#nico and parse

[ev3rythingscomingupmilhouse]

these are all the same person. CHANGE MY MIND

[aroaceleovaldez]

listen I know everybody makes Orpheus and Eurydice quest aus of Nico bringing Jason back BUT we already did Orpheus and Eurydice in canon like at least three times (Nico bringing Percy to the Styx, Nico bringing back Hazel, and Piper in general is Orpheus as an Argonaut) AND we are missing the much simpler canon-established method.

Remember the whole soul-trade thing Nico was doing in BoTL that got dropped completely? Even though it was like the entire subplot with Minos?

The requirement is a soul that has cheated death for a soul that has died. Now, quickly ignoring the convenient emperors running around who very much cheated death and the entire main conflict in TOA is Apollo trying to get rid of them. There are a ton of escaped souls from the whole Doors of Death/Thanatos getting captured thing. They're just kind of around. A lot of them were in the Giant Army but not all of them and a good number of them are random mortals and they're just. Somewhere.

So that's two loose plot threads: Nico is 100% fully aware of a completely Underworld-Legal method for bringing people back from the dead and there's an absolute ton of random souls-who-cheated-death running around who knows where completely unaddressed. Also, we know from BoO that Nico has changed his stance since BoTL and is now completely down for some murder.

Now, is there a very compelling plot within there about Nico and his sense of Underworld justice/Nico's morals and how he views the situation (insert the "That word ['please'] didn’t make sense to Nico. The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice." quote from BoO of Nico killing Bryce while he's begging for mercy here.) vs Jason's own sense of justice/morals and the knowledge that Nico 100% actually murdered somebody to bring him back. THAT'S FASCINATING. It's a good conflict for a story and it ties up loose threads! We don't need to invent new mechanics the worldbuilding writes the plot all on it's own.

[ranticore]

Do imimata show signs of fear of being recoded like they fear "death"?

It's very hard for most end users of digital imimata to parse emotions as expressed by imimata as there are often clauses [hard boundaries outside the encoding] forbidding them from all the obvious ways you might think. But the most extreme form is the physical manifestation outside the resonance chamber (creating a poltergeist-like effect)

Recoding is also often not as drastic as a full on death, it can be thought of as a spectrum from "slight make-over" to "complete recycling and rebirth" but it's actually not possible to remove an imimaton's encoding without fully disincorporating them (and therefore losing them forever) as that is their entire make-up and being. Encoding is the process of teaching or gathering experiences that inform a personality or presentation. It can only build on what already exists, never remove it. So, ordinarily, a recoding is just a new set of instructions and clauses to make an intimation behave differently - this is actually Nico's profession in this world, he recodes personal handheld imimata who have begun to show signs of manifesting or instability, 'fixing' them.

Where the removal of memories comes from is a different matter - external media storage has been in use for centuries. Originally taking the form of physical archives of books which an intimation could recollect from as long as they were present in the right part of the chamber, these obviously progressed to the digital era in the form of optical disks, tape, and solid state storage. This information is something the imimaton can recollect but is not strictly a part of them, so it can be removed. Some of them don't seem to like that though

[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 100)

The sound of light snoring filled a 16 year old boys bedroom in the wee hours of the dusk, the wall adorned with guitars on racks and band posters displaying men with long hair.

His blankets were a charcoal black, his sheets a dark grey. On his desk lie a machine glowing with RGB, and whirring softly, and his seating options consisted of haphazardly arranged bean bags.

“Nico! ¡Levántate! ¡tienes tu turno en la puerta del búnker hoy!” Came harshly from the living room, and a drone with a mop of black hair grumbled, emerging from his nest of blankets like a member of the undead.

His purple eyeslights flickered on just to display his groggniess- another night of fitful sleep.

“Comin abuela!” He calls out in return, throwing the blankets off him and stumbling into the bathroom where he brushed his shoulder length hair and cleaned his teeth.

The only thing he was wearing was a pair of long black shorts, his hair was a mess, and when he looked at himself in the mirror he looked like a disheveled shelter dog.

“Ugh. Fuck me…”

He sighed as he gathered up clothes to wear for his shift guarding the front door, with everything going on, older students had the choice to volunteer to help with different projects instead.

And he'd take security work over a stuffy classroom any day.

He slid on a grey shirt and green cargo pants before fumbling around in his room to find his brown aviator jacket and matching goggles, then dug in his nightstand to find his service weapon- a 9mm pistol that would do nothing against a threat that wasn't a normal drone.

He strapped it to his hip and opened the the door to the living room where his grandmother was watching some kind of reality TV show, her legs covered in a knitted blanket.

“Morning.” He gave a half grin to her slightly yellowed frame, she smiled back, faded blue eyelights blinking at him.

“Buenos días mijo. Casi pensé que no te levantarías” She hummed, gently taking his hand as she couldn't quite see him even in his close proximity.

“Nada…No me iría de casa indefenso.” He replied before sighing. “Por favor, usa tus gafas abuela…”

She shook her head. “Ah, no. Not like it will help anyway.” She switched to english, probably not even realizing she'd switched at all. “You be safe mijo! Don't be a idiota!”

He chuckled softly. “Done enough of being stupid… no worries. See you when I get back.”

He shut the door behind him, stopping to stand just in front of his door to watch several people walk by- a deadpan expression seeping onto his face.

“Let's get this over with…”

He traipsed down the hall towards the bunker doors. Getting shoulder checked and ignored all the way through; he was decently tall for a worker drone but that didn't stop people from not caring enough to get out of his way.

It was kind of his luck. Hell, his whole families luck it seemed. He should've been named Murphy, because every single bad thing that could happen; did.

His father was murdered outside the bunker before he was even born, and his mother only took care of him for the first four years of his life before dumping him on her mother and bailing. He couldn't parse her out from the crowd even if she was still around.

So it was just him and his dear Abuela, and it had been for most of his life, which he was fine with, she was a lovely woman and had raised him well. Though recently her opticals had begun to fail…

Just another thing added to the list of mundane and shitty aspects of his life.

Why couldn't his problems be more fantastical? At least then he could be miserable and interesting instead of miserable and bored to fucking death.

He reached the front of the bunker on complete autopilot, settling into his post next to the open door, snow blistering around him while he leaned against the frozen concrete.

Despite how lonely it often got, he did find himself enjoying his time out here, one earbud in his audials while he watched the ship that would take them all away from here be built.

He'd actually begun as a welder, and was pretty good at it too- the only problem being that he was too impatient for it, he would get into a flow and then burn his hands because he wasn't paying attention… so now he was put on simple security.

“Hey Nico. Just get here?” His watch partner and now, one of his close friends patting his shoulder as she walked by with a piping hot cup of gasoline for the both of them.

“Hey Nellie. Yeah. Kinda slept in…” He replied, looking into the girls green eyelights and near silvery hair that hung down to the small of her back.

“Boss should be back from the expedition today with the ‘cords. All that's left after that is preparing that monstrosity to go.” She pointed to the ship, now being coated in heat shielding for its cone and underbelly.

“You think it'll actually work? Some of that shits starting to get in our pipes now… it's gonna get impossible to clean out soon.”

She shrugged. “If it don't, I say let's have one last hurrah until we all munched, if the planets gonna take everything; let's not let it take our joy too…”

“And if it does?”

She laughed. “Then I'll kiss you. How about that?”

He blushed at that, looking away sheepishly. “I think I'd take you up on that.”

The air cracked with supersonic pressure, alerting both drones to a yellow blur quickly decending, preparing to land just in front of them and they both braced themselves, snow getting flung everywhere as something big and mechanical landed with a loud thud.

After everything settled, what remined standing before them was tall, formidable, and had a long tail with a stinger. A Murder Drone…

Carrying a small, feisty, visibly pregnant little worker, and both were smiling like idiots.

“You said slow.”

“That was slow!”

“You broke the sound barrier!”

Nico felt his features soften. Good, they were both back in one piece, and it seems to have went well If their playful bickering was anything to go by.

…

There was one more reason he really enjoyed being out here, instead of in there.

“Mama! Papa!” Little Tera was calling from the arms of a drone with blonde hair and white eyelights, reaching out for her parents as N nearly ran to take her out of the workers arms.

“Oh hello my baby bat! Papi missed you yes he did!” He spun her, making a cascade of happy giggles escape her mouth.

Nico smiled at the sight, feeling his heart swell before a pang of deep regret hit him like a truck.

It wasn't supposed to be this way…

That night with Chloe was supposed to be fun, no consequence. She'd told him she was sixteen too, acted like she'd never done anything before right up until she absolutely blew his mind- but he'd chalked it up to it being his first time.

Then; nothing. Radio silence, he didn't see her in his classes, didn't see her in the halls or any other party he'd went to, like she'd been a ghost.

Until she called him five months later to meet her at the nursery.

He thought the meeting place was odd, but at the time didn't seem to care, he was just excited to see her again, being unable to wipe the night from his memory- he'd wanted something more substantial ever since then…

What he arrived to, was her holding a pillbaby put with one hand- which she dropped unceremoniously into his arms before just walking away without explaining a damn thing.

He didn't need one though. He knew the moment the babies eyes opened and he was staring into his own eyelights, when her mouth opened to let out a coo and she weakly rolled into into him.

He held her close, alone aside from Mrs.Rayn in the nursery, having to sit down because his legs threatened to give out underneath him.

At first… he just admired her, she was mostly inert now having been just transferred and having no life experience other then him in that moment. But she was perfect in every way.

Then he… thought about how he'd have to adjust, he'd have to drop out of school, move out- but… he couldn't move out, abuela couldn't see very well and without him she could hurt herself…

Okay… so he couldn't move out, that's fine. So it was drop out, keep taking care of his grandmother and the new addition, and get a job so he could make sure she'd have toys and extra bottles and all the oil she needed.

But… taking care of the both of them would be a full time job- he couldn't be out all day and expect his grandmother to help raise yet another baby.

He started to tremble when he made that revelation. How absolutely upset his grandmother was going to be at him, how utterly impossible it would be to try and juggle everything this little baby would need at the age of 16.

And he started to cry uncontrollably, hugging her tightly as his heart unraveled out onto the floor. Ugly sobs wracking through his body as he went through the last… and most viable option. To leave her here.

Yet he still stayed for another hour, basking in his daughter's presence, memorizing it to the best of his ability.

He'd given her a name- even knowing it would never be used.

Mariposa, his little butterfly.

And then, he went to the front desk, legs feeling like lead and with shaky breaths, and handed her to Mrs. Rayn.

She didn't even have time to ask a question before he was gone, not being able to bear being there a second longer without breaking down into more tears.

When he got back to his room, he collapsed in a heap of despair. Sitting on the edge of his bed just staring into space, the weight of what he'd done threatening to crush him.

After an hour of that. He called Chloe, she didn't pick up but he didn't exactly need her to. He just needed to fucking scream.

So he did.

He left a thirty minute long expletive filled rant as a message before throwing his phone in fit of absolute rage and then collapsing as tears ran down the inside of his visor again.

He had a daughter, a pillbaby with his code and the circumstances of her birth and his life had made it impossible for him to be there for her in the way he wanted to be.

He knew, realistically, this was the best choice for both of them, he wouldn't have to uproot everything and she would have a much higher quality of life, she'd have two parents who'd love her instead of just him, a 16 year old boy who barely knew how to take care of himself.

The next morning, and the day after that, and the day after that he went to visit her secretly, giving her tickles or admiring her before he went to school. His heart hurting knowing that there was going to be a day soon where she'd be gone.

And then the day came.

And she was gone.

He was brought back to the moment by a happy laugh, Tera pulling her mother's beanie off as she climbed her head, looking overjoyed to be with her parents.

She was so happy now, so energetic, so wild and carefree, he felt cemented in his choice, that it was the right one. But sometimes he was simply just jealous of her new parents; despite the fact they seemed wonderful.

They got to experience her first words, first steps, spoil her rotten. All the things he wanted to do, to be the dad he never got to have.

“Papi! Happy! Mama!” She yelped out a short string of words, beaming happily as the family went inside. Resting on her mother's shoulder- they made eye contact.

She recognized him, not as her dad but… as someone she knew. Her mouth tilted upwards and she gave him a happy wave, kicking her feet.

He gave a small, bittersweet wave in return.

