#defaultwhiteguy

[snapdragonling]

style stimulation, and volume for ozy, cian, and elodie!

(for elodie actual volume, not whatever that poor girl just had to fake 😭😭)

LMFAOOOOO thank you 💀 | A-Z nsfw headcanons

style — do they like it rough? do they like it soft? do they prefer fucking or making love? do they like a hard and fast pace, a slow and gentle pace, or does it vary/depend on the situation?

ozy — answered here!

cian — he doesn't like it rough at all. put a "fragile, handle gently" sticker on this guy. he prefers it slow with lots of kissing, but he'd still shy away from the term "making love". it sounds so serious...

elodie — she prefers it kind of urgent, and she's fine with rough. slow and soft makes her feel...things. it's good when she doesn't really have the time or capacity to think too hard. these days "fucking" is the ideal but boy has she made love a few times.

stimulation — how do they prefer to be stimulated? do they like being given handjobs? do they like being fingered? do they like being given oral? is/are there any specific spot(s) on their body they like being stimulated the most? where do they like to stimulate their partner(s)?

ozy — i cannot stress this enough: anything and everything, especially with kallux. they were hooking up for 40+ years before the campaign, so they know exactly how to work each other and how to keep it interesting - and that's not even getting into how much hornier ozy is when he's in love. as for himself, he fucking loves giving head. oral marathon world champion.

cian — he's 50/50 on receiving oral because one of those times was with a woman and it made him feel sort of weird (picture a buffering icon above his head). kissing and handsiness have generally been plenty of stimulation for him. he's still not super experienced but he's best with his hands.

elodie — oral is great because they're down There and she's up Here and there's a tiny degree of separation. fingering is good. any kind of fondling gets her pretty hot. the hungry friction of grinding against each other before clothes are properly off is also excellent. it depends on who her partner is but in general she likes giving oral, especially if they're gripping her hair or horns at the same time.

volume — are they loud, quiet, or somewhere in between during sex? do they get louder over time? are there any activities that affect their volume during sex? do they prefer a loud or quiet partner?

ozy — relatively restrained but he has his moments, especially if he's bottoming and kallux is really putting him through it. it's always a battle between ozy's self restraint and how desperate he is (kallux has joined the war on the side of ozy's desperation). he doesn't mind any volume from his partners, but there's certainly something to be said for managing to wring sounds out of someone quieter.

cian — quiet. all his sexual encounters have been pretty slow and gentle so that's been fairly easy to manage, but he's still embarrassed by the breathless sounds he makes. i think a very loud partner would scare him a bit 💀 what if someone overhears!

elodie — she tries to be quiet (something about guarding her pleasure, never relaxing completely) but she's very high-strung and overwrought so these efforts aren't always successful. things definitely get louder towards climax, and there's a lot of cursing involved. those few times she's had to fake it (because things were just Not happening on her end and she wanted it to be over) she's a little bit louder, selling the show.

[elderly-scrolls]

Top 5 characters from varying Actual Plays you’ve seen!

ooooh okay, i'll keep this to one character per show/season! | ask me my top 5/10 anything

lapin cadbury (a crown of candy) - literally my meow meow. idek how to put into words how much this character did for me in the short time he was around. baddest bitch in calorum. ominous and abrasive and cunning, king of mic drops. "where's your bulb now?" moment of all time fr.

margaret encino (a starstruck odyssey) - ally is always on fire but they were particularly on fire this season. executive girlboss having a mental breakdown but still managing to be the MVP through clever financing and mid-combat phone activities. obsessed.

kristen applebees (fantasy high) - i just think kristen is soooo interesting. deeply chaotic but trying really hard. a teenager struggling to navigate high school and faith and complicated relationships. i love how messy she is. a delight to watch.

kingston brown (the unsleeping city) - i'm so fucking obsessed with the idea of a cleric who is loved by the city itself, who parts traffic like the red sea and knows everyone's name and history. LOVE the complexity of a Good Man being willing to sacrifice pete for the greater good. so tasty

gerard (neverafter) - nobody has ever guyfailured as hard as gerard. he could have so easily been an annoying character but murph played his shittiness masterfully and i will literally never forget "how do i save my marriage, tom thumb?"

honourable mentions: pike trickfoot (critical role), frost (once upon a witchlight), andhera (a court of fey and flowers), paula (never stop blowing up)

[forcekenobi]

3, 14, 22 for book stuff!

thank u !! | end of year book asks

3. what were your top 5 books of the year?

in no particular order:

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett

City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

The Witness for the Dead by Katherine Addison

14. what books do you want to finish before the year is over?

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine! haven't been able to focus on reading for the last couple of weeks but I'm really enjoying it and want to finish it ASAP!

22. what's the longest book you read?

i think A Day of Fallen Night by Samantha Shannon takes the cake and unfortunately unlike Priory, I really felt its length 💀 big pacing issues (for me personally)

[criticalrolo]

Who would you say would be the Moriarty to Caliope's Holmes? Are they any standout antagonists that any of the others have overcome in their lives?

