#it's just that she does it with logic and he does it with emotion

[aihoshiino]

That Ai and Miyako post made me remember how back when chp 154 drop, some people were claiming that hikaai devalued Ai’s bond with her kids. Like????? Insane line of thinking.

I'm actually sort of in two minds. I defo don't agree that Ai's relationship with Hikaru devalues the one she has with the twins because. well, they're very different relationships above and beyond anything else. But I do think that this sounds like maybe a poor articulation of a critique that I do otherwise agree with - that the specific way Ai talks about her feelings for Kamiki in 154 is inconsistent with the Ai of volume 1 and, if taken at face value, does weaken what is otherwise an extremely efficient self-contained arc in relation to her feelings about the twins and how that guides her to her cathartic confession of love with her final words.

Akasaka falls into this bad habit in the latter half of OnK of like… I guess the most concise way to sum it up would be flanderization but of a relationship dynamic as opposed to a single character (tho I guess you could argue it's flanderization of both characters in relation to their dynamic, but that's picking nits). I've talked about this before in relation to Gorou and Sarina but tbh you can kind of see it all over late stage OnK when you know to start looking for it - where Aka tries to sell the emotional depth of a relationship by massively roiding up the intensity of it to near soap opera levels and rather than making it more interesting, it just ends up flattening out what already WAS interesting because the nuance gets lost in all the noise. GRSR are the worst victims of this mostly because the series relies SO heavily on getting you invested in that relationship that a lot of its beats flop all the harder if you aren't but HikaAi get some of it too.

Some of this comes down to the fact that we just don't really know a ton about how the HikaAi relationship really played out. I've talked about this in more detail before but the long and the short of it is that the 154 DVD is basically the one and only time we get Ai's actual perspective on the relationship and a lot of the stuff she says here is just, like… weirdly overly effusive in ways that don't one hundred percent line up with how she expresses herself in volume 1. And to an extent I give Akasaka a pass on that because he obvs didn't have the exact details of the HikaAi dynamic in mind when writing volume 1. But this does really feel like him falling into that trap of roiding up an emotional beat to the point where the nuance is lost. The DVDs are already such an awkward plot point bc they're so transparently utilitarian and there's never really a good in-story justification for Ai choosing to make them, but it especially doesn't help that the way she talks on the DVD is so obviously written to be the most hurtful and impactful thing possible to Hikaru.

And I think for the most part it does broadly work - the main issue is that depending on how you read some of what she says, it sort of retroactively centers Hikaru in her decisionmaking regarding the twins in a way that I think does kind of cheapen her immediate connection to the twins and her decision to selfishly pursue her own happiness if you take it at face value. It's not necessarily impossible to thread the emotional logic if you make the attempt but I dislike that I have to in the first place and I wish we'd gotten more insight into what caused the shift in her mindset between when the DVDs were made and when she called Hikaru.

The actual real problem is like. Literally this one part:

It would be one thing if this was being voiced as a genuine question that Ai was struggling with but her big happy smile and the way she immediately undermines it a moment later makes it clear this is a rhetorical question and that she is essentially saying without directly saying that she did love Kamiki and she knows it.

And like... that makes no sense, right??

Ai being able to so confidently and assuredly say that her "I can't love you" to Hikaru was a lie speaks to a level of understanding and security in her feelings that does not at all line up with the Ai of volume 1. The whole point of her conflict there - hell, of Ai's arc is general - is that Ai has been so starved of genuine human connection that she doesn't even recognise feelings of love in herself even as she experiences them. Her emotional palette has been so forcibly muted that she's effectively gone colourblind.

That's why she so scared of expressing her love to Aqua and Ruby - she literally has no idea what it feels like because she has no frame of reference. She assumes that it would be a lie if she said it specifically because she's never been able to speak a truthful "I love you" before.

So it's not that Ai having loved Hikaru undermines her love for the twins or anything - it's that Ai being so certain and at ease with the fact that she did, at this point in time. I do think that ultimately undermines vol1's conclusion for her purely because it's inconsistent and there's no attempt in the story to sew these inconsistencies up. Like I said, it feels like a symptom of Akasaka wanting to produce the maximally emotionally effective beat and either not realising or not caring that it didn't make sense for the arc he was writing.

To be clear, I do still love 154! It's still one of my favourite chapters in the series and I think it's overall very effective and definitely a better conclusion to the revenge & Hikaru as the antagonist than wtfever Aka decided to do with 160 onwards. It just has its issues like basically everything else in this manga past a point.

[anghraine]

I got my doctor's appointment and prescriptions (the doctor decided the best solution to my asthma misery was to nuke it from orbit with steroids lmao) and also wrote some more of the femslash K/S AU for WIP Wednesday!

This section is set quite late in the fic, a few months after the five-year mission, and more than usually spoilery (though no great surprises for K/S fans), so the excerpt and more detailed context are below the cut. However, this phase of the story is essentially a follow-up to the cut lines from "The City on the Edge of Forever" about Kirk recuperating on Vulcan.

Basically, after the string of horrors Jess goes through in S3 and after, S'paak invites her to take her mandatory leave on Vulcan and, now on better terms with her parents, asks Sarek and Amanda to host them. She explains her logic: "leave" for a Starfleet officer as extremely competent and dedicated as Captain Kirk is likely to be little more than nominal if she's easily accessible on Earth (especially if she's in San Francisco itself), and thus Earth seems ill-suited to recuperation from the strains of the mission, all the more as Captain Kirk is prone to handling the emotional excesses of those around her. On the other hand, if their superiors have to go through Sarek to trouble Kirk, disruptions seem less probable.

Amanda is like, "oh sweetie we'd love to have you and your best friend with us for—several months, you said? That would be wonderful! It's been so long! And yes, I'm sure you'll both find it so much more restful at home than back on Earth. And your father does owe Captain Kirk his life...what's her favorite food?" and Sarek's like "no intelligent being owes their life to another and Kirk did no more than her duty, but S'paak's rationales are sound, and the captain has a reputation for honor and reason; if her temperament inclines her to find greater peace and sanctuary in Shi'Kahr than San Francisco, logic suggests she will make a suitable guest."

And a couple months into the recuperation on Vulcan with the silver birds etc, this happens:

-

Throughout the nearly forty years of her daughter’s life, Amanda had almost never heard S’paak raise her voice. She had been a quiet baby, and took readily to Vulcan disciplines in early childhood. And neither Amanda nor Sarek had witnessed her first pon farr three years earlier.

So when Amanda passed Sarek’s study, where she knew he and S’paak were meeting with several elders for their own purposes, she started violently enough to just about dislodge her hair pins when she heard S’paak shouting.

“No! I do not accept—I won’t let you take—”

Regaining some semblance of composure, Amanda hesitated outside the door, catching the sounds of what sounded unmistakably like a physical struggle. The others within the study didn’t cry out, didn’t say anything audible enough to reach Amanda’s ears, but she would not expect them to; despite S’paak’s youth and strength, Amanda couldn’t imagine her capable of overpowering four other Vulcans. But she also couldn’t imagine what would have angered S’paak to such a degree that she would lose all command of herself in such company. It must be a misunderstanding, somehow.

Amanda certainly had not been invited to whatever Vulcan conclave was occurring within the study, nor received any explanation of its purpose. In general, she preferred not to disrupt Vulcan matters or to interfere in Sarek’s and S’paak’s relationship, however strong or disastrously estranged it might be at any given time. But after a few seconds’ consideration, she decided that she couldn’t leave S’paak there, alone with Sarek and the elders and openly upset, without knowing what could have possibly caused it. 

She reached a hand towards the door—but before she could push it forwards, Sarek himself opened it from the other side, his figure blocking Amanda’s attempts to see S’paak. He closed the door behind him before she could peer around him. His face showed no more emotion than usual, but Amanda thought she detected lines of physical weariness.

“Sarek, what’s wrong?” she demanded. “Is S’paak—”

“Plak tow,” he said succinctly, glancing down the hall, as if searching for some change to its usual state. Nothing had changed, not outside the study, not even the placement of the ancient stone vases.

Amanda’s eyes widened. “Plak tow? But pon farr is only every seven years, isn’t it? It’s only been three—”

He just looked at her.

“I thought there’d be more time,” Amanda said, flushing. “Time enough to arrange a different betrothal, at the least. She’ll still die without a bond mate?”

Her voice trembled, but she didn’t cry, which she supposed was an achievement of sorts. Forty years on Vulcan at war with every instinct in her red-blooded veins.

“Yes,” he said. “She was already showing traces of the irrationality that mark the early plak tow, and we had hoped that assuring her of an arrangement to save her life would calm her. The opposite occurred. She turned angry and violent.”

“At the idea of being bonded again?” Amanda said, puzzled. “But she has to!”

“Indeed,” he said, his voice even more neutral than usual. He glanced around again. “Where is Captain Kirk?”

“What?” She could hear S’paak’s voice rise sharply again, though not the words. “What does that—is S’paak safe?”

Sarek raised an eyebrow, looking particularly intractable. He’d always had a remarkable ability to convey an impression of fraying patience without enduring the shame of actually losing his composure. Amanda sighed and relented.

“I’d imagine Jessica is in her room,” she said. “We talked a few hours ago. She’d had a bad migraine and I gave her some human medication for it so she could try to get some sleep. Should I keep her away when she wakes up? She might make the situation more difficult—she cares for S’paak, of course, but…”

Sarek, without saying anything or moving more than a few facial muscles, seemed satisfied.

“No,” he said. “Amanda, go wake her now and bring her here to us. I must remain with Elder Stavak to ensure appropriate arrangements are made.”

Amanda blinked.

“Kirk is the person most familiar with S’paak, and thus more likely to successfully communicate with her in her current state,” he added, which was more explanation than she had expected, if still rather puzzling. After an almost absent-minded ozh’esta, he turned back to the study, then glanced over his shoulder. “Hurry, but be discreet. S’paak may not be capable of shame in this moment, but she will register it later.”

[balkanlila]

I can recite this scene.

[transmasc-wizard]

wait, I wanna hear more about Rosalind's magical exhaustion please!! how does magic over-use work in this world? is it the same for everyone? does it depend on what type of magic you're doing? what zany shit did Rosalind see/say when delirious?

@memento-morri-writes

helloooo hi i am glad to ramble

so, in Arthur WIP, your capacity to do magic is coded in your bone marrow, and you move magic through your blood to cast it. as magic is only somewhat tangible, it moves through/across your blood, bones, muscles, and organs with ease. This means when you're casting something, you are pushing magic around and through the tissues in your body.

done extensively, This Is Bad For You. it causes both causes small tears in the tissues and generally lets some magic get caught and fester in places. the most common first sign of magical overuse is bleeding under and around your fingernails, because both the magic and your body want those spells to be out of you as fast as possible, and they tear at that delicate skin in the process. after that, it becomes more personalized; a lot of people start bruising. some start crying automatically. usually the effects start in the hands, the heart, and/or the head, and expand out there. dizziness, confusion, and fatigue are common early effects as well. if you keep pushing, the caught magic becomes more of a problem---it can grow into volatile growths that explode on impact, fuck your temperature regulation and plunge you into heat or cold, open long lacerations on your skin, etc. type of magic influences this; for example, you're significantly more likely to get internal frostbite if you're doing magic with the cold, or for wounds to open on your body if you're magically slashing at another person. sometimes the magic even grows into viruses or fungi that stay long term.

for Rosalind, she experiences: fingernail bleeding, bleeding from her eyes, incredibly dry throat, dizziness, hallucinations, a migraine, shaking, ticcing, bruising along her wrists and hands, small papercut-sized wounds all across her arms, general pain in several internal organs as magic is moving across them, and HEAVY fatigue. it's her first time using combat magic in a real high stakes scenario, and she vastly overdoes it. she hears her mother's voice, worried and disappointed, and her father's voice, incredibly scared. she also sees Arthur as his father, who'd like, Just kidnapped her. so that's not very fun. she goes on a bit of a ramble to him about how "his son" is so much better than him, and also reveals she's scared of Orion but doesn't want to be, and she has to be magically put to sleep and carried out. she ends up sleeping for a good twelve hours. when she wakes up, Arthur gives her Alexei's old ring, which has the power to act as a sort of safety harness that helps keep magic use in check that he'd previously kept worn around his neck at all times for Grief Reasons. He tells her it's important, and not to lose it, but that he hopes it keeps her safe, and that's a big moment in their relationship development.

ty for the ask :3

[padfootastic]

please say more about jilypad + diverging parenting styles... perhaps even a possible scenario >:) i imagine harry has very cunning tactics for using this to his advantage

helloooooo <3 thank u for this ask bc i love talking about these three and harry. i went looking thru the archives to find this post; my first foray into this side, and really, i’ve never looked back after that.

so i’ve talked ab this a bit before but i fully think that james was a very overprotective ‘mother hen’ type parent. i tend to read his behaviour in lily’s bday letter to sirius as being scared of his child on a broomstick and i fully, fully think he’ll never be able to let go of that as harry grows up. he’ll be anxious and suspicious and paranoid, and his first instant will always be to wrap harry up in cotton wool and hide him away. (i low-key connect this to his childhood as well; going from being spoiled and sheltered to dropped in the middle of a war, black & white thinking, living in extremes etc etc makes it v hard for him to be Normal about his child. as he shouldn’t be, really, but yeah) that’s why he thrives during the initial years; he never minds the hard parts of being a new parent, loves it in fact, and it makes it better that he can keep harry close to him at all times w/o coming off as a helicopter parent (not that the notion bothers him ofc).

