#I remember learning this kick for blue belt:))

[breathlesslink]

Chapter 2 — Kimi

[chapter warnings: rude bitches, panic attack]

t.o.c ; << | >>

"Do I know my way around Hyrule? Do you not?" You gazed at the boy's pointed ears. "You're Hylian, you should know your way around. You're from here."

Link looked away from you. "I don't remember." He mumbled.

"What?"

"I don't remember." He said a little louder. "I, uh, got injured. And now I don't remember anything. I need to talk to Impa, but I don't know who that is or where they are here."

Impa. What a familiar name. She was the elder of Kakariko when you were still young, and you supposed by the sound of it she was still kicking. Good for her.

"I might be able to show you to her, but that's as far as my knowledge goes." You smiled sheepishly. "I don't know Hyrule either, except for Gerudo Desert. The rest I've only seen through maps."

Link raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a traveler?"

"This is only my first week of it. I left on my twentieth birthday a few days ago." You shook your head, not wanting to delve further into why you didn't know anything about Hyrule and grabbed Link's wrist. "Come on, let's go see Impa. I think I remember where she stays.”

If the elder Sheikah remembered you, she didn't show it. Instead, she focused on the man in front of you, ushering you upstairs with a girl named Paya as quickly as you had entered.

Paya was around the same age as you, yet seemed completely different. She was nearly spastic, moving around her room with no purpose other than to fidget. She answered your attempts at conversation with one-word answers, only reciprocating when she wanted to turn it towards the stranger downstairs.

"Link, you said his name is? Is he your boyfriend?"

At the question, you awkwardly laughed. "Him? No, I just met him not too long ago and he asked me to bring him here."

"Oh," Paya sounded relieved. Your tight smile turned into a real one as you sensed a wonderful opportunity.

"Yeah, he's real cute, isn't he?" You subtly tried to tease, "He might be into you. I saw him looking our way when we were leaving."

Paya turned a bright red, matching the accents of her outfit nearly perfectly. "R-really?!" Her voice raised a few notches, "I- there's no way! Maybe he was looking at you, you're gorgeous!"

"I'm nothing like you," You made a face, slightly playing it up to see how far this would go while simultaneously rejecting the compliment, "If there's any gal Link might be into, it's you."

Paya seemed to swoon at the thought, but before she could respond Impa's voice called you both down from her room. Link stood where you left him, but this time with a different wardrobe. He had a bright blue tunic on, matching his eyes nearly perfectly.

You weren't the only one who noticed, though, as you noticed the red on Paya's face returning.

Link thanked Impa and glanced at you— a silent way of saying "let's go". You followed him out and began your trek back to the hotel.

"What did she say?"

"She said that I could maybe get my memories back by going to places that I have pictures of."

"Pictures? Do you have a camera or something?"

"Or something." Link reached for his belt and grabbed some device— you recognized it as a Sheikah Slate, old technology you learned about while scouring the poor excuse of a library in the Yiga hideout. They weren't the smartest, so books were uncommon. "This isn't mine, it's an old friend's. She has these pictures of places we've apparently gone together, but I have to go to Hateno to get it fixed."

Together? Were they together? Goddess, that would suck if Link had a girlfriend he didn't even remember. Poor chick.

"So you're going to go to these places and just... what? Hope for the best?"

Link shrugged. "If I have the time, yeah. I have more important things to do right now."

"Like?"

Link didn't answer, instead opening the door to the Inn and letting you in first. He went to his bed and sat down, pulling out the slate and swiping through it. A while passed and Link continued to just stare at the screen, brows furrowed in what was probably some attempt at remembering his past.

"You're gonna get a headache from looking at that."

"I already have one."

You stood up and went over to his bed, slipping the slate out of his hands and turning it towards yourself. "Why is the map blank?"

"I have to go to certain towers to get a map of each region."

"Ohh, those weird super tall glowy things?" You grinned like a child in a candy shop when Link nodded, "They just showed up a little bit ago. What, were they made specifically for you?"

"Kind of? And those shrines are too. I just wish I knew where to go and where I am."

"Goddess, you must be mighty special for a bunch of ancient technology to just work for you." You joked.

Link looked at you with a look you didn't really recognize. "You said you just started traveling. Do you have a paper map?"

"I do." You turned and dug into your bag, pulling it out and unrolling it in between you. You also grabbed a pen, just in case. "Where do you need to go next?"

"According to Impa, first Hateno. Then Zora's Domain, Eldin, Rito Village, and Gerudo in no specific order."

"Hm," You looked at the map, "That order seems to be the most practical— starting close and then traveling to the further ones. It just works out that Hateno is first on our way, I need to go there too."

At that, Link paused. "Our way?"

"Yeah, I'm coming with you. I need to go to those places too, so it works."

"Uh, absolutely not." Link shook his head and took the pen from your hand, "My journey is way too dangerous for you."

"What?" You grabbed the pen back, "We have the same journey— we're going to the same places. How is that too dangerous? If anything, it would be safer to travel together."

"I just wouldn't be able to protect myself and someone else, you know?"

"Who said I needed you to protect me?" You were a little offended. Was this because you were a woman? "I can handle myself."

Link raised an eyebrow as if to challenge that. "Y/N-"

"Listen, you don't remember anything, right? You need someone who at least knows a little bit. I might not have actually traveled but I read books and know people who do. I know the monsters and the cultures of the regions and all that shit. You need that. Let me come along and help. I'll stay out of whatever shit you have to do."

Link seemed to think about it for a moment and then sighed. "Fine."

You cheered and looked back down at the map, marking the locations you needed to go to— the main towns in every region, stables, smaller villages, and Hateno itself. "First, Hateno. Then, to East Necluda to Zora's Domain."

"Why do you need to go to Hateno so badly?"

You looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "If I tell you my mission, you have to tell me yours."

"...We'll see."

"My little sister lives there. I haven't seen her in four years, so I need to visit. As for the rest of Hyrule, I'm looking for my brother. We all got separated." Link looked as if he was going to ask questions, so you interrupted. "You?"

"I have to tame the Divine Beasts."

You couldn't contain the loud laugh that erupted from your throat. "I'm sorry- what? Ganon controls those beasts, nobody can tame them except for the Cham...pions..."

You trailed off, suddenly putting two and two together.

Link's name was familiar to you. You'd heard it numerous times.

The Hylian Champion, destined to destroy Ganon with the Sword that Sealed the Darkness.

The Yiga drilled it into your head that he was a bad guy. You didn't believe them when they said he'd return, and yet you sat in front of him, talking as if he was a long-lost friend.

"I thought the Champions died 100 years ago."

"They did. I almost did, but I was put into a healing shrine on the Great Plateau. I woke up about a week ago. No memories, nothing. Just the Sheikah Slate and the ghost of the King telling me what I have to do."

"That's— wow. That's a shocker." You didn't know what to say. The traumatized part of you was conflicted— riddled with guilt. Guilt for betraying the organization you grew up brainwashed into, but also guilt because this guy seemed like a great dude. And yet you were trained to kill people like him. Or more specifically, just him. "So what if I just joined you on this little adventure and didn't fight the Beasts with you? Would you feel better then?"

"I definitely would."

"Deal."

"Deal." Link held out his hand and you grabbed it, feeling the rough callouses on his palm and the warmth of his skin that seemed to seep into your own. You were both definitely holding this handshake for too long.

You coughed awkwardly and pulled your hand away, rolling the map back up and tucking it into your bag before sitting in your own bed. "Wake me up when you're ready to leave. Goodnight, Link."

"Goodnight, Y/N."

———

"This is fucking stupid."

"You're fucking stupid. Drop the attitude or I'm leaving your ass."

"You're the one who woke me up at 5am, Link! You can't be mad at me for that when we didn't go to bed until 1."

"If you're gonna adventure, you gotta get used to running on little sleep. From here on out, it's tough."

You huffed and crossed your arms, focusing on Taz's mane as Link rode his own horse beside you. "Shit sucks."

"Imagine having the fate of Hyrule on your shoulders along with that."

You cut your eyes at him. "I liked you better when you were quiet."

At that, Link let out a little laugh. It was the first time you'd heard him laugh and it was a pretty sound. You smiled back, ignoring the slight tinge of heat in your cheeks.

"Thanks for this, by the way. Letting me tag along and all."

Link didn't look at you, choosing instead to focus on the road ahead. "It's no worries, really. I enjoy the company. I've already figured out how lonely traveling gets, so it's nice to have someone to keep me away from my thoughts for a while." He let out a dry laugh.

"It's gotta be tough-- being destined to save humanity. I'm glad I can help in any way.”

Link finally looked up at you and flashed a wide smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Hateno is a few more hours. How about we take a break here for lunch?"

You nodded and pulled Taz off of the road into a large patch of grass, watching as Link pulled an axe out of an extra weapon holder on Epona and started going towards a patch of trees a few yards away. Patting Taz's nose, you pulled out a pot and some vegetables you had bought in Kakariko and met Link, starting a fire and placing the food inside to cook. After a while, you were able to pour the soup into two bowls and you began eating.

"I didn't know you knew how to cook." Link hummed, stuffing his face with the veggie cream soup you had made.

"You don't know a lot about me in general," You joked, "but I've known for a while. I guess I've become good since you just finished your second bowl."

"Super good!" Link put his bowl in his lap, seemingly finished, and looked at you. "So tell me about you."

You raised an eyebrow, pausing from your soup. "What?"

"You said I don't know a lot about you, and you're right. So tell me more. I think I have a right to know who I'm traveling with."

You internally cringed, wondering what all you could give away without letting Link know the truth. You know, the truth that you were actually raised by an organization created almost specifically to kill him.

"My mom was Sheikah and my dad was a regular Hylian, so I grew up in Kakariko with my brother and sister. We, uh, got kidnapped and taken away for a while. Eventually, we escaped and I ended up in Gerudo Town and I didn't know where my siblings were. As you know, I found out my little sister is in Hateno. So now I'm here, traveling and looking for them." You shrugged, feigning nonchalance as Link raised an eyebrow.

"You glossed over the kidnapping pretty quickly. That's scary."

"It was, but they kind of just kept us there. No clue why." You looked down at your soup, finding both it and talking about yourself unappetizing. "What about you? Do you remember anything from before?"

Link shook his head. "Nothing. Impa said to go back to her after I've remembered something, but there's nothing so far. I was Princess Zelda's knight, and I apparently failed at defeating Ganon."

"Yeah, no shit." You snorted. "This time will be different, though."

Link glanced at you with a face you couldn't describe. "I hope so." He stood up suddenly, taking the bowl and putting it back in Epona's pouch. "Impa said something about there being someone in Hateno who could help fix my Sheikah Slate. Let's go so we can get there before sundown."

———

"Halt! Who goes there!"

You skidded your horse to a stop, Taz's hooves digging into the wet dirt road beneath you. Link stopped shortly after, eyes wide at the pitchfork being brandished in front of the both of you.”

"Uh, I'm Y/N. That's Link." You backed Taz up a bit, not trusting this random short man outside of the village. "We're travelers."

"Travelers, eh?" The man looked you up and down with a scrutinizing gaze. You felt like shrinking under it. "Hylian?"

"Yes?"

He lowered his pitchfork, but not by much. "General Store is right ahead, same with the Inn. Don't go nowhere else causing trouble in my town. I'm sworn to protect this place with my life."

Link raised an eyebrow at the man. "Thank you, uh,"

"Thadd."

"Right. Thadd." You interrupted, "Could you tell us where to find a girl named—"

"You're askin' the wrong man. I ain't one for giving tours."

"We're not asking for a tour, I just need to find Kimi-"

"If you want a tour, go talk to Seldon right at the boutique. He's real nice."

"I— okay." You resisted rolling your eyes, "Thank you."

You continued forward, sharing a look with Link before finding the boutique and a smiling man out front. He waves you both over, "Hello there! My name is Seldon, care for a tour of our wonderful town?"

"Uh- we're just looking for one thing." You replied, feeling a little bad to deny his offer.

"Wh- so no tour?" Seldon sighed loudly, his shoulders dropping in disappointment. "What can I point you to?"

"Do you know where a little girl named Kimi lives?"

Seldon raised an eyebrow. "Kimi? She's too young to be having random visitors without her parents knowledge—"

"I'm her sister. Before she came here. She somehow found me and I just want to see her." You pleaded.

Seldon seemed to think for a second, then sighed. "Alright, but if it turns out you're lying Thadd's gonna have at you both."

Without waiting for a reply, Seldon turned his back to you both and walked up the main road of Hateno towards a small cluster of houses near the top. After leading you a few doors down, he stopped at one with a bright red door and gave it a knock, only stepping back once it opened to reveal a woman a bit older than you.

"Can I help you?"

"Uh yes," Your heart was pounding, "A little bit ago, I started getting letters from my little sister, who you took in—“

"Y/N? Is that you?"

A meek voice came from behind the lady, and then out peeked a small head of hair. Suddenly, the girl grinned widely and pushed past the woman, running to you with her arms wide. "Y/N!"

You smiled as well and crouched down, engulfing her in a tight hug, fighting to keep tears back.

"Kimi..." You pulled back and held her shoulders, "You've gotten so big!"

Kimi giggled and fiddled with the edge of her dress before gasping and turning to the older woman. "Mom! This is my big sister, Y/N! She finally came!"

"That's wonderful." The woman smiled. "I'm Ameil, and my husband— who'll be out in a sec— is Laslow! Kimi has said so much about you. Come in!"

You smiled at Ameil and stood to walk in when your wrist was grabbed by a gloved hand. You turned back to the owner— Link— and raised an eyebrow.

"That research lab up there on the hill— Impa said I needed to go there."

"What do you want me to do about that?"

Link snorted, "Nothing. I want you to catch up with your sister, so I'm going to head up there and see who I can talk to about fixing my Sheikah Slate. I'll be back soon."

"Oh, okay." You smiled at him, "Be careful, it looks like it's going to rain soon. I don't want you getting sick."

"Yes ma'am." Link fake-saluted and turned away, heading towards the research lab.

You, on the other hand, followed Kimi and Ameil inside. Sitting in one of the living room couches was who you assumed was Laslow. Ameil joined him on the couch while you and Kimi sat on one across from them.

Ameil continued to smile— it was getting a little strange at this point, but you shrugged it off— while Laslow put down his book and paid attention to you.

"So, Y/N, we've heard a lot about you." Laslow began, "But one thing we've never understood is how she came into our care in the first place. One minute Ameil and I are traveling the Taobab Grasslands, next we're picking up a little girl unconscious under a tree and taking her home. How did that come to be?"

Your breath caught in your throat and the world began to spin, but you tried not to show it.

They really went in for a first meeting, didn't they?

"Honestly," You steeled your voice and looked down at Kimi in a silent way of saying 'I will not tell'. "There was an accident. Kimi, our brother, and I were in Gerudo when a sandstorm hit— that Divine Beast is no joke— and we got separated. I couldn't find them, so I went to Gerudo Town and stayed, trying to find them. It took four years for Kimi to finally reach me. How did you find me, by the way?"

At your redirection of the topic, Kimi perked up. "At first, I just asked every traveler who came into Hateno if they knew you! None of them did, but a Rito suggested that I send a letter to every town asking about you and describing you, and if they found you then you would write back! And you did!"

"I did." You laughed, "I told you I'd always be there for you, I keep my word."

Kimi threw her arms around you once again and you felt a shift in the atmosphere. You looked up from your little sister to see Ameil, still sitting in the same spot, still smiling. She folded her hands in her lap and took a deep breath.

"I just think it's rather irresponsible for you to have your younger siblings out in the harsh elements like that in the first place." Ameil shook her head in disapproval. "It's common sense for sandstorms to happen in Gerudo."

You tried not to roll your eyes and reminded yourself that Ameil didn't know the truth— you might have to be the bad guy and take blame that doesn't even exist to save your identities. "We didn't have much of a choice. I can't go into all of it but—"

"But what? What could you have possibly put little Kimi through that required you to trek through potentially deadly weather and risk her life? Do tell."

Ameil was obviously pushing your buttons, trying to reveal things that you were sure she had pushed Kimi about before. "I can't."

Ameil threw her hands in the air. "I am Kimi's mother. I have a right to know what goes on."

You opened your mouth to respond, but Kimi beat you to it.

"Y/N, are you going to look for Hiro next?"

"Yes!" You were relieved, "Have you heard from him?"

Kimi's face dropped. "No, but I want to come with you-"

"Absolutely NOT." Ameil interrupted. "You are not going on some dangerous trip with strangers.”

"But Y/N is my sister. My REAL sister. You're not even my real parents!"

Ameil gasped, and Laslow sat up and practically growled, "Go to your room!"

Kimi stood up and ran to her room, slamming it hard enough to make the house shake. You could only watch as she left, the atmosphere getting even more uncomfortable in her absence. You didn't want to look back at Ameil and Laslow, but when you did Ameil was already looking at you with a look you couldn't recognize.

"You do see where we're coming from, right?" She asked gently, as if you were some toddler who needed talking down to. "Our sweet Kimi is our pride and joy. We can't possibly let her go back into the hands of the person who lost her. Who knows, she could go missing a second time. We don't quite see you as a responsible big sister. After all, why did it take so long for you to come find her?"

Condescending. That was the look.

At Ameil's words, you realized her feelings towards you. Ameil hated you. She looked down on you— blamed you for "abandoning" Kimi. But she doesn't know the truth.

How you risked your life for your siblings.

How you turned and faced the Yiga Clan head-on to give them enough time to escape and survive, even if you didn't.

How you fed them, defended them, took care of them while you were all imprisoned in the desert, working every day to get stronger and stronger to one day escape and create a better life for Hiro and Kimi.

You stood up and walked to the door, ignoring Ameil's fake protests and questions about why you were leaving, and slammed the door hard enough to shake the house once more. Tears blurred your vision as you walked down path, heading nowhere in particular except away from that house, and in your rush you accidentally bumped into a body.

"Goddess," You wiped your face, "I'm sorry-“

"Y/N, what happened?"

Link's voice sent a wave of comfort over you, and his hands gripping your shoulders gave you enough stability to collapse, tears streaming down your face more as your knees hit the ground.

Link fell to his own knees in front of you, quickly pressing you into his chest and gently shushing you, waiting until your sobs ceased before talking.

"What happened?"

"They-" Deep breath. "They blamed m-me for Kimi going missing. And my brother. And-and they said I wasn't a good sister, and I know that I'm not— who leaves their siblings for four years? I couldn't help it—"

You started to cry again, coughing out your words and wheezing in breaths in between. Your hands trembled, yet you couldn't stop it. Eventually it spread to the rest of your body, shaking like a leaf in an emotional storm. It was hard to focus on one thing when everything crowded in your vision and overwhelmed your senses.