OOO well there were Two moriarty characters! Dr. Kemble and Dr. Flint were two professors at the Copper Cove University where Caliope studied, and she found out that they were running a side hustle selling artifacts on the black market, so she exposed them immediately and got them kicked out of the university. They’re hovering in the background as possible plot threads later on :)

[kimabutch]

Cirice by Ghost gives me all kinds of feels for a Vax and Yasha. Specifically in relation to The Raven Queen and The Storm Lord. But also some lines are weirdly reminiscent of Jester and the Traveler (who is a hundred percent evil I do not care). I think mostly from the Gods/Pseudo-Gods' POVs too.

Ooooh I love it for the Stormlord, especially with all the thunder references:

“Can you hear the rumble that's calling? [...] I can feel the thunder that's breaking in your heart”

And I think a lot of it works for the Raven Queen, too, weirdly comforting:

“I feel your presence amongst us/ You cannot hide in the darkness/ I know your soul is not tainted/ Even though you've been told so”

And "Can't you see that you're lost without me?” does have dark!Traveler vibes.

Come yell at me about songs that remind you of Critical Role — but please note that there will be a lengthy delay in responses! (Playlist | song spreadsheet & masterlist by disasterhumans | CR music tag)

[xillionart]

Finished the art requests!

Sabo (One Piece)

Jouslain Tytania (Tytania)

Hellagur (Arknights) (The requester updated their requirement)

Monza Murcatto (The First Law) @defaultwhiteguy​

Gaius Scribonius Curio (Ancient Rome History)

Reze (Chainsaw Man)

Until the next time 🍹

[ao3feed-bakusquad]

Unattended Children

Unattended Children by defaultwhiteguy

Eri is still not to sure about this strange place. Despite being rescued by Deku and Lemillion, despite Overhaul and the rest of the Shie Hassaikai being thrown in jail, despite everyone telling her she's safe, Eri doesn't feel that way. And everyone she meets does their best to help.

Or: Five times Eri gets lost on campus and gets help and one time she helps someone who's lost.

Words: 3375, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Eri, Bakugou Katsuki, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead

Relationships: Class 1-A & Eri, Bakugou Katsuki & Eri

Additional Tags: Fluff, Fluff without Plot, SO MUCH FLUFF, 5+1 Things, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Bakugou Katsuki is a Dork, Eri Needs a Hug, Eri Protection Squad, Precious Eri, Class 1-A Shenanigans, Class 1-A as Family

Read Here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/22969222

[ao3feed-aizawashouta]

by defaultwhiteguy

Eri is still not to sure about this strange place. Despite being rescued by Deku and Lemillion, despite Overhaul and the rest of the Shie Hassaikai being thrown in jail, despite everyone telling her she's safe, Eri doesn't feel that way. And everyone she meets does their best to help.

Or: Five times Eri gets lost on campus and gets help and one time she helps someone who's lost.

Words: 3375, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Eri (My Hero Academia), Bakugou Katsuki, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead

Relationships: Class 1-A & Eri (My Hero Academia), Bakugou Katsuki & Eri

Additional Tags: Fluff, Fluff without Plot, SO MUCH FLUFF, 5+1 Things, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Bakugou Katsuki is a Dork, Eri Needs a Hug (My Hero Academia), Eri Protection Squad (My Hero Academia), Precious Eri (My Hero Academia), Class 1-A Shenanigans (My Hero Academia), Class 1-A as Family (My Hero Academia)

[snapdragonling]

Stillness, night, and favorite for ozy, cian, and elodie!

thank u!! | character design asks

stillness: How does your OC act while still? Are they fidgety? Do they have any common gestures or tics? Does their clothing affect how they hold themselves while at rest?

ozy — he's pretty solid. if there's any restlessness happening it's happening internally. guy who will sit unmoving for an hour while he's screaming crying throwing up on the inside. if orum's around he'll definitely stroke its fur absently. he used to play with the owl's coin a lot, so he might take to worrying scratch's stone necklace when he's thinking really hard. the plate armour does demand a degree of uprightness when he's wearing it but he's still pretty poised without it. (he's more languid in private, especially as the years pass. the return of big cat ozy, or perhaps lap dog ozy)

cian — he's relatively still but there's small signs of unease. he tends to fidget with loose threads and frayed hems, or knead the palm of his hand. he prefers to keep his hands busy, so if he's anxious he finds (or invents) a task to be done. the battlemage armour definitely took some adjusting to and it still feels a little unwieldy.

elodie — she's super restless. a lot of fidgeting, a lot of pacing, a lot of playing with her hair. even when she's trying to hold herself still her tail will be twitching. the only time she stops fidgeting is when she's performing or when her mood is really really really dark. her clothing is flexible enough that she can hold herself however she wants. her outfits must be able to facilitate curling up in strange positions.

night: What does your OC wear to sleep? Do they have a favorite pair of PJs, or are they more the birthday suit type?

