#also this got a lot longer than i intended so uh

[pendarling]

Loving Names

Hero was perplexed when Villain stopped calling them by their terms of endearment. Things like “honey,” “love,” or “sweetheart,” had made them melt, but they’d never dare show interest to an enemy like that. They were just curious as to why, that’s all.

It was just a bit strange now that they realized after their last few battles with Villain, all the nicknames had disappeared entirely.

In the time they met Villain they always knew there was just something about them that drew them closer. It wasn’t just the way Villain affectionately talked them up or the small remarks that gave them butterflies but also the hints of deeper feelings they left for them with every banter.

It all tore at their heart, of course they can’t openly say something so embarrassing. A hero’s job was to protect the city and its citizens from villains and this one was no exception.

So Hero never reciprocated the behaviour. They couldn’t let themselves become caught up in the emotional drama Villain was leading them in.

At least they should’ve saw it coming. They should’ve known that after denying Villain from the satisfaction of ever knowing how they felt, that Villain would eventually stop pursuing. They would stop the flirting and the lingering gazes. The gentle but brief touches and the high risk close combat that gave Villain a chance to speak soft poems to them.

It was like a reset button had been pressed and Villain immediately returned to how things initially were when they first met.

For that, Hero felt great regret.

Which is why they were planning on confronting them.

~~~

They found Villain sitting casually at the scene of another crime. It almost seemed unusually quicker than normal. It would take at least an hour to detect Villain at any of these attacks, but it looked like the universe had something else in mind.

Determination pushed Hero toward their nemesis, the question still boiling deep inside them.

Hero walked behind them as the other idly sat on the roof, their feet dangling at its edge. “Villain,” they spoke.

They rose from their position, and turned to look at them with sly eyes. “Just in time. Shall we continue where we left off?”

Without much hesitation, Hero pulled out their weapon and readied themselves for the dance they’ve grown so familiar with.

Villain closed the gap and swung in their direction; their hand aiming for their gut. They quickly blocked the attack and backed up, a swift kick sent them back and let Hero breathe momentarily.

As the battle continued against Villain, their heart began to race out of anticipation for the promised conversation. It would be awkward at first, but as soon as they could get it out they would play it all off cool.

“What’s got your mind wandering?” Villain shoved Hero to ground as quickly as they tugged the weapon out of their grasp.

At first, they didn’t acknowledge the concern, but figured if anything, now would be the time to ask. Their eyes warily stared at Villain’s mischievous mask, though words began to fail them, “Uh…” it had to be now. They couldn’t let this stress take hold of them any longer.

The criminal stood just a few feet from them with a curious glint. They were certain they knew exactly what Hero was going to ask.

“I noticed…” Their voice was a lot shakier as they stood, “That you stopped with all the… names.” Their gaze stayed glued to the ground as their face grew hotter.

Villain hummed with an expression that lightened up instantly. “Oh, what do you mean?”

So they were going to play stupid. Was this some kind of punishment for not giving the reciprocation they were looking for?

They should’ve known and yet…

“You know…” They wiped their sweating hands onto their suit. “You always had a way with words.”

“I don’t seem to know what you’re talking about, Hero.”

They pouted slightly at the responses, “How do you not know? You’ve always called me… other things…” They trailed off. Just how long was Villain intending to keep them in this agonizing situation?

A laughter echoed which sent their head spiralling. Villain moved closer, their steps were quiet enough to match any predator. “I’m starting to think there’s something you want from me. I wonder what it is?~”

Hero tightened their lips. Maybe they should’ve kept their mouth shut after all. “I’m only asking a question.”

Villain circled them, still putting on their clueless face, “I can’t answer a question if you won’t make it clearer for me.” They shrugged. The enemy was no where in sight, though they could sense Villain stalking behind them.

A ghostly touch climbed up their spine. With their shoulders tense, Hero spun around to face Villain who was only inches from them. “W-what!?” They stammered.

“You always keep me waiting, Hero. Always guessing your motives.” From their expression Hero caught something change, “A never ending cycle of not knowing…”

They sighed, their heart still hammering in their chest, “Did I do something to upset you? To make you stop… with the terms of endearment?”

Lips curled slowly upwards at their questions. “Oh. So you did like them after all.” They chuckled warmly. “Did you enjoy having cute pet names?”

Hero took several steps back, “What? No!”

“Alright. Then I guess there shouldn’t be a problem then if I stop—”

“No, don’t!” It came out unexpectedly from them. It was enough to make Villain’s eyes go wide, and the air to grow thicker.

Their thoughts tugged at them again, they didn’t want Villain to just stop but they also hated to admit they loved it.

“So you don’t want me to stop? Why?” They chuckled.

Damn it. Villain knew exactly what they were doing.

Their mind fumbled to grab the words they needed to play it all naturally.

“Why? Because uhm…”

“C’mon. I know you can say it for me~”

They nervously tapped their foot to the ground, “Fine…” They said through clenched teeth, “I liked it.”

“You mean you loved it, right?”

They nodded.

Their nemesis’ laughter didn’t stop though, it only increased from there. Villain always went overboard with their teasing. “You loved what?” They leaned in closer.

Their hands tightened into a fist this time, eyes shut as their head hung low. It felt so shameful and exhausting to keep this up. “I loved it when… you call me… your love.”

“Aww… so you aren’t as heartless as it seems” Villain lifted Hero’s chin and brushed the hair from their face, “That’s all I needed to hear from you, my little dove.”

Oh, and there it was again. That satisfying tingle against their skin. That rush of dopamine and excitement.

Villain sensed their change in mood and smiled confidently, “You really take advantage of these pet names, don’t you?”

“Only from you.” Their head tilted into Villain’s palm.

~~~

MASTERLIST

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Take Me Home Tonight

Summary: You run into a familiar face while working. (Bucky Barnes)

Warnings: noncon/dubcon, fingering, dry humping, flirting.

Note: look, we didn't expect Applebee's to inspire one fic, but now it's done two fics. Shit. We are deranged.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think. Please also reblog because it’s a lot longer than I intended.

You hug the menus to your chest as you approach the booth of four newly sat in your section. As you do, you stutter step, unsure if your eyes are seeing clearly. You know that hair, the subtle wave of brown with strands of silver woven in. You step up and give a smile to the men.

“Good evening,” you place a menu in front of each of them; the burly blonde comedically crowded into the corner beside the man with dark hair and darker eyes, the blonde you vaguely recognise from his acquaintance with the most familiar face at the table, “Mr. Barnes.”

“Oh, hi,” he sits up and sets the drink menu back at the centre of the table, “uh,” he gives you a peculiar look, “I thought you worked down at the Denny’s.”

“Used to. Just got hired here,” you chime, “uh, so, are you all ready to go with your drink orders?”

“You mind?” The blond with the short hair nudges him.

“Yeah, go ahead, I’m still thinking,” he sits back.

“Heineken,” the man orders with a tweak of his eyebrow.

“Seems you don’t carry Hansa so I’ll have a jolly rancher cocktail,” the big blond intones. You almost laugh, thinking of him with the bright blue drink with a gummy worm for garnish.

“Shirley Temple for me,” the other says, “designated driver.”

“Oh, of course,” you note each order in your head, “and you, Mr. Barnes?”

“Mr. Barnes,” the man across from him goads.

“Bucky,” Mr. Barnes corrects you, “uh, I’ll take a Corona.”

“Alright, Heineken, jolly rancher, Shirley Temple, Corona,” you list off, “I’ll be back with your drinks and to take your order.”

“Thanks,” Bucky smiles.

“Yeah, thanks, doll,” the blonde at his shoulder winks. You don’t miss the elbow he receives from his seat partner.

You go to the bar and put in the order. You do a round to check in on your other tables, grabbing a few napkins at request and clearing plates. When the drinks are set out neatly on a tray, you carry them to the booth and dole them out.

“So, are we starting with an appetizer?” You ask.

“We’ll do some nachos,” the man across from Bucky says, “thanks, sweetie.”

“Beef, chicken, or veggie?”

“Chicken,” he answers.

“Hey, I know you,” the blond drapes his arm over the side of the booth, “you’re the neighbour girl.”

“Steve,” Bucky reproaches under his breath.

“What? It was killing me. I just couldn’t place the face.”

Bucky utters your name, almost reluctant to do so, “I’m just out with buddies,” he explains, “buncha old men catching up;” he jabs his thumb towards the man beside him, “Steve, Thor,” he points to the other blonde then to the man across from him, “Sam.”

“Sounds like fun,” you chirp, “well, I’ll go get those nachos. Are we planning on entrees?”

“We’ll just share the chips,” Bucky assures.

Sam leans back and pats his chest, “heartburn.”

You humour him with a smile and nod before spinning away. You flit off and head for the kitchen. It’s strange seeing Mr. Barnes– Bucky outside the neighbourhood. He’s always just been next door. Odder even seeing him without his family. Well, you guess he deserves the break. Every time you see him, he’s on his way somewhere.

🍻

The night wears on. Your shifts always pass quickly as you’re kept afoot by patrons and managers alike. Several times you find yourself visiting Bucky’s table to top up drinks and they grow rowdy as the game comes on the big screen. 

You’re almost amused as you’ve never seen your neighbour like this. He’s always so stern and standoffish. A small wave as he mows the lawn or a ‘morning’ as you pass by him unlocking his car. Even your father claimed he was the most serious man he’d ever met.

“Sweetheart,” Sam smiles at you as clear the empties, “can we get our check? I gotta get them out of here before they break something.”

“Sure thing,” you say as you stack the tray with bottles and glasses, “separate or together?”

“Together. I’ll have to chase them down for the difference,” Sam answers.

As you take the clear Corona bottle from in front of Bucky, he rests his chin in his hand and watches you. Your eyes meet his and your cheeks round even more. He’s definitely drunk.

“Hi,” he babbles.

“Hello, Mr. Barnes,” you return.

“I told you, it’s Bucky,” he grins.

“Bucky,” you repeat, “you want some water?”

He sits up and drags his elbow off the table, “I guess I should…”

“For all of them,” Sam says from your other side, “please.”

“Alright, check and waters.”

You almost click your heels before you sweep off on your mission. It’s almost closing time and the place is sparse. A few stragglers along the bar but no more hectic families of screaming toddlers breaking crayons and tossing napkins.

You go to the till and print out the bill and grab a handheld from the charger. You place both on your cleared tray and fill three glasses of water. You carry them back to your last table and gently set the condensating drinks before each diner. Sam takes the bill as he holds his card between two fingers.

“You go to school?” Steve’s voice startles you before you can summon small talk.

“Uh, yeah, second year,” you answer him.

“I thought so,” he says, “college girls…”

“Shut up, Rogers,” Bucky grumbles, putting his hand up to block out Steve, “ignore him. He’s trashed.”

“Speak for yourself,” Steve swats his hand down and receives a swipe back. 

The men slap at each others’ hands as Thor stands and leans over, his size deterring the men as he shoves their arms apart, “enough. Or I’ll drag you out like stray cats.”

You try not to show your discomfort as Sam hands you back the machine and it loudly prints his receipt. You offer him a copy but he insists you go and enjoy your night. You bid them all the same and set off to clear the last of your tables.

Your coworkers start their own closing tasks and the music turns off as closing time hits. You glance up, everyone’s gone. You go back to the booth and gather up the mostly untouched glasses of water and wipe it down. With your tables done, you turn in your apron and go to get your cut of the tips. Your tally comes up higher than you expect thanks to the table of middle-aged men.

You head out the back door and round to the front of the shining marquee. You’ll uber home since your mom is out of town. As you step up on the little pavement lip in front of the restaurant, a figure stands from their perch on the ground. You don’t recognise Bucky until he says your name.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” You ask as you lower your phone.

“Ah, well, me and Steve…” he rubs his neck and chuckles, “I’m waiting on a cab but none have passed by.” He shrugs, “plus, I figured we’re headed in the same direction…”

“Oh, uh, yeah, I guess,” you say, “I was just ordering an uber. Kinda don’t like taking them alone so late at night anyway.”

“Great,” he slurs, “uh, sorry about tonight. My friends are… a lot.”

“It’s fine, you were having a good time,” you select a ride and black out your phone. “Just make sure you drink lots of water.”

“Hmm,” he hums, “you’re so nice… I’ll be fine, you know? I can take care of myself.”

“I know, I just… I hate hangovers.”

“Oh? Didn’t take you for a drinker?”

“Well, don’t tell mom but once in a while.”

“My lips are sealed,” he surprises you as he reaches to squeeze your shoulder. “And I’ve never broken a promise to a pretty girl.”

You want to laugh. He’s tipsy and it’s kind of cute. The glare of headlights flash over you and he drops his arm away from you. The uber approaches and you check the plate, pointing Bucky in ahead of you. 

He sidles over the seat and yawns as you climb in next to him. The driver confirms your destination as you let yourself relax against the seat. The tension of your shift slowly drifts away.

Bucky slowly slides until he’s leaning against you, “I’ll pay you back for the ride,” he grumbles as he rests his head on your shoulder. 

The tension seeps back into you but you try not to overthink it. He’s just your neighbour, a friendly neighbourhood dad, a bit discombobulated from his night out. He probably doesn’t get many of those.

“Been a long time since I went home with a girl like you,” he chuckles.

You laugh, a nervous tickle in your throat as his weight bears down on you. You can smell a hint of citrus from his hair. Hopefully he’ll forget this all by the morning.

You’re quiet as the driver continues on. By the time you get to your street, you’re sure Bucky’s fallen asleep. You’re worried about getting him back to his place. As you get close to your house, you point the driver to the house right beside your own. That’ll be easier.

To your surprise, Bucky sits up and lets out a sleepy grumble. You thank the driver as your neighbour grabs onto your hand and tugs you towards his side as he opens the door. You let him and he clings to you as the uber leaves you in the shadow of the Barnes’ abode.

“Let’s go to bed,” he pulls you towards the walkway.

“Bucky,” you utter, “uh, Mr. Barnes?”

Is he that drunk? He must not realise you’re not his wife. You look around. You don’t see her car. That explains his little boys’ night. She’s probably visiting family again so he’s all alone.

“Hey,” you laugh unevenly as he drags you up onto the porch. He’s very strong. “Mr. Barnes, it’s me.”

He stops and sways. He squints at you and feels his pockets, jangling his keys through the fabric. He steadies himself and grins. His eyes hold yours, drowning you in pools of oceanic blue.

“I know,” he says soberly, “it’s you.”

You stare at him in confusion, blinking as he slides his hand into his pocket. You glance over your shoulder at the dark siding of your parents’ house. You face him again as he pulls his keys out but drops them between his shoes. You put your phone in your purse and shift the bag to rest on your hip.

“I should– oop,” you look down, “Mr. Barnes,” you bends to grab the keys, “alright, I’ll just get you inside and head home.” You stand up and hold up his keys, “which one?”

He points to the square gold one and you shove it into the slot. You push the door inward and gesture him ahead of you. He shuffles over the threshold, tripping before barely catching himself on the frame. You follow him in and look around cautiously. You’ve never been inside.

“Let’s get you to the couch, Mr. Barnes,” you grab his arm as he wobbles, “you just need to sleep this off–”

You tug on his arm but he doesn’t budge. Once more, all unsteadiness fades and he’s suddenly immovably still. He turns his head slowly and puts his hand over yours.

“I told you,” he faces you as he guides your hand up his arm, “it’s Bucky.”

“Um, alright, uh–”

He backs you up and you collide with the door, the impact forcing it shut. You gulp and press yourself against the inside as he pens you in, clutching your hand to his shoulder. The beer on his breath mingles with the citrusy scent that cloys from him.

“Mr. Barnes, what–”

“Shhh,” his hand slips from your and he grips your chin, “it’s okay–”

“St–”

He smothers your protest with a kiss. You’re too stunned to do more than flatten yourself against the door. His grip makes your jaw ache as his other hand crawls up your thigh. You squirm and push against his shoulder with a whine.

He doesn’t relent. He pushes his foot between yours, edging them apart as he picks your fly open. You curl your fingers, jabbing your nails into him. He growls but doesn’t stop.

You turn your head, forcing your mouth away from his.

“Mr. Barnes… Bucky, please–”

He hushes you again as his hand falls from chin to throat. He squeezes, crushing out any hope of screaming for help. He nuzzles into the side of your neck, his nose tickling the line of your jaw. You whimper as his hand delves beneath the cotton of your panties.

His fingertips brush along your trimmed vee of hair and he swirls the short curls with a purr. He extends his middle finger, feeling along your folds and dipping between. He flicks his finger back and forth, exploring you until he finds your clit. He rolls his finger, stoking a heat beneath his touch.

You wriggle and trail your hand down his arm, gripping his wrist as you fight him. You’re too weak. You croak through your tight throat as you try to fight the swirling tide building with the friction of his roughened fingertip. This can’t be happening.

He’s drunk. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s not like this.

A million thoughts race with as many sensations. You stand on your toes as your muscles knots and the tension coils in your core. You shouldn’t feel like this. This is wrong. This isn’t real. Your eyes roll back and you hide behind your eyelids.

His finger glides as you slicken against him. He quickens his pace, toying with you as he breathes against your neck, puffing damply as his hand remains firm on you. He keeps you pinned as he goads your body on, fueling a fire you’ve never lit before.

You squeak as you twitch without permission. You succumb to the brewing storm, blown away in the whirlwind as your mind is stifled by your body. You gulp and gasp, your hand slipping down to his chest as your other falls away from his arm.

“You’re so sexy,” he purrs as he lets you go.

You brace yourself against the door, breathless and paralysed as you watch him raise his hand. He presses his fingertips to his mouth and you see the glisten on them. He pushes them inside and sucks them clean with a growl.

“And so sweet, baby,” he steps forward, crowding you again.

The afterglow has you helpless. He feels along your side as his other hand wanders down your leg. He pulls your knee up and brings himself flush to you. He bends his knees as he presses his crotch into yours. You murmur at the hot weight between you. 

He curls his arm around your neck and your head lolls back. He bows to kiss you, devouring you as he slowly rocks his hip. A fiery heat builds between the layers of fabric, the friction of your seam rubs you through the damp cotton of your panties.

He gasps into your mouth as his pace quickens. The door shifts and squeaks with his motion as he pounds you into it, hips pumping as his bulge pokes through his jeans rigidly. Your head droops to the side and his wet lips smear over your cheek. He bites into your ear lobe and snarls.

Another tickle flares and you moan. A small burst that has you just as senseless. Your delight leaks onto your panties, spreading to the edges.

“Mmmmm,” he hums and releases the pinch of his bite, “fuck, baby, you’re gonna make me go– right in my–” he chokes as his fingertips sink into the bottom of your thigh and he pulls your leg higher, “jeans–”

He shakes and lets out a long rattle, sprinkled with deep groans and soft mewls. He leans into you completely and shudders, stilling at last. He sinks down with you, bringing you to straddle him as his knees meet the floor.

You heave and lift your head, gaping at him as his eyelids droop sleepily. He smiles, the expression crinkling around his eyes. He leans in and kisses you again, nibbling on your lower lip before pulling away.

“I won’t tell your mom about that either, kitten.”

[aquaquadrant]

from eden, part IX (act I)

Word count: 11,504 Warnings: Blood/injury, violence, death, animal death, temporary dismemberment, dissociation, self-deprecating thoughts (not really, Jimmy’s just a listener and doesn’t know it), strong language, fictional racism/xenophobia, panic attacks Summary: The Double Lifers have successfully thwarted the invasion by Hels Tek, but not unscathed. Now that Tango’s been outed as Bravo’s doppelgänger, the remaining threads are starting to unravel, and Jimmy suddenly finds himself fighting to save Tango from his own inner demons. Can their love survive the fallout?

A/N: This took a ridiculously long time to write and got way longer than I’d originally intended so uhhh happy belated holidays? There’s a lot in this one that I’m excited to show y’all so I really hope u enjoy it, pls reblog/comment if u do, it means a lot.

Also this chapter has been split into two parts bc Tumblr is a hoe with a paragraph limit, link to the second half at the end. And as always, this is part of a series, so the previous chapters can be found on my au directory here. - Aqua

~*~

from eden, part IX (act I) - no tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony

~*~

Somewhere in Double Life, a player kneels in a bloody wheat field.