Breathe in. You couldn't.

Breathe out. No.

In. Please.

Out. You can't.

Was this it? Was this the end? Just like that?—

"Y/N!"

Link.

He's still holding you.

His hand is laid atop your head, rubbing soothing circles into your hair. Your face is in the crook of his neck, finally able to breathe. His smell was comforting. His other arm wrapped itself around your torso, holding you close to his chest. When did he pull you onto his lap?

"It's okay. You're okay. Is Kimi upset with you?"

"No," Words struggled to escape, "Just her parents."

"Then who cares? You still have your sister. She still loves you."

You stayed quiet for a second, contemplating. Link was right— you still had Kimi. Ameil and Laslow were the issue. You just had to somehow prove that you were responsible enough to be around Kimi again. But how?

Find Hiro. Reunite your family.

Your muscles unclenched, and you slouched into Link's warmth a bit more. In your thoughts, he had begun to rock you gently and laid his cheek upon your head.

"Yeah." You yawned.

"C'mon, silly." Link shifted and stood you both up. "Let's go to the inn and rest, then. We'll figure out the next step tomorrow when we're fully rested."

"Right."

[mochiwrites]

some sea fruits scarian

pre-canon / song is "the anthem of mr. dark" by the arcadian wild / scar's outfit inspired by @periwinklemoonlight's art and ink-ghoul's pirate scar skin

the deck of the ship is lively, even with four people onboard. grian and iskall find themselves sitting on the hardwood, bowls and jugs of rum set on the ground in front of them.

someone drops down in front of him, causing grian to startle and nearly spill his drink. iskall laughs at him before a smooth voice fills his ears, "what d'ya say? interested in a little bit of an evening show?"

grian's eyes flicker over to the captain of the ship, meeting his cheerful green eyes. his fluffy brown hair curls around the hat on top of his head, a feather stuck to the side of it. his shirt is almost fully open, exposing the scars running along his chest. a belt of red fabric is wrapped around his waist, keeping his long blue vest underneath it. dark pants are tucked effortlessly into his boots.

lifting his gaze back to the man's face, he sees a grin dancing along his lips. there's a guitar in his hands.

a teasing smile forms on grian's face, "oh? don't tell me the show is just going to be you tripping over yourself, scar."

gasping in pretend offense, scar looks at grian, "how cruel! i'm a well seasoned pirate i'll have you know!" he exclaims in return, though he hasn't stopped grinning.

iskall snickers, "then by all means! blow us away good sir!"

behind scar is a second man, dressed in similar garments. a dark brown vest is wrapped around the white undershirt he has on, and a blue belt sits between his vest and dark bottoms. glasses sit on the bridge of his nose. he watches scar with amusement, "just don't go busting a hole in the deck again, scar." he warns.

scar looks over at him and salutes, "sir yes sir! you have my word cub, that no holes will be busted in the deck!"

grian's grin widens, "now that's a story."

cub looks over at him, "oh it is. scar was pouting about it for weeks." he replies.

"we don't need air my dirty laundry!" scar hurriedly interrupts, wiggling the guitar in his hands, "show, remember!"

"alright, get on with it you big oaf."

"i will, thank you!" scar grins. with a flourish, scar falls on the barrel behind him. he rests on it, kicking one leg over the other. he clears his throat before his fingers begin to stroke the strings of the guitar in his lap, gentle music beginning to fill the air.

almost instantly, grian finds himself entranced. the intro isn't very long, the tune something exciting and light. scar opens his mouth, and sings, "i never have the time to do the nothing that i want to do,"

while scar sings for them, it isn't hard for grian to tune everything else out. scar is rather enchanting as he sings, fingers gliding along the strings of the guitar as if it were second nature for him.

"well, the fabric of my soul is frayed and falling apart at the seams. i'm tied up and tied down by the strings of other people's dreams," a smile forms on scar's face as his eyes flicker over to grian. they lock gazes for a moment, and grian finds his breath being stolen from him. his bowl and jug remain untouched in front of him, forgotten as he gets swept up in scar's performance.

"i'm starting to see that that isn't me. and my freedom isn't free, but all I really want is some room to breathe," the strumming of his guitar begins to pick up, and grian watches with delight as scar jumps up from the barrel and begins to dance around the deck.

"someday, i'll learn to say no! find a way to lighten my load." with each note that scar sings, grian notices something about him. the way his eyes twinkle against the lanterns spread out around deck, or the way his hair shifts with his movements. scar dances around them, hardly bothered by the exertion. his voice doesn't stammer or stutter, instead staying steady.

their eyes keep meeting, and each time they do, grian feels his heart skip a beat.

"people take possession of the pieces of my weary heart. i'll learn to let go, whoa-oh," it's then that grian actually pays attention the lyrics that scar is singing, not just how he looks while singing them.

something tugs at his chest, understanding. scar looks cheerful and passionate as he sings, but grian spots something in his eyes. something carefully hidden behind his jovial nature. the lyrics hit close for him, and clearly they hit close for scar as well. it makes grian curious. and the thought of something relatable between them makes his heart squeeze.

the beginnings of affection. of infatuation.

he looks at scar, and sees something directed at him. something a little softer, a little fonder. the way his lips curl in his smile is honey sweet, and grian feels like it's something only for his eyes to see.

"and learn to say no!"

[treescape]

This was going to be a longer oneshot, an alternate ending to episode 5, but the pacing isn’t working out, so here’s the bit that I most wanted to write in the first place 😆

Context: Obi-Wan surrenders to Vader to ensure the escape of those on Jabiim. They discuss the sparring match from their memories.

~1k, Rated M for discussion of sexual fantasies, below the cut.

-----------

The cell where Obi-Wan has been confined is empty, barren, but it wouldn’t matter if it weren’t. Vader is all he sees, tall and unmoving through the transparisteel of the walls, his shoulders an obsidian screen.

There is everything between them and almost nothing at all, ten years of hatred and pain and a bare handful of inches. Obi-Wan says nothing. There are no words for the things he wants to say, not in any language he knows.

Vader watches him for a long moment. Obi-Wan can feel the weight of his eyes through the thick lenses of his mask, through the regulated air of his ship and the thin barrier between them.

“This time you must concede my victory,” Vader finally says, and the words are mechanical, inflectionless, but Obi-Wan’s traitorous mind is all too quick to lend it the cadence of Anakin’s voice, to reach fingers into memory and dredge forth the precise beat of it.

Obi-Wan forces himself to breathe through the memory, and when he catches himself automatically matching the heavy hiss of Vader’s lungs, he makes himself breathe slower, makes himself cast off the rhythm.

It isn’t the same one long etched into his heart, he tells himself.

“I think perhaps you don’t remember that day clearly,” Obi-Wan replies. The skies of Coruscant flash in his mind, and the blue of Anakin’s saber, and the blaze of Anakin’s smile. They expand in his chest, threaten to burn through his bones and his muscles and his veins. They threaten to wither him whole. “The lesson was not in prowess or tactics, but rather in the forbearance of pride. As that is a lesson you have yet to learn, you have won no more this day than you did then.”

It’s a wonder that his voice can sound so calm when inside he is crumbling to ash. How easily he slides back into the guise of instruction with the one who stands before him.

“*I* don’t remember clearly,” Vader says, and for all the simmering darkness that Obi-Wan can feel roiling off of him, Obi-Wan thinks he’s almost amused. It’s like a kick to the gut, a saber through the heart, how quickly his mood changes. How much like Anakin he still is. “You know less than you think about that day, or what I remember of it.”

“Is that so?”

A beat of silence, only the harsh inhale-exhale of Vader’s breathing. “Do you know what I did after we finished sparring that day, Obi-Wan?”

Obi-Wan ignores the sound of his own name, lest it cut him to shreds. “I must assume you didn’t go to the gardens to perform the meditation exercises I assigned.”

A harsh laugh, discordant and loud. “I went back to my chamber,” Vader agrees, and there’s a note of triumph in his voice. “I sat there in my bed and remembered the feel of you, the smell of you as we fought. I held the saber you had used to defeat me and pretended I could still feel the heat of your hands.”

“Much less productive than the meditation would have been, I’m sure,” Obi-Wan says, a trickle of apprehension from the Force, a relentless certainty that he knows what is coming next.

Not this, he thinks. Don’t make me face this, not here. Not now.

“I imagined that you had one least lesson for me that day,” Vader tells him, the string of his words ruthless and unyielding, in that voice that is Vader but echoes like Anakin in Obi-Wan’s mind. Obi-Wan forces himself to stare with mild curiosity at that implacable mask, not to reveal the slow dread churning through his veins. “I imagined that you would tell me to kneel. You would instruct me to loosen your belt and pull you out. I thought about you teaching me to take you in my mouth.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t think it’s his imagination that there’s a hint of heat in that cold voice—not when he can feel the tangled fever of it in the Force, the vindictive twisting of a youthful fantasy.

He had always suspected his padawan nursed a crush; it wasn’t uncommon at all for such things to happen.

“And then,” Vader says, “once you’d had your fill of my mouth, I thought about you telling me to get on the bed. You would instruct me to open myself up for you with my fingers. You would watch until I was begging you to do it for me. I would have begged you to show me how to do it the way you wanted me to. And then—”

Vader falls silent for just a moment, only the sound of his breathing in the air, and Obi-Wan knows he wants only to wind the moment tight, to string out the tension before the victorious finale, the strike he expects to fell Obi-Wan  with ease.

Obi-Wan won’t let him have it, even if it costs him the truth.

“I could never,” he says mildly into the pause.

If Vader is thrown off, he doesn’t show it, but Obi-Wan can feel the hot flash of impatience, the burn of his ire. “Of course,” he sneers. “The great Master Kenobi would never have stooped so low as to want his own padawan.”

“No,” Obi-Wan says, and then, before Vader can sneer again, can claim that denial for his own use, can exploit it to shore up his own counterstroke, Obi-Wan forges ahead into the greatest shame of his life as if it is of no matter. “I could never, as you put it, have had my fill of your pretty little mouth. I would have had to keep you on your knees all day, at the very least. Would you have liked that?”

If nothing else, Obi-Wan tells himself, the cost of those words is not in vain. Vader stares at him—inhales, exhales, an endless moment that teeters on the brink of collapsing.

Then, he turns and strides away, cape flaring behind him, fury scorching in the Force.

Match to me, Obi-Wan thinks, his heart a leaden weight in his chest.

He knows, deep in his bones and through the ache of memory, that it’s going to be a long, long battle.

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

dandelion memories

In his memories, Ajax is colored yellow and orange. He’s midmorning and high noon, camellia flowers in bloom and a babbling stream; an endless blue sky, the bursting green of the hedges lining Zhongli’s garden, the way his breath caught in his throat the first time Ajax came flying down the walkway. He’s the settling of a crane on his roof and the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings—there, and viscerally real, but only for a moment.

These days, it’s difficult for him to parse his waking dreams from reality. Guizhong thinks he’s not sleeping enough, while Zhongli himself suspects it’s a sign he’s getting old. 

His back hurts. One of these mornings, he’s going to wake up and find a gray hair on his pillow, and then he’s going to complain about it to Guizhong until she kicks him out. It’s half her fault that he’s saddled with incurable waking dreams of Ajax, anyway, and so half her fault he’s feeling like a sentimental old man. 

Zhongli remembers that debacle with all the viciousness of someone who’s managed to pinpoint where it all went wrong.

—

“Morax,” says Guizhong, with that lilt to her voice that means she’s about to say something he won’t like. 

Zhongli makes a noise of interest. But really, he’s far more preoccupied with soaking up as much early morning sunlight as he possibly can. And if this means lying on his back in the middle of Guizhong’s bedroom, shifting slightly as the patch of sun moves east, then so be it. He has his hands folded over his stomach and his eyes closed. 

“Will you do me a favor?”

Zhongli frowns. “Last time I did you a favor, you had me make ammunition for your ballistae. For hours.”

“Nothing so taxing,” Guizhong titters, and laughs in that bell-like way she has. It’s ensnared many a mortal, and even one or two of their adepti, but has never worked on Zhongli. He’d thought it was a manufactured sound until they started cohabiting, then realized otherwise when she laughed like that even when she thought herself alone.

“What’s the favor?” Zhongli asks, and Guizhong sobers. 

“A friend of mine has a student,” she tells him, her voice soft and serious. “She’s taught him all she can, but if he learns any more from her, he may damage himself beyond all hope of repair. That said, he has too much talent to let it go to waste—so she asked me if I had any teachers I might recommend.”

“I don’t take students anymore, Guizhong,” says Zhongli tiredly. “You know that. Xiao was the last.”

“That’s the favor,” she says. “Would you make an exception?”

“For some mortal child?” 

“For me,” Guizhong says, sounding exasperated. “For me, Morax, not the child.” 

Zhongli opens his eyes to deny her again, but then he’s faced with the full power of Guizhong’s face at her most pleading. Pale, round-cheeked, and lovelier than any human woman or god—a visage that hides the razor sharp wit beneath—she stares down at him, all soft brown eyes and red mouth. 

He shuts his eyes. “I’ll meet him,” he says. “I promise nothing more than that.”

Guizhong laughs, delighted, and claps her hands. “Ah, Morax,” she murmurs. “Never change.”

He meets Ajax on a sun-drenched day, and his first impression is that the boy is tall. Unfairly so, like a dandelion stretching towards the sun, and bright orange besides. He wears nondescript robes and his skin is fair, almost too fair, to be under such light. Zhongli nearly figures him for a normal mortal child until he catches his eye. 

And isn’t that intriguing, how Ajax’s eyes are as limitless and dark as the sea, with none of the bright spark Zhongli is used to seeing in humans.  

The woman beside him is nearly as intriguing with her gleaming white hair, sensibly tied back, and the horsetail whisk at her belt. Zhongli almost doesn’t recognize the qiang on her back—but when he sees the trailing dark blue ribbon, an old memory floats to the surface. 

“You didn’t mention your friend was Skirk,” he says to Guizhong, who hides a laugh behind her sleeve. 

“Didn’t I?” she says. “How careless of me.”

Zhongli only shakes his head and makes his way down the garden path to meet Skirk at the gate. She bows first, then fixes him with the steeliest look he’s seen in the last decade. “Morax,” she greets. “You look well.”

“Daozhang,” he says. “The same to you, though the last I saw of you, you weren’t accepting students.”

“Times change,” says Skirk, her expression unreadable. “I assume Guizhong has filled you in.”

“Some,” Zhongli admits. 

The boy still hasn’t spoken a word, only stared at Zhongli. It’s a little off-putting. 

“Then will you take him?” 

Zhongli favors the boy with an appraising look. His frame is deceptively slight, and there's something about the way he follows Zhongli’s every movement that betrays some amount of skill. Perhaps it’s enough. 

But before he can say so to Skirk, the boy opens his mouth. 

“If you’re unsure of me, xiansheng, how about a spar?” he asks. 

Zhongli blinks. 

“Do you know who I am?” he replies, taken aback. 

“My new teacher,” says the boy. “Is there more I should know?”

[ ]

“Xiansheng!” Childe cries, desperate and wide-eyed. He stretches out a hand and drops to his knees, reaching with a youthful optimism that Zhongli can’t help but envy. And then there’s the rain, driving down from the heavens and plastering his hair to his forehead—he looks soaked through and miserable, and still, there’s a brightness in his eyes that he’s never seen before. Even though his face is twisted into a rictus of desperation, even though he can read his panic in every tensed muscle, he looks more alive than he’s ever been.

Zhongli smiles up at him. “Sorry, Ajax,” he whispers. The name is old and careworn in his mouth, tasting like summer days and sunshine. 

“Xiansheng, please!” he howls, stretching impossibly further, so far that he might fall off of the cliff if he keeps this up. 

“I’ll go on ahead,” says Zhongli. Childe’s mouth opens in a wordless scream—and then Zhongli falls. 

[weekend-conspiracy-theorist]

An entry in the tim&steph role swap au. It starts serious then rapidly gets ridiculous. As many things in this AU have been wont to do.

(Also, help me remember to go back and cross post once ao3 is back up, lol)

Then.

Over the last several months, Stephanie had learned how to drop from ten or so feet and absorb the landing so completely that her feet didn't make a sound, even on gravel. This drop was not even that high--seven feet, at most; just a little higher than Bruce was tall--and onto solid concrete.

So it was deliberate, when she landed with a quiet but emphatic thump.

Batman--hunched over so severely that you wouldn't know he was only eight inches shorter than that fence--didn't look up, but she could see the way the muscles along his spine tightened, even through the cape. They'd been working a lot on reading each other's body language, so that reacting to each other's movements in a fight would be instinctual.

She bet he hadn't considered the other ramifications of those drills.

"Robin," he said. A growl; a warning.

She kicked a rock, whistling lowly as she wandered closer, gauntleted hands clasped behind her back. "Damn, this how we're playin' it these days?" she drawled, letting her Gotham accent flow thick and heavy in her own little homage to the boy who'd come before. "'Cause you know there're a few mooks in Blackgate I wouldn't mind payin' a visit to if we're bashin' teeth in."

A muscle twitched in Batman's jaw. "I told you to stay with the car."

"Sure." She kicked another rock, sharply this time. It pinged off the dumpster nearby, leaving a scratch in the paint. "I didn't listen."

She'd circled close enough that she could see the guy Batman was crouched over now. Close enough that she could see the hands fisted in his dirty blue tshirt; close enough that she could see the blood dribbling out of his mouth, and the whites of his eyes as they darted back and forth between her and Batman, too scared to speak in case it drew the Bat's attention back to him.

"Good thing, too," she added quietly.

Batman looked over at her, finally. He was scary, in the mask--all sharp angles and blank eyes and bleach white teeth, somehow sharper than they usually looked--but he was scarier out of it, when he was looking at her like he was disappointed. Like he was angry.

(Bruce Wayne, Stephanie knew, would never do or say the kinds of things she was used to from male authority figures. It didn't stop some part of her from expecting him to, when he got that twist to his mouth.)

Uncowed, Robin stared back at Batman, silent. Present. A couple strands of hair had escaped the vice grip of her hairspray, and she reached up to tuck them back. Then she gestured, expectantly, for him to continue.

Dared him to continue.

Slowly, Batman released the guy with one hand, pulling a zip tie out of his utility belt, and flipped him onto his stomach to cinch his hands behind his back.

