#I'm sorry to those folks if it's not I'm just so desperate | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sil-te-plait-tue-moi · 8 months

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The idler wheel is wiser than the driver of the screw.

Quick summary: After one too many drinks, you find yourself unable to think of anything but a certain smart-mouth detective who is in desperate need of a release.

Word count: 11K (I'm sorry)

Warnings: This is basically just SMUTT with a lil feelings (if you squint) sprinkled in there; kind of angsty at points (mentions of canon-typical death and violence (hellooo they're homicide detectives); gets a bit existential at points, watch out; pretentious.

A/N: YAY! I had this obsession with True Detective S1 all throughout October (watched it at my nan's house lmao), so enjoy the lovechild of that. This is just for fun, so, please, nobody be angry at me if they don't agree with Rust's characterisation, or any of the weird philosophical chat, lalallalal, OKAY ENJOY!!

***

The night air is sluggish and humid with the remnants of a warm summer’s rain, pressing down thickly, close, clogging, simmering just below the surface.

A few times, I’ve interviewed people who live in these sorts of places: motel-types, the “in-between”, where folks stay when they’ve either got no money, no choice or nobody. Other residents include passers-by who’re looking to save money on accommodation, skipping on the fancier places. Not that Louisiana really has any “fancier places”. Places without the paint peeling off walls like dead skin, I guess. A bed and breakfast in the nicer suburbia, with a view overlooking a subpar daydream of a ghost town centre.

I’ve leaned up against the crooked, metal railing, felt the influence of my weight almost sending it and myself crashing down onto the faded parking lot beneath. I’ve leaned up there—after knocking—and waited, waited for a grey face to peer through a crack in the cracked door. I’ve smiled and remarked about how the beat-up, brass numbers up there are hanging by a thread. Sometimes, people are real stingy – they slink out and close the door behind them, or they remain in that little slit, just an eye visible, or they plain shut it in my face. Most let me in right away, maybe a little intimidated by the shiny badge clipped up in my jacket – I’ve sat across from ‘em, felt that mud in the room’s air seep into my pores, inviting me under its still swamp.

Seems like the sort of place for him.

Too many a fuckin’ time, Marty’s come grumbling and muttering into the office kitchen, rolling his eyes, scoffing, huffing, the whole lot. And when I ask him why the strop?—“Ancient fuckin’ philosopher fuckin’ Rust Cohle on it again. Birthday’s comin’ up: get me earplugs and a generous bit o’ duct tape for my dear partner over there, would you?”

Or somethin’ along those lines.

For all his apparent talk about us silly, little “biological puppets”, this seems like Rust’s sort of place. Temporary existence, temporary living. Purgatory?

Whatever.

If you ask me, Rust Cohle’s head is so far up his own ass that it’s no wonder his outlook on life is so dark.

If I was more sober, maybe I’d be thinking about it—about him—less—but this night out has had me so drunk I was maybe even hallucinating at some point. Rust?—sure, he’s been in the back of my mind for some part of the last few months – I have to see him most days I go to work, don’t I? – but, sometime in the space between my third and fourth shot of straight vodka, he was suddenly at the very front of it. I’d seen a guy who smoked like him: cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, a simple, deep drag. I’d thought it was him, but then I realised his face was shrouded in the smoke that he’d exhaled, and I recalled that Rust never seems to do that. Never seems to exhale. All the tar and shit stays in.

With a twist of my keys, the engine rumbles off into more-or-less silence. Fuck, it’s a bad idea, yes, just being here. If he likes to keep his distance, well—he’s entitled to that choice.

I glance over my shoulder, out the window, out at the complex which is all yellow and shining, illuminated by buzzing halogen light bars and, of course, the occasional bug zapper. It’s clean enough. The lines of this parking space were white enough. Apartment 11A, said Marty. Second floor.

“Are you drunk?” he’d asked – Marty, not Rust.

I’d replied, “No,” pressing closer to the phone box in attempts to remove myself from the swarm and bustle of the ladies’ bathroom. And it was an honest reply. Sort of. Despite his scepticism, by that time, I’d long stopped drinking, and all that remained from it was a sort of numb tingle in my fingertips—as far as I was concerned.

I don’t think I’d be in this parking lot, stepping out of my car, if I wasn’t still a little bit gone.

Marty’s sigh had crackled through the receiver. “Don’t bring any o’ tha’ party-this-party-that attitude to ‘im, alright? He’ll hate it.” I’d told him okay, my stomach spiking up with excitement. “Fact is, I don’t think you should go at all. ‘f you do, should be a work matter. This a work matter, detective?”

I’d lied, said yes, perhaps with a slur to my voice.

He clicked his tongue. “Okay, buck, whatever you say.” Then, he’d hung up.

There was something disapproving in the manner of the conversation. I got the feeling that he was talking to me in the same voice he used to lecture his daughters. The only reason I’d called him was to get something from him, sure, so that I could basically get something from Rust, his partner. I could see how that sort of thing might’ve upset someone. Not that Marty Hart should have any right to judge, not when he’s coming into work in the same clothes as the day before, stinking of sweat and God knows what. The unsaid agreement of everyone in the office is to turn a blind eye. I’ve met his wife. Someone should cut off his damn dick.

Quiet, now. Hell, who am I to talk? Marty’s fun to chat with, makes a slow day at the office a little brighter. ‘Course, there’s rarely a slow day at the office.

And I’m at the top of the stairs, now. And I knock—one, two, three—on the pilling, forest-green door. Dulled down 11A. Blinds are determinedly shut, slats flat. For a second, I think maybe I’ll be waking him.

Then I remember Rust doesn’t sleep.

A grey face appears as the door swings just a little ways open, grave and sunken-tired. His expression isn’t so pissed-off as it is just his usual expression.

“Rusty,” I say to him with a small nod, words scraping out dryly.

He doesn’t respond right away – ‘stead, he leans his body out partway, eyes absent like he’s searching for some hooligan criminal in the night.

“Marty told you my address?” he asks lowly. It’s more a statement than anything, but I amuse him with a nod anyways. There’s a cigarette flaring up between his fingers. His hand twitches a little like he’s wanting to take a drag, but his eyes are fixed on my shoes, now, like he’s still coming to terms with the fact I’m a foreign body in his domain.

My toes curl up tight in my shoes – there’s that prick of anticipation again. Ice-cold, you could easily mistake it as dread.

Rust doesn’t exactly subject me to an imploring look—not really his style—but he bows his head down just slightly – that’s sign enough for me. He wants to know why I’m here, and he no doubt wants to know the quickest way to be rid of me.

I sigh. I ask him.

My body trembles, and he notices it, records it, stores it away for later reference, for some other time he’ll find that it and me will contribute to his purpose.

Rust has a face of stone. I get to know it well as I search for a sign there that might let me know what lies beneath. But, of course, a statue is solid through and through. Sharp angles and smooth planes carved hollow. If he’s cold to the touch, I’d like to reach out and be sure. Is he cold where a man ought to be warm? Christ, it makes my pulse jump just to think about it.

There is no greater purpose or cruel intention underlying my words, as far as I’m concerned. Rust, however, lingers there, with his arm up on the door, barricading the entrance, while he peels back and flits over every layer of possible meaning, his attention fixed absently on my left ear.

He then looks at me—briefly—in the eyes, with a sort of paralysing intensity. Even the tingling in my fingers ceases to be.

It takes a moment, pregnant with the chorus of cicadas, crickets and other night-creatures, before he steps back neatly to allow me in.

The door clicks softly behind me as I enter into a room that’s bare as bare can be.

Rust grunts, coming up around me and into the kitchen area. “Want anything?” he mumbles around his cigarette, other hand shoved in his pocket. He’s still half-dressed in his work clothes, his tie strewn on the counter, his blazer slumped over a rickety picnic chair perched up in front of a wall of crime scenes and dead bodies. My eyes linger there—how can they not?

“A beer,” I tell him, still looking at those photographs, then at the stacks upon stacks of books. Philosophy, ethics, religion. Names I’d expect only those with PhDs to know.

“Don’t think you’ve had ‘nuff to drink already?”

I shoot him a look. “I think I can handle it, Rust.” He straightens up, raises his brow. I snort, reasoning, “I’ll only have one.”

“One,” he agrees, opening up the fridge and having a rummage around.

White walls and all of them empty, like some sort of psych ward. Half-sure Rust actually did do some time in that type of care, though, so—shouldn’t make any quips about that. I don’t want him thinking I think he’s crazy – he gets enough of that, I’m sure.

Back at my place, though, I’ve got posters or drawings or paintings up around every corner. My niece’s drawing of a mermaid sits on my dresser, and photographs of my family are displayed in the hallway. One up by the TV, I painted myself when I was in high school. About two years after I graduated, they asked if I wanted my portfolio back, and I’d obviously said yes. And I love my stuff! Some ‘cause it’s pretty, others because of memories and whatnot. Guess some people don’t have that creative trait, or they lose it. Or maybe they detest the sentiments, those strings that have been, are and will be attached to things. When my cousin broke up with her boyfriend, she cut her hair and burned his clothes. “I just want to forget him,” she’d snarled. I’d sputtered a laugh into my tea.

Rust plants a Corona down on the counter, already cracked open.

There’s no mirror in here either – I can’t check whether I look as desperate as I feel. When I focus back on him, Rust is taking a swig from his own beer, turning to glance at the crucifix pinned above the messy mattress on the floor. Huh. Didn’t peg him as a Christian.

His honey-blond hair doesn’t look cold to the touch, that’s for sure ‘n’ certain. Wonder if he just wakes up like that or what. Once, Marty had been teasing him at work, even cracking a smile out of the old guy. “Ain’t them just the prettiest curls y’ever seen, buck?” he’d remarked, nudging into me, cooing at him. Silently, in my head, even then, I’d agreed: prettiest curls I’d ever seen. Rust hadn’t looked up to chart my reaction, but, if he had, he’d maybe have seen my fidgeting fingers or hitch of breath. Or maybe he felt it, heard it.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this,” I offer pathetically through a nervous smile.

He blinks, takes another swig, leaning over the counter that separates us. “No, y’aint.”

Jesus, I have to turn my head and shut my eyes for a second. I don’t particularly believe in God, but I ask Him to please give me the strength to resist my urges and act like a normal damn person for at least a few more minutes. And then I apologise for only praying out of convenience. In the face of temptation. This is why people shouldn’t drink – still, doesn’t stop me from downing a good part of my beer.

I turn to the wall and try to turn myself off a little bit. It’s not hard – Rust still has Dora Lange (rest her soul) pinned up on his wall, naked, blue, stiff. I don’t want to know why, so I don’t ask him.

His eyes are adamant on the side of my head. Funny how he never seems to look at me at the same time I’m looking at him. Pisses me off a lot of the time – not just him, but in general. A lot of people share this same fear of not being heard, not being listened to and not being cared about. Men in particular, I’ve noticed, have a tendency to raise their voice over others’, to yell or shout or hit things or push ‘n’ shove. Marty’s that way – a lot of men at the precinct are, too. Women who are raised to be the listeners sometimes act out in the same way, frustrated at all the things they have to care about that men don’t, burdened with manners and politeness. I used to hate having to listen, to wait for the man who interrupted me to finish speaking. Rust always lets people finish their point, for better and for worse. Pisses me off in a different type of way. I can feel his judgement seeping out of him, so potent that’s it’s tangible, lapping at my feet.

He doesn’t push and shove – he’s a listener, too. Of course, he has that male privilege where his silence has a gravity, a magnetic pull, where mine is simply as is. At least he pays attention. Sure, on the surface, it might look like he doesn’t care at all, hunched over a case file at his desk, back turned to me and the rest of the lot, but proximity has its power – assigned workspaces put with his personality, and he knows what’s like and unlike me better than my sister. He’s reading into my refusal to talk, to face him – unlike me.

“So, you’ve given this some thought, then,” Rust says matter-of-factly, and my tummy bubbles up.

I snicker nervously, heart racing. God, I’d expected surprise, disbelief, outright refusal, maybe even a little disgust, but, when I manage to turn around and look at his face again, it just seems to me like a calmness. Stoicism found in the affirmation, maybe, of his expectations. It’s like I’m walking right into one of those little theories of his: a proved hypothesis.

I take another sip from my beer, feeling too shy for my liking. “Well, yeah,” I drawl, slumping over the kitchen counter and propping my chin up to look right back at him in a surge of liquid confidence. “I always think ‘fore I do anything that’s anything, Rust.”

Almost immediately, he retreats, standing up straight and resting the small of his back against the lip of the sink behind him. He hums, glances away. “We both know that’s a lie,” he combats, hands tucked into his pockets, chin tilted up, eyes down. A mouthful of beer numbs the sting of rejection. “What you mean is you think you can justify all your decisions. You think you can justify why you knocked on my door and said what you said—” he elaborates quietly, eliciting a snort from me, “—but, at the end o’ the day, all your decisions boil down to what you feel is right, not what is right.”

“‘n' you think you ‘n’ you alone know what’s right?”

Slate-grey eyes flit up and down my face, like I’m a specimen on a slide.

“I think that the girl who’s stumbled up on a fella’s door asking him to fuck her is less inclined to know, without bias, what’s right, yes.”

I swallow thickly, sucking the remaining flavour of beer off of my tongue before going in for another swig.

Christ.

Not a single bat of his eyes. Not a quiver of his mouth, not a twitch to his nose, not a morsel of natural, human hesitation. Does he have to be so crass? I did the courtesy of making it palatable, at least to my own ears, with a euphemism. But when have I ever known Rust Cohle to water anything down? No drink I’ve ever consumed will match his body’s preference of alcohol content. He’s nursing his beer close to his chest, but who knows what poisons lay dormant in these cabinets?

“Rusty,” I say lowly, maybe asking for a break – I close my eyes for just a second, part because I couldn’t bear it if I caught some sort of disapproval on his face, and part because it’s just past two o’clock in the morning.

Late nights have consumed my life recently, what with that sicko rapist connected to a Christian fertility cult. Children of God – “go forth and multiply”. His confession had turned my blood cold. Johansson had offered to sit in the box instead, but I did it anyway. I went home and cried over it, then came into work the next day to talk to some press and then receive my new assignment.

He hums, taking a drag from his cigarette, swallowing the smoke down. Rust knows how it is. To be honest, I’m probably the one who doesn’t know the half of it. One night at the office, he’d casually confessed to his insomnia, like he was just commenting on the state of the weather ‘n’ nothin’ else. So, I guess I won’t pretend to get it.

I gnaw on the inside of my cheek. “Are you into that whole abstinence thing?”

The weak light above flickers gently as he pauses, turns the question over in his mind. Anyone else would’ve surely laughed.

“I believe that man is susceptible to desire, yes—but he can resist it and its consequences should his willpower be stronger than the false promises posed by that temptation.

I snort again, because, now, I really am tipsy, and I can’t hold in my attitude any longer. It’s not that I think he’s lost it or whatever. It’s just—he’s so—objectively—absurd. Well—“objectively”. He’s got points, but those points lose all meaning in the spiralling darkness of overthought and deep contemplation wherein he’ll explain that everything really means nothing—and he’ll be right about that, sure, but also unintentionally prove a point about himself. I’d ask him what it means when, in a world where everything means nothing, a child will give their friend a flower found on the way to school, but I feel like his answer would be too morbid for my liking. Does that make me an unreliable source? The fact that I want to live?

He's absurd. He’s also a little bit awry in the head. Don’t know what he’s lost or what he’s lookin’ for, but it’s not a good look on him. He’s honest, yes – that’s a good trait. But honesty without kindness is cruelty. And he is kind – underneath, he’s kind, and I know that because of how hard he works to weed out evil people in this world, most times at his own risk. That’s kindness, albeit unconventional, whether he realises it or not.

The kindness almost cancels out his arrogance.

“So, what?” I challenge under the guise of a teasing grin. “You can go mouthin’ off for hours on end about how up themselves religious people and all’at are, but you can’t draw the similarities between their philosophy and your philosophy? How does that work, Rust?”

While I was working that Children of God nightmare of a case, he just couldn’t seem to restrain himself – every bullshit word that left him revealed to me his hubris. Now, I’m not angry, and he’s not stupid – we’re not arguing. In fact, he seems intrigued, lean body shifted toward me. He sets his beer down on the counter, crosses his arms over his chest after securing his cigarette between his lips, and lowers his head as if to listen to me better.

I sigh, continue. “D’you know what I think? I think you oversimplify humanity. You’re a great detective—‘nd I guess you know it—and, within the confines of your job, it serves you well, makes you good in the box. But your assumptions are too general. People are who they are, sure, but they also decide to be those people. By their environment and those who surround ‘em, people make the decisions that define ‘em. A lot of the time, their circumstances ain’t fair. People born into badness are trapped by the badness—either physically, or up in their heads—and they have a tough time escapin’ it.”

Rust inhales the smoke again, the only evidence of it happening being the soft whisp that curls away from his nose. I wonder to myself how his lungs are still standing.

“‘s that how you explain that—homicide case you’re workin’ on?” Three-year-old boy died of neglect, his siblings found locked in cabinets, one in a dog cage, by their mother and stepfather. Rust’s eyes flash silver. “Killer had a tough time?”

Asshole.

I narrow my eyes dangerously. “Don’t be mean, Rusty,” I scold, and he blinks in concession. “I think evil exists. I think it’s complicated. I think you summarise things that ought not to be summarised.”

He’s silent for a heartbeat. Then, his hand comes up to pinch away his cigarette, and he waves it in a small flourish, explaining, “When I say “people”, I mean society. Human culture.”

“Last I checked, Rust, you don’t know everybody on the planet. You don’t know their “culture”, or experiences.” That seems to shut him up. My eyes wander to his broad shoulders, trail along the meat of his arms beneath the cheap, polyester shirt that hugs close to the muscle, and they linger there like the quiet that settles between us.

He nods slowly, once. “Our decisions define us?”

I bob my head, unabashedly staring at the elegant column of his throat, his neck, and the stretch of tan skin that is settled beneath the white undershirt revealed by the first one, two, three buttons which have recently been undone.

He’s quieter when he asks me, “Well, how does this decision define you, then?” There’s nothing malicious about the way he says it, or even lustful – just a calm curiosity.

“Ain’t it obvious?” I grin again, laugh a little, blush hotly. “I’m horny!” I hide my face in my shoulder, trying to compose the hiccups of laughter in my stomach. “I’m sorry,” I snicker, wiping my palm over my brow, my eyes. “This probably isn’t very attractive to you.”

“You’re a very pretty girl,” he replies. He mutters my name solemnly, like we’re in a formal meeting or something.

I glance up, check whether he’ll offer me eye contact again, but he doesn’t – he’s staring at the wall, lost.

I scoff. “You’re a very pretty guy, Rust.”

