriage. Queen Alicent had always been a forceful presence in my life, demanding things of my mother and father that were crude and unfair. Though she never liked my brothers, I seemed to be near and dear to her in a way that not even her own daughter was. One could almost convince me she viewed me separately from them as though I were anyone but my mother’s daughter.

Flanking each of them were their respective sides of the family. My twin, my betrothed, Jacaerys stood beside my mother. He was more shocked than I had ever seen him when we made eye contact. There was Lucerys beside him, who looked older than he should as he was a man grown, and the same could just about be said about Joffrey. The other two boys on my mother’s side could’ve only been Aegon III and Viserys II, my two baby brothers, but they were not babies. They were easily nine and seven respectively. It shouldn’t have been possible. It was only last night that they could have easily fit in my arms, now they were half my height.

When I looked to Alicent’s side, Aegon and Aemond stood beside her with Helaena further back. Her three children, Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor stood hand in hand beside of her. Again, everyone looked older than they should, older than when last I saw them.

My step father Daemon and my step sisters Rhaena and Baela were not with my mother, but the maid whispered to me that they were visiting our grandparents in Driftmark. She gave me no answers to any other question.

Out of everyone, there were three people that desperately wanted to break free from the crowd. Obviously my mother was trying to hold some decorum, some sort of semblance of what it means to be a Targaryen, even though I could see her inching closer. Jace was completely frozen with shock, the pull that existed between us not enough to motivate his feet. Then there was Aemond, who seemed to be willing to disregard all things that could be considered proper as he took the steps two at a time to close the distance between us.

His arms were around me before I could blink, and despite the physical pain when he touched my side, it caused a comfortable feeling in my brain that soothed something inside of me. I returned his affections, desperate for some sort of connection. As much as it had always annoyed my brothers, Aemond and I were very close growing up. He and I were the last to get dragons, the last to fulfill what it means to be a Targaryen. It binds you in ways that you can’t explain to anyone else.

“Byka zaldrīzes,” he whispered to me. Little Dragon, the name he gave me the moment he claimed Vhagar, to assure me one day I would have one too. “How I have missed you.”

“I don’t understand, Aemond. Why is everyone acting as though I am not real? One would think I died.” I asked him, loud enough so that my voice would carry.

“You have been gone for nearly six years,” my mother said. I pulled myself from Aemond’s grip to look at her.

“What?” my voice was cracked under the pressure that was building in my chest. “No. No. I was just with you all last night. I would know if I had been gone.”

Then I turned my gaze to Jace, who still looked as though he has seen a ghost. His inability to come to me, the way he watched me like I was about to dissolve in the wind, not even commenting on Aemond’s grasp on me, it told me all I need to know. The words were true and I had missed out on six years.

But I needed him beside me. He was my brother, my twin, I have existed for as long as he has and will continue to exist as long as he does. We were written in the stars, always destined for each other. We had given each other everything as we knew we were to be married one day.

“Issa dārys,” I called to him. My king. He will be my king one day, a good husband and father to my future children. We will rule the kingdom together, side by side. We’ve known this for our entire lives, and once we could really understand it, there was no turning back.

He slowly descended the stairs to me. Our eyes stayed glued to each other as he closed the distance. My body yearned for him. He was my other half; we were not two separate entities, simply just two pieces of the same soul.

When he was within arm’s reach of me, his ability to show restraint faltered. He grabbed me by the face and kissed me, all regard for propriety out the window. But it wasn’t as though I minded. I belonged to Jace, I always had, so it was only natural that I returned his affections. Propriety be damned.

It was less than a minute, rather tame compared to all other kisses we’ve shared, but the moment it was over, I become increasingly aware of cracks forming in my heart. His forehead resting against mine, I could guarantee I was home. I was safe as long as we were together.

My mother had informed me that I was not to be alone for the coming weeks. When we were alone in the room I had growing up here, she held me to her and cried. She insisted on me having a bath before I see the Maesters. A few of her most trusted maids helped me out of my dress and into the bath. The way her face contorted in mental anguish, tears forming in her eyes, as she looked over my body was something I would never forget. A glance in a mirror showed I had bruises and scars scattered across my body, including over my ribcage on the left, and a busted lip I was unaware of until now.

“If it brings any comfort, I do not remember it happening,” I said to her quietly as she sat beside the tub. There was a failed attempt to prove to her I was okay as I went to pour water over my hair, but the stretching motion caused enough pain I lost my breath.

“It causes me more worry than anything,” she told me. Her voice was fragile in the same way a flower is, soft and delicate, able to be broken in one move if anyone chose. “But it is nothing you need to fret over. We shall have the Maesters examine you and treat you, in a few weeks it will be as though this didn’t happen.”

Mother asked the maids to go inform the Maesters of our need and then sent one to bring me food from the kitchens. I think it was in equal part that she needed to feel useful but also needing to just be alone with me. There was no part of my brain that could even fathom what she had been feeling for these years.

She caught me up on all of the happenings in our family while she washed me. The night I had gone missing, my grandsire was greeted by The Stranger. She lost the babe she had been pregnant with within a few days of that, a girl that was named Visenya. It was an impossible amount of grief to deal with in such a short time and all I wanted was to take away all of her pain and suffering.

“Did Otto not try to put Aegon on the throne?” I whispered to her as she took her time gently washing my hair. She refused to let it wait for the maids, insisting that five years is long enough for someone else to care for me.

“He wanted to, but when I sent Alicent a letter informing her of your disappearance, she halted her father’s plans,” she told me. “Nobody, not Aegon nor Aemond, cared for the throne after you were gone.”

“But why? She has hated you for as long as I can remember. They have hated us for just as long. What difference did I make?” I asked.

“Oh sweet girl, they have never hated you. I cannot say how they felt about your brothers, nor can I deny the resentment Alicent and I have felt for one another. You, however, have been loved throughout it all. You were the light of your grandsire’s life, Alicent has adored you from the moment she laid eyes on you. Aegon and Aemond both used to beg for your hand. You, darling, take after your father.” She ran the water through my hair, rinsing all of the dirt and oils from it. I ran my right hand through it, as that was the only arm I could lift so high without crying, and it felt much cleaner than it had before.

“Which father?” I spoke, barely above a whisper, standing with her assistance.

“Both Laenor and Ser Harwin loved you dearly, as they were both loved by you. You enchanted them from the moment you made your entrance into the world, and you did so until they died. You are both of them, the best of them, in a perfect package.”

I could only nod. Jace and I knew from a very young age that Laenor was not our blood. He claimed us all the same, cared for us as much as he could. Ser Harwin, though, made every difference in our lives. Even if Luke wasn’t completely aware, our father spent every moment he could watching over us. He trained with the boys every morning, attended my lessons as much as possible, trained me in swords in the eve. He was there for Luke’s birth, was there within a few hours of Joffrey’s. And the love he held for my mother, to be willing to love her from a distance and sire children he could never claim…it was admirable.

“Jace never married,” I stated. It was not a question, but an observation. I knew far too well that if he had, he would never have put the shame on his wife that would’ve been given to her when he kissed me so publicly.

“The two of you share a special connection. He could not bring himself to agree to any marriage proposal until we knew one way or another. He said that he would only be with his other half unless there were no other options,” she spoke softly. She helped me into a new dress, a beautiful sea green color to represent House Velaryon.

“So, until my body washed ashore somewhere?” I asked, a ghost of a laugh coming through. I could see a frown slowly creeping onto her face. “Mother, I’m sorry. I can’t Imagine how difficult the last few years have been.”

“You are back now, my darling girl. That is what matters,” she told me, sitting me in the nearest chair so that she could braid my hair. “Aegon asked me to annul his marriage to Helaena. Their’s was not a happy one, I do not wish that upon any of my family.”

I was grateful for her gentle touch as she worked carefully with my hair. It wasn’t as though my mother had ever been rough with me, but there was a gentleness that she always seemed to have whenever we were sick or hurt.

The first time Jace flew on Vermax, he pulled me onto the saddle. We both returned blistered and aching. Yet once it hit midnight and my fever had fully set in, it was realized I had an Infection because I wasn’t wearing proper dragon riding clothes and my skin was rubbed off until I was bleeding. She sat by my side for nearly a week then. She prayed to nearly every god, even the ones she had no faith in, and she was so soft with me you would think she was a mere common woman instead of the future Queen.

“And Aemond?” I asked her once she pulled her hands away from my hair.

“Refuses to marry. He has wanted to marry you since the two of you attempted to run off to Dragonstone when you were children,” she chuckled. “If I did not know you, I would say that was his idea.”

“In my defense, we had been speaking about the Valyrian traditions that have been lost. He and I were going to marry in the tradition of Valyria and then Jace and I would marry under the Seven,” I told her, a smile on my face.

I was approximately five years old when that became our plan in life. Aegon the Conqueror had two wives, so I would have two husbands. Of course, whenever Jace was told about this plan, he vehemently denied me. He said he would give me everything that I would ever need when he was king.

“He was hoping that Jace would find a new bride, so that when you came back he could have you,” she told me, taking my hands in hers. “Before you ask, yes. He was certain you would come back. He spent nearly a year searching all of Westeros for you on Vhagar. He only returned at the request of Helaena.”

“What do I do, mama?” I whispered. “It has been so long, so much has changed. Little Aegon and Viserys won’t even know me. Is Vhaela even alive?”

Vhaela was my dragon. She had been a wild dragon that approached King’s landing near six moons before my eighteenth nameday. She was the most gorgeous shade of amethyst, her scales glittering in the sunlight whenever I flew her. She had rested on a mountain not far out from the city and I snuck out of the castle to get a closer look. Never had I known of a dragon who was so calm and regal when being approached. It was like she was royalty and she knew exactly what the difference between us was. It was this confidence she carried that lead me to attempt to claim her, and she graciously agreed to a partnership with me.

“Vhaela is in the Dragon Pit. She enjoys flying when Aemond and Jace go, I believe she feels close enough to you through them to allow them to care for her. As for your younger brothers, we did not let them forget. They know you, not in the same way they know Jace, Luke, and Joffrey, but you are not a stranger to them,” she assured me. Her voice did not waiver in this. It was instead supported by a firmness that could only result from a confident truth.

She turned me to face her directly, hands starting to squeeze mine. The look on her face was so tender, so comforting, I wasn’t sure what to do except let a few tears leave my eyes. It all felt so overwhelming, and there was no certainty as to what I should do.

“You wished to be betrothed to Jace at a young age. Do you still wish it?” she asked me quietly. “Or does your heart desire another?”

“I love Jace with my entire being,” I told her firmly. It was everything I could do to ignore how my heart began racing.

“Save for the piece of your heart that has long been held by Aemond.”

My head dropped. There was nobody that I had ever told of my affections for Aemond. He had never exactly been subtle, that I would admit. A year before Luke’s claim to Driftmark was questioned, my Grandsire the King had requested my appearance at court. He wished to spend time with me. And during that time, Aemond and I grew as close as we were as children. Maybe even closer.

But that did not matter. Those were the adventures of a young girl. I was promised to Jace formally when my family came to King’s Landing. Any affections that I had for Aemond was left behind in that moment.

The kisses that we shared In the library or in the gardens were innocent. The nights spent in my chambers, talking until the sun comes up. We absolutely did not do anything that was considered something that could ruin me. We did not make each other come undone for hours every night.

“That was a girl’s exploits. I belong with Jace, we were brought into the world together and together we shall always be,” I said while trying to keep my voice steady as hers. Yet, when it came to the overwhelming truth of Aemond and I, I was never steady. And so I turned away from her, withdrawing my hands from her touch. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her stand.

“I only wish to see you happy, to marry for love and not for duty,” she told me, taking a flower from a vase nearby and sticking it in my hair. “Allow yourself to court both of them. There have been many changes during your time gone. When you have been made completely sure, I will not question your mind again.”

Before I could say anything in response, knock on the door echoed through the room. The Maesters were here to examine my injuries. Instinctually I turned to face mother, who silently promised me she was not leaving. With a deep and painful breath, I was able to nod and allow them inside.

[cutiibee]

An Armoured Ghost

Chapter Three

MDNI!

Note: changing up the way I do these so they're easier for me haha, much luv and hope u guys enjoy! +A tag for the series

Cw: nothing? Maybe?? I forget? Pretty sure nothing though guys

You wake up to the ship's sudden stillness. The movement of it, steadily drifting through hyperspace, lulled you to sleep. That and the post-orgasm tiredness that had sunken over you like a blanket.

You stop in the fresher to look at yourself. The same as the last time you looked. You relieve yourself and then it's up the ladder, into the seat beside him.

“Do you sleep?” The words come unbridled, curious. You simply want to know more about him, even if that's all useless information. It's not like you're going to write him birthday notes.

“When I'm tired.” He answers, and you frown. You think he's just like that, doesn't really answer questions because he doesn't want people to know him how he knows himself.

And in a way you understand. It's a terrifying notion, somebody knowing you as well as you know yourself. Every filthy thought, wretched secrets, all known by somebody other than you. It makes you shudder, metaphorically.

You look at the side of his helmet for a long moment. He doesn't make any move to usher you into the cryo tank. You play with your hands, inspect your nail beds, which suck.

“I'm not turning you in.” It's sudden, his voice monotone and gritty cutting through the still air of the cockpit.

“Ghost-” you try his name and it feels familiar on your tongue.

“Gonna pay off the debt for ya, yeah?” He says it so calmly, like it's an obvious thing to do, a simple favor for a friend.