(Bruce liked to think he was difficult to understand. That he was enigmatic, mysterious; that no one really understood why he did what he did, or why he did it the way he did it.

But Stephanie did.

She'd also been lost, lonely, desperate, afraid; she'd also chosen to don a uniform of her own making and attempt to change the world with her own bare hands. She understood that this kind of vengeance, the kind that was enacted on behalf of someone else, was still personal.

It was always about the little girls like Stephanie. It was always about the little boys like Bruce.

Stephanie and Bruce; Batman and Robin. They were so angry, both of them, but they were choosing not to give in to it. Helping each other not to give in.

One criminal at a time.)

Stephanie breathed out, as quietly as she could, and clasped her shaking hands more tightly together behind her back. She'd seen what this guy had done; she knew why Batman didn't want to stop hitting him. She wouldn't have wanted to either.

But she also knew that Batman had to draw that line, and not even for any frou frou ideological reasons about honor and ~not stooping to their level~ or whatever. Stephanie had a touchstone that Bruce Wayne didn't, when it came to men like this.

His name was Arthur Brown.

Arthur, Arthur, Arthur. One half of the reason she was on this earth; her dear old dad; The Cluemaster. She hated him so much that she'd become a vigilante just to ruin his plans. She hated him so much that she'd visited him in prison just to kick the shit out of him until the guards had pulled her off of him.

And yet, she'd cried when he'd been sentenced. Wasn't that funny? She poked and prodded at the memory sometimes, trying to see if she could force it into any other shape, trying to deny what she knew in her gut was true, but she couldn't. They'd been angry tears, mostly, but also tears of frustration and relief and--this was the part she got embarrassed about--worry. Sadness. Maybe even regret.

She didn't really think her dad was capable of changing--he'd have to want to do it, to choose to do it, and she couldn't imagine a world in which he would--but if he did... There was a part of her that remembered him taking her to her piano lessons, teaching her how to solve riddles, and putting a bandaid on her skinned elbow. That part of her would be capable of forgiving him.

If he really did change.

(Which he wouldn't.

...But if he did.)

Giving someone the chance to change wasn't about the guy with his face smushed against the concrete under Bruce's knee: it was about the little girl like Stephanie who might be waiting for the day that this guy would come home and be different.

(Maybe there wasn't a little girl; maybe there never would be. It was a metaphor, all right? For all the theoretical people that lurked in this guy's future that he might affect positively.)

Batman finished tying the guy up so tightly he'd be lucky to wiggle his fingers, and then he tucked a note into the collar of the guy's tshirt and pressed a button on his gauntlet that would put in an automatic call to the GCPD to come pick the guy up. Over and done; neat and (mostly) clean.

Stephanie glanced down at the guy as Batman stood and turned--with a great dramatic swoosh of his cape--to walk away. The guy met her eyes through the blank lenses of her domino, and Stephanie pressed her lips together. She wanted to say something; she didn't have any idea what it should be. She settled for shaking her finger at him as sternly as she could, then spun on her heel and chased after Batman.

She leapt onto his back with a whoop, catching him around the neck with both arms and wrapping her legs around his waist. "I want burgers," she said cheerfully, as Bruce grunted, reaching up to support her thighs in a delightfully automatic motion. The Robins before her had trained him well. "And fries. And a reeeeally big orange soda!"

"Robin," he said, and this time there was none of the growl in his Batman rasp--just quiet exasperation.

"I think I'm goin' through a growth spurt," she declared, perfectly straight-faced even if he couldn't see it. She rested her chin on the cowl, in between the ears. "I need sustenance. You're not gonna let me starve, are you?"

"There's perfectly good food waiting back at the cave," Batman told her, similarly deadpan, and Stephanie cackled.

(She'd been working on her Robin cackle. She was getting really good at it.)

"That was a joke!" She beamed, releasing her death grip on his neck to reach up and pinch his cheek. "Jeez, B-man, I'm so proud."

"We're going back to the cave to talk about you disobeying orders," Batman reminded her, because he was a buzzkill like that. Whatever: two could play at that game.

Stephanie snorted. "Yeah, and I'm definitely totally gonna listen to that lecture." She used the ears of the cowl to tilt his head back, forcing him to look at her as they reached the Batmobile. "If you take me out for burgers first."

He could deny it all he wanted, but Stephanie saw the smile that twitched briefly across his face. She let go of the bat ears, smug, and hopped down from his back.

"Besides," she added, as she jumped and slid across the hood to reach the passenger side, "once you're done lecturing me, it'll be my turn to lecture you."

***

Now.

"I thought they weren't dating," Jason said.

"They aren't," Cassandra confirmed, amused, as she gazed down at the cot, arms crossed over her chest. "Think Dick and Donna."

Cassandra always liked watching Stephanie and Tim together. They joked about being soulmates, two halves of a platonic whole, but they really did move like they barely knew where one of them ended and the other began; a result less of divine providence than of having grown up in each other's pockets. Whatever incompatible edges they'd once had, they'd worn them down years before, playing tag on the rooftops and arguing about camera lenses and clues.

Jason made a noise, halfway between a snort and an understanding hum. "If I were a crueler man..." He lifted one heavy boot off of the floor and mimed tipping the cot over.

"Don't even think about it," Cassandra warned, her tone just a little too sharp, and when Jason bared his teeth at her she looked over at him to bare hers back. Frustration crackled along his spine, the violence that he so happily embraced not far behind it, and Cassandra felt her own metaphorical hackles raise in response.

It had been a long week. Too long for either of them to maintain their hard won civility for more than a few minutes at a time.

"Been a while since you took a swing at me." Jason's eyes were heavy-lidded, peering down at her with a panther's nonchalance.

"Waste of my time," Cassandra told him, with flat confidence. "You don't put up enough of a fight."

Jason snarled, jerking like he wanted to step closer, intimidate her with his height, his bulk--but he was smart enough to know moving closer only put him at an even greater disadvantage against her. "You should--"

"Oh my god, shut up, will you?" Stephanie mumbled, without opening her eyes or shifting from her position, spread-eagled across Tim and the big fluffy blanket with her own face on it that she'd given him for Hanukkah the year before. "It's hard to sleep through your ongoing ideological feud."

Tim snored, as contrary as ever despite being passed out with his face smushed against the rough fabric of the camping cot.

"For those of us who have normal human sleep schedules," she added, shifting one hand to pat Tim on the back of the head. She missed, slapping him in the face instead, and he snuffled and squirmed, but didn't wake up.

(Cassandra had always found it a bit rich of Stephanie to make fun of Tim's sleep schedule the way she did when--as a civilian vs a vigilante--he definitely still slept more than she did. But the last time she'd brought it up to Tim he'd just rolled his eyes and said, "That's Steph for you," like it was an explanation in and of itself. She supposed it kind of was.)

Cassandra kept her gaze locked with Jason's for another beat as she folded the furious center of her compassion back down deep, reminding herself that he was her brother and she loved him, even when she wanted to slam his head into a concrete wall. He wasn't as good at compartmentalizing as she was, but he took a step back, breathing out through his nose, and Cassandra knew he was trying.

She looked back to Tim and Stephanie, then crouched down on the balls of her feet as she reached out to brush a strand of blonde off of her best friend's forehead. "Why are you sleeping in the Cave?" she asked, amused.

Stephanie huffed, cracking one dark blue eye to peer back at her with annoyance. "Tim looked comfortable."

"As in comfortable for you to sleep on."

"Duh." Stephanie squirmed deeper into the nest of blanket-and-Tim that she had claimed for herself. There was a nasty cut on the back of her shoulder, visible around the strap of her tank top, and it glistened with the tell tale sheen of Neosporin. On top of the blanket as she was, it was pretty clear she had literally walked over and face planted down on top of him after dealing with her injuries.

"Okay," Cassandra said patiently. "Why is Tim sleeping in the Cave?"

"Y'know he's been helpin' Alfred work comms," Stephanie mumbled.

"Uh huh."

"Week fr'm hell. So li'l sleep. 'N we won. N'more worr." Her fingers twitched, some exhausted simulacra of a "there you go" gesture.

Cassandra snorted. "Right." She flicked Stephanie lightly on the forehead and added, "Some work still left, actually."

Stephanie shoved her hand away, scowling heavily, and hissed, "I will write my stupid reports tomorrow, I promise."

"We need your help convincing Bruce to go to bed."

It took Stephanie a long moment to process Cassandra's words. Then she buried her face back into the blanket to muffle a frustrated scream.

"Remind me again why we need the pretender when we could just drug his tea?" Jason kicked lightly at the bottom of Cassandra's sneaker as Stephanie pushed herself slowly up onto her hands, muttering obscenities under her breath.

One of her palms smushed Tim's face further into the cot, and he snorted himself awake, flailing instinctively at finding another person straddling him--

Stephanie squawked, Tim yelped, and they both went crashing to the floor as the cot overbalanced.

"What the fuck, Tim?" she groaned, pressing tenderly at her nose. "You elbowed me in the face!"

"Whuh? Stephie?" Tim asked, groggily, as he squinted at her.

Cassandra picked his contact case up off the floor from where one of the legs of the cot had sent it flying and held it out to him.

He accepted it, adding, "Cassie?" in an even more deeply confused voice.

"And Jason," Cassandra told him, and Tim's lip lifted in a sneer.

"Jason."

"Riiiight," Jason drawled, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder. "I'm tired of the Three Stooges act. I'm just gonna go throw the old man off the roof; the coma will be very restful. You go back to sleep, Blondie."

"No, shut the fuck up, I've got it." Stephanie clambered to her feet, raking her fingers through her hair as she yawned. "It's been forever since I've had a chance to lecture him, are you kidding me? I just gotta fill in the blanks on my powerpoint."

"Your... what?" Jason asked. There was glee hiding somewhere under the confusion.

"Cool," Tim said, holding out a hand for Stephanie to pull him to his feet. "I've never gotten to see this in person before."

"This is why we need Stephanie," Cassandra told her little brother, jabbing a teasing elbow in his ribs as she slipped around him. She pulled Tim (scowling indignantly) up off of the floor, since Stephanie had ignored him. She tipped her head expectantly, and Tim obligingly leaned down to press a kiss to her cheek.

"I was Robin during a very delicate time in Bruce's life," Stephanie was explaining to Jason, burying another yawn behind her hand as she jogged up the stairs towards the Batcomputer. "We were mutually responsible for each other in a way I don't think any of the rest of you ever really were. I mean, I wasn't his kid; he didn't have that kind of authority over me. Not that him and Dick's whole thing wasn't also convoluted back in the day, but Dick was younger when he started, so Bruce still had more automatic authority." She waved a hand. "Anyway, said mutual accountability had its downsides--"

"Like being the fourteen-year-old emotional support sidekick for a fully grown man who should have been in therapy instead of making his problems a teenager's responsibility," Tim muttered, and Stephanie rolled her eyes and flipped him off--

"But it also afforded me certain advantages." She spread her hands as if indicating a broad vista in front of her.

"Like the right to lecture Bruce," Cassandra confirmed.

"Dick lectures Bruce all the time," Jason pointed out, leaning on the back of the big chair as Stephanie logged into her account.

"Dick yells at Bruce all the time," she corrected. "It's different. And he doesn't really listen."

"Barb lectures Bruce all the time," he said, stubbornly.

Stephanie tipped her head, sending a wave of blonde hair cascading down over her shoulder, to concede the point. "Babs is Babs, though. And he still doesn't listen as much as he should."

"Which is always," Cassandra agreed. "Even when she's wrong, which is rarely, she still has a point."

"I've also lectured Bruce before," Tim added, leaning against the desk. Cassandra watched with horrified fascination as he put one of his contacts in. "Different when he's not your dad or your vigilante--"

"I have told you before, if you keep calling Bruce my vigilante sugar daddy, I am going to throw you off the roof of Wayne Tower," Stephanie said flatly.

"Superboy would probably catch me. He doesn't like me very much, but he respects the bit."

"He likes you fine," Stephanie said, rolling her eyes. "You're the one who thinks he's an asshole."

Tim coughed into his hand. It sounded suspiciously like, "He is."

"Kon's just annoyed that you and Cassie started getting along," Cassandra added. "Making fun of you used to be a traditional Young Justice pass time."

"Oh, it still is," Stephanie snickered.

Tim skated past that revelation with the ease of a man who already knew his platonic soulmate's favorite pass time was making fun of him. "Wonder Girl would definitely catch me, but that plan would have to rely on me successfully reaching her on the phone before I hit the--"

"No, no, go back. When have you lectured Bruce?" Jason interrupted. He looked--and sounded--annoyed. Not everyone appreciated the Tim&Steph Show the way Cass did. "You barely know the guy; what could you possibly have to lecture him about?"

Tim looked over at him, similarly annoyed, with one hand reaching around his head to pull at his eyebrow and the other hovering near his eye, second contact poised on the tip of a finger. "Jason, you were there."

"Tim's literally our union conflict mediator," Stephanie said, at the same time.

("Ah, right," Jason said, awkwardly. He leaned over to Cassandra, whispering, "I got bored real quick at that meeting."

He was lying--he was as tired as all the rest of them were, and forgetful because of it--but Cassandra let him get away with it.)

"Do not say that like it's an actual position I've agreed to accept," Tim said warningly. He pointed his contact at Stephanie. "That was a one time deal."

She snorted. "It's cute that you think you won't crumple like a tin can the next time I ask you."

"I will not," he protested, and Cassandra met Stephanie's amused glance with a smirk of her own. "Oh, fuck you," Tim complained, returning focus to his contacts. "I didn't crumple like a tin can when you asked me."

"No, but it took about ten seconds as soon as I outsourced to Dick."

"Deeply embarrassing for you, by the way," Jason added.

Tim's eye twitched. "One of these days I'm going to snap--" his contact case shut with a loud crack-- "and you're really going to regret the attitude that you have with me, Jason."

"The attitude that I have with you," Jason repeated, incredulous.

"Yep."

"The attitude that I have with you."

Cassandra stepped between the boys, not bothering to acknowledge either of them with so much as a glance; all it took to defuse the moment was the reminder of her own silent presence, despite being too short to even break their eye contact. "How long do you need?" she asked Stephanie, reaching around the back of the big chair to squeeze her shoulders.

"Five minutes," Stephanie told her, as she scrolled through a selection of clipart four poster beds. One of them resembled Bruce's actual bed--the cursor hovered over it for a moment, and then Stephanie deliberately clicked on the next picture down.

"Drawing room?"

"Yep."

"I'll get him there." Cassandra squeezed her shoulders again, pointed two-fingered at her eyes and then at Tim and Jason, and jogged to the stairs back up to Bruce's study.

One of Bruce's studies, anyway. She ghosted her fingers along the edge of the picture frame, holding a painting of Thomas and Martha gazing adoringly down at their bright-eyed son, every inch of their body language telling a story of love and pride and respect. The artist had been talented. Cassandra wondered if they were still working in Gotham--and how many of her brothers she could wrangle into sitting for a portrait.

She filed the idea away for Bruce's birthday as she slipped out of the room.

Bruce was currently holed up in one of his other studies, the one on the second floor with the big blue rug and the ergonomic chair that he hated. It was the one right above the family room and the kitchen--the loudest rooms in the house--which was a dead giveaway that he was having to work harder to stay awake than he wanted to pretend.

Cassandra passed Alfred on the way up the stairs--"Drawing room, five minutes." "Ms. Brown has always worked quickly."--and then drew to a stop outside the heavy oak doors, straightening her shoulders and pulling on her best serious face.

She didn't knock; the door hinges were too well oiled to squeak; and her footsteps were silent on that big blue rug. Bruce looked up anyway. He was making a good show of things, but even if he could have fooled anyone else in the house (which he couldn't have, except maybe Tim), he certainly couldn't fool her. Cassandra saw the sluggishness in his fingers; the bruises forming beneath his eyes; the slump of his spine.

Bruce sighed. "I already told Alfred and Dick--"

"Something's come up," she said, brusque, and Bruce's spine straightened immediately.

"Report," he said sharply.

She jerked her head. "Easier to show you."

Oh, Bruce, she thought fondly. Trusted her so fully that he was standing and moving before she finished her sentence, too sleep deprived to wonder why she had him take the lead. He wasn't a talker--she could relate--but she could see the thoughts spinning in his mind as he strode down the corridors of the mansion, Cassandra on his heels like a wisp of shadow.

She'd feel bad about worrying him, if he hadn't spent the last four hours quite stubbornly forcing her to be worried about him.

Two steps away from the drawing room--which was dark and silent behind its cracked double doors--Cassandra exploded into motion. She caught Bruce's arm, forcing it behind his back and up, throwing him off balance as she drove her shoulder into his side. They crashed through the doors, and a hook of her ankle behind Bruce's heel sent him tumbling downwards into the chair Alfred had left waiting.

In the split second between him hitting the chair and Cassandra spinning it and shoving him into place at the head of the table, Bruce's eyes--betrayed--met hers. She offered him a sunny smile.

Duke released his grip on the lights, and Dick and Damian closed the doors with an ominous click.

"I should have known," Bruce said, resigned.

Stephanie--across the table from him, standing in front of the projector--held up a finger as she finished chugging her americano.

"Yes," Cassandra said, and her hands came down on his shoulders, a gentle warning, before he could do more than consider trying to stand up and walk out of the room. "You should have."

Stephanie set down the coffee mug, sliding it sideways over to Tim--he slid a full one back to her--and wiped her mouth on the back of her wrist. She looked exhausted, outside of the obfuscating lighting of the Cave. Her blonde curls were a mess, half fallen out of her bun, and there were smudges of bruising underneath her eyes. She was also barefoot.

Cassandra met Stephanie's eye and winked. Steph's lips twitched, and she blinked innocently back. She'd had a good nap, on top of Tim on the cot down in the Cave. This air of patheticness was calculated.

"I can skip the pleasantries, right?" Stephanie asked, rhetorical, as she clicked the button to progress the slide on the projector. There was a smattering of laughter from those of them in the room who'd never experienced Stephanie's lecture series before.

The cover of the kids' book Teeth are not for Biting had been edited--poorly, with big red X's and hand written edits--to read "Beds aren't not for Sleeping", with a big clipart picture of a pink Barbie four poster bed slapped over the little girl's face.

Stephanie progressed to the next slide without comment, meeting Bruce's gaze with her best deadpan expression. The slide had the title and abstract of a research paper analyzing the effects of sleep deprivation on decision making. Steph clicked to the next slide. The title and abstract of a different research paper, this one regarding its effect on reflexes. Click. Another paper, another symptom. Click--

"Stephanie--"

"Shut up, Bruce," she said, flatly, and clicked to the next one. And the next one. And the next.

