#and you very reasonably pass out on account of the being strangled

[jellydragons]

tetra is having a Day

[horuslupercal]

got asked on the Guilliman post so

How Primarchs Cry (To Me)

Lion: represses and represses and represses and then hides away in a closet squished into the corner like a cat on its deathbed but otherwise cries pretty normally. do not point it out to him. gets defensive if you point it out

Fulgrim: gets headaches from crying so hard. keeps a handkerchief nearby because his face gets all gross. at some point in every hardcore crying session he verbally says, "enough." because it annoys him

Perturabo: trying everything in his power to give off the vibe that he never cries. takes every breath very carefully to make sure it's silent, confidently strides off away from this shit (hides away), etc

Khan: is fine, is fine, is fine, and then he's laying in bed and suddenly has to bolt upright to cry into his hands because holy shit that's sure a wave of emotion. it's okay, it'll pass, but hooooly shit at this exact moment it hurts. doesn't want to be seen but it's not the worst thing in the world if he is

Russ: crawls under Freki and Geri like when they were pups and cries for a good while. at some point he rolls over and runs his hand over his face and then grabs one of his brothers around the neck for a wrestle session and he's either fine or he's fine enough to keep on keeping on

Dorn: goes to a private room, does the "I am in control of my emotions" like Spock in that one TOS episode, and then spins around and puts his fist through the wall. opens the door with a hole in the wall and his hair no longer perfectly coiffed and his face blotchy and red and tells you he wasn't crying

Konrad: either silently weeping or wailing like a banshee. never in between. he doesn't choose which.

Sanguinius: the only primarch who can pretty cry but only up to a certain level. at some point he starts screaming and wailing like a fox caught in a bear trap and doubling over in pain and his hair gets all stuck to his face

Ferrus: throws tantrums. doesn't collapse to the floor like a toddler but does start breaking things. makes fun of the reason for his upset -- the mid-funeral roast session in some au where Fulgrim dies pre-heresy would get him cancelled on twitter because it's the only way he can deal with something that shattering. I'm pretty sure I got that headcanon from @luwupercal actually

Angron: cries for all sorts of reasons. sometimes the nails make him cry, not because they hurt or because he hates them but just because they're directly fucking with his brain chemistry. that's the kind of passive cry where he's crying but it's not an event, it's just his tear ducts doing their thing. used to seek out comfort from his siblings in the pit when he was crying from emotion, now he flips tables and screams

Guilliman: an asthmatic pug caught in a plastic ring. gasping for air, sounds like he's being strangled, the works. sounds like he's dying

Mortarion: also sounds asthmatic, on account of the asthma. his tear ducts don't work right so he doesn't really "cry" so much as hyperventilate and occasionally dry heave

Magnus: the crying is what it is, the psychic crying is the real event. his aura gets real sticky and slow and sad, like syrup, and has a tendency to kind of. contaminate other people with his grief unless he specifically stops it from doing that. I feel like he cries when he's mad, too

Horus: sits down and covers his mouth with his hand and puts his elbow on his knee and cries like that. for some reason I feel like it's especially weird for the luna wolves to see him cry -- it's always weird to see your parent cry, but it's extra weird for them and I'm not sure why. horus sitting on a couch crying with his head in his hands and two luna wolves sending panicked looks at each other 👍

Lorgar: compresses/hugs himself so hard he can't breathe, digs his nails into his skin, etc. we saw in the first heretic that he makes himself physically uncomfortable about grief and that's really stuck with me tbh. doesn't really.... know how to cry without also being in physical pain about it

Vulkan: bows his head and weeps, standing right where he is. weirdly bad at being okay with his own grief specifically -- he'll comfort a brother without issue, but his own makes him feel on edge and sedentary and he needs to move and do something and not stand here being sad, he needs to take action, he can't let it be sticky and slow

Corvus: repression king. he can't cry right now he's too BUSY. fuck this shit. and then there's a trigger and he shatters like a popsicle bridge with too much weight on it. the year of isolation before his departure definitely involved a blanket burrito

Alpharius Omegon: how do they need to cry for this scenario?

[fourtccn]

so, since dracula is getting popular again, i’d like to tell y’all one of the most interesting (and gruesome) real events that occurred in history. this is one of the stories said to actually have inspired bram stoker into writing dracula, as he supposedly kept a newspaper clipping of it. this gruesome story is the story of mercy brown, also known as the last american vampire.

so in the late 1800s, little was known about tuberculosis, despite it having been around for thousands of years. at the time, the disease was referred to as “consumption” because of the way it consumes the body. according to the cdc, from the 1600-1800s, tuberculosis caused 25% of all deaths in europe and america. this is important to the story.

in 1884 in exeter, rhode island, mercy brown’s mother passes away due to consumption. soon to follow is her 20-year-old sister, mary olive. mercy would have been 11 at the time. some records claim that the passing of her mother and older sister made mercy the eldest daughter, forcing her to become the woman of the household at a young age.

unfortunately, in 1891, both mercy and her brother edwin come down with consumption themselves. in 1892, at 19 years old, mercy dies. edwin, however, is sent off into the world by his father, hoping to be cured simply by getting some fresh air (this was common practice, as you will notice in the dracula novel itself). a few months later, edwin returns home, even sicker than before despite him showing some progress while out in the world.

this is when several family friends start suggesting that one of their family members that had died was actually a vampire. you see, common folklore at the time often suggested that multiple deaths in a single family was linked to “undead activity.” so what exactly does that entail? well, they believed that one of the three dead family members was preying on edwin, feeding off his energy so they could stay alive themselves and therefore making him ill.

with permission from the father of the brown household, the townsfolk decide to exhume the three bodies—the mother, mary olive, and mercy. the mother and mary olive, having been dead for almost a decade, displayed the normal amount of decomposition. however, mercy, who had been dead for two months, had not decomposed at all, and even had blood still pumping in her heart and a flush on her face.

this is where the accounts of the story get the most blurry. many claim that the reason mercy was in perfect condition is because she was stored in a crypt until she could be officially buried, as she died in the winter when they couldn’t dig up the ground for a proper burial. with the conditions of the crypt and the frozen weather, her body was most likely frozen for those two months. other stories don’t mention this (pretty huge) aspect at all, instead just mentioning that the town doctor said her stage of decomposition was normal for how short a period she had been dead, but he was ignored.

here comes the very gruesome part! after this happened, many accounts claim edwin started reporting visions of his sister mercy sitting on his chest at night and strangling him. so, as was tradition in these cases, the townsfolk took mercy’s body, took out her heart and her liver, and burned them. the ashes were mixed with water to create a tonic for edwin to drink. this was expected to be the cure for his sickness, as mercy could no longer haunt him due to officially being dead. as you probably expected, though, edwin died soon after from consumption.

mercy’s remains have since been buried and properly marked.

[psychoqomp]

coward montblanc

Suitcase open.

Take out the parts. Check one last time that everything’s in working order so there’s no jamming, clean every part with a rag, he has time.

Assemble the rifle. 

Open up the thermos and take a long, long sip of coffee. Let out an exhale and watch the breath waft into the air in a cloud of warmth into the chill autumn air. . .

And then lay down and take aim to the field a block away, scope trained on a single man sitting on the bleachers of the soccer field. He only has one guard with him, and the audience besides them is sparse;

it’s just an elementary grade football game, after all.

About thirty minutes pass in silence, with Eagle occasionally lifting the thermos to his lips to sip. It’ll stay warm for another hour before it gets too cool for his liking.

“Soooooo,”

the grating voice in his earpiece speaks up, causing him to cringe mid-sip. He doesn’t couch, but he feels the scalding heat run up his nose for just a bit before he regains control of his faculties.

“You gonna kill him this year or should I schedule the assassination for the next year, buddy?”

There’s no answer from his end for about five minutes, at which point Silk starts to whine in an annoying manner right into his ear. His focus doesn’t sway, but the constant noise is distracting enough that he finally chooses to grumble an answer, shifting on his hip so that the pressure from laying down applies elsewhere for a bit.

“Don’t want to shoot him while he’s watching his daughter’s footie game.”

Simple, really.

“Woooow. So, what? Did you just come here to watch the game too? Christ, Eagle, you’re a real fruitcake.”

He can hear the way Silk leans back in his chair and throws his feet onto the table without actually hearing it, and he’s amused for the briefest of moments- mostly at the thought of pissing his employer off. All the while he digs out his own phone and sets it down on a small stand next to his rifle, turning it on.

He’s got another reason why he’s taking his time with this.

. . . As far as his family knows, he’s currently in Ethiopia, overseeing a project for the company he works for as a security consultant. In truth, he’s “merely” at the other end of the country, and he promised he’d watch his daughter’s oboe recital through a stream. It just happened to coincide with this job.

Of course, he has to take precautions-

“Sorry, I can’t have a face cam or anything. It’s so late here and I look like a mess, haha.”

“Sorry dear, I can’t really talk during it. We’re in this barracks- plenty of people together and all that. Wouldn’t want to disrupt everyone else’s sleep.”

“I’ll try and write some comments, but I can’t promise anything.”

Little white lies like this are what keep a relationship afloat, of course. And he took his precautions- He actually did visit Ethiopia for a job like this a few years ago, and he still has footage he hasn’t shown or used for anything. He’s been sending that to her when she asks for pictures.

Does he feel bad about lying to her?

Does he feel bad about lying to the kids?

The scalding hot taste of the truth disappears down his gullet as his attention swaps between the scope and the stream now and then, quietly watching both. The game will last longer than the stream will.

“Seriously, why’s he still alive?”

Or he would be listening if not for the annoying voice again. Eagle squeezes his eyes shut to rest them for a bit.

“Do you want an honest answer, Silk?”

“Waoooo-”

oh, he wants to fucking strangle him.

“you’re implying you’d give me a false answer if I said no. You’d lie to me? Your number 1 guy? The guy of your dreams? Eybor, you’re gonna make me cryyyyyyyywaahhwahwahwah- duh. Tell me. I’m your /employer/, Eagle. I should know why the target isn’t dead already when you’ve had the shot for the last half an hour.”

Ah, he’s mad now. He's very glad. He likes making him mad. Not like Silk can do anything to him from here.

He shifts the scope and watches a child kick the ball about. Game’s been boring, on account of it being played by a bunch of 9 year olds that have no relation to him. The scope shifts back to watch the target.

“Don’t want to traumatize a whole field of kids, obviously. Besides. . . He’s with one guard. He’ll get into his car once the match is over, and then I’ll just shoot him while he’s in the car. That way, his kid will remember him by something good.”

The silence is deafening as he finishes his coffee in his thermos, watching his daughter’s recital in peace and quiet until it ends fifteen minutes later. She did take breaks between, of course, but still.

“Wooooooow. You’re such a loser, Eagle.”

Silk does not elaborate, and Eagle does not ask for clarification. He’s learned that Silk is best left alone. Only talk to him when the job absolutely demands it, and he’ll get bored and swap lines to bully someone else.

(little does he know, Silk’s occupied flirting with a new hire anyway.)

. . . 

If he died out here, how would it get explained to his wife and children?

They think he’s in Ethiopia, and he went through multiple measures to try and ensure that the world also thought the same. Would they just declare Eybor a missing person and move on? 

That’s one of the many parts of this life that he hates, watching the match come to an end as he loads a bullet into the sniper rifle, breath slowing down. He watches the man hug his child and pat them on the back- they lost, but that’s fine, they’ll get ice cream later- and then he starts to head for the parking lot with his bodyguard.

He’s the CEO of a mid level company that a much larger competitor wants to take over. Hostile means are encouraged, as seen by this job. Pay is high with little risk. Most people just don’t want the job due to the nature of it;

boring. 

His thermos is empty, the stream has ended, and he has typed no comments as Eagle trains his eye on the slowly moving car, catching it in the red lights. The angle he has is perfect, passenger’s side in view- wind is calm, no obstacles, and-

bang.

Load.

Bang.

. . .

That’ll do. He took the driver out too to be safe, just in case he’d happen to look the way the shot came. The rest of the crowd’s in a panic already, and shooting the driver just as the lights turned green means that he’s caused quite the traffic jam. Time to take out his second, disposable phone and take a picture. Zoom in as close as you can, and there.

He’ll just text that to Silk later. A low whistle leaves him in a broken tune as he disassembles the riffle, stores it in his suitcase, places the thermos into his coat’s pocket and makes sure he’s leaving behind no evidence of his presence, including meticulously sweeping some of the leaves on the roof around with his foot around where he was lying before.

That should do it.

Down the fire ladder before the police get here and down the streets. With the job done, he has about three days of “vacation time” before he can turn up back home.

. . . He almost calls his daughter to tell them about how proud he is of their performance, but he realizes that’d break the veil. Why would he call while sleeping in some barracks in Ethiopia? He’d have to wait for at least five more hours before he could make the call, and he’d have to fake being awake and in a crowded environment for it to sound believable.

Blue and red lights flash past him as he walks down the street, suitcase in one hand and phone in the other, frowning as he sighs and just texts a quick “loved it. good night” to his wife instead.

He does this all for them, he tells himself.

The paycheck for this job will be amazingly thick. He can take at least a month off of work and attend as many practices and recitals as he wants, and he can take his wife out for a fancy dinner.

So why’s this somehow feel worse than two timing them?

Somewhere, a child is sitting at the bleachers of a slowly emptying football field with their friends, wondering what kind of ice cream they’ll have with their father. 

[potentialsandwhich]

Part 3 to “fucking the enemy” when the team actually sees her sleeping but naked then obviously understanding what happened, and her trying to explain herself. If you want to ofc

I gotchu, hopefully this is what you wanted.

Also, Tumblr is really shadowbanning me. My posts and account are not showing up under any of the tags :(

Are there such things as crack fics? Because if so, this is a crack fic.

Warning/s: References to sex, but nothing explicit

Previous Parts: [Prequel],[ Fucking The Enemy] <-Both of These ARE 18+

This is PART 2

---

Natasha messed up.

"OhHhHh, please tell me you are seeing this."

She messed up big.

"Tony, stop." Reprimanded Steve from his place beside the brunette.

Pulling up the sheets draped across her front, Natasha shrank into the mattress beneath her, hoping to disappear as her team mates all stared into her soul, something she would've normally never done if not for the incriminating circumstances of her current situation.

"Stop? Oh, come on! This is gold, Rogers, no, better than gold." Tony chuckled with excited eyes.

There came a sigh from the Avengers' Captain. Looking extremely tired, Steve turned his weary attention away from Tony and onto the Russian still naked on the hotel bed.

"Natash-"

"I can explain!" The assassin blurted out before Steve could finish, hands reaching out defensively, almost causing the sheets around her chest to fall down.

A wicked grin spread across Tony's face, "Yeah? This should be good."

Shooting the billionaire a pointed glare to stay quiet, Steve nodded at Natasha to continue.

The full attention of her team back onto her, the Russian cleared her throat nervously, "Well-you see-it started when you gave me the file on a new top priority-"

"Damn, that long ago? You've been secretly sleeping with our number one enemy behind our backs for that long?!" Tony interrupted. Wanda used her magic to slap Tony across the back of his head.

"No! I just meant that's where the story starts. I didn't-" Natasha turned to meet Steve's glance, "I didn't sleep with her then." She clarified.

Steve slowly nodded in acknowledgement.

"My relationship with her was strictly professional in the beginning. She was the target, and I was meant to bring her in, and I knew that, and that's what I did for a year. Back and forth, and back and forth, I would gather intel and go after her, following every new trail and evidence I could find, always just on her heels, or so I thought, but it soon became clear that she was purposefully lead me on goose chases all around the globe, seemingly toying with me for fun."

"I prefer a different type of foreplay, but to each their own, I guess." Tony snickered under his breath.

"And I don't know where things change. I never meant to sleep with her, it just sort of happened."

Tony nodded, "I too have accidentally found myself in someone else's bed before." A dream like look passed over his face, "Ahh, Delilah."

Bruce's face scrunched up into a blend of mild disgust and uncomfortableness.

"I swear I didn't, but the first time that we-I had been having a bad day and just really needed to let out some steam and- it was only suppose to be a one time thing."

"And yet here we are." Steve pointed out.

"She's very convincing."

"And talented with her tongue in more ways than one, too, I'm sure. There must be a reason why you kept coming back," Tony added.

Natasha flushed red, "Tony, I swear to god, one more word out of you and I'm going to strangle you to death with by bare hands."

The brunette's smile only grew as he up and downed the Russian, "You should know better than to tempt be with a good time, Romanoff."

Steam practically rolled out of Natasha's ears, "You are in no position to judge. Not when you've practically slept with half of Manhattan!"

Tony only whistled, "Oh, no, I'm not judging. In fact, I'm actually proud. Look at you, Romanoff, getting your much needed sex appointment, extra points for it being taboo."

Clint, having silently been watching the interaction from the corner of room, suddenly picked up the complimentary pen on the T.V stand, and threw it with pin point precision at Tony's head. The pen hit the billionaire with a dull thud.

"Ow!"

"Shut it, Tin Can." The archer growled.

"What? I'm just voicing everyone else's thoughts. Natasha sleeping with SHIELD's most wanted is an awfully hilarious turn of events, that I'm sure none of us saw coming, so I am simply enjoying the circumstances of everything."

An awkward silence fell upon the room, and for a breath of a second, barely noticeable to the normal eye, a flickering look passed over the rest of the teams' faces.

"Wait-what was that?" Tony asked.

"What was what?" Steve replied innocently.

"Wha-what was that look you all had just now." The brunettes pressed.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Bruce responded.

A dread settled over Natasha, "Please don't tell me that-"

"HAVE YOU GUYS KNOWN ABOUT NATASHA AND (Y/N) PRIOR TO TODAY?!" Tony suddenly shouted in disbelief.

