#fic writing in geological time

[knightyoomyoui]

[SMUT] TWICE Dahyun x Male Reader - "Conquered By An Abomination"

Here's my final one-shot for this year which is another smut fic featuring Dahyun. I want to say that I'm pretty proud and impressed at myself for being able to catch up on the 4th quarter after being too busy during July-October. This fic has got to be one of my experimental and unique works that I decided to try writing, because the concept that you're about to see here was never been done by me before, meaning that this my first-time writing it. Please understand and pardon me if this one turns out to be not suitable to the liking of some, as I feel like this might not be everyone's cup of tea. Enjoy reading and celebrate a Happy New Year with your loved ones, please!

Here's my Ko-fi account where you can drop your donations or ask for a commission. You can check it out on my Tumblr profile too!  Buy knightyoomyoui a Coffee. ko-fi.com/knightyoomyoui - Ko-fi ❤️ Where creators get support from fans through donations, memberships, shop sales and more! The original 'Buy Me a Coffee' Page. TRIGGER WARNING: contains R+18 mature content, smut WORD COUNT: 4,500+ TAGS: abduction, aphrodisiac, tentacles, rough sex, monster fucking, gangbang, breast play, deepthroating, ass filling, creampie

On Friday, November 13, astrophysicist Dr. Kim Dahyun and her research team went from Busan to Seoul to visit a location where they were tasked with conducting a comprehensive examination.

Based on radar data from their headquarters, it was seen that around midnight yesterday, an object that seems to be a fragment of an asteroid or comet crashed into the vicinity of Seoul.

Their chief professor and mentor at the research lab gave them the order to report any unusual sightings they came across there before calling the military and defense squad to seize control of the area and place it under lockdown, keeping everyone outside of the sector out.

Dahyun and her group entered the hidden area through their vehicle, bypassing the main road and making their way to the designated site. They made the decision to park close to the danger zone as they were leaving the road so they could more easily reach the astronomical devices inside.

"So what's this anomaly of yours supposed to look like?" One of her intern graduated to SNU, YN LN asked her after arranging all the panels around the van.

"It's almost the same as what we used to find from the sky, but this one was the first to do the unthinkable." Dahyun answered, wiping her eyeglasses. "The record says that it's like a small shooting star that emerged from the sky, but the impact it left when it came contact here almost triggered a mild earthquake."

"So that's why the sent us in." He responded, nodding his head understandably.

Dahyun turns her head around, acknowledging her other assistant who is testing some devices that they will equip on their hands outside. "Uhm, Minyoung excuse me for a sec will you?"

"Yes, Miss Kim?"

"Can you grab for me that gloves beside the first cabinet?" She pointed at the direction. Minyoung saw it and unhesitantly passed it to her. "Thanks."

"Are you guys good now?" She checked on her accomplices. They signalled her with a positive note. "Okay, let's take a look what they have in store for us."

After getting out of the van, they began to swing the tall leaves that were obstructing their view and path on the verdant field. They weren't even gone from their car for that far when they observed something startling.

The three researchers were welcomed with a bald area on the top portion of the field, which was produced by a big crater on the land. The leaves that were impacted by the collision scattered across the hole.

"This looks huge." YN exclaimed with a gasping mouth. "Are you all sure it's just a thin shooting star-like that appeared yesterday?"

"It is. They even presented it to me." Dahyun explained. "The anomalies here would be always associated to the geological condition here. I have a chart that describes everything we have encountered for these past few years and I've never seen anything like this that an unknown object also gave us a hard time dealing with a quake."

"We better get starting now because to be honest, this is getting really unpredictable to the minute and I couldn't understand what's going on as long as we see it ourselves." Minyoung suggested. Dahyun and YN looked at her and they were both convinced. YN planted a huge nail beside the crater and wrapped a rope around it that will serve as their handle when going down to the crater.

As the three of them made it below. They began to look around and observe deeply the surfaces. Minyoung kneels down and poked a stick on a gross material, forming a disgusted expression on her face. "Uhh guys, take a look at this."

Dahyun and YN came towards her. "Does this remind you of something?" Minyoung said as she twirled and flipped it around, almost like she's playing on it.

"Is that an eggshell?" YN asked, furrowing his brows at the black and velvet-colored thin piece swimming at a pool of gooey substance.

"Could be. Just look at the fluids around that probably came from this." Dahyun said, mentioning the slime. They garnered their eyes more at their surroundings, there were even bigger ones that what Minyoung has found and they were also mostly covered with a slime.

"Get away from that, Minyoung-ah. Don't you see how disgusting it is?!" YN scolded his friend. He started to cover his nose too with his shirt. "And do you guys smell that?"

"Yeah, it's bad." Dahyun clenched her face in dislike. "Feels like there's a rotting organ in here."

"Wait, so are we gonna conclude right away that we just discovered a cracked egg?" YN said. He scoffed and rubbed his face. "Am I correct at what I think this might mean?"

"No, YN. We're just getting started here. We are researchers we came here to finish our task and not do it in rush just because we're in an unsettling situation right now." Dahyun protested. "We don't jump into conclusions right away."

"S-sorry, Prof." YN bowed his head. "It's just.. I'm sensing something wrong in here."

"YN, let's just wish it would not happen at all. Okay?"

YN looked at Dahyun's comforting and calm demeanor. He nodded shyly. "Yes, Ms. Kim."

Snapping a few photos of the scene, Dahyun gave Minyoung and YN the order to take everything out of the van that would be necessary for them to make a report and gather any evidence that they would find here. Dahyun borrowed a tracker and used it to glide around the crater's borders while they did so.

The tracker bumped against a tall leaf, and the alarm began to sound loudly. After receiving an alert, Dahyun was perplexed as to what it had discovered. Before she caught anything, she inspected the dirt and leaves in the area.

The leaves did not have sharp, pointed ends. Rather, it appears as though the flower has grown directly onto the leaf, utilizing it as a stem or something unexplainable. Dahyun thought it was rather strange to see a flower extending through the body of the leaves itself.

She stepped back to wipe the dust off her face as the flower burst some sprinkle of nectar on her face as she reached out to touch it. She held her tracker again while she coughed, but she quickly figured out that it was unresponsive.

"There's got to be some power or equipment malfunction" Dahyun hissed on the device as she carried it. "Minyoung! YN! I need a help on-"

Dahyun was about to walk back on the van when suddenly she went out of balance and slipped through the crater. When she was about to get up, she saw the van fleeted upwards to the sky, a hole was formed on the bottom of the vehicle before it splitted in half when it crashed on the ground. Her heart shattered she heard it explode.

She wasn't devastated because of the vehicle, but because of the fact that two of her colleagues were inside that van when it exploded. "NOOOOOOOO!!!!" she shouted at the horrific sight from outside the crater.

Dahyun ran through the ropes and hurriedly climbed but she started getting drowsy and lightheaded, her body losing it sense until it managed to get her out of the grip from the rope, sending her unconscious inside the crater.

Right after she snapped out, the ground she's laying at started to flow like waves.

Dahyun woke up hours later, but not without a clue on her, as her mind was still rebooting from what happened to her earlier. Her eyes opened, and there she witnessed herself sitting in the middle of what it seems to be a cave.

She slowly risen up to her feet, her feet stumbled a bit as she felt a dull ache on her head once again. Rubbing it to ease it off atleast, Dahyun breathed deeply before returning back her attention on her current situation of getting stuck.

She couldn't find any light that would provide her to a clearer vision of everything around her. Nervous and desperate to find a route to escape, Dahyun had no other choice but to walk around and explore for a route way out.

"HELPPP!!! ANYBODY OUT THERE CAN HEAR ME?!" Dahyun pleaded as loud as she can reach on her voice. "MINYOUNG? YN? WHERE ARE-"

She paused as she recalled earlier seeing their van where her two assistants were staying in. Her emotions overtook her, releasing teardrops across her face. She also began to feel guilty, thinking that she should have ordered them to go back inside and fetch all of their equipment on her behalf.

Maybe if it wasn't for her, she wouldn't led both her friends on their own demise. Dahyun sobbed heavily as she repeated calling their names in agony.

She slammed her hand accidentally on some surface. Dahyun probably guessed it a wall where she could support herself while trailing along the cave. She took the opportunity, caressing and patting it.

However, Dahyun noticed something different. It was rough, soft, and quite sticky as she could describe. She tried to smell it, and it brought her to a familiar rotten organ smell she, Minyoung, and YN had depicted earlier.

"Huh? What is this?" Dahyun questioned herself where she is also the only one who could find the answer. With one more pat onto the strange wall, she noticed the entire area start to glow including the one where she is touching.

She roamed her eyes around, and it made her tensed to learn that she does indeed correct on her being stuck inside a cave right now, but rather everything that blocks her from the possibility of escaping is covered with unidentified type of organs.

There was a dark area on the far end just right in front of Dahyun's direction. She could swear that she had a glimpse of something that just moved there and disappeared from the shadows in a few second. "WHO'S T-THERE?!" she shouted as she started having suspicions in her mind.

Taking few steps ahead to check out what it is, a loud roar put her into halt before she was about to scream in terror. She fell on her butt and her breathing goes faster, wondering what kind of a monstrous noise she just heard.

She then saw something emerging from the drak shadows. In her utmost bewilderment and panic, an abomination has appeared in front of her, standing tall with its bulbous, humungeous and very disfigured appeareance.

It's size is like almost half of the space of the cave they're occupying, and Dahyun was in complete disbelief that the fear of YN he was trying to refer a while ago has unfortunately manifested into reality. A beast from the space or in other term made by humans ourselves, called aliens- are real in Dahyun's universe.

"D-don't come closer to me!" Dahyun tensefully said as she starts to crawl away from the monster. It blabbered some unusual noises that almost formed some inaudible words while shaking its head madly, and after that, Dahyun saw something popping out of its body.

Two slimy tentacles just came out from each sides and began crawling through Dahyun to reach each of her ankles and get wrapped. She then felt her body being dragged closer to the monster and Dahyun repeatedly yelled, begging for it to stop while tugging the tentacles with all the force she could apply to yank it off, only to end up with no effect.

As Dahyun was placed almost inches away from the gigantic alien creature, she has finally accepted her fate of being helpless and in danger. Tears filled with nothing but negative emotions streamed out of her eyes before the monster blew out some gas that has a color similar to the nectars that were sprayed on her by an infected plant earlier.

After she smelled it, she soon finds her body growing into a sense of arousal that urges her horny feelings to activate. She tried to endure it but she could swear that her skin were releasing more sweat and her pussy and her nipples are starting to become sensitive.

The tentacles must've found the lustful sensation brewing inside of her, and they took the perfect timing as one of them starts to slid through her pencil skirt and lift it up her tummy before it traces her pussy through the soaked panty. It's partner focused on her clothed breasts, bumping it and feeling its softness as it bounces.

Several more tentacles were released from the creature, but this time with various sizes and colors. Some were lighter or darker, some where thicker or thinner. The thin ones snaked through her sleeve and forcefully spreaded her top, revealing her white strapped bras containing her milky tits.

The rest then helped to remove her skirt, exposing her into half naked with her matching pair of white bra and panties. "NOOO! PLEASE, DON'T DO IT!" Dahyun pleaded until she unexpectedly released a sultry moan when a fast tentacle moves through her cheek and rubs itself on her skin.

All the tentacles starts to wrap around on her meaty thighs and slender arms in order to suspend her in mid-air. Their touch becomes even more satisfying and felt relaxing to Dahyun despite how denial the words coming out of her mouth.

Being half-naked and spreaded in front of the creature's ugly looking face, the tentacle then moved from her cheek to her lips as it continues to rub across Dahyun's pretty face. Her lips starts to pucker and the effects of the strange gas which was probably aphrodisiac as Dahyun guessed, made her more susceptible as it clouded her mind with lust and temptation.

She starts kissing the tentacle before it slid through her mouth, she sucks on it like it was a cock entering on her.

The other tentacles started to become bold also. They tugged and remove her bras and panties, finally making her naked. There's these suction cups- like tentacles went to crept up on her torso to her underboobs, feeling her perky tits bounce on their motions before its lips opened and sucked on her hardened pinky nipples.

Thinner tentacles spreaded her walls, assisting the thicker tubular object crawl and enter her tight pussy. It effectively brought another relieving feeling on Dahyun's aroused body, moaning in rhythm to the tentacle's barging on her constricted hole.

Their movements became faster and rougher, including the suction cups almost biting her nipples then returning to lick on it like there were supposed to have milk leaking out of Dahyun's breasts.

Due to the sudden increase of pace, it also din't allow more time for the tentacles to reach their limit. Despite her little efforts and strength to shake them off their body, Dahyun uncontrollably welcomes their slimy liquid that probably resembles to a man's cum, into her warm throat and womb.

She lets out a poor groan and whimper, sniffling in fear of what it could bring her after when she watched the odd colors and thickness of their cum flowing out of her. She hoped it would not cause her to get pregnant, especially if it would mean that she would breed an abnormal hybrid that sets aparts from what a normal baby should look like.

Desire is what Dahyun could just accept within her, disturbing and letting out the pleasure she has long kept to seek any solutions for it. First load wasn't enough for the tentacles howsoever, as she felt the tentacles changing their hold on her limbs to prepare her for a next position.

Still hanging from the mid-air, Dahyun's body was forced to bend, with her backdoor being the one facing the beast. The tentacles spreaded her legs, causing her cheeks and puffy pussy to open a little.

With her arms around her back, Dahyun endured all the harsh slaps of the thicker tentacles to each of her curvy asscheeks. She lost the count of how many times they played on it, too obsessed on how soft and big enough for it to give comfort on these creatures.

Funtime didn't lasted longer as they went already to the next move. She felt the girthy pair pounding both her asshole and pussy, fucking them simultaneously. Her body went back and forth at their movement.

