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bunniemoth · 2 months ago

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[fic] Holding Water (Shane x f!Farmer)

Title: Holding Water Series: The Long Way Home - Part 2/4 Pairing: Shane x f!Farmer Words: 7,427 Rating: Explicit Warnings: references to depression, references to addiction, alcohol consumption, references to sexual deviance/kink, using sex to self-medicate, hurt/comfort, whump, vaginal fingering, public sex, enemies to fuckers, references to Farmer/Sebastian, why yes that is a Sleep Token reference, we love a flawed Farmer in this house

Summary:

The worst thing about unknowing is that you can’t -- a few hopes and dreams, scattered like leaves, puts you back a few steps, Farmer, but you’ve got those cupped hands spilling all your feelings the harder you try to hold onto a man gone missing.

Where’s Sebastian?

You don’t have an answer.

But when his best friend asks the same question, you realize that you’re not the only one trying to keep it together.

The second part of the story belongs to Shane and the Farmer: inspired by Kantrip’s Older!Sebastian. (This may be read as an isolated one shot, but I recommend beginning with Shadows & Tall Trees if you want to enjoy all four seasons as a complete arc.)

Read it on Ao3 or below the cut 👇🏻

Notes:

Hello again! After some thought, Shadows & Tall Trees evolved into four stories spanning four seasons with three interconnected threads: the Farmer, Sebastian, and Shane. If you've arrived here without having previously read Shadows & Tall Trees (a Farmer/older!Sebastian fic), you can read this and probably deduce the gist of the circumstances leading up to it. Holding Water introduces Shane to the dynamic.

However, while the goal is a HEA for the completed series, I'm putting everyone through the grinder first, so expect some discomfort before things get better, and I would encourage starting where it starts, which is at the beginning.

This follows continuity established by Kantrip's Older Sebastian Expansion in that Shane and Seb, being older bachelors, are friends, and they play pool together on Tuesdays at the Saloon. It's evident that they don't tell each other everything, however, and I'm capitalizing on that. ;)

-- Holding Water --

“I want a goddamned mess.” - Spiritbox, The Mara Effect - Pt. I

The black flamingo appears against the hedgerow the second week into fall. The fence is rickety on that side of the property, the hardwood putting up a failing effort, but the bird is painted plastic with red eyes and pink legs and flaking spray paint and it weighs nothing.

A little tag around his neck declares his name, “Jerry”, which isn’t the strange thing —

You recognize the writing:

It matches each of the letters that Sebastian sent from rehab, but maybe with a little less hesitation and fewer crossed-out words.

The gift is supposed to mean something, you think, but you leave it where it is to watch over you as you till the earth, struggling for something to take root because you can’t afford the sprinklers and using the rain totems feels excessive. It’s going to be another season’s worth of silver-grade carrots and Pierre’s smug victory at the fair, at this rate.

No one said this was going to be easy, but the thought skitters before you can determine if you’re thinking about your work load, or your not-quite-relationship.

You haven’t spoken to him in a week.

Or maybe, he hasn’t spoken to you.

It’s hard to say, but whatever is jamming the air waves sends back the sort of static that leaves you prickling with nervous energy, spooked, and desperate, and lonely enough to bury yourself in the pumpkins that will not grow worth a damn without the expensive fertilizer.

You give up before the sun even dips below the horizon, dirt-caked and achey, and thinking of the city again.

It wasn’t better than this, wasn’t it?

You’re starting to forget.

The farmhouse creaks around you, winter darkness shifting along the edges and beneath the furniture, catlike and indifferent because the seasons change but you’re just… stuck in the same place with nothing to show for it.

In a slant of waning sunlight, there’s a glimpse of a ghost in the living room:

A memory of the last time Sebastian sat in the middle of your sunken couch, his knees sticking up higher than the arm rests, legs spread wide enough that you could have knelt between his Doc Martens… Shirtless and tousled, tired from the night before, but happy.

Wasn’t he?

The vision fades, crisping at the edges likes leaves on a campfire, leaving you breathing harsher for retaining the details but not the feel of his chest under your hands or the elegance of his fingers guiding you into position because didn’t he have you where he wanted you, even then?

Fuck it, you decide.

Fuck the radio silence.

And fuck him.

A little voice whispers, “But you already did.”

“Fuck this,” you croak.

The door slams after you as you head back out into the first licks of autumn chill, your arms shoved through your ratty cable knit cardigan, hat still hiding the sweat as you make your way into town on foot. The single red eye of Jerry the Flamingo watches you depart.

You flip it off for good measure too, and head for the Saloon.

—

Gus greets you with less trepidation these days, the warm welcome and the cold beer a respite as Emily slides your drink across the counter and wipes up after it.

“Oh, you’re purple today,” she tells you, a furrow appearing between her eyebrows. “With little flecks of goldenrod. Something wrong at the farm?”

It’s easier lying. “Gourd problems.”

“Oh, I see,” she says, agreeing, “Eggplants and potatoes,” which makes no sense to you, but she nods likes she gets it.

Emily leans in to confide, “Dating women isn’t any easier.”

You stall out for a second because no one is supposed to know about you and Sebastian, but Emily is off again to serve another customer and you can’t do anything other than stare after her as your face begins to burn.

It’s a moment further when you realize it’s because you’ve caught Shane’s attention.

He doesn’t move from his position beside the fireplace, one hand shoved into his hoodie pocket, the other putting a dent into his beer can.

They’re friends, at least — him and Sebastian. Ish?

The question flickers into being before you even take a step, recognized in the hunch of his shoulders and the downturn of his mouth.

“Nope. Fuck off.”

He chugs, his attention sliding sideways and behind you to anything and nothing that isn’t directly in his way.

Fine, you think: if there’s one thing you can rely on, it’s Shane being an asshole.

“It’s not about you for a change,” you mutter, tossing yourself into the stool in front of him just to be irritating. “I am drinking.” You rap the countertop. “Because I am a paying customer. You can shut your face.”

He snorts. “That’s a different flavour.”

“That’s pumpkin spice, baby,” you return. “Peaches and cream season is over.”

He eyes you skeptically, leaning just far enough into your peripheral vision to give you an appraising once over. “You look like shit, farmer.”

“You’re the expert in personal presentation.”

He smirks like you’ve said something darkly amusing.

You glower at him over the rim of your mug, taking three chugs before setting it down with a hard thunk.

“Care to join me?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “If you’re trying to put yourself under the table, you can just crawl.”

Been there. Done that.

“Suit yourself.” You finish off the glass, gesturing for another, which Emily obliges, looking between you and Shane with an obvious question mark hovering above everything.

“The Farmer was just leaving,” Shane mutters.

You counter, “He’ll take one too, Emily. On my tab.”

The new alliance seems to brighten her, because Emily lights up like a Winter Star tree at the prospect.

“See!” she tells Shane, delivering the drinks and disappearing, glancing back just the once to beam at the pair of you: the two most uncomfortable and surly people at the Stardrop in the last fifty years, at least.

You do not want to think about what she means.

“Um,” he says.

“I am way too sober to unpack that,” you tell him.

For the first time since you moved to Pelican Town, Shane appears to agree.

“Let’s workshop it.” He tinks the rim of his glass to yours, and takes the barstool two over to keep a healthy enough distance, glancing over. “Silently and without making eye-contact.”

It doesn’t last.

—

“…No, by that point the toilet was overflowing and Sam had completely emptied the paper towel dispenser.” He burps.

Shane’s shoulder bumps yours again, your midnight stroll towards Cindersap a meandering path of stops and starts as you double over again, gripping your knees for balance as you laugh. Loudly. The sound carries across the square and bounces off the clinic.

“Did you tell him?” you gasp. Your stomach aches. Everything is hilarious, and Shane —

He rolls his eyes, gesturing with a go-beer. “Would you? I’d sooner pour one out for the teddy bear. I spent a week plunging the stuffing.”

“Who does that?” You can’t breathe.

“Who does that?” he repeats. “There are thirty four people in this shithole town. Who do you think?”

“Someone with a vendetta against the Joja Corporation —”

Shane gives you a glazed grin.

“You didn’t.”

“No, but I saw the security footage.”

You waver on the spot, rocked by the revelation. “I didn’t know Pierre had it in him.”

Shane keeps walking, calling back over his shoulder, “Didn’t you used to work for them, farmer?”

The night breathes, brightly coloured and mottled with swirls of oil slick against the autumn leaves. They rustle a little, the wind creeping through your clothing to tickle out a shiver despite the flush and the heat and the strange distraction of Shane’s company, walking you back after Gus gently suggested he needed sleep.

Shane halts at your silence, swaying a little. He’s still in shorts and Crocs. Socked feet.

“A guy died in the cubicle in front of me,” you tell him, though the words sneak in with a little dissonance because it feels like someone else’s life; a sidewinder that strikes from the left all at once to leave you wondering if it really happened. “No one ever came to get the body.”

His frown is the clearest thing. “I don’t think you’re fucking with me.”

Because in three hours, it’s become apparent that there’s no need:

You’ve exchanged too much drunken honesty —

Everything but the one thing that you keep in your cupped hands.

“Can I ask you something?” you hedge, because this can’t last forever, and the bitterness that creeps in like a sobering chill is unrelenting.

Even eight beers in, he looks wary.

“You might not like the answer.”

Because Shane doesn’t sugarcoat anything.

You look down at yourself, taking in the dirt-caked knees of your coveralls and the ratty sweater, the loamy crescents under the chipped relics of your fingernails.

“Maybe I should have known better,” you say to yourself, more than to him.

“Just say it, farmer.” His jaw stiffens like he’s anticipating a blow, but the sentiment doesn’t reflect in his gaze: whatever sadness lingers there is resigned to defeat already, so you tuck any questions about Sebastian away.

Where he’s been.

What he’s doing —

It doesn’t really matter anyway.

Whatever expectations were there you’ve clearly fallen short of them, so focus on the moment and get over it.

Your voice is clear as a bell in the darkness, the crossroads between Fairhaven and the Ranch and your farm as starless and still as the ringing quiet will allow. Everything going to sleep for the winter, falling into torpor. Maybe that’s where you ought to bury your feelings. Erect a shrine to Yoba for them on the corner. Whatever.

“I expect tomorrow you’ll go back to ignoring me,” you tell him, “but I wanted to say thank you for a — huh.” You smile into your chest, shrugging. “An interesting evening, Shane.”

The look he gives you is cutting.

“I’m drunk, not stupid,” he says, but the impatience slivers when he shrugs it off, slouching away a step. “Thank me for the hangover if you still feel that way later.”

You reach for his sleeve before he can escape, catching him by the wrist because it’s not the first time he’s dismissed you, but if the best you’ve got is kindness, you’ll dump it over his head with a bucket until he believes it.

“I mean it —”

You don’t see the rock where it juts from the path, snagging on the toe of your boot and sending you hurtling into a stumble.

Shane’s not fast enough to catch you, so when you hit him, he goes down too.

It still hurts — knees first — the pain distant because you’re tangled, and close up like this with his arms around you, you realize that you might be stupid for drinking too much, but Shane somehow still tried to protect you.

It dislodges a feeling you can’t pinpoint immediately —

Shapeshifting into something much more insidious, gold-tinted and glittering like a strain of ore in a stone: whatever it is, you feel like it’s something you’re not meant to see, a rare bit of treasure identifiable only by an expert.

Shane’s mouth is less than three inches from yours, lips parted —

He flinches.

Or maybe you’re imagining it.

“My fucking elbow,” he groans.

You shove off of him.

It’s over that quickly, but germination is a weird thing:

What you sometimes think isn’t going to turn into anything churns below the surface, getting its roots in deep enough to be a problem later.

“Is it broken? Do I need to take you to Harvey?”

“For the love of Yoba, woman —“

“Are you bleeding?”

“Get off me.”

You giggle. It’s a little maniacal, granted, but it’s better than crying in front of Shane — especially since he’s staring.

He clears his throat, assessing the circumstances, “Okay. You’re blasted.”

It takes a minute to subside, but the hard packed dirt under your head is a comfort, and the stars swirl into patterns when you close your eyes, the whole world spinning as if you can feel the rotation of the earth, racing through space faster than your rushing blood can keep up.

An image flashes, tightening your throat to the point of choking out something monosyllabic instead of an apology:

Sebastian dreaming somewhere. Or maybe just pretending with his eyes half-closed, your fingers twined together.

But he’s wherever — floating in the void of your imagination and you can’t touch him.

“You okay?”

When you open them again, Shane’s face blurs.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” you admit.

“Figures. You’re a lightweight.”

He squints into the darkness.

“You’re not gonna make it home like this.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. Maybe to summon the memory again, but it burns, wet leaking out at the corners.

“You can just leave me lying in the dirt,” you slur. “Here’s your parting gift.”

You hold up the offending object that set you off the first time —

A green Croc in Tunnellers colours.

“Take it, Cinderella. My arm’s getting tired and everything is spinning.”

Shane takes your wrist instead, hauling you to sitting and then to your feet as the stars swirl into curlicue patterns. You sag into him as you both stagger towards the Ranch, which is closer than trying to get home in the dark.

The door opens and closes with a practiced click, the dark softened by Shane’s breathing and the fuzzy texture of his sweatshirt in your fist, and a murmured, “Be quiet. Jas is a light sleeper.”

You fall into bed face-first, but it smells different:

A mixture of fabric softener and someone else’s skin with musky underpinnings, cheap aftershave, restless nights and wrong directions. You crush the pillow to your face, the words floating from a distance as your body slackens, “I’ll take the couch. I don’t sleep much anyway.”

Everything fades when the void beckons: unconsciousness pulling you down into mangled dreams of hands and teeth, soothing touches after the sting, long kisses with a hand pinning your wrists. Pleasure and absence bracketing you in from all directions because the figures are faceless yet somehow familiar:

Two of them with you in-between.

—

You wake clutching a Croc to your chest like a teddy bear — fully-clothed in a foreign bed, mouth sticking and tasting of stale beer.

But in the momentary confusion, you’re only processing the sealed water bottle on the bedside table and the creak of unfamiliar bed springs. Tunnellers posters. Ancient television. Muddy footprints.

You reach for hydration, and find there’s a hastily scrawled note below it that reads,

“Fed your chickens.”

Bolt-upright your vision spots over, the world lurching as your stomach sloshes, but you’re fully-dressed in last night’s clothes, absent your boots but plus one Croc-shaped trophy.

It’s Tuesday, so Marnie is at aerobics, but the little girl sitting in the hallway blinks at you with owlish curiosity as you tip-toe from the kitchen and into the Ranch reception with your throbbing head and your boots dangling off your fingertips.

So much for stealth.

“You’re the new Farmer,” she observes. “What are you doing here?”

You wonder if she’ll accept bribery.

A door opens and slams, but you stiffen, your shoulders up to your ears in self-defence.

Shane rounds the corner, coming to your rescue —

A sack of feed lobbed at you with indifference.

“That’s the new formula. On the house so you can try it out.”

Yoba, he’s smooth.

“Now, get out.”

Well, almost.

Shane waits at the door, ushering you into daylight light he was bouncing you off his property, his arms crossed and glowering, the sleepless night and the hangover kissing crescents under his eyes.

He doesn’t look happy.

He doesn’t look mad either, and maybe that’s worse, because the feeling that twists your tummy into unsettled discomfort has little to do with the way he watches your not-quite-walk-of-shame progression into the calm, clear morning, and everything with the recognition that you can still smell hints of his spicy aftershave clinging to your hair.

There’s a hint of orange in it, you think.

The feeling doesn’t fade —

That strange weight of tension, words left unsaid battering the inside of your ribcage, their little wings struggling for escape.

It’s only when you get back to your homestead that you realize he wasn’t lying: there are eight happy hens in the coop with full bellies, clucking happy noises when you pet them again.

Your head’s throbbing, the feeling that Shane’s been here casting strange shapes across the beehives and under the blackberry bushes, and you try to see the wreckage of the pumpkin patch as he might, but you can’t: all you see is the mess you ignored for an evening while you slept in someone else’s bed.

Something’s missing, yet:

You can’t figure out why Shane acting like a friend leaves you feeling bereft.

Against the hedgerow, Jerry the Flamingo bobs in the wind.

—

Two days go by with every minute counted, hours slowed to seconds. It occurs to you that if the only strategy in your possession is avoidance, you’re actually getting quite good at it, because not leaving your farm means not taking the mountain passage into town, and not having to cross the Ranch.

It’s a good plan, but while you fail to parse your feelings, the dreams are getting worse.

You wake in a sweat on the third morning to the sound of your headboard slamming against the wall a fresh rapport of percussion, the tension between your legs a heady throbbing even though you don’t think it’s physically possible to come without touching yourself.

It starts to fade as consciousness beckons, but the memory of phantom fingers circling the back of your neck persists; your face is still pressed into the mattress while your body writhes over the last dregs of pleasure.

The knocking sound echoes through the farmhouse, and you shove off the tangle of your bedclothes, disoriented.

You’re all alone.

There’s someone at the door.

Barefoot and barely covered by your coveralls, you fold your arms across your chest in self-defence as Shane’s scowl falls on you again.

You’re not wearing a bra, and your hair must be sticking up, or maybe it’s the look of guilt you’re wearing because you’re certain he knows that your thighs are still wet and your sex gives a pulse at the thought of what caused it, because Shane’s gaze narrows in suspicion.

Oh, you think. Daddy’s angry.

“I didn’t figure you for a thief, farmer.”

You pull a breath in between your teeth.

He points at his feet, and the impulse to kneel is so hard-coded you legs almost buckle. But that’s not what he means.

“You took my shoe with you,” he explains.

A smile threatens, but you smother it with a fist. You want to laugh and cry in combination, but your pussy is the culprit, not the man who, in your subconscious, was telling you just moments before what he was going to do to you because you came without his permission.

“What?”

You wave it off. “Nothing. I’ll get it. Just —” Fuck. “Wait here a second.”

But he doesn’t, and you can’t say why there’s a familiarity to Shane stepping over the threshold and into the kitchen like he owns it, but if you’re frittering excuses, it feels like something that’s already happened. Some forgone conclusion, the brain stopping and starting again within a millisecond, like deja vu, or precognition or —

“You don’t look so good.”

You force the Croc at him. “I meant to bring it by sooner.”

You didn’t.

He frowns. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Sweet Yoba, would you just —”

“We’re not friends,” he says. “So you owe me exactly nothing, but I know the difference between a bender and a distraction.”

