#at some point early on

[rinzler-smoocher]

Ok but like. What if I'm a little obsessed imagining Rinz initiating the first kiss with Flint & NOT the other way around.

With Rinz carefully covering his hand over Flint's eyes, so he can remove his own helmet without fear of judgment, & with Flint trusting Rinz's intentions are good, not shying away as the program's sickle claws trace lightly over his cheek.

Claws Flint's personally seen maim & mangle, now shockingly nimble for such dangerous impliments...

Flint isn't sure where this is going, but his heartbeat surely spikes as Rinz takes another step toward him, his other hand gently - so gently, it's like it's not even there - hovering at Flint's back, only ever so slightly grasping onto Flint's cape as he forces himself forward to close the distance between user & program.

Flint nearly yelps out at the unexpected movement - having anticipated /something/ was coming, but not a KISS over anything else - but it comes out more like a /moan/, surprising himself even more by just how much he didn't even realize he NEEDED this from Rinz alone.

Claws & hands grasping tightly at one another, a stray jolt of electricity between the two sends Rinz's hand covering Flint's closed eyes curling, cutting a small knick over the swell of Flint's reddened cheek.

It takes just a glance at his user to notice the red liquid gathering along the thin line his claw created that forces Rinz to animalistically act on his impulse, his hunger, his desire, without another thought.

Mind completely empty, just repeating the command of /more more MORE/, Rinz breathlessly pulls away from Flint before immediately delves closer to the user and carefully runs his tongue over the fresh red blood bubbling to the surface of the small incision. In Rinz's desperate hunger for affection, he accidentally lets off a small spark as he repeats the motion, swiping his tongue over Flint's flesh, at once sending chills up & down the user's body & his dyed hair standing sharply on edge.

& all Flint can do is let out a soft "wow" as Rinz's surprisingly gentle lips find his way back to the user's, & willingly allowing himself to be drawn into the monster's hold. All while that electronic purring from deep inside Rinz's core rumbles through both of them, their entire existences shifting in that moment, changing their code & very reason for being. Moving together from survival mode to something so much more...

[ubersaur]

Here's an incomplete collection of chilchuck being a dad that no one asked for.

edit: parts 2 and 3 now linked in the replies!

edit 2: #dungeon meshi spoilers #delicious in dungeon spoilers #idk if adding tags like this to the main body will help but I am hopeful

[mothcpu]

SALVATION IN A DIGITAL HEAVEN / CAUSE REAL LIFE IS HELL

[mamawasatesttube]

superboy (1994) #85 (my beloved)

i still think abt this line so much. hey kon? why would u say this? hey kon do you think thats a normal thing to say about your boy bestie? kon why would u say this out loud. kon?!?

[a-scary-lack-of-common-sense]

You know what, fuck you, I'm not listening to your bullshit anymore *takes out my hearing aids*

[alphynix]

Last week I mentioned the one oddball dinosauriform that had crocodilian-like osteoderm armor, so let's take a look at that one too.

Lewisuchus admixtus lived in what is now northwest Argentina during the late Triassic, around 236-234 million years ago. About 1m long (3'3"), it was an early member of the silesaurids – a group of dinosauriforms that weren't quite dinosaurs themselves, but were very closely related to the earliest true dinosaurs.

(They've also been proposed as instead being early ornithisichians, but we're not getting into that today.)

Much like its later silesaurid relatives Lewisuchus had a long neck and slender limbs, and was probably mainly quadrupedal, possibly with the ability to briefly run bipedally to escape from threats. Its serrated teeth suggest it was carnivorous, likely feeding on both smaller vertebrates and the abundant insects found in the same fossil beds.

Uniquely for an early dinosauriform it also had a single row of bony osteoderms running along its spine. Although it lived at close to the same time as the similarly-armored Mambachiton their last common ancestor was at least 10 million years earlier, and no other early dinosaur precursors with osteoderms are currently known – so this was probably a case of Lewisuchus independently re-evolving the same sort of feature.

—

NixIllustration.com | Tumblr | Patreon

[freakartack]

"...Hello? Ma! I told you not to call me today, I'm making a movie!" -Wario, Mario Power Tennis

The most important lesson from Ma that Wario took to heart was the endless pursuit of cold, hard cash. Unfortunately, the one lesson she could never teach him was the importance of hard work to get it.  It wasn't for lack of trying; Wario's Ma is the hardest worker this side of the Mushroom Kingdom.  Raising Baby Wario was a herculean enough task on its own, but ever the enterprising spirit, she had also set out to grow one of the most profitable crops: garlic.

