#& the impression he left on me is in fact fully subjective. i dont give a shit if i misinterpreted it. because thats just how i felt

[devotedlystrangewizard]

i dont like saying astarion is my least favorite of the companions because it makes me feel like im such a "look at me im so special" guy but he honest to fucking god. is my least favorite. i cannot keep silent on this matter. i think hes a good character, i think neil did a fantastic job with him, but also hes committed the unforgiveable sin of annoying me and for that he gets one thousand years in brain jail

[poptod]

hey there! hope i’m not bothering u. maybe a snafu x reader after the war where he tries to impress them at a bar with war stories but y/n was an air force pilot and it turns into a debate of who was more badass during the war? sweet at the end maybe? i’m addicted to ur writing lmao. thanks again for always answering my requests!

notes: not a problem at all :) unfortunately the power has been out at my house for a day or two so this is a tad late, but youve got fun ideas so i dont mind writing them at all. hope you like this one too

It had to be past midnight – somehow despite that fact, you were still wide awake. Maybe it was the fact that you hadn't taken your sleeping pills, or the pounding loud shouts of the bar's drunken patrons, but you did not lag behind your friend. She'd dragged you there, saying something about getting free drinks since she was banging the bartender. Before either of you knew it, she was off flirting with another man (which the bartender did not like), and you were ordering your third drink. Not the most you'd drunk in one night, not even close, but it was enough to give you a pleasant buzz, allowing you to relax against the bar counter and look out across the crowd.

Within the next several hours most of the crowd had filed out, making way for a new wave of soldiers, ones that had just arrived home and were celebrating their life still belonging to themselves. You were once part of that menagerie; the only difference was you had become a marine before the war ever started, and while you were there for the beginnings of the war, your contract with the marine corps ended soon after. It left you feeling apart from both citizens and soldiers – someone who didn't know the horrors of war, but who was traumatized enough that society didn't care to love them anymore.

Unlike many returning soldiers, you did not turn to alcohol to fix your issues. For the most part you distracted yourself with work, working and working till there was nothing in your head but work – there was little else in your life besides work now, the one exception being your friend, Penny. She made sure you ate, made sure you got outside and had human contact. For that you will always be grateful.

Your attention wavers from her only when one of the returning soldiers stands right beside you at the bar, ordering a bottle of beer before noticing you, his posture suddenly changing as he does so. His back straightens out a little, his hips a little more forward, elbows on the bar behind him so as to show off toned forearms and a skinny waist. He stares for a little while – you pay him no mind. When he gets his drink, that's when he actually speaks to you.

"What's a doll like you doin' here?" He says, and you almost roll your eyes. What a typical start.

"Keepin' a friend company," you answer him quietly, taking a swig of your own drink. It's not entirely a lie, although you feel you're keeping less and less of her company the more she drifts off to the side, caught up in the stare of a rather handsome man with a fair amount of scruff.

"Really? You come here often? I'm - jus' curious. I've never been here before," he says, clarifying that he isn't that stupid so as to use that specific line, a clarification you appreciate.

"This is my first time. My friend though, she comes here often, says she likes the atmosphere," you tell him, nodding in the direction of Penny, who is currently in a corner with the stranger. "You're a soldier, right?"

"Yessir," he says with a proud nod, "just returnin', actually."

You nod absently, looking out across the general crowd before you at last meet his eye. In the neon red lights you can barely see him, the shape of his face against the black mass of people, the color of his eyes against long eyelashes that flutter when he scans you up and down. All you can tell about him is his voice – rough and deep, drawling his words and humming his thoughts.

"You meet many marines?" He asks, and you can already tell he's gearing up to tell you some horrid stories of the war. Unfortunately, you don't know him well enough yet to know if he's going to tell you the truth, and a small part of you hopes he doesn't tell the truth. The truth is gorey and dangerous and heartbreaking, and you're not ready to live out such memories and tales again. Not yet.

"I've met a few," you say vaguely, watching the way a grin cracks across his face as he chuckles smooth and low.

"All I gotta say is you're lucky I ain't no army kid, those assholes are weak as all hell," he says, something you fully agree with, and something that has a sweet giggle coming involuntarily out of you. He smiles even bigger when he watches the way you laugh.

"My father was a marine," you say, coming down from your high. "He said the same thing."

"He's right, y' know... me n' my troop, we was out on that godforsaken island in the Pacific, hot as hell every day – humid, too. We saw hell n' back, shootin' at Japs n' gettin' shot at, sitting in all those damn trenches, up to ya knees in mud, and there go the fuckin' army soldiers, prancing around like goddamn deer. Funniest shit I ever seen, though to be fair, I don't think any a' us had much to eat that day," he recalls fondly, but you can tell he's suppressing the worse memories. You don't ask on that – it'd be rude, and it's not a subject you want to talk about. Nonetheless, he continues. "An you know, you're sittin' in mud all day n' night, you're gonna get pretty dirty, right?"