it’s good, then, that he has two partners to even the scales, no? i think lily was the most…balanced out of the three. she had a relatively normal childhood, grew up in a working class family/neighbourhood and had to deal w adversity from a young age so she’s developed a nice, thick skin. she also has a sibling with whom she has a v rocky relationship so she knows that kids are, ykno, a bit unhinged. and a little bit of hardship is not a problem. i hc her as needing time to get used to parenthood, unlike james who stepped into it natural as breathing, or even sirius who loved harry on much on first sight that it made up for everything else. ofc lily loved her son, but it didn’t come w the same blinding intensity of her partners and made her feel really shitty in the beginning. but, i think she’d shine during his teen years actually, because she’s not overbearing or intense and becomes the quiet, calm strength that a hormonal, spotty teen boy would probably need.

and sirius <3 our poor baby falls in love with harry, perhaps even more quickly than james, with such startling speed that it shakes his entire foundation. he doesn’t regret it but he’s constantly discombobulated. i also imagine that…it takes him longer to settle into the role of parent, esp bc he’s not biologically one ykno? not like it matters to anyone, ofc, but it takes him a long time to truly accept his authority and place, to believe that he has just as much right as j&l to be there, to parent harry. this has the consequence of him always being more indulgent than the other two; after all, he considered himself a godfather before a parent and a lot of that thinking stayed. he lets harry get away with stuff the others might not (and the little mf figures this out later); some of it also comes from sirius seeing so much shit, and facing so much shit himself, that he rationalises a lot of stuff as ‘well, this isn’t the worst it can be, so what’s the harm’ (because his life has been such a roller coaster that he’s forgotten that not everyone’s like that, if that makes sense?)

its obviously not this clear cut but i imagine harry looks at it like this: if he needs unconditional love, he goes to james; rationality and logic, lily; acceptance and calm, sirius. when someone has to be beat up for hurting harry, james steps in. if he needs help burying a body, it’s sirius. dealing with some asshole boss/teacher/classmate’s mother who’s making harry’s life hell? lily. i can keep going but,,,u get the idea, right? this makes sense, i hope lol

i actually think harry’s first birthday is a great example. sirius pushes the boundaries by gifting lil harry a broom; james loses his mind running after him; lily places an industrial sticking charm on harry’s butt, leans back with a glass of wine, and enjoys the show. even as he grows up, lily and james act as the disciplinarian, and sirius is the emotional outlet. all of them fill in each other’s cracks so well, and it’s only when harry grows up that he realises how effortlessly they worked off each other to parent him.

also oh man o man. harry being cunning is,,,,,see, i’ve not considered it this far but it makes perfect sense. i think canon harry actually had so much manipulative energy and it’s often overlooked for his goofier traits but! this is the same dude who used his dead parents to trick slughorn into revealing sensitive info! imagine if that could be channelled into his jilypad interactions 😈

it’s like, it takes him a bit, because his three parents r so smooth, but once he realises that all of them have certain weak spots, he does NOT hesitate to exploit them. (it has the unintended consequence of truly strengthening the jilypad relationship into an unbreakable one bc one thing their kid taught them is to have ironclad communication going at all times so nothing they’ve said, or not said, is used against them). so like, he knows if he wants to sneak out to a party, it has to be sirius and in a specific way—‘i’ll be totally safe, papa, plus i really wanna see what it’s like and idk when it’ll get a chance to again’. if he widens his eyes to pitiful levels, pouts a little, and blinks faster than usual, then james is putty in his arms as long as he’s separated from the other two. divide and conquer becomes the main tool in harry’s arsenal, actually. lily’s the toughest nut to crack, purely bc she doesn’t run on emotions or irreverence, but harry soon learns that if he comes up with a solid, logical case that proves his argument has unbiased merit then he has a good chance of getting her to say yes. (this is good, bc u can arrange words in the correct order, but u can’t always control emotions)

so overall yeah, you’d think one kid + 3 parents would be an easy bet, but harry keeps them on their toes all the fkn time.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Vulcan Dumb & Dumber

[doughnuts-5ever]

if we talking about pitt x star trek aos, then i raise you Mel=Vulcan/mayybe Spock, Langdon=Kirk (which was noted by several people in fandom already), Garcia=Bones

If we're specifically talking aos, hear me out...

(young) Robbie as Kirk

Langdon as Scotty

Mel as Chekov

Heather as Bones

Dana as Uhura

McKay as Sulu

and ✋STAY WITH ME✋

Mohan as Spock

[sanctuairee]

do you think that after yuuji kills or exorcises (?) sukuna he will become the next "god" of the jujutsu world like gojo did at the age of 16-17 and how his life will never be the same again. ik the manga will probably end after sukuna is defeated but i cant stop thinking about this

i don't know if that's what i think would happen even though it's very plausible...yuuji was very much planned. his birth, the circumstances surrounding him, his path...i think he might have a reputation for both that and for the sukuna thing if it happens but he would probably catch himself from going down the same path. or megumi would do it for him

[fenrisisms]

just remembered i made this blog to post about my ocs. anyway the funniest things about the twins is that the whole lying about bryant being a grey warden thing is expressly the first argument ending trump card he's ever had in his 40+ years of life

[berrryparfait]

❝ you're sleeping on the couch tonight. ❞ ᶻ 𝗓 𐰁

♥︎ featuring: sylus, zayne, rafayel, xavier, caleb x fem!reader

— ༉‧₊ᐟ premise: how he reacts to you telling him to sleep on the couch after an argument. 「but the couch is so hard...」

— ༉‧₊ᐟ tags/cws: fluff and slight angst, yall got into a petty argument earlier that day and he's worried it's spiraled into something serious, you're just being sassy tho (and maybe a little emotional), innuendo

— ♫₊ᐟ soundtrack: interlude: i'm not angry anymore – paramore

✧ a/n: inspired by @/erikadayshawn's jjk tiktok (¯ ³¯)♡ i seriously love her so much she's so damn good (ﾉД`)

You’re still butthurt about it, and you’re going to make sure he knows it. Sure, it was a petty argument and it happened hours ago, but you refuse to be the one making amends this time. If he’s so certain you were in the wrong, he can sleep outside for all you care!

Maybe you’re being a little toxic by avoiding communication, but you’ve been in your feelings all day while he was out and about doing god knows what (***he was working)—so the space next to you on the bed is currently occupied by your Jellycat.

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight,” you huff, refusing to turn around as you hear the bedsheets stir.

You can’t see him, but you just know he’s giving you that same haha-you’re-hilarious look you’ve practically memorized by now. He’s standing at the side of the bed, one hand on his hip and an eyebrow raised at your curled-up form.

“This is my bed, sweetie.” He sounds amused, yet something tells you he feels as if you’re being ridiculous. Nevertheless, that velvety, husky voice of his nearly has you caving.

“I don’t care. I want to sleep alone tonight.”

He sighs, long and exaggerated. Does he pity you? Or is he annoyed at you? “You’re upset about our quarrel. It’s best we settle it now rather than bottle it up and let it fester.”

His maturity and composure jabs at your pride—you’ve never been one to act reasonably in the face of embarrassment. “...You just want to sleep on the bed.”

When you turn to look at him, he’s staring at you with an asshole smirk on his face. His tone is placating when he responds, “The couch is hard, Kitten. And besides, I forgive you.”

FORGIVE YOU?! Oh, he’ll be forgiving you all right— You smack him flaccidly on the arm and he pulls away with a chuckle, flashing that dashing smile of his. Canines.

“Go back to sleep. You can deal with me later.” He crawls under the blanket with nothing but a pair of pajama pants on, smelling of soap and fresh flowers.

You cave. You’re no longer angry, but exhausted—and so relieved he’s here. How your tender heart aches for his company, even when you’re mad at him… Soft sniffles emerge from your side of the bed, and he reaches for you with warm, gentle hands.

“Aww… C’mere, sweetie…” He wraps his arms around your waist and you relax into his touch, his chest against your back comforting—grounding. “I’m sorry about earlier. How about I take you to that French restaurant for dinner tomorrow night? Would you like that?”

“...Whatever,” you mumble as his fingers wander beneath the waistband of your shorts.

He just stands there in silence, taken aback. “...Is there something you want to talk about?” he asks, ever the logical, problem-solving boy from your childhood.

“No.”

A few beats pass before he mutters, “...Alright then. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

You close your eyes and force yourself to fall back asleep as you listen to his footsteps in the living room, swallowing the guilt rising in your throat. He settles onto the wide couch and rests his head on one of the stiff decorative pillows, utterly spent from a crushing day at the hospital.

Am I overreacting? He must be drained as hell… Am I a shitty girlfriend? Doubts and worries swarm your mind as you toss and turn on the half-empty king bed, your heart squeezing at the thought of him having to spend the night alone out there. What if he catches a cold? What if he starts hating me? What if he gets eaten by a skin-walker?

You shove your fuzzy bedroom slippers on and trudge into the living room, trying your best to maintain your nettled expression. He opens his eyes at the sound of you stomping across the carpeted floor and stares at you, speechless.

“Aren’t you gonna try to make amends with me?! You really don’t want to sleep in the bed?!”

He fumbles for words, pushing himself up with his elbows. “Y-You said you didn’t want to talk—”

“Well I didn’t mean it!” you squeal, holding back tears.

He senses that your emotions are all jumbled up right now, and gets up on his feet to put his arms around you. “Okay. Okay, let’s talk about it,” he says, calm and soothing. His hand massages the back of your head as you wail into his t-shirt. “Shh… It’s all right. I’m here.”

You look up at him with red eyes and pouty lips, too caught up in his embrace to be riled up anymore. “I was upset about our fight in the morning…”

He presses a kiss to your forehead and gently wipes the tears from your cheeks. “I’m sorry for what I said, baby. Will you forgive me?”

You’ve been waiting all day to say “yes”.

“Oh, hell nah—”

“Too bad, Raf! That’s what you get for pissing me off,” you spit, glaring daggers at him as he physically exhibits the five stages of grief.

“But-But the couch is so pokey and hard and—” He flails his arms around in protest, remembering the backache he had to deal with for a week after taking a nap on the couch.

You won’t be hearing any of it. Serves him right. “You should’ve thought of that earlier before saying my makeup looked weird!”

“But it did! Your contour was asymmetrical and your lips were way too overlined!”

Raw indignation rivalling the power of the sun bubbles in your gut, waiting for a chance to explode. How dare he pretend he knows anything about makeup?! “GET. OUT.”

He grumbles like a child before storming out of the bedroom and flopping onto the couch, both of you throwing silent tantrums while listening to your stomachs churn. Fuck. I could really use some Wingstop right now.

Half an hour passes before your phone dings. Notification from Rafayel. You’ve calmed down by now, so you begrudgingly open his message.

Wait a minute, is he...? Oh my god, he totally is. You've known him long enough to tell when he's down for sexy time.

You waltz into the living room with your head held high and say, "C'mon. We're going to get Wingstop."

The way the hope in his eyes disappears nearly has you cracking up. "I hate you," he sneers.

"I love you too."

He pauses, unsure of what to say. “...Is this about earlier?”

You don’t respond.

He climbs onto the bed anyway and gets under the covers with you, pulling you close and pressing his face into your hair. “Please don’t be mad at me. I can’t go to bed with you mad at me,” he whispers, fear lacing his words.

Though your heart squeezes, you lock in and wriggle out of his embrace, knowing exactly how much it’ll sting. It’s his fault for constantly forgetting to let you know when he’ll be working overtime. Some nights, you sit on the couch and blankly stare at the wall, worry eating you alive from the inside.

“Please, talk to me—”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I need some space tonight.”

You can tell he’s holding back tears when he agrees to leave you alone, sliding off the mattress like a heavy weight sinking from a rock underwater. “...I’ll be outside if you need anything.”

Am I too hard on him? You’re angry at him for stressing you out—and you wonder if he even realizes that you’re only stressed for his own good. Still, how can anyone stay mad at him? He’s the purest, kindest, most sincere person you know. Forcing him to sleep on the couch feels like kicking a small puppy.

Quietly, you creep into the living room, where he’s curled up on the couch with his eyes closed. I’m too hard on him.

You crawl into the space between him and the backrest, his arms immediately reacting to your presence like a bug caught in a Venus flytrap. His eyes flutter open, and his grip tightens around your midriff. “I’m sorry… I’ll call you in advance next time. I promise…”

He must’ve had a long day at work, because he sounds utterly exhausted. Broken. “Baby… You can talk to me—about work, about anything.”

“I know. I’m just glad you’re here, even if I haven’t been,” he says, his thumb tracing slow circles on the bare skin of your torso. “I want you to know you’re always on my mind—no matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing. You’re the reason I come home at all.”