Next ->

[bvckbiter]

some thoughts on characterization of the seven in hoo, VERY long post ahead:

for each of the five books in the series, i read them right as they came out and endured the year-long wait til the next release. like many readers, i was thrown off by the introduction of the new trio in the lost hero. but that was offset by 1) the seemingly more mature vibe/themes that riordan wanted to explore, 2) the monumental tension that was being built around the greek-roman separation, and 3) percy's comeback in son of neptune, even as an amnesiac.

mark of athena, released october 2012, was extremely anticipated because it was set to be the long-awaited percabeth reunion as well as the true crossover for the greek and roman spheres. there were a lot of theories being made at the time. would piper be able to mediate between eons-long enemies in a genuinely diplomatic way, or was she going to brainwash charmspeak them into compliance? how is reyna going to take jason suddenly having another girl and a new set of friends and another life after abruptly disappearing? will we get to learn more about jason's relationships within camp jupiter? would nico be dealing with any fallout from essentially boating along two riverbanks (translated directly from a tagalog idiom, so if the wording seems clunky thats why)? it didn't help that the first avengers movie came out in 2012, so the idea of a huge crossover event was all the hype then.

the published work, in my opinion... fell considerably short of expectations.

to be fair, we got some very good character moments. i did not find the judo flip scene cute, just kinda weird in the sense that i felt the author didn't know how to handle such a huge emotional turning point, but percabeth for the most part of moa was enjoyable, really giving you the high of this teenage couple finally being able to resume the honeymoon period they were probably in after four years of pining and a war lol. everything the fans wanted! unfortunately, we didn't get the same with other characters.

while i wouldn't say that percabeth was the reason, the difference in spotlight is nonetheless very staggering. the roman-greek reunification goes bad, sure, but it begins due to outside interference more rather than any actual intrinsic differences between the two camps; so the built-up tension from the previous books kinda falls flat. we get none of jason's backstory, so next to percy, he barely leaves an impression on the reader. hazel, frank, and leo get shafted into this weird love triangle where their enemy is leo's long-dead ancestor who ultimately makes no impact on the plot other than to have hazel and leo intersect somehow, contributing to leo's man-angst of being the seventh wheel. frank, who arguably has the most interesting set of powers and lineage, is basically relegated to being the muscle and hazel's (understandably) jealous boyfriend. piper... good lord. thats probably a whole other post, so i'll just say: cornucopia.

and yet, despite the disparity in characterization... you don't really feel that percabeth has a character arc or development per se. it's an odd contrast, with percy and annabeth getting a lot of time but pretty much remaining stagnant characters, as opposed to the other five who are written pretty blandly, but have valid, explicit inner struggles and questions they must face. for jason, it's being greek or roman. for hazel and leo, they want to parse their connection, even at the expense of frank, who is still struggling with his self-esteem. piper comes into her own power.

so despite being a book full of twists and turns, especially for percabeth, this is where you really feel the stakes begin to slump. decisions are being made to move the plot from point a to point b pretty straightforwardly, but there's not a ton of effort to make you invested in these characters other than what we know about them from previous books and the fact that they have a role to play in this apocalyptic second great prophecy.

but there's still two books left! the yearlong wait demands patience and creativity. surely percabeth falling into tartarus is going to make for some interesting development and impact. it was a brilliant plot twist, after all. with the darker turn that hoo was seemingly taking, there could have been so many consequences. percabeth could shut the doors of death from their side and come back alive, but come back wrong—unearthing old traumas, questioning and ultimately foreswearing their loyalty to the gods, threatening the reunification of the greek and roman aspects, etc.

and once again, house of hades... only semi-delivered? the tartarus chapters were certainly harrowing: percy choking akhlys is still a Scene of All Time to me because it felt earned, after all that percy has been through and what the series has been building up to! annabeth also having to face all the times she's been abandoned in her life, while less focused on, was also a very poignant moment for her character. they were events that seemed to push for development.

back on the argo ii, there's a continuing case of kind of low-effort writing on the other characters. frank and his mars blessing, for one; you kind of understand what rick was getting at, but... what! piper... girl idk what she was doing other than seeing visions in her dagger. leo... ue ue ue. jason commits to chb, but ofc he does because neither he nor we know/remember much about cj, so we don't really feel the loss! but there is one exception for his part, and that is of course the (in)famous cupid scene with nico, but i'll talk about nico much later.

hazel is an interesting case, so here's another paragraph for her. she gets to come into (more of) her powers just like piper did in the previous books, but from my viewpoint, it was considerably less engaged with who she was as a character compared to piper. in mark of athena, piper still struggles with being a daughter of aphrodite and how she can be "useful" as we know she struggles with internalized misogyny. on the other hand, hazel gets in touch with her mother's background... kinda? idk if controlling the mist can be considered equivalent to marie's voodoo; i dont think so. she certainly gains more understanding of her pluto heritage, too, and has this nice back-and-forth with hecate about creating her own path, but you don't really get the sense that doing so has consequences, or that she concretely shirked other paths to get where she was at.

where mark of athena fell flat with character stakes, house of hades to its credit does manage to up the ante—but only truly for percabeth. with all the resolutions to the character arcs in this book, you don't feel that the characters have anymore stakes or reasons to fight gaea other than the fact that she's still coming for them and they are in turn prophesied to defeat her. the one big thing that could be personal to them, which are the camps, ultimately fall under the purview of coach hedge, nico, and reyna, who are side characters, upgraded to main characters in the last book of a series already overbloated by shifting povs and favoritism.

ultimately, this is why blood of olympus falls apart. the best characterization work done, which is on percabeth and their time in tartarus, is in the end of no consequence and is barely mentioned. it's as if nothing has happened. all the build-up and investment fizzles out because in boo and beyond, even though they went through literal hell, they just shook it off (because accdg to rick demigods are extra resilient and don't get traumatized lmfao). the climactic face-off against gaea is headed by jason, piper, and leo, and it has no pay off. the books haven't dwelled on them as a trio after tlh because leo was too busy angsting about his love triangle, and jason's and piper's arcs, both individual and romantic, are shoddy, to say the least. to add insult to injury, leo's sacrifice is a fake-out! so he can finally shed the fucking seventh wheel arc that came about not because of a genuine exploration of how he has been outcasted all his life, but because the argo ii mysteriously became demigod tinder and also because rick thought "haha how funny that the latino is the outrageous flirt!" frank and hazel... just get shafted im so sorry babygirls T_T

what saves boo is not the cast of the seven that we have spent the five books journeying with. no, what saves boo is the three side characters suddenly made main characters because. well, fan favoritism and pandering. nico, reyna, and coach hedge comprised the only arc that wasn't an absolute slog to read through—high stakes, chemistry, and well-rounded character arcs that complemented each other. no hoo scene is honestly more heartwarming than reyna embracing nico. it makes you question if hoo's length and frankly shocking quantity of main ensemble members even constricted the narrative that could've been told, as opposed to the original intention of expanding the world of percy jackson through more povs. five books with at least 700-800+ pages each for five years. what a tremendous amount of time and energy to be wasted.

and there is, of course, the question of "should percabeth have been in hoo." until house of hades, my answer was yes. the fact that their tartarus arc fizzled into nothingness changed my answer to no. taking the whole series into perspective, if their treatment in boo was all that the hype and tension would amount to, it would've been better if they'd been relegated to side characters with mentor/helper roles as opposed to taking the spotlight away from the rest of the seven. their succeeding cameos in the other series + the new college reco trilogy makes the blunder all the more grievous.

heroes of olympus did give us a new cast of characters to love. along with all its racist stereotypes and pitfalls, it also diversified the percy jackson world. if not for the mid-2010s fandom who took up the slack of unexplored storylines and potential, these characters would be very much not impressioned on us. and as a successor to a series that was so deeply driven by family, friendship, love, and belonging, that it couldn't consistently humanize its main cast was the biggest sin.

[jeanie-g]

For the dialogue prompt bullet point thing how about #2? And NicoJack please?

If that strikes your fancy!

yes m'am! 🫡 hope some sweet, sweet angst strikes your fancy <3

#2: "It's not like this with them."

• Nico has stopped keeping track of how long he's been in love with Jack. Sometimes, it feels like he can't even remember a time when he wasn't.

• It's like Jack has always been there, and Nico was simply waiting to find him. Like Nico's heart knew it before his brain did, keeping a small, Jack-shaped space carved out for the time they finally met. And when they did, Nico felt something slide home in himself that he'd never felt before.

• It's been years now since that very first day at training camp, years since Nico fell victim to the first of a thousand smiles that Jack cast on him like a spell—and, yeah, he guesses that he kind of does still keep track after all. Because it's been four years, and Jack doesn't feel the same.

• Nico's come to terms with it, he likes to think. That Jack will never love him back the way he wants. It's not Jack's fault he's straight, just like it's not Nico's fault he isn't. It's just unfortunate, is what it is (Nico tries to avoid the word "tragic" as much as he can in the fear that he'll sound like a sappy novel), but that's life. That's the way the world works. He just needs to get over it.

• Except, the thing is, it's really fucking hard to get over it with Jack acting the way he does. Loud, open, touchy, always hanging off of people, always hanging off of Nico on the ice or in the locker room or out at bars and clubs. Nico has to act like it doesn't affect him, because he knows Jack's just like that, that he's just a friendly guy who isn't afraid to show physical affection toward the people he cares about.

• Even when he sits next to Nico more than the others, his thigh pressed against his. Even when his celly hugs last a little longer with Nico, and Jack turns his head till his nose touches Nico's neck. Even when, a few beers deep, he gets all up in Nico's space with that wicked smile of his, and Nico has to call on every fiber in his being to keep from leaning forward and kissing him. To keep from scooping him up and taking him home. When, in his moments of weakness, of stupid blind hope, Nico thinks that maybe, just maybe, Jack might like him back—and those hopes get dashed almost immediately after they've sprouted.

• Because Jack takes girls home. He leaves Nico's side at the club eventually and dances with girls. He kisses girls. He fucks girls. And Nico's not a girl. Only if he strikes out, which isn't often, does he come back to Nico, smiling and sweaty and beautiful. Or hours after, when Nico hears the tell-tale ding of the hotel elevator descending, and he asks if Nico's still up to watch a movie because he can't sleep. And Nico doesn't have the kind of self preservation to feel ashamed, so he says yes. He always says yes. And when Jack enters his room, smelling like some girl's perfume, he pretends he doesn't know what Jack's been up to. Because Nico's not a stupid man. He'll take what he can get.

• The night after their win in Dallas is hard. Jack's clingier than usual, being a bit less conservative with his lingering touches on Nico's back as they walk or the hook of his arm around Nico's neck as they sit. Nico tries not to think about it.

• He’s talking to Siegs about one of the Dallas plays in the third, and that's when he notices Jack's eyes—every few moments—flickering down to his lips. He thinks it's just because it's kind of loud and Jack may be reading them to parse out what he's saying, but even when Siegs starts talking, Jack doesn't let up. When Nico smiles, he looks over at Jack, who's very pointedly still following Nico's mouth.

• Nico doesn't know what to do with that, he really doesn't, so he decides it's time to start drinking. But when he starts, so does Jack, and in just over an hour, all of the micro-movements—all of Jack's confusing little gestures—go up exponentially.

• The guys have pulled them both to the dance floor, and Jack is just awful at it, which Nico has to try really hard not to find endearing. Jack finds any excuse he can to slide up against Nico, bumping their hips with the rhythm. When the music speeds up, he moves his hands down Nico’s arms, intertwines their fingers, even, before pulling them away. Nico can smell the sweat on his body, can feel the heat radiating between them, and when Jack meets his gaze and smiles, something dangerously close to hope swells in Nico’s chest. Jack swings close, and his eyes drop to Nico’s lips again, and the air gets a whole lot warmer.

• And Nico is nearing his boiling point. There's only so much of this can-he/will-he Nico can take before he explodes. Or cries. Because even if he goes with it—falls into Jack's touch the way he's desperate to—he knows, fuck, he knows that Jack will go home with someone else. It's better to just rip the bandaid off now.

• He breaks free from Jack and stalks off the dance floor, going up to the bar and asking for a cup of water. He downs it, eyes scanning over the crowd of swaying partygoers. Suddenly, it doesn't matter how much alcohol he's had; Nico is absolutely drained. He asks for another water, sipping it more gingerly this time as he studies the multitude of liquor bottles backlit on the bar shelves. Then, he feels a hand on his shoulder, and his face sours when he turns and sees Jack.

• "Hisch, where'd you go?" he asks, and Nico finds a well of bravery he has a very small window to tap.

• "I can't do it, Jack," he says, avoiding his eyes.

• "Can't do what?" Jack asks.

• Nico makes a pained noise as he meets Jack's eyes. "You have to know, Jack. You have to know. How I…how I feel about you.”

• And Jack's face sobers. He doesn't deny it, which Nico can at least respect, though it breaks his heart. A large part of him was hoping that Jack was simply oblivious this whole time.

• Nico drops off his water cup and shoves past Jack, heading towards the exit. When he steps out of the club and feels the first lick of wind on his face, he can finally take a breath. And then the door opens behind him, and Jack appears.

• "Nico, please..."

• Nico was intending to drop it for now, maybe just pretend this exchange never happened for his own sanity's sake, but Jack seems hell bent on hashing it out now. If that’s what he wants, that’s what he’ll get.