"You've made your point."

"I may have made it, but I doubt you've internalized it."

Click. Click. Click.

"Are these repurposed from the last time you and Harper staged a deeply hypocritical intervention about my sleep habits?" Tim asked, curiously. "I recognize these titles."

"Other way around," Stephanie told him, pausing on one particularly long abstract so she could take a sip of her coffee. "Bruce and I have had this conversation before. Do I need to remind you how that went when you ignored my advice?" she added, her voice icy as she cut her gaze back to Bruce. "Because one of us ended up chasing a moderately homicidal Batman around Gotham for months while the other one underwent treatment for spinal trauma."

"How's Jean Paul doing these days?" Dick asked idly.

"A lot better," Cassandra told him. "We got lunch last week."

"Glad to hear it," Stephanie said, sincerely. "I should thank him, honestly. Operating solo after getting literally thrown by the neck out of the Batcave did set the precedent of independence that allowed me and Tim to get up to just so much bullshit." She and Tim high fived without looking. "Say, Damo--"

"I will found my own unique team of juvenile superheroes on my own time, Brown. Stop pushing." He flicked the nub of an eraser across the table at her, and Stephanie dodged, shrugging.

"I'm just saying, if Bruce is bound and determined to enter another funk, now's your chance to do it with a minimum of hassle." She threw her hands in the air. "Back to the presentation!"

Click.

A screencap of an episode of Jersey Shore, captioned THE SITUATION, with a dramatized tabloid photo of a sleezy Bruce Wayne photoshopped over Mike Sorrentino.

Jason barked a laugh. "I need a copy of that."

"Everyone present will receive a digital copy of the lecture with links to the papers included in the bibliography for their later perusal," Stephanie informed him. Then she turned her gaze to Dick. "Nightwing, report."

"We're all aware that we've been fighting the good fight on three primary fronts for the last week," Dick began, folding his hands in front of himself on the table as he leaned forward.

"Mobs," Jason grunted.

"Riddler," Duke sighed.

"Aggrieved scientists," Damian muttered.

"Actually, it was four fronts," Tim corrected apologetically.

"Aliens," Stephanie agreed. She waved a hand, nearly sending the projector remote flying before she fumbled to catch it. "Don't worry about it; I tapped in some backup."

"There were aliens in Gotham this week?" Bruce asked sharply. He tried to sit forward in his chair as well, but Cassandra's grip on his shoulders tightened, and he relented. "Why did I not hear about this?"

"Don't worry about it," Stephanie repeated. "I tapped in some back up. There was a minimum of property damage and the commish barely even got abducted. Dick, continue."

Dick did not continue. "Commissioner Gordon got abducted by aliens," he said flatly.

"Not that he remembers," Tim said. "It's a long story, but nobody even noticed. Except Oracle. And four blocks of the East End who were woken up by the light from the tractor beam."

Bruce rubbed a hand over his face. "Why were you two the only ones involved with this?"

"We weren't."

"I told you; I called in back up."

They rolled their eyes, in unison, and Cassandra laughed. "Let me guess: Superboy and Impulse."

"I plead the fifth," Stephanie said, straight-faced.

"She gave them free reign of my fridge," Tim complained, throwing his hands in the air. "There aren't even crumbs le--" He broke off into a wheeze as Stephanie elbowed him in the diaphragm.

"Don't worry about it," she repeated, insistently. "Dick, tell Bruce how we did such a good job saving the day that he can stop fucking worrying about the city falling apart if he takes a stupid nap."

Dick rubbed at the bridge of his nose, sighing, but obliged her this time. "The mobs have been settled--"

"That's one word for it," Jason said, and Cassandra bared her teeth at him.

"Please don't start fighting again," Dick said, long-suffering, and then continued. "The Riddler's back in prison, good job Signal and Batgirl--"

(Duke leaned forward, pointing at Stephanie. "Is the alien thing why you just straight up disappeared for like six hours after telling me you were going to the bathroom?"

"Don't worry about it," Stephanie told him. "But the gas station sushi contributed, too."

"Shoulda just got a hotdog like me."

"The relish on that hotdog was glowing."

"Gotham special, baby," Duke said, and he and Jason high fived.)

"--and Robin and Catwoman prevented a general technological apocalypse," Dick soldiered on, loudly. "Plus, apparently, Bruce can sleep well knowing that Superboy and Impulse are here to hold down the fort."

Stephanie face-palmed. "They're in space now, actually," she said, voice muffled. "The aliens were just looking for some help fighting a planetary dictator. Run of the mill stuff." She shook her head, huffing, and clicked forward several slides of the presentation. "Screw it, we're jumping straight to the 'You're almost fifty years old and I'm sick of having to teach you how to act like an adult' portion of the presentation."

Duke whistled. "Harsh."

"Warranted," Dick sighed. "Stephanie deserves a Nobel Peace Prize after putting up with us alone for years."

"If it makes you feel better, the whole time she actually had me available to listen to her complain about you behind your back," Tim offered.

"Bonding," Stephanie agreed, setting her hand on his shoulder, and Tim bumped his temple against her hip with a grin.

"Actually, that kind of does make me feel better," Dick said thoughtfully.

"Does it make you feel better?" Stephanie asked Bruce, tipping her head to the side curiously.

"No."

"Go figure," Tim said dryly. Stephanie flicked him on the forehead.

"You're very bitchy tonight."

"I'm exhausted," Tim said, exasperated. "As is every person in this room, whether they want to admit it or not."

"Funnily enough--" Stephanie clicked onto the next slide. In big black text on a plain white background, it read:

EVERY PERSON IN THIS ROOM IS EXHAUSTED, WHETHER THEY WANT TO ADMIT IT OR NOT.

Click.

YOU AREN'T SPECIAL.

Click.

YOU ARE ONLY AS HUMAN AS THE REST OF US.

Click.

I'M GOING TO LET JASON THROW YOU OFF THE ROOF IF YOU DON'T AGREE TO GO TO BED OF YOUR OWN FREE WILL.

"Fuck yeah," Jason said.

"Who gave you the authority to 'let' someone throw Bruce off a roof?" Duke asked, making air quotes around the word 'let.' "I mean, I'm into it, great solution, but I am curious."

"Batman did," Tim and Stephanie said, in unison and straight-faced--

And the entire table turned, knowingly, to look at Cassandra. She smiled back at them beatifically.

"Bruce is asleep, by the way," she added. She'd felt him begin relaxing as soon as the adrenaline from the alien invasion reveal had passed out of his system; she wasn't even sure he'd actually understood what Stephanie had asked him, so much as responded instinctively to a Robin tilting their head at him like that.

Stephanie tossed the projector remote onto the table, scoffing. "Every fucking time! He never actually lets me get to the good part of the lecture!"

The impact against the desk advanced the presentation to the next slide.

YOU KNOW, IF YOU PARTIED AS MUCH AS YOU PRETEND TO, YOU'D BE BETTER AT DEALING WITH SLEEP DEPRIVATION. YES, I'M AWARE THAT IS NOT A SCIENTIFICALLY ACCURATE STATEMENT. GET BENT.

"A self-defense mechanism, I believe," Alfred observed drolly. He rose from his seat, patting Stephanie on the shoulder, and turned--beckoning Duke and Jason to open the doors--to help Cassandra maneuver Bruce's rolling chair out of the drawing room. "The excitement has concluded for the evening. Please get some sleep--" He turned back to gaze at Tim and Stephanie, sternly. "Guest bedrooms have been made up for your use. Do not let me catch you on a cot in the Cave again."

"Who, me?" Stephanie asked, innocently.

"Of course, sir," Tim said, utterly sincerely, which was actually ten times as suspicious as Stephanie fluttering her eyelashes like that.

"They're probably going back to Tim's to crash there," Cassandra murmured. She gently lifted Bruce's head to keep it from hitting the doorframe as Alfred steered.

"My young madam, I strongly suspect that they intend to crash in your room. Which is why I took the liberty of placing three sets of sweatpants and tshirts out on your bed, regardless of what I just claimed to Ms. Brown and Master Drake."

Cassandra hummed consideringly. "Also possible."

***

Then.

"So is it my turn yet?" Stephanie interrupted, and Bruce paused, looking down at her.

She was slouched in the big chair by the Batcomputer, her feet hanging down just low enough for her toes to brush the ground, letting her push herself back and forth idly. She was out of costume, dressed now in an oversized purple sweatshirt and a pair of checkered leggings, but with her hair still hairsprayed and the outline of her mask pressed into her skin. The empty wrapper from her burger was crumpled up next to the obscenely gargantuan cup of soda that she'd ordered instead of fries.

"Sorry?" he asked, bemused.

"It seems like you've kind of been saying the same thing over and over in different ways for the last five minutes, so I figured you were pretty much done, and my notecards are getting sweaty," she explained.

"Your notecards," Bruce repeated.

Stephanie withdrew her hands from the front pocket of her sweatshirt, flashing them at him briefly. He only saw enough to be sure they'd been written in glitter gel pen. "I didn't want to forget any of my talking points."

"Such as?"

She raised her eyebrows at him, looking so precociously fourteen years old for a moment that it made his heart do something funny in his chest. "So it is my turn now?" she asked.

He leaned back aginst the railing, folding his arms over his chest and nodding at her. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"Okay." She scooted back in the chair so she could sit upright, although it meant her toes no longer touched the ground. "My public speaking class said it's super important to introduce yourself and your topic whenever you give a presentation, but since it's just us, I can skip the formalities, right?"

"Right," Bruce said, slowly, as he came to the creeping realization that he was in over his head.

"You've been teaching me a lot about where and how to draw the line when we're fighting people," Stephanie recited, her eyes stuck to the notecards in her hand. "So I know that you know you crossed that line tonight. And I also know that you know why you shouldn't, but I thought maybe you could use some reminders."

She flipped to the next notecard, clearing her throat. "First, some people do become better people when they're given the chance to. And yeah, some people don't, but since we aren't psychic, and since actual psychics' ability to predict a single person's future is questionable at best due to the unpredictability of time and the branching nature of reality, we don't have the right to decide they don't even get the opportunity."

She set the notecard aside. "Second, obviously the American legal system is flawed at best, hence our entire existence as vigilantes, but deciding that we alone have the right and responsibility to decide how to 'punish' people, by grievously injuring, maiming, or killing them, is a slippery slope to fascism and just generally driving ourselves to the brink of madness."

She set the notecard aside. "Third--"

"You don't need to keep going," Bruce interrupted gently. "I've gotten your point. But I would like to see the rest of those notecards."

Stephanie looked at his extended hand, dubiously, and then tucked the cards back into the front pocket of her sweatshirt. "No," she said. "I think I'll save 'em for next time. Except--there is one thing I didn't get to, and you need to hear it."

"Okay," he said, certain that his expression was just as dubious as hers.

"I can't 'wait at the car,' Bruce," she told him. "You need me to remind you about this stuff. So every time you tell me to hide, I'm not going to listen."

Bruce shook his head. "There are times--a lot of them--that it is too dangerous for you to be in the middle of things," he told her. "I need you to trust me when I make that call."

"And I need you to make that call," Stephanie told him, her dark blue eyes locked onto his, her jaw tight and determined. "Not the one where if I don't see you do the scary things, then that means they don't count."

Bruce looked at her for a moment--this villain's daughter, this fourteen year old kid, this Robin.

And he said, "Okay."

[graphx]

Hiraeth!Keith oneshot (1)

read it all here!

trigger warnings// suicidal ideologies, war, blood, injury etc. (general Blade of Marmora stuff)

“GIVE IT BACK!”

Kolivan effortlessly dodged once again, Keith’s new sword that felt wrong in his hands barely grazing the long braid he wore that hung behind him. He adjusted his grip with a twist of his wrist but Kolivan simply backhanded him away, his strike not even grazing him.

“Emotions are a luxury we can’t afford,” Kolivan warned as he unbalanced Keith with a simple kick to the back of his knees. “You are attached to this blade; it is all you have left of your world. But that planet is gone, nothing but dust and rubble lost to the empty expanse of space. You must accept that if you are to survive here.”

His bones ached and throbbed but he still got to his feet, charging again like it was second nature. Kolivan punched him and he couldn’t tell where, the impact feeling all too similar to the rest of his body which he was sure was becoming a giant bruise.

With every hit he learned to roll with the impact better, getting up faster and faster, not allowing Kolivan a second to breathe. He punched while he deflected Kolivan’s weapon and missed. He kicked before he striked, learning and adapting based on what he saw Kolivan do. Not that it mattered. Keith hadn’t even managed to land one hit.

Keith had been told all his life by his father that he could do anything if he just set his mind to it. His dad had never lied before but Keith was starting to doubt it all the same. He wanted more than anything in the world, no the universe, to beat Kolivan, to get his knife, the only thing he had left, back and he would spill as much blood as he needed to get it back-

He had convinced himself that the reason he was failing was because this knife wasn’t his, it was similar but wrong, it fit into his hand wrong, it set against his belt wrong, it was too heavy and too light and at the same time, and it was all wrong. Kolivan could be beaten, he could escape, he could go back to a home that wasn’t there if he could just win but that was wrong too.

Keith could listen to his dad’s raspy voice again if he could hit harder. He could watch the sky bleed from twilight to dusk again on the porch if he could just move faster. He could feel wind in his hair and the ground rushing past him on his dad’s bike if he could just win.

A daze had taken over him, a delusional obsession deep in his gut that he believed with every fiber of his being that if he just did enough he could go home. He didn’t want to remember the fleets blocking out the sky, his father’s panicked voice, the tremors shaking the ground, the running, the smoke, the fire illuminating the blue glow of two crescents beneath cheeks as blood mixed with ash and his knife gleamed a little duller.

He had run away from it all, taken to a ship he didn’t recognize, pressed against people he didn’t know, drowning on dry land trying to breathe above the crowd towering over him-

And then Kolivan was there, a firm presence at his side that was wrong. It shouldn’t have been claws against his shoulder, it should have been his dad’s calloused hands. It shouldn’t be a pale multicolored face with a scar that ran down the side, it should have been his father’s with a nick above his eyebrow. He wanted to run, to feel sand under his feet, and run away as fast and far as he could because everything was wrong and nothing was going to change that. 

More than anything he was angry. More than that he was exhausted and he couldn’t run from that anymore as he sank to his knees, gasping for breath. It was a tiny rebellion, to show emotion when Kolivan had just told him not to. He glared up at him with all the fury his soul could produce, only for the taller Galran to kneel beside him.

“What do you want, Keith?” Kolivan asked indifferently, observing him with golden eyes.

“...I want my knife… back… it’s not… yours!” Keith heaved, scrambling to his knees.

“If you defeat me your weapon will be returned to you. But you must first learn how to defeat me. Knowledge is greater than power.” Kolivan stated so nonchalantly like it was simple. “You are powerful, you have survived through many endeavors, but you still cannot win. But you still must do what needs to be done.”

Keith’s gaze followed Kolivan’s blade as he dropped it, the sound echoing as soon as it hit the floor. He stared up in disbelief but he only waited. Keith watched the Blade lose its glow, no longer in Kolivan’s grasp. The insignia in the crossguard grew dark as he looked on impassively, waiting for the action Keith would take.

“You should have killed me by now,” Kolivan said calmly, like he knew Keith wouldn’t move. It snapped him from his shock, lunging for the hilt and crossing it with his own to rest barely an inch from Kolivan’s neck. Humiliation burned under his skin that he had to bend over to reach his height, but he still didn’t move, eyes not leaving Keith’s.

“You are granting me mercy. That was your first mistake,” Kolivan’s form blurred right in front of him and he didn’t even get the chance to nick him as Kolivan swept his legs out from under him. His stance mirrored the one Keith had taken not seconds ago, both swords hovering over his neck. Keith glared down at the swords, meeting Kolivan’s stare without flinching. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose.

“You are not powerful enough to grant mercy. You must permanently deal with your enemies to ensure they don’t hurt you or anyone else. Power is the ability to choose. The Blade of Marmora doesn’t have that option.” Kolivan lowered his sword. “Neither do you.”

Keith was quiet, no longer meeting his eyes. He only heard Kolivan sheath his own blade before setting down Keith’s own.

“Each blade is unique to every member. It is tied to your life force and bloodline. You should make your own in the forgery. Use the Luxite provided there sparingly, it is hard to gather these days.”

Before exiting Kolivan stopped, turning back to him. “Choose a new name. Your previous title has very obvious origins. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that your species is now very coveted by Alteans and Galrans which are currently the most powerful species in the galaxy. If you are to help the Blade of Marmora avenge your planet you must become one of us. Embrace your new duty to the universe… A purpose is a very important thing here. Don’t lose sight of your own.”

It took Keith a while to realize he had even left. The words and empty warnings floated through the empty space of his mind as he laid, motionless, on the floor. What did he want? What purpose did he even have here? What was even the point of getting off this shiny, cold floor?

Keith could have pondered those questions for the rest of his life. He could give up, right here, and never move again. The others probably wouldn’t even notice, if they even cared enough to. Who could blame him? A kid, alone, literally thrown into an unknown universe. The only planet he had ever known was destroyed before his eyes by a war he couldn’t even hope to understand. What could one helpless kid abandoned by the cosmos itself hope to do?

It was at that moment Keith decided he didn’t need hope. His dad had died helping people, and Keith would die doing the same thing. He wanted to avenge his planet, his dad, his home, his memories, even if he had to give up all of them to do it. Remembering would only tether him to the moment he lost it all. He didn’t have time for that. 

He forced himself to move, to crawl, to spite the world itself. The Blade of Marmora wanted to use him? Keith would use them right back to fuel the supernova of rage building in his chest. He would shed all the blood he needed to, enough to drown the stars themselves. He would destroy, maim, shatter and crush anything that got in his way. He would burn the sun itself even if it would only leave him with ashes.

It was enough. It had to be. It wasn’t like he had anything else.

[kontextmaschine]

Oh also as the last of my physical limitations wear off and I get quite strong remember I was also a blue belt in American Kempo from that very fighting-focused LA dojo and everything the old personality knew has been internalized in depth as something the new personality has always known before he learned how to walk, so very good chance I could kick your ass in a fight.

[dankusner]

Charlie Colella RODEO 2005

RIDE 'EM, COWBOY:

11.04.05

On his ranch in Pilot Point, Texas, Charlie Colella wrangles his quarter horses, Bailey, left, and Jet.

By Daniel Kusner

Good little Catholic boys from Polish-Italian households in Calumet City, are expected to play football and baseball.