ozy — if he's travelling and decency and/or safety are a concern it'll probably be an old shirt and pants, so he can get up and move quickly if needed. if he's somewhere where safety is mostly guaranteed there's less clothing involved. if kallux is around there's probably no clothing involved, unless it's particularly cold. (in emvalin ozy was always inclined to sleep naked or with minimal clothing, a combination of sun elves running hot and asdor being warm, and that's still what he leans towards even after his reincarnation. he'd rather pile on extra blankets - or wrap himself around his space heater boyfriend - than wear clothes to bed)

cian — he probably has a sleep shirt and pants, but on the road he's definitely slept in his travelling clothes before. he is extremely averse to the idea of sleeping even partially naked. what if someone needs him during the night? what if there's an attack? what if riya shows up unannounced? (as if riya would care!)

elodie — if she were at home it would be an old stretched shirt that's in no state to be worn out anymore, but with the party it's likely a spare shirt and her loosest pants. they're not at the pantsless stage of friendship yet (and it's also colder up north)

favorite: Does your OC have a favorite article of clothing or accessory? What is it? What’s the meaning behind it? Do they wear it all the time or do they wear it sparingly to keep it safe?

ozy — mechanically the ironleaf plate armour has seen him through a lot and has also changed alongside him, so he's pretty fond of it. scratch's necklace and izzy's earring are also deeply sentimental items and he'll keep them for the rest of his (long) life.

cian & elodie — answered here!

[snapdragonling]

1 and 3 for Ozy and Elodie!! 👀

thank you!! | oc creation questions

1. What was the first element of your OC that you remember considering (name, appearance, backstory, etc.)?

ozy — aesthetic & class! i joined the campaign as a guest initially and my DM gave me a bunch of info on the world the party was arriving in: the Graeco-Roman vibe, the apocalypse, the authoritarian government rounding up all magic users. the Owl (a faceless god with very few remaining followers) was one of the first things i heard about, and i was also clued into the secret that they would eventually become the Traveller (my sworn enemy from my very first campaign). i simply could NOT pass up the chance to get involved with them. i'd never played a paladin before and it kind of fit with the energy i had in mind for Ozy. playing a paladin also informed a lot of subsequent personality/character decisions, since it meant Ozy would have to be "working" for the king, which....😬

elodie — i'm pretty sure it was personality? i remember thinking about the kind of character i wanted to play after Ozy, and what kind of child would be fun to explore (since we were starting as kids) and Elodie's personality just kind of took shape. i also knew i wanted to play a charisma caster so that contributed as well!

3. How did you choose their name?

ozy — i knew i wanted something ancient and grand that could be shortened into a nickname. i was considering Apollodorus at first (because sun elf, Apollo, you get it) but as Ozy's personality/ideals took shape it became pretty clear that Ozymandias was the right call, given the message of the poem.

elodie — honestly i just kept throwing things at the wall until something stuck. i knew the general vibe i wanted for her name (musical, sweet, preferably three syllables) and i kept thinking about E names because i didn't have any PCs with an E name lmfao. I was also considering variations of Emmeline, Elise and Adeline, so you can kind of see the vibe there. Callaghan was chosen to offset the Frenchness a bit, and it just fits nicely with Elodie.

[elderly-scrolls]

OC kiss week: Ozy and whoever his biggest, most loathsome rival was!

okay so the obvious answer to this prompt would've been drawing lazlo again, since he drove ozy up the wall worse than anyone else who's ever existed

but. i squinted really hard and used this as an excuse to finally draw ozy & his god 😇 while the traveller wasn't exactly a Rival they were certainly the most fraught dynamic ozy had in the campaign

[snapdragonling]

2, 7, and 17 for ozy, ardeth, and elodie!

thank u!! | intimate + sexual headcanons

2. when did your muse realise they had become sexually attracted to others?

ozy — at some nebulous point when he was a teenager. emvalin culture was pretty open and relaxed about sex so he wasn't really a stranger to the concept. he knew what was going on.

ardeth — during his military training. a real "trapped in an intense and isolating program with attractive peers" scenario. he'd had crushes previously but suddenly there were undertones to the attraction that he found slightly alarming and not particularly useful, considering he had zero interest in anything other than graduating with flying colours.

elodie — at some point after she started dancing. lots of athletic people moving in interesting ways wearing not very much, and elodie wanted to be them and be with them simultaneously. alis had already had the Talk™ with her by that point, which was slightly traumatic for both of them.

7. how do they view sexual intimacy and love?

ozy — it's all about the intention. sex can just be a pleasant recreational activity or it can be the most romantic thing in the world, and he's had plenty of experience with both kinds. while he was in the last city sex was exclusively a recreational or transactional thing, so when he slept with kallux during the campaign it was the first time in 50 years he'd had a real emotional connection to the act. it made him feel completely insane. he'd forgotten what that felt like.

ardeth — i think he has a pretty pragmatic perspective on sex. it's a base want, and it feels nice 🤷‍♀️ (nevermind that all his sexual experience has been from one night stands deprived of any emotional attachment. nevermind that he devours tawdry romance novels in his free time. i think the first time he sleeps with ed he's like "oh. this is what it was meant to feel like that whole time. damn")

elodie — sex is a good bit of fun, love is dangerous. the tonics were her only real reference for a happy relationship and it wasn't quite enough to counteract the misgivings she inherited from her own home. she's had a couple somewhat messy pseudo-relationships and both times her intimacy issues were part of the problem.