Her backyard business quickly expanded into a veritable garlic empire. Wario's mother toiled away tirelessly each day from sunrise to sunset to grow and harvest as much garlic as she could possibly achieve.  Much of Wario's current strength and endurance can be attributed to helping his mom on the farm as a child, although the teeth-pulling task of getting him to actually work was almost as difficult as preventing him from eating all the garlic straight out of the ground.  Wario's nose for instant gratification has always been a thorn in his mother's side, but try as she might to instill a solid work ethic into the boy, her "get-rich-slow" schemes could never appeal to him.  Still, Wario enjoyed his surprisingly agrarian upbringing. Along with garlic, his mother also raised chickens for eggs, inspiring in Wario a lifelong soft spot for poultry.  (He also had a pet hamster named Fluffy, who sadly passed away in 1986.)

Today, Wario is still on good terms with his mother despite their physical distance, and frequent phone calls keep her updated on all of Wario's business successes.  Of course, being Wario, he heavily embellishes the amount of work he actually does at his company.  If she only knew...

[canisalbus]

I found your art like right before you started featuring Vasco more prominently in the lore, and seeing the focus shift from "This sad wet cat of a dog man priest is doomed by the narrative" to "this sad wet cat of a dog man priest has a sunshiny gay lover who is his world" has been a fun trip lol

.

[nevertheless-moving]

unable to stop dwelling on the discworld trouser leg of time where, in the penultimate fight scene in Nightwatch, Carcer manages to kill teenage Sam Vimes.

Which means that the future that Duke Vimes came from can no longer exist, which means he can’t go home. Meanwhile you’ve got a bunch of history monks with stored up temporal energy, a prepared space outside of time, and the need to do some desperate damage control before the Auditors get involved. Death shows up, reality is unweaving, Sam is reading Carcer his discworld miranda rights because what else is he supposed to do.

and finally, with little other option, the monks de-age Sam so he fits the time period and send him back out into the fray.

(they didn't call it deageing of course. His memory is hazy, splintered during that terrible in between moment, They....took the time out of him? Sanded away the edges of his self for a terrible, workable fit? It...wasn't a good feeling.)

Just—damn. Sam Vimes having to live his whole crapsack life over again, but this time as his disillusioned-reillusioned, unwillingly-character-developed, noir-epic, Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes self. 

Younger (Older? He's never felt so Old, His steps so Childlike, reality twisting in his gut like one of Dibbler's pies) Sam Vimes walking around in a haze after the revolution. Desperate to go home, knowing he can’t. Wanting to drink. Knowing he can’t.

The whole precinct feels pity, he really took Keel’s death hard, hardly speaks except to do his job. Eventually he has to grit his teeth and start being present, because what else is there to do?

Resists the urge to drink until Colon takes the whole watch out to celebrate because -he’s going to be a father!

Come on Sammy, one drink won’t kill you— and after the first drink he’s cracking jokes and after the second hes smiling and after the third hes honestly the life of the party and sometime after that he’s crying about how he was going to be a father and my wife would be ashamed if she saw me drinking like this and— 

Oh shit, Did anyone else know he had a wife?? A PREGNANT wife??? What—aren’t you like 12—no you're 17 now aren't you but when did—

You guys n’ver met ’er—oh gods none if you ev’n know ‘er, is jus’ me...

What—when did you lose—

I lost her the same damn day I los’ ev’rythin else, whadya think...bleeding Carcer...the fuckin revolution...

So! That! Sam only vaguely remembers the night, but rumors travel faster than light on the disc, so by the next day the whole damn city knows about poor Sam brung low by the loss of his poor, tragic, pregnant wife, so young to be a widower, and the Seamstresses nod because they already knew, don’t ask them how, somethings you just have to know in that trade.

And his mother—I don’t know, sue me, I’m a time travel fiend but there’s something deeply intriguing about a man meeting his dead parent, who is somewhat younger than him, and stepping into the old relationship like a badly fitting thing that's supposed to fit well. She would know, right? How would she deal with her son’s impossible grief? Maybe she wouldn’t know—he spent most of the time out of the house, running with different street gangs, maybe he avoids her until she dies and lives with the guilt twice over. God, we don’t even know her name. There’s just so much narrative and emotional potential that I don’t even know where to start.