Jimmy’s senses are flooded with iron. He’s regenerated enough health that his nose isn’t actively bleeding anymore, but he’s sure it’s still all over his face. As he finally pulls away from Tango, he realizes he’s smeared plenty of it on Tango’s shoulder. The blood on Tango’s chin and claws hasn’t fully dried yet, either. And through his slightly parted mouth, Jimmy can see it’s stained his teeth.

(Did you see what he did back there?)

(He was like an animal.)

(How long do you think he’s been keeping that in?)

Jimmy pushes the thoughts away. Focus on the here and now.

To be fair, though, the ‘here and now’ is a horrible place. The ranch is burning behind them. His eyes are burning from the tears and the smoke in the air. His throat feels tight and scratchy. He’s physically and emotionally exhausted, the weight of it dragging him down, sinking into the trampled soil beneath him. The singed edges of his wings are still stinging, but it’s an easily forgotten pain among everything else.

Jimmy hates crying. Especially in public. Really, nothing makes him feel more useless and pathetic than crying. But he has to admit, he’s at least a little calmer and more clear-headed. Now that he’s cried himself out, his awareness is gradually returning to the conversation going on around him.

“What in’a world was that about?!” Bdubs cries out, sounding absolutely flabbergasted.

“Yeah, who were those guys, anyway?” Etho asks, knitting his brows together. “How’d they get here?”

Joel makes a distressed noise. “They shouldn’t be able to open a portal here, this is a private world!”

“I know, I know, okay,” Grian gripes, “I’m workin’ on it. Hang on-”

“And what was all that nonsense about doggelpangers?” Scar pauses. “Uh, dop- doppabang-”

“Doppelgängers?” Cleo calls over wryly.

Scar hangs his head. “Dang it. Yes, that.”

“I dunno, but what if they come back?” Joel asks nervously. “What should we do?”

Isn’t that the question?

Jimmy takes quick stock of his surroundings. Grian is standing a little way’s off from Jimmy’s huddle, head bent down as he furiously scrolls through his communicator, the screen reflecting in his tinted glasses. Scar is hovering next to Grian, peering keenly over his shoulder, his bow held limply at his side. Both of them look a little roughed up from the battle, but alright for the time being.

Etho, still crouched at the spot where Bravo died, is searching through the dropped items. Joel is pacing in front of the broken portal frame and casting anxious glances at it, one hand gripping his sword while the other rakes through his hair, antennae twitching with agitation. There are a few scrapes and gashes between them- mostly superficial and likely to heal on their own.

Pearl’s wolf pack has been considerably thinned out- something Jimmy notes with a pang of guilt- but there’s still plenty of them milling about the place. With blood-matted fur and tucked tails, it’s clear they took a beating. Pearl herself must’ve gone, from the way they sniff and look around aimlessly, giving plaintive yips and whines. Scott is conspicuously absent as well, another hint as to the bonded pair’s fate. Jimmy’s sure they’ll be along soon.

Bigb and Ren are also nowhere to be seen- likely more casualties of the battle. Ren makes for a rather large target when in wolf mode; he probably drew a lot of enemy fire. And of course, Bigb would’ve gone with him. Box is quite a way from the ranch, Jimmy recalls, so it’ll take them a few minutes to get back.

Martyn is busy mining up the rest of the portal frame, seeming none the worse for wear. Cleo sits a couple yards away, one leg stretched out in front of her. The other one has been chopped clean off at the knee, and is clenched in their hand- but wait, it does that sometimes, Jimmy reminds himself before he can panic. The detached limb isn’t even bleeding, and she’s already pulling some string from her inventory to stitch it back on, seeming more inconvenienced than anything else.

Bdubs, across the field, looks no more beat-up than he always does. He’s fussing over his horse, snatching up stray bits of wheat to heal as it struggles to get its legs under it. Impulse’s horse, devoid of rider, has wandered off towards the barn- perhaps hearing the other horses inside. Impulse himself is crouched beside Jimmy and Tango, his golden eyes intently studying the collar that’s been locked around Tango’s neck.

Tango is still completely silent. He doesn’t move or give any indication that he’s at all mentally present, just kneeling idly in the dirt, expression blank, eyes distant. Nothing but static through their soul bond. He doesn’t seem to be seriously injured- most of the blood stains aren’t his. That realization isn’t as relieving as Jimmy wants it to be.

Grian clears his throat. “Right. First thing’s first, are we all still here?” he asks, scanning his communicator. “No one went through the portal?”

“Nah, all good,” Martyn calls over his shoulder as the final obsidian block pops onto the ground.

Etho has his communicator pulled up too. “Yeah, uh, just looks like Scott and Pearl got killed,” he reports. “Ren and Bigb, too. I’ll shoot ‘em a message, see if they’re alright.”

“Right, okay.” Grian chews his lip, wings ruffling. “And all the other fellas are gone?”

Etho nods. “Yep.”

“Okay-”

“G,” Scar cuts in, tugging on Grian’s sleeve, “you gotta respawn before that injury sets in.”

Grian shrugs him off. Only now does Jimmy realize he’s holding one of his wings closer to his body than the others, the one that took an arrow during the fight. “Gimme a second-”

”Um, guys?” Martyn says suddenly, pointing at the ranch. “Fire tick is on, yeah?”

Grian looks up at that, sucking in a breath through his teeth. “Hoo boy. Yeah, we need’ta get a ditch around the ranch, okay, or else the whole forest’ll go.” He casts a sidelong look at Jimmy, expression apologetic. “Tim, do you mind…?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “No,” he says hoarsely, “no, no, by all means. Whatever you need to… oh gosh, it’s all gonna go. It’s gone, isn’t it? It’s-” His voice breaks, and he quickly looks away, fresh tears welling in his eyes.

It wasn’t much, the ranch.

Only two floors- three counting the basement- and a bit tight on space. It wasn’t the most impressive build, not by a long shot. Certainly not when compared to the other builds on this world. It was something that would’ve taken two actually competent builders nothing more than a dedicated afternoon to put together. Plainly decorated, and comprised mostly of wood and stone variants. Nothing that’s particularly hard to obtain. And in all honesty, it was just a starter base; they were going to outgrow it sooner or later, anyways.

But it was theirs. 

It was the scorch marks in the wood from Tango’s blaze rods, in the moments where his emotions got away from him. It was the rocking chair where Jimmy liked to do his embroidery, when he needed to unwind after a busy day. It was the auto-sorting storage room that Tango spent weeks fine-tuning. It was the small but cozy living room that Jimmy decorated with potted flowers. It was the kitchen that always smelled faintly of charcoal, and the wool rug in the foyer that came from their own sheep, and the bedroom that they shared with an east-facing window to let them watch the sunrise together, on the rare days when Tango was awake early enough to see it.

The ranch is burning, and there’s nothing Jimmy can do about it.

(Great. Gonna start crying again, are you?)

(What exactly is that going to accomplish?)

(Man up! Don’t be so pathetic.)

A gentle hand on Jimmy’s shoulder makes him look up. Martyn is there, sympathy glimmering in his eye. “We’ll save what we can,” he promises.

Jimmy manages a grateful smile, blinking away his tears. “Thanks.”

Martyn nods before straightening back up. “Etho, Joel, you got water buckets on ya?”

“Oh, yeah.” Etho puts his communicator away as he and Joel start toward the ranch, buckets in hand. “Yeah, here, let’s make an infinite source..”

“Right. I’ll get the ditch started, then,” Cleo chimes in, rising to their feet now that both legs are once again intact.

Grian makes an appreciative noise, still tapping away at his communicator. “Okay, so that’s done-”

“Grian,” Scar says again, more insistently. “You gotta-”

“Hang on!” Grian huffs. He looks up to meet Jimmy’s gaze. “Okay, so uh, I can’t ban them… but what I’m gonna do is lock the world down,” he explains, taking a few steps over. “No one goes in or out… not even through a backdoor portal. This is just a temporary solution, but it should do the trick for now.”

Relief washes over Jimmy. “Thank you,” he murmurs.

(Good thing Grian is here to clean up your mess, huh?)

“Hey, guys?” Impulse speaks up, making Jimmy startle. “Um, Tango… he’s not lookin’ so good.”

That’s putting it kindly. Jimmy’s heart tightens. “Right. We should prob’ly get him inside, um…” He trails off as he instinctively looks at the ranch, which is on fire.

Right.

Impulse gives him a comforting look. “C’mon, you guys can crash at our place.” He rises to his feet, calling out, “Bdubs, would you bring the horses over?”

“Yeah, gimme a sec,” Bdubs shouts back. He’s finally gotten his horse standing again, glancing around for Impulse’s. “C’mere, stupid- hey! No, don’t wander off…”

“You finished, Grian?” Scar asks impatiently, notching an arrow.

“Okay, okay, hang on…” Grian presses a couple more buttons before putting his communicator away. “There, it’s done. Now, I’m gonna do some diggin’ and see what I can find out about this. But, um…” His gaze sweeps over Tango, expression pinched. “As soon as Tango is up for it… we all need to have a serious chat, okay?”

The wording immediately puts Jimmy off. He can feel his feathers bristling, his wings flaring out almost unconsciously to block Tango from view. “Wh- hey, this wasn’t his fault!” he protests.

Grian holds his hands up. “Ey, I know, I know,” he says lightly. His lower wings sweep out and flatten into a sort of fan as he crouches; an appeasing gesture. “None of us think that, okay? But clearly those guys came here for him, so we need’ta figure out why and how if we’re gonna figure out how to stop it from happenin’ again. Alright?”

Jimmy takes a breath, letting his feathers smooth over again. “Right. You’re right, sorry,” he mumbles.

(Wow, so defensive.)

(Like you could protect him, anyways.)

(Have you no faith in your own friends?)

Grian glances at Impulse. “You got them, Impulse?”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Impulse assures him.

Scar draws back his bow. “Any day now, Grian…”

“Okay.” Grian turns around with an exasperated sigh. “Alright, Scar-”

He disappears in a puff of respawn smoke. Scar immediately follows him, his bow clattering to the ground amidst the shower of other items.

Impulse exhales in what might’ve been a laugh, if he didn’t sound so tired. He turns to Jimmy. “Can you stand?” he asks, holding out his hand.

(Look, they all think you’re weak, too!)

Jimmy feels himself flush. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he says, his tone short. Ignoring Impulse’s hand, he struggles to his feet unaided, wings flapping about to help keep his balance.

And then he feels incredibly silly about it. These are his friends, for goodness sakes.

“Thanks,” Jimmy adds, to soften it. “But Tango, I dunno if he… I mean, normally I’d carry him, but right now, I think- I think I’d drop him,” he confesses. Already, the effort of just standing on his own is starting to fatigue him.

Impulse just nods, a knowing look in his eye. “Yeah, no problem.” Slowly, he crouches down next to Tango again. “Hey, Tango, buddy?” he calls softly. “Can you hear me? It’s Impulse. I’m gonna pick you up now, if that’s okay?”

Tango doesn’t respond. Carefully, Impulse gathers Tango into his arms in a cradle hold- which Tango doesn’t react to besides curling in on himself a little more. His breathing quickens for a few seconds before he settles down again.

“Sorry,” Impulse whispers.

Jimmy swallows. He’s never known Tango to be so quiet, so still. It’s incredibly disturbing to see. And gosh, he knows Tango’s pale, but right now he looks about as white as quartz.

The events of this afternoon were a lot for anyone to handle. Jimmy’s still only working with bits and pieces, of course. He knows that Tango originally came from a terrible world called Hels, escaped from that creepy scientist guy Dr. Atlas, and has been hiding out on Hermitcraft ever since. So it’s not surprising that Tango got a nasty shock when his past suddenly came knocking at his door- literally, in Bravo’s case.

But Jimmy also knows that Tango is quite tough. He’s not the type to shut down in the face of hardship- in fact, he’ll often go the opposite direction, with manic bursts of frantic energy. So for a reaction this extreme… either that collar they put on him is having a more drastic effect than Jimmy realized, or there’s something more to the story he isn’t aware of.

Before the collar dampened their soul bond, the fear Jimmy felt from Tango had been damn near overwhelming. What could those Hels players have done to him to elicit such a strong reaction? Jimmy dreads to think of it.

The sound of hoofbeats pulls Jimmy out of his musings.

“Here I am!” Bdubs announces loudly, leading a horse by each hand. “Got the hawsies all ready t’go- oh, hey, waugh- what happened to him?” he gasps, his horrified gaze falling on Tango, wide eyes going even wider. “Wha’ th- is he okay?!”

Impulse gives him a tired smile. “Bdubs, I know we’re outside right now, but indoor voice, please? I’ll explain later.”

“Oh, okay!” Bdubs immediately drops into a stage whisper, ducking his head sheepishly. “Right, right, right, right, right, sorry.” He eyes Tango nervously for another moment. “Jeeze, they really… okay, okay, okay, right. Let’s go.”

With an appreciative look, Impulse moves beside one of the horses. Shifting his hold on Tango, he hikes one foot up into the stirrup and swings onto the horse’s back, forked tail lashing through the air.

Bdubs follows suit, climbing onto his own horse before glancing down at Jimmy. “Uh- you wanna ride wi’ me, Jimmy?” he asks, still whispering.

“That’d be great, thanks,” Jimmy says gratefully. Just the thought of walking or flying to their base makes him feel like all his bones have turned to slime.

His own attempt to get on the horse doesn’t go anywhere near as smoothly. With someone else already in the saddle, it’s a clumsy maneuver, his flailing wings more of a hindrance than anything. In the end, Bdubs grabs the back of Jimmy’s shirt and helps haul him up. That only makes Jimmy feel worse. Bdubs is so much smaller than him, how did he manage that?

“Okay…” Bdubs glances over his shoulder as Jimmy gets settled. “You alright back there?”

“Yep, yep, I’m good,” Jimmy says quickly. He clears his throat. “Can we- can we get goin’?” He’s anxious to leave this depressing scene behind and get Tango someplace calmer.

Bdubs nods. “Okay. Uh- hang on tight, and you’d better keep those wings folded or else you- you’ll be blown right off’a this thing!” He turns to Impulse. “We go now!”

“Alright, let’s go.” Impulse urges his horse forward, and Bdubs swiftly follows.

The horses gallop away from the ranch.

Jimmy does as he’s told, leaning forward to put his arms around Bdubs’s shoulders and tucking his wings tightly against his back. The jostling of the horse’s stride isn’t kind to his aching muscles and bones, but he’s not about to complain. Right now he feels completely out of sorts- like a stranger in his own skin.

As exhausted as his body is, his mind is absolutely racing. He can’t stop thinking about what Bravo said, that Tango was to blame for his being in Hels. And Tango hadn’t really denied it.

From what Jimmy can recall from today’s chaotic events, Tango used to be in Hels, and then a portal appeared. He went through it to Hermitcraft, and somehow, that got Bravo sent to Hels. That seems to be the conclusion they’ve come to. And Tango didn’t know about it at first, but he’s known about it for a couple years at this point, and said nothing.

(How selfish of him.)

But it wasn’t Tango’s fault! He didn’t intentionally send Bravo there, and he only kept his knowledge secret because he was afraid he’d get sent back himself if he revealed the truth. That’s… really upsetting. If Tango didn’t trust the Hermits enough to tell them, after spending nearly a decade getting to know them, it’s no wonder he didn’t tell Jimmy.

Has Tango spent this whole time feeling like a fugitive in his own home?

And what is Hels, really? What kind of world doesn’t allow portal travel in and out? The way they’d spoken about it, it almost seemed like a prison. But created by who? And why?

What exactly is a Hels player? What does a ‘doppelgänger’ entail, exactly? Because if Tango is supposed to be an evil version of Bravo, Jimmy is clearly missing something, ‘cause he doesn’t buy that for a second.

Do all players have a Hels counterpart? Does Jimmy? Oh, now there’s a disturbing thought. Is there another Jimmy running around in a prison world somewhere, locked away from the rest of the universe?

Now that he’s aware of the possibility, he isn’t sure this is something he can just forget about.

But he knows his questions will have to wait. Tango is hardly in the condition to be discussing any of this- getting him recovered from his shock is Jimmy’s first priority. He’s about to ask how far away they are when two figures appear in the distance.

It’s Scott and Pearl, on the way back from their respawns. Pearl is preoccupied, intensely scanning her communicator as she walks. But Scott spots them immediately, nudging Pearl with his elbow and lifting a hand to wave them over.

Impulse glances over his shoulder at Bdubs and Jimmy. “Guess we’d better go see what they want,” he says as he steers his horse towards the pair, Bdubs following suit.

Pearl looks up at their approach. Her respawn must’ve taken care of any injuries she sustained from the battle, because she seems like her usual red-eyed self. But there’s an unmistakable air of anxiety about her- one that Scott seems to share, based on his terse expression.

“Impulse!” Pearl shouts, as soon as she’s within proximity hearing range. “You seen Tilly ‘round?”

Impulse eases his horse to a stop. “Oh, uh- she’s the one with the dyed collar, right?” he asks, knitting his brows together. “Yeah, yeah I’m pretty sure she was back at the wheat field.” 

Pearl exhales heavily. “Oh, thank goodness. I- I lost so many dogs, I wasn’t sure…” She puts her communicator away, looking them up and down. “So uh, is everyone alright? Are… you guys alright?” she asks uncertainly, quirking a brow.

“We’re fine,” Impulse assures her easily. He jerks his head back in the direction they came from. “The others are dealing with the ranch right now, it’s uh… it’s a pretty big fire, I’m sure they’d appreciate some help.”

Pearl follows his gaze, eyes widening at the plume of smoke still visible above the trees. “Oh gosh, yeah, we’d better get goin’, then.”

“You alright, Timmy?” Scott speaks up suddenly. 

“Huh?” Jimmy startles at being addressed. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Mmm.” Scott doesn’t look convinced, his sharp eyes studying Jimmy’s face before flicking over to Tango. “Is Tango alright? Where’d tha’ thing on his neck come from?”

Jimmy’s heart jolts. “Um…” He isn’t sure how much he should be sharing with the others, while Tango’s incapacitated like this.

Luckily for him, Impulse cuts in. “Don’t worry,” he says gently, “we’ve got it covered. You guys go check in with the others, okay?”

It’s not a very subtle hint, but Scott allows it. “Alriiiight,” he drawls, holding his hands up. “Just remember you’ve got help if y’want it.”

“I appreciate it,” Impulse hums, but Jimmy catches the flash of relief in his eyes as he turns his horse away.

“Yeah, ‘preciate ya!” Bdubs echoes as they ride off.

They ride in silence for a few moments, until they’re out of proximity range, before Impulse clears his throat. “I just think Tango would appreciate some privacy right now,” he explains quietly. “You know everyone else- they’d all want to help and see if he’s okay, but a big group would probably freak him out.”

“Ah.” Jimmy nods. “Good thinkin’.”

(Gee, Impulse is really taking charge, huh?)

(You’re basically useless.)

(He would’ve been a way better soulmate for Tango than you.)

The thoughts make Jimmy flinch. He hasn’t often felt insecure in his relationship with Tango, despite having known him for a much shorter time than the Hermits. But right now, his general lack of knowledge and experience in how best to help Tango has become glaringly obvious.

Thankfully, before he can spend any more time feeling sorry for himself, Impulse and Bdubs’s house finally comes into view.

They’ve added another floor since Jimmy was last here. Floor-to-ceiling windows made of light gray panes curl around one side of the building, continuing with the sleek mid-century modern design. The front yard has received some landscaping as well; a wide, circular path that frames a small cluster of custom trees and shrubbery before leading to the dark oak door, framed by neat flower beds on either side.

As they come up on the house, Impulse and Bdubs turn their horses along a branch of path that veers off from the main circle, taking them towards a small structure built against the house’s side. Made only out of diorite wall posts and a flat, deepslate tiled roof, it creates sort of an overhang, divided into two compartments with warped stem fence posts. Its purpose quickly becomes obvious as Bdubs hops off his horse and pulls a lead from his inventory, leashing his horse to one of the posts.

Jimmy swings his leg around to slide off the horse, dropping onto the ground with an ungraceful grunt. In the stall beside them, Impulse has carefully dismounted from his own steed, still cradling Tango in his arms.

The longer Jimmy looks, the more his chest aches with longing. So he looks away.

“Alright, let’s get inside.” Impulse’s voice is soft. He turns back towards the front of the house. “This way.”

