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[sprwiphonetips]

Deck - Uncovered An illustration of a medium-sized, traditional backyard deck without a cover

[milla-frenchy]

Morning waves

3k7 | Joel Miller x fem reader x Frankie Morales | ao3

Summary: you meet two men who are on a road trip. You like the same things: the ocean, surfing, dancing and having fun

Warnings: 18+ mdni. threesome MFM, praise kink, fingering, public sex, oral (m/f), piv, dp, anal play, rimming, anal, spit as lube, creampies

No age specified

a/n: this is a contribution to Jamie’s ocean challenge @mermaidgirl30 thank you for this great idea 👌🙏

I've wanted to write Frankie for a while, and even more so after reading “Down the hall” @frannyzooey 😍😍 and this challenge was perfect to introduce him as my new Pedro boy. 

Dividers @saradika-graphics 🙏

@aurorawritestoescape thank you for beta-ing, for the ideas, and for holding my hand with this one, as always 💕 🫶

Masterlist

*********

The first rays of sunshine were already warming you through the windows of your car. You were driving towards the ocean, ready to enjoy its waves. Every morning, very early, you were going to your favorite surf spot. This morning like the others, a few other surfers were also present. Between each set, you were all waiting on your boards, straddling them, letting yourself be carried away by their calm movement.

“You’re impressive”, you heard behind you.

You turned around, and met the most beautiful, sweetest brown eyes you had ever seen.

“Frankie, another set is coming.” You didn't look at the man who had spoken, immediately turning your gaze towards the horizon and new waves that were forming. You surfed that set and a few more. 

When you were returning to the beach, you saw the man called Frankie taking off his wetsuit. The man next to him was doing the same. They smiled at you, when you approached them.

“Hi! I’m Joel, and this is Frankie.”

“Hi, guys!”

“Nice waves!” Frankie’s smile was really sweet. And cute.

“Yeah! Where are you from? I’ve never seen you before. And with that drawl…Texas, I guess?”

Joel laughed and replied “yeah, Austin. We’re on a road trip. Coming from northern California, heading to the south. Are you from here?”

“Yeah, I live here. I’m on holidays, enjoying the ocean.”

“That’s great! Seems like heaven here. Do you know any cool bars? We’ve just arrived, and we’re gonna stay for some time in this place,” Frankie asked. 

“Yeah, there’s ‘The lagoon’. I'm gonna be there around 6 p.m., if you wanna join me?

“Sure! We’ll see you there.”

You spent the evening with them at the bar. Frankie and Joel had been friends for a long time, they told you about their trip, their lives in Texas. Joel worked as a contractor and Frankie was an ex-military, doing jobs with Joel from time to time. They were nice, cool, and made you laugh a lot. They were not flirty nor pushy, and you felt good and safe in their company.

Joel had a certain self-confidence, and was more direct than Frankie. His brown hair was shorter. His smile was devastating. Every evening, when the three of you met again, he wore jeans and a blue or black T-shirt which accentuated his torso and biceps.

Frankie was a little shyer. His slightly longer hair called for your fingers with its brown curls. His eyes and smile were incredibly soft. He often wore lighter pants, gray or brown t-shirts. A cap that he only took off to surf. Both men were beautiful.

You spent the next evenings with them, dancing and drinking shots at The lagoon. Every day you looked forward to seeing them at the beach, then at the bar. They were doing pretty well at surfing, asking for some advice from time to time, and making great progress. 

One night, the three of you were on the beach, hoping to catch some Northern Lights. And you weren't disappointed. The sky was colored with pink, purple and blue lights, while you were lying next to each other on the sand, a little closer than usual. And when Frankie kissed your forehead and Joel your cheek as you were lying on the blanket between them, you felt heat in your core. You saw them differently for the first time.

The Lagoon was crowded. You sat on a stool at the counter, sipping your cocktail until you saw Joel enter the bar. He smiled at you and you wondered how many hearts he had broken. He was so hot. He joined you, hugged you and said “hey, sweetheart” with his Texan drawl.

“Isn’t Frankie here?” you asked him.

“He should be soon. He went to get a tattoo.”

“What, now?”

“Yeah”, he laughed.

You two danced, his hands settled on your hips. Slightly more intimate than usual. He smelled good. He smelled like the sun and the beach. He ran his hand over your back, which your summer dress barely covered. And when your eyes met, something was different.

You walked back to the counter, and he was smiling as he was drinking his beer. His eyes were fixed on you.

“What?” You asked him, smiling too.

“You’re damn pretty, sweetheart.”

Your eyes widened slightly, hearing him. It was the first time he told you something like that. So directly. Even though last night, on the beach, the atmosphere was different between the three of you. Even though two minutes ago, when you were dancing, you felt the warmth of his fingers on your skin, and your hair stood up from the desire for him.

He waited for a few seconds, checking on your reaction. Took another sip. When he saw you smile at him again, he leaned towards you, his nose brushing against your cheek, his hand resting on your waist. You felt goosebumps again. Some electricity between you. And you saw in his eyes that he was feeling the same thing.

“Wanna have some fun tonight?”

You felt heat reach your cheeks but you nodded and murmured, “yeah.”

“Yeah?”

He got up, stood between your knees while you were still sitting on the stool, and leaned forward to kiss you. You felt your heart rate speed up. He placed his hands on your bare thighs and caressed them, slightly pushing the fabric up, as you ran your fingers over his biceps. Then he slipped one hand between your legs. Slowly. Stroking your inner thigh. You whimpered when his fingers brushed against your pussy through your panties.

“You want more, darlin’?”

“Yes, Joel...”

“You gonna let me finger you in here?” he asked, his cheek against yours. His soft beard against your skin.

“Yeah…”

He slid your panties to the side, and his fingers brushed against your folds, making you moan into his neck. He looked up and said, “hey, Frankie.”

You felt shy and tightened your thighs against his legs. He kissed your cheek then said in your ear, on the side where Frankie was standing to make sure he would hear “I’m sure he’d love to touch you too,” before looking back at you. His fingers were still brushing against your delicate skin, and you really wanted to feel him more. To calm the fire, burning you from the inside.

You looked at him, then turned your head towards Frankie. His stare was still soft, but not only. You saw the desire for you in his eyes. 

“Do it Frankie”, you told him. At that moment you didn't care about anything else anymore. The crowded bar. The people who could see you, and wonder what the three of you were doing. Or knowing too well what you were doing.

“Are you wet, baby?” Frankie asked.

You nodded and whined, the second Joel pushed a finger in your core.

“She’s soaked”, Joel said, nuzzling your neck, and you bit your lip. 

“Damn, baby,” Frankie moved closer, the two men now standing in front of you. When one of Frankie's fingers joined Joel's in your pussy, your fists clenched their shirts. One of them stroked your clit with his thumb, but you didn’t know who. It turned you on even more. Their fingers slid into your wetness, pumping your pussy at the same rhythm, and you tried to hold back your moans even if it was getting more and more difficult.

“You're gonna come for us?” You shook your head “I…I can’t. Not here. Too many people.”

“Forget about them. Soak our fingers, baby. And then we’ll have some time together in our van if you want.”

“Yeah…Yes. Fuck.” You felt their eyes fixed on you. They were close to you, so close, protecting you from the eyes of others. Your pussy tightened around their fingers and you were trembling more and more. You felt another thumb near your clit that soon replaced the other one, and whimpered. Your pussy was trickling, and they could have pushed more fingers in easily.

“Come for us, sweetheart. Right here, in this bar. God, you’re fucking hot.”

You bit your lip as you came on their fingers, your pussy clenching desperately on them. They kept fingering you through it, until one of them put your panties back in place, then your dress. You watched Joel lick his finger with a look full of desire, and your arousal increased even more. 

“Take me to your van, please. I need…I need more”, you breathed.

Frankie kissed your cheek, and Joel placed his hand on the small of your back as you got off the stool. Your legs were shaky and he held your elbow until you reached the parking lot then the van. Frankie offered to come to the back with him, on the mattress that they had already set up for the night, without knowing how it would end. You both lay there as Joel started driving. You didn't know where and right now you didn't care. Frankie was already leaning towards you, kissing your cheek then your neck. Your fingers ran through his soft curls. His hand rested against your face at first, then he brought it to his mouth. Licking the finger you had come on, just as Joel had done a few minutes before.

“Damn baby, you taste so good. Can I go down on you?”

“What, now?”

“Yeah. I’ll make you feel good, I promise.”

“Fuck…Ok.”

The van was swaying on a bumpy road when Frankie knelt between your thighs, and took off your dress, then your panties. He brought them to his nose and breathed them slowly, keeping his eyes on you, and the vision was intoxicating. The way they wanted you was driving you crazy. He turned the front of his cap backwards, and lay down between your thighs. He growled as he licked a long stripe between your folds.

“Jesus Christ, Frankie…you lucky bastard”, Joel said.

Frankie was already lapping at your pussy, and he was good at it. So good that you already felt a new orgasm building, while he was drinking all your wetness, his thumb twirling on your clit.

“Frankie…oh my god”, you whimpered. 

You heard Joel unzip his jeans and pull out his cock. “You’re so hot that Joel can’t help fisting his cock while driving, baby” he said, before licking your folds again.

“Fuck, of course I do. All these moans are killing me. How does she taste? Tell me.”

“The sweetest taste, man...” He grabbed your thighs to pull you closer to him. As if he wanted more, always more, and you couldn’t stop moaning.

“Jesus...” Joel growled, as you heard the sound of his wrist fucking his cock.

Your fingers were lost in Frankie’s brown curls, while his nose rubbed perfectly against your clit and his tongue roamed your pussy.

“Frankie…”

“Yeah baby, tell me.”

“Your fingers, please, need your fingers.”

“Like this, mmm?” he asked, pushing two fingers in you.

“Yeah…your tongue too, please.”

His lips surrounded your clit, sucking gently, before giving way to his tongue. His wrist gently pumped your pussy and you felt your wetness running down your folds to the sheets.

“Fuck, baby…I can hear the pretty little noises of your pussy from here, you’re so fucking wet.”

“I know, I know, oh my god, Frankie!” You squeezed his head between your thighs when you came, letting him lick your folds until you stopped shaking. The van's engine was off, but you didn't realize you had stopped. You heard the sound of the waves as Joel opened his door to join you in the back.

“Fuck sweetheart, look at that… he ate you good, huh?”

“Yeah, yeah…fuck”, you breathed out.

Frankie shifted aside slightly and Joel lay down, his shoulders between your knees. He caressed your folded thighs, and delicately licked your wetness, being careful not to stimulate your overly sensitive clit.

“You taste so fuckin’ good, darlin’. Lemme eat ya just a little, ok? “ he said, moving his hand up your sweaty stomach, to a breast that he grabbed. Frankie kissed your thigh, while he caressed your other breast. You moaned again, your stomach rising rapidly with your heavy breathing. Joel’s beard rubbed against your inner thighs. He ran his tongue flat through your folds, sometimes down to your tight ring. Before going back up again, tirelessly. You imagined their hard cocks and you couldn’t wait to feel them in you. 

“You want us to fuck you, baby?”

You nodded, “yeah, need your cocks.”

“Damn, could do this for hours. How do you want us?”

“I huh… I don’t know, I’ve never done that…with two men.”

They looked at each other then Frankie said “we’re gonna undress and we’ll see how it goes, ok?”

“Yeah, seems good.”

“If you’re not comfortable with something, you tell us right away, ok? We’re all here to have fun. Ok, darlin’?”

You nodded and smiled. They were so considerate and careful with you. You helped Frankie unzip his pants and take them off, then his boxers, and held your breath when you saw his cock. “We’ll go slow,  baby”. “We?” You widened your eyes and turned to Joel, already in his underwear, taking off his t-shirt. “Oh fuck”, you said when you saw his bulge. You brushed his crotch and he spread his thighs wider. He was so hard, and so big too. You whispered “fuck...” again, before getting on all fours, facing him. You took his cock out of his boxers, the precum glistening on his red tip. You spread it with your thumb and jerked his cock, while Frankie was caressing the roundness of your buttocks, kneeling behind you. You licked the tip, letting Joel’s taste run down your mouth and then your throat.

“You’re ready for me, baby?”

“Yes, Frankie.”

He nestled his cock at your entrance, pushing in. You whined when he thrust deeper, gripping your hips as leverage. And for a minute you didn’t move, Joel’s cock in your hand, catching your breath. Frankie kept thrusting until he bottomed out. Pushing on your walls.  And you started to suck Joel’s cock, his hands on your head, but letting you lead the pace.

You moved your hips back and forth, fucking yourself on Frankie’s cock. He wasn’t moving, letting you lead too. Your mouth on Joel’s shaft followed the movement of your hips at the same pace as you impaled yourself on the cock, piercing you.

“Fuck, fuck. Sucking me so good.”

“Fuck, baby. You’re so tight. So good for my cock.” You loved how they were praising you. Frankie’s hands roamed your body. Your back, your waist, your hips, as your thumbs caressed Joel’s balls, your head still bobbing on his shaft, your lips gradually getting used to his size.

You pulled him out of your mouth and licked his tip, looking at him you asked, “Frankie, will you let Joel fuck me?”

“Of course, anything you want.”

You lay on your back, inviting Joel to come between your thighs. He lay there, his cock in his hand, and pushed in. Frankie lay against you, and turned your face towards him. Kissing you as Joel thrust in.

“Damn, sweetheart…Frankie was right, you’re so tight. Squeezing me so hard, fuck…”

You whined in Frankie’s mouth while Joel was kissing your neck. He thrust in slowly before pulling back. Repeating the movement endlessly, while your legs spread wide gave him full access. Frankie leaned down and took one of your breasts in his hand, sucking on the nipple, his lips wrapped around it. Joel gave you a forehead kiss, his thick cock buried in you. Sometimes Frankie would slide his hand up to your clit, rubbing it lightly, and your pussy would contract on Joel's cock, making him groan. Their mouths and hands were brushing your skin constantly. 

They took turns between your legs, drawing two new orgasms out of you. Seeing them, feeling them fucking you, one then the other, was turning you on desperately and your pussy was weeping. When one of them was kissing you, searching for your tongue with his, the other was kissing your neck, your cheek, sucking a nipple. You loved feeling their mouths on you at the same time.

They fucked you, one then the other, and they never seemed to get tired, filling your pussy perfectly each in their own way. Until you wanted more, and needed more.

“More? Tell us what you want, sweetheart.”

“I want you both…at the same time.”

“Oh, baby. You want our two cocks filling your two holes?” said Frankie, his cock buried in your cunt.

“Yeah, I’d like to try…”

“It’s ok, baby. We’ll go slow.”

“Yeah. Frankie?”

Frankie nodded, pulling out of you. 

“Get on me, sweetheart.”

Joel lay on his back and you straddled him, grabbing his cock and sinking on it. You brushed his cheek and kissed him, before pressing your chest against his, giving free access to Frankie.

He spread your buttocks, your ring was glistening by the wetness that had been flowing there continuously. He passed his thumb slowly, lingering very lightly over it, as you rolled your pelvis slowly towards Joel. Then Frankie leaned down and started to lick it, pointing his tongue against your tight muscle. His hands now gripping your ass, he softened it under the tip of his tongue. Sometimes dropping his saliva on it, and lightly pushing his thumb in. Then a little deeper. He did it patiently, taking his time to prepare you. He was feeling his cock twitching. Your head resting on Joel's shoulder, you were moaning continuously, overwhelmed by the cock in your pussy, and the tongue opening you little by little. They were so hot, they took care of you so well since the start of the evening at the Lagoon. Attentive to your desires, to your reactions. Slightly changing the pace or position depending on your respiration, the pressure of your hands.

Eventually, Frankie pulled away. “You still want it, baby?”

“Yes, yes. Just…go slow, please, Frankie.”

“Of course. Lemme wet my cock in her pussy a little, Joel”, he asked. You pulled away from Joel slightly and he pulled out, his cock rubbing against your clit. Frankie pushed his cock easily in your dripping pussy, fucking it with one hand on your hip, and his thumb on your ass. Joel placed his hand on your neck, his forehead against yours, and murmured “you gonna take us both, sweetheart?”

“Fuck, yeah…Yeah, I’m gonna take you both, oh my god I can’t believe it’s happening…”

Franck grabbed his cock in his hand, and positioned it against your ring.

“Kiss me, sweetheart”, Joel muttured, stroking your hair. You looked up at him, his hands cupping your cheeks before coming to press his lips to yours. Quickly, his tongue sought yours, just as Frankie pushed in. You felt the muscle resisting at first, then gradually giving up. You whined in Joel’s mouth, his tongue never stopping brushing yours. You knew he wanted to make you forget the pain. Then he nibbled one of your lips, before licking it. Kissing you again. Until Frankie bottomed out, his balls against Joel's cock. He didn't stay buried and pulled back as slowly, before thrusting in again.

“Oh, fuck. Baby…it’s so good, fuck…”

“I can feel your cock Frankie, damn…are you ok, sweetheart?”

You nodded, unable to speak. Overwhelmed by all these emotions you were feeling. Your body was in the middle of theirs, and you felt fulfilled. Their hands were all over your upper body. Frankie’s mouth placed a thousand kisses on your shoulder blades and the back of your neck. Joel's hands caressed your breasts, your ass, your thighs. You heard them grunt and moan, in turn or together. You felt a new orgasm building, from rubbing your clit against Joel's lower abdomen.

“I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come”, you whined.

“Come on baby, come again. Fuck, your ass is so good, baby.”

“Come on our cocks, sweetheart. Then we’ll fill you up. We’ll fill that pussy and that ass.”

“Oh fuck”, you whimpered, coming on their cocks, clenching them. You wondered if you hadn’t fainted, for a moment. 

You heard Frankie growling, and Joel calling you a “good girl”, just before he pulsed as deep as possible in you, followed by Frankie. 

You all froze, panting. Catching your breath. Then Frankie pulled back, placing one last kiss on your back. You pulled away from Joel after kissing him, and you lay against him. Frankie lay against you on the other side, spooning you, his hand on your hip. Their cum flowing from both of your sore holes.

You slept there, sometimes waking up during the night, feeling their bodies against yours or their arms around you. Snuggling against one of them then the other. 

When the rays of the sun woke the three of you and Frankie opened the van door, you had a direct view of the ocean. Its color was perfect. The most beautiful blue. And also these pastel, pink colors of the sky, at dawn. 

You spent the day with them. You surfed, took photos. Frankie’s freshly tattooed forearm with the word “adventure.” You looked at them so many times during that day. And every time your eyes met, you all blushed and giggled, thinking about the night you had spent.

You returned to the Lagoon, and didn't leave them until they finally gave up on the idea of going all the way to Southern California. They called you “our girl”. Their hands, tongues and cocks roaming every inch of your body, just as yours on theirs. They stayed with you until they had to return to Texas.

The day before, Frankie went to get another tattoo. Joel told you Frankie always got one at every place they visit, a tattoo of the best thing there. He showed it to you when he came back: a surfboard with your name on it. You hugged him so tight that he could barely breathe and couldn’t stop laughing, squeezed by your arms.

At the airport, they held you until the last minute. And your heart sank when they left.

A few months later, you were sitting at the same airport. Ready to board for Austin. So that they, in turn, could introduce you to their lives.

You looked at the sun through the large windows of the airport, and smiled. Life offers good surprises sometimes. Yours was Joel and Frankie.

Thank you for reading 🙏

***************

another Joel/reader/Frankie fic (different AU): Morning waves

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[tgrailwar-zero]

I think we also need to remember why we've been working hard to do our best during the Bout. We entered cause Kuku was interested, and we are fighting harder cause it's our best chance to secure an audience with the Pharoah. But if we go and do reconnaissance, sabotage, or anything else in Red Team territory, that drops our chances of talking with Cleopatra or getting Ajuna's last gift, either of which could be game changing for us. However, none of that will matter if a war starts before we can talk with Cleopatra or Duryodhana.

You watched as AVENGER stepped forth.

SALIERI: "The Bout? Damn the Bout! War is on the horizon!"

He had been stewing for a little bit, though this seemed… sudden. Or maybe it was just his frustration suddenly coming to a boil- with his helm on, you couldn't really tell.

SALIERI: "You speak of sparing the good… Foreigner… MoonCancer… Gunner… they were 'good' as well- and they were all destroyed! Now this Red Saber threatens more and more! He turns your allies into weapons, he gathers up land for his dominion, and we stand here and do nothing! If you don't wish to kill him, then I will! First him, then Red Caster, then the rest! And yet, instead of blazing a path to his demise, we're just dithering around! Worried about some contest, worried about Charlemagne's feelings and the sensitivities of his little pawns, worried about everything except what is important!"

CONSTANTINE: "That's enough ranting, Avenger! We won't get anywhere with fire and brimstone, we have to be rational about this."

SALIERI: "We won't get anywhere if we don't move in the first place! Aren't our contractors tired of constantly being on the back foot? Being pawns for some larger force, being made to sit and wait while the gears of the world turn without their input!"

CONSTANTINE: "That's enough."

SALIERI: "I'll come for your head too, Red Rider, warfare's greatest failure."

CONSTANTINE: "I dare you to try, blackguard."

KUKULKAN: "Both of you, stop it!"

The RULER put out a hand, stopping the INVADER before she could step between the two.

GIUSEPPE: "Hold, Invader. Best not to get involved… he's an Avenger, his mere presence can amplify one's hatred, and it seems like Rider's own frustrations are already getting riled up. The more of us that get involved, the more messy this may become."

He pointed a clawed finger at you.

SALIERI: "Enough chatter! We settle this now! What do we intend to do with the Red Saber? Do you wish to walk a path of reluctance, or a path of resolve?"

CONSTANTINE: "You know what- fine. This will help us decide where to plan going onward. At the core of the matter, what is it that we intend to do?"

[reasonsforhope]

Across New York City, delivery drivers are a ubiquitous sight: congregating outside big restaurant chains waiting to collect orders, zooming through the city streets with orders in tow. “The most chaotic time for deliveries is easily during lunch time,” says Elijah Williams, who delivers food for both Uber and DoorDash. “I’ve had up to four orders at one time.” 

Mayor Eric Adams recently announced a major change that will deeply impact busy workers like Williams: app-based delivery workers will be paid $17.96 an hour starting July 12th — and nearly $20 an hour by 2025 — marking the nation’s first minimum pay for such workers.