When he’s on duty, which is most time - it’s agonizing because at first he remembers cases, saves lives that would have been lost. But the more time passes, the hazier his memory because in the original timeline he was becoming an alcoholic. Fuck! A kid dies and he could have saved her if he hadn’t been such a drunk, if he had just remembered where the asshole lived, but it’s all a haze, and he wants to drown out his guilt, but that’s what caused this in the first place.

Good young Sammy, who spends his rare off-time in dusty libraries (and yes, the irony that he’s apparently Carrot now is not lost on him) reading gods-only-know.

It’s not like he can ask the wizards for help, cutthroat and vicious as they are now in the not-so-distant-past.

Good young Sam, who...talks to the Broken Drum’s pet Bouncer like he’s a real person and not a dumb rock? That’s a bit weird, but he’s a bit of a funny guy.

Good old Sam, who believed the testimony of the dwarf who said the humans were trying to rob him and let the dwarf go??

the PROBLEMS this man would cause, good grief. Can you imagine a moderately progressive middle aged man with some degree of begrudging diversity and equity training that he did, for all his sins, pay attention to, suddenly going back to like, 1990, going back just 30 years, and going...oh damn this is kind of fucked up, no man you can’t say that, holy shit.

Except Sam’s lived through even more rapidly shifting social moroes! There’s no seamstress guild, there’s no women allowed inside the university, there’s no black ribboner’s society. People hunted trolls for their teeth! But Sam can’t just unlearn everything, and he can’t shut up, and he has no real luck and anyway he would absolutely get himself (temporarily) fired.

FUCK. Sam has no idea what to do with that. None. Zero clue. Wanders around in a haze until that dwarf he saved from police brutality finds him and insists on repaying the debt. No, he insists, do you have any idea what debt means to a dwarf?

“Sort-of?” he replies hesitantly, and that honest admission of incomplete knowledge shows a hell of a lot more respect and understanding than any self proclaimed dwarf-expert ever did.

Gets a job as a surface man, hauling rocks into the city. It’s backbreaking work, but, in true Discworld fashion, it’s also one hell of a workout (again the irony of being Carrot is not lost him. he freezes for a minute while hauling a rock cart, when he remembers he's technically Lost Nobility too, in a strict sense, but someone curses at him in the street and he's comfortingly grounded)

And here is where this au slides into a SPECTACULAR romantic comedy, BEAR WITH ME. Because in his time on the Watch he’s already done noir, action adventure, war story, detective who dunnit, psychological horror, but guards guards only allowed him to be a romance protagonist in an extremely limited context.

Give me righteous, twenty-something-looking, can’t-say-he-doesn’t-have-style, young Sam Vimes, not an alcoholic,  being fed three square meals a day by his dwarven forced found family, hauling rocks. He is startled to find him bumping his head on a low hanging bar that he doesn’t think used to be there, eventually realizing that he’s an inch or two taller than he remembers. Huh. Guess all that bearhuggers really did stunt his growth.

Still doesn’t get what some of the looks from women he’s getting are about, sure, he’s dirty but so is everyone else. Fine, he took his shirt off, but it’s hot out, there’s far wrinklier than him hauling heavy loads, get a life. 

Happens to glance in the Ankh one day when it’s particularly slow and shiny and is startled to realize that he might be turning heads for a different reason. Oh. Right, not that he was ever a heartbreaker, but he did alright for himself... when he was a younger and his face hadn’t been broken so many times. Which...it isn't now.

Is mildly disturbed by the revelation.

Especially once things blow over at the precinct and what with high mortality rates, he ends up with getting hired again. The boys are delighted to have him back, nevermind that he’s an odd one, noone is ever quite in your corner like Vimsey, absence makes the heart fonder, no one else works that hard, and he’s not even competition for promotion. All around great guy, we should set him up with somebody and just, no.

It just keeps getting worse! He’s literate! He’s a feminist! He believes abuse victims! He’s got a tragic backstory! He’s unreasonably good in a fistfight! He’s kind to animals! Word gets around that there’s a good man on the watch and he’s just waiting for a good woman to come snap him up. The widower excuse doesn’t hold people off completely, and for some it’s its own sort-of appeal. 

Things REALLY become stressful after he rescues that carriage full of noblewoman.