Bdubs finishes hitching the other horse to its post. “Right behind ya!” he chirps. He pats Jimmy on the arm as he passes- an encouraging, or perhaps comforting, gesture.

Either way, Jimmy appreciates it. He knows Bdubs tends to diffuse tense situations with humor, or by maintaining an energetic demeanor. It might be mistaken as inconsiderate, in some situations, but he seems to know where the line is. Genuinely, Jimmy thinks he’d feel worse if Bdubs was suddenly walking on eggshells around him.

Pity is a suitor that won’t take a hint, no matter how many times Jimmy turns it away.

He follows Impulse and Bdubs around the front of the house. Bdubs has already scrambled ahead to open the door for Impulse, whose arms are, of course, full of Tango. He ushers Jimmy in after them with a wide sweep of his arm.

They’ve moved their bedroom upstairs at some point, it seems. The main floor is now a dedicated living space with a modest kitchen in the back, overlooked by a loft from the second floor. An L-shaped lounge made of quartz stairs is built into the conversation pit occupying the center of the room, surrounding a small fireplace. The glass panes encasing it go all the way up to the ceiling, but the sight of fire makes Jimmy flinch anyways- which he immediately kicks himself for.

(Jeeze, man, get a grip! What if Tango saw that?)

If Impulse and Bdubs noticed, they don’t comment on it. Impulse silently leads the way up a spiral quartz slab staircase, which opens up into the loft. Bdubs’s interior work is clearly showing here, with cozy seating nestled beside a custom bookshelf-console unit. Straight ahead past the loft is a short hallway with a couple doors on either side.

Impulse stops at the first one on the right. “We got a spare room here,” he says, nodding his head at the door.

“Not finished yet!” Bdubs adds hastily, though still making an effort to keep his voice low. “Or uh, heugh- furnished. I’m gonna- I was gonna do the interior, I swear.”

Somehow, the fact that Bdubs is concerned Jimmy will judge his lackluster interior decoration- despite everything else going on right now- makes Jimmy crack a smile. “Well, beggars can’t be choosers, ey?” he jokes.

“Oh, very freaking funny!” Bdubs huffs, but he’s grinning, too. He opens the door for them, and Jimmy lets Impulse carry Tango inside before following.

The room is, as expected, fairly bare bones. Quartz walls and a dark oak floor carry over the mid-century modern theme from the exterior, but there’s no furniture other than a double-wide cyan bed against the wall. A couple of haphazardly-placed torches on the walls provide the room’s only lighting.

“No windows yet, either,” Bdubs mutters, clicking his tongue as his critical gaze sweeps over the room. “I need ta- I- I still gotta figure out how to place ‘em, with the exterior wall and stuff.”

“It’s alright,” Jimmy assures him. Windows would make him feel a bit too exposed right now, if he’s being honest.

Impulse carefully sets Tango down on the bed. “Okay, Tango, here we are.” He straightens up, running a hand through his hair as he exhales heavily.

Bdubs crosses quickly-but-quietly over to Impulse, wrapping him in a hug. “You okay, sweetie?” he asks softly.

Impulse smiles down at him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” Bdubs goes up on his toes to kiss Impulse’s cheek- and even so, he barely makes it. “I’m gonna go check on our boys, then, and see if the others need help with th- with the uh, the ranch. D’you- is there anything you want me to tell ‘em?”

“Yeah,” Impulse says thoughtfully, “maybe just let them know that we’d like to give Tango and Jimmy some privacy right now? We’ll let them know if we need anything, and we’ll chat more once everything’s calmed down.”

“Right, okay.” Bdubs glances at Jimmy. “That- is that good? For you?”

Jimmy is taken aback by the amount of consideration he’s being given. “Oh yeah, that’d be great, thanks.”

“Alright.” Bdubs casts one final look at Tango, trying but failing to hide his worry from those big eyes of his. “Alright, I- I’ll be back in a little.” 

He slips out the door, leaving them alone.

Before an awkward silence can descend, Impulse clears his throat. “So uh, looks like someone got you pretty good,” he says, gesturing to his face.

“Huh?” Confused, Jimmy brings a hand to his face- only to jerk away as his fingers brush against his nose. Now that he’s actually paying attention, there’s a dull ache of pain radiating down the bridge of his nose, and underneath the still-sticky blood, he can feel a prominent bump where there wasn’t one before.

“Oh, right,” he murmurs. “Forgot about that.”

“Yeah, looks broken,” Impulse says sympathetically. “Need a respawn?”

Jimmy pauses. It’s difficult to tell when an injury will result in lasting damage- no one’s really cracked that particular scientific riddle yet. But generally, it’s understood that the sooner the respawn, the better the outcome. That’s why things like creeper explosions hardly ever leave a mark, since the death is usually instant.

More so, superficial wounds tend to be less likely to scar than deeper, more structural wounds. A simple gash will almost always go away after respawning- if it hasn’t already healed on its own- but things like broken bones can linger in the form of scars, joint deformities, and chronic pain. If he’s being smart, he really should get a quick respawn in, just to be sure.

But they’re on the Double Life world, and right now, his life isn’t just his own.

Jimmy looks Tango over. None of his wounds are serious enough to warrant a respawn, he only got a little scuffed up in the initial attack. In his current state, it’d probably do more harm than good.

“No,” Jimmy decides, “I… I can’t do that to him, not right now. He’s disoriented as it is.” He shrugs a shoulder. “Besides, I think it’s just the cartilage. Either it’ll heal on my next respawn, or it won’t, and it’ll just match the rest of my face.”

Impulse doesn’t laugh at the self-deprecating joke, simply offering a sad smile. “Alright. I’ll see if Martyn can bring some healing potions by once they finish up at the ranch, I’m pretty sure he’s got a brewing set-up.”

Jimmy’s throat tightens. “Right, thanks…” He smoothes a hand over the bed’s cover, setting his spawn anyways, before he eases himself onto the mattress. “Tango…?” he ventures. “Are you alright? Can you hear me?”

Tango has yet to move at all from where Impulse deposited him, back against the wall with his knees tucked to his chest, arms limp at his sides. He doesn’t acknowledge Jimmy at all- which isn’t anything malicious on his part, of course, but god does it hurt.

Taking a deep breath, Jimmy tries again. “Hey, Tango? It’s me, it’s Jimmy.” He puts a gentle hand on Tango’s shoulder, watching him all the while for any sign that he’ll startle or panic. “It’s over, you’re safe now. Are- are you hurt anywhere? Do you need anythin’?”

Still nothing. Somewhere behind Jimmy, Impulse makes a noncommittal noise. “Jimmy, buddy, I don’t think that’s gonna work right now…”

Jimmy ignores him. “Please, Tango,” he pleads, feeling his eyes sting, “can you just…” Idly, he lifts his other hand to wipe some of the blood off Tango’s chin. “Can you look at me?”

Unexpectedly, that gets Tango’s attention. He lifts his face almost robotically to look at Jimmy, eyes and expression still devastatingly blank.

The sudden movement startles Jimmy, his hand jerking back. And as it does, Tango lets his head drop back down.

An image flashes in Jimmy’s mind; Atlas, the doctor with the blood red gloves, grabbing Tango by the chin and tilting his head up.

(Oh, that’s messed up.)

(You’ve really done it, now.)

(Brilliant, just brilliant.)

Jimmy’s stomach turns. He scrambles back, away from Tango, his heart starting to pound. “Sorry,” he whispers, even though Tango gives no indication that he’s hearing it. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…”

A hand lands on his shoulder, making him jump. Impulse gives him an understanding look. “I… think he just needs some time to come out of it,” he says quietly. “Y’know, alone. When he shuts down like this, there’s really nothing to do but wait.”

Jimmy finds his voice again. “Wait, you’ve seen it before?” he asks, creasing his brows together.

Impulse winces. “A couple times, yeah.”

“Oh.” Jimmy swallows, glancing back at Tango. “I dunno, I- I don’t wanna just leave him like this…”

“We can stay right outside,” Impulse says reassuringly, folding his arms. “It’s just… when he gets like this, I’m not sure he’s fully processing what’s going on. It’s like a defense mechanism. So he’s not gonna come out of it until he feels safe, and um… well…”

It’s not hard to catch his meaning. Jimmy bristles. “What, are you- are you sayin’ he doesn’t feel safe with me?” he snaps, which is so unfair because Impulse has been so helpful and so kind and he’s actually sort of right, but Jimmy can’t help it.

Impulse holds his gaze. “Not if he doesn’t recognize you.”

That sobers Jimmy a little, his wings sagging. “Oh. Oh, yeah, good point. You’re right.” Ducking his head, he swings his legs off the side of the bed and rises to his feet. “I guess he’ll be okay in here,” he relents. “But um, can we- would you mind if we put out the lights? It’s just…”

“Tango feels safer in the dark,” Impulse finishes, realization dawning in his eyes. “Good call.”

“Yeah.” Jimmy fidgets with his hands as Impulse collects the torches.

(Wow, he really knows Tango, huh?)

(Thank god someone knows what to do.)

(What exactly are you even here for?)

With the room now sufficiently darkened, Impulse holds the door open for Jimmy. Jimmy gives Tango a final look-over, his blank face now lit by the dim glow of his dampened blaze rods.

“We’ll be right outside if you need us, Tango,” Jimmy says in parting.

Tango remains silent as Impulse closes the door behind them.

As soon as they’re back in the hallway, all of Jimmy’s fatigue seems to hit him at once. He sways where he stands, shoulder bumping against the wall- the dull pain is easily ignored in favor of the black spots dancing across his vision. He squeezes his eyes shut, biting back a groan.

Fortunately, Impulse is there to steady him. “Woah, easy there.” He quickly guides Jimmy over to the loft to sit down. “Just breathe, okay?”

Jimmy takes a few slow, deep breaths- in through the nose, out through the mouth. When he opens his eyes again, the room is no longer spinning around him, so that’s a plus.

“Here,” Impulse presses something into Jimmy’s hand, “you must’ve worked up some hunger.”

It’s a golden carrot. “Thanks,” Jimmy murmurs, immediately starting to nibble on it. He probably does have food on him, somewhere in his inventory- cooked steak, most likely- but the extra saturation helps.

Seemingly satisfied that Jimmy isn’t going to pass out, Impulse sits down in the chair next to him. “How you feelin’?”

“Better, thanks,” Jimmy murmurs, shifting to fold his wings a bit more comfortably. He feels awkward and just… so out of place here. And Impulse is a nice guy, sure, but it’s a little embarrassing to have to be taken care of like a child. If it weren’t for Tango’s sake, he probably wouldn’t have accepted Impulse’s offer of help in the first place.

“Good.” Impulse looks him up and down, brows pinching together. “Jeeze, they really did a number on you. I’m sorry we weren’t there sooner, chat was chaos and we thought they’d be at spawn ‘til we saw your SOS.”

That comforts Jimmy a little. At least he managed to do something right. “It’s alright, not your fault,” he assures Impulse. “I mean, if you guys hadn’t come when you did…”

“Yeah.” Impulse nods solemnly. “That, uh… would’ve been pretty bad.”

Jimmy studies Impulse for a moment. Now that they have a second, there’s a question that’s been nagging at him. “So…” he starts, “how much did you hear, of what Bravo said?”

“Eh, bits and pieces.” Impulse shrugs. “Something about Tango being an evil doppelgänger from Hels.”

He says it so casually, like he’s talking about the weather. Jimmy’s stomach cinches. “Impulse…” he says carefully. “Did you… did you know?”

“What?” Impulse looks at him in surprise. “Oh, that Tango was from Hels? No. No, I never knew anything about before he came to Hermitcraft. But you know, I always kinda knew there was something… not great in his past. I mean, there were signs. I just figured he’d come from an anarchy server or something.” He knits his brows together. “I guess you… never saw what he was like, when he was still new, huh?”

Jimmy frowns. “Wha’d’you mean?”

Impulse makes a noncommittal noise. “It’s not my place to get into all that. But let’s just say… he’s come a long way since then. So um, looking back, it kinda makes sense.”

“So then…” Jimmy hesitates. “D’you believe what Bravo was saying? About what Hels are like?”

Impulse actually laughs- though not unkindly. “Oh, no, not by a long shot,” he assures Jimmy. “Don’t worry about that. I mean, there are players who think non-humans are bad, right? Like, there are still public servers out there that’ll ban Cleo soon as she joins, just for being a zombie.” He shrugs a shoulder, his forked tail idly flicking through the air. “Or me, for being a demon.”

“Oh.” Jimmy blinks, feeling stupid. “Right. It’s… so easy to forget, sometimes, that some folks still feel that way.”

Impulse tilts his head. “Well, not when you have to live it,” he says lightly.

“Oh. Oh!” Jimmy smacks his forehead. “No, no, right, of course,” he adds hastily, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it’s easy for you specifically to forget. Just, in general, I guess. ‘Cause most players don’t have that problem with avians- I mean, sometimes they think some of our traits are weird, sure, but uh- but it’s not the same thing, cause we aren’t hostile mob hybrids. Obviously. And- and none of my friends feel that way, either, so I just…” He trails off, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, I’m not makin’ a lotta sense.”

Impulse gives him a gracious smile. “It’s okay, I know what you mean.” He leans back in his chair, his eyes thoughtful. “I’ve gotten so used to Hermitcraft, sometimes it catches me by surprise when I travel to public servers and people act scared, or… distrustful of me. And that’s without even seeing me in ‘full demon’ mode. So uh, even though I don’t know anything about this Hels world, I don’t believe that just being from there would automatically make someone evil. I know Tango better than that.”

Jimmy’s throat tightens. “Right…”

Now it’s Impulse’s turn to give him a sideways look. “... you don’t believe what Bravo said, do you?” he asks, voice low.

“What?” Jimmy blanches. Despite himself, he feels his wings puff up with indignation. “Gosh no, no, that’s- not in a million years, mate, it’s utter nonsense!”

“Alright, alright, sorry,” Impulse chuckles, holding his hands up. “I didn’t think you would. But you know, I just had to make sure.”

“Yeah.” Jimmy sighs, letting his feathers smooth down again. “You’re a good friend, Impulse,” he says, glancing away. “Seems like you know what to do, here. He’s gonna need that.”

“He’s gonna need you.” 

That makes Jimmy look up. “What?” 

Impulse’s expression softens. “I’ve known Tango a while, now, and even though there’s been plenty of fun and good times over the years… this is the first time I’ve seen him truly content. Like, he just seems at peace in a way I’ve never seen before. You do more for him than you’ll ever know- probably ‘cause he’s too scared to tell you.” There’s a knowing glint in his golden eyes. “Emotional vulnerability, uh, isn’t exactly his strong suit.”

A bittersweet smile tugs at Jimmy’s mouth. “Yeah, I’ve noticed.”

Impulse claps him on the shoulder. “We’re gonna figure it out, okay? You guys aren’t alone in this.”

Warmth blooms in Jimmy’s chest. “Thank you, Impulse,” he says softly, “I appreciate it.”

“No problem.” Impulse returns his smile before sitting back in his chair. “Now, how about you get some rest?”

Jimmy’s heart jolts. “Wh- no, wait,” he protests, “I’m not gonna leave-”

“You can stay right here!” Impulse assures him easily. “Just close your eyes and rest a bit. I’ll keep an eye out, and wake you up as soon as Tango comes to, okay? But right now, frankly, you look exhausted. And I’m sure you’ll wanna be well-rested for whenever Tango’s ready to talk about stuff.”

“Ah…” Chewing his lip, Jimmy glances over at the door to the spare room- mere steps away.

Since he forewent a respawn, he has to admit some shut-eye would be quite welcome at the moment. The immediate danger has passed. And right now, there’s nothing he can do to help Tango but give him some time. Might as well spend that time resting.

“I… suppose you’re right,” he relents finally. “But you gotta promise you’ll wake me if anythin’ happens, alright?”

Impulse nods. “I promise.”

“Right, then.” Jimmy settles into his chair, folding his arms across his chest. He fights back a yawn. “Thanks again. I- I mean it though… any little thing…”

“I know, I know.” Impulse waves him off. “Don’t worry.”

“Famous last words,” Jimmy quips, closing his eyes.

Impulse huffs a laugh but says nothing else.

Silence settles over the room, filled only by Impulse’s steady breathing and the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of him typing away on his communicator. He’s probably updating the others on the situation, so Jimmy can rest easy. He’s considerate like that.

Jimmy would’ve thought it’d be hard to fall asleep. This chair isn’t exactly built for it, and as lovely as Impulse and Bdubs’s home is, it’s not the ranch.

The loss is still fresh. He already knows it’s gonna hit him even harder in the coming days. But for right now, the post-adrenaline exhaustion is finally sinking in, and before he knows it, he’s drifted off into the inky blackness.

~*~

A gentle hand on Jimmy’s shoulder startles him awake.

“Jimmy,” Impulse whispers, his golden eyes glowing in the darkness, “wake up.”

It must’ve been quite a deep, dreamless sleep, because while it seems to Jimmy that he only just closed his eyes, he can clearly see through the window that it’s been at least several hours. The sun has long since set; a half moon is rising in the night sky. That’s alright with Jimmy- he was afraid he’d have nightmares.

Rubbing his eyes, Jimmy squints at Impulse. “What’s goin’ on? Everythin’ okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Impulse scratches the back of his head. “I uh, I just heard a thud in Tango’s room so I went to check on him and- he’s fine, don’t worry!” he adds quickly, as Jimmy bolts upright. “He’s fine, he’s up, but he still seems kinda disoriented? Like, he’s conscious, but when I tried to go in… I guess I look a bit too intimidating,” he taps one of the curved horns poking out from his hair, “‘cause he growled at me.”

“Growled?” Jimmy repeats, raising his eyebrows.

(Well, that’s promising.)

(Round two!)

(Here we go…)

“Yeah.” Impulse gives a sad smile. “So um, I think you should go try and talk to him, if you’re up for it.”

“Oh.” Jimmy blinks. “Oh, right, of course.” He rises to his feet, shaking off residual soreness from his awkward sleeping position.

Impulse pulls a lantern from his inventory and holds it out to Jimmy. “Give a shout if you need anything.”

Jimmy takes the lantern. “Right, thanks.” Steeling himself, he creeps over to the spare room, knocking lightly on the door- which is slightly ajar. “Tango…?” he calls softly, poking his head into the room. “You okay?”

The bed is empty, covers strewn in disarray. Tango is crouched in the corner farthest from the door, his back pressed against the wall. Hunched over and breathing hard, he stares at Jimmy, his blood-stained face lit by the faint glow of his blaze rods. His pupils are dilated again, lips curled back to show his teeth. There’s no recognition in his expression at all.

(You cannot sleep, there are monsters nearby.)

Jimmy swallows. His heart starts to pound. “Tango,” he starts tentatively, holding the lantern up so his face is clearly illuminated as he steps forward, “it’s okay, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Tango makes a blaze noise deep in his throat; a haunting, hollow sort of growl. It’s unmistakably a warning.

Jimmy hesitates, wings shuffling uncertainly. How to get through to him? General reassurances don’t seem to be working. He needs to remind Tango of where he is, to convince him that he’s safe- in a way that only Jimmy would know.

He takes a breath. “Hey, rancher.”

Tango falls silent. Surprise flickers across his features, mouth parting, gaze sharpening. For a moment he just stares, motionless. Then he squints.

“... Jimmy?”

Oh, Jimmy could cry. “Yes, there we go!” he says encouragingly. “It’s me, it’s Jimmy. You okay, Tango?”

Tango’s breath hitches. He takes a single, careful step forward- then he halfs runs, half stumbles towards Jimmy.

Jimmy rushes to meet him, catching Tango before he falls. “Oh jeeze, okay…” Setting the lantern down on the bed, he lowers them to the floor, shifting so he can wrap Tango in his arms. “It’s alright, it’s alright…”

“Jimmy, thank god.” Tango clings to him just as tightly, face buried in Jimmy’s shirt. His claws dig into Jimmy’s skin just shy of being painful. “I- I woke up,” he gasps, “and the quartz- I thought I was…” He pulls away enough to scan Jimmy’s face, eyes wide and frightened. “Where are we? What- how long has it been?”

Jimmy knits his brows together. “Uh- we’re at Impulse and Bdubs’s place, and it’s been… several hours, I think? Half a day?”

