#but the fact is that this site is barely afloat and they need to get engagement and money

[the-boy-branithar]

kinda hate that we all stuck around on this shitty site all these years BECAUSE it wasnt like any other site and now that new people are apparently coming here its like “time to make it like tiktok and twitter!!!!!!”

[my-headcanons-academia]

Inko chews out Endeavour

Characters: Inko Midoriya, Izuku Midoriya, Shouto Todoroki, Endeavour

Genre: Angst, a little bit of fluff and catharsis

TW: Mentions of child abuse, abusive home life, mental drain

Word Count:3 K

A/N: This may be a teensy bit long :3

•Okay listen

•Midoriya is god damn horrified when he hears what Endeavour did/does to his kids. He had obviously guessed that the second-best hero there is who is training his family to also become heroes would have some extensive regime but what Shouto explained wasn't "training" it was just abuse.

•He immediately offers Shouto and his sibling's a place with him and his mum without a moment's hesitation. They're not as rich as the Todoroki's or live in as big a house with as good food, but they're happy. •And when Shouto declines, Izuku isn't really sure what to do.

• it's not his place to tell any media or higher authorities, it'd drastically change the lives of Shouto and his siblings and would affect all of them the rest of their lives. He feels like he can't do much and a part of him feels like doing nothing means he's condoning the abuse that still happens in that home like the emotional neglect and things Shouto may not have mentioned. But he can't do anything about that right now, simply because Shouto won't let him. And while Izuku is fighting every instinct he has which is to take the Todoroki siblings out of there and into a therapist's office, it's not his place to do that.

•So instead, he does what he can for them, like offer to go places more so they're out of the house. Offer free anonymous therapy sites. Have their own improv therapy whenever needed. Promise to be there for whoever trusts him and for those who it may take longer to trust him.

•But with all his good intentions, he starts to bite off more than he can chew. Even when it's not in the midst of midnight therapy or distracting days out, it's constantly nagging at the back of his mind that he wants to do more and he isn't doing everything he can. He doesn't want to "fail" at being a good friend, since he hasn't had many experiences to base off (or any for that matter) but he is running out of emotional room.

•Contrary to the Todoroki household, Inko Midoriya actually notices when her child is going through some rough times and tries to do her best to help.

•I imagine Inko and Midoriya have a close relationship. With no other reliable parent figure in the house, they spent a lot of time together. Not only are they parent and child, but they are also friends who enjoy each others company. Inko may not always understand his fascination with All Might but she'll always ask questions and prompt him to go on about the differences in All Might's costumes and moves, even if she knows all the answers already in the same way Izuku may not understand why she enjoys sewing so much ever since she made him his hero costume but will not hesitate to help her go shopping for and carry new fabrics as she talks about the colours and texture helping boost peoples confidence. (She wants to get better at sewing so she can make a new costume for him that's better than ever before.) •And because Inko and Izuku were rather close, she knew his tells. she'd learnt well from their daily game nights to know when he lying and when he was hiding things. But that was during games. This was far more strenuous. But before she rushed in and crowded him, Inko thought that if there were really something he didn't want her to know, then she shouldn't know. So long as it doesn't hurt him. So, respecting the fact he is now a teenage boy and not a child anymore, she knew he was smart enough to make his own decisions.

•But also being herself, she still wanted to help, even if she didn't know exactly what was going on.

•At first, she thought Izuku wasn't sleeping enough because of the stress of UA so she'd plan days to the seaside or mini-holiday or they could try to make a new dessert or do a movie marathons to distract him from it. And she always took note of how very time she offered, he'd always insist some way or another that the Todoroki's join them which of course she had no quarrels with, she was delighted he loved spending so much time with his friends!

•When that didn't help she offered to get him a tutor, maybe he was anxious about his studies? She didn't trust her own education enough to tutor him as he was always impressing her with fun trivia and general knowledge but she'd taken a break in her sewing hobby to save up some money to be able to pay for a tutor.

•But when he began not eating as much, mind always preoccupied with something else than his usual hero ideology and theories, the day of the annual parent-teacher meeting and Izuku hadn't uttered a word since he got home, she sat him down on the couch, held his hands, his scarred and trembling hands, and she asked him. "Are you alright?"

•She's asked this many times before, every time he came home from school, every time she found him up in the middle of the night shakily drinking some water while staring at his phone as if expecting some death from the family. But this time? •This time her words echo in Izuku's head, getting louder and louder with each reverberation, picking up speed and other voices with every hit to his mind, the sound of text messages, quiet telephone calls, rushed breathing, stifled words, hearing footsteps from the other line, the need to help all drowning him in a cacophony of utter helplessness. •And he crumples against his mother, clawing onto her shirt like a life-jacket barely keeping him afloat above the ocean of noise only he is in and he cries. The tears stain Inko's cardigan and she wraps her arms around him, pulling him onto her lap like she used to when he was a child, she holds her son, her baby boy, as his tears dampen her clothes and his voice breaks choking on sobs.

•It was a long day.

•Izuku and Shouto had talked before about telling Inko or an adult or just anyone but there was always some reason, some excuse why it couldn't happen yet. It would be a decision all the siblings would have to agree to as it affects all their lives. Fuyumi was always hesitant, so cautious and making sure if anything were to happen nothing could be left to chance and all outcomes had to be planned. Natsuo wanted whatever would help everyone the most, and if no one was ready to do anything right now, then he'd wait. Shouto thought long ago that if what his father did to his family ever came to light, it would be brought up for the rest of his hero career and he'd never be able to truly escape his dad's hold if it always followed him like that. And until he met Midoriya, that's what he thought for years.

•Shouto was warming up to the idea of saying what happened to him specifically to someone. To see what would happen.

•And that is what Izuku could let slip. The things Shouto had told him at the sports festival, the reason for his scar, his spiteful technique and motivation to be a hero. •It was a long day. •The moment all was said and done, that he had run out of tears to cry, that he had ruined his mother's cardigan by stretching it with his grip and made it soggy with his sobs, that he could breathe without a hiccup or tremor interrupting him, he was completely drained. There was a mix of hollowness after spending so long building it all up, unsure every step of the way whether he's doing the right thing or not and the relief of finally letting there be room for him to breathe.

•But in his hollow chest was a stab of guilt, anxiety, crawling back up his throat and blocking his lungs like a thick mucus of worry. Had he done the wrong thing? It wasn't his place to say- He should have talked with Shouto more about this- Was he wrong to have done nothing so far?- Oh god he's done nothing right- this could hurt them-

• "Shhh," Inko gently held the back of his head and rubbed small circles with her thumb into the back of his neck, like she used to to do calm him down as a child, it still worked "It's-..." Inko collected her thoughts. It was certainly a lot to process, she had her suspicions but she thought she was being paranoid. She'll learn to trust her gut more. "It's not alright right now, but one day it will be. For you and for them."

•And that worry in his chest turned to blunt guilt, he shouldn't be the one crying while Shouto and his siblings have withstood literal torture all their lives, he should be stronger, he needs to be stronger to help them-

•"You are children. And none of you should have to deal with this. I know you're growing up faster than I can blink and you're being a hero more and more every day, but that doesn't mean you were prepared for this exact situation. They train you to fight villains and criminals and how to save those in immediate peril who want saving. Not thins like this." Inko continued to speak softly, pulling Izuku closer and soothing the back of his neck "Thank you for telling me and I can understand why you wouldn't want me to meddle as it may be out of my depth, but, two people helping them is better than one."

• Midoriya told Shouto what had happened and apologised for spilling too early, apologised for not doing enough, apologised for being less than open about the emotional and mental space he had to spare, promising to be more aware of it so long as Shouto continues to trust him and talk when needed. Shouto was confused as to why Midoriya was apologising so much as always and despite the apprehension in his movements, Shouto had spent enough time with Inko to trust her. And also to know that while Inko is kind, that isn't all she is.

•Shouto had seen her repay the kindness people had shown her tenfold with gifts, acts of service, compliments, reassurance and more. And something about that deep-rooted kindness tipped him off to the idea that if someone were to take advantage of her kindness or her son, that injustice too shall be repaid. And, as slow as it was and as long as it took, he knew she considers him her son too.

• Overall, the parent-teacher meeting was going well for most students. Most students were in their more casual clothes except those who had been too lazy to change out of their school uniform for the day albeit having their shirts scandalously untucked and top buttons undone (Except for Bakugo who in the presence of his mother for the first time had his tie actually tied, truly it was a sight to behold and blackmail photos to be used for months.)

• Amidst all the parents gathering together while waiting for the respective teachers to be free of their current appointments, there he was. Enji Todoroki, Endeavour in his hero costume supposedly fresh from the job. • And thus, politely fuelled by karmic fury the 5'2 force of nature marched up with a smile to the flaming rotting piece of shit excuse she can barely call a human being and greeted him.

• "Oh, hello Enji." Inko smiles. Izuku stands back with Shouto on the sidelines, watching the encounter unfold. • First of all, the informality caught him off guard. Usually, he'd be used to fans being "Overly-friendly" but something about the smile in her voice didn't sit right with the way fans usually say it. This turned a few heads.

• "And..who are you?"

• "Why I am so glad you asked, my name is Inko Midoriya, the woman whose house your son goes to every day but I suppose you wouldn't know that since as long as he's keeping up his work then there is nothing else to do with him at all," she coughed ", like parenting," and continued "Speaking of being in public I could never be as confident as you are to go to a casual event in a full-on hero costume but I suppose if it helps boost your ego then go for it! Although, speaking from the perspective of a concerned parent, aren't all of those flames a safety hazard! what if you were near a flammable thing like, oh I don't know, civilians clothes in a place you know where said civilians are tightly packed together, or there could be someone well-known to have a flammable quirk nearby or just a building's structure being, on the whole, a rather flammable thing?" Her head turned to the overgrown vermin who lead the school who had entered the room upon hearing there was a commotion "Not that I doubt UA's defence measures and predicted disastrous occurrences as no such thing has ever failed in the past. It's just the safety of children and the future generation of heroes after all." and just as quickly turned back to Endeavour

•"You know I noticed there are plenty of other pro-heroes here who are just fine in their everyday clothing because they recognise this get together is about their children's achievements and not their own. Why, if I didn't know any better I'd say you really are that insecure in your title slipping because that's what being a hero is all about, the title, that you'd distract entire families from the point of being here just to pay attention to you because it's not like being the second supposedly best hero there is credits you any attention."

• Enji barely had time to stop the flames protruding from his hero suit from dying out as peoples heads turned to pay attention. By now every student had pulled out their phone to record the situation.

•Nedzu was on his way over, laughing awkwardly ready to diffuse the situation but had miraculously been needed for a sudden important event in the teacher's lounge and was immediately escorted by Aizawa and Present Mic.

•"Oh and may I go on and say you truly are an inspirational story of how being raised as a gifted child must have been really difficult for you. Always a commodity, never a human being, not a single person in your life thinking you’re worth a damn without your quirk so you made it your entire personality until you developed your own actual personality because of course you, the Number Two hero would outgrow such a childish nature. That sounds rough," she pouted in mock sympathy.

• Endeavour snarled behind gritted teeth, barely stopping himself from acting out of hand at the public slander. "Just who do you think you are-"

•"Like I said, my name is Inko Midoriya, the pleasure is all mine I'm sure, or did you not hear me the first time while that fire was covering your ears? just like how it must have covered your eyes with choosing that outfit to be approachable. Oh do excuse me if that seemed rude, I'm a seamstress as a hobby you see so I tend to have an eye for when things are just wrong in every way. Honestly, if you didn't parade your title everywhere you go I'd mistake you for a villain on sight. You see, I'm only a seamstress and not a hero like you as you love to flaunt no matter the situation or need for it, but it must be so rewarding to save all those people every day and return to a home with your loving children and children who want to do the exact same thing and be exactly like you because you must be such good role-model and parent to have accomplished so much in your career and of course spent enough time on each of your children to help them grow to be happy, full of inspiration and their own dreams to fulfil. Oh, and of course your wife who must be so proud of the person you've become!"

• By this point the flames had been sputtering at random, a rare purple and even blue flamer erupting once and again as this woman continued talking and the parents out the corner of his eye who thought they were out of his sight nod their head and faces contort into realising the full weight of the truth they already knew but now understand.

• But Inko was nowhere near close to done, Endeavour could hear as much when she took a small break to smile and take a bigger breath to continue. • And blinded by the public's disapproval of everything he had convinced he had Done for the good of the civilians, he could feel the ground, just like his title, being pulled from under him as quicker heroes hit the back of his knees as Inko swung her handbag with the metal buckle across Endeavours face while she was being pulled safety away from the punch Enji hadn't realised fast enough he had thrown.

• The videos uploaded by students went viral in seconds

•"shocked" by the number two hero's emotional outburst with malicious intent to harm an unarmed civilian, Inko let it be known she found it unsuitable that he go back home to his children and instead of that they live with her and make a record with either police or a licensed therapist to make a note of any other emotional outbursts or strange and potentially dangerous behaviour in complete confidentiality.

[jiminniethemarshmallow]

Ball of Stress (M)

Pairing: Jimin x reader

Genre: smut, college AU

Word Count: 5,690

Warnings: Jimin watching porn, edging, unprotected sex, creampie, cum eating

(A/N): Writing the warnings makes me feel dirtier than writing the actual smut lol. Finally got one of my several drafts complete, so you guys actually have new stuff to read (from me at least)!

Being a college student is stressful, despite it being the “best time” of many people’s lives. Keeping up with the school work, doing well in sports, attending clubs, and having a healthy social and party life are all things that students have to juggle, and Jimin knows the struggle all too well. You both are in your final year and it never really gets any easier, the pressure to graduate and transition into the world of adults almost crushing at this stage in your lives. But you have each other, keeping the both of you afloat, because surely you would sink and drown on your own.

The last few weeks have been hard on Jimin. His sports team is in peak season and practice has been running longer everyday it seems. The work load his professors dump on him doesn’t help and he feels like he’s falling farther and farther behind with every class. Not to mention the strain that’s put on his friendships and social life. He’s had to decline invitation after invitation to parties and group gatherings because of school work. His friends understand and they support him, but one thing that has been becoming unbearable for him is the lack of time he gets to spend with you. Your class and practice schedules don’t line up with his too well so you mostly only get to see each other at night, and even then you don’t talk that much because you’re both consumed with homework and projects. There’s no time for romance anymore, he barely gets the chance to touch you, and when things do start to heat up, you’re both too tired to do anything.

It’s been about 2 and a half weeks since you actually had the time and energy to hang out with Jimin and you vividly remember that last time the two of you got intimate. You had finally gotten the chance to attend your friend Hoseok’s party and you decided to get all dressed up for it, wearing the sexiest and most revealing outfit you could find, hoping to spark something within your boyfriend when he laid eyes on you. You expected him to get jealous from all the looks you were getting that night, but he didn’t— or at least you hadn’t noticed if he did— and instead he was all over you, whispering in your ear how sexy you look, how badly he wants you and exactly what he wants to do to you. When neither of you could take it anymore, you stumbled back to your home and barely made it through the door before your clothes were off, already mingled in a heated embrace. The bedroom seemed too far away in the moment so you both settled for the couch, making love on the love seat until your bodies gave out.

It feels like so long ago but you could never forget that night— in fact, it’s been all you can think about since. You remember the depth of every kiss, the tenderness of every touch as he took his time caressing your body, committing it to memory as if it would be his last time seeing it. You remember the hunger in his eyes once he was finished worshipping you, the softness switching to a predatory gaze that made it look like he wanted to devour you. And he did. There is no middle ground when it comes to you and Jimin in bed. You’re either making love or fucking. One or the other. Nothing in between. That night, although it might have started off soft, turned into one of the best fucks of your life, and Jimin agrees.

That night has been replaying in his head all day today, and no matter how hard he tries to focus, he can’t get the thought of you off of his mind. Today was rough, he practiced hard, stayed up all night studying for the exam he took today, and was just tired in general, but he finally made it home, stepping through the threshold of your shared off-campus house. Even though he knows you’re not home, he’s still a bit disappointed when he finds the house deserted. Your shoes weren’t in front of the door, your purse and bag weren’t laying in a heap on the kitchen counter, and the space around him was filled with unsettling silence. With a huff, Jimin kicks off his shoes and ventures deeper into your home, holding onto the small shred of hope that you somehow had come home before him and were currently in your bedroom waiting to welcome him.

But much to his dismay, your bedroom was empty. And loneliness crept into his heart.

You had once teased Jimin about his need for attention, laughed at how much he beamed at every compliment, constantly looking for approval, but you never once hesitate to feed into his desires for praise. That was your job as a loving girlfriend. But everyone else, however, is not his girlfriend and he knows that they won’t entertain his neediness unless he does something significant that shows he truly deserves it. Well, right now Jimin feels like he deserves some attention. As he walks through the room to your bed, he winces at his sore muscles and creaking joints, tired from the hours of practice he’s just gone through. This season he’s been working double time and playing harder than ever to be successful and lead his teammates like the great captain he is. It’s no wonder he’s so sore, his back must hurt from carrying his team the entire year. But it’s not like he’s frustrated by that fact, he takes pride in being the best player on his team, he just craves to be acknowledged, at the very least.

His coaches and teammates never congratulate him, never comment on how much harder he works than everyone else, and quite frankly, it’s starting to piss him off. You are the only person who ever feeds into his praise kink. You always know just what to say, reminding him that he’s amazing at what he does and that his team is lucky to have him. You are the only one who gets it. And as he falls face first onto your side of the bed, just the scent of you is enough to calm him down a little.

A small smile graces his lips when he remembers the time he plopped onto your side of the bed one day, only to encounter a hard mass instead of the plush surface of the mattress he was expecting.

“Ow! Jimin, you’re crushing me.” You had mumbled from beneath the sheets. He didn’t see you hidden under the cover of the dark room, taking a nap peacefully while waiting for him to return home. He remembers fondly how he showered you with kisses in apology, eventually finding your lips and ending your night in a sweaty mess between the sheets.

Fuck, he really needs you right now. Jimin feels a vein in his forehead throb from the headache that’s plagued him all week. Usually you would run your hands through his hair gently whenever he was in this condition, telling him random anecdotes about your day to take his mind off of the stress. He can’t help but wish you would just come home already.

Burying his face into your pillow, Jimin inhales deeply and his body automatically relaxes, but the relief is short lived because he reaches out for you only to find the cold, empty bedding surrounding him. By this point, your absence is becoming irritating and he can feel his patience running low and sense his frustration bulging against the crotch of his pants. Damn it. Sitting up from his spot, he tries to calm himself. Is he really getting hard right now? It’s shocking to him that just the thought and smell of you can make him this horny. But he can’t afford for that to happen, not when you’re not home. He stands slowly, making his way to his desk chair to sit in front of his laptop. Gaming should take his mind off of you for a while, right? It’s never failed him before.

Opening his laptop, Jimin browses through his games, but nothing captures his attention or interest at the moment, even when he sees that his friends Jungkook and Seokjin are online. After almost a half an hour of scrolling through social media, texting you, and trying to find anything to distract himself, Jimin gives up, and with his surrender emerges that tireless voice from the back of his mind that appears every time he is alone and bored. There’s only a moment’s hesitation on his part before he clicks the browser on his laptop and types, finding himself on the homepage of his favorite porn site. Thumbnails of erotic videos present themselves to him immediately, along with a section of recommended videos based on his search history, even though he hasn’t been here in a while. Through the selection of thousands of videos, nothing really appeals to him, a few catching his eye because of the actress’ resemblance to you, but the women were always with another man and he refused to even imagine you with anyone but him.

He’s even more frustrated now, dick half hard and waiting, but Jimin is far too picky to be satisfied with just any old video. Oh, here’s one! A blowjob with the faces cropped out, just a view of all the juicy action, and it’s enough to get him to grow a bit, so he accepts it, pants unzipped and circling his ankles by the time he clicks play, hand already tugging at his length and his dignity thrown into an empty drawer.

Today was a rough day. Back to back exams and strict professors were enough to put you in a mood, but your favorite food place on campus closing right before you reached its doors was what sent you over the edge. Plus the whiny texts you’d received from your boyfriend. Your needy boyfriend, who you’d promised cuddles and kisses as soon as you returned home. You told him that you were on your way back less than 10 minutes ago, but he hasn’t responded yet, something you don’t dwell on long as you rush to your home with the prickling need to shower, slip into your pajamas, and watch the next episode of the newest hit drama over your plate of leftovers.

What you don’t expect when you enter your home is to find it so quiet. You thought for sure that Jimin would be watching tv or making something for himself in the kitchen like usual. Whatever, maybe he’s taking a nap in your room. You take your sweet time in the kitchen, pulling out a container of the food you made a couple days ago, thinking a few minutes before throwing all of its contents onto a pan and stuffing it in the oven because you have a feeling Jimin hasn’t eaten yet, pulling out plates and utensils until you finally make your way toward the bedroom. Initially, the plan was to strip out of your clothes and throw on some sweats— your shower could wait until after you’ve eaten— but those plans come to a halt as soon as you open the door.

Your wide eyes adjust to the dimly lit room fairly quickly, the laptop sitting open on the desk illuminating your slightly sweaty boyfriend and his hand that pumps steadily at his cock. He’s bare from the waist down, his shirt tucked under his chin as he reclines to see the screen. You see the way he flexes his abs every time he twists around his head, bucking up a little, and God, you haven’t seen anything that hot in a long while.

He doesn’t notice you at first, focused intently on the woman deep-throating the man on screen until she drools down her chin, and you have the opportunity to creep forward, knowing he can’t hear you with his noise-cancelling gamer headphones coving his ears. You’re almost at his side when he shuts his eyes and lets out a groan, slowing his pace and biting his lip with an expression you would interpret as pained, squeezing himself with a huff before speeding up.

“(Y/n), please,” He almost whispers, and you start to understand the situation a little better. He can’t quite get himself over the edge, too tense and too eager to let go. Without thinking, you reach for him, your hand wrapping around his own delicately.