“Our delivery workers have consistently delivered for us — now, we are delivering for them,” he said. “They should not be delivering food to your household, if they can’t put food on the plate in their household.”

The Background

Mayor Adams made the announcement at City Hall, surrounded by delivery workers as well as members of the nonprofit organizations, Workers Justice Project (WJP) and Los Deliveristas Unidos.

Ligia Guallpa, executive director of WJP, expressed her excitement and gratitude.

“This first of its kind minimum pay rate will uplift working and immigrant families,” said [Ligia Guallpa of Workers Justice Project (WJP)] alongside Gustavo Ajche of Los Deliveristas Unidos. “[It will] ensure that workers who keep New Yorkers fed, are able to keep also their families fed too.”

WJP was founded in 2010, and coordinates numerous worker-led programs, including Los Deliveristas Unidos, that aim to improve conditions for low-wage immigrant workers across the five boroughs.

The Details

The current minimum wage in New York is $15 an hour. On average, service workers are paid $7.09 an hour, excluding tips. The new wage is in keeping with a law passed by the City Council in 2021, which requires the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to set a standard minimum rate for delivery workers.

App-based delivery workers are classified as “independent contractors,” which means they’re not entitled to the standard minimum wage that applies to salaried employees’ pay. Instead, delivery workers who work for the big food delivery services, like Uber Eats and Relay, are entitled to just $2.13 an hour before tips — a so-called “tipped sub-minimum wage.”

Research has shown that getting rid of tipped sub-minimum wages benefits not just the workers getting the raise, but the economy as a whole. A 2021 analysis found that states without a tipped sub-minimum wage saw 29 percent growth in their leisure and hospitality sectors, compared to just six percent in states that used the federal tipped sub-minimum wage of $2.13.

...For many of the workers who face hostile roads and unpredictable weather conditions to get New Yorkers their ordered goods, this is a life-changing development.

“This is my full-time job. I get up every day and do this,” says delivery driver Justin Martinez outside the Chick-Fil-A in Washington Heights. 

Martinez, 30, is originally from the Dominican Republic. His commitment to completing deliveries, he explains, is fueled by his love for his family.

“This is my way to contribute. I go out, 9, 10 hours a day, do deliveries, and then I can come home,” he says. Martinez first started driving for Uber in 2019 before transitioning to delivering food for Uber Eats and other apps in 2021. He’s excited for the pay wage increase: “Maybe now, I only [have to] go out for 6 hours.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, June 30, 2023

[ghostjelliess]

Ways humans haven't changed in five thousand years:

Take out food is better

Pets, am I right

Graffiti about someone's mom

Believing the world is ending

Hating contractors and politicans

Getting scammed (you know who)

Fan fic and fan art

Fighting about said fan fic/fan art

Reality TV gossip over celebrities/ weight of the court of public opinion

Being proud of a tiny art you made

Bartering market prices

Physical fights over said prices

Youth slang

Beloved melodies and lullabies

Cultural infatuation with a musician

Bars and all that comes with them

Rich kids being menaces

Farmers fighting doctors

Absolute hatred toward one particular hell spawn of an animal (coyote stealing chickens, groundhog burrowing cabbages, rabbits eating Erdbeeren, neighbors, etc.)

Mother's arching brows at the audacity of their own kids

Hiding knives from babies; making baby toys cute™

Patching together Jerry rigged solutions to fix the problem later (and never fixing it)

Telling the same story of your own heroics until your friends roll their eyes and summarize it for you

Staring at the clouds/stars/fire/horizon

You get it. We're not so different from our ancestors, and there's something so loveable and encouraging about that to me. Beyond the survival, the chores we still have to do even if they're easier in some ways and harder in others (laundry, acquiring clothes, food, etc.), there's the humanness of experience and imagination, exploration and entertainment, that I find so hopeful and motivating whenever I feel existentially down about our current world.

Yes we should work to fix things, but when it feels too broken to try, I just remember all the people laughing and hugging and running to boat/train/art ports to meet loved ones and bickering with weird uncles over big tables and it feels okay. Yes we should clean up ourselves, but we're just another layer of human stratigraphy, and when the stars feel too heavy and infinite and you're tired of screaming your existence, it's sometimes nice to remember you will rest among your peers in beds of dirt atop your parents atop their parents atop their parents, eaten by the corn to feed our descendants that walk above you. There's a beautiful companionship to me, a camaraderie of survival that chases away the lonely isolation and eases the weight of the world.

[yokowan]

The year is 1951. You are a civilian contractor working on the American Lunar Settlement Jefferson. You are sitting in a break room overlooking the crater rim drinking a beer ration pawned off one of the military guys and smoking a pack of Camels to help ease your moon dust cough. The far side of the crater seems to glisten as it catches the low angle sun on the horizon. You listen to the low droning of the air filter system that you normally tune out, just to drown out all the thoughts about life back home. Somehow, this is the best things ever get.

[nicklloydnow]

“It was during the four or five years of moving around restlessly, concentrating on the 'distant horizon', that I developed the mental trick of brushing aside the worm's eye view. Van Gooh's affirmation-experiences were never subjected to logical analysis, so that he could never be sure, looking back on them later, whether they were not simply bursts of emotional euphoria, with no objective significance. Once I had got used to the idea that the insight had nothing to do with emotion—that it was always a vision of the same landscape—this kind of doubt ceased to be an important factor.

This 'vision' of my 'wanderjahre' period was not a consummation, like an orgasm; it always produced a strong sense that I was only at the beginning. The next problem was to map the landscape, to explain the mechanisms of consciousness and the way they can lead to affirmation-experiences or to morbid paranoia. This proved to be harder than I had anticipated, because ordinary psychology, of the kind created by Freud and Jung, proved to be quite useless. Existentialism provided a better starting point, but that was equally frustrating because the major figures—Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Camus—were as riddled with pessimism and the 'passive fallacy' as Beckett. Sartre's world-negation seemed to me as unperceptive as Graham Greene's, merely a sign of an inability to think clearly. He keeps confusing consciousness as a general concept with personality-consciousness. So that Simone de Beauvoir can write (in Pyrrhus and Cinéas): I look at myself in vain in a mirror, tell myself my own story, I can never grasp myself as an entire object, I experience in myself the emptiness that is myself, I feel that I am not', and imagine that she is describing a general characteristic of all consciousness, instead of ordinary superficial mono-consciousness. As soon as one reads Mile de Beauvoir's volumes of autobiography, or Sartre's Words, one can see exactly why they made this basic error; neither of them possess that capacity for poetic experience—affirmation-consciousness—that came so naturally to Wordsworth.

And the chief characteristic of the opposite of affirmation consciousness—I suppose one might call it depression-consciousness—is that when you are in it, it seems totally convincing; like a very brilliant liar, it can account for everything in its own terms. Aldous Huxley invented the rather useful term 'minimum working hypothesis' about religion—i.e. what can we state definitely about it without going off into 'faith' or speculation. Well, the minimum-working-hypothesis for depression-consciousness is that the world is real and permanent, and we are not very real and not very permanent. (One of the most convincing expressions of it in literature is Wells's Mind at the End of its Tether, that final work in which he thought the universe was falling to pieces.)

At this point, it might seem relevant to ask the question: What about death? Does this fundamentally optimistic philosophy have anything to say about the final problem? If not, then surely it has no right to condemn Sartre, Greene, Beckett and the rest for being short-sighted?

This is not quite so. Although I do not believe the question of death to be ultimately beyond human solution, it is not particularly relevant at this point anyway. Suppose I were a building contractor, and I say: I think it would take me about two years to erect a thirty storey building,' and someone replies: 'Oh no, because you might die at any moment', this would quite clearly be a logical non sequitur. What I am stating here is that the greatest human mistake is the belief that ‘the natural wakeful life of the ego is a perceiving'—in Husserl's phrase. It isn't. At least, the normal understanding of this idea involves a fallacy; that perceiving is a passive occupation, like sleeping. I have tried to show that this mistake arises from the efficiency of our human robot. This robot might be compared to a super tax-accountant, who is so efficient that he gets his hands on all your money before you receive it yourself, and deducts tax for you, so that you never have any tax bills. And when people mention tax, you say with sincerity: I've never paid any in my life.' The flat truth is that you are too stupid to understand your own business affairs. However, your invisible tax-accountant is completely dependent on you. If you stop earning money, he won't be able to support you. The same is true of the robot. The energy that sustains your everyday perception comes from you. So do those bonuses of duo-consciousness, that startle you as pleasantly as a tax rebate. What human beings will slowly develop, as we advance up the evolutionary scale, is a deepening consciousness of these transactions of the robot, so that the chance element disappears from the ups and downs of consciousness. And eventually the problem of death itself will come within the range of our self-knowledge for any doctor will confirm that the body's health depends, in some strange way, upon the mind. And, at the present stage, this is all it is possible to say.

To summarise. All great changes involve a doldrums period, a time of fallowness. When a backward country changes over from agriculture to industry, the immediate result is misery and starvation for farm workers. The human race has been going into a new phase of evolution at a steadily accelerating pace, and the end is now in sight. Man deliberately abandoned the warm richness of animal consciousness for something altogether bleaker and harder. He has not done it deliberately and determinedly, but in brief spurts, with many backslidings. His attempt to conquer nature and improve his position have made life so complicated that the old phrase about the 'gift of life' begins to take on ironic overtones. Laziness and timidity are no longer qualities that can be tolerated by the force behind evolution. Human beings of the 21st century will be born into a forbidding world: a civilisation that is immense, aloof, heartless and highly mechanised. Men of genius will find it a frightening world, for it will look so impersonal and vast that there will seem to be no room for individuality. Roads to the top will be well marked, but they will involve a discouraging amount of specialisation, of adjustment to the demands of mass-organisation. And since men of genius naturally hate to conform, it seems likely that the present tendency to negative revolt will increase, as they fire off blasts of loathing at the clockwork octopus that holds them fast. This will only make things worse, for nothing destroys the will quicker than the conviction that there is no point in willing. It looks like a vicious circle; there seems every reason to assume that human beings have chosen a self-destructive route to dominance, and that things are bound to get worse, until the whole miserable chaos explodes and we plunge back into a relaxing barbarism.

This is why it has become so important that we grasp what is happening. Human consciousness has been on half-rations for a long time now; but in an important sense, this is by our own choice as a man might fast to lose weight, or save money to finance a business. A point has arrived where we can afford to reap the first harvest. Because we have not permanently forsworn the warmth and richness of animal consciousness. We have set out to develop ways in which we can have the enrichment without its dis-advantages: laziness, incompetence, lack of purpose. We chose purpose, and accepted the sudden drop in the pressure of consciousness that went with it. The east always found it easier to achieve ecstasy than the west, because the eastern temperament tends to be less purposive (this may not continue to be true, though), and so far, that has been the equation that governs human existence: purpose and the tightening of the belt, or happiness and drifting. But expressed in this way, we can see that it does not have to be so. We left purpose to the robot, because consciousness had to be economised: we had to use it for immediate problems. And now a time has come when it is not only true that we can afford to relax—and take the horse out of its harness—but when it has become a matter of urgency that we do so. The new complexity of our civilisation demands a more leisurely, enriched type of consciousness. The old obsessive energy must be turned into self-knowledge, the attempt to illuminate the realm of the robot, to gain conscious control of its vast resources of power.

For I must repeat the assertion with which I began: we possess such immense resources of power that pessimism is a laughable absurdity. Yeats's old Chinamen are gay because they know. They have broken through. They no longer suspect—as Faust does—that knowledge may be the death of us, by revealing new vistas of futility, and the ultimate impossibility of knowing anything at all. They have pushed knowledge further still: and what they now know fills them with a tremendous, quiet satis-faction. That is why 'their ancient, glittering eyes are gay'.

Why do I believe that this is the crucial point in human evolution? Why not in the year 2000 or 25000?

There are two reasons, and I have already discussed the first: that we can choose when we shall turn the questing intellect that has built the cyclotron and the moon rocket to the scientific exploration of man's inner being. And now is a good time to choose—now that there is more leisure available to more people than at any time in history.

But I also believe that the inner forces of history are pushing us towards the moment of choice. Man has been having 'mystical' experiences for as far back as written records extend; but they were restricted to a few rare souls. In the 19th century, we suddenly discover what can only be called a mass hunger for mystical experience that is, for rejection of the imperatives of everyday existence and for an intenser form of inner-experience. Romanticism is the expression of a deep instinctive desire for the life of the mind, and we are still in the midst of the romantic period. The stomach of the romantic rejects everyday existence as Bombard's stomach rejected the squashed fish; but he has no clear idea of an alternative to it. Like Wagner, he believes that the world of the mind is based upon 'wahn', illusion, and that to reject "life' is the same thing as choosing death. What he is failing to grasp is that human beings are the only terrestrial creatures for whom the word 'life' has two distinct meanings. For an animal, 'life' is what it sees when it opens its eyes in the morning; that is all. But even a fairly unintellegent human being—let us say, a provincial lad on his way to see the Cup Final in London—can say 'Eh, lad, this is life!', and mean that he suddenly perceives that 'life' means something bigger than his individual life. Human beings are the only creatures with some ability to grasp 'life' in this bigger sense. And this is the aim of our evolution, the purpose for which we rejected animal 'oneness' with nature. We are capable— in theory—of living 'life' in the broader sense.

The trouble is that our habits are against it. Imagine a soldier from Napoleon's army, returning from the Russian campaign to his small village where nothing ever happens. He sees clearly that these people are wasting their lives by living so narrowly; he knows 'life' is bigger. But if he stays in the village for six months or so, he too will forget this broader life, and allow his senses to shrink to the confines of village gossip. The problem is to stretch the mind 'beyond immediacy', and our chief defect is that it takes crisis or misery to make us do it. And yet we possess a power possessed by no other animal-this power called imagination—and its purpose is not—as I have already remarked—to allow people to live in 'a world of imagination', but to enable them to point the mind towards the broadest possible meaning of life'. In the 19th century, the impulse became so powerful in the higher types of human being that it outstripped their interest in the narrower sense of 'life'. In the 20th century, this disgusted rejection of 'life' has become stronger. Wagner and Tennyson represent a rich autumn; Kafka and Beckett a bleak, grey winter. It is impossible for rejection to go further; the turning point has to come.” - Colin Wilson, ‘Poetry and Mysticism’ (1969) [p. 92 - 97]

[hawkeyepaintingandyardservice]

Exterior painting in Fort Bliss-Interior painting in Horizon City

Is your home aging or becoming a little worn down? Can the outside of your house use some improvement? Your home's curb appeal will be restored, and the value of your house will rise thanks to a professional exterior paint job from Hawkeye Painting and Yard Service.

[lonestarflight]

Cancelled Missions: SA-11 through SA-14 (AS-106 through AS-108) Saturn I Block II

"September 1962 NASA planned to fly four early manned Apollo spacecraft on Saturn I boosters. Cancelled in October 1963 in order to fly all-up manned Apollo CSM on more powerful Saturn IB.

Launched: 1965 Winter. Number crew: 3 .

A key prerequisite for these flights was complete wringing out of the launch escape system.

The tentative Apollo flight plan laid out the following unmanned tests before a manned flight would be undertaken:

Pad abort: Two tests to simulate an abort on the pad. These tests would qualify the launch escape system

Suborbital (Little Joe II): Three suborbital tests to qualify the launch escape system and the command module structure. Tests would include maximum dynamic and high altitude conditions.

Orbital (Saturn C-1): Flights SA-6 (with SA-8 as backup) would determine the launch exit environment. SA-7, SA-9, and SA-10 would flight-test components of or the complete emergency detection system. Four manned flights would then commence with SA-11.

By January 10, 1963, MSC and OMSF agreed that an unmanned Apollo spacecraft must be flown on the Saturn C-1 before a manned flight. SA-10 was scheduled to be the unmanned flight and SA-11, the first manned mission.

Early concept art of the Apollo Block I Command and Service Module separation from the S-IVB.

Image from Space Horizons Vol. No. 1, Issue No. 1 (1965)

By the later summer of 1963 the value of the Saturn I missions seemed increasingly in doubt. The limited payload of the Saturn I meant that only partial systems could be installed. At a September 26, 1963 meeting in Washington, D.C., NASA's scheduling contractor, Bellcomm, was asked to develop an Apollo mission assignment program without a Saturn I.

Bellcomm quickly responded, recommending that the Apollo spacecraft flight test program should be transferred from the Saturn I to Saturn IB launch vehicles. The Saturn I program should end with flight SA-10. All Saturn IB flights, beginning with SA-201, should carry operational spacecraft, including equipment for extensive testing of the spacecraft systems in earth orbit. Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight George E. Mueller recommended the changeover on October 26. NASA Administrator James E. Webb's concurrence came two days later. Development of the Saturn IB for manned flight would be accelerated and 'all-up' testing would be started.

No crew assignments were ever made for these flights; the first two groups of astronauts were fully committed to the Gemini program. The third astronaut selection, in October 1963, was simultaneous with the decision to drop the Saturn I flights. Had these flights occurred, they would have run from fall 1965 to the end of 1966, concurrent with the flights of Gemini 5 to 12."

Cancelled missions:

SA-11 (AS-106): planned launch Winter 1965

SA-12 (AS-107): planned launch Spring 1966

SA-13 (SA-108): planned launch Summer 1966

SA-14 (AS-109): planned launch Fall 1966

-Information from Astronautix.com: link

Posted on Flickr by Numbers Station: link

[soulofapatrick]

Whispers in the Dark - Joel Miller x reader

Summary: You finally get caught leaving necessities outside the Miller’s door

Words: 2.5k 

Warnings: none 

Notes: this isn’t proofread I admit, I'm tired and kinda blanked while writing this

Joel Miller. The mystery of our street. The hunk of the neighbourhood, The mysterious man who keeps to himself and his family. He exudes an aura of enigmatic strength and quiet determination. His presence commands attention, his piercing gaze revealing a wealth of untold stories and a heart burdened by past traumas. With a rugged handsomeness and an air of mystery, Joel captivates our neighbourhood. 

Every morning, as I make my morning coffee and the sun timidly peeks over the horizon, I catch a glimpse of Joel and his brother Tommy preparing to leave for work. They move with purpose, Tommy more laid back and always with a cigarette hanging from those cupid bow lips until Joel snatches it away with a mutter of “those things gonna kill ya Tommy.” And Tommy always quips back with something new.

Joel’s attire reflects is no-nonsense personality. Clad in weathered boots, faded jeans and a plaid shirt that bears marks of plaster and dust from the contractor jobs they do. He always appears ready for anything the world throws at him. The lines etched on his face hinting at the weight he carries, the only time those lines fade is when he’s with his two daughters. 

In those evenings, when the sun begins to set and casts a warm, golden glow over the neighbourhood, the true essence of Joel Miller is unveiled. Dust and weariness clings to his weathered boots, making me really realise the physical toll he endures as a contractor. Faded jeans, marked with patches of plaster and traces of dust, tell stories of hard work and long days spent building and fixing. His plaid shirt, worn and bearing signs of labour. 

As Joel and Tommy return from their day’s labours, their fatigue etched into every line of their faces, their bond seems unyielding and it makes me a little envious. Tommy leans casually against the bed of the truck, a cloud of smoke escaping his lips as he takes a drag from a cigarette he’s managed to get past Joel. But not for long as he swiftly moves it out of Joel’s reach as soon as Joel rounds the side of the truck. A playful exchange between the brothers as they talk in hushed murmurs. 

The pair settle on the bed of the truck, tiered bodies finding a moment of respite. In the fading light, they sit side by side, their voices mingling with the sounds of the neighbourhood that drifts through my open window. A crate of beer, discreetly stashed in the truck bed is pulled out, disappointment on their faces as there’s one left and I make a mental note to buy another two crates as the pair decide to split it. It’s during these evening interludes that the lines etched on Joel’s face seem to soften, as if the worries and burdens momentarily dissipate. 

As the evening unfolds, their conversation lingers in the air, carrying the unspoken language of brotherhood. Throughout weary sighs, shared anecdotes, and the occasional bout of laughter until the beer is empty. Joel and Tommy continue their conversation, a silent agreement between them before they get up and close the bed of the truck. I can’t help but watch them as they make their way towards their house, footsteps echoing softly on there pavement. Their door opens and closes, their deep southern accents fading to silence and I take this opportunity to quickly grab the few flannel shirts and the extra crate of beer I’m glad I bought on a whim. I’ve been doing this for months now, being too awkward to actually approach Joel as he seems so intimidating. 

The porch light casts a warm glow, revealing the wear and tear on the steps and dust etched footprints. I carefully place the flannels and the crate of beers on the doorstep, arranging them in a neat manner as a sense of satisfaction washes over me, knowing these small gestures can bring a momentary reprieve to Joel and Tommy’s lives. Satisfied, with one glance back, I scurry back to my house, pressing the handle down to…. Nothing.

Locked. A sinking feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. The realisation dawns on me - I’ve locked myself out. Panic begins to well up within me, fluttering anxiety taking it’s hold. I fumble with the handle, hoping against hope that it’s simply a mistake and is just jammed, but it remains stubbornly locked. My heart races as I consider my options, my mind racing through scenarios of how I can get back in. But before I can disappear into the whirlwind of panic overtaking me, a gruff and souther voice pierces through the tension filled air, “Hey Y/N, you okay there?” 

I’m spinning around, embarrassment washing over me like a wave crashing on the shore as I see Joel standing in his doorway across the road. He has the crate of beer tucked under his muscular arms, flannels held in those work worn hands, a knowing smile playing on his plump lips. The fading light casts a gentle glow on his face, softening the edges and adding an air of warmth to his features. 

“Looks like you’re having a bit of trouble there,” Joel says, amusement dancing in his honey eyes as he approaches, his footsteps deliberate and sure, closing the distance between us. His presence brings a sense of calm, like an anchor in the storm of my own making. 

I offer him a sheepish smiles, embarrassment mingling with the gratitude of his calming presence, “Yeahhhh, I seem to have locked myself out.” 

Joel chuckles, the sound a deep and soothing balm to my frazzled nerves, “It happens to the best of us. Here, let me help you darlin’,” He sets down the crate and flannels, then reaches into his pocket, producing a screwdriver and a paperclip, “I’m a contractor, I don’t usually carry lock picking equipment I promise.” He quips, voice light, and with practiced ease he unlocks my door and holds it open for me. 