Some of the better liars on the team shook their heads, but the less proficient ones hesitated.

"No!" Natasha groaned. "How did you guys-"

"We've actually caught you passed out like this many times before, without Tony of course, and we've just snuck back out before you woke up in the past." Wanda admitted.

Natasha's jaw dropped.

"YOU GUYS KNEW AND DIDN'T TELL ME?!" Tony exclaimed, still flabbergasted.

"Yes, dumbass, because you can't keep your mouth shut." Clint retorted.

"You guys...knew." Natasha was mumbling under her breath.

Steve awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, "Yeah, sorry, but for what it's worth, you and (Y/N) are pretty cute together."

You burst out hiding from the hotel closet, "Yeah, I suppose we do look cute don't we?"

"What the-"

[marauders-venting]

Until The Very End

pairing: not centered around a pairing but wolfstar plays a pretty big part

genre: fluff & a little angst

warnings: screaming, extreme pain, mentions of blood, broken bones and similar injuries (please let me know if i’ve forgotten something)

words: 3582

a/n: this is a request I got from someone on Instagram :) I love the “until the very end” quote so much but i’ve completely taken it out of context in this fic. just so you know

Remus was pacing the room which showed just how nervous he was about this transformation because his bones were aching and he felt exhausted.

“You can’t do this,” Remus said finally, turning to James, Sirius and Peter. “You can’t. What if something goes wrong? I could hurt you. You can’t do this.”

“Remus, everything’s going to be fine, I promise,” Sirius said. “We did tons of research, everything will be fine.” Remus bites at his nail.

“But—”

“Remus we’re not going anywhere,” James said firmly.

“The whole point of us becoming animagi was so that we could help you,” Peter said. “This is safe. You have nothing to worry about.”

“But what if it doesn’t work?” Remus said. “I could kill you; you can’t take that risk.”

“There’s no reason for it not to work,” Peter said. “We’ve all transformed before and we know that we become animals and you said yourself that werewolves don’t hurt animals.”

“But what if the wolf recognises that you’re not really animals?” Remus said. “Like what if you still smell like humans or something?”

“Remus, we checked that too, remember?” Sirius said gently. “Both McGonagall and the textbook said that there are no traces that indicate that an animagus isn’t a real animal. Unless, y’know, we’re acting like people which we won’t. But even if we did that’s not something you would pick up on as a wolf.” Remus nodded a little, still pacing.

“Okay but just…” Remus hesitated, stopping in his tracks. They waited to hear his next worry so they could dispel it with a counterargument. “Promise me you won’t look?”

“What?” James asked.

“When I’m transforming,” Remus said. “Don’t watch. Wait outside the room.”

“Okay,” Sirius said, relieved that Remus had calmed down. “We can do that.” So they went into the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack and Remus followed them.

“Transform into your animagus forms before I go back inside, okay?” he said nervously. “Just to be safe.” He was digging his nails into his flesh. A nervous habit. Sirius took his hand, pulling it away from his other arm, the one that now had marks on it from his nails.

“Everything is going to be fine, Moony,” Sirius whispered, squeezing Remus’ hand. “Do you trust me?”

“Yeah,” Remus breathed, “yeah, I do.”

“Good,” Sirius said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Remus said. He pressed a kiss to Sirius’ lips, lingering for a moment. “Try not to listen. And don’t watch. Don’t watch,” he whispered, shaking his head, his eyes not breaking contact with Sirius’. Remus went back to the other room but not before he saw them transform — Sirius into a dog, James into a stag and Peter into a rat — then he closed the door as far as he could. He leaned against the wall for a moment, feeling unsteady on his feet. He only had to wait a moment before his body started to shake.

---------

Sirius could hear the screams. They sounded strangled like Remus was trying to stay quiet but couldn’t. It sounded like he was being tortured. Sirius wanted to burst into the room and help Remus but there was nothing he could do. And Remus had asked him not to watch. So Sirius waited, glancing over at James and Peter. He didn’t know what an expression of worry looked like on the faces of a stag and a rat but he was sure that this was it.

When the screams had subsided, Sirius heard a howl and figured it was safe to enter. He pushed the door open with his nose and there, in the middle of the room, was a wolf howling at the moon outside the window. When Sirius entered the room the wolf stopped and looked at him. He came towards Sirius slowly, sniffing him out. Sirius held his breath. Despite what he had told Remus, he was nervous. He knew that Remus wouldn’t hurt him but he wanted to stop Remus from hurting himself. He had promised Remus that he would. What if he couldn’t do that? What if all this would be for nothing?

But within seconds the wolf was all over him, licking his face and running around him excitedly. Sirius could have laughed. He had only ever heard Remus’ account of what the wolf was like and though he was sure that Remus was being too hard on himself, he had never expected this.

The wolf then moved on to James, chasing around him excitedly as he had done with Sirius. He kneeled close to the ground next to Peter, sniffing him. He pawed at Peter curiously but eventually seemed to decide that he liked his new company. He seemed so genuinely happy to see them that Sirius could hardly equate him with the dangerous beast Remus had talked about.

They spent the rest of the night with Remus, wandering the grounds and the forest. Sirius was completely in awe. The longer he spent around the wolf, the less he understood what Remus was talking about.

The wolf chased after insects and owls like an excited puppy, he cautiously dipped his paw into the lake and then ran as far away as he could from the water when he caught a glimpse of the giant squid, he spent the whole night running around Sirius, James and Peter. He even raced Sirius across the grounds. He just seemed happy to be out of the cramped room to which he was usually confined.

Sirius wasn’t naive; didn’t doubt that upon seeing a human being the wolf would become vicious and dangerous but that didn’t mean that he was a vicious animal. If anything, he seemed peaceful. The wolf was… well, he was adorable. And Sirius would be lying if he said that he wasn’t enjoying this. Of course, he hated that Remus was getting hurt and of course he would prefer it if he didn’t need to do this but he wasn’t hating it.

He remembered Remus confiding in him once that he was afraid that Sirius, James and Peter would get sick of him once they realised the true gravity of having to look after a werewolf on a full moon. Sirius had assured him that this wouldn’t happen. They would do anything for Remus and taking care of Remus was one of the things Sirius loved most. Remus was so strong all the time; Sirius wanted to show him that he was allowed to need help sometimes, allowed to let other people care for him and to want that care.

“We’ll stay with you,” Sirius had said. “Until the very end.” All of those things were true then and are still equally true now. But if he’s being honest, Sirius doesn’t feel like he’s taking care of Remus at the moment. It just feels like they’re hanging out. Yes, Remus isn’t acting exactly like his usual self but it’s still Remus. Sirius doesn’t feel like he’s had to do much, let alone like he’s shouldering a burden.

When the moon begins to fade into the light of the early morning, Sirius, James and Peter lead Remus back into the Shrieking Shack. They stay in the room for a little while until the moon has nearly faded away entirely; Sirius and Remus are curled up on the floor, James and Peter right beside them. Sirius knows that Remus is about to transform back. Remus didn’t want them to watch him transforming into a wolf so Sirius doubted he’d want them to see him transforming back. He gets up, James and Peter following him, walks out the door and tugs at it with his mouth to close it. They don’t transform back yet, waiting to hear that Remus has transformed first. They hear screams and cries again. Sirius knows that there’s nothing he can do but he still hates himself for doing nothing while Remus is in pain.

When the screaming stops, all that is left is the sound of heavy breathing and… crying? They transform back and walk into the room. Remus is lying on the floor, tears rolling down his cheeks. Sirius gasps as he gets a closer look at Remus. He’s never seen him like this, before Madam Pomfrey has had the chance to fix him up a little, but if Remus’ injuries were usually worse than this then Sirius couldn’t see how Remus was still alive. He has deep gashes across his arms, bloody wounds all over his chest and his stomach, cuts littering his face and Sirius is almost certain that his leg is broken but he can’t confirm it.

“Remus,” he breathes, bending down next to him.

“Sirius,” Remus croaks out. He’s only half-conscious. Sirius is surprised he can speak at all.

“Shh, don’t waste your energy, love,” Sirius whispers. “I’m here. I’m here.” He wants to do something. To heal Remus, to move him to the bed in the corner, at least to hold his hand, but he’s afraid of hurting Remus. He turns to James and Peter who are standing behind him looking equally stunned. “We have to do something,” he says to them.

“We can’t,” James says. “Madam Pomfrey will be here soon. She’ll heal him but we can’t be here Pads.”

“We can’t just leave him like this,” Sirius says.

“We have to,” Peter says grimly. “We can’t help him, Sirius, we’ll only get him in trouble by staying here. Madam Pomfrey will know what to do.”

“We’re not leaving,” Sirius insists. “We’ll wait here and when Pomfrey comes we’ll hide under the Cloak. Then he can go back to the dorm.”

“Okay,” James says. “Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Sirius felt Remus grab his hand and he turned around.

“Sirius,” Remus whispers. “You’re okay.”

“I’m fine, Moons,” Sirius whispers back. “It’s you we’ve got to worry about.” Remus turns his head to James and Peter.

“You’re all okay,” he whispers. And then his eyes close and he passes out.

Barely three minutes pass before Madam Pomfrey turns up. James, Sirius and Peter hide under the Invisibility Cloak as she conjures up a stretcher from midair and levitates Remus onto it with her wand. Then she heads back to the castle. James, Sirius and Peter follow her through the open castle door but they don’t go to the hospital wing. Not yet. They go back to the dorm for an hour of sleep before their alarms go off and they go to the hospital wing to visit Remus before class.

When Sirius’ alarm screams at him that it’s time to wake up (literally. The clock was charmed to talk very loudly at him until he hit the snooze button), he wants nothing more than to continue sleeping. But he doesn’t. He drags himself out of bed, brushes his teeth and splashes cold water on his face to try and wake up, changes and heads down to breakfast with James and Peter. He’s too tired to eat anything so he drinks coffee. Lots of coffee.

They rush to the hospital wing before their first period. Remus is still sleeping, of course. However tired they are, it’s ten times worse for Remus. Sirius is surprised at how much better Remus looks. Madam Pomfrey must be a miracle worker if she managed to mostly heal Remus this quickly. And, Sirius is glad to see, Remus does look better than he usually does. Last night Sirius had been afraid that maybe they had made things worse for Remus instead of helping, but he had no point of reference. He had never seen Remus before Madam Pomfrey had healed his injuries on a regular full moon. And as it turns out, there is a very big difference. Sirius breathes a sigh of relief.

“Do you think we should write him a note or something?” Peter says. It’s the first thing any one of them has said all morning. They’re all too tired to talk. “To let him know we’re okay and that everything was fine.”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” James says. They scribble down a quick note as Madam Pomfrey comes into the room and ushers them out, telling them they have to go to class. Sirius takes one last look at Remus and smiles. Maybe their idea would really work. Maybe they could really help Remus like he promised him he would.

---------

Remus wakes up around noon, as he usually does after a full moon. His bones ache and his body is sore but admittedly, he isn’t in as much pain as usual. The moment Madam Pomfrey notices he’s awake she hurries to his side with a potion and a tray of food.

“You can eat the food whenever you get hungry but drink the potion now,” she says, starting with her usual spells to check for any damage in his internal organs or the fundamental systems in his body.

“Okay,” Remus says. He’s familiar with the procedure.

“You were doing much better than usual last night,” she says. “Your wounds weren’t nearly as deep as they normally are and there was only one broken bone.”

“Only one?” Remus says in surprise. He usually manages at least four.

“Yes, just your ribs,” she says. “How are you feeling?”

“Less tired than usual,” he admits. “Less pain.”

“That’s excellent, Remus,” she says. Madam Pomfrey had been referring to him by his first name since his first year. You can’t spend as much time as he does in the hospital wing without getting to know the matron. “Don’t forget to drink the potion,” she added as she finished her spells. “Oh, and your friends left you a letter.”  Remus reaches to his bedside table to grab the goblet with the potion and the letter from his friends.

Dear Moony,

Everything is okay, just like we promised! We’ve gone to class because Madam Pomfrey made us and Minnie would’ve killed us if we hadn’t shown up for Transfiguration. But we’ll be back soon! We hope you’re doing a little better than usual. We had a blast with you last night and we hope you’re not doing too bad. We’ll tell you all about it as soon as classes end. Have a good sleep for now.

Love,

Wormtail, Padfoot & Prongs.

PS I know we already signed the letter with love but I’m sending you some extra love that’s just from me because you deserve it so here Moony take all of my love xx

PPS that last bit was from Sirius

PPPS yes Peter I’m pretty fucking sure he knew that

PPPPS both of you shut up and stop writing so loud. Moony’s sleeping. If you wondered what that noise was, Moony, that was Sirius breaking his quill when he snatched it back from Peter. oh we’re being yelled at to go to class now byeeeeee

There was a line drawn from the last ‘e’ to the edge of the paper where Remus assumed the paper had been snatched from James while he was writing, probably by Madam Pomfrey, his quill dragging out and drawing the line.

He reread the letter and laughed. He really did have the best friends in the world. And they’re okay. They’re really okay. And with what Madam Pomfrey had told him, they had managed to significantly decrease the damage he caused to himself on the full moon. He felt better too. Maybe this crazy idea could actually work. Maybe his friends could actually help him.

When Sirius, James and Peter finally came to the hospital wing, Remus had finished both the potion and the food Madam Pomfrey had brought for him.

“Hi,” he said, grinning at them. “I got your letter.”

“We have a very sophisticated vocabulary, don’t we?” Sirius said.

“Oh yeah,” Remus nodded. “Definitely.”

“So how are you feeling?” Sirius asked. All three of them pull up chairs, settling around Remus’ hospital bed.

“I’m okay,” Remus said.

“Liar,” James said. “How are you really feeling?”

“No, really, I’m okay,” Remus insisted. Sirius looked at him skeptically. As did James and Peter. “I swear. I mean, yeah I’m still really tired and I’m a bit sore and stuff but I’m not nearly as bad as usual.”

“Really?” Peter asked excitedly. “Does that mean it worked?”

“I… I think it did,” Remus said, smiling at them. “I only broke one bone last night.”

“Only?!” James asked, eyebrows raised. “What do you mean ‘only’? How many do you usually break?”

“Usually four,” Remus said, shrugging. “Sometimes more. But I only broke one last night. Which is crazy.”

“Was it your leg?” Sirius asked.

“Nah, my ribs,” Remus said. “My leg was only sprained.”

“It looked broken last night,” Sirius said.

“You looked broken last night,” Peter said. “All of you.”

“Yeah, Remus, we wanted to tell you,” James started. “We’re really, really sorry. We had no idea how painful the transformations are for you. We’d only ever seen you after Madam Pomfrey had patched you up. I mean, we knew it hurt but we never thought…”

“We didn’t know it was that bad,” Sirius finished.

“It’s not your fault,” Remus said, looking down. “It’s really not a big deal, honestly—”

“Not a big deal?” Sirius said. He didn’t sound angry, just surprised. Maybe a little sad. “Moons, you were nearly unconscious. You were covered in blood, you were in so much pain. And you got through it. You do it every month. That’s incredible, Remus. You don’t realise it because you’ve been doing this for so long but you are so, so strong. You’re like… a superhero, Rem.” Remus didn’t know how to respond to that but his face seemed to think that blushing would be appropriate. He hesitated for a moment, then moved over in the hospital bed.

“Come sit with me,” he said to Sirius, patting the space beside him.

“Okay,” Sirius said, smiling and cautiously sitting down in the space Remus had made for him. “Hi, superhero,” he said, kissing Remus lightly on the lips.

“Hi,” Remus replied against Sirius’ mouth. For a moment, everything is forgotten and all there’s only one thing left in Remus’ mind that matters: Sirius’ mouth. Until James cleared throat and Peter noisily rearranged his chair. Remus and Sirius broke apart but their hands remained linked under the blanket.

“So what was it like last night?” Remus asked them. If he’s being honest, he’s a little afraid of the answer. He trusts that they didn’t watch him transform but that doesn’t mean it was pleasant to hang around a werewolf all night. “Was it scary?” he asked, assuming the worst before his friends could say anything. “Were you worried about keeping me in check?”

“What do you mean?” Sirius asked.

“Were you worried I’d hurt you? Or someone else?”

“No,” Sirius said. “Not really. I wasn’t even thinking about it. You seemed too… cute to attack anybody.” Remus snorted.

“Yeah, okay,” he said sarcastically.

“You were!” Sirius insisted. “You chased owls and played with the water in the lake and sniffed flowers. We even raced across the grounds.”

“Really?” Remus said. “We raced?”

“Yeah,” Sirius said.

“Who won?”

“We tied,” Sirius said.

“No you didn’t,” James laughed. “Remus definitely won.”

“No he didn’t,” Sirius insisted. “Peter back me up here.”

“Sorry, Pads, Moony won by a landslide,” Peter said. “It wasn’t even close.”

“Yes it was, we tied,” Sirius whined. “You guys are all missing the point anyway,” he added, arms crossed.

“Which is?” Remus said, laughing a little and wincing at the pain in his ribs.

“That you weren’t a vicious beast!” Sirius said. “You were just a wolf. All you wanted was to get out of that stupid room and run around. There wasn’t anything vicious about you. You were adorable.”

“He does actually have a point there, Moony,” James said. “You even licked Sirius’ face.”

“I licked your face?” Remus said, turning to Sirius.

“See, you can’t resist my charm even when we’re animals,” Sirius teased. “We’re made for each other.” James mimed gagging to Peter and Sirius hit him over the head with the rolls of parchment full of his notes.

“Did I lick you two as well?” Remus asked them.

“Nah, you just chased around me,” James said.

“You just stared at me,” Peter said. “Like you weren’t sure what I was. You looked at me like I was vermin.”