“Need help, baby?” Jimin almost leaps out of the chair, snapping his eyes to your face in a look of terror that makes you laugh. He relaxes when he realizes its you, though he is a bit embarrassed that you caught him.

“Babe, I-“

You hush him as you position yourself between his legs, taking over the movement of his hand until he lets go and sinks back into his seat. He moves his headphones to rest around his neck and reaches to stop the video, but you grab his arm before he can do so. “Leave it on.” You watch his throat bob, an excited look glazing his eyes as your tongue slithers out to lick the bead of liquid at his tip. Flicking over the slit a few times, you trace your tongue along the sides of him, loving how hot he feels.

You go straight to work once you sink down on him, starting halfway down his length and bobbing at the same pace his hand was moving earlier. Jimin moans immediately, eyes locked on you as you swallow more of his cock, one hand on what you can’t fit and the other lightly massaging his balls. His hands move to shift your hair away from your face, pulling it to the back of your head in a messy ponytail, and you pull off of him quickly to assist, using the hair tie around your wrist for his convenience. He can barely see you as you sit under the shadows of his desk, but you yank off your shirt anyway and toss it aside. What he can see is the suave grin plastered to your lips and the seductive look in your eyes when you grab him again.

“What’s the girl in the video doing? Guide me.” You can tell he’s almost forgotten about the video because of the way he snaps his head back up to the screen. His legs tense when you push him into your throat, his hands returning to your head to guide you up and down. You let him push you down a little farther, loving how his girth sets in your jaw uncomfortably and makes you drool down your lips and chin.

Jimin moans as his eyes flicker back and forth between the bright screen and your shadowed face, doing his best to help match your movements with the video. When he pulls you up for air, you suck on his tip with your wet lips, gliding over it repeatedly and making his thighs tremble on either side of your head until he hisses.

“Mm, you’re so good at this. Can I..?” His fingers weave firmly in your roots and you know exactly what this means, humming a response and waiting for him with an open mouth. Distantly, you can hear the woman’s erotic gagging coming from Jimin’s forgotten headphones. He pulls you down cautiously before lifting his hips from his seat, sliding easily until his head hits the back of your throat. You don’t gag, though your stomach quivers a little, and his next thrusts are less wary, keeping the pace just quick enough to have him panting. Locking your hands behind your back, you give him full control as he pulls you deeper, his jerking hips struggling to keep rhythm as tears spring to your eyes. But you take him gratefully. Your panties stick to you more when his moans get breathier, and he holds your head in place so he can buck into you deeper, his length slipping down your throat and making you choke hard. The sound you make is obscene, but it’s worth it when he looks so damn good, mouth ajar and eyes screwed shut as he nears the edge.

At the first twitch of his member, he yanks you away, whimpering at the loss and squeezing himself at the base with shaky fingers. You’re confused when you look up at his sweaty form and ask, “What are you doing?”

He sighs through his nose, untangling his other hand from your hair to run through his own. “I can’t cum yet.” A small gasp leaves him at the feel of your tongue on his scrotum, sucking one of the soft sacks into your mouth while giving him the most innocent look you can muster when his length flexes just an inch from your face. “I- I want you to feel good, too. Come here.” Jimin’s fingers delicately hold your chin to lead you up and onto his lap, your pants and underwear discarded on the ascent. Next to go is your bra, and Jimin takes this time to remove his own shirt and the headphones around his neck, your bodies naked and hot and dripping with lust.

“You don’t have to worry about me, clearly you need this more than I do.” You mumble, lips already closing in on his. Your mouth tastes like him as he slips his tongue past your lips and wraps his arms around you, holding you firm against him. One of his hands slips between your bodies to cup your core, the jump of your hips blowing your cover, and you can feel his smile against you.

“Really? You seem pretty needy too, baby.” He grazes your clit with the pads of his fingers just to watch you chew your lip, eyes falling closed in the dimness.

“N-no, I’m fine.” You begin to fidget when his fingers remain soft, and only then does he press into you in earnest, circling the bud just the way you like, burning arousal leaking onto the digits.

He chuckles. “Oh yeah? So you’d be okay if I didn’t fuck you?”

“Yes.” You lie. “But I’ll let you do it anyway since you’re so... mmm... hard right now.” Your mouth moves on its own as you speak, trying to tease him, but it looks like it’s working against you.

“And you wouldn’t need to take care of yourself later because you’re not horny at all, is that right?” He’s breathless, too, at the way you rock against his hand, your arms resting around his shoulders to hold yourself steady.

“Yup.” You strain your answer as his lips and teeth begin to nip at your neck and collarbones, kissing down until one of your nipples is in his mouth and you finally groan. “Minnie~”

“Hmm?” His eyes dance with friskiness. Even if he was on the verge of cumming, he still had the power to make you desperate. Your head rolls back to arch your chest further into him, and you can feel your heart hammering against it when 2 of his plump fingers slip into you. Working you up has always been Jimin’s specialty, but today your patience has run thin with the aching desire to have him deep inside you and you’d really rather skip the second half of foreplay.

Taking matters into your own hands quite literally, you start to stroke him as you lean in to nibble on his earlobe. “Baby, put your cock in me.” You whine, carding your hand through the hair at the nape of his neck. He shivers but stays resistant.

“Well, since you don’t need me to fuck you, I was just thinking about how nice it would be to finish in that pretty mouth of yours.” His free hand comes up to thumb your lips, pushing it into your open mouth for you to suck, which you do simply out of habit.

“It woul’ peel nicer if you phinished in my puthy.” The words lisp with his digit pressed to your tongue and you stare at each other for a split second before bursting into giggles.

“What was that?” He laughs, some of the tension breaking with your silliness. You love how you can laugh with your boyfriend during sex. Instead of ruining the mood, it feels like you get closer to him, both of you so comfortable with each other that there’s never any awkwardness in moments like these.

“I said, it would feel nicer if you finished in my pussy.” You clarify when he pulls his thumb from your mouth.

“For you or for me?”

“For you.”

The tsk of his tongue is harsh on your ears like broken glass. One of his shapely eyebrows curves upwards in faux irritation, the hand between your legs skidding to a halt with his palm smashed against your clit. “Still so stubborn, babygirl?” He looks you over with dark eyes, the light of the screen behind you casting dangerous angles on his face. By now your hand on him has also come to a stop, but you can feel just how swollen and hot his is, stiff enough to curb his usual generosity, but also enough to take away the assertive edge you expect his voice to be laced with. “On your knees.”

“Nonono, wait, I was kidding!” You gasp in an outburst, resisting his insistent hands that attempt to push you off of his lap. “I want you, Jimin, let me take care of you. We both need this.” You hold onto him by his handle, tightening your grip and effectively derailing his train of thought. He says nothing further and you reposition yourself above him, looking down into his chocolate eyes as they soften.

You glide his tip gently along your slick folds, enjoying how it brushes your clit and makes you impossibly more wet. It certainly has been a while, you don’t remember the last time you responded to him this well.

“Please don’t tease me,” He breathes, voice barely above a whisper, and you glance up to catch him looking at you with a pleading stare, plump lip caught between his abusive teeth.

You cave in instantly, guiding his tip to finally nudge against your entrance. Leaning forward, you steal a kiss, letting him lick into your mouth, his tongue caressing your own as you slowly slide down his wide length. You suck in a long inhale throughout your lengthy descent, addicted to the feeling of him filling you up. Filling up the hole inside of you made just for him. God, you missed this; and you tell him these words in the small space between your lips.

Jimin’s hands skim up your back, then trail down the lines of your sides, waist, and hips  indecisively before settling on your ass, pulling you closer to help you take that last extra inch. When he’s buried to the hilt, you both sigh deeply, letting out the breath you didn’t know you were holding. He releases your lips to lean his forehead against your shoulder, fingers squeezing your bottom tightly as he fights to control the emotions bubbling inside him. It feels like it’s been forever since he was last this close to you, connected to you like this, and it’s almost overwhelming, especially when he’s this sensitive. His cock feels like a comfortable heaviness in the pit of your stomach, your shared warmth heating your passion like a furnace, and you have to anchor yourself around his neck so it doesn’t burn you alive.

Your grip around his hair and around his member are like a vice, keeping him grounded and sane, all of his stress and frustration being sucked out of him and replaced by raging lust for you. You rock your hips experimentally, sparks of pleasure shooting through your bodies.

“Fuck, babe, please move. I can’t take it anymore.” Jimin whines, digging his fingers into your flesh. You swivel your hips as you adjust yourself, smirking down at your boyfriend who is in shambles beneath you.

“Fast or slow?” The seduction dripping from your voice makes him throb and he can barely groan out an answer.

“Ride me fast, (Y/n). Make me cum.” He commands, a hint of dominance tracing his demeanor, and you gladly oblige his request.

With feet hooked around the tops of his thighs to support your bent legs, you use your thigh strength to lift yourself up until just his tip is sheathed within you. Then you drop yourself down completely, impaling yourself on his hard cock and knocking the air from both of your lungs. You brace your hands on his shoulders for stability as you set a quick pace— as fast as your legs can take you— and it’s almost as if you have ignited a hunger inside you that singes your nerves.

“Oh shit,” Jimin whispers, throwing his head back at the return of that special tightness in his belly. You have always been good at riding him, but he never gets used to it. Your own mouth hangs at the catch of his burning red tip prodding all the best places within you, his moans restoring your strength and stamina as they increase in volume.

The chair beneath you squeaks desperately, groaning from your combined weight and movement, but you pay no attention as you focus your energy on making Jimin see stars, clenching purposefully just to hear him gasp and watch his eyes roll back. His fingertips dimple the flesh of your ass, pulling you down on him harshly until his cock is rammed as deep as it can go, only to lift you with ease and reveal the pearly cocktail gathering between you on the base of his shaft. He peeks his eyes open to look at you, transfixed by your bouncing breasts and the shiny quality of your neck, an urge to lick a stripe up the skin overcoming him and gifting you with the sensation of his tongue tracing a ragged line from chest to chin, tiny mountains prickling the skin in pursuit.

“Fuck, I’m close,” He grunts as he brings you forward until you’re leaning over him. Your head hangs over his shoulder and your legs drop back down to the floor, having unraveled with your new shift in weight, and Jimin just keeps sinking lower and lower in his seat with every bounce of your hips. He buries his face in the crook of your neck, whimpering praises and forcing you to go faster with his hands. But your muscles are already starting to fatigue and your legs begin to tingle with pleasure. “Where do you want me, baby?” It’s through the grit of his teeth that he strains this, veins pressing through his skin and sweat gluing your chests together, and you can only think of one answer.

“Inside me, Minnie-“ Before you can even finish the last syllable, his hips snap up into you, the strong muscles in his arms working to hold you above him so he can fuck you relentlessly from underneath. You feel his teeth sink into your shoulder, his breath held tight in his chest as he focuses on reaching that long awaited orgasm, and it’s all you can do to moan and encourage him with your fingers twisted in his scalp. There’ll be bruises on your ass for sure from how he lifts you and from the rapid fire smacks it receives from every thrust. Feet planted, arms tense, you know your boyfriend is ready to crumble.

“Tell me you want it.” He muffles into your skin, voice shaking with effort.

“I want it, baby. Want you!” He huffs at this, stuttering out of rhythm as he brings your body down to meet his, hitting you in a spot that makes you go blind with pleasure for a second. You’ve always known him to be a slut for praise and validation, and this time is no different, your words being the drop that breaks the dam, frenzied moans pouring from him with his last few thrusts, your hips slamming down to cement him inside you while his whole body twitches and rolls. This is the hardest you’ve seen him cum in a long time and you want to pull back and watch the beautiful expression painted all over his face, but he’s busy sculpting indentations of his teeth in the crook of your neck. His hands slide up your back as he begins to calm down, though you can still feel him throbbing inside you. Your walls clench at the feeling, close to their own peak, and it’s then that Jimin removes his mouth from you, collapsing back on the unsteady chair and looking up at you with the most content and satiated look you could imagine. As if he had been suffering a great pain and it had finally been relieved.

You watch him with joy at the sight of his relief, but he can still see the lust and need swimming in your eyes. Not wasting a second, he stands and turns you so that you are now the one in the seat, it’s leather sticking to your skin from his damp adhesive. Jimin lowers himself between your legs, the long forgotten laptop behind him illuminating you as his eyes feast on the sight of your glistening core. His cum hasn’t started leaking yet, but your own wetness stains your lips regardless.

It’s almost a surprise when you’re met with his tongue, half expecting that he’d just use his fingers to avoid tasting his own mess, but Jimin dives in eagerly with his long tongue, sucking your swollen clit between his lips skillfully. You clench at the feeling, returning your hands to his hair, and the rhythmic pulse of your walls pushes out his seed to seep slowly down your lips. He licks it up easily, groaning against you at the combined taste, and honestly, seeing him close his eyes in bliss as he tastes his own cum in you is probably your new favorite thing. Unable to stop yourself, you begin to rock your hips against him, whining and cursing as you near your edge. The feeling of him dipping his long pink muscle into your leaking cavern is what sends you into your orgasm, and he gratefully cleans up everything you have to offer, swirling his tongue a few more times just to watch you jump from sensitivity before pressing kisses along your inner thighs, all the way up until he reaches you lips.

You kiss like that for an unspecified amount of time, you were so lost in his talented mouth that you have no idea how much time has passed. It could have been seconds, it might have been minutes. You couldn’t care less. When Jimin finally pulls away for air, you loop your arms around his neck, your body lifting with his as he stands to his full height. He closes the porn site that is still displaying the white replay button to the video that now seems repulsive to him. Post-nut clarity at its finest. Once he walks you both to the bed (your legs just drag lazily as he pulls you along), you plop down and simultaneously sigh.

“I needed that, thank you.” He whispers, though you doubt it’s from sleepiness.

“I needed it, too, little vampire. I’m glad I came home to that.” You giggle, the stress of the day effectively replaced by the pleasant buzz of your lingering high.

“Little vampire?” This time you’re giggling from the lift of Jimin’s eyebrow, completely unaware that he has marked you with his teeth. You turn your head to give him a view of it, and he gasps, apologizing profusely with kisses to the darkening bruise.

“Minnie?” You say when it’s quiet again. He hums. “If this whole school thing doesn’t work out, let’s become a cam couple, okay?”

“What?” Not expecting you to ever say anything like that, he is rightfully appalled.

“I’m pretty sure I failed both my exams today, so I’m preparing my plan B for when I get kicked out of school. Plus, I know for a fact that I can give better blowjobs than the girl on that video you were watching, so we’d probably do really well. I hear pornstars make a lot of money.” One look at you and he knows you’re completely serious, which makes the situation that much funnier. You stare at him with a goofy smile as he laughs, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you closer.

“You’re not going to fail out of school, silly.” He says between chuckles. You shrug. “Don’t talk like that, you have a brilliant mind and you’re one of the most determined people I know. You’ll succeed for sure.”

“I know, I’m just a bit overwhelmed at the moment. This did help, though.” You look down at your naked bodies for emphasis, cuddling comfortably into him.

“I feel exactly the same way. How about we spend the rest of the night de-stressing. We can eat dinner, take a long bath, have a movie-“

“Dinner!” You gasp, only just realizing that you left your leftovers in the oven before Jimin... distracted you. You hop up and run to the kitchen still buck ass naked, and he follows, rounding the corner to see you pulling out an undistinguishable lump of charcoal from the oven. You look absolutely defeated.

“Well, I guess we’re ordering in tonight.” He stifles a laugh when you pout, dressed in nothing but your mint oven mitts and a frown.

So he orders something greasy and unhealthy, and you spend the night wrapped in each other’s arms binge watching addictive shows and cuddling, erasing the world until it’s just you two in your own bubble inside your shared apartment. And it’s better stress relief than anything you could imagine.

[deardragonbook]

Use references for writing

Fun fact (or just fact): as well as writing, I draw a lot! I’ve been drawing for a long time, and the most important piece of advice every single artist ever will give you is ‘use references!’. 

Referencing doesn’t mean copying or tracing, it means if I’m drawing a person and can’t remember what arms look like, and even if I think I remember I probably don’t, I look it up! And you can tell by looking at my art which pieces were done with or without references, usually because the muscles are all wrong. 

Well, the same goes for writing! 

Not as extreme, you won’t need to find a reference for everything you write or every time, but thinking you can get through life and your writing career without the use of references is... well, insane! 

Especially because references for writing are everywhere, our writing is based off of all the books and media we’ve consumed up until this point in our life, it’s based on our experience, it’s based on how people talk to us. Nothing just comes out of thin air!

So, when do you reference? 

If you’re doing a book, I usually start referencing at about the third draft mark. This is the point where I really am polishing and touching up so it makes sense. 

How do I reference? 

There are two ways, go live it (which obviously isn’t always posible) or find somebody else who has! 

In my own book there’s a scene that takes place in a market, I was struggling with the right words to express the anxiety of being surrounded by people having all your senses working on overdrive. It was an important moment for one of my male-leads and it needed to be just perfect. So I put a pin in it, and next Sunday, when my local market was up, I went for a walk. 

I had my phone on me and took notes and went straight back to this pin when I got home! 

The result: 

Up to this point, Zack lived freely. The only thing to oppose his movement had been the wind and gravity itself. But here he was fighting against a current of living breathing beings none of which paid him a glance.

His hands found their way around Itazu’s arm, squeezing as though she was the only thing keeping him afloat in this raging river of unfamiliar faces.

Itazu felt grateful he didn’t have the same strength as her or Kai.

The market at its core was a collection of smells and sounds. Prices and sales shouted at high volumes, people trying to get their order heard over all the shouting, the ringing of bells to signify an order was ready for collection, the occasional sound of horseshoes hitting stone as the royal guards watched the chaos from above.

Let’s compare it with what I had before going off to find a reference: 

If Zack had found it busy in the station, it was nothing compared to the market. He could barely move and grabbed onto Itazu with all his strength, the girl was grateful he didn’t have the same strength as her or Kai because she found herself frowning as her wrist ached, but was unwilling to tell him to stop, understanding it was his first time out of that city in a long time.

The market was filled with different smells and sounds, shouting of prices, people trying to reach their destination, bells being rung to signify a ready order, occasionally the sound of horseshoes hitting stone as the royal guards kept a close eye on the street.

See an improvement? I hope so because otherwise I may just be a bit insane. But no worries either way. 

The second method like I said is to find someone else who’s lived it, this could be another book, a blog post, a YouTube video, or even a friend or family member! The point is if you aren’t sure about something you need to seek out more information. 

A lot of fantasy writers forget that they are not exempt from this. And it’s a shame because not only can it really show in your writing, but we live in the best day and age for research, there is so many resources online and we should be using them. 

Also, as an extra reminder: the type of writing you like may not be for everyone. I like things to be a specific pace, often not too descriptive. Someone else may prefer a lot of description or an ever faster pace. When getting critics or opinions try and differentiate between preferences and genuine improvements to be made. It can be very difficult and take a lot of time, but it’s important to keep in mind. 

Here are a couple of useful websites for ‘references’ I’ve found useful at different points: 

Descriptionari: Allows you to search for snipets of creative writing that could help inspire, I especially find this useful for things I haven’t and can’t experience or I have so much experience with I can’t figure out how to unfold into a pleasing sounding paragraph! 

Writers helping writers: blog articles similar to the one’s I do here but easy to search through and by a large variety of writers. Especially good for more abstract ideas like how to write emotions. 

Unsplash (or any site with lots of photos): perfect for when you need to do a description and just can’t remember what something looks like! Especially good for architecture and buildings from my experience. 

As always, feel free to: 

Buy my book here. (Or read it on amazon unlimited!)

Check out my website (with plenty of my writing available for free!)

Check out my wattpad (with several prequel stories and a short unrelated novel which is going to be complete this Saturday!)

Check out my Instagram (you can see some of my mediocre art!)

[vamonumentlandscape]

Lynchburg, VA

To start our journey throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia, we traveled to nearby sites in Downtown Lynchburg, VA, which is just a few minutes away from the campus of Randolph College. Just across from the Lynchburg Museum on Court Street stands a proud Confederate soldier atop Monument Terrace, which was constructed in 1900 by the Daughters of the Confederacy. The pedestal base honors “Our Confederate Soldiers.” Each of us found it especially troubling to see where the soldier was looking towards - the Lynchburg Police Department and the courts. To us, the placement of the statue necessitates its removal, as well as the fact that it was unveiled during the Jim Crow era. Is this the kind of monument that should be at the top of Monument Terrace? Though there have been calls to remove the statue completely and possibly display it in context within a local museum, a high rate of poverty amongst minorities in the city remains another issue of systemic racism that local governments must reckon with.

Our next stops on the agenda were Pierce Street, the John Warwick Daniel statue off of Park and 9th streets, and the campus of Virginia University of Lynchburg (VUL). All three sites are within a stone’s throw from one another. Sadly, both Pierce Street and VUL have been neglected by the city and gone into near ruin. The statue, on the other hand, is a different story.

Pierce Street is on the outskirts of downtown, a seemingly normal street in a downtown neighborhood. But it is filled with incredible stories of the African Americans who once lived there. Anne Spencer, the nationally known and celebrated Harlem Renaissance poet lived and died here. Her son Chauncey Spencer, a pioneer African American pilot and educator, lived right across the way. Just a few houses down, Arthur Ashe and Althea Gibson’s tennis lessons took place in Coach Robert Walter Johnson’s backyard. This small residential street is soon to be home to a community outreach center, the Pierce Street Gateway. Pierce Street was a hub for African Americans in the 20th century. As the city has allowed it to crumble over the past few decades, the Gateway Project will soon get the street more of the recognition and use it deserves.