The suction cups returned to play on her breats, tugging on her nipples and stretching them as farther her endurance could take. Dahyun hissed in a mixture of pain and pleasure only because it aided the abuse her tits were being applied at when she felt something gliding through her entire back.

She turned her head around and witnessed the alien sticking out its wide and long tongue slurping the taste of of the sweat forming across her back view.

The thick tentacles reached their climax, exploding a second amount of load to her love holes. Dahyun huffed at the unmatched energy of these active creatures using her body for pleasure.

As they release from her ass and pussy. She was repositioned again. She was now facing the monster completely before she gulped when she realized what she was about to suffer next.

A huge- like literally- gigantic cock, probably measuring around 14 or 15 inches in size unbeatable to any men's size around the world, is ready to explore Dahyun's innards. Dahyun wiggled her legs, afraid that she might break from being unable to take his girth.

But again, she is outnumbered with numerous tentacles attached to her body, imprisoning her from any attempts of escaping, even though she has no other palns anymore as the aphrodisiacs are still in full effect on her.

Their strength pressed Dahyun's body to the awaiting cock. Due to its massive size it struggled to enter Dahyun's tight little pussy before it succeeded, only for the poor scientist to scream and grit her teeth in a shocking pain while the creature twitched and produced more creepy noises.

Thankfully, it didn't last long as the impressive pleasure began to take over her body when the monster started ramming his cock on her pussy, demolishing her womb inside. She went crazily bouncing on its crotch. Dahyun's eyes are completely white, with her pupils now rolled at the back at the intense pace of fucking she's receiving.

Her mouth began to lustfully agape, with her tongue sticking out as the monster cock continues to push deeper across Dahyun's walls. Her ass starts to create loud claps around the cave as it hits the alien's crotch repeatedly.

The giant cock stuffed into her pussy then pulsated, as it erupted a terrifying amount of dirty white cum almost inflating Dahyun's stomach like she is about to be mistakenly identified as pregnant, before it slowly slid out of her pussy, allowing the rest of the load to explode out of her abused hole.

The tentacles lets go of her body, releasing Dahyun on the ground, which gave her time to rest for a while. She panted heavily and speechless at the rough fucking she just had with the monster alien. She couldn't deny that there might be no other man she would ever met that would match the performance of what this monster has showed to her.

All of the tentacles and the bulbous cock slowly erected again the more the creature stares at Dahyun's messy and sticky nude body lying on the floor. They decided to proceed with the last action, as they focus once again on her nether regions.

Lifting her up, they spreaded her arms and legs again and faced her closer to the creature. The suction cups slowly crawled on her back then cupped her full breasts from behind. Dahyun whined and moaned at the relaxing and tickly feeling it gives. One tentacle went through her tongue, a pair goes back to her pussy and asshole.

There was a twist added again coming from the idea of the monster. Wanting to give every single part of her body that could provide a purpose of satisfaction to this monster's desire, they let go of Dahyun's hands and two tentacles caressed her fingers.

Dahyun sensed their hidden message for doing that and finding out the answer, she formed a fist and gripped the tentacles, stroking them like she would do to a male cock.

All of her body and now functioning properly following the monster's command. Dahyun's mind is full of sex. She has been hypnotized and manipulated too much by the pleasure and sensation that the creature has been passing through her using its ability to fuck her senseless and take her breath away.

The thick tentacles had her overpowered and weak from the way they drill through her holes as deeper as they could get. Dahyun felt her neck bulging as the tentacle gave her a deep throat, her clit being scrubbed by a tentacle with a brush-like end on it to add more pleasure, and the other tentacle wiggling around her ass.

They all began to pull the trigger of increasing the speed while they all moved in unison, their grip on her skin went tighter as they felt this familiar tightness in their system, approaching the climax of their endurance. Dahyun squirted her juices again and spasmed at her own orgasm, resulting to her walls clamping on the tentacles more.

Few more waves, pumps and strokes they gave and finally they executed their final blow, releasing their cum flowing through her throat, ass and pussy simultaneously, as she switches through gags and moans. The two other tentacles enwrapped on her fists splashed their warm sticky liquid on her arms and side of her face.

The rest of the tentacles joined, painting Dahyun's entire body with the rest of the cum flowing and leaking out of its ends. As they finished, the tentacles crawled around Dahyun's skin, giving her body a nice calming massage to ride out their lengthy session of sex and intense orgasms they shared.

Dahyun couldn't opened her eyes wide anymore as she knew she's completely drained now. The creature slowly laid her back on the ground with her body entirely covered with cum. She also weakly spitted and coughed out some from her mouth after unable to swallow all of the load down to her filled tummy.

Now that she can have her rest, Dahyun slowly shuts her eyes as she went unconscious, while the tentacles continue to caress her hair gently and massage her body, especially her addicting round tits, as they wiped away all the stuffs around her pearly skin.

When she woke up again from her long slumber, she found herself lying on a hospital bed with her body now clothed in a hospital gown.

Realizing that she is now in a hospital and two familiar people sleeping with their head resting beside her bed, she concluded that after everything that happened to her, she was now free and safe from that creature she encountered.

She gasped and shuddered as she remembered what it did to her, it awakened her parents and quickly hugged her in response to her fine state. "Oh thank God you're okay.", her mother said.

"How are you feeling, daughter?" Mr. Kim checked up on her. "It's been days you were confined. We were really worried that something worse could happen."

"I-I'm alright… I'm just… still tired." Dahyun said in a weak tone. Her eyes became watery when she remembered Minyoung and YN. "Mom… Dad, we-… we got ambushed. They didn't make it, it's my fault." she said as her lips trembled.

"No, daughter. Don't blame yourself, we know you can't do such bad thing with whole intention. I know you." Mrs. Kim said, rubbing her palms to calm down her poor daughter.

"We heard what happened to you and your team, Dubu. We're sorry." Her father stated in sympathy. "But we couldn't help ourselves to be thankful that we have been given a miracle to have you still here, safe and sound."

"I missed you, Mom… Dad." Dahyun holds her mother's hand and looked them in the eyes tenderly. "I thought I wouldn't make it."

"Oh, by the way. If you may be wondering how did we managed to get you here, it's all thanks to your workmates. They sent a rescue on the location where they found you lying on a grass field with your…. dress torn up covering your body." Her father gulped and lowered his head in regret at the last words. Dahyun just furrowed her brows, couldn't recall that part.

Dahyun saw her mom getting choked up on her emotions. She pressed her hands on her own and stared at her eagerly. "Dubu, answer me with all honesty. Okay?"

Dahyun just listened attentively on what her mom's about to ask. "W-who did this to you?"

Their conversation were interrupted when the door opened. Two men appeared in a room, in which Dahyun speculated that it's a doctor and the other one works in the military.

"Pardon to interrupt, Mr. and Mrs. Kim but this gentleman right here is taking a visit and… to ask for a request for the both of you." The doctor said. He looked at his patient, his face lightened in relief. "Oh, you're Miss Dahyun right? Good thing that you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Fined, doc." Dahyun replied.

"Is there anything you need from us, sir…?" her mother asked.

"General Knight Yoo of the Seoul Military Army. Greetings to meet you Mr. and Mrs. Kim." the military man introduced himself to the family, performing a salute gesture. "Yes, I actually would like to speak with your daughter."

They all looked at Dahyun who became curious at the acknowledgement. "For what, sir?"

"It's regarding to that research that your team embarked near outside Itaewon." Knight elaborated. Dahyun's eyes widened in astonishment as his words struck those memories of her on that given time to repeat in cycle on her mind, including that one awful experience that she had.

"Your faculty cooperated with us in order to seek help when they lost their line to your team. We went through an investigation at that site and we found something… threatening, and we assume that since you're the only survivor in the incident confirmed yet, we would like you to enlighten us as we interrogate you about what actually happened."

Dahyun pursed her body forward slight from leaning on the bed, her face showed a puzzled expression. "Wait, what do you mean 'yet'?"

General Yoo maintained his intrigued stare at the patient. "Ms. Bae Minyoung's remains were found by the forensic team but your other accomplice, Mr. YN LN is still nowhere to be found but some of his torn out clothing were seen inside a cave. We will give it one week before we rule him as deceased."

Dahyun's switched looks at the four people gathered around her before she lured away her eyes filled with hope for her friend's disappearance from them.

Her traumatic experience of being conquered by an abomination should've brought her instantly to cooperate with the armed forces as they requested for her to stand up as the witness and part of the evidence in this important matter.

But rather, she's conflicted about what she should consider telling to them.

The idea of the alien monster who also amazingly pleasured her beyond the edge, disregarding the actual peculiar possibility behind the monster's odd behavior when she was held captive which failed for Dahyun to intepret; made her think twice on the decision she has to unveil.

[laundrybiscuits]

I've recently been tagged in a few WIP/"last thing you've written" type games, and…to be completely candid, I haven't been writing any kind of fic lately because I've become a little bit obsessed with analyzing the Broadway revival of Merrily We Roll Along.

Not for any particular purpose, I just saw it at the Hudson a little while back and have a lot of feelings about it! In my tiny scraps of spare time, I've been working on an essay about Merrily and inevitability that will probably end up rotting in my google docs*, because that's how I approach writing as a hobby.

There's just so much there, holy shit. I'm focusing particularly on "Franklin Shepard, Inc." because Radcliffe's Charley brings a frenetic, desperate vulnerability to the performance that reads so, so differently from earlier productions. Throughout the show, I was consistently blown away by the heavy lifting Radcliffe, Mendez, and Groff do in shifting the core tension from "art vs commerce" (fine but basic, and difficult to keep modern) to "how people prioritize different types of relationships in their lives."

In an effort to make this slightly less wildly off-topic for this blog: this has gotten me thinking about the way that platonic relationships are treated in narratives, particularly but not exclusively in fandom.

"Found family" is and has always been a popular trope, but I do think its current incarnation trades a lot on the underlying fantasy of relationship permanence. When we recategorize friendships as familial relationships, we're making a claim—whether or not it's justified—about the indelibility of those relationships.

That's not inherently bad (or, god forbid, problematic). I think it's very very natural, especially for those who don't necessarily have a lot of experience with the way adult friendships change over time. Why wouldn't you want something as precious and unique and amazing as a good friendship to stay with you forever?

Certain people can feel like pillars of your world, and it's fucking terrifying to think about that being yanked out from under you—or even worse, to think about your lives slowly shifting like geologic plates until suddenly you realize it's been weeks, then months, then years since you last really talked.

CHARLEY: We're not that kind of close any more, the way we used to be. And a friendship's like a garden. You have to water it and tend it and care about it. And you know what? I want it back.

It's a peculiar, particular kind of grief when it happens, because even though it's a fairly common human experience, it doesn't get socially acknowledged in the same way as e.g. a romantic breakup.

So yeah, it makes a lot of sense that found family is a popular trope in all kinds of media, not just fandom.

However...at this point, I've developed a knee-jerk wariness to the phrase "found family," because I've found it often correlates with a really flat, simplistic depiction of human relationships. In extreme cases, it simply recontextualizes a relationship within the socially acknowledged/acceptable framework of a stereotypical family unit.

This does a disservice to familial and nonfamilial relationships alike. Every family is different, so why do so many found families in media look the same?

(I was monologuing about this to my very patient girlfriend, and she pointed out that this also sets up a success/failure binary condition in relationships, where permanence is the arbiter of success in both romantic and nonromantic contexts. She is of course both beautiful and correct!)

I have friends with whom I can sometimes share a glance and know exactly what they're thinking. I even have a running joke with one friend about the sheer number of times we've said the same thing in unison over the last 15 years. I still need to be intentional about building those relationships, extending empathy when we differ, and carving out time to reconnect. Truly intimate long-term relationships of any kind involve disagreements, conflicting priorities, and negotiating and renegotiating boundaries.

Being "basically the same person" or "sharing a braincell" actually sounds super fucking lonely to me, personally, and it handily elides the difficult, essential process of keeping people in your life.

FRANK: Old friends let you go your own way. CHARLEY: Help you find your own way. MARY: Let you off when you're wrong. F: If you're wrong. C: When you're wrong. M: Right or wrong, the point is, old friends shouldn't care if you're wrong. F: Should, but not for too long. C: What's too long?

That's a more complicated and much more mature narrative to tell than "friendship will save the day!" Because it's not that common and there's not a deep bank of references to draw from, it takes a lot of effort and skill to depict well, and I don't blame creators for not wanting to let it suck up all the air in the room. However, I think it's important to acknowledge that platonic relationships can also be flanderised and flattened.

In the context of fandom, which has always traded heavily in Romance genre conventions, I would really like to see more thoughtful explorations of complicated nonromantic relationships. I'm not even talking about genfic here! I've actually been thinking about Stobin specifically because that relationship (rightly & understandably) tends to show up in any Steve-centric fic, including the vast ocean of Steddie fics, so it makes the issue slightly more visible than I've seen in other fandoms.

I'm not saying I want to see them fight, or not be friends, or not love each other fiercely and near-obsessively in the way that lonely teenagers can. I'm just saying I want them to be distinct individuals who view the world in very different ways, and choose each other anyway. They already have a complicated past; I know from personal experience that it's possible as a lesbian to be best friends with a guy who once made a little speech about how into you he was, but that little layer of history never quite goes away.

I don't want frictionless relationships in my life. I want people who will challenge me and whom I can challenge, in the context of love and trust. I want people in my life whom I have to work to understand, because my life is richer when I do. And sometimes, I want narratives that will reflect the grief of friendships that are no longer part of my life, despite the best efforts of everyone involved.

In Merrily, Charley sings, "Friendship's something you don't really lose—" but Radcliffe's thready, pleading delivery makes it all too clear: Charley already knows he's lying. The audience just needs to catch up.