As I step inside, the comforting warmth of my home envelopes me, contrasting with the cool evening air outside. I turn back to Joel, who is still holding the crate and flannels, “Do you want to come in?” I ask, voice shaking slightly until he smiles and I think my knees turn to jelly. Joe

Joel’s smile widens at my invitation to come inside, his eyes reflecting a glimmer of curiosity, “Sure, I’d love to darlin’.” He replies, voice warm and genuine. I melt inside again at the nickname, stepping aside to let him in. He steps into my home, his presence filling the space with a comforting aura as if he belongs here. I watch as he carefully sets down the beer and flannels on the kitchen table as we head through, closing the winter chill outside. His eyes scan the room with a sense of appreciation that has my cheeks flushing, and the light from the window casts a soft glow upon him, accentuating the rugged lines of his face. 

I leave him to taking in his surroundings in favour of grabbing two beer glasses, handing him one before heading to the fridge. There’s excitement and nervousness coursing through my veins and making my hands tremble slightly as I grab two ice cold beers from my own crate in the fridge, twisting the caps off and straight into the bin with a practiced ease. He takes his beer without a word, eyes falling to the label and my heart sinks when his head turns to look at the label on the crate of beer on the table. 

“It’s you?” Joel’s voice carries a note of surprise and intrigue as he connects the dots, eyes flicking from the beer labels to meet mine. There’s a mixture of curiosity and a hint of amusement in his gaze, as if he’s trying to unravel a mystery. I can feel my cheeks flush with a tinge of embarrassment that has me covering my face with my hands and turning away slightly. 

Joel’s hands are rough and calloused as his fingers lock lightly around my wrists, a gentle touch, prying my hands from my face. The moment our skin makes contact, a jolt of electricity courses through me, my heart pounding so hard in my chest I’m sure Joel can hear it. The air is heavy with tension, something sweet on my tongue as Joel’s honey eyes drift from mine to my lips before flicking back up. It happens to quickly I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but his hands are cautiously slide down my arms to my shoulders. 

Joel’s touch sends a shiver down my spine, igniting a flame of desire within me. His hands, rough and calloused, glide down my arms, leaving a trail of heat in their wake. The weight of his touch on my shoulders is both grounding and electrifying, causing my breath to hitch in anticipation. 

From this close up I can see every line and scar on his face, illuminated by the soft glow of the room. His jawline, string and defined, bears the mark of determination, while his stubbled chin adds a touch of rugged charm. His eyes, a shade of warm honey, hold a depth that seems to reflect the weight of the world. His dark, tousled hair, speckled with hints of grey, that I really want to run my fingers through. It frames his face, accentuating his strong features and lending an aura of charm. 

I can’t help but be captivated by his presence. There’s an effortless magnetism that surrounds him, drawing me in, and I willingly let myself get caught in his irresistible pull. His physical appearance, combined with his aura of quiet strength has me weak at the knees and I’m physically melting into him. I can feel my breath hitching from Joel’s grip on my chin, his touch both gentle and possessive. The rough pads of his thumb and forefinger send an electric tingle through me, heightening my senses and making my heart skip a beat of two. 

His lisp hover tantalisingly close to mine, their warmth brushing against my own, as if teasing me with the promise of an intimate connection. The intensity of his gaze deepens, and I can see a battle raging within him- between desire and restraint. We’ve only just met properly, yet we both feel the heavy tension in the air and the draw to each other. We’ve had no more than two conversations yet words haven’t needed to be spoken with the feel of his skin on mine. 

In a voice laden with vulnerability, he murmurs those words that send shivers down my spine, “You make me feel things I shouldn’t.” It’s a confession, a testament to the power I seem to have over him, a power that both frightens and enthrals me. His words echo in the room, reverberating in the small space between us. They carry a weight of unspoken emotions, desires that defy the boundaries of logic and reason. The air crackling with anticipation, the energy between us electrifying. The world fades into a blur, leaving only the intoxicating proximity of Joel and the undeniable pull that draws us together.

As I gaze into those molten pools of honey, I see a reflection of my own desires and fears mirrored back at me. We stand on a precipice of danger, giving into this want and desire that seems to have bubbled up and overflowed in a matter of moments after months of admiring from a distance. 

I lean in, breath mingling with his, lips trembling in anticipation as my fingers curl into his worn and torn flannel. It’s a delicate dance of hesitant exploration, a cautious step into the unknown as our lips meet. Joel’s lips are warm and tender against mine, his breath mingling with mine in a sweet, intoxicating rhythm. It starts off tentative, a gentle testing of boundaries. Our lips brushing softly, seeking reassurance in the other. There’s a tender vulnerability in the way our mouths fit together almost perfectly. But, as the seconds tick by, a fire ignites in us, feeling a growing hunter and deepening desire. Joel’s grip on my waist tightens, pulling me closer to him, erasing the space between us. His kiss deepens, becoming more passionate, more demanding and more hungry. 

I respond in kind, my fingers threading through his hair, pulling his lips harder against mine, parting my lips for him to delve into new territory. A groan rumbles in his chest as he runs his tongue against my bottom lip before licking into my mouth, drawing a mewl from me in response. With every stolen breath, every brush of lips, we become bolder, more inhibited. The caution and restraint that initially characterised our embrace give way to a raw and primal connection. Joel takes the lead, his experience and longing guiding our movements, as if he's been waiting for this moment as much as I have. 

We finally break away, breathless and flushed, our eyes lock, filled with a mixture of awe and uncertainty, “Fuck, I should have introduced myself sooner.” I find myself mumbling, eyes widening and burying my face in his shirt when I realise I said it out loud. 

Joel hums, large hand caressing my hair, lips pressing to my forehead before he wraps those arms around me, “Knock next time you want to drop things off.” He chuckles, voice a soft rumble that resonates within me, drawing an embarrassed sound, “Oh baby doll, ‘m only teasing.” I lift my head from his chest, meeting his gaze once again. There's a tenderness in his eyes, a warmth that fills me with a newfound sense of belonging. In this embrace, it feels as if all the worries and uncertainties melt away, leaving only the undeniable connection between us.

“Do you want to stay the night?” I’m blurting out and amusement dances in his eyes. 

“I… the girls.” He seems to struggle and I can’t help the way my face drops, “No, no, sugar, don’t be sad. Why don’t you stay ‘round mine tonight?” He reassures, voice gentle and soothing, sending a wave of warmth washing over me at his invitation, a realisation that he’s willing to create space in his life and house for me, even if it’s just for a night. 

A smile tugs at the corners of my lips as I nod, feeling a sense of excitement and anticipation for what lies ahead. This moment, filled with vulnerability and newfound affection, marks the beginning of a chapter that I never expected to write. With Joel's arms wrapped around me, I know that our story is just beginning, and that there's so much more to explore and discover together.As I rest my head against his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, I can't help but feel a sense of hope and possibility.

“Come on then sweet girl.” 

------------

The Last of Us Masterlist

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[tdoth]

TITANOMACHY: Dreams of the Hue | Omens 03 & 04

Art credit to the incredible Jonatan Anjos

CORALYNN | background: BLUE BLOOD | hustle: PRIVATE MILITARY CONTRACTOR | specialty: USHER (L)

BUCK | background: POSTHUMAN (GLADER) | hustle: RIG RIDER | specialty: STREETSKNECHT(R)

Out in the dying Gulf of Mexico stomp the Desalination Rigs, mechanical monstrosities sitting somewhere between an off-shore oil rig and Voltron. These behemoths stomp across the ocean floor, sucking up ocean waves, processing fresh water from them, and spitting out hyper-salinated water not even osmosis can overcome.

Of course, the working class of the Hue are made to carry out this slow murder. Operation of the Rigs is a massive, multi-man job assisted by Pseudo AIs and fleets of seasonal workers shipped on and off every day.

Buck is one of many posthumans employed in these massive operations, folk changed by broken nature, nanites, and dozens of other biology altering effects commonplace after the end of it all. Cut through with spliced crocodile and alligator DNA, Buck is hardened to the hypersalinated swamps of the Glades, and uses that crocodilian hardiness to his advantage (alongside a suite of company-mandated augmentations.)

The Rigs are a vital part of Titan control, and to maintain it Titans and their lackeys post PMCs the same as on any street corner. In TDoth, the "grunts" are often your friends, family, allies or even yourself. Coralynn here is one of the thousands trapped in a life of poverty and given access to the poisonous fruit that is PMC money. Weaponizing it and turning it back on the Titans is a vital piece of Omen praxis, and so is remembering who is behind every Titan issued submachine gun.

And two more down!! So excited to be sharing all of these with folks, Jonatan is knocking it out of the park and this next piece in particular is gonna be a real homerun. Coralynn and Buck are two more of the many iconics you'll see spread throughout TDoth, showing us snapshots of life in the Hue.

If you want more of a taste, join us on our Discord where we hold regular playtests with our living playtest document! Our QuickStart looms on the horizon, and every game helps us find out what the Hue is really gonna be.

Hope to see you there friends, bye for now!

Sillion

[thirsty-boba-fett-posts]

Part II of this fic that doesn’t yet have a title and isn’t even on the Masterlist yet but it’s gonna be a BIG OL’ SAGA.

THE JOURNEY CONTINUES UNDER THE CUT

She slept better than she had in at least a week. Jabba’s old slave quarters, once an austere room with no ‘fresher and two rows of bunk beds stacked three high, was now a comfortable apartment with a large futon. It was still a windowless room, but that made sleeping through eight hours of daylight easier. She didn’t relish traveling through the night on supply runs to and from Mos Espa, but it made for a faster, more efficient trip if she avoided the heat of Tatooine’s twin suns.

When she awoke the suns were low in the sky. She washed her face in the room’s newly installed wash basin and stretched out her sore muscles. There would be other courier jobs - she could saddle up her dewback and head into town to see which merchants needed supplies couriered overnight from Mos Eisley or maybe even somewhere closer, like the moisture farms or Mos Pelgo.

The man in black, as stern and imposing as he’s been that morning, approached her as she filled her water skin from the spigot in the sallyport. He held out a small sack and fished a stack credits from inside of his cowled cloak.

“Go to Anchorhead and bring back the palace droids Honwoo reprogrammed. Take two days if you need to - here’s enough credits for a stay at the Sidi Driss Inn, and there’s more when you return.”

She took the sack and the credits with a bewildered expression on her face. Sidi Driss Inn is a luxury hotel, she thought. Did the new daimyo really intend to pay for her to spend the day sleeping at a resort?

The man, a lieutenant of the daimyo, she supposed, called over his shoulder to her as he walked away.

“Get your water from the kitchen from now on. That spigot is rusty and that old tank needs cleaning.”

The burlap sack contained a rather expensive assortment of dried meats, cheeses, pastries, and even fresh fruits. She hadn’t had fresh fruit in years - this daimyo was lightyears more generous than the previous two. She wondered if he was struggling to find good help, but his gravely voiced deputy seemed like he ran a tight ship. Maybe the new daimyo was a puffer pig who needed to surround himself with strength and loyalty. That would explain the uncommon generosity.

She set off with the twilight towards Anchorhead on her dewback, who was fresh and energetic from a day of sound sleep and a belly full of rich kitchen scraps. The sky was clear and the stars were bright. The moonlight reflected pale blue off of the sand of the Dune Sea. She sampled each of the decadent foods in the burlap sack and shared them with her dewback when they stopped to rest at the halfway point between Mos Espa and Anchorhead. If he intended to outfit all of his contractors so generously, she would be silly not to work exclusively for the daimyo.

She arrived in Anchorhead as the first sun crested the horizon, before the merchants and shopkeepers opened for the day. She decided to see if a room at the Sidi Driss would even be available at this time of day. A few hours of sleep in a luxurious room before businesses opened for the day was more than she could hope for, but she felt the optimism of one who has been blessed by an unseen benefactor.

“Checking in?” asked a chipper desk attendant.

“I don’t have a reservation,” she replied, tentatively.

“You came in on a dewback, did you not? We have a reservation for you secured by the Daimyo of Mos Espa.”

Wonders never ceased.

A valet took her dewback to the stable to be hosed off and fed while she was shown to a corner room on the hotel’s top floor. It was opulent - a large bed, a ‘fresher stocked with expensive soaps and oils, and a balcony overlooking all of Anchorhead. She had been given plenty of credits for the room, so she supposed that the daimyo intended for her to spend them all on the sumptuous accommodations. She indulged long in a bath in the wide round tub before wrapping herself on a fluffy robe to settle in for a nap.

She awoke a few hours later to a note slipped under the door of her room.

Honwoo will have your cargo ready at sunset. The Daimyo of Mos Espa has opened a tab for your expenses and wishes for you to take yourself shopping at the hotel boutique at your convenience.

Surely, the Daimyo of Mos Espa had lost his mind. Had she somehow been mistaken for someone else? A dignitary or prominent merchant or guild member? She felt like an imposter, then reread the letter and realized that it addressed her by name. She knew she was a reliable courier, but were reliable couriers so hard to find in Mos Espa that they needed to be plied with luxury accommodations and shopping sprees?

She thought it best to follow the daimyo’s instructions. He was paying her way, so she may as well do as she’d been told and enjoy herself. She ordered a breakfast of colo claw fish and a fruit platter with a side of blue milk. It was more food than she’d eaten at a single meal in years and the experience of being well and truly full was delightful.

When she finally made her way down to the hotel lobby, a concierge met her at the base of the stairs.

“I’m to escort you to the boutique.”

This was getting weird. She briefly considered if she should continue going along with what felt like some kind of dream, but surely the daimyo must have his reasons for treating her to so much finery. The boutique was small and the clothing was perhaps impractical for someone who spent much of her time on a dewback crossing the desert, but she could not remember the last time she’s bought herself anything new and she could not resist the opportunity. The concierge even managed to convince her to pick out a dress with all of the requisite accessories - although what occasion she’d have to wear such an ensemble, she could not fathom.

Feeling overwhelmed, she returned with her new wardrobe to her room to decompress from experience and get a few more hours of sleep. She dreamed of Boba Fett as she remembered him from years ago - a figure in green armor and a distinct helmet - wielding a beskar ax to cleave the chains that bound her to Jabba The Hutt. But Boba Fett was dead and she awoke with a sense of loss that she hadn’t known she could feel for a stranger.

The valet brought her freshly bathed and well fed dewback to her and helped her load him up with her expensive new clothes. The suns were just beginning to set, which meant that the cargo she was hired to transport would be ready for pickup at Honwoo’s Repair Shop. She mounted her dewback and tipped the valet generously before making her way through town.

Honwoo and his human droid technician, Mathus, met her at the shop’s bay doors with crated droids ready to be loaded up for transport. She dismounted and introduced herself as labor droids began loaded and strapping crates to her dewback. Mathus handed her a data pad with a packing list, and she gave it a cursory read through before signing and handing it back to him.

“You should be all set in a few minutes. Do you need to fill a water skin before you head out?”

“Sure,” she replied, gratefully. He walked her to the shop’s sink and as she filled her water skin, the two made casual conversation. Mathus enjoyed his job as a technician and liked working for Honwoo, an honest and agreeable Rodian.

“So how do you like working for Boba Fett?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, what?”

…

LET’S GOOOOOOOOO

@meshlaxbunny

@daimyosprincess - the dewback’s name is Guapo

@baufraus

@dukeoftheblackstar

@acatalystrising

@die-herzlos-engel

Y’all we have to name this thing. Help. Please.

[midnightcreator12]

Hunter and Turtles One-Shot: The Demon That Lurks Below

It's not unusual for Chula to take an odd job if the settlements they stopped at were big enough to be more like cities.

The issue Leonardo was having was that those jobs rarely took longer than six to eight hours and Chula had been gone almost all day.

He had a very, very bad feeling.

AO3 Link

Chula had been gone for too long.

The thought had flitted through his head a few times over that last couple of hours but when the sun had passed it's peak and started to slowly sink back to the horizon line, it became a mantra.

When they landed on this planet, it had been pretty early in the morning. Chula had only stuck around long enough for a ship and supply check before telling Leo that she was going to find some work for a few extra credits while the ship refueled and cooled down. And Leo hadn’t bat an eye because Chula did that a lot, venturing onto planets to do day-labor for some extra cash in her pocket.

Leo didn’t mind staying on the ship to wait for her to come back….and since she hadn’t called him out for occasionally sneaking into the odd market when he got board she either didn’t know he liked to explore or didn't mind.

But she didn’t ever stay gone the entire day. The longest she’d ever been gone was nine hours and even that time she’d stomped into the ship grumbling about contractors underselling the job to try and get away with paying her less.

But it had been easily past the nine hour mark since she'd left and she wasn’t answering her comm. and Leo was getting worried. Sure, she didn’t always have time or signal to check in with him but Leo was pretty sure she’d find a way to reassure him by the third attempt to call her.

But he'd called her ten times and hadn’t heard a peep.

So he grabbed his hood, opened a picture of Chula on his tablet and ventured into the settlement.

The locals were a good mix of many different aliens, human-like, mammalian, reptilian and a few he couldn't even begin to figure out. Chula liked to call places like this ‘hive centers’, large towns or cities that a lot of races gravitated towards because of the variety of resources and the amount of space.

It was great for finding an odd-job that wouldn’t take longer than an afternoon, awful for a five foot turtle trying to track down his temporary guardian.

Especially since very few of the people spoke a language Leo knew.

He forced down a groan of frustration as the latest person he managed to get the attention of, a short alien that looked like a neon green teddy bear, spoke in a gibberish sounding language that Leo couldn’t even hope to understand. 

“You know, thanks, thanks anyway man,” Leo sighed as he walked away, wincing as he accidently bumped into another person.

Getting through the streets of busy cities was a lot easier when he was trailing after a six foot armored behemoth.

He moved further into the crowd, scanning around for...frankly no one in particular. He'd just been picking random people. He approached a tall, lizard looking person in a light veil and robes, “Hey, excuse me, have you seen my friend here?” He held out his tablet as he spoke, letting the alien get a good look and praying they spoke english….or spanish, he’d take spanish too.

The lizard person leaned down, frowning at the picture for a few moments, “Yes, yes, I know this warrior.”

A smile spread over Leo’s face. Finally, some progress! “That’s great! If you wouldn’t mind pointing me in the right direction? We were supposed to meet up ages ago.”

The reptilian frowned, bowing their head solemnly, “I would not recommend you follow her, young one. I warned her, as I warn all, of the danger. It would be quite unfortunate for someone as young as yourself to meet the same fate as the ones before you.”

Leo blinked, grin falling, “Wow, that’s not ominous at all. But now I want to know where she went even more so if you could just point me in the right direction, that’d be fantastic.”

They tipped their head, frown deepening, “You likey won’t return.”

“Di. Rec. tions. Please,” Okay, so he was being a little rude. Sue him, he’d been looking for a long time by himself in a ridiculously huge crowd.

The veiled alien was silent for a few moments. Then, slowly, pointed a long, thin claw down a side street, “Walk that way until you reach a shuttle station, tell the driver that you need to go to the Yedara Ridge Mines. Your friend will be there.”

“Shuttle, Yedara Ridge, got it!” Leo beamed, stowing his tablet and started trotting away. “Hey, thanks for that, see ya around sometime, yeah?”

“Be warned,” Leo froze at their suddenly harsh tone. “You will face a great trial to save your friend. I pray to Zentara that you have the fortitude to overcome it.”

“Uhhh, thanks?” Leo started moving again, ignoring the shiver that ran up his shell. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The lizard person didn't reply. Just stared at Leo as he headed down the side street, he could feel their eyes on his back until he was too far away to be seen.

The little side street was narrow and dusty but a lot less crowded, so Leo made it to the edge of the city with little fuss. He paused when the buildings were finally behind him and he was greeted by a sprawling grassland in almost every direction. Far in the distance, he could see flat-topped mountains breaking up the horizon and, a little to the right and a short jog away, a canopy next to a large, hovering, bus-like vehicle.

Leo trotted over to what he assumed was a space bus station, circling it until he managed to find an entrance and clambering in. There was only one occupant inside, a big, broad alien wearing thick clothing and a large mask covering most of his features except for a long horn that curved up from the back of his head.

He looked up when Leo stepped aboard, collapsing the tablet in his hands and pulling himself up, “Well, this is a surprise. Don’t get many people taking the shuttle this late.”

“Uh,” Leo hesitated. “Are you closed?”

The man chuckled, a deep, growly thing, “Shuttle is always open, little sprig.”

“Oh, great!” Leo stepped further in, hand going to his belt. “Erm, how much to get to the Yedara Ridge Mine?”

“How much?” The driver chuckled again, lumbering his way to the front. “You must be from Federation territory. Public transport is free around here. Especially to a place so close.”

“Oh, cool, nice, thanks, erm, man,” Leo shuffled to the first row of seats and settled in for the ride.

Free public transportation. Earth was really behind, wasn’t it?

At least the guy hadn’t lied about the mine being close. The plains gave way to rocky, craggy terrain within ten minutes. And in another five the bus was slowing at a large fence covered in ‘warning: open mineshaft’ and 'danger' signs in multiple languages.

“Picking up a friend?” the driver asked as the shuttle shuddered to a stop. “Or are they desperate enough to hire lil guys now?”

“My friend is missing and not answering her phone,” Leo explained curtly. “Thanks for the lift, by the way." He handed the driver some credits as he jumped down. Transportation might be free but Leo figured a tip wouldn't be turned away.

The driver seemed to agree, snapping the currency out of the air eagerly. “Much thanks unto you and your kin. Hey, you be careful in there, ya hear?”

“Thanks for the concern,” Leo called back as he walked through the gap in the fence.

He’d never been to an actual mineshaft but the setup was reminiscent of old westerns and horror movies. Lots of tools laying around, carts full of rocks, cave openings framed by large, sturdy logs of wood.

Leo paused at the entrance of one of the caves, pulling out his tablet and communicator.

Within a day of Chula giving Leo his tablet and comm, Chula had shown him how to use the two in conjunction to track the signal of the comm she'd built into her helmet.

In case they were seperated and couldn't call each other.

Leo had laughed back then, thinking that there wouldn’t ever be a situation where he’d have to track her down as opposed to just calling her.

Turned out, she’d had better foresight.

Leo frowned when the little ping popped up on the screen, noting that Chula…wasn’t that far away. He didn’t know a lot about how caves worked with space cell phones but he felt pretty confident that she had to be deep into the mine for the comm to not connect a call.