“You can't do that. Really, there isn't any need for you to do that.”

“I want to, birdie. Wanna keep you around. Simple as that.”

For the next two nights you sleep in his bed. Eventually you tire of sitting next to him quietly and trying your arm at cleaning the ship. He's got a couple of books but two are in a language you don't know.

One of them is about the mechanics of a ship. It even comes with practice tests, a few pages in the back. You tank the first one you try entirely.

The ship lands on the third day. It's a far away planet, misplaced from everything else.

“Don't leave the ship, yeah? Dangerous creatures lurk about ‘round here. They like the shadows.” He tells you, standing by the open hatch. He looks you up and down once before turning and walking down the ramp, his heavy boots clunking with each step, though you know he can be quiet when he wants to be.

He's gone for a week. You nearly go stir-crazy waiting around for him. The entire ship is sparkling and you've taken three practice tests and passed them all.

In the dead of night you hear the hatch open and close, footsteps and the sound of something heavy being dragged. A brief moment of silence before the whirring of what’s probably the cryo freezing the body.

The door slides open a few seconds later, and there he is in his armoured glory. He comes over to the bed and sinks down beside it.

“Move over.” He says, nudging your shoulder with a strong hand. You oblige, wriggling to the other side of the bed. And then he's climbing in beside you even though there's barely enough room for the two of you.

His arms settle around your waist.

“Place looks fuckin’ shiny. Y’miss me, birdie?” He sounds weary, that much you can discern from the slight drag of his words, the way his head is resting against the pillow even as he talks to the back of your own head.

“Course. Was boring without you.” You mumble back and he makes a sound that might be a grunt if acknowledgement.

You're not quite sure what's growing between the two of you. He's so scary, so quiet. And yet he's paying off your debt and keeping you on board. You have no idea why.

Maybe you won't ever. At least you aren't dying any time soon.

“Need me to entertain you?” He asks, one of his large palms gliding up your stomach to fondle your tit, plucking at your nipple through your top.

“You sound like you need sleep.�� You retort, and his hand stills. As if that subdued him, he tucks his helmet against your shoulder and falls asleep.

It's an odd sort of intimacy. Something you aren't familiar with. The warmth you get when his hands touch you. The ache that forms subtly between your thighs.

You feel close to him, but emotionally separated. You know close to nothing about this man, who shrouds himself in secrecy thicker than his mandalorian armor.

Perhaps you'll get to learn about him more as things go on, as time passes with you always there, always following him around the ship.

It isn't too long until you're pulled back to sleep by the press of his chest plate against your back. You didn't think armor could be comfortable, but somehow it is.

When you wake up it's because he's moving. It's dark, at some point he shut all the lights off. So dark you can't see a foot in front of your face.

“Ghost?” You sit up and reach through the darkness. Your hand connects with warmth, bare skin. You jolt it back, breathing in a sharp hiss. He laughs into the dark between the two of you, and the sound is clear as day.

“You took it off.” You whisper dumbly, because you aren't sure what more to say. He's taken his chest plate and helmet off.

“You were shivering.” He replied, and a hand smooths up the side of your neck to cup your jaw. He leans in, and you can tell because his breath puffs against your face. “Y’looked so pretty sleepin’.” He murmurs, his thumb dragging over your bottom lip.

“Ghost,” it's a whimper that frees itself from your mouth because you're practically pulsing now, his bare touch and raw voice combined doing sinful things to you.

“I'll leave you be, pet. If tha's what you want.” You can almost hear the cheeky grin in his voice, because he knows that's just the opposite of what you want.

It's a leap of faith, and a struggle in the dark, but you gingerly tilt your head forward until your lips brush against the sturdiness of his jawline.

“Don't leave me be, Ghost. Touch me.”

He groans, really groans, and then his mouth is crashing down against yours, his tongue invading the cavern of your mouth, and you think that you'd gladly go blind if it meant he could kiss you like this all the time.

It's messy, your teeth knock against his multiple times. But it's so hot, literally and figuratively. He knows just what to do and it leaves you sighing into his mouth, pressing yourself closer against the hard plane of his chest.

He gets your shirt over your head at one point so he can grope at your chest while he kisses you, your back pressed against the mattress.

It ends when he pulls away for more than normal, and then his weight leaves the bed altogether. At some point the ship had stopped moving.

“We're here. I'll be back soon, dovie.” You wince at the sound of his voice coming through the modulator again, but relent.

“Alright. Where are we?”

“Where I get my bounties. And where I'm paying off your debt.”

[talenlee]

Dev Pile 2025-13 — Adversariality!

My plan for this week was to put up a post showing some examples of how I’d step through generative media with my students using Moonshiners as an example. The schedule has changed a little and I want some lead time so instead I’m going to talk about a potential pitfall of Mooonshiners’ design as it relates to time, catch-up, and symmetry.

First up, let’s talk about time. Moonshiners is a game that’s meant to take place over a series of seasons, the auctions happening in time with the full moon phases that trigger werewolf activity. Players are all meant to be playing werewolves showing up to a big meet to divvy up the contracts and goods of a big production for moonshine, representing who can distribute whatr where, and the long-term value of previous contract meaning that you have more resources to rod up your car and make money and all that jazz. You’re meant to be delivering months worth of alcohol to places that want it, and that means there’s meant to be a slowness to the time between the auctions in the meet.

That means that if the game is just too immediate (bang bang bang let’s get the auctions done) then that time element loses out. The territory and actor cards that you buy are meant to pad things out like that, to create the ‘stretch’ of time between auctions and to more clearly divide the game between ‘auctions’ and ‘preparing for the next auction.’

This time between auctions needs to be long enough that players bother to do it but short enough that it doesn’t feel like the rest of the game is all about it. It also has room to be a place where some form of counterplay or catch-up can happen, through some actors or agents.

/image

Let’s talk real quick about symmetry though.

The Gameplay Loop of Moonshiners, at the moment has a symmetrical repeated gameplay loop. That is to say, first time through the gameplay loop is the same gameplay loop through the last turn in the last gameplay loop, and that each player in each round is doing the exact same thing. Symmetry makes the game easier to design, but it brings with it a potential staleness. One of the problems that I feel deeply in the design of Moonshiners (which, as I write this, I haven’t gotten to the table in a playtest yet), is the fear that a player can get too far ahead in the early game, and that makes the remaining rounds uninteresting for other players who feel they have no chance to catch up.

Basically, in Moonshiners, players don’t really have discrete turns. It’s important in games with discrete turns to make sure that players are either acting quickly (hello, Century Golem) or they’re doing things that ensure they pay attention on other players’ turns. One of my favourite mechanics to enforce player attention on other turns is the crossroads system in Dead of Winter; in that, the player whose turn just finished draws a card from the crossroad deck, and waits to see its trigger condition. If it triggers, they interrupt the player whose turn it is, and tells them about this new, special event that may eat up their time or interfere with their plans. As far as mechanics go this is brute-forcing the problem (players want to pay attention in the hopes of seeing an event happen) but it’s really effective and exciting because both players are kind of hoping to see what happens.

In Magic: the Gathering, counterspells and other forms of instant-speed interaction take this space. These are mechanics that some players really hate but which are fundamentally part of what makes that game so good. Players aren’t silo’d off during their turns and combats or abilities to engage in combat aren’t determined wholly by public information. That means that players are thinking about what one another can do on their turn and directly responding to what they do do.

Moonshiners, strictly speaking doesn’t need to break this. The main choice I want players doing is making choices during the auction phase to determine when to bid big or when to push their luck to try and steal more money with the Wolf Out card. I want the city-building phase between that to be reasonably easy with room for countrplay or ways to catch up from a tailing position. You lose enough auctions, you’re not going to have as much stuff as other players. How can I keep you from being stuck on the outside?

What if there are agents who can explicitly only pursue the player with the most territory?

What if the player with the most territory loses some of it each turn, as they’re naturally a target?

What if territory is temporary and goes back into the auction lots from turn to turn?

What if the locations where players launder their gods can be robbed by agent cards?

Is there a way to do this that doesn’t involve acquiring agent cards that then can be part of the get-ahead stay-ahead problem?

And how much do I want to reward players for not getting ahead? Players want to succeed, catch-up mechanics need to give players ways to feel like that was worth doing in the first place!

Now, this is is not to say the solution is to break the symmetry or the repeated cycles, and this is something that will come out in playtesting. One idea I want to work with in this playtesting, though, is the way to introduce elements of counterplay and retaliation to create a feeling of time.

Specifically, the game is small enough and tight enough that, at least hypothetically, there is room for optional cards. Players can choose to include things like a con artist or hustler who can target people when they come out. It could be that there are agents who, once they show up in the auction space they just ‘jump out’ and start engaging with the game space as a free agent, perhaps?

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[nomsfaultau]

pretty please tell us the math how f!tubbo can kill The Blade, the only things I have in mind are quite horrid and gore lolol

Huge tw for stinging insects! and math

The how is rather simple and clean Fault magic theory: The Blood God's 'instant win' power activates in retaliation to an attack, and works on an individual level. And since Tubbos' swarms are multitudes, technically independent adversaries, there will not really be any reality bending that The Blood God can use to guarantee Tubbo looses. So Tubbo would actually have a fair fight on their hands unlike everyone else in the series. All they need to do is enough damage and keep their body very very far away, which is pretty easy since they can fly.

Background information: Notably, boars can die to very, very determined bee swarms! There's really horrible news articles if you're curious. Potentially based on size one might want to compare The Blade to a bear though, due to thick fur and dermis that notoriously makes bears very resistant to bee stings. However, at vulnerable places like the face bee stings can get through, and Tubbo is notably intelligent and would aim for vulnerable places. So I'm going to mostly ignore that for math's sake, but it is something to keep in mind.

Math: LD50 makes the math (theoretically) very easy, as venom/poison/toxin deaths mostly scale up by weight. The average (North American) adult human is 180 pounds, The Blade is ~6,700 pounds at his time of capture in the Foundation. Which. I've done a lot of math about his weight, and that's what's written in the Casefiles so I'm going with it.

The hard part: Very inconsistent numbers for how many bee stings it takes to kill a dude :/ I've found estimates ranging from 50-1000. Which is rudely inconsistent. Luckily this lovely site calculates the LD50 of a honey bee sting, and since it estimates a 178 pound adult dying at 3831 stings and I'd prefer to overestimate the amount it takes, I will be using their formula of _____kg X 2.8 / .059 = ______ stings to receive fatal dose of venom. Just plug in The Blade's weight (in kg not ib like I did on the first round of this post) and voila it could take as many as 144,227.003 bee stings. Or using the other estimates I found, could be between 1,861--37,222 bee stings. Mostly being injected right into The Blade's face. Joy! We're making the assumption that his head is being targeted wouldn't affect the LD50, but let's be frank, that's worrisomely close to his brain.

Now...these are honey bees. Notably they die when they sting mammals with soft skin, unlike most bees. So if we make the assumption that each bee dies with the sting, then we have a very easy shot from here- does Tubbo have enough bees to sting between 1,861 and 144,227.003 times?

Tubbos' number of bees depends greatly at the timeline point in Fault. In WHIT Croplands they're easily over a million, which gets cut down to 400,000 in the Foundation. At their lowest population (during the escape wherein The Blade crunches in their legs, conveniently the moment when they'd be most likely to want revenge) Tubbo is about at 200,000 bees which is barely enough to move their body. So yep! Tubbo could very easily murder The Blade, although at the higher estimate they might not have enough bees to get the body to safety. But they can also regrow their body with the 56,000~ bees left, since that's still a good sized hive in normal honey bee standards.

The ugly part: bee venom! Nasty nasty stuff. So I'm putting it under a line for body horror <3

Anaphylaxis is likely, as are things like cardiovascular collapse, respiratory failure. However...this venom is not injected all at once. It's adding up, and in the article I read about the half ton boar killed by a swarm took over two hours to actually die. This is going to be a very, very slow death.

Given The Blade's high pain tolerance and body mass, I figure he's still going to be swinging for a long time. Just, he can't fly, and thus can't really retaliate well against the bee source. His eyes, ears, and nose would go first, quickly losing the ability to navigate anything other than touch. The cacophonous buzzing gives way to ominous silence. Lots of swelling, venom slowly working its way through his tough hide into his body. Limbs beginning to loose function, becoming an immovable lump of pain. Potentially he falls into a coma, breathing increasingly shallow as his heart shudders beneath the venom. Slowly, slowly succumbing to the venom winding through his veins.

At his size, it could potentially take days for him to be killed.

luuuuuuuuuckily Tubbo is a pacifist so that'll never happen!

[nekoannie-chan]

Temple in the forest

Title: “Temple in the forest”

Ship: Lorna Dane & Steve Rogers (Friendship).

Word count: 681 words.

Rating: Teen.

Square: N4 “Into the forest”.

Summary: There’s something strange in the forest.

Warnings/Tags: Enchanted forest, magic

A/N: This is my entry to @marvelrarepairbingo​  @marvelrarepairs​ Marvel Rare Pair Bingo Round 2 2023. Annie MRP-066.

You can read it on Wattpad and Ao3 too.

@saiyanprincessswanie

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them.

I don’t give any kind of permission that my fics to be posted on other platforms or languages (I translate myself my work) or the use of my graphics (my dividers are included in this), I did them exclusively for my fics, please respect my work and don't steal it. There are some people here who make dividers that anyone can use, mine is not this type, please look for the other's people. The only exception is the ones I gifted 'cuz now belong to someone else. If you find any of my works on a different platform and are not one of my accounts, please let me know. Reblogs and comments are always welcome.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

Add yourself to my taglist here.