“Um, Pete,” Sirius started, “you… you sort of were vermin. Being a rat and all.” James and Remus laughed and Peter crossed his arms.

“Why a rat?” he complained. “Of all the animals, why the fuck did I get stuck as a fucking rat? And to add insult to injury I got the worst name.”

“Well, we’re not changing it now, Wormy,” James said, grinning. Peter shoved him and James nearly fell off his chair.

They spend the rest of the day much like that: Sirius and Remus sitting in the hospital bed, James and Peter in the chairs next to them, talking, laughing, making jokes, telling stories. And Remus thinks that maybe he can get used to this. To full moons being easier, to spending the following day hearing about his midnight adventures with his friends instead of being passed out from exhaustion and pain. Maybe Sirius was right. Maybe his friends would really be here for him. They’d seen him at his most vulnerable, his most helpless, and they were still here. They weren’t grossed out or scared. They were here. So maybe they’d stay. Remus believes it. He believes they’re going to stay. Until the very end.

[asweetprologue]

hematoma of the heart

Octoberfest 9: Wound reveal (whumptober #30)

Hitting the tree is more surprising than painful. A strange shock goes through Jaskier’s entire body when it happens, a litany of unspoken no no no through him as his side slams into the wood and he topples to the ground. For a moment he can’t see, can barely even think, just feeling a dizzying sense of wrongness that makes his skin buzz with anxiety. 

Then, finally, the pain does come to him, bursting from his ribs. If his breath hadn’t already been crushed from his lungs, he would have wheezed at the intensity of it. He lies there for a long moment, curled into a protective ball and trying to get his chest to expand beyond the jagged feeling in his ribs. Through bleary eyes, he can see that Geralt is still fighting the fiend, twisting and rolling deftly around it. That’s good, Jaskier thinks. Gives him some time to sort this out. 

The fiend hadn’t even really been paying him any mind, which was almost more embarrassing. Jaskier had gotten in the way, a bit, though it wasn’t really anyone’s fault that the fight stumbled its way so close to his hiding spot. Normally Geralt would never allow Jaskier to tag along to a fight this dangerous, but as usual trouble found them. Geralt had picked up the smell of the fiend on the breeze, and the noble bastard hadn’t been able to leave well enough alone. His stubborn bravery and selflessness is one of the many reasons Jaskier loves the man, but at this exact moment he finds himself wishing that, for once, they’d just kept out of it. 

After a long moment of lying still and trying to gather his wits, Jaskier slowly sits up. He leans his back against the offending tree and tries to stay as still as possible, not wanting to draw the fiend’s attention or break Geralt’s stride. Mentally he takes inventory. Toes and fingers wriggle when he tests them, so that’s good. No pain in his neck, though it radiates out from his left side and across his back like a sunburst. When he sticks a hand against his shirt he doesn’t feel the wet, tacky sensation of blood, so aside from a few abrasions it looks like he’s escaped with his skin intact. 

Jaskier knows his ribs are bruised, maybe even slightly broken, but overall it’s not as bad as it could be. Jaskier watches as Geralt’s sword descends into the neck of the fiend, a hot spray of blood splashing across the ground and Geralt’s face. The second the beast falls to the ground, Geralt looks up and finds Jaskier’s gaze, his own eyes wild.

Jaskier realizes two things at once. One: Geralt is going to be livid if Jaskier was hurt during a fight, and there’s a very great chance that it will make him not want to take Jaskier on hunts in the future. He’ll say that Jaskier is at risk and is a risk himself, likely to cause Geralt to get distracted and wind up with one of them dead. Never mind that Geralt often needs help after a hard fight, might not be able to make it back on his own or just needs a hand patching up the worst of his wounds. Never mind that Jaskier hates being left behind, hates sitting in a cold, empty camp or inn waiting to see if Geralt will come back this time. Never mind that Jaskier’s entire supposed reason for being here is to get first hand experience of what monster hunting is really like, even if that maybe isn’t so much the reason he’s so dedicated to the Path anymore. 

And two: Geralt will blame himself. 

Jaskier decides, in the span of a second, that he’s not going to say anything. It’s not so bad, after all. How hard could it be to keep a few bruised ribs to himself? 

In the time it takes for him to determine this course of action, Geralt is upon him. He doesn’t touch - Jaskier touches Geralt. Geralt does not touch back, unless it’s to manhandle Jaskier out of danger. Jaskier tries not to think too hard about why this is. Geralt looks at him, his eyes intense but unreadable as always, and Jaskier takes a steadying breath that makes his ribs ache. 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, almost more of a grunt than a name. He’s only breathing a bit more heavily than normal, as if he’d just been on a light morning jog. “You alright?”

Jaskier nods, forcing himself to climb unsteadily to his feet. The movement is agony, his back screaming as his muscles shift and stretch. He bites his cheek, forcing himself not to gasp or wince. The pain isn’t sharp, just pulsing, which is a good sign. He thinks. “All accounted for,” he says to Geralt, hoping that his voice doesn’t sound too strained. 

With another human, Jaskier doesn’t think he’d have been able to get away with it. No one would be able to get thrown against a tree with such force and pop back up perfectly alright. But Geralt isn’t human, and over the years of traveling together, Jaskier has realized that Geralt knows fuck all about how much humans can withstand. He is both terrified of their fragility and entirely unaware of their limits. He grew up around witchers and has never stuck around any human beings long enough to figure out what really could hurt them. Jaskier thinks, sometimes, that maybe Geralt doesn’t touch him because he’s afraid Jaskier will break. But then Jaskier falls from a horse or gets punched in the jaw or stumbles over the side of a small ravine and Geralt will act surprised when Jaskier’s ankle is twisted or his face is bruised. The witcher just has no idea what will actually cause damage and what Jaskier can walk away from.

So Jaskier plasters on his most convincing court mask and gives Geralt a winning smile, and he knows he’s won when Geralt gives an almost imperceptible shrug. Jaskier watches his shoulders drop ever so slightly, his expression loosening just a fraction. Jaskier drinks up Geralt’s worry like a man drowning of thirst, but he’s still relieved when Geralt turns back towards the fiend. If Geralt knew he was really hurt, his tender concern over Jaskier’s well being would morph into guilt and anger, and that’s the last thing Jaskier wants. So he forces himself to follow after Geralt, and he doesn’t even limp. 

Jaskier does not limp as they set up camp that night, or as he follows Geralt to town the next day, or over the course of the next week on the road. It’s probably making the healing process longer than it needs to be, he knows, but he’s in too deep now to back down. And if he winces occasionally when he’s getting up in the morning, stiff and sore and aching, or if he sucks in a breath to hide a yelp when someone brushes past his wounded shoulder in an inn, Geralt doesn’t seem to notice. Jaskier changes when Geralt leaves for breakfast or to take a piss or to bathe and he thinks he does an okay job, overall, of hiding it. It hurts in another way, deep in his gut, that Geralt doesn’t say anything. Jaskier doesn’t want him to say anything, doesn’t want him to know, but in another way he does. He really does. He wants Geralt to find out and be upset because he cares about Jaskier, cares about his well being and whether he’s in pain. He wants the full force of those golden eyes on him with total attention, those broad hands running across his flank to search for damage. Jaskier wants. 

Maybe that’s why he lets his guard down. Or maybe he’s just healing nicely, and so for a few hours Jaskier just… forgets. They’re in a tavern, stopped in a small town a week and a half away from the fiend encounter, and Jaskier is a bit drunk. He’s been playing, for the first time since he was thrown into that tree, and it felt so good he got a bit lost in it. The crowd was small but invested, lively and eager for entertainment, and Jaskier had been passed more than a couple of tankards. Geralt had watched it all unfold with mild amusement, matching Jaskier cup for cup but barely tipsy by the end of the night. Jaskier had stumbled up the stairs with Geralt close on his heels, likely making sure he didn’t tumble back down the steps. He isn’t that drunk, truly. Barely wobbling as he’d made his way into the room. But as he tugs off his boots now and tosses aside his doublet, he’s drunk enough that he forgets, for the first time in a week, that he’s got something to hide. He turns away from Geralt and unbuttons his shirt, yawning around some garbled sentence about how many ales he’s had. The fabric has barely left his shoulders when he hears Geralt make a strangled sound, and turns to find himself nose to nose with the witcher. 

“Uh,” he says, articulately, and hisses as Geralt’s fingers come up to prod his side. Oh, right. Fuck. He’d been doing so well. 

“What the fuck is this?” Geralt asks, and his voice comes out as a low, warning growl that Jaskier feels in his toes. It’s threatening, he reprimands himself. Geralt is scary when he’s mad. Not hot. Scary. “Jaskier,” Geralt says, and Jaskier snaps back to the moment. 

“I’m fine,” Jaskier says, too quickly. He’s trying to pull his shirt back up to cover up the canvas of blue-purple-yellow that’s scattered across his ribs and shoulder, but Geralt’s hands are in the way. He must be truly surprised, to break his own rules about personal space like this. “I fell, it looks worse than it is. Nothing to be concerned about, truly, I don’t even think my ribs took too much damage -”

“When?” Geralt says. His tone and his hands are demanding, pulling Jaskier’s arm up away from his body so Geralt can get a closer look. Jaskier feels himself flush under his touch, and he’s annoyed at himself for it. 

“Uh, a - a week ago? Around then? It’s been a few days.”

Geralt looks away from the bruises, his eyebrows pinched together. His golden eyes are intense, searching Jaskier’s face for a lie. There’s a moment of quiet between them, Geralt thinking with his hand spread across Jaskier’s ribs, and then his face softens with surprise. “The fiend hunt,” he says, and then his face shutters into that expression, furious and guilty, that Jaskier was trying to avoid this whole damn time. 

“I was fine,” he tries to say, but Geralt is already growling at him. 

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me, Jaskier?” he snaps. Gentle-rough hands push Jaskier down onto the one bed in the room. They’d decided to share, to save money. Always to save money. Geralt starts pacing, not an aimless trek but a journey around the room, pulling various supplies out of their scattered bags. “You could have died. What if your lung had been punctured? Or your kidney ruptured?” A jar and a roll of bandages are thrown down by Jaskier’s side, and the bard winces at the sharp movement. Geralt stops in front of him, fists clenched at his side, glaring down at Jaskier’s face. Accusation in every line of his body. 

Jaskier sighs. Runs a hand through his hair, not bothering to hide the wince as it pulls at his side. “I didn’t want to worry you,” he says, and his voice is smaller than he’d like it to be. He didn’t do anything wrong, really. Geralt isn’t entitled to know of Jaskier’s every scrape and bruise. Yet Jaskier feels guilty regardless. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault. The fiend was there, so was I, I ended up fine! I’ll be better in another week or less.”

Geralt looks away, jaw clenching as he studies the far side of the room with intense scrutiny. Without looking back, he says, “You should have told me.” 

Before Jaskier can respond, Geralt turns and gathers up the supplies on the bed and sits down beside him. The lid of the jar pops off, releasing a cool, minty smell into the air. “Lift your arm up,” Geralt says gruffly, and Jaskier does. He can only go up so far without pain, so he rests his forearm on Geralt’s shoulder, suddenly aware that he’s bare from the waist up and Geralt is still fully dressed. It makes him feel off balance and short of breath, for some reason. A moment later Geralt’s fingers are smoothing lightly over his ribs, rubbing whatever salve was in the jar across Jaskier’s bruises. The gentle touch steals the rest of the air from Jaskier’s lungs.

Jaskier lets Geralt work on him in silence, the minutes stretching out silently between them. He’s not sure what to say - how to tell Geralt that he didn’t want him to be mad without sounding like a child, how to make Geralt feel less guilty without being patronizing. Jaskier never quite knows how to manage Geralt’s emotions, not like he does everyone else’s. A crowd, a pretty barmaid, a professor at Oxenfurt, all of these are easy to push and pull where he pleases. Easy to predict. Geralt… isn’t. He digs in his heels when Jaskier tries to lead him, closes himself off when Jaskier tries to get a peak under the mask. Geralt is, Jaskier thinks, perhaps one of the most complicated people Jaskier’s ever met. He knows that’s part of the draw. But it’s frustrating in moments like these, when Jaskier wants so badly to say just the right thing to make Geralt’s shoulders relax, to make the deep frown marring his lovely mouth loosen into a smile. He thinks he could figure it out, given enough time. If Geralt will let him. 

When Geralt finally moves to face away from him, to attend to his back, Jaskier speaks. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he forces his voice to be steady and firm. “I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want you to feel bad for not - That is, I don’t blame you. And I didn’t want to slow you down.”

Geralt's hands still on his back, his warm palm burning where it rests on Jaskier’s shoulder blade. It’s so hot in the room, sweat prickling against Jaskier’s brow, and Geralt’s hand doesn’t move. “I don’t care if you slow me down,” Geralt grunts. Jaskier can feel his breath on the nape of his neck, and he can’t suppress a shiver. Geralt must notice, but he doesn’t comment. 

“You very much do,” Jaskier argues, irritated. “You remind me on a near nightly basis that if I’m not up when the sun is you’ll leave me behind. I don’t even bother to ask for a break anymore because you never fail to remind me that it’s my choice to be here. And it is, I know that. I’ll keep up, and if I can’t I’ll take my leave. You’ve made it quite clear that the onus of responsibility rests with me, and I accept that.”

From this close Jaskier can nearly hear Geralt grinding his teeth together. “Not at the expense of your health,” he says, and he sounds properly angry now. “Fuck, Jaskier, you can’t think I’d - That I wouldn’t wait, that I’d leave you behind when you were hurt. You could have fucking died, if it’d been more serious. You couldn’t have known that it wasn’t, right away. What if I’d woken up the next day and you’d choked to death on your own blood in your sleep? What if you’d -” He cuts himself off.

Now Jaskier turns to face him, shocked by the display of emotion, feeling Geralt’s hand shift across his back. Geralt looks away from him, hiding, but the expression that Jaskier catches on his face is… pained. As if it would truly hurt him, to see Jaskier damaged beyond repair. Hesitantly, Jaskier reaches out and touches Geralt’s knee. “I’m sorry,” he says again. “I didn’t think of it that way. I just didn’t want you to take it personally.”

Geralt’s eyes meet his again, smouldering in the low light. Jaskier suddenly remembers that he’s a bit drunk, and they’re so, so close together. The space between them is warm, and Geralt’s hand slowly slides down his back to rest at Jaskier’s hip. “I always take it personally when it comes to you,” Geralt says. Jaskier breathes out shakily. Geralt reaches out with his other hand and gently grasps Jaskier’s elbow, making Jaskier’s fingers press more firmly into his knee. “Tell me next time,” Geralt says. And then, “Please.”

Jaskier is powerless to refuse him anything in this moment, so he says, “Alright. I will. Just don’t leave me behind.”

“I won’t,” Geralt says softly. “I won’t. I promise.” Something tense releases in Jaskier, because Geralt is not frivolous with his words and a promise means something coming from him. He won’t leave Jaskier behind. 

“Well good,” Jaskier says, and smiles easily at him. His side feels better now with the salve and the fuzzy layer of alcohol in his system, and every part of him touching Geralt is tingling pleasantly. It’s a lot of parts, he realizes giddily. He’s nearly in Geralt’s lap, held close by Geralt’s hands in something that’s nearly an embrace, and Geralt’s lips are right there. All Jaskier would have to do is lean forward just a smidge, press them together gently, soft as a feather -

Geralt’s eyes flicker to his mouth, and Jaskier flushes hot all over. Gods. Just a look and he feels undone. 

But before he can do anything, Geralt is up and halfway across the room, tucking the jar away like nothing had happened. Jaskier lets out a breath that’s equal parts disappointment and relief. A moment later Geralt is back at his side, holding the roll of bandages. 

“This will keep you from pulling them while they heal,” Geralt says gruffly, and Jaskier obediently raises his arms up as much as he can. Geralt wraps up his ribs efficiently, and it does feel a little more stable. It will help him sleep, at the very least. Just before he wraps the light gauze around Jaskier’s shoulder, Geralt leans in and drags in a deep breath. 

Jaskier splutters. “Are you sniffing me, Geralt of Rivia?”

Geralt huffs out an amused breath against his skin. “Checking for infection. You don’t smell sweet, so you’re probably alright.”

“I smell plenty sweet,” Jaskier gripes. Geralt finishes the bandages, tying them off neatly. Jaskier feels compressed, a bit, but it’s for the best. 

“You smell like ale,” Geralt says with a raised eyebrow. “And the salve. And that lavender soap I hate.”

“You only hate it the first day I use it,” Jaskier points out. The smell is too strong for Geralt to abide by. Jaskier tries not to use it unless they’ll be apart for a day or so. He’d bathed with it the day after the hunt, hoping that the intensity of it would mask anything else Geralt might scent on him. Pain, or distress. Geralt had supported a pinched look of annoyance for a full half a day.

“Go to sleep, Jaskier,” Geralt says, and it sounds annoyed and fond at the same time in equal measure, which Jaskier wouldn’t have said was possible before he met Geralt. The most complicated man he’d ever met. “You need to rest.”

“Up at dawn?” Jaskier guesses, shucking off his pants and settling under the covers. Geralt removes his own boots and pants and crawls in on the other side, settled between Jaskier and the door. Jaskier’s not sure if it’s to protect him or to keep him from running off. As if he ever would. 

“We’ll leave when you're ready,” Geralt says, snuffing out the candle flickering on the bedside dresser. In the darkness, Jaskier hears, “I’ll wait for you.”

For once Jaskier has nothing else to say to that, so he settled down into the covers and plans to sleep past noon.