“Don’t be like that, Pips. Let’s talk about it.” He rests a hand on your hip, warmth seeping through the blanket.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

He scoffs, though his voice is void of hostility. “Clearly. Listen, I don’t want this to turn into something serious, okay?”

When you don’t respond, a crease forms between his brows. Is it too late? Have you already started to see him in a different light? Nausea churns in his stomach as he slowly inches away from the bed, afraid to even make a sound.

His thoughts spiral like a swarm of moths in his head, dark and foreboding. She’s better off without me…at least for now.

You doze off a few minutes later, when all of a sudden, you hear the front door shut. Panicked, you jolt upright and slip on your slippers, fearing the worst. Oh my god. Oh my god—

Still in your pajamas, you run out of your apartment and down the stairwell, praying he’s just round the corner— 

“Pips?”

You still, the icy cage around your heart beginning to thaw at the sight of him. He’s standing in the middle of the pavement, his breath fogging in the cold air.

Tears well in your eyes as you scream, “Where are you going?!”

“...To the convenience store? I was going to get you some Buldak—” You cut him off by seizing him in your arms, relief flooding you like a river bursting through a broken dam. He chuckles, wrapping you in his jacket and resting his chin on top of your head. “I’d never leave you, Pipsqueak. You should know that by now.”

“I-I don’t want Buldak. Let’s just go back inside,” you say between sniffles, clutching his shirt with such force it might tear.

“...Can I sleep on the bed now?”

— ⋆˙⟡ ©berrryparfait

《 please do not copy / plagiarize / translate my works or publish them on any other platforms. 》

[odoraful]

𝐈 𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐉𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐎𝐔𝐒

even in their relationship with you, they still have their moments of jealousy every now and again

⟡ content: zayne/sylus/xavier/rafayel x gn!reader; established relationship; luke & kieran appearance in sylus’ scene; new receptionist in zayne's scene; andrew appearance in xavier's scene; a little silly and a lot fluffy; 0.8–1k words per scene

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ZAYNE ⟡

Every situation requires an assessment to determine the most logical course of action. Zayne embodied this statement in his work, and even in parts of his relationship with you. One such part was when it came to jealousy. In all his assessments, 99% of the time, there was no threat, and, therefore, no intervention required. In any case, if a guy were to approach you in such a way, he trusted you entirely as well to not entertain him. However, as he opened his office door to call you from the waiting room, he was confronted by that 1%.

The new receptionist hired to work alongside Yvonne was young, charming, and far too friendly. Especially towards you. You stopped by quite regularly. Sometimes for your scheduled check-in appointments, and oftentimes to simply visit Zayne during his downtime. That was enough for the young man to recognise you, his energy ignited by your presence.

Zayne could only see your side profile as you stood by the receptionist desk, engaged in a conversation with the young man. You appeared to be all smiles with him today. Whatever story he was telling seemed to be so thrilling. Zayne’s face remained calm, aside from the twitch of his jaw when he clenched his teeth. If anybody had been watching, they would have likely jumped at such a sign of vexation by the cardiac surgeon.

Until that point, he thought he had known what jealousy was. He had read it in books and seen it in TV shows, all of which portrayed jealousy leading to several outbursts and stand-offs. However, as he felt something rising from the pit of his stomach and burning in his chest, he understood that the purest kind of it now flared inside him. It was a dangerous emotion that clouded his mind and, before he knew it, his feet had carried him right to your side.

Mr. Chatterbox regarded Zayne with disbelief at his approach, standing up to properly greet him.

“Doc! What a rare sight seeing you personally greet a patient at the desk.”

Zayne paid only a cursory glance and the slightest nod of acknowledgement to him before his attention was narrowed on you.

“If you’d like to come in now, Y/N,” Zayne said, his voice smooth and warm.

You nodded. “Of course.”

As you walked, he placed his hand at the small of your back, pulling you closer to him by just a fraction. He turned his head to the side, enough so the young man could see his sharp eyes. Zayne wasn’t one for outbursts, so he hoped this calculated display was enough of a warning.

Watching Dr. Zayne disappear with you into his office, the receptionist muttered to himself, “Why does it feel chillier in here than before?”

Yvonne, a bystander to everything that just occurred, quietly approached her freshly hired colleague from behind. She delt a swift smack on his head with the edge of her palm. He yelped out in exaggerated pain, rubbing at the spot as if she had just given him a bruise.

“Could you be anymore oblivious…” she sighed, shaking her head. Her gaze then turned fiery as she began to scold, “And how many times have I told you to stop yammering around patients!?”

At the sound of Yvonne’s voice, he immediately redirected his efforts. Not even addressing his colleague’s prior criticism, he clasped his hands together.

“Miss Yvonne! How are you doing on this lovely–”

“Fax this, please,” she interrupted, holding a referral letter up directly to his face.

He gave a mock shiver, taking the paper from Yvonne’s hand. “So cold in this division.”

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“It seemed like you were making good conversation with our new hire,” Zayne commented, closing the door behind him.

You breathed a laugh. “He’s quite chatty. I guess it’s good to have someone so energetic working at the desk.”

That sensation within Zayne turned molten, though, you couldn’t have known with the coolness of his palm. What would be his intervention here? Maybe he needed to have a stern conversation with the young man, or perhaps he had to be more obvious in his affections towards you. He could never match the energy the receptionist had, so it would be impossible to achieve such a feat.

In his momentary stewing, you let out an uncertain hum.

“To be honest, he kept talking about himself... it was a little overwhelming,” you confessed sheepishly, rubbing the back of your neck with your hand. “I couldn’t be impolite to him, so I just smiled and nodded at whatever he said!”

Instantly, Zayne’s mind cleared. His jealousies dwindled into nothing more than ashes. A part of him even felt silly at how intense he was feeling just a few seconds ago.

Unexpectedly, he rested his head on your shoulder with a sigh. Your eyes widened with confusion before you chuckled.

“Isn’t this a bit unprofessional, doctor?” you teased.

“Feel free to file a complaint to the hospital’s human resource division,” he retorted, not missing a beat.

Your mirth readily turned into concern at the affectionate display.

“But seriously, Zayne, is everything okay?” you asked, poking at his cheek.

Zayne lifted his head. He seemed to be, surprisingly, relieved. Though, you couldn’t figure out what exactly he would be relieved about.

“Yes, everything is perfect now.”

SYLUS ⟡

There was nothing that a deathly glare or a good shove couldn’t do to resolve Sylus’ jealousy. Warding off any unsuspecting parties was his speciality, especially if it involved them getting too close to you. However, the leader of Onychinus was thrown for a loop when his very own henchmen were sparking these feelings.

“You are… going out with Y/N today?” Sylus spoke slowly, as if sounding out syllables to a baby. “Is what I’m hearing correct, Luke?”

Kieran not-so-subtly kicked Luke in the shin. Luke stifled a groan. Rather than be on their way to Linkon (and to you), they were here being confronted by the boss. It was an unfortunate slip-up from Luke as they were about to leave, which caused Sylus to sternly halt their exit.

“Yes, boss.” Luke replied, trying to stand up straighter with only one good shin.

“And for what reason exactly?” Sylus asked.

Luke resignedly sighed.

“They wanted someone to–”

“Help clean their apartment!” Kieran quickly finished.

He turned and gave a pointed glare to his twin brother. You better follow along, it seemed to threaten.

Luke began nodding profusely, “Yep! Gosh, boss, you wouldn’t even believe the mess!”

“This type of menial work was probably too peasantry for you–”

“So, they invited us instead!”

Sylus’ henchmen stood there, looking quite proud of themselves and their innocent display. Sylus rolled his eyes at their dramatics. Luke and Kieran could do any task Sylus asked, no matter how dirty, and yet they were quite terrible at lying. Maybe he needed to teach them some skills in deception later. He dismissed them sharply with a wave of his hand.

“Go. Make sure to return before I leave this evening.”

The henchmen bowed, preparing to scurry away, but before they could, Sylus spoke again,

“Don’t take your eyes off them for even a second, do you understand?”

They turned back to Sylus and nodded, bowing once again.

“And–”

Sylus’ continual interruption of their exit left them in an awkward position right at the threshold of his office.

“–they don’t enjoy mopping, so I trust one of you will play the gentleman and take up that task.”

“You got it, boss.” Luke and Kieran said in unison before finally departing.

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Sylus was planning on sleeping before your date in the evening, but that was completely out of the question now.

Hanging out with Luke and Kieran? To, supposedly, clean? He knew what they had told him was a lie. However, a small, burning part of him was frustrated. If that had been the truth, he naturally would have been the far better partner. With the time you had shared together, surely you had not so quickly found his own company lacklustre in comparison to his henchmen. He could have been in your apartment, with you, cleaning together. Instead, he was in his mansion, alone, and grumpy. Grumpy enough to open his tablet, and switch to his camera feeds connected to Mephisto.

He had asked if his skilled companion could do a bit of reconnaissance at your apartment to confirm what this ragtag trio were doing. As the camera feed loaded, he saw that your home was empty. Internally, he cursed. Mephisto flew down to street level, and, as luck would have it, three familiar people stepped out of the apartment complex. Luke and Kieran were there (wearing face masks and caps that disguised their faces as opposed to their crow masks) along with you.

Sylus sat up in his bed. 

He followed this trio as they walked to a nearby clothing store. Unfortunately, it would be considered odd for a crow to be indoors, so all Mephisto could do was perch atop a bench in front of the establishment and watch the three of you retreat inside behind the automatic glass doors.

Tossing the tablet aside onto the silk sheets, Sylus crossed him arms. If the thought of not being able to clean with you had made him grumpy, then seeing that he was not invited to shop for clothes with you truly made his blood boil with jealousy. As he attempted to get some rest, he thought about casual ways to mention on this evening’s date how he could rent out entire department stores for you if you wanted.

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Sylus tapped his dress shoes rhythmically against the floor, awaiting your door to be opened after he had rung the bell. He had arrived at exactly 5 o’clock to pick you up, and although he was always well put together, he put in a little extra effort on his hair this time.

He heard the door unlock, slowly opening to only reveal your head poking out. He cocked his head to the side.

“Sweetie, are you trying to hide from me?”  

“Mmm, think of it more like I’m building anticipation,” you explained with a grin on your face.

Sylus laughed fondly. He leaned his own head against the wall beside the doorframe, turning to look at you.

“Consider me sufficiently anticipated,” he replied. “Now, may I see you?”

You gestured for him to move back so you could give a grand reveal.

“I just bought this today.”

The door swung open, and you stepped outside.

“How do I look?”

Very little could surprise Sylus; however, you had utterly blindsided him in this moment. You were wearing a dress that Sylus didn’t recognise from your current wardrobe. He knew then that the outing with Luke and Kieran had been to surprise him with a new dress for your date.

Flowy, ruby fabric draped against your figure, reaching down to your ankles. His eyes followed the heart-shaped neckline that framed the pearl necklace that rested at your collarbones, matching the accessory in your hair. All this prepared just for him.

“You look absolutely radiant,” he breathed.

Closing the distance, he snaked a hand around you, toying with the smooth material under his warm fingertips. Seeing how gorgeous you were almost alleviated his earlier frustrations, until he came to a sour realisation.

“Though, I can’t help but be… annoyed that Luke and Kieran saw this surprise before me.”

You bit your lip. Of course, Sylus had figured out what his henchmen were doing throughout the day. His voice grew deeper as his lips brushed against your ear.

“Next time, kitten, you should invite me to go with you instead.”

XAVIER ⟡

It took very little to spark Xavier’s jealousy, as much as the man himself would want to deny it. Strangers, colleagues, and acquaintances could cause his unassuming appearance to transform into a hostile front if they got too friendly with you. But today was another ordinary workday, so there would surely be no situation where Xavier should feel such a way.

There had been a string of quiet days at the Hunters Association that meant that Team Alpha could finally make use of their office. Namely you and Xavier, who usually were assigned to field missions. Your neglected chair squeaked under your weight as you stretched your body, lifting your arms high into the air then relaxing. Twirling the pen in your hand, the words on page about recent energy fluctuations seemed to swirl in your vision. Xavier turned from his own desk to observe you.

“I’m going to get a drink from the vending machine.” He stood up, the wheels of his chair clattering against the hard floor. “Do you want one too?”

“Green tea, please,” you replied.

“Warm or cold?”

“Cold,” you decided. You clapped your hands against your face, squishing your cheeks. “I need to shock my system to wake it up.”

Xavier’s face broke into a smile. “Sounds like a good plan.”

Before he could walk away, a voice called out your name.

“Morning Y/N!”

Xavier narrowed his eyes slightly at the approaching man.

He was tall (though not as tall as himself), with ashy hair precisely tousled to reveal his forehead, and friendly eyes. Xavier’s senses heightened in the same way as they would in a battle with a Wanderer. The unfamiliar man had greeted you with such familiarity. Only two words had been spoken, yet it was enough to irk Xavier. If he had called you less kindly, that would have helped to lower his guard.

To his surprise, the man turned his attention towards him.

“Ah, you must be Xavier! I’ve heard much about you.” He extended his hand. “I’m Andrew, head of the Data Analysis sector.”

Xavier stared at Andrew’s hand for a moment—blinking and discerning. Head of Data Analysis… Is this some kind of power move? He gave the hand a brusque shake.