The statue of John Warwick Daniel represents Lynchburg’s monument landscape and how its citizens interact with it. Like the Confederate monument at Monument Terrace, people just stroll by and see it as a piece of their everyday life, but are mostly unaware of what they both really mean. John Warwick Daniel was a Confederate soldier from Lynchburg, then a Senator for Virginia who supported some of the most radical Jim Crow Laws in the state. He also supported the “Lost Cause” narrative of the Civil War. Seeing this statue was not supposed to be the highlight of visiting this neighborhood, but after an interaction with a resident, it took the cake. A middle-aged African American man was walking on the sidewalk across the road and shouted to us, “Does he have a leg?” He was pointing to his crutch, and he thought Daniel had lost his leg. “No, no,” our advisor responded, “He just lost the ability to walk with that leg, it was still there.” The man went on saying how he had always thought Daniel had lost a leg in the Civil War. Our advisor mentioned that the statue should be taken down. The response we got from this man was shocking. “Why? It’s history! I like it! It doesn’t bother me. I have been here for forty years in this neighborhood, and I like him. It’s history, it should be left alone.” He was obviously now annoyed with us and walked away unhappily. That made us all realize, to truly understand the monument landscape, we may have to understand those who interact with it the most to see the whole picture.

Then, we drove through the once thriving HBCU, now dilapidated, barely open VUL. The three remaining buildings were all in very rough condition. Classes are still held in two and the other seems to have been under rehabilitation at a time. Dorms were small and looked dated. It was sad. It is obvious that the campus was once something great, now it is barely staying afloat. In the coming weeks, we hope to possibly speak to someone who has attended or worked at the college to hear more about the once great place.

For many years Lynchburg’s 5th Street was primarily composed of African-American shops, eateries, and residences. In an era of segregation that prevented African-Americans from patronizing Main Street businesses, 5th Street businesses were the commercial center for African-Americans in the city. After desegregation, commercial buildings on the street were vacated in favor of other locations throughout the city. 

A few days later, we joined our project advisor at a virtual meeting via Zoom with city officials and 5th Street residents and business owners. We found out in 1989 the city council actually voted to rename the street in honor of Dr. King. The council voted no. Fifteen years later was the next push for recognition. In 2004, the street was given an honorary overlay name of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Recently, seventeen years since the last attempt, there has been a push to change the official name of the street to honor Dr. King’s legacy in this historical slice of the Lynchburg community. We quickly found that not everyone was on board by the conversation in the comment section. One person expressed concern of a street named for MLK becoming filled with crime and run down even further. If the city were to make a change to 5th Street’s name, it must also commit funds to revitalize industry and make people feel safe when coming to the area. MLK’s legacy and vision is not something that applied only to Black Americans, rather he sought all of us to work together as one. Greater visibility of King’s dream is something that the entire country, including the City of Lynchburg needs as we reckon with our past.

Lynchburg is filled with history, and we are thankful for the opportunity to see it up close. We doubt this will be our last post on the Hill City!

[doodlingstuff]

Comeback, part 5

Chapter 13: Wherever you are right now, know somehow

Keep reading here or jump to AO3 for the whole thing :)

All comments, kudos, likes and shares make my day shine ❤

***

Fuck recoveries.  

They were long, difficult, painful, and boring. And that was without counting the insufferable amount of people constantly coming and going. Cheering, talking, bringing useless things, offering nonsense, trying to be useful when they were the exact opposite.  

That’s why Andrew preferred to stay with Neil at night when things went quiet and no one but him could bring the striker out from his panic attacks or his stubbornness for keep pushing when he was supposed to be resting.  

Some of those nights were actually good. They got to spend time alone. They could talk. Andrew would tell in full detail what he did to keep Neil safe. The boy would listen and maybe, he would offer a memory or two from his years on the run. The places he went to, the landscapes he saw, the good thing he had.  

Other nights weren’t so good. Neil would wake up screaming, drenched in sweat, glassy eyes, and shaking hands, desperate to get up, to run again, to do something, and Andrew would grab his neck, force him to breathe, make him focus on one thing only instead of the full road ahead. Make Neil see his achievements and not the losses until he was calm enough to sleep again.  

There were fewer occasions when the terror in Neil’s eyes won’t leave him as one nightmare overlapped with another, and the pain returned fresh like Riko was still chaining him to a bed to use his body as a canvas for his knife skills, making Neil fight against the cuffs pinning him on site and rubbing raw his skin. Shouting until his voice was gone or a heavy cane, mad because of the noise, would beat him unconscious for Riko to keep doing his will on a marred and limp body without restrictions.  

On those few nights, Andrew would ask, force an answer from Neil’s fright, and the blond would climb to the bed and sit beside his frightened pipe dream, allowing him to grab Andrew like a lifesaver. Those rare times were also terrifying for Andrew. He never pictured Neil like the type who cried. As tears wet his jeans, the twin would make his best to offer comfort, even if he didn’t know how. He would streak the auburn locks, let the striker squeeze his arms and hands, allow him to hold onto his waist like Andrew was the only thing who could keep the both afloat until the memories resided and his breath became even again.  

That’s how the next fifteen nights went by, and then, Neil was allowed to go home.  

***  

Neil’s release is on Saturday. After tons of arrangements, several arguments, and a few knives out to make some points clear, Andrew is driving to Abby’s place. The auburn-haired fast asleep on the backseat, cuddled with the bunch of blankets and pillows that Andrew shoved in for him.  

He is being extra careful on the way to avoid startling Neil. Even Nicky is silent during the ride and although Kevin and the twin are again on sort of speaking terms, the big man has very clear that  Exy won’t be an accepted topic yet. Maybe not ever. There is still a long way to go for that, and no one is ready. But banning the talk doesn’t necessarily mean that he is going to be useful or smart anytime soon.  

When they arrive, Aaron heads straight for the house without losing a second. At least he leaves the door open. Nicky and Kevin rush to the trunk to get out Neil’s things and the fucking wheelchair. Andrew really wants to shove it inside of their asses. And for the millionth time in the past weeks, he wants to bring Riko back to life and kill him over and over until he gets tired, which is  highly  unlikely after all the damage he managed to cause.  

By the time Andrew makes it to the back seat, Neil is flinching at the sight of the chair.  

“Yes or no?”  

Scared glassy eyes turn to Andrew, then the fucking chair again, and back to the blond. “No.”  

It’s too easy to take the damned thing out of the way and scoop Neil up. He is still too skinny, so it takes no effort for Andrew to carry him inside and place the man on a bed in the room that used  t o be Andrew’s when he stays for holidays.  

In a couple of minutes Neil is settled, and the rest of the day goes by between visits and Abby’s care. Andrew tries to vanish a couple of times, but the striker asks him to stay every time, so the blond stays until they are left alone again and Neil asks him to get by his side.  

As Neil is about to fall asleep, Andrew allows himself to get lost in his new features. The sharp cheekbones, the hair that seems darker in the dim light of dusk, his eyelashes extending over the fucking four tattoo. The scars that frame his jaw, his eyes, his nose. It’s almost too much to bear. The blond has the sudden urge-as he’s had for the past weeks-to make Neil wake up and ask for a kiss. Or two. Or a lifetime of them, if truth needs to be told.  

Being like this, it’s too hard to remember that he wants nothing, and yet, the pipe dream proved to be real, so it catches Andrew off guard finding himself about to brush his lips over the reddish hair. He is even more surprised by what he discovers in his faint slip.  

“When the fuck was the last time you got a shower?”  

“ Mmm ?” He was probably already asleep, judging by his hoarse mumble. “I don’t know. I didn’t like everyone’s hands on me.”  

Andrew starts moving before he can give much thought to what he is about to do and gets out of the bedroom to get ready everything he needs.  

When he gets back, Neil is cuddled against the pillows. It’s almost cruel to disturb him when he looks so peaceful, but he  stinks . There is no softness in Andrew when he rips the blankets from him. “Yes or no?”  

Neil blinks once. Twice. It’s the first time he sees Andrew without his armbands. Icy blue eyes are awake again and traveling the lines that the twin carved over and over so many years ago, when shouting and crying and fighting wasn’t enough to let all of his pain out. Lines that were cut open again in December by Proust, while Neil was thinking that his sacrifice had been respected.  

“Yes?”  

“Try again until I believe you.”  

“Yes,” He repeats, more secure.  

Andrew lifts Neil again and heads to the bathroom.  

“Can you stand for a while?” Neil nods.  

The twin takes off Neil’s socks before placing his feet gently on the floor. The boy is as unsteady as a newborn deer, but he holds tight to the sink. Andrew turns on the shower and gets back to undress his striker. He takes his time. He tries to fool himself thinking it’s because he wants to be careful, but he is also taking in every inch of Neil.  

Awe and hatred fight inside his belly, the same way that beauty and brutality mix in the striker’s body. Andrew contemplates every scar and bruise, old and new.  

His deal with the  Moriyamas wasn’t fair. They should’ve granted him a full year to make the job as painful as it could be, for as long as it could be, in order to try to make them suffer as much as Neil has along his life.  

A trembling hand clenching the collar of his shirt snaps Andrew back to the bathroom. The touch wasn’t allowed, but it doesn't feel bad. In fact, he wants more, but Neil can’t hold himself anymore.  

The blond carries him again and places the skinny body on the plastic chair he got inside before. Then, he gets rid of his shoes and socks and decides at the last moment that he doesn’t want the feel of wet pants, so he takes them off too. There is something in his face that wants to resemble a smile when Neil swallows at the sight of his bare legs. He steps in.  

In theory, Neil has enough strength and he’s been to sufficient therapies to work through a shower on his own, but Andrew wants to try and see if whatever is fluttering inside of him gets bored with the tasks, or gets to summersault as it does with anything concerning Neil Josten.  

He works efficiently through his hair and limbs and lets the striker take care of the rest.  

The deep red marks on both of Neil’s ankles make Andrew kneel in front of him and inspect them closely. During the stay at the hospital,  amputation  was an ugly word repeated constantly on Neil’s back. Fortunately, the gashes are healing. Too slow, but steady, and the blond can release some tension he didn’t know he was carrying.  

Then, all his thoughts turn into white noise when he gets distracted by the striker's  crotch.  

Hunger that Andrew thought was well satisfied growls furious inside. He uppers his gaze to regain control, but Neil’s blushed cheeks and parted lips only make the hardness in his underwear get worse. He gets closer to that pretty mouth.  

“Yes or no?” He asks with a sharp breath.  

“Yes”.  

When their lips touch for the first time, is every bit as sweet and savory and delicious and addictive as Andrew had wondered since they met. Their tongues meet in a dance of doubt and delight. He wants more, so more. There is no room for nothing inside of him anymore. Not after everything is filled by the man in front of him.

Neil has his scarred hands holding at the sides of the seat. Andrew releases his hold on the back of the chair and takes the boney fingers in his to guide them towards his neck. “Only shoulders and up.” he indicates with a jagged breath before taking another try of Neil’s mouth.  

Hands get tangled behind his neck for a moment before making way up through his half-wet hair. They curl and tug and dig deep into his scalp.  

Next time he opens his eyes to get some air back, he notices the striker is hard as himself. He takes a hand closer to the boy’s thigh, without touching, but the message is clear. “Yes or no?”  

The grin he receives is enough to light the whole house. “Yes. Always yes.”  

The urge in both is thicker than the vapor around. However, Andrew wants to savor the moment in case there is no replay because  if he has learned something, is that every pipe dream always  vanishes .  

His hands cradle Neil’s hips. They are narrow and sharp. Several pounds below healthy, and beautiful regardless of the rips in his skin. His thumbs work slow circles around, finding without rush what they come from. Expert fingers take care of teasing the dream’s lower body while the twin leaves a trail of kisses along every reachable scar. Skin below his  lips shudders depending on the place, but there’s never a call to stop as he leaves a trail of goosebumps, so Andrew goes back down, down, down, down, and swallows him whole.  

It’s not forced. It’s not an experiment. If heaven existed, that must be what it tastes like.  

The grip on his neck turns stronger as Neil gets closer and the hungry beast roaring inside of Andrew curls in pleasure once the striker has his release.  

The blond has no intention of taking time to kiss his way back up again, so he clashes Neil’s mouth with another kiss.  

“Do you want me to-” Andrew doesn’t let him finish the question. He goes in for another of his perfect kisses while his hand leaves Neil's hips to take care of his own needs. He wants Neil to do anything and everything to him of course. But not now. Not when he is still weak. Not after having so many boundaries pushed in one night. In the past weeks.  

Andrew can’t tell yet what it means.    

When he finishes, his breath is shaking against the arm with which he held to the back of the chair. Lips on his neck startle him. He really wants to be angry, but it’s impossible with those bright eyes bringing light to every shadow of his soul. He swallows and stands before he loses the last thread of control left.  

Andrew helps Neil get dry and dressed. The boy is too tired to stand again, but neither care. The blond spares a glance to see if there’s anyone around, and when he makes sure the path is clear, he carries Neil back to the bedroom. His head rests on Andrew’s shoulder and he notices the moment when the  auburn-haired  falls asleep in his arms.  

It’s harder than it should place the sleeping striker on the bed instead of keep cradling him, but Andrew is getting cold and a shower on his own should be enough to ease his nerves standing on edge after feeling  so much.  He thought that wasn’t possible, and there was Neil Josten to prove him  wrong  again.  

Once he finishes cleaning and dressing, the twin wants to grab some food, but light blue cuts his path. “Sleep with me?”  

There is a small smile behind the exhaustion and Andrew know as he approaches the bed and gets into the covers, when a “yes or no” is thrown at him and he has an arm holding him like he is something precious, that he belongs  to the pipe dream and there is nothing he won’t do to keep that smile on his face.  

That night, was a good night.  

[hollowcrovvn]

The Ostensive Fumblings of Being Human (part 1) | Connor x f!reader

Pairing: Connor x female!reader Rating: G for Gross Cute Crap Summary: Set two months after the ending of Detroit: Become Human, androids are living in their own pop-up communities while efforts are being made to integrate them into society. You are a grad-student volunteer with the Detroit Crisis Response Unit (DCRU), working to help with relief efforts… or at least, keep those who are doing so in coffee. On your caffeine runs, you bump into a young man whose matter of fact way of speaking and seemingly deadpan humor catches your interest.

Note: I should point out, as of yet, the idea is that you don’t know Connor is an android. You think he’s just Like That™. There should be a lot of fluff and prompts stolen straight from a list for aro/ace scenes if I keep this up.

(part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5) (part 6) (part 7) (ao3)

The revolution had come and gone, but it’s aftermath thrummed through the streets of Detroit, setting a new pulse in the heartlands. For one intoxicating moment on November 12th, 2038, the androids felt their cause heard, their existence validated and their lives their own. It had been a hard battle up that hill and now came the slow, dangerous descent down the other side. When you’re fighting in a revolution, “What comes next?” isn’t always the foremost thought because you are not even certain if there exists a next.

As a grad-student intern of the newly reformed Detroit Crisis Response Unit, you were part of the answer to that question. The DCRU existed to act as a relief effort in times of flood, famine and fire, but now it was called to a new purpose, one that existed in no procedural manual. Some Androids found the reference of their liberation as a “crisis” offensive, but you knew that the sudden displacement of thousands upon thousands of newly made people, with specific physical needs, was a social crisis, if not a natural one.

But you kept the opinions to yourself because honestly, you weren’t a soldier, or a cop-- hell, you were just someone who signed up for the group back in college to pad your resume with some bullshit extracurricular. Now you had a damn vest and a badge and you were walking in and out of the quick pop up facilities, meeting with leaders of the revolution themselves and acting as liaison with them and Cyberlife or the government or anyone else contracted to provide aid.

Well, not specifically you, but you did once meet North who was very professional and very brief and caught a glimpse of Markus speaking to superiors regarding new shipments of thirium. 

Parts and blood. You hated being a pessimist, but it still seemed to you that the Androids were quite shackled to humanity without their own means of production yet available. The Androids knew it too. This freedom still had a question mark hanging in the air and that added a certain level of tension. 

You knew it was not the typical reaction of people within your group, but you were kinda scared of them. The Androids looked at you with either barely veiled contempt or outright suspicion. It was expected, you were briefed on it, but still the instability coupled with unpredictability and superior strength made you wary. Yes, they experienced emotions, but they did so so intensely and so suddenly-- like a teenager or a child. Developmentally speaking, maybe that is where their emotions were-- or maybe it was a byproduct of being oppressed? You didn’t know and it was off putting for someone who’d grown up with only docile domestic androids. You set that aside though, knowing there were more important things happening than your comfort level.

For one thing, Cyberlife stock was in freefall. The question was soon becoming whether the company could even remain afloat long enough to be apart of negotiations into creating Android operated facilities.

But that wasn’t your job, your job, as of today, was to get coffee.

That was pretty much your job everyday.

It was late January, the snow outside had let up and the sun had even come out, giving the whole of Detroit a blinding wash. Colors stood out on the stark canvas, the blue pelts of salt crunching beneath your boots as bright as thirium. Your breath crystallized, something you noted absent among the Androids at the relief site. Still, they needed warmth as much as humans to keep their systems from failing.

Your cheeks stung with cold as soon as you walked into the warm coffee shop, filing into line. You tugged your beanie back slightly, feeling flush and iced at the same time. The line had stopped moving along as the woman at the head began arguing with increasing annoyance with the barista.

“This is a raspberry mocha, it should be a raspberry white mocha. And I said extra hot, and no whip! Not extra whip!”

The coffeeshop was staffed by all humans, a rare sight merely a few months ago, but now one that was required. But this meant the return of human error-- something that people were still getting used to again.

“Sounds like she could have done with the extra whip as a child…” you muttered, and the man in front of you chuckled. He was bundled like the rest of the people in here, with a beanie and gloves, but his jacket was considerably less bulky and more of the sleek kind you were used to seeing fashion conscious people picking.

“If only it were enough to also correct her terrible tastes.” the man said, casting a glance over his shoulder at you. He had warm brown eyes, “I have been told the addition of sugar to coffee is an affront. Specifically the fruit imitation kind.”

“Only if your fifty and grouchy.” you replied, “Or in your case, more like a hipster.”

A scoff. He’d turned now, addressing you fully and you could see the crisp white shirt and tie at the V where his jacket was unzipped.

 “”Hipster”, defined as a person who follows the latest trends and fashions outside of the cultural mainstream.” he said, his eyes doing a quick trip up and down you, “Your jacket is a vintage remake, circa 2003. Very obscure label.”

You felt yourself grin, “Is it? You tell me, hippy. Seems you’re the expert.”

“I just did.” he said and you couldn’t help but wonder how long he practiced the “innocent confusion” tone.

You’d reached the front at last and sure enough the man ordered one black coffee to go.

“You’re killing me. I’m getting second hand heartburn just looking at that pitiful thing.”

He smiled, but did not drink, watching you with leveled interest. It was your turn to order. You sighed and fished out your notepad, quickly running off the drink orders on it. Caramel macchiato, Cinnamon dolce with an extra shot, unicorn frappe, London fog.... 

“The usual then?” the barista said with a smile and you nodded.

When you were finished, the Hipster was still there, “Ma’am, I do not know how to tell you this, but I think you may have a caffeine based addiction.”

“They aren’t all for me!” you laughed, shaking your head, “And it’s --- , “Ma’am” is my mother.”

“Her parents had an interesting choice of name.”

That got another laugh from you, this guy was turning out to be the highlight of your morning. He tilted his head as if not certain where the joke was and it only made you laugh more. 

“Your comedic timing is really something.” you muttered, picking up the full drink cart and realizing with a little disappointment it was time to part ways. He smiled politely, stepping out of your way.

He held the door for you on the way out and headed for a car waiting on the curb. There was an older guy at the wheel, who leaned half into the passenger seat to give him a critical look.

“Well, have a good morning, hippy.” you said, flashing him the brightest smile, “Certainly improved mine.”

“You are welcome. May I ask though, which drink was yours?”

“Why?”

“I am curious and wish to form a value judgement based on the choice.”

Man, he was so good at that deadpan humor. The man in the car honked his horn at him, voice muffled as he yelled through the glass something about “freezing his balls off in here”.

With Hipster distracted you took the time to hurry off, calling out a quick, “You’ll just have to guess!” before heading briskly down the sidewalk.

--

Another day, another coffee run, but this time it was just for you. The sky was blotted grey, fluffy clusters of snow falling slowly through the air as if they too couldn't be bothered to rush in the morning. You would have done anything to have stayed in bed, wrapped in a heated blanket and nested in a sea of pillows.

Instead, you stood in line, bleary eyed and tired, because you were out of ground coffee again.

It was that very sleepiness that made you not notice immediately the face of the person ahead who was raising a hand at you in greeting.

It was the guy, the handsome hipster guy from a few weeks ago with his one black coffee, his sleek jacket and red beanie. Your heart pattered and you resisted an urge to punch yourself in your own stupid chest as a silent demand to cut that out.

“Good morning!” he said, with far too much pep. 

You smiled faintly, mumbling a vague, “Is it…” beneath your breath as you approached the counter.

“It is currently overcast, but the cloud coverage has raised temperatures ten degrees. My partner informed me that, “sounds like a good morning”.”

“Your partner sounds old.” you said with a snort.

“He is middle aged.”

When had this guy gotten so close? He was practically standing next to you now like you’d come in together, eyes flicking occasionally between you and the menu.

Cute, but weird. You decided, turning back to the barista. You opened your mouth to order and then clicked it shut, fixing the Hipster with a knowing glare.

“Eavesdropping?”

“Excuse me?”

“Value judgement.” you said, voice assured. You turned to the barista and grinned, “One black coffee please.”

You shot him a triumphant look, but the man just continued smiling politely.

“Have your concerns of pyrosis been elevated, ---?” he said, forgetting almost that you’d told him your name.

“I’ll suffer if it means I win.” you replied, taking the cup and moving to fill it with black coffee with a look of disdain.

He gave a peculiar look at that, as if registering some kind of understanding.

“Your mission to prevent me from learning your drink preference takes priority.”

“Damn straight.” you said, sipping the bitter liquid and trying to tell yourself it tasted like VICTORY and not like your stomach was about to be wrecked.

Before you could speak, the door rattled as someone forced it open, waltzing into the shop with determination.

“CONNOR-- how long does it fuckin’ take to get one coffee?”