[headcans-oneshots-and-stuff]

Smiler

Warning: Flufffffffffffff Word count: 2,1k   Summary: Damian Wayne doesn’t smile. Ever. So when he suddenly starts to do so after reading text messages and receiving calls from an outsider his siblings get suspicious. Shenanigans ensue. Pairing: Damian Wayne x reader

Requested by the lovely-dove(l)y(?) Anon again: My second request is Damian is getting random phone calls during the day where he just smiles and walks away to answer it ( it’s the reader on the phone) and everyone is really confused so when he sneaks out they follow him and meet her

A/N: Again SKSKSKSKSK So much fluffffffffffff (a bit less than the other one, but still, I think it’s fluffy), also I decided to end this with the same sentence as the otehrs one because of the similarities and because it just kinda fits I think. 

Damian Wayne was never a smiler. Certainly not before he came to the manor nor after. If he ever smiled it was either through Schadenfreude or it was plainly fake. Everybody knew that: his father, his siblings, the media, his teachers, just everybody. Seeing Damian smile was like an evil omen, and you felt the urge to get your ducks in a row, just in case he’d kill you in a few minutes, mainly if his smile is directed at you. It was like having a lion look at you and fletch its teeth. So imagine how Dick felt when he had Damian smile while they were having a fight. One second he’s screaming at him about what in Imbecile he is, the next second he looks down at his phone laying on the coffee table and smiles. And not one of his evil smirks that you get when he knows you’ll get hurt or embarrassed in some way soon, or one of those fake smiles Bruce had got him to give the high and mighty at Galas, No. It was a real, genuine smile. One he had never seen before. “Damian?” he couldn’t help but try to get his attention back but found himself regretting it when instead of explaining or sharing what made him smile, he immediately went back to insulting him. The next time that happened was shortly after one night of patrol with Damian, Tim and Bruce. The latter sent the two boys home and to bed and decided he’d stay out a bit longer on his own and contact Jason if he needed help. And when the two of them came back into the cave, Tim spectated something completely stunning. While he decided to stay in the suit and sat down at the batcomputer to keep on working, Damian informed him that he’d go shower. But before he disappeared into his father’s office and consequentially into the manor, he walked over to a locker-like shelf in one of the corners near the batcomputer where they sometimes stored their phones and wallets during the patrol. He let the construct scan his hand, alerting Tim to look into the direction with the ‘blob’ sound it made when it opened. And then he saw it. A smile, a real genuine smile like the one Dick had experienced only a day earlier. Tim wasn’t able to see what he was looking it, only knowing that he had only stored his phone in the locker, but he knew it must have been something incredible if it could make Damian smile as simple as that. For a moment, Tim considered asking, considered finding out what in the world could make this happen, but before he could do anything, Damian - and his phone - had disappeared up the stairs.

After that, it started happening more and more often. It wasn’t limited to small glances at Damian’s phone and then a smile, no, now it was him staring and typing (obviously texting with someone) for minutes at a time, keeping smiling or letting small smiles out every now and then and, which stunned them the most, the moments when his phone vibrated and he smiled before leaving the room to answer it. The fact that he smiled? Almost impossible. The fact that he actually took the call? A straight-out miracle. Damian almost never answered his phone, be it over text or call, unless it was his father, Alfred or if he knew it was important and was spammed enough by whoever wanted him to answer. Now, in theory, it might have been, in fact, Bruce who was calling him - even though that wouldn’t explain the smiles - but a key piece of evidence that disputed that was the fact that more than once Bruce was inside the room when it happened. So that eliminated him as a subject. Alfred was out of the question for obvious reasons and Damian’s siblings weren’t even on the list. So who could it actually be? It had to be an outsider, right? “Maybe it’s Jon? Or Billy?” Tim suggested as he sat on the Batcomputer and talked to his siblings who were on patrol. Damian had been grounded for the day earlier because he almost punched a lady in the grocery shop and Bruce was with the league. “Nah, I don’t think so,” Steph replied over the sound of punches being thrown and a man groaning until there was a ‘thump’ and it was silent again. “Yeah, me neither,” Dick agreed, “I mean he’d sell Billy for a single cent and even if he confesses that he’s actually friends with Jon, he wouldn’t smile at or because of him to save his life.” “Right, well that’s all I had,” Tim shrugged and typed away on the keyboard while half-mindedly listening to his siblings discusses the matter over the coms. He was about to stand up, and make himself a cup of coffee when something in the corner of his eyes caught his attention. “Guys,” he smirked and sent them all a screenshot of one of his surveillance monitors, “You are not gonna believe that.”

“I’ve got my eyes on the prize,” Jason whispered happily while sitting on his parked bike, dressed in his civilian clothes, and spectating a very suspicious Damian walking through the streets of Gotham City in a black hoodie and black pants as if he tried to impersonate any wannabe robber in a Hollywood movie, the hood drawn over his face. “Anything suspicious yet,” Steph asked, he tone still slightly annoyed with the fact that she wasn’t the one to follow Damian because she was on patrol and had to leave it to Jason and Cas. “For Damian? Not really, nothing unusual yet. Isn’t the first time he sneaked out and it sure as hell won’t be the last time.” Jason watched as his little brother looked around as if he was being followed - which admittedly he was - but Jason and Cas, who was taking the roof-route, even though she too was in her civilian clothes, were careful enough not to let him catch them. “You see that?” Cas asked him and the two of them watched as Damian got his phone out, smiled a little, stuffed it back into his hoodie pocket and entered a small café, not the kind of place that Damian would usually go into. “Now that is… interesting,” Jason muttered to no one in particular and quickly gave Cas a nod who came jumping down from the fire escape of the building a few feet away from him. He got off of his vehicle and put on some shades and a baseball cap to keep himself somewhat incognito, before crossing the streets and entering the establishment himself, making sure to keep out of Damian’s sight and slipping into a booth in the corner from where he could see his brother’s back turned to him. A few minutes passed before anything happened- except for Cas who slipped into the seat opposite him in silence, and they started to wonder what Damian was doing there. It looked like he was waiting for something to happen, or rather someone if you took the untouched steaming cup in front of him into account, but he didn’t seem impatient or annoyed or any of the other things he usually was with even the smallest things. They couldn’t see his expression or his face, but he once again pulled out his phone when he received a call and even with only his backside in view both Jason and Cas could make out the bright expression that painted his face. He turned around in his seat and Jason laid his chin into his hand, elbow on the table, to hide as much of his face as possible, and Cas turned as far as possible without looking unsuspicious. Because of this Cas missed what Jason was able to see. She missed the girl that stepped into the cafe with her phone against her ear. She was around Damian’s age and wrapped into a trenchcoat along with a scarf that looked just a little bit too much like the one Damian had bought a few weeks earlier on a fair Dick had dragged him to. Back then he hadn’t explained himself, only scoffing at his siblings’ comments about it and they all just made up their own theories. that it maybe was a gift for Steph’s upcoming birthday, or that it was maybe supposed to be something to strangle someone with. The girl looked around the café and her already shining eyes got even more bright when they landed on Mister grumpy who had stood up at this point. she lowered the phone and almost jumped over to where Damian was standing, falling into his open arms, giggling quietly. “What the-” Jason muttered, prompting his sister to follow his gaze only to almost freeze on the spot when catching the sight. The girl and Damian managed to tear away from each other’s arms and slip into the booth that Damian had occupied earlier. She took a sip of the drink Damian had ordered for her and seemed to thank her from what Jason could read from her lips. He couldn’t read Damian’s lips with his brothers back turned to him, but whatever he said made the girl blush immensely and shyly turn her head away, causing a strand of her y/h/c hair to fall into her face. Cas and Jason couldn’t stop staring at the two of them, the whole scene so surreal. It was Damian Wayne they were seeing there, the ‘Don’t touch me I’ll bite off your fingers one after another’ Damian Wayne. And he had hugged this girl like his life depended on it and now, this was maybe the weirdest thing yet, he reached over the table to brush the hair out of the girls face, but instead of pulling the hand back again, he cupped her cheek and she practically melted into his touch. “Jason, don’t-” Cas tried to hold Jay back when he stood up and started to make his way over to the other booth, but he didn’t let himself be stopped so the only thing Cassandra could do was to go along with it. The girl who sat facing their direction caught sight of them first and seemed - understandably so - confused when the extremely tall man with the shades and baseball cap and the girl that she could swear looked familiar walked right over to them and stepped beside their table. That was when Damian noticed her distracted eyes and followed them only to let that look of being caught flash over his face before he quickly hid it under a facade of annoyance. He pulled his hand away from the girl’s cheek, but left it in front of her on the table, ready to grab her hand at any given moment. “What are you doing here, Todd?” he asked, clearly not fooled by his disguise, before turning to his sister, “And you Cain? I expected this from an imbecile like him, but I had higher expectations in you.” “Damian who are-” the girl tried to ask, but was interrupted by Jason. “You’re one to talk Brat, I very clearly remember the old man grounding you so guess how surprised I was to see you here.” “Wait, Dami you’re groun-” “This is none of your business Todd, leave us alone,” Damian scoffed and balled the hand that wasn’t near the girls into a fist. “Hmm,” Jason acted like he was thinking about it, but it was clear for everyone involved that it was nothing but an act, “Nah, I don’t think so.” Much to the dismay of a by now very, very annoyed Damian he pushed him further into the booth to the windows and let himself fall onto the couch-like seat beside him, now directing his attention to Damian’s friend. Cas send the girl a sorry smile before slipping into the seat beside her. “Todd? What are you do-” Damian wanted to ask, but Jason shushed him. “You don’t want Bruce to find out you sneaked out?” he asked and was validated by the silence that followed from his little brother, “Well then, I guess this is gonna be an interesting evening then, mind introducing me to your-” he seemed to search for the appropriate word, “-Companion?” The girl was utterly confused by now and switched looking over the faces of the people surrounding her only to land on Damian’s when he took ahold of her hand and pushed it like he was trying to silently apologize. “This is Y/N, she’s my girlfriend. Y/n, this idiot is Jason Todd, unfortunately, my older brother, and Cassandra, my sister,” he introduced and the eyes of everyone involved widened. “You have a lot to explaining to do young man…”

[giggles-and-freckles]

febuwhump day 9: buried alive

Crises do strange things to a normal human mind. In moments of emergency or peril, the brain is able to speed itself up and slow reality down to allow for the synapses to catch up with practicality and survival. The world turns to slow motion and quick split-second decisions can be processed through.

For a Force-sensitive–for a Jedi–that’s the mind’s resting place. In moments of crisis, the brain doesn’t just speed up–it spirals. 

The world goes quiet, the air gets thin, and the Jedi always knows what to do.

Anakin’s eyes lock with Ahsoka’s from across the cave. She’s a Jedi, so she sees it, too. The vial is falling to the ground and there’s nothing they can do, not really. Even a Force catch will be too much. The vial is going to hit the ground and the chemical is going to be released into the atmosphere.

Her eyes widen and her mouth opens to shout something at him, but it’s too late. An apology passes from his eyes to hers and then she’s flying backwards, propelled by the invisible line between him and her. The Force, his Force, pushing her back, back, back, as the earth cascades around him and between them.

He hears her scream.

But her hating him for the rest of his short life is a better alternative than the hate he would have for himself if he outlived her.

“Master!” Her voice is muffled and strangled and he hopes it’s because of the rocks between them and not the ones over her. He begs the Force to have accounted for his own impulse and pushed her far enough back.

Anakin opens his mouth to reply, but nothing comes out. He realises that the darkness he’s seeing is not from his eyes being closed or the rubble obstructing his line of sight. 

His vision is gone, completely.

Which could likely be attributed to the warm stickiness he feels on the back of his head.

“Master!” she yells again. He hears rocks shift, like she’s pulling them with her hands. That was good–it meant she could move. She was okay.

She’ll never be able to get to him, though, and he hopes she realises that before her hands are bloodied and raw.

Anakin tries to speak again, but the dirt is too thick and he knows any attempts to further open his mouth will only make this happen even faster. 

He can’t feel anything beneath his shoulders. Paralysed. He doesn’t need to turn his head to know a piece of earth has shattered his spine.

“Master, this isn’t funny!” she shouts. The sound of rocks being moved grows louder, more frantic and erratic.

No one has her kind of determination.

“Why did you do it?” she screams. “Why? We could have contained it!”

He shakes his head out of habit. The movement sends a sharp pain through his skull and reminds him, that his body has been crushed under several hundred tons of earth. But he shakes his head anyway.

Arguing with his Padawan–that’s always come so easily. Not like arguing with Kitster about whether a reactor or converter was optimal for his pod as a kid. Not like arguing with the Council, when they had a choice reprimand for him. Not even like arguing with Obi-Wan, when the heat in his heart would sear his chest in an effort to be understood, to be seen.

No, arguing with his Padawan was different. Quick-witted words, rolled eyes, and dopey smiles. Sometimes a light shove in the shoulder or muss of hair. It’s warm and welcome. The best part of his day.

“You’re so stupid!” she yells, and he hears the tears in her voice now. He hates that. “You think that you have to die some brave, heroic, Jedi death and it’s stupid! It’s not your job to protect me!”

He wants to laugh, because, yes, it absolutely is. But she’s always been too like him in that way–never very reasonable when she’s angry.

A sob rips from her and his heart aches. His Padawan, his sister.

It’s his fault, like it always is. He didn’t see the vial, didn’t know that was the threat they were looking for. But allowing it to spread beyond this cave–to infect the planet and infect her. It’s not a risk he was willing to take.

The pain that was coursing through the back of his head stops altogether and he wonders if it’s normal for death to be painless. He hopes it was like this for his mother.

“I won’t leave you!” Ahsoka cries out. “Not this time.”

As if she’s ever left him before. As if she ever would.

Loyal, through and through, his Snips.

You have to.

“NO!” she screams back, and he realises he unconsciously sent that message through their bond. His heart starts to beat violently. He has so much to say, so much to tell her–

Ahsoka.

“No, Master!” she yells and he knows she’s shaking her head, lekku flopping back and forth furiously. “I won’t listen to your ridiculous orders for me to–to–”

You have to help the others.

“I want to help you, Skyguy.” It’s too quiet for him to hear through all the rubble between them, but he feels it.

Jedi.

She snorts, loud enough for him to hear. “Don’t you dare start to act like you suddenly care about that!!”

Obi-Wan.

She doesn’t respond immediately to that because there’s no bluff to call. She knows he means it when he says he prioritises Obi-Wan’s safety above himself. The older Jedi is here in this same cave, winding his way through a different quadrant, flanked by some of his men. He won’t know about the chemicals either. And Anakin is sure the vial he dropped isn’t the only one down here.

Go.

“Master–” she starts, but doesn’t finish. Because this is where she is nothing like him. She always does the right thing, no matter what. He’s learned so much from it in his short time with her and he knows she’ll teach Obi-Wan now. 

Obi-Wan and Ahsoka. His family. They’ll make a great team.

“I’ll come back for you!!!”

She won’t, because she always does the right thing. But it’s okay. He doesn’t want her to.

Snips.

The rocks stop shifting. She’s waiting.

I’m proud of you.

[mirrorgrets]

i hate you, i hope you die

Warnings: suicidal thoughts, graphic descriptions of violence

Pairings: Pannacotta Fugo/Giorno Giovanna (but like. barely.)

Wordcount: 2,224 words

Summary: Fugo returns to Passione and everything falls back into place. He's sworn his loyalty to Giorno and Giorno trusts him. But he hates the very same boy who saved him.

The thing is Fugo hates Giorno.

No, that's wrong. It's more like he wishes he hates Giorno.

When he sank to his knees, lips barely grazing Giorno's knuckles, he felt a pit in his stomach growing bigger and bigger as he said his vows. He felt like he signed his life away to this angel of death. For what? For guilt? For nothing? For a lack of understanding as to why he was still alive and not them?

Sometimes he stares at Giorno, notices little details that he doesn't think anyone who doesn't stare at Giorno for too long notices. Details like how he has an odd habit of pulling his collar when he's nervous; like he has a single pockmark just where his jaw meets his neck; like he stands a bit straighter when someone raises their voice; like he raises his hand like he wants to cover his mouth when he laughs; like he cycles through certain hair ties and ribbons throughout the week.

It drives him insane that at this point, he might know more about Giorno than he knows about Bucciarati, Abbacchio, and Narancia combined—and that says a lot. Bucciarati found him when he was thirteen and it was just them for a while. It was just the two of them in Bruno’s apartment, careful footsteps turning into comfort and routine somewhere between the shootouts, the blood, and the stitches. Then Abbacchio arrived with wary eyes and a sharp tongue and way too many apologies before he settled into his actual asshole self. At that point, Fugo moved out into his own apartment which was only two blocks away. Then he found Narancia, maybe out of inspiration from Bucciarati or something, and while they tried to keep him away from the life of a Mafioso, he weaseled in somehow, manifesting a stand fair and square.

Fugo wonders what it might be like to murder Giorno. He dreams of it when goes to sleep, which isn't often because he hardly goes to sleep nowadays and most of the time, sleep catches him and not the other way around.

Sometimes Giorno dies by his hands around his neck, sometimes it's Mista's stolen gun, sometimes it's by an ax, sometimes it's with a tie, sometimes an encyclopedia. But it's never Purple Haze Feedback. Never his own stand. And dream Giorno who's dying knows this all the damn time. Dream Giorno will look at him with the widest eyes like he's looking at God Himself, like he's a revelation meant to be worshipped. Sometimes his hands will cup his cheek (sometimes bloody, sometimes shaky); sometimes he'll push his forehead against Fugo's; sometimes he'll hold Fugo tight, sometimes like he's made of glass; and sometimes he'll lean in far too close and apologize to Fugo.

He hates that he always wakes up before Giorno can take his last breath and hates himself even more for feeling that way.

Fugo avoids Giorno when he can.