My other media where I publish:  Ao3, Wattpad, ffnet, TikTok, Instagram, Twitter. 

If you like it, please vote, comment, and give me feedback to improve my skills and reblog.

Tags: @sinceimetyou​  @unnuevosoltransformalarealidad​ @navybrat817​ @angrythingstarlight​ @shield-agent78​ @charmed-asylum​ @caplanbuckybarnes​  @sapphire-rogers​ @nana1000night​ @talia-rumlow​ @writingshae​ @alexxavicry @azulatodoryuga @daemonslittlebitch @chaoticcollectivenightmare​ @endlesstwanted  @chemtrails-club​ @whiskeytangofoxtrot555​ @here4thefanfics​ @theestorm​ @patzammit @kmc1989

Lorna and Steve were on a joint mission between the Avengers and the mutants. Their objective was to neutralize a threat emerging in a remote forest with difficult access. However, what appeared to be a routine mission turned into a death trap.

While exploring the thick forest, something very unexpected surprised the team. The forest was enchanted; no one had warned them, so they were somehow trapped in the middle of the dense vegetation, with no chance of escape. Time was against them, as the threat they had to face was getting closer and closer, or they weren't sure; they didn't even know exactly what they were facing, and they had lost the rest of the team.

Lorna and Steve looked at each other, not losing their cool despite the situation. They knew they had to find a way out as soon as possible to accomplish their mission and protect those in danger.

Lorna tried to locate something that was metallic or at least had magnetic fields so she could use her powers. With her mind focused and her senses sharpened, she began to pick up the subtle magnetic vibrations emanating from the enchanted forest.

After a few moments of intense searching, Lorna detected a gentle magnetic pulse coming from a particular direction. Instinctively, she and Steve headed in the direction of that signal, hoping to find some clue or way out of the place, as soon as Lorna informed him that she could find a way out.

As they approached, they came upon an ancient stone structure covered in moss and vines. It appeared to be an abandoned temple, whose mysterious magnetic fields seemed to be activated by the magic that permeated the forest. The energy emanating from there was strong enough to inhibit Lorna's powers, but she wasn't going to give up so easily.

Lorna and Steve analyzed the surroundings and found a series of inscriptions on the stones. After several minutes, they managed to decipher part of the ancient message that warned of the dangers hidden within the temple and how to overcome them. However, there was no other way for them to get out of the place.

So cautiously, the duo entered the temple. With every step they took, a magical trap was activated. As they progressed, the challenges became more and more challenging.

In a large central room, they came upon an altar adorned with jewelry and ancient artifacts. The source of the magnetic field was intensifying, making it even more difficult to use Lorna's powers. However, something in her intuition led her to believe that this was the key to unlocking the exit and defeating the threat that awaited them outside.

Guided by her instinct, Lorna began to manipulate the jewels and artifacts, combining her magnetic abilities with the mystical energy they emanated. Gradually, the symbols and inscriptions began to glow and activate, creating a sequence that would release a powerful spell of protection.

At that moment, Lorna and Steve found themselves surrounded by a ferocity of mystical creatures that had been summoned by the magic of the forest, so for a moment they thought they had been mistaken or awakened something else.

Finally, when it seemed that the battle would never end, a flash of light enveloped the creatures, causing them to vanish into thin air. The oppressive magnetic field vanished, once again allowing Lorna to fully utilize her ability.

Exhausted but triumphant, Lorna and Steve exited the temple, meeting up with the rest of their team, who had managed to find their way to them. Together, they analyzed the clues and artifacts they had found in the temple, revealing the true nature of the threat: an ancient being of power that had immersed itself in the dark magic of the enchanted forest.

Having no plan other than their weapons, the team confronted the being, using all their strength and power to neutralize it and put an end to its threat. With the enemy defeated and the enchanted forest freed from its malevolent control, Lorna and Steve were finally able to accomplish their mission.

[vellaphoria]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you for the tag @waffleinator-inator! <3

20 Questions for Fic Writers

How many works do you have on AO3?

There are 40 that I’ve solo-authored, and 9 that I did varying degrees of work on when a group of dc writers doing a round robin fic collaboration thing

What’s your total A03 word count?

It’s a bit thrown off by the aforementioned colabs, but I don’t want to go through and do the math, so the overall total is 567,072

What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly DC! The comics variant, that is. And within that, mostly Batman-adjacent characters. Though I also have one fic each for the avengers, the silmarillion, and haikuu

What are your top five fics by kudos?

Excluding the collaborations, it’s:

Cut and Run (Bruce crashes Tim and Ra’s’ dinner/business meeting; T, gen, 1.6k)

Deadfall (Canon divergence where Tim died in Red Robin and was resurrected/kidnapped by Ra’s; M, gen, 125k, on hiatus)

Recursion (Tim accidentally travels back in time to when Dick was just starting out as Nightwing, which is complicated by the fact that they still haven’t made up after Damian became Robin; M for mild nsfw, DickTim, 20k)

Complications (Outsider POV of post RR-canon divergence, ft. morally grey Tim; G, gen, 1.7k)

This Whole Damn City Thinks It Needs You (But Not as Much as I Do) (There has been a fair amount of building ust between Dick and Tim after Red Robin. Dick decides to do something about that; E for blatant nsfw, DickTim, 23k)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, but very slowly!

I respond because is someone took the time to engage with my work and actually write one, then it feels like it’s only right for me to put in an equal amount of effort to respond.

What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That would probably be the DickBabs with unrequited DickTim wedding Tumblr fic (here, if you like pain)

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It’s hard to say. Since I tend to be averse to bad endings, most of my fics have happy endings of one sort or another

Do you get hate on your fic?

Sometimes. Usually from people who can’t grasp that limited third person POV means that the narrating character doesn’t have perfect information at all times, or people who are upset that characters don’t make 100% rational decisions 100% of the time.

Do you write smut?

Yep! <3

Do you write crossovers?

Depends on how you define them. I tend to do a lot of AUs which blend elements from other settings with DC, but I don’t really enjoy writing characters from different, unrelated media meeting.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not to my knowledge!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! My Running (and when to stop) DickTim series was translated into 中文-普通话 國語 by SummerVapour and tiktiktiktiktam, which is linked on the fic itself

Have you ever co-written a fic?

Yes; I helped write a few fics in the round robin collaboration series A Journey of Personal Discovery Through Social Isolation. Amusingly, we named it that a year before the pandemic started.

What‘s your all-time favourite ship?

DickTim, to absolutely no one’s surprise :D

What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Probably To Break Every Bended Knee; or, Apocrypha. I really love the setting, but the fic is supposed to be JayTimDick and all the endings I plotted for it ended up being DickTim with Jason kind of doing his own thing. That doesn’t seem like a particularly satisfying conclusion to anyone interested in the story, so I decided to put my time elsewhere.

What’s your writing strengths?

Comments that have gone into specifics have said that my fics have good characterization, visualization, and engrossing plots.

What’s your writing weaknesses?

I’m very bad at brevity, so writing short, snappy fics that also make sense doesn’t usually work out for me.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I pretty much only speak English, so I don’t tend to do it. If I ever had a fic that absolutely needed it, then I’d ask for writing support from someone who actually does speak the language in question.

First fandom you wrote for?

Depends on how you define wrote. If you mean wrote and published, then it’s DC. If you mean wrote when I was a kid and then let disappear into the files of a long-defunct computer, then probably Stargate SG-1.

Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

Of the stuff I have published, probably Recursion. Though if I’m allowed to include WIPs, then I’ve been working on a DickTim slowburn on and off for a while now. It’s meant to cover things from when they meet to post-Red Robin, with a fair amount of mini canon divergences throughout. Currently it’s somewhere upwards of 50k, but I haven’t had a chance to work on it in a while. If you're in the mood for it, no pressure tagging @gerryrigged, @marirah, and @themandylion :D

[kustas]

sorry for the more critical requests before.

Top 10 anime that you think went under the radar or are generally unknown

Top 10 anime you like the world building of

It's all good! I'm not gonna know enough anime for all this so I'll do the broad categories.

Anime I like that's unknown or went under the radar

The reason why I spent so many posts shilling Inu-oh is because of how hard it was flopping in american theaters. Many things factored in it but still disappointing. It's a great movie!

Related ish, I had a lot of fun watching Heike Story and saw nobody talk about it.

One of my favorite shows I watched this year was the second season of Megalobox which I had never heard of. The first season is not good though

"what if Ghibli made-" have you seen Ronja yet? If not watch Ronja. I can bet most of you will not have watched Ronja

While I'm at it Castle Cagliostro is by no means recent but it's a delight

One of the best kid's shows I watched was Ōban Star-racers which I've never seen talked about online at all barring french people. It's a cute and clever show with extremely Y2K designs and it's just a fun time. Should be entirely up on YouTube for free, if you're in the mood for jetix type nostalgia go wild, it's pretty short

Speaking of stuff that's free on YT: the little prince and the eight headed dragon! An old movie (1960s) with an amazing art style

Third round of free on YT: the animated Ramayana. It's a long one so prepare for that but I liked it a lot. Got remastered recently too so if you want to buy it in HD

Shows (... and I'm adding manga) who's worldbuilding I like

Mushishi. Mushishi is a lovely, well thought of and touching show in the first place who drifts seamlessly between horror and slice of life. The worldbuilding aspect that rules is the presentation of the mushi at each episode, their variety and creativity and how they are portrayed as beings and as part of an ecosystem.

Letter Bee. I'll give a disclaimer - the worldbuilding is pretty much the only good thing about this series especially if you are watching it. But in terms of casually presented fantasy world, it's original, insanely in-depth and the manga treats you with a bunch of extra information about locations, folk tales and things that are a treat.

Dungeon Meshi manages to take every generic fantasy trope but spin it with an eye for biology and history to make it fresh again. The author also gives via blog posts and bonus pages a whole bunch of details that aren't in the main series yet are interesting to know.

The first half of Castle in the Sky has to be one of, if not my favorite works of fantasy of all times for how magically it depicts a bunch of very normal people living in a land that is rather alien if you squint.

Politics are usually my least favorite worldbuilding topic, but I found myself drawn by the relationship between political drama, science and large scale environmental catastrophes that makes up the backdrop for the story of Number 5

Cowboy Bebop... The chill little human pockets of life in space, their variety and cluttered quaint goodness, the musical backgrounds for them, it's all so good

Dorohedoro's worldbuilding is stupid and it works so damn well. Having God be an asshole with ADHD tendencies explains so much

[denimbex1986]

'In the end, Peaky Blinders got the send-off it deserved. The sixth season paid tribute to the late Helen McCrory, rounded off the ongoing war between Tommy Shelby and brother Michael – we can talk about how convinced anyone was that Tommy wouldn’t win, but anyway – and landed on a final shot of Tommy doing Tommy things having realised he wasn’t actually dying after all. It was a plot! Possibly involving Hitler!

There were some loose ends that never turned into much, like that whole storyline with the American bloke who stabbed a guy in the knackers and then melted away, and it might have been nice to get to know wee Ruby before she carked it. But it did most things it needed to, and did them while having one eye on the long-promised film too.

Now though the Peaky gears are creaking into motion again. There was the not particularly cryptic statement from showrunner Steven Knight on the 10-year anniversary a couple of weeks back. “It hardly seems believable that it’s 10 years since Tommy Shelby first rode that black horse through the streets of Birmingham,” Knight wrote. “The phenomenal global success of the show is down to the brilliant and hard work of the loyal team that makes it happen. Ten years on and the story is not yet over. Watch this space.”

And, if you’re on Instagram, you’ll perhaps already know that Paul Anderson, who played Tommy’s brother Arthur, has started his own Peaky-themed Instagram broadcast channel called ‘By Order Of…’ and administered by Anderson and his digital manager Nav Salimian. (Salimian also appears to have founded a clothing brand making some quite – ahem – zhuzh-y suits.) The channel isn’t really doing much breadcrumbing at the minute, just a picture from Anderson’s grid of Arthur lighting a gigantic cigar, then a contact sheet of headshots, and the message “Wishing you all a blessed day” with a saluting emoji. It’s cryptic.

Rounding off a series then coming back for a one-off story is a very, very hard thing to pull off. Usually these things need a few different factors to click if they’re going to work. Most obviously, it needs a reason to exist. Plenty of TV series have farted out a movie for the sake of it, and Peaky really shouldn’t be one of them.

It also needs to run pretty hard on the heels of the main series. That’s partly because of the third thing the movie needs: a motivated fanbase who are going to razz up the whole enterprise. To anticipate it, interpret it, and possibly get into arguments with other fandoms over it.

The fandom aspect is the bit that now makes a show or movie feel like it’s actually happening and has some purchase in the world. But the Peaky fanbase is quite different to the ones that follow Succession or Game of Thrones or The Last of Us. There’s an enthusiasm in those fandoms for drilling right down into characters’ psyches and mining the information we’re given from camera moves, editing choices and production design to navigate how each individual character is feeling and reacting to what’s happening in the story-space.

That is not the experience of being in the Peaky fandom. By and large, it’s not one which tends to produce fan theories or take apart scenes frame by frame; it’s more vibe-based TV fandom, and one more inclined to follow the story wherever it goes rather than throwing around counterfactuals and second-guessing what Knight has in mind.