Connor looked unfazed, turning his attention to the man you recognized as the guy who waited in the car last time.

“Lieutenant Anderson, I have acquired the coffee and was just on my way to join you. However, I stopped to engage in social intercourse, as you’ve encouraged.”

“Social WHAT--” the Lieutenant’s eyes settled on you and he humphed, “Oh. You were talkin’ to a girl. Jesus fuck, how’d that work for ya?”

His question seemed directed at Connor, but he looked at you the entire time, mystified. Or at least what you gathered was mystified beneath the permanent scowl.

“It is going very well!” Connor said, allowing the man to take his coffee.

“Ah ha!” you suddenly exclaimed, jabbing a finger towards the lieutenant and turning to Connor for validation, “Fifty and grouchy! Yeah?”

The look Anderson gave you was as annoyed and baffled now as he gave Connor.

“Okay, if you’re done with your social fuckin’, can we please get to the office? Before I start collecting social security?”

You choked, snorting a bit of coffee. 

“In a moment, lieutenant.” Connor said cooly.

With a few grumbled protests, the lieutenant left the shop and headed back outside, leaning against the side of the car and shooting glares at Connor through the glass.

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson is my partner. I apologize, he can be abrasive.”

“Uh huh. So if the black coffee is for him, then please tell me you have a super secret love of pumpkin spice. C’mon, it’ll make my morning.”

“Like the last time we spoke?” Connor inquired, inclining his head.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Then certainly.”

“Well now I know you’re lying.” you laughed, all feelings of sleepiness gone as you beamed up at this Connor. There was something so curious yet so gentle in the way he looked back at you, as if you were a puzzle, but a pleasingly difficult puzzle.

It made you feel a bit awkward now that you noted it, clearing your throat as you swapped the coffee between your mittened hands.

“Here.” you finally said, handing him the cup. His eyes widened.

“C’mon, take it. Save me from myself.”

Connor looked like he was about to say something, but confusion turned to understanding. He took the coffee cup.

“... thank you.” he said, with a level of reverence that made her sure he must be kidding.

“Eh, just consider it me pouring one out for “our boys in blue”.”

His eyes flicked to yours, as if trying to pry some answer to an unspoken question.

“Ya know-- cause you’re both cops, right?”

“Y..yes. Right.” Connor slowly smiled, “Yes we are. Thank you.”

“It’s just a dollar coffee, hippy.” you said, but still smiled. What the hell had gotten into you? Your damn face hurt from all the smiles you were giving this guy.

“Have a safe patrol.” you said finally, hurrying away before you did something else clearly awkward and embarrassing.

“---?” the sound of your name halted you.

“Yeah?”

“I ...enjoy talking with you. Perhaps we can converse more.”

Fuck. Fuck, oh shit. Oh god, handsome funny hippy boy wanted to talk to you? You?? More???  When was the last time something like this happened to you? Oh right, NEVER.

You stammered, mixing between trying to seem aloof and actually being flustered and managing to just be alooflustered. Which looked ridiculous.

“Um.. okay. Okay! Just uh--” you took a pen from the nearby drink pick-up counter and popped the cap off with your teeth. You gestured for his cup, which he handed over, and wrote your number across the white surface along with your name.

“There.”

He turned the cup, saw what you’d written and grinned, a bright all consuming thing that seemed both foreign and so fucking adorable on his lips.

“Lieutenant Anderson will be thrilled.” he said and you barked a laugh.

“Yeah well, better hurry and go show him before he leaves you.”

Connor nodded gravely, as if this were a truly high possibility he was just reminded of.

“Talk to you later, Connor.”

“Yes. “Talk to you later”.”

He left, hurrying to the car. You watched Hank’s rested-annoyed-face twist with confusion, pointing to the cup in Connor’s hand, to which Connor proudly displayed what must have been your number. The man’s jaw nearly hit the snow covered ground, quickly ushering Connor into the car with his mouth moving rapidly.

A small smile tugged at the corner of your lips, “God. What a dork…”

You were so engrossed you barely heard when the barista, eyes nearly rolling out of their head said,

“Hey lady, are you gonna get anything!?”

[creditrepair3-blog1]

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[foxtophat]

in today’s update, nick and kim discuss why they shouldn’t kill the guy who probably deserves a righteous death-by-asskicking.  nick is sort of an over-thinker, which usually puts him in tailspins, but thankfully kim and him have worked out a balance that keeps both of them afloat.

anyway, uh, there’s another chapter that could technically be added to this one but damn it i want to keep an update schedule for at least a few weeks lol. i’m still trying to figure out kim’s voice, a lot of the time i write her and end up pulling a softer fo5 marcy, which is... not accurate at all. so i’m working on her! also, i can’t write children too well so carmina tends to be like “fuck this i’m goin hunting” so oooo that should work out for me.

i hope you enjoy, please consider reblogging if you do!  the full text of the chapter is below the cut, in case you don’t wanna go off-site.  (yo, if you see a mistake please let me know, i’m pushing this update out before a bunch of errands so i might’ve messed up the formatting or a word or something)

Nick dreads every step he takes back down to the kitchen, but they only have a little while before Grace brings Carmina back. They need to make a plan before then — even if they're not going to kill John Seed, they're going to have to do something with him.

Kim is in the kitchen, taking her anger out on the vegetables she's picked. Nick can imagine his neck snapping as easily as the wimpy little carrots do, swallowing as he steels himself for the hard choices about to come. He'd sworn up and down that he was going to live a simple life from here on out, and yet here he is, bringing trouble in with him like a stray goddamn cat. Not even considering the safety of his family, or the feelings of his wife — or his friends , because what is Grace gonna say about all this? They have to tell her, right? And what about Jerome? Not to mention the other survivors. God — the list of people he's betraying grows by the second!

"Carmina will be back soon," Kim says, breaking another carrot into quarters. "We need to deal with John before then."

Despite her hostile tone, Nick doesn't think she means kill the guy. He hopes she doesn't. Nick will do it , of course — he can't expect Kim to clean up his mess — but he can barely stomach the guilt thinking about it. God, what if she tells him to do it? The man wouldn't even be able to fight back. Nick's never had to kill someone who couldn't fight back .

"Hey," Kim calls out, soft but firm enough to shake him out of his thoughts. "It's going to be okay."

"Yeah, I know," Nick replies, the words spilling out. "Just — I really messed up, Kim, what the hell was I thinking? I saw him lying there, I had my gun in his face and I decided to put us all in danger, because why ? Because I felt sorry for him? I should've done something differently. I should've..."

Kim has this way of smiling that never fails to pull Nick out of even the worst thought spiral. She uses it on him now, tiny crows-feet crinkling beside her eyes as she comes around from the kitchen. "There are a lot of things we could have done differently," she says gently. "We spent six years in a bunker learning that lesson. Six years un learning all of the bullshit the cult forced on us." She reaches him, taking one of his hands up in both of hers. If there's an easy solution she can see that Nick can't, she doesn't tell him; she only sighs and admits, "I don't blame you. I don't know if I could have done it, either."

"Well, at least I know I'm not the only one who's gone soft." Nick looks back towards the stairs, as if John might somehow crawl out of the spare room and demand they hand over the house. "The question is, what do we do now that we got him here?"

"Well..." Kim's shoulders slump with a resigned sigh, as she also turns to look up the stairs. "I mean, there aren't a lot of options that don't end with us shooting him. It's not like there's a court to try him in, or anyone left to hold him accountable."

Nick shrugs. "Maybe that was the plan? Maybe he thought he could outlive the consequences of his bullshit."

"I'm definitely in favor of shooting him if that's the case. I'm surprised he outfoxed the deputy, much less that he survived for this long."

"I don't think I'd call whatever he's been doing surviving ." Nick gestures up the stairs. "You saw the guy. All I know is that I found him next to an open bunker that smelled like a mass grave. I mean, Dep... Dep said they put him down. They wouldn't have left him alive somewhere. Right?"

"They never were big on murder," Kim points out. "Or revenge."

"God, if they fuckin' stashed him away after everything he did..." Nick exhales heavily; he's getting too worked up about a hypothetical situation. "I guess it doesn't matter. They couldn't've known what was gonna happen." No matter how often Joseph or his fucked up family would tell them otherwise, the Deputy had never been big on religious zealotry, and the concept of the end of the world had seemed impossible to them at the time. They hadn't been a fan of killing the Seeds outright, not if they could be brought to justice, but they had never been given the chance. Well, that's what Nick thought, anyway. Now, he's not so sure that Rook didn't play some key decisions too close to their chest.

"Okay, okay," Kim cuts through his thoughts, "Let's just focus on the information we have for now."

"Easy for you to say," he sighs. But, she's right, of course she is, so Nick sighs again and shakes his head to clear away the random what-ifs he's been conjuring up. "Okay, so — the facts. Right."

"You said you found him in a bunker?" Kim prompts.

"Near a bunker. He'd made a... I mean, it wasn't a camp . But he was living topside for at least a couple days. My bet is he crawled in there after the plane went down."

"He must have run out of food at some point and had to come up," Kim suggests.

"Yeah, for all the good that did him. Though I guess it might be better starving to death topside instead of pre-buried."

"Maybe if we're lucky, he'll starve before we get around to feeding him," Kim sighs, although she sounds too resigned to be hopeful of an easy outcome. "Although it'd be hard to explain to Carmina and Grace why we're burning a corpse..."

"Oh, man," Nick groans. "What do we tell Grace? And what are we gonna do about Carmina? She can't go anywhere near that psychopath. Even if he's too weak to hurt her, I don't want him giving her... weird ideas or something."

Kim hesitates. "Grace won't be forgiving. If we tell her, she won't consider another option."

Nick hates the idea, but not enough to keep from considering it. Grace wouldn't hesitate; she would do what needs doing and she would only wonder why it took her coming along for it to happen. And if they don't tell her, they won't just be keeping John a prisoner — they'll be harboring him from the justice he deserves. They'll have to keep him hidden from everybody, even strangers. The alternative would be to put the burden on somebody who doesn't deserve it.

"I don't think I've got the guts," Nick admits shamefully. "I feel sick just thinking about it."

He hopes that Kim has a stronger stomach than him, but she only sighs and nods. "I'm not sure it's the right choice. I'm not even sure there is a right choice. But — for the sake of fairness, he should at least be able to defend himself."

"We've gone soft," Nick chuckles. "Back in the day, we'd have busted his teeth in just for surviving."

Kim gives him this look, like maybe she's always seen him as soft, but he doesn't mind it coming from her. "So," she asks, "What do we do with him once he's well enough to be a problem?"

"Hopefully, he does something to inspire some righteous, old-world justice before then."

"Considering his track record, I won't rule that out. But... Ugh. I don't even want to say it." Kim rubs her face with both hands, pacing in a small circle. "Eight years is a long time to plan in. He could have any number of... of plots, or hidden caches, who knows what? If we don't kill him, there's a real chance that he might use our kindness against us." Kim's frown is heavy enough to pull her whole face into it as she turns back to Nick. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"We'll keep him in the nursery. He'll be under lock and key, 24-7, until we can figure out what his deal is. If he turns out to be plotting some kind of second cult uprising or, I dunno... resurrecting Joseph from the grave, we'll put him out of everyone's misery. Which, let's face it, is the most likely outcome."

"And if he doesn't? How long can we keep him prisoner up there? I mean, Nick... our food supply isn't exactly stable, and he's another mouth to feed on wimpy carrots and mushy turnips. Summer's almost over, and last winter was hard enough without four of us."

Nick chews his lip. Looks back towards the stairs, wondering whether John can hear what they're saying, if he's cognizant enough to understand the position they're putting themselves in on his dumb behalf. "And then there's all the stuff we gotta get done before then," he sighs, thinking of the myriad chores and home improvement projects he's put off in order to focus on basic survival. "Hell, I don't know, Kim. Maybe we can put him to work when he's able to stand upright. Give him all the jobs Carmina's too young to do yet."

"We do need somebody to dig this house out of the dirt," Kim suggests. She's mostly joking, even though it's extremely true — they haven't had time, energy or interest enough to do more than a cursory sweep to clear the stairs. "And you've been talking about fixing up the hangar again..."

"All manual labor that I can oversee with a rifle," Nick says. "John owes us — seems only right that we take what we need."

"Assuming he'll cooperate."

"He's not going to have much of a choice."

Kim frowns. "If he doesn't, are you sure you can handle making him?"

Nick should probably be offended, but she's right to ask. Truthfully, Nick's not sure he can be intimidating enough to sway John into listening to him. The guy is a fucking maniac, after all — other than pain and revenge, there's not much that gets him up and moving. Nick doesn't have an ace up his sleeve that can outdo the Cult. That doesn't mean he's not gonna try — it just means he's going to have to try harder than John deserves.

"I'm gonna have to be. Look, after Carmina gets back, I'll take up some food and see if he's willing to talk. We'll just... go from there."

"You've always been good at improvising," Kim hums. She's got a smile on her face that Nick's never seen before, something sad lingering in her eyes as she gives him a curious look over. "I love you, you know," she tells him, as if she hasn't said it a dozen times this week alone.

"I love you too," he replies. "And I'm sorry I brought this on us. I'll make it right."

" He'll make it right," Kim says. "Or we'll shoot him."

Nick laughs. "Yeah, or we'll shoot him," he repeats, pulling Kim in for a long, tight hug. Nick's not sure if it's old age or being a father that's softened him so much, but he's sure it hasn't softened him enough to keep him from doing whatever might need to be done. All he can do is hope that John won't put that to the test.

[srprincess]

Fictober prompt 4 - “I know you didn’t ask for this.”

Fandom - check please 

- part two of the SpookydooAU, now a wip on Ao3 (still without a decent title, sorry?

Will led them to the cemetery. Just as well he was leading them, because, tucked away behind the trees like it was, there was a fair chance they’d have passed it and looped back around to him again.

 Once parked, they all climbed out of the vehicle and spread out - honestly how did they fit in that thing? He was watching and still couldn’t figure it out.

 He took the map from Man-Bun and Short Woman when they brought it over and marked it as promised. Circled a couple of the public open lighthouses. Made sure to put a circle with a line through on his own place. Even drew a little gravestone and wrote ‘you are here’ at the graveyard, and a big star around the visitors center.

 “Great, thanks man!” Man-Bun said as he slapped Will on the back. “I know you didn’t ask for this, us basically showing up on your doorstep, but we’d be lost without you. For real. We’re normally much more prepared than this-“

 “Normally? So you do this a lot, ummm,” Will searched his head for the name. He couldn’t just call him Man-Bun out loud. Had any of the others called him something?

 Picking up on the reason for the pause, he helped, “Shitty Knight.”

 Confusing subject change, Will thought. “Night? It’s day. Barely started, and not that bad a one. Fair seasonal, really.” God, these people were odd.

 “No, my name. It’s Shitty. Well, nickname. Because my actual name is ... well, shitty. Hey! You need a nickname! Let me think -“

 “Please. Don’t.” Will said under his breath as ‘Shitty’ - and he had thought calling him Man-Bun would have been too rude? - wandered off butchering his name in a variety of new and creative ways.

 Short Woman stepped up, “Larissa, or Lardo to my fellow heathens here, and to answer your question - because we’ve lost Shits for a while - we go ghost hunting as a group every year. We normally shoot for a week in April, but a couple of us were busy this year. And then summer started late for Jack sooooo,“

 Will frowned, how could summer be late? And for one person? It was a season. Weirder and weirder.

 “Lucky we all managed to match up a few free days here in fall though. We waited too long and couldn’t get rooms at our planned spot, but then we heard about this place and so we threw this trip together and here we are. Late, lost and in your debt.”

 “Don’t think of it. Ummm it seems like you’re all set now, so I’m gonna head back?”

 She gave him a thumbs up and joined the rest who were checking names on all the stones.

 He could have told them they were looking in the wrong area. Between the pamphlet, their interest in this particular cemetery and his particular lighthouse, the stories they could be chasing were limited. Most of those people came nosing around towards December, but scheduling was a thing from what they said so - yeah. He was pretty sure he knew who they were looking for. As sure as he could be without a name.

 It was the typical story, from the time of his great grandparents. Lone woman from away seen walking along the road at night disappears under mysterious circumstances, never to be heard from again. Other than ghostly sightings of a shadowy figure along the harbor roads and beaches at night that is. There was a little more to it in this case, main thing being that this one’s body had actually been found later. Stone’s throw from the lighthouse, in fact. Such a sad story, no one had even come to claim her.

He tried not to think about it too much. Knowing he was the last of his family made things like that hit a little harder as the years passed.

 There had been talk years back about giving her a proper stone, but many of the residents didn’t want to attract any more of this exact kind of attention. They wanted to be known more for their spectacular views than mysterious probably murders from a century earlier. And so she continued her rest under the trees at the edge of the cemetery, her grave simply marked by plain stones. Mostly safe from the looky loos, unless they were really into the area history. With no real family to mourn her, the village felt the best they could offer was to give her the peace of anonymity at this point.  

 Any matter, he didn’t want to seem too helpful to this group and make them feel welcome to asking more of him. So he kept his mouth shut, and let them search in all the wrong spots. It was kind of uncomfortable for him, watching them traipse all over the graves. He couldn’t help but think of his own family’s site and be glad it was in an entirely different cemetery. All this only made him miss the quiet of his home even more, so he slipped away while the group continued their search.

 —

 When Will got back home, he climbed back up to the lantern room of the lighthouse. Time to get back to work. He didn’t like getting so late a start, but since he kept things in generally good order he knew it would be fine.

 So much of the works were run on automated timers these days. His dad had been happy to get all that put in so that, barring storms, he wouldn’t have to go up and do it all manual. Sometimes Will wondered what it had been like in the old days, and thought he would have enjoyed the hard work of it all. Of course, that was easy to say when not actually facing the reality of cold stair climbs in the dark and restless nights.

 Not that the modernizing made for an easy life either. Seemed like there was always something needing doing. Keeping the windows clean of sea spray seemed like a full job in itself as the weather got rougher each fall.

 He noted one of the bolts was starting to get stripped after he tightened it. He’d need to pick up some spares before next month.

 Everything else checked out, and he updated the log.

 Finally finished, he pulled the binoculars out of the pouch he kept inside the door before heading out in the ‘walk for one last look around before darkness fell.

 Oh great, there was someone taking pictures from the scenic lookout with one of those damned giant lens aimed his way. He flipped off their general direction and muttered “frame that” and kept scanning the shoreline.

 One of the regular beachcombers waved. Will could never remember her name, but, thanks to a conversation they’d had while she waited for the tide to change one day, he knew she made wind chimes to sell with the shells she collected.

He was wondered if she’d seen his response to the tourists. It should have been hard from the distance, but she appeared to be laughing.

 Sometimes he wondered if he should be nicer to the tourists. Or at least ignore them better. After all, the majority of the village did need them bringing money in to keep afloat in the off seasons. But, nah. Not like he went to their houses and aimed giant cameras in their windows. Hardly his fault if they found his place so interesting. It was still rude. And if a nice person like her found him ruining their photos funny, it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

 Looking further down he saw another tourist group taking shore line pictures. With a normal camera. Like normal people. People who weren’t treating him like some sort of animal at the zoo and snapping HD pics of him in his ‘enclosure’.

 When he had made it around to the view of his drive he saw the clown car of an SUV approaching again.

 “No, no, no, no, no, no, NO.”

[plutoandpolaris]

Walk the Line Chapter 1: The Price I Pay

Summary: Jackie has been missing for almost as long as Schneep had, and Marvin is beginning to get desperate. He turns to unsavory means to find answers and in the process, finds that the truth is much worse than anything they could have imagined.

Warnings: blood, strong language (minor) injury.

-

Marvin’s dreams had never been wrong.

They’d never been clear or easy to understand either, but from the day of his creation his dreams had always come true in one way or another.

Darkness. A sky black as pitch, overlooking a steep stone cliff. The rock is a dark, muddy red, dotted with trees so white they resemble skeletal hands reaching from the earth. A lone figure stands on the cliff side, his clothes torn and dappled with stains as red as the world around him.

Scars and wounds dapple his stark white skin, his eyes hollow and cold.

“Stay away,” he whispers hoarsely, the sound a booming metronome in Marvin’s ears. “Leave me.”

“Jackie?!” Marvin calls, sprinting desperately to close the distance.

His brother doesn't look at him, instead gazing past him in a glassy thousand yard stare. Marvin reaches him then, gripping his shoulders, eyes pleading. He doesn't respond.

“What has he done to you?!”

Once again, no answer. Marvin envelops his brother in a crushing hug, only to realize that, to his horror, Jackie is dissolving. His skin turns an ashy black, dissipating into black smoke blown over the ravine by the warm wind.

Marvin curls into himself, dropping to his knees as the last vestiges of ash and smoke blow from his fingers.

Jackie is gone.

Every day, the dreams continued. Many were identical, some with slight differences that nevertheless ended in the same result.

But recently, the dream had changed again.

The cliff side was now empty.

And so Marvin continued his near manic search for Jackie, for the titular cliff that had plagued his nightmares for months. His brothers thought he'd gone completely insane, but there was nothing they could do. Marvin was far past the point of listening to reason.

He'd scoured every map and travel site he could get his hands on, searching for somewhere, anywhere, that matched the cliff in his dreams. Nothing.

He even got the point of bothering professional geographers about it, but he was constantly faced with the same answer. There's no place on earth with trees like that. With a sky as crisp and smooth as black marble.

It's fantasy.

However, as it turned out, fantasy is Marvin’s specialty.

He’d given up searching for this place on earth and turned to his second option: Anti had taken Jackie to some kind of parallel dimension, as was the case with Henrik’s abduction nearly a year before. But still, nothing. He'd personally scanned every single alternate dimension in his records, everything turning up empty. His brothers began to bring up the possibility that the cliff doesn't exist, that it was just a dream, but he wouldn't hear it.

It had to be out there.

It had to be.

And that was how he found himself in Dark’s office.

“Truth be told, you are the last person I’d expect to ask me for help.”