He’s cute in the buttery sunshine of your kitchen. A little worn, and a little angry around the eyes, but compelled to ask the right questions with that absent affectation that alerts you to the fact that he’s being sincere.

“This is not a road you want to go down, farmer,” he warns. “Don’t make it a habit.”

You stiffen. “It’s none of your business.”

Shane stares a beat, taking back his Croc and slapping it against his palm a couple of times like he was testing it.

A hysterical thought harries at you: you’ve never been spanked with a flip flop either, but that doesn’t make the prospect of redirecting your frustrations any less attractive.

You attention lingers on Shane’s wide palms and thick, square fingers — the knuckles dusted with hair, and you can imagine how more covers his chest and back and belly.

He’s a broad swath of man whose heaviness has less to do with his stature and everything with whatever he’s carrying.

“Anyway,” he says. “I’ll be at the Saloon tonight. Sebastian owes me a game.”

You freeze at the mention, but you haven’t braced against the feeling of being socked in the chest. It aches in that special way being abandoned can be, because the people you care about go on living.

Shane doesn’t notice. “That bastard keeps ducking me,” he mutters, and after another beat of hesitation, his adam’s apple bobs as if trying to swallow the offer:

“Come by if you want to make more bad decisions, I guess.”

As if that isn’t loaded.

Shane’s blink takes a long, mortified second to happen as if he’s already regretting it, his mouth opened as if wanting to take it back but he can’t because you both know how it sounds.

The answer wavers in and out of focus: possibilities on the perimeter of your life turning from liquid to haze and obscuring any way signs indicating how you’re supposed to handle this.

Shane doesn’t wait to make an escape.

“Later,” he says, and he doesn’t run but you glimpse pink high on his cheeks, and that one word tumbles over your senses like gravel over silk. It leaves your skin prickling with goosebumps, your nipples piqued, the warm flush of arousal spilling over from your centre because this time you’re certain:

It’s not just you.

He’s felt it too.

—

“I’m surprised he didn’t say anything,” Robin tells you.

Bravery isn’t enough to fill the hollow left behind: a darkened bedroom and an empty garage, sheets made neatly and laundry folded.

You tried, you think.

You tried despite the feeling that something had slipped between your fingers despite holding quick — not moving an inch. Hope spills over sometimes, and maybe that’s what brought you to the carpenter’s instead of the Saloon, but the problem with hope, you’re learning, is that something so ephemeral isn’t meant to be clung to.

“He said he’d be back in a few days — he wanted to meet with his parole officer face to face, and take care of a few things, I think.”

But you know the reason why Sebastian said nothing at all to you: there’s no explanation needed when the person you’re sleeping with is insignificant.

Maybe if you had given him a bouquet if would have made a difference. Maybe it would have been a declarative statement of your intentions towards him, but you didn’t: you had feelings, and feelings aren’t promises.

Old customs aren’t meant to be fucked with, no matter how insular. Some are important: flowers to declare a partnership, shells to make it permanent.

Now you know, you think.

Does having closure change anything?

The winding path from the mountains carries you past the derelict community centre, your feet determined to keep moving despite the empty feeling in your chest, but nothing lifts the weight of understanding.

It doesn’t hurt, you tell yourself.

It can’t. It didn’t mean anything.

The town square has its lanterns lit for the evening, and you stand on the central cobbles for a long moment, each little inhalation the sliver of a knife leaving cold tendrils of unfeeling in its wake. The Saloon awaits, but if Shane is in there, then it’s better for him if you’re out here.

Say it again to yourself, farmer: you’re saving him, even if he doesn’t know it yet.

“It’s better like this.”

You turn, prepared to drag yourself back home the long way again, prepared to make the right decision, and there he is:

Haloed by an amber pool of lamplight in front of Emily and Haley’s, his hands in his pockets, both Crocs on his feet, and a frown etching lines into his face. Shane’s expression remains guarded, but his gaze is as sharp as a razor, and you can’t help but think that if this is the one night he chose to go sober, maybe you’re the one who should be frightened.

Your heart hammers like it.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, but there’s something heartbreaking in the way he says it that pushes you towards him, propelled by something blooming where there was only an inkling a moment before.

He waited.

Sebastian didn’t.

But it’s not that simple when you can see your reflection in another person.

Mingled disbelief and despair trail him when he moves finally, and you remember every time you tried to befriend him and the one time Shane said, “Please,” with an ounce of defeat when he asked you to stop trying. A glance around the square and a small shake of his head covers over the sad smile he points into his chest.

“You deserve better,” he says.

You make fists of your hands.

“Maybe I’m the villain here,” you answer.

The shadow of a rakish smile appears — a relic from a former life, maybe. “Do you want me to make you worse?”

But you know a liar when you see one: this white knight pulled a blanket over your shoulders and then he fed your chickens at some ungodly hour of the morning while you slept off your hangover in his bed.

You shake your head, because your throat is closing off and you fear that any attempt at explanation will shatter the illusion that you’ve got it together.

Your fingernails are crusted with dirt.

Your pumpkins look like warty orange toads.

And despite sowing all the love you can, you’ve never seen it grow into much.

Shane lets out a breath, but there’s no relief in it. “Got it,” he says.

He doesn’t. Resignation limns his edges.

In a voice that’s high and ringing, and full of something that isn’t quite pain, you tell him, “I want you to make it better.”

Because this feeling of never fitting into anything anywhere is an ache that never goes away.

Shane wipes a hand down his face in defeat, reluctance and desire intermingled into a potent cocktail that no one wants to taste. Maybe this is a catalyst, or maybe it’s poison, but he’s braver than you think.

“Fuck it,” he says. “Come here.”

You’re so similar. How did you never see it?

But you know the answer:

He’s only ever offered glimpses.

“This is a really stupid idea,” Shane says before the collision, but it happens anyway: a half-laugh-half-sob that’s wrapped in quiet destruction and a thrum of feeling, lit on contact as his arm slides around your waist.

You choke a breath because there’s relief amid the panic, and a rush of heady desire that lifts you off your feet and into the soft solidity of his chest with a whimpered, “Disastrous,” muffled by his lips and a sigh that knocks you both backward into the bushes.

You trip, roll sideways against the siding and pushing him into it, taste spearmint over pizza and the hunger beneath the surface.

Shane pulls you into him, the hand cupping the back of your neck all courage, because you being here is confirmation:

“Be fucking sure, farmer —”

You bite his lower lip in answer, and his grip on you tightens. If this is a pull-no-punches situation, Shane shudders into movement, exchanging your place for his against the building. The kiss is sloppy and desperate, but earnest in a way that slots your legs together and pushes your chest into his — like it’s been ages since anyone’s touched him, and he needs everything all at once in case it disappears.

“Shane.”

It’s plaintive, and you feel him stiffen like hearing it flips a switch. His hands grip the meat of your ass, and your hands are in his hair, and his mouth is on your neck, and his teeth —

He nips at the soft spot below your chin, and the gush of wet heat is almost embarrassing.

Worse, maybe, than the pathetic little mewl that escapes you when he does it again, sucking on the spot to sooth a mark into it. His fingers find the clasp of your jeans, the button popping open with a flick, the zipper pushed open as his hand takes the place of his hip and you grind on his fingers through your panties.

He slows, surprise cracking the syllables into smaller pieces, “You’re soaked.”

You swallow a whimper. You know.

He presses forward, rubbing up into the gusset as if the small scrap of fabric is a minor inconvenience, the glitter of surprise in his smile tender enough to be weaponized.

“Don’t you dare,” Shane says when you start to squirm, because darkness chases delight and he’s revelling in it. “Don’t you turn your head. I want to see every bit of what you’re feeling when I touch you like this.”

On a breath, trying so hard not to climb up his body, wanting to beg him to slide your panties to the side, you manage, “Make me,” despite your embarrassment, and reach for his fly.

He cups your throat, tipping your face towards him before you can fumble the motion, and holds you there against the building as his fingers dip lower, mapping the secrets between your legs, and venturing deeper when the elastic stretches to popping and skin touches skin.

“Fucking drenched,” he says like he doesn’t believe it, watching your eyelids flutter as you squirm against him, bucking into his palm as if he’s the solution to every problem you’ve ever known.

“This is what you want?”

You hate that he still sounds unsure, so you cup him through his shorts in retaliation, the tent of his hard on hot against your fingers as you close around his length as best you can, giving him a tentative squeeze.

Shane shudders a breath, pressing into your touch with a grunt and a moan, his forehead touching down on your shoulder.

“Okay, then.”

Into his ear, you whisper, “I want a few things but I’d like to hear you make that noise again first.”

His, “Mmph,” into your throat is offset by the slip of his fingers along the edges of your slit, pushing gently inward to wet himself to the knuckle, and then stroking without penetration —

A long glide from the edge to your clit and back again, teasing to prolong the moment, or maybe to make you squirm.

Shane chuckles, “In a minute, farmer, don’t be so fucking impatient.”

You kiss him, hooking a knee over his hip as Shane’s exploration coaxes you open around his fingers, memorizing the feel of your tension spindled higher by the rough tread of callouses. He spreads his knuckles, already too thick, and curls them up as he begins to thrust, his mouth on your pulse as you lose your grip and sag in his arms.

He pushes you up. “Hold on a little longer, sunshine, you’re going to give me what I want first, and then you can do whatever you like to my cock.”

You’re done, your choked cry smothered by his hand as he covers your mouth, the pace he sets rough enough to tear the release from your body with a guttural sound of surprise.

“Shh.” He doesn’t want to get caught. “People in this town talk.”

You whimper behind his palm.

Shane’s chuckle is so full of smug satisfaction, you forget for a second that your expectations have been shattered —

Who is this man?

“Again,” he says, his lips catching your protest before it happens, his fingers stroking over the back of your head. It’s too tender — too soft for what you deserve, like the touch of a true lover whose affection bleeds into every gesture. It makes your eyes burn, so you squeeze them shut.

You’re still throbbing on his fingers, his pace slowed to a languid stroke, but even twitching in sensitivity, the brush of his thumb across your clit is a little bit of redirected relief.

“I can’t —”

“You’ve been annoying me for weeks. Now you’re paying for it,” he says against your mouth. “Kiss me, sweetheart, and show me what this pussy is going to do to my cock.”

It’s easy to tangle your fingers in his hair, to tug the strands at the roots as he takes what he wants of your mouth and your cunt, and never once does he let you feel like he might let you go: pressed between him and the building at your back, the nighttime dark and the heat of his chest.

“Okay.” Your voice sounds tiny, even cradled against him.

You don’t remember the last time you felt so safe with someone so completely determined to shatter what little control over yourself you had left.

He pulls back just enough to wipe your face, frowning. “Why — farmer, are you crying?”

“Shut up, Shane.”

“Are you okay —”

You kiss him again, squeezing out the sadness as you come again. This one earns a grunt as your body contracts, the swell of pleasure bordering on something painful —

Not because it hurts, but because while the things that are broken don’t always have a fix, you can still mourn them.

“You’re so fucking tight.” There’s admiration in it, but also a touch of soft concern you cannot handle. “We should go somewhere.”

“I know a place.”

And here’s where it gets complicated, because he’s rubbing your clit again and you need the feeling of his hands on your skin. Shane takes a step with you in his arms, but he’s not stopping: the whole of your body is his to play with, if he wants it, and when he gives you a squeeze, you’re certain he’s fighting basic instincts.

“Better tell me where,” he says into your throat, his other hand slipping under your shirt and beneath your bra. He grips your breast, the delicious roughness bordering on discomfort.

You forget the words. They evanesce when he kisses you again.

“I swear to Yoba I’m going to fuck you right here if you don’t tell me —”

“Community centre,” you whisper. “It’s closest.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and impatient, you change direction:

“Can I touch you now?” you ask him, because everything trembles like it’s about to fall apart.

His hair is tousled, his mouth swollen, but Shane’s lips purse in a way that’s soft and delicious and you want to wrap your legs around him just to be closer, or maybe your mouth. You want to drown in him, and you realize that some part of you could: a lifeline held onto with the sort of careful hope for returned affection that you realize you’ve always offered with two fists.

His voice cracks, and the fracture makes him sound a decade younger. “You can touch me whenever, as long as you’re not —”

“With my mouth?” you clarify.

He doesn’t have an answer for that. Shane just gapes and blinks as you undo his belt, the pre-come on his boxers a little warm dot, the musky heat of his body welcoming you as your knees touch the ground and some part of you remembers that Sebastian also knelt at your altar and Yoba, this is so fucked —

You nuzzle him through the cloth, his thighs stiffening under your hands, and while the scent and the feeling is unfamiliar, the gentle touch of his hand to your cheek is as soft as a feather.

You press your lips to his shaft through the cotton, licking at the wet spot, and his cock jumps. It’s all him — the flavour and the texture and the scent of fabric softener that reminds you of his bed, and you wouldn’t trade the circumstances or your position, even if there wasn’t a precedent or past experiences so close to the surface.

You’re here with him.

This is not a mistake.

Your mouth fills with spit.

“Fuck,” Shane breathes.

“Can I, please —”

Fingers pluck at his waistband, ready to free his cock — the tip juts against the seam in the pouch.

When he says your name, you don’t hear it.

Shane clears his throat and grabs your hand before you can do anything further and he says, “Come on,” and those heavy, rough fingers tilt your whole face up while you cling to his waistband like a good little —

“Stop.”

His thumb swipes at your cheek, his expression alight with an indiscernible mixture of emotions that all churn together: concern and desire and a little bit of that stubborn, determined anger setting his jaw when something pisses him off.

“Up.” He tugs. You resist, because you’re sure you’ve done something wrong and it must show because —

“Come on, sunshine,” he says again, softening. “Come here.” Into his arms.

This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“Don’t you want to?”

Everything trembles, threatening to shatter: the high, tight plaintive desperation an embarrassment you can’t hide because Shane doesn’t want you either and the sting expands inside you into a giant, empty cavern and you’re all alone in the darkness.

“Hardest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” he says into your hair, “turning down a blow job.” And finally, you choke a sob.

His body is a buffer against everything, and you find yourself gripping him around the waist as he squeezes you tighter like he could smother the bad feelings.

“Why did you stop me?” you manage.

His inhalation is steadying, but pained as he disengages — your bra pulled back into place, shirt straightened. He even zips and buttons your jeans as if the process of putting you back together is fortifying, but all the while, Shane watches your expression like you’re the one who needs caring for in this situation.

Something threatens to break — a tremor across a still surface.

“You want something I can’t give you.”

Because for him, it’s just that simple. You should be used to it: the sharp bite of rejection so much worse than every other time you’ve exchanged barbs in the attempt to befriend him. This kind of lie is intimate.

“But you were waiting for me,” you whisper.

“You left the smell of your shampoo all over my pillows.” It’s an accusation.

His hands linger on your hips, thumbs drawing circles beneath the hem of your shirt, like he’s reconsidering, but you know when someone’s shovelling shit. You’re a farmer.

“Why didn’t you go into the Saloon?”

His eyes are tired, but alert as he searches for an answer in your features, or maybe he’s memorizing them. He looks so pissed that for a second you want to shrink out of his grip and run in the other direction.

Instead, Shane darkens.

“You weren’t supposed to show.” And there’s a finality to it.

His gaze trails across your shoulders, up your throat and back to your mouth where it lingers.

“I spent all night thinking about what it might mean if you did. And I think I get it.”

The air that spills between your bodies is colder even that the autumn breeze tumbling down from the mountains. It leaves you shivering as his hands fall away.

“I know what it’s like to want to feel nothing, farmer — whatever it takes to get a moment of quiet,” he explains.

It stuns you into silence. “That isn’t what this is.”

But you don’t wholly believe it either: you’re too fast, too reckless, too driven to impulsive decisions. You dropped everything in the city to move to the Middle of Nowhere, Ferngill Republic, and take up growing crappy pumpkins with barely five hundred gold in your pockets.

Somehow, his honesty makes it worse:

“I might be a piece of shit,” Shane says, wetting his lips as if weighing it. “But I’m not going to be treated like it.”

He swallows, but you don’t know what to say to him that isn’t so complicated that you can snatch at the frayed edges. It’s falling to pieces over something that hasn’t happened yet.

“Nothing to say, huh?”

Shane shakes his head.

“Figures,” but the smile is full of self-deprecation, and it withers before he reaches the end of the alley while you keep trying to put it all together. The one thing that’s clear is that he’s leaving.

And you’re angry.

It rises suddenly and with a swiftness, your body aching at the unfairness that he can drown in his drug of choice but you can’t get closer to him because he doesn’t believe he’s worth it —

“You just don’t want someone to give you a reason to stay.”

It hangs like a blade, because knowing seeing the mirror of your own despair up close and personal can be someone else’s reckoning.

You know you don’t know him at all, but you recognize the shadow beneath the angry surface: Shane, who turns flinty and hard to cover up whatever’s hurting him while you pinned your heart to your sleeve and let the damned thing keep bleeding.

“I’m not the solution to whatever’s eating at you, farmer,” he says, as if he’s got you pegged.

He’s gone around the corner before you have an answer, but your answer isn’t what he wanted to begin with. You’ve just taken too long to realize it:

“I don’t know what this is yet.”

But you think you know that it meant more to him than he was willing to admit.

—

No one said you didn’t learn from previous experiences.

The bouquet is already tattered around the edges, a collection of sweet pea, fairy rose, and tulips that you battered bringing home from Pierre’s because you can’t stop debating if you should offer it to Shane or beat him with it.

It’s gone into the kitchen trash can twice so far, but it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference:

Yoba, you’re so mad at him for making assumptions.

You’re fucking furious.

And maybe a little bit ashamed too:

The Community Centre. Really?

Like he was a damned dirty secret.

Okay, you think: you could have handled that better, but he didn’t hesitate to kiss you back, and had you given him the opportunity, he would have fucked you stupid in that alley off Willow Lane without a second’s hesitation.

It only occurred to you later that he wanted it to mean something, echoes of Emily’s, “See!” from the Saloon all the confirmation you need.

Staring blankly out the windows doesn’t help because after a while, your eyes begin to burn and you haven’t figured out if there’s some other folk custom that demonstrates “begging for forgiveness” other than a bouquet to announce that you’re clearly affected, and maybe a little delirious.

You don’t even like each other.

But you can’t stop thinking about the way he put you back together after practically tearing off your clothing, and when you touch your fingers to your throat, you can still feel the tender spot where Shane marked you with his mouth.

Maybe this is a bad idea.

Maybe you should wear a bandana or something.