What’s he supposed to do? Let them get robbed? Or worse? Chasing down and beating up 10 goons is as easy as beating up one, when they’re that stupid, getting separated like that, drunk and distracted, and he knows these streets better than anyone, really it’s nothing. And oh lord he’s Modest too.

I mean, they were genuinely greatful, as genuine as people like that are capable of being, the skill having grown rusty. And then there is something...magnetic about the man. An air of command.

So, soon enough you get Lady Marigold of Marigrave calling on Treckle Road for that gallant young officer who rescued them, she really needs to thank him. And Viscountess Elanor Thitzferal specifically requesting that he guard her at her next soiree. And Baroness Julieta van Shoeholten insisting that he come to her home while her husband’s away, for... manly protection.

Aaaah just zero sympathy from the guys. None. 'It’s become a competition, they’re just trying to see who can get me into bed first, it’s like I’m a piece of meat, you can’t send me sir, the Marquess greeted me in a nightee last time you made me go to—' and 'small gods Vimes are you even listening to yourself, shut the hell up'.

Simultaneous to this, (again this is several years into the timeline) swamp dragon accessories come into style. Which means abandoned swamp dragons scrounging on the street. Vimes takes one back to his apartment, blows his paycheck on dragon medicine, and eventually, heart in his chest, brings it to the Ramkin estate. The sunshine orphanage doesn’t even exist yet and he’s just standing outside the gates like an idiot, what is he thinking. Turns around, but her carriage is pulling up and—

well. they meet. it's cute. he's never felt so young. he's never felt so old, too old for her, too poor—

and certainly her thoughts linger too long on the awkward, kindly, handsome young commoner, but is it any wonder she doesn't quite connect it to the stern, dangerous, sexy young guard the ladies seem to be in some quiet, cuthroat competition over?

i have this gorgeous, absurd scene in my head in which Vimes is strong armed into standing guard at some high society soiree and one of the pushiest ladies insists he dance with here, or, if he prefers, if he's not confident about his skills, he can dance with her in-private at her home and he’s like [grinding teeth, looking for a way out, seeinf one] “I would be honored to dance with you.”

Steps right into some ultra-complex dance with multiple partner swaps (she never thought he'd pick this one, devilishly intimidating to one not strictly trained, and you barely spend anytime with your first partner).

But he does alright. Better than alright, for a common man, sometimes misstepping but his hands and feet always end up where they need to be. Raises several eyebrows part way into the song because he's throuwing in some slightly scandalous, no innovative, extra lifts and twirls that wouldn't become fashionable for another decade or two. Who even is that guy? Some out of towner? No, no he's in a guards uniform...how very strange.

Gets to Sybll and she's used to embarrassment during these dances, she tries to get out of them when she can... but can't always. Men awkwardly skipping the lifts, or worse, trying and failing. But him — oh it's him, the one who helped little Erold, and looked at her like—like—well like she was someone beautiful. And he's doing it again, and he's strong and there's a quiet moment where she's in the air, they lock eyes, and the rest of the room melts away.

And then the partners change again, the moment ended.

Just...living throught it all again. To the left, a dance he almost knows the steps to, throwing others off balance with erratic moves , honest mistakes, and delibrate stepping on toes. Improvising. Ruining. Improving. Getting far, far too much attention.

Hes almost excited when the first assassains start coming after him. It's like a hobby.

Everyone tells him he should get a hobby.

Interactions with young vetinari...I don't have the energy to write it all down, the slow circling in on each other, both burning with the need to fix the city, save it, their city.

needless to say he ends up fired again, life under real threat after offending some high lord.

Conveniently enough he has an employment opportunity- bodyguard to fucking Vetinari on his 'grand sneer.' The bastard knows vimes isn't what he seems, though sam is pretty sure that he doesnt know the exacts.

Vetinari hypothesis:(the ghost of keel? Keels son, with some hereditary curse? Or a larger spirit of justice possessing a string of unrelated souls? He knows things he shouldn't- mind reader? Fortune teller? Havelock once arranged for a wizard to bump into him on the street, the magical fool gave an odd double look and then muttered something about destiny looping in on itself giving him a headache. Destiny? Lost noble? And hes far too familiar with sybyl, one of the few bearable noblewomen in this city. And his thoughts on guilds, when havelock can trip him into speaking... Most of all, if hes reading him at all correctly (for all the mystery hes not that hard to read, unless thats a very clever cover) then it seems that behind those dark haunted eyes is Respect. Loyalty. For vetinari. What an interesting man. A puzzling asset. An intriguing threat. )

Did I mention the timeline is changing, healing slowly around the place where it was torn? Healing enough around scars to perhaps get some flexibility back, with some painful stretches and...massaging of said scar tissue?