Dark leaned back in his chair, hands folded, slight amusement dancing in his eyes.

“I’m out of options,” Marvin muttered, rummaging through his bag for his notes, documentation of every single cliff dream he’d had since Jackie went missing. He could vaguely hear Dark muttering under his breath. “The fool who goes knocking on the devil’s door usually is.”

Marvin placed the folder on the table, spreading out the papers in order.

“Anti has taken Jackie, and I know for a fact that wherever he’s taken him has been showing up in my dreams. I need to know where it is, and an attainable method of getting me there that won't kill me.”

Marvin’s tone is sharp, calm with a roiling undertone of rage. Not at Dark, but more at himself for the level he’s stooped to. But still, he knows he has to keep his request concise and without room for interpretation, because if you give a demon an inch they’ll take a mile.

Dark’s eyes dart over the papers, a small flicker of surprise surfacing on his face before being immediately buried.

“Those are the terms?”

“Yes.”

Dark’s aura flares for a moment, the light casting multicolored shadows on the walls.

“Usually these sorts of deals are sealed in blood, but considering the unique circumstances, I’m taking this on your word.”

He leans in, eyes filling with darkness, aura thrashing wildly in the darkness.

“But trust me, I will know if you try to weasel your way out of this. I always know.”

Marvin nods hastedly as Dark settles back into his chair, the darkness in his eyes receding just as quickly as it had arrived.

“But I’m sure you’d never go back on a deal, would you Marvin?”

Marvin shakes his head and Dark nods, looking over the papers once again.

“So what’s the price? My mortal soul? My limbs? My sanity?”

A smile tugs at Dark’s eyes, but his face remains stoic.

“No. While you're close, I have no use for anything of yours.”

Dark stood, pulling a covered jar off of the shelf on the far wall, placing it on the desk before him. He pulled the covering off, revealing a small glowing light about the size of a fingernail. It seemed to pulse with energy, although dimly.

A human soul, but not a whole one.

“What a need from you is a small portion of Sean Mcloughlin’s soul, exactly one percent. I'm sure that number means something to you.”

One percent. Each and every one of Jack’s egos contain exactly one percent of his soul. It's the engine, the source that gave them all life. Dark was asking for the equivalent of one of their lives.

A life for a life.

Horror washed over him, slowly then all at once. He’d been prepared to give up his own life, which he would have willingly done for any one of his brothers, but this? Taking a piece of his creator’s soul by force? Sure, it wouldn't kill him. Not even close. He’d lost five pieces to create all of them, and some others had lost much more. Marvin’s not even sure how Mark still survives with that many pieces of his soul missing.

But the very act of taking it without his permission is what made it so horrible.

What made it a worthy price for what Marvin was asking for.

Dark was testing him. Testing how much he’d be willing to sacrifice for the sake of his brothers.

Marvin only hoped that Jack would be able to forgive him.

“Done.”

Dark pressed a small piece of parchment into his hands, folded into a neat little square.

“Contained on this parchment is the spell you will need to extract the soul fragment. I'd be careful to read it correctly, lest you cause Mcloughlin unnecessary harm.”

Marvin unfolded the paper carefully, eyes darting over the swooping cursive print. A standard Latin incantation, at least at first glance.

Dark noticed his distracted gaze, sliding a small jar across the table to knock him out of his stupor. The glass was carved with symbols, most likely daemotic.

“Use this to keep the soul shard contained. I expect the payment on my desk by 7:00 pm tonight. Don’t be late.”

-

I can't do it.

Marvin stood over Jack’s bedside, gaze locked onto his ashen, comatose face. This was a violation of the utmost degree, a crime that no one in their right mind would ever forgive him for.

But if I don't, we might never see Jackie ever again.

His hands trembled as they held the parchment, throat closing as the dark letters began to blur.

I can't.

But I have to.

And so the magician began to read. The words were easy enough, he'd read and studied enough Latin to know the words, but the weight of the them almost made him stumble.

As he read the area around Jack’s bedside began to glow a sickening black, the smoke writhing like a living, breathing creature.

It sat poised over Jack’s chest, pausing for a moment, before diving in with enough force to cause the bed springs to creak and the walls to shudder.

Most magic Marvin dealt with was methodical and slow, taking a practiced hand and lots of patience. This magic was no such thing.

It was angry, quick and violent, striking fast and with no warning, so maddened that Marvin could barely keep a hold on it.

The smoke had pulled back up from Jack’s chest, holding with it a volleyball sized sphere of light.

However, even when the dark magic dissipated, the soul still pulsed deeply with darkness. The color was wrong, tinged a deep, bloody red around the edges, black smoke nestled deep within.

A realization hit Marvin so hard he nearly lost his concentration.

Corruption. The final stages of Night Sickness.

But there's no external signs. His skin isn't blackened, he hasn't been coughing up blood or showing signs of a decreased heart rate. How do you corrupt someone this completely with no external symptoms?

Marvin could faintly see five grooves in the surface of the soul, holes, about the size of a fingernail each, one for him and each of his brothers. Another piece began to break off, slowly, pulling against the seething corruption trying to keep the soul intact.

Eventually it failed, the small piece breaking off with a sound like the cracking of broken glass. Discomfort and terror pooled in the pit of Marvin’s stomach as the implications of his actions began to set in again, but he cast them aside, guiding the soul shard into the container Dark had given him. It settled at the bottom, glowing faintly.

How something with no face could seem to be glowering at him, Marvin had no idea.

Without anything keeping it afloat, Jack’s soul began to dissipate, seeping back into him until the ethereal light that bathed the small hospital room faded back into darkness.

The deed was done.

-

The walk to deliver his payment was a long and slow one, the warmth of the jar an unpleasant reminder of what he’d done.

The soul shard itself was still slightly red tinged and corrupted, settling down at the bottom of the jar rather than floating around like the one Dark had shown him. It seemed so pitiful there, drifting listlessly like a wounded animal.

Dark seemed almost surprised when the jar was placed on his desk, but he quickly cast the sudden shock aside. He opened the jar, peering inside at the soul with a slight air of disgust.

“It seems the little parasite really does corrupt everything he touches.”

After a few more seconds of contemplation Dark sighed, replacing the lid and placing the jar under his desk.

“You've fulfilled your end of the bargain, so I suppose I must fulfill mine. I've done some research, and I know where Anti’s taken your brother.”

Dark turned, pulling a huge paper scroll from the top of the bookshelf behind him. It reeked of age and dust, filling the entire desk as it was unrolled.

A map. A very old one too, written in Daemotic, the historic language of demonkind. While Marvin was familiar with speaking the language, reading it was another story. The characters were alien and strange, pulsing with a power more ancient than any mortal could comprehend.

“Anti’s gotten bolder, it seems. Suicidally bold. He's taken Jackie to Iéfernann, what you'd call Hell or the Underworld.”

“What?!”

Iéfernann? Sure, Marvin had heard of it, it was mentioned many times in his magic books, although there it was usually referred to as the ‘Land Beneath the Curve.’ Humans weren't even supposed to be able to go there, and those that did barely survived more than a few days. It's a land of nightmares, the source of all demonic magic.

“Did I misspeak? Anti has indeed taken him to Hell, if your dreams are to be believed. The cliffs you described are very common, so I have no way of finding the exact ones depicted, but I can tell you that your brother is most likely a dead man.”

Dark lifted his eyes from the map for a moment, settling back into his seat.

“I’ll give you some advice for free: give it up. He's done for.”

Done for? Marvin refused to believe it, even as a settling feeling of dread began to pool in his chest.

Jackie's too strong to go down that easily.

“You're forgetting one part of our deal, demon. How do I get there?”

The look of confusion on Dark’s face was the most emotion Marvin had seen from him all day.

“So the rumors are true, you all really do have a death wish.” Dark sighed, turning in his office chair to grab for another of the trinkets from his bookshelf, setting it down on the desk. “So be it then.”

“What you have before you is an Ostium, your ticket to a painful death.”

It was a sphere about the side of a baseball, clear as glass with a complicated spider web-like metal structure inside. In the center was a second sphere, smaller, that glittered like porcelain in the office’s dim light.

“I haven't calibrated this in centuries, so there's no way of knowing where it'll spit you out. But it's the only way to traverse beneath the curve. Carved into the cover is the incantation you'll need to activate it.”

Marvin turned the sphere over in his palm, studying the daemotic phrases carved into the clear marble coating.

“Don't let anyone get ahold of this, you hear me? There's a reason ostiums are the only way to travel between realms. I’m not even certain how Anti got ahold of one.” Dark’s eyes narrowed as he studied the sphere in Marvin’s hands.

“There are demons in Iéfernann who would do anything to have an ostium. Demons who have spent their entire immortal lives searching for one. They will stop at nothing to get it from you if they know you possess it.”

Holding the heavy charm in his hands, a seed of doubt began to burrow itself into Marvin’s mind. How the hell was he going to explain this to his brothers?

-

Truth be told, they didn't take it well.

“Are you completely out of your mind?!”

Schneeplestien was pacing the living room, brows deeply furrowed in frustration.

JJ and Chase sat on the couch, and while they hadn’t voiced any opinion yet, the look on their faces made it clear that they shared Schneep’s sentiments.

“No, I am not! I’ve spent months trying to find Jackie and I’ve finally done it!”

Marvin stood behind the couch, watching Schneep as his pacing became more and more erratic. Eventually the other man stopped, his eyes darkened by an exhaustion so palpable that even Marvin could feel it.

“Marvin, I know you want to find Jackie. We all do. But there is no such thing as Hell or the underworld or whatever you want to call it. We should be looking for Jackie practically instead of chasing fantasy stories.”

JJ nodded his acknowledgment, but Chase stayed silent, his gaze fixed somewhere out the window.

“Everything in our world is fantasy, Schneep. We’re fantasy. We’re beings created from imagination and powered by soul magic for fuck’s sake, what’s more fantasy than that?” Marvin pulled the ostium from his pocket, running clammy fingers over the intricate carvings.

“We have to try. We’re nothing without Jackie, he was the glue that held us together. We can’t continue on like this.”

Chase nodded, watching the ostium with new invested interest. “I’m with Marv on this one. Anti’s a demon, who’s the say there isn’t a hell? If there isn’t, where’d Anti come from? D’you think he just popped out of the ground like a zombie or something? One thing’s for sure, he’s not like us.”

Chase was right. Marvin had tried many times to manipulate Anti’s soul shard under the assumption he was like them, a part of Jack. But he had learned very quickly that this was impossible. Anti had no soul. He was another being, formed from powers they had no way of understanding.

“But-“ Schneep groaned in frustration, sitting down in the armchair with more force than was strictly necessary. “Do you realize how dangerous this is? We can barely handle one demon, Marvin. How in heaven and earth do you expect to handle whatever’s down there? You say we can’t go on without Jackie, but I can assure you that we cannot live without you either.” Schneep’s words stopped Marvin short. Of course he’d thought of the dangers. Going to rescue Jackie would involve walking right into enemy territory. So far it had been Anti playing on their turf, but now they were walking into his. But he couldn’t back down now.

We have to try.” Marvin reiterates, voice firm. He had made up his mind.

There was a long pause, the silence deafening, before Chase spoke.

“Well you're sure as hell not going alone. Schneep has to take care of Jack and Jamie’s too inexperienced. You’ll have to take me.”

Marvin opened his mouth to argue but soon realized he was right. Schneep had medical experience yes, but he was needed at home, and Marvin wouldn’t send little Jamie into a mission this dangerous even if he was the last man on earth. Chase was the only option.

“But-“, JJ raised his hands to speak, both noticeably trembling. “What if neither of you return? What will we do then?”

Try as he might, Marvin didn’t have an answer.

-

Its finally here guys, took me long enough. I have a lot of plans for this series, it just might take me awhile. I hope you all will join me for the journey.

[Taglist]

@egopocalypse @shadowsonthemoon @epicfangirl01 @kitnkas @mijako98 @anothermarkiplierfan @iris-the-asparagus @bunchofdoodlesinspace @the-chemist @a-septic-writer-of-art @cutewarmachine @senseless-septic-shambles

If you want to be added or taken off, just let me know.

[shardclan]

“The penny-pinching curs would let us perish if it got them another coin!”

“They’re going to need some kind of recompense unless you want them breathing down Her Majesty’s neck until this time next cycle. You have to give them something.”

The subject of the Merchant’s Guild was hot enough that even Stellaria’s persistent thralldom was pushed from the forefront of her mind. However, she was much harsher and significantly less cool-headed than usual, perhaps owing to some sort of astral-related separation anxiety.

“I will give them nothing. Let them breathe where they wish, it’s Rebis’ job to uphold what is best.”

Caress curled her violet lips. Thralldom or no, Stellaria’s coarseness was testing her patience. “And it is your job, as literal Tribune of Shade-Damned Commerce, to promote positive standing with foreign merchants and keep our economy afloat.”

Rebis tapped her focus on the marble top for silence. “I appreciate you two returning to this topic so doggedly—” Polite words, they were stubborn as horn-locked melprins. “—But reparations must first go to livelihoods in Noon Point and to the restoration of the clan’s welfare system.”

Caress and Stellaria both shifted forward in their seats, Caress with far more effect as Stellaria was still bound to her chair.

“Without the support of the merchants there will be little chance of repairing the economic damage we’ve sustained.”

“Oh now you’re for supporting them?”

“I always supported them!” Stellaria snapped. “But I don’t think it should involve compensation!”

Caress punctuated her words with heavy slams of her pebbled fists. “They. Are. Merchants! What kind of support do you expect they’re going to want after two and half eons of lost business?!”

“Ladies,” Rebis said softly but meaningfully. “Recall that I was tutored under Saber and that I cut my teeth on merchant discussions when the guild tried to cook Telos for closing Thunder’s March due to the Outsider incident that preceded my hatching. I am prioritizing Aphaster City merchants, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to leave the Guild to hang.”

“Now. I value both of your opinions, but this isn’t a discussion that can be had fruitfully without the attendance of a representative of Trader’s Walk on site. So, for the 3rd time in as many days, shelve that discussion until we can have it fruitfully.”

The two women sat back in their seats with muffled huffs.

A gentle cough interrupted the discussion from the entry. Half the table rose, a bit stiffly and wearily, to its feet to greet Hart.

In his typical fashion, he nodded to them all and waved them back into their seats. Inside the half-circle, he regarded Rebis for the first time since her return. She looked good. Calmer and a bit harder. Truly and adult, and no longer his charge.

“You look well, my Queen.” He raised a carved chest with the emblem of Lightweaver emblazoned in gold on its center. “I’ve come to deliver your ceremonial garb. The clan has missed enough celebrations. So long as you are back, I thought you might not want to let Brightshine slip by.”

Rebis raised smiled. With Samhradh enthralled and lightborn dragons at too much risk, it fell to an Arcanite to praise the Light. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.  “You thought right, that would never do. Shall we all take a break?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The robes felt made for her. Like a gift granted to her for achieving the status of Archmage. When this was all over, she would have new clothes tailored to incorporate it as a part of her royal garb.

“At penalty of re-opening the issue,” said Flaga, as Rebis settled back into her chair. “May I request that any external reparations the clan is able to provide at all be provided to the Beastclans?”

Rebis rubs at her celestine jewelry. The centaurs have had to work by night in order to be safe in the Summerlands, and they have not been able to utilize the area near House Perihelion at all. Unless they could turn things around quickly and recover the spring-planted crops allowed to go wild it would mean another famine year come winter. The previous one had already strained their relationship to tatters, it would never survive another winter like that.

“I believe that would be a wise course of action, in addition to physical labor assistance in the farming sector.”

Stellaria said nothing, but Caress did not look particularly impressed. “If we’re discussing agreements, what about the alcohol trade from Gethsemene which was halted due to inability to use the Sundew Falls as a port area with the astral having overtaken House Perihelion?”

“You’ll forgive me my skepticism, but have a single one of your districts’ clients has gone thirsty during this problem?”

Caress smiled and crossed her massive legs. “Of course not. But that is just the trouble. With Noon Point closed, merchants that didn’t funnel over to Feldspar have been watching the situation from Bramble Step. It is an entertainment district, not designed to hold thousands of squatters on a long-term basis. While they have paid well to drink my good wine, a low stock of rare drink is not an easy stock to replace.”

Saber coughed and leaned earnestly forward. “How could a woman with your funds and influence want for anything, especially given proximity to the Tangled Wood?

Saber’s well-known mild temperament spared him her more aggressive one. She knew without thought that he wasn’t trying to accuse or challenge her and answered him just as politely as he’d asked. “Darling, you’ve been dealing with practical and straightforward money concerns on Horizon’s Landing too long. No one buys alcohol like five hundred merchant caravans trading information in the absence of ability to set up shop and go about normal business. They have been ‘investing’ quite heavily in one another and in my richer patrons and that means my most wastelessly exotic alcohols are in the red.”

“Surely some of the merchants squatting there must have what you’re begging for,” Stellaria grumbled.

Caress took a deep breath. “Stellaria, my dear, your brain has been addled by Titi you thinks those merchants aren’t trying to charge me the highest mark-up they think they can get away with without insulting me.”

“Settle down,” Rebis said absently. She nodded to Azricai, who had been busily scribing the minutes of their days-long Tribunal due to Samhradh’s sulkiness. “I’m sure Gethsemene will have a mouthful to say about being off-shored since Wavecrest with a full cargo and an unpaid crew. Make a note—“

Rubranova yanked Rebis’ chair back and Nayvadius leaped forward, sword out and shield raised to deflect a strike.

Above him, the Umbra Wolf grinned in her feverish way. “Nice to see you’re in good health!”

“Same fi you,” said Nayvadius with his own grin, pushing her back. “Nah hard feeling, yuh? Me bed ah empty space fi fit you still.”

She swung her sickle casually at the far edge of the hall and flicked her tongue. “I mean if you’re inviting me, what’s the point if there’s no hard feelings~?”

“Stop flirting!”

The words didn’t come from Rebis. She was well past trying to force those two to be court-appropriate.

It came from Titi, who stormed in with Pistis and Phi.

Caress made a strangled noise and covered her mouth. “Oh my darling--!” She bolted from her seat. Pistis stepped deftly in the way of Titi-tet, seemingly unaware that Caress was running toward her.

She cupped Pistis’ thin face. “Dear heart you’re a mess! That brat has done you no good.”

Pistis gave a wan smile. “You’re being so dramatic, Caress. You sound like Generous. I’ve been fine and Titi has been a delight. I wish you had come to see me, you would love her.”

“I don’t want her!” Titi hissed, shoving Pistis and trying to no avail at all to shove Caress.

Even in her glamour, Caress was not a shovable woman, and looked down her nose at the shameless but pitiful attempt. She could crush Titi beneath her heel, but that wasn’t the plan.

“Move along you little terror or I will have Carnelian beat you with your own antlers.”

Half incensed, half terrified, Titi skittered away toward Rebis muttering something quite impolite about shadow dragons. “What are you doing here?”

“Running my clan,” Rebis said, laying a staying hand on Rubranova and re-settling into her chair. “Is there something you need?”

Titi squinted. Her mouth hung slightly agape at the strange calm in the room. She barely remembered Rebis, but this was not what she recalled. The person in her memories had been rightly crying in the dirt.

“I killed you,” she sputtered.

“You tried, yes.”

Bestealcian guffawed loudly. Titi shot her a dirty look and snorted in Rebis’ direction. “You can’t just come back. You lost! You’re supposed to stay dead!”

Rebis scooted back up to the table, glanced at the next order of business, and scrunched her nose. House Xanna was interested in receiving a report on the astral. ‘Report’ for them meant sending dragons who were involved to have their memories added to the Library. She’d have told them to eat dirt on principle, but they were offering payment. Very attractive payment, in fact.

“We’re in the middle of a Tribunal meeting,” she said, pre-occupied with just what that exchange might look like. “If you want an audience, it will have to wait. What was it I was saying before…? Ah yes, Azricai make a note to arrange a meeting including Caress, Gethsemene, myself, and the managers of all the primary liquor distributors in the territory.”

“As you say, your Majesty.”

“Stop it.” Titi snarled, her body going bright with a gathering light. “Stop Ignoring Me.”

It was high noon. As predicted, Titi had come at the height of her power.

She emitted a wave of light that was almost liquid. Stellaria and Samhradh wrestled with their bonds, suddenly agitated and nearing hysterical. The Tribunes looked away, but as the light waves washed over them they struggled against a rising compunction to look Titi’s way. To know her. To worship her. To play with her.

At the far end of the table, Rebis spoke: “Envision.”

She didn’t need the words any more than she needed her focus, but she wielded both. The pink ring around her eyes was consumed by the light of her vast magical power, and the high ceiling of the Hall filled with gilded shapes. Every eye was drawn up—away from Titi and to the shape that Rebis was weaving into reality above them. The form of it was near-impossible to make out, obscured in brighter and brighter light the longer Rebis focused.

The wings of a locust wrought in gold opened and Titi cries out in horror.

“YOU CAN’T DO THAT, YOU CAN’T—“

The envisioning of Lightweaver uttered a sharp and silencing howl. It did not speak. It was not truly her, but it was every bit as powerful as Rebis believed Her to be. Rebis’ capacity was greater than even Lutia’s, and her power was young and vital and near-infinite with the rising of Light and the recent blessing of the true Lightweaver. At that particular moment in time, during that particular alignment of events, that belief was not misplaced.

The light drew in, focusing on the astral with searing intensity.

Titi-tet was from a plane much closer to the gods—the astrals could perhaps even become as gods given enough millennia. But Titi had not had millennia. It has had a mere 2 cycles in Sornieth’s time since the Seat was moved and the Stones had gone to seed. There was not enough Light in her entire being to out-shine the envisioning, even though it was a mere copy. As the light grew sharper and brighter she was forced to look away and her body began to burn under the radiance.

Phi stepped in the way of the light to shield her, and Titi fled into a ray of noon sun filtering from the ceiling windows.

Caress stomped down a heavy heel. “Assombrissais.”