“God.” A shudder runs through Tango. “That- that really happened, didn’t it?” He starts to breathe faster, his voice straining into that faint upper pitch that Jimmy’s come to associate with panic. “Oh god, I- I- I don’t- hhh, I c- can’t…”

“Hey, hey, breathe,” Jimmy soothes, rubbing circles on Tango’s back. “I’m here, you’re safe. It’s over. Just breathe.”

They stay like that for a while, Tango curled against Jimmy as he rides out the worst of it. He shakes violently, eyes squeezed shut, breath hitching as he tries to get control of it again. Jimmy’s heart aches for him- he wishes there was something more he could do to help.

But he knows from experience that just being here is enough.

It’s not terribly infrequent for Tango to have nightmares. Sometimes he simply startles awake at night, apologizes for waking Jimmy up, and goes back to sleep. If Jimmy asks about it the next morning, he brushes it off as nothing; just silly nonsense nightmares, the kind that are terrifying at the time but seem utterly ridiculous in the light of day. Nothing more than that.

And all this time, Jimmy believed him.

(What a fool.)

Jimmy’s only ever seen a couple nightmares cause a reaction as severe as this. The shaking, the shortness of breath, the panic. What helped in the past was simply holding Tango- offering a few reassurances, but mostly silent comfort. And of course, Tango never wanted to talk about those nightmares, and Jimmy didn’t want to push too hard. He’d figured that Tango would talk to him about it when he was ready.

(Fool me once, shame on you…)

Gradually, Tango calms down. His tremors cease, and his breathing starts to grow deeper. He’s still holding onto Jimmy, but it’s less desperate, now. More familiar. Jimmy curls his wings around them, as if providing another barrier, another layer of security.

After Tango’s been still and quiet for a few moments, Jimmy softly breaks the silence. “How much d’you remember?”

Tango takes a shaky breath. “All of it,” he whispers. “E- everything, I was- it was like I- I was watching everything happen to someone else, like I was outside my body…” He looks up to meet Jimmy’s gaze, eyes brimming with tears. “Jimmy, I- I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Jimmy frowns. “Tango, what on earth are you apologizing for?”

Abruptly, Tango pulls away. “I burned you,” he grits out.

“No, you-” Jimmy almost grabs him by the arm, but then thinks better of it. “That wasn’t your fault.”

Tango stares at him incredulously. “Wha’ th- what do you mean? Of course it was!” He rakes his claws through his hair. “I- I lost control, I set the ranch on fire, and you got burned.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Jimmy argues. “You didn’t do it on purpose, you were just defending yourself.”

“Doesn’t matter!” Tango throws his hands up. “If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten burned, true or false?”

(True!)

(He’s got a point…)

(Why are you arguing this?)

Jimmy doesn’t answer. “Look,” he says instead, “honestly, it’s not a big deal. I’m fine!”

“Well, you don’t look fine!” Tango says bluntly. Distress flashes across his face as he looks Jimmy up and down. “Your poor wings- and oh, your face! What, did- we didn’t respawn?”

Jimmy ducks his head. “I didn’t wanna put you through that,” he explains, wincing.

He can actually see the guilt in Tango’s eyes intensify. “Ohhh no,” he breathes, dismayed. “You- why did you…” Shaking his head, he fixes Jimmy with a firm look. “Okay, you- you need to respawn, now.”

“It’s not important,” Jimmy replies, just as stubbornly. He holds a hand out, beseeching. “Tango, please, I- I’ve been worried outta my mind about you. So much happened- ”

“I’m fine,” Tango says shortly.

“No, you’re not,” Jimmy insists, working hard not to raise his voice. “I mean, honestly, I- I don’t even know what that thing ‘round your neck is doin’!”

Tango shuts his mouth with a sharp click and glances away. 

That sobers Jimmy instantly. Tentatively, he scooches a bit closer to Tango. His eyes trace the collar- it’s so deceptively simple, so innocuous at first glance. Just a ring of smooth, flat iron. But clearly, there’s a lot more going on; a single red light above the keyhole hints at a mechanism hidden within.

“Do you… know what it is?” Jimmy ventures, giving Tango a searching look.

Tango’s jaw tightens. “It’s wither rose.”

Jimmy blinks, taken aback. “What? But… we aren’t withering, we aren’t takin’ damage-”

“It’s not…” Tango makes a noncommittal noise, waving a hand in an aborted gesture. “They’ve modified it, somehow, I dunno. It- it’s not the full effect. All it’s doin’ is dampening my fire.”

“And our soulbond,” Jimmy realizes, his stomach sinking. “After he put it on you, I- I couldn’t feel your emotions anymore. It’s just… numb.”

Tango’s face is grim. “That’s what wither rose does,” he says lowly.

The certainty in his voice is… somewhat concerning. Sure, any player who’s been ‘round the block will have learned what it feels like to be withered, at some point or another. But due to the tedious and somewhat risky nature of obtaining the roses by way of a wither farm, most players don’t regularly encounter them. And as far as aesthetics are concerned, they aren’t the most appealing flower, so when they are farmed, they’re mostly used for mass-producing black dye or as the killing method in a mob farm. Not as decor or landscaping, where a player might actually touch the rose and be subjected to the wither effect.

Personally, Jimmy can’t remember the last time he touched a wither rose, as a player who doesn’t make a habit of farming withers or even taking on the boss fight. But the tone of Tango’s voice right now is the tone of someone who is horribly familiar with the sensation.

“Tango…?” Jimmy prompts quietly. “Is there… somethin’ I should know?”

Tango swallows. He’s avoiding Jimmy’s eyes. “I… I don’t wanna talk about it,” he whispers hoarsely. “Not right now?”

It’s almost a plea, and Jimmy’s heart tightens. “Okay. That’s okay,” he says gently, forcing down his disappointment; this isn’t about him. He rises to his feet, holding out his hand to Tango. “Here, come on, let’s… let’s get up on the bed, alright? It’s late, you need some proper rest.”

Tango hesitates, though he accepts Jimmy’s offered hand to help him up. “You need to respawn…”

“It can wait,” Jimmy says easily. He tries for a grin. “Honestly, I- I already knew I wasn’t exactly easy on the eyes, but I didn’t think it was that bad…”

“No,” Tango says quickly, “no, you’re not-” He makes a frustrated noise. “Your wings.”

Jimmy softens. “They’re just feathers. They’ll grow back.”

Sure, it might take a while if his follicles have been badly damaged, and his wings won’t be a pretty sight once all the burned feathers fall out. But most of his flight feathers are still intact, so in terms of places to get burned, it could’ve been much worse.

Tango huffs a breath, clearly still upset with himself. But he doesn’t protest further as Jimmy eases onto the bed, gently pulling Tango with him. After collecting the lantern so the room is properly dark again, Jimmy nestles under the covers, sweeping a wing out to lightly gather Tango beside him.

Tango settles against him, and it’s then that Jimmy realizes he isn’t as warm as he used to be.

He’s not cold, not by any means. But Tango has always run a bit hotter than the average player- a blaze hybrid trait that Jimmy’s quite fond of. It was the whole reason they first shared a bed, back in the early days of the world, and inadvertently plunged their relationship into new, terrifying depths. If it wasn’t for that moment, they likely would’ve danced around the issue for far longer, and been robbed of many precious days of happiness together. So even on warm nights, Jimmy will still cuddle up beside Tango. Even if he has to kick all the blankets off.

But with the collar dampening Tango’s fire, he’s been robbed of that, as well.

Jimmy swallows the lump in his throat and puts an arm around Tango, who curls into his side, head resting on his shoulder. Having Tango so close is immediately comforting. God, to think of how close he came to losing this, to never holding Tango again… 

It’s scary. It’s incredibly scary. There are few things in the universe that can really, truly cause lasting harm to a player. Injuries can heal upon respawn, death isn’t permanent- except for worlds where it is, then they just respawn on a different world and start again. But if those Hels people had succeeded in taking Tango through that hacked portal, into some isolated prison world that Jimmy has no way of finding… he’s afraid that would’ve destroyed him.

Jimmy turns his head to press a kiss onto Tango’s forehead, right between the dimmed blaze rods hovering around his temples. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Tango whispers back.

The room grows silent. Jimmy stares up at the dark ceiling. His earlier tiredness has up and left him, his mind racing, plagued by thoughts of what might’ve been. It’s all he can do to reassure himself that it’s over, that Tango’s safe and still here with him.

That for once, he was lucky.

(For how long, though?)

He isn’t trying to stay awake. And he isn’t pretending to be asleep, either, just laying quietly with his thoughts. But at some point Tango must think he’s nodded off, because only then does he start to cry.

It’s a quiet sound. Just the sharp inhale and exhale of breath. Jimmy might not have even known he was crying if it wasn’t for the way his shoulders shake, and the sudden dampness seeping into Jimmy’s shirt. 

It takes all of Jimmy’s willpower not to console Tango, to hold him tighter and offer hushed reassurances. There’s a reason Tango waited until he thought Jimmy was asleep- he’s very much the kind of person who prefers to show emotion on his own terms. If he knew Jimmy was awake to witness this, he’d completely shut down again. And he needs this.

So Jimmy pushes down his own emotions and does nothing as his soulmate cries, trying not to move or start crying himself as the guilt for being so useless eats him alive.

(Sweet dreams…)

~*~

Morning comes, eventually.

At least, as far as Jimmy can tell by his internal clock. The room he wakes up to is still fairly dark- just a slim beam of light coming in from the hallway through the cracked door. Impulse must’ve done that to better keep an ear out for them overnight. Thoughtful guy. Tango is sleeping deeply next to Jimmy, and the sight is quite comforting.

It seems they’ve kept with their usual sleeping habits, even without a sunrise to greet them.

Carefully, without jostling Tango, Jimmy pulls up his inventory to grab his communicator. He can’t recall hearing it go off, but he wants to make sure there isn’t anything that urgently requires his attention. He’s surprised, however, to find a potion of healing; Impulse must’ve slipped it to him while he was sleeping.

A smile tugs at Jimmy’s lips. He’s long since regenerated his health, but the potion ought to help with his lingering injury. He downs the potion quickly, grimacing at the cloyingly sweet note of melon. It doesn’t take long for a cooling sensation to settle over his broken nose. When he gently probes at it, he can feel it’s still a little crooked, but at least the pain is gone.

Putting the empty bottle away, Jimmy digs out his communicator, squinting against the blue light. No one’s used chat lately or sent him any whispers- it seems they’re taking the request for privacy quite seriously. But there is the backlog from yesterday waiting for him. It takes him a minute just to scroll back to where it all began.

Bravo joined the game.

<Grian> ey??

AtlasSyn joined the game.

Tyrannicide joined the game.

Phantonym joined the game.

<Grian> EYY????

Helfyre_004 joined the game.

<PearlescentMoon> Ummm?

<Renthedog> What the heck??

CRIMETIME joined the game.

t3rr0r_b1te joined the game.

EbonyHelmentia joined the game.

baddomen666 joined the game.

<InTheLittleWood> WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?!?

staluggmite joined the game.

PwrPlayz joined the game.

<PearlescentMoon> Hello??

XxSLAYERxX joined the game.

Vexed2theMax joined the game.

ApexGamer98 joined the game.

<Smajor1995> wait how is this happening

<PearlescentMoon> Raid?? D:

SheHelsSeaHels joined the game.

ne’er_do_hels joined the game.

<Grian> i don;t know??

Jaffu joined the game.

<Grian> theres no one at spawn???

<Etho> woah!

<SolidarityGaming> SOS RSNCH

<Smajor1995> oh no

<Renthedog> What??

<Smallishbeans> rsnch lol

<GoodTimeWithScar> G come pick me up

Tyrannicide was slain by Tango.

staluggmite was slain by Tango.

Phantonym was slain by Tango.

<InTheLittleWood> Wait WHAT?!?!?!?!?!

<Smallishbeans> NO WAY

<BdoubleO100> OHHHHHHH

<Grian> EVERYONE TO RANCH

<ZombieCleo> what is happening???

staluggmite joined the game.

Tyrannicide joined the game.

<Smajor1995> omw cleo

Phantonym joined the game.

<impulseSV> Etho, Joel, our place?

<Renthedog> BigB where you at??

<bigbst4tz2> coming

SheHelsSeaHels was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]

EbonyHelmentia was shot by Smajor1995.

XxSLAYERxX was slain by impulseSV.

CRIMETIME was slain by Wolf.

t3rr0r_b1t3 was slain by Renthedog.

Jaffu was doomed to fall by ZombieCleo.

SheHelsSeaHels joined the game.

ne’er_do_hels was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]

Tyrannicide was slain by Renthedog.

XxSLAYERxX joined the game.

EbonyHelmentia joined the game.

CRIMETIME joined the game.

Phantonym was slain by Etho.

t3rr0r_b1t3 joined the game.

ne’er_do_hels joined the game.

XxSLAYERxX was slain by Wolf.

Jaffu joined the game.

Helfyre_004 was slain by Renthedog.

Vexed2theMax was slain by bigbst4tz2.

Tyrannicide joined the game.

XxSLAYERxX joined the game.

Jaffu was slain by Renthedog.

SheHelsSeaHels was slain by Wolf.

bigbst4tz2 was shot by AtlasSyn.

Renthedog died.

Phantonym joined the game.

baddomen666 was slain by Wolf.

SheHelsSeaHels joined the game.

Jaffu joined the game.

PwrPlayz was slain by InTheLittleWood.

Helfyre_004 joined the game.

Vexed2theMax joined the game.

staluggmite was slain by Smallishbeans.

Helfyre_004 was shot by Smajor1995.

EbonyHelmentia was slain by Wolf.

PwrPlayz joined the game.

ApexGamer98 was slain by PearlescentMoon.

baddomen666 joined the game.

PwrPlayz was slain by Wolf.

Jaffu was slain by Wolf.

baddomen666 was shot by Smajor1995.

EbonyHelmentia joined the game.

Vexed2theMax was slain by InTheLittleWood.

PearlescentMoon was shot by AtlasSyn.

Smajor1995 died.

Helfyre_004 joined the game.

ApexGamer98 joined the game.

SheHelsSeaHels was slain by Wolf.

ne’er_do_hels was slain by Wolf.

baddomen666 joined the game.

Vexed2theMax joined the game.

Helfyre_004 was slain by Wolf.

baddomen666 was slain by impulseSV.

CRIMETIME was slain by Smallishbeans.

Phantonym was slain by Wolf.

Vexed2theMax was slain by Wolf.

t3rr0r_b1t3 was slain by Wolf.

ApexGamer98 was slain by BdoubleO100.

Tyrannicide was slain by Wolf.

EbonyHelmentia was slain by Wolf.

AtlasSyn left the game.

XxSLAYERxX was slain by Wolf.

Bravo was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]

Grian was shot by GoodTimeWithScar using [hOtgUy]

GoodTimeWithScar died.

Jimmy doesn’t know how long he spends looking at chat, reading it over and over again as he tries to make sense of it. All those Hels players came here with the express purpose of kidnapping Tango. But why? Dr. Atlas had said something about ‘getting back to work’ and a farm design, but what does that even mean? 

Speaking of that doctor fella, he seems to have been the only one to get kills on the Double Lifers- the rest of them must’ve been preoccupied with Pearl’s wolves. Gosh, to think what her chat must look like…

But that’s something worth noting. Atlas didn’t waste his time with wolves, he went for Pearl and Bigb. He must’ve realized the wolves were Pearl’s and targeted her because of it. And the fact he went for Bigb instead of Ren, who was racking up the most kills... that means he was able to put together that they were soulbound, and he used that to get rid of the threat more easily.

Out of these Hels players, Atlas is clearly the one to watch out for.

Well, him and Bravo, of course. Though Bravo technically isn’t a Hels, if Jimmy’s understood it properly. But he’s certainly just as cruel and bloodthirsty as those other guys were, and he’s got it out for Tango the most. Jimmy can’t recall the last time he saw such hate in a player’s eyes, for any reason. And this is the guy claiming he should’ve been Jimmy’s soulmate? Unbelievable.

As if Jimmy would ever go for such a dense, hateful, entitled piece of-

“Honey,” Tango says suddenly, sitting up on his elbows, “you okay?”

Jimmy jolts in surprise; he must’ve been looking quite cross with his communicator. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he assures Tango softly, offering an apologetic smile. “Sorry if I woke you.”

It’s difficult to make out details in the scarce light from the hallway, but Tango looks much improved from yesterday. Even underneath the dried blood, the warmth has returned to his skin, replacing that sickly, pale pallor. His red eyes are sharp and alert- that’s a huge relief, as well.

“No, no, you’re good!” Tango says brightly. He leans over to press a kiss to Jimmy’s cheek. “Sleep alright?”

His tone throws Jimmy for a moment. Someone’s feeling better. Blinking, Jimmy puts his comm away. “I did, yeah,” he answers uncertainly. “You?”

“Yep!” Tango smiles at him; it seems a bit forced. “I uh- I’m all rest-ificated and ready to start the day. So, what I- well, I- I guess our first order of business, we should go take a look at the ranch, right, see what the damage is? Then we can do some resource gathering and start rebuilding, so we aren’t crashing at Impulse and Bdubs’s place forever.”

Jimmy pauses for a moment to process the words. “Umm… are you sure?” he asks tentatively. “I mean, we can go look at it if you want, but uh, are you- we should really focus on getting that collar off you first, don’t you think?”

Tango shrugs. He isn’t quite meeting Jimmy’s eyes. “Doesn’t bother me. Besides, we don’t have the key.”

Jimmy knits his brows together. “So what, we just... let it alone? Move on?”

Tango huffs a laugh- it sounds a bit faint. “Yeah, yeah exactly.” 

(What an abrupt change of character!)

(Lying again, it seems…)

(How suspicious.)

Okay, this is definitely strange behavior. Considering everything that happened yesterday, Jimmy would’ve expected Tango to still be physically and emotionally wrecked. But instead, he seems rather keen to just move on, like everything’s normal- 

Ah. Of course. Jimmy doesn’t know why he’s surprised.

“Tango...” he starts, “I don’t think-”

“Good morning!” Impulse hums as he pokes his head through the cracked door. “How we doin’, guys?”

Curse his timing. Tango, of course, immediately takes advantage of the distraction.

“Oh, hey Impy!” he says cheerfully. “Hey uh, sorry about earlier. You know, I uh, I was a little confused, and uh… you know...” He pulls a face; overdramatized. He’s trying to make light of it.

Impulse seems to share the same realization as Jimmy. “Hey, it’s alright,” he says easily, though he keeps his tone in a lower register- more serious. Not feeding into the fake energy. “No hard feelings. Here, I brought some food.”

Tango takes the offered food without even a second of hesitation; a stack of golden carrots. “Of course. Thank you, thank you.” He quickly starts crunching on one, conveniently busying himself so he doesn’t have to say anything else.

Oh well, at least he’s eating. Jimmy gives Impulse a tired smile. “Hey, Impulse. Thanks again for lettin’ us crash here.”

Impulse returns his smile. “Yeah, of course, no problem. So um, I’ve just got a bit of an update for you guys.” He sits down at the end of the bed, expression sobering. “The ranch situation is under control, they managed to get the fire out before it spread to anything else nearby. So your pastures, barns, and fields are safe. All your animals, too.”

It’s easy enough to pick up on what he’s left out. “But the ranch itself is gone, isn’t it?” Jimmy says quietly.

Impulse nods. “I’m sorry. Most of what’s left is just the stone. I think the basement is pretty intact, too, but everything else…”

“Yep.” Tango, finished with his carrot, shrugs a shoulder. “Yeah, I figured. That’s what we get for building with wood, even though I’m super flammable and stuff.”

Jimmy gives him a sympathetic look. “It’ll be okay-”

“So,” Tango interrupts, avoiding Jimmy’s gaze as he gives Impulse an intent look, “uh- anything else?”

(Ouch! Testy…)

Impulse rubs the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. Grian wants to know if you guys are up for a chat. Nothing bad,” he adds quickly, “he’s just trying to figure out a solution and we’re just a little in the dark about everything. You can stick to the basics; if there’s something you aren’t comfortable telling us, that’s fine-”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Tango assures him. Despite his grin, there’s a hard edge to his voice. “Let’s do it. Call everyone up, we’ll have a nice chat at spawn or something. Let’s- let’s get goin’.”