*Other essays in that particular graveyard: understanding the cast of Peanuts through the lens of anomie, humor and subversive linguistic nationalism in 00s Singaporean TV, how to fix Miss Saigon. WHY am I this way.

[diudiudiu]

I just terribly wanted to tell you that you are an amazing author, and one of my favorites in the fandom. I still have “what was i made for (and does it even matter)” stored safely on my Kindle. It is unread, awaiting either a vacation or break glass type of bad day.

The depth of world building in “the nature of idiosyncrasies” honestly swept me away. It left me a fragile leaf falling through chapters, enjoying every moment. And your lengthily-titled Eurovision fic? Ugh. How dare you show off your creative range. Splendid. Please never stop.

As for “our immeasurable ties that bind,” I don’t care how long it takes. I’d suffer an ice age for the next chapter. Wade through geological periods of boredom for each one after. An epoch for Io? Absolutely. Whatever it takes.

So yes. I finally had to say something. “Depravity leads to you” just reminded me of how much I adore your writing. Kudos to you! Every bloody one. May their carcasses litter the ground upon which you tread, like fluffy ergonomic cushions of gratitude. Thank you so much for writing. You rock! 🤘

this has been sitting in my inbox for a while, mainly because i don't have words to express how much i appreciate your words

honestly, i don't think i will ever have the words so all i can say is thank you 😊

i get in my head a lot (especially when i go through long periods of "wanting to write but not being able to write for some reason or another") so words like these are always super encouraging and motivating. ty for taking the time to write such a thoughtful and kind message 🖤

[ariadne-mouse]

I know you'll probably have some fun stories to tell with 14 and 19 for the fic writer asks!

Hallooo!

14. where do you get your inspiration?

All over! I get some atmospheric inspiration from places I've been (there is an IRL doohm rock reference from mercaleb, as you know), tidbits and themes from life experiences I want to explore from various angles, themes from canon that leave room for more exploration, idle daydreams, whatever other media I'm watching and go "hmmm what if I put a blorbo in that situation". Sometimes it's escapism and sometimes it's reflection and sometimes it's both. Other creators inspire me (like you!) with beautiful writing and art that makes a thriving fandom ecosystem. I've written snippets for art and drawn art for others' writing, circle of life, etc. I love great art prompts from followers when I'm doing doodles (thank you to everyone who has ever sent one!). Sometimes my inspiration for any creation is just "hehe wouldn't it be SO stupid if I just-" and then I do. Highly recommend.

19. the most interesting topic you've researched for a fic

It's gotta be everything volcanically related for Volcaleb. All the materials I watched and read for that were interesting, whether or not they made a reference in the fic. I watched videos of scientists who simulated lava flows with their own materials melted in a massive drum & poured down concrete slopes. Lots of folks hiking around active lava flows in a variety of heat gear, taking samples. Drone footage over active fantastical eruptions. Stumbled on a really unfortunate series of AI images of "people eating lava" (do not recommend). Timelapse footage of slow-moving pahoehoe which has this fascinating chrome color to the cooling surface in some lights. There was one 20min Youtube video about contractors in Hawaii talking about how it was dangerous to move construction equipment in some areas of the islands because you could unexpectedly have a big hollow chamber somewhere under you at any time and the weight of the machinery could collapse the whole thing. I watched the whole thing and used none of it lol. I learned about long-term land use recommendations as official documents in areas where geological variables are at play - this actually did get a mention! Anyway, volcanoes and lava are cool (heh).

[theluckywizard]

In the Shattering of Things: Ch. 49 - The Sweetest Song

Chapter Summary: Her longstanding suspicions confirmed by his antics the night before, Rose finally finds the courage to show Cullen what he means to her.

Fic Summary: Lady Rose Trevelyan's idle, aristocratic life blinks out in a haze of irrelevance when the breach destroys the Conclave. She may be soft and coddled when she joins the Inquisition, but there's a fierceness inside her she's yet to fully recognize. Armed with only a few relevant skills and the mark that makes her a legend, she is thrust onto a path delivering hope where it’s long been scorched away and finds comfort in the grumpy, handsome stick in the mud charged with her protection and training. As she stumbles her way across southern Thedas, she begins to realize she's tangled at the center of machinations she barely understands, and she's not alone in that. Enter Hawke.

Excerpt:

He asks me back to his tower to look over the Crestwood maps and in spite of the practical impetus, the invitation has me high as the luminous cirrus clouds that streak across the sky. The door closes heavily behind us and the latch clinks softly. It feels momentous, like we’re locked in to work out our confessions.

“Let me get set up,” Cullen says, unfurling a map on his desk. I join him when he’s ready, and we lean over the desk too close together, as he points out possible locations for camps and resources that he’s gleaned from scouting reports and historic geologic surveys. 

His enthusiasm provokes my deepest delight. I adore the smile at the corner of his eyes that wakes up when he realizes there’s some other relevant detail about the mission he can share. He wanders away for something else and I quickly sneak a few of his cast figurines onto the map of Crestwood. When he returns with a handful of journals and notes, he flashes me an intensely knowing look, and then shakes his head with a smile that takes over his entire face. 

“You’re a menace,” he mutters, sweeping the figurines aside, spreading out his notes and journals which we lean over together. 

“A menace and a witch,” I agree. He rubs the back of his neck, grinning at the rough schematic of a small keep, Caer Bronach, that he copied in from a local history book. After a moment, he carries on about what a boon it would be for the Inquisition to hold it. 

Cullen gestures at the keep, though all I can concentrate on is how near we are, his tenor a mere hum behind the flurry of my thoughts. When our arms brush against each other for the seventeenth time of the morning as we shift anxiously on our hands, he trails off and we lock eyes momentarily. It’s a soft and searching look, the hush between us so very loud.

He leans hastily toward me, one hand slipping to the small of my back and rests his nose and forehead against mine where he stays, his other hand reaching to glide his fingers under my braid.

Read the rest here

DAFF Crew Tags

@warpedlegacy | @rakshadow | @rosella-writes | @effelants | @bluewren | @breninarthur | @ar-lath-ma-cully | @dreadfutures | @ir0n-angel | @inquisimer | @crackinglamb | @nirikeehan | @oxygenforthewicked | @mogwaei | @exalted-dawn-drabbles | @melisusthewee | @blarrghe | @agentkatie

[jkrockin]

I'M NOT COPYING ALL THOSE EMOJIS JUST ANSWER AS MANY AS YOU CAN FROM THE MEME

One last round on that fanfiction emoji ask game, featuring all the emojis nobody else specifically asked for! 

😐 What embarrasses you most about your own writing?

Finding a balance between purple prose and prose that’s too pared back is a constant, harrowing struggle. Sometimes I’ll write a thing and feel okay about it in the moment, and then come back to it later and cringe— usually because I’ve swung too purple, because while I am a huge wanker, I also find being a huge wanker really embarrassing? You’d think I’d pick one.

👻 What is one WIP you think you may never pick back up?

Hahahaha, that’s a crowded field. I think at this point my Terror space clone AU where Francis is a technician on an isolated mining outpost on an asteroid and James Fitzjames is an incorrect series clone with a two-year lifespan and they speedrun enemies to lovers to space criminals trying to get access to clone stabilisation technology might be dead in the water, unfortunately. Dead in the vacuum of space? One of those.

✏️ Do you write every day?

Ehhhhhh I try to. Mixed results.

😈 Is there anything you enjoy doing that you think your readers hate?

Fuck, I hope not. I'd say "taking fucking geological ages to update things", but I don't actually enjoy doing that, it just sort of happens.

🌙  What time of day do you prefer to write? Why?

My real golden hours are 4:30 PM in the office when the rest of my team have left but there are enough other people around that I need to look busy, and 2 AM, alone, lit solely by LED lights and ill-advised midnight coffee.

👨‍👧‍👧 Do you tell people in real life that you write fic?

Just, like, on the street? No. In the workplace? Also no. Nerds I have met under nerdy circumstances? Sometimes.

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

I haven't actually written any OFMD fic at all, but I think Stede Bonnet and I could have a good time together. (My phone tried to autocorrect that to "Stress Bonney", which is I think what's going to happen if Anne Bonny does turn up in S2.)

💻 Do you do research for your fics? What’s the deepest dive you’ve done?

I read a bunch of shit about hydroponics and algae-based CO² scrubbing that ended up absolutely nowhere in the actual text of the same bright patient stars.

✨ Choose three adjectives to complement your own writing.

Detailed, witty, horny.

🍰 Name one of your fave comfort fics (doesn’t have to be your all time fave).

I have many, many comfort fics, but I recently came back to the thoroughly excellent Algolagnia, by Xela.

👩‍🏭 If one of your fics was going to get you arrested, which one and why?

FANFICTION IS NOT A CRIME!! But probably the Phantom/Raoul noncon gunplay fic.

[aniron48]

3, 12, 17!

Hiiii @ikeracity! I'm so glad we've managed to connect on this hellsite (affectionate). Thank you for the asks, these are fun ones!

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Ahh, this was hard--I think it's probably for the age of the earth, and after. Writing it felt risky, in many ways--I was very aware of the fact that I was giving my weird, polymath heart license to write about anything that piqued its interest at that time, which happened to be ::checks notes:: some combination of geological time, the Kantian idea of the sublime, and deep, smutty tenderness. I was worried readers would think the entire concept was absolutely bizarre (which, ok, it kind of is), and the fact that it's found a home with even a few people has been incredible to me.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

SO MANY. Too many? Is that a thing? Even if you count only those where I have some text actually written, it's 12. 😂 Some are still veeerry preliminary, but the WIPs I'm most excited about include a 00q The Last of Us AU, a fic where MI6 tries to solve Q's insomnia, and a 5 + 1 fic where Q lies to Bond about the reasons he doesn't like flying (or does he?). Now I just need time to write them!

17. Your favorite character to write this year?

It's Q, which is almost certainly no surprise, but more specifically, it's probably Q in rain. I feel like loneliness, even bone-deep loneliness like Q feels throughout the beginning of the fic, is an experience so many of us have had, and being able to push on that wound for a little bit and think through what it would feel like for this character, specifically, with his big brain and arguably equally large heart, was something that stretched me, I think. And obviously getting to write him happy, in the end, was the icing on the cake.

Thank you again for these asks, friend! 💜

[daisychainsandbowties]

5, 9 and 13 for the fic asks? Hope you're having a wonderful day!

5. what's a fic idea you've had that you will never write?

i have so many fic idea swimming around in my head that i will definitely never have time to write but.

i do have a fighter pilot au (who am i kidding a Battlestar Galactica au) where Ava's an ace pilot sent out in an experimental ship to look for safe harbor after human civilization is decimated; only 50,000 living souls left alive out of billions. the first jump carries them into deep space.

Bea's is an expert navigator and astrobiologist, sent along with Ava to keep an eye on her, since Ava's famously reckless and spent basically every other night in the brig back on the Galactica. but Bea's also the science officer, tasked with seeking out habitable planets for an initial attempt at seeding human colonies as far from the ruins of civilization as possible. the idea would be to give them the ability to contact each other, but leave warnings about the Cylons, warnings to never go back.

they have a larger freighter-style ship capable of supporting them for... as long as it takes, complete with a lab (for Bea) and a starfighter (so that Ava can immediately destroy any Cylon scout ship that makes visual contact with them). they have equipment Bea can use to study any habitable planet they find, to set up shop on the surface for the several weeks it takes to fully bio-map and geologically assess the landscape. once they set down a beacon, hopefully the signal can reach the people working on the Dandelion Pods that Beatrice created - ships that can follow their trail and carry the 500 or so people needed for a viable population to the planets they've earmarked.

it ends up taking them far away from the fighting, Ava picking off one or two scouts who locate their signature before it fades out of sight. then it's her mechanical skills that help, fixing the ship as it breaks, setting up systems they didn't have the time to anticipate the need for.

just... quiet, and fathomless space. the two of them growing closer, Bea's initial wariness giving way to fondness, to something more. huddling for warmth when they have to all but power down the ship to avoid creating a heat signature when the Cylons scan into deep space for survivors.

they're the last hope for humanity, adrift out in the stars with Bea growing veggies in planter pots because "access to fresh food has been proven to promote psychological health" "sorry professor. i won't make fun of your beets ever again"

Ava buffing her fighter and Beatrice watching her check the weapons systems and paint new, lurid designs on the wings, hoping desperately that they never have to use it, that they're never found, (that they never have to go back).

9. Do you write every day? If you wrote today, share a sentence of what you've written?

yes i write every day unless i have bad pain or brain fog, but even if it's just a sentence i like to write Something because i couldn't for years & i'm trying to make up for lost time lmao.

a sentence:

"She sat with the paper bag of chocolates cupped in her palms and thought of how the vendor touched them all with his bare fingers, once or twice raising them to wipe at the sweat in his hair, and how the vents rattled, pumping recycled air into that deep space, little ribbons on the grilles to show everyone that the air was flowing, to warn them when it stopped."

13: How much planning do you do before writing?

i think about my WIPs when i'm out walking sometimes, but i never write anything down, believing foolishly that if a plot point or a scene or a line is good enough i'll remember it, or that when i sit down to write it'll reassert itself as a natural part of the narrative. aside from that, all i work with is a first line and a vague concept and i much prefer it that way.

[beevean]

first world writing problems

>write smut for the second time ever >took you about 2 weeks because you're as fast as a geological era >first time was meh, but this time you did a pretty nice job >in fact, this is the most fun you ever had writing >final product is pretty much what you'd love to read from someone else >the prompt asked for a spoiler though >you delivered the spoiler >this makes the fic nearly impossible to tag properly >the spoiler is the identity of the other major character (the POV is not a spoiler, at least) >you cannot write a complete summary >you cannot write the full tags (at least you learned to create spoilers in the notes) >you cannot even tag the ship >which is a rareship on top of all else >fic is essentially lacking of appeal to other people >few people will read it compared to your inferior but properly tagged fics >neverajoy.jpg

[superconductivebean]

4 & 12 for the ask game!!! 🥹

🥰 [link to the list]

4. What detail in [insert fic] are you really proud of?

That's a tricky one! I've some in any of the fics I wrote. I'm also going to mention few that were 1) in Russian 2) and are now hidden due to a vexatiousness of a burden they became to me staying up.