….which meant something was very, very wrong.

Leo swallowed and slowly inched his way into the caves. There were small, glowing orbs fixed into the walls, giving off weak lighting that casted the entire tunnel in a heavy shadow. Leo made a mental note to ask Chula for some kind of flashlight to carry on his person.

He kept a hand on the tunnel wall, using it and the dim lights in combination with his tracker to guild himself.

Water dripped somewhere in the cave, wind was whistling along the cracked walls, a chill pressed into Leo's scales, making him shiver.

“Hellooooo,” his voice echoed back eerily in the dark. “Chula? You down here? Would really appreciate a reply here.”

The only response he got was his own voice echoing back.

“Creepy,” Leo muttered. “This is worse than the whole Gumbus thing….maybe I’ll get lucky and some dorky lil alien kid will pop out from behind a corner. That’d be a pretty funny story, ‘hey, sorry I didn’t call you back, a bratty little kid was chasing us around a creepy mineshaft with a ghost robot’.”

The mine in question did not answer.

Leo let out a loud sigh through his nose and looked back at the tracker.

—---------------------------------------------

Chula blinked hard in the darkness, trying to force her eyes to adjust.

It was odd because, normally, she could see decently enough in the dark. Not great but enough to get by.

Now? Now it seemed her night vision was refusing to cooperate.

She blinked again as her hand groped around for a wall, a rock, hell, another person would be great…she had been with other people. People who’d asked her to act as protection during an investigation of an old mine tunnel. Apparently, there were rumors of a massive treasure somewhere in the mine but there were also whispers of a curse.

Thus, protection detail, simple enough in Chula’s option.

But…something had happened. Her mind was fuzzy on the details but she was sure…something had grabbed her, she was sure of that but then…how had she gotten here?

And where the hells was here?

She shook her head, refocusing. She either had to find the treasure hunting party or an exit, whichever came first.

As soon as her damned eyes did their job and let her shabbing see.

She paused to rub a hand to her face…and noticed something else was off.

Her helmet was missing.

She growled in frustration at the loss of it, wondering if it was back where she had woken up. She debated trying to find it, the light she attached to the scoop would be pretty useful right now-

Something made a scraping sound in front of her.

Her ears perked up, eyes snapping in the direction of the sound, “Hello?”

There was another scrape and this time, her brain managed to piece together that the sound was footsteps. Armored feet scraping along a stone floor.

Her hackles raised and a growl rumbled in her chest, teeth flashing as her eyes flicked around, trying to find whoever was in the tunnel with her.

There was a crackle, one that she’d only heard once in her life but the memory was burned into her mind and body.

Angry red, three pronged gauntlets lit up the space, illuminating a towering, armored figure, covered almost head to toe in sharp spiked and razor edged plating and rage filled yellow, bloodshot eye glaring from behind the helmet.

Chula's heart started hammering harder, lips pulling back further and her scared shoulder twinged.

“Oroku,” The name tasted like ash on her tongue.

The Sith took slow, dragging steps closer, causing Chula to draw back and her hands to flit towards her weapons-

Only to grab empty air.

She barely had time to formulate another move before the air around her throat suddenly shifted, almost solidifying before it closed around her neck and lifted. Her hands shot up on instinct, clawing at nothing as she tried to loosen the invisible hand squeezing her throat.

“You have failed, Mandalorian,” Oroku’s cold, raspy voice rattled out of his helmet before his hand flicked.

Chula yelped as she shot backwards, back colliding with a wall of stone that crumbled away. She coughed as dust clogged his lungs, hindering her efforts to catch her breath.

She turned over, tried to brace herself on the rubble and get back onto her feet.

Only to look and see she wasn’t on top of a pile of rocks.

White and purple plastoid helmets were piled under her, each spattered with deep crimson. Her eyes shot up and all the air left her chest when she saw more armor, more red, saw tanned faces and dead eyes all staring at her.

She scrambled back, breath now heaving as she took in the mass grave of the two-forty-fourth battalion, “No, no….when, what, no, this can’t-”

“You left them,” Oroku hissed from behind her, heavy, scraping footfalls advancing again. “You left them all and they died.”

“No!” Chula finally found the strength to get to her feet, to spin around and snap her teeth at Oroku. “Astra would’ve never let this happen!”

“She lost to me before,” Oroku hissed back, stepping to the side. “She lost again.”

Chula glanced to where the Force user was gesturing and she almost collapsed again.

Astra was there but…but her robes were torn and stained, blood coated over her blue fur and skin, a stalagmite impaled through her torso and cold, dead eyes fixed on Chula. Seena lay next to her, almost leaning on her sister. The scar on her face had been torn open, skin split and ripped away, leaving a mess of blood and bone and only one, cold eye that bore accusingly into Chula.

“This is a trick,” Chula muttered, feet moving her back, away from Oroku, away from all the dead eyes staring at her. “This is a trick, this has to be a trick. I looked for them, I looked-”

“Chula! You down here!”

Her head shot up, panic flaring as Oroku turned to a side tunnel the voice had come from.

She could hear the grin in his voice as he said, “Ah, the little Foundling.”

“No!” Chula launched forward, caution gone as her mind became crowded with a litany protect Leo, protect Leo, protect Leo-!

Oroku caught her mid air, she wheezed as the Force constricted her torso, pinning her limbs and raising her off the floor again.

“Chula! Where are you?!” Leo’s voice called again.

And the fact it was getting closer just made Chula panic more. She strained and struggled, screaming out, “Leo run! Run back to the ship right shabbin’ now-!”

Oroku’s hand tightened and Chula choked as her throat was squeezed.

She still struggled, tried to kick, claw, scream, anything.

But she was powerless to do anything but watch as Leo stepped out of the tunnel,  eyes going wide when he saw the scene before him, “Chula!”

The pressure holding her suddenly dropped, Oroku moved, almost too fast to track.

Chula screamed as the plasma prongs of the saber gauntlet seared into Leo’s chest, stealing his breath away before he could utter a sound. His dark eyes widened, further and further, full of fear and pain as they fixed onto Chula and started to dull.

“N-no, no please!” Chula staggered, forced her body to stand even if a part if her knew that it was too late.

Leo collapsed, blood spreading on the ground under him, blank eyes staring right at hers, begging for her to save him.

Chula’s scream shook through the cave.

—------------------------------------------------------------

“Chula!” Leo called again as he dropped from a ledge. “If this is an elaborate prank, it’s not funny anymore….it stopped being funny when the weird bat-fox thing jumped at my face!”

No one answered him but the high whistling of the wind in the tunnels.

Leo shivered at the eerie sound but pressed on, consulting his tracker again. According to the little dots, he was getting close. Chula definitely should have been able to hear him yelling and the fact she hadn’t answered…was worrying.

Something shifted in the dark, making Leo pause. He spun in a small circle, surveying what he could of the cave, trying to pinpoint if there was another freaky bat that was about to swoop at his head.

When nothing appeared from the darkness to bite his face he pressed on, trying to shake the creepy feeling crawling up his shell.

“Okay, you owe me big time for this when I find you, you know that Chula? If I find you and it turns out you forgot to charge your phone I am gonna be very, very upset.”

The wind whispered through the cave again.

…wait, he shouldn't be hearing wind, he was too far into the caves for that.

No sooner had the thought occurred to him, something moved in the corner of his eye. Leo rolled, body moving quicker than his mind as something large slammed into the ground where he’d been standing seconds before.

Leo quickly swapped the tracker for his katanas, dropping into a defencive stance and he turned to see what had tried to hit him.

And promptly recoiled with a shriek.

Because the thing that had tried to hit him was a big, slimy, red tentacle. It writhed on the floor, coiling around itself before rising up and pointing towards Leo.

“What the actual fuck?!” Leo screeched as he skittered back from the slimy thing.

There was a hiss behind him and he jumped again, feeling the breeze as another tentacle barely missed his shell. He danced away, biting his cheek to keep from screaming again as more tentacles slithered out of the walls.

He struck out at the closest one, smacking it away. He shuddered, feeling the vibration of the hit all the way up his arm like he’d just slashed at a brick wall. And all his hit did to the tentacle was send it reeling back a little.

“Again, what the fuck?!” Leo screeched as he started running.

A low rumbling sound seemed to come from the entire tunnel, shaking the walls and dislodging rock as the slimy appendages gave chase, more and more appearing from every crack in the walls.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Wow, I did not use to swear this much! Fuck! This is fucking freaky!” Leo skidded around a corner, smacking away another tentacle as the tunnel widened and opened up.

Leo found himself in a massive chamber bathed in harsh red light. The walls were covered by slick looking bumps that went from floor to ceiling, some dull and sliced open, skeletal limbs hanging from the opening and a few sealed but giving off a slight glow. And the centerpiece of the room was a bright, glowing red rock.

But the biggest thing was that there wasn’t another exit.

Leo let out another litany of curses as he spun, bringing up his katanas as the tentacles slithered into the chamber, waving and hissing as they surrounded him.

“You are powerful.”

Leo jumped at the voice, a raspy thing that echoed from every direction, “Who said that?”

“But your power is limited,” the voice hissed again. “I can help you little mortal. I can make you stronger.”

Leo shivered, bringing his blades forward and slowly moving back. He could feel…something pressing against his mind. Like when he Mind Melded with his brothers but…slimier, for forceful. Like one of those damned tentacles was squirming into his brain.

He shook his head, mentally pushed the foreign feeling away, “Where. The hell. Is Chula?”

“Forget her. She is meaningless, weak.”

“She is not!” Leo shouted back, swinging a blade out at the advancing tendrils. “She’s the strongest damn person I know and I am not leaving this damn cave without her!”

The thing, creature- maybe the cave itself?- whatever had been whispering in Leo’s mind, hissed. The pressure in his skull grew stronger, “I can give you worlds, galaxies, riches beyond comprehension, all the power you could possibly desire. All you have to do is serve me.”

All the power-

Leo blinked hard, taking another step back.

But if he was stronger…he could do…anything…

Nothing could touch him, nothing could hurt him…he’d be unstoppable. He would…he would be strong, would prevail-

He took another step back. His heel hit something cold and hard.

His head snapped down. His vision had blurred at some point but it cleared slightly as he searched for what he’d kicked.

A gleaming black visor framed in gold stared back up at him.

“Serve me.”

Leo’s head snapped up, teeth baring at the tentacles swarming around him, “Go to shabbing hell! And tell me where she is!”

—----------------------------------------

Chula screeched as one of the plasma blades sunk into her shoulder, cutting through the plate of beskar like it was nothing but flimsi, digging in over the old scaring.

She kicked out, claws making an awful screeching sound as they dragged down Oroku’s armor. The man didn’t even twitch, only pressed his weapon further through her shoulder.

“You deserve this,” He hissed. “You can’t protect the people you claim to care for. Everyone around you suffers and dies while you live on.”

“Get outta my head,” Chula growled, pushing as hard as she could against Oroku’s arm. “It’s not my fault, you did this. I-I wasn’t here-”

“That’s right,” He hissed. “You weren’t here. You abandoned them when they needed you. Astra needed you and you left her.”

The blade was ripped away and Chula collapsed to the ground. She bit down on another scream, even as pain burned down her entire side.

She branced her functional arm under her, trying to push herself up.

A sob tore from her throat when she looked up, seeing the hazy, dead eyes of her Buir staring at her, blaster burn smoking at his side, flesh torn apart and sluggishly bleeding over the ground.

“I was a child,” She sobbed. “I couldn’t- couldn’t have done anythin’.”

“You could have been stronger,” Oroku rasped from over her. “He betrayed Vizsla for you. Because you were too weak to fight. To cowardly to fight for Mandalore.”

“Ne’johaa,” Chula groaned, bloody claws digging into the ground as she tried to move away. “Ne’johaa, ne’johaa, ne’jo-”

“Chula! Are you in here?”

Her head shot up, eyes darting around, “Wha- Leo?”

“I really need you right now dude!” Leo’s voice shouted. “Like, now now! This thing is reeeally pissed off that I turned it down!”

Chula’s gaze fell on…on Leo’s corpse. His eyes were still hazy, the spark in the gone and his blood still painting the floor red.

But his mouth moved, his voice still bright and alive, “Its like an episode of Creep Show in here with all the red lighting and freaky tentacles!”

Red…tentacles?

Wait a second-

Hot pain seared into Chula's back, making her cry out again as Oroku plunged his gauntlet blades into her back.

Except…he shouldn’t be able to do that…

He shouldn't have been able to stab her shoulder either…she’d added the plates in the gap between her pauldron and neck because of…

She remembered…something grabbing her, a voice whispering promises of grandeur in her ears…

The sound of steel whistling through the air shattered the scene around her.

She gasped, eyes flying open, coming face to face with her own reflection.

She blinked, mind still scrambling as she tried to piece together what was going on.

Her helmet was gone, she could feel something wet on her face and in her hair. The reflection…the reflection was on a blade, a long, flat blade with a blue hilt.

“Chuuulaaaaaaa!”

Leo…

Leo!

“Leo!”

Chula launched forward, ripping the blade from the wall and looking around wildly.

She was in a tiny space, a slime coated…pod of some sort? She was in a pod and harsh, red light was bleeding in from a small tear in one wall-

A wall Leo was on the other side of.

She clawed at it, ripping away the fleshy barrier and stumbling into a larger room bathed in red light.

And she saw Leo, alive and bounding around the cave, his remaining katana striking out at the thick tentacles trying to snatch him out of the air.

Alive, breathing, bright and alive and moving and-

“Leo! Catch!” She threw the blade towards its wielder.

Leo pushed himself off a red tendrial and into the air, flipped cleanly over two more before catching his weapon and landing by Chula. He smiled, big and blinding and shabbing alive, “Dude, you need a bath!”

“Focus up!” Chula’s hand went to her side, closing around the grip of her blaster.

Adrenaline surged through her veins at the familiar shriek of bolts zipping through the air. The tentacles recoiled from the heat, the creature growling in anger as its attempts to recapture its prey were derailed by her blaster and Leo’s blades.

“Soooo, just a heads up! I have no idea what’s happening!” Leo yelled over the creature's roar

“It’s a damned Necro,” Chula yelled back, releasing a burst of fire from her vembrace. “It feeds off nightmares. Literally scares its victims to death.”

“...it’s literally nightmare fuel!” Leo cackled, ducking and weaving under an attacking limb before swatting it away. “How exactly do we hurt this thing again?”

“We piss it off enough to actually come out,” Chula rolled out of the way, tentacles slamming down where she had been. 

She grabbed her staff as she rose, extending it and slashing at a glowing pod within her range, “Cut open the glowing pods! We mess with its food, it’ll come out to play.”

“Got it!” Leo zipped away, heading for the closest active pod. 

—----------------------------------------------

Leo sliced open another pod, number three by his count.

The Necro roared in rage, shaking the entire cave, causing rocks to tumble down the walls.

“You think we made it mad enough yet?” Leo hollered, nimbly dancing around an onslaught of tentacles trying to grab him.

Chula was across the cave, plunging her arm into another pod and ripping it open, “Hope so, we’re running out of pods.”

The creature roared again, all the tendrils lashing wildly through the air, becoming more erratic with each thin wall the pair tore apart.

Leo kicked at flailing limb, spring boarding off it and leaping over the mass taking up most of the room before rolling into a crouch next to Chula.

The cave shook again but…this tremor felt different. The tentacles around them were still waving about erratically but they were starting to retract back into the walls. And the further they got, the harder the cave shook.

Chula shuffled closer to Leo, hunching down to his level, reaching into her belt, “The second this thing shows its face, I’m going to give you a lot of charges and a boost up. You gotta get as many of them to hit the ceiling as you can.”

“Uhhh, won’t that bring the cave down on top of us?"

Chula put a hand on Leo’s shoulder, guiding him back from the center of the cave as the rumbling grew harsher, “Either this thing eats us, we get crushed or the plan works perfectly. Frankly, if this goes sideways, I’d prefer to be crushed.”

Leo thought for a moment, imagined being sealed in one of those slimy pods and forced to have nightmares until his body gave out…

“Yeah, crushing is the better option.”

Chula’s snort of amusement was lost as another roar flooded the cave, loud enough to make Leo’s ears ring.

The ground shuddered, parts crumbling apart as something moved below it.

Leo’s jaw dropped when the 'Necro' emerged from below the floor. It looked like Cthulhu and a scorpion had a weird, slime cover nightmare of a baby. One that was almost too large for the cave it was climbing into, hissing and roaring in rage.

Leo seethed his blades, holding out his hands to Chula. She responded quickly, slapping over a dozen blinking little disks into his hands before lacing her fingers together. Leo didn’t have to think as he stepped into the hold, he braced for the launch, kicking off Chula’s palms at the peak of the throw.

The Necro roared, slimy limbs zipping through the air. Leo smirked, twisting midair to dodge and using the tentacles to push himself even closer to his target.

He threw the charges at the last possible moment, letting the little explosives hit and stick into the cave roof before twisting again, whipping his katana’s out and batting away the tendrils that tried to snatch him out of the air. 

He landed in Chula’s arms and she curled around him, rolling away and pessing against the closest wall seconds before a tremendous explosion rocked the cave.

The Necro screamed as the cave ceiling collapsed on top of it. The cave roof crumbled, massive chunks falling away until a sliver of golden light burned through the dust cloud. The sliver became a beam, then a shining spotlight of a low hanging sun, right on top of the monster.

It screamed again, writhing on the stone floor as its skin started to smoke, slime and red skin burning away into white bone and then into dust. Leo watched in a weirdly detached fascination as the creature burned away before his eyes, like a vampire in a cheap B-Film.

And then everything was quiet.

Chula huffed above him and he felt her jaw tuck over his head, her arms squeezing him tighter as she breathed out a soft, “Thank the Force.”

“We didn’t get smashed!” Leo threw up a fist in celebration. “And we killed an eldritch abomination!”

Chula let out a breathy laugh, then a second one. Leo grunted in surprise when she suddenly went slack, practically falling the rest of the way to the ground and dragging him with her.

“Dude, did you get hurt? Did the Necro thing eat part of your soul or something?”

“Somethin’,” Chula huffed out, clutching Leo like he would disappear if she let go.

Leo couldn’t see her face, she had him very smooshed against her chest, but her voice sounded choked…and not in a ‘dust in your mouth’ kinda way.

…right, eats nightmares.

And based on the arms hugging him so tight that they would hurt if he didn't have a shell, Chula had some pretty nasty nightmares to feed off of.

How long had that thing had her? How long had it forced her to see the darkest parts of her subconscious?

What had she seen? Did he even want to know?

He squeezed back, even pulling his legs up to wrap around her torso, “It’s over. It was all just a really, really sucky dream.”

Chula let out a very wet laugh, “You’re the kid. I’m supposed to comfort you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not the one who got snacked on by Cuthulu’s creepy cousin.”

“I don’t know what that means verd’ika.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Leo pressed his beak frimley into her shoulder. “....why the hell does that city still send shuttles here?”

“Driver was probably the one feeding the Necro,” Chula explained. “Necro’s can’t survive in sunlight but they need a steady supply of food and a place to nest. So they find someone to act as their caretaker, have them hunt for them and in exchange they give the caretaker wealth and power.”

“How’s it doing that from a cave?”

“They can speak through the caretakers and use their thrawl to manipulate others and the caretaker can loot the corpses of the victims. But it’s a bad deal in the end ‘cause once the caretaker gets too old, the Necro will eat them and lure in a new caretaker.”

“Sick,” Leo hissed. “But, like, in a bad way.”

“Yeah,” Chula agreed quietly. “I’m gonna stab that bastard.”

“Ooooh, let me get in on that.”

Chula snorted and brought a hand up to cradle Leo’s head, “Well done, findin’ me and fightin’ that thing off.”

“How many times have you saved me? I’d say this is just returning the favor a little.”

----------------------------------------------------

Mando'a Translations: Ne’johaa - Shut up shab, shabbing - fuck, fucking Verd'ika - Little Warrior

…..so, since Chula and extended company are pretty much TMNT OCs that just happen to be from a Star Wars universe at this point…..and Donnie said there were probably versions of the Hamatos in her reality…..yeah, The Shredder is the dark side user who killed half of Astra's battalion when she was starting out and stabbed Chula at one point. Also, yes, it's the same alien from the 2003 episode 'The Darkness Within'. The flashback just said that that one landed on Earth not that it was the only one of it's kind so I get to do a nightmare episode with some lore drops!

[cheesybadgers]

Narcos Fic: Old Habits Die Hard (Chap. 17)

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 22, Chapter 23, Chapter 24

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Pairing: Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo

Words: 9,448

Summary: Whilst Javier and Horacio try to come to terms with civilian life and their pasts, their anniversary brings some surprises. Meanwhile, Christmas celebrations arrive on the ranch.

Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Grief and parental loss, PTSD symptoms, religious themes and symbolism, period-typical prejudices, hurt/comfort (with the emphasis very much on the comfort), extreme fluff and mild angst, brief allusions to canon-typical violence, oral sex, other brief sexual references, smoking, swearing, drinking.

Notes: Well, I was determined to get this posted before Christmas (you'll see why once you've read it) and I've managed it with a few days to spare, hurrah!

Just to reassure people, this isn't the end just yet! I'm hoping to get stuck into chapter 18 when I have some time off work over Christmas/New Year, but obviously it won't be ready to post until January now.

Thank you as always to those still reading and commenting, feel free to drop me a message on Tumblr or AO3 if you want to chat about any of it 😊 Whether you celebrate Christmas or not, I wish you all a relaxing and peaceful end to 2022 ❤️

I’ve also added to my OHDH trivia post to cover this chapter if anyone is interested. 

Whilst obviously I do not own Narcos or its characters, please do not copy, re-post, or plagiarize this fic in any capacity on this or other platforms. If you wish to create any fan works inspired by it, please provide a credit or send me a message if in doubt.

Chapter 17: Siempre Tuyo

15th December 1989. That was the date that changed everything. A date that, whilst they were keen to commemorate, preferred to keep lowkey. It was bad enough they were facing a barnful of locals the following evening for the start of Las Posadas. The ranch was the chosen venue for the first night of festivities, and after counting himself out last year, Chucho couldn’t refuse.

Most attendees would be too swept up in the celebrations and keeping an eye on the children to deeply ponder the nature of their relationship. But they had to prepare for some questions being thrown their way. It was inevitable by this point, especially given how long Horacio had been around.