Most Peaky fans seem happy to sit back and be taken on a rollercoaster ride, albeit a rollercoaster ride which is 30 per cent slow-motion. It’s actually quite a pleasant throwback to the way in which people used to discuss TV and film before the Redditification of fan discourse. It is not serious business. It’s people posting pictures of their ‘BY ORDER OF THE PEAKY BLINDERS’ mug or some quite derivative artwork of apes wearing three-piece suits captioned ‘Monkey Blinders’, plus occasional innocent enquiries as to why Tommy was having seizures if his tumour wasn’t real in the end.

The reason I raise this is that even those relatively chilled-out fans seemed a bit perturbed by the ponderous pace of the middle of the last series, and consider the whole thing pretty much cauterised. The Peaky kids who were introduced in season six aren’t being weighed up and played off against each other in feverish previews of where the film might go. There is no Duke Shelby hive. The idea of Tommy Shelby going to war – he’d be about 50 by the outbreak of conflict, so he ain’t going to be parachuting into Market Garden – was a popular one, and a showdown with Sam Claflin’s Oswald Mosley at the direction of Tommy’s occasional M figure Winston Churchill seems the most likely route into that.

But these are not things that anyone in the fandom is really talking about at the moment. There’s no real whirl of excitement or speculation right now. And Peaky Blinders really needs that to crank back up again if it’s going to make this movie, which we’ve known about for absolutely ages now, land with the impact which really befits it.

It’s got Cillian Murphy as its lead, for heaven’s sake. Drop a teaser. Leak a behind the scenes snap. Let Knight be a little bit indiscreet about it in an interview. Give us a crumb of something soon, before the last of the momentum runs out. Because if this is the last we ever see of the Shelbys and the Peaky Blinders gang, they ought to be swaggering into the sunset.'

[fighterguyadventurescomic]

The Adventures of FighterGuy!

Season 1, Episode 0

"Prologue"

(written transcript)

**********

**DISCLAIMER**

This series is rated R, intended for mature audiences. "The Adventures of FighterGuy" contains violence, swearing, dark psychological topics, & sexual themes. Viewer discretion is advised.

**********

This is the written transcript of the Prologue!

Since I put so much effort into the scripts of my comics, to the point they're pretty much like chapters of a novel, I've decided to post them alongside each of the visual episodes. Both will have the same level of detail, albeit some things may come across clearer through words or visuals, depending on the scene.

I would suggest reading both the written and visual versions of each episode, to get the maximum level of understanding from each. Both should be understandable enough on their own, though.

Anyways, enjoy!

Episode starts under the cut.

*********

Sitting alone, the lights of the room dimmed, a young Flamoid is sitting in a wooden seat. He drums his fingers along his knee, waiting impatiently. He looks around the dark room, his posture stiff.

His head flame crackles softly as he waits.

A light flips on, shining bright in his face.

The interviewer, recording out of view, speaks up in a chipper voice. "Okay, we're rolling! Ready to get started?"

The boy jolts, his flame flickering. Coming back from his jumbled thoughts, he side-eyes the interviewer. "What's this for, again?"

"In order to add Flamoids to our "Amicable Extraterrestrial Protection Act", we need additional information about them." He replies.

The boy cringes, looking off to the side. "…That's a mouthful."

In another room, a slightly smaller Earthoid with fluffy blonde hair sits with his arms crossed, facing the camera at an angle. He looks annoyed. "Adding Flamoids to the "protected

class"... Is that your way of making amends for the -last- time we were here?" He asks.

The interviewer pauses, unsure of how to respond. "...Um-"

In another room, a tall, lean Flamoid walks into view. He's too tall to fit in the frame.

He strolls over to his seat, casually slumping down in it with a sigh. "Alright... Let's get this over with."

In another room sits the king, his posture somewhat relaxed. His crown sits proudly atop his head, encrusted with three round, polished rubies, one under each point of the crown.

He side-eyes the interviewer off camera. "Have you started filming? ...Yes?"

He sits up straighter, posture going from relaxed to stiff and assertive. "Right, please proceed." He says, staring calmly into the camera.

"Please state your name, age, and species for the record." The interviewer asks the group.

The first Flamoid shrugs. "Okay... FighterGuy. Thirteen, Flamoid."

"Joseph Hargraves. Fourteen, Earthoid." The second says.

"Jake. Seventeen. Flamoid." The third says, looking bored.

"Huran. Thirty-five, Flamoid." Says the king.

Joe scratches at his face as the interviewer continues. "We're going to ask you a series of questions required to propose the amendment."

"Are Flamoids socially inclined?" He asks.

Joe smiles. "Yeah! Compared to humans, Flamoids are -very- socially competent."

He pauses, his expression unchanging. "...No offense."

"Do Flamoids value cooperation with other species?" The interviewer asks Huran.

Huran smiles, perking up. "Yes! We strive to support our allies and friends of our kind."

"Do Flamoids have any enemies?" Interviewer asks.

"Yes." Jake replies flatly.

The interviewer pauses, waiting for him to continue. Jake stares back at him.

"...Could you elaborate on that?" The interviewer asks patiently.

Jake has a flashback. A white canine-humanoid stands trembling, hunched over stumbling as he presses his hands to his left eye. It's bleeding profusely.

He removes his hands and looks at them, stunned.

The canine looks up, full of rage. He remains calm as he speaks in an ice-cold tone. "...You'll regret that, firespitter." He grumbles between gritted teeth.

Jake pauses, pointing upwards as if he's about to speak, then pointing to the interviewer as he replies, "No."

"Do you trust Flamoids, overall?" The interviewer asks Joe.

Joe deadpans, offended by such a question. "Of course I do."

His expression softens as he looks to the side, holding his arm, blushing slightly. He smiles bashfully, furrowing his brow. "How could I not? Living with them... It feels foreign, but also familiar."

He has a flashback. He's sitting on the roof of a castle, FighterGuy laying across his lap, sleeping. Along the horizon, the sun is setting. The sky has turned from the usual pastel blue to a rich pink, orange, and yellow.

He continues to speak, in the present. "They're as close as I'll ever get to my own kind..."

Joe's eyes glisten as he admires the view.

On his lap, FighterGuy stirs in his sleep, hissing.

Joe looks down at him with concern. He begins to shake, whimpering from whatever dream he's having. His shoulders stiffen and his hands tighten into loose fists as his distress becomes more apparent.

Joe hesitantly pets FighterGuy's head, hoping to calm him down without waking him. Joe's forearm passes through his flame as he rests his hand on his head. The flame dances around the intrusion, maintaining its shape otherwise.

FighterGuy purrs softly, quickly relaxing, the tension easing from his shoulders. He subconsciously snuggles closer towards Joe, sighing.

Joe blushes, his going wide, shining. He looks surprised and awestruck, witnessing this. A bright teal blush spreads across his cheeks.

"...but I'm okay with that." He says as the flashback ends.

"What do you mean by that?" The interviewer asks.

Joe jolts, blushing, embarrassed. "Uhm… N- next question, please!" He stammers, waving off the question.

"Do Flamoids value honesty & morality?" Interviewer asks Jake.

Jake furrows his brow, looking somewhat uncomfortable. He calmly replies with a question, his expression shifting to look more unamused. "Do humans?" he asks.

The interviewer pauses, processing his response. "...Excuse me?"

Huran's watch receives a call. He stiffens in his seat, hearing it ring. He moves the sleeve of his robes out of the way to see the screen. It reads "MAX" in large text.

Huran sighs, standing. "Apologies... My advisor is calling."

He walks out of view, answering the call. "Maxwell?? What is it? Yes, I'm still on Earth..."

Jake pats his legs as he abruptly stands. "Okay! I'm done."

He strolls out of frame, his chin held high as he puts his hands in his pockets.

The Interviewer calls after him nervously. "Wait! There's stil-"

"Nope. I'm done." Jake cuts him off.

Huran is speaking to Maxwell on his watch, facing away from the interviewer in the corner of the room. He has an audio receiver pressed to his ear, holding it down with two fingers.

He furrows his brow, looking worried. "Under siege?! By who??? ...Speak up! I can't hear you-"

A gunshot fires from the other line, startling him. "Maxwell?? Maxwell!!" He exclaims in a louder volume.

The call ends. He stands frozen in place. "Oh no..." He mutters.

FighterGuy suddenly looks dizzy, holding the side of his head. He sways from side to side as the whites of his eyes turn black, his pupils becoming small white pinpricks. His breathing sounds

labored as he begins to look panicked. The edges of his mouth have gradually stretched past their normal ending point, shifting to become a jagged line.

The interviewer, catching all this on film, watches silently, then cautiously asks, "Are... you okay, sir?"

FighterGuy blinks a few times, shaking his head. His mind is foggy as he attempts to respond, speaking slowly. "I... um... I need to-"

He cuts himself off as he goes into a coughing fit. "KHHH- KHH!!"

FighterGuy stands and holds his stomach, grimacing. He quickly covers his mouth as black acid begins to trickle out from it, dripping from his chin.

Through his coughing, in a strained, garbled voice, he finishes his sentence. "-step out for a minute!"

Back to Joe, his interview has just concluded. Joe stands and stretches his arms high above his head, locking his hands together.

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Hargraves. We'll be in touch." The interviewer says.

Joe sighs, resting one hand on his hip, looking off to the side tiredly. "Sure thing." He says with a sigh.

Joe is alerted by a loud roar from the other room. He freezes, His eyes going wide.

"What the Hell was that?!?" The interviewer exclaims.

"...Pardon my language." He adds quietly, forgetting his manners.

Joe looks worried, staring at the floor as he mutters "...Oh no."

A subtle hissing can be heard from right outside their door. The door is blown open in an explosion of red and blue flames. Thick, dark smoke fills the room.

The sound of wet, rattly breathing can be heard, approaching slowly. As the smoke clears, a small hand slowly steps into the empty doorway.

FighterGuy peeks around the corner, his flame flared up, flickering nervously. His eyes are empty, staring ahead absently. He scans the room, appearing to look for something, but not finding it.

His gaze snaps to Joe, after a moment, staring at him.

The interviewer jumps from his seat. "Oh my god-!"

Joe puts his hands up, palms out towards FighterGuy. His expression is stern, and he speaks with a calm sense of authority towards him. "Woah! Hey..."

FighterGuy looks up at Joe, scanning his features. From his perspective, his vision is blurry. Everything looks darker, and the outlines of things are constantly moving, fading into and out of each other slowly. He squints at the figure speaking to him. He knows this voice. Their face is obscured, but he can almost make out who it is.

Joe doesn't move, keeping still so FighterGuy can see him. "Easy, boy..." He says in a patient tone.

FighterGuy stares blankly at Joe for a moment, processing his thoughts.

The interviewer breaks his focus. "What's going on?!" He exclaims.

FighterGuy snaps his attention to glare at the interviewer, immediately threatened by his frantic tone.

"Why is he staring at me like that??" The interviewer asks.

FighterGuy crouches, preparing to charge at the interviewer.

"Damn it- LOOK OUT!!" Joe shouts.

FighterGuy bolts into the room on all fours, roaring and knocking the camera over in his wake.

The visual cuts out, switching to display the blue rewind screen of the tape. The timeline shows it's reached the end of the recording, "STOP" in bold letters blinking in the upper left corner of the screen.

⛥FireFlower⛥

4/11/2024

[brokenrealitylooper]

Returned

So in This Post I mentioned my first--at least that I recall-- series fic I wrote was an Evangelion fic where the kids and a few adults came back from Instrumentality. They weren’t the only ones, obviously, but the first and the focus.

Looking back and thinking a bit more, I think it wasn’t my first work, just my first series where I had completed each previous work before starting the next. I had other stories--which worked as the background for some of the characters’ behaviors--but this one, excluding the last installment, was worked on steadily.

And I just wanted to write a sort-of synopsis of it.

The first was Awakening, and I called the series Pilot’s Table, a nod to the round table and the sort of dynamic I was wanting. It didn’t exactly pan out that way, but I kept the series title.

It was and is an AsuShin--Asuka and Shinji--story, but events in other stories which I used as “background” meant Asuka had once been with Touji--even had kids--and Shinji had once been with Hikari. This led to a heart-to-heart between Asuka and Hikari, as they talked about their...I suppose “previous marriages to their respective Exs” works. Asuka and Touji valued their time, being the only ones to get a near full life together before Instrumentality pulled them out. But it meant they lost their children--who had only existed as part of the illusion of Instrumentality. It was a bitter pilled for the pair to swallow, and both Shinji and Hikari helped them.

Misato and Kaji had also come back, and they got back together after their own talk.

But the pairing--aside from Asuka and Shinji--that I really liked in Pilot’s Table was Gendo and Ritsuko. They’d both had to face themselves and what they’d done before Instrumentality, and it broke Gendo. Finally, finally, he let go of Yui and allowed himself to truly fall for Ritsuko, who had long since fallen for him.

Later, after they’d settled, Kensuke arrived. He’d found a returned Angel--Arael--and protected her as they journeying to find Shinji. Arael was at first fearful of Asuka, remembering--and finally understanding after her own trip through Instrumentality--what she’d done to the Pilot. But Asuka had long since forgiven her, understanding herself that Arael hadn’t known what was happening.

Arael wasn’t the only Angel, as Kaworu had returned shortly after they had, and Rei somewhat counted as well. But where any other might be wasn’t known until later.