God willing, none of the boys at the precinct will ever find out about this. If Marty lets it slip that I even asked for Rust’s address, then I’ll never hear the end of it. Worse, everyone’ll think I’m dead-gone over him. Guess I don’t really fit the standards expected of women around here: “wife”, or “whore”. Or “dead”. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously going about pretending I’m not interested in sex at all. Once sex comes into the equation, I’ll be reduced to that and nothing else.

Anxious, I start flicking up under my fingernails. Is Rust already starting to think those things, too? I’m a great detective, but that’s the only capacity in which he’s really known me.

I wring the neck of my bottle. “I should explain—”

He holds his hand up, stating, “I don’t need you to. Do you feel the need to?”

Curious, wary, I watch his face, a blank slate. Still waters run deep. My eyes drift down, to where his hands are together in front of him, one relaxed beside him the other curled around his wrist with two fingers resting on the pulse.

“No,” I reply.

“You thought it over,” he says, eyes tilting up at the ceiling, aloof, bored, maybe. His words are sort of monotone, like he’s reciting a passage from a book that he’s just recently read: “You chose me because you know me. You haven’t been sleeping well. You’re stressed, you’re scared, you’re frustrated.” He blinks. “You’re attracted to me due to some—unfortunate trigger beyond your control in the reptilian part of your brain.” Brief as the flicker of a candle in a still room, he looks over me, brow raised slightly as if daring me to tell him that he’s wrong. He pauses again, takes a short puff. “It makes you think I can take care o’ your needs.”

Look at the state of him: sallow and wilting on the inside. Reducing me down to a sentence or two, and being right about it.

“Well, can you?” I ask weakly, feeling small. He looks over me, blinks blankly. “How do you take care of your needs?” No reply. “You do have needs, don’t you?” I remark, tapping the rim of my bottle to my warm temple. “Programming ‘n’ whatnot.”

He tilts his head away in dismissal.

I smile, more to myself than to him. “Beat off in the shower, is it?”

For a second, Rust is still. My eyes grow heavy, admiring the strong profile of his nose. He then nods helplessly, like there’s no point in trying to lie.

I hum, a soft, self-satisfied smirk edging its way onto my face. “Must feel like a sin,” I snicker.

He squints slightly, like he disagrees with my logic, but does not interrupt to protest.

“I remember takin’ baths as a teenager and double-checkin’, triple-checkin’ I locked the door,” I confess. “Couldn’t take my time. ‘S that how it is for you, Rust?” I probe, tilting my head to the side, losing his eyes as quickly as I catch them. “You ever let yourself enjoy it? Let yourself want it—?”

“I don’t want it,” he snaps quietly.

“But your programmin’ says you do, right?” I point out, scrambling to hold onto the flaw in his argument. I search his face, my own bright, eager.

He quirks up a miraculous smile, and I myself burst into a wide grin. Still smiling—though, you’d have to admit, it’s such a strange sight, sort of gratifying, almost patronising—he shifts his weight between his feet, scratches at his nose with his pinkie, sniffs, takes a long drag of his dying cigarette. I know he must feel disjointed, though he doesn’t show it: he’s misstepped, and I’ve caught him. And how often does Rust Cohle misstep? I should’ve checked the news for a blue moon tonight.

Interested, now, is he? Breathing quietly, rolling his jaw – he’s entertaining the competition I have goin’ up in my head. From the looks of the gentle smirk on his face, he’s enjoying it, too.

“No,” he corrects with a dry husk to his voice. “No, I know what I want, and, when I think those things are necessary or useful, I know how to get them.”

In this type of context, I’d like to see him try. Though, he is an undeniably attractive man. Thick, solid all the way through, like a rich wood. But he’s got these brittle eyes: fraying.

He continues: “Most of the time, though, what we want is born out of dangerous feelings, like rage or lust. Ruminating on the consequences of those potential actions seems to me the more sensible thing to do than to just leave it and find out.” I sniff. “Desire is inescapable for most, including the sexual kind. I feel it—“ he eyes how I wriggle beneath my skin, “—you feel it. But it can be resisted. You’re lettin’ it dictate what you do ‘n’ say. If I do to you what you want me to, have you thought about how it might affect things down the line? Tomorrow, next week, next month—?”

“Yes,” I hiss, a little too emotionally, such that a gleam of satisfaction crosses his grey eyes at the strain and stretch of my voice. Christ. Desperate much?

I take several seconds to think before allowing myself to speak again, all while staring at him straight on and refusing to look away: I’d just die if I let him catch me out. “Well, how can you be sure of the fallout? How do you know the good won’t outweigh the bad? Not “you” specifically, but, also, yeah, “you” specifically. I can think about something morally ambiguous, and I can evaluate the potential consequences, and, just as you are satisfied to observe, I will decide to follow through with this somethin’ and deal with what I gotta deal.”

He sighs. “Because decisions define a person?”

I tuck my hair tight behind my ears. “Yes.”

And he hums – that beautiful noise resonates in my stomach before sinking down there, low, its weight a comfort. “I agree with you in that respect,” he admits.

A laugh erupts out of me like the sputter of an engine. Luckily, I’m easy to laughter – it’s like me, as is my genuine grin. “Rust Cohle’s agreein’ with me on somethin’?—Call the police!”

“We are the police,” he replies smartly, watching me snort and smile and grow flushed in the face. I feel very grateful to that beer – at least my giddiness can be blamed on the effects of alcohol and save me from embarrassment.

As I simmer down, he looks away, adds, “I agree to an extent. People all think that they’re one-of-a-kind. That they make these—amazing decisions. They speak and do and walk and play and work and fuck and eventually die – all of ‘em.”

“You’re part of the people,” I argue.

He hums, nodding in acceptance. “Yes.”

“If a person acts due to their instinct, whether it’s succumbing to it or fighting against it, then isn’t man simply his programming?” He lowers his head. “You can be aware of it, and you can be a part of it, too. Who are you to deny yourself the good parts?”

He fiddles with his cigarette, svelte fingers nimble and acute. I cross my legs, flex my hips; he notices.

“Because of the consequences,” he replies, a soft whisper.

I thought that everything meant fuck-all?

For someone who sees no meaning in life, he sure seems to spend a lot of time contemplating it. Here, I thought I’d have hot hands sliding all over me, gripping, spreading, pushing, but instead find myself defence in an unprecedented debate.

Rust is breathing slower, deeper, almost unable, now, to look me in the eyes, even look at me in general, whereas, before, it had been a choice, whether that choice be conscious or unconscious. His cigarette burns weakly in his fingers, forgotten. The muscle in his jaw flexes, his expression hollow.

My body buzzes with want, leaves me scrambling for breath like I’ve just run a race. I want. I want, I want, I want. The rough pads of his fingertips, the surest and most confident I’ll have ever known. Sharp tongue, quick and precise. Something about how he smells. All my compliments to pheromones – even in the heavy musk of the bar, I’d smelled him, ashy, warm, alive, and now it’s wreathing all around. Or maybe that’s just me – it’s like when you try to take someone’s pulse with your thumb, and all you’re feeling is your own heartbeat.

I want – my breath trembles with it.

“Rust,” I say softly. He shakes his head a little, looking away still, vulnerable like a wild animal. I sigh, gnawing at my lip. “I really want it. I—I’ve—it’s not just a rash decision,” I explain. “I’ve wanted it for a while, now.”

He shudders – I notice. “Since when?”

I huff out a sheepish laugh, fix my eyes on my restless hands. “You won’t remember it—”

“I will.”

His voice sounds clogged. It sobers me right up.

“A year back,” I tell him. “You were working at the office—late, in the dark. You called me, and I asked you why, and you said—it was because you were tired and thinkin’.” I glance up to check if he’s maybe looking, but he’s not – he’s turned his head even further away. The soft, gentle curls of his hair tempt me.

Blindly reaching for the bottle, securing it almost immediately, he finishes the rest of his beer, then sets it back down.

“I—” he begins, scratching his nose, “—I was—tired.” He pauses to re-thicken his voice. “And—thinking—”

He doesn’t finish his sentence, but the both of us know what he said that night: Of you. Thinking of you—of me .

My stomach flips, leaving me almost nauseous, just like it did when I first heard those words. At first, I thought I’d misheard, that I was so tired my mind was playing tricks on me. Then, I thought he was being cruel, or maybe he was drunk. Those two instances weren’t—aren’t—unlike him, but he never, ever calls to be mean or to be stupid. He’d been quiet and warm through the phone after that, a presence so thick I could’ve sworn he had his arms around me right then. I hadn’t slept well for a time, then, of course, and that made it all the more vivid. His voice had made me shiver all the way through as he told me he had to get back to work.

When I saw him the next morning, I couldn’t look at him. It was the first time I couldn’t, not wouldn’t. It was also the first time I felt him paying attention to me.

I shift, ask the question I’d wondered since that call: “Why?”

A pause.

Then: “You brought me coffee that morning,” he explains softly, speaking to the wall opposite. “I was—looking at the mug on my desk – it was yours. Green one you like to use.” He sniffs. “And…” He teeters on the precipice of that word but does not finish the thought.

Hmm. That’s something to think about. Rust Cohle thinking about me and not picking apart why and why he shouldn’t be. It had been a mindless enough gesture – it’s not unheard of me to be makin’ coffee for other people in the office, not because I have to but because I like to. For the people I can stand, that is: Johansson always, and him for me; Cathleen; Marty, when I’m not pissed off at him; and Rust, from time to time. Everybody knows that green mug is mine, though – nobody touches it, not even the boss. Rust reads far too much into things. Most of the time, he’s dead-on. I should’ve known from the moment I placed that coffee on his desk, from the sharpening of his eyes (that did not spare me a glance) that lingered on my lingering hand on his table, that he knew. Figured out something I hadn’t even quite figured out myself. Not until later that night.

I wonder if he’s ever thought of me when fucking his own hand. I wonder if he thinks about me sometimes, when he can’t sleep, in between horror stories and brutal blows and uncovering the secret truths of the universe. I do, sometimes.

When I push myself back to my feet, stand up, Rust’s attention springs back, and he watches me, looks at me.

Quietly, I relish in the satisfaction of his stare, crossing on light feet to toss my empty beer bottle in the bin. He steps aside to let me open the cupboard under the sink, his hand curled in a loose fist by his side. I’m not trying to tease him – I grant him the space he so clearly needs, retreating about five paces back, leaning slightly myself against the counter.

I could say anything right now, no matter how insane, and he’d treat it with total and utter respect. I could reveal to him the reaction my body has to seeing his fingers fiddle like that with his cigarette, and he’d manage to identify the cogs and wheels in what, when you step back, actually turns out to be a hidden machine. Christ, I could probably remove all of my clothes, stand naked in front of him, and he’d look on as one would look on at a piece of evidence at work. Going over the details, once, twice, scribbling it all down in that big, leather ledger.

Here’s what I think: he needs it. For all his talk about how unoriginal, how predictable mammals are at the end of things, he probably knows that himself. The tension in his jaw, the perpetual tightness of breath. That clipped way of talking he has, wound so tight around himself, like a compressed spring fighting its natural urge to let go.

I could make him let go. Maybe. I wish he’d let me try. It’s nothing possessive, really: wanting to be the one to unravel his tightly coiled body. Just—the release of seeing him be. No thinking in particular – just being.

He is still, however, uncommonly mute, avoiding my eyes.

I sigh. I ask him tentatively, “You think I ought’a be ashamed o’ myself?” biting down on the fleshy inside of my cheek.

“No,” he contradicts.

“But—you think I should be findin’ my fun elsewhere, with—some other guy?”

He sort of pins his hands behind his back, pressing his weight against them there at the edge of the sink. He looks a lot taller from this angle. “I think there’s a lotta fellas stumblin’ over themselves to be with a girl like you.”

“Maybe,” I scoff, “but my reptilian brain don’t want none of ‘em.“ I blush warmly when I glance up and he’s there watching me, though there’s no bashfulness at all on his side of it.

I expect him to maybe dart his eyes away again, like he does, and then walk me to the door, maybe even to the car if I haven’t offended him too badly, and then call it a night. I could stuff it in; I can compartmentalise. Monday would carry on as it always does, except now without the wondering and the yearning and the delusion. Did he have to be so good-looking? His cheap, wrinkled shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows—like they are now—and those lean forearms braced up on the table, caging in the neatly set-out notes scrawled up in his ledger, like they have mind to escape. And he’s—beautiful. He’s tall. Out-of-place sort of tall, where he has this bend to his neck, sometimes, as to not draw attention to himself. Other times, though, he stands to full height, regal, elegant, authoritative, like when he comes out o’ the box.

He sees into people. He feels it all so deeply.

And he’s looking at me, seeing into me, deeply. His eyes are brittle like china pieced back together with store-bought glue. The low light casts long shadows down his neck and harsh face.

“Come here to me, Rust,” I say to him, beckoning him over with a tilt of my head. To my surprise, he does. He does immediately, peeling himself off the counter, eyes drifting somewhere just behind me as if disinterested.

He stubs his cigarette out on an old plate, abandons it there officially, before stepping slowly towards me, feet never dragging, dodging my searching eyes like the plague.

Hmm. Maybe I made a good argument “for” to his “against”. Or maybe he was never “against” to begin with. I’ll watch him carefully tomorrow and see if there was anything I missed.

I reach up and touch his face gently. I used to do this with my husband before he passed, and he’d close his eyes and whisper my name and lean into the touch, tender, loving – my fingers shake slightly with the memory. Rust Cohle does none of that, because he is nothing like my husband. He’s perfectly rigid against my fingertips; his stare flits briefly up right into my soul, his mouth pressed in a hard line. Everything about him is so sharp. The ridge of his cheekbones, the defiant slant of his nose. The lean muscle of his arms and shoulders, slightly sinewy just beneath the skin.

But when I brush my thumbs up along his eyebrows, easing the sharp line between them, he sighs and closes his eyes, neck bowing down, still as stiff as before, just—different. A small gap, an opening, to that locked room of his upstairs.

“Rust,” I whisper, nose brushing his. He hums again, lowly, eyes shut. “What do you think of us havin’ sex?”

“Sex,“ he replies softly, “is the illusion of connection constituted by the release of a mess of happy hormones, simply by touching all the right places—and nothin’ more.”

I hum and watch the look on his face grow brittle as our breaths mingle closely. God, he’s so near to me that my head swings in a bout of lightheadedness, heady, vision centring in on him and only him, such that I wouldn’t know if this place was burning down all around, even if the flames started eating us alive.

“I think you’re full o’ shit, Rusty. Know how I know that?”

He sighs shakily. “How?” It’s like the word is dragged right from the pit of his chest, barely a breath to show for the effort of it.

“I can feel you against my leg.”

He swallows thickly, but he does not blush, and he does not open his eyes. And, contrary to what he might seem, Rust is not cold like stone. When my fingers grow more confident, when they trace and drag lightly along the line of his cheeks, he is warm there. His pulse, when I find it, exists and is hot and slightly erratic, a fact that leaves my mouth dry and open. I can feel the inflexion of his throat as he swallows again, the shift of the skin and the rhythm of his heartbeat, the gentle influence of his breathing.

I wait for him to say something, but he doesn’t. So, I ask him, “Can I kiss you?” ever so gently.

Softer still, he replies, “Yes,” with that slight Southern whistle of his, barely moving.

Give me strength. Give me strength.

That look on his face is filling me with a delicious, vibrating power. As I stretch my neck up to brush a kiss against the corner of his mouth, my eyes are open and watching him, charting him: Rust breathes strongly out of his nose, eyes still determinedly shut, like he’s absent and meditating. He is not tough as stone – parts of him are soft. He barely returns the kiss, but, as far as my brain processes, his lips are soft. Hesitant, maybe.

Then, these soft lips part, and he is sucking in a hot, shuddering breath, capturing me in a deep kiss, as if to breathe all of me in, a strong hand threading through my hair. It hurts a little at first – a small noise escapes my throat at the slight shoots of pain tugging at the roots – but Rust doesn’t seem to notice. Not at first. No, he’s still breathing me in. His lips are dry, rough, a push and tug, a twist, and he’s kissing like a punch, knocking the breath right out of my lungs. Whatever oxygen I manage to hold onto is sucked out of me promptly.

I whine, my body going all slack and tired as he smooths the hair out of my face, palms dragging clean back across my cheeks. Those hands cradle the back of my head, making it impossible to keep my eyes open.

Content, I sigh, eyes succumbing to the sensation and falling shut. The last thing I see is his own eyes slipping open to look at my face.

Boy, he’s a good kisser. Must be that lizard brain he has such a distaste for.

My fingers blindly reach and fumble at his belt, hooking into the waist, pulling him flush against me. Rust must forget what he’s doing for a moment, and he pauses where he is, in limbo, eyes far away. When I begin to unthread his belt from its quietly clinking buckle, he goes stiff again, blinks rapidly before perceiving me.

Holy shit, he’s gorgeous.

His hands hover over my shoulders, not quite committed to the contact.

He’s seeing me—really seeing me—as I unzip his trousers and spit crudely into my palm and curl around the length of him, warm, tight. I begin to understand the gentle throb and strain he feels, a delightful thrill running rapid all through my insides. He feels deliciously alive.

But then he turns his head away, neck straining up, breath choked back in his throat. His hands come away, raised, it looks like, as if trying to seem non-confrontational, trying to come away unscathed from a bad situation.

My stomach burns with desire. “Let yourself like it, Rust,” I mumble against his cheek. “Are you here with me?”

I can feel him swallow.

“Yes,” he responds. I guide his face to me, stroking his cock confidently once, twice, as encouragement, maybe. Temptation. Whatever you want to call it. My mouth waters, my head goes airy, when I feel his sex twitch in my embrace.

“Kiss me again, then.”

And he does. Brows furrowed as if in pain, he does, with the tip of his nose dragging and pressing into my cheek. He kisses me sweetly once, then again, and then pants down hotly into my mouth, hovering there before sliding his tongue deep inside, close, smooth.

I let myself love it. I let myself let go with every kiss he blesses me with, growing looser and easier and lighter each second.

The weight of him in my hand inspires a beautiful urge to have him lay down and let me feel every part of his body. Even though his hips stutter, he doesn’t buck up into my fist, doesn’t whine, doesn’t moan, doesn’t curse. Not yet. He just breathes and breathes, and kisses me and kisses me, like it’s all he was set on Earth to do. All he’s allowing himself to do.

Desperate, perhaps, my thighs are pressed against his, feeling unnaturally weak and warm. The throb between my legs coincides with my heart rushing in my ears, a steady ache, impatient. Part of me wants to drag this out as long as possible, because what if this never happens again?—and another part wants to push him inside me already, have him fill me up, fuck me stupid.

This thought stuffs me up to the brim, like cotton punched down into a pillowcase. I whine shallowly and try to slot his thigh between my own.

A switch in his brain must flick on.

It’s like he’s inside my head, like he’s in on my desperation, like he can see and feel every sinful image and thought circulating my alighted brain. He knows it all so well, such that he uses his hips to press us firmly against the counter, spreads my legs with the nudge of his foot between mine, and immediately pushes the rough pads of his fingers right where I need it, through the fabric of my skirt, letting me grind myself against him, hips and all. He circles there generously. I can feel my need dripping from me. He can too, no doubt.