Somehow it's easy and at the same time, not. He meets him whenever he receives an assignment, and Giorno looks like he wants to speak to him. But he never pushes and Fugo is allowed to leave and fuck off and kill more people with a gun, a knife, or anything. At times, Fugo will stay just a second more and wonder if Giorno will take a step or half a step like he said he would but he never does so he leaves and wonders why he feels like he just woke up from his fucked up dreams.

When Fugo isn't murdering or interrogating someone, he's usually doing the dull administrative tasks of Passione like sorting through the legal jargon to find loopholes and accounting for logistics or whatever the hell he can get his hands on because he wants to stay busy, damn it.

His chest feels empty most of the time. It's not like he doesn't know why. It might be depression but he doesn't care enough to forge a prescription this time round. Or maybe it's because no one is pushing him to forge a prescription, unlike last time. Or well, Sheila E tries to make him forge a prescription and she did steal a bunch for him, orange canisters full and all. But she doesn’t force him to take them. She doesn’t hang around his shoulder unlike Bucciarati did when he… unlike when Bucciarati did with his straightforward stares and the little notes he left around Fugo’s apartment. She doesn’t make snide remarks unlike Abbacchio and doesn’t keep him company in the dead of night when everything is too loud even when it’s just quiet. She doesn’t remind him like Narancia did with all the subtlety of a douchebag riding a Ferrari.

So the canisters stay full but Fugo keeps them by his bedside because maybe one day and well, he likes the reminder that at least someone cares.

(Murolo does his own thing too but when he does, Fugo’s far too gone to even remember what Murolo does and the man never reminds him so he’s grateful for that too)

It's not like Fugo is afraid of dying. He goes into each mission like he might die and when he comes out alive, buzzing with manic energy that makes him want to break down and punch the nearest object in the vicinity, he's always disappointed. Sometimes he looks at the gun he owns in his bathroom and he wonders if he should just pull the trigger and collapse, his head bashing against the toilet, bleeding out to die if he doesn't hit the right spot.

He pulls the trigger every other day but the cartridge is always empty.

Today is no different from other days. Fugo startles awake, eyes blinking rapidly as he realizes that he did not kill Giorno. He stumbles into his bathroom, washes himself, looks at the mirror, looks at the gun, takes it and points it between his eyes, pulls the trigger, and leaves for work.

When he arrives at Passione's headquarters, he heads straight to his office to look over the legal documents Giorno asked him to look over. He doesn't bother to greet anyone since no one bothers to greet him. He's the traitor of Passione and he's fine with that. It keeps people away which means there are fewer people to perform for and fewer people to try to keep away.

The day goes by as usual. Fugo works through his pile until there’s almost nothing there and then some guy he never got to learn the name of drops a bunch of more work for him to do just before lunch. And Fugo won’t eat lunch until he’s burnt out or Sheila E comes to collect him from his office and forces him to eat. Fortunately for him, Sheila E is away on a mission with Murolo so he can do whatever he wants to do without anyone giving him those disappointed stares.

In all honesty, Fugo feels like he’s mellowed down. The six months away from Passione forced him to at least hold back most of his anger and he played piano in some restaurant as a job and he was good at it.

But he didn’t enjoy it. After playing, he would go home, wreck his already shitty apartment and return everything back to how it was before he crashed on his couch. So maybe the reason why he feels like he’s submerged underwater half the time because he feels like he’s playing a piece on the piano before he has to go home, just going through the motions, and pretending.

Fugo stretches his arms and looks at the clock on his desk. 10:45 pm. Time to head home then.

Then it all comes crashing down.

Or more like, Fugo feels like he’s been ripped out of the water, like he’s gone on those stupidly high and fast waterslides that children aren’t allowed on because when you hit the water, you tumble around and experience some kind of vertigo, except it’s in reverse and it feels worse.

Because today is the last day he saw all of them alive. The last day they were all together as a team. The last day before he betrayed them, except he always felt like they betrayed him and not the other way around.

He’s never even visited their graves.

It hits him so hard that he stumbles out of his office and he doesn’t care if there are people around because he just needs to get out, get out, get out.

He’s in the garden before he knows it, and he sinks into the grass and tries to breathe because what the fuck, he feels like he stopped breathing that day and only remembered to breathe now. He feels like crying but he keeps it in and just tries to remember how to properly push air in and out of his lungs even if it stings because in the past, there would always be a warm hand on his back and a soothing voice, and he knows that person will never stand behind him anymore and give comfort because he’s dead.

Minutes pass by and slowly, Fugo can breathe like normal again even if he’s so fucking tired. He collapses on the grass and stares at the night sky, distantly remembering his astronomy lessons when he was still Pannacotta Fugo, child of the wealthy Fugos.

He can hear grass being stepped on and gentle footsteps approaching him and it’s no surprise to see golden curls hanging low and emerald eyes staring back at him.

Fugo hates Giorno so, so much.

"I hate you," Fugo tells his boss. "I wish you were dead. I hope you die the most painful death possible."

Giorno blinks. "Okay. That's fine." He says, slowly. "You're not the only one who wants that."

"When I sleep, I dream that I kill you. I've killed you hundreds of times." Fugo continues, slowly pulling himself up and sitting down beside the most powerful boy in Italy, their knees almost brushing.

Giorno doesn’t shy away, instead, he moves closer to Fugo and their knees are touching. “How do you kill me?” His voice is barely above a whisper and Fugo would laugh if he could but this isn’t the time.

"Different ways. Sometimes I strangle you, sometimes I shoot you, sometimes I hit you with a book, sometimes I stab you."

"No Purple Haze?"

Fugo pauses but shakes his head. "No Purple Haze," he confirms.

Giorno is silent for a minute more and Fugo looks back at the stars, his mind silent for the first time in months.

“I’m sorry. I’m not good at this,” Giorno finally says and he flops down on the grass. “I should’ve let Mista get you.”

Fugo snorts. “Why? Mista doesn’t care,” there’s no malice in his voice, and it’s just a fact.

“No, he does. It’s just… you know, he needs time,” Giorno explains. “Just like you needed time.”

Fugo leans in closer to Giorno and he realizes this is the first time they’ve spoken to each other in months, like, really spoken to each other. It almost feels like a dream when Giorno lifts his hand up and touches Fugo’s cheek like he’s made of glass.

“I hate you,” Fugo says, leaning more into Giorno’s hand. “I wish they were the ones alive and I was the one who died. I wish they were the ones alive and that you never came into our lives.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I’m glad you’re alive,” Giorno says, eyes wide and far too bright. Fugo wants to pull away because his mind is starting to catch up and time away from Passione taught him some things academia and murder couldn’t teach him.

“This doesn’t usually work like this either,” Fugo points out.

Giorno uses his other hand to pull Fugo closer and Fugo can see more things he’s sure no one’s never noticed before like the fact that Giorno has the lightest freckles on his face and that his lashes are really long. “I’m sorry. I’ll do better now,” Giorno tells him. “You should go visit a therapist. We can visit the graves together. I’ll make sure you eat lunch somehow.”

Fugo wants to laugh again but all he feels is a year's worth of grief finally burst and he’s crying again like he did in the restaurant except it feels more real rather than that half-assed performance that felt too perfect and picturesque. Giorno pulls him even closer until there’s no space between them and Fugo buries his face into the crook of Giorno’s neck and feels Giorno hold him tighter.

“I thought that giving you space would be better. I’m really sorry, Panna. I felt like I came off as too much when we first met again. Then I didn’t know how to push anymore and really, that’s no excuse but I’ll do better.” Giorno whispers.

“You’re good, don’t worry,” Fugo takes a shaky breath, half lying, half telling the truth. “Don’t worry.”

Fugo peels him away from Giorno and helps his boss up. Their foreheads are touching and Giorno’s holding onto his hand so gently, it makes Fugo feel sick again. But he squeezes back and knows that they’ll be okay one day.

Not today, but one day.

Notes: wrote this last night listening to fiona apple and just thinking abt phf and how fugo is 16 and giorno is 15 and they're probably not as in touch w their feelings like they might think they are :| or something lol

if u have thoughts or anything feel free to tell me in the comments :>

[maeve-writes]

Like a Stone

Pairings: Dean Winchester x Reader

Rating: 18+; Minors DNI

Warnings: Moderate Dom/sub, oral sex, dirty talk, praise kink, unprotected sex.

Summary: When he no longer had control, he sought you out.

a/n: I’m new to writing the whole Dom/sub thing, so please forgive me. This is also unbeta’d.

This was my submission for another SPN challenge. This is for the prompt: Please? Submitted as the account: @plaided-ani

Inspired by Like a Stone by Audioslave.

-

Dean Winchester drifted in and out of your life over the last nine years. He’d never call, never texted, just showed up when he wanted at all hours of the day and you’d let him in, gave him everything he needed and he was gone with the sun. Never once had you complained, never questioned him, just accepted him as a fleeting part of your life, something you were able to enjoy from time to time.

Then he stopped coming, told you it would be the last time, that it needed to stop. And in the last two years, he kept his word until you found him in your kitchen, sitting at the small table, staring at his hands. He silently watched you as you walked in with your bags, not bothering to help because he knew you wouldn’t accept it, especially in the shape that he was in. Dark circles were thick under bloodshot eyes that sat above hollowed cheeks and pouty lips.

There was something wrong, there always was when he came to you. You knew little of his life, just of his brother Sam and a friend he called Castiel, and that he would often travel for work, but you never prodded. If Dean wanted to tell you, he would, but it seemed best for him to keep you separate from whatever he did and that was fine with you.

You moved through your kitchen, putting away your groceries, feeling his eyes watch every move you made, but you paid no mind to him, spared no glance until you put the last box of pasta away. When you finished, he shifted in his seat, his mouth opening for a moment, but shut shortly after when you lifted one neatly trimmed brow.

You leaned against the island in the kitchen, arms crossed and feet slightly apart. You were still in your work clothes, a simple white blouse and fitted gray slacks, your heels still on your feet and hair pulled into a neat ponytail. You stood there, watching Dean squirm in the chair, jaw clenching and fingers twitching.

Seconds ticked by and turned into minutes, he didn’t dare look up from his hands now that he had your attention, but the quiet was getting to him. “Why are you here, Dean,” you finally broke the silence causing him to flinch.

He hesitated, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed thickly. His mouth opened and a strangled rasp came out. Pink flushed his cheeks and he cleared his throat to try again. “I need…” he searched for the words, eyes darting back and forth across the table as if it would help him. You waited patiently for him to find the words that he needed to say, the permission he needed to give. “I need you.”

You snorted and shook your head, the sound sent a shiver through his body. “You don’t need me, Dean,” you told him, “you want me. What you need is something else, so say it.”

His head ticked to the left, fingers tightening around one another as he let out a shaky breath. “I need to be in control,” he admitted. “I need to know my place and how I should feel and you…” His hesitant gaze flickered over to you, “you’re the only one who can give me that.”

Whatever was going on in his life must have been bad because he would never give an answer so quickly, not without further coaxing. You let his words simmer between you, his gaze averted back to his hands that were still clenched tight. “The rules,” you asked.

“Speak when permitted, touch only when told, no cumming without permission,” he shot back immediately, his shoulders relaxing almost instantly.

“Safeword?”

“Sangria,” he puffed, cheeks flushing darker.

You pushed off the counter and took your time walking over to where he sat, the click of your heels echoed in your tiny kitchen. Each step had him blinking, his nostrils flaring. “I want you in my room, stripped to your boxers, hands behind your back and seated on the bed,” you ordered, a hand reaching up to lightly graze along his jaw. His head tilted slightly into the touch, but when you pulled away, he sat up quickly. “Go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whispered, pushing away from the table, but you caught him by the jacket collar. Instantly, he froze, staring straight ahead, wondering what he did wrong already.

“I need to hear you, Dean,” you whispered back.

He exhaled slowly and nodded once, his voice stronger, “Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s my boy,” you praised and released him. His lips flashed a hint of a smile before he scrambled off to your room to follow your instructions.

You gave him ample time to get ready and then some, taking the time to answer your emails and check on your stocks. A full half hour had passed when you finally made your way to your room, stopping at the threshold.

Dean sat on the edge of the bed in just his briefs, hands in position and eyes forward. It had been at least two years since you had seen him last, his muscles had softened, but only slightly, and there were a few more scars. He was a beautiful man, all hard lines and a harder soul, but you broke all of that down.

You let him stew under your wandering gaze, your eyes lingering on the mysterious tattoo on his chest down to the tent in his underwear. All you had him do was sit and he was already straining. “I can never get over how gorgeous you are,” you sighed, strolling to the far side of the room to grab the chair at your vanity.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Dean replied.

You pulled the chair to sit in front of him, crossing your legs, still fully clothed, and you smiled at him. “And always so obedient,” you chuckled. “Whoever trained you did a very good job.” He made no indication of whether he was pleased by the compliment, just dropped his gaze to your feet.

“Do you remember the last time you were here,” you asked, toeing off your shoes and kicking them aside. Dean flinched but nodded. “Rule one, Dean,” you reminded him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded.

“That will be your first and only warning,” you informed and stood from the chair. “You told me you’d never come back, but here you are.” You moved just within his reach, staring down at him as his face was at your chest level. “I’ll admit that I’m a little shocked, but somehow I feel compelled to help you. I don’t know if it’s because some part of me cares about you when I barely even know you or it’s the universe that pulls me towards you.”

He didn’t respond and his expression remained stone straight, ever the obedient little soldier. You lifted a hand and dug it into the short crop of his hair, tilting his head back so that he could look up at you, a silent show of permission. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re a dream,” you whispered, the fingers of your free hand running down the bridge of his nose, your eyes darting from freckle to freckle while he stared straight into your soul. “If you are,” you leaned down, your nose brushing against his, “you’re one that I don’t want to wake up from.”

When you pressed your lips against his, he melted into your touch. You gave him no leave to make any sound, but it was there in his throat, you could feel it in the tense of his jaw. Your tongue licked into his willingly parted lips, coaxing his to dance with yours, which he did so eagerly. “Drowning your sorrows in whiskey,” you murmured against his open mouth when you parted for air, “when we both know there’s something better in this life for you.”

He looked at you with an unblinking stare, chest heaving slightly. It was obvious he wanted to say something, but he fought against it. You ran your thumb across his bottom lip until your nail stopped and dug into the side of his cheek. “You always end up here,” you frowned. “My sweet boy, will I ever deserve you?”

His gaze faltered, jumping from the wall behind you and back again, the sting of tears pricked at his eyes and he sputtered, but remained silent. “Undress me,” you instructed and released your hold. “You may use your hands.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied evenly, “thank you, ma’am.” His thick fingers fumbled with the buttons of your blouse, his hands shaking as he tried to concentrate on his task and not the overwhelming sensation of your watchful eyes. When he unclasped the last button, he reached up and carefully pushed the fabric from your shoulders, careful not to graze any part of your skin.

His attention turned to your slacks, his effort doubling as tight as they were, but he managed to get them down and off your legs for you to kick aside as you did your shoes, leaving you in your white lacy underwear. He licked his lips and reached up for your bra, but you stepped back with a click of your tongue. “Not now, Dean. Hands behind your back.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, his arms moved behind him, eyes falling back across the room. “Look at you,” you cooed as you climbed onto the bed and kneeled behind him. Your hands raked through his hair and down his neck, dug into his skin at his shoulders and down his arms, scraping over a new scar, oddly shaped. When you touched it, he tensed and flinched away.

You removed your hands from him and watched the raising of his shoulders from his uneven breathing. Whatever reason he had for being there, it had to do with his scar. He was here to forget about it and it was your job to make sure he did. “Color?”

He was silent for a beat before answering with a soft, “Green.”

“Lose the boxers. Lay down,” you tell him, “on your back, hands at your sides.” He nodded and dropped his boxers when he stood before he turned and crawled up the bed at your command. He settled in the middle, head rested on your largest pillow, hands flat against the mattress, body still stiff from your accidental touch.

His body was glorious when it was laid out, waiting. You wanted him all for yourself at that moment, to use him like you wanted, but this wasn’t for you, it was for him. “Spread your legs, Dean.” He instantly complied, parting his bowed legs wide enough for you to settle between. “Rule three?”

“No cumming without permission,” he answered automatically, watching as you crawled up to him, your hands hovering just above his thighs. His hard cock, leaking since the moment you walked in the room, twitched at the thought of what was to come.

“Not a sound from you, do you understand,” you narrowed your gaze and he nodded once. “Good boy.” Your nails dug into the skin above his knee and clawed up to the juncture of his hips causing goosebumps to blossom over his body. “I’ve dreamed about this cock,” you said, leaning down to puff a sigh against the swollen tip, “so long and thick. Fills me up so good, Dean. It gets in so deep that I can feel you days after.”

You snuck a glance up at Dean’s face to see his jaw clenched tightly and his hands twisted into the fabric of your comforter. “And your taste,” you whispered, wrapping a hand around the base to keep the length steady, “like the sweetest ambrosia. If you’re good, maybe I’ll let you cum in my mouth later. Would you like that, Dean?”

His voice was strained, but he answered with an obedient, “Yes, ma’am.”

You smiled against his tip and watched him as you opened your mouth to let the entire thing slip past your lips, not stopping until he hit the back of your throat. His eyes slammed shut and his shoulders lifted off of the bed, his face twisted in an euphoric, silent sob. With each of your head, the head reached the back of your throat and beyond as his cock was sucked tightly with your hot mouth and praised with your wet tongue. His head jerked involuntarily, hips doing their best to keep still.

His thighs tensed around you, the muscles of his stomach rippled with effort to hold himself back. You released him with a pop, removing yourself completely to sit back on your hunches. His chest heaved, eyes still clamped closed, but he was silent and as still as his will allowed.