In an one of them, I had a whole chapter where Julia and Professor Sharp needed to talk important, legal things through but her mental capacity has been exhausted by the time this talk happened. She knew she needed every single arrangement to be made; he was very much aware Julia became eruptuos and wouldn't listen, yet. He had to show that basically 1) he was there for her 2) could take up the responsibility if she didn't mind it, of course, 3) told her in a dad voice not every display of wholehearted kindness is an act of pity; 4) Julia understood something about his role in her life and studying up to be able to defend herself like an Auror would do someone significantly less capable of staying put in the face of danger. It was a very lengthy chapter, consisting entirely of them talking, and it's a very… I don't know, therapeutic, how it came out in the end? A moment of a sad but wholesome realisation Julia wasn't alone; that she had someone by her side and ready to hold her a hand when she's fret and scared.

Many more of these silly fics were about Julia and Imelda and how their little thing developed. Very Ravenclaw vs Slytherin dynamic. Competition of the wit and wisdom. Contention of the discovery and conquer. Commiseration from the what's allowed and what's desired. The Throuple idea was born in those fics; although the timeline of those fics wouldn't really allow it, but the perplexity of them was of an early drafts. They were, in fact, drafts. I love those works immensely.

Then, looking at something I keep up for everyone to see, I have the Few Ouches Lower. Building up the steam without naming any body part much too often, I'd say, is my forte in writing erotica fiction. It allows for many fun words, but erotica at its core has the only major difference from other kinds of text, and that funky distinction is not a structural 'issue' of any sort. It's social stigma; and in my case, maybe a level of prejudice, because many are confused aces can do steam. Besides that, writing erotica as a little adventure of its own, tunneled, very intimate, Something We Might Be Not Supposed To See, it's a very fun game to play; that feel of a second hand embarrassment but in a good way, I was hazarded to be very, exceptionally good at it.

The scenery of Wales, the island of Holy, from Beware the Spiders. I love environmentals; it's something I grew up seeing very often and the more I'd seen, the more I learnt how to approach in writing; I'm also a cartographer, so it's required of me to know something about many things like geological formations, kinds of relief and telling them apart, climate and microclimates, ecology, many more. With that, and along other things formed me as a writer, came the subtle way of pointing at the environ. I'd like to write in the milieu like this.

Many texts in the Hogwarts Inquires series -- some are linked in my pinned, where I followed the Forbidden Forest's symbols and tried to decipher the text from the Boards in Undercroft -- showcase me as a very extensively and thoroughly looking researcher.

When comes the day of I'm finally publishing Julia's story, all of this will be noticeable and perhaps I'd be proud of all of them working together to form a compelling or drawback, but a complex story.

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

As many of peapol my age — 25+ — I used to ardently dislike Mary Sues. Today, I fully support it. There is nothing bad in flawless reality-benders. Moreover, there is nothing bad in flawless characters at all, objectively speaking. 'Bad' is the relative term, and when I came to question the cringing part of me, it hadn't anything objective to say to lay a foundation for such an awful dislike; there wasn't emotional incentives to think the way it did, ergo the young me took someone's opinion and ran with it for a while instead of thinking for meself.

That opinion was, if it's a matter of my personal dislike, it's bad. Any analysis done with that in mind would always be biased against the object of dislike; at best, it would look like Market Analytics.

What Mx Market thinks doesn't matter for Mxs Literature Arts.

As a very self-indulgent author, any statement of the People Dislike To Read [X] So I And Nobody Should Write That For Whatever Is Their Reason fashion has no place in my mind. It'll be illogical and self-contradictory, to be at arms for writing for oneself but then, all of a sudden, cared too much for someone else's opinion or reception.

I thought I'd go off rails a bit; this effectively explains my other past dislikes for tropes like Share One Bed or Orphaned Char, and how I grew if not to like them, then appreciate them.

[karama9]

The Legend of Locked Land

Sometimes I wonder about the rest of the planet Hyrule is on. Hyrule has tens of thousands of years of history after the surface was destroyed by Demise, and there was a civilization then that could build fairly advanced robots. Not to mention time traveling devices.

So sometimes I think the rest of the planet, if there is anyone there, would be SUPER advanced. Or have long since self extinguished. Or both! But then how come they don't come into play within Hyrule? There doesn't appear to be any trade, there's no visitor to the 'medieval fantasy', there's no foreign aid whenever Hyrule gets destroyed again...

One scenario I sometimes imagine is that Hyrule is isolated magically. Nothing gets in or out of the immediate area, which would include whatever islands are involved in various games if you want.

Going with that, I love the idea that new iterations end up burying the old ones. You play with that idea and the depths may not have been originally underground; major geological features move around because why not? The new iterations are all new anyway; races that have disappeared may just still live in a lower strata! And come back later! Like the gorons being around in OOT but not ALLTP!

So anyway, this isn't one of the headcanon I'm consistent with. It's an AU even for my own imagination. But I really do think it's got mad potential. What about the people on the outside? What do they see? What do they think? What's their world like? You can have isekai of outsiders in Hyrule, or you can have someone from Hyrule managing to get out! Get... out of bonds!

Anyway, early draft of the start of a story set in this Locked Land AU below the read more. The setting is that Link needs a macguffin that's outside of Hyrule and finds a song that transports him there. The locals see what looks like a kid dressed up as an elf appear out of nowhere and figure they got to help him find his parents again, not to mention figure out what the heck happened to him.

This AU is open, anyone interested can go right ahead and write for it, I'd LOVE to see stories that use it! If anyone's interested.

And if the genre already exists and I just failed to find it, fic recommendations are appreciated. :D

Double Isekai Story

The boy in green is staring at my screen when I come in the room. He startles when he hears my steps and jumps back, looking like he's just been caught red handed. 

He’s tiny. Judging by his face, I'd put him at about 12, 13 years old. His voice, not a child’s and just barely cracking anymore, would put him a bit older again, but he's the size of an 8 year old.  

And the green, and those EARS... he couldn't look more like some kind of wood fairy if he tried.  

No, that's not true. A fairy wouldn't carry a sword, shield and bow. We didnt’ even bother trying to take them away, we just activated our personal shields just in case they weren’t toys.  

"It's okay," I say. "You can look at anything you want. I'm going to need you to pay attention to me for a bit, though, we got to figure out what's going on with you." 

He blinked and frowned, obviously confused. "I'm looking for the Gods' Forgotten Stone," he said. "I already said that. I said it was sent somewhere out here a long time ago, remember? So what do you mean, you need to figure me out? I was waiting here because I thought you could help me." He sounded downright offended at the idea that not everything might line up for him in the most expedient and convenient way possible. 

"I AM going to try and help," I said. "Sit." As I said it, I sat down myself on one of the two visitors chairs. The boy sat down in my own chair, on the other side of the desk. I let it slide. 

"My name is Drankan," I said. "I'm an investigator here, and here's the thing. You're a child, and you're out wandering alone and nobody's seen you around here before." 

He sagged slightly at being called a child, which I took as another sign that he was in his teens. "I've never been here before," he said. "I didn't even know this place existed. Most people I talked to said I couldn't come this way. And I couldn't, at first. I used the Song of Elsewhere." 

He proffered an item from a small pocket on his chest, and the small gesture sent my heart racing again: he was showing me some kind of flute or recorder, adorned with some kind of symbols I wasn’t familiar with, and if I was understanding correctly, he was saying that he played a song on it to come here from somewhere else. And, even more distressing, the instrument was way too long to have fit in his pocket. And even MORE distressing, it matched the many accounts we had that he had just appeared out of nowhere with no portal in sight. 

"Are your parents, or guardians, here too?" I asked. 

"My... oh." His eyes widened. His ears moved as well from the motion. I tried to ignore it. 

"You think I'm lost and need to find my parents, right?" 

"Aren't you?" 

He shook his head. "My parents died a long time ago. My aunt raised me, but she's still home. I'm here on purpose, I'm not lost, and I can look after myself. I just need to find the Stone." 

"Okay, let's back up. Your name is Link. Right? Where are you from, Link?" 

"Castle Town." 

"I don't know where that is. Is the actual castle still there? What is it called?" 

The kid's eyes widened again. "You don't know about us either!" he exclaimed. "It's Locked Land Castle. Where I come from is called Locked Land. It's West of here, past the Ocean." 

I frowned and touched the translator on my cheek. Wherever he was from, the translation was coming out as Locked Land. I had no way to know whether that was the etymological origin of the name, the natural phenomenon called Locked Land, or whether it just meant he was saying he came from a place people couldn’t go to. 

It was a bit unnerving that I wasn’t dismissing the possibility he was from Locked Land out of hand. But then he had just taken out a long flute from a small pocket and claimed to have traveled by song. Not to mention the ears. And the appearing out of nowhere. 

I was clearly losing my mind. Locked Land was a geological oddity with a side of supernatural looking shenanigans seemingly designed to keep conspiracy theorists and other nutbars happy with countless theories and conjectures. I’d always figured that if its mysteries were ever conclusively solved, a lot of people would fall into depression from no longer being able to believe their wild imaginings of choice about it. 

[stoppit-keepout]

hello... i would like to know about operation ps’s dreams

ps.... I knew this day would come..... i just wish i had an actual fic to hand over.

THE TITLE: it was aspirational, ok? this was gonna be your birthday fic from several years ago! i wanted it to check as many ps boxes as it could :)

THE FANDOM: Hikaru no Go (hey what if i reread/rewatched hikago again)

THE CONCEPT: i’m just gonna cut/paste from my doc here: “FUTURE MOBSTERS??? MOBSTERS IN SPACE. ok it is arranged marriage au where sai is like the godfather like u know, and hikaru is his reckless protege, and a marriage between touya and hikaru would be advantageous to both families.” also: “Touya Meijin is a corrupt police chief/politician who basically controls all smuggling on/off Earth” another bit of concept: “Touya wants to know if he'll ever meet his new father-in-law and Hikaru's like ‘someday…' // They get married on Earth and then honeymoon on the LITERAL MOON ahahah wow this is a great plan. anyway Shindou thinks it's temporary just so they have cover to move this priceless go board from the moon to [destination], but Touya knows it's supposed to be permanent (so tension because he thinks Shindou’s not taking it seriously)”

I sorta had two rival plots that I never chose between: Plot 1 where Sai had already been killed and Hikaru’s pretending that he’s still around behind the scenes/impersonating Sai to keep control of the org (but also somehow Sai still calls him? and gives advice? Hikaru doesn’t fucking know, ok) and Plot 2 where Sai is killed during the plot of the story, and Hikaru tries to go on a revenge rampage :)

THE EXCERPTS: (I didn’t write a lot of actual prose for this story, most of the wordcount is timeline/planning, but i did have a couple little snippets!)

Sai looked at the ceiling and exhaled a long, slow plume of smoke. Hikaru stayed kneeling where he was. He'd learned to wait out these silences.

This one was broken by an expression: Sai smiled. The anticipation in Hikaru's diaphragm calmed.

"This is going to be good for you," Sai instructed.

Of course Hikaru nodded.

// (one marriage later)

To his credit, Touya Akira didn’t flinch. Despite the weapon pointed at him, his gaze tried Hikaru’s locks with the same surety that his hands had had on his travel case a moment ago.

"Who do you think I am?"

"Sai's eyes and ears." Cool voice, quiet voice.

Hikaru laughed, he couldn’t help it. "He has enough of those." He twirled his light pistol with a twist of his wrist, but kept it trained on Touya Akira’s atrocious vest. "If anything, I guess you could say I'm his hands."

[goldemas1244]

Happy Birthday

- A MLBB fanfic (Ship: Zhask X Yve) -

Based on (but not entirely accurately) a prompt posted on Instagram by writing.prompt.s:

Sidenote: @sentinelpri you are my favourite fic writer (despite my inactivity with your works for a while now) and I respect you. You have become the basis of one part of my writing style. So here, if I may, I'd like to request that you read and review this fic. I know you don't know who these guys are but I hope the writing's good enough that it covers that aspect even minutely. Thank you!

---.---.---.---.---

Her lithe fingers grazed the edge of the forlorn portal as she gazed out into outer space. It didn't belong to her, yet she recognised its signature, begging her to pass through. But for whatever reason, she could only guess.

Perhaps Zhask had decided to finally give up the chase and end it all. That would be morally convenient for her. One small step for peace, one giant leap for the reparation of the equilibrium.

Still, she couldn't help but feel a melancholic undertone stifling itself through the vacuum of space and time. Unlike the smooth and polished portals her archnemesis frequently built, this one had a sort of rag to it. Perhaps it wasn't his? Oh no, it definitely was his, there was no denying the signature circadian hum-buzz.

Her gut twinged with all the experience of a hunter, telling her that she should come prepared. Prepared for what, she couldn't say, so she went with an ambush. After all, Zhask was as well-maintained in his conquests as he was in his retreats, was he not?

Checking herself to make sure she was at least presentable enough for the capture of the King of the Swarm, Yve stepped through the portal as it closed behind her.

The empty void of space was cold, colder than the freezing tundra she came from. Yet it was a familiar cold, a cold she embraced with pleasure, for it was her one true home aside from Mithlora.

Attentively, she studied her surroundings. She was in quite a faraway galaxy from Bima Sakti, with floating geological masses of history astray all around her. As the faraway stars littered her vision with light, she noticed familiar inscriptions in the masses, and recognised that these were the ruins of Kastiya.