I sigh, he breathes. I gasp, he breathes. My eyes flutter open and shut, but he looks on, eyes half-lidded but stare immovable.

He then lifts his knee to place against my cunt.

“That feels good, don’t it?” he says gently, rocking me over his knee up and down, back and forth, fingers digging into the soft skin of my hips.

My legs widen. When I gasp out weakly, he raises his brow and scans my face, like he had predicted the shaky, wordless nod that I offer to him too late in return.

“Did you want it like this, girl?” His voice is low, intimate, a hit of something just shy of addictive. “Or did you want somethin’ else, too?”

He kisses the hollow of my neck.

His other hand grips at my ass, up my skirt, kneading the flesh there, manipulating it, and his fingers ghost my slit, spreading me around his knee. He fucks up into my hand. I slide my fingers through his hair, which is soft and warm like butter.

Fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid, pretty curls. I’ve proved my point: regardless of whatever act he may try to put on afterwards, we’ll both know that Rust isn’t as numb as he wants to be, that I made him feel good, that I made him want me, and that he’s hot-blooded and thrumming with life. I can feel how alive he is . I hope he thinks of this again some time, whether by himself or surrounded by people. I hope it drives him a bit mad, remembering this.

A hot, sharp breath fans out across my cheek, his mouth slotting back over mine, open, daring me.

I rut against his knee, my fingers teasing the wet head of his cock. I look down between us, at my hand on him, with half a mind to drop onto my knees and make him cum down my throat.

Rust lets out a grunt and swallows hard again.

Then, he gently grabs my wrist and pulls my hand out of his pants, leaving me dazed and confused. With nimble fingers, he unzips my skirt, pushing it over my hips and dragging his hands over my bare skin. He asks me, “You want the bed?”

I step out of the pool of fabric around my feet, slide my shoes off. “‘s not a bed.”

I slide my fingers beneath his sweaty, white undershirt, feeling the taut muscle there, feeling the steady breaths that contradict his racing pulse. He holds my eyes, dipping slightly when I dip, tilting when I tilt. “Seems like one to me.”

How unlike him.

A smile spreads over my face, and his pupils blow wide, dark, imploring. “You wait ‘n’ see what happens when the dust-mites turn up.”

His eyes on me alone are enough to leave me breathless, chest caving in on itself. Of course, when he kisses me softly, it only makes things worse – his long fingers curl around the base of my throat, watching me watching him, and his other hand slides up under the hem of my blouse, palm spread over my bellybutton.

I sigh, try not to squirm.

“You want the bed?” he repeats, heavy, rough. I bite back a needy whine that sits at the back of my mouth. His fingertips press down slightly into my pulse, tightening my breathing.

I nod. “Yeah.”

Think of all the times I’ve sulked over his lack of eye contact with me. Was I annoying? Uninteresting? That, obviously, was an immature way of looking at things, definitely not improved by my distinct femininity undergoing some kind of unspoken disapproval by most I met on the job. This is the most present he has ever been in a moment with me around.

As he pulls himself away, steps back, his eyes are darting over my face, less like he’s judging me and more like he’s trying to find and memorise every detail. I do that, sometimes: if I pay well enough attention, it feels like I’m re-living the moment when remembering.

His hands slot sensibly into his pockets as if his cock isn’t blushing and poking out of his fly right now, belt undone, hanging low about his narrow hips.

Legs don’t fail me now. I slink out of the glowing kitchen and carry on to where the mattress lies in a dim, blue corner, the strange crucifix watching over, a long shadow cast over the empty wall upon which it hangs. He follows shortly behind me, his warmth radiating out onto my back.

I pause and look out onto the darkness revealed behind the half-open slats of the floor-to-ceiling blinds that shield the room from the window to the outside world.

Rust’s presence is intoxicating behind me. He smells like cigarette smoke, still, enticing. I’m trying to quit, but he makes it damn hard. His nose is just shy of my hair, his body so close to enveloping me into him – the prospect of it makes me shiver in delight. I must hallucinate his fingertips along my spine.

I unbutton my blouse with slow fingers, then slide it off and undo my bra.

His breathing is level and grounding by my ear as he comes close, sliding his strong, wide hand up my stomach, along my ribs, and cups under my soft breast. He rubs over my nipple in gentle circles before squeezing over me warmly. He then comes around to pinch the creamy tissue gentle between his fingers and thumb, closing his hot mouth over, drawing along his feverish tongue. I sigh, stroke his hair, let him press soft pecks and kisses to the curve of the soft flesh and to my sternum.

My fingers, cupped around the nape of his neck, dip under the collar, cool. This touch, for some reason, causes him to make some sort of breathless, pathetic noise against me. His eyes are half-shut.

“Anything else philosophical y’wanna get out before we fuck?” I quip smartly (though, not feeling so smart altogether), hand placed innocently on his hip.

He lifts his head, removes his hands from my body – he looks so tragically beautiful in this light. “You want me inside you?” he asks genuinely, seemingly aloof to the fact I’m naked in front of him, open and wanton and pressing my thighs together, his eyes never drifting from mine.

“What do you want, Rust?” I whisper.

He seems to really think about it – he’s always thinking. Briefly, his eyes flit down to my mouth. Then, he looks away, scratches at his forehead.

After a moment longer, he swallows thickly and tips his head down over to the bed, tells me, “Lie down on the mattress,” in a gentle, decisive tone. He’s so soft-spoken – it makes my toes curl.

I do as told, transfixed by the dark shadow in his eyes, and sink down to sit and then recline back on his coarse mattress, coarse bedsheets, with my weight on my forearms and chin tilted up towards him. He watches me, tucking his thick cock back into his underwear.

Still fully dressed in his work attire, he takes a step forward, looming over me, powerful, assertive. Saliva pools in my mouth—again—as I play with the thought of him sitting heavy on my tongue with his stomach tight, shaking, hands in my hair, fucking down my throat. I would let him. Hell, I’d probably let him do anything he wanted to me at this point.

Does he know that? Maybe. I don’t know.

As he reaches his hand out too smooth the hair out of my face, I try to figure it out, but I can’t – he seems too wrapped up in his own desire to be thinking anything at the moment. I feel a flicker of satisfaction jump up in the pit of my stomach. Or maybe that’s something else.

“Lie back, girl,” he tells me.

My cunt flexes.

I thump onto my back, breathless. “Take off your shirt, Rust.”

Without replying, he sinks down to his knees in front of me, my thighs. Instinctively, I prop myself up and watch him unbutton that wrinkled shirt all the way down, shrug it over his broad shoulders. I could fuck myself silly just over the thought of those shoulders, I remark inwardly. He tugs the wifebeater over his head, lean muscles catching the low light, strong, study, solid, and tosses the thing to the side thoughtlessly. My hands reach out to touch him, to feel him and know him. When my fingers press into his skin, glide up his neck and down over his chest, he sighs deeply. He then carefully removes my hands, urging me to sprawl down under him.

“Said lie back, didn’t I?”

Rust doesn’t say another word before placing his large hands on my knees and easing them apart, lowering himself to press pecks and slow, open-mouthed kisses to my thighs, closer, closer, stroking my sensitive skin gently. I almost flinch at his every touch, like it burns. His face is awful serious, like he’s concentrating. I wriggle in anticipation, eager.

“Rust,” I whisper purposelessly. He looks up, hums, searches my face for anything the matter.

I watch on desperately, on the brink of feral distress. A sob clogs my throat as he kisses my fluttering stomach, ducking his head down and curling his forearms, his hands, around my thighs. The dark stamp of his bone-bird tattoo curls over his arm. I realise he is waiting for my attention to return to him, his eyes patient but glazed over with something cardinal. Hungry.

“Can—?”

“Yes.”

He hums. And then he breathes hotly over my underwear before pressing his nose right there into the damp fabric, inhaling my scent there. I whimper at the pressure he applies with the strong bridge of his nose, at the wetness of his open mouth against me. He breathes heavily into me, groaning slightly beneath it all – I can’t tell past the thrumming of my heart in my ears.

“Rust,” I whisper again, my shoulder straining with the task of keeping me up and looking down at the sight of his sweet head buried between my glistening thighs.

“Lie back.”

He kisses me through my underwear, dutifully kneading the flesh of my hips, my inner thighs.

I thump back against the mattress, helpless, keening into his touch as this grey man roughly tugs my underwear down, down, all the way down, until they’re clean off my body, long gone, and then returns his nose to the cleft of my pussy, unseaming me with his tongue, opening me up, breathing me in. It’s enough to draw a shallow, hoarse cry from me. He doesn’t say anything, and I can’t say anything, biting down on my white knuckles.

Rust licks warm over my clit, sucking gently on the bud of nerves (then not so gently), before sliding down, down through my very centre.

Whining breathily, the twist in my stomach tightens and spasms as he presses my hips and thighs right down against the mattress, slow, strong, giving me time to notice it, realise it, give into it, deny the natural instinct to curl my limbs tight all over his face, his neck, his mouth.

Holy fuck. Rust Cohle has his face buried between my legs right now. I have Rust Cohle’s tongue pushing deep into my cunt – he sighs softly, a sound with its own powerful gravity a black hole to envelop me in, and grinds his hips against the edge of the mattress for a split second, just once. My mind pulses with the thought of making him cum. I wonder if he feels the same hunger.

Then, he’s sinking his long, elegant fingers into me, one, then two, and just the knowledge that those fingers belong to him makes my thighs quiver and shake, makes me sigh again. Thick, confident, they curl inside, slow like an experiment, right up to the knuckle. When he taps up against me, when I squeal and crimp up into his hold, he returns himself to mouth dutifully over my clit. My hand threads itself into his hair, holding him steady – I offer a breathless moan when his grip across my hips loosen, an invitation to begin rolling myself up over his pretty face. He pulls his fingers out of me, wet and hot, and encourages my thighs upon his beautiful shoulders, clinging onto them urgently. He shudders a little, I think, when I lock them firmly around his head and grind myself shamelessly against his mouth, his nose. He moves his jaw, his face, in tandem.

I cum after a while like that, because how can I not? The searing buzz reaches a roiling static.

I go loose, moaning softly, melted down flat, and stroke fuzzy fingers through Rust’s pretty hair as he sucks my clit still, as he inhales again and sighs again, reduced to something primitive and needy.

Thick, my heartbeat throbs and echoes like a drum in my skull, threatening. I feel so full that I could mistake the beat of pleasure for nausea pressing in my throat. It was silly to think that this could all be satisfied just from one time. My eyes closed, Rust’s light touch over my abdomen, up to my throat, is acute and heightened, like a million tiny, individual sparks. His fingers fumble over my jaw, then press lightly over my pulse.

He retreats just as I’m playing with the hairs at the nape of his neck, coming to stand to full height above me, unthreading his belt from his trousers with quiet, precise hands. I press my shaking thighs together, watching him breathe strongly through his nose, trying to remain somewhat respectable in the presence of the darkening look in his eyes that is locked down on my body.

He pauses, wipes some shine from his nose. Before he can continue with whatever, I find myself sitting up on my knees, grabbing his hips hard enough to bruise all pretty and purple, shoving the trousers down to his knees, and palming him through his boxers.

We don’t have to say anything. He just watches me passively, pushing my hair back again, behind my ears, my shoulders, rolling my earlobe softly between his fingertips.

I remove his underwear, take him into my mouth, thick and long and wanting; he sighs, holds my head with two steady hands.

When was the last time someone helped him like this? I honestly couldn’t have told you, even given a loose theory, prior to this moment: Rust is simultaneously the hottest and most non-sexual being I’ve ever come across in my life. He just happens to be beautiful; he just happens to inspire these sort of feelings choking up inside me. No overarching intention that he’ll ever admit to, no vanity, no preening. So strict to himself, so tight, like a piston, something that fights and pushes and hurts.

So, as I hold him firmly and suck at the head of his blushing cock, kissing him, I watch his face, savour the tart taste of him, and press my thighs together: he’s becoming warmer, looser.

Still, as much as I want him, I know he’s wanted me. However vague he tells it, he’s wanted me. Good Lord, he looks even more stressed now, somehow, than when we had just been talkin’. Hands gently cradling my skull, he tilts his head away, watches the cross on the wall, as he succumbs to it, maybe, and begins to gently, languidly fuck my face. I tuck a hand between my thighs, and I love him, my other with the fingers digging into his hip, his ass. If I’m lucky, maybe it’ll leave some sort of mark, just to remind him I was here, so that, when he’s being all indifferent again, with his eyes lowered to the floor as he shares a report with me at my prim, little desk, we’ll both know that we were once in this room together, here like this.

Rust breathes and breathes, almost mechanically, and slides his cock further into my mouth. The weight of him in there drives me half-insane. If I could consume him, envelop him, and we could be one and the same, I’d readily allow it. When he sinks deeper still down my throat, I sigh around him, rub myself the way I like.

His eyes are determinedly shut, like some part of him refuses to be here.

Before I can make him cum, he shakes his head and tugs my hair back a little bit, mumbling for me to stop and sit away.

For all his mouthiness just a half hour ago, would you look at him now?—Rust Cohle, plundered by the human sensation of speechlessness. I’ve never seen him out of his element before. When he comes down and cages me with his body, hot skin flush against hot skin, I don’t mean that in a bad sense. Shit, he’s far from it. But there’s nothing to say. Nothing of note, nothing to pick apart, no deeper meaning, no theory. Just an itch that has to be scratched. He wants, he is, and it’s heaven to see.

In the dark, he sinks in to me as he is, eliciting from me a soft moan that curls over the shell of his ear. I have to bite down on his shoulder when comes the push, the stretch, the sink, the comfort of him inside. I curl my legs around his waist and grab at his ass, willing him deeper still. He shudders silently over me, thick ripples of pleasure rolling through his lean body.

I curse, but I’m sure it barely registers with him.

His head lifts and his eyes clamp shut as he braces an arm against the wall, lifting one of my legs up over his hip and fucking into me deeper, slipping out and in, and again, and again. I know what I’d see if I took a look down, saw his cock pumping into me, but I can hardly do anything but buck my hips up to meet his effort, my stomach stuttering with that building pressure, hands gripping desperately around his neck and shoulders.

Though, I’m not even sure it is effort that’s driving him.

I mumble into his shoulder, dumb, focussing on the feel and press of him in my belly. I doubt he’s really aware of anything more than the sensation of it, evident from the small grunt that passes his lips as he fucks deep in me. His stomach presses heavier down onto mine, crushing a delicious pressure there, teasing out a long, breathy whimper. He snakes an arm around my hips, pushes his free hand to the back of my knee, tilting my legs back a little more, and then pulls me wider. Tight, he moves me how he wants me, my flesh dipping and carving, fucking himself raw with me, with my hot cunt. His mouth moves over mine, not kissing me, not speaking, just there, present, hot, panting. He doesn’t open his eyes, so I close mine, and I breathe.

Rust stutters and cums and spills over into me with a grunt. He pants sharply, harshly, rhythmically into my mouth, tense again, and then he collapses over my body, and he lays there. I lay there too, burning on the far inside.

I think he only really remembers I’m there when I shift under him.

His eyelashes brush against my cheek. “Sorry,” he murmurs, but the sound of his voice scrapes directly against my brain with the shock of a flesh-wound.

I assume he’s referring to the thick cum that I can feel leaking out of me now. He shifts his hips, adjusting himself in the grip of my cunt. My fingers wrap around his arms, squeeze as I feel him easing out.

“It’s okay,” I reply.

He glances down between us and guides himself out with a lewd noise, swallowing hard. I shiver.

Quiet, sedated, he shrugs his trousers, his underwear, off of his ankles, slipping the bedsheet over both our naked selves. His hand spreads and flattens warm over my abdomen, feeling the gentle swell and sink of the breaths I take and release.

#true detective #rust cohle #marty hart #rust cohle x reader #rust cohle x reader smut #okay cool this is a bit niche hope you liked it #this show made me question my life's purpose #the first season at least #thanks matthew mcconaughey #anybody else here like Fiona apple or what #the idler wheel TD

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ipso-faculty · 9 months

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Is saying "intersex and/or mesosex" the same way of saying "trans and/or nonbinary"? Sorry I'm trying to (un)learn, I don't want to be seen as insensitive

No, mesosex should be thought of as a subset of intersex. I'd just say intersex. 👍️

I'm gonna give you a wall of text of context so upfront a TLDR: 😅

TLDR: positioning mesosex as in between perisex and intersex is like positioning bisexual as in between queer and not-queer. Intersex people are organizing for inclusive views of intersex and trying to create a middle ground between intersex & perisex plays into conservative efforts to divide and conquer us. 🧑‍🏫

So a big difference between being intersex and being trans/nonbinary comes from the role of medicine being far, far more powerful in its control and oppression of intersex people. In a lot of ways intersex is more like disability than like other queer identities. So much of intersex identity is gatekept by doctors. Intersex people are often told they're intersex by a doctor in a context of telling them they are disordered and broken. Fostering community amongst intersex people is hard because so many of us have been conditioned by doctors to think of themselves as rare freaks.

Right now we in the intersex community are fighting a kind of desperate battle for people to understand that it is intersex people who decide who is and isn't intersex, as opposed to it being up to doctors. And the intersex community consistently says that people with PCOS, Poland Syndrome, or even no diagnosis, who feel that their experiences line up with being intersex are intersex.

Meanwhile TERFs and other conservatives are pushing real hard to keep the definition of intersex as narrow as possible. They don't want intersex people to be common or for us to find community. They're invested in a narrative that intersex people are rare, and are disorderd men/women.

Right now, the track record of treating mesosex as not intersex has unfortunately been that it reinforces those conservative narratives. It's gotten used to imply that people with PCOS aren't really intersex, that they are mesosex instead. Same for undiagnosed intersex people. 😭

Even though this is not what I intended for the term, seeing what's happened with it in the wild it's been honestly scary and upsetting seeing this term get weaponized against an inclusive view of what intersex means. (And more experienced intersex folks raised concern about this well in advance 😨.)

Intersex being an umbrella category I think there is value in having microlabels within the umbrella category, which is why I updated my definition of mesosex rather than abandon the term altogether.

But yeah I would definitely steer far away from treating mesosex as though it's in between intersex and perisex - it's really not at all analogous to being nonbinary. I'd say a better analogy is that treating mesosex as if it is between intersex and perisex is like treating bisexual as being in between queer and non-queer.

The stakes are political inclusion and organizing - politically speaking, any effort to create a group between queer and non-queer generally serves to weaken the collective organizing of queer people. Same deal with intersex. Hope that clarifies things. 💜

#intersex #mesosex #perinormativity #intersexism #intersex terminology #actuallyintersex #actually intersex

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l0stfoster · 9 days

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I desperately want to know more about the cursed tulsa au! Is it ok to ask you for more headcanons about it/details from the au?