Impulse pauses. “Well, if you want, we can have just Grian come over...”

Tango huffs. “No, why- let’s just get everyone on the same page, okay? Get it all over with at once.” He spreads his hands. “No point in delaying, or- or having to explain the same thing over and over again, right? I mean, everyone’s stuck here ‘til Grian lifts the lockdown, I- I’m sure they’ll wanna know why.”

Jimmy exchanges a look with Impulse. “I… I suppose,” he says hesitantly. “But are you sure you’re-”

“Yeah,” Tango says, “yeah, it’s fine.” 

Impulse purses his lips, clearly fighting not to let his frustration show. 

The sentiment is one that Jimmy shares. It’s obvious Tango is trying to downplay everything- and if that’s his way of coping, fine. But it really throws a wrench into the works when moving forward requires actually addressing what happened, and having an in-depth conversation about it. And this doesn’t bode well for long-term; they can’t just pretend everything’s normal, no matter how much Tango might wish it. 

“Okay, I’ll let him know.” Impulse rises to his feet. “The bathroom’s at the end of the hallway if you guys wanted to wash up.”

Tango actually makes a face at that, dropping the facade for a moment. He really doesn’t like water. “Wash up..?”

Impulse winces. “You’re um. Still covered in dried blood.”

(I was wondering when he’d realize that…)

Tango blinks. “Oh. Oh, right, of course.” Absently, he reaches a hand up to scratch at his chin. “I should probably wash that off, yeah. I mean, everyone knows I’m a vicious monster but I don’t have to look it, right?” he laughs.

Jimmy’s heart tightens. “Hey, Tango…”

“No,” Impulse protests, “that’s not-”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Tango says shortly. “Thanks, Impulse.”

“Alright.” Impulse lets the matter drop, turning to leave. “Come downstairs when you’re ready.”

As soon as Impulse is gone, Jimmy turns to Tango. “Hey, so-”

But Tango has already hopped out of bed and crossed to the door, calling, “Hang on, be right back!” over his shoulder.

Down the hall, Jimmy hears the bathroom door open and close. He sighs.

This is gonna be a fun conversation.

~*~

CONTINUED IN PART IX, ACT II

[bettsfic]

Have you written about kicking your phone addiction? I'm half way there but I'm interested in hearing other people's experience.

i have! but as always it's a long, meandering post of self-reflection and egregious declaration that basically boils down to: remove your phone's positive reinforcement and replace it with different positive reinforcement. (the post is more about social media than phone usage, but there's a lot of overlap.)

relevant excerpt:

the thing about getting away from social media is that it’s slow. i don’t think you can really go cold turkey. when i got home from the residency, i went on a long hiatus and had all these strict rules for myself about when i was allowed to look at my phone and when i wasn’t, but that didn’t really work for me. but i did delete all the social media apps from my phone, and on my computer i logged out of all of them and deleted my saved passwords, so if i wanted to check them, i had to go to that extra step of logging in and even typing in my password. and that doesn’t seem like a lot, but when you’re checking social media out of habit, muscle memory, something to attend to that might give you a brief blip of dopamine, having to type your password is just one step too far. the brief pleasure i would get from checking my notifications was less than the hassle of logging in. and that’s what it all comes down to: feeling good. in the moment, it feels good to check a social media app, to see that somebody has interacted with your content or maybe with you directly. it’s that tiny subconscious exclamation point, the feeling we get when somebody politely smiles or waves at us, when a dog comes up to us wagging his tail, when a well-meaning stranger compliments your outfit. that’s the social part of social media. but that’s also the part that keeps us cycling through our apps out of habit and boredom. so you have to take away that stimulus from yourself, and you have to create positive stimuli elsewhere. to take away the positive stimulus of social media, you have to stop posting content on it. content is the mind killer. when you tweet something, your impulse might be to check that someone has interacted with it. but if you step away from the great conversation of social media, nobody speaks back to you, and you develop more patience for the longer-term good feelings of reading a book.

one year update to this post:

i intended to share a screencap of my average daily phone use, which is around ~30 minutes, but uh. i don't remember where i put my phone.

my mentality has continued to be "replace glowing screens with sensory/tactile satisfaction" and that's worked really well for me. so well that i wrote a newsletter about it last month.

[athanasius-symposium-of-writings]

Green Carnation

Chapter Two

I want to say how happy I am to see a lot of ppl like this fic. I will say it was a bit personal to write this and had to even talk to my friend about the subjects of this fic that it touches. So I want to thank them for helping me and also tell you all: you are very loved <3

Again pls read the warning and keep yourself safe

Rated: Explicit | Warnings: open relationship, there is gender play/crossdressing in this chapter. Norton calls the reader 'Mrs. Campbell' as they/he cannot marry him during this time but it all plays into a fantasy and is not said in a way of demeaning but in a way of affection.

Chapter One

The molly house, a speakeasy your wife took you to, is full of high society types. Here you found out a lot about yourself. Your wife, you love her to pieces, was supportive the whole way.

The place is not popular in the sense not many people travel this far to go here for there are others. The rustic charm and the memories of your friend keep you here.

You think about him, your friend and lover, he was a good man. Older and loved talking about his work with technology. The subject is sore for you and you come to the conclusion maybe you would never find a man like him; you won't but something new is not so bad.

Norton is at the check-in desk getting the large suitcase, holding a surprise, a quick search. You went ahead inside to see if your wife was still watching the burlesque show. Her lover, a woman you find pleasant, is sitting next to her. She points you out to your wife. 

You smile glad to see them both. Her lover waves at you before going back to watch the show.

She kisses you for a few seconds with her arms around your neck, “I thought you weren't coming.” Pulling back. She is beautiful, always beautiful, wearing the latest dress from France. Your wife is from very old money thus your father had your marriage arranged for social climbing. Lucky you, she likes you— Loves you.

“Sorry, got uh…” Rubbing the back of your neck awkwardly.

Norton comes up behind you with a neutral expression for your wife, “Fancy seeing you.” The suitcase is no longer with him, “They're getting us a room.” He informs you.

Your wife is confused and looks ready to also protect you. “It's okay. He asked to come here.” You say with a smile for her to know you are truly okay.

“And you trust him?”

Norton frowns, “I used to work in a place like this. The alcohol is just as cheap there as it is here.” His hand slipping around your waist tugging you close to him, “I intend to fuck your husband.”

Your wife looks at you then him then you and back to him, “Seriously?” Given she knew about your attraction to Norton the moment you came home covered in bruises, “Listen, we are discussing this later.” Shaking her head she lowers her voice, “You break my husband, I break you, Campbell.” She is very serious as she glares at him then softens her gaze toward you. “I'll be here.” Kissing you again before returning to her lover.

“I thought you two weren't in love.” The Prospector is very confused.

You laugh a bit, “We are in love. She has a lover and I was fine with only her but the option was always available for me to seek another.”

Norton will not pretend to understand that.

For a bit you both hang out at the bar, drinking a bit, mostly chatting. The bartender informs you both the private room is ready, and you take the key. Norton follows your lead.

“The rooms are over here.”

Small rooms with beds and simple bathrooms are places for those to indulge with partners or paid companionship. They are always clean and can have certain amenities added or changed.

It takes a minute to find the room; once you do, opening and closing the door, Norton sits on the bed next to the suitcase. “Go on.” Gesturing for you to take the thing with you, “In there, and don't come out until you are all dolled up.” Pointing to the closed bathroom door. The smirk on his face broadcasts how pleased he is as your cheeks burn hotter than any fire right now.

You are uh, you have not been with another man after your friend’s death, never felt right. He was everything you wanted to be, inspired to be, and yet you were content not to be. He showed you things and was slow and patient with you, never will find that again you figured. 

Norton does not move slow; he moves fast and trusts his gut on things most of the time. And tonight his gut was right.

The wedding dress you wear, after going into the bathroom and preparing yourself, is comfortable for your size and body type. It is the same one you were looking at with your wife while talking to her about renewing your vows. Norton was only there because he needed a party suit.

“This is embarrassing.” The makeup is a touch you added without him saying anything. Your wife adores you with lipstick, the rouge kind, it makes your smile pop. Norton sits there with his legs open and leaning back with his hands holding him up. Admiring, though you can feel him undressing you.

“Mrs. Campbell.” He says, “You look nice.”

“Nice? Do you understand the fight I was having with this zipper!? I better be more than nice.” Annoyed.

“Alright, alright,” Standing up with his hands up in defense, “How about ravishing, hm? Want me to praise my good boy for following my instructions, or,” He grins at the way he can tower over you, “Should I take my wife on our wedding night and make him feel everything I have been holding back, hm?”

There is something you like… Something about being in a role you are never going to have. You are a man, a husband, the breadwinner. There are things in this society you will never have nor be granted even if you held all the money in the world. You must dominate, must be strong, you must be everything society demands of you.

Your father was forgiving of your tastes so long as you were discreet; your wife helped you… Help you find this place where you can be how you want.

The bed is comfortable but you find yourself backed against a wall with Norton under the wedding dress.

“Hard already? Lace really does wonders to a man.”

You try not to moan, try not to seem touch starved for another man's touch, but you moan. Hands gripping and pressing down on the front of your dress. The dress is not a problem rubbing against the right spots as Norton’s callous hand grips your legs. Comparing both your bodies, you must feel like a doll to him. You are trying hard not to cum as his tongue and lips are hot against your cock, the barrier of the lace panties rubbing and your hard cock twitching with arousal.

“Don’t you dare cum.”

 “God, please.”

“Not God, me. Beg for me.” His bitemarks littered all over your inner thighs, “Making a mess down here.” Precum weeping out of your cock onto the underwear. His mouth takes the tip while his tongue cleans your mess.

“Shit, sorry, sorry!” It is too late and cum into Norton’s mouth, legs wobbling until they give out.

“Tsk, spoiled brat. I told you not to cum.” When you fall to the floor, now on your back, he slips from under your dress, licking his lips as lay there covering your eyes with both hands, “That good?” He crawls over to see you, moving your hands off your face. He looks worried. “(Name)...”

Crying, “Yes. Sorry, it's been… A long time.” It is unexpectedly emotional. You apologize again only for lips and a salty taste to blank your mind. His body is heavy, his colon the one you mentioned once how it smells nice, and his hand everywhere.

You once knew what it was like to be treasured, now you know what it is like to be possessed.

Norton Campbell is greedy, he touches you, consumes you; you writhe under him as lifts the dress to properly open you up. The oil he uses makes you feel warm and sensitive, “Suggested.”

“By who?” Out of breath.

“A friend.” Not only a friend, Norton hates the man but that novelist bastard has his uses.

“Good… Ah… Friend!” He found that sweet spot quickly, “Norton, Norton!” Legs shaking as you feel the ache of another release.

“This time you better hold back.”

You do, it is difficult but you do it with tears in your eyes and begging for him to let you cum.

“Mrs. Campbell needs to learn patience.”

“Mr. Campbell needs to fuck his wife or he might go find someone else who will.”

Norton sat up, a shadow falling over half of his face; you worried you said something wrong but when you are turned over to lay on your front. The way he hastily ripped his tie off to bind your wrist behind your back, he left enough fabric to use it like a leash.

“As if you would give that hole of yours to anyone but me.” His body close to yours once more, your head turning to glance behind you. You have never seen Norton naked, no reason to, and though he is not fully naked, he is shaped like a statue of Ares. Muscles and blood, his bones of iron; you whine at the sound of his pants being undone. He filled out so well, and you gasp as his cock-- Hot, heavy, and hard-- slid between your asscheeks. “You're a good boy,” Adjusting his cock with his free hand to press against your hole, “If you were easy, I wouldn’t have noticed how tight you are.” The lace moved aside but not taken off. Norton Campbell will be the death of you, pushing back wordlessly begging him. He is all too happy to thrust into your heat, the groan of how you need to relax, the way you called out his name in the voice he going to be obsessed with for a long time.

Lovemaking would be nice but not what is being done, Norton fucks you like you going to disappear. His teeth bite into your shoulder as he holds you close, thrusting with the intention of making your body remember every drag of cock. He will do this over and over, with you begging over and over to go harder or faster. Norton likes it when especially ask him to touch you, the sobs of your pleasure and way struggle to match his thrusts.

“That’s it,” Husky voice laced with the finest of lust, “(Name).” The sound of your name is spoken throughout the night. Every spot in this room is a witness and near the end he has you on the bed, holding you like you are his most treasured desire. Because you are.

It is a long night before he has to let you go. The saddest part of it all is always when the fantasy ends, yet it makes the memory last the longest. You will feel him for a few days and he will long for you for a few days. The public will only see what they need to see, the smoke and mirrors. The bittersweetness of it all, you try to focus on the sweetness though as he is there. Always there in front of you sharing the sun and moon with you.

[ducktracy]

How did you became a fan of looney tunes, particularly the porky and daffy shorts?

SO! THIS IS GOING TO BE A LONG ASK because i get asked this a lot (and have talked about it pretty frequently lately), and i feel every time i answer i have 80 explanations. all of them are true! but i kinda want a repository so i can reference back to my thoughts if and when the question comes up, because i love talking about it. saying this now because usually when i intend to answer an ask quickly, that's never how it goes.

TLDR for both is: i was bored one day, saw Boomerang was airing the shorts, remembered hearing good things about the shorts and was immediately swept away. a series of rabbit holes clinched my obsession. as for Daffy and Porky, i find them intensely interesting and they're also some of the most i've ever found myself reflected in a fictional character, Daffy especially.

NOW THE LONGER ANSWERS!

SO. as i mentioned above, there's about 80 different explanations i could give for what got me into Looney Tunes. (this is not true and heavy hyperbole, but it is true that my interest was clinched in a number of ways). the most objective of those is that, i was very curious about learning the history and production of cartoons, especially because i had aspirations of making my own cartoons one day and working in the industry. at the time, there was (and still kind of is...) a popular animation blog by a, uh, let's say disgraced cartoonist. said disgraced cartoonist had a blog where he would discuss animation technique, history, and in spite of knowing he was disgraced and very publicly disavowing him to the point of overcompensation, i drank the Kool-Aid and fell into the trap of reading his blog pretty religiously and absorbing a bunch of information that i have now spent years unlearning and have no interest in returning to.

BUT ANYWAY. said cartoonist's blog discussed LT quite often as a pinnacle of great cartooning. i never actually went out of my way to check out any of the shorts mentioned--it was just sort of an understanding of "oh wow, these are important. got it." and not putting the research in

come September 2019 (the 13th to be exact because i'm neurotic and memorize dates). i'm home alone for the weekend and bored out of my mind. channel surf. see Boomerang is showing LT shorts. think, "hey, i've spent years reading about how good this stuff is, i didn't watch it very often as a kid, let's see if the rumors about this being good are true." AND THEY WERE! the first short i saw was Bob McKimson's Upswept Hare which is actually not one i go out of my way to watch often, it's whatever, but i thought it was amazing that i was able to watch cartoons from 1953 on my TV. even though my obsession with golden age cartoons is recent, i've had a lifelong nostalgia affliction--i've been interested in things that are old for as long as i can remember.

after that was Rabbit Transit which, wow, 1947?? that's even older! and even COOLER!!! and it's true! Friz Freleng's Bugs is now my favorite director's interpretation of the character. i was amazed at how funny it was, how fast everything was, how lush the music sounded and how intricate the animation was. i genuinely did not know animation could be that smooth and lush. it was seriously mind blowing. likewise, seeing these McKimson and Freleng Bugs shorts defied the notion i had for the longest time where i only thought Bugs was just a terminally bored beacon of invincibility, since those were the shorts i remembered most from my childhood. Rabbit Transit ends with Bugs being dragged away by cops kicking and screaming--i thought it was HILARIOUS and so different than what i was used to. i really wanted to see more Bugs Bunny and see how my notions of what he was continued to be challenged.

another short included in the line-up was A Pest in the House, which is one of the major dominos in this entire domino effect. i didn't watch very much LT as a kid (only just on DVDs during road trips, but i recall seeing a few on Cartoon Network or Boomerang at some point in my life), but i do recall having a particular dislike towards Daffy since he was mean. also, he was not a cute and cuddly cat and/or rabbit like Sylvester and Bugs, which did not appease my child mind, who loved cats and rabbits. (my childhood cat looked like Sylvester so i've always been fond of him, i do recall owning a Sylvester balloon on a stick at one point as a small child, so yay?)

needless to say, my hopes were not very high. Daffy Duck, who cares, whatever. so, of course, finding out that Daffy is small and cute here and acting amicably, smiling, and being obnoxious was VERY surprising and novel to me. the bit where he's cracking up and can't even tell the poor hotel patron a joke because he's too busy laughing and sobbing and screaming and then FORGETS IT was my canon event. my "oh god, i have never related more to anything than i do right now in this moment." (this is still true, as this exact thing happened to me on a Zoom call recently and i was literally sobbing cracking myself up at a stupid joke i thought of that literally isn't funny at all, and i kept thinking of that scene which just made me laugh harder).

that, in conjunction with this scene and how QUICKLY IT MOVED, how SMOOTHLY, how ENERGETIC the music is, the hilarity that is Elmer's "?" above his head... i HAD TO SEE MORE. i was so interested to learn that Daffy wasn't just a self-obsessed greedy miser all the time. i had no idea cartoons could move this way. you can time the action to the music?? that's GENIUS! so A Pest in the House was a very big break through moment for me and kickstarted my infatuation with Daffy Duck.

another breakthrough was watching Falling Hare for the first time thanks to Boomerang as well. it was the first Bob Clampett cartoon i saw as a cognizant adult, and i knew to look out for it because this disgraced cartoon creator certainly loved to make his bootlicking of Clampett very, very, very well known. i thought that it was amazing to be seeing a short from 1943 on TV!!! SO ANCIENT! so old! who knew they made cartoons that old! and, most importantly, who knew they made cartoons that old THAT MOVE AS GORGEOUSLY AS THEY DO HERE!!!! GEEEEEEZ, you wanna talk about never seeing cartoons move like that before... and not only that, i loved the humor, i loved the characterizations, i loved even the most hokey gags in it. i decided that to really jumpstart my interest in LT, rather than waiting around to catch Boomerang airings, i'd binge the entire Clampett chronology. i did indeed do this, and it wasn't until i got to around 1942 or so that i finally began to branch out and watch other directors

THERE ARE STILL MORE BRANCHES TO THE STORY! SOMEHOW! while i wasn't much of a LT fan before this, i WAS a Tom and Jerry fan. was a very big fan as a kid. i didn't go out and watch the shorts as an adult, but i did listen to the soundtracks. i recall listening to one of the soundtracks, and a comment on it talked about comparisons between Scott Bradley, who did the MGM scores, and Carl Stalling, who did WB's. i was like "huh, wonder who this Stalling fella is" and looked up one of his music compilations. found one from the '30s, went "there's such a thing as Depression-era music scores??" and listened to it.

one of the comments on that video gave a timestamp and mentioned a Porky's Romance. i went to the timestamp, listened to the song, and thought it was one of the most beautiful things i had heard in my life. i still have a screen recording saved in my camera roll from when i first listened to it. i thought, this is so gorgeous, i have to see what cartoon this is from.

and lo and behold, the cartoon about Porky Pig offing himself because he got rejected in his marriage proposal was the first Porky short i saw as an adult. similar to my Bugs and Daffy revelations, there were SO many things that intrigued me. largely: I HAD NO IDEA THEY MADE THE CARTOONS IN BLACK AND WHITE! seeing these beloved cartoon characters in black and white was the coolest thing to me! i had to learn more! likewise, i never knew that Porky was fat! or that these shorts would deal with such dark subject matter! or that they could be so representative of their time with the music styling and background design!