Kastiya. She remembered how and why that planet was destroyed. Zhask had been a large-scale criminal then, but the explosion of his planet's core had brought him to an all-time dead-or-alive status. Sometimes she regretted coming up with the idea.

One other thing she took note of was that, to her surprise, she was alone. No stray nightmaric spawn come to devour her, no Kastiyan King to give her cranial damage via Domorey, no colour, no life. Everything was a drab, burnt out sight save for the starry skyline.

Attuning her other senses, she studied the pitiless wrecks until at last she sensed a vibration in the space-time continuum. Melancholic in tone, it had a desperation to it. Quite unlike Zhask but still....

Ever alert, the Astrowarden inched closer to the source of the vibration. It wasn't long before she came upon a sight most... intimate?

There was Zhask, sans staff and consecutively Domorey, sitting on a chunk of space rock, stroking one of his little swarm-children lovingly. His eyes seemed glazed in thought. His voice could be heard, albeit in the faintest of tones, softly whispering out what she could only assume to be a Kastiyan folk song of some sort. It rhymed and it had a melody to it, which, much to her chagrin, she fell in love with.

The King of the Swarm. The Planes Dominator. The Ruthless Invader. Alone.

Yve knew it wasn't a smart decision but she drew closer towards the hulking mass of blue and red as if magnetised by a seventh sense. Now out in the very open, she was vulnerable, but aside from what she had heard and seen prior, Zhask didn't even acknowledge her. Her shoulders relaxed. If this was a trigger for a space-beartrap, it was at least a beginner's machination.

She was only but a few feet away from her archenemy when he ended his reverie, tilting his head upwards to look at her. Unwavering in his eye contact, he patted a soft patch of dried grassland beside him, a sort of motioning for Yve to come and sit. Unfamiliar with this custom of friendship, she hesitated, but penultimately cast her resistance aside and sat next to him.

His breathing was shallowed and, as Yve, ever perceiving, took a closer look at him, she could tell that he'd been here a while. At this point, his affection towards his little spawn had ceased, leaving it bewildered and looking back up at its master in expectation of more. In exchange, he cupped the little thing in his hands and brought it closer to his thorax in an embrace.

"So, Yve?" he began, tilting his head to the side as if to warrant curiosity. "What brings a Mithlorian like you here to Kastiya? Or, well, what remains of it."

Yve was taken aback by the question. Small talk? This was very unlike the enemy she had grown to hate with all her heart. Still, she wasn't in want of generous courtesy and replied in a monotonous tone, "I saw your unclosed portal."

Zhask chuckled, a slight baritone fondness in its echolocation. "Correction: 'your' unclosed portal." Then, after a moment's silence, "It was meant for you, Yve."

"But why exactly did you waste your 'precious' energy on such an unnecessary thing?" Yve questioned, unwavering. "You know you could've just told me to meet you up here and I would fly off to catch you and turn you in. How did you even create a portal under our ever watchful gaze?"

"Well for starters," Zhask began, raising up a finger, "I didn't want to burden you with using up yours. And second of all, every portal a Kastiyan has ever made contains a riskier sub-portal space they can use instead. This one is untraceable, even by the most skilful of hunters. It's how I managed to escape you on Utapau that time."

Yve gently smiled under her mask, remembering how she had absolutely demolished that bastard that time. And she would've killed him too had it not been for a random laser bolt distracting her. Damned battle droids. He'd escaped without the slightest effort, and she had sulked through three galaxies because of it.

Silence passed between the two and for a moment it seemed as if the equilibrium of the universe was in peace.

Eventually, Zhask broke the silence.

"It's my birthday today."

Yve's eyes widened underneath her mask. Zhask's birthday was something she had never considered in all their years of chasing and escaping.

"I'd invited all my friends and family," he continued, hand outstretched as he gestured towards the rubble that lay before them. "But they... haven't arrived as of yet." His head lowered as if in a sort of defeat. "I'll still be waiting though. Sure, they haven't shown up in years now but I'll wait."

The little spawn he was holding began to chirrup as if it could sense the pain in its master's heart. Yve could too; it tremored like an earthquake in her ears. For once in her life she felt sorry for Zhask.

She looked towards the unsightly masses of matter and rock attempting to picture how Kastiya once looked, how things were before it all. She understood once that Zhask was a criminal to be destroyed for the sake of the equilibrium, but now, ever so suddenly, she had a sense that perhaps it didn't have to be that way. An equilibrium could be fixed, she logically reckoned, and with the power of such a being as Zhask on its reparation it would make things much smoother.

But his aura was unfavourable for such commentary so she turned to ask him how things were before the conquests, in hopes that he could spill a thing or two to satiate her innate curiosity and, perhaps also, to cheer himself up.

"Before?" Zhask perked up a little at the mere mention of the word. "Well, before, we were prosperous. We had technology unmatched by any being, power unimaginable by mere mortals, intellect and strength that would put a god to shame."

Yve took note of how his eyes lit up.

"But we were animals as well. Of course, we ARE insects, and you've seen how their natural world is. Indeed, some of our tribes were peaceful and lived with kindred spirits. But mine own was a dominator's kind, with souls as hardened as rocks. It was the natural order. Especially during the mating season."

Zhask let loose a chuckle, and for a moment Yve felt butterflies fluttering in her cheeks.

"Unfortunately, I wasn't as hard as the rest of my kind." Zhask's eyes dropped to his spawn, beginning to stroke it again as if it was an idle animation of his. "I was softer, much more... caring, dependant even, towards my environment. I never much fit in. I could only count one or two friends I'd ever had. Nobody really wanted anything to do with a soft Beetle."

Yve shifted her focus some; this was getting into personal territory.

"I had different hobbies and interests compared to the other members of my tribe. This ensured that I had a bit more of a strict upbringing compared to the others. In a while, all I was was gone, and the monster you see before you now was born."

Yve remained silent, listening to this recollection with the utmost patience. Nevermore had she been as patient as this. It was almost cathartic.

"I... never really wanted to hurt anybody. But I had to maintain an image somehow. Kindness was never our forte. But strength was and so I did what my parents before me, and so theirs before, did."

"You conquered planets," Yve piped in at last. Her inquiry sparked a withered sigh from her companion and a pang of guilt surged through her veins.

"Yes, I did. As the Earth's practice of hunting for sport 'til extinction, so did we with planets. We took on their survivors as slaves. My upbringing ensured I was a selfish, cruel, and uncaring sadist.... If younger me had seen it with my own two eyes, he would've shuddered in fear and disgust at what he'd become."

He stared at the chittering spawn in his hands and brought it up to his face, nuzzling it with affection. Yve didn't want to believe it, but perhaps it was true that this insect could tear up. Moreso proven as he hitched.

She didn't know what else to do. Her mind had gone blank and all thoughts of violence had faded as the dying of a star. What was she to say? To do?

"And now I have to do it," Zhask stammered, tightening his grip on the now silent chitterer. "I have to do it. What's been done to the others has now been done to mine. I have to ensure...." He dared not finish his sentence.

He feared he'd say the wrong things and get himself offed.

Luckily, Yve had begun to understand. "You have to ensure your people survive," she continued. "You're the king, and per your growth, it was the only proper way you knew how. And you can't think of any other way."

She inched closer to him. Her ears were bursting with the rapid rhythms of his heartbeat, her senses filled with an equilibrium she herself had never even experienced prior. Then she took the little spawn in her hands and softly stroked it as Zhask did.

To feel the coldness of his little pet pulled from him yet the warmth emanating from his adversary pulling him in was familiar. But not this way. It made him feel colder than he already was and he shifted in his seat.

But the little thing chirruped with a new kind of fondness Zhask hadn't heard from any one of them in a long while. Turning his head to look at it, his eyes met with those of Yve.

And for the first time in a long, long time, he began to cry.

Yve shook to her very core. She'd never had to comfort someone, especially since part of their grief was her own causing. But she had to do something, so she did what anybody did best.

She held him the best she could. One arm slung over his shoulder, the other still holding the spawn close between them. It was an awkward hug, but it was one of her very few and she knew Zhask shared that sentiment as well.

Upheavals of inexistent air escaped his lungs with every whimpering breath he took. His head lowered to rest on one of Yve's shoulders. His hands gripped her arms tightly, begging her never to let go of him, never to leave.

Yve felt his claws dig into her flesh but she didn't mind. For a moment they shared their pain, even if she'd never told him any of hers. But she knew he felt it too, and he did.

It wasn't after a long while that they released their hold on each other. Zhask pulled his knees up to his thorax whilst Yve knelt on hers. She put a hand on his shoulder, still cradling the little chitterer.

"Zhask," she began, eyes steady on him, voice as crystal as ever. "I'm sorry for what's happened to you. But that doesn't mean you're entirely forgiven for what you've done. You understand that don't you?"

Zhask lowered his head.

"But that doesn't mean you're broken forever, for I'll fix a deal with you." Yve took her hand off his shoulder and reached into one of her pockets, a resolve quickly forming in her mind. "You'll still have to fix the equilibrium you've damaged... and if you do then I promise, in the name of the Mithlorians, we'll help you in turn."

Zhask couldn't believe his ears. Was he... pardoned? In a sense it seemed he was.

He lifted his head in disbelief. Just what Yve wanted.

As such, she pulled out a small purple crystal from her pocket. "This is a Mithlorian heirloom," she stated. "A gift one should forever cherish. It is made of one of the innermost crystals of our realm. It is a sign of an unbreakable alliance, loyalty to the furthest extent. To receive it, is to receive our protection, in return of yourself."

She motioned for Zhask to hold out his hand, which he shakily did. "Today, on the day of your birth, you are reborn. Forevermore, you are now no longer the King of the Swarm, nor will you be the Planes Dominator."

And she placed the precious gemstone in his hand. "From now on, if you accept," she continued shakily, "you shall be Zhask, the embodiment of endurance, Herald of Redemption. You shall bring balance to the equilibrium once more and prevent it from ever falling to the wrong hands."

Yve began to stand and Zhask himself to kneel.

"If you would accept, Zhask."

The critter in her arm now jumped down onto the rock, an excited glimmer in its optic as Yve placed both her hands on his.

"To be... a Mithlorian."

Zhask could only choke out a strangled mewl. To receive such an honour, such a fresh start, it seemed all too good to be true.

And yet, a realisation popped into his head.

"Are you... proposing to me?"

"It is an uncommon Mithlorian tradition to betroth ourselves to our foes worthy of change, but a tradition nonetheless," Yve explained. "Two generations back, and many more farther, I have seen examples and they're still with us, guardians of the cosmos. Never have they brought upon failure, and always they have brought balance. Thus I may ask you, Zhask, on this well-fated day, to be one with me. To be one with us."

Zhask's eyes lit up unlike ever before. "Yve," he started, "ever since you first determined to hunt me down, ever since you first dared to attack me, I knew that one day I'd be caught. And on that day I swore that when such a day happened, I should confess no matter the peril."

He gripped Yve's hands tighter as he continued, slowly coming to his feet. "And today you have ensnared me. Thus, as Zhask, King of the Kastiyans, or what's left of them, I accept your proposal, and I hope that this pact we seal transcends farther than the reaches of the universe."

"Then arise, my champion, my honour, my king, for we both, in essence, were of the same wish at one point. Arise, and be one with mine, and with the equilibrium, in permanance."

And he arose to his full height. His chest puffed out with pride, he was a figurehead of confidence. His eyes once soaked with tears now beamed with love and adoration.

Repositioning his hands so their fingers were now interlocked, he began to pull his bride-to-be closer into an embrace.

And the crystal she had given him began to emanate a shimmer of light.

They both took notice of this and watched as it gleamed a bright and serene blue, seeping into both their very veins, straight to their hearts. And all at once, they both had been altered.

Where once was a mask now revealed a beauteous face, bright twilight eyes accentuated by violet lips. And where once was a beast of blue and red now stood a figura of blue and white, formed of the constellation of Cancer. In shock and awe, they both pulled apart from each other, eyes transfixed on what changes, mostly on Zhask, were produced.

And they both fell deeper in love with one another, as if their rivalry had never existed.

"Yve..."

"Zhask..."

Lest we forget about the little bug on the ground, indeed I do have to mention that it had stayed silent the entire time, its one optic too excited to process what had occured. Too in awe, it just sat there, watching the scene unfold as you and I.

Zhask held out his hand to Yve. As she held it, he knelt and kissed it with a tenderness he had never exhibited before. It was a fresh start, a new life, a partner for the first time in his life.

"This was the best birthday I'd ever had," he quipped, amused. "The best gift as well." He stood and held her in his arms; she chuckled and rested her head on his thorax.

All of a sudden, the little spawn chirped out a rhythmic beat and they pulled their eyes away from each other.

Before them came a rift in space-time. And from this rift, came a blinding flash of bright white light.

"Zhask," said Yve with a large smile on her face, "I think it's time we meet your in-laws."

And as the portal beckoned, so too did they follow, with the little spawn trailing behind.

-FIN-

[madlori]

Buddie fic update

Welcome to another Madlori Patented White-Hot Writing Frenzy. In like ten days I’ve banged out almost 30K on this story. I think I’m about...2/3 to 3/4 done. I’m on a bit of a clock since I’d like to release it well ahead of the season 6 premiere which is 9/19. I think I’ll make it. Anyway, here’s another teaser from early in the fic.

Title: Geologic Time Includes Now

Summary: Eddie and Buck decide to commit to being platonic domestic partners and co-parents. That’s it, that’s the fic. Slow burn like glacially slow.

----

“Eddie, I’d like you to imagine yourself in the future. Do you see yourself with a committed, long-term partner?”

“Yes,” Eddie said, right away.

“Describe who this person is to you.”