“You did so good, Dean,” you praised and crawled up to straddle his hips, your hands coming to rest along his ribs. Your lacy core trapped his cock between your bodies, still slick with your spit and hot from his arousal. Slowly you rolled your body, grinding your sex against his, eliciting a moan from you.

“I’m not sure how I want you.” He dared to open his eyes, lust blown pupils zeroing in on you as you once again pushed your soaked white lace against his aching cock. “It’s been years since I’ve ridden you,” you recalled, nails digging into his skin and you rocked painfully slowly against him. “I know you love watching yourself slowly sink into me over and over again while I tell you how amazing it feels, how you’re such a good boy, so sweet and wonderful when you fuck me so, so good.”

His knuckles were white from his grip on your sheets, but his body continued to still and his voice was absent. He wanted to be good for you, he wanted to please you, to make you happy. “But I love having you on top,” you continued, “covering me with your weight, pushing your hips against mine, looking up at your beautiful, perfect face lost in bliss. So many options.”

Your hips stalled and you tilted your head in thought. “I could have both,” you considered, sitting up slightly to tug aside your ruined panties, exposing your glistening folds. You sat back down, running your bare core against his hard cock, leaving a trail of your slick behind. “Or I could just have you bend me over, I know how much you like that. Love curling around me from behind, fucking into me like the animals we are.”

Dean’s chest was heaving, short, hot breaths puffed out of him steadily through tightly clenched teeth.

“Do you want to say something, Dean?���

He stared at you, eyes wide and desperate. “Ma’am, please,” he ground out, voice cracking.

A smile slowly graced your face and you leaned down to hover your lips inches from his, “What is it, sweetheart? Tell me.”

He hissed, not breaking away from your amused stare. “I need you so bad, ma’am. Please?”

Your hands left his sides and snaked up his body, nails scratching over two perky nubs, one resting on his shoulder, the other locked its hand around his jaw, your thumb hooking into his mouth. “Polite as ever, darling,” you laughed quietly. “Your cock is begging,” your hand on his shoulders slid back down between you two and wrapped around the thick, throbbing shaft, guiding it towards your own aching center, “and you ask so sweetly.”

You sank down on him, slowly, deliberately, feeling every inch fill and stretch you. You couldn’t stop your eyes from rolling back as your body took him. “Fuck,” you whimpered when you finally seated yourself completely, feeling him throb inside of you.

His skin was flushed with restraint and you could see the veins protrude in his neck as he adjusted to your warm, wet heat. “Look at you,” you panted, holding yourself up with your hands on his chest, “so good, so patient.” You lifted yourself up, dragging slowly along his cock until head was barely inside and sank down with a raspy moan.

Dean’s jaw clenched tighter, you could hear the grinding of his teeth as his face scrunched with effort to keep quiet and still. “That’s my sweet boy,” you whispered, your hips once again rising and falling carefully on his length, feeling every bump of veins and twitch of him inside of you, “keep it up.” You set the pace, a slow, grinding fuck as you pushed him inside of you again and again.

Large, calloused hands squeezed and relaxed against the mattress, yearning to touch you, to feel all of you, but he wouldn’t dare, not without permission. As much as he was submitting tonight, punishment was not what he wanted. He sought to give into you, to have you show him that his place in the world was not at the end of a blade or gun, but beneath you and your touch.

“My lovely dream,” you groaned, squeezing tightly around him causing his body to tense, “am I not giving you enough?” Dean opened his mouth to reply, but his voice was caught in his throat, eyes squeezed as tightly as they could. You slowed your pace so he could gather his thoughts, but it only seemed to lose him more. “Touch me, darling,” you whispered.

He immediately complied, warm, thick fingers splayed across your flushed skin, seeking and searching every inch of you with your permission. His hand cupped you over your bra and a frown pulled at his lips. “Take it off,” you told him, stilling for the moment so he could focus on his task of popping open your bra and tugging it off in one smooth motion. Then his hands were back on you again, squeezing greedily at your breasts when you continued to ride him.

His hands slid from your chest to your back, rubbing up and down your spine as you began to pick up speed. Ever so casually his hips began to meet yours. Normally, this would result in punishment, but you were getting so lost in the feeling, you allowed it. “That’s it,” you encouraged, leaning down to capture his lips with yours, tongues sliding against one another in time with your hips, “fuck me, Dean. Let me hear you.”

You released a flood gate. His arms wrapped tightly around your middle and his legs bent to get a good hold before pistoning up into you with fervor. You wrapped your arms around his neck, fingers digging back into his hair to tug on the strands and he hid his face away in your chest, biting and licking at your skin. Each thrust tore a deep, rumbling groan from his throat that vibrated through you and straight to your core.

Dean fucked up into you like his life depended on it, his hands digging into your sides hard enough to leave marks that’d you feel for days. The slapping of your skin echoed through the room, drowned out only when one of you managed to find the air to get out a moan or whimper.

From his erratic thrusts, you knew he was close and so were you. With your tight grip in his hair, you pulled back his head and shoved your tongue down his throat and slid the other hand down between you to desperately rub at your clit. “Cum for me,” you breathed into him, forcing your eyes open. “Fill me up.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he whined, staring up at you with those gorgeous eyes, so desperate to please you.

You tumbled over the edge then, the coil he had twisted so tight within you sprung free. You crashed into him with breathless praises as your warmth clamped and spasmed around him. He wasn’t far behind, a few deep, hard thrusts and he spilled into you with a choked sob, mouth parted and eyes rolled into his head.

“So good,” you whispered to him as you both started to come down from your highs, still wrapped around each other, connected in the most intimate way possible. “You did so good, Dean. I’m so proud of you,” you praised and ran both of your hands through his hair, down his face, placing a soft kiss to his lips.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he returned breathlessly, laying down and bringing you with him. He carefully slipped out of you and you shifted to curl up against his left side, one of his arms still around you, the other was used to wipe the sweat from his brow.

When you caught your breath and remembered how to move, you sat up and kissed him properly, a slow burning kiss that curled your toes. “You alright,” you asked, slipping out of your role. Your eyes shifted to the mark on his arm.

“Better now,” he answered with a nod, closing his eyes so he didn’t have to see your curious gaze. “Sorry about last time, you know? My job… It gets stressful. I thought I could deal with it on my own.”

“You don’t need to explain, Dean,” you smiled, kissing along his stubbled chin. “I’ll always be here for you.”

[saphirered]

Hi there! You writings are wonderful. Please could you do an EssekXreader where the reader is from another high ranking den and is betrothed to Essek for political reasons. Both Essek and Reader aren't keen on the idea but eventually after spending time together realise they actually have feelings for each other, I'm thinking a bit like The Swan Princess. Please and thank you.

This is gonna be a two parter as the current draft already exceeds my usual word count limit 🙈 so stay tuned for part two in the next few days! Hope you enjoy 😘

Denial. It must be a cruel joke. Your family, your den they would never use you as a pawn in a bigger plot. This was all just a cruel joke or a move to assure their political advancement without the need to go through with this.

Anger. No. This is real. How dare they? How could they? They would use you like that? Without having the decency to let you know before the deal was made no less! Were it anyone else you’d crush them beneath your boot like the vermin they are for condemning you to a fate not of your own choosing. Perhaps you still might…

Bargain. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe you could just play your part and go your separate ways. A betrothal doesn’t have to end in a marriage. Even if it does, all that counts is appearances. Beyond that you could still have your own life right? You’d always be able to make the ‘me’ decision and wouldn’t have to take in account the ‘we’. Yes that should be right.

Depression. Your life is ruined! You’ll forever be tied to someone else without your consent. Your decisions will reflect on the many now. You’ll have to watch your every move and every choice or it may reflect terribly on your legacy. There’ll be expectations and can you ever live up to them while still being content with your own life or will you be sacrificing your happiness for something so stupid?

Acceptance. Acceptance…. Hell no!

Time for the first official meeting with Essek Thelyss in the context of your arrangement. You’d met many times before given both of your stations and reputations but now, you couldn’t help but feel a coldness towards the man regardless of what cordial or friendly dynamic you might have had in your limited social interactions.

Your respective families meet. You on your side, Essek on his. Both of you portray the facial expressions excepted of you; indifferent content. Nothing over excited nor anything remotely negative either but you’ve been raised a reader of the people and you could see through the cracks in Essek’s appearance. He’s just as happy with this arrangement as you are; not at all.

“It is a pleasure to meet you here today.” Essek speaks. The rules of engagement have not forgone any of you despite your discontent with this whole situation but for the sake of your watching families you’d play your parts. You’d put on a damn good show.

“You as well Shadowhand. Light be blessed we get to spend it in such magnificent company.” You can feel the approving look burn into the back of your head from your Denmother. They’d be none the wiser.

And so the negotiations began. All be damned if you did not at the very least were able to set some of your own terms in this arrangement. Fundings to sustain your lifestyle or a dowry were the least of your worries. You were more concerned with a place you could call your own, time to spend for yourself, security and stability and the ability to continue your life as is regardless of possible marriage. You would never give up your seat at the Bright Queen’s council and you’re very sure Essek wouldn’t give up his either.

Essek had to admit you played the game well. You’re a killer negotiator. Your persuasive side had shone at the Bastion more than once but those circumstances are wholly different than these. Your ability to make it sound like these ideas came from your den and not yourself, and have them think these suggestions were their ideas in the first place is simply remarkable. Remarkable and dangerous. Respect. But no matter how good of a talker you are, or he is for that matter, neither of you could get out of this.

Afternoon tea, a few lunches and dinners here and there and even a few events you were forced to attend with Essek as your escort under the careful watch of your dens. Whenever you were sure they were out of earshot you did not make it unknown neither of you wanted to be here and would prefer to be as far away from each other as possible.

Then there were the times you swore you might actually be able to like the Shadowhand. Councils held lead to many arguments, the Bright Queen watching the court fight among themselves for a next course of action, fundings to be divided and efforts to be pursued. You always kept a level head not allowing yourself to get worked up, or at least appear you weren’t but sometimes you could strangle the life out of some of these fools.

To your surprise in some of these occasions Essek would take your side and support your arguments, concerns and points brought up in debates. So he does know what’s good for him after all? Those moments were quickly ruined by the next point on the schedule where you’d be at opposing sides again. Usually you’d be able to work up an opponent in debate until their credibility would be questioned but Essek had caught onto your games and was no fool. If you could keep your cool, so could he. You had learned how to push his buttons as he had yours.

After a particularly heated debate the Bright Queen dismissed the dens, done with the bickering and infighting for the day. You couldn’t blame her even though there were still many things unspoken. You and Essek were at odds once more and you couldn’t be happier to be done for the day and head somewhere you wouldn’t be forced to interact with the asshole.

Conferring with your allies, trying to gain support of others, you grabbed your things ready to leave the Bastion. There he floated in the anti-chamber eyes cold focussed on you, waiting. You pretend you don’t notice and keep walking for the exit. Essek calls your name as you’re about to pass him. You don’t respond and keep going. He calls again. No response. He grabs your arm stopping you in your tracks. How you’d hoped to escape this confrontation.

“A moment of your time please.” The words leave his lips with an artificial, well-practiced warmth. Oh you’re fighting so hard to contain yourself but you too had a facade to keep up.

“Another time perhaps. I’ve grown quite exhausted after the day’s events. If you will excuse me.” You smile innocently placing your hand over his secured around your wrist. You pry your fingers beneath forcing him to release his grasp on you.

“Then allow me to escort you back home. Should you be able to muster up the strength to converse on our path I’d love nothing more than to just hear your voice.” Essek encases your hands between his. Eyes of the dens fall upon the two of you in the middle of the anti-chamber. Essek is known to be a reserved individual and these advances definitely stand out.

Oh so that’s the game we’re playing. Asshole move, Shadowhand. Two can play this game. If it’s the company you’re currently in he’s using against you you can do the same. You take a step closer to him standing on your tiptoes and lean in to press your lips to his cheek. You linger just a little and whisper into his ear.

“I have nothing to say to you.” You allow the distaste to bleed through your barely audible words before you pull away and take a step back. You couldn’t refuse his ‘generous offer’. It might make you look bad so you smile bright and nod even managing to call on a fake blush like some lovesick fool. From the corners of your eyes you notice the court members whisper among each other. Good. Let them talk. You link your arm through Essek’s still carrying your things.

“I believe I might have forgotten my transcripts of the day. Would you mind joining me in retrieving them?” So whatever the wizard needed to discuss with you he couldn’t say in public… Oh Essek what a mistake you made… That certainly offers you some opportunities to use to your advantage.

“Nonsense! I have my transcripts. You’re free to borrow them, or perhaps you’d like to study them with me? It might give us the opportunity to come to a compromise without wasting the Council’s time. After all, there’s much more pressing matters.” His expression might be a thankful one but if looks could kill… you’d be introduced into your next life this very second.

You begin leading Essek out of the building not allowing him any response or comeback for your previous statement. You walk head held high catching onto the praises of others. ‘A great match’? If only they knew…

Your walk continued in seething silence from Essek. Until you reached your home. Opening the door and leaning against the doorframe making sure no one else is in sight, you smirk at him.

“I’m curious. If I refused to part with these,” You hold up the transcripts. “What would you do? Would you go back and receive your own copies or would you go without them?” You leaf through the pages. It’s not like you needed them. You already had all you needed memorised so if anything they’d go into your archives for future reference and case study if necessary. Essek doesn’t dignify you with an answer yet so you continue to press his buttons.

“Would you be able to discredit my every word or counter them without the direct word for word reference? Would your arguments hold any weight against my own? Or would you be forced to depend on the vote or Light’s mercy, the Bright Queen’s verdict because if the latter, you’ve already lost, my dear.” You can’t hold back the smugness in your achievements. The look of defeat brought you satisfaction.

Essek bites his tongue. Even he knows that in theoretics you have the upper hand now. Recalling your words from memory alone wouldn’t be enough. He’d needed to cite them exactly providing the transcript in your possession. He couldn’t go back or it might arise questions, questions he couldn’t afford at this moment. What caught him off guard was you offering him the transcript still. He takes it before you can change your mind, the pages disappearing beneath his cloak.

“Luckily for you I’m not your enemy. Yes we might disagree on matters of state but at the end of the day we’re going to be stuck together and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.”

“What are you suggesting?” Essek doesn’t know wether he should be wary, outright suspicious, or glad you’ve come up with a plan amidst the chaos.

“A truce. If we keep these antics going it will lead to a war between the two of us. Are you really prepared to be expected to spend the rest of your life with someone you’ve grown to hate? Because I’m not. I’d rather sleep in my bed withe the comfort of knowing my partner will not stab me in the back or sabotage me at every opportunity he gets.” Partner. He. Not they. He. So not even you had a way out of this betrothal.

“Resentment grows much faster than affection.” Essek deadpans. Yes he sees your reasonings and you make some solid arguments but that doesn’t mean he has to trust your motives. He’s aware you in your position are much more dangerous than any spy, assassin or foreign force.

“Light be with me.” You’re exasperated. You’re offering an olive branch and this is his response? You pull him inside and close the door dropping the act entirely within the confines of your own home knowing no one will be watching you here.

“I am not offering you an epic enemies to lovers tale! I’m offering to make the best out of a situation neither of us actually want to be in! Marriage is just another contract. We do what is expected of us by following it to the letter and nothing more, nothing less. Love or affection is not part of that contract but respect is.” Essek takes in your words and considers them making sure you’re not twisting things in such a way you could later use against him or to your advantage.

“Your logic is sound and your arguments persuasive.” You raise your hand in an exasperated ‘thank you’ as he straightens your back and looks down at you.

“Very well. We have an agreement.” You’re on the verge of letting out a breath of relief at Essek agreeing to your terms and suggestions. You’d rather be sure this man isn’t going to drop you on a different plane in your sleep once you’ll be forced to share a home. You’d rather know you can trust him to have your back despite your grievances. At the end of the day, you both want to survive.

“Match made in Elysium.” Sarcasm is clear in your voice and the both of you cannot help but smile. More like match made in hell with the ‘letter of the law’ approach to navigating your predicament.

—————

Pacing back and forth fingers pressed to your lips in thought of Essek’s sitting room you ponder the terms of your agreement. Essek himself is seated on the couch leaning over a two sheets of paper, a long list of demands from both sides written on each.

“Next up housing.” You announce. Essek fiddles with the pen looking over the lists.

“I’m not willing to part with my towers unless something of equal or greater value is returned. I need space for my practices, experiments and studies.”

“I’ll agree to part with my own home under the terms you will share your personal resources with me and I will have amicable space for my own pursuits be this here or at another place of our mutual choosing.” Essek considers your terms on this matter. They are agreeable but this is a negotiation and neither of you are refraining from pushing for an outcome to suit yourself best.

“We will share my home then but we will both share our resources unless they pertain to exclusively personal matters or those of state when we inevitably find ourselves on opposing sides in the Bastion.” You stop pacing and turn to face Essek. He watches for your responses.

“I get my own tower.” You counter.

“That’s preposterous. I have need for certain rooms and areas for my studies and cannot relocate them.”

“Fine. Then I’ll get all unoccupied or unnecessary rooms.”

“You’ll get your own private bedchambers, study and sitting room just as I’ll have mine. These chambers will be exclusive and privacy to be respected. Other spaces save for my laboratory, for your own safety, are communal.” By the expression on your face Essek knows you’ve caught him in a loophole.

“Agreed. We’re entitled to our private spaces and will share the unspecified ones. Kitchen, dining room, living area… library…” You caught hime there… Essek’s expression turns sour. He’d have preferred to keep that one to himself but the agreement is fair.

“I wish to make an amendment.”

“Name your terms.”

“Some shelves will belong to my private collection. You will refrain from touching these tomes and scrolls without my explicit permission.” You ponder not entirely convinced. There’s nothing in there for you and Essek knows it. You raise an eyebrow for him to continue and concede on a previously negotiated term for this amendment to go through.