17. how confident is your muse in expressing their desires?

ozy — sexually very confident, generally abysmal with everything else. he gets better by increments but it takes a while to drag himself out of the "i have no wants or needs i am just an instrument of the owl" headspace, and to be comfortable naming his desires. his relationship with kallux moves incredibly slowly on the emotional front, even though things are pretty clear to everyone else. luckily kallux is patient with him (in this regard at least)

ardeth — answered!

elodie — answered!

[elderly-scrolls]

👀

snippet of smthn i never finished! Last City Era ozy my beloathed

Kallux’s expression folds. Ozy hadn’t realised how much disbelief there’d been in his face until it disappears, giving way to something much colder. “You killed her,” he says dully. “She attacked us. I had to play the part.” “She trusted you.” “And I’m sorry for that. I’d hoped she would have cooperated.”

send me a 👀 for a wip i never finished this year

[snapdragonling]

the weight of the feeling

ozy/kallux, pacific rim AU, 2.4k for the prompt 'bleeding out' for @defaultwhiteguy. thank you!

In the milliseconds before the cockpit explodes, Ozy can track all the fallen dominoes that got them to this point.

If they’d raised the sword sooner— which they couldn’t because their shoulder pistons were fried— because they hadn’t dodged the electrogenetic blast in time— because Rebel Oath was backed up against the cliff face with no room to manoeuvre— because they’d only intercepted the Kaiju after it had already made landfall— because Ozy had chased the fucking rabbit again, and Kallux had to drag him out of it— because he was falling apart, and shouldn’t have been cleared to pilot in the first place, except the others were already deployed up and down the coast and somebody had to do something.

An unfortunate chain of events that leads to an abrupt conclusion: Sawtooth gets its horrible maw around Rebel’s helm and bites down through solid titanium.

The cockpit splinters. The world splinters. Ozy sees it through his own eye and Kallux’s; the creature’s colossal teeth impossibly close, a ribbon of dark sky suddenly visible through the shattered hull, jagged shards of metal illuminated by lightning. Sawtooth’s roar mingles with the sound of rending armour and the wail of alarms. Debris pours into the cockpit along with the rain.

He hears LOCCENT shouting over the comms, feels panic anger resolve through the Drift, feels Kallux recalculating rapidly—

—feels the both of them double over in tandem agony as something knifes bright and hot through their side, and for a moment can’t tell which body the pain is coming from.

He glances blearily over at Kallux as the Jaeger staggers; sees the strange mirror of himself reflected through Kallux’s eyes; sees the ugly shard of metal protruding from his own suit.

The immediate wash of fear through the Drift is like another knife to Ozy’s gut.

There’s no time to take stock of the damage. Reality blurs — pain lost to the urgent rush of shared impulse and instinct, pushing off from the cliff face in a shower of crumbling stone. They tackle Sawtooth around the middle while its maw is still snapping at their hull. Rebel Oath was sluggish, power sputtering and body listing to one side, but she still had the leverage to send the Kaiju crashing into the reef.

It’s lucky, in the end, that Sawtooth can’t seem to help its nature. It bites the first thing it can reach — Rebel’s raised fist, poised to grab its throat.

They divert all power to pistons, shove the Jaeger’s arm deeper into Sawtooth’s mouth, and deploy their secondary blade.

The long titanium length of it shoots out of Rebel’s wrist and pierces the Kaiju’s brain. It’s over very quickly after that.

“Sawtooth down,” Kallux says sharply over the comms. “Ozy’s hit. We need an evac on the beach ASAP.”

Ozy doesn’t hear LOCCENT’s response. He’s busy blinking dark spots away from the edges of his vision, motions clumsy as they walk the Jaeger away from the reef. Adrenaline had muffled the worst of it but he could already feel it draining away, pain radiating out from his side with every movement, like he was being stabbed over and over again at each laboured breath. He glances down, head spinning; the jagged shard of metal was almost as long as his forearm. Blood dripped from the wound to join the rain and sea spray pooling on the floor.

He doesn’t need to tell Kallux that it looks bad. Kallux can feel it too.

“The coast is fucked,” he says, voice tight even through the shorted comms. “We’ll meet them halfway. Can you make it that far?”

Asking is a formality; he’s in Ozy’s head. Ozy nods anyway, breathing slow around the agony, and braces himself as Rebel Oath strikes out into the bay.

It’s not an elegant departure. The Jaeger was in bad shape, exposed wires sparking as rain pelted in through the mangled cockpit. One arm was incapacitated. Warning readouts flashed urgently across their visors. Waves that should have broken over Rebel’s hull unnoticed now dragged at her damaged left side, hampering their progress.

They only had to make it to the other side of the bay. Ozy shuts out everything except the uneven rhythm of Rebel’s footfalls, the ponderous back and forth motion of her limbs. His own laboured breathing was loud inside his helmet, a harsh and erratic rhythm of its own, undercut by the dull thud of his heartbeat; pulse pulse pulse in his ears, like the waves outside had taken up residence in his head.

Ranger Training 101 — he should know better than to focus on something so mindless, so internal. He doesn’t even realise he’s slipping out of the Drift until Kallux is barking his name.