“Hmm. Like a teammate. Someone to make plans with, to run things by, to combine our resources. Someone to be sad with and happy with. Someone to…talk to. Someone I can take care of, who’ll take care of me. Someone who makes me feel safe, and who feels safe with me.” He nodded. That all felt right.

Frank smiled. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but in all that, you never mentioned love, sex or romance.”

Eddie blinked. “Huh.”

[edupunkn00b]

Matchr Ch. 4: set dark-mode enabled: true

Prev - set dark-mode enabled: true - Next - Masterpost - [ AO3 ]

Intrulogical Week 2021 - Day 4: Darkside Logan Nearly everyone has a dark mode setting that would be enabled given the proper conditions.

Fic rated M, this chapter T - CW: swearing, nudity, sexually suggestive - WC: 6535 ---

𝚂𝚘, 𝚖𝚢 𝚍𝚎𝚊𝚛 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚎𝚛, 𝚜𝚞𝚕𝚝𝚛𝚢 𝚜𝚞𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚛’𝚜 𝙺𝚗𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝… 💦 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚊𝚛𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐?

Logan nearly dropped his phone when he rushed to cover his mouth before a surprised laugh could escape. He quickly tapped back a reply.

𝙸 𝚜𝚊𝚕𝚞𝚝𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚂𝚢𝚕𝚟𝚒𝚊 𝙿𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚑 𝚛𝚎𝚏𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚗𝚌𝚎, 𝚑𝚘𝚠𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚝 𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚎𝚕𝚢 𝚜𝚙𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐.

He watched out of the corner of his eye as Remus’ device buzzed and he read his message. Remus smiled wickedly, and quickly tapped at his screen. After he sent the message, he looked up and gazed at Logan, one eyebrow raised.

𝚆𝚑𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚢 𝚋��� 𝚝𝚎𝚌𝚑𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚞𝚎, 𝙸'𝚍 𝚐𝚎𝚝 𝚑𝚘𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚋𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚗𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗 … 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚍𝚒𝚍𝚗’𝚝 𝚊𝚗𝚜𝚠𝚎𝚛 𝚖𝚢 𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗…

When his device vibrated, Logan blinked at the message and fought to suppress a grin. He quickly sent a response and smiled innocently, waiting for Remus to read it.

𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚜𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚋𝚎𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎 𝚢𝚘𝚞. 𝙸𝚏 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚠𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚝𝚘 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚠𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚊𝚖 𝚠𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚗𝚎𝚎𝚍 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚕𝚘𝚘𝚔…

Blushing, he nudged Remus with his shoulder. The taller man grinned back, waggling his eyebrows. Logan bit his lips, attempting to stifle the laughter trying to bubble its way to the surface. The security guard standing by the Blue Whale plaque a few yards away cleared his throat, glaring at them.

It was finally Wednesday evening and the pair had met for their second date at the Museum of Natural History for a members-only preview of the new gemstone exhibit. The presumably exclusive event had turned the ordinarily tame main hall into a raucous zoo of over-dressed patrons milling about with champagne glasses and under-chilled paté. The crowd mingled and gossiped while they took selfies in front of the T-Rex and feigned appreciation for the geological significance of an unpolished, six-thousand kilogram garnet.

Remus and Logan had spent ten torturous minutes braving the crowd before making their escape down to the quieter and cooler ocean life display. It was one of the older exhibits in the museum and, tonight, at least, was nearly empty. One other couple had also made their way out of the fray to take advantage of the relative calm of the surrounding sea dioramas. Still, the guard watched the two of them like a nervous chaperone, seeming to fear they would suddenly strip and start rutting right there on the polished wooden bench.

Remus’ phone buzzed and he quickly checked it. He mimed a disappointed look when he read Logan’s serious response. He slid a few inches away from Logan on the bench, eyeing him carefully. He began tapping at his phone, composing a new message. He wrote for a long time. At one point, Logan tried to peer over his shoulder to see what he was writing but Remus stuck out his tongue and twisted away, obscuring his screen from the shorter man’s view.

Rolling his eyes and grinning, Logan crossed his legs and pointedly stared out at the coral reef diorama in the nearest display case as Remus continued to tap away at his phone. Finally, Remus’ tapping ceased and Logan held his phone tightly in anticipation, waiting for the buzz that would alert him that he’d received Remus’ message. Finally, he felt his phone vibrate and after a moment, Remus playfully stomped his foot, staring at Logan. Pressing his lips tightly together to suppress his laughter, Logan made a show of counting to sixty before checking his phone.

Finally, he opened the message and began to read the rather lengthy text Remus had composed. He nearly dropped his phone when he got about fifty words in and Remus let out a sharp cackle before whispering, “Sorry!” to the guard, covering his mouth with his hand. Logan’s neck and face grew hot and before he’d even finished reading the message, he stood and tugged at Remus’ sleeve. He leaned close to his ear to whisper, “How about we get out of here and you can show me if you really mean that?”

Shimmying his shoulders, Remus purred back in his ear, “All you had to do was ask!”

Their muffled chuckles echoed through the lobby as they raced toward the exit hand-in-hand. Logan and Remus burst out laughing as they ran and pushed their way through the revolving doors, spilling out into the mild spring night. They caught their breath at the top of the steps, Logan hiding his face behind Remus' shoulder as passerbys stared at the pair in tuxedos behaving like children who'd escaped a field trip. Remus grinned and made an exaggerated shushing motion at one greying woman who glared at them as she walked her Shiba Inu. "Shhh!" he stage whispered. "Keep it down or our parents'll catch us."

Logan stiffened briefly and rubbed his crooked fingers. They still ached sometimes from the fractures that had never been properly set. He tried to force away the memory.

Seeming to notice Logan's sudden shift in mood, Remus turned and cupped his cheek. Logan closed his eyes as he placed his hand over Remus', capturing the warmth of the taller man's palm against his face. He smiled up at him and leaned closer, inhaling the soft musky fragrance of his cologne and the hint of cinnamon from his favorite mints.

Remus wrapped his other arm around Logan's waist, closing the distance between them and capturing his lips in a breathless kiss.

When they came up for air, Remus murmured against Logan's ear, his hot breath sending a cascade of goosebumps over his flesh. "Can I bring you home?"

"Y—yes," Logan croaked before clearing his throat. You can bring me anywhere. He shook his head slightly, grasping at his last tendrils of logical thought. "We'll have an easier time getting a Lyft or a cab if we get crosstown first." He tilted his chin toward the entrance of Central Park across the street. "It's a lovely night. We could cut across the park."

"Oh, Mr. Sanders! You're not trying to get me into the park for a little public indecency, are you?" Logan’s breath hitched and then he felt a flash of shame when Remus continued, shaking his head. “Oh, no, that’s wrong.” Remus let his hands fall down to Logan's hips and swayed them back and forth as he growled against Logan’s neck. "What I meant to say is 'please take me into the park for a little public indecency!'"

Logan’s voice momentarily failed him. Finally he managed to whisper back, “It would be unwise at this time of the night. NYPD has extra patrols after dark.’ Remus pulled back slightly and gazed into his eyes, a little pout tugging at his lower lip. Logan felt himself getting lost in those emerald pools. “Besides,” he continued, “I do not believe what you texted me would work outdoors.”

A half an hour later, they were mid-way through the park, and had stopped to admire the way the moon reflected off of Turtle Pond… and because Logan couldn’t resist the way the moonlight reflected off of Remus’ eyes and had drawn him into a kiss. Remus' hands felt hot against his body where he'd slipped them underneath his tuxedo jacket, seeming to burn through the cotton of his shirt. He’d started to melt into Remus’ embrace when a sudden sound drew his attention and he broke away.

“What’s wrong?” Remus asked, arms still wrapped around Logan’s waist as he turned, staring out at the poorly lit path around them. He’d just opened his mouth to respond when a gangly man in a worn leather jacket stepped out of the shadows, the glint of a knife flashing near his hip.

“Oye, lovebirds. Your wallets, now.”

Remus made a surprised sound as Logan stepped between him and the man with the knife. “I don’t think so. Move along.”

“Shut the fuck up, petardo, and gimme your fucking wallets!” The man lunged toward them. Logan grabbed his wrist and pulled him closer and he twisted the man’s hand up against his own chest, just puncturing his shirt with the tip of his own knife. Keeping his body between Remus and the man, Logan pressed his fingers into the soft juncture of his neck and shoulder and hissed quietly in his ear. “Maldito pendejo, lo tocas y desearías que solo te hubiero matado. Lárgate de aquí!” (You fucking idiot, touch him and you’ll wish that I’d only killed you. Get the fuck out of here.)

The man struggled, wincing as Logan’s fingers dug painfully into his shoulder. Logan calmly stared into his eyes, pushing the man’s hand and the tip of the knife against his ribs. His eyes widened and Logan could feel the tiny pop reverberate through the man’s hand as the tip of the sharp blade pierced his skin. The man dropped the knife and ran. Logan kicked the knife off the path and into the lake, then turned to Remus.

“Are you okay?” he asked as he reached up to cup Remus’ face in his hands. Logan’s brow furrowed as he searched his eyes, gently brushing his thumbs over Remus’ cheekbones, his lips. He felt the rock in his stomach soften when Remus’ mouth curled up in a smile.

“Holy fuck that was hot!” Remus bounced on the balls of his feet and squeezed Logan’s shoulders, looking him up and down with wide eyes. “What the fuck did you say to him? My Spanish is rusty, but I think I heard the word ‘dead?’”

Logan tried to laugh, shaking his head. “It—it was nothing. I—I just told him, um, that your dead grandmother’s rosary was in your wallet. I, um, I was just going for sympathy but I… I think it spooked him and he thought I was trying to curse him.”

“Damn,” Remus bit his lower lip, “We’re gonna have to find out what else you can say in Spanish.”

Looking up and down the dark path, Logan suppressed a shudder and forced the smile to remain on his lips. “If we start moving again, I can give you a preview… “ Remus grinned and tugged at Logan’s hand. Once they were several yards away and on a brighter section of the trail through the park, Logan whispered in his ear, “Vamos a follar hasta que no podamos caminar.”

Remus sucked in a breath and held his hand tighter. “I know half those words and they’re all good.”

---

Later that night, Logan lay wrapped in Remus’ arms, his back pressed against the heat of his chest. Logan was tracing the sharp, shadowed lines of his favorite part of Remus’ tattoo sleeves. It was a simple monochrome design that depicted a grinning, robed skeleton bearing the scales of justice, lifting the edge of his blindfold and peeking out. He smiled as Remus nuzzled the back of his neck, the bristles of his mustache sending sparks across Logan's skin.

Remus’ low voice rumbled against his back and it sent a fuzzy heat through his body. “Will you stay tonight?” He closed his eyes. Logan knew he should say no. He was too relaxed, too unfiltered, too raw around this man. It left him vulnerable and put him at risk of letting down his guard completely and making a mistake.

Remus turned him around in his embrace, a soft, hopeful smile lighting up his face.

No. Say no, Logan. Say no. No.

Steeling himself, Logan met Remus' dancing eyes and took a deep breath.

“Yes,” Logan whispered. “I’d love to stay.”

Wrapped in Remus’ arms, every cell in his body felt alive, each sensation overpowering his controls. Their heated skin, the fluffy cloud of the covers half-draped over their bodies, the sudden flex of Remus’ muscles as he leaned in to kiss his mouth… all of it roiled through his skin, his flesh, his bones. His heart swelled and he felt warmed from the inside out while his mind buzzed with a soft chant of Remus’ name.

Logan closed his eyes and let go, falling into their kiss.

---

It was nearly dawn when hunger finally lured them from Remus’ bedroom. Logan was swimming in a borrowed hoodie and pair of slightly too-long joggers. Remus had reluctantly slipped on a pair of fleece shorts only after Logan reminded him that the curtains were still open in the living room.

Remus poked around in his refrigerator and his freezer. “Do you like lasagna?” He pulled a wrapped package from the top shelf.

“Hmm… that appears to be home-made.”

Remus scoffed and pressed a hand to his chest. “Of course it is! Are you implying that writers can’t cook?”

Laughing, Logan laced his fingers behind Remus’ neck and pulled him down into a slow kiss, stopping only when the other suddenly broke away as the dish threatened to slip from his grip. “Will that suffice for an apology?”

“Ah, well... We’ll have to see,” Remus feigned a hurt look that was belied by the happy twitching of his mustache and the flush crawling from his chest and neck up to his hairline. “How about I get this in the oven… and then you can try your apology again?”

The moment Remus closed the oven door, Logan put one hand on his hip and the other gently twisted through his hair. He tugged at his body until Remus faced him and he hungrily captured his lips. Snaking one hand around Logan's waist and the other across his back, Remus drew their bodies closer together, deepening the kiss.

Suddenly, Remus stiffened, making a low whining sound in the back of his throat. Logan pulled away, wide eyes scanning Remus’ face. "What is it? Did I—did I hurt you?"

He shook his head rapidly, pulling him back into their embrace. "No, no, no, everything's fine, I—” he crushed their lips together again and Logan hummed happily.

Remus broke away again, a small frustrated groan bursting from his lips. "Ugh, I'm so sorry… I—I—” he fumbled at the countertop, reaching for a pen cup. "I just gotta write something down before it—" he made a floaty motion with his hand, then grinned when his fingers closed on a Sharpie.

A low, pleased laugh began to bubble up from Logan's chest as he released him. "Oh, of course…" Logan watched as Remus scribbled furiously on his hand with the marker. Once he ran out of room on his left hand, Remus switched, and continued his frantic scrawl on his right. Logan grinned and began to tug him toward his bedroom.

He steered him down the hall, toward his desk and storyboard and turned on the desk lamp, where Remus seamlessly picked up an index card, swapped the marker for a pen, and continued to write. Logan sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him with rapt attention.