And that’s what Charlie Colella did.

“But I never was any good,” he says. “My brother was the athlete in the family. And growing up, my dad was a coach, referee and umpire.”

Calumet City, a gritty south suburb of Chicago, is the town where the fabled St. Helen of the Blessed Shroud Orphanage is located — where The Blues Brothers got their orders to go on a “mission from God.”

“When I was 16, I looked around and I thought, ‘What’s my life going to be like when I’m in my 40s?”’ he remembers. “I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

A change of scenery was definitely in order.

After a year of community college, Colella landed a job in Houston as a computer technician for Shell Oil.

He eventually migrated to Los Angeles to work for Xerox, “where I was a typical gay boy in the city. But something was missing in life. I just couldn’t find if” he says.

Through a new group of buddies, he attended his first gay rodeo in 1991.

And at that rodeo — without even practicing beforehand — Colella competed in a steer riding event.

“I just showed up. They told me what to do and how to do it. So I did,” he says. “It was the biggest adrenaline rush of my life. And whatever I was looking for, I knew right then and there that I found it.”

From steers, Colella hopped onto bulls.

But in 1992, a pelvis-crushing accident ended his days riding rough stock.

He never gave up on rodeo, however.

Now Colella’s strictly a horseman.

Two years ago, he moved back to the Lone Star State — bringing three quarter horses with him — and bought a three-acre ranch in Pilot Point, Texas, in northeast Denton County.

Pilot Point is apparently the heart of North Texas horse country, and Colella’s ranch is an idyllic portrait of the modem Wild West.

As I walk up to his fence, Colella’s excited 2-year-old filly, Jet, runs over to sniff me down.

“Put your mouth right up to her nostrils and exhale,” Colella says.

“Then she’ll be familiar with your scent.”

After trading breaths with Jet, she dashes off to the bam and bucks about, kicking sandy, soil high into the air.

The gay rodeo circuit keeps Colella busy.

Over the past year, he competed in eight out-of- town rodeos — traveling with his 10-year-old mare, Bailey, to Chicago, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Little Rock, Wichita and other cities.

Next weekend, he doesn’t have to travel too far.

That’s when the 19th annual International Gay Rodeo Finals comes to Dallas.

The top 20 cowboys and cowgirls for each rodeo event have to qualify to be invited to finals.

During the two-day IGRA rodeo, Colella will compete in five events: pole bending, flag race, team roping, break away roping and calf roping on foot.

Colella is considered one of the stars of the Texas Gay Rodeo Association.

But he doesn’t measures his success in trophies (although he has nine sparkling belt buckles in his living room).

“I’m a city boy who’s now training my own horses,” he says. “I learned on my mare, and I’m the one riding her. That’s pretty' cool.”

A while back, his family came to see him compete at a gay rodeo in Las Vegas.

As he was getting ready for break away calf roping, a ladybug landed on his rope, a sign of good luck.

He caught the calf in five seconds.

“And right where I caught the calf was where my dad was sitting,” Colella remembers. “He was very impressed.”

[elysianslove]

please use this ask to elaborate on mattsun’s dick <33

AH YES THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING gotta do this before i start fasting lmfao.  this ended up being sadder than i thought, but it just ends up being kinda sweet and sorta hot. also this was way longer than i intended. post in reference.  

warnings; big dick mattsun, throwing up, pain kink (?), painful sex, insecurities, consensual taping  

okay remember when i mentioned the insecurity thing? let’s dive deeper into that; third years and mattsun are at some sleepover thing. it’s a little before graduation, and they don’t when they’ll see each other next, so they’re trying to make most of the time that’s left. the conversation progresses to sex, as it naturally does, and each of them admits some horrifying or embarrassing sex story. 

iwaizumi had sex with a girl who was extremely kinky and asked him to slap her, but— they don’t call him ace for no reason. 

oikawa lost his virginity to this girl and she started her period halfway through, but he was really young and didn’t realize that was something that could just happen? it wasn’t that he was immature about it. it was more that he fainted. 

hanamaki found out he was allergic to flavored condoms when he lost his virginity, and it was not fun. 

but then it was mattsun’s turn, and they’re all waiting for his embarrassing sex story, till he hits them with, “i’ve never had sex though,” and each and every one of their eyes bulge out of their heads. it’s the last thing they’d been expecting from him, from cool, suave, charming mattsun, but he continues to swear by it. and when they demand the reason — surely you’ve gotten the chance to before? — he admits it to them: “apparently my dick is too big.” and it’s comical to say out loud, because he’s only gotten with a handful of girls, barely any for it to be firm hypothesis. he thinks he’ll one day meet someone that doesn’t think it’s too big, it won’t fit, um i can give you a handjob, if that’s okay? 

all that evidently leads to a dick comparison, because how big can it really be? and once mattsun sees his best friends’ eyes widen at his hardened dick, it sinks in. shit, he really is big, isn’t he? 

“holy shit, mattsun,” makki says, and he’s bashful as he stares at his best friend’s dick. “how would that fit inside anyone?” and mattsun’s already growing soft, tucking his dick back in his pants and moving to wash his hands after kicking makki rightfully in the chest. 

college comes around, and he passes by a thousand girls crying about how the boy from last night’s dick was so small, ugh i wish i had an 8 inch, and the things i’d do to have my guts rearranged. he sees a little light in this tunnel of endless blue balling, and meets a girl, takes her back to his dorm with his lips biting at her neck and her hands fumbling with his belt. as soon as he falls onto the bed, as soon as she straddles him, naked, and moves to slip off his trousers, anxiety meets him halfway again, and he holds in a breath as she pulls at the hem of his pants and takes his boxers with her.

the gasp his half hardening cock pulls out of her is confusing. he can’t tell what to make out of it, but she spits on her palm and grips his hefty cock in her small palm, unable to have her fingertips meet. her eyes are wide, but she seems determined, even tilts her hips forward, but she resorts to, “can i just suck you off?” 

and mattsun thinks alright, that’s an upgrade. 

when she ends up throwing up because she underestimates his size and overestimates herself, mattsun offers her his bathroom to clean up, and grabs her a bottle of water as she leaves. 

he ends up losing his virginity to some masochist, and it’s not very memorable or anything he’d ever imagined it be. it sits high on his list of regrets: he cums way too early, and hurts the masochist too much for it to be enjoyable in any way. but he texts the old third year groupchat and types in “i lost my virginity 😎” and receives the praise he had expected. 

for months to come, he fucks his fist every other night to amateur porn and watches as some camgirls’ cunts swallow inches and inches of plastic cock. he hooks up with some girls only to have them sit on his face and kitten lick at the head of his cock. some swallow a little bit of his cock, some fondle at his balls, but none ever let him fuck them. oikawa sends him links for sex toys, and mattsun feels as pathetic as ever, but he buys a fleshlight anyways and finds purchase in how tight it feels around his cock, how wet and slippery it is, how it properly milks him dry. makki meets him during a break and offers to suck his dick for him, but mattsun flips him off and kicks at his stomach again. 

it’s during his third year that he meets you. 

you’re sweet and charming, , and you have pretty hair, and he likes your style, and you laugh at his stupid jokes. you call him handsome, and you call him pretty, and you compliment his hair when it’s at its curliest. you send him the weirdest memes and tell him it reminds you of him, and you pick him up at obscure times because you’re craving nuggets or ice cream or ramen or licorice. he asks you to be his girlfriend and when you say yes, he blushes so forcefully that he has to scrunch up his face to try and hide it. he lets you meet his friends through a screen, and he buys you matching rings because he enjoys the subtlety of it all, and he orders donuts to be sent to your place  during your exam week. 

being with you is a dream, so much that when he hovers above you, kissing at your lips like he always does and sucking at your neck the way you love, and you murmur that you want him, want all of him, his hands fumble and shake. he tries to hide it, but his breath is shakier and his chest is flushed, his eyes a little hazy. you’re so gentle with him, and he hadn’t known he needed it until you’re straddling him and slowly smoothing your hands down his chest, palming him through his too tight briefs, squeezing softly. 

when your hands reach for his briefs, his own snap to your wrist, and he dares to beg, “please stay,” and you kiss him in response. your breath hitches at the sight of him, and your hand shakes when you spit on it and grip at his cock, but despite your initial hesitance you don’t falter. 

you stroke tentatively at his cock, squeezing him tightly, and fall closer to him, hovering your lips by his as you ask of him, “stretch me— stretch me for you.” 

there’s only one word to describe everything mattsun had been feeling in that moment, and it’s overwhelmed, but it’s somehow in the most positive way. he sits up straight, keeping you on his lap. his fingers find your dripping cunt and he pushes one, two, three, four fingers inside of you. he makes you cum twice, fingers curled and rapidly thrusting into you, other hand occupied with your sloppy clit and mouth latched onto your nipple. you praise him and thank him and cry for him and writhe in his hold as he pleasures you, and when you’re breathless and limp in his arms, he waits for the ball to drop, for you to give into your anxiety and hesitance. 

except you don’t. 

you lift yourself up on trembling knees, hands settled on and gripping his shoulders, and with teary eyes, you say, no, you beg, “make it fit.” 

he has stars in his eyes as he grips his cock tightly with one hand, the other holding you to him by your waist. it’s slow, it’s painfully slow, but mattsun has never treasured time as much as in that moment. he takes in everything, from the way your body tenses at the first intrusion when his tip presses against your hole, to the small gasps and moans as you take more and more of him in, at the sweat that beads at your temple and that rolls between your breasts. he marvels at the heave of your chest and the roll of your tummy as you curve in yourself, and he revels in the press of your lips to his, in the pull your arms looping around his neck and pressing his chest flush to yours. 

he does cum too early, but you don’t chastise him. you only continue to ride his soft cock, his cum messily dribbling out, and he ignores the sting from his sensitivity in favor of rubbing at your clit, sending you over the edge eventually. 

he texts the old third years groupchat that night again, with you sleeping soundly by his side, comfortable beneath his blankets, “why didn’t you guys tell me sex was this good? fake friends,” and sends a picture of him shirtless, sweaty, and with a post-sex flush to his cheeks and messy curls, with the middle finger. 

maybe you shouldn’t have let him have a taste of you, because he fucks you in bed the next morning, sleep still settled deep in your bones, and then he fucks you in the shower, and then he eats you out splayed out on his dinner table. he videotapes you sucking him off, with your permission, and watches it when you’re too far out of reach. he sends you pictures after a shower, gripping his cock through the briefs he’d quickly slipped in, hair wet and curly and matted to his forehead, skin damp and glistening. and when you react so positively, he blushes, to his dismay. you meet his friends and they joke about how you’re still alive, but you brush them off and tell them you’ve never felt more satisfied. 

with every single time he watches his cock sink into your warm, tight, sloppy cunt, and every time he watches you swallow around him, and every time he makes you cry and leaves you braindead, leaves you mindless and begging for more, his confidence grows. so much until he learns to be cocky about it, so much that when he barely preps you and pushes into you, he shivers at the way you whine and tense up, at the way you flinch and lightly thrash. because you’re a good girl, aren’t you? always take my cock so well, don’t you? nobody but you, nobody like you. 

and it’s true; it’s nobody but you for him. in every single way.

hello what the fuck am i doing. i did not think this was gonna escalate like this hfskjfns but anyways, big dick mattsun for the win <3 

[am-i-obsessed---maybe]

Help You Stay Whelmed (Shadow Of A Bluebird)

Word count: Like 3k, all of these are basically the same length (give or take)

Summery: Things finally calm down for you, Roy's coming around, your friends are mostly going good and you're approaching your graduation, the thing is Dick thinks it might be good to finish that break from the team you were on.

Star City

April 7th

A week after your rescue from the Reach you were back to training. Mostly because you showed Dinah that you really were okay. Well, as okay as you’ve ever been. You did what you learned to do so well over your life, stuff the pain of your resurfaced past in it’s box and focus on the present and in the present you were meeting with Roy. He’s reached out to you a few times since he went off on his own and you finally convinced him to meet up properly and grab lunch.

The two of you sat at a small (new) diner in star city. With Roy it was better to start anew instead of trying to rebuild the past.

“So, you and Dick?” He asked and you smirked.

“Maybe. But you really gotta stop spying. You know you’re always welcome with the team” You reminded him and he scoffed.

“So you’ve said. I doubt they’d actually want me there” He said and you stole one of his french fries.

“We don’t discriminate Roy. Not to mention you’d be surprised what kind of stories the others on the team have” You said and he scowled at his stolen fry.

“So what about you? How have you been managing?” You asked and he leaned back into the cushions of the booth.

“Fine I guess. The solo thing’s fun” He said and your phone buzzed beside you on the table, an alert from Ollie that there’s been a break in at S.T.A.R Labs. You looked at Roy and smiled.

“Ollie’s at the watchtower and Dinah’s in Taos, what do you say to a little action?” You were met with a wide smile on Roy’s face.

“I like the sound of that a lot more than an awkward lunch” He responded and you paid and left. You both quickly suited up in one of Ollie’s many safehouses/storage facilities and rode to S.T.A.R Labs.

When you and Roy made it to the roof across from S.T.A.R Labs you looked down and smirked, counting 12 goons and Brick himself carrying boxes of tech through a hole in a side wall.

“So Arsenal, let’s see how different this is from a decade ago” You said and flew up to stare Brick down.

“Brick! Put the tech back and skedaddle before I put you in Bell Rev again. And you won’t be getting out as easily this time” You told the buff red mobster and he scoffed.

“Not this time birdbrain!” Brick said and you smiled as he took out a gun and started shooting. You dodged his shots as you flew down and kicked him into a wall.

You heard the sounds of a grappling hook and someone zip lining before Arsenal aimed his robotic hand’s gun at Brick.

“Show off” He said and you patted his shoulder as you shot a blast of blue energy, disarming a goon.

“Have fun” You said in a sing-song voice as you began disarming the goons.

“Since when can you do that?” Arsenal asked as he dodged Brick’s punches easily. You tripped a goon who tried to take you by surprise and grabbed the barrel of another’s gun.

“Last week” You answered casually as you used the blue plasma blasts to melt the barrel shut. A neat trick you'd been working on after some experimentation with your new powers.

As the thug looked at you in fear you simply elbowed him in the nose and knocked him out.

“Multiple Metagenes, remember? I told you this the first time we were catching up” You told Arsenal as you flipped another thug and you heard Roy blast Brick through the building’s walls.

“That sucks” He said and punched an incoming thug in the stomach.

Once all of Brick’s goons and Brick himself were unconscious you threw Arsenal some rope from your utility belt.

“Might as well get them all ready for the cops” You said and Arsenal shrugged.

“You’ve gotten better at multitasking” He mentioned and you sighed.

“Yeah well I don’t exactly have to worry about you messing something up, it’s Brick not the shadows” You teased and you knew that even through his scowl Roy enjoyed the lighthearted tone.

Bludhaven

April 8th

You floated a bit above the ground with a textbook in your hands. You weren’t participating in the mission Nightwing was currently briefing but you had to keep an eye on a special guest who was joining them today.

“... Obviously any partnership between the Reach and Lex Luthor is bad news so alpha squad is going undercover to recon Lexcorp farms.” Dick explained and then announced the squads.

Robin AKA Tim Drake AKA Dick’s adopted younger brother will run alpha squad. He’ll be joined by Blue Beetle and Impulse as well as Arsenal. That made you smile. When Dick told you about this mission you convinced Roy to join. After your lunch the day before you thought he could use some socializing with kids his age.

“Any questions?” Dick asked and you held back a sigh as Arsenal asked.

“Just one. Why are we meeting in this dump?” He asked and you lightly glared at him from behind your textbook.

“Arsenal, play nice” You warned and Dick answered in his best I’ll ignore the insult and just answer the underlying question, voice.

“With the cave and the Hall of Justice destroyed, we don’t have many other options” Dick said simply but it was obvious Roy was feeling testy today.

“Except the Watchtower. It’s national news now. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist” Roy retorted and you decided you’d step in.

“Only Justice Leaguers and Senior members of the team are authorized for the Watchtower. Besides this is just a briefing, it doesn’t really matter” You said and you could tell that Dick had had enough of Roy’s tone.

“You don’t qualify either way” He said and you made a note to talk to him later.

“Good to know where we stand” Roy said and you flew down to stand between them.

“That’s enough. Alpha squad, you have a mission to do. Go.” You said and you noted the different reactions of the team. Impulse and Blue Beetle were more than happy to leave while Robin looked to Dick for confirmation.

Once they left you turned to Dick.

“Really? You know your remarks only make him worse right?” You asked. It was a rhetorical question.

“Quite the impression you made” You told him and he sighs.

“I’ll apologize later. You should study.” He said and wrapped his arms around you. Not that you had too much time to yourself and your boyfriend.

A few hours after they left Robin sent a message to Nightwing. The mission went off script and they found a martian beetle. The two of you made a few calls and a bit after midnight you stood in a barn on the Kent farm in Smallville.

You made sure the young heroes were okay before you even started hearing anything from Green Beetle.

Dick turned to you and wordlessly asked if you’d join him and Tim for a mission report. You left Bart mid sentence- he said something about needing an actual stealth mode button- to join Dick and Tim off to the side.

“How’d the mission go?” he asked and Tim looked awkwardly at you but answered.

“Not quite as planned. Arsenal… is a little rough around the edges.” Tim explained and you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose over your mask.

“I’m sorry about him, I’ll talk to him. See if it’s something we can iron out” You said. In moments like these you wondered how Ollie and Dinah dealt with two little terrors like that when you and Red were just starting out.

“That might be a good idea, but I guess it all worked out. And we brought back a sample of the alien additive for analysis” Tim continued and gave Dick a small vial.

“Can’t ask for more. Good work.” Dick told his brother and you ruffled Tim’s hair slightly.

“Nice job Robin” You told him and left with Dick.

Taos

April 9th

Alpha squad along with you, Nightwing, Superboy, Lagoon Boy, the scientist Adam Strange and Miss Martian all met in a lab in S.T.A.R. Labs. The goal was to make sure the story Green Beetle told you all in Smallville was indeed true. You stood, apprehensive in the back of the room. You leaned on a wall and watched.

Even after becoming more open with your past and self mind links like that made you nervous. Your mind was yours and while you got used to the comm like mind link Miss M used on mission you didn’t let anyone go deeper. Roy stood beside you, also not a fan of intrusive telepathy.

You couldn’t argue with Nightwing’s plan. This was the only real way to make sure that Green Beetle was who he said he was. Guilt panged in your chest. Is this what would have happened if Dinah took you to the League after finding you? You’d never questioned that. The thought made you shift uncomfortably.

