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lilytii · 11 months

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My thoughts on Ascended vs. Non Ascended Astarion

HEAVY Spoiler Warnings ahead. If you've not completed the game, or if you do not want spoilers, do not read on!

Honestly, I was never planning on making a post like this, and generally I thought most people understood the differences between them. However, I’m seeing a bunch of people twist what both of these mean and are adamantly standing with these twisted meanings, which I feel does them both an injustice. This argument is addressing the romance with Astarion. If you’re just his ally/friend/colleague, most of this won’t matter much.

First and foremost, let me say this: If you like either of these endings, that’s great! I think they’re both tragic in their own right and indeed well written. I do not think anyone should be judged because of what they enjoy, from a fictitious game. I do not think that those who like Ascended need therapy, nor should they be shamed or judged in current relationships. I also do not believe that those who like non ascended route are weak hearted people who cannot handle a hot, evil romance. These are all personal preferences and you shouldn’t feel ashamed.

That being said, I think there are people who are misunderstanding, or refusing to accept what some of these endings mean for the character. I’m going to break things down, piece by piece and come to you with my conclusion. For this I’ll use a few different abbreviations to make things easier.

A.Astarion - Ascended Astarion

S.Astarion - Spawn Astarion

U/A- Unascended

Hopefully this will make things easier to understand and follow. Alright, let’s get into it, and apologies if this is long, this took me days to write and look over all the information I could culminate. I’ve seen many of the same points brought up over and over again, and some who argue various versions of the same argument. Instead of writing long winded responses to one response, I figure I’d write out all of my thoughts in one post and be done with it. There may be points that I miss, forget to address, and I apologize, there’s a lot of ground to cover.

First, let’s go over a few things about What we know about BG3 vampires, the Ascension ritual, and what all of this means.

I think it’s common that everyone knows BG3 is set in Faerun, which is a world setting for the game D&D. The game is running off 5E rules and guidelines, though there are many things that are changed to better suit a video game setting rather than table top. (i.e. short rests are instant, long rests are the only way time and events progress, etc.) That being said, 5e has a set of rules that exist more as guidelines. At the end of the day, everything is up to DM discretion. If the book says “ X works in X way” and the DM says “I don’t like that ruling, so I’m going to change it to work differently for my campaign,” that’s valid as long as everyone agrees and it remains consistent throughout.

That’s the beauty of this game, is everyone runs it a little differently, with their own set of understanding and rules. BG3 works the same, and as the player, you accept and acknowledge that and play to how it is.

The Vampires seem to be mostly following the lore and rule sets, but there are a few differences here and there. Mostly, the moment you turn into a spawn/vampire, you’re inherently evil. That’s it, end of story, alignment changed. It doesn’t seem to be the case in BG3 though, as you can see some of those who were spawns and recently changed, don’t seem to be fully evil. Astarion tells us of his past and it seemed he wasn’t entirely subscribed to the sudden alignment change. (Not to say that he doesn’t have evil tendencies, he’s very morally gray.) Even Cazador and the notes you find, in his earliest moments as a spawn, seemed to hold an ounce of who he was before he became a full fledged vampire. It seems that from what we see, the corruption is a slow burn, but inevitable, and Vampire spawns seem to have their souls. How do we know they have souls?

Astarion says that he might as well sell ‘what’s left of his soul’ to a devil, than to let Cazador have him again. The Ascension doesn’t just sacrifice these 7000 bodies, they don’t seem to be just ‘animated dead’, oddly enough they have souls that when they’re sacrificed, those souls go to hell to the demon that made the pact. Mephistopheles.

Raphael tells us all about it, and states it’s a rather grim tale, even for his tastes. This ritual is so foul, so diabolical, it has never been performed. The right of profane Ascension .Astarion’s soul, would be sacrificed. I Think, damning 7000 souls to hell in exchange for power, there’s no coming back from that. I mean, hell, Bhaal himself must be impressed, probably salivating at the amount of death and carnage in one go.

The Ascension gives Astarion a taste of power, he gets some boosts in combat, but the taint on him is already done. He was a pretty gray character before, now? Not so much. That ritual changes him deeply, and it is evident in how he presents himself and how he behaves. He is truly lost, and not a shadow of himself remains.

“He wants this, and he Approves when you let him ascend.”

Ah, Approval, the way to win the man’s heart! Yes, he approves in both scenarios, and he thanks you in both as well, however, context is Everything here.

Astarion, in that moment, is enticed by power and by the promise of safety. He acknowledges he was blinded by it, just as Cazador was. If you are romancing him, you must succeed a persuasion check that’s relatively low depending on your rating with him, and if he’s romanced.

A lot of people dismiss this and say the fact we have to talk him out of it, shows he did not want to stay a spawn and wanted to Ascend. He admits that he was blinded by his want in the moment. He may have wanted to ascend in that moment, because it promised him a life in which the world would bow to him. After all he’s been through, it’s not crazy to say that sure, he was blinded by the promise of now, not thinking of the consequences. How many times have you made an impulse decision because you wanted something now, because all you could see was the promise of a good time, without thinking of any repercussions? It’s human.

He goes on to say:

“But you saw something else in me- Someone else I could be. Someone who could break the cycle of power and terror that started centuries ago. You saved me back there. I may not have appreciated it at the time, but I do now. Thank you.”

I want to point out his body language. When Astarion is being serious, when he’s lowering the walls and the barriers to who he is, his movements are small. He smiles, his eyes soften, and he makes eye contact. When he says “but I do now,” he nods, affirming that he truly understands and appreciates what you did, stopping him from ascending. And then he gives a humble bow of his head saying ‘Thank you’.

“But Astarion thanks you on both occasions for giving him everything.”

As it was stated above, context is key. Yes, When he is turning you into a vampire spawn, A. Astarion does say “You’ve given me everything I ever wanted. Thank you.” I can see the case people would make to say this is what he wanted, and so he is sincerely thankful that we gave it to him. In either case, he’s happy.

I can understand the logic, but allow me to put it into a different perspective, if I may.

A drug addict is going through withdrawl and you have the drug they want. They crave it, they’re only focused on that drug and need the high to get through another day. They don’t address their addiction, they just need to score, so plead for you to give it to them. You cave in, give them their drug and they take it. They tell you “Thank you, this is what I wanted.” Is it sincere? Sure, they are really thankful for it, but did you help them? Was this really what was good for them?

Instead, when they beg you for the drug, you tell them ‘No, this is not the life you would be proud of and I want you to be proud of yourself.” Instead, you take them to rehab, they get clean and stay sober. They’re on the path to turning their lives around and say “You know what, I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but, you helped me. You saved me from going down a horrible path. Thank you.”

That thanks, is also sincere, but the outcomes are vastly different.

A.Astarion thanks you for giving him what he wants. S.Astarion thanks you for giving him what he needs.

Even in his graveyard scene, he says he’s not giving up, just “Reassessing what I want. What I really want.” And when you ask him later, at the graveyard what he wants, he says “you. I want you” I emphasize ‘really’ here because he does. This is Astarion being honest and telling you what he really wants.

He does not NEED power over others, he does not NEED to ascend, he needs to believe in himself, to choose a life he can be proud of, to do what he wants without being a slave to all the power that stood before him.

This is evident if you say “You saved yourself, I just gave you a push.”

And he responds with:

“You did more than that. You believed in me- believed I was enough just the way I am. When I look at my future, anything and everything feels possible now. And I get to share it with you, as a partner. An equal. You saved me from myself and let me walk a new path where I can be free. TRULY, HONESTLY, FREE. This is a gift, you know. Thank you. I won’t forget it.”

There’s so much that this speaks to, and it’s so self explanatory, but so many people overlook that to say:

“S.Astarion is weak and is still unable to walk in the sunlight. At least Ascending him he’s free.”

I’ll agree and say his ending with him running away from the sun is tragic and painful, but I think that was the point. It’s gut wrenching. The worst part is honestly, most of the companion dialogue who treat him like ‘Oh well, fuck him I guess.” That, I think we can all be on board saying he did not deserve that. Turning away from power, helping you save the world, and all the companions say is like “welp, it was nice knowing you.” That was dirty.

It feels like so many people think giving up one's soul to walk in the sun is the best decision ever and so worth it. The point of his story feels like “Power, but at what cost?” Sure, he can have all these added benefits, if he just gives away his soul, does the most horrific, dastardly thing possible, and completes the ritual. He no longer is himself, and becomes a slave to power. Power will always be something he chases, so that he will never be used again. You basically tell him he’s weak the way he is and to steal the power he is owed.

Meanwhile in the U/A route, you tell him that he would not be proud of this life, that you want him to live a life he would be truly proud of. And he says “You’re right, I can be better than him.” But he is NOT above enjoying being the one to deal his death. We don’t even STOP him from Killing Cazador, we know he is owed that, he deserves that.

S.Astarion says he is free to walk a new path, whatever that path is. In his graveyard scene, he says he’s been dead in the ground long enough, it’s time to start living again. S.Astarion’s story is about finding his autonomy, finding his inner strength, accepting himself and making a new path for himself. Whatever this world has to offer, he’s going to take it and have fun.

When you Ascend him, and tell him that you miss the man he was, he seems actually taken back and says:

“What do you mean, I was pathetic back then, why would you say that?”

He sounds hurt. He sounds like maybe the tiniest bit, he regrets losing that man, like he can’t understand why someone would love who he was before he ascended.

He hasn’t gotten the affirmation that he’s enough, in fact, he’s more affirmed that he was weak, pathetic, and that power is what will make him strong. He is perfect now because he’s powerful. That’s such a tragic way of looking at him. By choosing this, he doesn’t accept how strong and capable he is as a spawn, he doesn’t heal and regain control of his life, he’s seen as lesser, as someone who needs an outside power to be strong. Love, belief in himself, it wasn’t enough to save him.

“There is no Equality in S.Astarion xTav/Durge. You have the upper hand, he does not. You will die of old age, he will not. That’s not a good romance at all.”

This complaint is one I see a lot, a LOT on people’s videos, blogs, reddit, etc. Just because he is back to being a spawn and does not have insane vampiric powers gifted by an evil, hellish ritual, does not make you his superior. It’s the way you two treat each other, the way you two view each other, that is what makes you an equal.

If you look at how A.Astarion talks to you, he talks down to you, looking down his nose, he believes you are beneath him. If he makes you a spawn, you are kept nicely under his thumb.

If you keep him as a spawn, he does not look at you as if you are his ruler, his master, you are his equal, his lover, his companion. He doesn’t look down at you, but eye to eye. Just because one has different abilities and strength does not mean inequality. Just because one has a longer/shorter life span, does not mean inequality. Look at Shadowheart’s parents, one is an elf, the other, human. Does that negate their love because of their lifespan? Are they doomed and have a terrible love story?

I’m sorry, but this argument doesn’t hold water to me.

A.Astarion fans love that they can choose to live with him in eternity, as his slave. So many people believe that is better than S. Astarion living his days freely with someone he loves, truly loves, as long as he can. I’ve seen people headcanon their Tav/Durge find a means to either cure Astarion of his Vampirism, or find ways to extend their lives. In one of my D&D games, we had collars that kept us from aging and dying prematurely. Granted, we had to agree to give up spell slots every year or so to a powerful mage so he can create magic items, but it pretty much allowed us to live forever. If Gale can ascend to godhood, I’m sure you can find a way to fix these small power issues.

“A.Astarion is the real Astarion, he goes back to his Act 1 self.”

I’ve seen this argument made to why people like A.Astarion, because they love the man he was in Act 1, and feels like this is who he is. There’s so many talking points here, so much to break down, and many arguments made to ‘affirm’ that this is the real Astarion, and this is where he is most himself. I’m going to break this down as best I can and do my best to be clear and easy to follow. There’s so much to go over and I don’t want to sound like I’m all over the place.

I gotta admit, I half agree with this. He does go back to his Act 1 self, but that's not the ‘true’ Astarion. Act 1. Astarion is the man who manipulated your feelings, who was playing an act. It isn’t until Act 2 that Astarion starts to come to terms with himself and becomes honest with you. Yes, he fell in love with you sometime between those moments, but after you ascend him, you can see that he goes back to those theatrics. All of the progress he made, all of the growth he made, when he ascends, that’s it, it just hard stops and reverses back to the start. He regresses so hard that he loses himself and becomes a shadow of the man he was, an echo of that man who manipulated his way to get what he wants.

Astarion admits in several ways in different dialogue options that the Ascension would have changed him, it would have made him lose himself, it would have made him different.

Tav: “The ritual would have changed you, I’m glad you resisted it.

S. Astarion: So am I. Fun as all that power would have been…this feels more me.

Tav: “Do you regret turning down all that power?”

S.Astarion: “Perhaps. It would have been terrible fun. But then again, I could feel something slipping away. I came so close to losing myself-to losing everything I’d learned since meeting you.”

He speaks so much about his growth, about his development thus far and if he ascended, he’d lose it all. This speaks volumes to his character and to how he holds himself now. We see Astarion start to believe in himself, knowing his worth, and his U/A route shows that he’s starting to understand that he can do the right thing.

“Astarion says he’s not happy.”

S.Astarion “I am- well, not happy. But this feels right.”

(Graveyard scene,)

Tav: “regretting your choice?”

S.Astarion: “No, I made the right choice. Although I do regret the options I had.”

Tav: “You did the right thing, stopping the Black mass.”

S.Astarion: “I know, that doesn’t mean it stings any less”

Tav: (when referring to never seeing the sun as the price of freedom) “Do you think you can live with that?”

S.Astarion: “I’ll have to, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

All the arguments I’ve seen for those who prefer A.Astarion use this to say he’s not happy, that he admits that he would have had more fun if he had power, and that’s what he wanted. He’s lamenting his lack of power and the fact that he’ll belong to the shadows, for sure, but he knows and understands that the decision he made was for the best. This is honestly such a relatable, and real emotion and thought. How many times do we as flawed humans know that doing the right thing, whether it’s for our own benefit or someone else’s, isn’t always the ‘fun’ option. He’s been on a quest for power, saw an ideal in his head, and now understands that going that route wasn’t the best for him, no matter how much fun it might have been in theory.