After several minutes of writing, Remus began to tack some of the new cards up on his storyboard. He took a step back and peered at the board, head tilted. He suddenly leapt forward, shifting the red string from one pinned point to another. In a flurry of writing and sketching, Remus added more cards and attached them to the board, as well. Several of the existing cards ended up in a small stack in the corner of his desk, which Remus now shuffled through, sorting into three separate piles.

Logan watched him for a few more minutes and then wordlessly left the room. He returned a short while later with a handful of napkins, a large glass of ice water, and a cup of tea, setting them down on a clear spot at the far edge of the desk. While Logan was gone, Remus had pulled out a larger sheet of heavy paper and had begun to sketch with charcoal, a shadowed, interlocking pattern of what looked like stones now covering most of the page.

After several more minutes of sketching and note-taking, Logan squinted at the clock. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Remus actually drink anything, so he picked up a napkin and wrapped it around the glass to absorb the condensation on its surface. He stroked Remus’ arm and held out the water, smiling at his vacantly surprised expression. “Drink,” he said, as he nodded at the glass in his hand. Remus finished half of it in a few gulps before resuming his work.

The next two hours followed a similar pattern. Every thirty or so minutes, Logan would place either the water glass or the tea in Remus’ hand and he would drink greedily for a few seconds before returning his attention to the storyboard. About half-way through his explosion of creativity, the savory aroma of the baking lasagna wafted into the bedroom. Logan's stomach grumbled but Remus seemed unaffected. Logan went to the kitchen and peeled back the aluminum foil and allowed it to cook, uncovered, for five minutes more. Finally, he removed it from the oven and set it aside, loosely covered, and checked on Remus.

Remus was standing in front of his storyboard, one hand gripping three different colored pencils, the other tangled in his hair. He turned when Logan let a floorboard creak as he re-entered the room. “I’ve almost got it,” he whispered as though he feared speaking any louder would disrupt the cards set out on his desk.

Logan stood behind him and drew his arms around his waist, slowly stroking the smooth skin near his hips with his thumbs. He gave Remus a gentle squeeze and kissed his bare shoulder. “Would talking help?” he asked, just as quietly.

Licking his lips, eyes darting between the board and the cards in front of him, Remus nodded. He picked up a card and held it out in front of a tangled mass on the outer edge of the board. “I need the antagonist to get away with murder.” Logan stiffened, and Remus added, “Attempted murder. It’s too soon for the protagonist to know that the lab tech is really the scientist from the last book. I just need to slow her down, but she can’t actually die yet.” He bit his lip, turning to look at Logan. “And she can’t be suspicious. She has to think it’s an accident or….”

Logan furrowed his brow, “You could make her sick.”

“No, she’s healthy and able…”

“No, I mean, have the lab tech administer something that would make her ill. But not anything that would come up on a tox screen if she were to test herself.”

Remus nodded rapidly, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “Yeah! She’s totally the type to test her own blood as soon as she’s feeling under the weather.” He rolled his eyes. “Yeah, she’s maybe a little paranoid,” he laughed.

“It is not an unreasonable concern. Her lab tech is actually trying to poison her.” Logan winked at Remus.

His eyes were fixed again on the board and he leaned over, feeling for his laptop. “What can he give her, though, that she wouldn’t notice and that would make her sick enough to bench her for a chapter or two?” He opened the laptop and a fresh browser tab. Remus’ hands hovered over the keys as he gnawed at his lip, thinking.

“For how long do you need the illness to last?”

Chuckling, Remus joked, “I know. We’ll order one illness on drugstore.com, three to five days’ worth.”

Logan found the card on the board with each character’s breakdown. “No allergies?” he asked.

Remus sighed and shook his head.

“Does she drink coffee?”

“By the gallon.”

“Flavored coffee?” Logan raised an eyebrow.

Remus grinned and rubbed his hands together, “What are you thinking?”

“Cinnamon oil would be unlikely to come up on a tox screen unless she was specifically looking for it. If she is a habitual coffee drinker, and”—he pointed to her character card—”a heavy smoker, she won’t likely taste much of it. In the proper concentration, you could induce something akin to a diabetic coma.” He raised a finger when Remus scrunched his nose. “But she’s not actually diabetic, so she would recover as long as the initial dose was properly titrated.” He shrugged. “She’d only feel like she was dying. For a few days.”

Remus clapped his hands together, his mustache dancing over his grin as he beamed at Logan. “I like it!” He looked over the board. “That would give the antagonist time to clear out the evidence from his storage locker and—”

Logan shook his head. “He wouldn’t have a storage locker. Not at a reputable facility that would be sufficiently secure to hide anything important. It would be unwise to pay with a credit card—it’s too traceable. And the decent ones don’t take cash.” Logan shrugged. “If he’s smart, he’d rent a motel room for a few days while he needs a place to store the extra equipment.”

“Logan!” Remus grabbed him by the shoulders and kissed him fiercely. “You just saved me from a plot hole!” He stepped back, tugging at his mustache. “Or… Oh! That’s how he gets caught. Yes!” Remus scrawled something on another card and tacked it on the upper edge of the board. Engrossed in his process, Remus continued to fill index cards as he spoke. “That’s it! Fuck, yes! Oh, Logan! How do you feel about a fall wedding? You’re a keeper!”

Logan blushed and watched Remus write for a few more minutes. Finally, he gathered Remus’ empty glass and tea cup to refill them. In the kitchen, he set a timer for one hour, pledging to himself to make Remus stop to eat if he was still working when it sounded. Returning to Remus’ bedroom, Logan set down a fresh cup of tea and a full glass of water before settling into Remus’ desk chair with his own tea to watch Remus create.

---

Remus woke with a yawn that came out more like a groan. He was pleasantly warm, the room bright with sunshine diffused through the sheer curtains Logan had helped him select a few weeks ago. Over the last month or so, the pair had fallen into a comfortable pattern. Their dates would begin somewhere innocuous and, perhaps, a little tourist-y. Last week, it had been the South Street Seaport. Last night had been Lincoln Center. Wherever they met, inevitably, they would make their way back to Remus's apartment and the hours would slip away as they lost themselves in each other.

“Hmm, you’re awake,” Logan’s voice purred, quiet and low and gravelly. Remus closed his eyes and sighed contentedly as Logan tightened his arms around his body and nuzzled sleepily against his neck.

“Mm-hm…” Remus smiled, relishing the warmth of Logan’s body seeping through his skin. He sunk into the sensation, feeling their limbs meld together. His eyes snapped open when realized just how much he was feeling. “Oh! Well, good morning? Ah, are you, um…?”

A small laugh bubbled against Remus’ ear, the sound rumbling from deep in Logan’s throat. He hummed again, feather-light kisses against Remus’ back punctuating his words. “Waking up with you… amazing, sexy… naked in my arms… I believe it is an unavoidable condition.”

He held his breath as Logan’s hand gently brushed down his chest and his belly. Remus felt the man’s smile grow against his shoulder. “And I see it’s a mutual condition.” His cheeks flushed. “I must ask you a question, though…”

His low voice reverberated through the skin of Remus’ back. Breath caught in his throat, Remus managed to whisper, "Anything."

Logan pulled him closer and growled against the side of his neck, "What do you plan to do about it?"

Remus’ heart pounded in his chest. He rolled over and melted from the heat in Logan’s eyes. “Oh, I’ve got some ideas….”

---

Finally, the march of time and their undeniable need for a good scrub brought them back to a bit of reality. After a longer-than-strictly necessary shower, Logan helped Remus strip the bed of the wrinkled sheets, re-making it with a fresh set from the linen closet. Before replacing the pillows, Logan tugged at something caught between the mattress and the headboard and pulled out Remus’ weighted blanket.

“Oh, sorry," Remus mumbled. "Um, I’ll take that.” He looked down, blushing and hands twitching as he worked to fold the heavy material. He looked around for somewhere to stash it.

Logan smiled, “Weighted blankets are a valuable tool for managing anxiety. You needn’t hide it unless you wish to.” He stood near the foot of Remus’ bed and held out his hands, eyebrows raised. Remus brought it to him and Logan carefully laid the folded blanket over the foot of the bed, smoothing it out and tugging at the edges until it was perfectly symmetrical. “It will be easier to reach when you need it if you keep it out.”

Remus stared down at his bed. “Thanks, it… it looks nice like this.” His voice was rough but he smiled as he looped an arm around Logan’s waist and drew him closer. He cleared his throat. “Why don’t you relax while I make us some coffee? And maybe some breakfast? I’ve got bagels and stuff.”

Logan chuckled as he brushed a hand down Remus’ chest. “You do not need to serve me. I’m happy to help.”

“Nuh-huh.” Remus shook his head, now grinning. “Nope. You’re going to relax and I’m going to make you breakfast or lunch whatever the hell we should call it.”

He started toward the doorway and Logan began to follow so Remus spread his arms across the open door, playfully blocking the hallway. “You shall not pass!”

Laughing, Logan let out an exaggerated sigh and sat at Remus’ desk. “Fine….”

“There ya go… look, your phone’s right there. You can watch YouTube or something.” Logan laughed and shook his head, squealing in surprise when Remus snuck one more kiss against the back of his neck before escaping out to the kitchen.

Still smiling, Logan picked up his phone. After confirming his VPN was still running, he checked his email. There was a small flurry of auto-notifications from several buy and sell orders that a recent IPO series had triggered. He scanned each of them and saw nothing concerning. Having the discipline to follow through on the fact that no human being could actually have more perfect knowledge than the best stock market algorithms made his job simple sometimes. Once he'd made his human decisions around the small 10% he allotted for it in his portfolio, the remaining 90% was all automated, fully in the hands of the algorithm.

It had served him well, with the AI-managed portions of his portfolio consistently outperforming the other 10%, and dramatically outperforming the indices.

He set a reminder to check the Nikkei in twelve hours and gave his attention to the rest of his inbox. Sighing, he opened the email from his brother and called down the hall to Remus. “Patton sent another one.”

Remus entered the room with two cups of coffee. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Logan rolled his eyes and read from the screen. “‘What do you call an indecisive bee?’” Remus grinned and raised his eyebrows. Suppressing a groan, Logan accepted the coffee and muttered, “A maybe.”

Remus threw his head back, laughing. “I should’ve seen that one coming. Okay, send him this one…” He held Logan’s coffee for a moment to let him type his response. He wiggled in place for a moment, then laughed. “Okay, ‘Did you hear about the gullible cow who visited a tannery?’”

Logan shook his head, unable to stifle a groaning laugh. “Oh, this cannot end well.”

Remus bit his lip and grinned. “‘She was easily suede.’”

“You know, I could just give you Patton’s email address and you two could trade awful puns all day long and leave me out of it.”

Remus sat down next to Logan on the bed and returned his coffee. As soon as his hand was freed, he brushed back a lock of Logan’s still-damp hair and lightly kissed the shell of his ear. “But watching you roll your eyes at our corny jokes is half the fun.”

He kissed the side of his head and returned to the kitchen to finish cooking. Logan scrolled further down, deleting several messages without bothering to open them until he saw the subject Matchr Data Request/GDPR User Request Response #9293.

Logan opened the email and quickly scanned the standard mashup of marketspeak and legalese boilerplate. 'Thank you for your interest in the services we provide you at Matchr, the internet's top matching service. As part of our commitment to you and your privacy, here is a compilation of all data...

He paused at the size of the data file. 254.37 MB, zipped. Logan shook his head. That shouldn't be possible. How did you get your grubby little hands on that much data about me?

Logan flagged the email to review once he went home later that afternoon and closed his email just as Remus returned, smiling, carrying a tray of toasted bagels, a large bowl of strawberries and more coffee.

He set the tray on the side of the bed and, with a flourish, waved and snapped open a cloth napkin he'd had draped over his arm. Winking, he laid the napkin over Logan's lap, letting his fingers brush against his thighs as he did. "Oh, excuse me, sir," he said, before turning to reach for Logan's empty cup. Pushing aside all thoughts of emails and data files and puns, Logan pulled Remus onto his lap, laughing as he warned, "Watch out for the tray!"

---

Janus got to the office early the following Monday. The team was scheduled to meet their angel investors that afternoon and he hadn’t yet found the hook for their presentation. Once the rest of the team, including his garrulous assistant and his loving but incredibly distracting husband, arrived, no amount of concentration would grant him the focus he needed to properly prepare. He opened his office door and scowled when the motion detector in his office did not turn on the lights. He slapped at the switch on the wall and swore under his breath when the office remained dark. Leaving the door to slowly close behind him, Janus had taken one step toward his desk when his small banker’s lamp suddenly clicked on.

Logan Sanders sat in his tall leather chair, legs crossed at the ankle, feet propped on the edge of the desk. “You’ve been careless, Mr. Woods.” he said, not looking up as Janus stared at him, the door closing behind him with a quiet clunk. He hummed, adjusting his glasses as he flipped through a thick sheaf of printed algorithm output. “Rather more arrogant than strictly sloppy, though, I suppose.”

Janus’s eyes widened as he fumbled behind his back, grasping for the door handle.

“Don’t bother.” Gaze still fixed on the stack of papers in his lap, Logan raised a gloved hand and waved the tiny controller he must have found fastened to the underside of the middle desk drawer. “The remote electronic locks you had installed last year are quite effective.”

Pausing his perusal of the documents, Logan invited Janus to take a seat in front of his own desk. Janus eyed where the man's boots rested on its polished surface. "You needn't worry," Logan murmured without appearing to have looked up. "I ensured the soles are clean and won't leave any residue behind to mar your lovely desk here. Mahogany, is it?"

"Red ivorywood."

Logan chuckled. "Of course it is."

“How did you get into my office?” Janus began to mentally compile a list of security staff who would no longer be staff by the end of the day.