A scarf.

A fucking cravat.

“Fuck my life,” you groan, but you’ve arrived at a decision that has you snatching up the bouquet and marching straight for the door and the garbage can outside by the chicken coop, farthest from your second guesses and regrets and unwelcome household guests: Sebastian’s heart beats under the floorboards. Shane’s rejection drags after you like a mantle.

You’re all alone, but maybe you deserve it.

You open the door.

With one foot on the lowest stair to your porch, Sebastian raises his head to smile up at you again. He folds over the little name tag that he’d hung around the flamingo’s neck in his hands, and now, you can see the smear of writing on the back.

“Hey, farmer girl,” he says. “Is that for me?”

The bouquet sags.

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toxicanonymity · 2 years ago

Note

Hiii how’s Ezra and his menace of a reader?? I hope he’s still fraught with guilt bc damn that’s hot

No pressure to write or whatever I just think about them half the day (the other half is for nw)

Ezra drabble 3

700, Ezra x f!reader

Last one: Ezra pt. 2, you baited/tricked him into somnophiling you

WARNINGS: I8+ AU where you can be briefly exposed outside. Degradation. Manhandling. Outdoors. Dubcon P in V. References to somnophilia. I feel like you or an anon asked what would happen if he found out but I can't find the msg sry. Unedited!

Ezra’s quiet the next day. You let him sweat it out for hours, making comments about how you’re tired, sore, asking him if anything happened. The tortured look on his face makes you tingle. He wants to confess. You can’t believe he fell for it, after all your involvement and encouragement during . . .the act. He really thinks you were talking in your sleep.

Finally, you put him out of his misery and degrade him about it. You're standing in the shade of a mossy tree when you chide, “So, Ez. . ." You lower your brow and cock your head at him. He swallows and looks at you with big eyes, and you ask, "Are you man enough to give it to me when I'm awake?"

His face changes as he grabs the fabric of your jumpsuit by the chest and shoves you up against the tree. You add, “or is the sleep what gets you off—ohhh shit, ohhhh”

He tightens his grip on your jumpsuit and slams you back against the tree. “I fear I thought too much of you, little bird. You're nothing but a common pigeon.” His nostrils flare. “And all your cooing is growing tiresome.” His eyes darken with the intent to intimidate, but you see his animal lust through the gaping black holes of his pupils. He’s right up against you. You reach down to grab his crotch. His cock is warm and semi-hard. You tingle and your panties moisten, already wet from torturing him.

You press your palm into his arousal between each word: "you. . .absolute. . .creep." He glares at you as he swells harder against your palm and you cradle your fingers around the growing bulge.

His jaw clenches, he snarls, and he shakes his head in anger. He releases the front of your jumpsuit only to forcibly remove your helmet, then unzip your suit and feverishly tears it down along with your underwear as you smirk in satisfaction. He takes off his helmet, too. He leaves it all at your feet then turns you around and shoves you chest first against the tree, the moss cushioning the harsh bark on only one side of your body. He’s pinning you there with an elbow as he unzips himself.

He presses his exposed mouth up against the nape of your neck and his breath is humid in your hair. “How sad to beg me like the filthiest fowl for a scrap of cock,” he bites as he frees his stiff manhood from his underwear. He presses his body all the way up against yours. He knees your legs apart, his jumpsuit still on, just unzipped, in contrast to yours pooled fully at your feet. Without his helmet on, you can hear every little sound he makes. He grunts as he lines himself up and as soon as he’s notched at your entrance he stuffs himself inside you with a weak groan. As your body adjusts, he pulls back his cock and says “Take your scrap, little bird.” Then he shoves the whole length into you and says, “No, take it all,” then bottoms out with a grunt. He rails you mercilessly against the tree, breathing heavily, moaning like it pains him every time he buries his stiff cock in your tight little hole.

"I suspect you would take anything," he pants. "Anywhere." He thrusts into you harder. Every word, Every moan, brings you closer until you're whimpering. "Oh Lord," Ezra breathes. "Look at you," he exhales an ill humored laugh. "Already fallin' apart between me and this bark." He braces his hand on the tree as he fucks you harder, sweating, stinking up the air.

He brings his mouth to your ear and shudders with a deep thrust. His next breath sends you over the edge. You whine as you cum on his cock. "Ezra," you moan, "god," you pant, "what the hell." You flutter around him, getting exactly what you wanted.

He slams his cock into you harder than ever and rasps, "now you'll take this seed, pigeon," plunges to the hilt again and erupts with a groan. He moans and whimpers and slowly thrusts as he empties his load into you.

As you catch your breath, you say, "you fucking creep."

-------

thank you for reading 🙏

Ezra Tags: @littlegreendove @sp00kymulderr @bearsbeetsbeskar @ezras--moon @kyloispunk

#ezra x reader #ezra #pedro pascal characters #ezra prospect x reader #ezra prospect #tw dubcon #tw somnophilia #pedro pascal smut #ezra smut #ezra prospect smut #toxicanonymity ☠️

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whumpcereal · 2 years ago

Text

tales from the kennel

hello! a new mini-series is a brewing, starting with this horrific two-parter focusing on justin and tony, whom we met here. part of the kennel universe (master list here), but set before will and tommy are kidnapped.

content warnings for: extreme dehumanization, referenced noncon, future noncon, future dubcon, forced nudity, references to human trafficking, all the gaslighting, branding, restraints, pet whump, captivity whump, filmed whump, creepy whumper, adult language

orpheus, part one

Tony has tried so hard not to think. Thinking, he knows, is no longer required of him. Not here. Probably not ever again.

He’s been sold. Fuck, the word makes his naked skin crawl. It still doesn’t make sense, no matter how long he’s been here. People are not bought and sold. Of course, Doc doesn’t call it that. Doc calls a kidnapping a “rescue;” trafficking is just “finding someone a good home.”

But when Tony lets himself think, he knows it isn’t true. He wasn’t rescued, and he doesn’t need to find a good home. He has a good home–or at least, he used to.

It hurts to think of the little yellow house he and Justin bought together. They barely got to live in it before–well, before all of this. But when Tony curls on the floor of the doghouse at night, when he closes his eyes, he can see the wallpaper they chose for the front hallway–birds of paradise on an orange field. He can see the rack of copper pots hanging over the kitchen island; they were too expensive, but Justin insisted that anyone who cooked like Tony deserved the very best.

It hurts the most when he remembers their bedroom. The overstuffed duvet, the matching bedside tables, the soft light of their twin lamps. Their bodies moving together in the dark. Safety. Comfort.

Tony has neither here. And no matter what Doc tells him about the “wonderful home” he’ll soon be packed off to, Tony knows there won’t be safety or comfort there either. He won’t have a home. There is no home without Justin. There is no Tony without Justin.

Tony knows he will disappear entirely once Doc sends him away. He’s already started to. It isn’t Tony who endures Doc’s training for the camera; it’s Fido. It’s Fido whose red collar is cinched a notch too tight. It’s Fido who sucks, who begs, who bends to be breached like a trained whore. It’s Fido who will be restrained in the waiting crate and shipped thousands of miles away.

It’s Fido who wears the still-healing brand of his new owner between his shoulder blades.

But it is Tony who feels the pain. Even if he knows better than to think, he can’t help but feel.

Tony feels the rough heel of Doc’s hand against the puckered skin of his new scar, and he groans before he can stop himself. It’s only been a few days since Doc came into the doghouse with the branding iron, and Tony’s skin still feels like it’s on fire. Tony doesn’t even know what the damn brand looks like, but he bets he could guess the shape by the pattern of the blood throbbing beneath his skin.

Doc only chuckles. “Oh, now, boy. I know it’s a little uncomfortable now, but think of what your new gift means! Someone loves you enough to claim you for his own. You’re so close to going home!”

“No!” Tony cries hoarsely, but his words dissolve into animal keening when Doc hooks his nails into the brand.

“Yes, you are,” Doc insists. His voice is still gentle, even as he digs further into Tony’s wound. “Don’t undo it by being a bad boy now.”

“Please!” Tony begs. The burning is almost as keen as when the iron first landed on his skin. Doc slaps Tony between the shoulders, and Tony’s knees come out from under him; his belly lands hard against the cold floor.

“You don’t want to ruin your gift, is that right?” Doc chides, letting his hand slip up the back of Tony’s neck and into his dark hair. He scratches idly at Tony’s scalp.

The humiliation is a brand all its own.

“You know, it’s an honor to be adopted by someone so important. You’re going to have so much fun, and I know you’re going to be so good for him. He’s tuning in all this week so that he can get excited for your arrival next weekend. Imagine someone so important giving up so much of his time for a little rescue like you. Aren’t you a special boy, Fido?”

Tony shakes his head. He doesn’t want to think about what’s coming. Doc’s already showed him the crate he’ll travel in, the special hood he’ll wear to dampen his senses, the fur-lined cuffs built into the box to keep him still. He’s been promised drugs that will keep him calm for the trip. Tony doesn’t know exactly where he’s being sent, but he knows it’s far. Far from here. Far from the little yellow house.

Far from Justin.

“I want to go home,” Tony says before he can stop himself. “Please, I–”

Doc’s hand freezes in Tony’s hair. “But you are going home!”

Tony shakes his head. “No. You don’t–I–please, Doc, Please. I’ll be good. I promise. Just–”

“Don’t make the people think you’re ungrateful, Fido. Not all of my rescues get the opportunities you have.”

Tony wants to scream. Yes, he’s had so many ‘opportunities’ since he’s been here. The opportunity to be restrained and groped and filmed and drugged and starved and beaten. To be coupled like a brood mare with any one of a dozen faceless people in red collars. To know exactly how weak he is, to know for certain that it took almost no time to break him entirely.

But he doesn’t scream. Because he knows better.

“I’m grateful,” Tony forces himself to say. “I-I–” he swallows around the lump in his throat, “I just don’t want to leave you.”

He pitches his eyes to the floor, but it doesn’t matter: Doc knows he’s lying. The man bursts into laughter.

“Oh, my sweet little pup. What a performance!”

“I’m not–”

Doc’s hand presses against the brand, and Tony is silenced by the searing pain.

“I know you have mixed feelings about leaving, and I know it isn’t because of me.”

Tony stares up at Doc through the blur of his tears. The pain in his back is white hot; the knot in his chest is worse. He never mentions Justin to Doc. He learned early on that there was no point; Doc won’t give him any answers. But now that he’s being sent away–

“The little mutt will be just fine without you,” Doc says. “You haven’t seen him in months anyway, have you? You should be used to it by now.”

But Tony will never be used to it. They didn’t get enough time. They’d only been married for a week when Doc found them. When Doc took Tony’s wedding ring, it hadn’t even had the chance to wear a groove in his skin. It was like he’d never worn a ring at all.

“Please.” Tony shifts his weight back onto his stomach. He lays his arms prostrate on the floor. “I have to see him.”

Doc shakes his head. “I don’t know, boy. Don’t you think it will be harder? He isn’t coming home with you. He might be jealous. I don’t want you to feel badly about your good luck–and I don’t want it to be more difficult for him. I haven’t found a place for him. Not yet.”

Tony closes his eyes. He hopes Doc never finds a place for Justin, that there’s still a chance that Justin will make it back to the little yellow house, even if it’s without him.

“I want to–to-to say goodbye. Even if it’s hard.”

He doesn’t say that he wants to say goodbye because he’s almost certain it will be the last time he sees his husband. At the very least, it will probably be the last time Justin sees him alive. Tony is under no illusion that he will escape the situation waiting for him overseas. He knows he will be used until he is a dry husk, and then he will be crumpled up and thrown away. He can only hope that someday, Justin might have closure. That Justin will sit at the kitchen island with another man who will make him enchiladas and kiss that spot on the back of his neck and banish the nightmares that will surely haunt Justin for the rest of his life.

Tony doesn’t have a choice. His nightmare is going to swallow him whole. But with the time he has left–he needs Justin to know that it will be alright, even if Tony won’t be there to see him through.

Doc chuckles softly and tucks his fingers under Tony’s chin, forcing Tony to meet his eye. “You are an affectionate little thing, aren’t you?”

“Please. Before–” Tony chokes on the lump on his throat, but he holds Doc’s gaze, “--before I go home.”

Doc’s eyebrows raise. His mouth curves into a grotesque smile. “Well, look who’s decided to be a good boy.”

“I won’t fight,” Tony whispers. “I promise.”

“Do you?”

“I do.”

As though to prove it, he manages not to flinch when Doc shifts his grip and presses into the soft meat of his cheeks. Doc dips his thumb into Tony’s mouth and presses his tongue flat. Tony stays still. He wants Doc to believe him. It’s the only way that he will get to Justin.

Doc sighs, slipping the calloused pad of his thumb back and forth over Tony’s tongue. “You understand that you’ll have to follow my rules? That you have to be obedient if you expect a treat?”

Tony does his best to nod, even as Doc’s touch teases the opening of his throat.

“And you’ll be a good boy on your trip home?”

Another half nod. Doc pulls his thumb backward, but he keeps Tony’s tongue pinned down.

“Then I’ll let you see him,” Doc says thoughtfully. “But you won’t say goodbye.”

Tony’s brow wrinkles, and Doc laughs.

“You won’t say anything, actually. You won’t speak at all.”

Tony’s mouth twitches in an attempt to protest, and Doc seizes his tongue and yanks. The thin skin that connects his tongue to the base of his mouth flares with pain. Tony whines involuntarily, but Doc doesn’t let go.

“He doesn’t know what it is you’ve been up to all this time. He doesn’t know that you’re being adopted. I didn’t think it was good for him to know, since the two of you were never going to find a home together. Makes it easier to wean him, doesn’t it?”

Tony squeezes his eyes shut again. He and Justin found a home together. They just never expected it to be ripped away from them like this.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you, boy,” Doc snaps.

Tony complies. What else can he do? He promised he wouldn’t fight, didn’t he?

“You’re not going to make any of this worse by spilling the beans. You may agree to stop fighting, but if he finds out you’re headed home, he won’t. He’s already a naughty little thing, and I don’t particularly want to deal with any more guff from him.”

For the sparest of seconds, Tony’s heart soars. Justin hasn’t given up. He’s still fighting. He can make it. He will.

But Doc’s voice brings him back to earth.

“See, he isn’t as valuable to me as you are, Fido. It’s going to be hard to find him a place. And I can’t have you making it any harder than it needs to be. I’ve got limited resources, you know? So, here’s the deal: I’ll let you see him if you promise not to say a word.”

Tony nods again, even as his tears finally break free. He doesn’t want Justin to see him bitted or muzzled. He wants to kiss his husband, to tell him that he loves him one last time. He wants to say goodbye. But if this is all Tony’s got, he will take it. He’s learned to take what he can get.

Doc finally lets Tony’s tongue go, wiping his thumb on Tony’s cheek. “But it’s a little performance test for you, boy. I’m not going to make this easy for you. I want you to show me that you mean what you say.”

“I–” Tony rasps. He pushes himself up on his hands and clears his throat. “I don’t understand.”

“You are not leaving the doghouse until it’s time to pack you up. That means I’ll be bringing the mutt to see you. And I expect you to do what you’ve been trained to do.”

Tony’s gut freezes. His eyes drift up to the camera closest to them.

He can’t. He wants Justin more than anything, but he can’t subject Justin to this. Not when he won’t even be able to explain. There will be too many things he can’t explain. The cameras. The brand on his back. How sorry he is. And how much he loves Justin.

It’s too much to ask.

“But–”

“I will bring him here, and you will show him what you’ve learned. If you want to see him before you go home, those are the expectations. Take it or leave it.”

“He doesn’t know–” Tony tries, but Doc’s palm comes down hard between his shoulder blades.

“And he won’t know.” Doc leans close, pressing harder against Tony’s ruined skin. “If you say a word, I’ll kill him.”

“No!” Tony cries. Justin has to get out. He cannot die here.

“I told you, he isn’t that valuable to me. The only reason I haven’t put him down yet is because my Annie’s taken a bit of a shine to him. She’s never had a pet of her own, and I like to see her happy.”

Tony feels bile rising in his throat. Justin is no one’s pet. Maybe that’s all that Tony will ever be now, maybe that’s a foregone conclusion, but he has to believe that Justin still has a chance.

“You can’t–”

“I won’t, so long as you show us all what a good boy you are. I’m not even going to muzzle you; you’ll get a chance to really show off your training. I’m sure your new owner will be watching, and you’ll want to make sure he’ll be excited to see you.”

Tony collapses over his knees. He’s going to be sick. He can’t do this. He can’t make Justin do this. He doesn’t know what Doc’s done with Justin, but Tony knows he isn’t a red collar. Tony would know if he were. Tony’s body knows every red collar, even the ones he hasn’t seen; he’s tasted them and felt them move inside. None of them were Justin. Tony would never mistake Justin’s touch.

He can’t make Justin a part of this–but he knows that he has to. Doc has him trapped, sure as if he were already packed in the crate. He should never have tried to bargain. He doesn’t have the head for it anymore. After all, he isn’t meant to think.

“You can’t go back on it now, boy,” Doc murmurs. His hand slips below the brand, scratching a gentle line up and down the knots of Tony’s spine. “And you get to say goodbye. Just like you wanted. Only not in so many words.”

Tony doesn’t move. He falls into the gentle touch, just the way he’s been trained, and he stays still. There’s nothing he can do anyway. He knows if he fights now, Justin is as good as dead.

“It’s romantic, in a way,” Doc says wistfully. Tony can hear the smile in his voice. “Do you know the story of Orpheus, Fido? My Annie has a big book of Greek myths that I used to read to her before bed, and that one was always her favorite. Made her cry, but I think she liked the tragedy of it all.”

Tony knows the story, but he can’t remember. Not right now. The only thing he can recall is Justin’s face. He shouldn’t have asked to see him. He should have let himself be packed away and lived with the memories they’ve already made. He curls in on himself. Doc keeps stroking his back.

“Orpheus had a chance to rescue his love from the underworld. All he had to do was to lead her out without turning around to look at her. He just had to trust that she was there, and they’d both be free. But he turned around just as they were crossing the threshold, and she was pulled back into the underworld forever. Because of his weakness.” Doc leans close to Tony’s ear. “This is your Orpheus moment, boy. Don’t be weak.”

Tony can’t stand it. “You’re not giving me the chance to save him from anything,” he says, his voice toneless and hollow.

Doc’s fingers crook against Tony’s cheek. “No, because I’ve already rescued you both.”