Astarion knew he made the best choice for him, the best choice to regain control, to be himself, his true self. His options were ‘sell your soul, lose yourself to have power and walk in the sun, or keep your soul, remain true to yourself and better your life, but be reserved to the life of a spawn, living in the shadows and with hunger.” There was no good options, but there was a good choice.

I want you to think about who Astarion is, what he’s been telling us this whole time.In the love test, we can choose silly, fun answers to gain his approval and keep things lighthearted, but the real answers exist, and he doesn’t exactly enjoy them being shared.

Astarion is afraid of being someone’s slave, he’s afraid of being helpless and not being able to keep his freedom. This whole time, 200 years he’s been shown that there’s no heroes, gods do not care for anyone, and the strong are the only ones who survive in this world. He’s afraid, he’s terrified but puts on this air of assertion. He stands behind those who are stronger than him and rides their coat tails till he can snatch power for himself. He’s not above backstabbing and manipulation if it gets him what he wants.

Astarion plays with power, as long as it doesn’t threaten to change him. He’s fine with abusing the tadpoles powers, but the moment he realizes that greater power can be unlocked by becoming a half illithid, he wants nothing to do with it. You can peer into his mind and use his fear against him to force him to do this, but thats manipulative in it’s own right. You don’t respect him or his want at that point, all in the name and sake of power.

Astarion’s first line to us is his disgust at the thought of being turned into a mindflayer. He laughs bitterly and says “Of course it would turn me into a monster…what else did I expect?” Power is good if it offers safety and protection, but not at the risk of his own skin. This is said so much throughout and is emphasized by him saying, he knows finishing the right would have ruined him, who he was, and everything he’s learned up to this point.

However, if throughout this game, you show him that there’s strength in one’s self, that there’s power to be had deep within, he starts to understand that and starts to see that he can be the break in the chain. He can be the difference he needs, alongside you.

This power hungry Astarion is the result of 200 years of abuse and suffering. Astarion starts to understand that there’s consequences to one’s actions, he starts to take responsibility for those actions and understands the difference between running away from it, and meeting them head on.

I’d say that’s a strength in it’s own. He’s finding himself and tackling the hardest things in his life that he turned a blind eye to. A.Astarion does not get that. He doesn’t care about anyone, anything, consequences be damned.

“Tav gaslights Astarion to change himself. Tav ‘knows what’s better’ and choosing not to ascend him not only makes him weak, but shows you don’t think he’s strong enough.” Tav forces Astarion to change.

This is paraphrased from a comment from a prominent A.Astarion fan. The entire comment was such a hot take, that they said, and I quote: Cazador did not inspire him that sex is power. Cazador didn't need sex to control people, he had other power.

I don’t know if they understand what Astartion was trying to say when he said that Cazador made Astarion use his body to lure things for him. That Cazador had full control over him and made him perform acts of sex against Astarion’s will, otherwise he’d get TORTURED. I could go ON about how disgusting the take is, but I won’t get into that. I’ll address their point and continue.

I believe I’m one of many who don’t like the option of “You don’t need to worry, I’ll protect you.” And Astarion’s own answer of “thanks, that’s sweet, but I don’t want to have to always rely on you.” (or something to that nature.) I refuse to choose it, I understand the sentiment, but that option didn’t feel good.

Still, despite that line, Astarion doesn’t get the all power he wanted, but that doesn’t make him weak. Tav shows that Astarion is weak in the ways of inner strength, the strength to take off his chains and be himself! He has the strength to choose his own destiny and take it by the hands. So many people look at ‘physical’ strength and weigh that higher over inner strength. Astarion in game, is not a weak fighter. I can tell you, rogues are fucking CRAZY strong! In many of my battles, he’d be the last one standing and has to sometimes be the one to save others.

Believing that there’s more to Astarion than power, revenge, and sex is NOT gaslighting him at all! Gaslighting someone is forcing another to believe that they’re wrong, despite the fact that they aren’t. It’s projecting onto them your wants and making them feel terrible for not seeing things your way.

You can gaslight Astarion, want to know how? By forcing him to have sex with you despite him saying it’s uncomfortable for him. By saying “You should enjoy it, and enjoy it with me.” And do you know what happens when you choose that? He ends things, and stands up for himself!

We aren’t manipulating him, changing him, forcing him to be someone he isn’t. He admits to it many times over after that we believed in him, we saved him and pulled him away from a path that would ruin him. To say that’s changing him, to say it’s gaslighting is absolutely bonkers! In fact, telling him to ascend is affirming that power is better than anything, even if it costs your soul. I don’t know why people refuse to believe that S.Astarion IS the REAL Astarion. And while he isn’t all powerful, he’s fully free to live his life the way he wants to, and intends on it.

“A.Astarion still loves us. Sure it’s not the ‘kind’ love you get with S.Astarion, but it is love and he does care for us. It’s perfect for an evil route”

This is the most common argument for what I’ve seen people saying they like A.Astarion. It’s a different kind of romance, a different kind of love that still has caring, but it isn’t ‘nice’. There’s so many different takes on this that usually accumulate to “He does care, he does love us! It’s a crazy toxic love, but it is still love.”

I get it, I totally understand why so many people are drawn to A.Astarion. The sex scene is spicy, he calls you pet names, and says “You’re mine” and things like “I’ll protect you” “Lovers forever”. At it’s core, it sounds like a crazy, possessive romance perfect for an evil Tav/Durge, especially a Bahhl accepting Durge. I can see the appeal, and really, for an evil character, ruling the world with the lord of vampires sounds amazing! Hell, even for a morally ambiguous or amoral character, this would be fun!

I know there are people who appreciate it for what it is, people who understand that they are A.Astarion’s favorite thing, they are his obedient pet who does his will. Some in their Durge games understand they are using each other, and it’s not a romantic relationship, but that of an evil companionship. “We are awful for each other and do awful things for each other!”

That being said, many people seem to be under the impression that A.Astarion truly cares about you, that he loves you.

“It’s a possessive love, but even then, that’s just a form of love.”

Look, I’ll be honest and be the first to say that a person, especially a hot vampire who calls me “MINE” with such virility, would instantly make me weak in the knees. I love me a strong lover who is a bit selfish in wanting me, there’s nothing wrong with that. I mean, who doesn’t want to feel coveted like that? (Ok, I know there are people out there who aren’t cool with that, I’m just saying for those of us who are thirsty! lol)

Still, I can’t say that this context is of that capacity. You’re his object, his favorite and obedient spawn, slave. He pretties it up and calls you consort, which makes you think some form of equal footing, that of a spouse. (Understandably, not all marriages have spouses who view their spouse as an ‘equal’. This is very much like that.) If you’re his spawn, you are surely his slave.

“He calls us Pet, my treasure, consort, lover. He stands up for us against Araj, he does indeed care for us.”

Pet names are cute, and he has used ‘pet’ for us before he ascended. The way he says “Yes my treasure?” Is very baby sweet talk, he even does the elaborate swinging of his shoulders. I don’t think Astarion’s descent to madness is immediate. I think there are still parts of him that is haunted by his trauma, but instead of being able to deal with it, he does the same things he’s always done. He disassociates, he falls back to bad patterns.

When meeting Araj again, both S. Astarion and A. Astarion have similar dialogues between each other, but also, there are some interesting differences as well. A. Astarion makes a note of ‘Who belongs to who this time’ referring back when she thought Astarion was your subordinate, your ‘obstinate charge’ and you could stick up for him and say he is his own person. Now, he means to correct that and explain that you belong to him, not in a romantic way, but in the way that you are under his charge, you are his spawn/slave.

I get that in that conversation he says “And don’t worry, if anything happens, I’ll protect you.” Can be sweet, if you look at that completely out of context, hell I’d think it’s sweet too. He does say this in a bit of a condescending way though. It’s not the “I love you and I’ll protect you,” it’s the “This is my thing, and I’ll protect it from getting being damaged.” The care that A. Astarion has for you isn’t one of honest love, it isn’t born of concern.

You can see that because S. Astarion has a dialogue that says “Say no, the only thing she is offering is pain, and…I don’t want to see you hurt.”

Astarion isn’t someone who knows how to express his true feelings, he’s expressed his inability to know how to truly be with someone, but he’s opening up. At this point, this is beyond his graveyard scene, so you’re seeing a man who is awkward when expressing his true feelings. Again, his body language says so much here. He gives a sigh right before saying he doesn’t want to see you hurt, he shies away from you just slightly and his expression grows softer. He’s being vulnerable and sincere, he truly does not want to see you hurt. Not because you’re an item of his that he doesn’t want damaged, but because he truly doesn’t want his lover to be hurt, that would pain him. There’s a lot of dialogue that’s similar for both, so, there’s not much to differentiate between them at that time.

Astarion’s trauma is still trauma, in both iterations. His understanding of consent seems to resonate with both versions at this point. So many people are taking that ‘consent’ is him caring. Just because he understands consent, and still asks you, that doesn’t quite mean a level of caring. Yes you can choose to be his spawn, or not. If you break up with him not as a spawn, he insults you and lets you be. Choose to be his spawn, and there is no getting out of it, you have no consent anymore. You’re his slave. Yes, he calls you his ‘consort’ because he wanted to dress up the word “spawn”. A slave is still a slave, no matter what other pretty title you want to give it. You have consent up until he turns you, then that’s out the window, you can’t leave ever. Hell, he even has a line that says “I should have turned you into a spawn, just to prove that I could.” Yeah, let that sink in.

“A.Astarion says ‘I love you, I’d never hurt you.’ He tells us he loves us on multiple occasions. Once more, he’s got a beating heart now, so he is fully capable of love.”

A beating heart, a living organ =/= love. I mean, if you break up with him he says “You brought my dead heart back to life, it will keep beating” That is metaphorical, it didn’t mean that he will be brought back to life. So no, having a living, beating heart does not make him more capable of love. He felt real love as a spawn, he sincerely fell for you.

Let’s also talk about Astarion saying “I love you.” He does say it at both routes, but the way he says it, and again, body language says it all.

I’ve seen this video going around about how he says he loves Tav/Durge, and how people claim this is love, that this is proof he cares. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bov4CwHLukc

Let’s talk about these, shall we?

First of all, notice how Astarion is acting here. This is back to theatrics, the wide arm movements, the flowery words and the poetic gestures. Does this look familiar? Ah yes, this looks very similar to when he used all his ‘favorite lines’ at us. Even when he says “I love you” it feels so practiced, so forced. He even looks down at you afterwards. But people are so convinced that this is romantic love. They are convinced he means this.

I am reminded back to that, force Astarion to sleep with you scene. You tell him “You seemed like you enjoyed it,” and he says he knows that song and dance better than anyone, it was an act. This? This is an act as well. But S.Astarion? Go look at the graveyard scene, go watch how he tells you he loves you.

He looks you directly in the eyes, taking your hand in his, and he’s smiling. That’s no forced smile, when does he ever smile that genuine and at peace? He looks down in thought for a moment and returns to your eyes and says “he loves ‘this’, and he wants it all, with you.” Look at those two “I love yous” side to side and tell me which one really, truly looks sincere. Which looks real.

In act 2, he says that he manipulated you into an alliance, so you’d never hurt him. He used sex to get you to love him so you won’t turn on him, but says you deserve something real, that he wants to be real with you. In his graveyard scene, he’s ready to be fully real with you. And if you do have sex with him, the dev. Notes says “Had_sex_as_equals. You are his equal, and he is yours. Whatever your powers and abilities are doesn’t matter, it’s how you treat each other, as equals.

Astarion’s first line in the video says he was offering you power, offer you to live as his spawn so he can own you, what’s that, if not love? Then says, if that’s not an offer, if you want more, perhaps this isn’t for you.

I’ve seen so many people say “A.Astarion is not for the weak hearted, his kind of love is intense, possessive and hot, not for those goody goodies! He says it himself.”

Nah, he’s telling you that love is a transaction. You gave me power, I’ll give you a bit of it. You become my spawn that will be obedient to me, who will bow to my every whim, and I’ll offer you protection. There, love. This is a man who used his body, who used everything as a transaction. If you get high approval before the party and allowed him to bite you, he offers you sex as thanks. It’s a transaction.

A.Astarion says “I did try with you, you know. In the only way I know how.” By using a transaction of offering you life of being a spawn.

And of course, how can we forget the famous line. “Of course I know about *love* (said with absolute disgust by the way) I know how to use it, manipulate it, and I can’t help playing the hand I know. I would have used your love, abused your trust until you were nothing.”

Every argument here says “You hurt his pride, he’s angry! He doesn’t mean that. He was upset and said a lie.” And I can say, ok, I hear you. There’s been times when people break up and say really hurtful things because they were hurt. Things they may not even mean. I’d be fully inclined to believe that if… well, if that were true. Instead, I fully, TRULY believe Astarion is being sincere with us here. I think he knows that we were smart enough to see through his BS, to see that in this state, he’s gone.

They also cut out parts where Astarion says “Oh that was completely different, I’d never hurt you, I love you.” Right after, in the same breath, he says “That’s what you’ve been waiting to hear, isn’t it?” Like, this man is telling you what you want to hear, it’s not the truth, it’s all a lie. He’s telling you to your face “I’m telling you what you want to hear.”

He doesn’t know what real love is, he is incapable of love, to him it’s just a game. You can tell this by the insight check you do before he turns you.

“The insight check really means that he doesn’t think highly of himself, that he values Tav/Durge’s opinion and thinks he’s not good enough to be with”

I can understand how this could be one interpretation, and I’d agree with you if this was Act 2. Astarion. I’d fully believe that’s how he thinks a continued romance would be with him, but that’s not what’s going on here.

A.Astarion thinks he’s all powerful and amazing. He’s not the weak man he was back then, he’s better. Knowing you want to be a slave to him, you’re degrading yourself to becoming his slave, his spawn, but…maybe you’re into that. Maybe you want to be his slave, to worship him and be manipulated. Hell, you’ve gone this far for him, he doesn’t seem to have to beg you, you’re willing to do what he wants.