• "So, are you messing with me, then?" Nico spits, letting those self-hating thoughts come to the surface. "Playing with me because you know I want you? Just to fuck off with some gorgeous blonde ten minutes later?"

• "No, Nico, that's not..."

• Nico feels hot tears burning, and he tries valiantly to fight them back. "It's mean," he bites, and then the first tear slips, and he feels himself deflate. He's so tired. "You...you make me think you might actually...and then you leave and take someone else home."

• Jack's eyes dart over Nico's face. He seems anxious, like a mouse caught in a trap. "I...I don't want to."

• Nico chokes out a hoarse laugh. "You don't want to?" He asks incredulously. "How can you not want to?"

• "Because it's not like this with them," Jack says quickly, and then his voice goes smaller, his eyes get wet. "It's not...I've tried, Nico, but it's not."

• Nico stills, and Jack steps closer. "I always think about you. Even when I'm not..." His face pinks. "And I've tried to ignore it for so long. I don't want to be..."

• The word lies silently between them: gay.

• "But I want you," Jack continues. "I don't care anymore. I just want you."

• Nico still hasn’t moved, his mind trudging through Jack's words and their meaning like molasses. Jack takes one of Nico’s hands and places it on his own cheek, covering it with one of his own.

• And Nico can't believe what he's hearing. What he’s seeing. What he’s doing. He feels like he's in a daze. A lovely, dreamlike daze. Jack…likes him back. He slowly brings his other hand to Jack's cheek, just as a tear slips down to his chin.

• "Please," Jack whispers, and Nico can only nod.

• Slowly, so slowly, in case Jack changes his mind, Nico leans forward. He sees Jack close his eyes before Nico closes his own, and then it's inches, centimeters, millimeters, and their lips are touching.

• It's dry—Jack's lips are chapped, but a sting of lightning sparks between them anyway. Like instinct, the both of them pull back slightly to lick their lips, and then they fall forward together, and Jack tilts his head, and Nico parts his lips, and then they're kissing—properly kissing—and Nico thinks he'll faint right here on the sidewalk.

• Jack whines, and Nico can't help but lean forward to drape his body against Jack’s—push him the few steps it takes till they're against the brick wall so their hips can touch.

• "Oh, fuck," Jack breathes, breaking their kiss for a few moments to pant. Nico takes the opportunity to move his hands up into Jack's hair, fingers raking his scalp. Jack is immediately responsive, moaning quietly and grinding his hips ever so slightly against Nico's. Nico has to blink stars out of his vision.

• "Nico, please, never stop touching me," Jack says, and Nico wordlessly moves his hands to cradle Jack's head, tilting it to capture his lips again. Jack opens his mouth for Nico's tongue, and Nico just about dies.

• He will never stop touching Jack again, now that he has him, now that Jack is finally his.

[asksuccubussides]

What if you were an asexual succubs, wouldn't that be fucked up or what Chapter 24

Masterpost of chapters

Cw: Physical violence

With a tremble along his arm Patton lit the last of the candles and brought them together to form a circle in the middle of the living room before carefully putting glass cups around each one of them so that the wind wouldn't blow any of them out. The demons had pushed aside the couch and carpet to give space on the floor. The sound of Janus' fast steps as he paced around the room mixed with the metallic sting of Logan sharpening one of the kitchen knives. The tension in the room was so strong that even Nico the dog went to hide her snoot under the couch.

"Preferably we would have gotten your written informed consent like a proper medical intervension before going through with this, but I suppose a verbal one will have to do" Logan said as he flipped the knife over and held it out for Janus to take "Are you absolutely sure you want to die an unnatural death for the chance of being transmutated into a non human, despite being aware there is a chance it won't work and will instead result in your permanent death?"

Janus took the knife "Yes"

"And you are aware that even if you transform into a demon that will not take away any bodily or mental pain you have gained during your human life?"

"It would have been a nice bonus if my back pain could stop but yes I am aware"

"And that understand that you will have to feed as demons do? You will age as us, become unable to conceive children and gain non human body parts?"

"Yes"

"...Okay, seems as if you have an understanding of the consequenses"

Logan looked to his husband who was busy leafing through the ragged pages of the notebook while quietly mumbling to himself and realized that he, Logan the bad with emotions guy, would be the one having to explain how this would work. He handed his husband a rag to wipe his hands at before the sweat on his palms completely ruined the book.

"Human you must remain within the candles during the entire process" Logan began "I recommend removing your shirt now so that your body will have ample space to create wings. As soon as we no longer detect a pulse we will place a piece of demon flesh in your mouth before Patton recounts the incantation needed to start the process of transforming. After that everything is up to your body. I am unsure if your body already being disabled will falter the chances of the process working but hopefully it works. it all depends on if you can physically take the transformation" He stopped before parsing his lips once more "And I must remind you that the Moment Pat has finished that incantation him and I are fleeing! We are not staying to see if it worked. Right honey!?"

He turned to glare at his husband with the kind of steely eyes that screamed that Patton had tried to beg to stay "Yes sweetie"

"Good. Remus remind the human of the best method of death please"

Remus had been nervously plucking hairs from his eyebrows but sprung into action at his name "Yeah so uhh I've spent lot of time thinking bout how to kill you-"

"Charming"

"And I did go for asphyxiation at first yes but it take longer, is more painful and might give brain damage which I dunno if the transformation can fix. So I suggest slicing vein on your neck. If you slice quickly it should only sting little and you'll bleed out in 2 minutes. Can I show?"

Janus nodded and Remus took the knife and moved the dull side up against the human's neck and showed where to cut. He gently placed the blade into Jan's hands and instructed how to hold it. He leant in close and whispered.

"You sure you're ready?"

The human bit at the dry patches on his bottom lip but nodded "I am"

"I will be here when you wake up. No matter what. I'll be here. I promise, I won't leave you"

"If I- if it doesn't work take care of Virge for me please"

"I will"

Janus raised his gaze and let himself look into his ex boyfriend's bright red eyes that shone like blaring sirens at him "I don't want us to end on a bad note. Kiss me"

"Don't have to ask me twice" Remus took his human's face in his hands and planted a long sweet kiss on his lips. He saw Janus' raise up on his tippy toes to move in closer and felt his eyelashes flutter against his skin.

They broke apart and Janus took off his shirt and neatly put it on the ground before stepping into the circle of candles. A few pillows had been placed on the floor to soften the ordeal. Logan didn't care to look since he was too busy putting on his escape backpack but the other two demon's eyes were glued on the human as he sat down and took a few deep breathes before picking up the knife just as Remus had told him.

He placed the tip of the blade against his skin but froze. His eyes staying wide enough to show the bloodshot veins at the edges from lack of sleep. The bottom of his eyes twitched and that twitch traveled down to his nose before going to his shoulders and finally his hands that started to tremble while his throat convulsed as if urging him to throw up.

Janus dropped the knife "I- I can't do this- I can't do that to myself. Remus can you- Can you finish what you were sent here to do?"

"I can but do you want me to?"

"I do. Please...finish it"

Remus picked up the blade and in that instant Virgil felt a chill run up his spine at the notion of his human being in danger. Since Janus would have never been able to actually go through with it no fatal danger had been signaled to the guardian Angel up till that point. But none of the demons knew that.

Instead all Remus knew in that moment was the scared look in Janus' eyes as he pushed him to lay down on the pillows and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

He didn't hesitate, he had gone through the motions a hundred times in his head. With one quick cut blood started to seep out from Janus' vein.

It had been so sudden that no pain had even registered in Janus' mind. His hand instinctively moved up to touch the wound but Remus gently took his wrist to stop him. The cut had only shown white layers of skin at first but soon the wound filled with blood and it began to flow out down onto Janus' shoulder and continuing down past the pillows to the crevices of the wooden floor.

Stars started to appear in Janus' vision and every sound became ten times louder, especially the sound of his heart as it pumped ferociously. Loud enough to ring in his ears.

All Janus could do was stare up at Remus' worried eyes and Logan coming in and out of his vision to check if he was still alive.

Until a sudden shift in Remus' expression made him feel uneasy before a second later a loud crash was heard.

"WHA- RE- DOIN-" Janus' hearing went in and out.

A feathered wing pushed in on Janus' line of sight and threw Remus out of the way. He recognized the panting as sounding like Virgil before he recognised his face which had been twisted into pure panic.

"Jan- Jannie- Oh god oh god wha- they've- one-"

His head lolled to the side as it became too heavy for him to hold steady. It was as if his head had been stuffed with cotton that pressed at the edges of his cranium. All he heard was Virgil's panting turning into heavy breathing and then full on hyperventilation as his finger slipped up to run against Janus' cheek.

"dont worry Vivzie" He slurred out.

For every second that passed Virgil could feel Janus' skin turning colder and colder. He was a guardian angel, this was the exact type of situation he had been made for, and yet he stagnated in one spot unable to wrap his mind around what to do.

Instead Janus reached out a shaking hand and as his mind slipped away all he saw was his friend having a panic attack and reacted like he always did by taking Virgil's wrist and bringing his fingers to the vein on his neck to calm him down. To remind him that they were both alive and okay.

But Virgil couldn't feel a pulse through the blood.

He desperately tried to stop the bleeding by pressing his hand over the wound but the blood sippered out between his fingers.

"It's okay" Janus whispered.

His eyes stagnated and it took Virgil a moment to realize he had stopped breathing. For some stupid reason he moved to try cpr before realizing it was worthless if there was no blood for the heart to push around. He leant his head down against Janus' unmoving chest and screamed.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" He yelled as he turned to the demons.

Logan ignored him and instructed Remus "Cut some flesh from your tail. Now. Pat, dear, get ready"

Virgil got up on woobly legs and grabbed ahold of the collar of Remus' shirt "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO!?"

"WHAT WE ABOUT TO DO IS MORE IMPORTANT" Remus shouted back right into his face. "I'm not letting Jan die"

"HE'S ALREADY DEAD REMUS! HE'S DEAD! YOU KILLED HIM!"

Virgil cranned back and geared up to punch Remus but he was in so much shook that when the punch landed it didn't even make the demon stumble. He took his tail and quickly cut off a piece of the skin which he handed to Patton. With everything he could do over he let the angel push him down onto the ground.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" Virgil yelled with tears streaming down his cheeks "I'LL FUCKI-"

In the blink of an eye the angel was gone. The part of his shirt that Virgil had been holding fell back down to his skin as Remus looked around the room in confusion nearly expecting the angel to have ran to hide somewhere.

"Where did he....?"

Logan shrugged "His human is dead. Heaven must have called him back"

The corpse of Janus laid stiff and still within the circle of candles. Patton reached in between the gaps of wax to pry his mouth open and place the piece of flesh on his tongue before gently closing his eyes shut. He leant back on his knees, opened the book and began to recite.

Just hearing it made Remus' ears buzz and his body feel strange. He wondered how Logan was able to walk around like it was nothing. The older demon re-checked that he had packed everything inbetween peeking out of every window. He left to check through the kitchen window and returned with his tail standing on edge and his skin having gone pale.

"Patton we have to go"

Just as he said it Remus caught the scent of demons. Not even a hint of hesitation went by before he stood up and slammed the door to the living shut. He pushed the couch in front of the door followed by the drawer, the table, anything he could see he used to barricade the room while Logan pulled at his husband's arm.

"Forget the human! We have to go!"

But Patton ignored him. He was deep in the incantation. His wings pushed out from his back and enshrined him like a coocon so that no one could distract him.

Logan pulled at his hair while cursing his husband's good heart. He opened the backdoor and commanded for Nico to start running so that she at least would have a chance to survive. She whined and looked to him begging for him to come with but he only repeated for her to

"GO!"

With her ears flat back in fear she ran out into the woods while Logan sighed and sat down next to his husband. Remus had run out of furniture and faltered to pressing his own body against the door. The demons were close enough that he could hear footsteps and wings etching closer.

The incantation ended and Patton let his wings revert back into his back. He took his husband's hand before glancing to Remus.

"We've done everything we could. Guard him"

Remus nodded "I will"

With the book pressed close to his chest Patton gave Logan a nod and together they fled through the back door.

For one tense minute the only living soul in that house was Remus. He kept his eyes on Janus' unmoving body and wished he could hold him close.

"I love you" He said as he stood steadfast by the door "As long as you survive I don't regret anything I did"

He heard the kitchen door getting thrown open and sucked in a deep breathe.

But that deep breathe got interrupted when the living room door got rammed into hard enough to push the table into Remus' abdomen. He fell to the ground and crawled back to use his body including his extended wings as a shield to guard Janus. The couch budged to the side and the sound of the hands scratching and pulling at the door sounded like a swarm of rats kicking at the walls. At a glance he couldn't see Janus moving in any way, not even a twitch of the eyelid. He silently wished the transformation could hurry the hell up.