Anon you have probably asked me the question that’ll give you the longest post I’ll ever have on my account because I was born to yap about this. Nothing super detailed or written out, but a lot of little things about the characters and the world around them! Take some of my written 'headcanons' with a grain of salt!! Although I'm kinda one of the writers, I don't want to call stuff canon without input from the others.

You can VERY clearly see who we talk about the most. Any additional fun facts or info will either be mentioned in reblogs or put in a new post and linked here!! EDIT: Added a read more bc it's so long I'm so sorry

TULSA

200 years ago, the area of Tulsa was cursed by a witch. This witch stated that the poorest born will be shown just as the rest of society views them. Freaks.

A majority of, if not all, of the greasers are cursed. They have to be born in Tulsa for this effect to take place. There are very few socs who are also cursed, but it's a very spl

Those born in Tulsa can leave, but their powers are weakened (or they lose them in full until they return)- this may not be an issue for the human passing ones who just want to live life normally, but folks like Fae and Harpies will likely be hunted down by the government, as their kind isn't seen around. (At least, not to the public eye.)

(Already stated this but I'll say it again) Follows the canon plot excluding Johnny and Dally’s deaths. Johnny ‘dies’ (heart stopped, declared clinically dead— gets resuscitated though) and Dally still snaps and loses it, bolts the second after he ‘died’. Dude gets shot (non-fatally on contact) by the cops, but the gang gets him to the hospital and he lives thank god.

Animalistic traits are pretty common amongst the cursed. Some have horns, others have tails, the harpies have wings, fae have pointed ears and tails, and many of them have sharp teeth.

DARRY

Fae, his power is Emotional Augmentation/Negation & Mind Manipulation. - He can calm people down, elevate their emotions, or clamp down on people's power if they're getting too out of hand. This makes it really hard for him to identify his own emotions. He also has a bad habit of using his power when he's upset, which means it pretty much rubs off on others. He's usually pretty good at keeping it down, but he struggles. - His manipulation is pretty much a workaround for the fact that the fae cannot lie. It pretty much makes him VERY convincing, mind manipulation does that. He'll tell someone something and they'll believe it. Master Gaslighter. That comes with its own issues-- he can't tell if the relationships he's made are authentic due to his manipulation, meaning they might just be telling him what he wants to hear. It bugs him really bad, and he worries that a lot of his friendships aren't as solid as they seem to be.

He had a very messy situationship and falling out with Paul. One-sided crush on Darry's end for a while throughout their friendship (Paul was in HEAVY denial of his own feelings, while Darry knew damn well he loved Paul.) Paul, being the soc he is, didn't like that Darry was "one of those freaks". That was sort of where their friendship shattered, and everything that happened after Bob's death made it beyond repairable.

REALLY hates being fae, and has done a lot of shit to try and prevent himself from being easily identifiable as something not human. He tried cutting his ears off ((due to paul's comment calling them freaks) got caught, and one ear is fucked up now), continuously tried to get his tail injured enough to be amputated (that also didn't work, but now he's got a disabled tail that hurts to move too much), and even gave filing his teeth down a go (also didn't work- made them sharper if anything.)

He doesn't wag his tail, and the gang can’t tell if it’s because he’s never happy or because the range of motion is limited due to his injury. If you’re lucky the tip of it will flick around but he also does that when angry so you can’t tell what the fuck dude is actually feeling

Fucked up his vocal cords growling all the time as a kid when trying to be intimidating, so now his growl sounds like a broken wolf's growl; he can't do it for too long or it fucks up his voice and he'll sound like a chain smoker. (Speaking of, I headcanon he used to/does smoke, just hid it well from Pony n Soda)

Purrs very rarely but when he does, he purrs like a motherfucker. Whole ass jet engine. It is LOUD and you will vibrate if he's hugging you.

His boss is the only one unaffected by his power. "You should give me a raise" 'Not gonna happen, Darrel' "FUC-"

Stole Darrel Sr's name. It's why he's junior /silly

Literally just anxiety personified, tbh. He cannot catch a break and hates himself so bad. He's equally as feral as his brothers but is just VERY good at keeping it lowkey.

All the fae are nature-linked in some way. Darry really likes the sun and warm weather. He's got Disney princess energy too, and animals adore him. (hence Two being drawn to him as a perch /silly) He gets followed home by neighborhood strays and keeps having to tell Soda that no, they can't keep them.

Not even specifically an AU headcanon but when he cracks any bones they pop like forty gazillion times. Cracks his back and it's just a solid 5 seconds of snapping.

Speaking of, he's one of the only people who can hold Two's weight because his wings are heavy. Dude's strong as fuck here for obvious reasons, he's also a little too fast compared to a human, so.

Bites his nails to high heavens. He stopped doing it for a while trying to break the habit but accidentally clawed up someone in the gang wrestling and hasn't let them get long since.

Likes to preen Two's wings, it's the repetitive nature that calms him down. If he's stressed and Two notices then he offers.

Like all the other power havers, he gets super fucking weak and a bunch of other drawbacks when overusing his power. Still developing said drawbacks but I personally imagine he either just gets overly emotional or goes completely robotic and stoic.

Jumped Paul with Dally once bc they were trying to get back all the feathers stolen from Two-Bit. Dally didn't even finish asking who was first before he answered a very flat "Paul."

He's very friendly with Ms. Mathews. She helps them a lot throughout the years and he deeply respects her-- he also finds it very funny to see all the photo album bullshit she's got for her kids. Laughs his ass off at the stupid baby photos of Two n his sister.

HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE ON HIS BIRTHDAY. This will be further explained in Johnny's little section but long story short, they were supposed to get into a car accident before the train tracks and Darry would've died. He's got survivor's guilt, to an extent, as his parents wouldn't have died in the crash. Only him.

Had heightened Pony's anger during their confrontation. The guilt still eats him alive.

Unlike the other greasers who's powers weaken while they're sick, Darry's power gets very unstable due to how he's commonly repressing them. The gang knows he’s sick no matter how hard he tries to hide it physically because they’ll be around him and suddenly they’re weirdly emotional, or he’ll say something and they’ll believe him even if they know better.

In alliance with my headcanon for the normal story, I personally imagine he got jumped after his friendship with Paul ended before their parents died (since that friendship breaking apart kinda ruined his alignment with any socs)

Generally just a normal hc but he's got Autism, BPD, PTSD, and a few other things like anxiety, major depressive disorder, and sensory/eating issues. Very financially insecure too.

Used to bite as a kid. That's it. Send tweet.

SODA

Fae, his power is pretty much just a Siren Song. - He can get people to do what he wants with his voice, it's as simple as that. He used it to get Sandy to confess to the fact that the baby wasn't his, uses it to get Darry or Steve to take breaks if they're working a little too hard, etc.

Used his power to get extra cake after dinner or to get teachers to lighten up on him or his friends when they got in trouble. It works very similarly to Darry's manipulation, only Soda's is physical and makes them very compelled to follow what he says. In certain circumstances, people can tell if he's caused them to do/say something. That doesn't stop him, though!

When their parents died, everyone's powers went haywire. Soda had to either scream himself mute or force himself to be quiet so he wouldn't accidentally make anyone do something. He didn't want it to be fixed.

If he overuses his magic then he can't talk for a good few days without it hurting, voice gets very raspy.

Thinks he's a bad person due to the nature of his power. I personally like to think the only time he doesn't mind using them is when it's for the benefit of his friends. He's had to coax Two down from the roof after his jumping because watching all the harpies fly just makes him feel worse. He's stopped Steve from overusing his telekinesis after too many close calls with dropping a car.

Absolutely LOVES his ears and tail. Has a ton of piercings and tries to accessorize them a lot. The polar opposite of Darry in that regard. Likes his sharp teeth too.

His claws are probably the second sharpest, as they get sharper with age IMO.

He's probably the most expressive of the fae; constantly doing stuff since he can't sit still for the life of him. Tail's either swaying, tapping, wagging, or doing something.

Has the growl of a leopard. it is terrifying, when he growled at the socs during the rumble they almost pissed themselves. It scares the shit out of Two-Bit LMAOAO.

Soda has arguably the most average purr out of his brothers, it's basic, simple like a cat's is. He purrs super hard and at pretty much any physical affection sent his way.

When asked for his name by Mr and Mrs. Curtis, he pointed at a Pepsi bottle. Eventually, he swapped it for Soda.

He was jumped by the socs once, and they gagged/muzzled him so he couldn't use his power against them to defend himself. The gang was fucking destroyed when he came home with it, they knew they weren't perceived as equal, but that's beyond cruel.

Also slightly nature-linked. I like to think bees flock to him <3 He's also very good with botany, pretty tied with Pony.

He makes little healing pastes/oils for Darry using Pony's plants when he massages his back.

Soda learned many of his extending-the-truth-to-avoid-lying tricks from Darry, so he's very good at it. Darry is one of the only people who doesn't fall for Soda's shit. Steve doesn't either, just because he feels too bad lying to his best friend.

Soda pretty much gets zoomies. He'll be practically bouncing off the walls and going batshit bonkers. It's insane. Sometimes he's on all fours too, no one knows how he can do it so well.

Arguably the most fae-linked of the brothers; a lot of the little things that don't affect his brothers get to him. All three of them are properly burned by iron, though.

Doesn't like being thanked, as it not only implies being owed something, but he also just feels that he shouldn't be thanked for being kind/having basic empathy.

He absolutely hates salt. Too white for it /j (It's another fae thing, Soda's just most impacted by it)

He's weirdly flexible and moves in super uncanny ways sometimes. No one's sure if it's a fae thing or if he's just.. built like that.

Soda's a smooth talker when using his magic but cannot for the life of him start a conversation without it.

When he found out that Steve's dad was abusive, he nonstop asked for the fucker's full name for DAYS because he was so upset that someone was hurting his best friend.

Stevepop is canon in the writer's eyes, but if you want to you can absolutely read their dynamic as platonic (won't stop us from drawing ship art of them so whoops). I try my best to keep most of the dynamics/relationships open for interpretation (On that note, no shipping the mfs who are family coded I'll actually maim you)

When he snores it rumbles off with a purr. Also sleeps halfway draped over Pony like a bigass weighted blanket.

Yet another normal headcanon thing but he's got ADHD, Dyslexia, PSTD, and DPD. Yeah all of them are a little fucked up.

He collects rocks and crystals. It's a stash he can't bring around Two-Bit because it WILL be stolen.

PONY

Fae, his power is Nature Manipulation - It's honestly just what it sounds like. He can create plants, manipulate them, etc. He's very commonly using them, and they're heavily emotion-tied. Cacti and Venus fly traps when angry, wilted plants and dead bushes when sad, etc etc. The plants he grows most are vines, as they're super useful for him. He can use them offensively or defensively as needed. They have a huge tree in their backyard that he grew.

He's benefited positively from bright sunlight and water. He's incapable of drowning, so when Bob tried to drown him in the fountain he was kinda just,, chillin'. (Unfortunately for these fuckers, Johnny did NOT know that.)

Alternatively, he gets super weak and sluggish during the winter and cold seasons. It's misery for him, he thrives on sunlight and warmth. He's got these greenish-grey eyes when it's the summer/spring and they get super dull during the colder months. Groundhog Day is for losers, the gang knows when spring's coming once Pony starts perking back up.

Plants grow in his hair, mostly little sprouts and flowers like that. Magical flower crowns!! He makes them for Johnny every now and then.

Gets followed by bees and bugs. He both enjoys and despises it because what the fuck dude why are HORNETS chasing him.

Liked to grow flowers to give their mom as a kid, he was a little gift giver to her.

On that note, a motherfucking GOBLIN as a child. Literally, chaos incarnate, absolutely horrible to try and raise because he was so fucking wild.

Does not have spring allergies, lucky fucker.

When their parents died, the house was wrapped in vines for days. Sometimes they still start to overtake and infest due to how many there had been, but Darry usually trims them down went he notices (or when he's got the free time, busy ass)

Has the fattest beef with Steve still. Will trip the guy with his vines and he bites.

He's got a squeaky purr and a squeaky growl due to being young. He growls like a snow leopard cub.

Responds really well to physical affection just like Soda, doesn't always purr to it but does really enjoy it. Avidly avoids it from Two bc the stupid bird will try to preen him and he thinks it's goofy /silly

QPR with Johnny. Pony represents life and Johnny represents death. They hold hands, are the besties ever, and are extremely codependent. Do not romanticize their relationship I'll eat your knees.

Pony knows a lot about flower meaning, as he should. He's also very good with botany too.

Instead of Tim stepping on him in the rumble, he ate shit and got smacked really hard by harpy wings. Two and Tim still aren't too sure which one of them did it.

Very little thing but he has a tooth gap.

Pony tried doing a Darry n attempted to cut his ears to look more human while at the church. It didn't work, so now he's got two little rips that look similar to if you had a piercing torn out. He's generally got mixed feelings about his features.

Tries to keep his emotions on the down low for the sake of looking like a tuff adult, but his tail is constantly giving him away.

Pony made them a fairy around the house with his plants, and it serves as a little thing that lets any of the Curtis' know if someone enters the hours whether they're at home or not. If Pony doesn't want someone at the house while they're away then his vines will yoink them out.

Choosing his name was just him saying a random word in a very ominous voice. Darry added the 'boy' to the end of it.

He makes flower crowns for the hell of it, just likes having his hands moving. Either the gang gets them or they get tossed in a misc pile.

He is SO fucking bad at trying to extend the truth, absolutely miserable at it. He cannot gaslight at all.

Due to his power being weak at Windrixville, he had tried and failed to save Johnny with his vines. Instead, they were pulling him back in a subconscious effort to save himself; plants don't go well with flame, after all.

Had to quit smoking post-Windrixville because the smell bothered him really hard. His voice was kinda fucked up after too due to the smoke inhalation as well.

He's got little burn scars on his hands from grabbing the iron gates at the cemetery where their parents are buried too many times. Darry thinks he's a moron for it.

Clings to Ace like a motherfucker during the winter because she's naturally VERY warm.

Darry has to hold this bitch down to cut his nails when they get too sharp because he'll scratch a bitch while wrestling and play dirty.

Mental stuff again; Autism, PTSD, and Sensory Issues. Also kind of an addict.

He hasn't reached the full potential of his powers because he's still going through puberty.

Poy thrives off sugar, being plant-based and all.

STEVE

Human, but his power is Telekinesis. - It's very simple to explain. He's capable of lifting this with his mind and little physical action. There technically isn't a weight limit, but if he lifts something too heavy for too long it'll drop and he'll be REALLL fucked up, it's exhausting to use too much. Alas, that doesn't really stop him. If he gets pissed off things start floating around him.

REALLY likes to throw cars. It's just showing off honestly. He likes doing little things like that for the hell of it.

His dad makes him float beers to him and he'll very bitterly do it. One time he did it a little too fast 'on accident' and held back smiling as his dad bitched about getting covered in beer.

If substitute teachers are unaccommodating assholes he hucks desks at them. Detention is very worth it.

His telekinesis makes him seem physically stronger than he actually is. When it came to Two-Bit perching on the group, the people who could do it were Dally, Darry, and Steve-- until they found out that Steve was just using his telekinesis to hold him up. He dared to do it once without and long story short they ended up on the floor.

Steve isn't super affected by Soda's magic, but he does stuff for him just 'cause Soda's his best friend.

He uses his telekinesis to fly around with Two sometimes. That sort of stops after Two's wing ends up fucked. Every now and then, though, he'd use his power to give Two-Bit the feeling of flying again. They both go home bummed, Two because he’s no longer ‘flying’ and Steve because he hates knowing he can’t actually help

He did most of the work making a prosthetic for Two, and Soda helped a hell of a ton too.

He can't lie to save his life, just 'cause. He also can't whistle.

Arguably even more autistic for cars like this because of how easy working on them becomes with telekinesis. Floats them up himself to work under them.

Speaking of that, he'll float Soda up to the ceiling if he pesters him too much while he's working on a car. Needs to be absolutely locked in and Soda interrupts that.

He may be human passing but he doesn't... look right. His limbs and fingers are too long for a person.

Was STRUGGLING after the rumble. Had to deal with the pain of bones being too stretched plus broken ribs and fucked up knuckles.

He's got a complex that he's only good for his powers. It's a big sense of insecurity for him. It doesn't help that his powers tie to his mood sometimes too. He's had too many close calls dropping a car he's underneath and almost crushing himself because something gets to him. "You good, Steve?" (literally shaking) "Yeah I'm great"

Soda has to use his magic to force him to take a break, cause Steve doesn't want to stop because he thinks they're all he's got that makes him good at what he does.

His dad was born poor and in Tulsa. Steve isn't too sure what his curse is, but he doesn't want to find out.

He's got a crush on Soda that he, for a while, keeps mistaking for a heavy amount of admiration. You don't want to be him, Steve, you want to be WITH him.

He's got fragile bones like the harpies, the only difference is that his isn't biological and is due to his telekinesis stretching his bones out.

Yeah also mentally ill. Autism, PTSD, and CDD.

Idly floats himself for the hell of it sometimes. If Soda calls him short he'll bitterly float up to match his height or be taller.

TWO-BIT

Crow Harpy. No power besides that I think

He's got all the mannerisms of a crow and of birds in general. He likes to give his family and the gang shinies; flies by and drops bottlecaps or random little trinkets and dips. Sometimes physically throws them at people.

He dives at people in the street sometimes if they have something shiny. He’ll also dive-bomb friends and just pick them up like a claw machine. Dally’s the most common victim of this.

He's very intertwined with the bird instincts too. Nests, preens, chirps, whistles, etc. Very fucking loud and will not shut up. Clicks when he's all angry and shit.

Two’s mom is a harpy and his dad is human. Neither of them took after him, and he wasn’t happy about that. Two-Bit constantly had his needs and habits as a harpy repressed by his father; this included having his feathers clipped and not being allowed to preen or nest. His mom wasn’t able to do anything about it for a while, as she was too busy working to keep a roof over their heads.

He knows she is doing her best, and he doesn't blame her for not being able to protect him from that. Two's a huge mama's boy. he used to hide in her wings when he was little.

He taught his sister to fly and had taught himself by jumping off the roof. It’s why he’s got his tooth gap.

His mom has a photo album of him and his sister as they grew, including their feathers as they molted. "Baby's first molt!" and he looks like a blended-up cotton ball. Darry loves these photo albums.

Dally calls him Songbird and Freckles. Two calls him Dimples

He likes to bleach the tips of his feathers and dyes them with his sister, since her feathers are still light enough to dye without bleach.

He preens with the gang and will also try to preen the gang. It’s a bonding activity but bc they don’t have feathers it’s usually just him fucking around with their hair. It usually ends with them wrestling a pissy bird that by god NEEDS to get that knot out of your hair or he will tweak. Pony hates it the most, Darry and Soda are the only ones who don't resist.

If Darry whistles around him he'll shoot over and perch on the guy.