“And in return, you get to redecorate our communal spaces how you see fit, within the realms of reason.” Essek empathises the latter part of his statement.

“Agreeable.” You nod. “Next up; social engagements.”

The two of you go back and forth agreeing, adjusting, and conceding to come to an equal understanding and finalise your arrangement. Over all, it went surprisingly well. It certainly was a nice change of scene to have somewhat friendly negotiations without the added pressure of the dens and the Bright Queen herself watching you.

Essek makes for a good conversationalist and you might even dare say you enjoyed your afternoon setting the terms and conditions. Maybe you could be friends after all. That would be nice.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

A Miraculous TikTok Account

Part 5

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Pretending to be perfect would be so much easier if she was actually perfect.

Now, Ladybug absolutely knew that she didn’t need to pretend anymore. In fact, there was no way in hell that she would be able to keep up the act…

And so she’d told herself that this was fine, that she was okay with the fact that she was going to be incorporating her life as ‘Ladybug’ more into her actual life.

She’d tried. She really had. She’d worn her normal clothes for the first few days while she was unpacking…

And then she’d sat down next to Carapace on that couch to talk to him like normal humans do… only to find herself falling right back into her persona the moment she’d laid eyes on him. She’d pulled her ‘scared civilian smile’ to her face and lied about her progress on her room for seemingly no reason.

That night she went to the store to buy herself red and black dresses to match her usual Ladybug aesthetic.

They’d believe that she was just wearing the casual clothes as temps while she was settling in, probably, it wouldn’t take much to convince them that she actually acted like Ladybug at all times.

Now, she knew that this would only work for a limited amount of time. No one could be perfect forever, and the resident human disaster would have an even harder time keeping up the charade…

But she could keep it up for a while, and ‘a while’ was all she needed.

After all, she suddenly had a proper motivation to find out who Hawkmoth was (she hadn’t really cared before, things were always fixed at the end so she wasn’t all that concerned about it), and Ladybug was never one to do things half-ass.

She had to change everything about herself, though, because she couldn’t concentrate on Hawkmoth if she was constantly worrying about maintaining her facade.

She considered ‘Ladybug’s’ general traits and how to convince everyone of it:

Probably a narc, has her life together, perfect…

Yeah, that would probably be enough for now.

She started by learning the law. She found some cheap copies of law textbooks online.

(And promptly found out by reading them that many of the sites she’d used to buy them were technically illegal. She wrote out an apology in Google to the DGSI agent that might be watching her computer. Did they care? Probably not, but she figured there was no harm in being safe.)

Next was getting her life together…

Difficult, but she figured she’d be able to do it. People did it all the time, right?

… not right.

She stared at the article she found on getting your life together in a few simple steps. She was not at all fond of being called out for all her bad habits and coping mechanisms so bluntly...

Still, it was worth a shot.

She searched through her boxes and pulled out a whiteboard. She pushed a couple pictures of her civilian friends off of it, there were more important things to be doing (also the whole ‘secret identities’ thing…), and started making a schedule for herself.

Ladybug blocked out time for work, working out, and cooking/eating healthy food. It left… very little time to find Hawkmoth…

Unless…

Coffee! The ultimate ‘I have my life together’ drink AND it added a few hours to her day! It was perfect!

Speaking of perfect, she was now going to have to be perfect pretty much all day.

She wouldn’t get a break as a civilian because she worked with models and fashion designers and kwami knows that even perfect isn’t enough for them most of the time.

Even her room wasn’t safe, Chat had proved that by walking in and watching her faceplant (it was a good thing he was stupid or else that might have actually ended up being a problem).

No, the only times she could be herself was when she was 1) texting her civilian friends or 2) walking to and from work.

She was beginning to think this was a lot more trouble than it was worth…

Whatever. She was doing it anyways. Nothing, not even logic, was going to stop her from maintaining her ‘Ladybug’ persona.

~

She nearly dropped her coffee (which was mostly sugar and milk, let’s be honest) when she heard a knock on her trapdoor.

“Come in!” She said, pulling an earbud out of her ear.

Chloe poked her head through. “The akuma can fly.”

Ladybug fought the urge to groan. She looked down at the empty page in her sketchbook. Gabriel Agreste, the bastard, wanted a design by the next day and he didn’t grant extensions for akumas.

But she supposed saving Paris was slightly more important than her work --.

Wait, if she didn’t save Paris then she wouldn’t have to turn in her assignment…

She saw Tikki giving her a disapproving look, no doubt aware of where her thoughts were currently heading, and rolled her eyes.

She took out her other earbud and got up. “Alright. Tikki, spots on. Is it really a two person job?”

“Master Fu says so.”

“And Chloe says…?”

“Chlo -- I say that it’s a man made of sand. Guess how hard it’ll be.”

“Mr. Sandman, man me a sand…” mumbled Ladybug absently.

Chloe frowned a little bit. “Did you say something?”

She blinked a few times and then smiled. “Just that Master Fu needs to relax a bit more. We’re very obviously overcompensating.”

“True.”

Ladybug pushed open the attic window and they both flew out into the night --.

Wait, night? Wow, it was a lot later than she thought it was. She was soooo screwed on this deadline.

But there were bigger problems: there was a guy floating around on a pillow.

“The Sandboy just checked in! Now nightmares can begin!”

She rolled her eyes under her mask and looked at Chloe. “What does he do?”

“Creates nightmares. Obviously.”

They came to a stop a few buildings away and watched as sand slowly sprinkled down from the pillow that Sandboy was currently riding. The houses that he passed over erupted with screams.

Wow, the sand was really pretty, actually. Ladybug took note of the colors and the way it shone in the night. Maybe she could model the dress after it… she could do those colors, a bit of glitter…

Chloe nudged her shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

“Hm? Oh, yeah, just thinking about what to do…” … for her assignment, but Chloe didn’t need to know that.

“Got any ideas?”

She forced herself to focus on Sandboy. “His cloud is shaped like a pillow, that’s probably the akuma. It also looks like the glitt -- sand -- the SAND is what causes the nightmares, so we should avoid that.”

Chloe nodded a little bit. “Obviously. What should we do?”

“Knock him off.”

“You’re so smart, I wonder how I’d never thought of that,” she said sarcastically.

“You ASKED me what we should do! I answered --!”

“Hello, ladies!” Said Sandboy as he came around the side of the roof.

Chloe scoffed. “Go back to saying your lame rhyme, will you? We’re in the middle of something!”

Sandboy frowned, his expression a combination of shocked and offended. His voice was much higher when he spoke next: “You think my rhyme is lame?”

“Yes.”

Sandboy looked at Ladybug for confirmation, and Ladybug just shrugged and nodded.

“Ouch,” said Sandboy. He cleared his throat and when he spoke again he’d deepened his voice: “We’ll see how lame you think I am when you’re fighting your worst nightmare!”

Ladybug and Chloe immediately jumped away, because usually people say that when they’re about to attack, and the sand nailed the roof right where they’d just been.

The two women met eyes briefly and an understanding passed between them.

“Still lame!” Taunted Chloe.

Sandboy gasped indignantly and floated after her. Chloe smiled and started flying away.

“I mean, honestly, who thought of that? What’re you ‘checking in’ to? Work?”

Sand barely missed Chloe and she took out her spinning top to get away faster.

A piece of sand hit her spinning top. Ladybug and Chloe gave pause. Would that count? Well, it didn’t matter, at least. The solution would be the same: keep running.

Chloe must have come to the same conclusion, because she shook her head and continued…

Except her strides were much slower now.

Ah. So it did matter.

Chloe whimpered a little bit.

Ladybug winced. Great. So it had taken away her powers, probably, or at least her speed. She needed to wrap this up…

She forced herself to fly faster and she launched herself at Sandboy’s back. He happened to glance back and see her, which wasn’t great as he ascended sharply.

Her hands managed to catch the pillow, and she held tight even when she got a facefull of sand.

She felt flames lap at her ankles and a strangled scream escaped her lips. Ladybug didn’t care how she went out for the most part, but it was not going to be through burning to death. She forced herself to not pay attention to the fact that the fire was travelling up and catching on the hem of her dress and it was creeping along her --!

Nope! Not paying attention!

She swung her legs back and forth a few times to wobble the pillow underneath him until he inevitably lost his balance and fell over the side.

That was the good thing.

The bad thing was that the pillow was apparently Sandboy powered and now Sandboy and Ladybug were both plummeting towards the flames far below. Ladybug flapped her currently burning wings and couldn’t help but mumble a curse when she realized that they definitely didn’t work as well when they were on fire.

As it was, she managed to slow her fall and miss the bulk of the flames by inches.

Still hurt like hell when she hit the ground, though.

She rolled around on the concrete streets to smother the flames and didn’t relax until she knew for sure that they were gone.

That done, she allowed herself to relax with a still smoldering pillow. She probably would have rested her head on it if she wasn’t somewhat worried that some leftover sand would touch her face and she’d have to deal with more fire.

Still, it was over… that was nice…

A foot nudged her side. 

She blinked the pain from her eyes and looked up at Chloe…

Chloe pulled the pillow from her weak grip and tore the case.

The akuma fluttered out of the pillow.

Ladybug forced herself to her feet before she was ready.

“Can you hit the akuma or do you need me?”

Chloe scoffed a little, and then paused. She considered for a minute before saying, “Yeah, it’s not like I just faced one of my worst nightmares...”

“Losing your powers is one of your worst -- know what? Doesn’t matter. You can’t even hit it without your powers,” said Ladybug.

Chloe frowned.

Ladybug ignored this. She pulled her yoyo from her waist and tossed it at the butterfly. The akuma gave a pitiful squeak as it was sniped out of the air.

Instantly, her pain melted away. She breathed a sigh of relief. Much better.

She slowly walked over to Sandboy, who was apparently just a kid.

Annoyance flared in her. Hawkmoth was going after kids? This one looked like a toddler!

She forced herself to relax and brought a smile to her face. “Hey, what happened?”

“I watched a scary movie and had a nightmare…” explained the kid.

She nodded a tiny bit and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Would you like one of us to take you home? We can read you a bedtime story and keep the akumas away…”

PleasesaynoIhaveworktodopleasesaynosaynosay --.

“Yes please!” The kid sniffled and wrapped his arms around her.

Noooooooo...

Chloe spoke up after a second’s hesitation, her expression thoughtful: “You were working on something before we left, right, ‘bug?”

Ladybug blinked behind her mask. “Yeah…?” Was Chloe really going to offer to help?

“Ha! Sucks! See you tomorrow!” Chloe smiled and stuck her tongue out at Ladybug, then took off.

Yeah, she should have expected that.

She rolled her eyes and looked back down at the kid. Whatever. She could go read him a story and get him to bed, it shouldn’t take long…

“Where do you live?”

“I don’t know.”