That’s the implication here. Not that he’s not good enough for you, but that you no longer care about yourself, that you want to be stepped on by him.

A lot of people understand this concept as “Yeah, I made him worse, and I’m willing to throw everything in the trash to be with him! He can pull me by my leash and I will follow!” And then others misunderstand it to mean “Awww my poor boy thinks he’s not good enough for us and thinks we’re degrading ourselves to be his lover.” It’s definitely the former, not the later.

But this is a Sub/Dom relationship!

At the very base core of what that is, he is dominant over you, and you are serving him. To call this a sub/dom relationship is such a disservice to those real relationships out there that exist though!

I know someone close to me, who has been in a sub/dom relationship for 10+ years. She wears a collar with her partner’s name on it and he calls her pet names. This is something they do in their private time, and after all of it, there’s so much after care and tenderness involved to remind them both that they are partners who are equal. They are in a safe place, they have real, romantic love and understand if at any time there’s something they aren’t comfortable with, they can speak up.

A.Astarion just owns you. He doesn’t care, you are his property and that’s that. That’s like calling Cazador Astarion’s lover! The man favored Astarion, and when he disobeyed, he punished him. Granted, I’ll say that Astarion and his spawn’s relationship isn’t violent yet, but I don’t think it wouldn’t get to that point. He says he doesn’t have to, you’ll be wonderfully obedient.

…but what if you aren’t? Do you really think he’ll stand there and listen? If you push back, do you think he will understand? If you speak up and speak your mind, will he just lovingly accept your words? I’m afraid not. To those who think they can ‘change’ him or ‘keep him in line’, the time for that has passed and he’s not going back. I’m sorry.

The writer who spoke up is wrong about A.Astarion and is just one writer, not even the MAIN one! Take their words with a grain of salt.

The amount of people taking the salt out of what the writer said is crazy! I saw the reddit post and people were losing their minds, saying that this writer should have never said anything, that they stole the joy out of their A. Astarion romance, and that all is doomed!

Let me just say this. The writer, other people, no one can take your agency of enjoying a game. Take it for what it is, enjoy it. If you don’t agree, that’s fine, but it does not make the writer wrong.

The writer is one of many who worked and wrote for Astarion. Just as what happens with every character, what happens with comics, movies, games, etc. You have teams who all work on one part to make it a cohesive whole. Animators have writers, directors, lineart work, flat colors, shaders, sketchers, background artists, all of these different people work on different parts of the same product and at the end, you have a whole piece. They all have to be in sync with each other and understand the source material to make it all work here.

The writer who spoke out may have been one of many, but that does not mean their words were invalid. In fact, after taking their words into consideration and looking back at how the sex scene for A.Astarion and S.Astartion play out, I honestly sat back and thought “...wow, I actually completely understand what you mean!”

First of all, they call it a bad ending. That speaks enough to what has been said and stated over and over again. Astarion does not progress, he does not heal, he gives up his soul for power, losing himself, and becomes a slave to it. Secondly, they said that you failed to see him as anything more than a kink, and reduce your relationship to that. That explains his actions, the way he is back to manipulating you with pretty words of adoration. And so many people are literally falling for it all over again.

In the scene he makes you a spawn, it’s overly provocative (I’ll admit, it’s fucking hot! I mean, from an objective view at least. Knowing what I know, it’s sad, but taking out context and what I know, it’s a very sexy scene) it’s meant to be. This is what you wanted, this is what you think of him. The camera mod that allows you to see different angles is a GODSEND here! You can look into his eyes and they are devoid of life, of feeling. He’s going through the motions, but he’s not even there. He’s not looking at you, he’s looking away, his body is performing, and Tav/Durge is just moaning and enjoying themselves. You wanted this, you got it, and in the end, he delivers.

Vs. the graveyard. It’s so much more chaste since you have clothes on. He’s not biting you, but this is his most honest form. It’s pure love, this isn’t lust, this isn’t him ‘fucking’ you, but being one with you. He’s reclaiming what sex means to him. It’s not a means to an end, it’s not an exchange, it’s not forced, he wants to give you a night of passion because he loves you. This is him connecting sex to love, and not as an act of manipulation.

Again, the camera mod is everything!! He looks into your eyes, his features are genuine. He cups the side of your cheek and kisses you. Then, he pushes you down, and climbs over you, looking into your eyes before sinking into the kiss in a much deeper, passionate way.

I admit, I’m a degenerate. I can accept that Astarion is hot! I thought his turning scene was erotic, steamy, and I just couldn’t stop watching it. But knowing what I know, I can understand how, if what you’re looking for is real love, a real romantic relationship, that’s not the way to go. I think the camera angles of his graveyard scene show so much more to how passionate and hot that kiss is! Once I understood that this was Astarion, truly himself, taking back sex for himself and pushing Tav/Durge down in that swoop of a kiss, I completely did a 180 and preferred that!

That kiss is HOT! And it means so much more, which makes it all the more intense. This is Astarion, throwing down his walls, opening up to us, body, soul and heart. And seeing as the dev notes says they had sex, it leaves it to your imagination how that went down, but I am one to believe, it was incredible, earth shatteringly so.

Final thoughts

If you made it this far, Oh my GOD I’m so sorry! Honestly, I appreciate it and thank you all for the time and patience to read my ramblings. I’ve just been sitting here replying to so many others and said “Fuck it, I’ll make a post about my feelings.”

There’s so much I haven’t touched on, so many points that can still be made, and I’m sure I missed over some other parts. Because I’m a maladaptive daydreamer, these thoughts literally assaulted me every chance they got! I couldn’t cook, clean, or even shower without another full stream of ideas that invaded my brain. I had to stop now because I’ve been working on this for 4 days and if I kept going, this would be 30+ pages long and NO ONE wants that.

That being said, look, if you like Ascended, go for it! If you want your character to be degraded and live in that fantasy, that’s ok and you shouldn’t be shamed for it. You shouldn’t be bullied by anyone to think you’re real life relationships are awful, or that you need therapy. Please, have fun and remember to take some time away from it all every now and then.

If you like Spawn, that’s great too! You shouldn’t be made to feel like you’re weak, or you only think Astarion is some good boy. You shouldn’t be told that you’re gaslighting, or anything else that I’ve seen out there.

At the end of the day, these are games, escapism from reality. I encourage you all to write, or maybe play the character in a game, or do what you want to do as long as it brings joy to you.

The point of this post is not to shame anyone or to cause drama. The point of this was to show that the writers did an AMAZING job illustrating these character’s stories. They showed us how gray and lifelike they were, they made their flaws something relatable, but also showed us that there’s always two very different ways things can go.

I wanted to highlight the differences in Astarion’s endings. In his Ascended ending, he loses himself for the price of power. He fails to see that there’s more to himself than what power can give him. He fails to heal from his trauma, and instead, masks it behind power and control. He continues the cycle of abuse and becomes an entirely new monster. He fails to experience a true, romantic love that he never had and instead returns to using ‘love’ as a form of manipulation. He is deluding himself into what he thinks is happiness, and one day, will have nothing left inside of him. It’s so tragic and yet painfully, beautifully written.

In his spawn ending, he gets healing, he gets to choose his own way through life and live it being free. I wanted to show that while power was enticing, he learns that he’s enough the way he is, even if he won’t have the power of profane ascension (no matter how much terrible fun it would have been). And hey, if you want to play him in a solo campaign (that’s what I’m doing) and find ways for him to gain power without losing who he is, I’m sure that would be awesome! To see Astarion grow, and continue to take responsibility, to see him take back his sexuality, his honor, his autonomy is beautiful, even if it means he had to let go of the thing he thought he wanted, to take hold of the thing he truly wants.

#astarion #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #ascended astarion #spawn astarion #spawn #ascended #discussion #bg3 #balders gate 3

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scrubbinn · 27 days

Text

Mimic HRT: 18 months “Happiness”

You've reached the cutest M- M- M- Mimic ever! Please leave a message after the beep!

“… excuse me what day is it? Thursday? Ok. Thursday. Hey Mayday, I want you to actually listen to this message. Because I know you, and you’re probably being a dummy and beating yourself up about it. It’s not your fault ok? The doctor says I'll be out of the hospital soon, at least hopefully soon. I heard the doctors talking about an experimental treatment involving using that slime medication to regrow organs. It sounds terrifying but wouldn't that be neat, being a little bit slime. I'd get to see what it's like to be you… You better call me back, you got it! I'm not in any danger and I’ve been told I’ll recover one way or another. The medical stuff here is like really advanced compared to back home so I'm going to be fine. I've gotten visitors, you know. Mom came by and asked how you were. You know no one is mad at you right? A lot of our friends visited, and I found out they don’t even know what you look like! Come on, you know they all wanted to see you now that you’re fully a mimic… Please don’t start hating yourself because of this. It's understandable what happened, It's mostly my fault anyways. I shouldn't have startled you like that, I just saw you panicking and I had to do something. It's those assholes’ faults, not yours. I know I keep saying it but I know you, and you don’t listen until I tell you this stuff like eight times!”

“Excuse me Ms. Franks, We need phones off to discuss the next procedure. This will just be a moment of your time.”

“I just need to finish this call. Give me two more minutes. Anyway, you better call back ok hun? I don’t know how long that’s going to be an option, Surgery is starting today or tomorrow. You better call before than. I’m gonna be so mad if I get back to your place and you’re in another cocoon hiding away. So you better call ok! I love you Mayday. There, now you have to call me so you can say it back. Mwa! Later hun! I love you. So much.”

* * *

“Recording of Mayday… uh, Friday. Date… doesn’t matter. I, I’m not doing well. I don’t. I just finished crying for an hour and I feel well enough to record something so I don’t have to deal with Erian getting on my case! Sorry I shouldn't yell about him, it's not his fault. I said well enough but, well enough doesn’t mean I’m actually well. I- I don’t know if I can talk about it yet. I hurt Abi. I hurt her completely and irreparably. I don’t know what to do. I thought I was finally getting it. I was happy being a mimic and I still am. It felt like I was intangible before. Like my human body wasn’t real and could just pass through everything if I wasn’t careful. Now I feel so solid. I feel this body and I’m not rejecting it. But it is real now. It’s present. It can bump into things if I’m not careful. I am finally physically me and it feels impossible to navigate a world now. I didn’t know. Why doesn’t living come with a guide book that can tell me what I’m doing wrong. Was it from backing away? Should I have fully become a mimic and just left everyone I know. It’d be sad, sure, but it probably would have been safer. Erian told me if I continued on my crossroads I'd eventually calcify my outer layer to form a shell around me. Like a treasure chest or whatever a soap mimic turns into. Maybe if I was a chest I could lock myself away so I didn't actually hurt anyone. I don’t know anymore. What would even happen to me if I did that? Would I end up in a zoo? Would I eventually forget this whole thing and escape to hurt even more people? What the hell even is a mimic!? Oh universe, I’m just tired of thinking and having to exist. I should get some water or something. I’d like to get coffee, but as it turns out, caffeine is basically a poison to me at this point, and not one I can build a tolerance for… but the taste of poison would be better than what I taste now. Aria was right. The taste never leaves.

“I still haven’t called her back. I’ve been listening to her voice mail over and over but I can’t face her. I don’t have the right. She’ll be starting her surgery and I was told she’d be asleep for a while. I want her to wake up and the first thing she sees is me. I don’t know if I’ll be ready for that. What the hell am I saying, she wouldn't want to see me, I'm the reason she's in a hospital! I wonder if she decided to go with that slime treatment Erian patented. Slime buddies huh. Feels a little rude to enjoy that idea so much. I hope everything turns out ok. I want to talk to her again. I- I'm done. I just want to lie down for a while. End recording.”

* * *

Written report filed by Theodore Hans Erian, date, August 24th. Saturday It has come to my attention that a current patient by the name of Mayday Mulberry has begun to exhibit inhuman behaviors that have led to the injury of a human over the course of her treatment here. The event began one week ago when visiting outside Hypercity with the victim of the attack. This event has been documented through the testimony of several people at the scene, including the victim and the perpetrator. The incident began at a local sushi restaurant as the victim and perpetrator were patronizing the establishment. During their time at the restaurant, the perpetrator was verbally assaulted by several customers of the establishment using several anti-therian insults. These insults were deemed as unprompted as most of the witnesses there claim that Mayday Mulberry “insulted their species with its existence.” This harassment eventually led to the perpetrator panicking and running away, leading into a panic attack outside the restaurant in a shared parking lot. The victim followed and attempted to console the perpetrator with a hug, and unfortunately a mimic mouth from the perpetrator bit the victim. The victim lost a large chunk of flesh in the process. This led to damaged tissue, a hole in the stomach, and severe blood loss. The victim was taken to a hospital within Hyper city in time for treatment and was eventually stabilized. Because the incident took place within the parking lot of the restaurant within the perpetrator’s car, the restaurant has little chance to file any successful lawsuit. The victim has also declined to pursue any legal options at this time. It is within our opinion based on these facts that Mayday should be placed under house arrest and further punishment will be deliberated between our clinic, and Hyper city’s government, with a thorough psychological screening and Ms. Mulberry's medical records.

“Oh Ms. Mulberry, you’ve really done it now. You’ve already been a headache for this establishment but this is something much more serious. This affects the relationship between Hyper city and the outside worlds. Not to mention, this could seriously damage the clinic’s reputation and leave thousands of potential clients left without a place to obtain safe treatment. I will do what I can to make sure you suffer a lighter punishment from Hyper city, but you've caused a major incident that our mayor will absolutely use against all therians. If you’re not careful, you might end up in a situation far worse than living in a zoo for the rest of your life. If you’ve found a lawyer yet, please have them contact me to discuss the ramifications of your actions. In the meantime, I recommend you speak with a therapist on recent events. Situations like this can be just as dangerous for your mental state as they are with your friend’s physical state. Please call back when you get this message. Erian.”

* * *

“What are you doing Mayday?”

“I’m hiding away. Might as well stay here. I’m under house arrest after all. Or are you too stupid to remember the fact that you caused it?”

“There’s no need to take that tone against me. Insults will get you nowhere. I am asking why you aren’t picking up that phone? It’s still ringing. It’s from the hospital.”