Even bigger kleptomaniac in this. Always has something, Dally's been given at least six switchblades over a week.

He can mimic voices and sounds really well. Uses Johnny's voice to get Pony's attention once. "Oh so you'd get up the second Johnny calls BUT WHEN I DO YOU IGNORE M-"

Horrible flier when drunk, it's hilarious to watch.

If you throw a piece of cloth thick enough to block out light over his head, he falls asleep.

Cannot for the life of him get through doors on the west side because they aren't friendly for wings.

His heart beats like 200+ times per minute. Everyone thinks he's having a heart attack or something when they first hear it.

Alternatively, he thought Dally was dying when he first heard how slow his heartbeat was.

He goes into torpor during really cold winter days or if he's super fucking exhausted. Went into torpor right after his jumping and Dally was convinced that he was dying.

Two gets very territorial and defensive of the gang because they're "his flock". Gives people death stares if they're getting too close. He looms threateningly over the shoulders of his friends if he doesn't like the person they're talking to. It usually scares them off.

He likes to take the gang and his family for flights. Scoops em up and just goes, most of them enjoy it, the ones with a fear of heights? Not so much.

If the younger members of the gang get sick he WILL shove them in a nest and pretty much hover over the person. He gets mama-bird traits from his mom.

Alternatively, even if Darry gets sick Two will hover over that motherfucker. He will wrap that man in a blanket and not let him leave. Just swaddles all the fuckers.

He's got good timing with dive-bombing people. Darry fell off a roof once and BAM suddenly he's in the arms of a very energetic harpy.

Was a really small kid and just shot up overnight. One day he was up to Dally's chest and the next he was at his nose. Dally hated it.

He's docile by nature but when he gets violent it's HELL. He's got sharp claws and talons along with sharp teeth, my guy can do some damage.

Two hates cats and has absolute beef with them. He and the rest of the harpies are scared shitless by Soda's growl too, if Soda growls he whips his head around 180 and looks around frantic. Soda both feels bad but laughs his ass off.

Two (and the other harpies) can't see glass. He's walked into the glass at the DX and slams his head against car windows trying to look outside. He's absolutely mesmerized by glass cups because why is the water FLOATING?

He has to sit in the bed of Darry's truck because his wings don't fit.

The gang went to a mirror maze once and Two got stuck in it for 2 hours. Came out with a busted nose all pouty because those mfs left him in there how dare they.

The Curtis boys can mimic bird sounds really well, they whistle at Two-Bit and his head shoots up at attention.

He's afraid of ceiling fans.

Harpies generally don't like eating bird meat due to etiquette and cultural stuff, but Two's dad would force him to eat chicken as a kid.

He adores seafood and goes fucking bonkers for it.

He got struck by lighting once. Walked into the Curtis' house singed and just went "So I might've made a mistake." Somehow he wasn't too hurt.

He tries to puff up to look intimidating but people just laugh because it's fucking cute. If he wants to look scary all he has to do is smile, yet he doesn't.

He emotes a lot with his ear feathers, they're constantly moving.

Like most birds and other harpies, his bones are hollow. They're arguably made of stronger bone material but the insides are hollow so you can snap 'em with ease if you put enough force behind it.

His neck is like a chicken's, if you move his body his head will stay in one spot if he wants it to.

He liked to just sit and linger on Dally's shoulders when they were kids. Dally didn't mind.

His feathers travel up to the back of his neck and hair; the ones up top closer to his hair are a bit curlier.

The gang can play one-sided fetch with him if they want to. Toss a shiny and he dives after it; he just won't bring it back.

He's got a whole drawer that's just full of the shit he collects. Bones, bottle caps, coins, broken jewelry, glass, etc.

He gave everyone in the gang one of his feathers. All of them wear it on their person.

There's a rumor going around in soc society about Mothman. It's just Two-Bit in really bad lighting. He got moth man status because a soc was closing a shop one night and turned and just saw these BIG ol glowing eyes staring through the window in the darkness of the evening.

He goes after rodents and small bugs. His mom used to have to wrestle mice out of his mouth and he'd cry after.

His baby photos are 90% blurs and heaps of feathers because he ALWAYS had zoomies. The only photos he's peaceful in are the ones where he's snoozing.

If they were invented in their time, Darry would put claw caps on Two if he's resisting having his talons cut. They'll watch him try his damn hardest to just tolerate them before eventually relenting like "oKAY FINE I'LL CUT THEM."

In terms of a specific species, he's a Fish Crow.

TWO-BIT CONT.

His jumping went REAL fucking bad in this. Bev took a lighter to his wing and put her cigarette out between where they met on his back (alongside still burning his face). They didn’t go for both wings, because something was much more cruel about taking one rather than both.

That shit fucked him up for so long, not only was he unable to fly, but there was all that physical and psychological pain that came with having his freedom torn from him. He was made for the skies and now he’s forced to wander the ground with the same people who hurt him.

He self-isolated up until the rumble because he couldn’t stomach the idea of the group seeing how ‘gross’ his wing looked. His mom cried her eyes out when he came home after being jumped, even though he tried hiding the damage from her.

She tried to preen him to make him more comfortable but they couldn't get more than halfway through before he broke down sobbing. “Why couldn’t I have just been normal like dad” when his mom’s preening him bc he doesn’t want to keep feeling the pain in his wings. For a few days after he hesitated even letting her near just because the pain scared him.

HATED Marcia for a good bit after his jumping. She didn't partake in it, sure, but she watched and did nothing. It took months before he could even stomach looking at her.

When his wings recovered, he used to climb on the roof and watch the other harpies fly. He'd feel the breeze through his feathers and against his face and try to convince himself that just maybe, he was up there with them. Soda has to coax him back down with his power because he is only making himself feel worse. Two was bitter at the other harpies for a very long time.

Can't handle the smell of smoke from cigarettes, though. Fire itself in some cases (mostly Ace's fire) is fine, it's cigarettes that bother him.

School was hell on earth for a good while because tight spaces and sensitive wings don't go well. He usually ended up late to classes bc he had to wait for the halls to clear to leave. He would've dropped out over it if he wasn't afraid of upsetting his mom.

His balance was fucked up for a good while due to the difference in weight.

Steve and the rest of the gang made him a prosthetic for his wing. He cried, and it fit like a glove.

Despite getting that freedom back, though, he kind of hates it. He has to relearn to fly, and it's frustrating it causes a lot of resentment because he used to be able to fly perfectly and now he struggles. He hates that he needs to rely on this prosthetic to be free.

Two-Bit and Johnny bond over having had a part of their freedom taken and now needing aid to regain it.

There's no canon ship for Two in this but the writers fuck with Dar-bit and Mar-bit hard lmao. I'll probably be doing a lot of Dar-bit stuff for them.

AuDHD and PTSD, send tweet. Maybe ODD but I'm still thinking about that one. Major separation anxiety.

JOHNNY

Human, he's what we've been calling Death Tied - He's got a sixth sense where he can tell if, when, and how a person will die. If a person's death is coming up, he'll get flashes of the event; what killed them, their corpse, etc. It freaks him out sometimes, depending on who it is. I like to imagine he gets ‘death chills’; which is a similar thing to impending doom, only he feels it for others.

His curse was NOT biological. As a kid his parents almost killed him; Death saw this, decided it was fucked up, and decided to take in this small child as its own.

Johnny's teeth are just a little too white and his eyes a little too black sometimes. He’s got something akin to vitiligo after he received death’s blessing, and it outlines and mirrors the shape of his skeleton.

Butterflies follow him since he's death; unlike Pony, who has beef with the bees that follow him, Johnny enjoys their presence.

Doesn’t like to use his power much but (pre-jumping) absolutely will tell a soc with a flat expression when and how they’ll die.

He’d saved Darry from dying at the cost of Mr and Mrs Curtis’ lives. Initially, Darry had been planning to join their parents on the car ride to get the chocolate frosting; and Johnny had come over early to get away from home as they were getting ready to leave. He’d barely gotten to walk past the fae when he got the flashes occurred. Johnny watched everything— saw the crash, the way windows broke and metal crumpled inwards; watched the life drain from Darry’s eyes— and it freaked him out. He couldn’t for the life of him explain what he’d seen, but he wouldn’t let Darry leave; clung to him and wouldn’t let go.

Darry tried using his manipulation to get Johnny to let go, but it didn’t work, and that’s what stopped him from leaving. Their parents went alone, and it was the delay in waiting for Darry to come to the car that caused them to be on the tracks that day.

Johnny hasn’t forgiven himself for it. He thinks that maybe, he could’ve done something different and saved them all. He apologized for weeks— and still apologizes sometimes nowadays.

Johnny has never feared death, it’s hard to when you’re related to it yourself. When Bob died, he didn’t feel remorse until a few minutes after he was stuck there with the corpse. He's the boy of death, this is his normal- it’s only when his humanity returns that he realizes what he’s done.

The only time he's feared death was during/after the church fire. His power practically disabled itself due to how weak he was, and he was terrified. This was going to be it, he was going to lose his life at 16-- and then he woke up in the hospital.

While he was clinically dead, he spoke to Death. It was a simple interaction, just a reassurance that it was not his time to go yet. There was a feeling of comfort in their words, too.

Sometimes, when he sleeps, he sees Death again. One of the first times they'd spoken was when Darry was supposed to die. "Hey bud, that fae was supposed to die-" "No."

Before they could afford to get him mobility aids, Steve and Two helped him get around.

He's got a really uncanny feeling about him, people do not usually like it- Dally enjoyed it, though, 'cause he's fucking bonkers. It doesn't help that he doesn't blink.

He can easily float on the surface of bigger bodies of water because corpses float in water after they begin to decompose.

He's unnaturally cold like a corpse, the cold doesn't bother him because of that, but he does like feeling warm.

GAD, C-PTSD, and Autism. He's also selectively mute but is very vocal with the gang

Johnny still smokes, but being around the smell of smoke for too long makes him panic.

DALLY

Human, he’s the only one of the gang without a curse. However, he’s recently discovered a bit of an,, unsettling change to his daily life.

Dally's been seeing things. Apparations, spirits, whatever you want to call them. He'll see them in the corner of his eye and in certain circumstances can engage with them directly. He's not a fan of it.

Born in New York, moved to Tulsa when he was around seven; Two-Bit welcomed him with a stupid amount of enthusiasm and they’ve been buddies since.

He doesn’t talk about his birth family, no matter how much prompting there is. As far as he’s aware, Buck’s probably the closest thing he’s felt to an authority figure— at least until he grew older and colder, ignoring the role the adult had in his life.

He’s only capable of holding Two’s perching weight because he’s been doing it since they were kids.

He's very good at coping with his chirps too. Likes to whistle and watch that bitch shoot up and stare.

Dally tries his damn hardest to downplay how much Two (or any of the other greasers) mean to him. Vulnerability like that makes him feel too weak, and after having shown that weakness once, he doesn't plan to do so again.

Met Death while unconscious after being shot by the cops. The only reason he's alive is because Johnny would've been destroyed, and Death didn't want to deal with that shit.

Sometimes he feels a little weird about being the only human, but it's more out of a sense of not necessarily belonging there. It's an unconscious thought, one that only manifests in the rare moments when he realizes he feels just as out of place as he did in NYC. Dallas Winston is merely a boy who has never felt at home.

Dally, funnily enough, doesn't pass well as a human. Everyone outside the gang is convinced he's a vampire because he's so pasty and his canine teeth are naturally sharp.

He successfully convinced the gang that he could talk to and control rats. Two is the only person who knows he lied because he bought him a rat once and nothing happened.

He finds out through Two-Bit and Ms. Mathews that Fae can't lie and uses it to blackmail the Curtis bros, since nobody else knows that.

Yknow how he can see ghosts? One time he woke up on the Curtis' couch to Mr and Mrs Curtis in the living room. It freaks him out so bad that he unconsciously blocks them out right after. Blinks really hard a few times until they're gone.

He's the most feral of the gang. It's the New Yorker in him. He's not supernatural, sure, but he will fuck shit up. Absolutely off his rocker, launches people, and rocks their shit.

Dally's the one who found Two-Bit after he got jumped. He's so pissed ab what happened with Pony n Johnny that he wants some sick gratitude by seeing exactly where Bob took his last breath, so that’s where he finds him. He didn't know how to react, panicked HARD.

He's arguably the closest with Johnny and Two-Bit, he's just more open about that connection with Johnny. He's also pretty good friends with Darry, as there are a lot of little things they've found mutual ground on.

He's got claw scars littered around from the harpies. The ones from Two are due to the fucker dive-bombing down to grab him with his talons a little too fast, and the others are from fist-fighting Tim.

He called Ms. Mathews mom once and has not walked physically into the house since out of pure embarrassment. He doesn't even stand on the lawn that's how embarrassed he is by it all.

More general headcanon stuff fuck you but BPD, PTSD, intermittent explosive disorder, and ODD too.

Also a general headcanon but Two-Bit convinced him to get a tattoo during one of his own sessions for his sleeve, so he's got a little switchblade on the back of his leg.

He thought Two-Bit was having a heart attack the first time he heard how fast his heartbeat was.

Non-Canon but a fun fact. If he did die to the cops, he would've come back as a ghost.

ACE

Human, arguably the least passing as one, and she's got pyrokinesis - As usual, it's very self-explanatory. She can create and control fire with the mind, but there are a few limits to it. She can't produce large flames from her hands, and so she usually has to carry a lighter to kickstart her power if needed.

Ace can make very small fires on her fingers but they're not usually big enough to be manipulated. She can go larger as needed, but it'll drain her out. Likes to just light people's cigarettes and make the flame jump from finger to finger.

When she gets super pissed off, her hair sets on fire. The gang uses her to roast marshmallows sometimes.

Ace is unofficially adopted by Mrs. Mathews. The general idea is that she found her coming home one day, assumed this was a lost child, bought her home, and the kids bonded while she tried to get information about the girl's parents. At dinner was told some shit like “Mommy n Daddy dropped me off n said to wait :) That was two days go!!” and. Safe to say Ace hasn’t left since.

On that note, has a very familial relationship with Two and his sister. They grew up together, how could they not be? They're absolute fucking chaos when paired, though. She likes to call him any bird other than a crow to see him puff up all annoyed.

She used to threaten to turn him into Thanksgiving dinner if he kept pestering her.

Absolute fucking goblin. She has tried so hard to convince Cherry to help her burn half of the soc's houses down. "We'll spare yours don't worry!!" "N..No."

She can't really swim and it could arguably kill her if she's in water for too long, but if she's mad the water will boil away.

VERY warm by nature for obvious reasons, literally a space heater. Pony flocks to her in the winter because she's so warm

Looks the least human of the humans. She's got horns underneath her hair that are still growing more, and her hands are coated pretty permanently in ash. She gives off a subtle glow and her eyes/teeth look way too bright in the dark. Her eyes burn brighter when she's upset.

Normal headcanon but arguably has the second-worst criminal record in the gang.

She feels very guilty about her power due to how much trauma the others in the gang have gone through relating to it.

Unrelated to the AU itself but she's a lesbian. IDGAF what anyone says.

Ace infatuates Two-Bit by putting on a ring and waving her fire fingers in front of his face. The fire's light bouncing off it makes it look extra shiny, she uses it to get him to do stuff for her. "Oo oo you wanna buy me a Pepsi soooo bad"

Literally just bullies him. They have no clue who's older because Ace doesn't know her birthday but she's self-titled him as her little brother.

Couldn’t control her powers as a kid, the gang is quite literally the first group of people who understood that and didn’t isolate her because she kept accidentally burning them when she got too excited (its emotions tied to an extent, hence why she’s started only channeling it by bottling up her anger until she needs to burst)

If Ace uses her power too much she quite literally burns out. Can’t use any part of it for days and is super fucking exhausted. Winter is her absolute beloathed because it’s a pretty similar feeling she gets. She's very susceptible to frostbite.

She used to make jokes about burning Two’s wings off whenever he’d bother her. For a good while she’s way too afraid of even being close to him after his jumping because she doesn’t want to hurt him with her flames. Two trusts her in full even after the accident but her ass is NOT taking any risk, he thinks he pissed her off somehow for a while until it clicks when he watches her extinguish whatever little flame she’s fidgeting with on her fingers the second he walks in. “I trust you." (wearily) “Should you?”

PTSD and ADHD, along with some pretty bad sensory issues & maybe Pica.

Had a really toxic situationship with Bev. She couldn't see the red flags until Bev harmed one of her own. Their relationship was broken off the mere second she found out who hurt Two. Literally blew up at Bev and burnt herself out due to being so fucking angry. It parallels Paul's "Why would I like a freak like you" towards Darry with Ace telling Bev "I can't believe I loved a monster like you."

Rarepair/Crackship time. Ace x Cherry is canon. We call them Fireworks. They're very slow burn. Cherry needs to come to terms with her feelings and Ace needs to trust another soc again after what happened with Two n Bev.

OTHER CHARACTER THINGS

All of the Shepards are Vulture harpies.

Paul and Cherry of two of the only socs with powers. Cherry's got something akin to electrokinesis and makes little sparks with her hands similar to the way a bomb with a lit fuse would behave. Paul's a witch, but his manifested pretty late; probably post-rumble.

Cherry's fingertips are calloused from her sparks, and she's got a bit of resistance to fire. Her hair sparks like a bomb/fireworks when she gets super pissed off. Ace has tried to weaponize this for the silly.

She tries to hide her sparks. Wears gloves to keep them down and if she has to have them off will clench her fists, even if it burns her.

She's desperate to be good enough to her parents. They're ashamed of her due to her sparks, and all she wants is their approval.

Cherry's got major internalized homophobia for a while, very comphet. Eventually, she comes to terms it.

Paul tweaked the fuck out at first and had a panic attack before realizing he kinda fucked with it. Still has a huge bias against the greasers, though. It's something close to a god complex, but he just thinks he's superior due to his financial status as well. He's just got basic shit like rituals and spells.

Was convinced Darry was using his power on him when he confronted him about the Fae having loved him, cause he cried. It wasn't a heavy cry, just a bitter stare, "Why would I like a freak like you?", and silent tears. Darry still doesn't know how to feel about that.

(9/18 Edit: Take the Paul stuff ab his relationship to the greasers with a grain of salt, we’re changing stuff)

The only reason it's tolerance and not raw hate is because Paul was NOT in on Two being burned 💀Turned around to see Bev with her light and was just like "Well I guess we're cooking chicken tn????"

The socs who jumped Two wear his stolen feathers. The only socs with neat feathers are Cherry and Marcia.

Two's little sister (who I call Molly) once asked their mom (who I call Carolyn) why they couldn't give Two-Bit their molted feathers to 'fix his'

Ms. Mathews has pretty much adopted the entire group emotionally by now. She tries to help Darry with financials but Darry is. Darry.