Fuck.

~~~

Taglist

@nathleigh @mialuvscats @sassakitty @th1s-1s-my-aesthet1c @blueslushgueen

[keyofjetwolf]

We’re All Just Guys

Well it took the entire fucking season, but I FINALLY get the purpose for Henry Fondle: Sex Robot. And while the entire episode (and season, honestly) has been tremendous, that this ridiculous fucking punchline was the vehicle to deliver the overarching point with a solid knockout punch of meaning AND pathos? Absolutely floored. That BoJack Horseman can be (and often is) brilliant isn’t a surprise, but the ways is keeps proving it often are.

So “The Stopped Show”, a tale of accountability and responsibility and how we’re all just guys.

Each of our main characters closes out this season alone (sort of), in assorted stages of realizing the main themes, or completely failing to. I find Diane’s arc the hardest for me to make a decision on, which isn’t surprising, as I think in many ways, Diane’s the most complicated character in the show. She delivers, directly and succinctly, one of the major points of not just this season but the entire show, but how does it relate to her? I’M NOT COMPLETELY SURE. I think part of the problem with (and for) Diane is that she knows better. She’s the most insightful character, she has a fantastic head on her shoulders, but only for everyone else. She’s this fucked up little disaster prophet, her vision clear and her message concise, unable to ever apply her gifts to fix herself.

Diane is just as trapped as BoJack, but in a fun twist, is now lagging behind him in trying to do something about it. Nearly every single scene with Diane this season has been in this sad little room of her sad little apartment with all her sad little unpacked boxes, and no matter how much truth and wisdom she spits out, HERE SHE STILL IS, failing to correctly assemble IKEA furniture with names like Bȧcksleid. She already feels like shit for sleeping with Mr. Peanutbutter, so what does she do? THE SAME FUCKING THING. To which I groan and roll my eyes, while simultaneously being proud of her for directly and immediately setting him straight about not getting back together. Diane rides this constant line where she gets it but also doesn’t, which is so interesting to me in the level of additional frustration this makes me feel. BoJack is so self-absorbed you don’t really expect any better of him, which has the flip side of your expectations being so low that even the whiff of progress feels exceptional. Diane doesn’t come with any of that though, she knows better, you KNOW she knows better, and the consequence of this for the audience is that she winds up being more unlikeable than the guy who literally last episode nearly strangled his girlfriend and co-star in the middle of a paranoid drug-induced frenzy.

Which is fucked up! It’s intensely fucked up! And also, I think, the point! We expect more of Diane, and so feel more disappointed when she doesn’t deliver. Is that fair of us?

But there’s more here, as we pivot to the accountability portion of this episode/season. From the beginning of the show, it’s been incredibly upfront about how everything is unfair. We come back to this time and again. Privilege rules the day in the world of Hollywoo. Fame, money, charisma, gender, power. BoJack has been an asshole from pretty much the moment he set foot in the spotlight (possibly before?), and the only thing ever even attempting to hold him back has been the moments his guilt manages to scream loud enough to be heard over his internal narrative. Whatever he does, however he fucks up, he always stumbles back to his feet, and NEVER with any (broad scale) consequences. Meanwhile, here’s Diane, in her sad shitty apartment. Consequences haunt Diane, even if she’s the one doing the haunting. The crap things she’s done and the shitty choices she’s made cling to her.

There’s no fairness in that either, no justice. But Hollywoo (and the entire world around it) (and our world too oh yes) has that privilege carved into its bones, and Diane bears none of its marks. Her situation is very different from but parallel to Gina, who is just so fucked over, it keeps legitimately making me angry for her.

Gina, of course, brought none of this on herself. She made the mistake of caring about BoJack and trying to help him. OOPS YOU WERE A GENEROUS PERSON WITH AN OPEN HEART FUCK YOU LADY. For her trouble, Gina has been assaulted and traumatized, AND she is in very real danger of her career being over when it’s only just finally beginning. And she KNOWS THIS. That’s the part that I keep coming back to. All this should be an aberration, an anomaly, and while that may be true of the specifics, conceptually, it’s so commonplace that Gina already knows how it’s going to play. She’ll stop being Gina and become The Woman Nearly Strangled To Death By BoJack Horseman. Even if she’s able to keep working, this is what she’ll be asked about in every interview forever. Even if she convinced people to genuinely listen to her, BoJack would, at worst, get a slap on the wrist as he stumbles back to his feet. We know that, WE ALL KNOW THAT, because it happens all. the. fucking. time. Gina did nothing wrong, but this would still define her for the rest of her life, while for BoJack, it would maybe become a footnote on his Wikipedia page.

Nothing about that is FAIR. Nothing about it is JUST. Gina’s choices shouldn’t have to be “this becomes my entire life” or “swallow this down and pretend it never happened”. But it is, as it has been in perpetuity for the victims of the privileged.

So then what can we do about it? Well that’s really the question, isn’t it? This episode answers it in an assortment of ways (I think the entire SHOW is very much about this, really, but this episode is for sure coming with guns blazing), while also showing us why none of those answers can work. It’s funny and sad and awful and true, but also, ultimately, the most hopeful answer because it’s the only one you can actually affect: It’s you. It’s me. It’s each and every one of us, individually, making a choice to be better.

And believe it or not, we embody this with Henry Fondle: Sex Robot.

I thought the whole thing was so unbelievably stupid. Half the season, we’ve had this goddamn multi-dildo’d juvenile frat boy joke running around with its stupid ass Speak-and-Say voice, doing the same shtick over and over, and I’m like, “okay this is just the shit I have to put up with to get the clever stuff, I guess.” BUT THAT’S EXACTLY THE POINT I’M SITTING THERE LIVING THE ENTIRE GODDAMN POINT AND MISSING IT. Henry Fondle: Sex Robot is seventeen shades of overt horribleness, AND WE ALL JUST GIVE IT A PASS. It’s just the way it is, the way the world works, the price of doing business. When the whole time -- THE ENTIRE FUCKING TIME -- all it took was one person to say no. One person who could see the game we all are playing and was willing to give up everything to stop it.

Hilariously, Henry Fondle IS a metaphor, sort of, but of the saddest kind. He is literally a robot, he can’t possibly change. What’s more, media fervor will never affect him, fallout will never touch him, and the powerful will always rally around themselves to retain their power. It takes Todd, the head of the company, the creator of Henry Fondle, and the one person who would benefit most from the unending efforts of the rest of the world bending over backwards to avoid the truth, to put a stop to it. In doing so, he immediately returns to his old, homeless, destitute self, but doesn’t once hesitate or look back.

It’s Todd, and only Todd, that stops that madness, because while individual people are a problem, the world at large is too. Stefani makes a great point that Diane holds herself and everyone else to impossible standards and a little forgiveness and grace wouldn’t go amiss, but when Diane suggests they apply that philosophy to their clickbait gossipy shit on their website, it’s just

Which again, is beautifully cynical and depressing, but not untrue. Fostering a more forgiving culture isn’t in stopping websites from posting clickbaity takedown articles, it’s each person deciding not to take the clickbait. We can absolutely have a conversation about the people creating their world or the world creating its people, but when you boil it down, only one of those things can you yourself absolutely and directly change, and it’s not the entire world.

A THING DIANE GETS BUT SIMULTANEOUSLY ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT.

I can’t take myself away from this Diane thing, I know, but only because she’s the fucking CORE of each and every one of us struggling with this idea. She’s the simplicity of it and the complication all in one. Not BoJack, which is NOT where I thought we’d be when we started this journey. BoJack is more an action on the people around him at this point in the story, he IS the world you cannot change. He’s pointed to rehab, and off he goes -- or doesn’t! I don’t think it’s coincidence that we stay with Diane and watch her watching him.

Oh, Diane, indeed. As she tells her story of her friend Abby, who threw her over for the cool kids, who turned every confidence into a scar. Who Diane still helped anyway, because Abby needed her. Did Abby learn from that, did she get better? We don’t know; we stay with Diane and watch her watching Abby. Diane, who can so completely understand about personal responsibility while failing to recognize her own enabling for the shitty things that keep happening to her.

You can control yourself. That’s it. That’s the only playground with a guarantee.

Will BoJack go off to learn that? Will Diane stay and figure it out?

THAT’S WHAT NEXT SEASON IS FOR

Something I was toying with including in this, but ultimately decided against for a variety of reasons, was the contrast between BoJack’s take on personal responsibility independent of external response, and The Good Place’s argument that people need external support for personal growth. An idea I may not have even considered contrasting save that Doc’s talked before about these two Jewish creators with what are clearly very different philosophies, and basically, if she were ever able to manage a discussion between them on this, I’d love to be in the room. I’ll be very quiet and not get in the way, I promise.

[sonickedtrowel]

#32 sounds like fun!

things you said I wouldn’t understand

Happy ever after doesn't mean forever.  It just means time.  A little time.  But that's not the sort of thing you could ever understand, is it?

Perhaps not, the Doctor reflected, his knee bouncing impatiently beneath the table as they finally approached the end of their last course.  (The food was delicious, probably.  He hadn’t really noticed; too busy gripping River’s hand, in case she got any more daft ideas in between starters and dessert, and trying not to stare too much.)  

Could he ever accept that a little time with her would be enough?  Of course not.  His entire being revolted against the idea with a ferocity that left him shaken.  No amount of years or centuries, no number of lives with her could ever be enough.  But they wanted the same thing, in the end: every last precious second they could get.  That, he would gladly give her.

Things always fell so effortlessly into place with River.  It had been wonderful enough just basking in her presence, but the instant she recognised him, they were together again.  She slipped back into that intimacy without a hint of hesitation, and it felt as comfortable and as thrilling as it always had.  Of course the Doctor had known she didn’t care which face he had on, but it was another thing to experience how joyfully she welcomed a new one.  With decades of night ahead of them, he felt the sun was truly shining on this old face for the first time.

“Staring again,” River observed, startling him out of his reverie.  She was covering a smile by dabbing her napkin at the corner of her mouth, but it did nothing to hide the light in her eyes.

“Ah,” the Doctor said, not bothering to feign embarrassment.  “Sorry.”

“Is that a particular quirk of this face?”

“Not generally, no.”

“Missed me, then?”

“You could say that,” he said, his voice wavering.

She turned toward him, laying her other hand over his.  “How long?”

A thousand years.  Five billion.  Forever.  So long that his memories of her had begun to seem like an impossibly beautiful dream; too good to have been real, to have ever graced his undeserving life.

“Too long,” the Doctor answered.  He wondered how she could look at him like that, with all the love and concern and understanding born of centuries of companionship, when just hours ago she’d been declaring he’d never loved her.  River squeezed his hand between hers.

“Well,” she announced after a moment, “this was wonderful, but I couldn’t eat another bite.  Shall we go, darling?” 

He could only manage a grateful nod in reply.

With one long last look at the towers, they turned and made their way back to the TARDIS.  River, evidently not in quite as much of a hurry as he was, stopped to speak to all the staff they passed on the way, lavishing praise on the meal and thanking them for the special attention they’d been given (as the original benefactors of the establishment, of course— not that he’d mentioned that bit to her yet.  He’d get to it eventually.)  

She was lovely when she was being kind and gracious, just as she was lovely when she was brandishing a gun at someone, but either way, the Doctor didn’t have the patience for dealing with other people tonight.  He wanted her attention all to himself.  They were owed a little selfishness, he thought, after all this time.  When he placed his hand at her lower back, she took mercy on him again and said her goodbyes to the hostess, letting him steer her into the TARDIS.  

The door creaked shut behind them at last, and a tense quiet descended over the room.  This was usually the part where they stumbled up to the console between laughter and kisses, argued amiably over the controls as they took off into the vortex or some unoccupied corner of deep space, and he made a show of pretending to complain about her half undressing him before they even made it to the bedroom.

River looked at him, and with his palm resting on her back, he could feel the stiff hesitance in her posture.  She was waiting, probably for a sign that he wanted that: to go on as if not a day had passed since they’d last been together.  And, god, he’d never wanted anything more in his lives.  But there was no pretending he hadn’t heard all the things she’d said today, not now.  He was done with taking the easy way out, and it was up to him to put her doubts to rest.  But where to even begin?

“So,” she said, flashing him an uncertain, tremulous smile.  Always the brave one.  “What do you want to…” she trailed off, her shining eyes searching his.  Her lips were slightly parted in silent question, and as his gaze settled there, the Doctor decided all at once to throw out the order of priorities.  Anyway, he was good at multitasking.

River made a strangled sound in her throat as his lips met hers, surprise trailing into an urgent whimper.  They stumbled into the railing, and he pressed up against her, leaving no space between them for her to fill in with doubts of whether he wanted this.  She grasped blindly for him, one hand gripping his jacket and the other winding into his hair.  They fit together just as perfectly as he’d remembered, but no memory could compare to this.  His tongue traced along her upper lip, and she tipped her head back, sighing with pleasure.

The Doctor worried for a moment that his knees would give out at the overwhelming feel of her, solid and warm and so alive, breathing sharply under his shaking hands.  His mind clouded with the bright aroma of her perfume, the soft heat of her skin, the lingering trace of champagne sparkling on her tongue.  He’d nearly forgotten what it was to love her and to have her.  Centuries of grief and longing met with sudden, miraculous relief, and the shocking reality of it was almost more than his nerves could take.  

He was shivering, but couldn’t bring himself to care if she noticed.  That was really beginning to bother him, though, the more he turned it over in his mind— the noticing.  Today’s events notwithstanding, River was far too clever not to have noticed a very long time ago that he was madly in love with her.  He hadn’t exactly made a secret of it over the centuries.  How, after so much time together, had he managed to fuck up this badly?

“Tell me, wife,” he mumbled in between graceless, needy kisses.  “Where did I go wrong?”  His hands fell to her waist, tracing up over her sides, the beading on her dress rasping under his fingertips.

“You didn’t, sweetie,” she breathed.

The Doctor huffed in disbelief.  “You thought I didn’t love you.”  He tried not to wince at the words.  No matter how painful it was for him, it was worse for her.  “You… think I don’t love you.”

“Oh, anyone can fool a lie detector,” she scoffed.  “Don’t you think I accounted for that possibility before planning his murder right under his nose?”

“River, come on.  Don’t do that.  When you said it, you meant it.  You meant it enough.”

“It, it’s not that—” she stammered, but he pressed on, forcing out the most difficult question before he lost the nerve.

“Did you always?  Did you really always believe that, our whole life together?”

“Oh, darling, no,” she said, stroking his face.  “Of course not.”  

“Because— I’m not trying to make excuses, I know I can be rubbish— but I thought I’d been sort of extremely clear on that point?  I’m, I’m sure there were a lot of honeymoons, and, uh, some poetry…”

River breathed out a soft laugh, her hand still resting against his cheek, and he leaned into her palm.  She had no reason to be looking at him with such affection when he’d clearly been completely inadequate as a husband to her.

“It was just… after Manhattan,” she said, and glanced down, avoiding his eyes.  “You were gone, and…  after a while, I thought I’d rather pretend it had never been real, than admit I’d lost everything.  I knew better.  I did,” she insisted, when he frowned at her.  “But it was… easier.  To run off and get into trouble you wouldn’t approve of, and tell myself you didn’t care anyway.”

The Doctor let out a heavy breath, resting his forehead against hers.  “You never lost me, River.  You never could.  You were always younger, after that.  I should have come back for you, looked for you where you are now.  But I thought if I did, I wouldn’t be able to hold this off any longer.”  He swallowed tightly, choking back tears.  “I’m sorry.  I… I did ask you to stay.”

“I know.”

“I meant it.  I’ve always wanted that.”

“Me too,” she whispered.

“Give me another chance?”

“Always.  If that’s still what you want.”

“Wha— of course it is,” the Doctor sputtered, incredulous.  “You’re my wife.”

“You do have others.”  She made a good show of teasing him, but he knew better now.

“River,” he sighed, “those were weddings, not marriages.  Any idiot can stumble into a wedding, but there’s only so many times you can keep coming back and still call it an accident.  I think we were well past that number by our wedding night, dear.  —Which,” he added as she laughed, smiling up at him through tears, “is also a thing none of the other ones had.  I married you on purpose, and I’m going to stay right here with you on purpose, because I love you, and being with you is— it’s all I want.  Is that okay?”

He was alarmed for a moment when River choked out a sob, but she was still smiling as she nodded, her tear-streaked cheeks shining.  Then she took his face firmly in both hands and kissed him with such frantic passion that his head spun.  Or, maybe not just his head.  Before he’d quite figured out what was happening, she’d flipped them about so he was pinned against the railing instead.

“Oh,” the Doctor croaked.  The sudden jolt of heat tingling through his body as he reflexively gripped her hips was another thing he’d nearly completely forgotten.  It would seem he still enjoyed nothing more than River casually demonstrating she could kill him with her little finger, but had decided to do very nice things to him instead.  It was just so her.  His wife, the obstinate assassin.  Not even a lifetime of brainwashing could compel her to do anything she didn’t want to do.  Lucky bastard that he was, she’d decided she wanted to love him.

“Know what I said about how everything isn’t sexy?” he muttered.  She pulled back just enough to raise an eyebrow at him.  “I’m prepared to make an exception.”

River laughed, pleased and warm.  “Aren’t you always?”

“Only for you, dear.”

“Mmm, good answer.”

“Bedroom?” he suggested.

“Thought you’d never ask,” she sighed.  “But… we should probably park her somewhere other than the restaurant lobby first.”

“Oh, right.  Good idea.”

They stumbled to the console between laughter and kisses, and bickered cheerfully over the map of their new home planet on the scanner, before deciding that moving her just outside the restaurant was good enough for now.  There’d be plenty of time to settle in wherever they chose later.

“You know,” River said as they turned down the corridor to the bedroom, “since you mentioned it.  You did write me the most lovely poetry.  I keep them all in my diary.  Have you written anything lately?”

“Er, written yes; poetry no.”

“Oh?”

“Electric guitar, mostly.”

“Really!” she exclaimed, delighted.  “Now that is definitely sexy.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor asked, a grin spreading over his face.

“Very.  What inspired you to take it up?”

“Ah, well, I don’t know,” he said, slipping his arm around her waist.  “Guess I’m always thinking of a song.”

[dawdlingbiscuit]

Liz(zington) ‘explained’....by Liz Keen

Just a little part of a fic I wrote in 2013 about the laws of attraction. Based on what we were shown so far, mixed in with some amateur psychology. For me things could have gone either way: it was the enigma that kept me watching and I’ll probably continue through s 9. But please.....let that be the last season: it’s getting way to complicated to keep up....

__________________________

Extract from: The Bad Seed

“Is that what you would like to hear?”  Liz asked, voice perfectly calm and under control. “That I hate you?”

With a spark of renewed interest, Reddington tore himself away from his favorite view to meet her piercing, penetrating gaze.

“The truth will do.”

“Like the truths you have been dishing out, to scare me off with your little games?

“You’re still here aren’t you?” He actually seemed surprised she was, but pleased nonetheless, her cheeks a little rosier, a new gleam dancing in her eyes.

“Your cruel games don’t just make feelings go away, Red. Yes, I am attracted to you and you should have taken into account the human factor before you started all this. It’s entirely your own fault.”

She ignored his indignant little laugh and grabbed the bottle from the table, popped the cork and poured herself some more liquid courage.

“Do you have any idea what you have done to me?” she asked, looking hard at him, trying to find the words to vocalize the jumble of feelings inside her. The grey eyes glittered back in a do tell-expression. “You come into my life and change everything I have ever lived for. You ruin my marriage…”

"I thought we had just established that you are the only one who can claim responsibility for that particular issue.” he cut her off, voice drier than Frederick’s brew, but she did not bite.

“You ruin my relationship with Tom, tell me all sorts of vague stories about my past, act as if you know me, make me a partner in your grand scheme to bring down the baddies of this world …… do you have any idea what this is doing to me?”

“I’m sorry Lizzy, I am doing this for a reason.”  A genuine apology. ”Please bear with me.”

She took a moment to control her temper which threatened to suffocate the words in her throat - resisted the urge to calm her nerves with more liquor. His placid tone of voice was infuriating. If he told her one more time to exert due diligence then she would strangle him with his Borelli tie.

“You are making it very hard for me to accept you as my guardian angel. Keeping me safe from harm? You have a funny understanding of this task, because since you came into my life, I’ve been shot at, beaten, tortured, nearly executed by your dear old friend Garrick, got thrown out of a moving ambulance and the prospect of disappearing from the face of the earth in a bathtub full of smelly chemicals really tops my list of all time favorites. And you have the nerve to tell me I can trust you and you will keep me safe?”

“I already humbly admitted to you and dear old Harold, that I am not perfect, Lizzy. I do try.”

“If you’re trying to ruin my life I must admit that you are doing one hell of a job.”

“I am not trying to ruin your life, although it may seem so to you. Please trust me when I say this.”

She glanced at his tie, toyed with her glass to calm down and continued with less of a cutting edge than he expected.

“Red, did you realize when you started all this that I would either hate you with a passion or fall in love with you?”

From the look on his face she concluded that he clearly hadn’t.

“You're all I have left.” There was nothing as powerful as the plain and simple truth.  “Sam is dead, my husband gone, my co-workers don’t trust me and Ressler probably thinks I’m sleeping with you. The only one I can rely on is you and you are the most unreliable person I have ever met.”

He seemed to take that as a compliment, but his expression changed when he saw that she was genuinely affected. He filled his glass with another four fingers and listened patiently, her words sobering him up, despite the refill that burned in his throat. Her tone was light and deceptive, camouflaging the tension building up inside from all the emotions she had suppressed in the last few months.

“Byronic bad boy, Svengali, Rasputin or whatever label you want to use, you’re it. And you are surprised that the object of your affection is attracted to you? When you keep looking at me in that funny way, putting me on a pedestal like I'm some sort of Joan of Arc with an FBI badge? What kind of effect did you think it would have on me when a man like you, legendary and larger than life, charismatic, enigmatic, dangerous and handsome, tells me with that weird look in his eyes that I am so very special to him? So special even, that he is willing to give his life for me at the drop of a hat.”

“I wasn’t aware I tend to look at you in a funny way. I’ll try to refrain from that in future.”

With another apologetic smile around his lips, he put down his drink and turned to her on the couch to give her his full attention. They had passed the joking stage.

“We both know what is going on, Lizzy.” He said, thoughtfully, picking his way carefully. Liz was being unusually frank with him and he suspected that the alcohol was only partly to blame. ” Don’t fall in love with a non existing dark secret, the flaws that make me human, my past that will undoubtedly explain why I do the bad things I do. Don’t try to heal me. I am not like that, Lizzy. I am a criminal. When all this is over, it will not be revealed that I am a heroic country loving spy who has been working undercover for over twenty years, sacrificing himself for God and country. I am not Robin Hood; I am in this business for me, myself and I alone. No heroics, no hidden agenda, I am what I have become; a criminal and I will never change into the man you would like me to be.”

“I know you are a criminal. “Liz said and threw his own words right back at him.”Criminals are notorious liars and you Red, are the epitome of all liars.”

“Well, liar or not, believe me when I say that I had never anticipated that you would fall in love with me.”

It suddenly felt weird having this conversation with him, yet there was no stopping now. It wasn’t that simple. Nothing about Raymond Reddington ever was.

“Let me enlighten you about human nature, Red – give you a tour of my psyche. When someone lifts you up, makes you feel special and constantly feeds you with little pieces of the puzzle of your life, little tidbits to keep you hooked: it creates a need. A need for more. Not just more of the same, because with that need comes greed and you want it all. It is as addictive as a drug and the craving for more makes me an addict: it is all I have left to live for and I keep running back to you for more.”

The words spoken gently but deliberate, washed over Red and for the umpteenth time he regretted his decision to involve Elizabeth Keen in his life.

“I didn’t fall in love with you, Red, because I don’t even know you. I am attracted to you. I need you. There’s a difference. Love has nothing to do with it. And it’s not the reason why you are creating this distance, not the reason for warning me off. It’s not me that is the problem here; it’s you.”

There it was again - the sudden flicker of pain in his eyes, giving him away. She was on the right track.

He put down his drink and stood. Until this moment it had all been a game, a little exciting, a little dangerous; but Reddington did not permit himself many potentially risky games with this particular player. She was too important. And he was no longer in control.

“It’s late.” he said in a tone that clearly indicated that the conversation was over. “We both had more than our share of drinks. I’ll wake up Demby so he can drive you home.”

She looked up at him, her shrewd gaze appraising him. She had crossed the line in the sand and he was annoyed with himself that he didn’t see it coming.