He kept out of the spotlight as much as possible, but most of the ranch staff knew him, and he had dealt with several contractors and delivery drivers. He had accompanied Chucho into town on more than one occasion and visited neighbouring ranches. No one had ever said anything to his face, but he wasn’t naïve enough to think there was no gossiping in private.

And Javier wasn’t in the mood to have to explain himself to folk who would no doubt cast the same judgement-disguised-as-pity looks they gave him in the aftermath of Lorraine.

But all of that could wait until tomorrow. Tonight was theirs and theirs alone.

In the days preceding their anniversary, they had both been overly keen to help Chucho with chores. Horacio with the breakfast rounds and Javier accompanying his Pops into town, ensuring they were off and away before the other was up and dressed. Suspicions were high, but neither could confront the other because that would blow their own cover.

When the 15th came around, Horacio simply informed Javier they were going out for the evening, and he was driving. Despite Javier’s narrowed eyes and crinkled brow, he didn’t ask any questions. Not even if Horacio had ever driven on gringo roads before – given his past training over here, Javier suspected he had – or if he knew where he was going.

The sun dipped beneath the rust-red horizon as Horacio navigated the bustling highway with the ease of someone who had been doing it his whole life. Not that his proficiency surprised Javier in the slightest. Headlights glared as the dusk haze faded fast, the road ahead offering possibilities that stretched far beyond their evening plans.

Eventually, they exited the highway and pulled up in front of a familiar building.

Horacio cut the engine and peered at Javier through the shadows with growing anticipation, hoping he hadn’t missed the mark. "When you said you hadn’t been for years, I thought maybe it was the right time to come back. But if it’s too much, we can go somewhere else.”

The red and green neon lights from the Desde La Frontera sign above them illuminated the spark of affection that had ignited across Javier's pupils. It spread to his throat and chest as Horacio’s gesture sunk in, overriding the twinge in his gut that came with the territory of unexpected detours down memory lane. “No. I love it. Thank you.”

The urge to lean in for a kiss was overwhelming. But several other cars were parked around them, and they couldn’t be sure if they were visible under the partial cover of darkness. So, Javier settled for squeezing Horacio’s hand instead. "And I’m starving."

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The décor inside was styled like a typical American diner with a twist. The checkerboard vinyl flooring was offset against the rainbow of red, orange, and green booths. Brightly coloured artwork of Mexican landscapes and trinkets covered the walls on one side, with framed film posters from both sides of the border on the other. A jukebox stood in one corner, a Christmas tree in the opposite with paper lanterns, fairy lights and nativity garlands strung across the ceiling.

It was just as Javier remembered, give or take the odd replacement from wear and tear over the years. He expected his stomach to be in knots from being confronted so directly by the past. But the tempting aromas from the kitchen and the presence of Horacio a couple of steps behind tapered it.

They were seated in a corner booth away from the chatter of larger parties getting into the festive spirit and a couple of families with overexcitable children.

From Javier’s vantage point, he could see out across the restaurant. On the one hand, it was reassuring not to have his back to the room, but on the other, he found it difficult to concentrate on the laminated menu in front of him. The clatter of cutlery on crockery and the shrill scream of a hungry toddler pierced his ears and put his senses on high alert. Without meaning to, he scanned the restaurant, unsure what he was even looking for.

A camera flash dazzled his eyes for a second, triggering a wave of panic until he realised it was the adjacent Christmas party having a group photo taken and not in fact someone sent to spy on them.

He lingered on a young boy sitting with his Mamá and Papá on the other side of the restaurant. The boy was about 9 or 10 and was devouring a sundae that came up to his forehead.

Memories from Colombia and Javier’s childhood blurred together in a rush. Was that the same booth he had his photo taken at? He couldn’t remember. The boy in the diner was of a similar age to the kid he confronted on the rooftops and was only a few years younger than Fernando Duque’s son. The strawberry sauce oozing down the side of the sundae glass darkened until it was the shade of dried blood caking the bodies in the trunk of Duque’s car.

Javier was unaware he had been staring into space for the last few minutes. But a gentle calling of his name brought him around. He must have looked blankly at Horacio as he felt the weight of a knee against his under the table and the lingering warmth of a hand resting on it. Words failed him, but he slid his hand to meet the one on his leg, grateful for the lifeline Horacio had thrown him when he was floundering.

"Can I take your order?" asked a bright, cheerful voice to the side of them. And with that, the weight and warmth were gone, but at least Javier was no longer drowning.

The waitress jotted down their order: a platter of nachos, taquitos, empanadas and quesadillas to share, and brought over drinks.

Javier took a sip of his beer to stave off the dark thoughts that still rippled under the surface and threatened to emerge at the most unexpected moments.

Horacio didn’t want to make a big deal out of whatever just happened because he could guess the reason behind it, even if he didn’t know the specifics. He was no stranger to the flashbacks, the dreams, the disjointed snapshots, and the zoning out. He had a year on Javier of civilian life dealing with them, after all. So, he slid his foot forwards until it met Javier’s boot, subtly rubbing up to his ankle and back down again.

Javier’s gaze was trained on Horacio’s, answering the unspoken question that hung between them by lifting his foot and reciprocating with the same grounding gesture of comfort.

The mood lifted once plates of sizzling hot food were placed in front of them, and they quickly tucked in.

“I can see why you like it here so much; this is all delicious," Horacio said between enthusiastic mouthfuls.

“I told you. It wasn’t just birthdays we came here. Pretty much any celebration was a good excuse to make a trip. Anything that wasn’t the ranch felt like an adventure.”

“I was the same visiting relatives outside of Medellín. A few hours in the car felt like another country away. Especially in the mountains.”

“Is that where your family lives now?”

“Well, I’ve got extended family all over the place, but Alejandra’s family and my Mamá are in Manizales. It’s about 5 hours south of Medellín.”

“Never got round to visiting in all my time over there.”

Horacio searched Javier’s face for a second until Javier looked directly at him. “Subtle.”

Javier’s eyes widened as though he had been falsely accused. “What?! I was just making conversation.”

“You’ve always been a terrible liar.”

“Says you! I knew you and Pops were up to something.”

“Could say the same about you two.” Horacio didn’t want to pry too much, assuming all would become clear. But he couldn’t resist letting Javier know he was on to him.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Although the faux-innocence Javier attempted was betrayed by the upturn of his lips.

Whilst they cleared the rest of their plates and ordered tres leches cake – and some of the famous buñuelos in preparation for Las Posadas – Horacio’s thoughts turned to Colombia.

It had been so long since he had spoken to his family, let alone seen them. Too long, in fact. And deep down, he knew he would have to tell them about Javier eventually. But unlike Chucho, Horacio found it hard to imagine them having even the slightest inkling. Turning up in Manizales without forewarning or details of who exactly Javier was to Horacio wouldn’t go down well. But the alternative made it difficult to swallow his cake, and he didn’t want to ruin the evening. So, he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind for the time being.

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Since Horacio had taken the lead by arranging and paying for dinner, Javier offered to drive them home. The road was quieter now, only rare sets of headlights reflecting through the window and illuminating their linked hands resting on Horacio’s thigh. Every so often, one man would glance across at the other with anticipation of whatever Javier had planned, trying and failing to hide the smirks tugging at their mouths.

Once back at the guesthouse and behind closed doors, Javier wasted no time pulling Horacio against him. They hadn't been out in public together in forever, becoming accustomed to the freedom and privacy offered by the ranch. So, he had earnt this after sitting opposite Horacio all evening without being able to touch him beyond hidden and brief contact beneath the table.

Breathless, they pulled apart once Javier had satisfied his craving. "I need you to wait in the bedroom."

“Someone’s eager.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Javier all but growled. “I promise it won’t be for long.”

Horacio did as he was told for once and waited patiently in the bedroom with the door closed. After a few minutes of nondescript movement and the odd thud, he was ushered back out again.

As he walked into the living area, a soft glow replaced the bright lights of the guesthouse. A glow Horacio instantly recognised from last Christmas.

A sea of candles flickered and swayed, and the fire in the hearth was now lit, the sweet aroma of mesquite drifting through the air. The crooning voice of Elvis sounded from the record player that had suddenly appeared on a side table.

Javier stood in the middle of the room, traces of a nervous smile twitching at the corner of his lips.

Horacio took several steps forwards until they met in front of the fireplace with an uncharacteristic boyish shyness. “Someone’s been busy.”

“You’re not the only one capable of making secret plans, y’know.”

“So I see.”

The choice of music wasn’t missed by Horacio, and whilst it was early days and baby steps, between this and the diner, it was as though he had been handed a key to a stubborn lock. It wasn’t impossible, but the right know-how was needed to make any progress.

Javier retreated to pick up a wrapped parcel from the table where the record player sat. The rectangular object was covered in rustic brown paper and tied with matching string. Understated from the outside, but no doubt with hidden depths beneath the surface.

“Happy Anniversary,” Javier said as he offered the parcel to Horacio.

Horacio held the gift with a curious expression, looking up at Javier as though asking him what it was, even though opening it himself would be easier.

Eventually, he tore off the paper to reveal a book. Upon closer inspection, Horacio saw that it was an anthology of Spanish poetry, which included works from Federico García Lorca, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, and Gabriela Mistral.

“Open it.”

Horacio turned over the cover, stopping in his tracks at the first page when he found what he was looking for.

Para Horacio. Mi amor, mi vida, mi hogar. Siempre tuyo, Javier.

(For Horacio. My love, my life, my home. Yours always, Javier.)

As the pieces slotted together, Horacio couldn't do anything but stare at the scrawled handwriting that seemed to resemble Chucho’s more than ever. “Javier, I – I don’t know what to say.” He stumbled over his words, his heart seemingly in his mouth, chest and abdomen all at once as he fought back a familiar sting behind his eyes.

Javier studied Horacio for a second, contemplating the flash of recognition that had followed the initial surprise. And then it came to him. “Pop showed you Mamá's book, didn’t he?”

“Not exactly. He told me about it in passing, but I, er, might've found it by accident.”

“You just accidentally snooped around my bedroom, huh?” Javier’s eyebrow was raised in mock judgement.

Horacio’s hand met the stubble of Javier’s cheek where a thumb brushed over his moustache. “I missed you.”

Not that Javier was remotely mad, but a line like that was enough for him to forgive Horacio anything.

The book was placed back on the table with care before Javier pulled Horacio flush against his chest. “So, did you accidentally find anything else whilst I was gone?” His bristles teased at Horacio’s neck, scattering kisses as he went.

“Hmm, maybe a few things.”

“I see.” Javier’s hands slipped past Horacio’s waist until they dipped into the back pockets of Horacio’s jeans and made a home there. “You can borrow it, by the way.”

“Borrow what?”

“Giovanni’s Room.” Javier whispered the book’s name into Horacio’s ear as though it was a secret only they knew. “What’s mine is yours, remember.”

Horacio pulled back from Javier slightly, confusion creasing his brow. He thought about asking the hows and the whys but changed his mind because it didn’t matter when he was seen and understood so perfectly. When they both knew exactly who and what they were.

Their heads rested on each other's shoulders as the song changed on the record player, the switch in tempo causing almost imperceptible movement between them.

Shall I stay?

Would it be a sin

If I can't help falling in love with you?

Almost of their own accord, their feet shuffled on the wooden flooring, subtle enough that they could still claim plausible deniability if they wanted to.

Like a river flows

Surely to the sea

Darling, so it goes

Some things are meant to be

But they didn’t. Instead, they leaned into it, taking advantage of the intimate knowledge they already shared of how they moved as one. They shook off any lingering self-consciousness, the shuffle becoming a more pronounced slow sway from side to side as the melody soared and the words spurred them on.

Take my hand

Take my whole life, too

For I can't help falling in love with you

A look of acknowledgement passed between them, their hands intertwined and the silver cross pressed against their chests. No further words were necessary as Javier led Horacio to their bed, the past a comforting presence this time rather than a melancholic ache.

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The next day was the start of Las Posadas. The local ranches and farms played host each night of the celebrations once the procession through the town was complete, and tonight was Chucho’s turn.

Whilst Javier and Horacio could easily have spent the day in bed, carrying on where they left off the previous night, Chucho had other plans. They were on tamale-making duty again and put up multiple sets of lights across the ranch and in the largest of the barns; the location of the posada.

Keeping busy at least distracted them from the waves of nausea bubbling in the pits of their stomachs when they thought about the social aspect of the evening ahead.

Whilst Horacio finished securing the last set of lights to the rafters, the barn door clicked open.

“So, how did it go? Did you find the place okay?”

Horacio climbed down the last few rungs of the ladder he’d been perched on and turned to face Chucho, who was carrying dismantled parts of a nativity scene under his arms. "He loved it. And the drive went without a hitch. Thank you for the directions, by the way.”

Chucho acknowledged Horacio with a brief bob of the head. “Glad I could help. I thought it’d be good for him. He’s been running from the past for too long. Never did anyone any good.” He gave Horacio a pointed look coupled with a hint of a smile.

“Javier was worried going to Madrid would still be running away.”

Chucho added several figurines and a manger to the half-constructed nativity scene taking shape in one corner of the barn before giving his full attention to Horacio again.

“He always thought the solution to his problems started and ended with getting out of this place. But he’s changed. You’ve changed. You’ve changed each other. And I think you’re ready for whatever’s out there. Including tonight, which I know won’t be easy. So, you can move to as many cities or countries as you like, but if you hold on to what matters, you’ll never be running away.”

Once again, Horacio was floored by Chucho’s ability to always say exactly what he needed to hear. So, he pushed his luck one more time. “Do you think I’m running away from telling my family about Javier?”

“Only you can answer that, Mijo. But the fact you’re asking the question in the first place is a promising sign.”

As Horacio nodded, two things occurred to him at once: the answer to his own question and the fact it was the first time Chucho had called him Mijo. And it oddly made him want to pick up the phone and dial Alejandra’s number immediately. But he didn't; he couldn't. Not yet.

“Thank you, Chucho. For everything you’ve done for me. And for Javier.” Horacio’s words felt feeble and inadequate compared to those offered to him in the last few minutes, let alone over the past year. “And I suppose I should thank you for the book too.”

“The book?”

“The poetry book. From Javier. I figured you had something to do with it.”

Chucho was silent for a long moment until a warm smile spread over his face. “I think perhaps I did, in a roundabout way.” 

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As they showered and dressed on the cusp of dusk, Horacio made sure to choose one of his polo shirts this time, just in case. Meanwhile, Javier threw on the red plaid shirt that Horacio had practically made his own. The top few buttons were undone, leaving the cross on full display, not that anyone but them knew its significance. Yet, it somehow still felt like an act of rebellion when later that evening, they would watch people attack a piñata in a bid to chase away the seven deadly sins.

Horacio gave himself a final once-over in the mirror, arms encasing him from behind.

“It’s not too late to find you a shepherd’s outfit, y’know. Or an angel,” Javier said as he nestled against Horacio’s back, eyes meeting through their reflection.

“I think we both know I’m no angel.”

“Thank fuck for that,” Javier mumbled against Horacio’s neck, an abundance of memories making it difficult not to get carried away. He could feel Horacio’s tension at his fingertips, but sex probably wasn’t going to do much to quell that right now. “Are you ready?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“It’ll be okay. And hey, we’ve been through worse.” Whilst that was undeniably true, Javier’s words were as much to reassure himself as Horacio.

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The procession was led by a young Mary and Joseph carrying candles, the route from the front gate, across the courtyard to the barn lit by a pathway of lanterns. Strings of white lights adorned the buildings, fences and a real Christmas tree, transforming the ranch into the enchanting night sky that hung above it. A melodic chorus struck up amongst the crowd requesting lodgings as the tradition goes. And in Horacio’s eyes, no one was more fitting to play the welcoming innkeeper than Chucho.

An impressive spread of food was, of course, laid on for the weary travellers. Tables were blanketed in plates, trays, and bowls full of tamales, pozole, pambazos, vibrant salads and glazed ham. The savoury food was accompanied by churros, buñuelos – including the ones from Desde La Frontera – ponche navideño, Café de Olla and champurrado. 

As the food and drink flowed, a group who had brought their own instruments struck up a festive sing-along.

In between the music, several people shook Javier's hand or brought over a drink he hadn’t asked for. He smiled, laughed, and said all the right things. But he was longing for a moment of peace with Horacio in a quiet corner. However, no such luck.

“Javier Peña, well, I’ll be damned.”

Javier had his back to the room but turned around once he heard his name, confident he recognised the voice behind it. “Oh, erm, hey, Mia. Long time, no see.” Fuck, his hunch was right.

“Yes, and we all know whose fault that is, don’t we, Jav?”

Horacio watched the exchange silently from his spot leant against the barn wall, already tensing at her forced smile and the jarring way she said Javier’s nickname.

Mia was dressed similarly to Javier, except with heeled boots and a more fitted shirt. Her auburn hair flowed down her back in neat waves, and her almond-shaped nails were far too clean and well-kept for someone who supposedly lived on a ranch full-time. Not that Javier could talk when it came to avoiding manual labour.

“How’ve you been?”

“Good, actually. We all have. Did you know Lorraine married a stockbroker? Randy. Their kids are gorgeous. They’ve got a huge place in Dallas now. It’s got a pool and everythin’.” The gloat in Mia’s tone was evident, deliberate even. Like she had bided her time all these years until she saw Javier again, just waiting for the opportunity to brag on behalf of her friend.

“Yeah, I heard.” Javier nodded for far longer than was necessary, gripping his glass as he raised it to his mouth. “Good for her.” In his defence, he meant it. It was good for her. Better than anything the version of him who jilted her on their wedding day had to offer, that was for sure.

“How ‘bout you? Anyone manage to pin you down yet?”

The warming ponche navideño tickled the back of Javier’s throat, and the only way to avoid a coughing fit was to throw back more. “I’m not married if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised. No offence.” Except they both knew full offence was absolutely intended. “Aren’t you gonna introduce us?” Mia’s attention fell on Horacio, and there was something feline in how her emerald eyes looked him up and down.

“Mia, Horacio. Horacio, Mia. Mia is Luca Domínguez’s wife. And Horacio is erm – he’s a…friend from Colombia. We worked together over there.” Javier could barely look at Horacio, waves of shame rolling over him, even though this was the story they had agreed upon beforehand.

Mia was still eyeing Horacio like he was an item on the buffet table, Javier already long forgotten. “Ahh, so you’re Chucho’s mysterious ranch hand I’ve heard so much about. Howdy, Horacio.” She held out her palm and attempted to repeat his name the same way Javier had said it, but her Texan drawl couldn’t be disguised.

It took all of Horacio’s strength to smile back and accept Mia’s hand, a sense of unease building now that he knew he was already on her radar. “Nice to meet you. And nothing bad, I hope.”

“On the contrary. According to Luca, you’ve made quite the impression.”

The Domínguez family were ranchers a few miles east of the Peñas. Chucho had a good rapport with Luca’s parents, Manuel and Carmen. But it was no surprise to hear that gossip had spread, especially as both ranches often shared casual workers and contractors.

“Tell me, how does a police officer end up this far outta his remit yet still so in his element?” Mia asked.

“I guess I’ve always liked a challenge.”

“A challenge bigger than hunting down Pablo Escobar? You must really love ranch life to give all of that up.” Mia’s gaze drifted in Javier’s direction when she spoke of ranch life. Although Javier quickly averted it by sipping more of his drink.

“What can I say? Taking a bullet makes a man re-evaluate his priorities.”

“Bless your heart, a bullet?! No wonder you ran away!”

Mia’s hand ironically found its way to the very shoulder said bullet ripped a hole through, the uninvited contact and her last sentence making Horacio flinch.

Javier was on the verge of intervening, but Mia wasn’t finished yet. “You must have a very understanding wife to uproot your life here. Is she around somewhere?”

“Er, no, I don’t have one.”

“Ahh yes, that’s right. I heard you’re not the marrying kind, either. Such a waste.” There was underlying aggression to her words despite the saccharine delivery of them. And before Horacio could react, Mia waved enthusiastically at someone on the other side of the room. “If y’all excuse me. Nice to meet you, Horacio. See you around, Jav.” And with that, she was gone in the same whirlwind fashion she had arrived in.

That was one of several awkward conversations throughout the evening, often due to undeserved declarations of heroism and expressions of sympathy over Judy Moncada's interview. But the loaded looks Javier had been expecting could still be found if he glanced in certain corners, and the effect of rubbing salt in still-raw wounds was the same regardless.

Horacio was also attracting a different kind of attention with admiring glances being thrown his way. The interest mostly came from the few single women in attendance who weren't up to speed on small-town gossip. But there was a young male ranch hand whose Javier’s sympathies lay with the most.

Because Javier recognised the way the doe-eyed 20-something kid was enthralled by Horacio whilst deep in conversation about ranch business. It reminded him of the early days in Colombia when they were little more than reserved co-workers discussing raid tactics. He would find himself mesmerised by Horacio lighting up, torn between watching his thumb flicking over the ignition and how the cigarette nestled between his lips. If Horacio noticed, he didn’t show it.

Javier was supposed to be catching up with his old friend, John, the best man from the wedding that never was. John also married the daughter of a neighbouring rancher because that was just how things went around here. If you stuck about long enough, you were paired off with someone you went to school with or grew up with. It was why Javier had to get out of the suffocating forcefield. And it should have come as no surprise it was necessary to go all the way to Colombia to find someone he wanted to settle down with.

Whilst John regaled a much-told anecdote from their high school days, Javier’s attention was elsewhere. Specifically on Horacio and the attractive brunette woman who was bolder than all the other interested parties.

She was trying her best moves on him, laughing, playing with her hair, leaning closer to him when he was talking, touching his arm. It dawned on Javier that once upon a time, that would have been him she was talking to, and he no doubt would have snuck off with her to his bedroom at the first chance he got.

For a second, he wondered if she was proposing the same thing to Horacio. Not that he had any doubts about Horacio’s reaction to such a question. But it gave him a strange thrill to know that the most sought-after man in the room was guaranteed to be going to bed with him once the festivities were over. And every night after that.

At a suitable gap in conversation, Javier excused himself, catching Horacio’s eye long enough for him to do the same with his new admirer. Javier’s head gestured towards the barn door before he left the party unnoticed, Horacio trailing a safe distance behind.