MISC STUFF

Two-Bit used to get caught in and fly around tornados and Pony always caught sight of that shit. They liked to play a game where he tried to catch him while Two avoided his vines. If they couldn't get him down, Pony would get Soda to ask Steve to use his telekinesis bc Steve would say no if Pony asked.

They also play a game where Steve will fling a member of the gang as far as he can and Two dives after them. It's like fucked up football; Dally offered to be thrown and it was the most fun the three have had-- until they had to stop 'cause Darry caught them and almost had an aneurysm.

The DX windows used to be blank and empty but Soda and Steve started putting stuff up on them so the harpies don’t slam into the glass.

Steve puts Two-Bit in air jail if he tries snatching anything shiny from himself or Soda.

Two, Johnny, and Steve bond over having shitty fathers. Two n Steve do it the most since Johnny doesn’t like to talk about it, but Steve and Two will bitch to hell and back. Johnny's a part of the conversation but just nods and listens. If they have a rough day with their dads, the three of them end up hanging out together.

Johnny, Dally, and Two make people the most uneasy. Johnny's got these blank, dead eyes, Two's smile feels predatory, and Dally's Dally.

All the greaser Harpies look out for one another. It doesn't matter if they're not from the same gang, or if their gangs have tension; you look out for one another. They may necessarily not be each other's flock, but it’s natural for them to stick together.

The harpies love to play fight. They will absolutely beat the shit out of each other and then grab lunch as if nothing happened. All of the harpies have bird habits. Most of them sleep on their stomach.

Dally took something shiny out of Two's hands when they were kids, and Two cried.

Ace makes fun of Two-Bit's choice of men because they're lesbian and bisexual solidarity. "Thoughts?" "And prayers, you'll need them." The only time she ever was like ‘Wow you made a good pick’ was when he jokingly said it about Darry. "Thoughts?” “Your only good pick, He’s got my blessing.” ">:0"

During the real cold months when Darry has to decide between heating or food on the table, Two and Ace practically move in bc a walking blanket and space heater.

{ Tags List: @nova-drawzz @timewing06 }

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storm-angel989 · 5 months

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I just read your latest one shot and I got this crazy brainrot. What if Lucifer's eldest fell? An angel who never knew of hell or evil, who fell because of her undying curiosity of it?

Oh gosh this took a hot minute- so sorry I'm behind on requests! This follows the first request of similar nature and will probably end up being a multi-part series if it gets good feedback and folks enjoy it! It was fun to write- I love switching POV's!

She didn’t understand why her father wouldn’t let her learn about hell.

“But Dad, isn’t it better for me to understand, to avoid?” She pleaded the first time she was caught in his library. Digging through books she had no business being in, Adam lifted her up and cast her across the room carelessly.

“Honor thy father and mother,” her father responded casually. “So stay the fuck away from those books because I said so. Got it?”

He walked away without another care in the world. Honestly, he probably didn’t. At the ripe age of seventeen, reader had learned If it wasn’t related to his girlfriend or his dick, her father simply wasn’t interested.

Not that the idea was a new realization for her. Her father treated her with immense disdain. Her entire childhood had been a mix of severe punishment, harsh words, and next to no praise. She remembered standing, waiting outside the school door, reading alone for hours until he eventually showed up to take her home.

But his mistreatment didn’t stop her burning thirst for knowledge. Given the copious amounts of alone time, she snuck into his library and read all there was to know about the angels- about their history. About the creation of humanity. She had gotten her hands on the final book the night Adam caught her. With this one final act of disobedience, and the stark ignorance of the newly formed angelic council, her father himself ripped her halo off and cast her into the pits of hell.

Now as she stood alone in the dusty streets, the stench of poverty and failure wrapped her in a chokehold. Aimlessly, she wandered, desperately trying to find her way back to heaven. Back to her home.

“Child? Art thou alone?” She heard a voice behind her.

Her eyes fell to the tallest creature she had ever seen. He spoke in an accent, oldest than even the eldest angels. His robe was cooked in black, and save for the patched of green that outlined his face and his body, he could have been a shadowy. She looked down at the tattered remnants of her white gown. She supposed she was, but had enough sense to deny it vehemently. After all, hell was evil and no one down here meant anything good.

“I don’t believe thou,” the strange man answered. “Come, child. Allow me to return you to your home. Where you belong.”

His hand wrapped in shadows around her upper arm and before she could protest, she felt herself yanked forward, wind rushed around her. She closed her eyes, terror sinking into her heart. This was death, she was sure of it.

This was the hell her father spoke of.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin lucifer #hazbin hotel fandom #hazbin #lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel lucifer #hazbin x reader #hazbin hotel adam

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thatoneguydownthestreet · 2 years

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I have no clue if your taking requests so ignore this if you not

But if you are... hear me out housewardens (manly leona) try and get apocalypse y/n into a bath

I say this because in your hc ut says leona throws up when they first met. So yeah

Ao3 is down and i’m pissed. also here's some music

FEM ALIGNED PLEASE DNI

Dorms make you take a damn bath.

Riddle Rosehearts:

you were, for some ungodly reason, confused on why his face looks like someone force fed him sixteen lemons in a row whenever your around

well, my stupid student, that’s because you, yes you, smell like dog shit

old, cold, fermented dog shit that was left out in the rain

in other words: you stink

and riddle is loosing his damn mind over it

how does one go about telling this to their friend?

in a polite manner?

because he caN’t jUsT teLl yoU

so he tries to drop little hints

Tries

just small things at first

Just a little air freshener tree that you get at the carwash here and there

you find a mysterious perfume bottle on your night stand after Duece spent the night at Ramshackle

look! it smells like cherries!

too bad you didn’t trust it at all!

oh and look at this, an expensive cologne bottle that smells like sandelwood? isn’t that just plesent? Isn't it nice?

welp, it’s not yours! better put it back where you found it, someone's probably losing their shit looking for it

Riddle is now getting a bit desperate here

just a tad

Just a tad bit desperate

...anything can help right?

he makes Cater drop off a change of clothes for you. just some of the spare clothes that weren’t exactly his dorm uniform, that for some reason, he found laying around.

he’d have to have a little “chat” about that later with his dorm

He also kindly requested that Cater steal some of your clothes so he could wash them for once

(he was being quite literal on the “for once” part. those things smelled like they’ve never touched an ounce of detergent since you got them from crowly)

unfortuanatly, you are way too observant for your own good, and catch onto shit way too fast for his liking (or anyones liking) and quickly became suspicious about your missing clothes that miraculous reappeared in your drawers smelling...different

Riddle started feeling a little guilty for this after you locked yourself in your room for three days, and then came back out looking absolutely exhausted, checking over your shoulder like you had when you first got here

(Cater could have sworn he saw lilia looking at him with a dead stare out of the corner of his eye every time he went to club. Kalim said he was probably imagining it.)

Soon enough, operation mystery laundry was void

Meaning, your clothes returned to smelling like shit

And you...well, you never really stopped

.....ok.

Ok. He can work around this.

Hahahaha....Hahaha...ha....fuck

If ace trappola looks at you one day, says he's sorry, and then takes out a can of frebreez air freshener and sprays away, don't question shit, perfect

You brought this on yourself

But you of course, act like a cat being chased with a spray bottle, and run away

It for real takes trey to be the only responsible adult (NRC is an actual college and they're all adults fight me) in the entire goddamn campus to actually walk up to you and tell you you smell like ass

You then have a conversation about the rarity of clean water in you world

That conversation causes trey to come back to heartslabyul, take a metal bucket, fill it with clean, clear water, and then promptly dump it on you

And then he refills it with soapy water

That's right folks!

He's washing you, and your clothes!

Somewhere in the background, an NPC sees this and goes to notify riddle of the weird shit happening in the kitchens

Riddle doesn't know how to feel about this

He's definitely not happy but...he ain't mad about it either

He just makes an unfortunate NPC grab some towels for you

You didn't really know how to use the towels

Is it a blanket? No?

Your supposed to get it wet....

??huh?

Later that night, one Cater Diamond will whip out a PowerPoint presentation has been sitting in his computer for an undisclosed amout if time, explaining what a bath is

Everyone will thank him the next day for it

Ace still has the frebreez bottle btw, it's now used discreetly in alchemy class for whenever he and duece fuck up a potion

Leona Kingscholar:

Oh boy here we go

The cat man has gone from simply laying around in the [thingy] gardens to straight up rolling around in the plants to mask your smell just enough to not hurl on ground the second he sees you

this works 70% of the time

The other 30% is between him, ruggie, and the bathrooms

And once he realizes Jack howl hangs our with you on a regular basis?

Well, let's just say said dog boy is a little confused on why he's suddenly getting so much respect from his dorm members

Anyways, you leona doesn't really do anything about it at first.

You don't come by savanaclaw that much and your paths don't naturally cross too often, so doing something about the absolute toxic waste smell mixed with a half rotting animal carcass doesn't really have much...appeal to it

That was until this moment

Because you, my adorable little shit stain, were now in his PE class

PE class.

The class where everyone gets sweaty and smelly anyway

The only class that happened outside, you know, where his nose is just a little more sensitive because of the wind?

Yeah? That class

....great sevens help him

There are no pleasant smelling flowers in the fliedhouse. There is no access to any type of perfumes in the flied house because there are no pomefiore students out here

Ah shit, look at him, wishing for a pomefiore student

Never thought that one would happen

Anyways, kalim will later question leona about why he's been staying so close to him during PE recently

Because you are constantly bathed in inscents and spices kalim. inscents and spices

You are quickly deemed to jack work

Yeah, no way in hell is he dealing with this by himself, and ruggie isn't either, leona kind of need him alive to do his laundry (and provide the occasional comedic relief for whenever his brain decides it hates him a little more that day)

Now, jack is a lot of things

And he's usually prepared for whatever bullshit his dormmates and friends throw at him

But this...

Um. Perfect. Bro. Can you...can you perhaps not smell yourself?

Because he can

Everyone can. Actually

His approach is thankfully more quick than riddles

But he still tries to do it the polite way first

Leaving some cacti and succulents that had flowered early in your dorm room from time to time

They ultimately did nothing on their own, which is why he made epel politely convinced vil to put a little scenting spell on them

....it kind of works?

Congratulations Y/N. You now smell like shit with flowers on top

Which is arguably worse, but leona and literary EVERYONE ELSE will take what they can get

....

And then there's ruggie

He doesn't know when or why it happened, but he thinks it had something to do with the way you always seemed to marval at the water

He didn't eat in the cafeteria often, usually just eating on the go or whenever he found the time

But he still needed to get in there everyday for a certain spoiled prince

So...he saw you there sometimes

...and he saw your face when you looked at the water everyone else was drinking

You had stopped wearing that weird mask a long time ago (ruggie could vaguely remember leonas shoulders dropping the slightest bit when he told him....he wonders why that was sometimes)

The day you had taken it off was certainly...an event

But it turned out to be a good thing in the end, because seeing your face and what you were feeling was so much easier

And it let him see that painfully familiar face of disbelief and envy so much earlier

He knew those faces for a good reason. They'd been his after all, once upon a time

....he shouldn't do this

...

....he really shouldn't do this

....

When ruggie was nine years old, he saw a dead man just behind the old, half dried up waterhole that his ancestors ancestors used to gather water from

He had died from a disease that had made its way into their water supply

He remembered coming down with a bad fever shortly after and despite the dry heat of the desert, ruggie bucchi had never felt so cold

The old king of sunset savanna, leona kingscholars late father, had sent in doctor's and scientists and a years worth of clean water for his village only a few months later

Too bad they didn't come earlier...

It would've save a couple body bags

He hoped, oh great seven he'd hoped, that no one else dear to him had ever had to live that particular part if his life

...

...too bad nothing ever likes going his way

Your water didn't deserve to be called water, to have the glory and credit of the ever precious resource that allowed life itself

Because your water, wasn't water

It was poison

It's was a sickly brown, sometimes green, sometimes black, poison

And it was everywhere in the tunnels, you had said

"When I was little, I was playing around in an old abandoned army tank-"

("a what?" "Don't worry about it")

"-and...well, I guess we played a little too hard, because I got cut. Just a small scrape on my knee really..."

"But...it was enough for the water to make its way into my blood"

"...one of the medics. A man named Abdul? Yes. Abdul. He was able to bleed me just enough before it made its way in too deep"

"But still...the days after."

"I had never felt so...so.."

"...cold?", his voice came out in a whimper. It was barely a whisper

And he swore he felt his heart break a little when you shook your head with a sad smile

"Freezing"

....

A few things changed after that

It turns out, washing wounds with clean water and soap was a good way to treat wounds

Even the small ones!

"And it keeps you healthy! You won't get sick as easily as before!"

Ruggie didn't know exactly how to feel about the way your eyes sparkled at that

Azul Ashengrotto:

You must be out of your God damn mind if you think your even allowed in the lounge

Sorry perfect, but Azul has a business to run and patrons to keep happy, and you, my dear boy, do not currently spark joy

You smell like the trash that would sometimes wind up in the sea, despite it being illegal to dump your shit in the sea but whatever

He didn't like that you smelled so much like home

...but also not like home

The smell of the ocean on you was undeniable, but...you also smelled. Toxic

And he, for the life of him, just couldn't figure out why

He's not totally sure he wanted to figure out why

Something had clicked for jade a while back, that he was atleast semi-certain of

It was hard not to be, really

After all, he had never seen a look of horror that had crossed his vice wardens face quite like that before

He could still catch him looking at you in the halls, looking like he wanted to go right up to you and confirm whatever suspicions he had

But he never did...

Maybe it was because you weren't really close

Or maybe it was because you smelled terrible

Nah but seriously perfect, you act like the perfect gentleman when your not on survival mode, so why can't you just attempt to smell nice?

One shower ☝️ just- just one!

Please!

Here! Hell lend you some of this cologne too! It's expensive and it smells very pleasant if he says so himsel- wait- perfect- where the fuck are you going?

You were later found on the ceiling by lilia

....

How did you even..?

Whatever.

He's not wasting his time thinking about this right now

He has a restaurant to open! People to manage! A Floyd leech to control! And a fire cat to-

....

.......

Ya'know what? Jade wanted to talk to you anyways

This is his problem now

Floyd should be enough to keep the costumers and employees in line while he's making contracts in the back right?

Right

So when you open the dorm to Ramshakle and see one jade leech carrying a terrified grim in his arms, you better not complain about a damn thing Y/N

...

Anyways, you and jade are having some tea

You got it from kalim! It's the most expensive thing in the whole dorm!

Jade had a friendly smile on his face while he watched you make it

Why was he so focused on how much sugar you put in though?

..whatever man.

He took his midly sweet with two cubes of sugar and you took a strange satisfaction in watching his face go from friendly to horrified disbelief as he watched you dump about half the damn sugar from the container into yours

You still hadnt said anything

...

It was getting a little awkward. He was watching you drink your tea like a hawk

He lowkey looked concerned for your health

And sanity. Probably. Yeah

"So uh. Perfect?"

Oh?

"Hm?"

"May i ask a question?"

"What type of question?"

"A possibly deeply personal one"

There was a pause.

"...Well you can ask"

"Ah...so. you said you lived next to the ocean?"

You probably shouldn't have brightened at the mention of that...wretched place

....but it was still you home

And people will miss there home like people do

"Yes. Although I could never really go out to the surface by myself, so I never really got to see the sun rise over the horizon..i never got to see the sun at all actually"

He looked...

You couldn't really name how he looked

"Oh."

"..."

"So. This question. Did you...was the water. What was the water like?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, what color was it"

"It water that ran through the tunnels closest to the shore line always looked very...dark I guess? But now because of the lighting, some of the water itself was straight up black"

Jade wasn't smiling anymore.

"The elders had to boil it at least five times over before it was safe to drink"

No. Jade wasn't smiling at all.

"I see."

"So I'm guessing you didn't exactly waste any water to bathe?"

You tilted you head to the side in confusion

"Um. No?"

"...well that explains a couple things"

Two hours later, you were dressed down to your boxers and a T-shirt, and being thrown in a tub full of foamy water

It smelled rather pleasant

The water was warm. Was it freshly boiled?

Yeah. Probably.

...

Thos felt. Nice.

Jade picked up a rectangular shaped bottle and squirted a liquid in his hands. It reminded you if that laundry detergent you saw ruggie using to wash leonas clothes

Oh.

It was soap?

You felt long slender finders work it's way into your hair

...

"Tilt your head back for me please"

You did as requested

When had you closed your eyes?

The sound of gentle splashing and the feeling of your hair getting wet ... shouldn't have been this relaxing

The texture of the soap felt different somehow. Less liquid and more foam

It was nice.

Jade had excused himself after washing your hair. Explaining what to do with your body and the surrounding soaps and this weird fluffy thing called a luffa

And the next day, you passed a certain azul ashengrotto

Who then took the most violent double take you've ever seen

Also Floyd was staring at you. And then at jade. And then at you.

And then back at jade.

....uh.

Yes.

Azul stared for a few more seconds.

And then he sighed.

Ok. So you smelled uncannily like jade.

He did not want to think about how that happened but ok.

You didn't smell like burning garbage that was then put out in contaminated water

And that was really all he could ask for at this point.

Kalim al-asim and my bbg. Mostly my bbg

Jamil has to wave an incense stick around you before you go into the dorm

Nah but fr bro was fighting for his life in chapter 4

You could almost hear him replaying "I need him for the plan I need him for the plan I need him for the plan" over and over again in his head like a mantra

There was a cry of relief when he flung your ass to to desert

And now kalim has to deal with you

Bro is crying and in desperate need of comfort and he pulls away when you hug him 💀

Floyd will laugh at this

you will be sad and confused

And Floyd will laugh harder

Kalim is fucking struggling not to grimace when you get too close to him and you just don't know why

It's because you smell like shit and Jamil didn't wave around the vanilla lavender smoke stick around you to slightly 🤏 mask that scent

BUT ITS NOT LIKE YOU KNOW THAT LOSER LMAO

There was a random gust of wind in the desert one night and you scent drifted over to Floyd

He doubled over coughing

He did this for a good three minutes

Jade was hovering over his shoulder with water waiting for him to throw up

I hope this puts it into perspective of how foul you will smell after only having a bath about twice a year

Yesh, no wonder all your childhood friends are dead

Kalim is trying his best to make sure you and everyone else are alright without getting too close to you

It's precious really

Nah but he is just so close to using oasis maker on you and you alone

But there ain't really any soap 'round these parts so you will smell worse than a wet dog if he does that

So he doesnt

Begrudgingly

Jade thanks him for this

Jamil nearly cries when you come back

These are not tears of joy

You nearly make him stop the fight to go get you a bath

Help him he's having flashbacks of that awkward time in his life where he had to get kalims baths ready for him every night

And when the battle is over?

Jamil is spending an extra two days in that infirmary

He was already considering it because of kalim but you were just the fucking cherry weren't you?

Meanwhile, the world's perfume companies is a little concerned with how much perfume and scented oils are suddenly going out of stock

And you, you fucking dog, are concerned about the people trying to drag you to scarbia and start spraying you with some weird, good smelling liquid

...