Tony should laugh, but he only squeezes his eyes shut again. He’s dreamed about rescue, but he knows now that it will never come. Not for him. There is no escaping the snare he’s just set for himself.

“But,” Doc says thoughtfully, “I am giving you the chance to protect him.”

“From you.”

Doc’s hand withdraws. “From himself. He’s got to learn, and you’re going to teach him. You’re going to show him what a good boy looks like.”

Tony looks up at Doc, the older man’s image distorted by the pane of his tears. “Why do you hate us so much?”

“Oh, Fido. I don’t hate you. I could never hate any of my rescues. You’re all such vulnerable creatures. But just like you’re going to protect your mutt, I have to protect you. I know it’s hard, giving up what you thought your life would be. But I saved you from something so much worse.”

It’s bullshit, but Tony is sure that Doc believes it. The man abducts innocent people and strips away their humanity like bits of old wallpaper, but he believes that he’s serving the greater good. Tony only wishes he could believe too. It would make all of this so much easier if he could believe that this torture was saving him from something worse.

But he knows better. He knows that someone else would have driven by the service station eventually; he knows that if they had been smarter, if they hadn’t gotten in Doc’s truck, they would be at home in the yellow house right now. They wouldn’t have died. Someone would have come. Doc didn’t save them from anything. Doc stole them.

“It’s hard for you and the mutt, I know. But I can’t always place everyone together, so the separation was necessary. So you could get used to the idea. But I’m not a monster, Fido. And so I’m going to give you this chance to ease your parting. But if I let you off your leash, I know you’d run amok. And that’s not modeling good behavior, is it? So, there are rules. It’s as simple as that.”

“You’re insane,” Tony says. “You said you’d kill him–”

Doc swats at Tony’s nose. “Bad dog. That’s enough. The mutt won’t be put down if you do as you’re told. But if you don’t, it’s no skin off my nose. This isn’t a charity, even if it is a rescue operation. Cost-benefit analysis. You’ve earned your keep these last few months; the mutt is a drain on our resources. But this little guest spot might just be his meal ticket until I figure out what to do with him.”

Tony opens his mouth, to protest or beg, he isn’t sure which, but Doc’s hand stops his voice.

“I’ve heard enough out of you. I think your new rules apply starting now. You make a peep, I won’t even go to the trouble of bringing him in. No bark. Do you understand?”

Tony’s chest heaves with a silent sob, but he nods. He knows Doc is as good as his word.

“Hup hup,” Doc commands, and Tony pushes himself onto all fours, even as his limbs tremble beneath him. Doc pulls a leash from his belt loop and clips it to the ring on Tony’s collar. “Fido, place.”

Tony’s cheeks color with shame, but he crawls to the center of the glass box, his leash dragging behind. He knows that this is the spot with the most advantageous camera angles, that he’s expected to hit his mark so that his viewing audience gets exactly what they are paying for.

“Sit.”

Tony complies and lets his bare ass fall back over his heels. He sets his hands flat on the floor in front of him. Doc crouches down and tethers his leash to the anchor in the floor.

“Stay.”

As if there were any other option.

Doc rises and goes to the locked door. He looks back over his shoulder. “You remember your rule, Fido. I’ll be right back with the mutt.”

...to be continued

taglist: @darkthingshappen, @oddsconvert, @sparrowsage, @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump, @mylifeisonthebookshelf, @highwaywhump, @squishablesunbeam, @hold-him-down, @whumpsday, @sowhumpful, @termsnconditions-apply, @irishwhiskeygrl, @deltaxxk, @d-cs, @whumpinggrounds, @canislycaon24, @considerablecolors, @starlit-darkness, @scp-1296, @flowersarefreetherapy, @morning-star-whump, @whumpwhittler, @susiequaz12, @whump-world, @hiding-in-the-shadows, @tasteywhumpee, @whumplr-reader, @sad-boys-anonymous, @whumpzone

#the kennel #tales from the kennel #doc barker oc #tony romero oc #justin huang oc #whump writing #pet whump #star crossed lovers #these boys need hugs

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occasionaloneshots · 8 months ago

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Okay so when I'm working on a long fic and I don't have time to get into it but i get an idea (like at work or things of that nature) I have a bad habit of adding it in the most confusing way but the least amount of words I can to a section of my outline titled "Notes app shit" and it helps me remember but is actually insane and makes zero sense to it's actual context to anyone else.

Anyway, here's the top hits that helped me make my outline for the Monty Foster Mom who was a dog fic (it has a title but idk if I wanna keep it, and I'm annoying and want to have it done so I just have to edit as I post it, it will come out eventually) If you don’t know my blog, it's referring to this post (Also trigger warning for abuse and gore mentions)

Monty candle panic (vague mentions that TCK fucks with wax play I fucking guess?)

Magic collar fuck shit

“Baby come on, I know I sold your soul to make you semi-immortal but look at how charming I am. Why would you want me to have to spend 7 lives without you?” Immediately loses a life

“From Mama’s toy to Momma’s boy. What a sad husband you’d make”

“I am so irrevocably in love with you, my sun rises for you. You could beat me to my last life and in my weakest state I’d still curl up in your arms just to feel your love” “you were literally trying to fuck that ghost last month” “okay and? This isn’t about that”

I don’t want your boy, please come get him. He’s reeking up my store with all his internalized hatred

“You’re exhausting. You’re all teenage petulance until she comes around then suddenly you’re all ‘Mommy let me read you your birth chart and can you play with my hair’ like a toddler showing her a painting. No wonder you don’t have friends your age.”

Monty breaks a cup, literally prepares to die

“You’re laughing? I tell you that both of your mothers beat me to death and you’re laughing?” “Well, did you deserve it?” “Only the first time, I ate that shit the second time”

Not close, not enemies, some secret third thing (Lots of respect but no love)

they’re family, they’re lovers, they’re enemies, they’re everything and nothing all at once “I’m not the step-dad, I’m the dad who stepped up” “You’re neither actually”

Siblings who hate each other but would jump in front of a bus for each other. One time his ass brought her a glass of ice and told her to wait for it when she asked for water.

“There’s a bird boy in my house and idk where the cannibalism line is there”

I can forgive her for what she did to me, but with how fucked up he is? If that witch was still here I’d use her entrails as a jump rope

Drags Monty bird to the store, he has a thing for sunflower seeds which she finds very cute

Seneca scented mother fucker stinking her place up with his smell and his vibes, god damn (This one was personal due to a man at work's whole damn aura smelling like a seneca)

Yeah I have an ex who did some major supernatural fuck shit to me too

TCK saves her from a creepy customer by pretending to be her man, he instantly becomes the creepy customer

Shout out cat king magic, less of a shout out to those bloody teeth marks in her shoulder

Anyway, to the few people who said they wanted it, it'll be here eventually. IDK starting it is really hard when the idea stemmed from a scene from chapters 2, 3, 6, and 8 I'm working very sporadically rn

#dbda #dead boy detectives #monty the crow #the cat king #jenny green

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activatebutterflyshield · 1 year ago

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Something something the album Coyote Stories by The Crane Wives is about the current objectively horrid state of the world and also a call to action on changing that.

Okay. Starting with “Keep You Safe”. Here, the singer starts out as a young adventuring child who is afraid of joining their friends in slightly dangerous games. They never joined in, too afraid to face the consequences. As they grow up, they get more and more scared of the world as they see more and more slightly dangerous things happening around them. The refrain is a mantra that “Time is not your friend / Time is not your remedy / No amount of waiting will make you, make you brave / No amount of fear will keep you / No amount of fear will keep you safe”. The singer in this song is symbolic of the current state of the world, with so many people afraid of what is to come. The fears keep on piling up, from climate change to war to so many other things, and the people stay afraid, but they never grow any safer by being afraid. Time can and will march on, and, as the song says, “Come what may”.

Going on to “The Moon Will Sing”. The singer speaks of an unfulfilling relationship, with someone or something that keeps on leading them on but never fulfilling their promises. They mindlessly follow the something, and quietly ignored their neglected heart for a time. The chorus is “The moon will sing a song for me / I loved you like the sun / Bore the shadows that you made / With no light of my own”, in which the singer is lamenting their neglected state, but is also speaking of it in the past tense. They’ve moved on now, and are recalling the unhappy past. The singer in this case still represents the state of the world, but of a slightly altered state. They used to be in a bad place, but they’ve changed for the better, reflecting how the world has started to shift for the better. We’ve caught sight of our sorry state and are trying to remedy that.

Next is “Allies or Enemies”. This one is blunt and very personal. The singer immediately references “wildfires and weeds”, as well as an “awful damn disease”, all of which are rather familiar to 21st century Homo sapiens as omnipresent news headlines in the backgrounds and foregrounds of our lives. We are intertwined with these tragedies just as the singer is intertwined with the subject of their song, to the point that neither can conceive of a world without the tragedy or the subject. Anything and everything may or may not happen, as “All is fair in love and war”, but if this dynamic keeps up, it will be “the death of me”.

“Unraveling” is mostly a heaping pile of metaphors and symbolism. The singer is lamenting their lost loves, people who seemed to care for them before disappearing without a word. Though these men were kind and seemed to help, each and every one would eventually disappear and leave the singer worse for wear. Perhaps the best line to be applied to the world’s current state is the one about the carpenter: “Sanded my rough edges, crafted new and lovely things / But now my love is gone / And I can’t help the fracturing”. The carpenter represents the groups and people who have shepherded the world into its current state, keeping the population complacent by plying them with pretty little gifts and things to distract them while profiting all they can. But as soon as the carpenter has gotten what they wanted, they leave the world to its own devices to deal with the consequences of their profiteering. These profiteers are partially the ones at fault for the current state of the world.

“Hard Sell” does, in fact, hit hard. The singer is clearly going through something rough, holding themself together through sheer will to live. They’re trying so hard to get better, but it’s so hard to improve that it seems that they’re “working with barbed wire and moth wings”. To go on a tangent, the decision to specifically say “moth wings” and not bird or fly wings evokes (in my biology-addled brain) the image of salt and pepper moths. These are moths that rapidly evolved to have darker coloration thanks to the sooty, polluted conditions of the Industrial Revolution. The singer is using the only things they have: a metal material designed to harm and keep out and the wings of an animal greatly impacted by human-spurred climate change, and they’re lamenting that it seems that everyone might be going through the same thing. And its true; we’re all facing the same consequences of the state of the world in one form or another, and the only difference is how we present ourselves to the rest of the victims out there. We’re all affected, and we all need to “stop pretending now” and get something done.

Finally made it to “Rockslide”, the song that got me down this track in the first place. It has a runaway rhythm with a singer that speaks of feeling the “wild weather” that’s “got the mountain shaking weak”, and of the “quaking” of “rocks … a’tumblin while the people are asleep”. That wild weather is all the rapid and negative changes rocking the world, or the mountain. And the rocks are the consequences crashing towards the people so ignorant they might as well be asleep. Though the singer prays that they might keep their soul and that “you”, whom they’re singing to, wants to settle down, they also acknowledge that they must run or “the devil we will meet”. The people of the world must run, or make changes, else they’ll face the horrible consequences, or the devil. The devil, or “monster”, is coming and does not care what it hits.

On to “Metaphor”. Oh boy, “Metaphor”. The singer here is someone broken, jaded, the sort of person who’s been hurt ten too many times. They are a liar, a scavenger, a (metaphorical) killer. “You can’t trust a single thing I say”, they sing, because they’ve been lied to and forced to survive in the corners and the margins of the world. They are loud, they are hurt, and by goodness do they not want to go through that again. I really shouldn’t have to say why this is all to real to so many people in this world. They’re the ugly, hard to look at truth of the world, the headline you’re afraid to finish reading, the words just a little too raw to be fake. “I’ve gotten good at making up metaphors”, they sing, because that truth is too hard to bear without at least a little bit of sugarcoating.

Now comes “The Hand That Feeds”. Do I really need to explain this one? “I’ve seen good men spoiled / Chained to their jobs like hounds / They work and sleep, and work again / In the darkest nights they howl”. The people of the world, those who by all measures should not suffer, are chained and bound, deprived of freedom beyond their desperate laments. This is the fate the singer’s father wants his child to avoid, the snare he wishes them to see and remain free of. They sing of how “He taught me that the hand that feeds / Deserves to be bitten when it beats”. No matter how good it looks, you should never take the deal. Never shake the hand of the devil, despite his honeyed words, and remain your own self. That hand only wants to drag you down deeper.

Next is “Little Soldiers”. Okay when I started writing this thing I had just finished All Quiet on the Western Front and so I had a lot of sad war metaphors about this one, but it’s been a while and most of them have vacated my brain in the meantime, so… here goes. “On the broken backs of all the words we spared” they sing, “Like little soldiers in the trenches / It was a march we made towards ruin and despair / but we held hands all the while”. The singer here is recovering from a horrible loss, of the ending of a relationship they thought was good and healthy, but in reality was false to both parties. Both the singer and their former partner are representative of the common suffering of the common people, of their past struggles and strife, and how, in the end, they banded together to fight for each other. The refrain reflects this bittersweet dynamic, switching between “I swear that I loved you” and “I swear that you loved me”. The common love was the only good thing in the lives of the partners, and is all they can look back to in the end.

Following is “Sleeping Giants”, with a return to a feel similar to that of “Rockslide”, as forces beyond mortal comprehension threaten to wake. “I feel the mountains / Shifting under me / The sleeping giants are finally waking”. The singer is hyper aware that they are in danger, and said danger is something so alien, so powerful, and as unexpected as the land itself was shifting beneath their feet. Their pulse is racing, they are in fight-or-flight as all those prophecies from the previous songs in the album begin to come true. “The moon is humming / Lovely melodies / The forest echos, the trees are crowing / Hungry, hungry harmonies”. Natural keystones as far separated as the trees on the Earth and the moon in the sky are calling out in tandem, something is wrong. Something is terribly, horribly wrong.

A rather abrupt tone shift as “Of Everlong” follows. It’s a very short song, barely more than a minute, and its poetry is perhaps the strongest. I’ll just write the whole thing here.

“Out of the ocean / Over the harbor / Lay no sons and / Lay no daughters / Among the mountains of everlong / Twas there I wrote me / A sad, sad song / And if my lover / Will not hear it / Take my voice and / Take my spirit / Leave me weakened / And dig my hole / Only my lover not I can keep my soul / Only my lover not I can keep my soul”.

The singer, a lover much like the one mentioned in “Little Soldiers”, is singing a lament that they are alone, here in the mountains of everlong, beyond all reach of other people. Here they sing of what they have lost, or perhaps never had, a tune that can only echo about those mountains and never reach beyond the ocean. They declare that they’d rather die than never see their beloved again, consigning themself to eternal loneliness rather than risk breaking their heart all over again. Theirs is a song of what was and what will never be, of a world of memories that was long taken by the mists and will never emerge from the horizon with the breaking dawn.

It stays melancholy with “Never Love an Anchor”, with a rocking rhythm like a ship in a calm sea, and a singer who laments that they were never enough for their beloved. They were unable to care for their child, their spark of light impossibly kindled in a life made of sorrow, and feel that it is all their fault. “And I tried to do the best that I could / But try as I might I couldn’t bring myself to hold you”, they cry, a gentle, quiet admittance of defeat. They knew that they could never be enough, and so gave a chance to their beloved in exchange for defying their own selfish desires. This singer acted for the good of the many rather than the good of the few, giving what hope they did have to the little one so that they may rise just a bit higher. “On some level, I think I always understood / That a ship could never really love an anchor”, they sing, an admittance of their own failings, and a declaration that their beloved will be better, will have some brighter future, some breaking dawn at the horizon to look forward to.

The final song of the album is “New Discovery”. It’s a final declaration of the singer’s hope for a brighter future, of some true and real goal that they might strive for. It may not be real, it may be a mirage, but by goodness will they bite and claw and fight for it. “I want to believe / There’s something left for me / A new discovery”. It’s a hope, a faraway paradise, an impossible pipe dream, but it’s something. And to a person at the very end of their rope, to those who might sing of their trials and tribulations and torments and tragedies, something can be everything. It doesn’t need to be grand, or golden, or even great. It just needs to be better. And that is something everyone should be able to get behind.

Hope is famously that thing with feathers, the creature at the bottom of Pandora’s box, the last feeling humanity will ever have. It will drive us on through the deep, dark night, be our guiding lantern in the shadow of the dragon, and when we see the light of the sun shatter over the eastern horizon, we’ll think, yes. One more day. One more day to live and to learn, one more chance at making things better. There will always be nights; times of death and destruction will come again and again for the foreseeable future. But the night is always followed by the day, by hope and a new chance to take another step towards a better future.

Never stop fighting to see that next dawn, to once again behold the sun declaring that a new day has risen.

Never stop working to make things better.

#the crane wives #coyote stories #music #me running my mouth #media analysis #hopepunk #hopecore #optimism #i should think ive earned the right to tag those tags since i desperately tried to make this as uplifting as possible #idk mates i just think humanity could use a bright dawn sometime soon #i managed to drag in sooooooo many bloody metaphors #most of them are from the oh hellos unsurprisingly #especially the whole night is always followed by the day thing featured in their four winds #i will write a thing on through the deep dark valley i swear

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inchling-prince · 2 years ago

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So y’all remember how I said I had thoughts about Krux having a cat? I may have actually FINALLY written that. It’s about 1400 words long so I put most of it under a cut. So, presenting this under the working title of Operation: Give Krux a Kitty

There was that sound again. Every evening that week near his front door Krux could hear it. Barely more than a squeak. He assumed it was some kind of animal. It wasn’t uncommon for him to run across one, he didn’t live in Ninjago City proper, just the outskirts, but he wasn’t sure what kind would be making that particular sound. He was only vaguely curious, he wasn’t about to take time out to go looking for it, but he found his answer anyway when a kitten came tumbling out of a nearby bush, chased by an angry mocking bird.

It was extremely small, and extremely filthy, and much to Krux’s displeasure, making a bee line for him and forcing him to duck the mocking bird as the kitten tried to weave between his feet.

“Oh for… look out you furry little menace,” he snapped, barely avoiding stepping it while trying to wave the bird away without much success. In fact the only thing he managed to do was to convince it to dive bomb him for a while instead of the cat. It must have a nest nearby to be so aggressive. He gave up any semblance of dignity and ran the last short distance between himself and the door, slamming it behind him once inside.