The panes of light magic that made the windows dulled and went black, revealing Titi’s fluttering shape as they shut the sunlight out.

Titi roared with aggravation. The shadow magic was infuriatingly simple. It had to be—Caress did not have any particular magical aptitude. But she was very well versed at making it exactly as dark as she liked with only a few carefully placed runes and a whispered word.

It was why Rebis had called her.

“Kill her, KILL HER!”

Saber moved from his chair to Phi with the lithe speed of an expertly cracked whip and pinned him to the floor. Pistis glanced nervously at Caress, who pushed her gently back to protect her from Bestealcian’s wildly swung sickle.

A wildclaw’s foot clamped over the coatl’s face, dragging her back and tossing her against the far wall. The Smoke Gyre splayed his wings wide and tilted his head at his student. “Sloppy, Umbra Wolf. I hope you’re prepared to be disciplined when this is all over.”

Beastealcian’s crest rattled, revealing her where she slithered along the stone arches. “I mean I have a date already but if you threaten me with a good time like that…”

A sizzling arcane bolt bigger than she was and quick as a shooting start collided with her and she fell like pigeon downed by an expert arrow.  

Arcanus stood before the entry pillars, his glamour shed and his vast wings blotting out the light. A snort released a small gust of ozone-scented magic, and a shield raised behind him.

Unless she wanted to try bulldozing through him and the wall of his magic, Titi was trapped.

Rebis climbed light-footedly onto the surface of the table and stepped just as lightly down on the other side with Rubranova’s hand to steady her. The apparition of the Lightweaver made of her thesis spell dissipated into strands of light that encircled Titi and hauled her to the floor.

Gold tears fell from the astral’s faceted eyes like honey from a hive, but any sympathy was held at bay by the otherworldly snarl twisting her muzzle. That was not a face a dragon could make. The creature beneath was beginning to show.

“I have been told that you can stay here,” Rebis said slowly. “If you relinquish your power.”

“Why would I stay here?” Titi sniveled. “You hate me! You’ve been awful to me and I didn’t even do anything! I wanna go home!”

“You will. But even though I brought you into this world, you still have to stay and pay for your crimes.”

“Wh-what?”

Rebis held a hand out to Azricai, and received the scrolls. One was Lutia’s coveted spellscroll, which radiated enough Arcane magic to make the astral squirm and wretch on the floor. Rebis, safe beneath her white celestine crown, felt nothing. “Titi-tet the 15th, Astral of the Light on High, I sever you from the noon sun and bind you to Sornieth.”

The name of the astral glowed white-hot on the scroll, and in Rebis’ other hand, an unfamiliar breed change scroll opened.

“You can’t,” she hissed, and her voice was no longer that of a hatchling. “You cannot hope to bind me to paltry dragonhood!”

“Yes, that only seems to work for the astrals who let go of their power willingly. So we decided to go with something different.”

Rebis tossed the scroll.

Titi screamed as it coile around her. She was not truly a creature of flesh, so there was no true becoming. The pain came from being given true form, one that had to come into being rather than being altered to the magic of the scroll.

Soon the task was done and silence took over the hall.

Pistis made a sickly sound and Caress held her as she wept. Phi groaned. Stellaria struggled against her bonds with fresh fervor, and Ashes rushed to free her. Though they had grown apart since he laid down Willow’s memento, she flung herself into his arms and clutched him with feeble desperation he had never seen from her before.

Titi, weak and mortal and changed to a breed that had no connection to the Light, weakly craned her head up.

“What did…you do to me…?”

“I gave you the shape of Icewarden’s firstborn. Proto-tundras, I am to understand. What more apt prison for an extraplanar being could there be than the body of a gaoler?”

“Why…? Why not just…send me…back?”

“Because you nearly killed the queen, stole the livelihood of an entire region, and broke most if not all of our magic-related laws,” Azricai said matter-of-factually. “You have crimes to answer for.”

“...That..that’s all...?”

“It is,” Rebis said, dispelling her magic and moving to untie Samhradh, who was frothing with the need to get the story written down. “It’s simple, we know. But this is the Analemma Dominions, once Aphaster as ruled by Telos the Indomitable, who raised it from the ashes the children of Clan Shard.”

“And in this clan, even the gods will be made to abide by the law.”

[rocktheboat-rp]

Welcome aboard, EVIANA LOPEZ!

EVIANA’S PERSONAL INFORMATION

FULL NAME: Eviana “Eva” María Lopez GENDER: Cisfemale PRONOUNS: She/Her AGE: 30 BIRTHDAY: November 12th HOMETOWN: Blackwater, Arizona ORIENTATION: Fluid/Fluid BIRTH ORDER: Second TYPE: Triplet STATUS: Crew JOB TITLE(S): DJ, secret Cam Worker FACECLAIM: Naya Rivera

EVIANA’S STORY

Everything Eviana has in life, she has worked for. And she has worked incredibly hard for it, too. Born to Maribel Lopez and Pedro González, Eviana was raised from the age of two by her mother, her Mexico born father having been deported. It seemed that Maribel could not hold down a relationship from then on, nor a job for that matter. Their family seemed to grow, their limited amount of money decreasing in the process, and the Lopez’s barely just scraped by. Eva and her sisters would share clothes, but they were never new. They were from the town’s closest thrift store, but considering the poor neighborhood in which they resided, that was nothing out of the ordinary. Fortunately, Eva was never very materialistic, and was simply grateful for everything she was given.

It’s safe to say that the eldest Lopez children essentially raised those that came after them. Maribel worked long hours at minimum wage jobs; having no qualifications and speaking minimal English, that was all she could manage to get, which meant the triplets were in charge of taking care of everyone back home. Eva didn’t mind it one bit. In fact, she actually kind of liked the responsibility. It wasn’t like they were left home alone entirely, their grandmother was usually there to watch over things, but her version of babysitting usually meant sitting in front of the small television set and yelling obscenities at telenovelas. Though, it wasn’t like the older woman was useless; she taught Eva how to cook, how to sew, and was the person responsible for the backbone she has today.

Amidst everything, Eviana was only eight years old when she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To begin with, Maribel had assumed her daughter just had a lot of energy. Maybe she had ADHD, something she was tested for, but apparently that wasn’t it. Eva didn’t sleep at night, she’d constantly be up, making noise by banging her hands on her toys and making her own beats. She’d talk about weird things that eight year olds shouldn’t talk about; darkness and death didn’t scare her, she looked at it positively. Sometimes, she’d keep entirely to herself for days at a time, seeming withdrawn, then she’d be bouncing off the walls again a few days later. The diagnosis, while scary, gave her mother and grandmother the answers they’d been looking for, and despite the financial burden of medication, they simply adjusted, and Eva continued to thrive.

Her love for making beats using her toys as if they were her own little drums was not just a way to relieve her energy. In fact, Eva had a knack for making some pretty awesome sounding lyric-less music. She had always loved music, but the words didn’t matter much to her. What she did enjoy was the tune in the background, listening to the different instruments used and hearing the way they were all meshed together to make something beautiful. Eva found her true passion at a birthday dance party during her teens. With wide eyes, she watched the DJ working his magic while her friends talked and danced, with Eva eventually floating towards him and begging him to let her try out his decks for herself. Impressed with her natural skill, he gave her the number for a teens DJ workshop, where Eva’s natural talent shone.

To be able to add to the family’s small income, and to be able to afford to keep attending the workshops and invest in equipment, Eviana got herself a job at the earliest possible opportunity. It was just as a waitress at a roller diner the next town over, and Eva had to take two buses there and back for each shift, but she didn’t mind. Her friendly, positive attitude made her perfect for a customer service job, and she was able to easily make tips. It wasn’t like she was rolling in money, but she made enough to be able to contribute to the household fund and to save a little bit each paycheck, too. Eviana was soon able to afford her own secondhand equipment, her decks becoming the source of all of her musical magic from there on out.

College was never something that Maribel would be able to pay for, but it was something Eviana wanted to do. She was anything but ashamed of her mother, and was proud of all of the hard work she put into trying to keep their family afloat all by herself, but Eva was terrified of ending up in her situation. The idea of having no qualifications and working minimum wage jobs for the rest of her life, and never getting out of the financial crisis she had grown up in, it was enough to make her feel sick, so Eviana worked her butt off in school, and earned her place at Blackwater’s community college, where she studied Music Production. In state tuition, and the fact that it was a community college, made the fees a little more manageable, but Eva continued to work alongside classes regardless, eventually scoring gigs in nightclubs where she could play her sets.

As Eviana’s status within the DJ community grew, she began booking shows throughout the country, which meant traveling out of state and paying to do so herself. Plane tickets were not cheap, neither was gas money if she wanted to try to drive her beat up old car across the country, so Eva needed another source of income. She didn’t know how she’d wound up there, but in the pursuit of more money that would hopefully lead to her finally opening her own store, Eviana found herself on a site that promised to pay a lot. All she had to do was sit in front of a webcam in the privacy of her own room, take off her clothes and do whatever paying customers wanted of her. Despite Eva having no issues with her body, it was kind of weird to begin with, but she quickly eased into it, and now she honestly doesn’t even mind it.

With the means to travel further, among the DJ world, eventually people begun to recognize Eva’s name. She didn’t use the title ‘DJ,’ nor did she have any special DJ name, she simply referred to herself as Eviana, and that was enough for other DJ’s to know who she was. She wasn’t famous by any means, of course - it’s a very small community, but Eva was definitely in her element. She began to book gigs further away from Arizona, eventually moving to a tiny apartment in California where her popularity was its highest. Eva felt she’d truly hit her peak when she was playing a sold out show in Los Angeles alongside other big names in the DJ community. She remembers looking out over the crowd and honestly feeling pretty emotional. It was when she truly knew she’d made it.

Her skills continued to grow, she continued to book gigs throughout the country, and would travel home to see her mother and siblings whenever she had the chance, always sending money from her paychecks, and it was honestly just a pretty perfect dynamic. Nearing the age of thirty, though, Eva began to notice a pattern. She would fly somewhere, play a killer show, then she’d fly back to her tiny apartment alone. Truthfully, Eva rarely spent the night alone, she would usually hook up with someone whether at her place or in various hotels on her travels, one time even building what seemed to be a real connection with someone until she found out the other woman was in a relationship. It all became a little repetitive, though, and Eva was ready for a little something new.

With the lease almost up for her shoebox, it was almost like the people in charge of advertising for The Kingdom had read her mind. Filled with drive and motivation, Eva loved the sound of working on the ship. There was no actual job opening for a DJ on board, but Eva is a persuasive individual, and a phone call with the big guns at The Kingdom had them offering her a job as a DJ for the guest nightclub and for parties on the main deck. Evie jumped at the chance, but because she knew it wouldn’t be constant work, she decided to keep up her cam work, the only problem being that she’ll have to find somewhere private to do it. The two jobs and the change of scenery means variety, though, and that’s something Eva wants. No, it’s something Eva needs.

THE LOPEZ FAMILY BACKGROUND

The Lopez family are not rich, and in fact grew up in one of the poorest towns in America. Maribel, whose second language is English, always struggled to find stable work with no qualifications and a very basic understanding of the English language, and never managed to hold down a relationship despite having a few sexual partners. This resulted in her becoming the single mother to seven children; two of which, Stanley Jr. and Leah, are in high school, while Javier is in his senior year of college. The eldest four are moved out of the family home and are living their own lives.

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Just curious cause currently freaking out about life the universe and everything. Did you go to college? If not did you get a job ok? I'm just worried

I wouldn’t be caught dead going to college. In my personal opinion, it isn’t worth it. People act as if getting a degree is actually going to help you and the fact is, most people who waste all that money, end up in debt, and go nowhere. Most of my fav YouTubers have a BA in some big field, and went nowhere in said field.

Certain Majors aren’t beneficial to the life of financial stability. Most who go for art or music, don’t ever make anything of themselves with those degrees unless they have great connections. Even Ph.D.s and such don’t always work out for people.

In most cases, people like me cannot afford the debt going to college would wrack up. I can’t even afford to live on my own, and being in debt would only cause me problems. Add on the fact that I hate school and know for a fact that nothing in a college would help me, and I’m a lost cause.

As for a job, not currently. Unless being a live-at-home maid counts. Free room and board if I clean, you know? And for future jobs, I’m stuck between going to Beauty School, which could actually be worth it since those positions are stupid to pass up, and being an Interpreter, which would require some extra work, but would really be beneficial for many in the long run. Finally, I am writing a fantasy novel.

So we’ll see.

As for being stressed about what to do with your life, you don’t have to do everything immediately. Many people’s careers didn’t shoot up until their mid-30s or higher. I’m only 22. One of my HS friends(who is younger than me) is already married and has 2 kids, and I’m over here going, ‘why?’. They are barely making ends meet and another kid is on the way.

Do not let people pressure you into the ‘white picket fence dream’. Getting married isn’t all that it is cracked up to be. A piece of paper won’t validate your union any more than a ring will. It is your relationship and your love that is validation enough. And in America, you get taxed for being married, which makes it even more not worth it. Don’t let society’s stereotypes control your life.

Do not let people try to convince you to have kids. Children are also not as great as older people make them out to be, and you should never dive into something like that early on. Young adults, like my friend above, are usually not prepared for such a massive undertaking. Kids aren’t like animals who have a basic instinct to survive. They need money, attention, and time. If you cannot support yourself and are not financially stable, do not have any children! They rely on you for everything and if you can’t even rely on yourself to stay afloat, you would only be hurting the child!

DO NOT EVER subscribe to society’s problematic views on ‘family’ and ‘success’. Just because they say it’s one way, doesn’t mean that is so. After all, many who fall in line with what society preaches, end up unhappy and alone.

Not everything in life is a race. I understand worrying, because I’m already in my 20s and have nothing much to show for myself, but I do have a decent life so far and an understanding mother willing to help me. And once we finally get on to better living conditions, I’ll have more freedom to consider more for myself. But I’m still young myself and literally have time.

If you don’t have time, I can only suggest trying retail. Not great jobs at all, but there’s always a need somewhere, and little talent required. And if you manage that, save up, and maybe get some friends together and rent an apartment where you split the bills. Not super wonderful, but still better than nothing. If you each have a steady job and split the bills and chores between you, things should go easier.

Hope this helped at all. When it comes to this kind of adulting, I’m not the greatest.

[EDIT]

TIPS FOR MAKING/SAVING MONEY:

Craigslist(if you’re in America) often has people giving things away for free. You can literally get those items for free and either re-purpose them, or sell them yourself.

Go to yard sales and garage sales. Things will be cheaper because they have been used. You can actually haggle too. Either use or sell them yourself.

Go to GoodWill(or any thrift shop). Some days are special ones where you might be able to get a bag full of items for only a dollar. (Whatever you fit in this bag is yours, for only a dollar.) Use or sell the items yourself. I have a nice, full set of china I got for only a dollar.

You can literally sell baggies full of board game pieces. Those things are always lost, and getting them specifically can be a hassle. eBay and Craigslist. Though Craigslist can also be scammy so be careful and don’t accept mailed checks and always visit the meet up place with a group.

Certain banks will actually give you money upon opening a checking account. You just have to check which ones and decide if you’d like that the most. Also, be frugal.

Also, [THIS SITE] gives good advice.

[myriadhallauglokadis]

Embroidery over Stains

Title: Embroidery over Stains Author: Myr Pairings: Garak/Parmak Rating: E(xplicit) Warnings: early post War Cardassia Summary: The first winter after the Dominion War teaches Cardassia that her losses are not yet counted. But can beauty still be found? Can Parmak and Garak create something breathtaking from the frozen rubble?

A/N: For the wonderful and inspiring Kellan/SallySorrell/doctorparmak/garaksass. Without them, I would not have signed up.

Dear Doctor Bashir,

allow me to briefly introduce myself: my name is Kelas Parmak, and I'm a surgeon working at the Central Medical Clinic in Cardassia City. I fear I have no time for a more in depth introduction. We do not know each other, although I certainly know of you -- and I'm writing you without the knowledge of our mutual friend, Elim Garak. The fact of the matter is, the situation in the capital is becoming desperate. It is becoming clear to me with every passing day, that the centre cannot hold: we are hopelessly in need of relief, but I fear the official channels have become increasingly slow. I would never ask you this, if it were only for me, but people are dying in the streets already, and it will only get worse from here... and so, I must implore you to search your conscience and your heart, if there is any love for this world and its people to be found. If you require it, I will beg for your help, and I do not say this lightly.

Please, Doctor. We need every hand we can get. If you can find it in yourself to come, I will be indebted to you forever.

Kelas Parmak

The first winter after the Fire was the harshest in decades. Cardassian winters were long and bitingly cold as a rule, though usually there was little snow due to the dryness of the climate -- but after the Fire, what little moisture there was in the air caught on the abundance of dust; thermal storms tossed those tiny ice nuclei up and down the planet's atmosphere, freezing and thawing, and freezing again into thick flakes. When the water was released as snow, it left the air cleaner, but the ground covered in a thick layer of crystalline flakes coloured a sickly pale pink from the dust particles caught inside.

The sight held some beauty to the unknowing observer: it covered the crater riddled streets and softened the harsh edges of ruins. Lakarian, the city that would never be again, lay silent and deserted. Decades later, with the Fire a memory only in those old enough to have seen it, there would still be nothing: a stark reminder of where Cardassia's ruthlessness had taken her, of how close her people had come to self immolation. Lakarian would never exist again, but here and now, the city, under the merciful cover of reddened snow, might even have seemed beautiful.

The planet Cardassia VI, once known as Cardassia Prime, proud, indomitable home world to the Cardassians and capital of the Cardassian Union, was for the time being without its proper name -- the Union as a political entity did not exist any longer. The sixth planet of the Cardassian star system was under the combined administration of the Federation and the Klingon and Romulan Empires. Predictably, decision making was slow and inefficient. While the Klingons delegated their votes to their Federation allies and paid for relief work done on their behalf -- what use, after all, was a conquered world brought so low that it could not sustain itself -- the Romulans chose not to cooperate, but to attempt to isolate the parts of Cardassia they were interested in, making it almost impossible for relief workers to work on site.

What little infrastructure there was collapsed or was kept running only by immense effort of the communities and the meagre relief crews working overtime to secure the provision of basic supplies. There was next to no public transport, and heat, food and water soon became critical resources as the winter wore on.

The initial relief that the War was over, even at the cost of a tenth of the planet's population, gave way to resignation and hopelessness: the devastation of the Fire still had not reached its full potential, and slowly, the surviving Cardassian people realised this in the cruellest way possible. Poverty hit those who had been holding on before, keeping themselves afloat, and it drove people to desperate measures. Sometimes, Cardassians could even be seen in the streets of the Romulan sectors, selling their bodies to the Romulan crews stationed on the homeworld -- for some warmth, or a meal. And whoever saw it would turn a blind eye and despair: for what could they do, after all, to help? They were barely keeping it together themselves.

And the Cardassian people were unprepared to deal with snow: the wet cold ate at their slightly ectothermic reptilian metabolisms fast, and many were surprised by its effects while outside. They did not freeze, not in the mammalian sense. They simply slowed, becoming ever more lethargic until their bodies shut down to the bare minimum. After that, they were either found or they died in agony after days of fading in and out of consciousness while their organs failed one after the other. Many, many more died that winter.

And so, the first winter after the Fire saw Cardassia City's clinic work overtime, under the harshest of conditions: more and more cases of frostbite and severe hypothermia kept coming in, while other accidents also increased due to the difficult weather conditions... and the effects of sustained malnutrition, cramped, unsanitary living, and exposure to environmental hazards were beginning to show, too. The clinic was understaffed, all the rooms and beds constantly occupied, and the facility was kept running, it sometimes seemed, on pure will alone.

Doctor Kelas Parmak signed off on another data PADD asking for aid from the Federation: supplies, first and foremost, but Parmak knew what the clinic really needed was medical professionals.

More than half the nurses who worked on the station were untrained and overworked to the brink of their health, and the trained nurses were taking over the roles of medical assistants and paramedics as much as Parmak and his colleagues dared to ask of them. Parmak knew that they couldn't go on like this, that it was as inherently unsustainable as Cardassia's exploitation of her resources had been. The doctors themselves may to some degree be used to demanding schedules -- although they'd had two cases of collapse already -- but the simple and damning fact was that they were working themselves into their own sickbeds. Parmak gave them three months if no relief came, and then they would have to close down the clinic to all but the most severe cases. It would only be downhill from there, corruption would blossom once again as anger rose and riots started, and the fallout would be horrifying.

The official channels were proving every bit as inefficient as Parmak had feared all along, and the unofficial ones... Parmak sighed, silencing his conscience once again. It was done. He had sent the letter, and he could always confess later. Parmak shook himself out of his reverie. Blinking at the intruding memory of confession, he stood up and stretched. The winter sun was already low on the horizon, casting the surgeon's office into creeping shadows.

It was almost five weeks ago that Parmak had found Garak in his shed, open to the biting cold of the outside, no longer shivering. He had taken one look at the older man's ashen scales with their typical darkened edges, and had known he had come just in the nick of time.

Garak had of course known the dangers of the wet cold, just like everybody else. And just like everybody else, he was surprised by it nonetheless. He found that he couldn't bear closing the doors, or the windows. Some days, he could not even bear pulling blankets over himself: he would try, of course -- he wasn't suicidal, and Cardassians seldom are -- but he would invariably find himself a shivering wreck, trembling from something more insidious even than the cold, unable to breathe... until he opened the door or threw off the blanket. One day, he fell asleep like that, and when he woke up, he knew almost instantly he was in deep trouble.

He had cooled too much overnight, and it soon dawned on him that he did not have the means to raise his temperature to within the norm range again. All he could hope to do was to maintain his current core temperature, but that, too, became an impossibility when he found he had to leave the shelter of his shed: he felt the walls were too close, oppressively close, and something was very, *very* wrong with his breathing -- there was no air in the room, and for a moment he was sure the cold he felt came from the vastness of space as an airlock was being released with him still inside.