Roy gave you a concerned look.

“You okay?” He asked and you shook yourself out of your mental state.

“Okay enough, I really hate this stuff. Kinda miss when it was just crime lords with human thugs” You said and Roy nodded.

“A bit late for second thoughts” He said and you sighed.

“No going back now, alien invasions are a bit too deep to backtrack from” You joked as you watched Miss Martian do her thing.

“Green Beetle is on our side” She announced and you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

You stepped off the wall you leaned on and motioned to the group, a silent sign for Roy to follow you back to the others.

You all stood before Green Beetle as he explained something about the Reach’s new drink. It had been a long night and you were only half paying attention, especially since you were technically supposed to be off duty and Nightwing already knew what Green Beetle was saying. It was another test.

What caught your attention was Beetle’s explanation of the other important detail about the drink.

It contained a metagene tracer.

That snapped you to attention.

“That would make it so much easier for them to harvest and weaponize the metagene! Oh when I see that damn ambassador face to face my fists are gonna have words for him.” You sneered, clenching your fists.

“Our analysis didn’t reveal that. Thank you” Nightwing told Green Beetle and you felt he placed a comforting hand on your shoulder to try and calm you.

“Can’t we go public with this?” Blue Beetle asked and Nightwing said he’ll pass it onto Captain Atom but the likelihood was slim. The Justice League wasn’t exactly a popular figure right now.

You walked out, Dick by your side once the meeting was adjourned. Even with how tired you were you doubted you’d get any sleep.

And you were right because only a few minutes after you left STAR Labs L’gann radioed that he and M’gann were under attack at the Chicago zeta tube.

You, Dick and Conner ran out of the zeta tube only seconds too late.

A Manta Flier was flying off, out of reach and L’gann was injured. M’gann was nowhere to be found.

Star City

April 9th 8:58

You paced around your room at home. Dick sat at the edge of your bed and watched you, concern written all over his face. He wasn’t sure what to do. When you all arrived and saw L’gann hurt and M’gann missing, the Manta Flier speeding away, you fell to your knees. Every time you thought you were over the worst. Every time you got back up something brought you crashing back down. You were finally back with your family and friends, Roy was finally coming around, You admitted your feelings to Dick, but the universe couldn’t allow it. They took M’gann and suddenly all the loss you stuffed down when they killed Artemis came back up and you shut down.

You haven’t said a word since Dick led you home. He took L’gann to the hospital and when he came back to check up on you Dinah let him in and led him to the sight of you pacing in your room.

Apparently you’d been like this practically since you got back.

Eventually Dick thought, enough is enough and he stood up and wrapped his arms around you to stop you from moving.

“Y/N” He simply muttered and you wrapped yourself around him.

“I- She’s- They took her too” Is all you could get out as a sob wracked your body. Dick rubbed circles into your back and pet your hair to comfort you as you cried and he felt so guilty. Conner’s words at the hospital ran through his mind.

“You have no idea what your secrets have done to us… We’ll have lost all three of them because you thought it was a bad idea to share.”

After a while your sobbing stopped. You simply stood in Dick’s arms, relishing the feeling of finally letting it all out. Finally letting all that pent up hurt and sadness and grief out. When you pulled away you noticed your boyfriend’s mind had wandered. He was spacing out.

You cupped his cheek in your hand and tried to get his attention.

“Dick?” You asked and you saw his eyes focus again as he heard his name.

“Yeah, I’m here” He said and kissed your forehead.

“Feeling better?” He asked and you nodded.

“Thank you” You told him and he smiled.

“Always, Pretty bird” He said and you let out a small laugh.

“What were you thinking about?” You asked him as the two of you sat down on your bed.

“I- um, Just something Conner said” He answered and remembered he was still in uniform.

“Is there something I can change into here?” He asked and you thought for a second before running off to grab something from a room across the hall. Dick followed you, waiting in the doorway of your bedroom and noticed the seemingly unused room for the first time.

Oliver’s house was big, not as big as Wayne manor but big and yet the room seemed out of place staying unused.

You came out of one of the rooms with a T-shirt and sweatpants in hand.

“Who’s room is that?” Dick asked as you closed the door behind you.

“It was Red’s, or it would have been Red’s. We keep it in case he wants to come by and stay the night. It’s even got a crib and a changing table for Lian.” You explained and gave him the clothes.

“And the other? The one next to it?” He asked.

“For Roy. He stayed in it once when Ollie was away on a mission.” You answer.

“Ollie got everything together the second Roy came off the ice in hopes that he’d come around” You said with a sad smile.

“He’ll come around at some point” Dick said and you nodded.“I know, how about you go change and I’ll make us something to eat?” You suggested and Dick smiled, nodding as you went to the kitchen and he went to change. It was eating him up inside not to tell you about Artemis, about Kaldur. About how they would protect M’gann to the best of their abilities. But too many people already knew. After he changed the two of you sat and ate.

“How’s college going? I know we’ve kept you pretty busy” Dick said and you nodded.

“Dinah organized some excuses and I just have to catch up again” You explained and Dick nodded, thinking before he asked.

“Why don’t you take another break?”

You looked at him, confused and he elaborated.

“A lot has happened and you’re almost done with college, it might be a good idea to continue that break you took and graduate. Things have calmed down a bit and-” “Calmed down?” You cut him off. You were really trying to keep your voice even. “Dick, they just kidnapped M’gann. How am I supposed to take a break when we’re missing a teammate, let alone one of our most powerful teammates.” You said and looked at him like the very thought of taking a break was crazy.

“You were also kidnapped. And experimented on, and I know you don’t like talking about it but having time where you’re just yourself. No superhero-ing or at least no team could be good for you, help you stay whelmed” He explained and you sighed, taking another bite of the grilled cheese you made yourself.

“Just think about it” Dick said, he put his hand over yours on the table.

“You deserve a little bit of rest from all this craziness. It’s a lot and a lot that’s very personal” Dick’s voice was soft, vulnerable even. He really wanted to protect you and that was sweet of him. “If I think about it, will you leave it alone?” You questioned and when he answered with a yup! You sighed, “Fine.” You said.

[darlingbudsofrae]

Neil Josten Appreciation Post

Foxes Appreciation Series : 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || 5 || 6 || 7 || 8 || 9 || 10 ||

Alright, let’s just start this by addressing the big elephant in the room: everyone loves Neil Josten. EVERYONE.

If you don’t, you’re lying. 

Okay, first up- I’m glad this is getting addressed more on AFTG tumblr but Neil is literally so much smarter than the fandom gives him credit for.

Like yes, he’s a little dumdum on the social aspect of things (you could argue he kind of has a low EQ but also not really, I would argue that later)

but that doesn’t dismiss that he is smart af and that he can kill you and make it look natural if he wants.

For example, he literally outrun and hid from the mafia for years. Like, that in itself is an obvious point but we often forget that he did this at a very young age.

Like, he was presumably what? 16?? (when Mary kicked the bucket?) And kid was already playing hide and seek pretty well with a freaking mafia.

He does not get enough credit for this.

The survival skills it takes- the mental strength to survive as a runaway and technically he’s also homeless- at freaking 16, that’s just insane.

Also, let’s not mention the fact that it takes skills to forge official papers and all that.

We also do not talk enough about Neil and how he freaking have to relearn an entirely new position just to play exy.

I don’t think most remember that he’s actually a backliner, but have to play as a striker because it was the only available position in that local high school he attended in Millport, and that was how Kevin saw him so he was recruited as a striker.

We also additionally do not talk enough about how Kevin “literal and figurative Son of Exy” Day found potential for court in Neil “I’m a backliner but I’m playing striker because it’s the only thing available and I’m an exy junkie” Josten who only played it for like a year or less. 

Like yeah, Kevin said he needs more training but it’s not even Neil’s official position. 

The talent on this man- I cannot, he is such an icon. 

Aside from his great survival skills and being literally great at picking things up- he’s also like freaking academically smart.

Like that also doesn’t get enough credit- I mean, he does math for fun.

Frankly, I think if you did Kumon or if you had an awesome teacher you could also do math for fun (I know I did) but this should be noted with the fact that he didn’t have proper schooling.

He went on a run at a really young age so there is no way he received formal education.

Which means he is naturally like really smart.

He’s also a polyglot. And the languages he has under his belt are all freaking difficult to learn- like, no kidding: French, German, and he can assumingly speak intermediate Spanish, and we don’t even have an idea if this is all the languages he can speak.

Also, he and Andrew learns how to speak Russian, right? Like, that’s crazy.

The brain on this man and the power that he has- my son, I am so proud.

I mean, for all we know- there’s more than that and the fact that he’s like 18 at TFC screams supremacy.

This is where I argue about his EQ but Neil is crazy perceptive.

It took him like freaking 3 seconds to figure out the team dynamics the foxes have, and how to work against it.

He later figured out how to make it all mesh together.

Like the way he do things isn’t conventional but reading him analyze his team despite his lack of empathy really makes me shudder.

Like, this kid is so freaking smart. I remember reading his thought process for the very first time and being like, okay- I definitely did not think about that.

The main problem with his EQ though is that he doesn’t know how to process positive stuff when he’s involved, but when he’s the outsider- his perspective is so amazing.

Like again, he kind of lacks empathy but the way he understands things and is just so sharp is just noteworthy.

I’d argue he doesn’t understand social cues and “modern teen things” but he isn’t so completely clueless on the social aspect in general as to not manipulate an entire team of misfits with issues to work together.

He’s literally the key to unity in AFTG. Even Dan says so.

Also, the way he puts things into play- like he’s a master manipulator, and I love that for him.

We do not talk enough about manipulative Neil, like I just really love manipulative characters in general so much- especially if they’re just owning it. 

I mean, he freaking manipulated Andrew and Aaron into therapy. Kind of evil but also wow. (just a sidenote, please don’t force people into therapy lol)

Going completely dark for a second, Neil also has a freaking high pain tolerance.

The amount of horrible things he went through in the books were just so sad and the fact that he just kind of moves on from it? That’s just completely oh my gods.

My poor summer child, even if you can kill me at any given time, let me just hug you for a second with consent.

Everyone also gives shit about Neil’s fashion choices and granted it is said he kind of bags the homeless looks but the fact that he values utility above all else-

Yes, we stan a resourceful king. 

Lowkey though, am I the only one who appreciate Neil’s average style?

Speaking of style- I love the way Neil narrates. Like, the way he doesn’t give much attention to how the character looks- it’s just so realistic?

Because if I’m talking to a person in real life, there is no way I am noting how his blue polo makes him kind of casual but clean-cut and how his brown eyes is as warm as my morning coffee. Like, who even does that?

The thing with Neil’s narration is that it’s just so authentic- like it easily engages the readers and the way he gives importance to every thing the same way, it really makes it easier for the reader to discern things objectively, y’know what I mean?

He just has that quality in a main character and narrator- he’s laidback and sarcastic but not trying too hard, and he’s just really easy to love.

Like, I normally don’t like narrators/main characters in books because I favor a side character more or just because they’re annoying, but Neil Josten is legit lovable. 

At the same time, he’s also a really well-written character. Like, for all the technicalities I point out in AFTG, Neil is an asshole. He’s not perfect and I don’t 100% love everything that he does and I love that.

He’s a flawed character but he gives you something to root for- and I just really want to appreciate his characterization for a second. Most books make their characters’ flaws not even their fault to put a check to the flawed character but at the same time still have that perfect character. Eeww, no- give me real flaws to work with.

He’s one of the realest protagonists I ever read.

Like people give him shit for wanting to hide but also choosing to play a nationwide-discerned sport on an infamous collegiate team but for me it’s kind of realistic.

Because I think we, as human beings, also do things we love too much regardless of logic. I don’t know, like it’s kind of funny the way Neil is written but I honestly didn’t see him joining Palmetto as a loophole.

Like, just think of all those successful people who hid their identities via pseudonym or other necessary means to do things they weren’t expected to do or weren’t allowed to do.

For me, his character was really just looking for excuses to play his favorite sport a second longer and if anything, that’s just kind of sad.

But also, his dedication and love to exy is really admirable- like I never understood it but the way he literally does everything to stay on the court for a second longer just makes me want to root for him.

On a random note, Neil may not have an eidetic memory like Andrew’s but the way he memorize most phone numbers by heart? 

Bruh, I don’t even have my phone number memorized and I freaking have it for two years now. 

He also memorizes every twists and turns at every trip, every exits at a room he enters, and most people’s tics upon the first meeting, and other things and that’s just crazy perceptive but also really crazy on another level.

Also, we don’t get much ace/demi representation and out of the few I’ve consumed, demi Neil Josten validates me. He’s legit my favorite character that belongs in the ace spec in books.

I just really love Neil’s character so much- he’s just so amazing.

One thing I always appreciate about Neil Josten is that while he’s not a total angel (sadly), the way he loves the foxes- like he legit tried to mend the team and make sure everyone is going to be okay before walking straight to his death- like I’m with Andrew on this one, what a fucking martyr. Why are you like this and why am I crying?

Neil Josten is by all means not soft, that much is established, but the way he’s just still as precious and must be protected at all costs-

"You know, I get it," Neil said. "Being raised as a superstar must be really, really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your family thinking you're worth a damn off the court—yeah, sounds rough. Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time."

I love him, your honor- where can I file this adoption papers and do I have anything else to sign?

[sallyf4ce]

wolves

chapter I

-> sally face x f!reader

-> enemies to lovers

-> previous | next | character index

cw: drugs, cigarettes, abuse

*does not follow original plot of sally face*

summary: seventeen year old y/n and her bitchfaced mother arrive in nockfell. in her first few minutes at the addison apartments, she’s already made new enemies and escaped her home for a quick stroll.

The poisonous yet familiar smell of smoke filed out the car window as you neared addison apartments.

“This place looks like a shit shack.” you mumbled, clearly displeased with your mother’s housing choice.

“What was that, brat?” Her blond hair whipped around to face you. She was a dirty woman, her hair indefinitely damaged from box dye, eyebags as dark as night, prominent cigar butt scars and heavy wrinkles adorning her discoloured face. Every single piece of clothing she owned was either laced with the smell of cigarettes or was stained, too.

Not that you were much better. You reeked of weed and smoke, but at least you knew how to maintain proper hygiene. God, you were gonna have to shower after this. The stench of the car had already ingrained itself into your skin, but hey, it was worth a try.

“Get the boxes, i’ll be right there.” she huffed and pulled out her phone.

“What, are you not gonna help?”

“Get the fucking boxes!” she snarled at you.

“Alright! Alright.” you slung your black duffel over your left shoulder as you hopped out the car. A few moments later, the trunk popped and you could hear your mom’s annoying laughter coming from the front seat. She was probably on the phone with some scumbag again. Pulling your bluesville zippo lighter out of your jacket pocket, you quickly lit up a smoke before grabbing a box. The keys to your apartment, 404, already hung from your belt loop. They jiggled slightly as you made your way to the front doors.

When you walked in, you were hit with a strong, unpleasant smell. It was like mildew mixed with the smell of peroxide on blood; maybe some heavy chemical cleaner as well. Your eyes traced the sickly green coloured doors as you made your way to the elevator. Quickly remembering the cigarette still in your mouth, you hastily remove it and breath the smoke out. It slowly seeps into the ceiling. Seems like the building was used to this kind of neglect. Heading into the elevator, you heard two muffled voices coming from behind you. One was deep and gruff, the other a more soft, emotionless tune.

“They said there’s gonna be a new album next year.” the softer voice exclaimed. Great, they were probably headed to the elevator too. You tried to speed up and close the doors on them, but alas, your effort was wasted as a pale, thin hand with painted black nails stopped the door from closing. You soon learned that it belonged to a just as pale, electric-blue haired boy. He was around 5’6 and dressed in a simple black sweater and red ripped jeans. The only thing that stood out, apart from his hair, was a white prosthetic. There was a light pink stain in the top right corner, but apart from that, it was plain. There was not a single emotion visible on it either. The only thing that could hint to any sort of feeling was the boy’s ice blue eyes peeking through the eyeholes.

He cleared his throat and you moved over begrudgingly. Following him was another boy, around 6’0 with long brown hair and brown eyes. He noticed you looking at him and shot a wink which you completely disregarded. They both looked at the giant box in your hand. You took your chance and put the cigarette up to your lips again. They looked up at the sound of an inhale.

“That’s not good for you.” the shorter one muttered in his annoyingly quiet voice. You pulled it out and huffed the smoke into his mask.

“Shut it, pigtails.” you growled quietly. God, why was this fucking elevator taking so long?

Larry grimaced at the nickname and began making his way towards you. He thought you looked cool at first, but apparently he was wrong. Sal’s hand made contact with his chest before he could confront you.

“Sal, what-”

“Why not the mask?” sally was amused now. it was usually the mask that people pointed out, that they picked on him for. so why didn’t you?

The elevator dinged and you quickly walked out with your box in hand, cigarette in your mouth. quickly, your free hand slammed against the buttons of the elevator. the metal against metal clanged loudly as you pulled away. You chuckled at their astonished faces. “See ya, fuckers!”

Sal’s face lit up a bit under his mask.

“Larry, she’s like me!”

><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><

By the time you finished sorting your boxes, it was around 11 pm. Your mom was already knocked out on the couch so nothing was stopping you from going out on a stroll. Quickly throwing on your army green windbreaker, you grab your skateboard and slip on your boots. God, you hoped those weirdos weren’t still out there. Making sure to slam the door extra loud, you run out your apartment and quickly make your way down the stairs. Your mom’s faint screaming only earned a giggle from you as you opened the door. A cool, rain-fresh breeze filled your nose and you set down your skateboard. It was a nice change from the tainted apartment air. The sky was navy, fading into a baby blue as it reached the ground. Nockfell was a small town so you’d finally be able to see the stars. A few were already peaking out at you. Turning your attention back to yourself, you pull out a cig and light it as you kick off.

Across the street from you were larry and sal, hoods on and shivering as they quickly walked back to the apartments. Larry was rambling about todd’s parents and their weed or something, but sal couldnt find it in him to listen. His attention was stuck on you. It was rare to see another kid with a prosthetic here in nockfell. Actually, he was pretty sure he was the only teen with one. Except you, of course. He remembered your metal hand shining in the light of the elevator as you trotted away, unbothered and chuckling to yourself. Him and larry were stuck in there for around five minutes after you spammed the buttons. Larry was pissed, but sal found himself smiling. At your chuckle, at your prosthetic, he didn’t know. Maybe both.