“Sorry,” he rasps, squeezing his eye shut and forcing it open again, making himself look out at the indistinct blur of the overcast sky. He was in a fucking Jaeger, there was no time to zone out. Never mind that he was having difficulty seeing straight. Never mind that he couldn’t really feel his legs.

Kallux’s concern gleams brightly in the Drift, a silver thread Ozy can’t look at directly. “C’mon, hang in there,” he mutters. “ETA ninety seconds.” 

In his head: We’ve had worse than this. Stay with me.

Ozy sucks in another ragged breath, blood pounding in his ears. They’d both had worse, that was true — had almost died a dozen times each, suffocated or concussed or half drowned — but he doesn’t remember the Drift ever feeling like this; a roiling mass of hurt, disordered thoughts, an edge of desperation that sickens him. Not even in the early days of his career had he brought so much clutter to the Drift. What a disgrace. What a state to die in.

You’re not dying, sharp and clear in his head. Stay with me, asshole.

If Ozy wasn’t such a coward he’d cling to that; cleave to the familiar shape of Kallux’s presence in the Drift, use the weight of his fear and resolve as an anchor. He shies away from it instead, too raw after losing himself to memory an hour earlier; after he’d reopened the old wounds and Kallux had seen the whole wretched mess of him, like roadkill with its entrails spread out across the earth.

The adrenaline had faded completely now. He feels dangerously detached from the pain in his side, dangerously unmoored from the present. The cockpit blurs in and out of focus. He sags in the pilot’s cradle. Errant memories surface in the Drift: a city street half a world away, a lively bar, a training room; the huge, hungry expanse of the Pacific; cigarette smoke curling in the night air. He tries and fails to shut them out. He wants silence. He wants to lie down.

There’s a new alarm blaring somewhere. Ozy squints against the piercing wail, and realises belatedly that Kallux was yelling at him too, out loud and in the Drift.

“Stop, Ozy!” Stop. Stop.

Rebel Oath shudders to an abrupt halt, her footfalls heavy on what sounds like solid ground. He hears the familiar whine of shutdown protocols kicking in. The alarm — pilot misalignment, Drift connection unstable — cuts to sudden silence, save for the weak rasp of his breathing and the distant, warped voices of LOCCENT in his ear. Ozy couldn’t have paid them any mind even if he wanted to.

Someone unclasps his helmet. There’s hands on his face, along with the cool night air. Ozy blinks hard against his doubled vision; resolves Kallux looking up at him, pale and bleeding from a cut above one brow. Dim light from Rebel’s consoles illuminated the sharp angles of his face, the faded scar Ozy had once traced with a lazy finger, what feels like a lifetime ago. He wonders if his hand would still fit the curve of Kallux’s jaw.

“Flirt later,” Kallux says distractedly.

Still in his head. Their neural connection had always lingered outside the Drift. Ozy never used to mind, back when he had nothing to share.

Kallux gets an arm around his waist before the cradle disengages, cursing under his dead weight. The pain in Ozy’s side flares so violently it briefly swallows him; he finds himself lying on his back with no memory of getting there, gazing up through the jagged hole in Rebel’s helm. The rain had eased at some point. Only a few stray droplets land on his upturned face.

There’s hands cradling his head again. Kallux was saying something, expression fraught. Ozy hadn’t earned the rising fear that coloured the Drift, nor the way Kallux angled his body to shield him from the rain. He tries to say so and succeeds only in rasping Kallux’s name.

His response is lost to the roaring of blood in Ozy’s ears — or perhaps a roaring overhead, the cockpit suddenly buffeted by wind as something blots out his view of the sky  — but he can read Kallux’s lips well enough to make out Idiot, and Stay.

Not a bad note to go out on. He slips into unconsciousness with Kallux’s voice in his head.

—

The flat, measured beeping lets him know where he is before he’s even fully awake.

It takes a long moment to muster the strength to open his eye. He forces his awareness up through layers of lethargy, squinting against the light. The smooth grey ceiling of the Shatterdome infirmary fades into focus. He hadn’t expected to be back so soon— or to survive long enough to be back at all.

He feels weak and strangely buoyant; whatever drugs they had him on were working. A dull ache above his hip is the only hint at whatever mess the surgeons had stitched back together.

He tilts his head to try and get a look at it, and winces against a sudden wave of dizziness. The beeping gets louder, chiding him.

“Hey,” says a quiet voice by his side.

Ozy ignores his spinning head and glances over. Kallux sat in an armchair beside the bed, feet crossed up on the side table with a scattering of files in his lap. The cut above his eye had been sutured. He looked tired but hale, at ease in his usual beaten-up leather jacket. As Ozy watches he sets the papers aside and folds his arms, regarding him steadily. “It was touch-and-go for a while there.”

Ozy could’ve guessed that. “The others?” he rasps, voice thin from disuse.

“Minor injuries. The twins pulled off a miracle. Only Sawtooth and Ayakashi made landfall.”

So the Cat IV hadn’t reached the coast. He sinks back against the pillow, nodding to himself. “Rebel?”

A vague hum. “Pretty fucked up. She’ll be out of commission for a while. You as well.”

“I don’t feel too bad.”

“You’re high as a kite.”

Ozy grimaces. They lapse into silence.