The next morning as he left he spotted the kitten again, out in the open. It looked to be eating a large locust. Krux huffed a laugh at the sight. Some mighty hunter it was, chased around by a bird and reduced to eating bugs. He briefly considered going back inside for something to feed it, he thought he had some canned tuna, but suppressed the impulse. If he fed the damn thing, it would never leave. It hissed at him as he walked past, much to his amusement. “I won’t take your bug, you’re safe from me cat.”

He didn’t see the cat again that afternoon, but the next morning just as he stepped outside a tiny paw snuck out from beneath a broad leafed plant and slapped at his foot making him jump. Not that he would admit to anyone that he’d been frightened by an animal.

“Now see here cat, this won’t do,” he said leaning to move the leaves aside, revealing the kitten. “You get me attacked by birds, you leave grasshopper legs on my sidewalk, and now you attack my innocent foot on its way out of the house.” Krux fought to keep from cracking a smile as the kitten fluffed itself up as large as it could go. He hadn’t actually meant to scare it, it was just feisty. Looked like it was a long haired cat, just based on how huge its tail puffed up. He thought it might actually be white under all the grime. It hissed and spat at him as he reached for it, which he ignored until it took another swipe at him, this time drawing blood on his hand.

“Ouch. Like to fight do you?” he asked it, grabbing hold of it by the scruff and pulling it up and out of its hiding spot. It was clearly furious, twisting and turning in his grasp, trying exceedingly hard to bite him. He couldn’t help but smile at it as he tucked it into his elbow where it couldn’t claw him again, although it sank its little teeth into his sleeve.

“You certainly are a little menace,” he told it, petting its head with one finger. “You kind of remind me of someone. He loved to fight too.”

Krux gingerly sat down on his front step, still holding the kitten in his arms. It had given up biting him and was instead maintaining a low growl. “I might have referred to him as a menace once or twice too. I miss him every day,” he said softly, rubbing behind the kitten’s ears. He was rewarded with a break in the growling. “Aha, found the good spot, did I?” he asked, before heaving a sigh. “As nice as it’s been, cat, aside from the bleeding, I have to go to work.”

He slowly loosened his grip on the kitten and it was off like a shot into the bushes again. “Well, some gratitude for the ear scratches that was, kitty.” Krux pushed himself up off the step and decided that maybe he would stop and buy some cat food on the way home. Maybe.

The kitten was nowhere to be found that evening, or the next morning. Even the familiar squeaking sound was missing. When it failed to appear the following evening, Krux assumed it had moved on and told himself that he wasn’t disappointed. He tucked the cat food into the very back of the cabinet just in case.

It was another two days before it reappeared with a brand new bloody notch in its ear looking filthier than ever. “Oh, there you are!” Krux said as he stepped out. The cat made a token effort to pounce at his foot before Krux snatched it up to examine its ear. It was mostly scabbed over but looked like it had broken open again at least once. “Tch. You’re too young for cat fights already no matter how feisty you are, what got you?”

The kitten growled as Krux touched the injured ear and swatted ineffectively at his hand, seemingly resigned to being manhandled. He figured it was a good sign that it was still ready to smack him. The injury didn’t really look too bad all things considered. He thought that it felt skinnier than a few days ago though.

“You’re in rough shape, little one.” Krux looked around once to check if anyone could see him. Taking in a stray kitten might look good in the Dr. Saunders persona, but he was still somewhat embarrassed about it. Satisfied that his few neighbors were minding their own business, he brought the kitten inside.

“I think we’re going straight to the sink. You won’t like it much, but you can’t be in my home as filthy as you are.”

True to his word, the kitten did not like it much, during its bath it managed to tear a good three or four scratches into Krux’s forearms, and he was as soggy as the cat by the end of its bath, but it was at least done. And Krux had been correct, under the filth, there was a snowy white kitten.

“There. Don’t you feel better now that you’re clean?” he asked it. It mewled pathetically as though it could understand and Krux laughed. “Alright, let’s get you fed. Don’t tell anyone.”

Over the next week or so, the cat made itself at home with only a few minor hiccups. Krux had to lock it in the bathroom while he hurried to buy a litter box, and more than once he tripped when it had run between his feet. A set of curtains was clawed up before he figured out that it needed a scratching post, and his hands took a beating before he figured out that the cat needed some kind of enrichment and he sheepishly went out to buy a few cat toys. A trip to the vet revealed that the kitten was male and only about 7 weeks old, and he had been extremely lucky that Krux took him in. But it wasn’t long before it started coming to him at night to curl up on his chest and sleep. Krux assumed it needed the warmth because it was still so small. He complained about it just for show, but was perfectly content to pet it during the night.

The week turned to a month and the month turned to six months and the kitten grew into a beautiful cat with the fluffiest tail Krux had ever seen. Which if you asked him, the cat used entirely for evil, having made a habit of tickling Krux’s face while he was trying to work. And he STILL liked to attack Krux’s feet in the middle of the night. He never did learn to meow that loudly, mostly sticking to squeaks and slaps to communicate, but he was a good listener most of the time. Krux’s closest and only confidant with his brother still trapped in a temporal vortex. And Krux definitely would take the secret to his grave, but he was a little bit less lonely.

#ninjago krux #why didn’t he give kitty a name #we’re gonna have to vote on it #should I make a fanfic tag?

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onyx-archer · 3 months ago

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A Headcanon About Dragons & Lizardfolk With "Hair"

A common thing you see in a lot of fantasy is different kinds of lizards. This, and of itself, isn't a big deal, as in real life, it's not super hard to see lizards if you know where they live. But fantasy has basically 2 special exceptions.

Dragons & "Lizardfolk"

Dragons are fairly self evident if you know anything about fantasy. The most common portrayals of them are they are basically giant "fuck you lizards" that are borderline dinosaurs, but have more mobility, intelligence, generally have wings (or can otherwise fly), and can typically breath fire or something. Different cultures have different views of dragons, but generally, we agree that they are usually large lizards. I also tend to lump Wyrms into this category, as they function a lot like dragons in most depictions of the species.

Lizardfolk, in this case, refers to what I can describe as generally humanoid lizards. This can range from something like an Elder Scrolls Argonian, to a DnD Dragonborn or Lizardfolk (which is where I get the name from). They are typically bipedal, can communicate with other fantasy races either in a "common" language, or can be interpreted based on their race's/species' native tongues. My favorite amongst these, for the record, are Kobolds (yes, I know what qualifies as a Kobold can vary depending on which sources you use, but I like this brand of Kobolds specifically, so bite me).

Regardless of which fantasy flavor of Lizard you are talking about, there is one thing that a lot of people tend to agree on: Lizards don't have Hair.

It's a scientific fact that Lizards themselves do not have the capability to produce what we'd call "hair," as that seems to be a trait that is exclusive to mammals, as "hair" is just, functionally, another way to say "fur" for all intents and purposes. This extends all the way back to the ancient lizards we call Dinosaurs.

But you see, the mention of Dinosaurs actually raises an interesting point, and it has to do with some of the other evolutionary ancestors of the Dinosaurs: Birds.

As I'm sure you'd know if you managed to get through... idk, whatever year of schooling was when you did first year of biology class, Birds are evolutionary descendants of some dinosaurs. At some point along the way, some dinosaurs hair their scales evolve into strange, soft, fluffier things called "feathers," likely as a form of heat retention for the dinosaurs that were warm blooded, or ended up warm blooded somehow. Evolution is fucking wild, man. In relatively recent years, I'm sure some of you have seen those mockups of dinosaurs that had feathers on them, and it was those that, recently, got me thinking.

You see, for some project I'm working on as a learning exercise, I decided to make a Kobold character, but I bumped up against the question of how to justify hair. This is because some people on like, FurAffinity and what not will draw Kobolds (and other lizardfolk) with full heads of hair, but keep them lizardlike otherwise. While, sure, Kobolds are often associated with Dragons, and Dragons are magical lizards so growing hair isn't out of the question... but it made me wonder how easily some people would swallow the concept of a Kobold having hair, since there's more art (that I've seen anyway) where Kobolds are drawn without hair, rather than with it.

But damn it, I want to have the character in question have hair! It just doesn't sit right with me for her to not have any hair, but I wanted to have some kind of explanation for all of those people that would argue against it.

And then it hit me: feathers!

Birds themselves often have special feathers that are very hairlike called Filoplumes. These feathers are incredibly hair-like at a glance because of how fine they are. They're soft too, like hair. And as we established, at some point in the evolutionary cycle of some warm blooded dinos, scales turned into feathers, so...

This is when I had my metaphorical brain blast like I was Jimmy fucking Neutron. While I'm sure I'm not the first person to think this up, I thought it was a creative solution to the question of "how would a lizard person have hair?" Of course, I initially didn't think of it as filoplume feathers, and instead thought of more conventional feathers, making the "hairstyles" looking more ruffled and the like, which would be a little awkward to plan out, and the "hair" would likely not be very long. Heck, even with Filoplumes as my answer, I doubt it'd be super long, but I'm admittedly not an expert.

I'm not suggesting that it's a 1 to 1 comparison, because feathers do, in tern, have striking differences compared to hair (namely, when it comes to clipping/trimming them, because of molting cycles when it comes to irl birds). However, I do think the principle of some kind of evolutionary component that has scales become hairlike feathers makes some kind of sense.

So what I'm basically headcanoning is that both dragons and lizardfolk "hair" is, in actuality, basically a evolutionary form of feather, akin to a filoplume. This could lead to fun ideas, like exotic bird type "hair colors" via feather patterns, for both top of the head or even beards. It could even be headcanoned that traditional DnD-esc Kobolds don't have "hair" by choice, something they deal with to avoid unnecessary harm from their environments, or simply because they don't get the right nutrients. Hell, maybe your BBEG that has Kobolds in their army fucking shaves their head like it's the real world military? The possibilities are... well, not endless, but there's at least more than there is outside of this headcanon, right? And more options are, generally, pretty good to have.

What do y'all think though? You think I'm talking out of my ass? Do you think it's a fun idea, or fucking stupid? Would love to hear what you think! Personally, I just think it's a fun bit of flavor to explain why some lizardfolk and dragons are depicted with hair, despite that not being possible in lizards according to reality.

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adultswim2021 · 3 months ago

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Delocated #8: “Decoys” | August 22, 2010 - 10:00PM | S02E01

Hot dog, it’s the good season of Delocated!

Look, I don’t mean to suggest that the other seasons are bad. They’re fine! But season two is when the show truly was firing on all cylinders. It was also expanded into a half hour format, a change that would cripple lesser Adult Swim shows.

In this episode, Jon is optimistic that the new season of his reality program is going to catapult him to fame, while the Mirminski crime family steps things up by putting Yvgeny’s brother Sergei in charge, played by the incredible and menacing Steve Cirbus. The network colludes with the Mirminskis by asking them to kill people close to Jon in order to up the drama and the stakes. Jon is also dealing with the fallout from the previous episode wherein he showed his face for the first time, repulsing his girlfriend Kim who only ever saw him with the ski mask on. We also meet Mighty Joe Jon, the black blonde, portrayed here to perfection by Jerry “January 6th” Minor.

Jon, now on high alert after a few people get picked off around him, decides to hire a team of decoys. A bit of a love triangle forms between Kim and one of the Decoys after she makes out with him thinking he was Jon. This decoy I THINK is Daryl Wein, her one-time partner, which is why they can kiss with tongues on the show and not get arrested.

This one has a lot of laughs, including Todd Berries playing himself to the fullest extent (immediately hitting on a beautiful woman the second he has an opportunity), a poem going viral (I gasped at this development) and the inexplicable business with the boxed candy involving Jon’s bodyguard. I feel like season one was admirably creative, and was always decently written, but sometimes the conceptual plots sorta clashed with character stuff. I feel like this season mostly nails the balance of character-driven story while also folding in weird ideas and clever jokes.

EPHEMERA CORNER:

MAIL BAG:

Ever notice how many of my write-ups just sorta end without a pithy concluding statement? This is done because I suspect that if I were to try very hard to do this, that I'd only come up with about 5 or 6 unique ones that I would plug and play in an alternating pattern and that it would expose me for being the shitty writer I truly am. Tonight, I was trying to come up with something while my attention was divided (I had a video of a Sega Saturn being lovingly restored on in the background). I typed something without even thinking, and then when I looked back at the screen I had somehow managed to type, without even being cognizant of it: "Good shit." by itself in a line at the end. "Good shit." Without thinking at all about it. It truly made me shiver.

"Aaron McGruder “left the nest” like so much Randy on Home Improvement at the end of this season" what the hell did this mean? I waited for you to come back to ask you about it.

I will humorlessly explain everything. 1) Randy, portrayed by Jonathan Taylor Thomas, famously left Home Improvement before the series itself ended. 2) a Nickelodeon Magazine article was focused on reporting this, using sub-headline to the effect of "Randy Leaves the Nest!" 3) This left an impression on my friend, who repeatedly refers to it in conversation 4) He also remembered that a little graphic of JTT as a bird literally flying away from a nest was included, but this has not been corroborated by an archive search of said article. 5) I am telling you this, because I assume you are a stranger, and not him, even though he reads this blog and often sends me spoof questions. I asked him point blank if this message was from him just hours ago, and he said it was not. Being a devout Christian, he would never lie to me like this. He is godly

carrie brownstein gif "I-O, PERRY!"

Hey come on man don't do another inside joke on here I will have to explain this one too, damn

#adultswim2021 #adult swim #delocated

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clockwise-works · 1 year ago

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Interested to read your Sonic bitching. 1, 7, 9, 13 for that fandom specifically?

Thanks for the ask, maniskillingus! (I need a shorter name to refer to you as lmao) Sonic bitching, huh? Well you'll learn, I can bitch about ANY of these damn games. Also, sorry for the late response! I got a little carried away with this... Also, there ARE hot takes below. Consider yourself warned.

1. The character everyone gets wrong.

So this is a little tough, ngl. In the 30 something years of this franchise, Sega has created SO many different iterations of these characters that it's... well it's hard to really define what a character "is". With that being said... Amy.

Amy's been relatively fucked in terms of fan perception for literal decades. She was initially conceived as a character who had a crush on Sonic, yes, but that wasn't ALL there was to her character. In the beginning? Yes. But, that was Sonic CD, a 16 bit 1993 game with no dialogue and barely even 2 in-game cutscenes. Every other character was a one dimensional character trait. Sonic was the main character who was cool and fast. Tails was the player 2 (that is literally it). Robotnik was the evil scientist. She, like many other characters, started out simple, yes, but grew over time without losing that core idea.

In Sonic Adventure, she finds a little bird that's being chased by an

Robotnik robot, and immediately decides to protect it. She does end up getting captured, yes, but she doesn't sit until the blue bastard shows up and rescues her, no. She protects the little bird from a Gamma (who she quite literally says she knows he'll hurt both of them), questions his logic, and is asked why she cares for someone she knows nothing of, before Gamma ultimately let's her go. Is it clunky. Oh absolutely, they don't really answer Gamma's question explicitly, instead she just tells him "love isn't part of his programing, you are missing out on something good" which reads to me as her basically saying she doesn't need to know anything about anyone to have a love or care for them, it's inherent. Her compassion towards the little bird and questioning Gamma's logic both results in her freedom, and is a part of Gamma's arc in growing beyond his coding.

And then when Eggman orders Gamma to dispose of Sonic, Tails, and Amy later on the Egg Carrier, her compassion from earlier pays off again as she pleads for Gamma not to fight, in which we actively see him fighting against his coding and agrees! She then STOPS SONIC from destroying Gamma, once again proving her inherent kindness. Sonic could've and would've trashed Gamma with ease, so that was completely in favor of Gamma, going against someone she loves to save another person.

She does this again in Sonic Adventure 2! Throughout the entirety of the game, she was the ONLY ONE on the hero team to actually attempt to reach out to Shadow. Sonic NEVER does. It's on sight for those two every time they meet up. Sonic NEVER has a moment where he argues for Shadow to be better, to turn over a new leaf no matter how much the IDW comics try to retcon his personality into. But Amy does. She's the ONLY one to actually ask Shadow to help save the earth, arguing for the good of mankind in spite of learning what the government did to Shadow and the entire Ark. And he agrees! Her words resonate with him and help him remember that Maria wanted him to protect earth. To the point he agress to fulfill his promise to Maria... AND AMY! Even directly stating her! Once again, yes, there were scenes of her having a crush on Sonic, like breaking him out of prison (another good scene of Amy showcasing she's not just a damsel in distress, this will be important later btw) but that wasn't ALL there was to her! She was compassionate to Shadow in A2. She went out of her way to save Elise in 06. While Heroes does kinda just write her down to "chasing Sonic", a byproduct of that games rather flat and simple writing to the point most characters are one note, she's now playable and does cool shit. She's fully capable as her own person AND as a team. Sure, it was mainly gameplay reasons to have her play similar to other Speed characters, but that's still a part of the game and the representation of her. She can fight Eggman robots just like everyone else, and can lead a team.

Now, I'm not saying Amy had this perfect characterization and the fans simply fucked it up, no. The biggest misconception and "joke critique" DID have a foothold within the franchise, such as Sonic X, Sonic Battle, and Sonic Chronicals. But honestly? Those at times absolutely abysmal portrayals (seriously what the fuck was Battle and Chronicles doing💀??? Giving Amy body dysmorphia??? Jesus man) shouldn't have been the main thing people take away in regards to her character. Almost ALL the characters had their points of having badly written characterization up until 06, such as Shadow and his "angst amnesia", and "stupid Knuckles" to the point Sega attempted to... overcorrect. For Shadow, they made him a villian in Boom and now he's kinda just... there (I'm not counting Prime, I didn't want past season one but people say he was written good), REALLY leaned into the dumb Knuckles joke until forces, and Amy...

The biggest takeaways for Amy's character was that she was "lovesick for sonic" and "pathetic damsel in distress" so Sega leaned HARD into the other direction.

For the Boom show she was more of a feminist, independent strong woman, but given that show was a comedy that would sometimes joke about her hypocrisy or shortcomings (think Knuckles feminist joke), I don't necessarily want to focus on that. Instead, I want to focus on Amy now.

After the release of Sonic Frontiers, people (especially Sonic Twitter) raved about how the game "fixed Amy." That she was now a good character. ...uhhhh what? I mean ok, I get it in regards to the 2010's, in which her personality was representing in... Sonic Gens (where she had maybe three cutscenes with a speaking role), Sonic Lost World (where she, once again had maybe three cutscenes), and Forces where she actually had SOME weight in the story being the resistance's... something. Basically in Gens she was represented with a background joke of her attempting to hug Sonic as he pushes her away and hits Knuckles for insulting Sonic, in Lost Word she showed surface level worry for the kidnapped critters and worry for the world dying, and in Forces she kinda just directed everyone to where they needed to go. So Frontier's attempting to course correct THAT under representation is fine!