“I know. I just, I don’t have to pick it up right?”

“You should. We need to know how she’s doing. You’re making nonsensical excuses not to have anything change. I don’t understand that, you literally took this medication so you can change forever. What was it how you originally described yourself? You were certain that you wouldn’t be certain. You need to see how she’s doing. To be certain. You owe it to her to check. She’s the reason you started your slime journey! She’s the reason you’re happy!”

“Am I happy? Because it feels like ever since Mayday decided to start this medication, nothing has gone right. Mayday ran away and I was left to pick up the pieces of her life. I can’t even tell if I’m supposed to be her, or if I’m someone new. I certainly don’t get treated like I’m new, I get treated like I just got a bump on the head and I’ll be right as rain in a month! I hate that I can’t be me.”

“You could always tell her that.”

“But she hates me. I nearly got her killed, for all I know she could be dead.”

“We won’t know until we pick up that phone, and then you can grieve.”

“Will it be ok? Can I stop hurting when I know?”

“I can’t promise that, but it’s easier when you talk to people…”

“…Hello?”

“Mayday! Oh my god, I couldn’t reach you at all yesterday! Are you ok?! Are you eating properly? Did you turn into a cocoon again? When can you visit? Do you need a kiss? Because I need a kiss from you right now!… Hun? Are you laughing? I can’t hear you, your phone sounds muffled.”

“…Hi Abi! I’m just. Really happy is all.”

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#trans #transgender #monster girl #slime girl #slime hrt #animal hrt #species hrt #therian hrt #otherkin hrt #therian #otherkin #fiction writing #original writing #creative writing #Mimic hrt

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2stepadmiral · 3 months

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So I have some thoughts on tonight‘s episode of acolyte, thoughts that I don’t think are being considered widely enough. The general response seems to be, from what I can tell and what I’ve seen online, that the witches were pretty much just doing their own thing, and the Jedi just showed up and started being assholes, and I’ve kind of got to argue against that.

Now to be fair, the topic of Jedi recruiting children has always been a bit of a problematic thing. From what I can tell, Jedi never just take children from their parents, but they do strongly encourage and probably to some degree manipulate parents to get permission. Definitely problematic. However, the situation with Osha was pretty obviously very different. Osha wasn’t an infant or a young toddler who just found, tested, and then convinced their parents to hand her over. She’s an eight-year-old girl who is visibly uncomfortable with what her parents, sister, and community expect from her.

She has said several times that she doesn’t want to be a witch, and in every instance, her reluctance is casually dismissed. Whether it’s Mae pulling the bossy sibling who knows best routine, Koril trying to aggressively shut down any dissent, or Aniseya affectionately assuring her that she will eventually grow out of her silly individualism, everyone in her immediate vicinity is basically telling her what she wants doesn’t matter. Then, Sol and Indara show up, and one of the first things they do is recognize Osha’s individual wants and encourage her to act on them. Yes, what Osha wants is in line with what they want, and as a child, she doesn’t fully understand what it is that she’s asking for, but they make it clear that the decision is hers, and all they encourage her to really do is to be honest with herself and be brave enough to be honest with everyone else. No one else in her life has ever encouraged her to do so, and there is a degree of child abuse present in that reality.

When the Jedi arrive at their home, there is obvious tension between the witches and the Jedi. Sol might be blatantly prepared for hostility, and Indara definitely had the air of someone who was ready to fight, but generally, the Jedi make an effort at being polite, despite the open hostility and even aggression the witches treat them with. Bear in mind, we don’t yet know the history of this particular group of witches, so whether or not the hostility is justified on either side remains to be seen. We know that the witches have a clear, victimhood mentality, based on the fact that their ceremony starts with a speech about how they’ve been persecuted for this appearance of using dark powers. Again, whether or not their powers are dark, or whether or not they’ve actually been victimized by anyone remains to be seen. They could be witches of Dathomir who were driven off world and legitimately persecuted due to incorrect association with the Nightsisters, or they could actually be Nightsisters or similar dark witch organization who are bitter about having their dark ambitions thwarted.

I’ll wrap it up real quick, basically, the coven, whether or not they are night sisters, is clearly a cult, and possibly a dark side cult that has in history of being up to no good. If that is the case, then the Jedi are probably justified in wanting to keep a close eye on them and being concerned about them training children. And yes, the Jedi have faults, and their recruitment methods are also problematic, but considering that when in their ideal form, the Jedi are truly a force for good in the galaxy that do go through times where they primarily function as tools of the Senate, they are definitively the lesser of two evils here. Especially when the coven is actively engaged in highly controlling behavior towards the children in their care.

#star wars #the acolyte #star wars the acolyte

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darling-i-read-it · 1 year

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is it possible to either request a fic or hc whatever you feel like doing of trevor?

something kind of like that college request with love sick smitten nauseating trevor and his sweet little girlfriend who walks in to them planning a heist. she knows what he does but she doesn’t want a part of it and neither does trevor but she still supports him. he does anything in his power to keep her out of it. but does he get turned on seeing her hold his gun? yes. will he eventually try to get her warmed up to straddling him with a gun pointed at his neck while she rides him? absolutely.

but putting her in danger is something that makes him physically sick. maybe during the heist she somehow ends up in crosshairs, similar to what trevor did in north yankton when he put that gun to the woman’s head “if you move i’ll shoot her brains out”

but trevor just sees red like his special ability. killing anyone who angers or threatens his baby.

HI literally making me absolutely feral i hope you enjoy <3 <3 Trevor you're such a real one

tw for guns, violence, vague sexual descriptions, typical trevor stuff

Trevor fell in love with you because of your innocence. All the girls who loved him where like him, something similar in their hard gaze, the smell of alcohol on their breath. Not you. You were different.

he swore it was a good thing, he promised Ron and Wade that you were happy with him.

they never believed him. it was hard to believe Trevor on a good day

but they could see from the way you were with him that he was telling the truth. You would sit in his trailer, gently cleaning up without being invasive, laugh at his dumb jokes, call him cute. There is no one someone who didn't love Trevor would do all that

He was nauseating about you. He talked about you all the time, bragged endlessly, always had your name on the tip of his tongue.

"Yeah, I brought her out to dinner last night. She tried to drink me under the table but I had to bring her home," he would say, with heart eyes.

"She didn't make me take down my posters. Would Amanda do that for you Michael?"

"We had lots of fun yesterday. Don't worry Ron, I cleaned the couch. "

He loved that he had something in his life no one else did. You were his unicorn.

Obviously spending so much time with Trevor, it was easy to know what he did for a living. He didn't like to hide anything from you and he didn't like to hide his job in general

Trust that he would be honest about everything. Down to the last penny, he would tell you what he did and why he did it (even if his reasonings were always a little skewed)

You didn't want anything to do with it. You had no interest in going to jail and he perfectly respected and appreciated that. He liked having someone on the outside anyway

Plus, you were the person he could go to outside of all of that. He had plenty of friends in the business, he wanted something that was normal and just for him

that being said

Trevor does love a little bit of corruption. He has never said no to taking you out shooting.

"Just...like that," he muttered. He had his hands on top of yours, his body pressed against your back. You had one eye closed like it would help you aim the gun in your hand. You starred at the beer can on the stump, breathing in and out evenly, just like he had taught you. "Whenever you're ready doll."

You pulled the trigger. Your ears rang out. Trevor didn't believe in ear protection (or any protection for that matter). You missed, just barely.

"Am I getting better?" you asked, hopelessly. You had asked him to teach you to use a gun just in case someone came home while he wasn't there. He agreed. You needed to know how to defend yourself.

"Oh so good. Honestly better than most of the men I've worked with." He loved seeing a gun in your hand. He loved when you brandished it, talking like it wasn't a fully loaded weapon in your hand. He liked when it got a little close to him, making him twitch a bit.

But that's a whole different battle.

Other than that, you avoided all of his lifestyle things. No heists, no ride alongs. He wanted you as safe as humanly possible.

Naturally, if you were around, you were bound to walk into a heist planning without meaning to. You didn't recognize the concentrated look on Trevor's face as he starred at the wall, full of papers and lines and pictures. You had just been grabbing some groceries before coming back to Wade's cousins.

Michael Townley was there, his eyes trained on the wall as well.

"He's no good. We need someone who's done this before Trevor," Michael was saying. You slowly closed the door, approaching the wall. Trevor was sitting on the arm of the couch.

"And Frank is? I mean, I like the kid, don't get me wrong. But can he handle all that?" Trevor's sounded unenthused. He turned to look at Michael and saw you standing behind him, grocery bags in your hand. He stood up quickly. His sudden movements caused Michael to turn around. "Hey baby. You're back early."

"The other store I wanted to go to was closed," you explained. "What's all this?" You asked even though you knew the answer.

"Nothin'," he promised, approaching you. He grabbed a bag from your hand. "You grab beer?"

"Course."

"Atta girl." He helped you put things down on the kitchen counter. Michael gave you a nod in acknowledgment. You returned it with a thin lipped smile.

"Are you guys planning a heist?"

"No need to worry about that dollface," Trevor said. "We can finish this up later." He turned to look at Michael, eyes like daggers, daring him to defy. Michael nodded once. He knew what it was like to want to keep someone out of the danger.

"Yeah, no problem."

but the information stayed up there. You could look at it while you watched the TV, making sense of the ramblings. They'd be down by the docks.

Trevor ignored any questions you asked about it. You didn't want to know, he knew that. You were just curious.

The day of, he planned a full day. Heist at 9, lunch with you at 1. You would come grab him from a safe point, he made sure of it.

Then things went array. His timing had never been great and honestly, he probably should have made sure the safe point was completely safe. It was the exit area, the place where everyone was supposed to meet up when things went well. Everyone showed, all the goods were there...

they were followed

You were already there, waiting with your car, sitting on your phone

You saw everyone rolling up, tires screeching and people running

Guns were going off. You ducked your head below your steering wheel and freaked out silently

Someone was running towards the car, grabbing your drivers door, opening it up because you didn't bother leaving it locked. You didn't even think

Someone pulled you out of the car, tossing you on the ground. You saw little to nothing for a moment, eyes blacking out as you looked around the soon to be chaos

You stood up shakily and saw the man who had pushed you down. Someone completely foreign and honestly scary looking. The second you registered his face, it had been blasted off.

You screamed, almost falling over and scampering away

Someone had grabbed your arm, keeping you up

"Right here doll."

You knew the voice well and almost melted into Trevor's touch, a heavy sigh of relief leaving your lips. Even if everyone was still shooting, you were safe with Trevor. He'd never let anything happen to you.

He dragged out of the fire and placed you carefully behind a car.

"Stay here till I get you." He gave you a gun and said nothing else until he had turned around.

You peaked over the car. There were dozens of men pointing a gun at him. He looked untouchable, guns in both hands, face hard, eyes red.

"Now who wants to fucking try it? Huh?"

You had never seem him move so efficiently. It was like he couldn't get hurt at all. His vision had slowed and everything in his way was gone.

He didn't stop until the very last man was under his boot and a gun was through their temple.

Then he ignored all of his comrades to run to you, skidding on his knees to make sure you were alright.

"You alright baby? They hurt you? I'm so sorry you had to be here."

His voice was rushed and honest. He had you in his arms, breathing harshly. You held him tightly against you, breathing in the smell of his shitty cologne. You had never been so happy to see him.

#trevor philips x reader #trevor philips x fem!reader #trevor philips imagines #gta imagines #trevor philips headcanons

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zepskies · 2 years

Text

Never Say Goodbye - Part 4

Pairing: Dean x Female Reader

Summary: The first time you and Dean sensed each other’s thoughts and feelings, you were just kids. It would take years to realize that you both were bonded for life, and even longer to finally meet. [Soulmate AU] (Rated M for eventual scenes – 18+)

Word Count: 4,400 Warnings: Language, cliffhangers (lol).

Part 4: Guessing Game

The next morning was a Wednesday. Despite the monumental, life-changing things that happened yesterday, unfortunately, you still had to go to work. You also had three class finals to finish.

Still, you woke invigorated with a new energy you had never felt before because you had finally, finally met your soulmate.

…Okay, not so much met him, but at least you had shared a telepathic conversation! That still counted!

…No matter how actually insane that sounded.

So you got ready for your day with an added pep in your step. You dressed “work casual”: white blouse tucked into a black skirt, tights because of the cold, black boots, and your favorite red winter coat. It hung to about your knees, so it would protect your legs. You even had the energy to put on some makeup and style your hair a little, fixing the frizzy kinks into some smoother waves down your back.

You looked into the mirror and you felt proud of your reflection. Not just how you looked, but of how you were able to carry yourself with your head held high.

With your purse and books gathered, you ventured downstairs and found your dad already puttering through the kitchen. You accepted the mug of coffee he offered and sipped at it while you packed a lunch.

Hmm, getting low on groceries. I’ll have to swing by the store on the way home, you thought.

There was one other thing that snagged in your mind, and that was having to reschedule your visit with Bobby. After you “hung up” with your soulmate (who frustratingly refused to give you his name yet), you realized how late it was and called your uncle for a rain check. But you fully intended to keep your word and visit him today, after work.

Now, you eyed your dad as he read the paper at the small kitchen nook. You took your coffee and sat down across from him (you still had a few minutes before you had to leave).

“How’s the world?” you asked him, nodding at the newspaper.

“Great,” he replied dryly. “Just one big dumpster fire.”

The corner of your mouth quirked upwards. “Any local flames?”

Jack sighed and lowered the paper, meeting her eyes. “Unfortunately, yes. You carry pepper spray, don’t you?”

You nodded. “Of course.”

“And your handgun? Where’d you put it?” he asked. You frowned.

Your father was a cop and this was the Midwest. You did have a concealed carrier’s permit, but you weren’t allowed to have your gun on you at school, so you typically stored it in the nightstand by your bed. Jack knew that.

“What’s going on?” you asked.

“There’s been a series of home invasions across town, two of them in our neighborhood,” he said, giving you a firm look. “Watch yourself when you leave the house, when you head to your car, when you leave campus.”