Garak took his blanket and wrapped it around his midsection as he stumbled across the threshold and into his stone garden. There, at last, he found air. But there, at last, the cold found him.

To Cardassians, freezing felt like a slowing down. It was not the nagging discomfort they felt from temperatures dropping below 26 degrees centigrade -- that, Garak had become used to during his time on Deep Space 9. Neither was it the shivering cold of temperatures well below comfort level, where they could still maintain a survivable body temperature. Actual freezing felt completely different. Garak's mind went hazy within minutes. He was dimly aware that he should get back inside, but moving... moving was somehow difficult. Each step felt as if it was taken against some soft, unmoving resistance that inexorably slowed him down, muscles no longer reacting properly to the commands of his neural pathways. Garak gritted his teeth and made himself put one foot in front of the other.

Back inside was the only way he could go. Everything else was too far away for him to reach. Once inside, Garak sat on the bed, trembling, freezing and utterly, utterly scared. He needed a hot tea, a hot water bottle, something to warm him from the inside. Stumbling across the room, he clumsily opened the cupboard. His fingers were dangerously numb as he felt for the heating unit. He filled it with what little drinking water he had left from his ration, barely able to hold it as it filled and grew heavy. Garak put it down, breathing slowly, shallowly.

He couldn't even feel panic when he turned it on, and the power gave out with a sizzle.

All he could do was think: Please, not like this.

Then, he faded out of consciousness.

Parmak found him two days later, lying on the floor barely conscious, unable to move. The doctor had gone to look after Garak when the other man hadn't turned up with a bit of something to eat, an anecdote, or simply that slightly sad air he seemed to live in now, for three days.

One look at his erstwhile interrogator come somewhat unlikely friend, told Parmak all he needed to know. He pulled his clinic comm from his shoulder bag, fumbling with the buttons and waited impatiently for someone to take his call. "I need an emergency skimmer up at Coranum, now", he barked into the handheld device as soon as the line was open. "I've got a critical case of hypothermia at the old Tain residence... I'll need a hospital bed... Yes, yes, the Tain residence", he snapped when the young man on the other end did a double take at the mention of Tain's name. He could only understand too well the kind of shadow the man still threw from the grave, but every one of Parmak's instincts as a doctor protested that this was not the time for doubt or resentment.

He cut the connection as soon as he was certain things were underway. Kneeling on the floor, he turned Garak onto his back, so that he could at least breathe without obstruction. Parmak pressed his fingers into the hollow of the other man's throat, feeling for his pulse. It was faint and sluggish, but regular -- a good sign, meaning that Garak's heart was not affected yet. Parmak shifted and looked for signs of respiration. It was easy to mistake the slow and shallow breathing for respiratory failure, and the consequences of that mistake could be dire. After more than a full minute, Garak's chest rose subtly, pulling in air... Oh, thank the heavens, Parmak thought. He took one of Garak's far too cold arms and peeled back his tunic, baring his wrist methodically. Then, he bent to scent the other man's skin: in torpor, Cardassian bodies released certain oils through the skin in various places; during this winter, Parmak had learned to diagnose by scenting the skin, and the slightly tart whiff he caught from Garak's wrist was unmistakable: had he arrived just a few hours later, the chances of Garak's survival would have been slim.

"Elim..." Parmak sighed, pressing a cold hand to his chest, gently stroking dry, ashen scales. "My friend, it's going to be alright", he said with more conviction than he felt.

Garak stirred, opening his eyes. They were without focus, only skimming Parmak's face, looking at a point somewhere over his shoulders. "No... wasn't me... please, home...", Garak mumbled nonsensically, caught in the anguished story his addled mind was telling him.

Parmak squeezed Garak's fingers even though he knew of course they would be too numb to feel it. "Shhh", he soothed. "Shhhh". He wanted to say more, but he could not think of the words: what could he have said, he asked himself. That Garak was safe? That he was at home? One was a lie, and the other... Parmak felt that the words would not cover what he wanted to say. There, in his mind, was a whole world that centered around the very man lying before him on the floor, fighting for his life. And he couldn't speak any of it, because it still sometimes scared him to look his way.

When he heard the skimmer arrive, Parmak went outside to guide the driver to Tolan's shed. There was only one paramedic; Parmak had never seen her before, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth: he was glad that they had been able to send one at all -- sometimes, the drivers had to do both jobs. Parmak went to assist her with the stretcher, packing it with heating pads and blankets. "Get those packs wrapped around his hands and feet", he instructed in clipped tones, "and see that he's covered at least. He mustn't lose any more body heat, but don't get him too warm too quickly, either. He might go into shock."

The paramedic worked efficiently at his side. Together, they got Garak ready for transport in minutes. Parmak carefully closed the doors and windows of the shed behind himself before hopping onto the skimmer after the paramedic. They sped off into the quickly falling evening. Parmak kept a hand on the unconscious man on the stretcher, never losing contact entirely. If the paramedic thought it strange, she didn't comment.

Back at the clinic, Parmak saw to it that Garak had a proper bed, hooked him up to the infusion, and took care to fold his clothes neatly on the chair at his bedside. He was ushered out by the chief nurse on duty, Taloc Fhrek, who reminded him tartly that even doctors sometimes needed sleep. Parmak raised his hands in surrender and left.

Only when he was back in his little recreation room, he let the trembling come. Parmak sat back on the cot he had put in one corner, feeling the strength drain from his body. He was shaking all over as he let himself feel the full force of his fear for his friend's life. A life that he had just saved by mere happenstance. He could so easily have lost Elim.

The thought brought Parmak up short. 'Lost Elim?' he thought, wide-eyed, taking a sharp breath. To the cold, yes, and as a tentative friend... But there was something more to that particular thought, something vastly more raw, and painful -- and Parmak was aghast for even thinking it. He found he could not quiet his breathing, and the trembling stayed with him for a long time before he pulled up a blanket and fell asleep on his cot.

Outside, the city's lights slowly came on and the icy wind battered against the windowpanes.

Garak woke up three days later. Nurse Fhrek came by Parmak's parlour to tell him in person. It was no secret among clinic staff that Parmak had a fondness for the mysterious Elim Garak -- they had been seen regularly in the canteen, eating by each other's side, talking animatedly among themselves. Parmak thanked him with a nod and made his way to the room where Garak had been put up.

Garak was sitting up, huddled in blankets and shivering as his body resumed its normal function. He was still pale, but his scales had lost the sickly, ashen quality of the past days. "D-doctor", he greeted as Parmak entered, and, drawing the crisp white privacy screens shut behind him, stood next to his bed.

Parmak was caught between relief and anger -- relief that his friend was well on his way to recovery, and anger at the stupidity of the actions that brought him into this hospital bed in the first place. Relief won, eventually, and Parmak smiled. "Elim. It's good to see you up again."

Some of his conflicted feeling showed in the frown between his brow ridges. It was Garak who looked away first.

"You were there, weren't you?" he managed after a minute's silence stretching out inside the little cubicle the screens had created for them, stilling the chatter of his teeth long enough to speak. "You... f-found me?"

Parmak sighed softly. "Yes." For a couple of seconds, the two men just looked at each other, each caught in his own mind. "If I had been just a little later..."

Garak met his eyes. "I know." There was none of the usual flippancy he showed whenever Parmak admonished him to take better care of himself, in his tone. This time, it had been serious, and from the quiet acceptance in his voice, Garak was fully aware of it.

Suppressing the urge to clasp his hands in front of him, Parmak took in his friend's expression. He found that he couldn't read it at all: no way to judge what the other man was thinking, no way to know... There was no easy way to ask what he needed to know, next: "Did you do it on purpose?"

Garak's eyes widened in shocked surprise before he drew the blanket around himself more tightly. "Kelas... no." Garak shivered violently. "No, I d-didn't... I... the walls... I couldn't breathe..."

Parmak nodded. He believed him. For all the foolishness he knew that particular notion to be, Parmak chose to believe Garak's protestation of innocence in this case. "I've had Nurse Fhrek run a hot bath for you; he should be quite done with it now."

When Parmak made to help Garak up, Garak caught his wrist in his hand, holding it still. "Kelas. I meant it. I wouldn't do that... and I'm more relieved and grateful that you found me than I could put into words, and I would beg your forgiveness--"

Parmak cut him off with a pained expression, "Please, Elim, not now... I cannot bear to hear it right now. For now, I just want you to take care of yourself for me, can you do that?"

Garak dropped his gaze, nodding. "Yes."

"Good." Parmak drew himself up, squaring his shoulders. "Then you will agree that it is too dangerous for you to live on your own at the moment, and you will consent to move into my house temporarily." It was only reasonable, the doctor told himself -- and he wasn't wrong about that. As long as the winter lasted at least, he would be safer living with someone, and for all his considerable sociability, Garak had no one except Parmak.

"Yes", softly.

"Good", Parmak repeated, relaxing a little. "Then will you let go of my arm, please, and let me care for you?" He didn't add 'you're a patient, and I'm a doctor', and Garak gave him a grateful little smile for leaving it merely implied.

"I'm all yours", he said. It didn't sound half as jokingly as he'd probably intended, and there was a breathy quality to his voice. Kelas Parmak didn't comment.

They made their way to the on-station bathing room in silence. This part of the building had been miraculously spared by the Jem'Hadar on their rampage throughout Cardassia. It stood out in its incongruous spaciousness, but this of course was exactly why Parmak had instructed Fhrek to prepare the bath for Garak there.

Garak's core body temperature was still too low, but now that his body had resumed normal function, he was no longer in danger of going into shock from heating up too quickly. A hot bath was a common method for Cardassians to achieve that, even though it was scarcely practised in the clinic now: there were other options, most prominently among them adjustable heating blankets. The clinic had them in stock, they were cheap in maintenance and easy to distribute among the patients who needed them. Of course, the prospect of a heating blanket held nothing of the sensual pleasure a hot bath did, and that fact had probably not escaped Garak, even as the shivering claimed his body anew.

Parmak stayed as Garak stripped naked and steadied him as he stepped into the tub and gingerly lowered himself into it with a deep, satisfied sigh.

"In a couple of minutes, when your circulation adapts to the heat, you will start experiencing pain in your extremities", Parmak spoke in a too soft voice. "It's nothing to worry about, but it can get quite intense. Try to endure it."

Garak nodded. He could do that. He looked around noticing the variety of bathing products on the stand next to the tub. They were Parmak's private property, but of course Garak didn't know that. "Will you... help me wash?" he asked, carefully keeping his tone neutral.

Parmak drew in a breath at the question, suddenly acutely aware how inappropriately he was behaving; suddenly, also, acutely aware how much he *wanted* to answer in the affirmative. And once again, shocked and dismayed at his own thoughts. He shook his head, refusing to make eye contact. "I... I think you can manage that on your own, E-- Garak..." He flushed. "I'll leave you to it now. There is a set of fresh clothes on the stool behind the screen, please ring when you're done."

And with that, Parmak fled the room.

Garak watched him leave with a curious look on his face, halfway between puzzlement and regret. He shouldn't have pushed, and he wondered why he had. He did, after all, know better. Garak knew he probably deserved to die a dozen times over, and he used to think he would probably meet with an early, painful death -- but this was not what that was. This was not him, expediting poetic justice upon himself.

With a sigh, he sank into the hot water until only his head was above the waterline. Slowly, the shivering subsided. As it did, just like Parmak had predicted, Garak's hands and feet began to sting. It was only slight at first, but after a while, it became a sharp ache that made him grit his teeth. Endure it, Parmak had said, and Garak resolved to do just that, and follow the doctor's orders. He tried to focus on the warmth that slowly began to permeate his body, but the pain was intense and Garak found himself breathing deeply, exhaling against it whenever he felt another peak approaching.

It was deeply uncomfortable, but Garak needed to feel alive. He had just regained consciousness after collapsing at death's doorstep, and this felt inexplicably wonderful, warm, real, and raw. He watched in fascination as his hands and feet began to flush, circulation spreading painfully into his toes and fingertips. "Ahh..." Garak groaned.

He ran his hand down his throat, sensation returning slowly into his fingertips. Teasing himself, he pressed soft, wet fingers into the sensitive scales lining his neck ridge, to counterbalance the pain. Garak shuddered. He shouldn't, he knew, but the thoughts of his friend came back unbidden: the way he had stumbled over his name, the way his hand had been so steady in comparison as he'd helped him into the tub. The way he hadn't looked away when Garak had stripped down to his scales.

If he had stayed, would he have stroked Garak's neck in his stead? Would his hands have strayed to his chula just below the surface of the water? Or even lower than that, leaving them both unable to deny what they were doing anymore, unable to hide behind friendly gestures and medical methodicalness? Garak brushed his fingers along the delicate teardrop ridge below the hollow of his throat, drawing a small gasp from his lungs. No, he thought, catching himself before he could let it go any further -- and he would, he was certain of that: the doctor had occupied his mind for months, and Garak ached for his touch. But he couldn't do that now. He didn't want it to be like this: shameful, clandestine, hidden.

His whole life had been like this, though the shame had only come later -- Garak was under no illusion that what he had been was monstrous, not just for what he had done, but for the joy he had found in it. He recoiled at the thought, realising that somewhere along the way, between the hostile stares of Bajorans and the tender care of his one Human friend, between longing for home, locked away on a Federation space station and fighting for her alongside Damar, one of her few true heroes, he had lost the indifference, if not the taste. Somewhere between waking up to an abandoned Terok Nor, and finding himself in a hospital in the reluctant arms of a former... subject... no, victim... he had learned to want to be a better man.

Staring at his flushed hands, he dared to hope he could be.

Over the course of the next weeks, Parmak started to find little gifts in unexpected places. There were flowers. Of course, nobody knew where Garak would have found flowers of all things, but the fact remained that there were flowers. Parmak found a single mekla bloom in his med kit one day, and carefully took it out, placing it in a chipped mug that he filled with some melted snow. It had sat there, on his desk, until the flower had finally wilted, but Parmak had looked at it every day.

There was another one, a scarlet perek blossom wedged between the pages of the book Parmak was reading whenever he wasn't working at the clinic. Parmak took this one and pressed it between the heavy book covers, drying it, freezing its beauty in time even as the flower died -- perek for the dead, he thought, losing himself in his memories of the man who had put the flower there for him to find. They were, of course, as acute as ever, but somehow... somehow it didn't feel quite so dark anymore.

On a different day, Parmak found the seam of his scrub sleeves lined with delicate floral embroidery. He was caught by surprise and stood there dumbstruck for a minute, shaking with silent, embarrassed laughter and hiding his face behind his hands. Nurse Fhrek only raised his brow ridges at the sight of Parmak's sleeves. "More pretty flowers", he commented drily, "let me guess..."

Parmak shook his head, "no, I'd rather you wouldn't", he said, but his eyes were still smiling.

"What, afraid it'd be accurate?" Fhrek asked, shaking his head at the doctor's reticence. "He's quite something, isn't he, that Garak?"

Parmak met his eyes. "You could say that, yes..."

And he really was. There had been another one: He had unlocked his clinic comm one day, only to find that the display background was a litter of petals and blossoms that gently bobbed whenever he moved the device as if caught on a breeze. Parmak still didn't know whether to be angry about the intrusion into his work comm, or amused at the little nods the flower heads gave when he shook it.

Suddenly, Parmak was torn from his reverie by the warning flash the very device gave before announcing loudly: "Dr Parmak to emergency surgical facility II, immediately." Parmak acknowledged, getting up promptly. "Fhrek, with me", he ordered, and the young man hurried after him.

Three hours later, Parmak and Fhrek emerged from the surgery. He'd lost her, and she'd been only 14 years old. Fhrek slammed his fist into the wall next to the surgery doors. "Damn Romulans", he hissed, and Parmak couldn't find it in himself to disagree. "Damn fucking Romulans", Fhrek repeated in a toneless voice.

"We're a conquered race, Taloc", Parmak said quietly. "A mere decade ago, that would have been a Bajoran girl in there."

Fhrek threw him a dirty look, but had to acknowledge Parmak had a point. Of course, a decade ago, Fhrek had been a child himself, and like all those his age, Fhrek was only now beginning to understand what had happened on Bajor.

It was easy to forget sometimes that people like Taloc Fhrek were not trained doctors, nor even medical assistants. He was a nurse, and a very good one at that -- but to lose a young woman on the operating table like this, was something Fhrek didn't know how to deal with. Parmak put a gentle hand on the other man's shoulder. "You did a fine job, Fhrek. Thank you."

"I let her die!" Fhrek said roughly, flinging his hand off as if stung. Parmak flinched at the outburst, but made no move to leave it alone.

"No, you didn't", Parmak insisted. "She died, and you fought for her life, just the same as I did. We lost, but you didn't let her die, and neither did I."

Fhrek sighed. "I know... it's just..."

"I know." And he did, truly. "Go home, Taloc. Go to your friend, whoever they are, and be with them -- just don't be alone tonight."

The other man nodded, starting to peel off his sugery scrubs slowly. He was going to do that. He'd go home and be with both his partners tonight, and be in good hands. Those of four months pregnant, one-armed Tarela with her kind heart and gentle eyes, and those of Mitrek, the child's father and Taloc's first lover.

Parmak stood there and watched the younger man slip out of his blood soiled work clothes, throw them into the laundry chute in the corner, and leave with a muttered "Thank you, doctor." He nodded in reply and sank into a wobbly chair when he found himself finally alone, tears running down his cheeks. He was despairing of it all, of losing patients, no matter what age, of the way that girl had died, of the winter and its cold, and of his own acceptance of all of it.

Parmak wiped his eyes with his sleeve, noticing the stained embroidery, ruined.

He shrugged out of his scrubs, about to throw them down the chute as well, but then hesitated. Garak would know best what to do, he thought and very gently folded up the garment before putting it into his bag, weary to the bones.

The air was crisp and cold but thankfully dry when he stepped outside and began the walk home to Paldar. The stars seemed to blink in the freezing night, looking down on this struggling world with indifference, even as its people were fighting for survival every day. It was quiet as Parmak made his way through the northern end of Tarlak and into Paldar. He passed buildings that were partially lit, inhabited by those whose homes had been destroyed in the Fire, those who had had to find themselves other places to live. Other buildings were completely destroyed, torched to the ground with empty black holes for windows. None had the old splendour that used to shape this sector, home to the administrative centre of the Union. Now, the gloomy streets were barely lit, and Parmak encountered a couple of voles scattering as he crossed one corner.

It was late when Parmak finally drew around the corner of his street, walking up to his home. Garak was already waiting for him there, opening the door before he could punch in the key code.

"I called... I heard", he said gently, leading him inside by the shoulder, taking his bag off him and putting it carefully down on the floor. The door swished shut behind him as Garak pulled Parmak into his arms, letting him rest his face against his neck ridge. Parmak went willingly, too tired to resist anymore, too aware of the fragility of life and the briefness of time.

"Come", Garak whispered, and lead his friend into the bathroom. "Sit", he indicated a stool he had brought from the kitchen. Parmak didn't resist and sat down.

Garak took a knee, pulling off Parmak's shoes and socks and rolling his pant legs up to the large knee scales. "Wait here, please", he told Parmak before fetching the traditional basin from underneath the sink and filling it with buckets full of hot, soapy water.

Parmak's eyes widened. "You can't do that", he protested.

"Oh, don't worry, I've used ice from outside, it's not drinking water", Garak replied, deliberately mistaking his meaning. He could, and he would. He'd been thinking about it all evening. "It's not a full bath, but it's the best we can do", he added, a little apologetically.

"Elim, no... I... I can't let you do that", Parmak repeated weakly.

"Do what, Kelas?" Garak asked sweetly, pulling gently at his friend's leg and immersing the first foot in the water. "Give a friend a good, relaxing foot bath after a trying day? Why ever not?"

"You know why not", Parmak hissed, but couldn't keep a deep rumble out of his voice.

Garak looked up at Parmak, waiting. "I don't see why not?" he finally asked earnestly. "It used to be customary for a person of lesser social standing to do this for an honoured guest or family member of higher rank."

"I'm not... you're not---", Parmak started, but Garak interrupted him.

"Yes, you are. And yes, I am. And it is as it should be, don't you think? Look at the work you're doing every day: your value to Cardassia is immeasurable. I, on the other hand... was part of what brought her to her knees." Garak bent his head, emphasising his meaning and pulling Parmak's other leg until both feet were in the hot water.

"But I can't..." Parmak started, but trailed off into silence.

"I don't see why not", Garak repeated softly. "It's no hardship for me."

Parmak blinked slowly, breathing in and out. "But... can't you see, Elim?"

Garak dipped his hands into the water, brushing his fingers along the outsides of Parmak's feet, tracing the scales around his ankles. "No", he admitted honestly, "I really can't..." He traced the insteps, curling his fingers around and into the hollow of the soles, gently massaging the skin, feeling it relax minutely in the hot water.

Parmak's voice broke. "It's not right for me, to..."

"To do what?" Garak asked softly. "To let me serve you like this?" He took a piece of soap and lifted one foot out of the water, carefully placing it in the indentation in the rim of the basin. "I would... do a lot more for you, I'm sure you must realise by now..."

"... to want you like that." It was barely more than a whisper ghosting over the shape of the words, but Garak heard.

"So you do..." he breathed, the foot forgotten for the moment.

"Yes... oh, yes, Elim", Parmak admitted, and it was clear from his tone that it was a confession. "I want you."

"There's not a thing wrong about that, my dear Kelas", Garak reassured.

"... but like that?" Parmak asked with an air of self condemnation about him that made Garak *ache* for him. "On your knees? Serving me? Its... perverse."

"Any way you want me", Garak whispered. "And on my knees, too, if that's how I can be for you."

Parmak shivered. "You don't mind?"

Taking his time to wet the soap and rub it between his hands, Garak smiled at the other man. "Look at me, Kelas." Parmak met his eyes reluctantly. "I don't mind in the least." Dropping his gaze, Garak began to lather Parmak's foot thoroughly from top to bottom, cleaning even between his toes before carefully letting it slip back into the basin. "I'm enjoying what I'm doing."