It's... it's the sense that Sega has removed those traits of her bold affection of Sonic, her bubbly and outgoing personality, her capability and accomplishments, and pretend she always relied on others to put Frontiers up on a pedestal. That they retroactively attempt to convince us that Amy was someone who ALWAYS needed saving and that she has to "grow past her crush on Sonic". To me, it's a cheap way to get Twitter brownie points for "fixing Amy", (They do this with Knuckles and Tails too btw) to the point they even included a line in the Final Horizons update where Amy says "I'm not longer a damsel in distress you know." ...SHE WAS A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS IN CD! A GAME FROM 19-FUCKING-93! WHAT DO YOU MEAN "ANYMORE"??? YOU HAVENT BEEN ONE IN THIRTY YEARS. SHE HAS SAVED SONIC AND THE WORLD AS MANY TIMES AS SONIC HAS SAVED HER!

This is one of my biggest gripes with Frontier's writing. It wants this praise for "fixing these characters" when at best the characters announce they're "gonna make a change", and in the case of Knuckles and Amy pretend any and all growth she had/times he left the island never happened so Frontiers can act like IT'S the game to make that change.

And the fans ate it up. Shit, even for a hot minute I thought it was... something. But it's really not, they really didn't 'fix' Amy, they just removed any parts of her character that people overly inflated during the 'Dark Ages' and made her a simple "I'm just one of the boys, I'm a capable woman now" to avoid that misunderstanding, when she WAS ALREADY THAT!

Idk, maybe that didn't really fit the question, but people mass misunderstanding and grossly inflating Amy's character traits that could be seen as negative to the point Sega overcorrected, and now we have a "girl hedgehog with tarot cards" and fans love it. Because they're convinced "loving Sonic" was the entirety of her personality and with it now striped away she's now a better character.

...she doesn't even really use her hammer anymore, man... She had it for one move in Frontiers, and used it ONCE in a Dream Team cutscene... even Origins introduced the hammer as a Insta-Shield comparable move, but got rid of it in Superstars... give her the hammer, man...

7. What character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how the fandom acts about them

These follow up questions won't be as long so don't worry. Uhhh, this one's a little tricky, because I haven't ben part of the Sonic fandom nor have I even considered myself a Sonic fan since Forces, so I'm not too certain how fandom acts about these guys outside the core cast in Frontiers.

I guess Eggman? I gotta be honest, I didn't like the Dadbotnik route taken with Sage, it felt really underdeveloped (to the point they included a 'sad song montage' flashback showing all two cutscenes we saw of the two, one watched not even an hour prior) and Boom introduced this "angry old man yelling" skew of his character that hasn't really gone away. Eggman's NOT Boswer. He's not this goofy guy who 'loves his daughter ai and robot son and bakes cookies and yells about menial stuff', he's a maniacal and destructive man fueled by arrogance and pride. He had SWAGGER. The man carried himself like an actual doctor with menacing dialogue and pure confidence in his brilliance, but is now kinda just seen as a "a wacky mad scientist that just HATES that hedgehog but also has a 'respect' for him that he WILL monologue about" (gee I'm so glad THAT carried over from the IDW comics, I love it when characters bluntly explain retcon their stances on each other).

Idk, I just don't like how the fandom has reduced him down to 'Eggdad'. For jokes and funny fan comics? Sure. I got no problem with that. But an actual evaluation of his character, deeming this as 'character growth' and not just a complete personality shift? Nah, I don't fuck with it chief.

Man, two rants back to back inadvertently praising the Adventure era? I don't even really like those games 💀

9. Worst part of canon

FORCES.

I mean not really, I'm sure it could be the constant retcons or even the 'Everything is Canon' mindset we now have, but Forces kinda did fuck up the IDW comics ngl. At first they just followed up the storyline of Forces with a Metal Sonic post story and the restoration of the planet, but it now feels like the comic is in constant 'damage control' from that game. The now-renamed-Restoration is STILL around, a dominant part of that world's worldbuilding, and has lead the world to feel more 'superhero-y' with organized mass teams.

idk, maybe it's the IDW comics just starting to lose me, especially after issue 50, but man am I sick of the Restoration, and that and a couple other things are a result of Forces. Fuck Forces. All me and my homies hate Forces.

13. Worst blorbofication

I deadass don't fully understand what 'blorbofication' is. Is it when people mass take a character they like, and slowly turn them into something else entirely such as some fans infantilizing BotW Link? If so... Idk, I guess Silver...? Idk, I mean he's a character who was SO dedicated to save his home he was willing to kill a man, but grew to not want to lose Blaze to do so, but still ultimately did so. He's angry at the state of his world, has to constantly come back to fix it, yet remains positive in a world and time lacking it.

Sometimes fans write him as this goofy precious child that needs to be protected and I don't really fuck with that. I mean the dude was willing to obtain a body count, but fans... and TSR with the "in your dreams, Sonic" line have kinda funneled him into this sweet baby boy who's a dumb piece of shit. Look at him, so innocent! 🥺

#thanks for the ask homie!#lovely themaniskillingusman #...can you tell I didn't really like Frontiers?#I have... thoughts on that game #oh #and I just want to put this out there #Im not a 'Dark Ages' defender #nor do I even like those early 3D games really #so don't write this off as me 'nostalgia blind' for those eras #they are HORRIBLY flawed if not arguably poorly designed #sonic salt #im coining the sonic salt tag lmao

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evergreen-dryad · 1 year ago

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thoughts on snow flower and the secret fan by lisa see

I can relate to Lily. It has me thinking of the female relationships I've had (thought of my 2nd best friend and my cousin), while she is in the wrong with how she lashed out and betrayed Snow Flower's secrets, I still empathised with how she was so hurt and angry and proceeded to Pick Out Every Happy Memory

on laotong, the descriptions really encapsulate what it's like to be so bonded with your best female friend. Evokes memories and emotions I have

there's so much queer subtext. discuss. Accidentally queer? (Was this meant to be a gimmick to show how close they are with little boundaries?)

Lily: doesn't like sex at all with her husband, notably blushed while imagining Snow Flower's moans of pleasures in her laotong's bed 'But how do I say this without sounding like a husband' -thinks of SF's touch while husband is first touching her -her first priority is Snow Flower, gets tremendously jealous/betrayed of the thought of SF sharing an equivalent bond with other women (sworn sisterhood) -has only ever broken the rules for Snow Flower -SF: writes poetry to Lily about them being birds. I was pretty damn sure she was referring to Lily as the 'phoenix (together with her)' even in her sanzhaoshu poem when Lily got married. Just as Lily also wrote of her as a phoenix in hers.

also the iconic Li Bai poem they write on each other that every chinese kid learns as a kid made queer: Quiet Night Thought. They're each other's home.

-they also didn't have a choice in their laotong, but this was the one good thing they could have all their lives

ironic how Lily would end up being like her mother and her mother-in-law 'obey rules' -and how while she was like that wanting for Snow Flower's own good, it still hurt her because it was taken to an extreme, what should have been encouragement turned into excess criticism and blind solutions -but also sympathising that it's hard: when someone you love and want to support is constantly miserable, and you want to do what you can (and this you feel the other can) to fix the situation

for me it's a cautionary tale in a way. To love is to accept and to listen, instead of trying to fix all the time. "...but inside I also waged something like a man's battle between my true nature and the person I should have been."

What lured me in: historical setting, friendship between women specifically (wouldn't you love anyone who matched you in so many ways?)

Irony of the reveal later of reversed fate: the poor one marries rich, the rich has a downfall and marries poor)

writing techniques, what works for it:

accurate evocation of emotions

detailed description of foods, colours, along with lush historical setting. (The description of the caramelised taro!!! I WANT) Characterisation seems right to history, Lily might only seem close to a 'modern' woman thinking fate can be changed at the end because she has power as Lady Lu

pacing? Just right I think. Tone -solemn, serious.

plot and agency were a lot clearer with peony in love (same author, also loved this book a lot more), whereas this one only meant to show a relationship in its full (which makes sense as it is meant to be an autobiography in regret)

oohhh even though it starts at the end, how much later revealed still becomes a surprise! The little foreshadowing

characterisation: someone on goodreads said they flattened to 1D as they got older. Don't think that was the case, but that's somewhat apt for SF bcs her life was so miserable she became thus (and partly bcs they've both gotten busy so the perception of narrator too)

relationships between women all explored, and between parents and children. Heartwarming moment to see that fathers also loved their daughters. My heart hurt (pg 110 when MC left her home and family to be married, and they all sang as part of the wedding rites -"Thank you for raising a worthless daughter" "Goodbye, daughter") reminded by my family. The slight rebellions they could all take as women with nu shu, and how they could be there for each other. How the harsh life of a woman and its stages was shown in that era.

the tragedy at the end (how it started at the end and began with such a fascinatingly clear memory at 7 years old) of misunderstanding, how even if her life has almost been perfect, she misunderstood due to her upbringing.

It is about love. How the narrator and MC yearned for love all her life, and who couldn't sympathise? And in such a society harsh to women, tragedy was bound to occur. "What was the point of being Lady Lu if I didn't have love in my life?"

how helpless you can be in misfortune and stick to convention as a way to help

snow flower's character (both of them as kids having fun and learning from each other!). the ways love was shown between them and in their families.

#snow flower and the secret fan #lisa see #books #i wanted to try to actually post thoughts on any books i read this year. since i tended to check if anyone on tumblr had a review for it #books-ed-read-2024

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frostycatblr-fandom-files · 1 year ago

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Brothers & Batchmates [Part 2]

Warnings and Information: I missed writing about my boys. So much so that the Brothers & Batchmates installment as a whole spiraled out of control, and I decided I should split it into parts. There are warnings for the installment overall, and subject matter specific to each part. Reference and allusion to canon-typical violence and war crimes. Reference and allusion to death, injury and loss. **There are some slightly explicit mentions and/or hints of suicide and suicidal behavior/ideation. Explicit mention of Kaminoan culling practices of defective Clones, and brief reference and allusion to old isolation and reconditioning practices.** More takes on Clone culture. Still no use of Mando’a here. Star Wars and real-world swearing. The usual use of narrative and stylistic italics. Clone OC Scuffle is his own damn warning (perhaps just for this installment as a whole). Jedi OC Caelen is genderfluid, and they/them pronouns are used in the story for clarity. Like her Clone OCs, the author can’t stop making up fake birds.

Word-count: 9,224

As a mark of respect, no one brings up how odd, how strange it can be, to hear a Jedi commune with the Force. Not when General Caelen openly wishes for the safety of their men, addressing them as kin. “Do you find it an agreeable request? Will you watch my brothers in their brave quest? Will you protect them, guide them safely home… as many as you can?” There is a long stretch of silence, punctuated only by birdsong, before the Force-wielder speaks again, still conferring to the very Force itself. “Are they doing well? Please let them be doing well.”

Discreetly as he’s able, one of the medics between the combined forces creeps past the Jedi in order to make his way to where he needs to be. Coming to a collection of crates in the middle of the encampment, he breaks the latch to a medkit in order to treat a brother’s wound. An injured Clone following behind is directed to sit on one of the other crates while the medic rifles through the kit to procure everything he needs.

“I’ve got you, brother. Hold still for me while I have a look at that burn. You’re probably going to be shooting with the opposite hand for a while.”

The sharpshooter sucks in his teeth sharply as the bacta spray hits his skin, then follows it up with a remorseful apology. “Sorry to trouble you, Ryker. D-damn, I should’ve been paying better attention!” The burn-pattern in the middle of the brother’s palm doesn’t look recognizable to Canvas, at least this far from where he’s been sitting, cautioned not to stray far from Captain Law’s sight. If he notices a shift in the planet’s avian behavior, he’s supposed to report in without delay.

Unfortunately for the burned brother, the extent of his offered sympathy will have to be offered from here. That looks unpleasant is communicated through pursed lips and a pinched smile.

The marksman wags his head three times each direction in return. No kidding! Hurt myself like an idiot.

“Take it easy… Accidents happen.” the medic replies soothingly, “Oh, feel I should add that I’m not Ryker, just so you know. I’m Riddance. You’re thinking of my batchmate.”

“Oh sorry.”

“Hey, no hard feelings.” Riddance promises with a chuckle, tucking a length of gauze over the burn to keep the smearing of bacta gel in place for the marksman, “Get too used to it when I’ve been called every name under the sun. Mostly it’s “you fucker!” when I hit them with the boosters they were hoping to avoid.”

And the other medic whose name starts with a wesk, what about him, asks the marksman with a soft chuckle. “Is he settling into the unit okay after being a spacer for so long?”

“Oh, Wylie? He's quiet, but I can't complain.” Rid replies shortly, busying himself with cleaning up his spent materials. “... No, actually, I could. But not for the reason you think. Poor bastard got sick while he was still aboard the Harmonious and whatever it is, it's stubborn. He's on the mend, at least.”

“Slow progress is still progress.”

Rid takes a moment to think it over before coming to a decision. “Yeah, that it is… I’ll need to keep that in mind, starting very soon.”

That's a peculiar sentiment coming from a medic, to Canvas. What could be happening in the near future that Riddance is aware of? Some kind of proprietary information regarding the progress of the war, or maybe a projection for another super-spreader event? If he asks, would this be something his brother could tell him, or something he has orders to keep close to his chest?

It’s worth a shot to ask.��

“Hey, Rid!”

The simple vying catches the attention of not just the medic, but Captain Law as well. Whether curious or concerned, Law has his sights trained on Canvas for a long moment, the idle chatter with General Caelen dropped like a live droid-popper, expression unmistakable.

Why is my brother calling over the unit medic? Do I need to be concerned?

Hastily scraping up the last of the refuse and cramming it into the appropriate receptacle within his kit, Riddance wastes no time to jog over, “Yeah, little Vas? Everything okay?” Dark eyes dart over every inch of plastoid and naked skin, Canvas’s face studied longest of all, but Rid finds nothing immediate. “Starting to feel a little sun-stricken, again? I know you have your assignment with the captain, but we can’t have our favorite art surface collapsing on us, so if you need me to pull you from it, I will.”

With the nature of his name, and relatively unpainted plastoid, Canvas found himself sporting all kinds of artwork not just from Scruffy, but a few other brothers whenever they had significant downtime. (And by significant, it was anywhere upwards of 15 minutes.) On another assignment escorting civilians from their war-torn homes to safety, a child had given Scruffy her extra felt-tipped markers after hearing that he liked to draw, too. They discovered these worked on plastoid after Cairn wrote “KICK ME!” on Carver’s skidplate while he was asleep.

“No-no, I’m fine, I’m fine,” Canvas promises the medic, “I don’t need to be pulled from my assignment. I only had a question for you.”

The edge of the elbow-plating taps against the other’s upper arm as Riddance takes a seat on the rusted crate beside Canvas at the brother’s invitation, his question one of his many jokes.

“It’s not where nat-born babies come from, is it? Because that’s different species to species, Canvas-”

Canvas groans. “Oh my stars.” Here Rid goes again. If he doesn’t let Rid complete at least most of the joke before interrupting, he’ll get all pouty that he doesn't get to practice his “best medicine”. Riddance loves a good joke and a warm conversation; a brother’s hearty laugh is his favorite thing in the galaxy, or at the very least a smile. He’s been at the bedside of many a wounded trooper, datapad in hand opened to his patient notes, where here he adds what kind of jokes they like best along with how much bacta and antiseptin-d he’s given them.

Slinging his arm across his brother’s back and shoulders, Rid’s voice changed into a dramatic, drawling tone. “You see, when people who want to become parents - or people who are real damn ignorant on how you become parents - love each other verrrry much, they-”

“Perform a very intimate hug with a little trading of sperm and egg cells on the side. C’mon, Rid, I’m what, technically eleven? I know where most nat-born babies come from!” Canvas says with a laugh, giving Rid a playful and half-hearted shove. “That’s not what I called you over here to ask about.”

“Alright, alright, had to make sure.” Riddance insists with a large, beaming smile before slipping the hook of his arm further up Canvas’s back to better reach the back of his head, offering the coal-dark curls of hair an affectionate ruffle. “What was your actual question?”

“Do you know something we don’t? Your remark about needing to keep ‘slow progress is still progress’ in mind very soon was, uh, rather curious.”

For a moment, Riddance’s expression grows grim, a low hum in his throat. “Mm. That.” The hand threaded in the shallow depth of the crew-cut falls back to Canvas' shoulder. “There's a… sensitive case I’ve been made aware of.”

His heart sinks. “Oh.”

That’s where the questions and any desire to know more ends. It’s not his business, he tells himself firstly. Given Canvas was (...still is…) distinguished as a sensitive case at one point, he’s familiar with what this means. Can mean. Sensitive cases suggested significant traumas, horrific ordeals, and went so far as encompassing the terrible notion that a brother wanted to have nothing but a blaster for his last meal.

So far as they’ve been told - and it makes only too much sense to report it in such a way - that is rare in the GAR… The soldiers that make up the Republic’s grand army, terminating themselves, is unthinkable to most.

But there are stories spoken of only in reverential whispers among the surviving brothers, brown eyes that glitter with unshed tears as they reap what knowledge they can from grainy hallway cameras and warbled comm-chatter. Brothers make good on their threats that they will never talk to Separatist scum, and would rather die than jeopardize the lives of their brothers! before that singing shot cuts the ambient static, for the Republic.

Brothers, young and old alike, sole survivors of LAAT crashes on Separatist controlled planets, picked up by the microphones of nearby, half-functioning helmets; pleading to the stars for someone to remember his and his brothers’ names when they find the crash site. He’s all alone, the poor little mite who he just redid the padawan braid for was the last alive next to him but… he didn’t make it. Maybe he’s one with the Force now. (Just like he’s about to be.)

Pilots, offering fervent goodbyes and take care brother-s as their ships become little more than specklings of flame amidst the starry backdrop of space, taking down as many battle droids as they can while their controls seize up, one by one, and they really can’t bring her down safely in the hangar with the landing gear karked up. Static, static, static. Maybe a scream. Sometimes a crescendoing warcry. Then nothing.