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Javier let himself into the locked farmhouse, where the dogs were fast asleep across the sofas. They briefly stirred and wagged their tails in greeting both at Javier and when Horacio arrived a few minutes later.

“What are we—?”

“Lock the door.”

Horacio knew that look anywhere and didn’t hesitate.

No sooner had the lock turned than Javier was upon Horacio, fingers already pawing at clothes and belts as Javier guided them towards his old bedroom.

Javier closed the door by pinning Horacio up against it, mouthing at his neck and unzipping his jeans.

“What’s brought this on?” Horacio gasped as Javier began palming him through his underwear.

Javier’s free hand didn’t so much as cup Horacio’s jaw but grasped it; firmly but not roughly. “D’you have any idea how fucking good you look?”

Horacio couldn’t speak for a moment; his sole response was to nuzzle his cheek against Javier’s hand and kiss whichever part he could reach. “Says you, parading around like that.” Of course, Horacio was alluding to the distinct lack of buttons fastened on Javier’s – or was it his or theirs now? – shirt.

“I wasn’t the one being eye-fucked from every angle just now. What was her name again?”

“Who?”

“The knockout woman coming on to you.”

“Cristina?”

“First name terms…so she was your type as well, then?”

Horacio wasn’t entirely sure where this was going, so decided to play it safe and dodge the question. “Were you jealous of her or me?”

Whilst, of course, he knew the answer, Javier was drunk on lust rather than alcohol, and teasing was the more fun option. “You could’ve asked her to join us.”

“Very funny.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about doing that?” Javier stopped short of confessing he had thought about Horacio on multiple occasions when he disappeared off to Gabriela or Vanessa. Not in place of them, but in addition. However, that had only ever been a fantasy; one that he was happy to keep that way. 

“Didn’t say that.” Several times before they were together, Horacio had imagined being invited to experience the best of both worlds with Javier at one of his favourite brothels. And if he was honest with himself, there was even the odd guilty fantasy of Javier joining him and Juliana. “But that’s a different question than wanting to do it for real. I don’t want to share you with anyone, Javier. You’re all mine.”

Javier’s pupils dilated and darkened with a wolfish hunger. “Say it again.”

“I said, you’re mine. And I’m yours.”

Javier was practically panting by the time their mouths crashed together. Not that Horacio was telling him something he didn’t already know or believe, but hearing it out loud was dizzying.

Once they broke apart, he guided Horacio to sit on the edge of his bed and sunk to his knees. Memories of them kneeling in prayer flashed through his mind as he peeled jeans and underwear down Horacio’s legs in one go.

Horacio’s cock stood proud already, their verbal exchange an aphrodisiac for both, apparently.

“Beautiful,” Javier whispered, kissing along Horacio’s length, featherlight to begin with but deepening further until the head was enveloped.

Horacio’s hands landed in Javier’s hair, raking and stroking through the thick strands. He leaned back, his lip cushioned between his teeth on the verge of drawing blood and his eyes screwed shut in ecstasy. The significance of this happening in Javier’s old bedroom wasn't lost on him. On Javier’s old bed, surrounded by the items and keepsakes locked away for so long. And on the day after Horacio received his own keepsake, a token of everything they meant to each other.

A groan escaped Javier’s throat as he felt the pull of Horacio’s fingers. He swirled his tongue in rhythmic circles, imagining doing this for an hour or more, just holding the hot throb in his mouth. He didn’t have that kind of restraint or patience today, though, preferring to suck greedily, encouraged by the strengthening grip on his scalp.

Horacio's legs trembled harder now, his hips reflexively lifting off the mattress to meet Javier’s mouth, shallow thrusts to start off with.

He was vaguely aware of a belt and zipper unfastening before he looked down at Javier taking himself in hand right there on the floor of his childhood bedroom, where past met present and future head-on.

The tell-tale jerking sensation and Javier’s moans made Horacio hiss through his teeth and buck his hips with more force. Slow and deep motions that mimicked the way they liked to fuck.

Javier’s jaw was relaxed enough to take Horacio to the back of his throat, his nose pressing against dark, wiry curls as Horacio guided him up and down.

The sight of Javier on his knees for him again, albeit in a different context this time, nearly made Horacio come on the spot. There was a profound vulnerability and act of trust to it, especially in this room of all rooms. In the middle of a fraught evening of unwanted attention where they would be run out of town if everyone knew what they were up to right now.

Javier could sense when Horacio was on the cusp just from the way his breath stuttered and his fingers clenched into fists amidst Javier’s hair.

Right on cue, Horacio’s abdomen spasmed, sending shockwaves in all directions as he emptied himself down Javier’s throat with a strangled growl.

Javier took everything he was given, swallowing Horacio’s release as he tugged on his own cock. The taste on his tongue and the vibrations of Horacio’s shaking thighs were enough to push him over the edge. After a few extra strokes, he came over his hand and stomach with a winded grunt.

He remained breathless on his knees whilst recovering, his head flopping into Horacio’s lap like a purring cat as Horacio’s fingers sailed through his hair.

Eventually, Horacio helped Javier up from the floor and onto the bed. They lay tangled up in varying stages of undress, waiting for their pulses to calm and the indiscreet flush from their cheeks to dissipate.

“Fuck, I love doing that with you.”

Horacio’s shoulders shook, the only energy he could muster. “Likewise, funnily enough. But shouldn't we be getting back soon?”

“We should. Although, I don’t think a piñata is gonna save us after that.”

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Upon returning to the barn, they switched their glasses of ponche for hot cups of champurrado. The crowd were in the process of gathering around the seven-point piñata star hanging from the wooden beams above. A line of giddy children high on sugar and festive spirit queued up to be blindfolded, ready to take their shot with a stick decorated as brightly as the piñata itself.

With each successful hit and chant of Dale Dale Dale, candy, fruits, and peanuts rained down and caused an uproar of cheers to break out around the barn. With each miss, there was a murmur of disappointment, then a cheer. And so the cycle repeated.

Now they were soaking up the atmosphere – and were more relaxed – Javier and Horacio were as caught up in the excitement as everyone else for the first few hits. But conversations from earlier in the evening rang loudly in Horacio’s ears, and even the rowdy crowd of a posada couldn’t drown them out. 

Maybe it was a combination of too much ponche and the extreme highs and lows he had experienced in the last few hours. But he suddenly felt like the ground was moving. Or was it him? Was he spinning around in circles, or was it the piñata?

The crowd noise filtered out, leaving the repetitive thwacking of the stick against the hard shell. Each impact seemed louder than the last until it could just as easily have been a blunt weapon – or a booted foot – bludgeoning into soft flesh.

It wasn’t him delivering the blows, but he was watching, unconcerned. With a cigarette between his lips, he observed his men kicking the life out of the limp body sprawled across the concrete floor. It could have been Gustavo, or any number of sicarios now he thought about it. He might not have delivered those blows, but he had inflicted equal damage with a blade or a bullet, and nothing would erase his sins.

“Hey, you okay? Horacio?”

Horacio closed his eyes tightly and shook his head before he was back in the room once more. “Sorry, what?”

“Are you alright? Your hand’s shaking.”

Horacio looked down to see his right hand clenching around his drink to attempt to quell the tremble. “Erm…yeah, I think I just need some fresh air.”

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Whilst the crowds were still preoccupied, Javier and Horacio took their cups of champurrado outside to the fire pit.

The wooden seating was abandoned in favour of the barn. And fireworks were to follow in the lower fields away from the stables, out of courtesy to the livestock.

Making the most of the peace and quiet, they sat on the floor in the shadow of the fluttering flames, Javier’s back against a chair with Horacio cradled between his legs.

“Does that happen often?”

“Sometimes, but not for a while. I guess it’s just been a stressful day.”

“No kidding.”

“Well, not all of it.” Horacio nuzzled back against Javier’s shoulder as he corrected himself.

“Glad I could provide some temporary relief, at least.” Javier buried himself against Horacio’s proffered neck, lightening the mood for a second as his moustache swept back and forth.

But stressful was an understatement. Between their encounter with Mia, the crowds, and relaying tales from Colombia to people, who only wanted gory details they couldn’t give even if they wanted to, it was no wonder Horacio snapped.

“The first time I heard the ranch hands firing shots to scare off coyotes, I was back in the ambush. I could hear the glass being shot out again. Could even taste the fumes from the explosion for a second. And my right arm went numb. But…it does get easier.”

“When?” An unmistakable crack could be heard in Javier’s voice that betrayed the question’s surface-level simplicity.

“I don’t think there’s a timeframe for it. Some days are better than others. Sometimes you think you’re fine until suddenly you’re not.”

“It was the strawberry sauce,” Javier said abruptly. “Of all fucking things.” He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “At the diner, I mean. A kid was eating ice cream. But all I saw was blood.”

“I’m sorry if I jumped the gun last night. Maybe it was too much too soon.”

“Hey, no. It wasn’t. I should’ve gone back years ago. So, thank you. It was still a perfect evening.” He tilted Horacio’s face towards him, their lips meeting delicately. “I guess I’m just gonna have to learn to deal with the other stuff.”

“It’s early days, Javier. You need to give yourself time.” Another butterfly kiss, this time instigated by Horacio. “We both do.”

And that was the one thing they finally had. Time. To try to heal, to come to terms with what they had and hadn’t done. To accept their mistakes, their flaws, and their pasts. To close that chapter once and for all so they could open a new one together. To live at last rather than merely survive.

They retreated to the safety of the guesthouse once the fire pit simmered down to its last embers, Luna, Sol and Leo joining them, glad of the company after being kept away from the action all night.

The fireworks could be heard faintly in the distance, noticed more by the humans than the dogs. In other circumstances, it would have been too easy to confuse the bangs for bullets and bombs. Sounds they had heard enough of for a lifetime. But in the here and now, they took refuge in the darkness of their bedroom, Horacio’s chest moulded to Javier’s back and their legs entwined. Their hands joined over Javier’s stomach, fingers clutching their cross and seeking comfort in each other once more as they drifted off to sleep.

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Christmas was a quieter affair once the other ranches and farms began hosting their posadas. Javier and Horacio made appearances at some of the nearest ones; however, they kept themselves to themselves for most of the holiday season. After dipping their toes in more sociable waters, they still preferred to be alone, the drain of small talk and prying questions too much at this stage.

The exceptions were phone calls to and from Miami and Medellín, with the Murphys and Trujillo providing festive greetings and updates from their respective homes. Connie had insisted on sending a food hamper, mainly for Chucho’s benefit, given the kitchen was his domain. But Javier made sure to thank her on his dad's behalf.

He also learned that Steve hadn’t been back to work yet and was enjoying being a man of leisure until the New Year, a fact that had Connie asking to come with them to Madrid instead. Meanwhile, Steve took great delight in spilling the beans about Trujillo’s new girlfriend. And Trujillo dodged all subsequent questions, declaring Steve a dead man walking.

It was those connections they needed for the time being. They were easy, safe and familiar and came with a mutual understanding of what they had all been through.

On Christmas Eve, Chucho attended his usual Midnight Mass whilst Javier and Horacio spent the night in front of the fire, surrounded by three dozing dogs. A modestly decorated tree stood in the corner of the room, its warm white lights and the fresh scent of pine making the place feel more homely. They hadn’t bothered with one last year; the timing wasn’t right with everything up in the air. But this year, whilst neither was exactly gifted with creative flare, they didn’t take the shared domesticity for granted.

They had been sat in comfortable silence for a while, their bellies full of food from Chucho’s earlier feast, and their minds quiet. Elvis’ Christmas album played lowly on the turntable whilst Horacio’s legs lay across Javier’s lap. Candles flickered on the mantlepiece as Javier sipped whiskey from his glass in between stroking Horacio’s calves. Although it wasn’t enough to distract Horacio from the book balanced between his fingers.

Without anything else to do, Javier watched Horacio read, studying his features, trying but failing to gauge his reaction to whichever poem he was currently engrossed in. Whatever his thoughts were on the subject matter, the novelty of seeing Horacio so absorbed yet relaxed like this hadn’t worn off, and Javier was captivated.

When Horacio next turned a page, he looked up, catching Javier in the act. “What?”

“Nothing,” Javier said with a coy smile. “I’m just glad you seem to like the book.”

“I do. Very much.”

“Any favourites?”

“A few.”

“Read them to me.” The demure tone from moments ago gave way to conviction, the flames from the fire dancing in the dark of Javier’s irises. Not a demand, but a request Horacio would find hard to refuse.

And, of course, he didn’t. With Javier’s head now resting in his lap, Horacio read aloud in his native tongue. The book was held in one hand whilst the other glided through Javier’s hair with soothing touches. As the clock on the wall ticked past midnight, they had not only ushered in Christmas Day together but a new tradition born out of an old one. A tradition passed from generation to generation, the people and the words different, yet the sentiment the same.

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December faded into January, the festive celebrations ending with Día de los Reyes Magos and plenty of Rosca de Reyes.

Over the last fortnight, they finalised their plans for Madrid. Javier, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to Chucho’s proposal to take his share of the ranch money, and Horacio’s claim for compensation was authorised as part of his resignation deal. It gave them the financial freedom to regroup for a while, so they weren’t diving headfirst into new jobs and would have the time to settle into their new apartment.

Horacio took advantage of his Consulate contacts to get in touch with the letting agents who handled his move. It was a bigger apartment in the same building they would be renting this time.

As far as the CNP was concerned, Horacio had moved to Manizales to be with his family. He was sure there must be rumours circulating in the upper echelons with whom he didn’t command the same loyalty as on the ground. But he was equally confident his superiors would be relieved to see the back of him once and for all this time.

Even so, Horacio found himself looking down at a stowaway bottle-green shirt that must have been shoved into his bag in haste when they made a getaway from Carlos Holguín.

He traced his fingers over the embroidered patches, starting with the letters of his surname, continuing up the sleeve to meet his Colonel insignia and across to the CNP emblem. His lapel pins had been rescued from the bloodied, torn shirt he wore on the night of the ambush. They now sat in an envelope on the nightstand alongside his broken watch. He collected up the shirt, and the envelope, laying them at the bottom of the suitcase spread out across the bed. Already relics of the past, even if he couldn’t bring himself to part with them.

Javier had abandoned his packing in favour of chewing his thumb and staring out the window. He was quiet over breakfast and distant in the shower, even when he was buried to the hilt inside Horacio and had him pressed against the tiles.

Now, however, Horacio crossed the room to the window, slipping his arms around Javier from behind. “Hey, you still in there?”

Javier was startled out of his daze but quickly relaxed against the solid warmth of Horacio’s chest. “Er yeah, sorry. Just about.”

Horacio's lips ghosted from the nape of Javier’s neck down to the nook of his shoulder as a thumb stroked over the softness of his stomach. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm yeah. It’s just…it’s Mom’s birthday today. I know I should’ve said something earlier, sorry.”

Horacio hushed softly against Javier’s ear. “You’ve got nothing to apologise for. Your father mentioned it was coming up soon.”

“We’ve never done much for it. Pops goes to the cemetery, but he does that anyway. And I never really saw the point in thinking about how old she would’ve been.”

“Me neither with Papá. It always reminded me of everything he missed out on. All the milestones in our lives he wasn’t around for.”

“Exactly. But this year, I dunno…” Javier trailed off, losing confidence in his thought process mid-sentence.

Horacio’s fingers slotted through Javier’s, allowing Horacio to bring Javier closer to him as his nose nuzzled in encouragement.

“I think there’s something I need to do before we leave.”

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As Javier pushed the stiff iron gate open, his feet trailed through a pile of damp, shrivelled leaves left over from the fall. It had been early autumn when his Mamá passed. Somehow, she had clung on throughout the sticky heat of the summer, adamant she was going to be around to see the leaves changing colour one last time.

Even though Javier hadn’t been here for more years than he was ashamed to admit, he hadn’t forgotten where she was laid to rest. The grave was in immaculate condition, unsurprisingly. Fresh flowers had recently been left, and any trace of weathering had been polished away from the headstone.

He tentatively reached out to run his fingers over the embossed lettering of her name. Mariana Rosa Peña. “Feliz cumpleaños, Mamá,” he whispered. “Sorry I left it so long.”

He couldn’t explain the compulsion to come here. It wasn't as though it was the first time he was leaving Laredo. Nor was it that he would never be coming back. But it had gnawed at him for the last few weeks like something was missing or forgotten. Horacio had helped him remember, though. Gradually, bit by bit, gesture by gesture, conversation by conversation.

Memories unravelled that had been locked away for too long. The happier ones that often hurt too much to dwell on when Javier was already in a dark place, like the trips that they made every spring to Fiesta San Antonio. He loved watching the vibrant floats pass by at the parades whilst stuffing his face with gorditas and paletas or cracking cascarones over his cousins' heads.

He reached into the pocket of his leather jacket, pulling out the poetry book from his bedroom shelves. It was funny; he had never been an avid reader of poetry, although he admired those who could express themselves so freely with words, even if he often couldn’t do it himself. But in more recent years, the dedication in the opening pages compelled him to keep it as proof of what existed between his parents. And apparently, as inspiration, even if he didn’t realise it until now.

As he flicked through the pages, recognising some poem titles from days gone by, a shadow moved across the gravestone, and a pair of feet crunched along the gravel path.

“Well, this is a nice surprise.”

Javier didn't need to turn around to greet the voice he had known all his life. “Better late than never, right?”

“That’s what she used to say.”

“I remember.”

“I’m sure she appreciates you being here, Mijo. And so do I.”

“Just felt like I needed to come here before we leave.”

“She always wanted to visit Madrid, but we never got round to it. Too busy with the ranch…and then you. I think she always knew you were a sensitive kid. And she understood you better than I did for a long time.”

“You don’t do too badly these days.”

“I got there in the end with a good teacher.”

“I don’t think I’d have come here if it weren’t for Horacio.” He paused, finally shifting to face his dad. “And I don’t think he’d have encouraged me without you. So, thanks for the nudge, Pops.”

Chucho nodded despite not deeming the praise necessary in the circumstances. “All we ever wanted was for you to be happy, Javi. And same for Horacio now too.”

“I wish she could’ve met him.”

“I don’t think she’d have let him leave the ranch.”

Javier couldn’t help but chuckle at that thought. “No, and you’d be out of a job.”

They were both laughing now and somehow knew Mariana was, too, wherever she was.

Javier glanced at the book in his hands, pangs of guilt settling on his chest for hiding it away all this time. “I imagine you’ve been looking for this. Sorry, I meant to give it back.”

“Keep it for the plane journey.”

“What?”

“I told you, she always wanted to see Madrid. Take her with you. She knows where I’ll be waiting.”

As he drew Chucho in for a hug, it hit Javier that the past, present and future weren’t supposed to be kept separate; they were interconnected and a delicate balancing act. And after so long in flux, maybe, just maybe, Madrid was his and Horacio’s opportunity for some kind of equilibrium.

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Since Javier’s first night back in Laredo, he and Horacio made a habit of parking the truck in the lower field. Sometimes Chucho had given them chores, or sometimes they would take a picnic and then doze in the sun with the dogs pottering around them. And sometimes, the sight of Horacio in his ranch attire was once again too much for Javier. Today was one of those days.

It was also their last day in Texas, their flight to Madrid booked for early the next morning, and they were making the most of the peace and quiet of the countryside.

This time they were in the front passenger seat, Javier’s thighs straddling Horacio’s lap. Javier was naked from the waist down, whilst Horacio’s jeans were merely shrugged over his legs.

Horacio had briefly got his way and donated his Stetson to Javier, fulfilling a fantasy he wasn’t even aware he harboured.

But it wasn’t long before Javier tossed it back on Horacio’s head. “Keep it on.”

“Only if you keep doing that.” Horacio’s fingernails dug into Javier’s ass, his pelvis jerking up as Javier ground his hips at just the right pace and angle.

A gasped laugh shuddered through Javier as Horacio manoeuvred him up and down. “Well, they do say, save a horse, ride a cowboy.”

“I’m not a cowboy.”

“Coulda fooled me.” That remark earned him a deeper thrust and a swat to the ass.

It was over too soon, and they got dressed and returned to the back of the truck. A cigarette passed between them as the dogs emerged from their usual sleeping spots under the shade of a nearby mesquite tree.

All three dogs seemed to sense the impending change in the air and had followed them around for the last few days, particularly Luna. She stuck to Horacio like glue at the best of times and became increasingly confused at the sight of half-packed suitcases back at the guesthouse.

As he scratched her ears, it brought a lump to Horacio’s throat to picture the moment he would have to say goodbye. Knowing he would need to remind her and himself that it was only a temporary separation.

The truck looked out across the bank of the Rio Grande where a daily stream of trafficking boats sailed to and fro. Escobar may be no more, but the drug trade was still booming right under their noses.

“My first assignment out of the Academy was a task force searching for Kiki Camarena in Guadalajara. All these years later…it never stops. Same bullshit game, just different players.”

“Did you spend much time in Mexico?”

“Some. When I was a kid. I’ve got family there – Tía Inés, Tío Matías and my cousins. We used to visit in the summer. The older I got, the more they saw me as a gringo, though. And maybe they were right. Maybe I lost sight of my roots somewhere down the line. Thought I could play the big fucking American hero.” Javier scoffed at his past delusions of grandeur and at the misguided notion heroes existed in any of this.

“I think we all lost sight somewhere down the line.”

“Yeah.” Javier closed the gap between them, cupping Horacio’s cheek and brushing his lips over the bridge of Horacio’s nose and forehead. “I don’t regret going, though. I don’t regret us.”

Horacio’s long lashes fluttered like wings against Javier’s face as he closed his eyes. His hands slid up from the stubble of Javier’s jaw to the nape of his neck and into a mass of thick hair. “No more regrets. To new beginnings instead.”

“To new beginnings.”

As the low late afternoon sun created a mirage over the choppy waters, they drove back to the farmhouse in preparation for Chucho's farewell feast. And perhaps an old film or two with sleeping dogs for company.

They were under no illusions about the road ahead. Or the demons that lay lurking in the shadows of their minds, a hangover from the last several years. But for the first time in too long, there was hope. They were both finally standing still at the same time and ready to just be. Ready for anything that life threw at them because they would face it together. Ready for a new year and a fresh start.