His thoughts meander in the syrupy haze of semi-lucidity. It’s difficult not to think about the little he remembered from the aftermath of battle; about the press of Kallux’s fear in the Drift, demanding that he stay; about what Kallux must have sensed from him in return most of all. This last sticks in his thoughts like a splinter. If Ozy were in his right mind he’s sure he’d feel restless and overexposed, eager to escape the intimacy of silence. As it is he can only muster a vague discomfort, like a forewarning of panic yet to come.

He doesn’t even have the wherewithal to startle when he realises that Kallux had left his post in the armchair to perch on the edge of the hospital bed. Ozy can’t quite decipher his expression; blinks slowly as he waits for whatever judgement Kallux deigned to pass, distracted by the way the infirmary lights played over his familiar features.

“You’ve got a lot of bullshit going on in there,” Kallux says at last, lifting his chin to indicate Ozy’s head.

Something of an understatement. “Yes,” he murmurs.

Kallux rubs at his jaw and sighs. “Well, you’re gonna have a while to think things over. Maybe by the time Rebel’s back on her feet you’ll be able to Drift without making such a fucking mess.”

It takes several long seconds for Ozy to put that puzzle together, staring at Kallux until the pieces slot into place— and even then he’s unsure of his own conclusion. His brow creases. He’d never want to Drift with himself again, let alone expect Kallux to willingly step back into that maelstrom — assuming Ozy’s ever allowed near a Jaeger again. “I don’t know if that’s…”

“Wise? Yeah, probably. We’ll see.” Kallux shrugs. “Y’know, once we got past you almost blowing up the Shatterdome, it was pretty enlightening being in there.”

He flicks Ozy’s forehead gently, in case there was any doubt of where exactly he meant— and lets his hand linger for a moment, brushing an errant curl out of Ozy’s eye, his lips pursed consideringly.

Ozy suddenly feels significantly less buoyant. His chest tightens. The quickening beeps of the bedside monitor are as damning as the Drift. “Kallux,” he says roughly, wishing he could think straight, wishing he had anywhere to hide. “I wasn’t— I…”

“Christ, don’t strain yourself.” Kallux withdraws his hand with a shake of his head. Ozy feels the absence immediately. “Not really fair to have this conversation while you’re a hostage, or drugged to high heaven. Give it a few days.”

“Right,” says Ozy. He watches dazedly as Kallux returns to the armchair and gathers his files, sweeping an empty coffee cup into the trash. It‘s only then that Ozy notices the basket had been full of paper cups already.

Kallux sees him looking. His lips twist.

“Try not to think yourself into a cardiac event,” he says, stopping by the bed long enough to press a swift kiss to Ozy’s cheek.

In the time it takes Ozy to register the contact Kallux is already out the door, leaving him with the lingering smell of coffee and cigarette smoke, and the burning imprint of lips against his skin. He stares at the doorway, and then at the ceiling; trying to figure out what had just happened.

A nurse comes in to check on him, concerned about the alarming spikes in his heart rate monitor. Ozy does such a bad job of explaining himself that he decides to just go back to sleep.

[snapdragonling]

ozy/kallux, 2.4k words, actor AU. tw alcohol for the prompt 'being carried' + ozykallux for @defaultwhiteguy. ty!

Later, Kallux would wish he could at least say the phone call had been longer.

He’d wish he could say that it had taken some time to make up his mind; that hearing Ozy drunk and disoriented on the phone hadn’t immediately kicked some part of his brain into gear; that concern had only won out over frustration after a lengthy internal discussion.

But the phone call is short. It doesn’t take much convincing at all. Whether that’s a testament to how wretched Ozy sounds or how stupid Kallux is, he can’t say.

“What the fuck do you want?” he mutters, leaning tersely on his kitchen counter. It was a mistake to pick up the call at all, but he’d never been good at resisting the urge to reopen this particular wound — especially after Ozy had been acting so strangely the last few months.

He hears muffled noise on the other end of the line; distant music, faint laughter. For a horrible moment he thinks he’s picked up an accidental call, and that in the morning Ozy would look at his phone and realise Kallux had actually answered it, like the fool he was.

But— no. There’s the sound of unsteady breathing, and a moment later: “Just— just wanted to hear you. Sorry.”

Kallux pulls the phone briefly away from his ear to check that he’d read the caller ID correctly. It hardly sounded like Ozy at all. “If this is your idea of a joke,” he says flatly, “you’re an even bigger dickhead than I thought you were.”

“Not a joke,” says that same ragged voice. “Just…sick. Sorry. Nobody else…didn’t want to talk to…”

The very first alarm bell starts ringing in Kallux’s head. “Are you drunk?”

“Yes.”

The straight answer is almost as confounding as the state of Ozy’s voice. In twenty years Kallux had never heard him sound like that; had never known him to drink to the point of borderline incoherence, not even when they were young and stupid and partying with the best of them in LA. “Where are you?”

“Don’t know.” “What?”

“I just…left. It’s— ugh. Some bar. I don’t know.”

Kallux pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re at— some bar? Just out on the street? Is anyone with you?”

Silence from the other end of the line, aside from a low sound of discomfort. Then: “I’ll…I should— I’ll go now.”