SO, all of these sort of culminated together. i wanted to see more LT, i wanted to see more cartoons that challenged my perception of them. i wanted to see more old things. shocking things. beautiful things. my main path into LT was binging a bunch of the Bob Clampett cartoons, which coincided with my interest in seeing more Porky shorts and more black and white shorts since the first 4 years of his career were nothing BUT black and white Porky cartoons. i also recall checking out Porky's Duck Hunt around the same time i watched Romance for the first time, but i'm not sure why. i think i was reading up on the Wikipedia article for A Pest in the House, learned that Daffy used to be crazy, and wanted to see it for myself. i also fell in love with the novelty of seeing him HOOHOO and jump around and act a fool, as well as the very present 30s-isms in that short.

i began to branch out to other directors, a lot of my introductions boiling down to "i saw this on Google and it looked interesting" (i know that's how i discovered Yankee Doodle Daffy). there was a period in early October 2019 where i was beginning to lose a little interest and fixating on other shows instead, but i watched Porky in Wackyland for the first time and, well, HERE I YAM! likewise, seeing praise about Baby Bottleneck and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery got me to jump ahead in my self imposed Clampett chronology and watch those for the first time (October 18th, 2019, a day that will forever live in infamy). needless to say, it was one of the smartest decisions of my life since those are two of my favorite cartoons of all time. Baby Bottleneck impressed me so much that it literally gave me heart palpitations SO SEVERE i genuinely considered calling my parents to tell them i might need to go to the hospital. i seriously thought i was having a heart attack. no cartoon has ever made me feel like that since. that was a defining "i need to do this" moment for me. again, i reiterate, talk about not knowing the possibilities of how animation could move.

and from thereon out, i continued to go on my little rabbit holes. i started my reviews in December 2019 as an excuse to motivate myself to see every Looney Tunes cartoon ever made (which is a mission i completed on December 31st, 2022.) i've seen and even own some of the animation art from the cartoons themselves in person, i've had relatives of the directors praise my work, i can directly owe my job to LT (and am known as the LT person--specifically, the pig and duck person--by my bosses, coworkers, and peers), i've received job offers from Warner Bros... all because i got bored one day and decided to channel surf.

it's been nearly 5 years now. September 2019, i was in a very low point in my life. i was recovering from a very messy and rather traumatic break-up, there was some related drama affecting my friendships, i had just started college and was missing all the friends and relationships i'd built in high school, and i was really grappling with my mental health as a result. this introduction couldn't have come at a perfect time. i went from being despondent and listless and depressed to actively looking forward to waking up and discovering a new cartoon to watch because it meant i'd learn something new. i really look back on that time fondly. i cringe at a lot of what i was saying and doing back then, as i've learned so much more and matured a lot since then, but i'm still so lucky to have had that time in my life. and even though i'm 5 years in, and even though i've calmed down in a lot of aspects, that excitement never really goes away and i don't forsee it doing so. i can tell this is going to be a lifelong fixture for me. i don't have any doubt about it. calling it a "hyperfixation" or "interest" seems to temporary and diminutive; too many areas of my life have been affected by it and it's really just ingrained in me now, and will continue to do so. i'm so lucky for that.

SO! TO GET COMPARATIVELY LESS PHILOSOPHICAL BUT STILL RELEVANTLY SO, answering your question about Daffy and Porky specifically

as i talked about above, much of my investment in them comes from really identifying with the both of them. Daffy a bit moreso, but certainly Porky as well. i find myself in Daffy's exuberance, passion, impulsiveness, his emotionality, his... shall we say "neuroticisms", always living life at a high frequency, being a very all or nothing person, his often fleeting attention span and endeavors, his obnoxiousness, good humor, his charisma (this feels so conceited of me to say but i've had multiple people told me i'm charismatic--i don't entirely believe so but i think it is worth bringing up, if nothing else), his at-times overly trusting demeanor. all of these descriptions are more in line with the 40s Daffy rather than the Daffy most folks know, though there is some overlap and i can't say there aren't some traits of the later Daffy i don't see myself in either. namely impulsiveness, a tendency to be a bit overbearing, etc... that's why i can relate so much to him, because he's not just a character who i relate to for positives.

Porky, i can relate a lot to his idiosyncrasies, his stubbornness, his obliviousness, a general awkwardness, [usually] good heart, innocence, occasionally hare trigger temper (i do not consider myself an angry person thank goodness and i'd definitely consider myself more optimistic than most, but if i am mad i am very mad and have a very hard time concealing it), which leads me to my next point in also being pretty transparent, a little bit of a stutter, and so forth

me being able to relate to the both of them certainly does help in pushing them up the ranks, but my enjoyment doesn't hinge on that because i'm thankfully able to see them as their own characters (and i think if i just saw them as reflections of Me the whole time, it'd be a bit uncomfortable). that's the biggest draw: their dynamic is so intensely interesting to me and unlike anything else offered by any of the other characters in the cartoons.

i'm mostly interested in the cartoons and the people behind the scenes rather than the characters, which is funny to say since character and characterization is super important to me. maybe this'll change! but as of right now, i don't really care to think up any headcanons for The Tasmanian Devil or Pepe le Pew or what have you. i'm namely interested in the characters if it directly relates to their context with their creators. i was just saying the other day that i tend to be averse to things that have the LT cast in a big ensemble, even if you remove the "oh they're a happy family" aspect from it. i worded it more succinctly here:

Daffy and Porky are the only real exceptions to this, and it's likewise because they're some of the only characters who weren't bound to a certain director. Tex Avery only ever directed 3 Daffy cartoons, and Friz Freleng, as much as i love the Porkys he did direct and wish he did more, didn't seem very interested in pursuing Porky the same as he did with his other characters like Yosemite Sam or Sylvester (both of whom being some of my favorites, Sylvester ranks behind Daffy and Porky for me in terms of favorites. amazing character.) this likewise offers them a lot of freedom, as they're subject to more interpretation by more directors

their dynamic is the most varied out of any, and i love that. some shorts they're roommates and work together. others, they want each other's blood. my favorite is a good blend of both. but, no matter what dynamic they're in, they still feel like Daffy and Porky. they're flexible and malleable but not completely lost in who they are. i've expressed many times that they're the only two characters who can have a genuine sort of camaraderie between them in the shorts where they do and have it feel natural rather than "get a load of these guys teaming up!". in my eyes, they have the best chemistry, they play off of each other so well. my favorite Porky shorts and my favorite Daffy shorts are always the ones where they're with the other. there are genuinely no Porky and Daffy shorts i dislike outside of the sadly usual "this is racist garbage", but thankfully that's only limited to a very select handful.

much of it likewise comes down to novelty. when i first began getting into their shorts, i was AMAZED that i had never heard anyone talk about their dynamic before. granted, i probably wasn't looking, but all my life it's always been Bugs and Daffy Bugs and Daffy Bugs and Daffy--i still, maybe selfishly, think the Porky and Daffy shorts are 50x more interesting and fun to watch and it was just MINDBLOWING to me how i'd never seen anyone bring this up! how is nobody talking about how varied their dynamic is? why is nobody talking about how well they play off each other here? why is nobody talking about how funny this is? it's a feeling of sort of stumbling into a hidden diamond mind. i really like that feeling. it's why the '30s and '40s shorts are my preferred favorites; they're less talked about, which means i have more room to shill them and maybe give someone the same reaction it's given me. i love that aspect of exploration.

i've been typing this out for nearly 1 hour and 25 minutes straight, and so my steam is finally beginning to run out. there's more i could say on just how much Porky and Daffy mean to me, but that's the general jist. i identify with them both a lot, i sincerely love their chemistry, i think they're one of the most interesting cartoon duos of all time, i want more people to discover them, and i just love watching them. Mel Blanc's Daffy voice is one of the most beautiful sounds i've ever heard and i'm not even exaggerating. i have so much fun picking apart Porky's stutter and seeing how it varies depending on the voice directing, and i love catching certain stutters that Mel Blanc does that feel very true to life/like something i've heard out of my own mouth before. i love how they have a bit of an underrepresented past (Porky moreso; i've really fallen in love with the Joe Dougherty era shorts). they're just so interesting and offer so much, no matter what your interest is.

WOW. this may have been the lengthiest ask i've ever answered. but, ye ask and ye shall receive, so i hope ye received!

[obae-me]

Mammon x MC and there's only one bed and they're both tsundere. So maybe oblivious mutual pining could work there too?

Yesss, I was hoping someone would suggest the One Bed trope! I've never actually written one of these before and I've been dying to try it out! (Also, lots of Mammon requests, ya'll love him and I do too, good for him)

This ended up being a bit more than just a teeny blurb, I couldn't help myself.

---

"Mammon..." They muttered, the bag over their shoulder sliding down their arm as they propped their suitcase up against the wall.

"Ya? Wha?" He shut the door behind them both, typing away at something on his phone. His voice was a bit muffled, seeing as how the pamphlet containing the keycards to the room was tucked snugly against his teeth, his D.D.D. in one hand and too many bags in the other.

"A-Are you sure this is the right room?" A dumb question, but one they felt they needed to ask anyway.

He scoffed, sloughing his bags off his arm and onto the floor. His jaws opened and he caught the pamphlet in his now-free hand, waving it around in their face. "Duh. How would we have gotten in otherwise, huh?" Oblivious to what the human was seeing, he headed over to the bed and sat down on the end of it. "Why?"

"I... um..." They hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out if this... situation was intentional or not. Was Mammon trying to say something? Did they mess up the rooms? Would they have to... "There's only... one bed."

Only when it was pointed out to him, did he notice the obvious. Sweet boy. He got up to his feet and swung around, rubbing the back of his head while he cursed. "I knew the room was too cheap to be true!"

"Why didn't you pay attention to the room details?!" The human couldn't help but exclaim.

"I- I was distracted, okay? I saw the cheapest room they had available and I clicked on it! I wanted more money to--" He cut himself off with a growl. The cheapest room meant one bed, and not just one bed, one twin sized bed. There was no way two people would fit on it without... "I'll just sleep on the floor, alright?"

Feeling a bit guilty for raising their voice, MC sighed. "No, it's okay. You paid for the room. We'll just see if they can give us a last-minute cot and I'll sleep on it." They grinned at him assuredly. "It'll feel like camping, it might be fun." A lie, but he didn't have to know that. "I'll go ask the front desk. Toss me a key, will ya?" They blushed a little, realizing how much they seemed to be mimicking Mammon lately. A card was tossed over, and the human walked out. They returned shortly with a flushed face. "No...uh..."

"No dice?" Mammon guessed.

MC nodded, their shoulders slumping. "I'll just fold up some blankets and-"

"Nah, you get the bed. I can always curl up in the chair or somethin'."

"No, no. Like I said, you paid for the room so you get the bed."

The back and forth went on longer than either of them intended to, both their faces getting a little warmer as time went on, till finally, Mammon growled again, shouting. "Fine! We'll just share it, damn it!" It took a few seconds before the words he suggested sunk in. Silence settled between the two of them. "I mean, if you want to, that is. If not, you get the bed alone and that's that, you got it?" His voice was quieter than usual.

MC shifted around on their feet a bit. "I mean... I guess it's fine... just as a courtesy... as long as you don't sleep in the nude today."

"Fine."

"...Fine," they echoed.

"Yeah, fine..."

Awkwardness seeped into the room for the next while as they both prepared for bed. MC slipped into their pajamas, slowly crawling into one side of the bed and sitting up in it. There wasn't too much space next to them... They would be so close... Their heart was pounding a little. Would they even be able to get sleep like this?

Mammon came out of the bathroom shorty after, rubbing a towel over his wet hair. He came over in a tank-top and shorts. His eyes glanced over them and then the bed and then the human again. "So... I guess I just..." He approached steadily, getting under the covers on his own side. Both of them were embarrassed. "I'll just, uh..." He continued to stammer, laying down and facing away from them.

It was then when MC was hit with a pang. A sense of longing. Their imagination took them to the place they were trying to ignore. He looked so cute like this, trying to curl up as much as he could on his side, his white hair drying, turning fluffy. His little grumbles of words he spoke to himself as he attempted to get comfortable. All the human wanted to do was run their hand through his hair, their arm wrapped around his waist, their nose pressed up against the ticklish part of his neck, taking in the scent of his shampoo and the cologne he always sprayed on himself right before he settled for bed. He was so... close... and yet, somehow he felt so far away, like they were across the world from him.

They laid down on their back, staring at the ceiling. Their heart kept beating a painful yet excited rhythm in their chest. They didn't need anything more, they kept trying to tell themselves. Just this was enough.

Little did they know that their companion next to them wasn't asleep, thinking the exact same thing, wanting to tuck them safely under his arm, maybe latch his ankle against theirs... but no, he couldn't. How could he be so... stupid? He should've paid attention to the room details, but he wanted more money to spend on them. He had just been so excited to go on a trip with them... he completely blanked when he impulsively bought the room.

But this was fine...

Totally fine...

[latibvles]

Hello! Could you please write 17. Audience for Fern Carmine!

##17 — AUDIENCE.

my kind anon, this ended up longer than intended, hence the header. this feels like a fic in its own right. and now there's some OC mitosis getting thrown into the mix with some background girls. anyways I love you fern carmine and you have a lovely voice <3

—

There’s no singing and dancing in the Army.

That was the first thing her father said to her, looking at the enlistment papers on her desk. There’s no singing, no dancing, no time to stir trouble like you so often do. Maybe he was just angry that, with no sons, he thought he wouldn’t have to deal with sending one of his own off to war. Maybe it’d be his intent to dissuade her.

But then she’d heard her uncle musing about how she’d ���wash out” of basic anyway in their sun room, and there was no longer any doubt in her being: she had to go, just to prove that she could, just to make the statement that you don’t tell her what she could and couldn’t do.

So it turns out, both her father and her uncle were wrong. Fern did not wash out of basic training, and there was singing and dancing in the Army. Quite a bit of it, actually, and it seemed to only increase once they hit Europe and the men had their pick of pretty local girls who didn't know them too well. 

So really, there’s just an addendum: in order to have singing and dancing and martini glasses with little olives, you must also go up in a fort and risk your life day-in and day-out.

She’s known quite a few men who’ve made worse deals.

The band is playing something quick and brassy — sounds like Goodman. The people on the floor are moving just as quick: Club Mobile girls and airmen, ground crews and local girls, reminding her vaguely of dances that she’d gone to in high school but without the need to spike the punch. A couple of the replacement girls had latched onto her already, not that she minds as she surveys the room and its occupants.

Wakes could be fun in a place like this.

“He’s got that look again,” Lorraine already sounds bewildered, and Fern follows her friend's gaze over to Bucky Egan — knee bouncing, fingers tapping like a kid waiting desperately for everyone else at the table to finish eating so he could run loose. One of the new girls, a gunner named Diane, looks over as well, and with that, her two crewmates Sherry and Kat follow suit.

“Who, Major Egan?” Sherry inquires, “Looks like he’s having a grand ol’ time.”

“Oh he definitely is,” Lorraine turns her head to fix her gaze on the girl once more. “Then he takes the mic stand and we’ve all gotta listen to him sing loud and offkey for the next hour.”

“Be nice,” Fern chides half-heartedly. There were few things that she knew could break Lorraine’s steely disposition: to see her being so bothered by something was amusing in its own right. “He’s mostly on key. Besides, he's got a lot of enthusiasm.” Lorraine gives her a flat stare.

“Uh huh. Sure. Weren’t you a chorus girl or something before? I don’t get why you don’t just take the damn mic stand.” At that, the shortest of the three, Kat, gasps a little and looks at her with a dazzled expression that has Fern grinning to herself.

“You were a chorus girl?”

“My cousin was. She taught me a couple things. I just did choir in school,” Lorraine waves her hand dismissively — chorus girl, choir girl, same thing — “And you could be a whole lot nicer about asking me, Lori.” Fern decides, dragging an olive from the toothpick they’d put in her glass into her mouth. Lorraine stalls a moment, then twists her body towards Fern further to put a hand on her knee, letting out a long, languide sigh.

“Fern, my dear friend, my favorite radio-woman, would you please go on and sing something to spare both me and the rest of the Hundredth from listening to Bucky’s piss-poor rendition of Takin’ the A Train. Again.”

Fern’s lips curl into a smile.

“You mean your dear friend, and favorite, most talented radio-woman.”

“Fern.”

“Alright, alright, I’ll do it…” Fern sits up, and Lorraine lets out a groan of relief. “If you get my special audience on the floor. No fun to sing with no devoted fans in the crowd.” Fern’s smile grows impossibly wider, morphing into the mischievous smirk she can’t fight back when she’s looped into a game of darts or cards. Lorraine’s eyes narrow.

“June’ll never agree to that.”

“Have a little faith, Ivanova. You’ve got three minutes or until Bucky pries that mic stand from my cold, dead hands.” Fern tucks an auburn strand back into its place, then watches Lorraine huff as she gets up to make her rounds to locate the rest of their crew. Some were dancers, others weren’t, and that’d be half the fun of it — at least on Fern’s end of things. That’d been half the fun in school; hatching a new scheme, observing who paired up with who or seeking out the trouble their parents had all sent them away to pointedly keep them from.

On their better days, Thorpe Abbotts could feel a little like a COED dorm.

Fern approaches just as the band’s finishing up another song, waving to catch their attention. Then she gives their conductor a smile.

“I need you to play somethin’ for me,” she declares, before murmuring her request in their conductor’s ear. He nods, parrots the request up and through the band as she sidles up by the mic stand, letting her eyes sweep once more over the room. Some of the guys were sitting in chairs, others in the middle of the floor and some dotting the edges — it’s easy to find Harrie grinning like a crazy woman as Blakely tries to keep her from stepping on his toes. Then she catches Buck yanking Bucky back down into his chair by the shoulder, Viv and Willie next to them. The hand Viv puts on Bucky’s shoulder to keep him sitting makes her snort as she counts heads. Lena, Jo, Carrie… Lorraine’s got June by the arm and June is giving her a look of melodramatic betrayal.

“You gonna sing us a little something, Fernie?” she’d recognize Viv’s goading anywhere, locks eyes with her brightly-grinning captain and flicks her own hair back into place.

“Well I just can’t say no to a face like that, can I?” There’s a few laughs, a couple shouts of encouragement, egging her on. She gives the band a nod as if they’ve rehearsed this a thousand times before and recognizes that loud brassy start as she brings her lips to the mic.

Days can be sunny, with never a sigh, Don’t need what money can buy. Birds in the trees sing their day full of song, Why shouldn’t we sing along? I’m chipper all the day, happy with my lot. How do I get that way? Look at what I’ve got.

She makes a sweeping gesture with her free arm, leaning into the music in a way she might not have been allowed to way back when during school choir. Maybe she never got to be a chorus girl, but there were enough show-women and conmen in her family for her to mirror. She could be entertaining and funny like it was second nature — and Fern would still get back in the seat tomorrow all the same if need be.

The music kicks up, nice and quick, she watches Harrie scurry across to one of the clubmobile girls, Helen, and Fern’s grin only grows a little wider once her friends all start trickling onto the floor. She makes a show of walking with the mic stand this way and that, like it’s her own one-woman show. Guys spinning girls around, a couple of those replacements getting the courage to take to the floor with each other or with somebody new - she thinks she catches Sherry’s straw-colored curls among the moving bodies - that’s what Fern liked to see. No point in sitting and stewing on what could happen tomorrow when they could have fun right now.

Jo’s laughing as Douglass gives her a spin about the floor. Inez seems to be taking some type of lead with Carrie, who’s all flushed-cheeks and baby deer steps. Bucky’s like a springboard jumping out of his seat, Viv’s shaking her head no but she’s smiling as he says it. He’s pulling her by the arm anyway onto the floor, spinning her while Buck drags a hand down his face in amusement and Willie’s grinning to herself, as small as it may be. Fern tries not to laugh through her singing, but it’s a sight to see. Her special audience of girls, knowing that she’d only do something like this if it meant she’d get to see them let loose like that.

Fern was a dealmaker after all.

I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man — Who could ask for anything more? I got daisies in green pastures, I’ve got my man — Who could ask for anything more?

[berylcups]

Yandere Files: Ghiaccio X Foreign Reader

CW: stalking, imprisonment, death (mentioned), jealousy, hostess clubs, masturbation, phone sex(is it if it’s one sided?),immigration, outercourse, mild toxicity

Notes: just a disclaimer- I have no idea how immigration works in Italy or how it works across other countries but I thought it would be a good point of conflict for Ghia to act up to. Also- Ghiaccio was a tough nut to crack. (No pun intended 👀) He’s not very sexually motivated as a character he seems so I had to really try hard with this one! I hope it’s not too OOC and you ice fuckers like it though~🩵Beryl

Minors DNI

Y/N has been living in Napoli Italy for about 4 and a half years now. It’s tough living on their own but it’s worth it. They’re in college for design and work a job that they love. They work in a nice cafe as a hostess and it pays ridiculously well! The only catch is… there’s a lot of mafia activity. Y/N hears and sees things they aren’t supposed to- but that’s okay because they look the other way.