Logan rolled his eyes. “That’s a boring question." Janus just glared. "Fine. Not using your spouse's birthdate as a key code isn't just security advice for the straights, you know." Janus felt his face grow hot. Especially when your spouse's twin is fucking a madman, he thought to himself.

"Don’t you wonder why I’m here?” Logan asked.

“I would assume Remus has told you some of our shared history and you’re here for a little revenge?”

“Oh, I assure you, this is strictly business, Mr. Woods." Logan frowned slightly, eyes still fixed on the documents before him. "If I felt the need to have a personal discussion with you, I would have stopped by your apartment on 49th street.”

“Stay the fuck away from my home.”

“Hm, well that’s just like placing a book on a high shelf and telling no-one to read it.” Logan shook his head. “Regardless, your personal failings are not my concern at the moment. I’m here about your little algorithm and the data you use to feed it.”

Janus leaned back in his seat and waved his hand as though he stood before a presentation screen. “We have an excellent track record and, from what I observed a few weeks ago, seemed to have found you a compatible match.”

“Yes, Remus and I are incredibly compatible. Literally incredible. Nearly all of my internet usage is funneled through a VPN. It should not be possible for your little system to find even a mediocre match for me, let alone someone with whom I actually have anything in common.”

Janus leaned back in his chair, tucking his arm behind him on the back rest and crossing one leg over the other, ankle at the knee. "If I understand you correctly, you had a good time on your date and so you became suspicious because our matching algorithm was too effective? That would make a great ad." Janus tried to laugh but it came out sounding choked to even his own ears. Logan’s smile grew when Janus cleared his throat. "And so you requested your full data file and found activity that you knew you performed through a VPN."

"Not a VPN. Your VPN."

"What are you talking about?" Janus' eyes shifted around the office and he discretely laid his hand over the keys in his pocket.

"TwoFace VPN, of which you are the controlling owner."

Logan held up a financial report from the stack on his desk.

"Silent owner." Janus shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. He watched as Logan’s eyes flicked over to the tremor in his fingers and he delicately folded them in his lap. "Owner on paper only. I have no visibility or control over day to day operations."

"Yes, that is correct. Your control is restricted to contracts, such as this one which grants Matchr full access to all user activity from TwoFace VPN."

Janus paled but his voice remained steady. "Pure speculation."

Tutting quietly, Logan hefted the sheaf of reports in front of him. “As you well know from the data you’ve scraped from my VPN usage, it's part of my job to read between the lines in stock filings.”

“Fine,” Janus rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair, feigning boredom. “So you're bent out of shape that I know what porn sites you’ve visited and matched you to a compatible man. What's the problem?"

Logan chuckled without smiling, low and humorless. The sound made Janus’ skin crawl. “Oh, my quibble with the morality of your operation is the least of your problems. What sort of people do you suppose regularly use VPNs? You should know, they're not all trying to watch Friends on French Netflix as your advertisements might lead one to believe.”

He met Janus’ eyes, a slow smile spreading on his face. “What do you think would happen if someone actually dangerous were to be told that you had stored their VPN activity and could trace it back to them individually?”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Well, yes.” Logan raised his eyebrows as though surprised. “I thought that was obvious.”

“You’d release your own data just to pwn me?”

Logan fanned through the report on his lap, opening to a seemingly random page. “Oh, you didn’t think this was a printout of my data stored in your systems, did you?” He shook his head, brow furrowed as he adjusted his glasses then tapped at the report. “No, no, no, no, no. I have something different here.”

He began to read. “‘Gambino, Carlo. Matchr ID number 937673. From gambinoc_history_full.csv row 296. Query: “hookers near me”.’” He scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Fucking moron.” He continued to read.

“‘Row 297: “24 hour dry cleaner”.’” Logan met Janus’ eyes again while flipping through the report without looking. He resumed reading. Janus noticed that some of the pages in the report had been dogeared.

“‘Siegel, Bertrand.’” Logan pointed down at the report. “You probably know him as ‘Lil Bugsey.’ from his last racketeering trial. ‘Matchr ID number 535893. From siegelb_history_full.csv, row 917’”—he looked up briefly to raise an eyebrow at Janus—”Hm. ‘Query: “judge peter j. gable home address nyc.” Row 918, query: “directions to 222 east 39th murray hill”.’” Logan tilted his head briefly at Janus. “Interesting,” he murmured as he flipped to a new page without looking. He met Janus’ eyes, then began to read.

“‘King, Roman T. Matchr ID number 000004.’” Janus’ hands started to shake. “‘From kingrt_history_full.csv, row 118. Query: reverse lookup discord username:octodare.’” He frowned. “There’s an app for that, you know. A little tacky, though, don’t you think, to have your husband stalk your ex-boyfriend online?” He squinted at the printout. “Though… judging by the datetime stamp, my guess is this is before you were married.”

Janus narrowed his eyes, fingers digging into the armrest of his chair. “‘Row 119, query: whois dns lookup for 193.653.98.’” Logan paused, eyes trained on the report before him. “‘Row 120... Query: ‘crisis suicide text line us.’” Janus thought he heard Logan’s breath catch. He silently read the report for a few moments, then cleared his throat and flipped a few pages ahead. Logan resumed his recitation of Roman’s search history. “‘Row 2326. Query: herbal remedy erectile—’”

“That’s enough!” Janus stood, slamming his hands on the desk. Logan didn’t flinch. “You’ve made your point, Sanders.” He grit his teeth, fighting to lower his voice. “What do you want?”

“I want you to expunge all of my data. Every bit and byte of it. And I want proof that you’ve obliterated any shred of evidence of me or my data from your systems. After you’ve finished, you will grant me access to ensure you were thorough in your removal.”

“What makes you think I won't just store it elsewhere?”

Logan looked down at the report in his lap, then raised his eyebrow at him. “I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

Janus glared at Logan. He took a few deep breaths, consciously relaxing his jaw to stop grinding his teeth. He let out one more slow exhale and met Logan’s eyes. “Fine. Fine, whatever it is you're hiding… I'll make sure your information is off our servers. I will then allow you three supervised hours on our systems to poke and prod to your heart’s content.”

Logan nodded and began to lower his feet from the desk. Janus held up a hand.

“We’re not done yet.

“Whatever you may think you know about my personal history with Remus, you need to know that he is very dear to me.” Logan chuckled darkly, eyebrow raised, as he held up the picture sitting on Janus’ desk from his and Roman’s wedding. Janus sucked his teeth. “Remus… Remus is a better man than any of us." He looked down at his hands. "You need to be real with him, Sanders. Whichever ‘you’ is real, whether it’s the one he's falling for, or the one who breaks into people's offices to blackmail them, just…” Janus let his mask drop.

He leaned over the desk, getting as close to Logan as he dared. “Please just let him go if this is all a game to you. I know that look in his eyes. He's… He doesn't deserve to have his heart broken.” Janus’ eyes landed on the picture frame still in Logan’s gloved hands. “Not again.”

Janus straightened to his full height and crossed his arms in front of him. “Or, so help me, if you hurt that man… whatever the fuck we may have in these files that has you so concerned…” Janus shook his head and stared Logan in the eye. “I can guarantee that will be the least of your worries.”

Smirking, Logan raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a threat?”

“Well, yes. I thought that was obvious.”

---

taglist: @mavenmush @lunatatic @demon9980 @crossiantgay @psychedelicships @justmeandmygayships @ts-creator-boost @tsfanficarchive @bluerosesbleedred

[geraltrogerericduhautebellegarde]

Moonrock dildo prompt: Geralt works in a geological museum and Jaskier is a visitor and is fascinated by the phallic moonrock on display and asks Geralt everything about it, but he is so bad at flirting (sorry, 💖💖💖💖)

Ellie, you darling soul, this fic really got out of hand. I hope you like it cuz honestly... I wanna write more. 

Please forgive my rock knowledge, it’s spotty at best. I did a ton of research though so be gentle.

Shout out to Ellie for the line “Jaskier was quite gay”

Warnings: phallic moon rocks, discussion of dildos, flirting

-

The museum was quiet as Jaskier wandered through the large rooms, the only sound his footsteps echoing around him. No matter how many times he had suffered through donor tours because of his parent’s generosity, he didn’t think he would ever feel comfortable in an almost empty museum. The quiet was almost eerie and, although he knew there were security and other employees about, it always left him feeling incredibly lonely.

He was a social person, he liked company and talking and these museum walk throughs were never like that. He wouldn’t even get a docent who could tell him about the exhibits, he was just expected to wander aimlessly until he had to meet with whatever person was in charge of whatever thing his parents donated to this time.

Normally he could at least enjoy the paintings and sculptures as his parent’s favored art museums but this time, they had decided to put their money towards a small mineralogical and geological museum for… whatever reason, and he was bored. Sure, the rocks and minerals and stones and whatever else he was looking at, for he knew nothing of rocks and the like, were pretty but… they were rocks. And he was bored.

Thankfully though, it was a truly small museum and he was almost down to the last room, which was where he was to meet with the curator of the final collection, something to do with space rocks. Or maybe it was moon rocks. Truly, Jaskier didn’t know the difference and he wasn’t sure he really cared.

Humming absentmindedly to himself, Jaskier approached the archway leading into the last room of the museum. The first thing he noticed was how much larger the room was than all the other ones, even the ceiling was higher, and bearing a beautiful painting of the night sky. The second was how many more display cases there were here than in the other rooms.

Jaskier walked inside slowly, looking into the closest display cases eagerly, already more interested in this room than all those previous. He gazed into the first case, reading the card identifying the rock as a “Lunar Meteorite”. The rock was dark in color and filled with holes, rather plain really. Jaskier stood quietly, studying the rock. There was honestly nothing special about it, to him, other than the fact that it was from the moon, but if he hadn’t known that fact it certainly wasn’t something that would have drawn his eye.

Moving on, Jaskier directed his attention to a display case located in the center of the room. Walking up to it curiously, his brows drew together in confusion as he stared at the rock in front of him.

Jaskier tried to think of how to describe it other than phallic, but nothing came to mind. It looked like a dick. Looking at the description, he was surprised to see that it was recovered during a space mission. And there was also no mention of it’s rather surprising shape.

“Mr. Pankratz?” A deep voice inquired from behind him, shocking Jaskier. The voice echoed in the room, though not as loud as the squeak Jaskier let out as he spun around.

Standing in front of Jaskier was possibly the most beautiful man in existence. He was of a height with Jaskier, perhaps and inch or two taller. His brilliant white hair was pulled back into a low bun, showing off the undercut he was sporting. His jawline could cut marble, which looked to be what the rest of him was made of. The neat suit he was wearing accented the broad line of his shoulders and narrow taper of his waist.

Jaskier was quite gay, thank you very much, and being confronted with this absolute Adonis of a man was rather overwhelming.

“Uh… yes. Well, no. I mean, I am who you are looking for but please don’t call me Mr. Pankratz. Jaskier, if you don’t mind.”

The man grunted.

“Right… and should I assume you’re Dr. Rivia?” Jaskier asked as it became apparent.

“Yes.”

For as much as the man was most certainly handsome, he seemed equally unwilling to talk. Jaskier held out a hand, “Nice to meet you.” As the large, warm hand clasped him, Jaskier shivered involuntarily, thinking about better places that hand could be grabbing.

“Okay so you’re the curator, right? This is your exhibit?” Jaskier gestured vaguely at the impressive collection around him.

“I am. Have you gotten to look around, much?”  Dr. Rivia’s reply was short and brusque.

Jaskier hummed thoughtfully, glancing back at the case behind him, “Not in here, no. I was just looking at this one actually.”

Dr. Rivia hummed thoughtfully, looking at the case, “And do you like it?”

Did he… like it? Well, he was rather fond of dick. “I… don’t know. I actually have a lot of questions about it.”

“I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.”

Any questions he had… should he go for it? Eh, might as well, Jaskier decided, hoping the conversation wouldn’t get back to his parents. “Well… for starters, is there a reason it’s shaped like a dick?”

“According to the team that returned from the moon with it, that’s the shape it was found in.”

“So it naturally formed in the shape of a dick?” Jaskier couldn’t help but feel skeptical.

“That is what we are led to believe, yes.”

That wasn’t a particularly confident response, “And you believe it?”

The man hesitated before answering, “There is some documentation missing that would normally be filled out upon finding a specimen but we have no reason to believe it is anything other than organically formed.” Jaskier didn’t know Dr. Rivia but he would argue the look on his face screamed doubt.

“So you don’t believe it.”

Dr. Rivia did not respond.

Jaskier turned back to the case, looking at the rock again. His curiosity was peaked. Why would someone make it look like a dick? For the fun of it? As a joke? A dare? To be used?

“So… hypothetically speaking, would a rock like this be safe if used as a dildo?”

Dr. Rivia seemed startled by the question, “I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“But is it safe?”

Dr. Rivia’s brows furrowed, “In it’s current state? No.”

Well that probably ruled out it being used, “But it could be safe?”

“If someone wanted to turn a piece of anorthosite into a dildo then there would be ways to do so, yes.”

“That’s what kind of rock this is?”

“Yes. And it’s very rough, I wouldn’t recommend putting it anywhere in your body.”

“So… if there are moon dildos, is there moon lube to?”

“There aren’t moon dildos.” Jaskier laughed at the obvious exasperation present in the man’s voice.

“Well, maybe you can show me around the rest of the exhibit? To be honest, I know nothing about rocks and the rest of the museum has been rather boring. Maybe you could liven things up.” Jaskier stepped forward, giving the attractive man his best bedroom eyes.

Something flashed in the man’s eyes as the roamed over Jaskier’s body, settling on his lips. Jaskier bit his bottom lip, batting his eye lashes.

“Follow me. And call me Geralt.”

The man, Geralt, spun around, striding to a door labeled “Employees Only” and Jaskier hurried to follow, hoping there was a bathroom or a closet somewhere back there they could put to good use.

-

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