“I know, Dad,” you replied. “By the way…are you planning on going to see Mom today? I didn’t get a chance to go yesterday, so we could go together if you want.”

You were attempting to lend an olive branch after yesterday’s argument. Jack, however, wasn’t getting the hint.

“I can’t.” He shook his head and tapped at the newspaper headline. “I’m actually heading this case…most of these have been what we call ‘push-ins.’”

“What’s a push-in?” you asked. You could guess, but you didn’t like how serious your dad was right now.

“Let’s say someone knocks at the door. You’re not expecting anyone, not even the pizza guy. What do you do?” Jack asked.

“Check who it is through the peephole,” you answer.

“What if your door doesn’t have one?”

This was easy. Your father had drilled this into you since you were eight years old. “Ask who it is through the door. Don’t open it unless you know them, or unless you can smell pizza through the door crack.”

“Good. Most people will just open the door without checking,” Jack said. “The guy shoves his way in and attacks you. That’s a push-in.”

Goddamn. You didn't know there was a name for that.

“And how many of these have happened so far?” you asked.

“Four that we know of,” he replied. “It hasn’t hit the news yet but…Mrs. Jenkins was killed last night. We found the poor thing literally clutching her pearls.”

You blanched, setting down your coffee. Shock hit you first, then sadness. Mrs. Jenkins was the sweet old lady who used to make cookies for Sunday school when you were a kid. She’d given you $50 for college textbooks when you graduated from high school, and then flowers when you graduated with your bachelor’s degree.

Your eyes burned with emotion. “I can’t believe it. He was after her pearls?”

“I imagine she didn’t want to give ‘em up,” Jack said. “Or she held on out of reflex. When you’re afraid, logic tends to fly out the window.”

You understood that, but you couldn’t believe she’d died for her jewelry. You rubbed the silver ring on your right hand and rationalized to yourself. You knew you could give up your mom’s ring if it meant the difference between that and a bullet in your brain.

Your dad was still telling you to be careful when you left the house that morning. He only nagged and rode your ass about your future career because he cared. You knew that. But the nagging was a test of your ever-thinning patience.

Once you got on the road, you had an hour to kill on your commute. Then a flash of an idea occurred to you, making you smile. With a deep breath, you sought that thread of energy inside your mind. You didn’t know if this would work. It wouldn’t be long until you were driving away from Sioux Falls and headed to Vermillion, but you hoped the connection would win out.

The thread brightened with your focus on it, and suddenly you could feel him. Your soulmate.

Good morning, sleepyhead, you greeted cheerfully. His response was more sluggish.

No, it ain’t.

His grumpy voice made you laugh. Aw, someone’s grouchy in the morning.

This lumpy couch killed my back, he complained. And I could hear my brother’s snoring from downstairs.

So he had a brother. That was an interesting tidbit of information you’d save for later. You smiled.

You’re a cute grouch.

Excuse me, princess. I’m not a “cute” anything. He sounded mildly offended, but you sensed he was just as amused as you.

So what’s your brother’s name? you asked.

He hesitated, but eventually he replied, His name’s Sam.

Okay, so his brother’s name was safe, but his name had to be a mystery. And his job. That annoyed you, though you supposed it was part of the game.

What’re you up to? he asked.

On my way to work.

Oh, yeah? What do you do?

Even though you shook your head at the hypocrisy of his question, you decided to answer honestly. Well, I’m finishing up grad school next semester. This week is finals, then we break until January. But I also work part-time for one of my professors as her assistant.

Look at you, he said with a whistle. Beauty and brains.

You quirked a smile. If only your dad were that impressed. Technically you haven’t confirmed the “beauty” bit. I could be a potato with legs for all you know.

You sensed rather than heard his laughter.

Nah, a voice that sexy can’t be Potato Girl.

You blushed up to your ears at that one. No one had ever described your voice that way. Quiet, mousy yes—and mainly by Dr. Birch—but never sexy.

Your soulmate was definitely a flirt, if nothing else.

Hmm, you had that line locked and loaded, didn’t you?

Nope. That was fresh, sweetheart, he said. I’m just that creative.

Sure, you laughed again. It’s already 9:00 a.m. Don’t you have somewhere to be?

Yeah, now that you mention it. I’ve gotta get going to work too.

That was disappointing, but at least you’d learned something new. Your soulmate wasn’t a morning person, and he had a brother.

Do you and your brother both have the same mystery job?

…Yeah, actually. We work together, he said. Good question, Nancy Drew.

Yes! You smiled in triumph.

You made a few more guesses about his job: police officer, teacher, leader of a biker gang—all of which were apparently wrong.

But keep ‘em comin’, he said. You’ll get it eventually.

You let out an annoyed huff. But then you felt his amusement, like he was genuinely enjoying himself while talking with you. That warmed you up enough for now.

After a long day at the university, you relished coming home knowing you only had two more days until winter break.

You stopped at the grocery store on the way home, like you’d planned, but now you regretted it. There were only two cashiers open despite a packed store. Ugh. Just my luck.

You chose the one that didn’t have a screaming child throwing his mother’s apples out of the cart, but you did stop to help her pick them up.

“Thanks, hun,” she said tiredly. You nodded with a sympathetic smile.

“How old is he?” you asked.

“Two and a half,” she said. You tried to hide your reaction, but she gave a wry smile and returned to her child.

Good luck, you wanted to say, but you kept that yourself and returned to your cart. As the line inched forward, you wondered if you wanted kids.

Never really thought about it before, you could admit. You supposed there was a lot to consider, but maybe most importantly: It has to be with the right person.

You wondered if your soulmate was that person, or if having kids one day (or not) was going to be a dealbreaker for him.

Then you snorted, shaking your head. Okay, you’re getting very ahead of yourself. You haven’t even met the man.

“Hey, look who it is!”

The cashier’s voice startled you from your thoughts. When you broke out of your reverie, you realized you were at the front of the line, and Danny Schmitt was once again your checkout guy. Part of you withered, but you tried at a polite smile as you busied yourself by emptying your cart on the conveyer belt. “Hey, Danny. How’re you doing?”

“Been good. And yourself? You look good,” he said. He wasn’t very discreet about checking you out. You blushed, but more from discomfort than flattery.

“Thanks,” you said, a bit awkwardly, and started bagging the groceries he rang up.

“What have you been up to?” he asked. “Every time I see you, you’re dressed up like you’re goin’ to a Broadway show or something.”

Broadway? You glanced down at your work casual blouse and skirt. To the movie theater, maybe. Less Mamma Mia and more Magic Mike.

“I like it though. Skirt and boots, always a sexy combo,” Danny said, and gave you a wink. You had no doubt that many a girl had swooned at the move, but you were less charmed and more annoyed. You finished bagging your stuff and paid with your credit card in silence.

The high school version of yourself would’ve blushed at Danny’s attention. After stapling his fingers together in freshman year, he’d gone through a growth spurt the next. He’d joined the wrestling team, and paired with his light blonde hair and square jaw, the girls hadn’t stopped stumbling over themselves to get with him.

After high school, though, Danny didn’t get that sports scholarship for college. It also looked like he didn’t have the drive for anything else, either. He’d worked this same job at the Piggly Wiggly since you graduated six years ago.

All right, check your privilege, you reminded yourself, feeling guilty for judging him. Not everyone’s cut out for college. You don’t even know exactly what you want to do with your life.

“Have a good one,” he said, handing you the receipt. “And hey, let me know if you want to get a coffee sometime, or dinner. Flannigan’s has a two-for-one special on beer pitchers…I’ll pay. Or, you know, we could split it. You know, equality and all that. Hell, even you could pay if you wanted to.” He laughed.

Tempting, you thought. Though you’d have to remember about that two-for-one special. Uncle Bobby might want to make that your beer pilgrimage tonight.

“You know, I’ve been pretty busy lately,” you said, trying your best at a smile. “But I’ll let you know!”

Maybe it was rude of you, but you didn’t give him a chance to reply as you took your cart and waved goodbye.

Bobby welcomed you into his home, with what could only be described as a “gruff smile.” You shed your winter coat, but finding no hooks on the wall, you just draped it over the back of the living room couch.

“Come in,” he beckoned with a hand. “Don’t mind the mess. I was just finishing up some…work.”

Indeed, there were several books strewn across the coffee table, the dining table, the little accent table next to the couch—basically every available space in the living room was covered with books, manuscripts, and loose papers. Your eyes scanned over some of them. Raising a brow, you picked up one of the books.

“Omens, Trials, and Tribulations: A Guided Study on the Book of Revelation,” you read, and gave Bobby a curious look. “Doing some light reading alongside the New King James?”

Bobby shrugged. “It’s a hobby.”

Somehow you didn’t think that was the whole story, but you smiled in amusement. Then you noticed some rumpled bed sheets on the couch, a green duffle bag dumped on the floor.

“Do you have someone staying over? Should I come back another day?” you asked.

“Nah, I’ve got a couple of knuckleheads staying over, but they’re not here right now,” he said. “I sent them to work on somethin’.”

“Oh, towing a car for you?” you asked.

“More like, checking out a possible job,” he explained, though that didn’t really explain anything at all. It left you even more curious as you got the sense he was leaving something out again, but you didn’t press it. Instead, you followed him into the kitchen.

“Want a beer?” he asked.

“That’s why I’m here,” you joked. “Dad drinks ‘em like a fish. By the time I get home, the fridge is damn-near empty.”

“How is he?” Bobby handed you the beer and you took it gratefully.

“He’s the same. Buried in cases. I made him something before I left, for when he gets home,” you replied. Then you sighed and sat down at the two-seater table in the kitchen. “He didn’t even go to visit Mom on the anniversary.”

Just then, you realized something. You hadn’t actually visited Mom either, because you’d been distracted…hearing your soulmate’s thoughts for the first time.

Damn it…

Well, in this case your mom would probably forgive you, but you felt guilty all the same. You slid your ring around your finger absently.

Bobby sat across from you at the table. “The past can be a hard thing to let go of, but the real bitch of it is, it’s also hard remembering.”

You nodded in agreement.

“How’re you doin’ then?” he asked. Instead of a customary fine, or busy, you actually thought about it.

“Yesterday…I don’t know. I felt stuck. Like, I was hanging onto the train but I wasn’t in the driver’s seat,” you admitted. “Today, I woke up and things were different.”

“That’s specific,” Bobby remarked. You shot him a wry smile.

“I don’t know. I’ve spent a long time just, like…trudging through the snow. Trying to keep the flurries out of my eyes,” you said. “But for the first time, I feel like I can see the sun, you know? There’s a reason to hope things might change. Like something good is coming my way.”

Bobby’s mouth lifted into a subtle grin. “Very poetic. You should think about writin’ for Hallmark.”

You uttered an incredulous laugh. “All right. See if I pour my heart out to you again. God.”

“My apologies, princess,” Bobby said dryly. “Okay. In all seriousness, you’ve got a lot goin’ for ya, kid. You’ve got a right to be optimistic.”

You nodded with a superior smile. “Thank you.”

“Listen, I’ve got a lasagna waiting in the oven. You want any part of that?” he asked.

Your uncle was asking if you wanted to stay for dinner. You considered it and realized he was trying to connect with you. It wasn’t the first time he’d offered, and you regretted declining his loose invitations in the past.

“Sure,” you said. “Lasagna sounds great.”

“All right.” He nodded. “Gimme a sec.”

You had never understood the seemingly one-sided animosity between your dad and your uncle. Sure, Bobby was known as the town drunk. He’d gotten arrested a few times for publicly intoxicated antics, but he wasn’t belligerent. He wasn’t a bad man by any means.

“You know, speaking of Italian. I like making spaghetti and meatballs, the latter from scratch,” you said. “Maybe I could make some next time.”

Bobby glanced over at you with a bit of surprise. “Uh…sure.”

You smiled.

Later, as you and Bobby shared a meal together, you caught up on safe subjects, like how his business was going. He likewise asked you about your job. You admitted Dr. Birch was driving you up the wall this week. She’d asked you to grade two more of her classes’ final exams, putting you behind on your thesis draft.

But then you drew enough courage to delve into not-so-safe subjects.

“All right, I’ve gotta know,” you said. “Why the hell did you and my dad fall out, Bobby? What is this thing?”

Bobby looked very reluctant. “It’s complicated.”

You stared back at him for a moment. Curiosity was eating at you, but you didn’t want to push either. Today was going well. Maybe it was better not to spoil it.

“Complicated,” you echoed, smiling ruefully. “Right.”

After you two finished dinner and the dishes were cleared, you thanked Bobby and surprised him with a hug. His arms came around you briefly before you both let go, just a little awkwardly.

You put on your coat and headed out the door, until his voice stopped you on the porch.

“Look, regardless of where your dad and I stand, you’re family,” Bobby said. “You’re always welcome here.”

You gave a warm smile. “Thanks, Uncle Bobby.”

Then you returned to your Camaro and drove away from Singer Salvage, waving to his through your window as you went.

You made a left at the main road going west, so you didn’t see the black Impala come in from the east road, turning into Bobby’s driveway.

“What were those smooth wheels doing pulling out of this junk heap?” Dean jabbed a thumb behind him as he and Sam came into the house. They’d gotten nothing from that potential lead on John Winchester’s whereabouts, and neither of them were in a great mood. But the smell of food cheered up both of them, especially Dean.

“What?” Bobby asked.

“That blue ’93 Camaro Z28 that just peeled outta here. She was nice,” Dean said. Sam glanced at him, impressed. Dean smirked, an Aw, yeah, I know my shit kind of look.

Bobby smiled in amusement. “My niece stopped by for dinner.”

Sam shared a look of mild surprise with Dean, who said, “That’s a shame. Would’ve liked to meet her.”

Bobby shot him a warning look. “Down, boy. Like you need any help findin’ dance partners.”

Dean grinned. Sam nearly rolled his eyes.

“The lead didn’t pan out,” Sam said. “So we’re gonna head out in the morning, if that’s all right.”

“Fine,” Bobby shrugged. “Drink my beer, eat my food, and run up my water bill. Just do me a favor and clean up after yourselves. I don’t need a roach infestation.”