Eventually they were found by the remnants of NERV and returned; Gendo once again commanding, making sure information of SEELE was spread--easily done with those men quite dead--and attempting to convert NERV into a replacement for the crumbling UN. And with that return came new life; Ritsuko and Gendo had married--taking the name Rokubungi, his old surname--and welcomed into the world a baby girl they named Kei--in honor of Rei, who had let them adopt her--and Shinji was delighted to have a baby sister.

And then, over a year after the last Returned--those who chose to leave Instrumentality--a woman surfaced from the pool of LCL just outside Tokyo-3.

Yui Ikari.

This obviously caused Ritsuko some distressed, which Gendo did his best to ease. They had all, after all, moved on.

And now Yui, struggling with all the changes she hadn’t expected, must reconcile with her family. A family changed in shape, and distant from her after her nearly two decades of absence.

0o0o0

That was as far as I got, before life took me away and changed my focus. I switched to RWBY, and while I dabble in NGE I’ve not really been back.

I think I’d like to return to Pilot’s Table, maybe with a new name after all this time. We’ll see; I do, after all, need to finish Regrets and Love.

Also, my first work was on an old account--Devaro Ayanami on FFnet--but this was the Original Pilot’s Table drabbles that led to the series described above.

[foreverrogers]

parallel suns (1/4)

part one // part two // part three // part four

Pairing: steve harrington x f!buckley!reader

Summary: it's summer break, and you need something, or someone, to fill the time with before you go back to college.

Warnings: smut!!!! 18+!!!!! minors please DNI!!!!! friends with benefits, protected sex, oral (f receiving), steve is an adorably charming idiot. post-s3, pre-s4. no s4 spoilers!!

Words: 7.4k (!!!)

A/N: this fic came to me in a vision and i'm in love with it. big shout out to my notes app where i compulsively wrote 1.2k of this at 10pm. also shout out to the song partner in crime by lucy dacus because i am, once again, on my indie song title bullshit

request something! masterlist // series masterlist

Everything is sticky.

The humidity shimmers in the air like it's about to take corporeal form, and even with every AC unit in this Family Video on full blast, everything is utterly, disgustingly sticky.

It's one of the many things Steve hates about Summer. That, and school being on break means the store is always full of children, who are sticky all year round and only get stickier in the Summer, and teenagers, who embody the kind of sticky that tries to sneak into the adult section when they think no one is looking.

It's eight pm, the unforgiving sun just starting to glow yellow and orange at the horizon, and it's about the time Steve lets Robin go home so he can close up for nine.

He doesn't question it when she doesn't bolt out of the store on the hour like she normally does, desperate to go home even if she did prefer Steve's company over most others.

There's a slight jingle of the bell as the front door opens, but Steve is too busy taking his 10-minute break sitting on the floor behind the counter to get up, legs stretched end to end.

Somebody's above him, all of a sudden, announced by two sharp knocks against the counter, and when Steve looks up the backlight of the setting sun makes him think he's seeing an angel. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah," Robin mutters, hops off her stool and dips down to yank at the backpack sitting at her feet. "Bye, Steve!"

"Woah, woah, woah," Steve starts, so disorientated by the speed of everything that Robin's already slipped behind the counter before he's even thinking of standing up. Steve scrambles to his feet so quickly he almost slips on the linoleum. "Hey, Rob, you're not gonna introduce us?"

You've already taken a step back, and Steve's words stop Robin in her hurried tracks with a sigh. She looks between you, exaggerated turns in each direction, and sighs again. "Steve, this is my sister," She explains, matter of fact, not offering any other information than strictly necessary.

"You never told me you had a sister."

"You didn't?" You ask immediately, faux offense pinching your eyebrows as you look at her. You nudge her in the ankle with the toe of your boot. "Rude."

"Well," Robin starts, pointed as she looks at him. "You clearly don't ask about me as much as you talk about yourself, Steve."

"Hey, I do not- Don't listen to her," Steve cuts Robin to the side, turns to you with an outstretched hand and his cookie-cutter charming smile. It's a perfected art form you don't seem to buy. "I'm Steve, by the way. Steve Harrington."

"Seems like I've heard a lot more about you than you've heard about me, Steve," You smile, lean forward to shake his hand.

Steve thinks he likes the way you say his name. He also thinks your hand in his is warm, but the nice, soft kind of warm, and not the sticky Summer kind of warm he's gotten used to. He also hopes his hand isn't sticky. "All good things, I hope?"

You hum as you pull away, tilt your head to the side and narrow your eyes, your expression questioning. "Like 60%?"

"Okay, well, this has been nice, but we really have to go," Robin interrupts, looks to you then to Steve and gives him a single nod before she's gone, tugging at your wrist and pulling you with her.

"It was nice to meet you!" You call, turn a little to wave as your sister drags you through the door and into the carpark.

Steve's still not convinced you're not an angel, and spends so long staring after you that it takes him a couple minutes to realise you had never told him your name.

-----

Tonight is a different type of sticky. The type that only happens when it rains all day and the moisture hangs oppressively heavy, like you could drown where you stood if you weren't careful.

Which is why Steve can't be blamed for spending most of his free time standing in front of the huge air conditioner in the back room, letting the cool air bellow out his polo and his vest until he's almost too cold. It's a pretty good plan, except for the fact he can't be stationed at the counter waiting for beautiful women to walk into the store like he normally is.

When Steve emerges from the back room, there's a beautiful woman in the store.

Not that he can tell she's beautiful by the back of her head poking through the aisles of the romance section, it's just that he has a feeling... and it's been a couple weeks since he's been on a good date.

So, as always, Steve stands behind the counter and runs a hand through his hair, tussled and unruly by the effects of the fan, uses the darkened monitor of the computer as a mirror as he adjusts the sit of his collar and smoothes down his Family Video vest. It's the exact shade of dark puke green that always seemed to be a hit with the ladies.

He makes a 90-degree turn, back to the front of the shop, and all of a sudden there you are.

Steve gapes a little, turns left and then right and realises you're the only other person in the store. Oh.

"Hey!"

You're grinning now, too. Which doesn't help. "Hey to you, too."

"Did you, uh-" Steve clears his throat, walks towards you and slides the tape you've set on the counter towards him, pointedly ignores the fact you had just watched him check himself out in a computer monitor for any excruciating amount of time. "Did you find everything you need?"

"Just that, I think," You chuckle, still fighting back your smile as you cross your arms and lean them against the counter.

"16 Candles?" Steve asks, finally actually reading the cover of the film in his hands.

Your smile softens, a little fonder. "Yeah, Rob and I watched it like a million times the year it came out. I thought it would be a nice surprise."

"Really?" He asks, disbelief in his smile and the light pinch of his eyebrows. "Robin? 16 Candles?"

"I don't know what to tell you," You shrug, give a light shake of your head. "Everyone's got a guilty pleasure, her's is romance movies... And if you ever tell her I told you that I will make your life a living hell."

Steve thinks he's already experienced multiple living hells, but is still intrigued about what your could come up with. "Scouts honour," He offers, holds up the palm of one hand and presses the copy of 16 Candles to his heart with the other.

It makes you laugh, and Steve has to smile at the sight before he can remember he's supposed to be doing his job. You really might be an angel.

"And the name the account's under?" He asks, thinks he's smooth and is immediately told otherwise by the way you narrow amused eyes at him, the tug of a smile at the corner of your lips.

"Robin really didn't mention me at all, huh?"

"I really don't talk about myself that often, I promise."

You chuckle lightly, smile bright, eyes bright, makes the neon lights pooling in splotches of wet concrete outside look dim.

You're smile fades a little as the seconds go on, as you hold each other's eyes and Steve really hopes he's not staring right now because his face and his brain have lost all connection.

"Y/n," You offer, simply, and Steve was definitely staring because it takes him a moment to register that the sound that came out of your mouth had been your name.

"Y/n, right," He says, snaps himself out of it, maybe a little too animated in the way he shakes his head if the laugh you give him as he looks down is any indication.

Steve bites his lip as he clacks the letters of your name into the heavy keyboard, intensely concentrated. It's adorable, objectively, and you try not to let it pull anything too world-shattering from your gut into the base of your throat. You swallow it down when he meets your eyes again. "Last name?"

You grin at him immediately, simply raise your eyebrows and wait the few moments it takes him to realise what he's saying, tilts his head to the side with a tight smile as he moves to type in the rest of your name. "Right."

"What do I owe you?" You ask, lean a little closer against the counter, close enough that he can smell the sweet floral of your perfume or your shampoo or both.

"On the house."

"Really?" You start, raise your eyebrows at him. "Thank you... Do all the friends and family get discounts?"

"Just the pretty ones," Steve says, mouth and maybe libido moving too quickly for his brain to catch, words spilling and falling flat on the counter between you.

You're smiling again, gleeful surprise as much towards his admittance as the deep blush that rushes into his face as he realises exactly what he's said.

"I mean-"

"Nuh-uh, can't take it back now," You tease, sliding the tape off of the counter towards you and taking a slow step backwards. He's still mouthing at words to say, and so you take the opportunity to turn and start out of the store. You hold the tape up in the air beside you. "Thank you for the movie, Steve!"

-----

"Hey, why did you never mention me to Steve?"

You're in the middle of 16 Candles. Admittedly, it's not the best time to ask your sister about anything tangible, but something about the cheesy teen romance couldn't let you stop thinking about it. It takes her a few moments to answer, and you're about to repeat yourself when she gives back the uninterested "Why would I?"

"I don't know, the way you were talking about him it sounded like you two were basically best friends... Seems like pretty standard information to know about your best friend."

She shoves a messy fist full of popcorn in her mouth before answering. "It just never came up I guess."

"Right..." Robin still hasn't turned away from the movie, and you still haven't turned back, eyes narrowed at her profile. "So you told him you were a lesbian before you told him you had a sister?"

"Jesus Christ, y/n, fine!" Robin dramatically bends at the waist, reaches over to the coffee table for the remote and pause the movie. "He's a womanizer, okay? I knew that if I told him I had a sister, especially one who was basically the same age as him, he would never let it go and inevitably try to hit on you when you came to visit."

You scoff. "Hate to break it to you, babe, but him not knowing I exist has definitely not stopped him from hitting on me."

Robin's silent for a long moment, gapes at you in the dim light, and you think you can physically see the steam pouring out of her ears as her blood boils. "Y/n."

"What?"

"What did he say to you?"

"What, seriously?" You shake your head, turn back to the paused television screen in a sudden desire to no longer be having this conversation. "It was nothing bad, perfectly kosher. You should have seen the way he was blushing, though. Are you sure that guy gets around as much as you think he does?"

"He tells me about most of them in excruciating detail, so, you know, yeah." You feel her shift back towards the TV, pick up the remote at her side with a sigh. "Just don't fall for it, okay?"

You should let it go, because it shouldn't matter, and you shouldn't care. "What, you don't think he's a good guy?" You're looking at her again, trying to read the shadows of her expression. "You wouldn't be friends with him if he wasn't a good guy."

"Look, I say this with no offence to Steve but he's a Hawkins, Indiana good guy. He's not a New York, smartest girl in her class type of good guy."

You consider it for a moment, clench your jaw as you slide down the couch so you can only just see the screen over your bent knees. "It sounds like you're trying to say he's a 'literally anybody but you' kind of good guy."

"Yeah," Robin smiles, voice warm. "Glad we're on the same page."

-----

You think that maybe being told not to give in to Steve Harrington's fumbled, boyish charm just makes you want a taste even more.

Not that you went out of your way to do the things Robin told you not to, nor were you typically the type of person who wanted what they couldn't have. It's just that you had spent so long trying to be good, trying to get the best grades and get into the best schools and be the best adult, that now, during a Summer that should be inconsequential to the course of your life, you want to try something new. That, and every word and lingering glance you had received from him over the past couple of days had practically screamed how much he wanted you, and it was hard to deny that it was exhilarating.

No matter the way you try to reason it, nothing changes the fact that you're in an empty Family Video at 9am.

It's early enough that when Steve sees you pushing open the door he thinks he might still be dreaming. "Oh, y/n, hey! Hey, how are you?" Steve runs a loose hand through his hair, adjusts his position leaning against the counter a couple too many times to be natural. He flinches, hopes you don't register his fumbling. You definitely do. "Uh, Robin's not working today."

"Yeah, I know," You smile, innocent and polite, move to lean beside him on the counter with your forearms against the cool acrylic. You pick at your nails for a moment before turning towards him, but you realise as soon as you do that you've undershot your position a little, faces are a lot closer than you had intended. Still, you don't back away. "I'm here to see you."

Steve swallows, throat thick and chest fluttering with the proximity. "You are?" He mutters, doesn't have to say it that loudly for you to hear because you're that damn close. His voice is a little squeakier, too, like his body had suddenly forgotten it had already hit puberty five years earlier. He clears his throat, once again hopes you don't notice. Once again, you do.

"So..." You start, look back down at your nails because even though you had fully psyched yourself up to do this, you hadn't quite realised eye contact would be part of the deal. "I'm sure you know that I'm only in town for the Summer, which means I just so happen to have a lot of free time and also... just so happen to not have a boyfriend..."

Steve thinks he's hallucinating. Thinks that there must be something in the water and his sweating palms and dry mouth and tight chest are all symptoms of something awful. Either that or his mind is infinitely dirtier than he thought, because there was no way in Hell you were actually suggesting what he thinks you're suggesting. "I think I need... a little more."

"Oh, come on, Stevie," You start, tilt your head at him, and the combination of the nickname and the way you're looking up at him through your lashes makes his jeans tighten inexplicably. "You gotta have a couple brain cells knocking around that pretty little head of yours."