And hes heading to unresting uberwald, a place where a werewolf pack still hunts humans and, truely unrelated but perhaps equally exhausting, an eldritch spirit of vengeance just might be looking to stretch its legs in a hapless vessel?

Opening drabble Vimes Vetinari Meta (Unwell)

[waitingawhile]

oh shiii-

[unexpectedbrickattack]

babpy.

[the-cat-and-the-birdie]

About Miguel taking the place of Gabriella's father -

BACK AT IT AGAIN WITH THE MILD MIGUEL -

I know we say ooooohhhh Miguel is a psychopath, he's evil for taking her dads place. that's so creepy

and yeah, it is creepy. horror movie shit

But Question:

If you saw a child, a child belonging to another you, going through a deep pain, alone. Wouldn't you step in?

If you knew that a child was about to experience a traumatic event - and you were the only person in the universe with the ability to help.

Would you? Like you, personally. Or would you turn the other way and let fate take it's course?

Would you even have the strength to do that?

When Gwen lost her father in front of Jess, Jess felt like someone had to step in. WE felt like someone had to step in.

When Gabriella lost her father in front of Miguel - wouldn't he feel it too? Wouldn't you?

He did. He stepped in. And he tried to change it. And he killed her.

When Miguel and Jess are both faced with a young girl, on the verse of losing her father in an abrupt and traumatic way, they probably both thought the same -

'Someone has to do something. I have to do something.'

So with that in mind - can we imagine that Miguel felt that same way when looking at Gabriella? A girl who just lost her father abruptly? In a violent, permanent way?

Looking at her father and knowing that...eventually - Gabby is going to know something is wrong. Her father isn't coming home. And very soon - she's going to start getting scared.

Knowing that from this day forward her life will chance in a very big and very painful way.

Or it couldn't.

Or, he could step in. Or, he could head 'home'. He can tuck Gabby in like nothing happened. She could go on like she lived everyday - normal, happy, safe, and with a dad that loves her. Nothing has to change. No funeral. No death anniversaries. No empty space. All he has to do is step in. Or, he can look the other way and let fate take it's course. And let Gabriella end up wherever the universe decides.

What would you do? Can you even decide that?

Look, Do I think what Miguel did was right - taking her father's place? I don't know. Does it matter? Either way - Gabriella suffered.

But do I think Miguel is a psychopath? Do I think he was obsessed, and scheming? No. I don't at all. I think he, like Jess, saw a kid in need. I think he's normal. He's Just Miguel. I think he was monitoring the universe for other Miguels, the same way they monitor all universes for anomalies or recruits. And when Lyla told him about the death - about Gabby - he was faced with a very hard decision -

I don't believe Miguel - at his baseline - is an intentionally malicious person. In any capacity.

I think he's a dude, like Jess - who saw a little girl in need. And now he's in way too deep, and people are dying, and he doesn't know how to stop it no matter how hard he tries and everything he does seems to make it even worse

And when he's trying - when he pulling out all the stops, finding all the best, watching universes day & night - nothing helps. Anomalies keep happening.

Even after all that, after making a whole society - he can't stop it. People are still dying.

And the moment he realizes this - the moment Miles breaks free and escapes. He realized once again - the universe is in control. He was never going to fix it. He never could.

All the efforts he put into The Society can't stop Spot - and they can't stop Miles.

And now, because Miguel isn't good enough to catch him, people are going to die, on his watch AGAIN.

Or..at least that's how Miguel sees it.

Miguel didn't sign up for this. He didn't sign up to be a boss holding all of existence together with duct tape and silly string.

He signed up to be a dad. He just wanted to help a little girl.

And now people are dying, Gabriellas dead, People's universes are on the edge of collapse, and now Miles is coming into play, and he's gonna lose HIS dad and Hobie's finally gone AWOL knowing it was gonna come eventually -

And Yes, he snapped. (lol not in the cvnty way)

Between those moments he went from this -

To this. The emotional deterioration is sudden. Everyone around him is stunned he's capable of this.

Does Miguel even know he's capable of this?

I don't know.