The door hinges broke making it fall down on the ground before The Manager stepped through followed by at least twenty demons of rage and Roman who still clutched her sword in her hands while her eyes stayed firmly planted to the floor. The demon nearest the front put their foot on Remus' shoulder and pushed him down to the floor while another held their sword to the spot between his eyes.

From the corner of his sight Remus could see a few of the demons searching the room while a couple others hurried up to the second floor presumebly searching for Patton, before he set his eyes on the blade and smiled.

"At least take me to dinner before making me horny! but sure! Ram your sword down my throat daddy!" In response one of the demons stomped their foot down onto his skull making him wheeze from the pang of pain "C'mon I can give y'all an exclusive 1 star traitor lay!"

Clearly shittalk wouldn't be enough to win him time unless he aimed to have his head kicked in during the next 5 minutes. The demons returned from the upper floor and shook their heads towards the manager. Throwing some people under the bus was seemingly his only choice

"I- I know where Patton went!" Remus exclaimed "If you could let go of my arm" One of the demons moved aside so he could sit up still with the sword held at him. He pointed to the back door "He went that way! Just a minute ago!"

The army of demons all turned to look at the Manager who scratched under his eye in thought before nodding "Go! Follow the traitor! I can handle a scrawny succubi on my own"

A fluttering of wings filled the room as all of the demons crammed through the back to hunt down Patton. Remus hoped that the surprise of a hellhound would throw the army off. All of them had to be shaking in their boots over having to fight The Patton anyhow, just like how Remus was shaking at the manager towering over him but he gulped the fright back and leaned forward into a bow. He glanced to his brother but Roman avoided his gaze and stayed still slightly behind the manager.

"I did as told" He lied "I killed the human after making him sin. His soul should be going to Hell right as we speak. Yes it did take me a while to finsh the assignment but I've Always been a slow bitch so...I haven't done anything wrong! They say the best demons finish slow or something so! We can all return to Hell now! Can't we!?"

The manager's eyebrows rose in a grimace of doubt but he still asked "And what's this?" He motioned for Janus' corpse within the circle of Candles.

"A vigil! I just uh I must admit I maybe got a teensy bit attached so I thought a vigil could sort that out and wow it worked! Now I don't care about this cunt at all! Super ready to go back to usual succubi business now!"

"And what's your excuse for being in the house of a traitor?"

"I was kidnapped!"

"Uh-huh. And why did you stop your slightly less inept Twin from killing the human?"

"Well duh! It was MY assigment! I'm not gonna let my brother take all the glory from me! Hi bro" No response "trying to pretend you still don't got a voice huh"

He at least expected some snarky response probably not from his brother but at least from the Manager but the demon simply cracked his neck followed by his knuckles one by one. He took off his orange suit jacket and held it out for Roman to catch before meticulously Rolling up each and every one of his four sleeves.

"I'm tired of you" The manager muttered as he stepped forward.

Remus lunged up on all fours and moved to bite at his legs but before he could even do anything the Manager had hoisted him up into the air by the scruff of his neck. The demon held a firm grip around Remus' arms and pushed them down to his sides making him unable to do anything but hiss and kick his feet around. In a hail mary attempt the succubi tried to swing his tail into the Manager's dick but he simply caught the tail with his fourth hand.

With all his power and bad breathe Remus spat into the Manager's face to which he threw him across the room. Remus landed with his back harshly hitting the wall beofre sinking down to the ground. Janus still wasn't moving and the sccubi growled when the manager callously stepped over the corpse to get to him.

"Bro I could use a little help!" Remus called out to his brother while trying to back away from the manager.

The manager kicked his boot into Remus' back "You're calling out for the wrong person" He pressed his shoe down on Remus' throat making the succubi gasp and desperately push his hands against the sole of his shoe to grasp at any air "The sooner you're gone the better your twin's life will be. You are nothing but an annoyance, an obstalce to overcome, A parasite"

He moved his boot aside and Remus immediately rolled over to his side to cough for breathe but just as he had gasped the manager kicked his stomach making all the air in his lungs get pushed out along with bile. As he spat out the bile he looked to Roman and caught her looking right back at him. As soon as their eyes met she averted her gaze.

Remus wiped the bile away "Yeah I might be a parasite. might be a piece of shit headache inducing motherfucker but no one is a bigger parasite than you! You can't do a single thing without a gaggle of lower ranked demons doing the work for you!"

"I can do this!"

Another kick to the stomach made Remus see stars and he started to scratch his nails into the wood panels of the floor to try and drag himself away. The manager hunched down beside him and took a fistfull of his hair to pull his head up from the ground.

"Why would I waste any of my effort on some worthless creatures made only to be used" He spat out, his breathe hitting Remus' cheek.

The Manager slammed Remus' head down into the ground with enough force to splinter the wood. The succubi wasn't sure if the crack he heard was his skull or the floor but he felt his forehead turn hot as the new wound throbbed.

Dazed and confused he heard a scream coming from far away but couldn't make out if it was Patton's or one of the demons. The Manager however let up into a grin.

"Sounds like the traitor didn't get far"

Roman had knelt down beside Janus' corpse and pressed her hand to his wrist to feel for a pulse. The sight of someone touching his human made Remus' heartrate spike and pure adrenaline pushed him to sit up.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

It wasn't Remus' yell that made Roman flinch but the Manager ever so slightly turning to glare at her. A quiver ran up along her body as she quickly backed off from the human and stayed still near the corner of the room in an attempt to make herself invisible.

The Manager clenched his fist around Remus' jaw making the succubi sputter for breathe while clawing at his wrist.

"..H-Harder" Remus wheezed out. "You fucking pussy, I've had humans treat me rougher"

He got flung across the room once more this time landing on his back and sliding acros the floor until the tip of his horns touched one of the candles. Everything spun around him with the only thing in his view being the manager walking towards him.

"Wait- Wait!" Janus still wasn't moving "Wait. just- Manager sir dude we can sort this out can't we" He tried to get up but his arms buckled under the pressure "We can work something out. I'll do whatever you want" He just had to buy time, at best make the manager leave the house for some reason any reason "I'll let you try and cure me of my 'sickness'"

The Manager put his boot down between Remus' legs before letting up into a tight smile "Oh you've already done everything I could ever possibly want out of you. You've managed to fuck up so badly that once I'm done here I will be set for life! It's funny, you've put in so much effort and all this time trying to save some singular human and yet in 20 years no one will remeber you! You won't even be known as a Patton! Why? Because I will be there instead! I am the one who will be the in the history books, in the campfire stories and in rumors a 1000 years from now! I will be the one who's remembered for taking down The Traitorous bitch Patton once and for all and for being the best demon Hell has ever seen! No one will remember some incest succubi or his worthless human!"

He stomped his heel down against Remus' bandaged arm making him writhe in pain.

"Besides, I don't need to fuck you! I've already fucked your slightly better version"

The Manager pointed to Roman with an almost proud grin. He took in the change of Remus' expression as he realized what The manager had meant with an ecstatic satisfaction.

Remus clawed at his leg and growled to the point of spit flying out of his mouth "yoU DONT TOUCH MY FUCKING BROTHER! I DON'T CARE IF YOU KILL ME I WILL COME BACK AND HUNT YOU DOWN!"

"I'm not looking to kill you! I'm not a crazed vigilante! I am a proper gentleman rule follower. Obviously I will return you to Hell so that you can have a fair trial and-" The manager cast his words moreso to Roman than Remus "I might even have the power to stop them from Sending you to Heaven!"

The manager grabbed Remus by his shirt and pulled him up but the succubi was so out of it that if it wasn't for being held up his legs would collapse under him.

"Of course you having to be alive for the trial doesn't mean you can't be on the brink of death"

He let go off Remus just before ramming his fist into the side of his face. The succubi fell over and his head landed next to Janus'. He turned to look at the love of his life who still wasn't moving.

"Please Jannie" His whisper was barely louder than his breathe "Just a twitch. It's all I need"

Still nothing.

His sight went dark when the manager kicked him on the chin which made his jaw click out of place. Shoeprints were left all over Remus' body as the manger kept stomping and kicking. He tried to move his tail to grab at anything to protect himself but the manager simply put his weight on the tail to stop him.

With another kick Remus rolled over onto his back and through his eye that hadn't swollen shut he saw the manager get ready to slam his foot down right onto his ribs.

Remus closed his eyes in anticipation of the blow but no pang of pain came. Still he kept his eyes close in hope that maybe his body had gone into enough shock to numb it out. Maybe if he saw the damage he would suddenly feel it.

Instead he felt something wet drip down onto his skin.

He opened his eyes and was met with the sight of a sword stabbed through the Manager's gut.

With the same shocked expression both he and the Manager turned to see Roman twisting the blade around before pulling it out of him just as violently.

The manager put his hand over the wound and stumbled back which Remus took as an oppurtunity to kick his leg against the demon's knee which made him buckle and fall onto his back.

Roman rammed the sword down into the piece of floor right next to the Manager's face before she climbed on top of his chest and with a scream started pummeling punches into his face.

All four of the manager's hands pushed up along her spine to try and throw her off, scratching at her waist and pulling at her hair. She pushed her kness into the sides of his ribs to straddle herself steady but he kept pulling at her.

With one sudden jolt Roman grabbed the sword and stabbed it straight through the manager's palm.

"DON'T YOU DARE EVER TOUCH ME AGAIN!"

A horrific wail left him as his hand got pinned to the floor and every single motion no matter how tiny only made the pain worse.

It took a few seconds of catching his breathe before Remus fully registered what was happening and once he did he quickly crawled over and put his legs over two of the manager's free arms while holding the last free arm down with his hands so that he couldn't interrupt Roman's beating.

"You got him Ro-Ro!"

Roman just kept screaming and kept punching. The blood splattered everywhere. It splattered on the walls, the couch and onto Janus.

It was months of pent up rage coming out all at once. One of the manager's teeth got stuck on Roman's knuckle as she slammed her fist down. His lip ripped, cheek sweeled and nose broke until he started to cough up blood between the punches.

The scream finally stopped when the manager passed out but Roman's chest still heaved up and down as she looked down at his utterly ruined face. Tears of pain had slipped down onto his cheeks.

Blood covered her arms up to her elbows while her hair had fallen in front of her face and gotten stuck to her sweaty forehead. Her movements were stiff and shaky as she slid off from the manager's body and backed into the corner of the room. With unblinking eyes she pushed her knees up to her chest and made herself as small as she possible could.

Remus snapped his jaw back into place before laying down on his back to breathe

"Holy shit...Holy shit"

As soon as his body had a second to relax he realized just how much pain he was in. It was a thousand tiny stings like needles poking and prodding under his skin all at once in every direction and crevice. Worst of all was his head that ached like it was about be split open. He moved his hand to rub at the wound but was met with blood dripping down from his skull. That probably wasn't good but he didn't have the energy to care right now.

The light in the room was too bright, it stung in his non swollen eye, And Janus still wasn't moving.

He pushed himself up on his elbows to look at Roman who Roman suddenly got up to grab an entire role of paper towels from the kitchen. The succubi sat down by the manager and started wrapping the towels around the hole left in his guts and his hand.

"Whatchu doing?" Remus asked.

"Keeping him alive"

"If you don't want him on your conscience I can do the killing blow for you. Trust me I got no trouble living peacefully with a murder on my hands"

"No it's that- He- The manager has been tormenting Remy for years! He's been horrible to all of our squadron mates. He has to stay alive so that we can bring him back to Hell and let the other people he's hurt get their justice as well"

"Hell yeeeaahhh" He pumped his fist and immediately whined "Oowww"

The towels turned pink and sticky as the blood pooled into them making them glue to the manager's skin but Roman had run all out of paper towels and considered that enough. He moved back to the corner and crumbled in on himself once more.

"Bro I'm sorry you had to go through all that shit alone" Remus said "I knew he was a piece of shit but I didn't think he'd-" He bit his tongue to not be crass for once "He'd do That to you!"

Roman picked at the blood under his nails "He only told you we'd fucked"

"Yeah well I know you'd never wanna be with him- Did you- You didn't think I'd assume you were with him willingly did you??"

He shrugged and looked away before nodding slightly.

"He's not your type at all!! And even if he was I know you'd never wanna be with someone who had treated our squadron mates like he does. You're way too like goodhearted and like loyal and uhh Justice minded and all that to do that"

"I dunno..." Her voice broke "I was just scared all demons would think a succubi like me would chose to be with him to get ahead"

Remus used his less injured arm to drag himself over "I don't think that" He nudged his head against Roman's shoulder "C'mere"

It wasn't quite a hug, it was moreso Remus leaning against her while she embraced him, but it was enough for now.

"I'm still a bit mad at you" Roman mumbled.

"I know. That's okay. Thanks for saving me"

"Of course"

They stayed like that for another minute before Roman suddenly started tapping her hand into his back.

"Rem! Rem!"

"What?"

"Your boyfriend is growing a third arm!"