“What, don’t you think the rats need company?” Dean teased. Bobby raised a warning finger at him, making Dean hold back a laugh.

Bobby went upstairs for bed soon after, and Dean gave Sam first shower this time. It was good timing too…

Dean realized he could hear his soulmate again.

You were rocking out to a Billy Joel song.

He smirked. Figures.

As you drove home blasting “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” you chanted along with the long verses, sometimes forgetting words, sometimes stumbling and saying them wrong. But you came in strong with the part you knew: We didn’t start the fiiire. It was always buuurnin’ since the world’s been tuuurnin’—

Figures, your soulmate’s voice cut through everything else. It almost startled you, but feeling his amusement made you blush hotly.

He laughed, and it was a rich sound that made something flutter in your stomach.

Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt the performance. But come on, ‘80s pop?

You scoffed. All right, Mr. Power Ballad. Billy Joel is pop rock.

Gotta say, I expected better from you, sweetheart, he teased.

Ugh, you sound like such an old man. Tell me you don’t just listen to mullet rock, you rejoined.

All right. Let’s take an inventory, shall we? he challenged. ACDC. Led Zeppelin. Boston.

You made a face as you continued to drive through your hometown. You knew these streets like the back of your hand, even in the pitch black of eleven at night.

Yes to Zeppelin. The other two are…loud, you said. You heard him sigh, but he accepted this.

Fine, how about Hendrix?

Absolutely. You smiled. I take your Hendrix and raise you Prince and Beyonce.

Prince, yes. You can keep Beyonce, he said. Sorry, I’m not Team BeyHive.

You chortled in response. The fact that you know what that means give me hope. At least you’re aware that you live in the 2000s.

Whatever. I was raised on two things: classic rock and the open road.

His grumpiness was entertaining, but this gave you an excellent opportunity to play your little game.

The open road, huh? Are you some kind of traveling salesman? you asked.

Definitely not.

Hmm. Perhaps he sensed your frustration. He surprised you by giving you a hint.

Travel is part of it though.

Aha! I knew it.

Oh yeah? How?

This morning you said you were sleeping on a couch, you began. You typically don’t do that if you’re not at home in your bed. So I could assume you were traveling, and you had to work today. But I didn’t know you had to travel often for work until you just said it.

You felt proud of your deductive reasoning. So now I know that you and your brother have the same job. It’s unlikely you live in Sioux Falls. And you travel often for work.

Dean whistled lowly. Damn, girl. Somehow you’re reminding me of Sam right now…what are you studying again?

You noted a brief tendril of sadness from him, being quickly brushed off. You didn’t dwell on it, but you would make a mental note of it for later, maybe.

History, you replied.

Oh, okay. Gonna be a teacher or something?

I…don’t really know yet. I’ve been scoping out jobs…

You’ve almost got two degrees and you don’t know what you wanna do with ‘em?

All right, that was hitting a nerve.

“You know what? Don’t change the subject!” you said. Realizing you said that out loud, you made sure to think it at him this time.

You don’t live in Sioux Falls right? Or South Dakota even? you added.

Look at you go, little miss detective, he replied. You thought he enjoyed teasing you a bit too much. No, I don’t live here. But a family friend does.

Okay, so that narrowed it down to everything.

You turned the street corner into your neighborhood. The streetlights were sparse here ever since the last snowstorm knocked them out. Your dad had talked about installing ground lights in the front lawn for years, but he’d never gotten around to it. His job was too demanding to take care of much at home, which left you with most of the responsibility. Sometimes you wondered how your mom did it…

Anyway, back to the game.

Plumber, electrician, flight attendant? You guessed. You had a feeling from the way he talked about your schooling that he hadn’t gone to college. You didn’t mind that. If this stupid game was anything to go by, it sounded like he had an interesting way of making a living.

Nope to all three, especially the last one. Ugh.

Goddamn it. Okay, do you own a business?

You could say that. It’s a family business, he said. There was a playful note to this voice, as if he was dancing around the truth.

Dear Lord. All right, a family business…

It was probably something small-scale. A diner? Hardware store?

It’s not a physical store. More like a…a service.

You were getting warmer! With a smile, you made your way down your street and pulled your car into the driveway. Surprise, surprise, your dad wasn’t home yet.

Got it. You nodded. Okay, truck driver. Service engineer, electrician…oh shit, I said that earlier. Hmm…exterminator?

You grabbed your purse and finally got out of your car. You’d made it all the way to your front door when you realized that your soulmate had gone quiet. You sensed he was thinking, contemplating.

You nearly bounced in excitement as you unlocked the door to your house. I’m right, aren’t I? Which one?

After stepping inside and closing the door behind you, you turned on the hallway and living room lights.

The last one, he said at last. You paused in your excitement, your brows furrowed.

Exterminator. Really? That was curious. Who’d ever heard of a traveling exterminator? Like rats and stuff?

And stuff, he said with a chuckle, but somehow you knew it was hollow. You frowned, until you looked into the living room and noticed something weird.

A black duffel bag that didn’t look like your dad’s. You don’t remember it being there this morning either.

Hey, you okay? he asked. You realized that he was probably sensing your confusion. You headed toward the duffel bag.

Yeah, I just got home—

The moment you set down your purse on the coffee table, a hand closed over your mouth and muffled your scream.

AN: Yay, cliffhangers! (I promise they'll meet in the next chapter lol.)

Also, I just want to say THANK YOU to all of you reading, reblogging, commenting, etc. I didn't think this little fic would generate that much interest, but getting your feedback is inspiring me to write more!

Keep reading: Part 5.

Series Masterlist

Dean Winchester Masterlist

Main Masterlist

@curlycarley @buckywenal24 @jamerlynn @iprobablyshipit91 @globetrotter28 @deamus-liv @irgendwas122 @deans-spinster-witch @dogbarkbark4445

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pikapeppa · 19 days

Text

A transcript of Solas's involvement in Vows & Vengeance: Episode 1

As the title says: I transcribed the scene between Solas, Nadia, and Elio in the first ep of the Vows & Vengeance podcast, for fic and meta reasons for anyone who wants it!

Of note: some of the closed captions for the video are not accurate to the actual audio recording. One particular significant instance of this is highlighted in the transcript below. I also added a little bit of context for clarification purposes.

This transcript covers the portion of the podcast from 31:26 - 40:04.

See below the cut!

[Elio and Nadia are riding through the Silent Plains. They are on the run from Tevinter. Nadia’s horse whinnies in fear.]

Nadia: Whoa, whoa! What’s got you spooked, girl?

Elio: Probably just that ominous-looking chap in the road just ahead. Is that your guy?

Nadia: I’m not sure. Hood’s up. I can’t see his face.

Elio: Think he’s safe?

Nadia: Let’s go find out. Keep an eye for bandits just in case.

[They approach the ominous-looking chap.]

Nadia: You! Stranger! Do you know of Olen?

Solis: Nadia, I presume. I am Solas. And I am, I believe, the one that you seek.

Nadia: you have the gold?

Solas: If that is what matters most to you.

Nadia: It’s what matters to the world.

Solas: Perhaps.

[clinking of coins.]

Nadia: Looks good to me. Elio, give him the Eye.* (* The Eye of Kethisca — the magical relic that Nadia stole from Arcanist Hall in the Archives at Minrathous)

Elio [whispering]: Are you sure about this?

Nadia: What other choice do we have?

Elio [sigh]: One moment.

[Magical humming. Elio and Nadia gasp.]

Solas: Steady yourselves. There is nothing to fear from this relic.

Nadia: You didn’t see what this thing did back in Minrathous. Unleashed a wave of energy or something. Tore the ground up, almost killed Elio!

Solas [chuckle]: I will demonstrate. Ar dirthan’as ir elgara. Ma’sula e’var vhenan.

[Magical humming subsides.]

Elio: How did you do that?

Solas: The Eye was made from a rare gem mined in the caves beneath us. It was crafted centuries ago by a powerful Dreamer.

Eloi: So… it’s connected to the Fade?

Solas: Do you feel a connection to the Fade, Magister?

Elio: You know who I am?

Solas: Among other things. I know you well.

Nadia: [sharply] What is this? What — what game are you playing?

Solas: I do not play games. But if you seek answers, then come.

[The sound of footsteps moving through rocky debris. They are entering a cave.]

Nadia: Maybe we should turn back. This cave has a dark energy. I don’t like it.

Solas: Energy is neither dark nor light. It is just energy. And it is not the cave responsible for what you feel. It is the Fade. The Veil is fragile here.

Elio: I can feel it.

Solas: What about the Eye? Can you feel that, too?

Nadia: You said you had answers about what happened. Tell us.

Solas [sigh]: I suspect that when Elio summoned his magic* back on those docks, he unknowingly formed a bond with the Eye, and it amplified his powers. (* Elio used Stone Fist: a spell from the Rift Mage subclass in Inquisition)

[The sound of scuffling footsteps, and a blade unsheathing.]

Nadia: [to Solas] You better choose your next words very carefully.

Elio: What are you doing?!

Nadia: We never said it was at the docks.

Solas: [calmly] Kindly remove your blade from my neck.

Nadia: You start talking. I’ll decide if I move it.

Solas: Do you think the threat of a knife brings truth?

Nadia: The knife is just a promise.

Elio: Nadia, put it down.

Nadia [sigh]: Fine.

[She sheathes the blade.]

Solas: I heard word that the Venatori had plans for the Eye. I hired Olen to retrieve the relic before that could happen.

[A sound like wind whistling in the background.]

Elio: Why would you do that?

Solas: Because they do not understand its power. Or yours, Magister.

Elio: Mine?

Solas: There are things in motion that neither of you can fully grasp. And it is up to me to ensure that we arrive at the best possible outcome. But in order for that to happen, yes: I will need your help.

Elio: Why me?

Solas: Because you are a powerful Rift Mage, and your bloodline is tied to this relic. The Dreamer that forged the Eye bore the name of An’Dante.* (* Elio’s full name is Elio Andante.)

Elio: My family created it?

Nadia: it was no accident that Olen hired me, was it?

Solas: You’re sharper than you let on.

Nadia: It’s a gift.

Solas: It’s a frailty. [gently]

Elio: I was told* that the Eye would end the world, not mend it. (* By Neve Gallus)

Solas: Some people confuse a reckoning as an ending.

Elio: So you seek reform?

Solas: I seek… regeneration.

Nadia: I’ve heard enough of this dreck. Let’s go, Elio. Elio!

Elio: I’ll do it.

Nadia: Um, can I speak to you for a moment?

[Footsteps as they step away a bit.]

Nadia: [scoff] Are you crazy? There is no way we can trust this guy!

Elio: I understand your concern, but my purpose in the Magisterium was to help the people. To invoke change. I can’t do that now. That life is over. This could be my last chance to make a difference. And to find out the Eye was born by my ancestor’s hand? I… I have to do this. it was fated.

Nadia: [sigh] Why must you be so noble?

Elio: We are who we are, my love.

[Nadia sighs. They return to Solas. Magical humming/ringing; it sounds like they are in a large cavern. Some breezy-echoing sounds.]

Nadia: What is this place?

Solas: An ancient chamber. Once home to unspeakable acts. Many were sacrificed on these grounds, and the blood that was spilled weakened the barriers between our worlds.

Elio: And the Eye will help us fix that?

[Ambient whispering sounds. Almost sound like voices. Inaudible/incomprehensible.]

Solas: More or less.

[Clinking sound; Solas seems to be working.]

Nadia: And you’re sure this is safe?

Solas: As safe as we make it.

Nadia [sigh]: I don’t know. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Elio: Would it help if I told you that ring around your neck is imbued with a protective spell?

Nadia: Maybe. Is it?

Elio: Mm. Maybe.

[Nadia chuckles.]

[Ongoing magic humming sound; incomprehensible/inaudible ambient whispers.]

Solas: The relic is ready. Prepare your mind. Begin.

Solas and Elio chanting together in Elvhen: Heruamin litirien. Alai uethri maeria. Halurocon yalei nam bahna. Dolin nereba maome…

Nadia [sounds afraid] Guys? Guys, this does not feel right.

Solas: Silence, please.

Solas and Elio chanting together in Elvhen: Ame amin. Halai lothi amin. Aloamin Heruamin. Heruamin oh lonai. Imwe naine beriole…

[There is rumbling in the background, rocks breaking, cave crumbling.]

Nadia: Elio! Elio, I really don’t like this! Elio!

Elio: It’s working, Nadia! I can feel it!

Solas and Elio, chanting loudly together in Elvhen: Ame amin! Halai lothi amin! Aloamin Heruamin! Aloamin Heruamin! Aloamin Heruamin!

[Ongoing sound of cave crumbling. Nadia is crying out in fear. Then Elio starts groaning.]

Nadia: Elio!

Elio: Solas, something is wrong!

Solas: Keep your focus.

Elio: Solas, please! We must stop!

Solas: Keep your mind steady!

Elio: Argh! I… feel something. A presence!* (* this is significantly different from the closed caption, but my transcription is correct.)

Nadia: Solas, you have to stop this!

Solas: This is all to be expected. Remain firm.

Elio: [straining, groaning] I can’t… Hold on!

[Ongoing cave-crumbling sounds. Nadia crying out in fear.]

Solas: If you let go now, the Eye will explode!

Nadia: Elio!

Elio: I’m here!

Nadia: Where?

[Elio screams. The cave collapses.]

Nadia: [screaming] Elio! Elio!

Solas: [voice sounds distant] We must flee. We must flee! Now! [cries out in pain/effort] Hurry! [cries out]

Nadia: Elio! [voice echoing weirdly.]

Solas: [voice echoing weirdly] Nadia, here! Take my hand.

Nadia: Save Elio!

Solas: He has crossed over.

Nadia: Elio!

Solas: We must escape! I’m sorry!

[Nadia grunts. Ambient sounds return to normal, no longer weirdly echoing. No more cave-crumbling sounds; silence. Shortly after, there is the sound of gusting wind rustling through grass, the horse whinnying; it appears that Nadia has emerged from the cave, or what was left of it.]

Nadia: [groaning] Elio? Elio, are you there? Elio? Solas! Hello? [yelling, crying out in despair] No!