“Anyway, some kid said they were better than san- sally face, you there? Dont tell me you’re still hung up on that chick.'' Larry sighed.

“No!” the tips of his ears turned a little pink at his sudden reply. “I mean, no.”

“Man, i still dont get why you’re not mad. She’s a dick!” The brunette really was confused. She called him names and was just mean in general. She got them stuck in the elevator! Just because she had a metal hand didnt give her special bullying privileges.

“She’s just a little roughed up is all.”

larry looked across the street to the sound of a skateboard.

“Speak of the devil. Wait, isn’t that a sanity’s fall shirt? Man, for a dick, she’s got a good ass music taste! Come on!”

[sweater-daddiesdumbdork]

Dappled Play

Summary- 1.6k Alpha Steve x Little One Reader. You are currently sunbathing on the back deck when Steve comes looking for you. Warnings- some suggestive hints. 

A/N- This is really just nothing but fluff for the Shifters. I have been working on some heavy dark stuff and needed just something more upbeat to focus on today. So this is really just in the moment writing, nothing has been picked over and edited. Much Love Always! Happy Howling! 🐺💙

The Pack Masterlist

Sunlight dappled through the trees surrounding the back deck, sparse brilliant bits of light painted across your skin as you lounged in one of the alpine deck chairs Steve had scattered around. Your feet were kicked back onto the railing, freshly painted toes wiggling to dry while you had your head tilted back and eyes closed, letting your senses drift from right where you were. 

The fresh water of the lake smelled tempting, the water lapping on the rocky shore and against the dock was calling your name as the day warmed. On another beach you could hear the laughter of other pack mates playing with one another, the occasional splash as someone jumped into the cool depths from the rope swing someone risked installing. On your own deck was a multitude of visitors scurrying back and forth, taking advantage of the spread of seeds you scattered along the railing this morning. 

Chatter from above let you know your squirrel was at war with the chipmunks right now for the seed you had scattered around. Occasional flutter of wings let you know one of your songbirds had come out of hiding. When you peered over your sunglasses to see, a multitude of evening grosbeaks, nuthatches and purple finches were scattered across your deck. On the railing by your feet a Blue Jay wandered closer, cocking his head in interest at your wiggling baby blue toes. 

“Try it mister and you will be a snack.” You growled softly and kicked out your foot enough to send him fluttering away with a squawk of disgust at you ruining his fun. From behind you, you heard a deep chuckle and a tilt of your head showed Steve leaning in the doorway leading to the bedroom, wiping his hands dry off on a hand towel, bits of water still caught in his beard and ran down his bare chest from where he had just gotten changed and cleaned up. You could tell just looking at him that he had been in the garage, the scent of oil and metal mixing with his natural scent. It made you inhale sharply, the Little Wolf sniggering in the depths of your mind. 

<Damn distracting isn’t he.>

Always... 

<Don’t worry, you are just as distracting to him.>

That’s the plan.

“If you want, I will fight that jay off for you, just to preserve your honor Little One.” Steve stepped out onto the deck, leaning over to press a affectionate kiss on your lips, his warm palm sliding along the curve of your neck and tracing your bonding mark. “But you really seem to have it handled.” 

“Well he might come back.” You lift your sunglasses off and set them aside while Steve went to sit in a neighboring chair. “If he does, I will call you, right away.” Your Alpha rumbled from his chest in approval and you grinned at the praise. “Already done for the day?” 

Steve let his gaze fall from you, head tilted back into the bit of sun streaming to cut through the shade. “Time for a break. Sam was starting to get on my nerves talking numbers and that truck isn't going anywhere while we have the engine ripped out of it.” He inhaled deeply, letting the stress of the situation start to melt away. His mothers sentiments dancing on the tip of his tongue before repeating “When the world knocks you down, you get back up... this is nothing but a thing to deal with and I told Sam to quit worrying about it, we will figure it out. We always do.” 

You uncurled from your chair and approached Steve, your fingers curling through his longer locks, the sun had started to lighten them back up into that golden color you remember from the day you first saw him. His arm loped around your hips to tug you into his hold, making you straddle his lap so you could drape your arms over his shoulders. “Sounds like he needs to take a page from your book Alpha.” placing a teasing nip at his lips, he tightened his arm around your waist and flushed you in against him, sliding his palms to grip your ass, flexing his hand to grasp a handful of your cheeks. 

“He should, why I shut the garage down, for a few hours at least. Besides, I had to come see my best girl, maybe cool off a bit.” His eyes started to grow mischievous, looking you up and down, you could see he was already eyeing the loose tank top you had on and the shorts, contemplating what was underneath them. 

“Don’t you dare rip these off Steven, they are my favorite outfit.” You growled out as he plucked at your shirt to look down it, his grin going boyish as he rucked it up over your head. “I promise not to destroy the tank top. But nothing else.” He moved to a stand, hauling you over his shoulder with a loud yelp from you, your hands making a grab at his belt while he started down the wooden stairs towards the deck. 

“Whoa Alpha, what are you doing?” You bounce with each bopping down step he takes, one arm wrapped around the back of your thighs, the other feeling at your pockets to dig out your phone and stuff it in his own pocket. 

“Going for a swim. It’s hot out, wouldn't you agree?” he gave an appreciative squeeze to a jean clad ass cheek and you wriggled on his shoulder while you swayed over his shoulder. 

“Well... my current view is pretty hot.” clasping your hands on the firmest ass you have ever touched, you felt him flex under your hands. That’s when you felt a set of teeth sink into your jeans, making him growl at you. “Did you just bite my ass?” 

“It was to tempting to pass up.” He informed you while walking closer to your destination, you started pushing against his back to have him put you down. “Oh no baby, were doing this the right way.” 

“Steven Grant Rogers don’t you dare.” You warned him, but his hold was tight and there was no way you were wriggling from out of it. “Don’t you throw me into that lake.” You could hear the Little Wolf’s laughter at your predicament, as well as feel the Alpha joining in on the fun, Steve’s playful nature simmering between you two. You knew his intentions, just as much as he knew you wouldn’t be mad if he did. 

In fact, pressing up against Steve had heated you up, he was a sweltering man on a normal day, his heat radiating from him. Now you were plastered to his back and were ready for the cool rush of water. But he couldn’t “know” that, and you pretended to fight him with teasing tickling fingers up his lower back and smacks against that finest ass you have ever seen. “No sex for you if you do!” 

“Now that, I’m calling bullshit on Little One.” He barked a laugh and then he swung you around into his arms and gave a gentle toss, sending you flying through the air, squealing till you landed in the water. With a twist underwater, your toes pressed to the bottom, silt and stones rolling under the balls of your feet as you shot back to the surface. Catching sight of his pants coming off and boxer clad Steve soared over you to disappear in a giant splash, making you roll back towards the dock where you could grasp onto the edge, watching for where he might pop up. 

You feel him first on your ankle, his fingers dancing up the side of your leg and looking down to see Steve start coming up, his head and shoulders breaking the waters surface while he wrapped his arms around you, knocking you off balance enough to circle your legs around his waist and grab onto his shoulders.  He whipped his head a bit to clear of the water, leaving you laughing and sputtering at the water. “You are getting me wet?” 

“Wetter then you already are?” He wiggled his brows at you, setting off a flare of heat spiraling through you. 

“You seem to have that effect on me? I don’t know why though.” You pop a shrug of your shoulder, making Steve snort in his own laugh, pulling away from the dock so the two of you could float away from the shoreline. 

“I keep putting it on my charming personality.” Pressing kisses of heat to your skin, chasing away the water droplets. This was what you loved about Steve, he was just so easy to be with. 

To be yourself. 

Your Alpha wanted you to challenge him, play, love, feel. You were still learning what that meant, to be genuine. To say that first thing that popped in your mind without repercussions. Never had you gotten to be free in such a way. You nudged at him, brushing your nose against his, whispering against his mouth. “I’m going with its all the good looks.” Challenging as you arched into him, pressing a firm kiss to him. 

Steve took it further, dart of his tongue pressing against your mouth and you so willingly accepted him. His hands came to cup your face, your fingers digging into his shoulders as you two sunk into it, dipping back under the water for a moment before he kicked at his legs and sent the two of you back to the surface. You gave another nudge of your nose against his before unwrapping from around him and pushing off, the white strap of your bra and baby blue denim cutoffs blaring against the dark water. You swirled in the water, shooting water at him from between your teeth to squirt in his face. 

Steve growled and lunged forward to catch you, the two of you splashing back and forth, trying to keep away from him, darting away with squeals of laughter and cries of alarm. His laughter was booming across the lakes surface, clearly enjoying himself in the moment. 

Tags- @jtargaryen18​ @what-is-your-plan-today​ @stardancerluv​ @patzammit​ @princess-evans-addict​ @fckdeusername​ @onetwo3000​ @stargazingfangirl18​ @navybrat817​ @nekoannie-chan​ @angrythingstarlight​ @ransoms-sweater-holes @donutloverxo​ @natasha-romanova-anon​ @jennmurawski13​ @that-damn-girl​ @rainbowkisses31​ @pandaxnienke​ @verdandi-storm​ @gotnofucks​ @kelbabyblue​ @sagechanoafterdark​ @archy3001​ @aliceaddellheidde​ @princesssterek​ @goldenfightergir​ @autumnrose40​ @flannellover67​ @itsmycorneroftheinternet​ @alexakeyloveloki​ @ayamenimthiriel​ @irishflutiegirl​ @mery-be​ @djeniiscorner @irepostthingsiwanttoseelater​ @rinkashirikitateku​ @fallenoutofrose​ @caffiend-queen​ @titty-teetee​ @saiyanprincessswanie​ @imboredat2am​ @bohemian-barbie​ @farfromtommy​ @jennmurawski13​ @keiva1000​ @nightriver99​ @nerdygirl8203​ @simsadventures​ @wonderlandfandomkingdom @sp2900​ @threeminutesoflife​ @buckybarney​ @randomsevans​ @captainchrisstan​ @whenescapingdinosaurs​ @what-is-your-wish @niki-is-a-thing​ @my-favorite-fics-and-imagines​ @celestialaccords​ @rosalynshields​ @everythingisoverrated​ @spn-marvel-and-more​ @animegirlgeek​ @tite-rose @wildmoonflower​ @smediumsmeatbae​ @rebloggingeverything​ @ozarkthedog​ @kalesrebellion @bostongirl13​ @honeybuckybarnes​ @readermia​ @buckysteveloki-me​ @connie326​ @beautifulsweetschaos​ @denisemarieangelina​ @princesssterek​ @avantgardium-leviosa​ @adillard94

[boytouya]

Can I get a male FTM cow reader who's in a relationship with dabi which he's constantly bullied for his appearance because he's not like a bull and he stays close to dabi nibbling on his shoulder when he's nervous. Or he likes to give out moos when he's very comfortable with his burnt bf at any chance

𝐄𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐎𝐮𝐭

Warnings: Blood, (poorly written) fighting, hinted transphobia/homophobia, bullying

When you collide with sturdy shoulders you automatically expect to hear nasty comments. You grew up hearing them from just about everyone. You were too weak, too ‘fragile,’ and some even made the effort to call you...creative nicknames. Growing up, you didn’t understand the hierarchy behind bulls and cows. It never mattered to you, and you didn’t have many friends because of that. As you got older societal changes pushed all of its weight onto you, and presenting as a cow crushed your reputation, not to mention being gay and trans. You found yourself being relentlessly bullied. You just couldn’t understand why.

Your boyfriend is a bull, with broad shoulders and scarred skin. His body is littered with piercings (you once laughed at his septum because of the irony) and modifications; when you first met him you assumed he would join along in bullying you. Perhaps that was your fault, falling into your stereotypical place as a meek cow. It was just a reflex, though. Who could blame you?

He found you under the fist of a rather large bull, about triple your size. Normally he minded his business, keeping his sharp gaze straight forward and large hands stuffed into his pockets. He couldn’t when he saw someone so powerful picking on an easy target. It made his blood boil, reminded him of the people he grew up with. You learned his name was Dabi (or at least that’s what he “currently goes by”), and he was just passing through. He claimed to have saved you only because you “looked pathetic,” but his ice blue eyes were checking you over for injuries.

You stayed glued to his side ever since.

Dabi lived in the city, staying in a small apartment sitting upstairs from a bar. His bedroom wall was littered with a few posters, but it was bare, like he was ready to leave at any moment. You only knew this because after a particularly bad fight you had to bite down on his belt and focus on the space on his walls. You didn’t know how Dabi knew how to give stitches, but you never asked. It seemed like a touchy topic.

Walking through the busy streets of the city was always a challenge. It was like no matter where you went there was someone out to get you. You knew you were different from others, but you couldn’t understand why it made them so angry.

As of now, you’re pressing your cheek against the sleeve of Dabi’s jacket while you walk back to his apartment. He took you on a date, but it was cut short by a pack of stubborn bulls. Dabi ended up earning a blossoming bruise to his right cheek. Crickets chirp, cars pass by, and passerbys quietly make their way home. The city was always so much prettier at night, and you wondered what everyone was doing with the night. There’s a bull coming your way, who smells of something familiar. You can’t quite place it, but it makes you uncomfortable. Your eyes flicker over to Dabi, who’s nursing a freshly lit cigarette between his lips.

“Things never go according to plan, huh?” He says to himself, his voice slightly altered by the stick in his mouth.

You tug at his sleeve, folding the fabric between your fingers, “Dabi?” Your voice is barely above a whisper, but it’s all you can muster out. It was an anxious tic, nibbling on your clothes or pulling at its loose seams. When Dabi noticed it he volunteered to “help with your weird fetish,” as he called it. You just had to make sure he was really okay with it.

Dabi doesn’t respond verbally at first, instead jutting out his arm to offer his sleeve to you. You nibble happily, letting out small moos of appreciation. God, you’re so cute. Dabi silently curses himself for not pulling out his phone to record. There’s a smirk tugging at his lips as you lean against him, and he can’t wait to get home. “Letting your worry get ahead of you, casanova?”

You nod along absentmindedly, but pausing to actually look at your boyfriend. He looks focused on something else, his nostrils flaring as his face scrunches up. He pushes you behind him with the same arm, and you can see his feet stutter as he kicks them against the ground. He's clearly agitated.

Watching bulls fight is never pretty. It’s always messy and reckless, there are always concerning sounds coming from their bodies and aggression that could send you into hysterics. You hated it, and yet you had to see it every day. Sometimes you wondered how Dabi was even alive.

It happens so fast, starting with one landing bone cracking punches into the other’s stomach and ending with budding heads until they both get nosebleeds. Luckily Dabi gets the first offense, and the smell of blood quickly thickens the air.

It was one of the bulls that interrupted your date, and you remember hearing him threaten to come back with more of his friends. His friends.

It’s almost like you’re invisible, as you punch and claw at the new pairs of arms that hold Dabi back and pin him down. There’s one, two, three punches to his stomach and ribs, but he doesn’t seem to audibly react. You can tell he’s seething, as his teeth are grit. Your breathing is shallow and rushed (damn, you really should’ve taken a break from your binder like Dabi said earlier), there’s sweat beading at your forehead and your heart is in your throat as you swing uncoordinated punches and throw yourself between the unfair fight. Dabi has helped you so much, it’s only fair for you to repay him.

You pack a surprisingly powerful punch, the forced adrenaline coursing through your veins as sirens wail in the far distance. Dabi’s weight drops on you briefly, but it quickly vanishes as he turns away from you and almost starts after them, the cigarette he had just a second ago crushed in his hand. He must’ve burned one of them. You pull him back, hot on your heels as the sirens steadily grow louder.

“Pretty weak.” You can't tell if he’s talking about himself or you, but you don’t have time to unpack it. Gripping your boyfriend’s bloodied hand, you hurry back to his apartment.

“Don’t make that face,” Dabi says, pressing a bag of frozen peas against his ribs. You hate seeing his healthy skin damaged, he only has so much of it. You just finished treating his busted lip. “I’m sure we’ll still have time to talk, and they probably have more bruises than me.”

Dabi readjusts his seat on his bed, pressing his back into the headboard. He pulls you over by the waistline of your pants and offers the end of his shirt. One of his eyes may be swollen but he can still see your nervousness.

He pinches your ear, steering clear of the bruising on your face. There’s a slow sigh flowing from his mouth, and he looks like he’s holding back some sort of emotional monologue. Instead he clicks his tongue, dimples forming on his cheeks as his staples pull at his flexing skin. He pulls you into his side, the coldness of the frozen bag making contact with your skin. Dabi uses his free hand to run his hand along your forearm, feeling out the goosebumps. His shoulders shake as you quietly moo with relief.

“You must throw a mean one.”

[godofsexdrugsandrocknroll]

On A Tropical Island

Jaune: Great. Just great. Now I’m lost and all my friends are missing too! I’m too angry to be depressed!

Neo: *Head pops out of the sand, spitting it everywhere*

Jaune: Oh, even better. Now I have company. This can’t possibly get any worse! *Ignores Neo glaring*

-----------------

Jaune: Stop following me! You’re a bad girl!

Neo: *Cocks eyebrow*

Jaune: *Blushes* Not what I meant! I mean you’re evil! And all you’ve done to help so far is poke me with a stick! *Is poked with a stick* Dammit, stop that!

Neo: *Pokes him in the butt instead*

Jaune: OW! That’s not what I meant you menace!

Neo: *Preens at being called a menace*

Jaune: And stop trying to be cute, too!

----------------- 

Neo: *Tapping bare foot*

Jaune: Okay, so maybe my sense of direction isn’t the best. *gets The Look* Alright alright already, jeez. We’re back where we started, your shoes, your jacket and my armor are now forever lost to the wilds and it’s not my fault!

Neo: *Stares*

Jaune: *Shifts guiltily* Okay maybe it is, but if I had a map *Neo crosses her arms, reigniting The Look™ * we’d still probably be lost since the rest of team RNJR banned me from the map after reading it backwards and upside down.

Neo: *Nods firmly, taking the lead*

Jaune: For the fourth time.

Neo: *Turns, gapes in shock, shakes her head and grabs him by the hand*

Jaune: *Offended* Hey, I’m not a child! I won’t get lost!

Neo: *Looks at him through her eyelashes*

Jaune: *Sighs* Okay, fine. But only because getting lost in a weird jungle is way worse than getting lost in the grocery store at 14.