She pointed behind him and when Remus turned he was met with Janus' body convulsing on the ground. His back arched and a loud snap was heard as the bones in his limbs broke all at once before elongating and mending back together again.

In a hurry Remus crawled over to be near him and though his eyelids were still closed the demon could clearly see his eyes rapidly moving under the thin layer of skin. The blood from the manager had splattered onto his lips and slid down into his mouth mixing with the demon flesh from Remus.

Something was pushing at Janus' sides like a duckling trying to get out of it's egg and soon the fat around his waist formed into two arms and the things pushing under his skin turned into fingers. It was a good thing he had a lot of additional fat to use.

His spine gutted out before suddenly snapping back into place but his shoulder blades stayed sharply protruding. For a moment things seemed calm before a long creaking sound came and his skull cracked open in two places to make way for horns. They grew at rapid speed becoming longer and sharper than a succubi's.

They were beautiful golden color and Remus got the urge to touch them.

At the same time that the skull cracked back into place to hold the horns steady the blood that had seeped into the floor reverted and got flushed back into Janus' veins. The skin around his vein stretched out to connect itself back together.

The process seemed to be done before Janus' facial muscles suddenly spazzed, especially on the side of his face where the scar was and for a moment Remus thought the process would somehow smooth the scar out before instead that same golden color that was on his horns got interwoven with the scar creating sparkly lines all along his skin.

Janus' gasped for breathe before his eyes fluttered open.

His gaze wildly looked around the room before landing on Remus who smiled down at him.

"Hi" Janus smiled.

"JAN!!! JANNIE!!! YOU'RE ALIVE!!! YOU'RE NOT EVEN A ZOMBIE!!!!" Remus lunged into a hug but stopped himself in fear of hurting him "ARE YOU OKAY? HOW YOU FEELING?" Injuries be damned his hands couldn't stop flapping and his tail waged fast enough to power an entire city "I LOVE YOU!!! I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE ALIVE!!"

"Slow down darling. I feel....I feel like I just woke up with the worst hangover in my life"

Remus let up into a giddy laugh "Just hangover pain? Nothing worse?"

"No...No...It feels alright. What did I-" Janus' brain caught up to what he was seeing "Remus you look horrible! What happened- IS THAT A DEAD GUY!?"

"He's living...for now"

He sat up but let out a yell at the sight of his new arms "YOU DIDN'T TELL ME I WOULD GROW LIMBS!"

"It wasn't in the plan. Are you sure you okay? Are you like...alive?"

"I think I look more alive than you do right now. Where's Patton? Your head is bleeding, you need medical care! I- oh fuck I have more arms- I- Where Will I buy shirts- How-" Janus took a deep breathe and crunched his lips together before mumbling "I knew my body would change. This is fine. I can live with this. I knew what I was getting into. New arms? Sureeee"

"Now you can give four handjobs at once!" Remus grinned.

"You're not helping"

Remus wiped at his bleeding forehead "But yeah so Patty and Log fled 'cause the manager came with a whole bunch of dudes but my ultra mega cool brother here stabbed him with a sword so everything's cool now" Remus said while doing double thumbs up.

"And Virgil? Is he somewhere having a panic attack?"

"Uh...We don't uhm know where Virge is-"

Janus suddenly screamed and doubled over in pain. With his tail Remus blew out all of the candles and moved them aside so his huma- his- so that Janus wouldn't accidentally hurt himself on them. He spat out saliva on the floor while his new arms grabbed at everything and anything to try and get used to existing.

"Rem what am I? Am I like you now? You don't have four arms do you?"

"I- I don't think you're like me no. I think you became like the manager"

"What does the managers feed on?" He doubled over again and puked. Remus ran his hand up and down his back while he coughed "It feels- It's so overwhelming- It's like-" He heaved again but nothing came out.

"Yeah it can overwhelming the first time"

"No it's so much! It's like a whole buffet just rammed into me- And from- It's all coming from there" His new hand pointed at Roman.

Roman had been sitting silent in the corner the entire time lost in thought while endleesly picking at the blood that was drying up on her skin,

"Bro don't tell me you're getting horny right now" Remus scowled at her.

"Your boyfriend is clearly not a Succubi rembem! Obviously I'm not horny and if I was he still wouldn't feel it!"

Janus puked again "Can you- please- can you leave?"

Roman stepped over the manager's unmoving body "Of course. I'll be in the garden waiting for Virgil" She had assumed the angel must have run off to have a panic attack and would be returning any moment now and Remus was too focused on Janus to correct her.

As soon as she had left Janus could breathe steadily again and pulled himself over to the couch that had been flung halfway across the room to lay down. He had to lay on his stomach because his new wings kept extending and retreating without his control. For the first time a while the situation seemed calm, aside from the guy bleeding out but who cared about him anyway. No one was actively hunting them down or having a meltdown or throwing out secrets.

Remus scooted over next to the couch and reached out his hand "Hey, we did it!"

Janus took his hand and squezzed ever so slightly "We're still alive"

"OW! JAN! OW OW MY HAND!"

He instantly pulled away "I didn't know your hand was injured as well, sorry"

"No it's not- or well just a bit- But Jan you got like- Janister you're a demon now. Demons are stronger than humans, and your type of demon is stronger than mine"

The former human looked down at his hands, all four of them, and his mouth fell agape "....I had obviously very much considered that"

"Yeah lots to consider now.....So Like...What do we do now?"

"You said Patton and Logan left?"

"Yeah"

"huh...." Janus clicked his tongue "Well to be honest I would want to sit them down and have a serious conversation about their complete lack of accountability regarding the part they have played in not helping succubi even though they obviously have had the power to do so for hundreds of years! And I don't mean just individual succubi I mean what if we told all succubi about what we know now? What Patty and Logan has known for centuries! It's cruel to let your- our kind exists in these conditions! I didn't want to bring it up before in case they burst into a demon rage and blew my body to bits but I guess I'm as strong as them now so....You think it's sort of fucked up they just hide away too, innit?"

Remus shrugged "I would do a lot to protect someone I love, hiding included"

"...Guess so....." He sighed "Anyway they're not here right now-"'

"Might be dead!"

"Oh was it so serious?"

"Kinda yeah"

"Excuse me for speaking ill of the shrödingers dead then" Janus squinted "You said the uhhh manager wasn't dead right? Just knocked out? You should probably-"

"Cut his arms off!"

"-Tie him up"

"Great point! I can ask him what you feed off of!!"

"Wait" Janus cupped Remus' face and kissed him which made his tail wag like a propeller "That wasn't romantic, I just thought you need the energy to move around. I am still mad at you, I am simply smart and mature enough to understand that we have to move aside that anger momentarily to not die right now"

Remus had a goofy smile on his face "Sure yeah thanks very thanks"

With his new energy he managed to walk the short distance across the room and used the strings from Patton's aprons to tie the manager's hands together. He put his cheek over the manager's nose to check if he was still breathing which he was. Remus thinked thoroughly how to wake him up before deciding to slap him.

The manager's eyes shot open and for the first time in his long life his expression was one of fear.

"Sup slut" Before the manager had time to respond Remus threw his shoe off and grabbed his foot "Okay so my boyfriend turned ex on shaky ground over here turned into a manager-"

"Put some respect on our name. We are Dominions. Managers" he rolled his eyes "Makes us sound like some lowly humans"

Remus twisted his toe to the point of nearly breaking it which made him howl "Don't interrupt me! My friend is a Dominion now! What does he need to feed? Is there something else we have to know? if you avoid answering you can say bye bye to a healthy toe"

Surprisngly The manager spat out the answer immediately. Remus had expected to at least have to break a few toes but on a second thought he had probably never experienced intense before. Sensitive bastard.

"Misery!" The manager spat out "We feed off of misery! Which is why we have those stupid meetings! We feed off of succubi! The other Dominion in control of the other sins do the same! Don't touch my toes you stupid incompitent idiot!"

"Stringing three synonyms together doesn't count as a good insult" Janus interrupted from the couch.

Remus didn't let go of him or his toes "That means my friend couldn't even be in the same room as my brother because of how much misery he is in! Because of YOU!"

A proud smile flashed across the manager's face before he supressed it "Yes. It's a thin line to walk. A bit of misery is tasty and all but to reach that peak of misery is hard since if you cause Too much pain the demon will become numb in an attempt to protect themself. But I managed to get your brother just to the edge of misery. I tried it before with that Remy whore but the stupid Angel got in my way. The person has to become completely isolated from everyone, that's the most important part in creating misery"

A chill ran up Remus' spine. The Manager was simply too satisfied by his own plan to not spill it despite the danger he was putting himself in because of it.

"After your definite death after the trial I was planning to have him move in with me. Even give him his own room. I would let him leave every now and then to give him bits of hope before ripping it away from him again when I would remind him of how alone he is. Except for me of course. It doesn't take that long to force someone to become dependant. I could have probably kept him in a constant state of extreme misery for maybe 20? 30 years? Before he emotionally shut down and I would have to throw him away"

Remus wanted to bite his entire foot off but took a deep breathe instead.

"My brother already took out the pain she wanted on you so I won't do it in her place. If she asks me to help I'll do it...........BUT THIS ONE IS FOR REMY!"

Remus broke his toe which made the pathetic demon cry and wail.

"AND THIS IS FOR EMILE!"

He broke another.

"AND LASTLY FOR ME!"

Another.

"Okay you can pass out again now" He slapped him into unconciousness.

Janus had heard the entire thing and peeked up from the couch "Guess I'm not gonna be able to get close to your brother for a while....or get close to cemetaries...or high schools during test season"

"You'll get used to it. You will probably start enjoying it in smaller quantities. You can likeeee go to those villages were only sex offenders live and suck in all their sucky misery"

"Good point.....Can I ask another question?"

"Babe you could ask me questions for the next century"

Jan grimaced "Don't call me babe"

"Sorry"

"But yes I was just wondering uhm that phrase that has randomly popped into my head is that-"

"Yeah that's the phrase to get into Hell"

"So I can go there now?"

"Probably shouldn't if you wanna live but yeah!"

Janus got up and tried to walk but his wings fluttered him uncontrollable up into the ceiling. He had to use his arms and grab the shelves to physically pull himself back to ground where he promptly accidentally broke the shelves in half with his new strenght. He muttered to himself when he finally got to the medical kit in the kitchen and brought it back.

"Sit still" He asked before sitting down in front of Remus.

The succubi pouted "No Good boy for lil ol me?"

"Remus that type of relationship doesn't exists between us right now. That doesn't mean I wish you harm though" He took out rubbing alcohol and cleaned the blood that had run down from Remus' skull. A part of his skin had split open making a clump of hair fall out "Do you think it's over?"

"What?"

"The- The trying to kill me? Surely it wasn't just one crazed guy going after me. According to the assholes down there I'm not supposed to be alive. I go against their system and that scares them. They'll still want me dead"

"I think taking out a manager is enough to scare them away. Patton just threatened God and killed some Angels and he's lived peacefully for like 400 years"

"He's lived in hidden cowardice"

"That's another way to put it" Remus whined a little as Janus wrapped bandages around his head before using a bottle of water to clean away the marks left from the kicks. Bruises had already started to form "You heard what the manager said about my brother right?"

"I did yes"

"Do you think I should tell him about it?"

Janus sighed but nodded "If I was in his position I would want to know, just don't be too crass when telling him. I'm sure he would much prefer the truth over being lied into a false protection" That last part was a bit pointed.

"Yeah about that..." Remus sucked in a deep breathe between his teeth "Virgil might not be doing so good-"

The conversation got interrupted when the body of a demon got thrown in through the living room window. The glass shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and landed just like the demon onto the floor. They hadn't had time to get up when Patton flew in through the same window and swung down on top of them.

Patton clutched his hands around the demon's arm and pulled it behind their back, in the process bending it to the point of it nearly breaking.

"GO BACK TO HELL AND TELL THEM NOT TO LOOK FOR ME OR MY HUSBAND! GOT IT!?"

The demon let out a whine.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

"Yes! Yes! I'll never even think of looking for you or your human ever again!"

Patton strained their arm for another few seconds before letting up. When his eyes darted up to see Janus alive and breathing he shone back up into his usual expression for a moment.

"Hi kiddos! Gimme a minute!"

Instantly his expression returned to one of rage with his eyes turning pure black as he threw the door open and left the house. Remus was too injured to walk even a step more so Janus had to get up and peek through the broken window to see what was going on.

A demon was screaming while being dragged back and forth by Nico. She was frothing at the mouth while biting at their leg with her sharp fangs and poisonous saliva. A few of the demons remained and were still trying to creep up on the demon to attack him but before they had a chance Patton took the axe hanging on the wall next to the wood shed and started swinging it around.

"DO I HAVE TO REMIND YOU ALL THAT I'M PATTON!? I EAT DEMONS AND ANGELS FOR BREAKFAST! LEAVE BEFORE I HACK YOU INTO MY NEXT MEAL!"