Now this was a special kind of cafe. It took heavy inspiration from the east for its heavily…attentive service. Hostesses would be pouring wine for their guests, lighting their cigarettes/cigars, sitting with them, conversing, laughing at their jokes, stroking their ego, and even joining them on drinks - non alcoholic of course! We can’t have the staff getting tipsy on the job!

Melone being the creep that he is, surveyed this place out for good mothers for BabyFace. But he also really likes the atmosphere so he got his other teammates to go along. Even Sorbet and Gelato! The two had no interest in the women but they enjoyed being pampered by them. But Ghiaccio… he didn’t really like it. Why would he want some host/hostess to be bugging him every 5 minutes??? He doesn’t get it! That’s until he met Y/N of course.

Aesthetics didn’t mean much to the man but he thought they were very gorgeous- it didn’t matter how tall or small, thick or thin, light or dark they were. He was enamored by their open mindedness and that they were willing to just actively listen to him. They gave their full attention to this man, and gave out intelligent thought out answers-to the best of their language capabilities.

“Oh uh sorry… what was the correct name for that pasta again? Shit. I can’t remember! It looks like little corkscrews. Like the part of the wine bottle opener you use to screw into the cork .” Y/N struggled trying to find the name.

“I believe the one you’re looking for is fusilli.” He replied, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Yes! That’s the one! Thank you Ghiaccio. Well I had the fusilli alla checca the other day and I was surprised. I really liked it despite me not liking cheese very much. I’m glad I listened to you.” They said cheerfully.

He couldn’t help but smirk from having his ego stroked like that. Of course he’s right! He knows everything about Italy and its wonderful culture.

“Sigh… I’m really gonna miss it here.” They said looking down at their coffee with a sad smile.

Ghiaccio nearly spits out his coffee. “What?!” He yelled. “ I mean- what do you mean by that?” He lowered his voice trying not to cause a scene.

“Well as you know I’m graduating from _____ University in a few weeks… and my Visa is almost up. I only have about 3 months left before I have to go back home to _______.” They said gloomily. “I really don’t want to leave because I love it here so much.”

“Go apply for a permanent residency! They should take you in since you've been here almost 5 years.” He replied.

“I wish I could…but my mom is waiting for me at home and I’m all she has. And the wait time for the documents will take longer than I am allowed here legally.” They signed sadly. “Well… let’s not let this ruin our time together! We still have 3 months. Let’s make the best of it right Ghia?” They chirped trying to bring the mood back up.

He wanted to shake them by their shoulders and tell them that’s not good enough and they can’t just leave him but he can’t just have an outburst. It will scare them away! He has to think of a plan to keep Y/N here with him. PERMANENTLY.

“Yeah, you’re right Y/N. Let’s just enjoy the time we have left.” He said, faking a small smile.

He was seething inside. How DARE they try to leave him. Of ALL PEOPLE it had to be Y/N to turn their back on him?! Not on his watch! He was going to use his resources and connections to make sure that Y/N doesn’t leave the country of Italy ever.

————————————————

Now that he’s smitten with you, some of your regulars stopped showing up. You wonder why? It’s starting to worry you a little bit financially. You have to make sure that you have enough money for the trip home!

“I wonder why people are showing up less and less… am I not doing good enough?” You asked dejectedly.

“No of course not! Their wives/husbands probably found out that they were hanging out here and probably put them on a tight leash.” Ghiaccio lied.

Anytime he’d see one of the patrons get a little too flirty or handys with you he’d corner them in the back alley and beat them with an inch of their lives. Or worse, do what he does best-freeze them till they shatter like glass.

While you’re still here he follows you everywhere and you are too distracted by everyday life to notice it. Oh! He just happens to be near your university! How about a ride home in his nice car? It beats taking public transport. Or when you happen to run into him at the grocery store? How about he gives you a quick ride back home so you don’t have to carry all those heavy groceries home? He’s so thoughtful!

When he’s home alone , or on a mission he’s always thinking of you . He’s sexually frustrated because when he furiously masturbates his hand isn’t enough anymore . He wants to feel your hand around his cock instead or better yet your warm hole.

He calls you often at odd hours of the night just to check in with you. You two have long deep discussions about random things like how English is just ridiculous, or learning about your culture and food, your hobbies, his hobbies, just about everything! In person he’s usually the one talking but on the phone you’re the one who’s doing most of the talking. When he talks he sounds winded, strained? Like there’s repetitive smacking sounds going on in the background. He says he’s just “multitasking “ but with what?

He knows you love your job-he gets it. But… he can’t stand the idea of another pair of eager balls or a thirsty pussy near you. He doesn’t wanna take your joy away but he doesn’t want to live in a constant state of anxiety! You're his! So he’s a straight forward man, so he’s gonna confess his feelings to you when he’s certain that he has a chance. You clearly pay more attention to him, your eyes light up when he comes in through those doors. You eagerly sit in his lap and listen to his usual complaints of the day.

“Aww I’m so sorry that happened. What a douche! He should have known better, you were right to stand up for yourself. You have a reputation to uphold. Is there anything I can do to make it better for you?” You cooed.

“Just having you around is enough to turn my day around.” He said, softening his tone.

“Aww~ Ghia! You’re too sweet. You’re the one I’m gonna miss the most.” You sighed. “Hey… I’m not really supposed to ask this because this could jeopardize my job but…do you wanna go out sometime?” You whispered. “I really really like you and I’ll regret not telling you how I feel before I have to go home… if you’re okay with long distance relationships that is- I understand if you don’t it’s not that easy and I promise I’ll visit as much as pos-“

He put a finger up to your lips to stop your nervous rambling “ of course Y/N. I was honestly going to ask you myself.”he confessed. “As far as long distance goes, we’ll make it work.” He lied, he had his plans in order to make sure you’ll never leave.

He agreed to a long distance relationship because that’s not what he had planned at all. He already got a hold of your passport and other legal documents when you were outside of your home at university. He made sure they were absolutely destroyed. He has Melone currently making him a perfect fake permanent residency card for you. Now you’re NOT going ANYWHERE.

On the days that you’re free he takes you to historic places close by and acts like a more in depth tour guide to you. He hopes this will make you want to stay even more and it’s working. He’ll show you all the best restaurants- not that touristy shit or the Michelin star nonsense. Just real authentic Italian cuisine!

He likes to drive the scenic routes and show you all the lesser known beaches, forests, parks, vineyards, etc. The lesser known the better, so he has the privacy he needs to mercilessly fuck you into the back of his car. He apologized for your first time with him being on top of the back of an uncomfortable car but he just couldn’t help himself. You looked so good with the nice outfit you were wearing!

He’s very athletic so likes to pick you up against the wall as he’s fucking you. He’s all about hard and fast. He’s gonna want to bite at your neck and leave tons of bite marks and hickies all over your body. He wants everyone to know that you’re taken and not available for anything outside your job. He doesn’t cum just once he goes at around 4-5 times with a very insane fast refractory period.

He’s not big on foreplay but he has a fixation outercourse. Watching his cock slip through your folds/ass drives him feral. But he’s not selfish, whatever you want he’ll give to you- within reason. He loves you but he’s very impatient!

He has an obsession with boobs. 👀 big boobs, small boobs, no boobs , pecs… all boobs are good boobs to this tit lover. He likes to use his cold hands and watch the nipples harden and hear you whine that he’s too cold 🥶 it never fails to get a chuckle out of him to hear you whine for him to stop making you so cold!

When it’s nearly time to go home he plays along and helps you pack up all of what you plan to bring back to your home country. Since you’re only packing sentimental items and necessities, there’s not too many bags. Thankfully they all fit in his trunk.

You crash at his house the night before you leave. Only one teeny tiny problem… you missed your goddamn flight!

“You missed your flight and you lost your passport? You know what this means right Y/N? You’re stuck here in the country .” Ghiaccio said very calmly for a tense situation like this.

“ I’m an illegal now! What will I do???” You cried with tears staining your cheeks.

“ I already took care of the problem myself.” He said calmly. He pulls out a fake permanent residency card. It was as realistic as the real thing. Only thing is your last name is the same as his.

You can’t just stay! You needed to go home! This is wrong! You wanted to argue, but there was just something ominous about his demeanor.

“I love you too much Y/N. I can’t let you leave.” He said eerily calm, taking a step closer to you. Was it the anxiety or did the temperature of the room just drop.

“But… you know I can’t stay. I have to go home.” You whimpered.

He took a firm grip on your shoulders and made intense eye contact.

“Oh Y/N… perhaps you're not really understanding the situation. Allow me to say this in a language you understand: You’re not leaving me or the country..”he spoke in your mother tongue and he did it perfectly.

You can tell he’s mad, and you don’t want him to get worse. He’s a part of Passione, you know this. You’re not dumb! Now’s the time to do what you do best, be obedient and do what he says. After all, Ghiaccio knows best.

Once you accept your fate that you’re stuck here with him: it’s till death do you part. But don’t worry he still treats you as if nothing happened. Just as long as you don’t mention anything about it ☠️ or you’ll end up in the chilly basement for a few days. But it hurts him just as much as hurts you! He loves holding onto you at night as he’s drifting asleep. He’d never lay a hand on you, he just wants to make sure you never ever leave him.

But as long as you leave the past in the past (aka- your home and family!) you have a bright future ahead of you with this loving man! 🥰

[ambrosiagourmet]

hiiiii i have a quick question about no reason but to starve: when does it take place relative to the postcanon labru comic? i ask partially so i can integrate this knowledge into my understanding of laios & kabru's dynamic in nrbts, but also into my understanding of the diplomatic relationship between malini and kakha brud

(i love your fic so much thank you for your gifts to dunmeshi fandom)

Oooh fun question, thank you!! I assume you mean this comic?

This ended up being longer than intended lol, so tl;dr short answer: it would take place after the comic, though the comic is not necessarily 100% canon to it.

More details and rambling below the cut:

So, in general, I'm trying to write in a way that is compatible with, but not strictly canon to, any post-canon content we've gotten.

In part tbh that's because I had WANTED to construct the timeline with the Kensuke extra in mind but then I totally goofed it and like the story basically takes place at the exact same time that the Kensuke story would. So it ended up more being like handshake meme thematical/character similarities rather than strictly canon.

Also I don't want anyone who hasn't read the extras to have trouble following anything (which is actually why I had to go back and add a bit about the situation w/ KB during editing lol. In the rough draft it was just like yeah yeah the reparations we've all heard of them).

That is all to say the story does more-or-less take place after this comic. The way I'm thinking about it, the initial negotiations referenced in the comic sort of laid the foundation for (relative) peace and cooperation, but there are still lots of specifics to work out - that's what the current delegation is in town for. It's probably less combative then the initial, uh... conversation... but I imagine there's still a fair bit of a "wring everything we can from these people" attitude from KB, so it's a slow process with a lot more smiling and nodding and going back to grumble privately later.

In terms of Laios & Kabru I think the story fits well after the comic for their relationship too... The group of them & Marcille are very much A Unit in the point where the story picks up (with Yaad also included, but not necessarily as close as the three of them). They all have been working together for a little while now, and are all committed to the work. They know a bit about how to navigate each other, and have some rhythms they've fallen into (like Marcille checking w/ Kabru about her hair, or everyone knowing that things are tense between Laios & Yaad wrt Marriage Talk).

What's still left unsaid is a lot of the deeper, more sensitive things. Part of the reason the fic opens on the question of Laios' Political Marriage (TM) is because I think it's a good example of a thing that WOULD remain buried for a while. Laios seems to not have given himself much room to think about romance, so it's something that hasn't been addressed out in the open. But they've got to deal with it eventually!! They have a life long task ahead of them all, and shoving skeletons into closets only works for so long.

(Laios romance tangent: whether or not you read him as aro or ace (and I personally put him somewhere in some grey zone there), I don't think that's a thing he would have realized yet in canon. Repression =/= happily uninterested, and I personally think Laios has repressed that shit hard.)

Anyway, the same goes for various things with Kabru and Marcille, as well. They already trust and care about each other, but being vulnerable with other people is a long, messy process. Especially with all the baggage they have. It's something they still need to figure out!

It is also, conveniently, very fun to write about :3

[smallraindrops-blog]

I've been thinking about Nightmare Y/n a lot. So I had 2 questions and some small blurps to give you!

Does he ever seek the help of other gods for punishment? Or does he simply use Nightmares to help him?

Also, would he have his own domain? Like how Zeus has the sky, Poseidon the sea, Hypnos the Realm of Sleep, Atermis the Forest, Dionysus the vineyards and party grounds etc, etc (I hope I got those right)

(Headcannon blurps underneath, and some smaller headcannons for this au sprinkled in)

A headcannon I had for this au is that Hypnos and Y/n do have their children, except they come to be due to Hypnos and Y/n fighting and the Fates interference (Except Phobetor, he's a special case).

With Hypnos having to try and restrain Y/n, he slowly loses the ability to look after the Dreams of mortals. His sisters, the Fates, see this and decide that during one of his clashes, they will give him a child to watch over dreams, so he can make sure mortals can sleep while fighting Y/n. Thus came Morpheus.

(Hypnos had won the battle, and as Y/n slept, he heard the cry a child. Morpheus stood in the aftermath of their battle with only Hypnos to watch over him. Y/n is told much later about his first son, meets him even later.)

The twin came during a friendly spar, much later in the future. Hypnos and Morpheus have solid control over the realm of sleep, and Y/n has gained full control of Mortals' nightmares. However, the realm sleep kept expanding, and the Fates had decided their little brothers family should expand along with it. Thus, Icelos and Phantasos came to be. Y/n had pinned Hypnos down, securing the fact that mortals were to have more nightmares for the year when the cry of infants filled the air. Once separate, Hypnos and Y/n find the twin wrapped in a Shroud of Mist, nightmares taking the form of animals hovered over the babies, seemingly watching over them. After panicking for a bit at the new children, Hypnos and Y/n take them to be clothes and named. They grow up knowing who Y/n is from the beginning. Unlike Morpheus.

Phobetor, however, was born only from Y/n. While Y/n could control Nightmares, he was not the God of them. So the Fates once again see that the realm of sleep needs a new caretaker and help Y/n to have a son with his power.

Phobetor is born from a violent battle Y/n has with his own cult. They had forsaken his teaching and began punishing those undeserving, earning the praise of the Olympians and earning Y/n ire. In was supposed to be a non-violent punishment peaceful scolding, quickly turned to bloodshed as Ares had influenced his cult. They had restrained Y/n with chains given by the Gods and planned to try and kill him. This only enraged Y/n, leading to his divine form breaking out and him killing those who didn't immediately pass from seeing him.

In the middle, the destruction stood Y/n, his blood dripping from him and mixing with his once beloved followers.

From his blood mixing with mortals and the lingering fear in the air came Phobetor, born from his father's Rage and mortals Fears.

Hypnos didn't question Y/n bloody form once he returned to the flower field, simply helped Y/n clean himself and held Phobetor, amazed at how the infant already looked so much like Y/n.

Phobetor, once grown, has full control over the realm of Nightmares, with his father overseeing it and helping him when not tormenting gods and punishing mortals or flirting sparring with Hypnos.

-----

Uh yeah, that was longer than I intended, and apologies for any errors.

I really like this Au and how different the story is to WMFTD. I haven't even touched on my headcannons of Achilles and Patroclus or how Zagreus might react to meeting this version of Y/n, the dynamic the Sleep children would have due to their parents roles.

But I hope you enjoyed my rambles, and hopefully, I'll be able to ink the Divine Form drawing soon and start the other Godly form doodles.

You know, funny thing i was having a conversation with a friend of mine about nightmare Y/N a week or so ago and what he would be like as father. Hint: not good.

But anyway, I enjoy your rambling! Gonna put my response under. Ps. Sorry for taking so long to respond. <3

So as for getting help… I think it would depends on which god it was and why they would want to him. Like if Cronus rolled up offering a hand, Y/N would kick him to the curb bc his whole bitch ass started this.

but someone like Nemesis (or the fury sisters - wait actually Tisiphone and him could totally vibe while roasting murderer on a pike or whatever) could be a possibility if she brought into his cause.

Hmm. If I understand how the domain thing work, he does have a domain over torment. But physically, he is so tightly woven with Hypnos, that he exists within the sleep realm.

but i will leave it up to you!

i love how much time and thought you put in each of the children btw! Feels like it work very well for the setting!

The cult done fucked up ( i forgot to add that fic to the list but it is being slowly pick at.)

but also the fact that the child came from Y/N but still has Hypnos’ irises golden is kinda romantic in a murdery, bloody way. ^.^

also take your time with stuff, I am just happy you are enjoying this so much and I appreciate you sending your HCs in.

<3<3<3

Quick edit.

I always thought that Patroclus and y/n's relationship the most heartbreaking one. Pat just want his son back.

Like y/n feels like he let his parents down and Pat just wants him be okay.

[a-small-writer-in-a-big-world]

Duty Over Heart Chapter 4: Yearning

Snippet of the latest chapter for Duty Over Heart underneath the cut

Please check it out!

Price studied your face intently. You watched his eyes bounce around and you raised an eyebrow before a frown pulled at his face. He nodded towards the door and you understood immediately.

You locked the door and when you turned around he had already pulled a chair up beside him. You didn’t hesitate to sit next to him and didn’t protest when he grabbed your legs to put them on his lap. 

“Did you finish?” You gestured to his desk despite the fact that he looked swamped with work.

“Was close to it but they sent me documents to read.” He grumbled and you frowned.

You knew that the reason why he got so much of the busy work was that he and Laswell split it apart to get through it quicker. It was the red tape that unfortunately had to be put around the task force for it to even be made, though there were many rules the force didn’t even have to worry about considering what it was made for, and Price had offered to help.

But you still couldn’t help but think that the higher ups gave the amount of paperwork they did for a spiteful reason.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that Price had a habit of insubordination and speaking out against anyone above him, in fact it was something that massively turned you on, so you wouldn’t be surprised if this was a way to get back at him. Regardless however, you thought it was ironic that they relied on him to get the job done on the field and yet bogged him down with documents and files that took up more of his time. 

It worried you too. He hid his stress well but you knew that it would soon chip away at his resolve if it continued. 

Which only made you feel worse about your predicament. 

“It’ll still be here tomorrow.” You said and he raised an eyebrow. “You do realize that they’re slow with processing these regardless of how fast you get them in.”

“Yeah, but I’d rather get it done in a day.”

You nearly laughed considering it had been two days and he wasn’t close to being finished. Instead you leaned back in your chair and watched him place a hand on your shin.

“I’ll finish tonight.” He said and this time you couldn’t stop the scoff that escaped your lips.

“You always say that but you never do.” You pointed out and he shot you a look.

“I will.”

“Uh-huh.”

Price rolled his eyes and you copied him before he gave you a tentative squeeze that made you both smile. He got more comfortable in his chair but went back to work, leaving the room in silence. 

You watched him for a moment before you glanced at his watch and your face fell.

You had already been in office for a lot longer than you intended. It was meant to be a quick visit, to satisfy your need to see him for just a moment but like always you found yourself stuck in his presence because he was the only place you wanted to be at the moment.

You’d have to cut it short however. Anyone could knock on the door or walk by and hear the both of you. Someone could also look for you or notice that you’re not anywhere in your usual places around the base and get suspicious, especially when you had told Soap of all people where you were heading.

He could keep a secret but not a secret he could use to tease you. 

“What’s bothering you?” Price brought you out of your thoughts and your eyebrows knitted together. “It’s written all over your face, love.”

You wanted to tell him how lonely you felt and to ask if maybe he was feeling the same way. You wanted to tell him it was a little unfair that he spent so much time on paperwork that could wait, that it didn't need to be done all in one sitting, and that you were quite frankly, a little upset that you didn’t get to have a proper leave before getting thrown back into this mess.

But when you looked at the paperwork on his desk, the amount and the way that you noticed he had slight undereye circles, you swallowed all of your complaints.

It would be unfair to say any of that to him now; what good would it do? It would only stress him out more than he already was considering you all were dealing with arguably the most dangerous man on the planet. He didn’t need to worry about you and your feelings right now, especially because right now you weren’t necessarily supposed to be together.

You were soldiers. 

Him a captain and you a lieutenant.