“Excuse me, I need to get some drinks for the two of us,” he said, turning on his heel and walking away to the office’s break room.

Andrew furrowed his brows as he watched Xavier leave.

“Quite elusive, isn’t he?”

You shook your head.

“Maybe when you first meet him. But once you get to know him, you’ll see just how reliable he is.”

The tenderness in your tone came unconsciously to you, but it always happened when you spoke about Xavier to others. Especially towards those who might misinterpret his neutral disposition.

Small talk continued over the next minute between you and Andrew, until he suddenly looked at you with a slight frown.

“There’s an eyelash on your face,” he said, pointing vaguely to the left side of your face.

You used your fingers to swipe across your skin, yet Andrew still shook his head.

“No, no. It’s right here.”

He brought his finger closer to show you exactly where it was.

The dull thud of plastic bottles falling to the ground could be heard a couple of metres beside you. A blinding light zipped through the air, alongside a gust of air that swept your hair back. Before you could even register what had caused this phenomenon, Xavier appeared between you and Andrew. Your wide eyes stared at his hand gripping Andrew’s wrist.

“Xavier?” you called in surprise.

Xavier seemed equally shocked at how instinctually he acted. One moment he had seen Andrew’s hand move closer to your face, and the next he was face-to-face with him.

“I-I don’t know what came over me.” He released Andrew from his iron hold. “I'm really sorry”.

With a small bow, Xavier braced himself, ready to receive the full brunt of anger from the Head of Data Analysis. He shuddered at the thought that this might be reported to Captain Jenna. Instead, Andrew shook his head calmly.

“Don’t worry about it.” He gave an understanding smile, observing your worried expression towards Xavier. “In fact, I do believe this was my bad.”

The abandoned green tea bottles rolled lazily beside the desks, and Andrew picked them up. “I’ll be heading off to my office now, I’ll see you two later.”

Handing the drinks to you and Xavier, you both expressed your thanks. As Andrew left, you turned to Xavier.

“Xavier,” you spoke slowly, “what exactly was that?”

He scratched his head and diverted his eyes from you.

“I saw he was getting too close, and my body moved faster than my head…”

It was hard not to react at how adorably guilty he looked.

What am I going to do with you? You thought, sighing in affectionate amusement.

“I know how it must have looked from afar, but there was just an eyelash on my face that Andrew was trying to point out,” you explained.

Again, you swiped a finger across your face. “I still don’t know where it is though.”

Your movements were halted as Xavier gently grasped your wrist. He leaned in close, examining your face. You felt his light touch against your eyelids as he took off the lash.

“You know, there’s a superstition about this,” he began, handing the lash to you.

“They say if you have a stray eyelash, you can use it to make a wish.”

He cleared his throat, the tips of his ears turning red believing his next words to perhaps sound a little childish. 

“So, I wanted to be the one who would give you that wish.”

RAFAYEL ⟡

Rafayel’s jealousy would make itself known to you the moment he felt it. Though he would hide it between clever, teasing remarks, it was cute to see how clingy he got when it happened. And there was no better situation to provoke such feelings than at a gala hosted by Flux Arts. Admittedly, it was difficult to get the artist himself to attend these gatherings that featured one of his own paintings, so Thomas had to devise a convincing reason for him to go. That reason, naturally, being you. If you were his plus one, Rafayel could certainly face any battle.

You stood in front of Rafayel’s painting now as he had left you for the moment to speak with Thomas. Even after being exposed to his work many times (both mid progress and completed) they still managed to instil awe within you.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?”

The voice pulled you back into the room, and you looked over at the stranger beside you. He appeared to be slightly older and was likely a wealthy, enthusiastic patron of the gala.

“Yes, it is,” you agreed. “It’s one of my favourites.”

In truth, you favoured it because you were there when Rafayel painted it. From start to finish, he had you at his side. Though abstract, upon closer inspection, one could extrapolate details of a city with glorious towers and vibrant, thriving coral. It held a special place in your heart.

The man’s eyes were glued to the painting.

“Rafayel truly is an artist you get once in a lifetime.”

You couldn’t help but smile at the sincerity in the gentleman’s compliment.

“It’s hypnotising to witness the scenes he creates,” he continued. “He seems to bare his soul in each painting.”

“He is quite an expressive man,” you commented, breathing a small laugh.

From picking out the perfect outfits to the perfect paint materials, passion infused every part of Rafayel’s life, including in his relationship with you. It was one of his greatest traits you adored about him.

The familiarity in your tone was lost on the man, who believed you to only be an admirer of the artist, and not an admirer of a different sort.

The conversation continued, and you discovered the man to be a professor of history. He had discovered Rafayel through his own interest in ancient civilisations such as Lemuria. You couldn’t help but beam with pride listening to the man speak so highly of Rafayel, and the impression his works had left on him. The man soon took his leave, thanking you for entertaining his enthusiastic ramblings.

You were so engrossed that you didn’t notice Rafayel with his arms folding behind you. He graciously gave you a few seconds to detect his presence. Though, his frown grew as you continued to be, supposedly, too starstruck from your earlier conversation with that stranger.

He cleared his throat loudly.

You spun around at the familiar voice.

“Raf! How long have you been standing there for?”

He shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could muster. However, anyone with two eyes could have guessed the annoyance on his face.

“Enough to hear the last bits of your conversation.” He strode to your side, arms still folded tight across his chest. “Found interesting company so soon after I left?”

You closed the gap between the two of you with a step, preparing to explain the true nature of that conversation. Not letting you interrupt his sulking, Rafayel continued,

“I need to be more wary. There are too many people here wanting to whisk you away from me.”

As soon as you walked into the gallery arm-in-arm, people’s eyes were drawn to the two of you. At his mention that you were the centre of attention, you had dismissed it, saying it was him everyone took interest in.

Tilting your head to the side, you placed your hands your hips, almost as if to say: Are you going to let me speak?

Rafayel quickly conceded, spluttering out his next question, “And why were you being so chummy with that stranger, anyway?”

“That stranger said he was a professor of history specialising in ancient cities, and that he’s been an admirer of your works for a long time,” you answered.

Poking at his cheek with your finger, you attempted to remove his pout that remained affixed on his face.

“I was being chummy because he was complimenting your work! It made me happy to hear that people have such high praise for you and your paintings.”

Rafayel’s pout disappeared.

“It just made me think… how proud I am to have you as my partner,” you smiled. “You leave a profound impression on people.”

Your words resonated in his head. He stood motionless, with only the slow blink of his eyes.

His lack of reaction made you flush.

“Ah, that was pretty cheesy, wasn’t it? I’m sorry–”

The apology stopped short in your throat as you were scooped into a tight hug. Rafayel’s arms wrapped around your waist. A few gala attendees looked over at the young couple with admiring gazes, wondering what could have happened that would cause such open affection.

Rafayel nuzzled his forehead into the curve of your neck, mumbling right by your ear, “Jeez, here I was trying to be jealous…”

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[incognit0slut]

Nervous

Softcore in which you’re overwhelmed by how far he would go to protect your safety.

Category: Angst Word count: 2.3k Content: minor injury, overprotective spencer, avoidant attachment reader if you squint a/n: i've always wanted to do the "man goes crazy after you're hurt" trope and this seems like the right opportunity. and just so you know i’m actually hyperventilating while typing this bc apparently the neighborhood is coming back!! with new music!! after 4 years!! can you tell i'm excited!!!!

-

“Where is she?”

Spencer demands. Something he’s been doing a lot lately — speaking with a tone that expects answers to materialize out of thin air. The authority that drips from his voice would normally send a pleasant shiver down your spine, you can even admit there’s a time and place where it would be more than welcome when far less clothing is involved. But right now? In the back of an ambulance with your head splitting in two and his words scraping against what’s left of your nerves?

Not so much.

Your skull is throbbing. The cold metal bench is digging into you uncomfortably, and the sterile scent of disinfectant claws at your throat with a vicious persistence of acid. Your stomach twists at the bitter, chemical burn. His voice only makes it worse.

“Stop shouting,” you groan, squeezing your eyes shut against the stabbing pain.

He swivels on his heel as soon as your mouth parts to speak. “What were you thinking?”

You peel your eyes open just enough to glare at him, wincing as your head throbs in protest. “What does it look like I was thinking? I was doing my job.”

A muscle in his jaw ticks. “You could’ve been killed.”

“I’m fine.”

“Fine?” He practically chokes on the word. “You call this fine?”

“I’m not dead, am I?”

“You almost were. Do you even realize how reckless that was?”

“Of course I realized the risk. I assessed it.”

“No, you didn’t. You slipped an entire perimeter detail and dove head-first into a hostage situation.”

“Again, I was doing my job.”

“Without notifying any of us.”

You fight the reflex to roll your eyes.

“If it matters to you that much, next time it happens I’ll check with you before I try not to die. Happy?”

Sarcasm seems like the last thing you should’ve resorted to. His posture is stiff and straight, shoulders locked in a rare display of tension. Something you haven’t seen in months when he’s kept his emotions buried under layers of forced composure. But you are your own worst enemy when it comes to self-preservation, and that applies just as much to arguments as it does to danger.

His scowl deepens, and for a second you think he’s going to let you have it. You're already bracing yourself for an onslaught of logic and statistics — the odds of survival, the risks of your actions, the percentage of people who don’t make it out alive when they do exactly what you did.

That’s when he stops. Dead in his tracks.

A sudden breeze ghosts across your lower stomach, and it takes you a second to realize that your shirt must have inched up with all the shifting you can’t seem to stop doing. You barely have time to process it before you see the change in him. His face drains of color. Paler than usual. Paler than he already is.

“What did he do?”

You follow his gaze, and there it is. A galaxy of green and purple in the shape of five fingers and a large palm across your ribs like some twisted badge of honor. You hadn’t even felt it until now, but the second your eyes land on it, a dull, aching throb pulses beneath your skin.

You quickly tug your shirt over the angry bruise. “Nothing."

But he’s already moving. His knees drag against the rough asphalt as he pushes your shirt back up, fingers brushing over your skin with a touch that feels too soft for the situation.

Your bloodshot eyes waver frantically.

“Spencer,” you hiss, glancing around. “Spencer, stop, you’re making a scene.”

A quick scan of the cramped space tells you the only audience is the medics, and while they’re pretending to mind their own business, the raised eyebrows aren’t exactly subtle. One of them coughs — whether it’s to cover a laugh or clear his throat, you can’t tell. Though your face still heats at the scrutiny.

"Spencer."

"This could’ve been worse."

You shove his hand away and yank your shirt down. “But it's not. I’m fine.”

“Stop saying that,” he presses. “You’re clearly not fine.”

Irritation pulses behind your temples. "Then stop acting like I’m weak, I did what I had to do.”

“What you did was reckless,” he reminds you again. “You should have waited. You had backup for a reason.”

“Someone could've died if I waited.”

"You almost died."

You exhale sharply. “Well he didn’t get the chance, did he? JJ found me and shot the guy in the leg before it could get that far.”

Which, honestly, was pretty damn impressive, considering you were fighting for your life. One second you were pinned beneath a man twice your size, adrenaline roaring in your ears so loud you could barely think, and the next — bang. Clean shot to the leg.

“If it were me,” he grumbles, “I would’ve shot him in the head.”

You scoff. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“I would,” he insists.

Your gaze shifts from the ground to his eyes, and that’s when you see it. The dark flecks in his brown irises seem to glow with an edge you’ve never quite caught before. Or maybe you have, but only in flashes. A flicker of something sharp in the set of his jaw when someone underestimates him. A muted warning when a suspect creeps too close. An imperceptible moment of tension when his fingers clench around your waist amidst the heat you both refuse to define.

It dawns on you that those hard lines around his eyes were always there, smoldering beneath his careful veneer of logic and reason. You just never knew you had the power to coax them onto the surface.

Spencer is protective — that much you knew. But not in a way that feels directed solely at you. Not when your relationship with him is already tangled in the space between labels that neither of you dares to clarify. He nitpicks your choices more than any friend should, yet he’s pinned you to the mattress far more often than you care to admit. Now hearing him say he’d actually break the very foundation of who he is sends your pulse into a clumsy rhythm.

His features are blurred by the disbelief flooding behind your eyes.

“You don’t mean that,” you say, hollow words sinking on your tongue.

He doesn’t even blink.

“If I ever found someone hurting you, I would put a bullet between their eyes and sleep just fine."

Your heart suddenly feels too big for the tight space in your chest. Too many emotions hit you all at once.

A little bit of fear.

A little bit of awe.

A lot of something else you don’t want to name.

You swallow against the dryness in your throat.

“Don’t worry, you’ll never have to. I can handle myself.”

The lines on his forehead deepens. “Just promise me you won’t do something like this again.”

You pull away and blink against the wind seeping through the open doors. It stings, his lack of faith in your judgment. The sharp bite of the cold air mirrors that prick as it slips under your collar, brushing over your blemished skin with a chill that's almost as piercing as the siren wailing incessantly in your ears.

But even that shrill cry can’t drown out the pounding in your head.

“You, of all people, know I can’t promise you that," you mutter, voice scraping the back of your throat.