Steve pinches himself. Actually, physically pinches his arm to make sure he's not dreaming. He's staring again, and he's also a little speechless, silent for long enough that you start to second guess yourself.

"Unless you don't want-"

"No, no, no. Woah, no, definitely not. I definitely don't... not want to..." His hand is on your wrist before you can pull away, position shifted so he's now standing right in front of you, parallel suns across the counter. "I just, uh, wasn't sure that I was getting the right idea for a second."

"Yeah, I, um-" You look down, your well of confidence seemingly exerted too fast too soon. Your cheeks are hot with it. "Robin made it seem like you were pretty, uh... Loose about this type of stuff."

"She said that?" Steve scoffs, makes you look back up at him and the expression on his face is so genuinely offended it makes you laugh. "I can't believe she would- Wait, did you... tell her? About-"

"No!" You interrupt, eyes wide. "No, absolutely not. And Robin never knows, okay? Ground rule?"

"Yeah, right, of course," He agrees, and he registers suddenly that you're two people standing in the middle of a Family Video first thing in the morning defining the terms of casual sex.

"Not so much because she would get mad at me, but because I genuinely think she might cut your dick off."

Steve laughs, does that thing where he tilts his head to the side in a nod that's annoyingly endearing. "Yeah, I could see her trying."

You're both smiling, and you're both so close, his hand on your wrist still anchoring you to the counter. You chew at the inside of your lip, try to suppress some of the heat rising to your face. "This is a really weird conversation, right?"

"Possibly the weirdest I've ever had, yeah." And Steve has had a lot of fucking bonkers conversations.

There's a glint of light across your lipgloss as your smile widens, fresh and sticky and shining and all of a sudden Steve realises you wore it for him, and then all of a sudden wants to know what it tastes like.

You lean forward slowly, like you can read his mind or maybe you're just thinking the same thoughts, the curve of your lips deliciously tempting. "Steve."

"Yeah?" He asks, less of a word and more of a pitched exhale. He thinks he can feel your breath against his skin.

"You have customers."

You pull away, stand up straight just as the front bell rings and a gaggle of children storm into the store, followed begrudgingly by the slow steps of two exhausted looking parents. Steve pulls away, too, clears his throat in an attempt to regain his composure as he offers a tight smile to the two adults.

You're grinning, annoyingly and yet endearingly triumphant.

"That was mean."

"No idea what you're talking about," You start, shake your head with a shrug and a step away from the counter. You try to bite back your smile, bottom lip lightly pulled between your teeth. "Are you doing anything tonight?"

"Oh, you know." Steve gestures around the store, attention immediately pulled to a crashing sound somewhere to his side, like piles of hard plastic falling to the floor.

"You should go do your job," You tease, nod towards the source of the noise and make Steve narrow his eyes at you. "And I will be back at nine."

-----

True to your word, by the time nine pm rolls around you're already leaning against the hood of his car, watching carefully as he locks the door to the darkened Family Video.

You've changed, a light skirt that sits just below the knee to match the humid Summer night. Steve's first thought is accessible, and he immediately scolds himself for it.

"Hey," You smile, voice sickly smooth, sticky and seeping into his bones.

"Hey." He returns, finds it a little less graceful than yours because he's nervous, the kind of nervous that would probably make his chest shake if he stood still for too long. He doesn't think he's been this nervous around a girl since he first got together with Nancy.

"Fun rest of your shift?" You ask, even though you have a pretty good idea of what he might say, kick off the car and make a slow start towards him.

"A painful one, thanks to you."

The admittance makes you smile, too smug and too pretty as you look up at him, height difference exaggerated as you meet him at the curb. He tries not to look at your lips, but your lipgloss is fresh, and he still wants to know what it tastes like.

"My place or yours?"

"Are your parents home?"

Steve scoffs, a little offended. "What makes you think I live with my parents?"

"Oh," You start, eyes widening with something like surprise, embarrassment, maybe a little bit of both. "Do you... not live with your parents?"

"No, I absolutely live with my parents. And no, they're not home, by the way. I think I just resent the implication that-"

"Oh my god," You turn, walk towards the passenger side of his car with a shake of your head. You stand with a grasp on the handle, waiting for him to follow. "If you still wanna get laid tonight you better get in the freaking car, idiot."

"Wow," Steves says, keeps playing his mock offence but starts towards the car anyway. He digs his hand into his pocket in search of his keys. "I guess there's just something about you Buckleys and being mean to me."

You swing the door open as soon as it's unlocked, fall in with enough force to make the vehicle bounce lightly on its wheels. "Car, Steve!"

-----

You've made it this far without any hiccups. Without any bad omens descending from the heavens as a sign that this was all a bad idea.

If anything it felt too good to be true, a ridiculously handsome, charming boy with a genuine interest in you, complete with a mega fancy house and parents who were never in town. Then there was the tiny fact that he was your sister's best friend, but you tried not to think about that one too hard.

"What do we do now?"

Steve's moving to sit beside you at the foot of his bed, soft notes of music drifting from his cassette player slowly filling the background.

You smile at him, at the earnestness in his voice and the wide, open hope in his expression. It makes your chest ache so much you have to change the subject.

"Before anything, I just wanted to say..." You adjust your position, angle yourself to better face him. Steve looks terrified of what you're next move is, and it almost makes you laugh. "I don't know what you did to make Robin trust you enough to tell you... you know... But I just thought I would tell you that I appreciate it. I was really worried at first, about leaving her for so long with nobody else who really, actually knew her... It's just nice to know there's someone watching her back."

Steve wasn't exactly sure what he thought you were going to say, but it certainly wasn't that. It's a gesture that warms him through, not that he would ever admit that to Robin. "Yeah, no, of course. Thank you."

You offer him a gentle smile, nodding lightly as you lean back against your palms. You sigh like you're almost reluctant to keep going. "You're a pretty cool dude, Steve."

"I know," He says, response immediate, does that tilt thing again and proceeds to give you the smuggest smirk you've ever seen. "But thank you for reminding me."

"Oh, shut up," You mutter, nudge him lightly in the knee with your own and roll your eyes, can't help the smile that blooms across your face as he leans towards you.

"What?" He asks, accusatory, smiling, so close you can feel the fan of his warm breath against your skin. "I was agreeing with you."

"Steve," You say, try and almost succeed at pulling a serious face.

He's looking at your lips again, doesn't meet your eyes as he continues. "Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

Strawberry. That's the first thought Steve has when you kiss him, impossibly soft lips moving against his, turning his brain to fuzz in an instant.

It's all instinct from that point on, when he slots one hand around your waist and brings the other beneath your ear, thumb brushing against your cheek and opening you up for him.

"What?" You laugh, breathe it between sweet, sticky kisses.

"What?"

"You said something, I couldn't hear you."

Steve is only half paying attention, too busy pressing you back until your back hits the mattress. Oh.

"Strawberry," He repeats, hadn't realised he had said it out loud the first time. "Your lip gloss. It tastes like strawberry."

"That's what you're thinking about right now?" You're grinning at him, smile too wide to keep kissing and so Steve takes the opportunity to trail along your jaw, dips down to follow the column of your throat until he hears you sigh.

"It's not the only thing I'm thinking about," He mutters, presses curved lips to the crook of your neck and focuses on the spot.

Your breath is coming out a little heavier, your fingers tangling into his hair as he continues the gentle assault on your neck, but you try to keep up. "Care to share with the class?"

"Well," Steve starts, hands wandering downward to start to bunch up the bottom of your shirt. "I'm thinking about taking this off, for one."

Your position at the foot of your bed is a little awkward to manoeuvre, so Steve takes the opportunity to slowly stand over you, plants one last sloppy kiss to the dip of your throat before he's on his knees.

It makes you gasp, the sudden shift and the sight of him between your legs as he kisses the soft flesh of your stomach he's exposed. "I'm thinking about how fucking warm you are, and how soft your skin is." He leans back, moves to sit on his heels and brings one of your knees up to sit over his shoulder. The position makes the light fabric of your skirt fall back, bunches at the top of your thighs and leaves the cotton of your panties just hidden from his line of sight. He kisses the inside of your knee, one strong hand grasping the outside of your thigh, doesn't tear his eyes away from yours the entire time. "And I'm thinking about what other parts of you must taste like."

"Jesus Christ," You mutter, fall back against the mattress and look up at the ceiling because this might just be the best stupid decision you've ever made.

Steve chuckles, a deep reverberation that sends aftershocks through your body where his lips are still connected to your skin. "Are you gonna let me find out, sweetheart?"

"Jesus Christ," You say again, because what else are you supposed to say to something like that. You press up on your elbows, look down to see Steve already smiling at you, still annoyingly smug. "You can't just go around saying shit like that."

"Is that a yes?" He asks, and if there was any doubt in your mind all would be resolved by the feeling of his hand snaking under your skirt, fingers slipping just under the hem of your underwear.

"Please, yes. Fuck."

In any normal circumstance, you might register the fact that the two of you are still fully clothed, at the very least take off your shirts before you let another person take off your underwear. But this wasn't just any normal circumstance, and in that moment any force that could delay the feeling of his mouth on your cunt was sorely unwelcome.

Steve makes it slow, draws it out for as torturously long as he can before you're starting to squirm beneath him. He leans back, just so he can start to tug your panties down your legs, goosebumps rising at every tiny point of contact until the flimsy fabric has slipped to the floor.

Steve doesn't think he'll ever get over the way you say his name, not when he's heard it like this, the heady whine of it he earns with the first contact of his mouth on your clit.

Your hand is in his hair immediately, fingers threading through the thick strands and pressing him closer toward you, needing everything closer, craving everything impossibly closer than you could get it.

The tug isn't purposefully, simply another involuntary response your body gives at the feeling of him sucking your clit between his lips, along with your gasp and the arch of your back and the flex of your thighs. It does, however, pull something guttural out of his throat, the hum of it pressed against you sending a sharp shock of pleasure up your spine.

You say his name again, choked and frayed as it escapes through ragged breaths.

Steve pulls away, cruelly, awfully, leaves you hot and aching as he presses slick lips to the inside of your thigh. He kisses along, down, back up again, leaves behind quick little nips you're sure will leave marks tomorrow.

You laugh, a little because it tickles and mostly because you're not sure a guy has ever made you feel this good in your life, and this was only the crescendo.

"It's dangerous laughing at the guy who hasn't made you cum yet..." Another nip, quickly soothed by the warmth of his tongue. "Unless you wanna finish the job by yourself."

It just makes you laugh harder, knees coming up a little to close together and Steve has to tighten his grip to bring them back down. "No, no, no," You start, out of breath for multiple reasons, and when you look down at him he's grinning back at you, inexplicable and bright and beautiful. You comb your hand through his hair and bite your lip, slowly trying to tug him back towards you. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I won't laugh, promise. Just keep going."

Steve hides his smile back against the inside of your thigh, leaves one last mark. "Are you gonna ask nicely? I think it's the least I deserve after-"

"Fine! Fine, Jesus," You laugh, even though you had just promised you wouldn't, take a moment to compose something resembling a serious expression, make your best wide, innocent eyes at him. You give his hair a harsh tug. "Please make me cum, Steve."

And it has been a joke when he said it, but hearing the words come out of your mouth doesn't sound so funny anymore. The only thing hearing them does is make the strain in his pants exponentially tighter and brings his mouth back to you in an instant.

It's harsher, this time, relentless in the movement of his tongue and his lips over your clit. This time there's no mercy when it's too much, when you try to squirm and lessen the intensity of it all, the arm hooked around your thigh moving to spread over your pelvis and keep your hips in place as he works at you.

You try not to look at him, think as soon as you do the sight alone might be enough to make the rapidly growing well of heat in the pit of your stomach overflow. You can't help it though, when you feel the pads of his fingers start to tease at your entrance, tests the waters and let's another hum slip through when he finds you already dripping wet.

Your eyes meet his, and Steve gets to watch the look on your face as he presses two fingers into the sopping heat.

Steve wants that face burned into the inside of his retinas, wants to see it every time he closes his eyes and relive the feeling of your cunt clenching around his fingers. Your entire body is wound tight, he can feel it in his hand still spread over your hip and the flex of your thighs, sees it clear as day in the contortion of your face, and every point of tension is heightened tenfold when he starts to curl those fingers inside you.

You say his name again, different this time, pleading and needy and you want to let go so bad. Want to dispel all this energy into the universe and feel the waves of it drown you, crave the relief of that first deep breath of bliss that fills your lungs.

"I've got you, baby," Steve mutters, like he can read your mind or maybe he's just good at reading the cues, nods the best he can while still pressed against you when you look at him.

It snaps, like being cut loose, doesn't take much more of his mouth and fingers to have you falling and falling and falling.

That. That way you say his name. He's not sure you'll be able to top that.

Your hand slips out of his hair, meets your other one as you stretch out against the mattress with a sigh, a slow shiver creeping up your spine. "Jesus fucking Christ." You close your eyes and you laugh, because it's the only response you find fit enough for that.

"Now, what's funny?"

There's a mess against your thigh when Steve pulls his fingers away, slick and saliva melting on your skin as he slowly moves to crawl back up your body.

You open your eyes as soon as you feel his face hovering over yours, grinning and sloppy and hazy. You don't answer, say enough in the way you kiss him and wrap your arms tightly around his neck, welcome the taste of yourself on his tongue and the harsh squeeze he gives to your hip. "God, you're so fucking pretty."