#solas #vows and vengeance #vows & vengeance #dragon age #dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard #da:tv #da:v #vows and vengeance spoilers #dragon age spoilers

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archivomeow · 26 days

Text

being aro-spec (orchidro in my case) & ace is hard when you’re born into a family that has

1. homophobic memebers,

2. has members that are accepting of lgbt+ but aphobic.

the amount of times i was asked if i have a boyfriend or a guy i like and had to say no is just annoying, i hate that question because tbh if i did i wouldn’t tell that family member that always asks it, every time we see each other.

and the amount of times it was added “or a girlfriend” “or a wife” to boyfriend/husband talk by another family member. like i have a family member who fully believes im a lesbian, because i asked some questions about the lgbtqia+ etc when i was questioning if i was a lesbian (which i am not 🤦‍♀️).

the amount of times i was told i will grow up and have kids or that it just hasn’t kicked in yet, that i’m too young too know, that some people don’t know they want kids at my age.

the amount of times i was told i will have a husband and that i’ll find one, one day, then i’ll understand it all.

the amount of times i was told i can be straight, i can be a lesbian, that it doesn’t matter if i bring a guy or a girl home, it will be fine, but i was met with “everyone dates eventually” when i asked “what if i never date”.

the thing is you cannot blame this on me, because i don’t owe anyone a coming out, no one does, i’ve asked repeatedly to not be called a lesbian or to be insinuating that i am one (love you girl kissers, i’m bi, not a lesbian!). i’ve said over and over and over again that i’m not dating, having kids or getting married, the thing is everyone takes this as me being “too young and immature” or some blame me being a feminist on that, which i explained the two didn’t correlate with each other, but they didn’t listen. i’ve even been asked if i will be a spinster, which i said yes to, because technically i do want that, but that word has a negative effect on some, not me tho.

i’ve made is as clear as i can i won’t date, have no need or desire to (i never had any), that i want to live alone and have a dog or a cat or both. i want a job i love and i want to learn and see things during my life.

the best i can do is the aunt that you see once every three months that brings you cool ass gifts.

#aro #ace #aroace #aromantic #asexual #aphobia #aphobic #lgbtqia

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carawenfiction · 1 year

Note

Will we have an update soon?

Tumblr won't let me make normal posts for some reason, so the update will have to be in form of an answer to this ask smh. Anyway:

Hey everyone!

This post is long overdue, I know. I’m really sorry to those who have been worried about my wellbeing, as well as those who have been waiting around for an update for so long.

I’ve put off writing here because this “update” is something I’ve been wrestling with for a long time. But I can’t keep going back and forth on it forever, which is why I’m now letting you all know that the Shadow Society is officially discontinued.

I know that this might not come as much of a surprise to anyone at this point. I’ve tried to salvage the story by remaking it into something I’m happy with through a rewrite. But I’ve rewritten the rewrite itself more than once, and no matter what I do, I’m just not happy with the result. Rewriting something that’s already published with all the coding it involves is a lot more tricky than I initially thought it would be.

This is not a case of me being needlessly harsh on myself, however; it’s simply a truth I’ve come to realize after struggling to find a way to keep going with the story. I’ll never be fully content with it, or even content enough, unless I’d be able to completely remake and rewrite everything from scratch – and consequentially, I will never find enough motivation to continue because of how unhappy I am with it.

I’ve seen some speculation about my reason for rewriting the story and my long absence, and that they’ve had to do with comparisons to other IFs (well, you know which one). This isn’t entirely the case. While the comparisons did happen and probably still do, and while they were discouraging in the beginning, I can definitely understand where people have been coming from when making them. I talked about this more in-depth in the forums right after the release of TSS.

The main reason for why I can’t continue is that it’s not a series I feel passionate enough about to work on. My tastes have changed, and so has my writing to some degree. I’ve tried to convince myself that I am passionate about it. It’s hard to admit that you’re not when it’s been in your head for so long, when you’ve tried for so long to make this work and when you know that one part is published and that some people are anticipating a continuation. But it had to be done sooner or later.

Other reasons:

-While I don’t think that my writing style has changed drastically, I feel like it is somewhat different from how I wrote back in 2018 (which is a GOOD thing). Whenever I tried working on the rewrite or second book and attempted to emulate the writing of TSS, it just didn’t sound right anymore, and that took a lot of fun out of it.

-With everything that has happened with CoG over the past few years, they are no longer a company I want to write for.

Please know that none of this has discouraged me from writing in general. I still love doing it. If anything, this has taught me a lot about what I actually want to write and the writing process in general. Whether I end up publishing anything else in the future or will simply do so for my own enjoyment we’ll just have to see, though.

I still have the idea of a shadow-like world in my head, and maybe it’s one I will revisit at some point. Maybe there will be another version of TSS someday, albeit very different from the original one.

But for now, I can only thank you all for the overwhelming love and support over the years, and apologize for any disappointment this has caused. If people are interested, I’d be happy to share parts of the rewrite and unused ideas. The Tumblr page will still stay up at least for some time, but I will probably not be answering any asks from here on out.

EDIT: Forgot to add, but if anyone wants a genuinely amazing IF read you should check out my friend's wip here: https://uroboros-if.tumblr.com/ ❤️ Play the demo here: https://mistyriousness.itch.io/uroboros

#the shadow society #tss #carawenfiction #interactive fiction

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archiveikemen · 1 month

Text

Xeno Main Story: Chapter 10

Premium Avatar Challenge

This is a fan-made translation solely for entertainment purposes with no guaranteed perfection; expect mistakes, grammatical errors, and some creative liberties. All original content and media used belongs to Cybird. Please support the game by buying their stories and playing their games. Reblogs appreciated.

Read this before interacting

Xeno: Kawanaga, leave if you’re done talking.

Rina: Xeno-san…

No matter what I said, Xeno-san didn’t agree.

(His injury will definitely worsen if he continues performing this hard choreography.)

(Even if he were to make it through this music festival, the injury might affect his future in the long run…)

(What should be done if that happens?)

The thought of that possibility made my face turn pale.

(But…)

Rina: … I understand. I won’t bother you anymore.

Rina: But if you want to continue practising, please at least get it properly treated!

Xeno: That’s too exaggerated. It’ll only hinder my movement. I don’t need it.

Rina: It’s not an exaggeration at all. It really hurts, doesn’t it? I can tell even if you’re trying to cover up by bearing with it!

Xeno: … Bearing with it?

Rina: Yes. You’re surprisingly stubborn, Xeno-san.

Rina: And yet… as a professional, you’re harsher on yourself than towards anyone else. You won’t change your mind once you’ve decided on something.

Rina: The amount of time I’ve spent with you isn’t very long… but I at least know this much about you.

Xeno: …

Rina: So, please, let me treat your injury.

Rina: If you’re going to perform vigorous movements, properly taping your ankle will make things easier!

Xeno-san stared at me as I desperately tried to get my point across.

Although he was expressionless, there was a hint of bewilderment in his eyes that seemed to waver. And then…

Xeno: … Fine.

Rina: Really?

Xeno: Yeah. … But I won’t tolerate it if you continue pestering me.

Rina: T-thank you so much! In that case I’ll go get a first aid kit right away—...

Xeno: We’ll head back to my room first. The first aid kit is there too. … You never know who’ll come to the training room.

(He intends to keep his injury a secret from the other members…)

Rina: I understand. Let’s go then.

(As long as he’s willing to have his ankle treated…!)

Xeno: … Why are you so desperate?

Xeno: You really are a strange person…

…

As expected, Xeno-san’s ankle was swollen. I applied a cold compress onto the injured site to slightly reduce the swelling before taping it.

Rina: It must be so painful…

Xeno: This is nothing.

(Honestly, I really wish you’d go to the hospital instead…)

Still, this was better than leaving it completely untreated.

… The incident that happened in the daytime resurfaced in my mind.

== Flashback Start ==

I knew I had to dodge, and yet my body refused to move.

Xeno: Kawanaga!

== Flashback End ==

(This is all my fault…)

Rina: …

I felt like an utter good-for-nothing. The guilt and frustration caused tears to well up in the corners of my eyes…

Xeno: Kawanaga? What are you tearing up for?

Rina: … I-I’m sorry…

Xeno: Why are you apologising?

Rina: It’s my fault that you got injured.

Rina: Had I dodged the incoming car back then… you wouldn't have hurt yourself saving me.

Xeno: …

Rina: I originally wanted to be of help to you, and yet all I did was give you more trouble. I’m so pathetic…

I knew I had no right to cry, but my tears were flowing uncontrollably…

Rina: Xeno-san… I’m really sorry.

Rina: Please let me compensate you for this.

Xeno: Compensate?

Rina: In order for the performance at the upcoming festival to go smoothly…

Rina: For you to fully focus on your work, I’ll do everything within my capabilities to support you.

Rina: I’ll treat your injury and assist you in your daily life. Please feel free to tell me what you want me to do.

Rina: I’m willing to do anything for you!

Xeno: That’s not something you should say so casually.

Rina: I’m being serious.

Xeno: That’s even worse. You don’t understand the meaning of what you just said, do you?

Rina: Eh?

Xeno-san suddenly pulled me close.

Rina: !

Xeno: When you said you’ll do “anything”... did it not occur to you that I could demand this sort of thing from you?

Rina: Huh…?

He had his arm around my waist and held our bodies closely together.

… His action was unbelievable. I stood frozen in place and all I could do was accept it.

Xeno: I’m a man too. I can effortlessly render you unable to resist me.

His perfectly sculpted, handsome face right before my eyes… and his low whispering voice sent a shiver down my spine.

Rina: X-Xeno-san…

I never thought he'd ever touch me that way.

Xeno: … You should be more aware of the bad intentions of others.

Xeno: This world is filthy. There are plenty of people who take advantage of another person’s naivety before devouring them like predators.

Rina: B-but… you're not that kind of person, Xeno-san.

Xeno: How can you be so sure? It could be that you just don’t know my true colours.

Xeno-san muttered with a pained expression and let go of my body.

Xeno: … Long story short, you have too much trust in me. You’re too defenceless…

Rina: Xeno-san…

I couldn't comprehend why he would say such things all of a sudden.

Rina: Even so, I can’t leave you in the lurch…

Xeno: … Looks like your stubbornness is ingrained in your personality. Enough already.

Xeno-san sighed.

(... Is he irritated? Nope, this looks more like confusion.)

Xeno: … If you want to help, go ahead and do as you please.

Xeno: But the accident wasn’t your fault. The decision that led to it was solely mine. Don’t let it bother you.

Rina: Xeno-san…

Xeno: Also… don’t cry because of me anymore. … It makes me feel bad.

He reached out his hand to wipe my tears.

… Contrary to his blunt words, the gesture was gentle.

#morganatic idol #ikemen series #cybird ikemen #cybird otome #morudoru translations #otome #+one by ikemen series #morudoru main story #xeno main story #xeno #exe Creed

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britcision · 1 year

Text

I am so sleepy

I was gonna give you Waylon and Danny since I think that came second but I’m not checking

BUT THEN THIS CAME TO ME IN A VISION so here you go, have KON! 😈

Chapter 15 is sitting at 11 500 words rn so it’s soooo close I just got a scene or two to finish up (Bruce suffering Bruce suffering Bruce Suffering)

———————

I’ll Take The Highway part v

Danny couldn’t have missed Constantine making his way up the street blindfolded and with his ears plugged. It might have been the whole “owned his soul” thing.

It also might have been the vortex of swirling magical attention that followed him like a cloud. The guy clearly wasn’t trying to advertise his presence, but to something like Danny…

Well, trying to hide that hard always caught his attention. A magical “nothing to see here” tasted like liquorice in the back of his throat.

Maybe the trench coat was actually cursed, in more than just the unfortunate fashion sense.

Part of him wondered if this had anything to do with them. The rest, well aware what his luck was like, wondered if he’d come barging into the restaurant.

It wasn’t like he shouldn’t be getting ready to go anyway, but he just… well, he was having a surprising amount of fun just hanging out with Waylon.

The guy was old enough to be his dad, but he was a great listener. Really encouraging, and he’d told Danny another couple of stories too, some from his darker times but all with happy endings.

He was probably trying to make Danny feel better after their talk, and it was definitely working. It just… well, he didn’t even really like thinking about Dan.

He’d asked Nocturn to put him to sleep not long after becoming king, to give the guy something to do other than stew in a thermos and plot vengeance.

Part of him still kinda expected that to bite him in the ass, but even if Dan broke out of Nocturn’s dreams, he couldn’t break out of Soup Time. For whatever reason he’d never learned Danny’s portal trick.

All the people who kept souping Danny were dead in Dan’s timeline.

Danny had almost been ready to wrap things up with Waylon (as little as he wanted to; they’d already exchanged numbers) when he felt Jason’s rage bubble.

He didn’t realise he’d blanked out until Waylon tapped the table in front of him with a claw, concern on his scaly face.

“Somethin’ th’ matter, kid?” He asked in a low growl.

Danny shook his head, staring down at the mostly empty milkshake and chugging the rest.

“Probably nothing… just got a bad feeling about Jason,” he explained with a shrug.

Reached out just a little, extending his senses but not aura. If Jason was already mad, that might send him over the edge.

Just as he reached out a sudden flare of fury made his hand clench, the glass he was still grasping shattering. Great, he had a hand full of milkshake and shards.

Shaking both free, Danny shoved his way out of the booth at the same time as Waylon, the big man going from concerned to battle ready in an instant.

For the first time, he almost looked dangerous. Danny was glad to have him at his back for the visual component at least; anyone who didn’t think twice about pissing off a tank like Jason wouldn’t even blink at Danny.

Killer Croc though? He got that name on his looks alone, long before he earned it.

They didn’t even make it across the bar, wait staff scattering to what were clearly well established positions in case trouble came in.

Trouble didn’t; barely.

Jason Todd did, all but vibrating with rage and steaming green with Pitty’s contribution.

Wait; steaming? Jason had mentioned the Lazarus Pits did that, but Danny had never seen ectoplasm steam before. Could everyone see it?