His breath curls into the air as he replies, “At least tell me you’ll be more careful.”

“I was careful.”

“No, you were lucky. There’s a difference.”

Goosebumps rise on your arms that have nothing to do with the cold. He's right. Maybe it was luck. A fraction of a second, a shift in timing. A cosmic accident that decided you’d walk away instead of being zipped into a body bag. It wasn’t skill, nor caution. It was pure, dumb luck that you weren’t lying somewhere colder and permanent with the earth pressing down on you instead of the weight of his stare.

But you don’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right.

"You're being dramatic,” you try to deadpan, shooting him a weary look.

He narrows his eyes at you into tiny slits, and you resist the urge to bristle under the scrutiny. He’s studying you too hard. He’s looking at you like you’re some kind of equation he can’t solve, as if he stares long enough he’ll find the variable that explains why you don’t seem to value your own life the way he does.

You feel the need to defend yourself.

“I jabbed him in the throat,” you try again, gesturing loosely, “caught him off guard, and then went for his weapon. The whole thing took maybe five seconds—less, if you count how quickly he hit the ground after that first shot.”

“Five seconds could have cost you your life.”

“It didn't,” you counter quickly. Shift your eyes to your hands. Tongue your cheek. Try to justify your action. “And let’s not pretend you wouldn’t have done the same. You've jumped into danger more times than I can count.”

His entire body goes still.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you don’t exactly have a great track record for your own safety.” Your voice isn’t sharp, but there’s an edge to it. A tired sort of bite. “Are we conveniently forgetting all the times you’ve ignored protocol?”

The silence that follows is almost unsettling. He doesn’t react at first, doesn’t even breathe as far as you can tell. You wonder if you’ve managed to break him, if the sheer hypocrisy of his argument has finally caught up to him, if the logic has knocked him right through the bulletproof vest he always insists offers enough protection when you both know better.

Maybe he’s running through every instance you could be referring to. Is he tallying up his own recklessness? Those dangerous leaps of faith he’s taken without hesitation?

The wheels in his head are turning so fast you can almost hear them grinding.

“That’s different," he finally says.

You snort softly. Double standard.

“How is it different?”

His eyes are jaded as they swivel over your face.

“Because it’s you.”

He says it so quietly you almost didn't hear him. But you did, too loud and clear with your heart in your throat, then falter.

You're the one robbed of words now, a knot of half-formed syllables stuck to your tongue. You’re so caught off guard that you barely even register the overhead sirens blaring somewhere above you. Or the distant chatter of medics. The hum of radio static, a faint, crackling drone that seems to come from miles away. Everything is drowned out by the way your pulse hammers against your skin.

You can only focus on the flashes of color streaking across his face. Red, then blue, then red again. It catches the flecks of gold and green in his hazel eyes. Traces the sharp line of his nose, slides over his parted lips. Lingers on the pale scar under his chin that you’ve seen a hundred times but never really noticed until now.

You also notice how small the space between you feels. How the air surrounding you crackles. How the oxygen is lacking, and your lungs are suffering from it. How the distance between you seems to fold inward with each heartbeat.

A thump of his knees against the coarse dirt.

A pulse in the brief pause that follows.

A tick of gravity pulls you toward the shadow of a man you rarely encounter.

You're not sure how to handle this version of him, stripped of his layers of detachment. The version that exists in the slithers of time before his features school into that practiced neutrality he wears so well. A rare side of him that flickers into view — ephemeral as a stray synapse sparking in that immense brainpower he usually shields. Delicate in its existence.

And what do you do with a Spencer who isn’t just the mind, but also the heart? The heart that he guards so fiercely it sometimes seems like he forgets he has one. Until he doesn’t. Until it’s right there, beating openly in front of you. Perhaps oblivious to his own knowledge.

So you do what you always do when it gets too much. You exhale, slow and shallow.

Then you look away.

“You worrying about me this much is new," you mutter, eyes glued to his crooked tie. “I’m not sure I like it.”

“Then promise me you won’t make a habit of this.”

“This is not the debrief I was expecting.”

One thing that hasn’t changed is his stubbornness. “Promise me.”

You hesitate, knowing a promise like that isn’t yours to give. But he opens his mouth again, and a slow breath in the shape of your name falls from his lips. A pleading sort of whisper that travels every curve of your body, and by the time it lingers at the base of your spine, your nerves flutter.

The thrum in your veins surpasses even the rush of adrenaline you felt moments ago. This isn’t survival. Survival is instinct and reaction, it’s raw nerves driving you forward without conscious thought. This is recognition, awareness, because the way your name rolls off his tongue isn’t a simple request — it’s an opening. A sliver of space carved into the dense tangle of his armor, an admission slipping through the cracks before he can smooth them over.

And if you’re seeing a fracture in that carefully guarded part of him, maybe it’s only fair to meet him halfway.

Let whatever light he’s offering in.

Let it reach the places you pretend don’t need warmth.

You finally release a slow breath through your nose as he continues to look up at you. “I’ll try,” you comply.

His shoulders slump. Your answer isn’t enough.

But for now, it’s all you have.

"I got goosebumps all over me, when you're around it's hard for me to breathe." Nervous—The Neighbourhood

[imtaashu]

The Curl Theory

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Your hair mysteriously starts curling overnight. At first, it’s just weird. But everyone’s convinced it’s the infamous “hair theory”—that your hair changes when you’re falling in love. You deny it… until Bucky shows up with coffee and a sleepy smile.

Genre: Fluff | Friends to Lovers | Domestic Softness | Hair Theory Inspired

Word Count: ~2k

💌 Author’s Note: hi! i wrote this little story based on the internet’s “hair theory” — the idea that your hair changes (especially curling!) when you’re falling in love. i thought it’d be cute to spin it into something soft for bucky & reader 🫶

craving clingy bucky or emotional destruction? — masterlist is right here baby 🫶🏻

You wake up, stretch, and blink into the soft golden light pouring through your apartment window. It’s Saturday. No missions, no chaos, no alarms. Just quiet.

And for once, you actually slept.

You roll out of bed and shuffle to the bathroom, ready to splash your face with cold water. But the moment you look in the mirror— “What the hell?”

Your hair. Your usually straight hair. It’s curled. Not soft, wavy curls. No. These are curls. Springy, bouncy, absolutely not normal.

You frown and poke at them like they might bounce off your scalp if you’re aggressive enough. You haven’t used heat in days. There’s been no humidity. No new products. No pillowcase change. No logical explanation.

Except, of course…

“Oh my god,” you whisper, eyes wide. “No. No no no—”

The hair theory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You remember hearing it from Nat a few weeks ago, when she was scrolling through TikTok with her feet on your coffee table.

“Apparently,” she said, “when you start falling in love, your hair literally changes. Like… more volume, shine, texture. Especially curls. Love makes your hair curl.”

You’d laughed. Loudly. Science doesn’t work that way, Romanoff.

But now?

Now you’re staring at your reflection, jaw slack, and your hair looks like it belongs in a commercial.

And you have a terrifying suspicion as to why.

Or rather… who.

————————————————————————————

Because Bucky Barnes moved in across the hall six months ago. And you swore it meant nothing.

Just an ex-assassin-turned-soft-heart who brought you bagels after bad missions, made you tea without asking, and sat on your couch like he belonged there.

Just a guy who looked at you like you were something steady in his whirlwind life.

Just your friend.

Right?

Wrong.

Because now your hair is curling and your brain is spiraling. You step back from the mirror, staring at your own reflection like it just exposed your deepest secret.

No. No, you’re just imagining things. Hair doesn’t magically curl because your heart decided to do gymnastics over your best friend’s stupid smile. It’s probably just… new conditioner.

Definitely not love.

Right????

You’re still battling with your hair (and your thoughts) when there’s a knock on the door. A familiar, gentle three-tap knock.

You freeze. Because of course it’s him.

You tug your hoodie over your head (ignoring the way your hair poofs out around your face) and open the door. And there he is. James Buchanan Barnes.

Sweatpants.

Messy hair.

Two coffees in his hands.

Sleepy eyes.

Stupidly pretty.

“Morning,” he says, offering you one cup. “You look like you just got struck by lightning. Cute lightning, though.”

Your face heats. “Thanks. I think.”

He walks past you like he lives here. Which, to be fair, he kind of does. His hoodie is draped over the back of your chair. His charger lives in your wall. He knows your Netflix password. You’ve stopped pretending there are real boundaries anymore.

You plop beside him on the couch, hair frizzing even more as you tuck your knees under yourself.

Bucky watches you sip your drink and frowns.

“Wait. Your hair.”

Your heart drops.

“I—it’s nothing.” He leans in closer. “It’s… curly. Like, way curlier than usual.” You hide behind your mug. “It’s the weather.” “It’s 67 and dry.”

“Okay, maybe it’s new shampoo.”

“You’ve been using the same brand since February.”

You glare. “Why do you know that?”

He shrugs, smug. “Because I notice things about you.”

Your heart does an Olympic somersault. He grins, completely unaware he’s causing your internal organs to combust.

You clear your throat and change the subject. “Anyway. Hair stuff. Not important.” But Bucky, being Bucky, doesn’t drop it.

“Y/N,” he says softly, nudging your knee with his. “You ever hear of that TikTok thing? That theory about your hair curling when you’re in love?”

You nearly choke. He laughs. “Steve told me about it last week. Apparently Sam’s girlfriend’s hair went all curly and now he’s convinced it’s real.” You stare at your knees. “Yeah, well… good for Sam.”

Bucky looks at you for a long moment. Like he’s waiting.

“…You think it’s real?”

You shrug. “I mean, not really. But…”

“But?”

You finally look at him.

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s not about the science. Maybe it’s just the way love makes you softer. Happier. Makes you take better care of yourself without realizing. So your hair changes. Your eyes glow. Your laugh’s louder.”

Bucky watches you. Then, voice low:

“Do you think that’s happening to you?” You freeze.

He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t smirk. Just asks.

You open your mouth—and close it again. Because it is. And it’s because of HIM.

The late night talks. The half-asleep cuddles. The way he holds your hand during scary movies like it’s second nature. The way he knows your favorite mug, your 3AM fears, your dreams.

You fell in love somewhere between the quiet and the chaos. And now your hair is curling like it’s announcing it to the damn world.

You swallow hard. “I… I don’t know.” He nods. Slowly. “Okay.” The moment stretches.

And then—

“Because,” Bucky says carefully, “mine’s doing the same.” You blink. “What?”

He ruffles his hair sheepishly. “I woke up and it was all wavy. Steve teased me for a full ten minutes. Said I looked like I walked out of a rom-com.”

Your eyes widen. “But… your hair only waves when—” He smiles, nervous. “When I’m happy. Yeah.”

Your throat goes dry.

“I didn’t want to assume,” he adds, “but if this theory means anything… I think we’ve both got some explaining to do.”

You stare at him.

He stares back.

And then you laugh.

Because this is ridiculous. And sweet. And painfully obvious. You whisper, “So… you’re saying your hair is in love with me?” He smirks. “I’m saying I’m in love with you.”

Oh.

Oh, that’s better. You whisper, “Me too.”

And before either of you can overthink it—

he leans in. And kisses you like he’s been waiting forever. Like the curls in your hair were just love letters in disguise. Like every soft strand said, I want you.

Like love was always growing, quietly, at the root.

————————————————————————————

Later, curled up in his lap while reruns play on mute, Bucky runs his fingers through your curls and smiles. “I like the theory,” he murmurs. You grin, sleepy. “You would.”

“It means I didn’t imagine it. The shift. The way your laugh changed. The way your eyes looked at me.”

You nuzzle into his chest. “Guess it’s real, then.” He kisses the top of your head.

“Definitely real.”

~end

[reidrum]

purple lace bra

A/N: wish y'all could see the explosion that happened when i was listening to purple lace bra for the thousandth time and then saw that tattoo pic on twt. anyways. based on this post. p.s. do we like the new fic color layout pls say yes

summary: in which spencer knows better than to let you go home with a loser, which has nothing to do with his recent discovery of your tattoo. obviously.

cw: smut 18+ minors dni, p in v sex, oral (m receiving), enemies to lovers, brat tamer!spencer heheh

wc: 3.5k

The condensation dripping down his glass does nothing to quell the white hot emotion rising within Spencer. The death grip he has on it is about a few minutes away from bursting and shattering everywhere if he doesn’t find a way to calm himself down. That’s not in the cards for him however, not for as long as he keeps watching you across the bar talking to Ryan from cyber crimes.

He’s not supposed to feel this way about you. He’s not supposed to feel any way about you. The majority of your time together as coworkers is spent at each other’s necks with no room for logic, only malice.

But he sits at a table in O’Keefes, awkwardly hanging off the edge of the seat listening to Derek and Emily talk about god knows what.

You look very interested in your conversation from what Spencer can tell, your body language certainly shows it. You’re leaning in just a bit too close for comfort into Ryan, laughing loudly—and fakely—at Ryan’s dumb jokes. You don’t move away when Ryan lays a hand on your waist, tilting your head up so it’s a few inches from his.

“Reid,” Derek nudges him, “You’re going to break the glass, man.”