You smile, catch him in another quick kiss, tugging his bottom lip between your teeth as you pull back away. "Funny, I was about to say the exact same thing." And it's true, because his hair is a mess and his face is flushed and you don't think anyone has ever been prettier.

"You think I'm pretty?" He asks, smug again, dips down to kiss the peak of your jaw.

"Like you haven't been called a pretty boy your whole life, pretty boy."

Steve gives you a lopsided grin and somehow becomes prettier. "And I never get sick of hearing it."

Steve kisses you, presses his smile to yours and waits until you're lucid enough to kiss him back. It's softer, for a little while, gentle in the way he cups your cheek and soothes the skin there with his thumb. It's you who deepens it, chases it as you bring your hand to the hem of his shirt. "Too many clothes."

You're right, of course; the two of you are still entirely clothed save for your underwear, a sore fact that Steve immediately moves to rectify, tugs his own shirt off and starts on the buttons of your blouse before you even register it.

"Careful, Jesus," You giggle, worried he might break a button, but even that's short-lived by the hasty urgency with which he takes off your shirt.

You have to sit up to let him slip the fabric down your arms, and as soon as you do he kisses you again, mumbles something unintelligible against your lips before his hands are at your waist and pushing you up the bed. "That's better."

You gape at him, not that he notices, too busy with looking down to work at the button of his jeans and kick them off.

He freezes when he meets your eyes again, reads the expression on your face. "What?"

"I can't believe I just got manhandled by Steve 'the hair' Harrington."

Steve sighs, dips his head into your neck so you can't see the deep blush that only exacerbates the condition of his face. "She told you about that?" He asks, muffled, oozing embarrassment, and it makes you laugh again.

"She absolutely did."

Steve nips at the crook of your neck, makes you gasp, and you're about to keep teasing him when he brings his face back to yours. "Let's change the subject?"

"To what?" You ask, smiling, tilt your chin up at him.

"To how perfect your boobs are and how much I want to fuck you right now."

You hum against him when he kisses you, effectively shutting you up as he takes a handful of your clothed breast and squeezes. His other hand slides up the outside of your thigh, hooking your leg around his waist, and with how close he's pressing against you you can feel just how hard he is. "A gentleman."

Steve smiles, presses one last heated kiss to your lips before he's leaning over you, dragging open the top drawer of his bedside table.

You take the opportunity to watch him, take in the solid, carved muscle of his stomach, the mass of dark chest hair, the flex of his bicep as he reaches for the small foil packet.

You want to touch him, and then you realise that you can, kiss him hard as soon as you can, hands slipping around the side of his waist to pull him in before gliding down his front.

The first inch of your fingers under the hem of his boxers makes him gasp, nodding when your eyes search his, asking for permission to dip further.

"Fuck," He mutters, squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and has to shake the fog in his brain loose, looks down to where he can just see the slow twist of your hand in his boxers. "You ready?"

You take the cue, remove your hand and mutter a quiet, "Yeah," before he's kissing you, kisses you and kisses you as he kicks off his boxers and moves to slip on the condom.

Steve pumps himself in his hand once, twice, four times, and then he's lining himself up with you, tip only just kissing your entrance. "I'll be gentle, yeah?"

You smile at him, shake your head into another kiss. "You don't have to be gentle with me, Steve."

He looks at you, mouth slack, and you have to nod to reassure him, a gentle squeeze at his waist to spur him on.

There's a slur of muffled, breathy profanities as Steve sinks into you, so slowly fills you up, makes you feel each tiny stretch of your walls around his cock.

You're both breathing the same hot, heavy air, open mouths slotted over the other, and the feeling of him finally pressed in to the hilt makes you both sigh. "Can I move?"

"Please," You breathe, and it's all Steve needs to start slowly pulling back, only makes it about halfway before he's pushing back in.

It's enough to knock the breath out of your lungs, regardless, the fullness of it all immeasurably more intense than you had prepared for. Steve's head is buried in your neck, pulls a little further out with the next movement of his hips, drives in with a little extra force.

"Faster, please, baby," You whine, needy and impatient and unashamed. The words make his grip on your thigh tighten, and he does what you ask, kisses down your neck and along your collar bone and peppers you in more tiny marks as picks up his movements.

It makes you moan, deep and echoing around the room and suddenly you don't know what you would have done if his parents had been home, or if you had had to sneak him into your place, don't think you could keep all this energy inside you without exploding.

"So big," You sigh, can't help the breaths and whimpers that catch in the back of your throat as his hips get even faster, chasing that same white-hot friction. "Feels so good, Steve. So- Fuck."

Your head presses back into the pillow, one arm coming up to wrap around his torso and dig your nails into his back. "Oh, fuck, there you go," He mutters, feels the sudden clench of you around him and thinks he might be done for, now and forever and until the next time you let him feel you like this again. "Can't believe how fucking tight you are, baby. So perfect."

Steve pulls his face back, dips his head to look at the place your bodies are connected, at the place you're swallowing him up and dripping onto his bed sheets and knows immediately it was a mistake, feels the shiver of pleasure it spreads throughout his body almost make him tremble.

But Steve's a gentleman, even if the brief manhandling may have told you otherwise, and he would be damned if he was gonna let himself cum before you.

He's not quite sure how you keep coming up with new ways to say his name, but the sound that slips out of you mouth when his thumb meets your clit is certainly new, only gets through the first couple of letters before melting into a low moan. You clench around him again, fluttering and velvet hot, and it makes Steve quicken the circling of his thumb, looking up to watch your face pinch with it.

"Are you gonna be good and cum for me, honey?"

"Holy fuck," You whine, don't miss a beat, open your eyes to already find him looking at you intensely, jaw slack and eyebrows loosely knit together, concentration and pleasure overwhelming his features. "Need it harder, baby. Wanna cum for you."

"Need it harder?" He repeats, doesn't wait for your answer for the next drive of his hips to be harsher, deeper, hits that spot inside you so well it almost makes you scream. "Need it rough? Like- Oh, fuck, I can feel you."

Steve can apparently tell you're about to cum sooner than you can, because all at once everything it too much, hits you so fast and so hard you don't even have time to warn him before you're coming apart around his cock.

And thank God, too, because Steve was already about to lose it, thumb on your clit working you through your orgasm as he stills inside you, moans into your mouth with a rough kiss.

Your legs are shaking, trembling in his touch and Steve registers the rush in his ears, high-pitched and muffling your shared pants into white noise.

Steve is now indubitably certain you're an angel.

-----

"You can drop me off at the end of the road, just in case Robin's still awake."

"Oh, right. Sure." He seems unsure, a little distant, and after the last couple hours, it makes your heart sink.

You turn to Steve, in the darkness, watching the street lights paint shadows through the angles of his face, his brow and his nose and his jaw. He's prettier than you think you'll ever admit, prettier than you could ever make him understand. "You're cool with this, right? Because nothing else has to happen if you're not."

"No, I'm cool with it. Totally cool, just like you said, I'm a cool guy." Steve smiles, and you smile at him, meet his eyes as soon as he's rolled the car to a stop at the bottom of your street.

"Cool."

You lean across the centre console and press a quick kiss to his cheek, feel the heat beneath your lips and know he's more flushed than the dim light is letting on.

You don't really pull away when you pull away, hover a couple inches away from his face as he turns towards you. Something pointy and solid is digging into your ribs, but you don't really care.

Steve kisses you, moulds you to him the same way he had in his room not so long before. His hand is on your cheek and his tongue is in your mouth and everything is hot. Too, too hot.

"Good night, Steve," You whisper, lips still brushing his because you're giving him another chaste kiss as soon as you say it.

request something! masterlist // series masterlist

You finally settle back into your side of the car, and all at once you're gone so fast Steve's own "Good night" hangs empty in the air.

part two

[mirthlxss]

Off to the races

Chapter 11: Swimmin' pool glimmerin', darling

“Hallelujah, finally, that must be my hanging shoelaces!”

master list

price x oc, series.

a03: pricescigar, Off to the races is posted in full.

taglist:  @deadbranch , @jxvipike, @smoggyfogbottom, and very very big thank you to @bubuslutty for beta reading this!!! She has lots of amazing writing on her page so make sure to check that out too!

warnings: alcohol.

a/n: "Is that all you want to be? Liked? Wouldn't you rather be passionately and voraciously desired?" - Margaret Atwood.

“Let them try.”

“They already have, Simon, and succeeded.” Price bites out, barely keeping himself from chewing out the end of his cigar. “Need I remind you of the mess we’re in now?  Little miss smart ass is down the hall and I sure as hell don’t remember taking on new recruits.” 

“Sure.” Ghost leans back in his usual chair, pupils void of any discernible emotion, palm flat against the round meeting table they all sat around. “Did say I’d take care of it, you said no.” Pointed, the thrum of Ghost’s matter-of-fact tone only made the Captain twitch more.

“Can’t just kill a civilian.” 

A beat passed between them, the air felt stale. Both knew what hung over them, the resounding answer that welled in Simon’s throat, he’d keep quiet but his general distaste was evident. What makes this different to all of Price’s sacrifices? 

The Captain had made split-second choices before, left a man to demolition to save the greater group. To save Garrick. The one real mistake Simon had made in years and it nearly cost him his life, seeing Lily flit about the hallways of their base and hearing her cackle echo around only served as a living reminder of what he’d done. A living, breathing reminder that he had fucked up. She berated him with her presence. 

What was worse, he could still hear her panic. The shrill stutter of a feminine voice, the shaking grasp on his soon-to-be corpse, the pressure on his wound. Simon wasn’t fully conscious after the attack but he was sentient enough to feel her there, the fearful attempts of ushering his sopping blood back into his body did not go unnoticed. He loathed her for it. Why not finish the job? Why follow him here? He was the spectre and yet, she haunted him. 

“Makarov has clearly found his way into the system, someone amongst us has supplied the ultra-nationalists with information, otherwise the races incident would not have happened. This we know.” Price leered over the ancient laptop in front of him, several photos and reports splayed across its screen, a never-ending scroll of nuisances, fires he’d have to put out. 

“Captain?” Soap piqued, tired of trying to get Ghost’s attention, most of the meeting he’d spent nudging the other beneath the table, only now piping up as the Lieutenant clearly wasn’t in the mood to entertain him. Price rose a brow, wordlessly answering the sergeant. 

“Had a funny feeling about the intelligence lads we disposed of.” Gut instinct, it had saved each one of them more than enough times, the general churn of dread that grasped at the sides of one's stomach often spelt out the answers long before any real evidence did. 

“One was Russian.” Kyle pointed out, walking round the table to hover beside the Captain, waiting for permission to take over the computer, pulling up the profiles of the past intelligence team, signalling out one man in particular. 

“Pavel.” Venomous, drastic rumble. 

John looked upon the screen with distaste, the same slimy boy that had taken so much pleasure in unearthing Lilith’s photos, the same child that felt so sure in sharing them. “You think he’s capable?” 

“Cannae’ see why not, squealed like pig when we smashed him in, wouldn’t surprise me if he’d been sniffing around the ultras” Soap shrugged, distinctly remembering the high-pitched yells and bloodied snorts. 

“Just cos’ he sounds like a pig, don’ make him one.” Ghost grumbles, distinctly uninterested in chasing up a stale lead. Not when Makarov had gotten so close already. 

“I don’t mind playing butcher.” Gaz offered himself up, looking down at Price ardently. He’d tried his best to conceal the pang of urgency in his proposal, quietly wanting to bestow another heavy-handed gravel of justice atop of Pavel’s stunted head. Ultras or not. 

“Steady Kyle, this is delicate now, if they got the better of Ghost you can’t just expect to waltz in alone.” 

Garrick rocked back on the heels of his boots, hands now firmly planted on either side of his hips, clutching at his belt with a tight-lipped frown. “Doesn’t it make you suspicious how fast they got all that data? I mean, the sheer amount of it as well, we’ve had targets before and it’s taken ages for a data mine.” 

“It’s not like she’s taken any care in protecting herself.” Simon scorned. 

“Even so, if the Russians wanted to know if Shepard had any soldiers out, they’d be pushing for intel quick.” Kyle kept to his point, not fully ready to look Ghost in the eye but still addressing the room. 

Worn, crinkled, distinctly unorganised.

It had presided in her dreams, her nightmares, in every waking moment since she’d come across this wretched thing, the ledger from hell had loomed over her like the end of days. Much to the Captain’s glee, Lilith had naturally fallen into the mess of numbers like it was her duty, only truly taking time away to awkwardly run after the team in early morning P.T., suitably embarrassing herself with each exercise. 

The unruly accounting itched at her more than anything else, felt like mites burrowing down into her psyche, gnawing at the only parts of her brain she really knew how to use. The hours of the day spent buried in the financing felt a lot like university, harked back to her usual days spent holed up in the library, buzzing off of numerous coffees and whatever freebie pastries the societies would try and entice naive students in with. 

Weighted clunks and taps resonated from her steady typing, eyes scanning from screen to paper as she straightened out another accounting statement, the first couple took a lot longer. Lily had a tendency to fixate on the detail, and this book contained many. More and more insight into their world, handhelds and airstrikes, who knew you could pay for such things? Who knew Captain Price even had the connections to do so? 

Obviously, everyone but her. 

The ledger felt like her bible, deciphering the scriptures would lead her through, tell her how to navigate the scathing desert of the 141. She’d repent, sooner or later, to whom she did not know. That felt irrelevant when she was knee-deep in holy water, wading toward the north star. A mirage no doubt, she’d wake soon, find herself stuck in sand. 