Nico bounced onto another demon and bit one of their horns in half. At the sight of it Patton tried to motion for the dog to calm down. A part of him knew that these demons were only doing their job after all. He didn't actually want to hurt them.

He swung the axe so it was an inch away from cleaving one of the demons in half while snarling.

The demon that had been thrown through the window ran out of the house in a blind panic while screaming "THEY KILLED THE MANAGER! THE SUCCUBI IN THERE KILLED THE GODDAMN MANAGER!"

It was the last straw for the few brave demons that had stayed. All of them retreated through the nearest door back to hell with one of them having to carry the one that Nico had attacked. Janus backed away from the window and gulped at the thought of actually having to discuss what to do next with that Patton.

"So as I was saying about Virge" Remus tried but got interrupted again.

Patton carried Logan back into the house and ushered the other two away from the couch to lay his husband down on it. He was bruised all over and had a deep gash on his arm along with the tip of one of his fingers having been cut off but he didn't have any lethal injuries. Nico snuggled up by Logan's feet and whined.

"Greetings, I am not dead" Logan mumbled while moving his shaking hand to pat Nico. His glasses had broken so he had to squint at Janus "And neither are you"

Janus fake gasped "No way! I thought I was a ghost!"

With the axe still in his hand Patton was trembling from adrenaline "Did it work???? is everything good????"

"Think so???" Janus replied "I mean for us here and now yes, not for the system at large which is still bullcrap"

"Oh goodie! You've already brought the first aid kit ou- OH GOSH REMUS ARE YOU ALIVE???"

The demon did a thumbs up.

"Logie dear darling of mine can you wait a moment, I think I have to bandage him first"

"Patty honey first take a deep breathe and let go off the weapon"

"Oh.......right"

Remus waved him off "no, no I am fine! It's Virgil who's in danger! Virgil is not here- Can someone call Ro-Ro back in? They seem to have become friends somehow"

"What do you mean not here? Obviously he's not here! He went away when he saw me die didn't he? We just have to go find him right?" Janus grasped at Remus' hand.

"Bab- Janus you died. He's your Guardian Angel. He went back to Heaven. They will punish him and send him to Hell"

"I reckon he has at most 2 hours to live" Logan added before shrugging "Well five out of six of us survived. Those statistic aren't bad. Sorry Nico, I meant six out of seven survived. We can drink to Virgil's memories tomorrow!

Janus looked at him like he was about to strangle him "NOBODY TOLD ME HE WOULD GET HURT BECAUSE OF IT!? No one- I don't have time to be mad! Not at you or Virgil or anybody! We have to go to Hell! NOW!"

"Former human please take a look around" Logan replied "We have at most 1 and a half person here actually able to fight. In the time it would take us to prevent me or Remus from bleeding out Virgil have already passe-"

"Fuck off with your pessimism! I have four fucking arms now and hybris the size of a country! I'm doing a Hell Heist!"

[magical-oppas]

Of course you would disregard Lewis feeling like something is off with how he's being handled by the team and of course you would disregard the team decisions that affected Lewis in 2016 that everyone questioned at the time, its a tale as old as time. You guys will cry foul for other drivers whilst actively dehumanizing Lewis’ experiences. Its just what you people do.

Take a deep breath with me.

I never said that Lewis can't FEEL like he is being treated unfairly, I am just saying that from a completly business and logical point of view, its not weird that George would become Mercedes priority and my question was if I'm interpreting the situations wrong and if things are done differently in F1.

I also said that BOTH Nico and Lewis are unreliable regarding 2016, don't just pick and choose from my words, actually parse the whole thing.

Now, if you can respectfully disagree with me I will happily continue to respond to you but if you are just gonna yell abuse towards me and other drivers I am done.

And one final thing

The tax evading millionaires are completely capable of taking care of themselves

[o7o7o7]

Love Live Episode 6 Assorted Thoughts

Honoka rules, she truly thrives in the spotlight. Or rather, she doesn't parse it, she just loves being around people, and she does what she's told, what a pleaser!

Okay, confirmed it's most probably Nozomi (or less likely Eli) who filmed them.

By the way, Rin is literally way more normal than I expected from the hyperactive monster she's presented as in fanworks.

KotoUmiHono's shenanigans are still the bestest, love their chemistry.

I LOVE Honoka she's so fun!!!!!!!

"I'd love to, but I'm afraid supporting others is the best I can do." Nozomin, what does that mean????

My brain literally stops working once Nico shows up, sigh.

Her main character trait is that she's extra and her two-facedness, literally it. BUT THEN they show you the family situation and her big sister side and COME ON!!!!!!

WHY AREN'T NOZONICO ACTING LIKE THEY'RE OLD FRIENDS????? SO SAD. GIVE ME CRUMBS PLEASE.

LMFAO Nico has an alter ego for her off-screen self too. What a QUEEN!

Maki is so real. LMFAO but she still got rethoric'd into it, what a loser.

WTF the friend group shenanigans are so good????????

Like the waifu thing is there too of course but I didn't expect it to be so fun as well.

LOL, Maki keeps getting REKT. (kinda deserved tbh).

She's sulking lmfao.

I didn't expect this but I can totally buy that they ALL absolutely want to be idols!!

Kotori works on coming up with the moves AND the outfits, Umi does the lyrics and guides the practice.

LOL, Nico and Maki finally have a positive interaction when they both agree to dunk on Honoka for being a bad leader.

Is Maki aiming for the leader position too? She's awfully agreeable with Nico here, lol.

Nico is just describing Honkers when she mentions the leader traits, lol.

AHHHHHH She's going NANDEYARE UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH she's deliberately setting up the Manzai and doing the tsukkomi herself when no one responds, sho shad…

Umi going all shounen rival on a super clueless Honoka for the leader position rules. "Are you fine with me taking the leader position from you??" "Sure. Why wouldn't I be?"

Umi is literally K-On Mio………. (but better).

Nico is there to be an attention whore and make funny faces…..

Such disrespect, fuck y'all.

SUCH A QT.

Nico competing all by herself and everyone else having fun, except Umi troubled by Honoka not caring about being leader and Maki playing too cool for school, lol.

No but wtf, WHERE does nicomaki come from? Exclusively season 2?? They literally just don't interact!! Well, I guess…

They are sitting like this in the ED and that's it.

Black hair and red eyes is such a devilishly good looking combination!!!!!

Sigh, I've gone full baka now that Nico is here. Should have known.

Okay, okay, I get it, episode 6 is the Nico disrespect episode.

Name | Karaoke | Dancing 高坂穂乃果 | 92 | A 園田海未 | 93 | A 南ことり | 90 | B 小泉花陽 | 96 | C 星空凛 | 91 | AA 西木野真姫 | 98 | B 矢澤にこ | 94 | A

So.... Maki is amazing at singing but not really at dancing. Hanayo is like a little less polished Maki, surprisingly. Who's Minami? She sucks, LOL. Damn, that's Kotori…

Nico is an all-rounder pretty good at everything. Phew, at least she's not shit…

Rin is the only particularly outstanding dancer.

Of course, this is all limited to the game's scores. Which btw Nico kinda rigged as she'd picked favorable songs for herself while the others were new at this. Sigh, give her a W, please.

I wish we'd get to see more of Nico's otaku side. Or artistry front side, like when Saki goes on rants about writing or when she pretends to be the all knowing industry veteran and gives random advice.

Crying………………………………………. Look at her…………..

I love Nico so much, I love how pushy she is about what she wants.

Kotori wins at aura, thank God. She IS the godly meido or whatever I guess. Nico said they were all monsters but if you think about it they really are… They're all super talented kids.

Nico-senpai mo sasuga desu! Thank you Rin…

"Even though you hardly practice!" WHAT DOES THIS MEAN???? NICO BARELY PRACTICES??? BECAUSE SHE JUST JOINED??? BECAUSE SHE'S POOR AND A PART TIME SINGLE MOTHER OF 3???????

Literally there just to make funny faces….

Honkers keeps being such a gigachad, she wants to center everyone, give them their time at the spotlight, because that's what's the most fun… She IS the leader after all!!

Everyone is so excited except Maki who I don't know what the fuck is her problem, lmfao. Why is she still playing too cool for school even though she's already chummy enough with everyone???

Ahhh…. the last choice still falls on Nico, huh? Umu.

OMG minuscule KotoNico crumb….

Ayy, they gave Nico and Maki a part together in this episode's dance number!!!!

Okay, the best singer is undeniably Umi…

WHY is Eli being so stubborn I don't get it??? She wants Nozomi to help them, and Nozomi is all, no Elichiya it must be you… Why?

I love the conclusion btw. Honoka: So it's decided, there's no leader, we're all the center!!! Everyone: Everyone: Everyone: So, we all agree Honk is the leader, right? Everyone: Yep. Absolutely. Obviously. Of course.

LMAO.

[ask-will-and-nico]

"It's just one day, I've survived worse..." He looked around at the two worried faces. "... But... Fine. If it'll make you two happy." Will sighed, relieved. Jason made him some toast, and he tore off little bits as he ate them. Even finished the juice. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough that Will wasn't as worried anymore. "Feel better now?" He asked. Nico had to admit, he wasn't as headachey or faint. "Um, a little." Jason smiled. "There's my baby cousin. Now, tell me if you need anything. Even if it's just a hug."

Nico shrugged. He looked a bit better now that he had some food in him, even if it wasn’t much, but he didn’t seem as shaky or faint. “Did Cecil talk to you?” Will asked. He sat down on the floor in front of the couch, crossing his long legs. Nico didn’t think he’d ever really noticed how tall Will was before. He looked proportionate to Jason, and Nico often forgot how big Jason was. Where Jason had broad shoulders and a small waist, Will seemed to be more evenly proportional with his shoulders and waist being a similar size. That wasn’t to say he was smaller, he still looked like he could probably bench press Nico, but his strength was more parsed out throughout his body as opposed to Jason, who had strong shoulders and arms. “Nico?” Will asked, bringing Nico back to the conversation.

[ceceliadestrade]

TASK 001 Five Songs for Cecelia

Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood Nina Simone

Please... nothing will ever fit her better than 'I'm just a soul whose intentions are good'. The lyric encapsulates everything that Cecelia has strived for her entire life. Even now in Redwood, no matter what decision she makes, what she says in a conversation, she's just trying her hardest to keep up a kind front and lend a sympathetic ear to others. It's all she can hope for.

(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay Otis Redding

Ultimately just a song about sitting and observing the environment around you, Cecelia's favorite activity. If there's one thing she can be counted on to do, it's to sit quietly and watch the world turn around her. The song maintains a pleasant beat, even as the lyrics describe having to leave everything you've ever known. It has the sunshine disposition, as well as the sad undertone, to stand for everything I see in her.

So Far Away Carole King

I think there's something just innately in her heart about being left behind, forgotten, ignored. Listening to this song really hits home the loneliness that is just intrinsic to her character. Nothing stays in place for her, and she cannot go back to a way it all was, it's never been the same. It's easy to interpret the face at her door as being her father, but it could easily be any figure from her past. I think up until Redwood, she was easy to dismiss as transient, and to count her out early. To be near someone is a great wish of hers.

These Days Nico

It's easy nowadays to sit and think about all the choices that were lost when everything changed. So much happened so quickly, and it's hard for a mind as analytical as hers to really parse how one can deal with it all alone. It's good now to look at the days around her, to process everything slowly, to stem the flow of loss and just breath. There's something so very tender in the song, but still an obvious sense of loss in what could have become of the singer's life, of Cecelia's.

Bridge Over Troubled Water Simon & Garfunkel

Such a Cecelia moment. She'd lay herself down for anyone who needed it, hoping to help them find some solace in the world. There is something so inherently loving and selfless in the lyrics, finding the place where you know you're needed, and being able to actually help. Also, there's something motivational to her every gesture, that she'll be able to find that bridge over troubled water, even now.

[irresistiibles]

@grcycosmcs asked: second worm gets the cheese and all. – cynthia says to nico

"that's....definitely not the saying." nico said, trying to parse out what exactly that could possibly be meant to mean. he knew the original saying of course, but the intention now was completely lose to him. "am i supposed to try and be second to get cheese, or no because that's probably not good for worms?"

[this-week-in-rust]

This Week in Rust 496

Hello and welcome to another issue of This Week in Rust! Rust is a programming language empowering everyone to build reliable and efficient software. This is a weekly summary of its progress and community. Want something mentioned? Tag us at @ThisWeekInRust on Twitter or @ThisWeekinRust on mastodon.social, or send us a pull request. Want to get involved? We love contributions.

This Week in Rust is openly developed on GitHub. If you find any errors in this week's issue, please submit a PR.

Updates from Rust Community

Project/Tooling Updates

Solving the "floating point precision" problem with... floats?