“No,” Kallux says sharply, before he has time to think it through. “You fucking idiot. Just— drop your location. Send it to me.”

Another vague sound. The call disconnects.

Kallux stares at his phone for several frozen moments, equally unsure of what had just happened and what he ought to do. Ozy had other people who knew where he was, surely? Assistants and hangers-on, whichever model he’d had on his arm at the start of the night?

The moments stretch into a minute; then another, and another. The silence in his kitchen feels suddenly loud and stifling. Kallux runs a hand down his face, cursing under his breath. 

His phone lights up with a location pin. Kallux is paging his driver before he’s even finished reading.

—

It’s a seedy little dive bar several blocks from the main strip. Kallux finds Ozy throwing up in the alleyway.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, taking in the situation; Ozy dressed as if he’d come straight from a party, sans suit jacket, arm braced against the wall like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Kallux knew how well Ozy could hold his liquor. What the fuck had he been drinking — and how much of it — to get himself to this point? 

They were alone out here, at least. A small miracle that nobody seemed to have recognised Ozy, or at least not cared enough to follow him.

Ozy stops heaving for long enough to notice his presence. He looked awful; pale-faced and haggard, hair clinging to his forehead in damp, limp curls, silk shirt wrinkled in a way he’d usually never abide. Maybe it wasn’t such a miracle that nobody had recognised him. “Kallux,” he rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of one sleeve. “You didn’t have to— I didn’t mean—”

“What happened?” Kallux asks flatly. “Are you insane?”

A horrible hacking sound that he realises is supposed to be a laugh. “Nothing. Maybe. I’m sorry.”

Some corner of Kallux’s mind registers that as the third apology of the night. That worries him more than it should — and what does it say about their history that an apology worries him? He purses his lips. “Come on. My car’s on the street.”

Ozy mumbles something vaguely resistant, forehead pressed to the alley wall. Kallux steps closer and takes hold of his arm. “Yeah, too bad. You’re the one that called me. If you wanted coddling you should’ve bothered someone else.”

It’s not a graceful departure. Ozy can barely stand, leaning heavily on Kallux’s shoulder as they stumble back towards the street. Kallux has no choice but to wrap an arm around his waist to keep him upright. He tries not to think about the warmth of Ozy pressed against him; tries not to think about the last time they’d been so close, let alone touched. At least Ozy smelled like shit. It was hard to romanticise that.

When they reach the curb Kallux’s driver gets out and opens the door without a word. Kallux makes a mental note to thank him for his discretion later — and for the swift drive over too.

Still: he can’t help but notice more than one pair of eyes on him as he slides into the back seat after Ozy, people on the street suddenly recognising either or both of them. Dread sits heavy in his gut — but he’d known this was a risk when he came here. There’s nothing to do except shelve that anxiety for later. Maybe he’d feel better after cussing Ozy out some more.

A quick glance sideways puts a significant damper on that idea. Ozy was curled into himself against the window, head in one hand.

“Don’t throw up in my car,” Kallux mutters half-heartedly.

Ozy nods wordlessly, as if he were focusing on ensuring just that.

It’s a silent drive to Ozy’s apartment building, interrupted only by the occasional nauseous hitch of breath. Kallux’s driver clearly remembered the way, taking all the necessary turns to avoid the worst traffic. Kallux starts bracing himself for an awkward conversation with the building’s security well before they pull up to the lobby, trying to figure out the best way to explain any part of this.

Turns out there’s no need — Martin is on duty, the same elderly, amiable doorman Kallux had spent years saying hello to on his way in and out of Ozy’s apartment. He takes one look at Kallux, then at Ozy still slumped against the car door, and smiles at him tightly. “Good that you’re here this time,” he says, shaking his head. “Come on in.”

There’s no time to unpack that. Kallux nods his thanks.

It’s another unwieldy effort to get Ozy out of the car and into the elevator. He was as good as a puppet cut loose from its strings now, six feet of dead weight hanging off Kallux’s shoulder. As soon as the elevator doors slide closed Kallux props him up against the gleaming glass wall, hands on his shoulders to keep him standing.

“What’s gotten into you, huh? This isn’t— you don’t do this. You never have.”

Ozy watches him hazily through half-lidded eyes. If he’d been wearing eyeliner at the start of the night it was almost completely gone now, only the faintest streaks of black visible down his cheeks. “Bad habit,” he mumbles. “Needed one of those.”

“Why?”

A muscle in Ozy’s jaw jumps. “Why’d you pick up?” he asks, eyes sliding away. “I thought…didn't think…”

Now it’s Kallux’s turn to fall silent. The answer to that question isn’t one he even wants to acknowledge in the privacy of his own thoughts. “Sick curiosity about the brand of bullshit you were going to deliver,” he says at last. “Instead I got…whatever the fuck is happening here.”

Ozy nods slowly to himself, like Kallux had confirmed something he long suspected. “Still bullshit,” he says faintly. “That’s all I ever am.”

He tips forward so suddenly that Kallux doesn’t have the wherewithal to react— simply freezes as Ozy’s forehead meets his shoulder, face buried in the collar of his jacket. It’s a posture and motion so unlike Ozy that even when he feels a hand settle against his waist, gripping his shirt like a lifeline, Kallux is too taken aback to move. He stares at his own reflection in the elevator mirror; stares at the sight of Ozy clinging to him.