You nod attentively. If there's one thing you're still good at after your time in the marine corps, it's listening well.

"So we're all covered in mud, and they come by in a neat row, with their freshly washed hair and white as all hell skin – I made a bet with this one fella, Burgie, a' said they'd get so sunburnt after a week on that island, they'd be cryin'. I was right, of course," he says, motioning with his hands as he told the story. At the end he rubs his nose and turns back to you, watching for your reaction, and loving the way you still manage to enjoy his story.

"So you're tellin' war stories now?" You ask, leaning in closer and smirking imperceptibly when his breath catches in his throat. "What's your best story, then?"

He doesn't skip a beat, another one of those sweetly impure smiles coming across him as he starts.

"Hell, there's a lot to choose from. I do remember though," his hand comes up to his shirt collar, unconsciously toying with it, "this one Jap snuck into our camp, still don't know how, but he was one a' those damn kamikaze soldiers, the radical ones. He shouted somethin', don't remember what, but everyone went for their guns – I did too, an' we all pointed at his chest, cause it's easier to aim that way, y'know? But the bombs were tied to his chest, so a' aimed at the head. Shot him dead center between his eyes," he tells you with an air of pride and a hint of disgust. You don't blame him.

"That's a good story," you say with a small smile.

Anticipation creeps up on you as you wait till he's done prattling off little details, just waiting till you can watch the light die in his eyes as you tell him your own war story.

"I think my best marine story would have to be when I was flyin' over this active war field, there's fighter pilots everywhere in the sky, and sometimes it's hard to tell which jet belongs to which side in the moment. Everythin' goes by fast, but I saw this Jap flagged plane drop a bomb the size of a whole person. Immediate reaction was to shoot at the bomb, and I got pretty lucky – it blew up midair, and I was far enough it didn't hurt me," you say, unable to stop a grin from coming to you when the man slowly realizes that he's talking to another marine.

"Oh, you're a marine too, ain't you?" He says, but it's not a question – no, it sounds more like a challenge, and one you're completely willing to participate in. "Where you stationed?"

"I was in Hawaii at first," you say quietly, and he immediately gets the implication. Although you both now know what you saw, and the topic is in your heads, neither of you explore that further. "Later got stationed at some place in the Pacific. Like you. Though, I was on the ocean, not an island."

"What's your kill count?" He asks, and he leans forward just a little bit, drawing closer to you.

"Does it really matter?" You ask in return.

"'Course it does. You gonna be out here tellin' me you didn't count?"

"I didn't," you say truthfully. "A bit hard to see how many y' kill from a thousand feet in the air."

"Y'ever do parachute drops?"

"Once," you say. "Did you?"

"Nah, parachute drops ain't nothin' compared to the shit I did," he says, dismissing the notion as if it wasn't important. Now he's trying to impress you – again.

"Really?" You ask, almost sarcastic, but you manage to hold that part back. "What is it that you did then that was so much more terrifying and dangerous than freefalling through the atmosphere?"

"Try carryin' mortars on ya back in searing heat, n' all the while you n' ya company's out takin' a little hike 'cross a whole island filled with Japs," he says cockily, angling his chin upwards in a motion that accentuates his already sharp-as-hell jawline.

"Wow, a whole island," you say sarcastically, but he sees the humor behind it.

"Hey, Japan's an island too an' they big enough that they got the whole nation in uproar," he points out.

"Whatever makes you feel better," you say, taking a sip of your drink.

"What's your rank anyway?" He asks as he puts his drink on the counter, crossing his arms.

"I'm a major," you say, and once again the light dies in his eyes. You almost want to spare him the embarrassment of telling you his own rank, but you are curious, and it's just too fun to let him off. "What's your rank?"

"... corporal," he answers quietly, and you have to hold back a laugh. You try really hard, you really do, just so hard not to laugh, but you end up snorting anyway, and you can't even begin to work on your smile.

"Alright, corporal," you say, still trying not to laugh. Placing your own drink down on one of the bar coasters you turn to him, curling his loose tie around one of your hands and pulling him forward, practically devouring his nervous delight. "Y' really wanna play this game?"

"I'm the one who started it, ain't I?" He says, and you admire his tenacity to talk back to a superior officer.

"What's your full name and title, Corporal?"

"Corporal Merriel Shelton," he answers softly, his eyes suddenly stuck on the words that form on your blushing lips. "Ma' friends jus' call me Snafu, though."

"Mmm," you hum, looking him up and down much like he'd done to you earlier, "the hell you do to earn that kind a' name?"

"Oh, I'm just reckless, baby," he says with a smirk, gaining the confidence needed to lean into your touch more. You can feel his hips almost pressed against yours, the feeling doing nothing but making you pull his tie even more, a smile beginning to tug at the edges of your lips.

"Mind showin' me?"

"Not at all," he says in the impossibly low voice of his, and with that you're his, if only for the evening.