Sniffnet v1.2.0

Bevy + WebGPU

rust-analyzer changelog #182

Update-informer v1.0.0

Pavex, a new Rust web framework - #4: Performance is a feature

Opensourcing Whichlang, a fast language detection library for Rust

Observations/Thoughts

How Much Memory Do You Need to Run 1 Million Concurrent Tasks?

Open sourcing our Rust crate audits

Rust & Nix: Parallels in Complexity Management

[audio] PyO3 with David Hewitt

Rust Walkthroughs

The magic of scope guards

Mocking in Rust: Mockall and alternatives - LogRocket Blog

Compress-a-Palooza: Unpacking 5 Billion Varints in only 4 Billion CPU Cycles

Resilient LL Parsing Tutorial

ESP32 Embedded Rust at the HAL: Timer Ultrasonic Distance Measurement

A guide to closures in Rust

Guide to parsing with nom

[video] N-Queens Puzzle (PART 2) - Rust - Codurance Screenkata

Research

[video] Nico Lehmann, Flux: Liquid Types for Rust

Miscellaneous

RustConf 2023 Schedule

Crate of the Week

This week's crate is whichlang, a fast no-dependencies OSS natural language detector.

Thanks to Brian Kung for the suggestion!

Please submit your suggestions and votes for next week!

Call for Participation

Always wanted to contribute to open-source projects but did not know where to start? Every week we highlight some tasks from the Rust community for you to pick and get started!

Some of these tasks may also have mentors available, visit the task page for more information.

bilge - Allow others to define their own -Bits derives

Hyperswitch - Implement CardsInfoInterface for MockDb

Hyperswitch - Implement DisputeInterface for MockDb

Hyperswitch - Unite payment intent and setup intent in stripe compatibility

If you are a Rust project owner and are looking for contributors, please submit tasks here.

Updates from the Rust Project

314 pull requests were merged in the last week

CFI: fix encode_ty: unexpected Param(B/#1)

diagnostic: wrap parens for ref impl trait param

resolve: only disambiguate binding key during define

add --remote-time flag to curl for bootstrap

add a conversion from &mut T to &mut UnsafeCell<T>

add creation time support to FileTimes on apple and windows

add derive for core::marker::ConstParamTy

always fall back to PartialEq when a constant in a pattern is not recursively structural-eq

better diagnostic for use Self::..

debug format Const's less verbosely

do not recover when parsing stmt in cfg-eval

don't expect normalization to succeed in elaborate_drops

don't inline functions with unsized args

don't skip inference for type in offset_of!

don't use inner macro in marker_impls

dont check must_use on nested impl Future from fn

erase ReError properly

erase regions of type in offset_of!

exclude inherent projections from some alias type matches

fix dependency tracking for debugger visualizers

fix doc comment for ConstParamTy derive

fix duplicate arcinner_layout_for_value_layout calls when using the uninit Arc constructors

fix local libs not included when printing native static libs

fix overflow in error emitter

fix recursion depth handling after confirmation

fix: emit error when fragment is MethodReceiverExpr and items is empty

get current target config from --print=cfg

give a more useful location for where a span_bug was delayed

give better error when collecting into &[T]

handle error body in generator layout

improve cgu merging debug output

keep only the trait when emitting the error for MyTrait + 'a

merge return place with other locals in CopyProp

merge some query impl modules into one

move rustc_middle/src/ty/query.rs to rustc_middle/src/query/plumbing.rs

only depend on CFG_VERSION in rustc_interface

optimize next_chunk impls for Filter and FilterMap

process current bucket instead of parent's bucket when starting loop for dominators

recover impl<T ?Sized> correctly

rename {drop,forget}_{copy,ref} lints to more consistent naming

replace QueryStruct with arrays local to rustc_query_impl

shorten backtraces for queries in ICEs

shorten even more panic temporary lifetimes

specialize ToString implementation for fmt::Arguments

specialize query execution for incremental and non-incremental

support PGO on custom project

support RISC-V unaligned-scalar-mem target feature

suppress "erroneous constant used" for constants tainted by errors

use error term in projection if missing associated item in new solver

add the weak-intrinsics feature

stabilize feature cstr_is_empty

stabilize feature nonzero_negation_ops

constify slice_as_chunks (unstable)

use code with reliable branchless code-gen for slice::sort merge

ascii::Char-ify the escaping code in core

hashbrown: add NEON backend for RawTable

hashbrown: add support for allocator-api2

regex syntax: fix overflow for big counted repetitions

cargo: lints feature

cargo: pass -C debuginfo after weakening if explicitly set

rustdoc: hide repr attribute from doc of types without guaranteed repr

rustdoc: include strikethrough in item summary

rustdoc: Only keep impl blocks from bodies

clippy: add minimal_cfg_condition lint

clippy: SpanlessEq improvements

clippy: match_wild_err_arm: do not lint in const contexts

clippy: redundant_pattern_matching: check for single-arm match

clippy: dbg_macro: don't remove dbg! in arbitrary expressions

clippy: don't suggest unnameable types in box_default, let_underscore_untyped

clippy: enhance needless_collect: lint in method/function arguments that take an IntoIterator

clippy: fix invalid_regex not recognizing new syntax introduced after regex-1.8.0

clippy: fix some suggestions generated by the option_if_let_else lint

clippy: ignoring let_underscore_untyped warnings in code from proc macros

clippy: rename integer_arithmetic

rust-analyzer: consider block impls in lookup_impl_assoc_item_for_trait_ref

rust-analyzer: expand format_args! with more details

rust-analyzer: add moved-out-of-ref diagnostic

rust-analyzer: highlight used trait assoc items when cursor is on trait import or trait bound

rust-analyzer: render hover actions for closure captures and sig

rust-analyzer: support C string literals

rust-analyzer: consider all tokens in macro expr when analyzing locals

rust-analyzer: fix preorder_expr skipping the else block of let-else statements

rust-analyzer: fix evaluating negation for floating point types

rust-analyzer: handle match scrutinee in closure captures

rust-analyzer: introduce new type var when expectation for ref pat is not ref

rust-analyzer: place type inlay hints after the item and without left-padding

rust-analyzer: process macro_use prelude in semantic scope resolver

Rust Compiler Performance Triage

There were a few regressions, but most were expected, and one in particular (PR #111807) is expected yield gains in object code performance at the expense of a slight compile-time hit. There are a couple PR's that need future followup, namely PRs #111364 and #111524.

Triage done by @pnkfelix. Revision range: 3ea9ad53..cda5becc

3 Regressions, 2 Improvements, 5 Mixed; 2 of them in rollups 51 artifact comparisons made in total

Full report here

Approved RFCs

Changes to Rust follow the Rust RFC (request for comments) process. These are the RFCs that were approved for implementation this week:

No RFCs were approved this week.

Final Comment Period

Every week, the team announces the 'final comment period' for RFCs and key PRs which are reaching a decision. Express your opinions now.

RFCs

[disposition: merge] eRFC: single-file packages ("cargo script") integration

Tracking Issues & PRs

[disposition: merge] Stabilize inline asm for LoongArch64 (editor's note: "LoongArch" is not a typo)

[disposition: merge] Uplift clippy::invalid_utf8_in_unchecked lint

[disposition: merge] Uplift clippy::cast_ref_to_mut lint

[disposition: merge] Uplift clippy::undropped_manually_drops lint

[disposition: merge] Make pointer_structural_match normal and warn

[disposition: merge] [mir-opt] SimplifyLocals should also clean up debuginfo

[disposition: merge] Remove structural match from TypeId

[disposition: merge] Fix docs for alloc::realloc

New and Updated RFCs

[new] RFC: #[export] (dynamically linked crates)

[new] Generic Futures

Call for Testing

An important step for RFC implementation is for people to experiment with the implementation and give feedback, especially before stabilization. The following RFCs would benefit from user testing before moving forward:

No RFCs issued a call for testing this week.

If you are a feature implementer and would like your RFC to appear on the above list, add the new call-for-testing label to your RFC along with a comment providing testing instructions and/or guidance on which aspect(s) of the feature need testing.

Upcoming Events

Rusty Events between 2023-05-24 - 2023-06-21 🦀

Virtual

2023-05-25 | Virtual (Charlottesville, VA, US) | Charlottesville Rust Meetup

Practical Monads

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Proyecto "Taller de Rust"

2023-05-25 | Virtual (Karlsruhe, DE) | The Karlsruhe Functional Programmers Meetup Group

Stammtisch (gemeinsam mit der C++ UG KA) - various topics, from C++ to Rust

2023-05-25 | Virtual (Raleigh, NC, US) | Triangle BitDevs

Rust for Bitcoiners

2023-05-25 | Virtual (San Francisco, CA, US) | Data + AI Online Meetup

D3L2: Discussing Rust, Ballista, Ray SQL, DataFusion with Andy Grove

2023-05-30 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Last Tuesday

2023-05-31 | Virtual (Chicago, IL, US) | Chicago Healthcare Cloud Technology Community

Rust for Mission-Critical AI: A Journey into Healthcare's Safest Language

2023-06-06 | Virtual (Austin, TX, US) | WebAssembly and WasmEdge

Monthly WasmEdge Community Meeting - Run Rust Warp in WasmEdge -- Alan, Poon Yong Quan

2023-06-06 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2023-06-06 | Virtual (Buffalo, NY, US) | Buffalo Rust Meetup

Buffalo Rust User Group, First Tuesdays

2023-06-07 | Virtual (Indianapolis, IN, US) | Indy Rust

Indy.rs - with Social Distancing

2023-06-07 | Virtual (Stuttgart, DE) | Rust Community Stuttgart

Rust-Meetup

2023-06-08 | Virtual (Nürnberg, DE) | Rust Nuremberg

Rust Nürnberg online

2023-06-13 | Virtual (Dallas, TX, US) | Dallas Rust

Second Tuesday

2023-06-20 | Virtual (Berlin, DE) | Berline.rs / OpenTechSchool Berlin

Rust Hack and Learn

2023-06-20 | Virtual (Washington, DC, US) | Rust DC

Mid-month Rustful

2023-06-21 | Virtual (Vancouver, BC, CA) | Vancouver Rust

Rust Study/Hack/Hang-out

Asia

2023-05-25 | Amsterdam, NL | Frontend Developer Meetup Amsterdam

Svelte Frontend Meetup (signup required) - Building a Svelte-Rust app using Tauri

2023-06-10 | Kuala Lumpur, MY | GoLang Malaysia

Rust Workshop/Hack and Learn Malaysia June 2023 | Event updates Telegram | Event group chat

Europe

2023-05-24 | Lyon, FR | Rust Lyon

Rust Lyon Meetup #4

2023-05-25 | Barcelona, ES | C++ Programmer Meetup.

Rust for C++ Developers.

2023-05-25 | Copenhagen, DK | Copenhagen Rust Community

Rust metup #36 at Adapt Agency!

2023-05-25 | Paris, FR | Rust Paris

Rust Paris meetup #59

2023-05-30 | Barcelona, ES | BcnRust

10th BcnRust Meetup

2023-06-03 | Plovidv, BG | AeroRust

Space Conference - Plovdiv

2023-06-04 | Plovidv, BG | AeroRust

Space Conference : Nanosatellite embedded workshop

2023-06-08 | Aarhus, DK | Rust Aarhus

Rust Aarhus meetup #2 sponsored by BRØLSTÆRK

2023-06-08 | Zurich, CH | Rust Zurich

Unsafe, Miri, SIMD - June Meetup

Oceania

2023-05-30 | Canberra, ACT, AU | Canberra Rust User Group

May Meetup

If you are running a Rust event please add it to the calendar to get it mentioned here. Please remember to add a link to the event too. Email the Rust Community Team for access.

Jobs

Please see the latest Who's Hiring thread on r/rust

Quote of the Week

I guess the nicest example of this phenomenon is shared mutability. Programmers have been arguing for decades whether it is sharing xor mutability that causes memory safety bugs:

"It's threads!" – shouted JavaScript and Python, and JS remained single-threaded, and Python introduced the GIL.

"It's mutability!" – screamed Haskell and Erlang, and they made (almost) everything immutable.

And then along came Rust, and said: "you are fools! You can have both sharing and mutability in the same language, as long as you isolate them from each other."

– H2CO3 on rust-users

Thanks to Jacob Pratt for the suggestion!

Please submit quotes and vote for next week!

This Week in Rust is edited by: nellshamrell, llogiq, cdmistman, ericseppanen, extrawurst, andrewpollack, U007D, kolharsam, joelmarcey, mariannegoldin, bennyvasquez.