Spencer looks down at his white knuckled grip and instantly loosens up, intently watching the blood return to his hand. Derek’s smug smile doesn’t falter, “Got something on your mind, pretty boy?”

Emily follows his gaze across the bar to where you stand with Ryan and chuckles, “Or someone?”

He immediately looks back at the table, “No. Nothing.”

“Very convincing, but it might be less effort to just you know. Get up and go talk to her.” Emily teases.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Sure you don’t,” she winks at him, “but in case a small part of you does know what I’m talking about, I’d say you have about five minutes before she goes home with him.”

He attempts to shrug nonchalantly. “I don’t care.”

Derek and Emily share a knowing look and return to their previous conversation, deciding to let the boy genius stew in his stubbornness. Spencer slowly brings his gaze back to you, except he doesn’t find you uncomfortablely close to Ryan anymore. No, where he finds you is arguably much worse for him.

You’d decided your drink needed a refresher he assumes—why Ryan couldn’t be bothered to get you another drink he’ll never understand—but Spencer lets his eyes trail the expanse of the bar top to find you waiting to flag the bartender down. You’re leaned against the counter, bent slightly at the waist and hips jutting outwards. A compromising but seemingly normal position, however Spencer’s eyes catch something from the raise of your top exposing your lower back. His throat all but nearly dries once he registers what it is.

Raised ink on the swell of your lower back, a tattoo.

Lucky you.

It takes all the restraint in him to not get up abruptly and walk over to you, that is not what he wants. That is not how he’s thinking about you—he doesn’t think about you like that. He’ll settle in his own lie and deny that for all his days, but his resolve grows smaller each second he finds Ryan eyeing the same discovery he’s made.

Ryan isn’t even your type, not that he knows or even cares what your type is, he knows it at least isn’t that man. You like to be challenged, to be tested. Spencer doesn’t even need to be within earshot to know that Ryan is playing the perfect ‘yes man’ listener to you in hopes you’ll go home with him.

Spencer is fairly confident you won’t, but your body language hasn’t changed and you lean in much closer to him after your refill.

The breaking point is when he watches Ryan place his hand on your lower back—over Spencer’s treasured discovery—as he begins to guide you towards the exit.

That’s all it took for him.

Spencer doesn’t think when he bolts out of his chair and speeds over to you, barely registering the “Atta boy.” from Derek as he gets farther from their table towards you.

Your eyes widen as Spencer all but crashes into you, “Are you okay?”

“Hm?” he tries to regain his balance, “Fine yeah, um. Sorry, but we just got called in.”

“For a case?—” you question.

“I thought you guys were off. We were just about to head out.” Ryan interjects. Ugh.

“Contrary to popular belief, serial killers actually don’t abide by a schedule Ryan. So if you don’t mind, we’ll just be heading out on our own.” 

“But—“

You eye Spencer for a second, trying to figure out the angle he’s playing. Emily and Derek haven’t moved from their seats yet the empty glasses around them grow by the minute. Not to mention you would have gotten a text from Hotch or JJ if there was a case, and your phone hasn’t so much as buzzed in the last hour. 

But then you really look at Spencer, and you take note of his clenched fists, the slight heavy breathing. The vein on his neck popping out with pulsations. He’s mad, you conclude. About what, you’re not too sure. 

You pull out your phone and fake react to the blank screen, “Oh gosh, thanks for telling me I almost didn’t see this. Maybe next time, Ryan?”

Spencer smirks to himself as Ryan grumbles something incoherently and maybe offensive to the BAU before sulking away while you let out a soft giggle.

“So…I take it there is no case.”

At this point Spencer realizes the consequences of his rash actions, and has no idea how to explain to you why he warded this man off of you like he was an omen of evil.

He clears his throat, “Um, no. No case, sorry you just looked like you needed help.”

You cross your arms, “I find it hard to believe you wanted to help me with something.”

Spencer narrows his eyes, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you never want anything good for me unless there’s something in it for you.”

Caught red handed. “There’s nothing in it for me, I think you’re overreacting.”

“And I think you’re displacing your emotions,” you step closer, your voice dropping an octave, “I could feel you staring at me, you know. When I was at the bar.”

He gulps, “I—I wasn’t…”

You step closer so you’re nearly chest to chest, “So I’m going to ask you again. Tell me what it is you want.”

You’re so close to him he can still smell the spritzer on your lips, the maraschino cherry you ate with it coloring them an inviting hue that Spencer isn’t sure he can hold off not tasting for any longer. 

For the second time tonight, his actions move faster than his brain as you’re suddenly being dragged through the crowd and towards the back of the bar. You think you’re headed for the storage closet but he makes a bee line for the bathroom next to it at the w minute, which is thankfully unlocked.

He tugs you inside and shuts the door behind you before pressing you against the back of it, “I know what you’re doing.”

Your confused face morphs into one of knowing, “And what am I doing, Spencer?”

“Don’t play dumb.”

“Play dumb? I know you don’t think so highly of me,” he presses your hips against the door harder in anger, “If you want something from me, all you have to do is ask.”

“There isn’t anything from you that I could possibly want.”

Oh, he wants you to push his buttons. “Yeah? That’s why you dragged me into the bathroom after lying to Ryan so I wouldn’t go home with him?”

“You wouldn’t have liked it, I know you.”

You grin wickedly, “Oh, you know me? Should I…thank you? For you know, saving me from a treacherous night with Ryan?”

“I don’t care what you do—“

Your hands drag down to the buckle of his belt, the light pressure feeling a million times heavier as Spencer’s breath hitches at the contact. 

“You don’t?” you pout, ghosting over the outline of his bulge.

His body stills entirely as you continue to undo the belt loop, agonizingly sliding it out and running your hands down the sides of his hips. Spencer isn’t sure what to do. He doesn’t think about you like this, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t wonder what it would be like to have you writhing beneath him, hearing you scream his name in ecstasy. The different ways he would fuck the attitude out of you whenever you defied him, how he would shut your little mouth up whenever it ran just a little too much.

Spencer’s eyes darken as realizes the opportunity in front of him, soon to be below him. He gulps, “Y—You know what I want.”

You coo, tracing your lips up hips neck to the crest of his ear, “Oh but Spencer, I thought I was dumb. You might have to spell it out for little ole me.”

Christ help him. “On your knees.”

You giggle and sink to your knees, running your hands up his sides to his belt buckle and pants button to undo them. You peel the fabric of his pants back to expose his boxers, nearly salivating at the wet patch forming in the middle. You slip a hand inside and gently palm him through the fabric, he inhales sharply and grasps the sink counter in front of him for balance.

You finally put him out of his misery and take him out of his boxers, your pout returning again seeing how angry and red his tip is. “Spencer, this looks painful. Maybe if you weren’t so stubborn I could’ve helped you out earlier.”

“If you weren’t always fucking talking nonsense at work, maybe I would’ve.”

“Now,” you tsk, wrapping your fingers around him and gently giving him a single stroke, “that’s no way to talk to someone about to give you head.”

He all but whimpers, “F—Fuck, please can you just…”

“Ask me nicely.” you look up at him doe eyed, lazily stroking him.

You’re going to be the death of him, and it’s starting to look like the most promising way to go out.

“Will you please—shit—please can you just, suck me off?”

You don’t respond but simply lean in close to his base to lick a stripe to the top, swirling your tongue around his tip before you hollow your cheeks out and lower your mouth on him.

“Oh fuck,” he whines, his hand moving to grab your hair in a makeshift ponytail as you take him whole. He can feel himself hit the back of your throat as you gag in response, another guttural moan leaving him.

You continue to bob your head up and down on his length as you feel his hand on your head subconsciously begin to guide your movements on his own.

“Why are you so good at this,” he moans, “It’s because you never shut up, huh? All you do is run your mouth and there’s no one to keep you in check.”

You hum pathetically around him, sending vibrations through his body. He almost misses the hand you’ve snaked between your legs to touch yourself, “Look at you, just couldn’t help yourself? If i’d known this was all it would take to keep you quiet I would’ve had you on your knees for me ages ago.”

He can feel your throat distend in response to his crude words, and like a man depraved he instinctively bucks his hips into your mouth. In any other instance he would feel bad, he should feel bad. But he finds that feeling hard to come by as your eyes water to the tear line and you just look so pretty stuffed in the mouth full of him. Spencer has never heard you be so quiet whilst in the same room as him, and he’s becoming very fond of the new method he just discovered to keep you subdued.

Spencer’s thrusts into your mouth become erratic and sloppy, and you can tell he’s getting close. In no world did you think sucking Spencer Reid off would be this enjoyable, and yet you’re already mourning the moment he pulls out of your mouth. You pull back slightly to be able to speak, “Want you to cum in my mouth, please.”

That’s all Spencer needed to thrust a final time into your mouth and spill himself all down your throat. He’s in awe as he watches you take it whole, making sure you don’t miss a single drop and milk out every last bit from him. You pull him out with a grand sigh, your head leaning back about to hit the bottom edge of the sink counter before Spencer releases the makeshift ponytail he has on you to use his hand to pad the impact.

“You okay?” he pants.

You nod, “Yeah, you?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, “Come here.”

He helps you up from the floor and doesn’t give you time to adjust before he pounces on you, attacking your lips as he holds your body as impossibly close to him as he can. “Didn’t take you for someone who swallows.” he mutters in between kisses.

“Clearly there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

Spencer chuckles, his hands beginning to wander again, “I’ll say.”

His fingers brush over the letters on your lower back, you let out a sharp gasp and pull back as he continues to press kisses down your neck, “How did you know—“

“I can’t believe I didn’t know you had a tattoo here. All this time I’m forced to spend with you, you think I’d notice at some point.” he mumbles.

“Well I don’t exactly show it off.”

“Shame, I think I’d be willing to hear you out a lot more if you did.”

“That so?” you tease, “Is that why you were staring daggers at me at the bar?”

“No, I was wondering why you would get a tattoo there of all places,” he whispers, “then I realized.”

“Why?”

“You want to be bent over and fucked like a whore, don’t you?”

You’re near speechless, “I—I…that’s not—“

He turns your body around with a force and bends you over the sink counter, a smirk forming as it reminds him of how you were positioned at the bar. His hands shrug down your jeans and panties, “Don’t ask for things you can’t handle, princess.”

You look at him through the mirror, “I can handle it.”

Spencer puts his hips out to meet the back of yours, his length imprinting between your ass, “I’m sure you can, baby.” He pushes the edge of your top further up to expose the ink on your lower back, thumbing the letters once again as they glare back at him tauntingly.

Lucky you.

He chuckles to himself before angling at your entrance, “Lucky me.”

The feel of him filling you up causes you both to moan in tandem, you hadn’t expected Spencer to be reaching places you didn’t even know existed.

Your forearms brace you against the sink counter as you try to hold yourself up, with every inch he enters you rendering you more and more defenseless. 

Spencer lets out a shaky whimper once he bottoms out, “Fu—uck, you’re so tight.”

“Sorry, it’s um. It’s been a minute.” you breathe out.

“That’s okay, baby. Tell me when you’re ready.”

You squeeze around him subconsciously at his tenderness as he lets out a strangled groan. “I—I’m okay, you can move.”

He meets your eyes in the mirror, “You sure?”

“Please move. Now.” you plead.

Spencer drags his hips back slowly before reentering you at the same pace, soft moans spilling out of you the entire way. Once he feels the resistance inside you fall he picks up his pace and starts thrusting into you like a man determined.

Your hips begin to meet his thrusts back on his hips as he continues to hit deep within you, “Spence…” you babble, “feels so good.”

“Yeah? You think Ryan could make you feel like this?”

You moan languishly, unable to form words as his pace picks up even faster.

He jams his hips into you and stops, “I asked you a question.”

“Fuck, please don’t stop.” you whine.

“Then tell me, could Ryan make you feel like this?” he slowly begins to move his hips again.

“N—No, no he can’t.”

His thrusts become harder and faster, “Who’s making you feel like this, baby?”

“You! You Spencer please, I’m going to cum I—“

He ruts into you even faster, his hand threading around to touch your clit, “Say it again.”

“Only you can make me feel this good, Spence, no one else.” you murmur, “Please.”

Spencer would say that was satisfactory. “Cum.”

Your orgasm hits you like a wave crashing down, hard and moving everywhere into every crevice it can find. Your nerve endings are on fire as he continues to fuck you through your high, endless moans and babbles pouring out of you.

Spencer reaches his high not long after, the incessant clenching around him being his breaking point. He groans loudly as he spills himself into you for the second time this night, making sure he’s fucked every last drop inside of you. His pace finally falters and slows down, gently pulling himself out of you. He grabs tissues from the dispenser nearby and delicately cleans you up.

“Shit, that was—” you say as you try to catch your breath.

“Yeah. That was.” he helps you up from the sink counter, kneeling down to help you put your pants and panties back on securely. He stands up to his full height and holds your face square in his hands, holding you to press a firm kiss against your lips that quickly turns into kisses all over your face.

You giggle, “What, you’re all nice to me now because I let you hit?”

He groans again, “Don’t say it like that, it makes me sound like an ass.”

“You kind of were. An ass, that is.” you joke.

“For a reason that you probably are aware of now.” he jests back.