Neo: *Stops, removes belt, ties end around his wrist and grabs the other end*

Jaune: *Starts whining*

----------------- 

Jaune: Dear diary *ignores Neo’s pointing and silent laughter* today is day 17 on the worst island to ever exist. Butthole and I -- OW, SHIT-FUCK-SHIT! I really hate that you sharpened your stick into a spear! Fine, Neo and I finally have a a good system in place for food. We’ve got our firepit, Neo turned my armor we found into a pan, one pot and a skillet, my impeccable home economics have saved our asses and we’ve got a spit for roasting things over the fire!

Neo: *Munches happily on roast rabbit*

Jaune: It’s really working out! Neo’s great at the spotting and tracking, I get to use the spear to hunt and there’s plenty of these really stupid semi-intelligent rabbits that seem to have a language of their own that are really good when you cook ‘em just right. *Pauses* I think they might have stolen my shirt though, I haven’t seen that thing in like four days.

Neo: *Mentally reminds herself to burn the eye candy’s shirt before he finds it*

-----------------

Day 28

Jaune: Ow, stop kicking me! I said I was sorry!

Neo: *Jumps on Jaune, bites his ear*

Jaune: AAAGGHH!!! Dammit Neo, how many times do I have to tell you not to bite me! It’s not my fault that seagull stole your hat! In case you hadn’t noticed, it stole Pyrrha’s sash too!

Neo: *Jumps off him, gestures emphatically*

Jaune: I know, you angry little troll! *Instead of attacking him again, Neo just stares at him sadly* I-I... *sighs* I know. I know. I really wanna kill that thing too. It’s...it’s all I had left of her too. All you had left of Torchwick. But we’re stuck here. We can’t find my friends and this island is huge.

Neo: *Nods unhappily*

Neo: *Jabs him with her stick spear*

Jaune: Yeah, we can kill any seagulls we see. *Neo blinks, considers trying to get her point across but nods*

-----------------

Day 49

Jaune: How do you set everything on fire! I told you we needed just enough to warm ourselves!

Neo: *Lunges at Jaune, leaves fire to burn*

Jaune: *Is strangled*

-----------------

Day 54

Neo: *Admires Jaune’s ass in jorts*

Jaune: I still don’t understand why you had to ruin my jeans. Tossing the boots into that bottomless pit, I get. My feet thank you. Uh, except when I keep stepping on sharp rocks and twigs. But really?

Neo: *Points at him, hand fans herself and panics, shaking her head rapidly*

Jaune: *Oblivious, insulted* Yeah, yeah, I’m sweaty! Fine, fuck having pant legs! I wanna get scratched and bitten by those weird little blue people again!

Neo: *Blinks, shakes her head in exasperation and relief*

-----------------

Day 59

Jaune: I can’t believe you committed genocide because those blue people stole your top! Neo, they just wanted a tent!

Neo: *Glares murderously at Jaune, covering her frilly pink and white bra with her hand and arm*

Jaune: *Gulps* I-I-I-I know! It’s upsetting, but murder isn’t always the answer!

Neo: *Uses free hand and makes bunny ears*

Jaune: Hey, those rabbits might be really stupid but they’re super mean spirited! One tried to drop a rock on my head and don’t you dare say it’d be an improvement!

Neo: *Startled, laughs*

Jaune: *Sheepish, laughs too*

Neo: *Continues laughing, eventually noticing Jaune has stopped and is red in the face, wide eyed*

Neo: *Notices she moved her arm and Jaune is staring at her chest*

Jaune: *Notices Neo’s glare and red face* W-wait, hold on a minute now, I didn’t mean to--

Neo: *Glomps, bites his nipple*

Jaune: *Girlish screams that can be heard for miles*

-----------------

Day 72

Jaune: No, put the berries down. You can’t just keep eating fruit all the time, you’re already very small and need to keep yourself healthy if you don’t wanna lie rotting as a corpse on this island forever.

Neo: *Grabs a huge handful of berries, shoves them in her mouth smugly*

Jaune: Dammit Neo, stop being so bratty! I’m only trying to help! *Grabs Rabbit jerky* Now do your body good, open your mouth and eat my meat!

Neo: *Gags, chokes, spits mushy berries out and kicks Jaune in the solar plexus for the phrasing*

Jaune: *Wheezing* I swear I didn’t mean to OH X-RAY AND VAV, SAVE ME!

Nearby Seagull: *Hearing the abyssal, shrieking screams of the Tall One, flies off in terror and decides to move the family nest*

Neo: *Biting, kicking, punching and pinching*

-----------------

Day 88

Jaune: I can hardly shave Neo, if you don’t remember my sword’s a jagged piece of sharp metal these days!

Neo: *Shows off shaved armpits, shows off shaved legs having long since created shorts from her capris and shows him a wooden knife*

Jaune: I should be concerned that you’ve created another stabby, but somehow -- GASP! *Actually gasps, clutches his beard* No! You wouldn’t!

Neo: *Grins*

Jaune: Please don’t, beloved friend of mine.

Neo: *Touched*

Jaune: What? We are. I mean sure you bite and attack me way more than most normal people do but you did save me from that rabbit mercenary group that tried to use a swinging log to splatter my brains against a tree. You might’ve been a bad guy once, but it’s nearly been three months and you’ve more than proven yourself. And I can’t really not call you a friend when I feel guilty about how I treated you.

Neo: *Smiles, undoes her bra*

Jaune: Wait, WHAT!? *Neo jumps on him and smiling happily, gives his cheek a kiss and starts shaving* WAIT NEO NO, THAT’S NOT FAIR YOU CAN’T USE BOOBIES AS A WEAPON LIKE THA- *Neo shakes her body side to side* -GGRRRGGG! That is so cruel. You’re the worst friend ever. I’m glad you have to sit on my ribs and not my lap because that would be even worse.

Neo: *Continues shaving*

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Day 146

Jaune: *Using his semblance* See, what’d I tell you? They get smarter! No way are those little demons gonna fall for the same trap twice.

Neo: *Lets Jaune heal the bloody bite marks from a rabbit, squirms*

Jaune: Stop it, you’re fine. *Kisses healed hand* Booboo be gone!

Neo: *Blushes brightly, stares wide eyed*

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Day 179

Neo: *Spinkicks boulder about to crush Jaune*

Jaune: Thanks Neo! *To a small, derpy looking anthropomorphic rabbit* Your wretched plan is foiled you vile creature from the deepest pits of hell! Now do me a favor and get stabbed!

Neo: *Spins away, clutching her beating heart as the sound of a vicious goring occurs*

Jaune: Another day, another dead rabbit! Oh look, there’s more! *Offers the Spear of Ultimate Stick to Neo* You wanna eviscerate the next couple?

Neo: *Wonders what this feeling is*

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Day 187

Jaune: *Gaping stupidly at Neo’s perfectly lit fire* W-wha? How!? Two months ago you lit my hair on fire *brushing hand through short, unstyled blondeness* but n-now...

Neo: *Smugly roasting bird meat*

Jaune: *Scoops Neo into a hug, spins the wide eyed mute* I understand how Dad felt when I finally learned to tie my shoes in the 6th grade now! I’m so proud, Neo! OW!

Neo: *Spits Jaune’s shoulder blood out, turns away blushing*

Jaune: Still proud. *Notices Neo blushing, deliberately not looking at him* Uh-oh. *Quietly, to himself* Oh no. I recognize this feeling. Ohhh shit. Okay, what the hell Jaune!? You see her boobs and you feel awkward about your boner for three days, but she looks all cute and embarrassed and that’s what does me in!? What kind of bullshit is this!?

Neo: *Oblivious, cupping her cheeks and cutely twisting back and forth*

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Day 219

Jaune: AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Neo: *Silently screaming at the top of her lungs*

Jaune: OH MY GOD NEO WHY THE FUCK IS HE SO BIG!? *Looks fearfully back at a 12 foot tall, musclebound, derpy looking anthroporphic rabbit sprinting at them with rage in its unthinking eyes*

Neo: *Frantically mimes stabbing*

Jaune: NEO, WHAT THE FUCK, I THINK HE’S TOO SWOLE FOR HUSHABYE!!!

Neo: *Heart flutters at Jaune’s name for their spear*

Giant Rabbit: ▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅!

Jaune: *Ears ringing*

Neo: *Points at Jaune’s crotch, mimes stabbing*

Jaune: *Pales* THAT’S PROBABLY THE MOST EVIL THOUGHT YOU’VE EVER HAD IN YOUR LIFE! *Neo pouts, mimes it again* I’M JUST SAYING, NOT JUDGING, LET’S DO IT! *Uses semblance*

Neo: *Commits murder most foul*

Jaune: *Whips out the wooden knife* I’M SO SORRY FOR THIS, YOU OVERGROWN FREAK OF NATURE! *Jumps on the screaming body of the mutated rabbit, starts stabbing*

~~5 Minutes Later~~

Jaune: *Covered in blood, wipes forehead* Phew. Killing something this big really takes it out of you.

Neo: *Covered in blood, staring at Jaune wide eyed*

Jaune: Kind of a shame he looks basically human. Save for his stupid head, I guess, because I kinda don’t wanna eat anything that’ll make me feel too cannibally. *Puts hand on chin, blood drips* But I kinda think this is like the Final Boss of those rabbits. Maybe chop his head off and put on a pike like you did with that poor little blue guy that seemed to be the other blue people’s chief? *Nods resolutely* Yeah, gotta establish dominance and fear in those godless little fucks. *Looks at Neo* What do you think, NeeeMMMMPPPHHH!!!

Neo: *Glomps Jaune, shoves her tongue into his mouth*

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Day 237

Neo: Gakgh gakgh gakgh!

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Day 243

Jaune: Oh god, yeah, fuck yeah, you like that don’t you? *Grabs Neo’s hair*

Neo: *Likes that very much*

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Day 249

Jaune: *Waggles knife* So, uh, aim for the kidneys?

Neo: *Nods emphatically*

Jaune: Huh. I guess I’ll test it out on Cinder. Thanks honey. *Kisses cheek*

Neo: *Swoons*

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Day 251

Jaune: *Naked, washing grumpy Neo’s hair* I really mean it! I am so sorry. Just, well, uh...okay, you give amazing head and I wasn’t expecting you to go for the balls. Or, uh, the other thing, but well, um *sighs* look, the taint thing was just really unexpected and I’m really sorry I came in your hair! *Blushes*

Neo: *Can’t help but be proud, leans into his hands*

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Day  268

Jaune: Is there no end to your flexibility!? *Chokes on air* Nope. Guess not.

Neo: *Doing the splits smugly*

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Day 274

Jaune: And that is why, despite what people say, Immortal Konflict is superior to Road Combatant!

Neo: *Nods seriously*

Jaune: Wanna play when we get back to Remnant, maybe after we kill Salem in her sleep or something?

Neo: *Nods excitedly*

Jaune: You’re the best! *Kisses temple* Ow, why are you hitting me, I thought you liked kisses!?

Neo: *Liking forehead and temple kisses but not wanting to admit it*

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Day 296

Jaune: *Cumming inside*

Neo: *Toes curl, signing ‘I Love You’ over and over again*

Jaune: *Panting* God I love you too, Neo.

Neo: *Gapes, signs*

Jaune: *Panting decreases* Uh, yeah? My Dad has permanent hearing damage from his Huntsman days. Some chick had a mortar-giant cudgel-battering ram weapon and you can guess about how well that went.

Neo: *Signs more*

Jaune: I-- *realizes* ohhhh. I get it. Uh, I didn’t even think about it. You never signed so I figured you never learned. Ow, my ass!

Neo: *Stops pinching his ass, signs again but slower*

Jaune: *Blushes brightly* Um, yeah. I did. Is that-- *Neo flips him onto his back, kissing him and rocking her hips*

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Day 338

Jaune: *Contently holding Neo* This really was the last thing I expected to happen. *Neo nods as she leans into him* I...I don’t think I can ever really not miss Pyrrha, or despise Cinder from the bottom of my soul.

Neo: *Signs rapidly that she feels the same way, that she misses Roman*

Jaune: Yeah. I know. *Clears throat* But I think it’s okay. I mean I didn’t expect this to happen, but I’m glad it did. *Snuggling occurs* We’re gonna get out of here. We’re putting Cinder in the dirt. Then we’re gonna do the same to Salem. Then buy a house.

Neo: *Signs*

Jaune: I’ve kinda been a country boy my whole life. It’s up to you *is headbutted* OW! *Neo rubs the back of her aching head, signs, Jaune rubs his chin* Then it’s decided.

*Enjoying each others presence*

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Day 362

Weiss: Actually, the amount of slashes in the trees could just mean some new terrible creature of ridiculous origin could have made this area of the forest its stomping grounds.

Blake: *Flatly* As long it’s not the flying piranhas with steel teeth that drip acid, I’m fine.

Ruby: *Shudders* Please don’t remind me! I’m suppressing, Blake! Do you want to ruin fish sticks and mustard for me!?

Blake: *Grimaces* Yes.

Yang: *Ignores the bickering* Not gonna lie Weiss, after that giant crocodile with the crown and the cape and the penguin with the hammer, something a little more normal and horrific sounds just like home. *Adjusts cheetah print bikini, shifts hips under her grass skirt*

Weiss: *Eyebrow twitches* Right. Home. Which you clearly miss. *Eyes Yang’s flawless tan*

Yang: Huh? Well, yeah! Not to devalue the disaster we have waiting for us when we get back but I’m dying for a cheeseburger and a *in singsong* Strawberry Sunrise!

Ruby: *Cutting off Weiss and ignoring a fuming Blake* It could be Jaune though!

Weiss: Yes, possibly, but you have to consider the fact-- *Steps around tree, goes silent at the sounds*

Neo: *In a mating press clutching her feet, biting her lip and then silently moaning*

Jaune: *Going so hard he’s clapping Neo’s cheeks*

Weiss: --that maybe those living, spiny fruits got us again and we’re all on a very bad trip. *Can’t look away but wants to*

Ruby: *Blushes furiously*

Blake: *Covers nose, turns away*

Yang: I really wanna be there for our boy but *ignores Jaune’s cursing, Neo’s nodding and Jaune pushing in deep and creampieing the silently screaming mute* a really big part of me wants to punch him in his stupid face. Really!? Her!?

Blake: *Muffled* You sure you’re not just salty that it’s Neo?

Jaune: *Awkwardly, wide eyed but happy* Oh. Guys. Hey! Hi! *Weiss screeches as Jaune stands, Neo breathes heavily but grins smugly*

Yang: Nope. Not at all. *Clenching fist*

-----------------

Day 363

Yang: Okay. I’m cool with whole... *gestures at Neo and Jaune holding hands*  thing, because honestly I’d have to be a condescending and arrogant bitch to look down on you because of that, but really?

Ruby: Yang has a point, little blue people and psychotic but also really stupid rabbits and their super-duper-strong Daddy Rabbit? And you killed them alllll oh wow. *Staring at something that Jaune pulled from a bag* That’s a weird looking skull. *Whispering* Why does he have a skull!? Oh no, Neo really did corrupt him and not just with that!

Yang: *Gapes, recovers slowly, sarcastically* She is such a good influence on you Jaune.

Jaune: *Grinning* I know, right? I mean imagine if Neo wasn’t here with me! I probably would’ve survived but I would’ve been so depressed that I’d probably be coming back eyeless and with a ton of PTSD! And maybe a quirky catchphrase!

Yang: Because that’s important. *Rolls eyes* Besides, you couldn’t pull off a catchphrase to save your life.

Jaune: *Face goes slack, contorts stupidly in a scream* BWAAAAH!

Team RWBY: *Jerks*

Neo: *Bites Jaune’s pinky*

Jaune: OW-OW-OW! Take a joke, Neo!

Yang: No, yeah, pretty much on the shrimp’s side.

Weiss: I have no idea what that was but never do it again.

Blake: *Forgives Jaune and Neo for their crusade against the rabbits*

Ruby: *Giggling at the derp face Jaune made*

Jaune: Fine, fine, you win. *Pouting* Using their war cry would have been so insulting to their memory though.

Neo: *Smiling, kisses Jaune’s cheek, signs that he’s a big baby*

Weiss: Getting back to the point though, we didn’t think Jaune would be in nearly as good shape as he’s in now. In that regard I feel we owe Neopolitan a good deal of gratitude.

Blake: And like it or not Yang, having her not just be an enemy of Salem but actually on our side?

Yang: Yeah, well--

Ruby: Plus he’s happy! And I think he kind of needs it. *Sadly* We all do. A-and if Neo is what makes him happy, then I think I’m happy too.

Jaune: *Touched* Rubes...

Ruby: It hurts, Jaune. But I can’t imagine...well, I can’t imagine if it were me. So it’ll take time but the best thing I can do here is be happy for you and get us outta here! *Pumps fist*

Neo: *Signs rapidly*

Jaune: *Grins* And make Cinder and Salem unalive! And in the days leading to that, make them wish they were already dead!

Ruby: *Uncomfortable at the bloodlust* Umm...

Yang: Ah fuck it, you speak my language like that and I can’t stay mad at you! Let’s do it! *Slaps Blake’s ass*

Blake: *Yelps, blushes and glares at Yang* Is this really the time for that!?

Weiss: *Rubbing the bridge of her nose with her eyes squeezed shut* Ah, the onset of a pounding headache. Truly the gang is back together again.

----------------- 

Day 365

Jaune: Kinda conveniant that exactly one year after falling into the mythical island of who knows where we find ourselves back in the real world, isn’t it?

Neo: *Hand on her hip, staring at him*

Yang: I’m with the midget. *Grass skirt swishes* Are you really about to complain we’re free of that hellhole?

Weiss: They have a point. After everything we fought there you’d think you would be more appreciative.

Jaune: I am. It just seemmmmpph! *Is kissed by Neo*

Neo: *Happily shuts Jaune up*

Ruby: Alright, let’s do this!

*Action pose except Yang’s tan, in a cheetah fur bikini and a grass skirt, Jaune has a handful of Neo’s ass and Neo is grabbing Jaune by the hair, clearly using tongue and Hushabye is aimed in a slightly red faced Blake’s direction*

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I got the chance to see the RWBY finale today and rather than be depressed and think about Penny, I decided I’d go ahead and write a Silent Knight fic instead. It’s all over the place but really, that’s to be expected since I went in with no plan. I know people are already bitching over on Reddit about Jaune possibly getting attention, but like with most people who dislike a character I decided to pay them no mind whatsoever.

Because honestly, with Dragonslayer never happening I’d be perfectly fine with Jaune x Neo.

As for this entire thing, I had way more fun with it than I should have and I hope anyone reading it has just as much fun as I did writing it.

Oh. And yes, there were plenty of Rabbids and Smurfs harmed in the creation of this lengthy drabble.