I just know this is us seeing a Miguel with reasoning - and a Miguel without it. A Miguel who is being conscious about what he's doing and the words he's picking, to a Miguel running on pure rage and fury and desperation alone.

There's no planning here. There's no stopping to think. He can't and he won't. He wants everyone in the field now.

This is Miguel not being normal. And he got to this point -

All because he wanted to help a little girl. The same way we wanted to help Gwen.

I don't think Miguel's story is about an unhinged man using trauma as an excuse to rule with an iron fist.

I don't think that's what this is. Miguel's story is the same as Jess story is the same as Peter's story.

He wanted to help this kid who needed him. And it backfired.

I think Miguel's story is a reminder that sometimes our help can hurt.

And I think his story is a reminder that Yes, even normal people can reach Miguel's level of rage.

Even normal people can be pushed to the point total powerlessness, of feeling like everything you do makes everything worse. To total desperation - just to make anything better some way, some how. To just get any sense of control back when you're on a ride you didn't ask for and can't get off of.

No - I don't think anybody would go mauling children, but I do think there is a point where it does get to much. When literally nothing in the universe is going how you want it to, and you're angry. At it, and everyone in it, anyone that goes along with it-

Anybody can snap.

At this point..I'm not trying to justify what he did - I never was.

I guess I'm just saying I admire Miguel and his character depth for making a very difficult choice. And I hope Gabriella enjoyed the time she had left with Miguel.

Not because he deserved it.

Because she didn't deserve anything that happened to her. She deserved a loving and happy dad. And I hope that's what he gave her. I hope she didn't have to know about all this terrible shit, or why her dad had to wear that watch ALL THE TIME now.

I hope Miguel did what he came to do in the time he had to do it and everything else sucks.

But back to the question.

You see a scared child about to lose their parents. Do you help them?

If that child was technically your child, if they looked like you and laughed like you, - if you knew no one else in the universe could make this better BUT YOU - would you help them? Or no? No judgement, I'm just curious. Because honestly...I don't know what I'd do. At the very least, I don't think Miguel malicious. I don't think he was scheming. In fact, maybe he didn't even think twice.

Who knows.

But looking back, I think everything - everything we see happen in ATSV - was solidified the moment he stepped into Gabriella's world. I don't think there was ever really a point where Miguel would be allowed to say 'I'm in over my head and I need out.'

He was never going to fix it. He never could. We know it. Maybe he knows it too.

But that doesn't mean he can stop trying.

Miguel was never gonna fix it. He was always bound to snap.

I guess what I'm saying is I feel bad for Miguel. Shoot me. Call it a brick and a hard place. But also don't maul kids.

I think he's just Miguel. And he's in way too deep, because he wanted to help. Some Mild Miguel. But anyway -

If you were Miguel: Would you have helped Gabriella?

BONUS QUESTION: If you knew you were going to be leaving behind an orphan child- and you knew your other self would love your child like their own and take your place without the kid enduring the pain - would you want them to step in, or no? Would you rather your kid know you're dead, and then let the system and proceedures play out as fate makes it?

[eleonorpiteira]

A few of the many interior illustrations I did for Chaosium's Pendragon Starter Set! (x)

[fallowhearth]

I don't know how many people remember this, but 2000s internet feminism was obsessed with trying to rehabilitate the reputation of periods with all kinds of stupid reheated divine feminine, feel connected to your womanhood, all negatives are socially constructed, etc bullshit. 4chan had its fun creating extreme versions of this stuff, but they didn't invent it whole cloth. It was inescapable. Anyway, I'm so glad people have moved on and are no longer trying to convince everyone that periods are awesome. So happy that it's now uncontroversial to say that shit sucks.

[genesplice]

finally working on my postal oc. annoying ass nurse

[brisquad-unit-4402]

sitting with vox and the truth

(spoilers obvs)

happy the demon hungers everyone :D i did two watchalongs with my friends i hope we all show our appreciation to vox. he’s worked very hard and he’s very considerate of us his fans

this is all just to say that after a long, long, long two weeks i would like to rest so nicely on his chest. naturally i walked into this planning to write that but it turned into another vox breakdown fic which, really, couldn’t be a better description of unit 4402 if you tried

tags: gender neutral reader, angst, themes of self-hate, vox has a breakdown, spoilers for the demon hungers and the truth, ambiguous relationship (romantic intended but can be read as platonic; reader says “i love you”)

⚠️ spoilers for the demon hungers / the truth, vox akuma.