Email list hosting is sponsored by The Rust Foundation

Discuss on r/rust

[gotwcird]

"i think it's supposed to have the opposite effect, actually." charlie scoffed, but there was no poison under it. in fact, it just sounded more indignant, almost fond even. "i can't start calling you angel either, just out of principle." knew of nico's history, just however much he shared with her, but figured he took it lightly enough that he didn't mind her playing around with titles. charlie couldn't understand why, but felt a twinge of jealousy at the indication of more people. "so you've been told, huh? so if i asked for testimonials you'd be able to give me some?" didn't really fully parse through what she was trying to get at with this, but kept herself at the same place looking back at him with a kind of defiance that felt a little juvenile. "what if i'm happy being a terrible kisser? maybe i want to prevent any other person from trying." jutted her chin out a little but immediately regretted it, just inched her closer to nico's face. "it'll just feel like mashing mouths together anyways. that's all it's been for me."

that was a name nico hadn't heard in a long time. the irony of being called a demon with such unexpected softness wasn't lost on him either. the label should have stung, but from her lips, it felt almost like a caress. "oof. demon." nico repeated, needing to sink his teeth down on his bottom lip to suppress a laugh. "you keep calling me that and i might start thinkin’ you like me." which she did, of course. because who didn't like him? he was very likable, in his humble opinion. "so what if you’ve only kissed two people," he said, his head tilting slightly as he regarded her. "maybe you were just waiting for the third one to be worth remembering. or in the very least, lend a helping hand." his eyes searched for hers, confident, expectant, studying her face with undisguised fascination. "everyone is horrible at something until they practice. and i am a patient, dedicated, and very thorough instructor. so i've been told."

[sionisjaune]

Belated birthday baby cokehead nico for @kritischetheologie!

Recommended reading: C's headcanons and my ficlet

It’s Ibiza and it’s the summer break. Nico is dancing on him like only girls do, pressing himself all over Lewis’s chest and feeling him up with impunity. Lewis’s hands grip Nico’s hips because he’s keeping an eye on Nico, ensuring he doesn’t slip off and wind up in the arms of someone worse. The strobe lighting sweeps across the dancefloor, whiting out the club. For a moment, Nico is just a body on Lewis’s body, and the bass beat rattles through them both. 

Nico slides his hands inside Lewis’s shirt and tucks his head underneath Lewis’s jaw, and Lewis tips his head back and prays for mercy. Or forgiveness. And Nico—crazy, beautiful, terminally fucked-up Nico—licks a stripe up Lewis’s neck, leaving Lewis no wetter than he started off, drenched in saliva and sweat.

Then Nico tips his head up to look Lewis in the eyes, and the center of Lewis cracks in half. Nico’s arms go around his neck, and the bodies in the club jostle them closer, and Lewis’s arms go around Nico’s waist. He slips his thumbs into Nico’s belt loops and tugs gently. Nico grins dazedly, sweat shining on his brow. Lewis can feel him from thigh to chest. 

Lewis has said no so many times. So many. He reminds himself of that fact, and then he kisses Nico.

Kissing Nico is nothing like racing him. In a car, Lewis stands a chance. Here, with his hands on the damp line of Nico’s spine, Lewis is so fucking far behind. Nico’s mouth tastes like tequila, warm and wet and vile, and he sticks his tongue between Lewis’s teeth. Lewis hauls him closer, both hands on Nico’s ass.

Nico pulls back and presses his forehead to Lewis’s. They stand nose to nose, and when Nico whispers into Lewis’s mouth, Lewis parses the hot puffs of breath on his chin. 

“Are you going to take me home?” Nico asks.

Lewis feels himself nod. His nose rubs against Nico’s cheek, and Nico flattens himself against Lewis’s chest, obviously pleased. He can probably feel Lewis’s dick through his jeans. He probably doesn’t care. Lewis lets Nico walk him off the dancefloor, stumbling through bodies on bodies, rubbing and grinding. 

Nico bumps the doors open with his shoulder, and the cold night air slices Lewis through the gaps in his shirt. Nico wraps himself around Lewis like a warm coat, and Lewis lets Nico grope him until he understands Nico is looking for his keys. He locates the fob in Lewis’s back pocket and tosses it at the valet. 

“What do you have today?” Nico asks. He’s so close that Lewis can’t really look at him. Lewis just speaks into the air in front of his face, and Nico inhales it, tucked under Lewis’s arm. 

“The Zonda,” says Lewis. He feels Nico shudder against him. He twists around to make eyes at Lewis properly.

“Can I drive?” Nico says.

“What did you take?” Lewis has to check. Meanwhile, the valet disappears, shuffling off into the darkness behind the club to bring Lewis’s car around. 

“Nothing,” says Nico, without much thought. “Some E. I was drinking before. Are you even sober?” 

Lewis is painfully sober. If he were drunk, then he’d have some plausible fucking deniability. He doesn’t answer Nico, and Nico presses closer, trapping warmth between their bodies until the valet comes around with the car. 

-

When Nico finishes doing a line off the dashboard, he pops upright with a renewed sharpness. “Have you ever had your dick sucked while driving?” he says. “No,” says Lewis. 

“Would you like to?” says Nico, already leaning across the console. There’s a spot of white on his upper lip. His tongue darts out to lick at it.

“No,” says Lewis, white-knuckling the steering wheel. He realizes he’s pushing the speed limit and eases off on the acceleration.

Nico makes his indifferent snorting sound and settles back into his seat. “Where are we going?” he asks. 

“My apartment,” says Lewis. In the rearview, he watches Nico swallow and fix his gaze straight ahead.

“What if I don’t want to go to your apartment.” 

“Where do you want to go,” says Lewis. 

“There’s a four seasons nearby. I hear it's fucking expensive,” says Nico, flatly. “I think you can afford it.” 

“We passed it five minutes ago,” says Lewis. 

“Fine,” says Nico. 

“Fine,” says Lewis. 

-

“Have you ever done this before?” says Nico, in Lewis’s bedroom. It’s barely his bedroom. It’s Ibiza. He doesn’t live here. It’s like owning one room in a hotel. 

Nico unfastens the remaining buttons on his shirt. He has a fit body, Lewis observes with a healthy dose of guilt. “It can be just like with a girl,” Nico simpers. “I can do that for you. Get naked. Start there.” 

Lewis’s hands go to his own shirt. He strips it off and tosses it on the floor. Nico strips to his briefs and drops to his knees. 

Lewis wants it, but he doesn’t want it like this. But he wants it. He doesn’t stop Nico when he pop’s Lewis’s fly and tugs Lewis’s jeans down his hips, mouthing at the skin of Lewis’s thigh to encourage him to step out of the puddle of denim at his feet. Nico unfolds himself from the floor at Lewis’s feet and takes Lewis by the hand, leading him to the bed. He lays Lewis down on his back and climbs on top. 

“Are you ready?” Nico says, sly. Lewis’s lips are dry. His throat clicks when he tries to speak. Nico sits back on Lewis’s thighs and runs his fingertips down the white skin of his own chest, from his collarbone to the dark band of his briefs. 

He reaches into his waistband and produces a small, transparent bag. It’s obvious what he has in mind. 

“No,” Lewis says, sitting up. Nico gives him a firm shove in the chest until Lewis is flat on his back again. If Lewis were in control of himself, he could wrestle Nico off of him, into the car and all the way to a hospital. He doesn’t. 

“Not for you,” Nico says, laughing a little bit to himself. Lewis watches him thumb enthusiastically at the opening of the bag, bright-eyed. 

Lewis wants him, and he’s gone too far already to undo the wanting, so he lies prone on the bed while Nico shakes out a line beneath his navel, and closes his eyes when Nico inhales sharply against his skin.

-

Later, when Lewis is all the way inside Nico, and it turns out that fucking Nico is not especially different, mechanically speaking, to fucking a woman, Lewis finds he can’t regret kissing Nico in the club. It’s impossible. He fucks Nico into the mattress, and Nico moans with abandon and demands that Lewis fuck him harder and faster and at a particular angle, and Lewis follows his orders and doesn’t regret it.

Near the end, Nico is on top again, head thrown back so that all Lewis can see is the column of his throat. Lewis’s head is throbbing with the need for an impossible second orgasm. He can feel it washing over his body in syrupy increments as he grinds up into Nico’s body. Nico says nothing and rolls his hips on top of Lewis. His capacity for repulsive dirty talk has apparently reached its limit.

Nico finishes first, groaning. He folds forward, still in Lewis’s lap. “Keep going,” he says, thickly. 

Lewis wraps his arms around Nico’s back, and Nico stays put for once, languid and satiated, and Lewis fucks up into him until the friction is too much and he’s coming inside Nico. He wishes—fuck, he’s such an asshole—that there were no condom, because he could come inside Nico all he wanted and it wouldn’t be a problem like it would be with a woman. Nico would let him, Lewis thinks. Nico would let anything happen to him if he thought it might pose a risk to his health. It’s the sharpest thought that’s ever crossed Lewis’s mind post-orgasm. If he framed it like something illicit, he could have Nico over and over in any way he wanted. 

Nico pants into his ear, still bent over Lewis. He shifts his hips and lifts up a little so that Lewis’s softening dick slips out of him. 

“Just,” Nico says, hot puffs of breath against Lewis’s face, “a second.” 

“Water,” says Lewis. 

“No,” says Nico. He heaves himself off of Lewis, slips off the bed, and walks out. Lewis rolls the condom off, lobs it in the direction of the trash and rolls over, face to pillow. He can hear Nico running the water in the bathroom and spitting in the sink. 

Lewis wraps his arms around the pillow and strangles it, listening for signs of Nico moving around in the apartment. His biceps begin to tremble after a minute, like he’s shaking with the same edgy energy Nico does, and he tells himself it isn’t because of the coke he definitely hasn’t done by proxy. Blood pounds in his ears, almost in time with Nico stomping between rooms. Eventually, Lewis hears the door to the bedroom fly open. 

“Where are your keys?” Nico demands. That strange, atonal accent of his makes sharp points where there shouldn’t be any. “I’m going.” 

Lewis hauls himself onto his back and props himself up with one arm. Nico is standing in the doorway, nude, haloed by the light from the hallway. His body is long and lean, his hair is fucked up and his eyes are crazy. The shape of him is blurry at the edges, and yet the sharpest image of Nico that Lewis has ever seen. 

 “You know I can’t let you do that,” Lewis says.

“Fuck you, Lewis.” Nico’s mouth twists itself into a disdainful little sneer. “I’ll race you for them,” he says. “I won’t even let you fucking win, this time.” 

Lewis scrubs his hand over his eyes. He’s said no so many times, and now he’s said yes one too many, and now he’s just tired. Nico wears him out. Nico is the worst mistake Lewis has ever made and the only person who’s ever been a match for him. He’s just. So. Damn. Fast. 

“Take the couch,” Lewis says. 

Nico’s face continues to contort itself, and he utters something ugly and non-English under his breath, turns on his heel, and glides out of the room. Lewis is treated to the receding image of his bare ass, and his long, flexing thighs. 

[jankwritten]

Who worries more about Nico and/or Jason? Jack, Snowy, Parse or Percy? Also Who’s the mom friend in this AU

HMMMMM THIS IS SUCH A GOOD QUESTION. They all care and worry in their own special ways.

Snowy worries about Nico but not a whole whole lot anymore. He trusts Nico more than he lets on nowadays, and generally he’s overbearing as a way of getting teasing Nico rather than because he’s actually concerned. He worries more like a dad than anything, if that makes sense. He’s like if a responsible frat bro became a dad - he worried to a point but he also treats his kid like a bro.

Percy is like the big brother. He worries about Nico if Nico is doing something he finds concerning, and he has more of a penchant to panic if something is going on (like when Nico wasn’t answering his phone in chapter 4) than Snowy, but otherwise he’s down to push Nico around and shit, treat him like another one of the bros. I think of the four of them, Percy is the quickest to panic and the one who’s constantly looking out for Nico (we’ll learn later that Percy’s wrist injury was over Nico :D). But also Percy would never admit that he’s worried about Nico to that extent.

Parse is 100% the worst of them, over both Nico and Jason once Jason convinces Parse that Nico isn’t an asshole. Parse had a lot of unresolved fear over what happened with Jack, and he sees a lot of himself and Jack in both Nico and Jason, so he’s always worried, always checking in, always making sure Jason is okay and not panicking or drinking too much or doing drugs etc etc. with Nico he’s a little more distant about it but he’s always asking Jason for updates or if Nico is okay with the NHL pressure and all that. Especially because Parse realizes Nico is Weird around him specifically and he wants to make sure it’s not for any bad reasons.

Jack is worried about Nico and Jason in a more distant but similar way to Parse. He sees a lot of himself in Nico in all ways - big talent with a big shot dad, a weird relationship with his family, definitely something Different about his brain (*cough* autism *cough*) etc etc. He views Nico as a younger version of himself that he can coach and wants to help but doesn’t really know how. He’s awkward and his care usually comes across the weirdest to Nico.

They all want the best for Nico in the end. They all care!

OH AND THE MOME FRIEND hm I think Parse would be the mom friend. Asking if everyone is fed and well rested and bringing extra Xanax etc etc.