Besides, you had done this song and dance for nearly two decades. In your mind you should be used to your leave being cut short, so being upset just sounded childish when you thought it all out.

So you pushed it away, like you always did.

Check out the latest chapter of Duty Over Heart on AO3. I opened up the fic for everyone!

[incarnadinedreams]

There are a couple common claims about things MXTX has said in author's notes which I just wanted to make a little note-to-self with the exact context/source of because they keep coming up again and again. I find that between general translation issues and then further filtered through summaries and offhand comments and then repurposed for... uh let's just say spirited debate, they tend to be presented as much stronger or more emphatic or more serious statements than the impression I got when reading them in context (the translated versions, of course!).

'Morally perfect' comes from the postscripts (published by Exiled Rebels as chapter 113.5):

Both WWX and LWJ are highly ideal characters, so there wouldn't be too much dispute on their moral standing. They're perfect as the protagonists. Of course, I do like WWX a lot, but if I'm looking for a boyfriend, sorry, I'll only have LWJ please.

This is the same postscript where she talks about the difficulties of publishing on the timeline she did and how she was worried the structure of the novel would do badly in serialized/webnovel format, how Xue Yang was like a has-been internet idol in the comments section compared to the Jiang Cheng haters (lol), how she threw everything she liked about an ancient setting in a pot and changed whatever she liked without any intention of historical accuracy at all, etc. So the focus of the postscript wasn't like a morality essay or anything, just offhand comments and notes and trivia.

'MXTX wants us to be like Wangxian' comes from the final author's note of the last extra (ExR ch. 126):

Without care for anything at all, I shall give the entirety of my soul to the pen and the paper.

I no longer like to tell my readers, 'I love you.' These words are too light, and yet these words are too heavy.

I hope each of you who enjoys this book can be like Lan WangJi in virtue and Wei WuXian in character.

P.S. I received the help of many in the publication process.

There's more before and after, from talking about how she decided the type of story she wanted it to be, outlining process, and then after she goes on to thank her editors, the webnovel platform, supportive friends, etc.

Whether any given person cares what her opinion is out-of-text or not is another matter of course! But since it gets brought up so much as if they're very serious Word Of God proclamations... well... it's probably pretty obvious my opinion/interpretation lands in the 'it's not supposed to be that serious, bruh' category.

Though even if it were meant to be super serious I'd personally still be like, 'well that's just like, your opinion, random author lady.' But at the same time, these quotes tend to be used in a way that gives a distorted impression of how serious and thorough they were intended to be and often add confusion.

Also I don't think MXTX is saying we should go feed a guy's fingers to a ghost child in front of him while he's forced to eat his own leg but that's really just wild speculation and assumption on my part, maybe she would appreciate that idk.

[voxofthevoid]

Wait I— WHAT— 500k+ words for JJK? Alone? Oh my god. I’m one of your new readers, and I’m blown away by not only your word count but the wRITING LOGS?? How?? Do you keep track of your WIPs?? Do you write consistently, period?? Do you have any advice for someone who can barely squeak out a paragraph to describe a vision in their brain?? Please bless me with your skills, Vox-sensei 😭🙏

Welcome to my madness 🤣❤️

Okay, in all fairness, I'm usually not this unhinged productive. Last year, for instance, my total word count was only around 250k (iirc). I'm sure I wrote more than that from 2018 to 2020, but my logs from those are divided by fics/chapters or weekly.

... I've, uh, tried a lot of shit over the years.

Which is an important point! I've been posting to ao3 for nearly a decade now (not consistently, but I don't think I was away for more than a year or two), and I've been writing in some capacity for around 15–17 years now. There's been a lot of trial and error over the years, plus changing life circumstances leading to varying energy levels and writing time. The main factor is inspiration; if it's there, I'll write a lot, but if not, I'll be a potato.

So with all that in mind!

Logs

I do keep track of both my word count and my WIPs. I've got color-coded docs and spreadsheets even because I'm a fucking nerd. I've got pictures of it floating somewhere on this blog, but my fic folders tend to be nested, numbered little monstrosities.

WIPs

I call them WIPs sometimes because they're extensively detailed outlines mostly, but the more accurate term is ideas/plot bunniesdemons. I don't work on more than one story at a time. Typically, I start something and write it in narrative order until it's done. There are exceptions—my current fic was started in a post-236 frenzy, and I set aside the PWP I was working on for it. But usually, I only actively write one story at a time while everything else gets developed/outlined as inspiration strikes.

Consistency

You could say I write consistently, yeah! I don't do it every day because I take breaks whenever I finish a chapter (and of course, life throws curve balls sometimes), but typically, I write around 22–25 days a month. I set aside a few hours for it. Average daily word count also varies, but these days, it's 1.5–3k. When I'm really in the zone, it can reach 5–6k.

I'm a hobbyist writer with no aspirations of writing professionally, so my approach to the whole thing has been to wing it and see where it takes me. So I haven't really done anything with the concrete goal of improving. The best (and only) advice I have is very boring and cliche though: read and write.

Read widely if you can and narrow in on the kind of style and genre you like. Note down passages or turns of phrase that struck you and figure out why. You'll absorb a lot automatically, but I've heard people recommend emulating styles on purpose as a writing exercise.

Mainly though, the best and easiest way to improve is to keep writing. Technical rules can be learned pretty easily, especially with how many resources are available online now. Field/subject-specific reference materials are also abundant. But developing your own style and improving the flow of your prose are things that need practice. And it never really stops, especially because your writing will continuously evolve in more ways than one.

This got way longer than I intended. Oops? Thanks for asking though, anon. I did have fun replying!

[honey-tea-and-lemon-trees]

Nancy running her fingers through Ace’s hair to help him fall asleep

anon 1, please know that prompt genuinely made me melt when i saw it. i have combined it with the following prompt from anon 2:

I wrote it as a college au but then realised i didn’t really make really clear in-text that it was a college au… so this is me telling you: it’s a college au.

and it’s for very people we meet on vacation coded, for the friends-to-lovers, emily henry girlies (that’s me, this was self serving.)

It’s also longer than i intended, so i have put it on ao3, if you’d rather read it there: (X)

—————————————

Ace drops the key ungracefully into Nancy’s hand and wraps a heavy arm around her shoulders while she leans down to unlock it. 

‘I still can’t believe,’ she huffs, wrapping one arm around Ace’s torso and awkwardly tries to balance while she pushes the door with the toe of her chucks, ‘you got hit by a car…’ 

She tugs him through the doorway and tries to maneuver them around so she can gently close the door, but Ace has clumsy feet at the best of times and stumbles a little, which would be fine if he wasn’t so heavy. Nancy lets out a soft oof as she struggles to keep them upright. 

‘Well, it would’ve hit Nancy otherwise.’ He says like he’s not wrapped his body around the person he’s speaking of, though he makes his objection to this clear with a heavily creased brow. 

‘Uh huh, those painkillers getting to you a little, Ace?’ She laughs under her breath. 

‘Nooope,’ he chirps with a popped p, frowny face gone in an instant. ‘Hey, Nick is here!’ he says with a burst as the man himself emerges from his room. 

‘Yep, he lives here too,’ Nancy says.

‘Sure do. How you feeling, buddy?’ Nick says. 

‘Like a box of waffles,’ he summises with a lopsided grin. 

There’s a beat of silence while Nick and Nancy blink - first at Ace, then at each other - in effort to puzzle the meaning of this statement. 

‘We’ve got a broken arm, some forehead stitches and a concussion. And will probably feel a whole lot worse once the loopy-juice wears off,’ Nancy translates to Nick with a soft smile. 

‘And are you okay?’ 

‘I’m good.’ Nancy sighs. ‘Some scrapes and bruises, and a heart that hasn’t stopped pounding since this guy stepped in front of a car this morning,’ she pokes Ace lightly in the side and he lets out a completely uncharacteristic giggle that has both Nick and Nancy chuckling along with him. ‘But, it would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t pulled me out the way... Self-sacrificing fool.’ 

That pinching sensation fills every corner of her chest again, as it has been all day. She tightens her arm on his torso a little, leans into the ridiculous heat of his body and reminds herself that he’s okay. He’s safe and (mostly) whole still. 

Nick frowns. ‘I thought you would be a little longer and was about to head out - just for half an hour, I’ll be back to check on him during the night - but you want me to stay and help him get into bed? It’s been a long day for you, I’m sure you want to get home…’

His head drops to the top of hers, like he’s tired of standing up. Or like he’s trying to hold her tighter.

‘That’s okay,’ Nancy says. She doesn’t want to be anywhere else. ‘We’ve made it this far. I’ll help him.’ 

Nick at least helps steer them across the floor to the doorway of Ace’s room, and leaves with the promise that if she calls, he’ll come straight back. 

Nancy is unbelievably grateful that Ace is confident he’ll be able to change his own clothes - she knows he broke his collarbone when he was in high school and promises that was a hell of a lot harder. 

She stands facing the wall, and apart from when he nearly trips on his own feet, he manages just fine, and beams at her proudly from having done so. 

Nancy grabs his shoulders and steers him towards the bed. 

‘Do you want anything?’ she asks as they reach the edge and she gently pushes on his shoulders until he’s sitting. 

Ace’s chin tilts up to look up at her. ‘For you to stay.’

Her heart twitches in her chest. ‘I meant, like, a glass of water.’

‘Same answer.’ 

The chirpy, bumbling Ace from a few minutes ago isn’t visible now as he searches her face, a crease in his brow like there’s a problem he can’t figure out.

She hasn’t moved her hands from his shoulders. She can feel the warmth of his skin through the threadbare tshirt covering them. If his knees parted, she’d practically be standing between them. 

And it’s stirring an ache she manages to forget about ninety percent of the time. 

A ‘what if this thing between them could be more than friendship?’

A ‘what if this wasn’t a person I wasn’t so afraid to lose?’

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she says in a voice she doesn’t mean to whisper. 

Their eyes stay locked and something works in Ace’s jaw. 

Nancy clears her throat and steps away until she’s colder. ‘I am going to insist on the water though, and I want to see you lying down and resting by the time I get back,’ she says with faux-sternness, waggling a finger at him as she walks backwards.

That confusing look has melted from his face and is replaced with a soft smile as he tracks her all the way to the door. 

When Nancy re-enters the room, Ace is dutifully laying under the covers. For a fraction of a second, she makes her footsteps featherlight when she spots his closed eyes, until he cracks one open in a squint, paired with a lazy grin. 

Nancy shakes her head as she approaches, placing the glass on the nightstand. 

She lets out a surprised hum when Ace’s good arm reaches out and snakes around her waist, pulling her down so she’s sitting beside his head. 

He’s never usually so tactile with her. It’s not that they never touch, it’s just that it’s usually Nancy reaching out a hand, brushing his arm or pulling him into a hug. This side of him, a relaxed, walls-down version of her best friend, is confusing her. 

There’s far too many tangled up feelings, stringing within her ribcage, as she looks down at his face, hair falling in front of her face. 

‘What’s going on in there?’ Ace’s hand reaches up as he mutters, the backs of his knuckles brushing across her forehead, coaxing the string of hair back. 

‘Just thinking,’ she whispers, shifting her position so she’s a little further on the bed, a little closer to Ace’s head. She swallows thickly. ‘You scared me today.’ 

It remains a flash of Ace yelling and yanking her arm as a car whipped round a corner too fast, silent, shocked tears as she watched paramedics tend to him in the back of the ambulance, barely held back gasping sobs when she spoke to Bess on the phone, alone in the waiting room. It stays a burning in her chest that she doesn't think will go anywhere any time soon. 

It’s a disbelief that nearly three years ago she didn’t know this person, and today, for a moment, she had to imagine her life without him and it brought her to her fucking knees. 

She can’t help but mirror his bravery, bringing her own fingers to brush back the hair flopping over his brow, exposing the stitches beneath. The tips of her fingers hover an inch above, tracing the shape of the small curve.

‘God… I hope you don’t get a scar because of me.’ 

‘Hmm?’ Ace eyes focus where they’d been lazily studying her face, flitting to where her hand is poised, still not quite touching. ‘Oh.’ The bed shifts ever so slightly with his gentle breath of laughter. ‘I dunno... I wouldn’t mind.’ 

His head nudges against her hand with intention, and her fingers are pushed into his hair with it. 

‘Can think of worse things than having a Nancy scar,’ he says, like it’s no huge thing. Like he’s not saying, I wouldn’t mind if you were permanent to me, with the letters rearranged. 

As her throat dries, she allows herself to drift further into the waves of Ace’s hair, the sand-blond strands slipping softly through her fingers. She lets herself enjoy the contented smile he leaves unguarded as his eyes slip closed. 

She tells herself that her heart didn’t flutter at the deep hum that rumbled through Ace’s chest when she lightly scratched her nails against his scalp. She’s honestly not sure how his head ended up in her lap. 

She can’t remember it being this easy to be quiet with someone, how it right it felt to touch them. 

Nancy can tell Ace is drifting off when his chest rises slower and she whispers his name, keeping him tethered for one last moment. 

He hums in question. 

‘Please don’t jump in front of any more cars for me,’ she says softly to the empty room, the only accompaniment their gentle breaths. 

Ace smirks sleepily. ‘No promises, Nancy.’ 

He falls asleep smiling, and time freezes as she watches him. 

And she realises that the moments like these, when her chest throbs with a wanting that extends beyond friendship, cannot keep happening. 

Because she loves him too much to fall for him.

[bari-the-witch]

Steddie week day 1 - Pining

Whew, I know I'm late to the party (it's almost 10 p.m. here) and I originally intended this to be a lot longer, but I ran out of time, so... here it is. Hope you enjoy!

Steve Harrington is not pining.

He’s not.

And everyone who says otherwise should probably get their eyes checked.

It’s not pining that he currently has one elbow propped up on the counter at work, his face cradled into the palm of his hand, watching Eddie goof around with Robin, wishing he’s the one getting all the attention from him right now.

It’s not pining he can’t help himself but notice the freckles dotting Eddie’s cheeks and the slope of his nose, the inviting lips currently pulled into an easy smile or how biteable his neck looks today because Eddie gathered up his hair into a high bun atop his head, a side effect of the hot blazing weather outside. A few loose strands frame his face and Steve feels his fingers twitch at the strong urge to stretch his hand out and tuck them behind Eddie’s ears.

And it sure as shit isn’t pining that he wants nothing more than to bury his hands into the thick strands while kissing him senseless until they’re nearly passing out from the lack of air.

A sigh escapes his lips as Eddie throws his head back and laughs with his eyes closed at something Robin said, exposing the long line of his pale neck in the process. Steve follows the movement with his eyes, swallowing hard at the display in front of him.

He notices too late that they stopped talking altogether, both sets of eyes fixed on him.

Shit, he must've been louder than thought.

While Robin grins smugly at him, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, Eddie furrows his brows in confusion.

„You okay there, Stevie?“ he asks concerned, cocking his head to the side. „You look a bit hot under the collar there.“

While it’s normally Steve’s job to act like a mother hen at the slightest sign of distress from the people important to him, Eddie seemed to have slipped on that glove like a second skin after the horrors of the Upside Down finally ended, developing a rather persistent protective streak when it comes to Steve’s wellbeing.

Steve’s not sure where it’s coming from. Maybe Eddie just feels guilty about something although he can’t imagine what.

Clearing his throat to buy him some time and also because his throat suddenly feels like he swallowed a bucket of sticky goo, Steve stands up straight and tries to not look like he got caught at something.

Because he didn’t pine for Eddie.

Okay, fuck yeah, maybe a bit. But no one needs to know that.

„Uh, sure. Sorry I - it’s just… I didn’t sleep much last night, so I’m pretty tired you know?“ Steve says, forcing out a yawn as he hides behind his hand to emphasize his point.

And it’s technically not a lie. He really did sleep like shit with the nightmares keeping him awake for the most part of the night again.

Eddie’s expression turns from confused to full-blown concern in a matter of seconds.

„This bad again?“

„Seems like it,“ Steve sighs deeply, feeling like a shitty friend for using Eddie’s concern to deflect from the real reason they’re having this conversation, him behaving like a lovesick schoolgirl and staring at Eddie’s neck like a creep. But he isn’t ready to have that conversation with him yet. And certainly not in the middle of Family Video of all places while Robin followed their interaction like a hawk ready to strike down its prey.

„But don’t worry, I’ll manage somehow. I mean, it’s not my first rodeo with the Upside Down,“ he adds shrugging to lessen the blow a bit.

Eddie doesn’t look like he's buying into Steve’s bullshit of it not being be a big deal, but at least he’s not suspecting there is a different reason for his behavior.

„Call me next time, no matter how late it is, okay?“ Eddie says firmly and Steve knows he actually means it.

„Thanks, Eddie.“ Steve musters up a sincere smile which Eddie immediately returns.

„You’re welcome sweetheart.“

Sweetheart.

Another one in the long line of pet names Eddie gave him since becoming friends, each one making Steve’s heart flutter more than the one he used before. And this time is no different.

Unable to tear his eyes away from Eddie, Steve feels his heart stumble, doing a whole ballet routine inside his chest that leaves him wanting and breathless. Eddie stares back at him with an unreadable expression.

To his horror, Steve leans slightly forward, right into Eddie’s personal space.

The bubble around them pops when Robin clears her throat, pulling them both out of whatever this is. For a moment, he completely forgot about her.

„Well, as you can see I’m still here, and as much as I enjoyed your little staring contest, we’re still at work, so..." Robin trails off but Steve gets the message either way.

I’m giving you an out here, dingus.

„Uh, be right back,“ Steve says as he grabs a stack of tapes, vanishing to the back of the store without another word. He didn’t even check if the tapes were already rewound before picking them up, but that’s not the point anyway. If they aren't, he can still dump them somewhere and sort them out later.

Of course they aren’t, he notices with a groan, because people are assholes and Steve hates them, so he dumps the tapes ungracefully on the floor with a loud clatter, not caring about the mess he made. What he cares about is his job though, so Steve makes a mental note to sort it out later. Steve's already on thin ice, he doesn’t want to give Keith another reason to put him further up his shit list.

With nothing else to do, Steve heads to the backroom, hiding out on the comfortable couch until Eddie leaves. He’s sure Robin will understand, because there’s no way in hell he’s getting back there after almost jumping Eddie's bones only seconds ago.

While Steve’s fairly comfortable with his bisexuality now, something Robin took a great part in because she knows exactly what he’s going through, there are still a few things he needs to sort out for himself on how to deal with all this pining and wanting.

So you see his problem here.

So he keeps all the feelings bottled up inside, because he’s afraid of screwing this up and destroying their friendship in the process.

And also because he’s a fucking lovestruck idiot who can’t tell left from right as soon as he's hit by the power of Eddie’s impossible large doe eyes.

He doesn't know how much time passed when there’s a knock at the door and Robin carefully peeks inside. „The air’s clear,“ she says gently. Steve only blinks groggily at her (did he doze off?) but still gets up to follow her outside.

„Thanks,“ Steve says after a while of working alongside her in comfortable silence. Robin may not always grasp the social cues on when to keep quiet, but most of the time she knows when he needs time and space to think.„You know, for keeping me from making an idiot out of myself.“

Robin puts down the box of sweets she brought in from the storage room and turns around to face him. „I wouldn’t say idiot because you know my opinion on this-.“

Steve wants to protest but she holds up her hand. „Shush, you know I’m right about this. What I was trying to say is that even though I’m sure Eddie would have been totally on board with this - I said shush, Jesus Christ Steve - this wasn’t the time nor the place for this. I mean, imagine telling people you had your first kiss in the middle of Family Video,“ she snorts like it’s the funniest shit on earth, shaking her head in amusement about her own joke.

„I can’t change your mind about this, huh?“ Steve asks rolling his eyes at which Robin only shakes her head.

„Nope, never. And maybe one day you'll see it too. Hopefully soon, because all that pining is making me all jittery and nervous and sure is gonna drive me crazy if you don’t pull your head out of your asses-.“

Steve looks at her fondly while she continues to ramble needing to bite his lip in order to keep himself from laughing out loud, because Robin started to flail her arms around like one of the blow up thingies they have in front of every car dealership.

It’s a lost cause though, because she looks absolutely ridiculous, and soon, Steve finds himself howling with laughter, the worries of the last few hours melting away like ice in the sun.