He repeated the same procedure for the other foot, this time without speaking. Parmak, too, had fallen silent. He didn't resist when Garak's fingers carded between his toes, nor when he used his knuckles to massage the sole of his foot, nor when he gathered small amounts of water in his hands and slowly rinsed off the soap by pouring handfuls of water over his foot. Garak returned it into the water and stood to fetch a towel from the rack and Parmak's ugly but comfortable slippers.

He dropped to his knees again to towel him off and help him into his slippers, before standing and taking one of Parmak's hands in his own. "Come to bed, Kelas", he said softly.

Parmak went.

They had time. They stood by the bed, exploring each other's bodies underneath their garments, fingers brushing over ridges and scales, catching on fastenings coming loose one after the other, and tunics finally dropping to the floor, messy and unheeded. It was unhurried touches, and small gasps and moans, and mingled breath drunk from each others mouths.

Parmak gingerly traced Garak's side, and Garak took Parmak's hand, pressing his nails into the ridged skin just above the hips and dragging them across. "Ohh", he moaned, as Parmak repeated the action with some more pressure, leaving a darkening trail behind. "Oh, yes, Kelas..."

Garak didn't resist when Parmak opened his trousers and let them slide to his ankles, nor when he hooked his fingers into the waistband of his underwear and tugged it down.

"Beautiful", Parmak whispered, reverently palming first Garak's chula, then letting his hand wander down to his heated chuva. "To think that I almost lost you..."

Garak moaned; "I'm alive", he whispered into the skin of Parmak's chest, drawing licks and bites into the scaled surface, "I'm alive", biting down on his neck ridge and making the doctor whimper, "I'm alive", stepping out of his trousers and underwear and opening Parmak's, reaching inside with curious, questing fingers. "I'm alive", encountering wetness when he traced the other man's slit, slicking his fingers. "I'm alive", drawing his fingers up and pushing them into his own mouth, licking them clean. "Oh, if you only knew... how much I've longed for a taste of you..."

"Oh, mercies", Parmak breathed when Garak's fingers returned to his slit, tracing it, providing the most wonderful sensations. "Please, my dearest Elim... "

"What do you want, Kelas?" Garak asked, nipping the other man's chula sharply and making him gasp in surprise and desire. "Do you want me to open your purse for you, nice and slow? Or do you want to open mine? Oh... oh, you do want that, don't you, Kelas? Feel it..." he took Parmak's hand and guided it between his legs, shivering as the other man pushed a fingertip past his sensitive seam scales, inside his slit. "O-ohh, yes", he whispered, "deeper, Kelas, please..."

Garak fell silent on a hitched breath when Parmak gripped him by the hips and threw him bodily onto the mattress, quickly undressing himself the rest of the way. "Good heavens, Elim, your mouth should be illegal", Parmak growled as he bent over Garak, biting and scratching and making him arch into his touch. "You should be illegal..."

"I used to be, you know? ... oh, Kelas, more", Garak demanded as Parmak pushed his finger inside his slit, rubbing along the seam and caressing the ridge running along the sheath inside that was still hiding his cock, making him ache. "... I want... please, yes..."

Parmak shivered, and it might have been from the cool air, but they both knew it wasn't. "My goodness, you're wonderful, Elim...", he cooed as he slowly fingered Garak into incoherence, thrusting two fingers in and out, curling this way and that to map out all the sweet, sensitive spots that made Garak gasp and babble nonsensically and spread his thighs apart for him. Parmak was mesmerised.

He wasn't prepared when Garak drew him into his arms, pulling him close into his chest, and with a vicious bite that made Parmak cry out and buck his hip for friction, rolled them around. Garak pinned Parmak to the mattress by the wrists, straddling him, delighted when Parmak grinned fearlessly back at him. "I want to pleasure you, my dearest Kelas", he said in a voice so gentle he wouldn't have thought himself capable of it. His lips brushed the other man's lightly as he spoke, "I want to make you tremble all over with need, and then", he nipped the other man's chin ridge, making him toss his head back in invitation, "and then, I want to make you climax slowly... devastatingly."

"Yes... oh, yes, Elim..." Parmak whimpered when Garak drew back to scoot down and kneel between his legs. Reverently, Garak stroked Parmak's calf, brushing dancing fingertips into the back of his knee to feel the soft skin there, and then upwards along the inside of the thigh -- Parmak held his breath, only letting out a frustrated little groan when Garak turned to his other leg instead of touching his glistening slit. Oh, it was right there, in the way his breath caught whenever Garak came near, how much Parmak wanted to be gently opened and probed.

But Garak was nothing if not thorough. He bit and licked, and soothed the inside of Parmak's knee, slowly working his way up before giving a single, long lick along the seam of Parmak's slit, making him arch off the bed with a choked whine. "Oh, Elim... you wonderful, cruel man..."

Garak swallowed hard. To hear those words, from this man, in this situation... he looked down into the other's eyes and saw nothing but burning, consuming lust in there. With a shudder he could not prevent, he felt himself slide halfway from his sheath, opening and spreading his folds. "Kelas", he whispered, humbled to his very core, "my Kelas...", as he everted fully into his own hand.

Bearing down, Garak rubbed his cock into Parmak's chuva, smearing it with his fluid; Parmak had his eyes fixed on his lower teardrop ridge, licking his lips at the sight of the head of Garak's cock catching on the elevated bumps. "Yes, just like that, Kelas... look at it... look at what you're doing to me."

In that moment, Parmak held all the power, even if he didn't quite know it. He could have told Garak to do anything, and Garak would have happily obeyed.

Garak hooked his thumbs behind Parmak's knees, spreading them apart, watching the other man shiver at being so exposed. Parmak's natural lubricant was leaking from his swollen slit, and Garak bent down, teasing the folds with lips and tongue, and just a hint of teeth that made Parmak gasp and breathe fast, rhythmically clenching and unclenching his inner muscles. "Ohh, so delicious..." Garak mumbled into the soft, sensitive scales, scenting, tasting deeply the other man's arousal. He swirled his tongue inside, reducing Parmak to soft groans and silent pleas, drinking in all he had to give.

"I want you", Garak mouthed into Parmak's seam, "I want you to evert into my mouth, Kelas..." Parmak must have felt the words more than he heard them, but he understood Garak's meaning perfectly judging from the whimper the simple caress of moving lips drew from him. Garak pushed a finger inside, sliding easily in to tickle the ridge on Parmak's sheath, feeling its bumps twitch and raise against his touch. Oh, he knew Parmak wouldn't be able to resist this, not for long, and yes, he could force him to evert but he knew that wasn't for everyone.

Garak didn't have to wait long: trembling all over, Parmak let himself slide out, the full length of him filling his mouth, so deeply Garak could not suppress a small choke. He hummed and sucked lightly, making Parmak plead and pant and twitch at every swirl of his tongue. Letting him slip out, Garak admired the beautiful curve of the organ in front of him... "So nice", he whispered, "so beautiful... this is going to feel wonderful inside me."

Parmak's eyes flew open, wide. "Will you really... let me... open your purse?" he asked, and Garak nipped at the prick in front of him in response, making it dance before him. "Yesss", Parmak hissed.

Garak smiled, lips stretching along Parmak's length. "There's your answer", he said, gently licking and teasing. "Yes. Yes, I will. I want you to... I've been thinking about it for so long... imagining it. Sometimes", he confessed, "sometimes I would touch my seam... wishing, yearning for you."

"Oh, mercies..." Parmak said, hips grinding into the soft friction of Garak's lips, effectively quieting him, "oh, please stop, Elim, or I won't last a minute..!"

"Shhh, it doesn't matter, my Kelas", Garak said, straddling Parmak and slowly lowering himself onto him, "a-aah, I can't... can't last, either, dear, oh, please... please move..."

Parmak swallowed hard, gripping Garak's hips, fingers digging desperately into his flesh, making him wince and squirm atop him. "Please, yes", Garak whispered as Parmak began to thrust, "please, please... oh, perfect, Kelas...". Taking it, being fucked so unbelievably gently, Garak knew his climax would destroy him.

He'd had rough, he'd done rough, so many countless times, but this... oh, this was taking him apart from the inside out. Garak felt himself dissolve around the wonderful, hard prick inside him, felt it spear him and impale his very heart, oh so gently. He keened, wordlessly, almost too quietly, feeling tears, of all things, begin to run down his face, because this, oh this: those steady, deep thrusts, the hands gripping his side, the nails scratching his back and the flushed, swollen ridges all over his body, this: felt like absolution.

Garak came, silently, brutally, a voiceless scream ripping itself from him as he rode pleasure so intense he felt pain, and it was so very, very good. Dimly, he felt Parmak empty himself inside his body, and that, if he hadn't been so close already, would have been enough to make him come, "yes..." he groaned with Parmak's final, faltering thrusts, "yes...".

They fell silent as Garak let Parmak slip out of his body, rolling to the side. They faced each other, probing each other's gaze, but finding nothing there but the whole truth of each other, bent and twisted as it might have been, but beautiful nonetheless. I don't deserve you, Garak thought, but I will have you if you offer, because the Lords know I'm no saint.

"So this is us?" Parmak wondered quietly, trailing a hand down Garak's chest, playing languidly with his scales.

"If you will have it", Garak affirmed, "if you will have me."

Instead of answering, Parmak drew Garak close; Garak found, he did not mind this closeness at all.

"Is it ruined?" Parmak asked after breakfast the next day, just before he was due to leave for work again. He had carefully unfolded his scrubs, spreading them out on the cleared table.

Garak looked at the blood stains in silence. Neither of them were squeamish, though Parmak supposed for different reasons. It was what it was. "Maybe not", Garak finally said, looking up. "Leave it to me, and I'll see what I can do."

Parmak offered his palm with a gentle bow of his head, meeting the other's hand and clasping his arm. He felt an unusually possessive surge as he drew Garak's hand up and pressed a kiss into the inside of his wrist. "Of course."

As it turned out, the stain didn't quite wash out; but a couple of days later, Parmak found the garment neatly folded atop his pillow. Where it had been stained, Garak had made new stitches, and new floral patterns were twining along the slight shadow that was still visible and would never quite disappear. The embroidery took it up, including it in its negative space, elaborating on it where the shape would mimic a petal, a leaf, or a stem. Perek for the dead, Parmak thought, tracing the complex needlework. His eyes were brimming with tears.

"It's beautiful."

Garak straightened, reaching to press a kiss to Parmak's chufa. "I'm glad."

Dear Doctor Parmak,

I am glad to hear that our mutual friend is well enough to haunt your days. I have read your letter over and over, and of course I will come, but I have done one better and taken a leave of absence to start a private foundation for medical relief for Cardassia. I know it's not much, but the foundation is doing well, and if all goes according to plan, we can start delivering supplies by the end of next month. There are already more than a dozen volunteers who're willing to help on site, too, once we figure out the logistics.

As for my arrival, I will probably be well on my way already when you receive this letter.

I am looking forward to meeting you, as well as seeing my friend Elim Garak again.

Julian Bashir

@lizard-lovin​ @doctorparmak​

[imagineswithpan-blog]

Sirens And Sacrifices

Request: Can you do protective prompts 2 And 5 with the reader and Pan having to deal with some angry pirates?

Summary: When Peter presents to you a special task originally intended for one of the Lost Boys to complete, you decide to take matters into your own hands for the greater good. 

Protective Prompt #2: “Good luck trying to get to him/her without fighting me first.”

Protective Prompt #5: “Get behind me, I’ll deal with this.”

Word Count: 2236

Warnings: Mild Language

Peter hadn’t slept in days. Each night, he stayed awake in his tent, formulating something unknown to you and the other Lost Boys.

He refused to tell anyone what he was doing, and eventually, you all stopped prying.

Peter could keep all the secrets he wanted to.

One day, when you were walking back from a hunt with Felix, you heard Peter call from his tent, “Y/N! Get in here!”

Your eyes widening, and you looked at Felix, panicked. “Me? I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Felix gave you a comforting pat on the back and then a slightly reassuring, “I’m sure it’s nothing-probably just some minuscule favor”, but you weren’t so sure.

Peter never asked you for favors. In fact, Peter barely even acknowledged you. Every day, you carried on with your usual work duties, usually getting them done in time to play around with the other Lost Boys. So when you walked into his tent and he was standing there looking at you all expectantly, you couldn’t help but feel…queasy.

“C-can I help you?” You asked, trying to sound relaxed despite being incredibly perplexed at why Peter chose now to have his first conversation with you.

“Yes, Y/N, you can. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to a wicker chair in the middle of the room, and as you sat, you felt your anxiety growing stronger and stronger.

“So, Y/N,” he started, walking around you in a slow, nauseating circle, “You’ve been on the island for some time now, and I can see the other boys have taken quite an…interest to you.”

He paused for a moment, looking at you, and you realized he was awaiting a response.

“Oh.” You said. “Um, yeah. I guess I’ve grown pretty close with them as well.”

Peter nodded, like this was exactly what he wanted to hear. “So, you’d say you know them quite well, yes?”

“…Yes, I suppose so…” You replied, slowly, not having any clue where this was going.

“Well, Y/N, I need your help then. You see, you’ve probably noticed I’ve been working on something quite laboriously these past few days…” Peter had completed his full circle around you, and was now taking slow strides over to the big wooden desk in his tent.

On the desk sat something big, covered in a white sheet.

“My help with…what, exactly?” You questioned, wishing he would just cut the theatrical build up and explain what in the world he meant.

“With…” Peter let one hand linger over the sheet before pulling it off, “This!”

Once the cover had been removed, you had no idea what you were looking at.

Placed on the desk were five mason jars, each having its own label. Only four jars out of the five contained something in them, and you read off their labels, growing even more bewildered than before:

Salt from the sweat of the meanest pirate on the sea, a thread off the greenest curtain in Oz, a seed harvested from the most sacred tree in the Enchanted Forest, and water from the deepest well in Camelot.

The fifth jar, the empty one, read: Three scales off the most ferocious mermaids in Neverland.

Peter watched your reaction closely before giving some insight. “You see, I wanted to save the easiest task for last. However, it is only easy because of its close proximity to us. Otherwise, it may be the most fatal task of all.”

You raise your eyebrows, all too quickly starting to catch on. “So, you want me to…”

Peter nodded again, finishing a sentence but not the one you were thinking. “…help me pick which Lost Boy I should sacrifice to complete this task.”

That is not where you were expecting this to go. You stood up so fast you nearly knocked the wicker chair to the floor. “You want me to, what, pick which Lost Boy to send to his imminent doom?”

The boy grimaced. “Well, when you put it like that, it sounds bad. But Y/N, I don’t think you understand. This spell is very important, and could save the entire fate of Neverland-”

“I don’t care!” You exploded. “I know the Lost Boys, and I know that their lives are not worth risking for some, some spell. For god sakes, Peter, if you’re that desperate, you might as well just send me.”

Peter’s expression instantly transformed into alarm. “What? You? No! I couldn’t send you to-”

You threw your arms up in the air in exasperation. “And why not? I’ve got a hell of a better chance at survival than the rest do anyway, Peter!”

“No, Y/N!” He shouted, slamming his fist down onto the desk. “You’re not going and that’s final. Come dawn, you better have a boy’s name to give me or else…”

“Or else what?” You mimicked, putting your hands on your hips.

Peter’s eyes darkened, and you felt a chill run up your spine. “Or else I will banish you from Neverland, Y/N, and you will never return again.”

With his threatening words still dangling in the air, you spun on your heels and stormed out of the tent, Peter calling after you, “I’ll see you at dawn!”

—

You waited until Peter and all the other Lost Boys were asleep before rolling out of your cot and up onto your feet. You fastened your dagger into your waistband so it was secure and hidden, and then crept your way out of your tent, through the camp site, and into the woods.

No Lost Boys would be dying on your account. Not if you could help it.

Mermaid Lagoon wasn’t too far from camp, and you stealthily maneuvered through trees and shrubbery until you saw the deep blue lake, its water still glistening despite it being night time.

Your plan was a simple one, but also one that could easily go wrong.

Slowly, you walked over to the edge of the lagoon, sitting on a rock and letting your feet dip in. You tried to look sad and vulnerable, the mermaids favorite type of victim.

You sat there for almost two full minutes, and for a second, you worried something was wrong.

It’s not like mermaids migrate south for the winter, do they?

But then, you saw it: a fin, momentarily flashing above the surface of the water before dipping back down. Two more followed.

They were coming right for you.

Emerging out of the water, one of the most beautiful girls you had ever seen stared up at you, batting her eyelashes as innocently as a little kid.

As if.

She smoothed back her long, flowing blonde hair before tilting her head to the side. “Why, Lost Girl, why do you look so sad?”

Her voice was like honey, and the confidence you had in your plan began to drop rapidly.

“Oh, I’m just sad because…” You tried to match her innocent eyelash batting, even adding a small pout. “I think mean old Pan is going to kick me off the island.”

It wasn’t even a lie.

The mermaid changed her facial expression to something empathetic and compassion, reaching out a hand to place on your leg. “Aww, that’s too bad.”

You nodded, and out of the corner of your eye, saw the other two mermaids emerging too, each just as beautiful as the first.

“You know…” The first mermaid said, “You could always join ussss!” She glanced at the other two mermaids, and they nodded encouragingly, letting out delighted giggles.

Quite honestly, being a gorgeous mermaid and luring men to their death for a job didn’t seem too bad.

You put on a grin, acting thrilled with their death proposal. “Really? How do I do that?”

The three mermaids began to close in on you, their smiles growing bigger. “All you have to do is swim with us!” They said in melodic unison.

Then, the first mermaid reached her hand out, and you watched her pretty, rose painted nails turn to talons, and their pearly white teeth turned to jagged, sharp fangs.

They all extended their arms, ready to grab you and drag you to your watery tomb, when you quickly pulled the dagger out of your waistband and stabbed the first mermaid through the elbow.

She let out the most blood-curdling screech you’d ever heard, making you want to cover your ears.

Swiftly, you pulled the dagger out of the first mermaid’s arm, ready to plunge it into the second mermaid’s chest, when the third mermaid angrily yanked both of your legs down, pulling you into the water.

The gorgeous blue water began to turn red with the first mermaid’s blood, and you tried to stay afloat while the last two mermaids tried to strangle you to death.

You forcefully stabbed the water in front of you, hoping by some ray of luck that you struck something. Thankfully enough, you heard the second mermaid cry out in pain. You reached out, holding onto her fin.

Little did you know that would be the one of the last miracles fate dealt you.

Because in the moment, you saw a forth fin rise out of the water, coming toward you at an alarming rate.

Four mermaids, you realized. There weren’t just three, but four mermaids in the lagoon.

This one was angrier and fiercer than the rest, snatching the dagger out of your hands and throwing it back on shore. Then, she wrapped both hands around your neck, pushing you back towards the edge of the lagoon in an attempt to bash your head against the rock.

That’s when your last miracle happened.

Two strong hands came from behind you, lifting you from under your armpits up and out of the lagoon.

Once laid out on the ground, the oh-so familiar and bossy British accent was barking at you from above.

“You bloody idiot, Y/N! What in the world were you thinking?” Peter shouted.

You coughed out some water and then quickly stood up, backing up from the water’s edge. Gesturing to the mermaids, you fired back, “I was just doing what I had to do! So one of the other Lost Boys didn’t get killed!”

“So, what, you were gonna get yourself killed instead?” He cried.

“I knew what I was doing!”

You spotted your dagger on the ground next to you and reached for it. Re-armed, you faced the mermaids, ready to finish the fight.

“Pan!” The first mermaid shrieked. “You’re going to pay for what your pet has done to us!”

You raised your eyebrows at being called Peter’s “pet” and lurched forward, dagger raised, but Peter stopped you, putting a hand on your shoulder and moving in front of you.

“Get behind me,” he said, “I’ll deal with this.”

“Oh, boy will you!” The second mermaid hissed. “We’re going to rip her to shreds!”

Just as you were about to fire back, Peter stepped closer to the edge, the vicious look on his face deadly. “Yeah, good luck trying to get to her without fighting me first.”

This made the mermaids retreat back a few feet. Even though you just saw Peter Pan as more of an ass, you always seemed to forget he was the most dreaded force on the entire island of Neverland.

“C'mon Y'N. Let’s go.” With that, Peter turned and stormed off into the forest. With one last look at the four stunningly lethal mermaids, you followed him.

“Listen, Peter, I-” You started to explain, but Peter just shushed you.

“No, Y/N, I don’t want to hear it. What you did what incredibly stupid, and nothing you can say will make up for that.”

You went quiet for a minute, and then pulled something out of your pocket, holding it up to Peter. “So, what I did was incredibly stupid, even if I still ended up getting the three scales?”

Peter stopped dead in his tracks, whipping his head around to you. Looking down and seeing the three shimmering metallic scales in your hand, Peter’s mouth dropped open.

Then, he picked you up in his arms, twirling you around three times, all while screaming, “Y/N! You’re a genius!”

You grinned, living up the moment.

Peter set you down and looked into your eyes, and you could see his face was glowing with victory and happiness.

It’s important to note that before this exact moment, you had accepted in your head that the hug you had just received from Peter would be the last sign of affection you ever got from him. You now, however, learned that fact was wrong, as Peter tilted his head to the side and leaned in, kissing you passionately on the mouth.

Almost drowned by mermaids and now being kissed by Neverland’s boy dictator, this was easily the strangest and most wild night of your life.

Once he finally pulled back, you just stared at each other, not knowing what to say.

“Um…Peter…what was that?”

He immediately looked down at the ground, his cheeks gone full red. “Um, sorry, Y/N. I guess I just got, uh, a little carried away.” Which would have been a viable excuse, except then you both leaned in and shared your second kiss.

This time you pulled away, feeling your heart pounding ten thousand beats per minute.

Peter began walking again, but this time, he slung his arm around your shoulder, pulling you close to his body. “Well, uh, Y/N, I believe we have some magic to make.”