The symphony of work halted as another joined the choir, Lily craned her head back, swivelling quickly in her seat as she took in Ghost’s figure filling up her doorway. 

“Got no survival instincts.” Statement dry, Price’s apostles weren’t known for embellishment. He’d been lingering behind her for minutes. 

“God forbid I’m not looking over my shoulder every second.” Caustic comment flew from her as she swiftly returned to the screen, her rapid typing ranking up in hostility with each pointed jab of a key.  

He hovered, glowering down at her hunched position, suspicious of the resolution shown toward some stupid ledger. “Why’d you try stop the bleeding.” 

A question, it was unnatural for him, and so it was barked out as a statement. Rough and demanding, if he was a stray he’d have been put down long ago. Her fingers twitched over the keyboard, hesitant now, shoulders scrunched toward her neck, instinctively covering her jugular. 

“I don’t know.” She breathed out steadily “It just happened.” 

Her back twinged, his unyielding glare boring into her from behind, unwavering pools of darkness consuming each crumb of information she’d unwittingly give to him, every twitch and shift of her body analysed. His lack of response dragged the strain out for much longer than she cared to bear, tiptoes slowly angling her to move around in the chair to face him once more.  

His jaw ticks at her subtle mocking, molars grinding slowly as he chewed through what he’d say. She stares through him like the lieutenant before her was nothing more than numbers, columns on another page she’d itch to organise, decipher and file under ‘completed’. Ghost looks at her much the same, though his dentition of ‘completed’ varied vastly. 

“There’s a delivery for you out front.” 

“Hallelujah, finally, that must be my hanging shoelaces!” 

Clink!

Ruby red swirled around the glasses, liberal pours nearly spilling over as they toasted for the fourth time. Squinty-eyed and wine-flushed, Lily pooled over the carpet whilst Johnny and Kyle lolled haphazardly on her bed, all airy giggles and smiles. 

“Can’t believe Cap’in actually got you everything you asked for.” Another choked laugh leaves Johnny as he rolls onto his front, eyeing up the mess they’d all made unpacking her boxes and packages. Plastic wrapping covered every inch of the floor, kids on Christmas day, it was carnage. Amplified cries carried down the hallway despite her door being closed, over-excited cheers and shouts shaking from the room with each rip of cardboard. 

“I was half joking about most of what I wrote down!” She cackled, unabashed delight clear as the woman gripped her wine in one hand and a pile of new products in the other, practically vibrating as she couldn’t even hold it all, most of the items had been spread around the room, small heaps surrounding the boys as they continued to ogle. 

“What’s this one for?” Kyle held out a black tube, he’d let himself lean into the fever that Soap and Lilith seemed to share whilst unpacking everything. The Brit had to soothe himself at first, loudly proclaiming that he’d stick to watching, that he’d grab a beer soon and leave them to it. 

“That’s mascara, it makes your lashes longer and just, ten times nicer-“ She shuffled toward the bed and took it from him, twisting the wand out and showing him. 

“It’s no fair you didn’t even really want all this.” Soap whined, picking up the package the tube had come from and emptying the rest out onto the bed. “Share?” His pitched query came with a hopeful yet cheeky grin, obviously enamoured with the plethora of shiny new things. 

“I did really want this stuff, just never actually believed he’d get it, was just tryna’ piss John off.” Lily took a heavy swig from her glass, letting the chalky liquid coat her tongue before she swallowed harshly. “I actually feel sort of guilty…” 

Kyle surged forward, shaking his head adamantly, the hard swinging motion making him dizzy for a moment. “Think he’s the one feeling guilty.” 

He suppressed the urge to hiccup, the yen to protect his masculinity faded pretty soon after he’d been roped into the first glass of wine. Soon after that, it felt strangely uplifting to play along, sit cross-legged and paw over products. It helped that Soap was here, though the other seemed so natural, Kyle had always been slightly jealous of Johnny. He fit in everywhere and got on with everyone. Even now, laid across the bed with one of Lily’s new bras clasped over his pyjama shirt, beckoning her over so he could see the mascara. 

It seemed like some abstract rocky-horror slumber party. He was partially thankful just to be involved, used to watching Soap and Ghost saunter off to do whatever they do together, he’d often find himself trailing along after Price like a lost dog. 

Admittedly, despite how deeply selfish he knew it was, the soldier enjoyed visiting Lily in the hospital. A twisted sense of appreciation sprouted from her captivity, enclosed and wanting people on her side. He was happy to oblige, enjoyed the reciprocated companionship even if it was shrouded in exceptional circumstance.   

“Don’t gotta be guilty if you share huh hen, then it’s good for team morale.” Soap balanced his glass precariously on his chest once he flipped onto his back, scooting so his head hung off the bed as Lilith instructed him to close his eyes, both broke into another round of hilarity without a beat, barely able to keep still or serious for a second as she hovered over him with the mascara brandished like a weapon. They had all gotten through quite a bit of wine. Kyle knew better, knew better than to glare at his teammate for getting on with someone. 

But he was drunk, and determined to keep just this one friend. Just this once, he’d be first.

“Do me, do me-“ Kyle almost threw himself down onto the floor, fumbling down with a loud thud before he positioned himself, eyes screwed shut with determination. The flurry only spurred the two on further, howling with laughter as Kyle kept his eyes shut, inching closer and closer to Lilith, drunkenly shimming around. 

“Come here you silly sod.” She guided his head onto her lap, softly coaxing the man to relax his eyes enough so his lashes wouldn’t fold up, delicately drawing the wand through them. “Keep still.” Her voice dropped to a whisper in concentration, he lay smug, happy for the attention. 

“There, now open!” 

It felt slightly heavy on his waterline, almost akin to when their tactical paint clung to his eyes despite several face washes. Eyes flickered from Lily’s face peering down at him then at Soap’s. 

“I think it’s very pretty.” Johnny hummed, nodding down at him.

“You have lovely long lashes, boys always get the nicest lashes, it's unfair.” Lilith peered closer, admiring the way his seemed to curl with the product. Kyle felt strangely timid, the alcohol diluting his usual reactions, quick to open the capillaries in his cheeks to make way for a deep dusting of rouge. It forced him to shrink into her lap, frowning slightly at how vulnerable he felt, the emotion bubbling over so quickly it flustered him. Wanting for some kind of reprieve, the soldier jumped topics, drunken alarms of his disposition drowning out the sound of sense. 

“You’re gonna have a hard time packing all this up by tomorrow.” He drawled, sitting up from her lap and pointedly ignoring the wide-eyed look from Soap. Lily tensed, her body crookedly bent in the shape of a question mark as she cemented into position, eyes drawing forth the same query in which her body folded. The soft lull of music carried on in the background, cushioning the steely silence between the three. 

You and me, always forever. 

Clawing digits centred themselves around the milky column of her wrist, brown eyes doughy with a needy sense of amicable obligation, Kyle preened over the implications of him being so advantageous as to warn Lily of the change. A clear way to solidify his position. 

We can stay alone together.

“By tomorrow?” She lingered, his fingers pulsed around her in anticipation. Johnny faded into the background, his disgruntled whispers to quieten his comrade falling upon death ears. 

“Going away, all of us, chasing a pig back to its pen.” 

[ejzah]

A/N: Here’s my first post-series fic. Sigh.

***

Happy Ever After

Deeks stepped in through the patio door, a blast of cool air shocking compared to the heat outside. What had started out as a suggestion of drinks with Sam yesterday had turned into a full blown cookout with the inclusion of Anna and Callen.

Quietly padding through the house, he found Kensi curled up with one year old Caleb cradled against her chest. She’d brought him inside to escape the heat for a little while she nursed him. She looked up from her phone with a smile as he walked in.

“Hey, I thought you were manning the grill.”

“Hotdogs, hamburgers, and fowl all cooked,” Deeks replied, leaving over to kiss the top of Caleb’s head. Caleb looked out of the corner of his eye, distracted from his current task.

“I really wish you would quit calling the chicken that,” Kensi said with a roll of her eyes.

“So why aren’t you being the gracious and enigmatic host?”

Deeks shrugged. “I missed you guys.”

“Oh, well that’s a very good reason,” Kensi decided, kissing Caleb’s cheek. “You’re going to be too big for me to hold like that soon,” she to,d him, rearranging her shirt.

Caleb regarded her seriously for a second, the smiled, revealing to tiny white bottom teeth.

“How’s everybody doing out there?”

“Well, I heard Callen talking with Rosa about the best way to dissolve a body and I’m pretty sure Sam’s giving Sophia state secrets,” Deeks responded flippantly.

“Excellent,” Kensi said with a nod. “Can you take him back outside?” She stood, giving him a last squeeze.

“Yep. You need anything?”

“Just this.” Kensi beckoned to him, drawing him closer by the back of his neck, kissing him soundly. “Now I’m perfect.”

“Mm, me too,” Deeks murmured. Between them, Caleb made a smacking noise, looking at each of them expectantly. “And a kiss for baby too,” he added, kissing his round little cheek.

“Ok, I’ll be out in a few minutes. I gotta cut up some more fruit.”

When Deeks walked back out, things were much the same as he’d left them, though Anna was now standing with Rosa and Callen, and they seemed to be mapping out some kind of game in the grass.

Deeks wandered over a few yards where Sam sat on a law chair, Caleb’s twin, Sophia, balanced on his knee. “Uncle Sam,” Sam coached her slowly, emphasizing each sound.

“Dee,” she said.

“That was a good try, but not quite. Watch my mouth. Ssssam.”

Sophia screwed up her little face. “Deeeee!”

“We’re still kind of working on the basics,” Deeks informed Sam with a smile. “Like mom, dad, up. We’re very good at saying ‘no’.”

“No!” Sophia and Caleb shouted together right on cue, reaching for each other.

Deeks set Caleb on his feet, letting the little boy hold onto his index fingers as he toddled forward to his sister. Sam set her on the ground with a reluctant sigh.

“You know, I swear the only reason you come around anymore is for the babies,” Deeks teased him.

“So what if I do? Nothing like a baby’s laugh,” Sam said without any embarrassment.

“You got that right, brother.” They watched the twins “talk” to each other in a combination of almost words and incomprehensible jargon. Apparently it made perfect sense to them though.

“The one you should be questioning is Mr. I-Don’t-Know-If-I-Want-Kids over there,” Sam told him, pointing across the yard. “Every time I come here, he manages to find some excuse to tag along.”

“Hey, we’re happy to have you guys. Makes up for not seeing you every day at work,” Deeks said.

Picking Caleb up under his armpits, Deeks swung him around to face him, then tossed him a few feet in the air. Caleb squealed, face delighted as he safely landed back in Deeks’ hands.

“Mo!” he shouted, clapping his hands together. Grinning, Deeks obliged. Sophia pulled herself up using Sam’s leg as leverage, clinging with one hand as she reached towards Deeks with the other, and chanted,

“Da! Da! Da!”

“Of course I wouldn’t forget my baby girl,” Deeks crooned, giving her a couple turns.

“Which is why you’re going to be in so much trouble when she gets older,” Kensi observed, approaching them with a partitioned plate full of strawberries, watermelon, and blueberries.

“Heh, tell me about it,” Sam chuckled.

“Bebe?” Sophia requested, pointing to the plate and Kensi handed a halved strawberry to her. Caleb chose “meme” (watermelon).

Sam winced as a sticky had grabbed onto his clean shorts.

“Yeah, you’re probably going to wanna keep your distance until these guys are done and we have a chance to hose ‘Em down,” Deeks suggested wisely.

“Oh, Uncle Sammie wouldn’t mind a little stickiness for his favorite little niece and nephew, would he?” Kensi asked innocently.

“First of all, it’s Uncle Sam and they’re my only little nephew and niece at the moment. And I’ll change diapers and burp them, but I draw the line at sticky and gooey,” he disagreed. “But I bet their Uncle Grisha would feel differently.”

“Ok, but last chance to smell like strawberries and watermelon for the rest of the day. No takers? Fine.” Letting Kensi take Caleb, he hefted Sophia onto his hip, ruffling her golden brown curls. “There’s more beer in the white cooler if you want it.”

Stepping into the grass, they made their way over to Sam, Callen, and Rosa.

“You guys give up on the game?” Deeks asked.

“Callen wanted to play volleyball, but Rosa and I convinced him it was too hot,” she explained, nodding hopefully at Sophia. Kensi handed her over with a good-natured smile.

“And also really difficult without a net.”

“So why’s Sam pouting?” Callen asked.

“He was trying to get the kids to say his name.” Deeks pulled a face. “Sophia keeps calling him “Dee” for some reason.”

Callen snorted, face breaking into a delighted grin. “Really?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Uh, I’ve been teaching them to call him Mr. T,” he said, barely containing his amusement.

“Dee!” Caleb shouted excitedly while Sophia pointed and waved at Sam.

“Oh no, Callen, you didn’t,” Kensi said, covering her mouth. Rosa just laughed outright.

“That is amazing,” Deeks chuckled.

“I honestly didn’t think they’d pick it up that quick.”

“Callen, that’s terrible,” Anna admonished him. “Funny, but really, really terrible.”

“Hey, this stay between us for now,” Callen said, looking between them.

“Of course,” Kensi agreed.

“Or, at least until the twins learn to pronounce ‘t’,” Deeks amended.

“And Mister,” Rosa added under her breath.

***

A/N: Yes, I’m sticking with twins and their names are officially Caleb and Sophia. Also, they’re very fresh one year olds, which is why their words still sound a more baby like.