[olet-lucernam]

A Hollow Promise [28] chapter vi, part v

{_[on AO3]_}

main tags : loki x original character, post-avengers 2012, canon divergence - post-thor: the dark world, canon-typical violence, mentions of torture, explicit sexual content

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summary: In the aftermath of the Battle of New York, the Avengers need a few days to build a transport device for the Tesseract. With the Helicarrier damaged and surveillance offline, SHIELD sends an asset to guard Loki in the interim: a young woman who sees the truth in all things, and cannot lie.

Even long presumed dead, her memories lost to her, Loki would know her anywhere.

And this changes things.

Some things last beyond infinity. And the universe is in love with chaos.

(Loki was never looking for redemption. It came as an unexpected side-effect.)

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chapter summary : astrid gathers her allies, and draws the attention of her enemies. loki pays a heavy price for a victory.

recommended listening : you, greta isaac

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tag list: @femmealec @mischief2sarawr

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48 weeks and 4 days out

The air was hot and humid, saturated with the smell of acid, bricking her into a wall of heat.

In the fresh dark, golden eldritch light glittering on her skin as the portal closed behind her, Astrid flipped her other phone out of her pocket- still dressed in the sleek-tailored trousers, pink satin heels, and black blazer with a narrow, dagger-plunge neckline that she had worn all day in Monaco. It had been edging into pre-dawn, as she left the Mediterranean coast; in Madripoor, the night was just beginning.

She checked the time on her screen, waiting for it to catch up to the local time zone.

She had a few new messages- one from Dr Wu’s ream, confirming the intended date for the scheduled surgery, another from Ophelia-

The clock updated.

Fashionably late.

Her client was probably beginning to sweat.

Tucking her phone away, Astrid pulled her hair up into a brisk, curling ponytail, walking towards the fire escape at the edge of the roof, the tide of noise from the streets rising to greet her.

Vivid and cluttered and treacherous, Lowtown was teeming with trebled activity as soon as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. Its unpaved narrow streets trammelled through a jungle of industrial steel beams and graffiti-splashed brick, thick bundles of electrical cables swooping overhead between the buildings and elevated walkways like trawl nets; structures staggered and crowded in and away from the water’s edge as though climbing over each other, jockeying for the highly priced commodity of square footage on the densely populated island.

The district was noise and neon lights, a grease trap and a den of iniquity.

Within it, the Brass Monkey Saloon was a strange oasis. The blue-backlit feature wall of carved primate skulls was a little gauche, and the cocktail menu was slightly bizarre even for Astrid’s well-travelled palate, but the fugu sashimi with ponzu and serrano chilli was to die for- quite literally, if the bartender was careless with the knife.

The bar was a place of business, primarily, a venue for deals to be conducted under a strict code of etiquette, enforced by the imminent threat of violence. And a contractor like Alethia was considered a selling point, a draw for customers- allowed to skip the line at the door.

The bass hummed through her bones as she was admitted by the bouncer, winding her way through the press of bodies in embroidered silks, cropped leathers, and street-fashion cotton. The dress code was somewhere between dystopia, music video, and runway in Milan- meaning that her blazer suit strangely blended into the bedlam, smudged out amongst the black and greys and blues.

Sliding up the glass-topped bar, Astrid caught the eye of a particularly humourless bartender.

“Benjamin.”

He looked up, pausing in sliding glasses away beneath the bar, and approached unhurriedly.

“Alethia.” He answered expressionlessly. “The usual?”

“Please.”

With the slightest nod, he turned away to prepare her eponymic drink.

Most of the drinks at the Brass Monkey were little more than a mouthful- premium liquors served up in a double shot glass with a dash of garnish.

The Alethia was an exception.

Hip and elbow leaning against the bar, facing out to scan the densely-packed room, Astrid glanced back over her shoulder to watch Benjamin work. The cocktail was a take on a Kir Royale; in a tilted flute glass, Benjamin tippled a chilled, sparkling rosé, mulled using a seventeenth-century French recipe that proclaimed itself wine of the gods, infused with powdered sugar, yellow apples, lemon, and orange blossom water. Benjamin added a shot of a liqueur made of summer berries, vanilla, and rose, a heavy dash of sharp lemon juice, and a sprinkle of dried rose petals and edible gold.

Astrid’s mouth curved faintly as the drink was set in front of her, incongruously and shamelessly pretty, sweet and feminine with a sour edge.

She parted her fingers around the stem of the glass, gently pulling it towards her by the base.

“Thank you. My client?”

Unblinking, Benjamin lifted his head in the direction of one of the booths tucked against the wall.

Straightening, Astrid turned to look, the fall of her ponytail sweeping against the back of her blazer like the scrape of a butterknife.

She bit down on her lower lip, to stop herself from laughing.

Dr Abigail Brand had dressed the part- dark studded leathers and a lace bralette, the silver glint of the hardware picking up and reflecting the acid green streaks threaded into her braids, eye makeup smoked out with an expert shimmer of emerald glitter- but her posture was that of a rabbit frozen amongst a pack of wolves, stiff and shoulders gathered in, eyes darting towards anyone who walked a little too close to her table.

Gripped in her hand- raised a little too high to be natural, obviously on display- she was nursing a glass of the same pretty pink cocktail bearing Astrid’s alias.

“Stars above,” Astrid murmured to herself, the slight pressure in her chest halfway between outright laughter and pity.

“Only reason she hasn’t been eaten alive is because she’s one of yours,” Benjamin commented.

“Mm.” Astrid inclined her head back, in implied gratitude.

She lifted her apéritif to her lips, awareness opening up.

There were a few familiar faces amongst the froth of bodies, as well as fresh blood. She swiftly recognised a certain Cajun thief who had given her trouble in the past, flipping a pack of cards low at his waist with the deftness of a magician, scanning the floor as though searching for a mark; not far from her, two women lounged against the edge of the bar, talking- one with white hair cropped short against brown skin, the other taller and curvier with a spill of iron-oxide hair.

Her eyes snagged on a shadow slouched against the wall several seats away.

Broad and bulky and closed in, arms folded across their barrel chest with blatant hostility, they were concealed amongst the dye of blue light, and constant slow-churning motion of the patrons.

Her eyes narrowed.

“Can I order a plate of the fugu sashimi to the table, Ben?” Astrid spoke over her shoulder. “I have a feeling that this is going to be a long one.”

He paused, inscrutable. “Sure.”

Nudging herself off the bar with a flick of her hips, Astrid wound her way through the crowds, shoulders twisting as she slid between turned backs and jutting elbows, pivoting on the balls of her heels, until she came to a halt at the edge of Abigail’s table.

She waited until her nervous sideways glance began to flicker upwards- stuttering towards her face, but afraid to make eye contact, in case she was mistaken.

Head cocked, lips parted in the insinuation of a smile, Astrid spoke.

“Now what is a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

Abigail’s chin snapped up.

“Alethia.”

Her expression and tone were translucent- relief mingled with apprehension, and a dash of visible reconsideration of every decision that had led up to this point.

Unimpeded by the dim half-light, Astrid looked directly into her, pulling her open.

What she caught, in the flickering fire of Abigail’s synapses, was- not what she expected.

But it did stain colour into a few of the blanks.

She pressed her tongue to the back of her teeth.

Without a word, Astrid slid fluidly into the seat opposite her, relaxing into the cushions, her aching muscles easing into rest.

“You came,” Abigail said tightly. She was fidgeting with the stem of her glass anxiously, dried petals and gold leaf swilled against its sides in the wash.

Astrid arched a brow.

“Should I not have?”

“No,” Abigail said sharply, clenched and perturbed, a hint of a steel-honed conviction in the reflexive panic, “I mean yes. Yes, you should have come.”

“Mm.” Astrid lifted her glass, the rim pressing against her lower lip, all caprice and acceptance. “Alright.”

Abigail glared at her uncertainly. “Alright?”

“Mm-hm.”

Blinking at Astrid’s slow, languorous hum of affirmation into her drink, Abigail shifted in her seat. “Uh. Okay.”

Astrid watched her, swallowing a mouthful of liqueur-spiked rosé, while Abigail cast about for something to say- or, rather, a way to phrase whatever she had contacted her for.

“How are you?” Astrid prompted, folding her arms atop the table.

Abigail looked nonplussed by the question.

“Um. Good.” She decided after a moment.

Astrid flicked her eyes up, and across their surroundings briefly- the pleasant small talk incongruous to the bar.

Abigail seemed to catch the meaning in her gesture, cringing to herself at the awkwardness.

“I, uh- I got out of SHIELD, a few months ago,” she explained.

“Oh, that is good,” Astrid said sincerely.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Abigail swallowed thickly. “I, um- I mean it. Thanks. You, uhm- you knew, didn’t you?”

Astrid arched her brows.

“Knew what?”

Abigail’s lips pressed together, smudging her plum lipstick.

“About- me.”

Hesitating, her hand gestured vaguely against the surface of the table, palm up and fingers flaring.

It mimicked flame.

“Oh, that.” Astrid tipped her head nonchalantly, laughing softly. “Of course. Mutant, not mutate, right?”

Abigail sucked in a breath, gaze fixed at Astrid’s clavicle.

“You didn’t tell SHIELD.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why would I?”

Abigail’s expression flickered with the first, fragile threads of consternation, looking away.

“Aren’t you going to ask how I tracked you down?”

“Mn, no. I have a fair idea as to how.”

“Right.” Her jaw was set, chin lifting, frustration and discomfort beginning to lend her confidence. “I’m guessing you already know why I’m here, then.”

“Actually, no- well, yes, but it is broad enough a why that it barely counts.”

The outer corners of Abigail’s eyes creased slightly as she glanced up, setting her eyeshadow glittering.

“What, you’re not gonna claim the credit for getting it right?”

“I’m always right,” Astrid pointed out, lifting her shoulder. “If I kept pointing it out, I would come off like men who are so very insistent about how nice they are.”

A snort startled out of Abigail, a hand immediately whipping up to cover her mouth.

Astrid grinned, picking up her glass.

“It’s good to see you, Dr Brand- I’m glad you’re well.” She allowed herself to say. “So. Why don’t you tell me why you bought us here?”

Abigail sobered. The zips on her leather jacket clinked with the motion of her shoulders drawing back, throat moving.

“So, um. My contract ended with SHIELD, and afterwards- I decided to take a break from work. It was a few months after you- after APOLLO was finished, and I, uh, I actually ended up going back to-”

“Ah, I’m sorry- I should have been more specific,” Astrid interrupted gently, setting her flute down, teeth crunching into the dried petals, crisp on her tongue, “I know why you’re here. I was asking,” she met Abigail’s startled black eyes steadily, “why- you bought us here.”

Abigail’s mouth moved soundless for a moment.

“Wha- I don’t unders-”

“I can infer that Dr Brand is an envoy, of a sort,” Astrid continued, talking past Abigail, gazing directly into the aperture of her pupils and through, “and your point of contact, to me. But wonder if it was necessary to drag her into the lion’s den. Even with her shadow in the corner. Madripoor may know him, but they have no indication that he is here for her.”

For a moment, Abigail sat locked in place under Astrid’s stare, doe-eyed and blank.

Then, her entire posture shifted.

Knees crossing under the table, she leaned back. With a flick of a deeper glance, Astrid perceived her pulse throb down from its brisk, nervous clip to a comfortable resting thrum. The wound-taut stiffness dropped from her like snapped marionette strings, leaving her slouching into the booth, fingers lacing over her abdomen. Her eyes became knowing, the smile politely curious, her entire manner avuncular and professorial; Astrid could see the pattern in the spark-shower of her synapses shift, the electrical impulses changing.

Something other than Abigail Brand was stepping towards the surface of her skin, taking up the reins, from where it had been seated as a voyeur for the past several minutes.

Abigail Brand herself melted back with a rush of relief, willingly giving up the pilot’s controls.

“My goodness, but you are good,” Abigail’s mouth mused, grinning softly.

Telepaths, Astrid thought, restraining herself from rolling her eyes. Because they could read others, they thought they were entirely opaque.

“I assume that you were aware of my reputation.” she pointed out coolly. “It makes hiding behind the metaphorical curtain seem- a little pointless, no?”

“Well, I had to be sure. I’m sure you understand.” Abigail’s shoulders shrugged, gaze calm and clear as a cloudless night. “It’s why I wanted to see you for myself.”

Astrid couldn’t begrudge that. She lifted a shoulder in acquiescence.

“What were you hoping to find?”

“Ah. Well. When Abigail told me about you- about who you are, and what it is you could do- I could only hope that you would be precisely what she described.” She took a pause. “Interesting that you are upset. That I appeared careless with Abgail’s safety. It certainly speaks volumes of your character, Miss Alethia.”

“Are you terribly concerned with my character?” Astrid asked dryly.

“As a matter of fact.” The smiling eyes turned solemn, beneath the maintained tension that kept the edges pleasantly upturned. “It is of great concern to me.”

The press against the surface of her thoughts was light, experimental, expert- like the skim of fingertips on opaque glass.

Her mana lashed out, driving the expectant, exploratory force back.

There was no flinch in Abigail’s features at the rebuff, only a distant surprise.

Astrid twitched her head to one side, as though flicking off the residue.

Abigail’s spine straightened slightly, its occupant readjusting.

“When did you work it out?” The question came from the telepath with downturned eyes and a light mien. It was he bearing of someone finding enjoyment in an intellectual challenge, and deciding to ignore what had just happened.

Wise choice. “That Dr Brand was not alone in her head?”

The telepath used Abigail’s vocal cords to hum in affirmation.

“As soon as I looked in her eyes,” Astrid said simply. Like recognises like, she mused.

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“You’re not my first,” she replied with a bland smile, lifting her glass to her mouth, her right eyebrow arching with the curve of the left side of her mouth.

Witches and warlocks and interdimensional demons had all tried to crack her skull and pry it open to peer into her brain, at one point or another. Her defence mechanisms were instinctive, and effective, and only restrained if she wanted to invite them inside- like Loki.

“You can invite them to sit down, by the way,” she added, elbow resting on the back of the booth, finger toying with a stray blonde curl. “Although- we might need a larger booth if all four of themintend to join us.”

The smile on Abigail’s face twitched wider.

A moment later, one of the bar staff delivered Astrid’s sashimi platter to the table- raw fugu arranged in fine slices on the dark ceramic- and she felt three people exit the club.

The fourth moved in the corner of her vision, towards their booth, as Astrid popped a bite-sized fillet into her mouth.

“Ah, Logan,” Abigail’s voice called, so staged that Astrid almost rolled her eyes, “there you are.”

Astrid looked up obligingly.

The once-shadow stood close against the edge of the table, backlit in dim smoke-blue, looming over them with a blatant standoffishness, limbs held as though cut from granite- or else constantly primed to wind back into a right uppercut. His build was stocky, tall and broad, square-faced, corded with a type of muscle that was just slightly underfed- in a way that made Astrid think of rescued fighting dogs- and wearing stone-washed jeans, a weathered leather jacket, and a deep scowl, brows heavy beneath a shoved-back mane of dark hair.

While Madripoor was no stranger to soldiers of fortune and pit-fighters and hired guns, this one had a different air about him- something slightly incompatible with the city, but so unconcerned with it that he was accepted anyway.

“Logan, this is Alethia,” Abigail announced, somewhat unnecessarily. “Alethia, Logan.”

“Hey,” Logan grunted.

“Hi. Pleasure,” Astrid replied, sensing that laconic answers would endear her to the man known to the island as Wolverine. “Sashimi?”

He flicked his chin up. “I’m good. They still only serve that mini-cocktail crap here?”

“The Alethias are a reasonable size,” the telepath had Abigail interject, lifting the glass and twirling it by the stem. “And rather pretty, I must say.”

“They have a few craft bottles behind the bar, on request,” Astrid informed Logan lightly. “I can order you one.”

He glared at her for a moment, as though attempting to determine what the catch was.

Astrid kept her gaze clear and open.

“Sure,” he said eventually.

Astrid glanced towards the bar, catching the eye of a bartender and lifting two fingers in the universal gesture of requesting service.

Abigail slid aside in the booth seat to make room for Logan. He dropped into the cushions with an almost deliberate inelegance, sizing up Astrid from underneath his eyebrows.

She let him.

“You still haven’t given me your name,” she directed at the telepath instead, curling her hand under the line of her jaw, eyes remaining on the bar.

Abigail made a soft noise.

“Oh, yes. Forgive me.”

Through Abigail, the telepath smiled warmly, steepling her fingers across the table.

“My name is Professor Charles Xavier. I run a school for remarkable youngsters, in Westchester, New York. And I have a proposition for you, Miss Alethia, that I do believe may be of mutual benefit to us both.”

Astrid glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, lashes low, tone light.

“Mutual and beneficial,” she echoed consideringly. “That is an interesting combination, Professor Xavier.”

Abigail- Charles Xavier- smiled brightly.

“I most certainly hope so.”

Astrid exhaled an answering laugh, turning to him.

Logan was still watching her with an expression that threatened to pin her by her throat, if she bared her teeth first- but she simply glanced at him with dancing eyes, before turning her gaze back at Abigail and the telepath looking through her eyes.

“Alright, Professor,” she said, taking up her glass, “I’m listening.”

-

Another addition was made to the list.

Storage boxes.

-

47 weeks and 1 day out

It was an uncharacteristically lazy morning.

The linens were crisp and freshly laundered, the air conditioning thrumming into the penthouse, filtering the humid air to a comfortable temperature. Monsoon season had passed, and sunlight streamed through the drapes from clear skies, its glare from over the city spires softened enough through the gossamer drapes that she could slip back into sleep if she chose, like dipping into a warm bath.

It was a brief stillness, amongst the organised, frantic entropy that dominated her waking hours- and Astrid was struggling to regain the useful panic and need to move, to keep going.

You need the rest, Astra, Loki murmured against the curve of her neck. His mouth was pressed so flush to her skin that the words were more vibration than sound, dissipating and melting through her flesh, dissolving into utter primal want in her bloodstream, like gold dust. Now stay here and be sweet for me. It has been too long since I enjoyed you like this.

Biting her lip, Astrid resisted the urge to arch into the illusion of him- tauntingly bare-skinned from the waist upwards, the comfortable contours of his arms and marble-cool expanse of his chest and stomach encasing her, pressing against her warmth, a knee sliding lazily against her bare calf.

She was thoroughly upset at him for trapping her so effectively.

She could feel Loki’s smugness as he sank into her, languorous and satisfied. A palm smoothed under her camisole, and up the curve of her waist indulgently.

Astrid gave a muffled, bitten-off noise of protest and delight, barely stopping herself from flexing back against him.

Loki knew exactly what he was doing.

They had talked for a short while after Astrid had woken that morning, and she had just been about to rise, mix herself a caffeine hit, and review her progress, when Loki had unfurled the illusion of his weight against her- slotting a leg between hers and burying his face in her hair, projecting affection and pleasure as though there was nowhere else that he would rather be- and rendering her completely useless.

Astrid huffed into the plush of her pillow, still lying prone against the mattress.

“As though I wouldn’t do anything for you,” she mumbled ruefully.

Loki took his victory with relative grace, only smirking against her nape.

He still wasn’t entirely relaxed. She could feel it. The underlying tension was corded through him in a low thrum of anxiety, like a plucked wire, like the current of a storm in the air.

Astrid felt its echo strumming in her chest, a low roar of things that she didn’t want to think about, reverberating louder.

And moment by moment, it seemed to creep closer, nearer, blurring into her vision, like the sight-lights of a train, screaming on its tracks.

It lingered, as a sour taste in her mouth.

With a flex of her scarred shoulder blades, Astrid eased herself up onto her elbows.

Loki barely loosened his embrace enough to let her move. His mouth and the tip of his nose grazed down her back as she pushed upwards, lifting his head to her, quietly watchful.

The muscles in her abdomen and flanks stretched, the sharp-edged pull a welcome distraction from the sickness gathering underneath, clouding her thoughts.

Loki reacted before she felt him think of the motion.

Rearing onto his knees, he snaked a strong arm across her abdomen, dragging her up against the bend of his body, holding himself up off the bed on the opposite elbow.

The air was forced from Astrid’s lungs in a sharp gasp, heat pooling in her gut with a reflexive lurch, pinned in place up against him.

You seem distracted, darling, Loki said delicately, a dark and deliberate contrast to his possessive grip upon her, fingers fanning across the curve of her waist. Where are you, my heart?

Head bowed, weight forced upon her forearms, bridged underneath him and pulse hammering into a canter, Astrid swallowed down the shock, regrouping.

“That’s- Loki, that’s not what I- ah!”

She let up a yelp as Loki sank phantom teeth into her shoulder. A sharp wrench of want ripped through her, setting her chest heaving.

There you go again, darling.

Using the arm that was locked around her waist, Loki dragged her a few effortless, powerful inches down the mattress- bending her underneath him, until she was settled on her knees, stable even without his grip holding her up.

You’ve been distant of late, sweet thing. Preoccupied. One of Astrid’s hands reflexively reached for his, glazing over the back of Loki’s hand, tracing the sculpted ridges of tendons and veins and knuckles, thrown into relief as his long fingers flexed against the dip of her waist. Always swift to leave, to return to work.

Arousal speared through her stomach, at being so cavalierly manhandled. Astrid could almost feel part of her brain shorting out, switching off; the illusion of Loki was damningly firm against her, all lean strength and long, defined marmoreal lines, echoing reality to the finest detail. Her train of thought stalled at the flex and flutter of muscle and sinew, the controlled crush of his weight bearing down on her, and how he fit her against him.

Astrid half-wanted to grapple loose and twist over in his arms, and paint his skin with heat.

The other half of her wanted to willingly give up the fragile threads of control that were still taut in her grasp, and let him do whatever he wanted.

Here we are, at our leisure, and yet your mind is working away. Loki mused, ominously unhurried as the steady tightening of a knot. Away from me. Have I been neglecting you so?

She choked out a soft scoff of denial. “I d- it’s not that-”

No? Perhaps not, yet I have to wonder if it had not crossed your mind. Loki’s voice in her mind was like blood and sugar, heady as strong wine. That I have been remiss in showing my appreciation.

Astrid pressed back, as his palm spread possessively against her lower ribs. His handspan was broad enough that the pad of his thumb brushed distractingly close to the underside of her breast, taunting.

She bit down on her lip hard, neat-pared nails scraping at the rumpled bedsheets.

Ah, see? Loki teased. I have neglected you. My poor darling. I was thoughtless. You have been working so very hard, relentless, tireless, without due reward from your prince-

“You are my reward,” Astrid gasped out before she could think.