“Missed you,” Ozy says, words slurring together. “Missed you a lot.”

It’s an absurd thing for him to say, after everything — Kallux knows that, logically. Ozy was wasted; half out of his mind; saying things he didn’t mean.

It doesn’t change the fact that his heartbeat falters, or that his hands itch to reach for the mess of a man curled into him — to reciprocate the way Ozy had reached for him, something he’d never done outside of a bedroom or film set — to allow himself one weak, indulgent moment, pressing hard on the Ozy-shaped wound in his chest.

He’s saved from doing something stupid by the quiet ding of the elevator doors sliding open.

“Sure you did,” Kallux says roughly, and pushes Ozy upright again.

It’s been three years since he was last in Ozy’s apartment, but Kallux remembers where all the light switches are well enough. Once he’s fished Ozy’s keys out of his pocket and they’re through the front door it’s pure muscle memory to reach for the hallway light.

He doesn’t move for a long moment after that.

“What the fuck did you do to this place?” he asks eventually.

The apartment he remembers had been beautiful — a study in luxurious minimalism, all polished wood and suede, the walls adorned with paintings and antique mirrors. This apartment looked like its soul had been torn out. He doesn’t recognise a single piece of the cold, grey furniture. Not a painting or mirror or bit of colour remained.

Ozy doesn’t say anything, his face tipped into the curve of Kallux’s neck. If Kallux didn’t know any better he’d say he seemed ashamed.

The bedroom is just as foreign as the kitchen and living room, which is at least partially a blessing. It’s easier for Kallux to avoid thinking about the countless nights he’d spent here when the place looked more like a showroom than anything. Still, he can’t quite swallow his uneasiness as he takes in the bare walls and empty shelves, only the gorgeous cityscape out the window adding any character. This room had always felt like Ozy’s inner sanctum, a glimpse beneath the smooth facade he showed the rest of the world. Now Kallux wasn’t sure what the hell he was seeing, aside from complete absence of life.

He deposits Ozy on the bed in an inelegant heap— fetches a bucket and a glass of water from his clinical kitchen— stands there threateningly to make sure he drinks it.

“You should go,” Ozy rasps, when he moves away to draw the curtains. “If…if you want.”

Kallux barks a humourless laugh. “I’m gonna have enough paparazzi bullshit to deal with tomorrow, don’t need you choking to death in the middle of the night as well. They’ll think I killed you.”

He glances back at the bed. Ozy looked miserable, truly; watching him with red-rimmed eyes, the pallor of his skin a sickly grey. He’d managed to kick off his shoes but was otherwise lying there in his rumpled party clothes, looking like a sad caricature of a drunk. Maybe a year ago Kallux would’ve said he deserved it. Right now he can’t quite summon the vitriol.

He tries not to think about what he’s doing as he walks back over to sit on the bed. Ozy’s eyes track him on a slight delay, clearly struggling to remain open. There’s something about his expression that Kallux can’t quite look at directly. Twenty years and he’d never seen Ozy look at him — or anyone — like that, with his eyes so glassy and overbright. I can be pissed off in the morning, Kallux tells himself.

“This midlife crisis thing really doesn’t suit you,” he says.

Ozy exhales raggedly, grimacing against a sudden wave of discomfort or nausea. “Fucked it up.”

“Yeah? Which part?”

“Everything. Us.”

Kallux’s heart jolts. He clenches his jaw against the foolish rush of feeling. “Does it matter?”

It seems unreal, the way Ozy’s expression collapses — the way Kallux can suddenly read everything on his face, like a curtain being drawn away for the first time in his life. “Yes,” says Ozy, his voice barely above a whisper. “Yes. M’sorry. Missed you.”

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? Kallux wants to ask him, even as his heart hammers. What good does that do me now? “You’re drunk,” he says instead, vaguely impressed by how flat his own voice sounds. “I’m not having this conversation with you. If you really mean it, say it again in the morning.”

He stands, pushing at Ozy’s shoulder until he rolls onto his side, then shoving a couple of pillows behind his back. “I’ll be in the other room,” he says, stepping back to survey his handiwork. “Just…shout if you need me.”

If Ozy hears him he doesn’t give any indication; just lies there with his eyes squeezed shut, one hand gripping the blankets, the other curled against his stomach. Kallux leaves him there in the huge empty cavern of his bedroom, full to the brim with memories turned sour by time.

He makes a beeline for Ozy’s liquor cabinet after that. A true testament to the fucking evening he’s had, that he can still find it within himself to crave a drink, but he wasn’t about to spend the night in his ex’s apartment without a crutch.

And if it helped him avoid thinking about the morning — about what Ozy would or wouldn’t say, and about the media shitstorm that was sure to follow — then all the better.

[kimabutch]

If I Had a Heart by Fever Ray gives me panic about where both Fjord and Caleb could end up going with some bad decisions

Shiiiiit yeah I can totally see that. What a cool, intense song.

“I want more” in that creepy way captures Fjord’s hunger for knowledge.