They brought back a memory you didn't want to bring back

Two injured scarabia students and one paranoid Ramshakle perfect later, jamil finally snapped

He kindly let you know you smelled like a human rights violation and told you that you needed a bath more than he needed a will to live

...

Why were you being so quite? Were you feeling shame? If you were feeling shame then it was about dam ti-

"What did they spray me with"

"...I'm guessing a variety of perfume"

"...perfumes.?"

You looked confused

And. A little horrified?

Uh.

"Yes. Perfumes"

Was it just him or was it getting a little hot in here?

In, you know, the desert

"But those werent....is everyone at this school an aristocrat?"

...blink

"No?"

"Then why did those two have perfume?"

Blink. Blink.

"...perfect"

"Perfumes are. Perfectly accessible to the public"

Damn shawty, you're entirely reality really loves crashing down on you huh?

You spaced out almost immediately after that, and Jamil led you to the showers, much more gently than he was planning on before

....

He didn't like how he felt his stomach start to drop when you froze up at the clean, hot water coming out of the shower head

Vil Shoenheit

There really ain't much to say here

Easily the most blunt

Yeah, you're not getting anywhere near him if you smell like that

Sorry not sorry, it's not happening

Gets it done immediately

Has you taken the the bathroom and rook explains what a shower is and how often you have to take one

And that it basically

Man's wasted no time and now you have a thirty step skin care routine. Congratulations.

Idia shroud:

....

We're you expecting this man to be around enough to actually smell you?

Nah

Nah, yall meet online or through his floating tablet and that is it

....and then there's boardgame club

He invited you once

He quickly realized and regretted his mistake the second you walked into the room

Ortho reminds him that he too, smells like shit most of the time

It does little to subdue him

But it does make him have a small pang of guilt and the shame that comes with hypocrisy every time he talks shit in his head

He tells one person about this as a sort of dollar store therapy session

And that person is his gaming partner

And- damn bro, you got one of these foul smelling bitches too?

So this is a common phenomenon?

I guess?

Yeah, don't plan on interacting with him in person until you figure out how to use a damn shower

Your on tablet treatment

But you still need to log into WoW when he and the hot-pink emo need you

You're surprisingly pretty good? Actually?

I mean, you certainly know your survival tactics

Including some shit he's never really bothered to think about

Tf do you mean make a grenade out of a tin can? Wtf is a grenade in the first place?

Anyways, idia has some new weapons in the inventory

But uh...perfect?

Sometimes the shit that you day is....concerning

Especially around water sources

"This is all water?"

"...yes?"

"And it hasn't been drained? It's not that we'll hidden. There's no way that the upper counsle hasn't found it yet"

"..."

"Huh?"

Idia would like to blame the VR for making you forget this is a video game

But yeah he's got some questions

And lucky for him! He is severely sleep deprived and lacking his usual "just apply common sense" mentality!

So again! Questions

First if all, was water rare where....ever your from?

(Water wasn't rare exactly, you guys in the tunnels just...weren't aloud to have it)

Well what the hell were "the tunnles?"

He didn't ask that one though, he was more focused on the water.

Questions for another day

What's the upper counsle?

(you stayed silent for a long minyte after that, only replying in a non-answer that you really hated the upper counsle)

How are you still alive if you don't have water?

"Well...I'm not really alive anymore..."

What?

"But before! Before that I lived in a base that was close to the ocean, and water would sometimes flow in"

I'm sorry, idia feels like you've just brushed over something more important

"So we'd collect as much as we could and boil it! It'd have to be boiled and filtered at least five times before it even go to some semblance of clean... so there really wasn't a whole lot to divide amongst the people down there afterwards"

Oh so we're. We're just gonna move right on past that. Ok then.

"Wait so. Have you ever had a shower?"

"Whenever we have enough water I guess? But those are mainly for the children and the sick ones"

.......ahhhhh

"Ok. Well. I'm gonna tell you what a shower is, and you are going to take one immediately"

"..ok?"

So now he's here, buying more soap than he would need to last a dozen lifetimes

How did his life cough ever come to this?

...and seriously. What the hell did you mean when you basically told him that you were a dead man walking?

Malleus draconia:

Met you in your little gas mask, assassination, survival island phase

And you met some big ass horn man who popped out from a bunch of little....light bugs

And uh...uh.

Let's just say having a dull, poorly made knife thrown straight at you wasn't really the best first impression

Mother fucker was about to smite you down where you stood until you asked who tf he was

Then he paused

...oh damn

This little human boy doesn't know shit huh?

Dam-.....

What smells?

Bro starts sniffing the air like a fuckin dog

Now, malleus could say he had a relatively strong nose

He was a dragon fae who had lived for hundreds of years after all, he could memorize scents and pick things out in them

Like he could pick out the chemicals and pollution and death in yours

He takes two steps back

And then one step forward because he's confused

What.....what the fuck?

Uhhhh....you won't mind if he just...

Over the course of several days, you gradually smell better

Just enough to be bearable

Leona on his knees thanking some ancient God he don't believe in fr

You also get a strong craving for water

Not to drink it necessarily, but to just. Be in it.

You're also finding yourself in the Ramshakle bathrooms more often than not and you can't figure out why

Like now, when you sitting in the bathtub

....

What does this nob do?

Oh shit, you just got water everywhere.

....you just got water.....everywhere

Clean water.

Hot. Water.

....

...you're really in another world aren't you?

____________________

This has been sitting in my drafts for like a week now holy shit💀

Ok. Time to work on some other shit now. I'm like half way done with the first chapter of The Doves Called The Day You Came Home so that's nice ig

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emilybeemartin · 7 months

Note

Just a hello, and thank you for writing!

I found your stuff through your humorous Boromir comics (man those make me laugh, I've shared them with several people) and then when you mentioned you were an author I got excited, and then when you mentioned which of your books you liked best I got even more excited! So I read through Sunshield and now I am reading Floodpath, and I want to say, I really really enjoy your books and writing and I hope you write (and enjoy writing!) a lot more! I have limited time these days but I look forward to when I can enjoy some more of your stories. And please don't hesitate to tell people about the books you have written too! Tumblr is a beautiful place but awfully disjointed, and it's fun to find new authors here. Thanks for putting your stories into the world!

Thank you so much!! I'm so glad you enjoyed Sunshield (and ostensibly Floodpath as you sent me this lovely ask like a hundred years ago, sorry). Self-promo is the worst, so I appreciate the kind words of support, and sure, I'll take the opportunity to say:

If folks have enjoyed my comics or fics, maybe check out my published novels. The Creatures of Light trilogy starts with Woodwalker, which follows an exiled ranger guiding a deposed queen through the wilds to reclaim her throne. The Outlaw Road duology starts with Sunshield, where a desperate outlaw, a sheltered diplomat, and a political prisoner find their paths crossing in a quest to expose a system of corruption.

And if you like my illustrations, take a look at my middle-grade eco-fantasy, A Field Guide to Mermaids. It uses the behaviors, adaptations, and habitats of mermaids to explore real aquatic ecosystems. I like to think of it as a science book with a fantasy veneer.

I'm hoping to have more novel news soon after many months of being stuck in the publishing industry hamster wheel, but the timing on that is anyone's guess. Which is what fan art is for.

#creatures of light #the outlaw road #a field guide to mermaids #woodwalker #ashes to fire #sunshield #floodpath

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oonajaeadira · 3 months

Note

In honor of Catfish Day, may I ask a question? What is Frankie's best line of dialogue in TF? (also every time i consider deep and evocative world-building, i think about your stories and wanted you to know)

My Megan, my Cheese. You are a lovely soul, did you know???

I will admit that I've only watched Triple Frontier the once, but of course "We gotta fly over the fuckin' Andes, man!" is iconic.

This movie was what I VERY LOVINGLY call "Bro Fare" and is full of boys-being-boys, full of drugs and violence and military and bad decisions. And while I applaud the fact that it kept me gripping the back of the couch in a half escape, afraid for all of them and what could go wrong next, it wasn't really my kind of movie.

And now I'm gonna say something that may raise some hackles around here....other than Pedro and Oscar, I don't really remember the other characters. I know a lot of folks like Garrett or don't like Ben or whatever, but at the end of the day, I felt like the other three dudes were just playing your run of the mill military dudes.

But Oscar's Santi had a LOT of subtext. He was fighting against blaming himself for anything that happened because he called them all there and he didn't want to drown in it before they were out. There was a morally grey center to all of them, but I really feel like Oscar did an amazing job holding down the one that was the furthest from the light even if he was also trying desperately to protect them all. (Come after me if you want to say Tom was the worst, but that guy was just a damaged idiot. He's almost not even on the same scale.)

And on the flip side, I was amazed at the choices Pedro made to play the opposite end of the scale. You give a man a role like this, most of them are gonna play the military bro. These boys have seen service and it's easy to just play that stereotype (which, sorry, is what I felt the other three kinda did.) But Frankie is almost too soft of a heart to be there. His personality doesn't scream military in the Hollywood sense...because Pedro made a conscious choice not to play it. Any chance he could have swung into macho, he went the opposite direction, and listening to his lines and imagining how they are, flat on the page in a script, that role could have easily become that. He actually read his lines and found a different Frankie under them, chose to play someone who made bad choices and regretted them because he'd hurt people he loved with those choices. He isn't the loudest of the bunch, he's more a wallflower in the group because he's there to support, not be supported by them. And when Pedro asked himself, why does this man say yes to this with so much on the line? His answer was obviously love. He loves his brothers. He's at the fight not because he loves the fight but because he loves his friend. He hates saying no to Santi when he's asked to go because he doesn't want to disappoint his friend and you can see it in how he pussyfoots around his (very valid and nothing to be ashamed about) excuse. He ultimately says yes out of love and loyalty even if it hurts himself, even if it turns him back into the monster he wish he never was and Pedro made that choice to make it make sense to himself. And then he played THAT guy.

I love Pedro just as much as the rest of you, but I make a living in the theater and beyond his looks and his killer personality, I respect Pedro's acting chops and his choices and his deliveries so very very very much. I'm wowed by him on a nerrrrrrdily technical level. It's what drew me to him in the first place--when Din took off his helmet and told Grogu it would be alright and barely held it together, when this big tough warrior showed his face and that actor was not afraid to show that emotions in no way weakened his strength and could exist in a warrior in harmony, I was like WHAT IS THIS FRESH CHOICE WHO IS THIS FUCKING AMAZING ACTOR AND WHAT ELSE OF HIS SHIT DO I NEED TO WATCH NOW.

And now I can't unsee it. I love falling in love with his characters because they are so multi-dimensional, so nuanced, so real because he does the work and makes good choices. Every time a new role shows up, I'm a true Gemini: one half of my brain is squealing like a little girl because dur dur pretty Pedro boy and the other half is squealing like a little girl because OH MY GOD THAT'S A FKN AMAZING READ WHERE DID THAT CHOICE COME FROM.

He's amazing. And what makes Frankie amazing to me is all the easy choices he turned away from and yet made the harder ones look like childsplay.

#I'M SO SORRY #THIS WAS LONG #I WENT OFF #I LOVE YOU MEGAN

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iris-sistibly · 3 months

Text

The Targ Talk: House of the Dragon S2

Episode 3 commentary:

Late to the party again but anyway,

Alicent and Criston's lOveY doVey moment before the cunt left is cringey af.

Rhaenys defending Rhaenyra from the council full of men is *chef's kiss* she's the only one who understands why the queen has been holding back. I get the council's point that they should be acting now because the greens are advancing. If you really think about it, it's really too late for peace negotiations, but the queen's desperate attempts to choose a peaceful way to end this conflict--despite how hopeless, was because she knew how important it was to keep the houses united (the prophecy), she also knew that this war will cause the downfall of their House, and more innocent lives will be claimed including her loved ones and she cannot allow that.

Rhaenyra sending her babies away to keep them safe will never not be heartbreaking. I feel bad for Rhaena too, all her life she felt useless and unloved. It sucks because she never felt like a true Targaryen just because she didn't have a dragon at the time (she wouldn't have Morning until much, much later). But my girl would be taking care and watching over two future kings. A role that Rhaenyra entrusted her, which is just as important.

I've read that Geeta Patel confirmed that Dany's dragons were actually Syrax's babies, which surprised me because those three looked more like Dreamfyre than Syrax or even Caraxes (if he's their dad). I even thought that Drogon, Viserion, and Rhaegal were those three eggs Elissa Farman stole from way, way back (like Rhaena Targaryen, the OG rider of Dreamfyre days). Perhaps they purposely did that since Daenerys came from Rhaenyra and Daemon's line but they should have at least made Syrax look like Dany's dragons 🤷.

Milly Alcock briefly appearing in Season 2 🥹🥹 Although that scene when she was sewing Jaehaerys' neck while singing gave off a really creepy vibe, it served as Daemon's conscience and I love the way they delivered it. Hands down to Matt Smith!!! I love that scene when Daemon teared up upon realizing how much pain he had caused Rhaenyra, Matt was impeccable.

I love how Crispy Cunt and Gwayne were scrambling to save their asses from getting burned by Moondancer. Baela scaring the shit out of them is priceless, and her dragon is a cutie.

Strangely, even if Aegon is back to his Joffrey Barratheon era I don't hate him as much as the latter. He is so easy to manipulate to the point that it makes him so pathetic, I feel sorry for him that he's only king by name. However, I feel worse for Helaena. She was setting aside her own grief because she felt like the small folk had it worse. Girl you are allowed to mourn, you did not deserve that kind of trauma.

Speaking of which, I wish they have shown more of Helaena's grief--the guilt, the nightmare that kept haunting her, OR Helaena setting her emotions aside because she felt that she does not deserve to mourn the death of Jaehaerys because she felt guilty of what she did. I think that would have been truer to what Helaena actually feels (and closer to her story in the book). Though I commend her strength for being able to "forgive" Alicent, not just for what happened to Jaehaerys, but perhaps for the things she fucked up in the past. Though I've read a fan theory that the scene could also depict Helaena's vision that Alicent might betray the greens in an attempt to correct her mistake or something like that, what do you think?

Ewan Mitchell is brave for doing that nude scene to show Aemond's vulnerable side. He is cold, fierce, and intelligent on the outside, but underneath that armor, he is someone who has suffered so much at a young age and is still hurting until now.

I'm still mad at this incredibly stupid writing that Alicent thought Viserys was referring to their son Aegon. Imagine losing your children, killing each other, and traumatizing your surviving loved ones over a misunderstanding. A fucking misunderstanding. Idk what the screenwriters were thinking or who came up with this idea but...I cannot.

Rhaenyra's last attempt, as expected was pointless. Even if Alicent admitted that she fucked up, and declare Rhaenyra as the rightful queen, she knew it wouldn't change anything. Aegon [most likely] wouldn't just suck it up and accept Rhaenyra as queen knowing how angry he is at her for his son's death, and it's not like the council would listen to Alicent anyway, so much are already at stake and I don't think the greens would back down just like that.

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its-jaytothemee · 2 months

Text

Until I Met You - Chapter 29

Chapter 29: Those Left Behind

Pairings: Halsin x Tav

Word count: 4,755

Rating: Currently M, will be Explicit in later chapters.

Read on AO3

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Summary: Tav is still coming to terms with her brother's death while also trying to help Halsin get the information he so desperately needs about Thaniel. Part 29 of the slow burn fic. Tav and Halsin POVs.

Tags: Slow burn, mutual pining, hurt/comfort, emotional hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual love confessions, eventual smut, angst, implied past rape/non-con and abuse, graphic description of injuries, brief suicidal thoughts.

A/N: Sorry folks, we're not out of angst land yet. Thanks for hanging in there for a while longer between updates. I'm hoping to be able to do some more concentrated writing in the near future <3

Tav leaned against Halsin as they made the short hike back to camp. He kept one arm around her shoulders as they walked. Her mind and heart felt raw from the emotional whiplash of the day. Meeting Ketheric Thorm, freeing the cult’s prisoners, discovering a lead to banish the shadow curse, finding Tev, Halsin’s kiss. It was almost too much.

I care about you, Tav.

Once again, the simplest affirmations from him drew the sadness from her with ease. Unfortunately for her, the bottomless well that was her grief refilled itself quickly.

Still, it was nice to know that she hadn’t made a total fool of herself this morning.

“Hey, soldier,” Karlach called out to her softly as they came into view of the camp. Her eyes darted between her and Halsin. “Feeling better?”

“A bit, yeah.” Tav rubbed her eyes, still stinging from her tears. Halsin pulled her tighter against him, causing a broad smile to stretch across Karlach’s face.

“That’s good to hear. Come on, have a seat.” Karlach patted the spot next to her near the fire.

“Thanks, but we’re still going to Last Light. We’ll just rest there for the night.” Tav gave her a weak smile.

“Are you sure? Do you need us to come with you?” Wyll’s face was twisted with concern.

“I think we’ve taken care of the threat during our first excursion, but should anyone want to join you are of course welcome to do so,” Halsin assured him.

Karlach elbowed Wyll in the ribs before responding. “I’m sure they can handle it now that we took care of that last group of shadows.”

“Meet us there first thing in the morning?” Tav asked.

Everyone nodded their agreement along with a few more murmured condolences, except for Karlach, who responded with a wink. Tav just rolled her eyes in response, unable to help the small smile that tugged at her lips.

As they walked out of camp, Halsin reached down to lace their fingers together. The comforting feeling of his hand in hers helped steady her steps. Lunari padded along beside her, bumping into her legs every now and then.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly.

“I…I don’t know. I’m not sure what to talk about.” Tav sniffled. “I think part of me always knew he was gone. I just couldn't accept it without knowing.”

“Closure is a very powerful tool for moving past our grief, but it has a habit of opening up old wounds that didn’t heal properly the first time around. At least now you know his fate, horrible as it was. You can heal now, Tav. You can move on knowing that he’s now at peace.”

“You make it sound so simple.” Her tears returned and she leaned against his arm.

“It is anything but simple, my friend. Do not take my words as a dismissal of your pain. Everyone heals in their own time. It may take weeks, it may take years, but eventually the pain will dull, and the wound will mend once more.”

“Thank you, o wise and all-knowing Archdruid,” Tav mumbled, feeling a stab of guilt over her sarcasm. To her relief, Halsin just chuckled.

“Former Archdruid, but I suppose old habits die hard. If there’s anything I can do to help you, Tav, please let me know.”

She glanced down at their hands.

“This is good enough for now.”

He hummed in appreciation as she squeezed his hand.

They took the rest of their walk in silence. Tav buried her face in Halsin’s arm once they reached the small area where they had fought the shadows earlier. He kept a firm grip on her until they had passed. Before she knew it, they were crossing the bridge into the courtyard of Last Light once more. The courtyard was still bustling with its patrons, many of whom were now reunited with loved ones who had been captured.

She hated that such a happy sight made her feel so resentful.

“Are you ready?” She turned to ask Halsin.