His lips curved at the shell of her ear, darkly delighted, the mark of a perfectly executed victory.

Astrid could feel the net closing upon her, caught.

Aha. Right as ever, dove.

Loki nudged a knee between hers, and pried her legs open.

Her thoughts instantly turned molten, her spine slackening.

I am your reward. Loki purred. He began mouthing his way across the open span of her back, tracing the violent edges of her scars, lingering on the ridge of her vertebrae, a tease of fingertips beginning to gather the hem of her camisole, lifting it up across her body. Now take it. Like it’s your right.

Her breath was punched out of her.

“Fuck, Loki, you can’t just say-”

His hand smoothed beneath the waistband of her soft jersey shorts, stroking her hipbone.

“Uhn-”

Say it again, he rasped, say my name again.

Her sigh shuddered on her tongue.

“Loki.”

That’s it. Again.

“Loki, please-”

Again.

“Loki-”

His hand moved to palm her thigh, long fingers gently pressing into the firm-soft flesh, parting her legs further.

Yes. Just like that, Loki murmured. Like you mean it. Like you need this. Show me that you are here, with me.

“I-” Astrid forced herself to focus, ignoring the flick of his tongue on her skin with sheer brute willpower. “Hn- it’s not- over yet. Not even close, I thi- th-this is jumping the gun a- a little, don’t you think-? If this is meant to be- a r-reward-”

Oh, believe me, Loki answered heatedly, the hand on her ribs sliding back up until his fingers rippled over the jut of her hipbone, sending Astrid shivering, stuttering against a breathy exhale. You have earned this much, at least. I will save the very best for when I can work you over with more than just my magic- but neither do I intend to deprive you now.

“I am not- deprived-”

Loki tucked a firm, searching kiss against the pulse on her throat. His fingertips barely grazed the crease of her inner thigh, teasing at the rush of arousal short-circuiting her synapses.

Stop thinking. His breaths were at the curve of her jaw, his lashes brushing her temple as he inhaled against her skin, his loose hair skimming her face. Astrid breathed in, drawing in lungfuls of his scent, of wild boreal forests, the clean bite of frost, the warm musk of leather, and fresh-ground ink. Relax, and close your eyes, and let me ignite the stars behind them. Say you’ll do that for me, Astra. Say yes. Tell me yes.

She heard the note of pleading in his voice, beneath the thick cadence of command, and Astrid’s will snapped clean in half.

“Yes.”

Loki let out a close-mouthed groan against her, before snapping out a command, every inch the proud, uncompromising, imperious prince he had been raised to be.

Eyes closed, beloved. His hand rose to her lips, caressing their edges. And let me hear you.

Quick as a viper, he gripped her hips, and flipped her over.

Astrid gave a yelp as her back hit the mattress, her head thudding into the pillow, pulling her hair almost completely loose from its ties.

She huffed, within the dark behind her eyelids.

“You are enjoying this a little too much, prince,” she barely managed to accuse him, against the caress of his fingers at the bone of her ankle, swirling against it.

Yes I am, Loki agreed amiably, lifting her leg with a crook of his finger at her heel, kissing her calf.

Astrid heard the lie instantly.

She threw her elbow over her eyes.

“Tak guna,” she muttered in Malay.

Chuckling knowingly, Loki surged in and bit the inside of her thigh.

Astrid jack-knifed with a shriek of surprise- before dissolving into laughter. Pure joy brewed up and bubbled out of her, like a cloudburst in sunshine, bright and clean and refreshing.

She could feel Loki’s answering grin, and the soft thrum of his laughter as he kissed the inside of her knee sweetly.

There she is, he breathed, the velvet of his tone softening just slightly, tenderness edging in and twining around her like ivy. My darling. My Astra.

“Your Astra,” Astrid breathed out in a vow, reaching for him. “Yours.”

Her fingers threaded through the waves of his bed-mussed hair, soft and wildened under her touch.

There was a sudden intimacy in the gesture. Even through the red-tinted shutter of her eyelids, and the cold fact that he wasn’t really there, it made him feel close and undressed and open, and hers.

“I love you.”

Loki paused abruptly.

It occurred to Astrid that this was the first time that she had said it, in naked, unambiguous terms, that couldn’t be misunderstood or misinterpreted through a veil of references or implication.

Loki reaction bled through their mental link, with a sympathetic corkscrew in her stomach.

First came a heartbreaking hesitation- a reflexive flash of doubt and plunge of agitation, acidic and uncertain and almost panicked, like a starving stomach presented with a banquet- before hardening and sharpening and rapidly breaking apart into a storm of fierce, raw, deliberate affection.

The mattress dipped as he levered back up the bed, slipping loose from her hands, before dipping down to smudge a kiss against her cheekbone, just under her left eye.

Astrid sighed, tipping her face into him. Her hand shifted up to find the ridge of his forearm, where he was propped up above her, stroking along honed muscle and the curve of bone.

Although she had sincerely never felt deprived, Astrid could admit that she wanted this.

Two deft fingers scraped the inside seam of her shorts.

The friction of soft jersey against her damp, expectant flesh set Astrid’s hips snapping up reflexively, muscles pulling taut.

“Mn-!”

Loki exhaled his satisfaction against her, his breath dusting her lashes like frost, before his lips grazed upwards to the corner of her eye.

Let me hear you, he reminded her, darkly, setting a shock of pleasure through her bloodstream.

His fingers curved against her again, pulling a bitten-off cry from Astrid that pitched higher towards its tail, becoming strangled in her throat as her head pressed back.

The pads of his digits barely scraped against her, swirling in a tight droplet shape, testing and gathering the dense slickness that was clinging to the gusset of her shorts, heavy and rich. Astrid’s grip upon Loki’s arm tightened, nails dragging into his skin for purchase, heels dragging against the sheets as she drew her body open to him.

Loki lowered his head to slide his tongue languidly along the line of her clavicle. From behind closed eyelids, Astrid blindly reached for the artifice of his shoulder, anchoring herself against him; her palm slid along to the curve of the nape of his neck, carding her fingers through the soft, cool satin of his hair, scraping pared nails against his scalp and lilting her body up against his perfect mouth.

It elicited a faintly agonised noise from Loki, ghosting across and cooling the saliva on her skin. Loki’s form dragged a few desperate inches against her, his spell wavering and sparking under a rush of uncontrolled mana, rippling through Astrid as its conduit.

Almost in retaliation, he dipped his touch deeper, and began setting a rhythm in earnest.

She was lost in under four strokes, pulled under like a riptide, raw nature hijacking her brain.

Her hips began mindlessly rolling and hitching with every clever, experimental, painstakingly measured grind of Loki’s fingers, dragging against her flesh, the motion forcing soft whimpers from low in her throat. Loki’s mounting desire and gratification at her every twitch and vocalisation echoed though her, ricocheting into itself and creating a feedback loop that began blanking her thoughts out, involuntary little sounds pulled from her as though he was drawing music from an instrument, nerves set singing like violin strings.

“Loki,” she heard herself gasp out, using her hands on him as leverage to pull herself up into him, the stimulation simultaneously too much and not enough, balanced on the knife edge of agony and hunger, “Loki, fuck, so good to me, you’re so good to me-”

I haven’t even started yet, beloved, Loki murmured against the upper swell of her breast, the words heavy with promise.

Astrid felt his arm turn under her grip, and heard his fingers snap crisply.

Magic deluged the air, sizzling on her tongue as it surged through her like a lightning rod, a split second before her wrists slammed against the mattress, held in place by an unseen pressure.

She could feel Loki rising to kneel between her legs, parting his knees wide to force hers apart, cool air brushing hot flesh.

Mm, there we are. Loki gentled for a brief moment, fingertips brushing indicatively over the delicate veins of her inner wrist. Comfortable?

“Yes,” Astrid answered, quick and strangled, a little startled- but not entirely surprised- by the heat that pooled in her at Loki restraining her with his magic, cuffing her in place.

And he caught it, seeping through their connection, easing into a smirk.

Oh, I can see that. Look at you, Loki mused, each syllable dripping with lust, like an offering at a sacred alter, tied up and wet and willing for me. Fit for a god. Fit for worship.

One finger crooked beneath the hem of her camisole, lifting it from her body, dragging the cotton upwards, air cooling the glimmer of sweat that was beginning to form on her skin. His other hand slipped beneath the hem of her shorts, brushing teasingly against her sex, making Astrid flinch into him with a short cry.

Loki’s exhale was almost a snarl of conquest.

Bolstered by the sound, and with a sudden surge of boldness, Astrid lifted one leg and wrapped it around his hip, knee crooked and her heel pressing at the small of his back.

“Did you think about me?” She asked breathily, tipping her chin up, supplicant and wanting. “Like- like this?”

The vibrato of Loki’s airless groan settled behind her sternum.

I have.

Astrid shivered.

“Tell me.”

With a twist of his wrist, Loki seized a handful of her camisole in his grip, hulling the fabric up over her head- the magic around her wrists loosening just enough for him to slide the straps underneath them and hurl it aside. In the same motion, fluid as silk, he pulled her calf loose from his waist, bent down, and took the waistband of her shorts between his teeth.

Humming in the back of her throat, Astrid lifted her hips obligingly. Loki swiftly dragged her damp shorts loose from her, trailing a smudge of slick against her inner thigh.

You want to hear how much I want you? Loki growled, velvet and deadly.

Astrid exhaled, carefully.

“Well- yes- but more of the how. I- like to aim to please.”

Loki chuckled sinisterly, and snapped the swatch of jersey from over her ankle.

Are deciding on how to greet your prince, once you have me in the flesh?

“I should plan ahead,” Astrid breathed, “for a- grand welcome.”

And if I tell you that I have thought of this, since that morning on the Helicarrier?

His touch trailed up the centre of her abdomen, skimming the underside of her breasts. Smoothly deliberate, his fingers spread, applying the slightest pressure to the curve if her ribs, to hold her in place under him. Loki’s illusion remained at an infuriating, controlled distance, leaving Astrid only able to guess and verbally test at any physical effect she might be having on him, feeling her way in the dark.

That I had thought of breaking the lock, wrenching the door open, and fucking you while you wear nothing but those delicious thigh-high socks?

Astrid’s thighs clenched infinitesimally, a zoetrope-flicker of the scenario projecting into her mind, directly from his: of Loki sinking into her, one large hand grasping the underside of her thigh, gripping smooth skin and grazing soft clinging wool as he forced her open, mounting her, driving into her as her spine arched up, lips parted-

“Mn. If that’s what you want, alderliefest,” she managed to reply almost casually, swallowing the whisky-burn of his words, fingers clenching against nothing, “I- had thought about whether I could short out the cameras for long enough to ride you in that cell-”

The moan that spilled from Loki was quiet, but utterly obscene.

Astra-

“- especially after you quoted that line from E.E Cummings,” Astrid pressed ruthlessly, confessions spilling from her in a rush, “you said those words, and I thought about it- wondered whether that would prove that I was here for you, not them, if I- if I took you while you were in full armour, fingernails in the seams of your leathers, tongue at your throat-”

- Norns-

“- or maybe on my knees, if you wanted- I wanted reclaim you from them- bring you back, overwrite it all- ah!”

Astrid shouted, kicking out wildly as Loki plunged his tongue into her cunt.

He brushed past her oversensitive clitoris, instead pressing close to her entrance, flattening a broad, slow sweep against her heat and dragging through the syrup of her wetness. It still set her straining against her unseen cuffs and cursing out, every nerve turning to incandescent wire.

“Fuck, Loki, f-fuck, stars, that- ahn! Your mouth, please, fuck, please, please-”

I thought of you gasping my name like this, Loki mouthed against her, vehemently, humming vibrations into her throbbing flesh, leaving her whimpering, open-mouthed, begging me, and the heat of you, slick and gripping me, pliant and willingly mine-

His tongue dipped inside of her, brief and probing, the tip of his straight nose nudging the underside of her clit. Astrid cried out, long and plaintive.

“Loki-!”

I thought of my hand wrapped around your neck, as I took you from behind, he almost snarled, like the sound of grinding ice, carnal and visceral. Seizing her leg to drag it over his shoulder, Loki let her heel press into his back as his tongue curled into her, again, again, again, until her back pulled into a desperate, straining arch like the pull of a loaded bow.

One sculpted arm looped over her stomach, effortlessly holding her to the mattress with sheer iron force, the silk of his hair sweeping against her inner thighs.

Or your knees hitched around my waist, moaning like a whore for your prince, taking me until I am almost deep enough for you to taste in the back of your throat- hands pinned above you, just like this, or clawing at me as though you might die if you don’t have me- in my lap, with your back against my chest, hands in my hair, driving us both to completion, taking what you want from me like a queen upon her rightful throne-

Astrid thrashed her head against the sheets, Loki’s voice tapping into something primal she hadn’t known existed in her, striking deep, hooking into her gut. Her body moved mindlessly to chase the pleasure he offered, thoughts melting, her own voice cracking as Loki’s thumb edged into to nudge her folds wider.

“Fuck, Loki, yes, like that, just like that, right the-ere-”

His tongue swirled against her indulgently, humming with satisfaction. It set her head spinning, white beginning to bloom in the darkness covering her vision.

Tell me how you want me, Astra, Loki demanded, lifting away just enough that his slick-glazed lips brushed her clitoris. Astrid almost sobbed, twisting and bucking as she fought away, yet closer, her frontal lobe disconnected and her body given over to sensation, all reflex and reaction. Tell me what you like. Tell me what should I give my perfect girl to make her scream, what does she want of me, I’ll do all the work if she likes, all the fucking, just tell me how you want me-

“Everything, any way you want,” Astrid moaned out, turning her cheek against the pillow, twisting against him, chasing the perfect angle, hips stuttering and shifting restlessly, her ankles locking at the small of his back in a half-conscious attempt to tangle the two of them together and fight for leverage, sparks chasing through her limbs, hot and sharp as a livewire, “stars, whatever you want, Loki, you can have all of it, just- uhn! Want you to want it, want you to lose yourself in me, want you to cum for me-”

Loki’s lips sealed around her clit, and Astrid shrieked in bliss.

It was like a spark exposed to pure oxygen, the first crack before an avalanche, the swell before a tsunami. It gathered into her nerves, violently, as Loki tongued her in earnest, his tongue grinding against the delicate tightly clustered bed of nerves, humming low and lascivious.

Head thrown back, Astrid slurred half-coherent praises- back bowed and lifted, hips flicking up into the sweet friction, wrists straining against the pressure holding her down for him.

“Beautiful, faen, Loki, you’d look beautiful coming inside me, exquisite, divine, every inch of you, Loki, only you, yours, break me, Loki, Loki, Loki-”

Loki let out a whining groan, curving in and bearing down on her, flicking his tongue against her with lethal precision.

Her orgasm came crashing down like the roaring rush of a spring storm, spilling through her blood, seething through her.

Astrid could hear herself gasping for breath, short, vehemently feminine sounds forcing their way through her clenched-open jaw. Loki’s grip turned bruising, caging her in place.

When she came to- eyes still closed, rising from the fall with stardust shimmering behind her lids, pleasantly senseless with pure dopamine- she could feel the facsimile of Loki’s hand soothing down her side, in long, languid, honeyed strokes of his palm, his nose nuzzling at her temple tenderly, trembling almost infinitesimally above her.

Her lips twitched, in delighted disbelief, when she realised that he had gotten off from that alone.

Back with me, pretty girl? Loki murmured sweetly, just slightly out of breath, kissing the curve of her jaw.

“Mn.”

How do you feel?

“Hmn.” Astrid shifted, testing her limbs with a sigh. “Spectacular. Definitely, ah- un-deprived.”

With an airy chuckle, Loki kissed her cheek, chastely.

Good.

Ignoring the pleasant, protesting ache in her arms, Astrid reached up- finding her wrists released, the magic dissolved- and twined them around Loki’s shoulders, pulling him down flush against her.

He came willingly, melting into her warmth like wax. She tipped her head aside as Loki tucked his face against the curve of her neck, settling his weight against her with a contented sigh and shuffling of angles, seeking the most comfortable fit. Thrumming a soft laugh, Astrid relaxed, luxuriating in the swathes of cool, bare skin that greeted her. The pads of her fingers traced over and massaged into his shoulder blades, running through his hair, until she felt a hedonistic moan purr through his chest.

Astrid was drifting somewhere in the gentle liminal haze between sleep and waking, when he spoke again.

This won’t be forever, Loki whispered, his thumb running along the curve of her hipbone, I promise. His hold on her tightened slightly. My eternity.

Teeth slicing against her lower lip, Astrid smiled, bittersweet.

She was unspeakably grateful, that he had misinterpreted her.

To her luck, it seemed that Loki believed it was the distance that was plaguing her psyche- and not the fears that the distance had begun to dredge, from somewhere dark and uncertain inside her heart, stirring up silt, scraping at her insides.

But Loki’s words rang of an ancient vow, of something that he must have said to her before.

The familiarity of it slotted into and turned against the void in her memories, like a key in a neglect-stiffened lock- not enough to unlatch the time-frozen pins and barrels and gears, but enough to tell her that it fit.

Astrid tightened the circle of her arms, burying her mouth against his crown. Her legs slid between his, sliding up his calves, grounding herself in the verisimilitude of him.

Loki was not there, but somewhere lightyears away, he could feel this.

And Astrid had chosen selfishness and pain and hurling herself onto the dagger of his affection, and she was nothing if not faithful.

No matter what lay ahead, no matter the unknowns that could drop the floor from underneath her, she had already made her choice. It was too late; she loved him.

“Can I be greedy?” She asked tentatively.

Always. Loki slid his arms around her, snug between her back and the cushion of the mattress. Tell me.

Astrid exhaled carefully.

“When it’s over,” she said, breathing in his leather and ink and evergreen, “let me hold you like this again.”

Loki huffed a fond, incredulous sound.

As often as you like. As though you need even ask.

She curved herself around him, denying the pressure building behind her eyes.

“Then I can wait,” she said softly.

I can earn you, Astrid didn’t say.

-

43 weeks and 2 days out

It wasn’t HYDRA who found her first.

It was as she was leaving an appointment one night- her messenger bag satisfyingly weighted with several files, as payment for services rendered, along with a fresh commissions list- when Astrid recognised that she was being watched.

She didn’t react. The dockside warehouse was one of Ophelia’s less glamorous, and more legitimate operations- located on the docks of Hǎidào Bay, on the cusp of the deep waters of the harbour. Within the shifting labyrinths of shipping containers and omnipresent grime of corruption, it had been easy for Astrid to dress herself in black and casual confidence, and render her presence unnoticed as she came to meet with Ophelia for their usual exchange.

It was equally easy to slip through one of the narrow corridors between the shipping containers, step into the Mirror Dimension, and open up a portal to another continent, escaping within seconds.

The air in Odesa was pleasantly temperate, the sun bright and the breeze cold, the skies clear as glass in the cool March weather. Ornamental trees were beginning to come into bud and bloom; by April, their fragrance would be almost sugary, like a confection made by layering something chiffon-delicate upon itself, until it became saccharine.

“I’ll give you all that I own

You’ve got me standing in line

Out in the cold-”

Singing quietly to herself, burning enough mana into her surroundings to incinerate any magical trace that had been placed upon her, Astrid bought tea and a pastry from a nearby stand, and settled on the edge of the fountain outside of the opera house. The curving Italian baroque façade was radiant in the high daylight, the sloping lawns accented by the thundering, frothing roar of the fountain jets at her back, and the susurration of conversation and rustling leaves and sharp, lilting cries of seabirds.

Setting her tea beside her, Astrid pulled the files from her messenger bag, opened each cover, and checked the contents.

“Bend me, shape me

Any way you want me

‘Long as you love me

It’s alright-”

Ophelia had been a little nonplussed by Astrid’s recent request, despite her established preference for currencies other than cash- but had dutifully provided it without fail, to her exact specifications. Each file contained a rental contract for an industrial warehouse or disused commercial space, listed with an address and lease term, signed and paid for under a shell corporation. The locations were scattered across the globe, in highly populated cities and municipalities, all carefully selected by Astrid.

She glanced over each set of papers, noting her approval with a sip of tea. Beside her, the waters of the fountain basin rippled like ocean shallows, catching spangles of blinding light in a fae shimmer, dazzling her briefly.

“Everybody tells me I’m wrong

To want you so badly

But there’s a force that’s driving me on

I’ll follow it gladly-”

She would have to get the warehouses outfitted and set up before November, at the latest- and make them fit for purpose, to emergency-house thousands of people.

Taking a bite of her pastry, still humming, heel tapping to the beat, Astrid began mentally compiling a list of favours that she could call in. She would prefer not ask something of Tony yet, with their cooperation still so tentative, built upon a house of cards fewer than those they had hidden up their sleeves- especially when she couldn’t give him the truth about why she needed these safehouses.

But Professor Xavier- or Charles, as he had insisted upon- might be amenable. And she had a few contacts that might be able to point her in the direction of people willing to do the construction work, possibly even some that Ophelia could recommend-

Astrid swallowed the mouthful of sweet pastry.

Someone was watching her. Again.

Slipping the pastry back into its paper bag, licking the film of butter and pastry flakes from her thumb, Astrid turned the page unseeingly, focusing out.

“So let them laugh, I don’t care

‘Cause I’ve got nothing to hide

All that I want

Is you by my side-”

It was the same person as Madripoor- not a camera, not an astral form, only one of them, moving towards her-

Astrid willed herself to remain composed, the nape of her neck prickling, assessing her options. Straightening her shoulders, she flicked her hair out of her eyes placidly; she would prefer not to make a scene, if possible- not while she was pulling pieces into position in the chessboard-

She recognised them.

She recognised them.

Astrid stilled. Panic stabbed through her, shock wiping her expression blank, music stoppered in her throat.

Shit.

She hadn’t expected this.

She hadn’t planned for it, or even vaguely speculated on the possibility. Her nerves fizzled and swooped with adrenaline- this could be catastrophic, a disaster to everything they were doing- she could run, but that would solve nothing- she had to kill this risk before it reached Loki-

Their shadow crossed her, slipping across the papers on her lap and her crossed legs, sunlight just barely catching on the toe of her boot.

Heart in her mouth, Astrid looked up.

Standing before her, dressed in white tennis shoes, bootcut jeans and a collared cable-knit sweater, was Frigga of Asgard.

-

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