You pretend to look deep in thought, “I don’t know, I think I might need more convincing.”

“That can be arranged,” he leans in to kiss you soundly again when the sound of both your phones ringing startles you. He pulls his phone out, “Oh my god, we actually have a case.”

“You jinxed it!” you laugh, “Guess we really have to go now.”

Now Spencer looks deep in thought as he turns his phone on do not disturb before taking your phone and doing the same thing, sliding them to the end of the sink counter, “Well, I don’t think they’ll miss us for another ten minutes.”

“Ten minutes? Ambitious.”

“What can I say, I love a challenge.”

[evanhereonearth]

The Insidious Cycle of the Abuser Who Says They Love You: Mythal and Solas

Likely goes without saying, but Veilguard spoilers all under the jump.

I have been absolutely wrecked by the end scenes in Veilguard for weeks now, and I want to do a deep dive into Solas's relationship with Mythal and how it absolutely reeks of abuse. Long post incoming!

CW for heavy discussion of cycles of abuse, trauma response, and abuse tactics.

When I finished my first playthrough, this moment hit me like an absolute freight train. His visceral response to her presence and the way he instinctively retreats and flinches back/puts out a hand to protect himself is a full-blown trauma response.

And then she starts talking and moving towards him, and it gets worse.

Solas curls in on himself; his body goes even further into self-protection mode. His face is downcast, not the way he bowed to his vhenan moments before with a straight back and open posture, but shrinking.

And then as she advances, he cowers.

He completely folds inward. He crumples; he shakes, he hyperventilates, and the moment she reaches for him, he fumblingly offers her the lyrium dagger to kill him with.

Is this shame? Yes, of course, but it's far, far more than that.

For the sake of brevity, I'm going to limit this list to the four most widely recognised trauma responses:

Fight

Flight

Freeze

Fawn

As someone whose primary trauma response is fawn (wooo CPTSD), which is intensely common among people who experience complex trauma, especially through emotional and prolonged physical/mental abuse where their needs are discarded, pushed aside, or otherwise steamrolled, I felt this right alongside Solas. My own body responded to seeing it. This is, quite frankly, one of the most visceral and realistic (and extreme) fawn responses I've seen depicted in media.

Mythal in this scene is...phew, something else.

"She was the best of them," Solas tells us in Trespasser.

But she was not good, everything tells us in Veilguard.

Let's look at his regrets in chronological order.

Through Solas's memories of regret, we see this germinate in his foundational regret: leaving the Fade to take a physical form.

He does not want to do this. He tells her he does not want to do this. From the conversation, it's clear it's not the first time she's asked.

And the way she asks? Outright coercion.

"You have so long observed the world. Why not consider joining it?" [I want you to do this thing, so I will frame it as logical for you to make the choice I want you to make.]

"But I have no desire to live as humans. Besides, this talk of taking on a solid form. I think you underestimate the danger." [I don't want to do that. It does not feel safe to me.] "When you took the glowing stone to build your body, did the earth not shake?" [This is dangerous and selfish.]

"The lyrium gives us the strength we had when we were of the Fade; we are the best of both physical and Fade." [It makes us powerful, so I don't care about the risks.] "I need your wisdom, Solas, to withstand the louder voices like Elgar'nan's who would go too far." [If you do not come with me, a tyrant you abhor will make others suffer.] "I need you."

"This is madness. You must know that." [I don't want to do this at all. This will hurt me. I don't want this.] "I will always follow where you go." [Because I love you and trust you.]

Mythal's words in this part are classic abusive framing. When appealing to his natural curiosity does not work and he expresses strong rejection of her logical thought process (just because I have observed this place does not mean I want to go there, echoing his comments to the Inquisitor in DAI: "Many Orlesian peasants dream of travelling to exotic Rivain. But not everyone wants to go to Rivain!") and expresses that there is significant danger to continue to build bodies out of lyrium, she changes tactics.

Her second tactic is that it gives them power--she implies that he is limited and not enough for being only of the Fade. If he follows her, he will be the best of both, like she is. She clearly already sees herself as above him.

Her third tactic is pure emotional blackmail: "I need you. I will give in to the tyrants without your wisdom, and having your counsel in the Fade is not enough. If you don't go against your own nature and desires, people will suffer...and it will be your fault for not being by my side."

She doesn't say those things outright, but they are implied by everything she is saying. He says again he doesn't want it--that it is madness and that she must be aware of that despite her ignoring any suggestion that she actually is. All she is seeing is power and her desires: for Solas to do what she wants him to do.

So he agrees. Because she is his friend, and she says she needs him.

As far as core wounds go, this one is a doozy. It's absolutely brutal, because it's irrevocable. It's a point of no return. It's the first in what will become millennia of regret, of her ignoring the Wisdom she coerced out of the Fade to do what she wants regardless, to continue to push him to twist his nature under the guise of the greater good, to continue to cede to Elgar'nan and enable the very tyrants she promised him to balance.

This regret was deeply painful for me to watch. The nuance here is easily lost if people don't understand abuse tactics and how this sort of manipulation is used. It also serves to bind Solas to Mythal, an enormous sunk cost fallacy in the making--once he has made this choice, there is no going back.

And you see Solas curled in on himself in anguish and regret from the trauma of taking a physical form. It is in deep, painful contrast to his open, free wingspan as a spirit of Wisdom; he will never be the same.

"Have you created what we need?" From the outset Mythal is framing this as his idea as much as hers, when from everything he says, that is not true.

"With this, the proper ritual will sunder every Titan from its spirit. But you must know, those severed dreams will certainly be driven mad, a disembodied blight of pain and anger. It--is--awful what we are doing."

"And the only way to end this war."

Again, Solas offers the wisdom she claimed she took him from the Fade to listen to. He warns her, again, of the danger. He does not want to do this. Just like he warned her of the earth quaking when they made their bodies--they, the Evanuris, started this war by taking what they wanted regardless of who it hurt. He never wanted to participate in it, but now he is in the middle of that war. Mythal was one of the initial perpetrators of this war; she brought Solas into it against his will because he loved her, and now he's stuck. He is past his point of no return. And she is still using his heart against him. She has isolated him from everyone he knew in the Fade; he has no one to support him. He. Only. Has. Her.

This is another classic abuse tactic; if the person being abused has no one else, they will continue to enable that abuse even if it harms others, because they cannot see a way out. If you don't do what I say, it will destroy our children, our family. If you don't do what I say, this war will consume all you have, and you no longer have a home to return to. If you don't do what I say and hurt yourself and the Other, more will suffer, and it will be your fault.

Again, his posture, curled up and broken, appearing to cradle a now-tranquil Titan beneath him--and be embraced in return. This is an interesting artistic choice here, one that aches. It speaks to the depth of his own wound and how much it rent his own spirit to follow through with Mythal's wants here; that it sundered him from his spirit as much as it did the Titans.

"You cannot do this, Elgar'nan! You swore we would give up our commands when this war was over!"

"Our people need our leadership. If you are unwilling, leave."

From Elgar'nan, this is expected. From Mythal?

"Our people must rebuild. And we must help unite them."

Solas, once again, betrayed. He put his trust in Mythal and in the other Evanuris to follow through with their promise. Everything he has done thus far is poisoned in this moment; had the Evanuris indeed stepped back rather than stepped on necks, perhaps Solas could have healed, found a way to live with what he had done, maybe even to make amends. But this starts his war anew--and Mythal is standing with his enemy despite her promises, despite every wheedling word she's used to get what she wants from him over the centuries and longer, despite him turning from everything, everything, he loved to love her. This is the moment where he understands that he has only been a tool to her all along.

"So we did not fight for freedom, but to conquer this land and our own."

Let's pick apart Solas's words.

So we did not fight for freedom: He truly believed that he was fighting for freedom, that no matter how bad it got, that he could bear it for freedom.

But to conquer this land: Literally the land, I think, because of the Titans. To subdue them at all costs. This was not what he came for, but he believed Mythal.

And our own: Our own, our people, more spirits we gave bodies for this war, more who may not have wanted to leave the Fade. Our own, our people. To Solas, he is one of them. In this moment, he realises how much Mythal holds herself above all of them.

Elgar'nan's words are all too telling: "We fought to win. And now the Evanuris are as gods. I do not answer to Mythal's annoying lapdog."

They all--all--see him thus. As her pet.

Because he is. She has, until now, controlled him utterly with her manipulation and "need" for him.

"The people are afraid. They must believe in something." Mythal does not even stand up for Solas here; she does not reject Elgar'nan's perception of him. All she does is further distance herself.

The people are afraid: The Evanuris made them. They are as controlled as Solas and more.

Elgar'nan asserts, "They need strength."

"And wisdom." Mythal has the absolute gall to attribute this to herself, when Solas is the source of the wisdom she "needed" for so long. (Belated addition: And another level here: she may also be saying again that she needs him, but doing so in a way that doesn't require her to stand up for him directly. Honestly, fucking gross.)

"They need gods who can protect them," Elgar'nan continues.

"We are not gods. You will learn that." Solas's voice here is pure defeat. The scales are falling from his eyes.

"Every lapdog holds a wolf inside," says Elgar'nan.

Solas knows that Elgar'nan's "protection" is hollow, based on subjugation. And I think in this moment, he learns that Mythal's is based only in her belief that she is better than those beneath her, who cannot possibly handle themselves.

So her lapdog becomes the Wolf.

"I was not certain you would come."

Solas's opening words in this regret show the distance between them already and how much he has realised he does not know this woman who called herself his friend.

And her response is to instantly blame him.

"You are the one who walked away. I never turn my back when my friend needs me."

In putting this post together, this line absolutely sucker punched me. I've watched these several times already, but the absolute audacity to blame him for standing up for his principles for the first time against all her manipulation? Hoo.

She blames him for doing just that, "turning his back when his friend needed him." She needed her enabler, and when he stopped, she turned bitter. Just like any abuser.

That he goes straight into "The Evanuris seek the magic of the Blight" instead of engaging, honestly shows that he's still Wisdom. That is one battle that is unwinnable, trying to stand up against an abuser's bullshit like that.

"Impossible," she says. "The Blight is safely sealed away forever."

Gaslight, girl boss, gatekeep.

"Though I wish I could believe you." [You have lied to me so many times.] "I have sensed the breaking of the wards."

And her answer is patronising. "I will investigate your claims." [I don't believe you.] "If they forget the danger of the Blight, I will endeavour to remind them."

Solas knows this is futile. "What if, instead, you left the Evanuris and remained with me? Do you not wish for freedom from this struggle?"

He asks her, again, to veer from the dangerous path. He desperately wants to believe he was not completely wrong about her, I think. If she were to leave, he could heal somewhat, for not having so thoroughly misjudged her character.

Am I enough for you? Was I ever enough? is the unspoken question here when he asks if she will remain with him.

And in return, he gets back even more patronising bullshit and hubris. "Be at peace, love. I will stop them."

(Can you tell Mythal pisses me off?)

She calls him love. What an unbearable insult after everything, to go on telling him she cares for him whilst ignoring his wisdom--the very wisdom she coerced him into leaving the Fade so she would have by her side--and consolidating her own power at the expense of his people.

"As you must," he says. "The Blight is our mistake."

Might be unpopular, but I do not think Solas bears a split fifty-fifty custody for whose fault the Blight is. Could he have said no about the dagger? Could he have pushed then? Maybe. But by this point, he'd already had probable millennia of complex trauma and a deeply abusive codependent relationship, probably also a level of magical bond. Like, sorry, Trick and BioWare, if you want to retcon everything you shared with us in Inquisition about being in service to the Evanuris ("You have given yourself into the service of an ancient elven god! You are Mythal's creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her.") AND Mythal casually overriding her servants' will and Solas burning her vallaslin off his face and leaving a scar and devoting himself to freeing the elven people from the Evanuris's domination, fine, but I don't buy it. Even if there was no magical compulsion on him all this time, that is immaterial.

Complex trauma literally rewires the brain to survive. She spent lifetimes programming him, isolating him, stripping from him every bit of agency he had. This man did not have the capacity to say no.

When our no is trampled even for a few months or years, we stop trying to use it. We comply. We, as mortal humans, cannot begin to comprehend the compounded trauma of millennia of this happening with the stakes of worlds in the balance. Solas, quite simply, has lost the entire ability to consent. No one of us can even imagine.

Yet he managed to walk away from her somehow, when she chose Elgar'nan. This man is stronger than anyone gives him credit for.

The dagger was clearly Mythal's idea. The plan to sever the Titans from their dreams, clearly her idea. To end the war. For there to be "peace". For there to be "freedom". Except that never came.

His loyalty was to her and to their people; hers was only ever to herself.

And again, she walks away and lets Solas suffer.

What a good friend.

[screaming from the general direction of Scotland]

She put her trust in monsters instead of her oldest friend, and the monsters ate her face.

Anyone surprised? I'm surprised. (I'm not surprised.)

And on top of this, Mythal finally, finally giving Solas one tiny breadcrumb that she had any principles remaining? I think that cemented his bindings to her forever. Not just that the Evanuris killed her, but why they killed her: because after millennia, she listened to him.

For someone that deep into trauma and abuse? Well. We know what happened.