“Lead the way.”

***

Halsin let Tav guide him back into Last Light Inn. Given the darkness choking the land, it was hard to tell the time of day, but he guessed it was getting late in the evening. Harpers, Flaming Fists, and refugees alike were still wandering about the grounds.

He did notice that there were a few more familiar faces around.

“The tieflings…” he saw Alfira had been joined by Lakrissa across the room, “you found them?”

“Some of them,” she replied in a low voice, “we still couldn’t find Arabella’s parents, or Zevlor, or Mol.”

“They weren’t being held at Moonrise?”

“Apparently not.”

Before he could respond, two tieflings came barreling up to Tav the moment she crossed the threshold of the inn.

“It’s you! You’re back!” The tiefling that spoke first was Bex, her husband, Danis, was one of the refugees that had been captured. “You left before we had a chance to thank you!”

Her hand shot out to grab Tav’s, pumping it up and down enthusiastically. Halsin squeezed the other hand tighter as he felt her tense at his side.

“Oh, of course…it was nothing.” Tav cleared her throat and forced a small smile onto her face.

“It was everything.” Danis came up to shake Tav’s hand as soon as Bex dropped it. “I thought I would be rotting away in that tower, without getting to see my love’s face one last time. To be reunited when I had all but given up…”

Halsin watched as Tav’s lips quivered at his words and felt her fingers dig into his hand.

“Happy to help,” she barely breathed the words out.

“Here, we don’t have much, but I made these for you.” Bex reached into a small bag and handed her a cloth package.

“Thank you, that’s very kind.” Tav took the offering with a trembling hand before stashing it away in her pack.

Halsin tried to lead her into the next room, but yet another group of grateful refugees swarmed them.

“Oh, thank the gods! I thought for sure you had left for the night!” Two more tieflings pushed Bex and Danis out of the way to get to Tav. He recognized them now, they were siblings. Their brother, Rolan, was meant to go to Baldur’s Gate to be an apprentice to a wizard there.

“Cal and Lia have told me that you were responsible for their return.” Rolan approached them with an embarrassed look on his face.

“Most people would just say thank you, Rolan,” Cal said as he nudged Rolan’s arm.

“I had help,” Tav added, her lips still quivering as she tried to force them into a smile.

“And modest, too?” Lia laughed as she looped an arm around one of Rolan’s.

“I suppose I was…harsh on you before. You have my sincere thanks for returning these two assholes to me,” Rolan smiled.

“Yes, thank you for helping my idiot siblings,” Cal teased back.

“My pleasure,” Tav’s quiet voice was almost lost in the commotion of Last Light, “think nothing of it.”

Halsin could just barely see the tears forming in her eyes and hear the subtle uneasiness in her breathing.

“I’m terribly sorry, my friends,” he interjected before the tieflings could speak up again, “I’m afraid Tav has had a very tiring day and is in desperate need of some rest.”

“Of course! I was exhausted from just watching you fight, I can’t imagine how you feel. We’ll talk to you again soon I’m sure.” Danis gave another grateful smile before pulling Bex away as well.

“Right, we’ll leave you to it. Thanks again!” Lia called over her shoulder as she walked outside with her brothers.

Tav stood frozen in place as she watched them walk away, arm in arm.

“Tav?” he called out quietly.

She didn’t respond, a few tears simply rolled down her cheeks. He felt guilty all of a sudden, for dragging her back here to see happy reunions all around her. Everyone around Last Light had been given a new surge of happiness, of hope.

And she had just lost hers just a few hours before.

He wanted to say something, anything to comfort her, but his mouth may as well have been filled with cotton. Luckily for him, Jaheira had wandered over to greet them.

“I didn’t expect to see you back tonight, little ranger.”

Her voice snapped Tav out of whatever spiral had taken hold.

“High Harper,” Tav sniffled and stood up a bit straighter before continuing, “I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“No need for such formalities, my friend. Jaheira suits me just fine.” She flashed a crooked smile at them.

“Of course, I uh,” Tav took a shaky breath, “I had to bring Halsin back to speak to the Flaming Fist. He could have information about how to dispel the shadows.”

“Truly? That is quite a fortunate coincidence.” Jaheira started to say something else, but her face fell as she took notice of Tav’s reddened eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

Her eyes shifted to Halsin, who gave a small shake of his head.

“But that is a conversation that can be held for later, you look exhausted, Tav.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small key.

“What’s this?” Tav asked, confusion apparent on her face.

“It is a key my very perceptive friend.” She pressed it into Tav’s palm. “Upstairs, second door on the left. There’s a room with the materials for a bath. I think you could use one, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“A…a bath?” A bit of brightness returned to her eyes at the offer. “Thank you.”

“I’d be happy to show Halsin to the Flaming Fist.” Halsin saw her eyes dart down to their hands, still entwined in a comfortable grip. “Unless you two are…” she trailed off as she tried to find the words.

Tav panicked and dropped his hand, her endearing blush creeping across her face.

“Thank you, Jaheira, I appreciate it.” She gave him a sheepish look as she sulked off toward the stairs. Lunari flopped down beside Halsin, resting her head on her paws.

“Tav?” he called out before he could stop himself. She turned around slowly and cocked her head to the side.

“I’ll…I’ll be right down here when you’re done.”

She nodded with a small smile before disappearing up the stairs.

“Tell me, Halsin, what happened?” Jaheira turned to him as soon as Tav was out of view.

“We found her brother, Tev’aron.”

“You…you found him? How is that poss–” The realization dawned on her just as she started to speak.

“I see.” She hung her head for a moment. “What was his fate?”

“He was part of a group of shadow cursed Harpers that ambushed us.”

“It was a dim hope that she would find him alive. It doesn’t make me any less sorry to hear that.” Her eyes moved back to the stairs. “How is she?”

“Devastated, from what I can tell.” Halsin recalled her heartbreaking screams as she held her brother’s dead body. The thought alone was enough to bring tears back to his eyes.

“I must warn you, this Flaming Fist is likely a dim hope as well. And yet, she made the dangerous trek through shadow to bring you here.” The corners of her mouth twitched. “A Harper at heart.”

Halsin smiled alongside her. “She doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Regardless, I worry that she will continue to chase these dim hopes. Pouring her own light into them to keep them sheltered and lit until she is naught but a shadow herself.”

“I won’t let that happen,” Halsin promised her.

“See that you don’t.” Jaheira had a way of turning simple words into an order.

“I worry more about what will happen when she no longer has the curse or Ketheric Thorm to concentrate on. Even their fight against the Absolute will serve as some form of distraction. But after that…” He trailed off, not wanting to think about that himself either.

But Jaheira apparently did.

“And what about you, Halsin? What will you do once you no longer have Ketheric Thorm or the shadows to keep your mind distracted?”

Halsin’s breath caught. It was a question he hadn’t dared to ask himself in so long.

“I suppose I’ll have to find a new distraction.” As hard as he fought it, he couldn’t keep his eyes from following Tav. Jaheira stifled a laugh as she followed his gaze.

“The Fist you’re looking for is in that room right over there.” She tilted her head toward a room to his right. “I trust you’re capable of making it inside on your own, unless you still need a hand to hold?”

He narrowed his eyes at her before walking through the doorway, Lunari trailing behind him. His heartbeat pounded in his ears, drowning out the quiet song coming from a man across the room.

Halsin took a seat on the bed next to the slumbering Fist, taking a deep breath to refocus himself.

The first sound he heard was humming, the second was a name. A name that brought tears to his eyes and a new swell of hope in his chest.

Thaniel.

***

Despite the last two days weighing on her shoulders, Tav allowed herself a fleeting moment of respite. It had been weeks since she could take a proper bath. Since their abduction, they had been resigned to quick, freezing rinses in creeks and rivers, hardly enough to wash away the grime and filth they had been wading through. Letting out a heavy sigh as she sank into the warm water, she took her time scrubbing the dirt and dried blood from her skin and hair.

Satisfied with her freshly cleaned skin, she drew her knees up close to her chest. Once again, her grief came back to weigh her down, threatening to drown her in the bath.

A memory came creeping into the front of her mind, one of her last memories of Tev.

Tav’ahria stormed out of the tavern where Tev had asked her to meet him.

“Come on, Ria, I don’t want us to part ways on a fight,” Tev’aron yelled after her.

“What do you want me to say, Tev? You told me we’d stick together, and now you’re leaving me behind.” She was having a hard time keeping the deep hurt out of her voice.

“It’s not like I have much of a choice, the High Harper is taking her squad to Reithwin, and that includes me.” He had to jog to catch up to her as she stomped away.

“You could ask to transfer, you could stay here in Amn.” A pang of guilt stabbed her in the gut for asking that of him. He had worked hard over the past three years to be in the company of Jaheira, the legendary hero of Baldur’s Gate.

“Is that what you’re asking me to do?” His tone softened a bit as he caught up with her. “Ria, please, just…”

Tev reached out and grabbed her wrist. She refused to meet his eyes.

“Come on, talk to me. Ever since you broke things off with Sylia you’ve been extra moody, you know that?”

She reached up to touch the fresh scars lining her nose and cheek. A parting gift from her scorned former lover. Tav’ahria took note on ending a relationship in a gentler fashion in the future. Especially if the partner in question favored a wild shape that gave them extra sharp talons to attack her with.

“This has nothing to do with her, and you know it,” she snapped back.

“Are you sure? Because honestly, Tav’ahria, when you were getting laid consistently you were much more–”

She cut his teasing off with a quick knee to the groin, causing him to drop the hand he had been holding.

“You were saying?” She smiled at him sweetly and batted her eyelashes.

“I…was saying…” he wheezed between words as he remained hunched over, “that there’s…something else…bothering…you.”

He wasn’t wrong.

The fact of the matter was, the Harpers had always been Tev’s dream, not hers. She had enjoyed the last few years, if anything because she was far away from their family. Many of her new peers had even gone from casual acquaintances to friends.

But now, he was leaving her to chase those dreams. As much as she hated herself for it, she resented him for leaving her behind.

“You’re leaving, Tev. Whether it’s fully under your control or not, that’s what’s happening.” Tav’ahria looked away from him again, trying to hide the misty haze clouding her eyes.

“I’m just going on assignment, Ria. It’s not like I’m being banished to another plane of existence,” he said, still catching his breath.

“You might as well be,” she whispered back.

“I know this will be the furthest we’ve been apart in some time, but neither one of us will be alone.”

“I know, I just…I really thought I’d never see you again that first night you ran away. And now…” she sniffled, “now I have that same feeling.”

“And yet, I came back. I’m not going anywhere, my sweet sister.” He pulled her into a hug.

“You only call me that when you want something,” she muttered into his shoulder.

“Yes, I want to go to Moonrise Towers with my squad,” he pulled away so he could look down at her, “but if you ask it of me, if you really need me to do so, I’ll stay here with you.”

Yes, I want you to stay here with me. I can’t stand the thought of being left alone in this world.

Without you here, I’m afraid I’ll go back.

The words in her mind brought years of guilt crashing down on her. For so long, Tev had held back to protect her, to help her. Now they were free, free to make their own choices, free to forge their own paths. Yet he still held himself back for her.

She had a chance to repay him now, for everything he had done for her.

“No, Tev. I don’t ask you to do that.” She leaned back into him.

“Thank you, Ria.”

Tav’ahria took a few deep breaths before letting him go.

“Besides, it’s just another squabble between a few Sharrans and Selûnites. Once territory is marked again and they’re sent on their merry ways, we’ll be heading back. That region has been occupied by followers of Selûne for longer than either of us have been alive, I doubt this will be a lengthy affair,” he assured her.

She could only manage a nod in response.

“I’ll write to you. Don’t worry,” he leaned over to kiss the top of her head, “a tenday from now we’ll be back together.”

“You’d better find someone else to tame that mop of hair on your head while you’re gone.” She reached up to tuck a runaway curl back among the others.

“No promises.” He swatted her hand away with feigned annoyance while she tried to rearrange more of his hair. As he turned to head back into the tavern, she fought the tears welling up in her eyes watching him leave.

“I love you, Tev,” she called after him as he ran away.

“I love you, Ria.” He gave her one more big, dimpled smile before disappearing into the tavern.

When she finally brought herself to open her eyes again, she was back in Last Light.

You didn’t come back this time, Tev.

She stayed curled up in the bath until the water had cooled, her fingers and toes had pruned, and the salty lines of tears on her face had dried.

No use wallowing in a cold bath.

She forced her legs to stand again, the noble blood in her veins fighting every move as she dressed herself in the dirty clothes she’d been wearing for weeks.

Still, the hot bath did wonders for her sore muscles, even if it did make her incredibly tired.

Tav gathered up her belongings and dragged her feet back down the stairs. By the time she had emerged, the commotion in the inn had died down. Only a few Harpers remained awake, drinking and laughing at the bar. She didn’t see Jaheira anywhere, so she just tucked the key she was given back into her pocket.

Trying to avoid any further conversations, she kept her eyes fixed on the floor as she walked into the room where Art Cullagh remained gripped by a magical slumber.

Halsin sat on the edge of the bed adjacent to the Fist’s. His eyes were closed as he held a hand out in front of him, lost in concentration. Lunari perked up from her spot at his feet.

“So, did you learn anything?” she asked softly, her quiet voice still startled Halsin out of his meditation.

“Tav!” His face lit up when he saw her, she just wished it made her feel better. “Come, join me.” He patted the spot next to him on the bed.

She sulked over and placed her bag and armor at the foot of the bed before taking a seat, making sure to give her wolf companion a few scratches behind her ears on the way.

“I’ve learned precious little, I’m afraid. But there’s at least no doubt that he’s met Thaniel. There’s no other way he would know that name.” Halsin began to eagerly explain his meditations from the last hour, but she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open.

“…Tav?” He gave her a gentle nudge.

She shot up, realizing she had fallen over on his shoulder.

“Sorry, love. I guess I’m just a bit more tired than I thought.”

“It’s quite alright.” He placed an arm around her and rested his head on hers. “Rest, Tav. We can talk more in the morning.”

A small bout of panic ripped through her. She didn’t really want to rest; she was terrified of what she might see in her dreams.

Her heart rate sped up, causing her chest to tighten with anxiety and grief, Halsin seemed to sense something was wrong.

“What is it?”

“I…” Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t bear the possibility of seeing Tev’s dead body in her arms again. Not wanting to have another breakdown here in Last Light, she squeezed her eyes shut once more. It didn’t stop her lips from trembling and her breath from hitching audibly.

“Tav…” Halsin’s soothing voice had quieted, and she felt his hands encase hers.

“I can’t rest, Halsin,” she whispered, “every time I close my eyes, I just see him.”

When she opened her eyes again, he was kneeling on the floor in front of her.

“What can I do, Tav?” he asked, his eyes searching hers for an answer.

She couldn’t form any words. Grief maintained its clawed grip on her mind. So instead, she just began to sob.

Halsin immediately pulled her into his arms.

“It’s alright, Tav, it’s alright,” he said the words over and over in her ear as he held her head against him.

“I miss him.”

“I know.”

“It’s my fault, Halsin…” she gasped into his shoulder.

“What?” He pushed her back a little so he could look at her. “Why do you say that?”

“Because…” she choked out.

She told Halsin about the last time she had seen Tev. How he had offered to stay with her, but she let him go with Jaheira and her squad.

“Oh, Tav…” he trailed off before hugging her tight again.

“I could…asked…to stay…might…be here…” She could barely get the words out between her sobs.

“Listen to me,” his voice had shifted to a more forceful tone, but he still held her with such a gentle touch, “you cannot blame yourself for his death. You cannot take that weight onto your shoulders, my friend. Believe me when I say it will crush you.”

“But…”

Halsin cut her off by taking her face in both of his hands.

“Tav, you got called to Moonrise anyway. Even if he had stayed with you, there is no guarantee that he would have survived. You saw the raw chaos that took over the battlefield that day.”

“You don’t understand! Tev was all that I had. The hope that I could find him again was all that I had, as foolish as that hope was…” she paused for another bout of sobs. “Now what do I have? No family, no home…”

As soon as she said the words, she regretted them. The pain in Halsin’s expression adding to the ever growing pile of her guilt.

“I do understand. I lost my closest friends, my mentor who was like a father to me, I lost Thaniel. The grove has been the only home I’ve known for over two hundred years and now I…” He shook his head lightly before looking back up at her.

“And you do have a family, Tav. You have an entire camp full of new friends who would do anything for you, who would follow you anywhere.”

She wrapped her arms tight around her torso. The muscles in her chest and shoulders had grown sore from her cries.

“And you have me,” he said with tears in his eyes.

Tav reached up to hold one of the hands cradling her face.

“We have both carried a great deal of sorrow and guilt over the last century. I cannot tell you how grateful I am to have found someone who shares that burden with me. You’ve done so much for me already, let me ease some of the weight from your shoulders. Let me help you, Tav.”

She let out a shaky breath and rested her forehead against his.

“Now, please rest. I’ll watch over Art Cullagh. I’ll wake you if anything changes.”

She nodded and turned to lay down on the small bed.

“Will you stay here with me?” she asked, keeping a tight grip on his hand.

“Of course,” he responded as she closed her eyes. “Wherever you need me.”

Just before she drifted off, she felt him place a light kiss on the back of her hand.

***

Halsin held Tav’s hand in his until he was confident that she had drifted off into a trance. His heart truly ached for her. Not only was she leading the fight against a cult of mind flayers, a cult being led by the man responsible for her hardship, but she was also wading through one hundred years’ worth of grief to do it.

He leaned over to press a gentle kiss into her hair. The strands were still damp from her bath earlier and he smelled pine mixed with another sweet scent that he couldn’t quite identify.

Watching her face slowly relax into a peaceful look brought a wave of relief washing over him. He wanted nothing more than to lay down beside her, to hold her close throughout the night and chase any nightmares away. He wanted to bury his face in her freshly washed hair, concentrating on the new smell to distract him from his own grief and guilt.

Once again, his life allowed no room for such desires.

“May your dreams be kind,” he whispered in Elvish before sitting back up. He gently placed her hand that he had been holding back at her side before turning his attention to the Flaming Fist.

Halsin sat and studied Art Cullagh in his slumber. Nothing about the song he kept repeating gave him any specific ideas of where to find Thaniel.

Climb, climb, climbing up a tree.

That could be anywhere. Thaniel loved to climb trees, it was one of his favorite ways to spend an afternoon.

We are living, they are dead.

Again, that could have been anywhere, but it did give Halsin another confirmation that Thaniel was at least alive somewhere.

The more he concentrated on the man, the more it became obvious that he had been imprisoned in the Shadowfell. Yet try as he might, Halsin couldn’t determine his connection to Thaniel. The man’s mind was fractured and fading away. If they were not delicate and precise in their manner of doing so, waking him could likely result in his death. He shuddered at the realization. If they didn’t find a way to wake Art Cullagh from his stupor, their one chance at banishing the shadows could be lost to him forever.

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