Together, with his arm still wrapped around Canvas’ shoulders, Riddance gently rocks, swaying him and his brother side to side like the leaves bobbing in the water just down the hill. He’s lost in those same memories, while also thinking about the more delicate parts of Canvas’s history; Canvas knows without even needing to ask.

“Other than missing more than half of your new all-time favorite brothers, you’re holding up okay, I hope, Vas?”

By the plaintive and soft nature of the medic’s expression, he knows Riddance still worries about him. Is worrying about him right now, in fact, but he’s trying to keep the fretting to a minimum. Most of what Rid knows and does involves fretting to some capacity, given how he’s chosen to help his brothers in a very taxing, often thankless position. Fools would argue it’s no glorious station to be the one cradling the sick, the dying, the departed with nothing but a song on your lips, shakily sung in states of utter exhaustion or the deepest of ruts of grief.

And Canvas would argue right back that there would be few better suited than brothers like Riddance.

“Other than missing my brothers, yes, and being nervous about getting any sleep tonight, I… I’m holding up as best as I can be.” He pauses, allowing himself to feel how firmly that hand squeezes his shoulder in silent answer. Okay, thank you for your honesty, it tells him. “What about you, Rid? Are you holding up okay?”

There’s a twitch of a surprised expression with the sharp lift of a brow, and his blink-rate quickens. It’s been too long since Rid’s heard someone other than the commander, the captain, and the newly-transferred medic ask him that question in return, and not merely to be polite. “Well, same as you; nervous about getting sleep tonight.” Riddance admits. Assuming for the moment he didn't need to be awake in order to care for someone tonight, he’d be awake regardless, hoping Commander Juke and the rest of their brothers were safeguarded, somehow. Hoping that when those brothers came back, it was in one, big piece.

“You’re not like me, I hope,” Canvas breaks the quiet spell, shrugging off his brother’s arm in order to lift his scopes to the sky unhindered, “where the sleep inducers don’t work for you.”

Riddance affords him as much silence as he can give while Canvas performs his routine sweep of the sky and treeline for avian activity, waiting until the scopes drop to speak with the greatest sympathy. “I wish they did work for you, brother.” Nights like tonight would be when he’d need those most. At least Canvas had the twins for company, and that was of some comfort for the medic.

“Oh well…” Canvas utters under his breath, “But do they work for you?”

“Yeah. Most part.”

There is no expected bitterness, or envy, from the brother sharing his crate with the medic when he speaks again. “Must be - or feel - nice. I mean, I can only assume.” Every attempt to utilize the sleeping inducers, no matter how small the dose, has all ended in the same way for him: returning his last rations, or being too nauseated to think about sleeping. Too wrapped up in a myriad of miserable sensations and symptoms, where even the kindest hand offered by another brother laid on the small of his back is overwhelming, even painful. The feeling of his heart practically bruising itself against his ribcage in its maddened, frenzied race. And the vertigo.

Stars and Maker above, the vertigo could be the worst of it.

Among the many thoughts that swirl the medic’s mind, one returns to him with an aura of hopefulness in the epiphany. “Maybe we’ve just been trying the wrong form.” He’s been giving the oral pill form to Canvas every time, he explains, but there’s other administration methods. Gels have just hit the shelves in nat-born health practices, and autoinjectors have been around for a while, with plenty of well-studied formulas. “Remind me, you’re not uncomfortable with needles, are you?” That’s not what Rid would want to try on Vas first and turn his poor brother into a pincushion, but the nature of them is better understood.

The other shrugs. “Uhhh… I mean I don’t like ‘em. But afraid? I don’t think so.”

That’s promising enough for Riddance. “I’d like to give one of those a try with you, sometime. I’m confident there is something out there that will work for you, brother.”

Canvas, perhaps habitually in spite of the touched smile, politely turns down the offer. “Oh, you- You don’t have to do that for me, Rid… Th-that might be a lot of effort only to find it doesn’t work, and-”

Interrupting his brother before he can say something to the tune of I’m not worth that effort, some sentiment that only serves to put himself down, Riddance cuts in. “I’d feel like a damn lousy medic if I didn’t want to help my brothers, little brushstroke.” His grip on Canvas’s shoulder is firm, but not uncomfortable or painful. The grip-strength is weak enough to pull oneself from without a struggle, without the need for another to free you. From where his hand is draped over Canvas' shoulders, Riddance can glaze over Gunnar's scuff mark with the tips of his fingers, lost in the memory of one brother out of hundreds gone too soon.

They may be soldiers, created with the very intention to carry out orders until their ends, but they would still miss their brothers, dammit. They would still mourn the dead, still pity the survivors they left behind. A thousand Clones have died before him, and thousands more will die in the time following.

This was their inescapable destiny. This was their fate: sealed the moment credits changed hands, and Jango Fett allowed for the replication of his DNA; a sea of sons belonging only to Kamino.

“Don't say it…” Canvas begs him plaintively, salt water burning in the edges of his vision as he warns the three-hundred-and-second legion’s medic not to say another word. “Don't say it, or you will have to pull me from my assignment. Don't say anything about my batchmates.” He doesn't want to hear how they would have been proud of him, or a humorous anecdote from one of Cryfar’s many visits with Riddance, or anything of the sort.

He doesn’t know if he could take it.

“... I acknowledge and respect your boundary, Vas.” Rid promises; though he’s done his best to mask the emotional quaver in his voice, there is still enough evidence to suggest there are emotional investments of his own he’s had to shoulder. “It can wait.”

Good thing that it had.

Some fifteen minutes later, just when Canvas had gotten his nerves about him once again, the treeline was rife with agitated avians. Cawing and scrawing, many are taking to the wing, swooping between branches. As he’s been asked, he calls it the moment the activity becomes atypical.

“Captain, I think this is our warning!”

Many of his brothers, previously either lazing about or nose-deep in Sabbac, spring to their feet with the order coming down hot on the local comms. “Boots on the ground; let’s make this quick, boys!” Canvas made sure to stay out of their way but still be of help, opting to hold the ropes, stakes and hammers for his brothers until they were needed. ARC troopers weave wild-looking knots and drive the stakes deep into the soil with bewildering ease, and it’s hard not to find yourself entranced in the presence of Recon Commandos.

Best of the best, they’re often called. (That’s if you exclude their commando brothers, for a mere moment.)

Canvas can certainly see why. This brother with the double-pauldrons makes the knot-tying look like he’s channeling the Force, throwing and catching and twisting the braided cable quicker than Canvas can keep up. Damn. Kessel is good.

“Rope please, brother!” someone to his left calls around the five minute mark into the organized effort, making a general bid for more material to work with when he finds his current length of rope will be too short for staking. Coming closer, Canvas realizes this is the brother who had called Snapper an ungrateful nerf-herder some time ago. He recognizes Canvas too, the concentrated frown becoming a splitting grin in an instant. “Oh, Canvas! Hey-hey! Good to see you, brother, thank you.”

“Welcome, Ezee. Good to see you too.”

Ezee only needs a glance to see what’s missing, or rather who. “Surprised.” he admits curtly, “Didn’t want to go?” he adds just as curtly. Canvas kind of appreciates that right now. Helps him keep the quiver in his voice to a minimum.

“Captain Law asked me to stay. For… for the bird behavior. Weather clues.”

“Ah. Well if the captain asks… ‘Weather clues’, hm?” Throwing the rope around the tarped crate for good measure to secure the excess cord before it is staked, Ezee tries for keeping his brother talking with a subject change. “Guess that means they didn’t get whatever it was we were using for telling the weather before to work again, if they’re having you use what you know about our bird buddies. What are those birds, anyways?”

“Crows, for the big ones. And wrens, of some kind or another.” He hadn’t identified them down to the trill, just yet, but Canvas knew the agitated flock wasn’t comprised of sparrows or finches, at least. “Between you and me, I don’t know exactly what kind. It’s the best guess, statistically speaking. Most of the birds that size on this planet belong to a greater wren family.” He wants to know, of course, so he hopes when the rain passes it’ll still be light out and the flocks will return, assuming for the moment he’s not tasked with anything else by Captain Law.

“Well, guess we thank the Maker and the birds we’ve got the last of it secured just in time, by the sound of ol’ Kessel.” Ezee says as the first of the rain splatters and plips against their armor.

The difference from drizzle to downpour is mere seconds, about as long as it takes Kessel to call to command that everything has been tarped and tied. It was like the clouds, maybe the very sky itself had suddenly been torn asunder. The water made in the heavens high above was determined to thoroughly soak anything and anyone who was not fortunate enough to find adequate shelter.

Kamino’s salt-soaked sons paid the weather little mind, some even whooping with delight as they went stomping through the forming puddles, determined to make the biggest splash and outperform their brothers. It was General Caelen who was encouraged to stay under the least-leaky weather tarp that had not been used to protect their equipment, less used to rainfall that was often stinging-cold.

“Don't worry about us, General,” Captain Law assured the Jedi, “this feels just like home to a Clone. I'd be more worried about keeping yourself dry, sir.”

They now just had to hope the equipment stayed dry. If it was kept safe from the elements, the Republic may be able to glean valuable information provided the Separatists were foolish enough to leave something important behind when they abandoned their perverted outpost. Those tinheads had turned a small village’s sole house of worship - a holy and indiscriminate place - into a war room and command center. The Force suffered a great wound there, apparently: more than just holy drink had been drunk by the flagstones of the consecrated ground.

When moving the heavy wooden benches out of the way, the Clones discovered that the floor was not made of red marble. It had been stained in blood. Something that turned more than one stomach, affecting the Jedi perhaps worst of all. Nauseated and woozy over the realization, the General had gone from completely upright to nearly doubled-over, hand grasping a fistful of their robes over their stomach.

Had it not been for someone immediately behind the Force-user, able to quickly usher them outside, there’s fears Riddance would have a medical emergency on his hands. (How exactly one would treat the symptoms caused by a disturbance in the Force was unclear; but fainting, that was something that could be treated at least.) Canvas still remembers how visibly shaken the Jedi had looked then; the façade of discipline and steadfastness the Clones had come to know many of the devotees to a religious order for was more than disturbed.

It was broken.

Like the time one of their men succumbed to his wounds the moment Riddance had reached their position, General Caelen openly wept for the dead, for all the Clones to see.

It had been liberating for many of the more stoic brothers who opted to continually bottle their emotions. If their General was not afraid to show such raw, visceral emotion in front of them, then what had they been disciplining themselves so harshly for? The fear of a brother’s judgment? Had it stemmed from the rigidity of their training? It didn’t matter much in the end if the experience proved to be a largely positive influence between Clone and commanding forces.

Hoping to find Carver and Cairn, whom he’d brushed shoulders with a few times trying to help things become properly tarped and covered, Canvas passes by the command tents with intentions of asking the captain if he would be permitted to take an hour by the water. With the twins, he hoped to spend some time doing a little bird-watching, perhaps. Something to occupy his mind. Center himself.

Just anything other than stewing in his misery that he was not there in Commander Juke’s task force. He had to hope that the General could not sense it when he drew near, or at least not comment on it, just for now.

“Well done, young Canvas!” General Caelen calls from under their shelter; it’s congratulatory and praise, unmistakably. “With your help, there’s some hope the tech remains viable.”

“Just doing my duty, General.” comes the humble reply, purely from a place of habit. With a small smile, he adds, “But thank you, sir. Have you seen the twins, by any chance?” He lost track of them while he was talking to Ezee, and they're capable of making themselves scarce with frightening ease.

There’s a nod and a smile in return from General Caelen. “Carver and Cairn are among the gunships, you should find them there.” Canvas offers a grateful nod, but before he leaves, he’s asked to stay for just a moment. There’s something more the General wishes to say, something they’ve been thinking about after Canvas had been permitted to go before Juke’s team departed in order to say goodbye to his brother. “I thought this may be of some interest to you,” the Force-user explains, procuring a datapad from somewhere within the folds of Jedi attire before it is offered to the Clone. “This contains stories, from my time at the Jedi Temple, some of my Master’s teachings on the Force. There’s a… slightly humorous and embarrassing story from when I was a youngling, that I was reminded of. And, perhaps elsewhere within the pages, it will answer more of your questions on the Force.”

There’s a strange chill that overtakes him, holding something so personal, so private, that has nothing to do with the weather. “Oh, General, I… I-I don’t know that I should.” There has to be a culmination of private thoughts within the datapad, at least a small portion of it might be, so would it really be a good idea to read this? What if there’s a story in here that the 302nd Legion’s guiding hand has forgotten about that’s for their eyes only?

He makes a motion to give the datapad back, but his hand is stayed by the child from the star-worshiping world of Little Archossi. “It’s quite fine, young Canvas…” Caelen promises with a reassuring smile, a steadying hand on his cold and rain-spattered shoulder. “I know what’s written. What you’ll find.”

Perhaps, when he finds his friends, they’ll show their own interest. The General promises that the twins are welcome to read it as well, once Canvas locates them, before he’s sent on his way.

Canvas is grateful he does not have to worry about the General’s ponderings on the Force melting away in the rain like a stack of flimsi scraps would, free to read off of the borrowed datapad while he's sat on the water’s edge between the twins at the bottom of the hill.

He’d fetched them from one of the LAAT/i gunships that had been forcibly grounded (and then later gutted of all viable parts), Carver hard at work helping a couple of Shinies in forcing one of the blast shields closed, and Cairn largely observing because of the tendon injury.

The idea was slightly ambitious to be accomplished within the day, but well-meant. If the sap green legion and umber brown battalion could seal up some of the larger fissures in the roof to prevent the rain from getting in, and clean up most of the soot and scorch-marks off the walls, then the Clones could turn this busted larty into a slightly more secure, weather-tight shelter for General Caelen than a drippy old tent. It’d be a shelter from the sun, too, in the absence of cloud cover.

“Oh, my brothers… you don’t have to do this.” The Force-user struggled to say through a voice choked by emotion. But they wanted to. General Caelen thought of the Clones like kin, a family unit forged by and of the heart. The grateful soldiers felt it was a reasonable way to show them thanks, given the projections for how much longer the combined units would be staying here.

Three more weeks.

And then? It was hard to say where the tides of war would pull them, what far-flung, suffering corner of the galaxy they would be traveling to. How many brothers they’d lose, and how many they would have the time to bury. How many more would be left to decay where they fell, left for the scavenger droids to pick over.

What birds they’d see while traveling and doing reconnaissance.

Canvas, currently nose-deep in the datapad, his attention held rapt to a story about General Caelen accidentally falling into a shallow basin in one corner of the Room of a Thousand Fountains - the seven-story greenhouse found in the Jedi Temple filled with plantlife from all over the galaxy - is quietly roused from his reading by the twin on his right.

There’s a tap on his wrist.

“Hey.”

“Hm?” Lowering the datapad, he gives Carver his attention; he directs Canvas’s gaze out into the middle of the body of water, where a long-legged waterfowl can be seen methodically plodding along in a strange, convoluted fashion. The bird is shuffling each foot forward, rather than lifting and stepping back into the water like expected. Tracking fish, maybe - hoping to flush them out of hiding among the reeds and roots?

“What’s that, Vas? Ol’ stilt-legs over there.”

Stiller than stone, the slate-blue and stormy-gray bird has now paused in its hunt. Like it had done so just for the benefit of the middle man sitting on the banks, allowing itself to be identified, named, and discussed. This was a heron, based upon the serpentine structure of the neck and head, undoubtedly, but there was one prized characteristic Canvas hoped to see at the end of these scaly, yellow legs.

“I hope it’s a firefoot heron. That’d be a treat.”

“Wait, don’t tell me,” begins Cairn on his left, “they’d be called that for having orange, maybe red feet. Am I right?”

Picking up someone’s scopes, Canvas directs his attention to the heron’s spearing head. “Uh-huh… I think that's a female, given the blue crest feathers. Males have black crests.” He just wants to see her lift a foot out of the water in order to display the coloration of the foot and its four long, thin toes. Even if it’s only partial, a glimpse will afford a wealth of knowledge, and it would be another bird to add to his blooming life-list. If in the end it turns out she’s nothing more than another slaty-backed heron, his complete count of all birds he’s successfully identified will remain the same, but at least something good will have come out of the day.

“If she’s a slaty-back, hopefully she has some good luck for us under all her feathers. Old fisherman's tales here say they bring good luck if it’s raining.”

“Maker knows our brothers need good luck.” Carver says of the task force, heart hanging heavy in his rib cage knowing the risks of this operation. A little bird-based symbolism or superstitious thought, whether that came from the Holonet or the locals, that claimed any birds were lucky was welcome compared to the creeping tendrils of fear that burrowed in their hearts.

Though now he wondered if the she-heron were not a slaty-back, what it was supposed to mean to see a firefoot heron. Would it mean something good, maybe even better than the rather generic concept of good luck?

When at last a foot slowly draws out of the water to quickly deal with a troublesome patch of feathers on the heron’s throat, the brothers are delighted to see that flash of orange before the bird takes to her wings, threading into the treeline for dry shelter.

Cairn whoops triumphantly. “A firefoot!”

Playfully thumping Canvas square in the middle of his back while his twin carries on in celebratory fashion, Carver congratulates Canvas for having another bird to add to his list of sightings in his own way. It does not escape his notice that Canvas had begun to partially turn himself at the waist in order to look for Scruffy, like he always had upon seeing a new bird, before stopping himself, remembering that their brother is not here.

He faces the rippling lake, crestfallen, just for the moment.

“I know, Vas...” Carver offers in a sympathetic mumble, laying his hand on his brother’s opposite shoulder.

When next he tries to fit his hand best as he’s able under the shoulder-bell, he can feel the partial dampness of the armorweave. They have been out in the drizzle for quite a while now, a cold one at that; so long as his brother’s body felt warm underneath it all, they wouldn’t have to find shelter. Riddance and Wylie had drilled it into all of them since first landing on this wet rock of a moon to continually check the brothers around you if the rainstorms lasted more than an hour. You can tell yourself you’re plenty warm still all you like, but a brother is harder to lie to.

“Good, you’re still pretty warm...” Carver finds to his relief. Canvas checks Cairn next, working down the line, and he’s pretty well-regulated as well. When Cairn closes the circuit by checking his twin, he frowns however. You could be warmer, it tells the other.

Offering a second opinion, Carver allows Canvas to remove a portion of the vambrace to get to a dry portion of the body glove. The result is the same: not cold, but could be warmer. He's probably stayed too still while out in the rain.

“We should go back.” Canvas decides, steadily gathering up a few of the items around the three of them. A slight tremor overtakes his hands when he picks up the General’s datapad, some expression of confusion flashing over him after glancing down at the screen upon its awakening. “That’s… not where I left off.”