It cannot be overstated that with his imprisonment of the Evanuris and the Blight, Solas saved the entire world. The entire world. Every living being in Thedas had a chance at life because of him. Only because of him.

Morrigan says it early on in the game, that for all the consequences of the veil (which, it also must be said, was not supposed to be global!), "his imprisonment of the Evanuris was just. Had he not done so, all of Thedas would have fallen to the Blight."

And the world has hated him for it.

He woke after sleeping for millennia, exhausted by this immense act of magic, to discover that not only had it gone horribly wrong, but that it had cost his people everything. That Tevinter had come in and enslaved them, released a trickle of the Blight after breaking into the Black City, used so much blood magic that the veil itself all over Thedas has been in tatters--not least because in releasing the Blight, the survivors had had to face down and kill the dragon thralls (archdemons) of the Evanuris, rendering five out of seven of them mortal, and with their deaths over the intervening centuries, the veil had grown threadbare with only two Evanuris sustaining it.

The risks were catastrophic, the price unbearable.

Everything he'd ever done to protect the world could still come crashing down...and in a sick twist of fate, he would be alive to see it.

And, shockingly, so would Mythal.

Mythal, whose fragment has just been chilling in a swamp for centuries in human form. Mythal, whose abuse of him lasted through the entirety of the world's history. Mythal, who, due to the Evanuris's betrayal and her abusee's abandonment, has become little more than retribution.

Mythal, who could have set him free at any point in all this time and didn't, because he was hers.

Mythal, who is the only remaining person with the power to do what he feels must be done.

I find it interesting that they chose not to use the post-Inquisition dialogue at all. Interesting also that they used Mythal's voice actor and not Flemeth's. This feels like a retcon, but we'll go with it. Whatevs.

"I knew that you would find me soon enough. You need the power of a god, the strength that I alone still carry."

She's still asserting her own godhood.

He's not having it. "The blighted Evanuris will soon break free from their prison. I must make a stronger one that can contain them."

He's not wrong. Not even a little bit wrong. And he's also right that she won't help him. Why would she? She never has.

"While the prison is important, it is not the only goal you seek."

"Why should I not tear down the veil? And bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it."

And this is where I get even more raging, because Mythal's answer is this: "The elven people of today do not deserve to see the world they love torn apart to salve your conscience."

I'm sorry, what?

The world they love? The world that has offered them nowt but literal genocide for thousands of years? The world where in Tevinter, they're chattel slaves and worse, fuel for blood magic without a thought? The world where in the "civilised", slaveless nations to the south, they're either confined to alienages and subjected to repeated genocide (that's what a "purge" is, if anyone isn't clear on that) or the remnants of the Dales, who are the descendents of another enormous genocide? The world where elven magic has been pillaged but elven mages in human settlements are confined to Circles and abused or made tranquil or also genocided by Templars invoking the Rite of Annulment? The world where they're called "elf savage" and "rabbit" and "knife ear" and cannot participate in Thedosian religious life because the Chantry erases every instance of elves from even the Chant of Light? The world where it took the Inquisitor installing a perpetrator of genocide on the Orlesian throne (both Celene AND Gaspard fit this bill) and either having Celene reconcile with Briala (Briala and Celene's relationship could be a whole other post. Boak.) and blackmailing them to give a single elf lands and a title? That world????

What the fuck, Mythal, die faster.

I got real mad there for a second. I'm fine. I'm fine!

Solas, once more, simply says, "I must fix what I have broken. I am sorry."

More than she deserves, frankly. Man's a mess, but at least he tries. She's been chilling in a swamp and pulling puppet strings for ages and abusing her kids. Nudging history like it's some sort of hobby, because it has always just been pieces on a board to her. They have never been people in her eyes like they are in his.

"As am I, old friend."

Aye, get tae fuck. Friends don't treat friends the way you treated Solas. The closest thing to an apology Solas will ever get from her is that she pretty much just lies down and dies when he comes to kill her. And she still won't set him free before he does. Has to continue to twist her own knife.

This scene has me riled.

And this takes us back to the beginning of this post.

To her essence showing up to release him from her service.

In what is, to me, the least accountable, bare minimum non-apology (she never actually says she's sorry) I've had the displeasure to witness in a videogame, with Solas literally cowering before her and offering her a knife to kill him with since this is the first time he's seen her actual, non-Flemythal face since she died.

This was never a friendship of equals. Ever.

She got one thing right. She did break him. But she knew it all this time, and she never took a single step to put it right until pushed. Her corner of the Crossroads, which he built for her in the desperate hope that she would show a glimmer of the friend he believed she was, notably has a pair of wolf statues. Both beheaded.

She's spent all this time punishing him further.

He never went to visit her? I wouldn't either. I could not blame him.

This has gone to an angry place. So let's conclude with what is, I think, the entire point.

Grace.

"I lied. I betrayed you."

"I forgive you."

Has anyone--anyone--in all his long life, ever said those words to him?

I'll say that again: has anyone--ANYONE--in all his millennia of existence, EVER said those words to him?

I forgive you.

Mythal certainly didn't.

The world certainly didn't.

He has shouldered all the blame of an entire pantheon, a war that broke the world, a blight, everything, always, and while people have come alongside him to help him, I am not sure anyone (certainly not anyone he cares about) has given him the grace of forgiveness.

The beauty of this final scene for me wasn't just Ilaana, wasn't just Ilaana reuniting with the man she has loved for a decade who has spent all that time pushing her away so he couldn't--in his mind--inevitably poison the love of the only person who has seen his spirit and cherished it without twisting him.

It was the slow realisation that Rook trusted his love enough to try.

It was Morrigan, who carries all Mythal's memories and her own of Flemythal's abuse and machinations, who responds to Rook's question about her views of Solas with: "Or do you mean to discover if I would stand directly against the Dread Wolf, were there a need? I shall aid you in any way but that. What has passed between Solas and Mythal...I beg you: do not ask this of me again."

Morrigan knows. She will not raise a hand against him. She will not try to stop him. She will let the veil fall. She will not fight with Rook. Because she knows this being whose memories she holds has harmed him enough.

Solas, in these final moments, even before Mythal shows up to gut punch him, realises all these people have somehow, somehow, banded together to help him.

Not work for him.

Not be his agents.

Not worship him.

Not follow him blindly.

To help him. To help Solas. To help him, after all this time, take the first steps towards himself. Towards his own essence, so long twisted into something he never sought or wanted.

The Inquisitor and Morrigan certainly understand what it's like to be seen only as the symbol others raise in your image. Rook will learn that someday, but is still naive.

But even with that naivete, willing. Present. Able to put aside being a chess piece on his board. Able to see that they would never have succeeded without his help. Able to trust two people who know him better than they ever will.

Able to offer him grace.

And when they produce Mythal's essence, how that must brutalise him; to think that perhaps all this has been to let his abuser kill him back. He clearly thinks that's what's happening. He breaks. He fawns. He offers her the blade that has caused so much pain.

Her release of him is the bare minimum she owes him. I've already railed about that.

What is transcendent here, transformative--it is the mortals.

The mortals offering grace to a god who never wanted to be a god.

It's them together showing him a way out of an endless cycle of trauma and abuse. No one of them alone is enough. Without Rook, they wouldn't have Mythal's essence; Morrigan can't go get it, and she can't do what is needed because she's not actually Mythal, only has her memories. Without Morrigan, who can stand there with those memories but from the compassionate perspective of someone who has watched them in horror from the outside. She's far from objective, but she can do this one thing to help.

Without the Inquisitor (romanced or not, still someone he let know him as he most desperately wanted to be known--the Fade-walker, the Dreamer, the humble mage who desperately needed a friend). The Inquisitor, who kneels before him to comfort him. Who sees his hurt and responds.

If romanced, without Lavellan, who kneels to repeat back words he once shouted at the Nightmare in the Fade after Adamant.

"Dirth ma, harellan. Ma banal enasalin. Mar solas ema mar din." (Speak, traitor. Your victory was fruitless. Your pride gives way only to your death.)

To which Solas replied, "Banal nadas."

On the surface, nothing is inevitable, but can also be taken to mean that nothingness is inevitable, entropy, the final void. (Thanks to Dumped, Drunk, and Dalish for this excellent long post on this scene.)

And here is Lavellan, kneeling beside him with those words. "Banal nadas ar lath, ma vhenan."

Nothing is inevitable but the love we share, my heart.

I see everything you are, all you have done, and I love you. I forgive you for the pain you have caused me. I understand, see, and forgive.

No one has ever shown him grace like this.

Ever.

And Solas, this shattered man, sobs.

He sobs.

Someone has taken the trouble to isolate his voice in the video. This man has nothing left. And, after millennia of this trauma cycle repeating over and over, he is finally free to make the choice he wants to make. It's not the outcome he wants; that has to be said. He doesn't want to leave the veil up. He doesn't want to be bound into prison forever with no hope of seeing the world he fought for ever return.

But he is done.

In the Fade after Adamant, there is a cemetery with the worst fears of every companion scriven on shrines and stones. Solas's is dying alone.

After all of this, he is willing to face just that--and would, if not for her.

She knows his deepest fears. She has faced the demon Mythal made of the man she loves. She has given unwitting comfort to the spirit of Wisdom still within. She has seen his sweetest self. Nurtured him, cherished him, and has been nurtured and cherished in return.

Does she want to leave the world behind and spend eternity in a Fade prison? Probably not her first choice. It's not my Ilaana's; she has been on his side all this time, dreaming of a world where the spirits she loves can be reunited with the world in peace and ready to make that happen.

But it was not supposed to happen this way. It did happen this way anyway.

He has sacrificed everything--everything--including his own spirit self, his soul, his life. How could she not offer him what no one ever has? A friend forever, a lover willing to walk the din'an shiral by his side, a companion to ward off the forever alone.

Together, the two of them can begin to heal, with their counterpart who has always seen through the burdens of the world to the soul within.

This is the only thing I've ever had any faith in. Grace I know you carry us Grace And it was such a mess Grace I don't say it enough Grace You are so loved

[isasweetie]

hii my love! can you please write something about assistant!reader x rafe sneaking off to the kitchen pantry (like the one in the show) and making out? maybe it starts with rafe calming her down because she forgot to do something for sofia and rafe reassures her—and somehow they start making out. i probably wrote alot, but thank you anyway, and even if you don't write, i love your work so much!

love u angel bby <3

rafe is such a kind man, the least he could do to calm you down was give you a kiss ♡ (sirens!au)

you were a mess of a girl when you stormed into the kitchen, the staff instantly leaving the room to give you space. mascara running, nose sniffling and twitching like a bunny, eyes wide and glossy like a fawn… all because you had forgotten to pick up sofia’s favourite napkins for the upcoming gala.

rafe cameron hears your gentle cries from upstairs, instantly stomping down to see what the commotion is about. his muscles are a bit tense, the billionaire on guard in case there’s any danger.

it’s a bit of a shock when his eyes land on you, holding onto the counter with trembling hands. why on earth was his wife’s assistant crying all alone in the kitchen?

his shoulders soften underneath his polo shirt as he hurriedly walks towards you, going to hold your shaky hands and pry you away from the marble counter. “hey— hey, what’s goin’ on, sweetie?” he asks, eyebrows furrowing in confusion and concern.

“sofia— she wanted polar bear white napkins for the gala and— and i forgot so now we’re stuck with the stupid cerulean blue napkins from last year!” you cry gently, squeezing his big hands back, too emotional to care that it’s rafe who’s comforting you. “she’s going to be so upset.. oh rafe, she’s already frustrated at me for not reminding the gardeners to water her tulips, she’s going to fire me!”

“woah, woah..” he sighs, trying to calm you down. “shh, don’t think she’s gonna give a shit, alright? i really don’t,” he assures gently.

it doesn’t seem to help, because you cry again and your eyes squeeze shut. “no, she’s going to fire me! cerulean blue is so last year, it’ll be so embarassing when her guests come and—“

he shuts your cries and complaints up with a gentle kiss to the lips, as if testing the waters. it seems to work, because when he pulls away, you’re quiet and confused. so he leans in again, giving you another, longer kiss. “better?” he asks gently after, minty breath kissing your face.

oh, how you love his kisses. you shake your head no, sniffling, possibly just wanting more. rafe is a gentleman and he senses your neediness, so he kisses you again. you’re brave enough to kiss back this time. he lifts you on the counter as you practically sit in your own tears, his lips not leaving yours.

one of your manicured hands goes to his bicep, the other on his scalp and scratchy buzz cut. his tongue pertrudes your lips, going to invade your mouth. every movement he does is slow, gentle … he knows you’re fragile right now, so he’s going to treat you as such.

when you pull away for breath and your wet lashes flutter as your eyes open, you ask, “didn’t you say we weren’t supposed to do this anymore?”

he displays a little half-smile, finding your question sweet. “yes, but when i see one of my workers upset, i’ll do whatever it takes to fix it. i’m a generous man, aren’t i?”

“yes sir,” you answer his question softly, confirming that he is generous. “but i’m not technically your worker, m’sofia’s,”

“y’get paid by me, though,” he explains simply, and you nod gently at his logic.

so when he leans in again, you don’t stop him. he’s just doing his job, after all.