⚠️ contains self-deprecating dialogue

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

wings of melded leather and flesh writhe in the home of vox akuma. a dethroned lord, a wretched infernal. such a a wide reach. the talons of the wing threaten to scrape the ceiling with his greater height, while the membranous tatters hang loosely. if he represented Hell it would be a king’s robe. under wall and lamplight the sheet of skin is his chain.

gravity weighs down his voice all the same. it sinks his shoulders, drips off his hair and down his back. seven feet tall, with a shadow to cast over your body so small in comparison, and yet wind could knock him over as he stands his ground. the familiarity of gold within his eyes is gone but the guilt behind it is all the same, tainted in burning-coal. the smoke around his mouth and the embers along his tongue match the char. there is no fire. he’s put that out long ago. but what was scorched refuses to dwindle down to ash, remaining orange and red and that pink you swore you could see when there was nothing good on his mind.

nothing good, you thought, jokingly and enticingly. lightly. you see now that you were right, but without the fortune of intimacy.

he is scared, if he would be willing to admit it, and he is protective which he does. it’s why his hands are buried close to his chest, the swirling black-red, clasped together as if they were weapons. they are.

“do you understand?” vox asks. “i don’t deserve your pity.”

his frame is full with rage and power held dormant.

“i don’t deserve your attention, or your patience. or your love.”

a bead of ember rises from between his teeth. it fades to room dust as he grits them together.

when they snap apart an arc of flame accompanies it.

“It’s never been deserved. It’s never been okay. I have never been okay!”

the flames curl out of the air, following where the ember once went, room dust and hot air. without his hair in his face he can’t hide from the firing squad.

he can’t hide when you step forward, either.

“Don’t.” that’s what gets him to quit yelling. it’s replaced by inhaled cinder under his breath. “No, no, don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”

and quiet, you say, “you’ve held me before.”

“Don’t. Don’t. You can’t. No. Don’t.”

“and i’m nowhere near death.”

he backs away. “You don’t know that, you don’t know that, you don’t know, you don’t.”

“we don’t choose the bodies we’re born in. or the biology we function by.”

another step back. he doesn’t trip on anything. it’s the pure magma under his blood that sends him to his knees. “Get back.” a hiccup. “Get back!” his hands form tighter to his body. “Get away from me!”

“i trust you.”

“Don’t! Don’t! No! Away!”

“you aren’t hungry anymore. and i’m not in danger. i love you.”

vox’s back thumps against the corner of the wall. his hands tear apart. a prominent vein glides down the oil-slick arm. they tangle themselves into his hair. pale fingertips along bloodied streaks. white knuckles pulling at black locks.

he screams.

he screams again when you place yourself next to him, up against the wall, and bump your leg to him.

“if you could hurt me…” your eyes lower to where your legs are placed upon his. “then this would count. but i’m still alive.”

you look up to the ceiling. his talons didn’t scratch it but his horns certainly did. “and i’m still alive, and my soul is where it should be, with me.”

you cannot recognize the sound the voice demon emits.

“so i’ll stay with you. and we’ll figure things out.” with river under your hands you rub his arm. “do you remember this? it’s what i always do when you want me to help calm you down.

“that’s what i’ll do. just let it out. and i’ll be right here, and i’ll always be here no matter what.”

it’s a guttural, throaty cry across his register. a frog scratch.

“come on.” his blood twists under your touch. veins alight as live wires. “i have all the time in the world.”

“But I have been nothing but a blight.”

“i love you as you are.”

you place your head over his chest.

the first thing that happens is the draft from his wing wrapping around your face. your vision colors red. branches of uneven membrane along the wing’s flesh. so tight around his chest you don’t see a glimpse of the outside.

the next is how vox wracks himself over the lava within his throat.

your free hand takes over attending to him as much as you can, swaddled close to his chest.

through the wing, you can see how he forces his head away when he spits a flamethrower.

when the unpredictable flames raise to you and the wing-shield, it suffocates against the flesh. you don’t feel a shred of heat.

each fire is a bellow of pain gone unacknowledged for years. you don’t think he realizes his instinct to cover you. it would be a welcome validation if he weren’t lost in his own grief.

you spend the night beside the voice demon, listening to the shred of his screams. when he finds the courage to open his eyes, he shrieks for every moment that passes with your hand upon him, and soul within your confines.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

✧. ┊ masterpost ✧. ┊ kofi