He’d been reading the recollection of General Caelen falling into a water basin in the Room of a Thousand Fountains as a youngling, stubbornly trudging through the greenhouse sopping wet, refusing all attempts from the creche-masters and other, kind Jedi to get them dry clothing. The amusement, but also the shame that they’d been so difficult a prevalent undertone to the story. ‘How lucky was I that we Jedi are practitioners of patience, even in the face of headstrong children.’ had been the last sentence Canvas had read of the story before Carver asked him what the heron was.

Now the screen was opened to another segment of the Force-user’s ‘field journal’, this one full of the Knight’s quiet musings and half-formed poetry in relation to the Force, or their time at the Jedi Temple, or their time thus far in the war. The tonal quality of each fragmented passage shifts often, and jarringly. The passage that catches his eye and gives him pause is unfinished, but it’s a rare mention of the late Jedi Master who taught Caelen, by name, instead of the typical verbiage that’s been used throughout their written thought.

I seem to recall one particular thought Master Kalsamm taught me nearly every day, without fail. About the Force, it should be no surprise. ‘It weaves through every living thing. Belongs to every living thing. Found in every heart.’ I see proof of this everywhere. I see it in the strength and resiliency shown by ARC trooper Kessel, in the Jaig eyes - an icon taken from the culture of Mandalore - he wears with humility over his heart. In their camaraderie, I see the Force’s harmony in brothers like Scruffy and Canvas. Our legion’s ‘twins’ Cairn and Carver, when they work in flawless tandem. The 417th Battalion’s commander, Juke, too. Oh how the Force seems to bleed off of

The passage ends rather abruptly, to his disappointment, but Canvas supposes he’s read enough for the time being. The next passage has been completed, but it’s fraught with despair and horror. It’s dated well before the prior passage, written after a visit to Big Stormy.

I had questions for my teacher that he thought would best be answered by Master Shaak Ti regarding the Clones, before I was to be knighted and take command of my own forces. I wish I could say her council brought me the comfort I needed for all of my concerns. Kamino… it’s a sterile world; but so much pain has bled into the fabric of the Force, here.

He reaches to turn it off, but Cairn asks him to hold off on doing that, reading off the screen along with him.

“Hey wait-”

“Take it. I don’t wanna think about Kamino right now.” Canvas plants the datapad in his brother’s hands, trading it for the helmet full of worry stones inside to carry instead. If Cairn wants to read about the Jedi’s visit to their mother-world, he was more than welcome to. Quite honestly, he’d rather not find out why the serene Togruta’s words failed to provide their combined unit leader with enough comfort for their worries, or what else they had discovered within the halls of the stilted, oceanic city of Tipoca.

Would Caelen have stumbled upon the hollow shells of the retraining pods in some cordoned-off, disused sector? Would they have sensed the loneliness, the anger, the grief soaked into every thin linen and wall-seam in such a horrible place? The Jedi had put an end to such a practice before General Caelen had pledged their kyber-blade to the service of the Republic, but the evidence was still there in those stark, blinding white halls.

Divergent behavior was punished, and genetic defection was cleansed. Culled. There was no coating sweet enough in all the galaxy to make such a harrowing reality a palatable work of fiction.

Especially not to a brother who, in all reality, should not exist.

Were it not for Faro and Gunnar spending every waking hour sheltering Canvas from the star-streaked eyes of the watchful Kaminoans and the hateful tongue of trainers like Jaccynn, he is certain he would not have lived to see Tipoca City breathe a sigh of relief with the arrival of Shaak Ti, sent all the way from Coruscant as the representative of the Jedi Council.

And now here, in the arms of the greater galaxy away from Kamino, brothers like Scruffy, and the twins, and the captain, deal with these defections without the dark threat of disposal.

You’re our brother. You’re far too loved to treat you like the long-necks would. And we wish you wouldn’t treat yourself the same way the Kaminoans treated us.

When the rain has let up and the clouds begin to part, the rays of the late-day sun gratefully washing over each and every Clone and their Jedi, Canvas finds himself being asked to speak to Kessel by Captain Law.

Lowering the binocs in his hands, he peels his attention away from the foraging flock of wrens - the same sort as before that he’s identified as speckling wrens - and considers why Kessel might have passed along the message through the captain rather than coming to Canvas directly about wanting to talk.

“Does he… want to talk now?”

Law, shaking his head, reassures that there is no urgency to the request. “Not right away. Just, eventually. Kessel’s not in any rush.”

“Did he say why?” Kessel can be pretty reserved (from Canvas’s point of view) but has had no trouble socializing with the brothers of his legion and the assisting battalion before or since completing his ARC trooper training on Kamino. He's not tight-lipped like Nockite. So going through Captain Law just to ask to speak to somebody breeds lots of curiosity.

“Why not come to me himself?”

While considering how to answer, Law looks over at twins sitting cross-legged just a few feet away with Riddance. Partly precaution and partly medical care, Rid has been helping Cairn through the tendon injury with physical therapy exercises: coaxing, coaching and encouraging him as everything heals. Carver, in solidarity with his surviving batchmate, participates in the PhysEd as well.

Right now both of them are testing their grip-strength, something often done before Riddance typically moves on to testing Cairn’s range of motion.

“I imagine Kessel was trying to be mindful of how things have been today. Lessen the amount of anxiety for you.” Captain Law speculates, adding that he can't say with any certainty if these brothers have spoken much beyond exchanging a few civil pleasantries, either, but that’s more of an aside to himself than to Canvas. “He’ll let you know exactly why he asked for you, if you simply ask.”

“Afraid it had the opposite effect, Captain…” he admits a little bluntly, speaking on the matter of his anxiety. “But I understand the intentions were good. I’ll, uh… I’ll eventually go see him.” Canvas promises the captain, who smiles appreciatively in light of his brother’s honesty.

He’ll wait until the twins have finished the physio with Riddance before he goes to see what Kessel wants, he decides. He just wants to make sure Cairn’s recovering okay, or at least without much issue. Health becomes different, once they reach maturity. Too clearly, Canvas still recalls the decade-worth of accelerated growth, the stretch marks that decorated his skin in angry ribbons and lightning forks; the first of the lasting marks of a speedy childhood.

Who’s he kidding?

There was no childhood for a Clone. Their testing, the simulations, and rigorous training all leeched into what little recreation they had. And all the while, their bones burned with the fires of unrelenting growing pains; fire they would simply have to swallow down with the nutrient-dense mush at every measured mealtime. “Childhood” ended once you left the bustling nurseries and egg labs, once you were old enough to remember your designation code.

You’re CT-××××; and you’re a good soldier.

You had to be, otherwise it was only your blurred reflection in the walls of an isolation tank for company while you were retrained, reconditioned for unwavering obedience. You had to be, or the long-necks would termina-

Abruptly, he finds his eyes stinging with salt, and Riddance’s hands on each of his shoulders. Canvas assumed he had just zoned out, but he must have started to panic while doing so, thinking about Kamino. Was he crying? What happened?

“Vas? Hey, hey now brother, what’s going on?”

More than a little confused, Canvas shrugs his shoulders under the medic’s hands. “I’m… I’m honestly not sure, Rid. I just kinda started thinking about Kamino, and-” Pausing, he briskly tries to brush away some of the budding tears in his vision, gulping down a breath. “I-I-I’m really not sure I… Maker-”

“Okay; easy, easy…” Rid advises him, digging through the leftmost compartment of Canvas's utility belt for the worry stone he’s partial to. “You need more time to settle down before we even think about parsing out what happened.” Riddance offers the worry stone to his brother, but it isn’t immediately taken or pushed away. Together with Canvas, the medic goes through one of the deescalation breathing exercises, the whittled wood sitting in the palm of his hand all the while.

“Good. You’re doing good, brother.” Rid soothes, deliberately acting oblivious to the few brothers around them slowly drawing nearer, something Canvas is struggling to do too. “Hey, they’ll back the fuck off if you need them too, okay? I’ll get Wylie if you ask nicely enough.” Riddance raises his voice just loudly enough to be noted by the nearest brothers, and to hopefully draw the attention of their captain, too.

Canvas laughs best he can. “But Wylie’s still sick.” It’s a veiled but mostly joking threat, almost certainly.

“Yeah, poor bastard,” Riddance tuts sympathetically, “But you know he doesn’t play around with affording brothers their personal space.”

“Would hate to see just how short his temper is when he’s sick…” Captain Law murmurs off to the side once he’s come to inspect the situation for himself, ushering for the curious brothers to take a few steps back. Breathing room, please. Brothers of the 302nd and Commander Juke’s battalion wisely listen and do as suggested, giving the medic space to help a panic-stricken brother.

A panic-stricken brother who now thinks he can explain when Cairn asks him what might’ve happened. He and his twin squeeze themselves on either side where Canvas sits, lacing their arms across his back for support and comfort. It’s what Scruffy would have done, if he were here rather than on the task force.

“I… made the mistake of thinking about Kamino.” Canvas explains with a slight halt in his voice. This is when he takes the worry stone from the palm of Rid’s hand, running his thumb in the indentation for the reprieve it brings from those anxious, racing thoughts. “I was planning on waiting until Cairn was done with the field physio before seeing Kessel - hoping his injury wouldn’t heal too differently now that we’re grown - and I… shit. I shouldn’t have been thinking about how the Kaminoans used to treat us… shit, I feel sick.”

“Bye. Sorry, Vas.” Carver offers before hurriedly departing; he’s got the unfortunate trait of being a sympathetic vomiter among the legion's brothers, something that’s followed him ever since he was a squishy-faced trainee. He’ll be of no help to Canvas if he’s also sick to his stomach, but at least he can fetch the Jedi.

Gulping back an anti-nausea tablet with a mouthful of canteen water, Canvas takes deep, measured breaths. It had always been for very good reason when Faro coached him not to think of their creators on a rain-soaked world out in the Wild Space region of the galaxy.

The Kaminoans terrified Canvas, so bidding his batchmate to think of his brothers instead was Faro’s way of redirecting the fear.

When we’re sent off, protecting the galaxy, I want you to remember who you’re loyal to. The Republic. Our brothers. And Kamino: because that’s where our brothers come from. Damn the Kaminoans, they don’t deserve your love and your loyalty just because they think we belong to them! We’ll belong to nobody but our own when this war is over.

When their noble cause comes to an end… he’d always imagined in foolish optimism that his batchmates would be there with him. But now Faro, Gunnar, Cryfar, Fluke are… What was that Mandalorian phrase again? ‘Merely marching far away.’ or, something.

At least he has his other brothers. He’s not alone.

He never will be.

He has General Caelen, who dipping from a seemingly endless well of compassion sacrificed their own individualized rations for his sake as a struggling shiny. Food that was scarcely better than his own at the end of the day made a difference over time; keeping him fed, and importantly, alive. General Caelen has spent many hours in Canvas's company, willing to learn and observe the plethora of avian life around them. (And however serious or jokingly, Caelen says that they much prefer this exercise in patience than any they underwent at the Jedi Temple.) They’ve been so patient and compassionate with him, these last few months.

He can count on the friendship of Carver and Cairn; they’ve always had his back. In late hours of the night, finding himself unable to sleep, they’ve invited Canvas to join in their little batchmate games. Recently he learned they both love the color purple, but different shades of it. Carver loves the richness and bold body of dioxazine; Cairn finds lavender visually soothing, but the proper plant’s aroma gives him a slight headache. (And Cypher finds that funny.)

He’s especially grateful for their company today.

And Riddance… Well like the Jedi, Rid has compassion in spades. It makes him an excellent medic. It makes it easy for anxiety-wracked brothers and civilians alike to comply with his instructions; the sick and the injured always feel so comforted in his presence.

“Antiemesis helping?”

“Yeah… thank you.”

“You’re always welcome, Vas. Your anxiety seems to be coming down, too.” Rid fluffs out the dark curls at the nape of his neck to further soothe, sending a slight, involuntary shiver down Canvas’s spine. “Which is good - sorry ‘bout that - because that means I don't have to sedate you.”

Scoffing, Cairn asks what Rid would need to do that for.

“Oh that was… that was just a joke. Thought it might make him laugh.” Rid admits with a sheepish laugh just as Carver returns with General Caelen. “I don't actually need to sedate Vas. That'd be irresponsible if he didn't genuinely need it.” Irresponsible, and a waste of precious GAR medicine.

Wylie would be on his fellow medic’s ass for using resources so flippantly.

Finding Canvas in better shape than expected, both express their relief that he's improved in so short a time. General Caelen is first while Carver rejoins friend and twin where they’re sitting, something soft-spoken and apologetic. “I am sorry if my entry about visiting Kamino before I was knighted played any part in this spell of anxiety, young Canvas… I do understand there are complicated feelings shared by many of your brothers.”

“Entry? What ent-?” The brows pinching in confusion quickly pull apart when Riddance realizes what the Jedi must mean, and bravely, he gives the Force-user the most displeased face Canvas and the twins have ever seen from him thus far. “General, you should have warned him about that one.”

“I didn’t read it beyond a few sentences.” Canvas promises Rid, hoping to quell the lecture likely building on his tongue. “I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea today.” Not with Scruffy gone. And there was a chance it may not be a good idea, ever, to read General Caelen’s account of the meeting with General Ti, and her council, and the whole… fabric of the Force thing. Not for him. Not with his anxiety so many brothers have had to hide from long-neck and bounty hunter alike before the Jedi and their overarching compassion acted as an inoculation against so much mistreatment and abuse.

“That was wise, Canvas.” General Caelen says in partial praise, in great relief. “Did either of you read it?” they add to the twins, sharing a passing glance with the sap green captain.

Cairn admits he got part of the way through the entry, but he didn’t finish it. “No sir. I, uh, got too distracted by the big flocks of speckling wrens returning when the rain stopped to give a kriff about finishing it at the time. And Carver was too busy getting warm.” He's still got the datapad with the rest of his things, so he can return it now.

It'd probably be for the best.

“Agreed.” says Captain Law, taking a look at the time on his chronometer. “Just so it isn't forgotten later. It’s nearly time for chow, and I’m sure we’re all starved.”

“Think that’s just you, Captain. You skipped lunch.” comes a voice from behind the wall of brothers that have spent the last few minutes watching the medic’s every movement in treating Canvas. These watchful and concerned brothers painted in green and brown step out of the way, parting the sea in a whisper of awe. Kessel, with his helmet clipped to his belt, pays the star-struck expressions little more than darting glances as he approaches at the captain’s bidding. Many of the brothers' eyes are largely drawn to the curling angles of the icon painted over the ARC trooper’s heart, the shriek-hawk of Mandalore.

Captain Law doesn’t deny missing a meal, instead he chuckles, impressed. “You ARCs with your sharp eyesight and wit… Something you need, Kessel?”

“Came to give this to Canvas, sir.” the ARC explains, extending his right hand out to Canvas with a folded slip of flimsiplast between forefinger and thumb. “Here, brother.”

He reaches to take the flimsi from Kessel, ensuring he has it before the ARC lets go, otherwise it’ll fall into the mud, and dissolve away before it has the chance to be read. Canvas is ready to thank him, but the icon at eye level is distracting.

Jaig eyes are a combat honor, a mark to set them apart for outstanding bravery. Kessel has never divulged what he’s done to earn the eyes of a fearsome, predatory bird; one likely slated to extinction long before the creation of the Clone army.

Peerless hunters, they were often called. Dive-hunters who descended from above, talons outstretched, wings folded back as they closed in on their prey. Speculated by some to have keen eyesight suited for low-light conditions, as it’s been told their piercing cry was one of the most haunting sounds you can hear under the glow of a pewter moonlit night on Mandalore, long ago.

They were deadliest when defending a nest. Something Canvas has seen in the brutal manner Kessel has demolished droids that have managed to pick off their brothers, the force of which was something to behold.

Before it’ll be forgotten, or dropped, Canvas quickly reads the crimped flimsi scrap, and finds a simple request to come find him before the task force returns, not later today, but the next day instead. ‘Sorry to add to the anxiety. We’ll talk about everything I want to show you tomorrow instead. I think there’s been enough high emotions for one day, brother.’ Kessel ends the request in thin letters, written in a hurry.

Canvas gives the scrap back to the ARC trooper with a shaky smile and a choked laugh, “I can agree… B-but it’s okay, Ke-Kessel.” He feels the twins’ arms encircled across his back plate dropping away as he braces his feet in the soft mud in order to stand. Sitting is making him feel small, compared to an indomitable brother like one of the 302nd’s ARC troopers, even though they stand the same 1.83 meters tall. “Not your fault my brain just… kinda seems to h-hate me, sometimes.”

It’s the kindest way he thinks he can put it presently, without disparaging himself in front of General Caelen or the captain. Or Riddance, who trades a few expressions with Kessel before the reminder comes.

“It’s not your fault, either.” Rid begins, once more reaching around the back of the other's neck to perform that soothing gesture. This time there is no shiver or responsive twitch when he performs this comforting act of service, just stillness and acceptance. “Every brother gets anxious at one time or another; comes with the territory of being sentient. It takes time to find what helps each of our brothers work through it.

“We just need extra time for you, yeah?”

Brothers all around him playfully scold Riddance for renewing Canvas’s tears, even if these are the tears of a grateful sibling, so touched that they show him so much patience, so much understanding. It’s more than he feels he’s deserving of on days where things feel bleakest, and he believes he’ll never taste the bittersweet end of this war. His voice is too choked by both his tears and his emotional state to offer any kind of utterance of this overflowing gratitude, though he tries several times while he weeps into the medic’s arms.

General Caelen’s hand finds his shoulder amidst the tangle of comfort Canvas’s brothers weave around him. “They know of your gratitude, Canvas… You can trust your brothers to know it runs deeper than words could ever tell. It's okay. Allow yourself to be. There are no judgments here.” The encouragement of the Jedi, voice full of promise and assurance, is further comfort to the young soldier now that he's freed from the compulsion to force his voice, just to tell his brothers what they already know.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. A thousand times over, thank you.

[FFF Masterlist] [Clone OC Masterlist] [B&B Part 1] [B&B Part 3]

#frostfics #Brothers & Batchmates #star wars #swtcw #sw tcw #tcw #star wars headcanons #clone oc: canvas #clone oc: cairn #clone oc: carver #clone oc: medic riddance #clone oc: captain law #clone oc: arc kessel #jedi oc: caelen #fictional birds

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