Whether Waylon could or not, it didn’t stop him from hurrying forward, attention fully focused behind Jason for anyone following.

It was maybe the teeniest bit cute that even so angry he had a personal heat haze, Jason didn’t even think Waylon was going for him. His attention was fixed somewhere else; somewhere internal and probably bloody.

Instinct pulled Danny forward, Jason slipping easily into his aura and for a moment Danny felt like he’d drown in Jason’s rage. Answered it himself a moment later, stroking across the anger with worry-protect-safe now.

Jason twitched just a little as the aura washed around him, looking around on automatic until he faced Danny.

The rage softened just a little as he caught Danny’s eye, shoulders sagging. His jaw unclenched enough to talk; visibly enough that it must have been painful.

“Just fucking B again, treating me like a fucking child,” he spat, fists still clenched tight at his sides.

The effort it was clearly taking not to go out and start swinging kept Danny on edge, even as Waylon relaxed.

“Yer a long way from that, kid,” the big guy agreed with a low chuckle, still between Jason and the door, and rested a large hand lightly on Jason’s shoulder. “Want me to go have a word?”

Jason shook his head sharply, the smallest of smiles flicking across his face before the anger replaced it. Yeah, definitely cute.

“No thanks. You’ve only just got out, you don’t need bat trouble again already,” he said through gritted teeth, then nodded to Danny. “I just wanna get out of here.”

Danny nodded immediately, going from maybe-fight to flight. Which was kinda literally an option. Ghosts knew how to make an exit.

“Do you wanna take your bike or just disappear?” He asked simply.

Jason gave him a tight smile, barely layered over anger he was still struggling to control. Fuck, if this was what he’d been dealing with every day before Danny came along…

“Harley’s out back with Batman. I just want to fucking go,” he growled, shaking his head.

Danny nodded again, turning and crouching a little for Jason to hop onto his back.

“Phantom Express it is then.”

And yeah, he knew it looked stupid without Waylon’s confirming snort of laughter.

So did Jason, and the tinge of mirth that coloured his rage-burning-break in his head was more than worth looking silly.

Seemed like Jason was finally starting to trust his strength too as he hopped up without question, Danny not reacting in the slightest to his added weight.

And definitely not the way Jason now towered over him, or having those thighs wrapped around his waist. Nope. No horny in the aura today.

Giving a last nod to Waylon, he turned them both invisible and flew up through the roof, intangibility phasing them through at the last second.

Once they were high enough to be beyond any eavesdropping, he slowed to a stop, not quite looking back at his passenger.

“So, where do you wanna go?”

As Danny had kinda hoped, the sudden exhilaration of flight had tamped Jason’s anger back down until it was less a physical presence. It still seethed and boiled inside him, but it was losing steam.

About half of what he could feel from Jason now was just tired, and honestly? Couldn’t blame him.

Danny had been told how bad his pit rages had been, a visceral wrath that almost possessed Jason and made him lash out in all directions. And by all accounts? He still hadn’t seen the half of it.

It made his core ache just thinking about living with that much rage stuck inside. Feeling like that all the time… Danny had always respected Jason, but this? This demanded a whole new level.

And a little bit made him want to put Jason in a nice ectoplasm hamster ball so he could roll around the streets and nothing would ever hurt him again.

Gonna have to keep that under wraps too, since apparently Danny was losing his fucking mind all up in Gotham.

(Not that he’d never hamster balled anyone before. It was just usually a punishment for Tucker, or Wes if they were being assholes. Derogatory hamster balls were totally fine and not evidence of losing anything at all.)

The man himself was quiet for a long moment, struggling with just everything that was going on inside him.

Danny waited, turning them both intangible again just in case Jason could still be affected by the cold. At this height, it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

Made him side eye all those pictures of witches in dresses and long socks on broomsticks. Good way for the living to get pneumonia, in Danny’s opinion.

Jason didn’t even seem to notice, letting out a frustrated huff of air.

“We’ve gotta get Tucker home. If B is off being an asshole we can at least go to the manor,” he grumbled.

Danny paused for a long moment himself, considering another solution. After all, for ghosts it was simply unthinkable that they hadn’t even had an introductory brawl yet.

Whenever he got that pissed, getting the shit kicked out of him had always helped burn off the energy. But maybe Jason’s was different.

Danny was pretty sure he’d never been that pissed, not even at Pariah. Not even at Agent K.

Danny wouldn’t judge. For now, he nodded, turning to head towards the manor.

“We can go to Frostbite after we’ve dropped Tuck off. It’s been long enough, and you definitely feel stronger?” He offered, kinda hoping it might help Jason feel better.

The grunt he got in return didn’t sound convinced, but Jason also didn’t argue.

Neither of them were expecting to run into traffic in the Gotham airways though, at least not below airline level. Or to be interrupted.

With a sudden loud gust of wind, another black haired young man in a black leather jacket pulled up in front of them, looking around with a frown.

“Hey, I heard someone up here? Jason? Where are you?” He asked loudly, brows furrowing like he was still listening.

Danny’s confusion was better than words as Jason gave his shoulder a quick squeeze.

“Superboy the first. Tim’s boyfriend,” he explained quietly, and Kon’s head whipped around to follow the sound.

“Okay Jason, I know you’re up here, what the fuck?” He asked impatiently, which was when Danny remembered.

Still invisible. Hiding from the Bat and also concerned citizens. He popped them back into visibility with a sheepish grin, waving at… Connor? Or Con? No, kinda sharper. Kon?

It might have been a secret third level of alias, but Danny was pretty sure the bats had called him by a couple names over the various stories.

“Hey… sorry, forgot we were invisible,” he explained, trying not to laugh. Mostly at himself, but best not give the wrong impression.

Superboy’s eyes locked on them for a moment, narrowed briefly, and then his face broke into a grin.

“So, I’m gonna guess you’re Danny, Tucker’s friend that Tim has been gushing about?” He asked eagerly, reclining comfortably in the air. Then paused. “Well, gushing about Tucker. You were mentioned, though.”

That sounded about right.

Danny snickered and nodded, giving Jason a careful reshuffle. If they weren’t gonna be travelling for the moment, they could get a little more comfortable.

Thick thighs tightened around his hips and Danny very specifically did not melt into a puddle of goo. Not even a little bit.

“Yeah, we were just gonna go get Tucker and head out. Are you coming to see Tim?” He asked, kinda half wanting to wait around long enough and see what Tucker and Connor made of each other.

Kon if he was here in official capacity? But he wasn’t exactly wearing a super uniform, or logo. But Jason hadn’t mentioned a name, because Jason wasn’t a helper.

There was one easy way around that though. Bouncing Jason just a little more roughly than strictly necessary, Danny stuck out his hand.

“Danny Fenton, by the way. Since we haven’t been fully introduced.” He gave his best cheerful-but-totally-human grin. No point unnerving the first official alien he met, even if he was only half alien.

The boy reached out easily, giving him a firm handshake back.

“Kon El. Connor when we’re on street level. And yeah, I was just heading the same way when I heard you guys. Tim asked if I’d bring Tucker home though, he wasn’t sure what you guys’ plans were so if you had anything else to do?” He glanced from one to the other, so clearly not asking that he might as well have.

Could Kryptonians see the heat haze of Jason’s anger too? Or did he just know the family well enough, know Jason well enough, to know the signs?

Danny hesitated, glancing over his shoulder at the other halfa. He could almost taste Jason’s indecision, holding each other this close. Bitter and tight in the back of his throat.

How much did he want to deal with his family, with that rage still burning inside him? Hell, they hadn’t even worked out what Jason would do while Danny took Tucker home.

Danny kept quiet though, leaving the choice up to Jason.

It didn’t take long.

Sucking in a deep breath, Jason let out a heavy sigh, a wave of pure relief washing over him.

The anger was still there, a hot little coal right between the dual cores, but it couldn’t drown out the gratitude-sorry-safe. Barely tempered it anymore.

His voice was still gruff when he spoke, still stiff with emotion, but Kon seemed to understand.

“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks Kon.”

The younger man tipped them both a sarcastic salute, straightening in the air and turning towards Wayne manor.

“You’ve probably got like, a text from Tim about the change of plan, if he even bothered to mention it, but I’ll let him know I saw you. Seems like you’re sticking around, so I’ll probably run into you again, Danny.” He gave them both a cheery nod and flew away.

A tiny part of Danny was sorry that they wouldn’t be around to watch Tucker spiral when confronted with Tim’s boyfriend.

Tim Drake Wayne was a hottie, no point denying it, and he was easily Tucker’s second biggest tech crush beside the mysterious Oracle. With all that hero worship though?

Tucker probably hadn’t actually noticed he was also hot yet. He’d have been in love with him if he’d looked like a snail.

Kon El though? Kon El had exactly the kind of leather jacket, too cool for school, sculpted good looks that Tucker fell head over heels for on any gender.

(Danny absolutely was not a hypocrite, he’d be the very first to admit that he and Tucker had very similar taste in partners, at least as far as appearances. Tucker just preferred a little more “step on me” energy.)

In all the reminders that Tim had a boyfriend, no one had said his boyfriend was hot.

Danny didn’t mention it. It wasn’t like he’d have been able to fully enjoy things anyway; the night before had proved that, and Jason’s mood had been rosy by comparison.

He did offer just one comment though, watching Kon fly away thoughtfully.

“Should we have warned him that Tucker is going to spontaneously combust if Kon tells him to ride him?” He asked mostly hypothetically, fading them out of visibility and tangibility again.

It startled Jason into letting out a snort of laughter which became a cough with his last rasp of thinner air.

“You just did, with Kon’s hearing,” he managed once he could talk normally again, and Danny considered feeling bad about it.

That sizzling coal of rage was almost buried under amused-anticipation-relief.

Nah. No matter what form Tucker’s next wave of vengeance took, this was worth it.

“So, where to next?” He asked, again… kinda hypothetically. From Jason’s sigh the older man was just as aware of what the answer had to be.

“Let’s just fucking go see Frostbite. If I keep looking at the city something’s gonna piss me off again.” He sounded reluctant, resigned, but a slow creeping glow of amazement spread through his aura.

About to pop open another portal, Danny tipped his head up as far as he could and made them visible again, looking for his face.

“What’s up?” He asked, willing to put dimensional travel on hold if there was anything they might be able to do to actually help.

Jason shook his head to focus himself, glancing down at Danny and quickly looking away. Was Danny imagining that sweet pink blush in his cheeks?

“It’s nothing.”

Danny waited, secure in the actual empathic sensation of Jason warring with himself on his back. Finally he won (and also lost, as all civil wars end) and sighed.

“Just. I’ve never come out of the pit rage this fast before,” he admitted gruffly, glaring down at the sparkling lights of the city below. Like this wasn’t something to celebrate.

Danny let them fade back to invisibility, since Jason pretty clearly didn’t want to be looked at.

“Hey, that’s great news! We’ll just have to short circuit Tucker’s gay ass every time you need a boost,” he chirped brightly, and popped the portal open to Jason’s laughter.

——————

Tag List: @welcometosasakiworld @kyrianclawraith @someonebored0100 @stealingyourbones @starkcravingmad @frostedthroughghost @akikkobara @rainbowbunny0159 @littlefeather345 @violet-catsarelife @serasvictoria02 @wolfjackle @blacksea21090 @secretdestinywerewolf @anime-hipster-the-amazing @undead-essence @skitscratched @blackroserelina @snoodly-boop @trickerdi @mayoota-blog @xysidhe @idkmrpianoman @little-apricot-the-writer @chaoticmistake @the-legal-shipper @bun-fish @aroranorth-west @demon-cat-goes-woof @perfectwastelandcreation @onyxlightdragon @larks-and-katydids @peachesandcreamfemboy @jesus-camp-the-sequel @may-rbi @mothman-the-mothman87 @viyatrix @stargirl1331 @idfk-man10 @thedepressedrobin @skulld3mort-1fan @rootsmudge @ravenshadow17 @cankoking @phantom-dc @mentalcarebear @magic-pincushion @redamancyardor @lyra689 @itsparadoxlacuna @alcorbearson @asphyxia778 @why-must-i-be-like-this @tkiesai @greenpyrowolf @frivolous-pastel @honeysuckletook

#dp x dc #wip wednesday #danny fenton dead and loving it #chapter 15 part 5 #hoping we don’t need a part 6 but who knows #will depend on news i get tomorrow #UNTIL THEN #we have kon!!!!#and danny and jason again good boys #dramatic exists are a ghostly trait #the only one danny got along with the powers

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pommunist · 5 months

Note

hey, I hope alls going well and that it’s fine to ask questions about the current situation.

Question: What are the doxing laws in France? And is it valid to criticize Lea for doxing? As no matter what actions done against you, she committed a crime. In addition her response was that they (Qstudios) committed more crimes than me so it’s fine rubbed me the wrong way. Nothing justifies doxing just like nothing justifies mistreating your workers, multiple wrongs do not and never will make it right. So could Lea be sued for doing this? Should she? Would French law protect her? Whose law would this fall under in court, French, America, Mexico? I do hope Lea and all the workers gets compensated for their time and effort and that Quackity is doing alright with being doxed by said former worker. Is that a fair opinion? I’m trying to give her some credit it’s an accident and she is rightfully angry at him but it still doesn’t justify causing danger to someone (at least in the opinion of me).

I slept on the topic and pray I worded it well. Hopefully, this doesn’t come across as hateful, I’m not towards any party. However, I just don’t agree with the methods she used to act on in this case or her apology (or lack of one), it came across as “I’m a victim who cares little about the person I just hurt because the stress made me do it”. People’s response are almost as bad. “We forgive you for doxing” - Not your apology to give, You Are Not Affected, “Doxing is bad so I am valid in not taking your words to mean anything *” - Not understanding that she is a victim of his workplace abuse just as he’s a victim of her doxing. Am I stupid for think that?

Also felt the need to add: Thank you again for the translation document. The amount of work to do that is absolutely incredible and you (all of you who worked on it) should feel so proud to have been able to fully commit to that. If you reply thank you so much in advance and let the rest of your day be amazing. Sorry if you already answered something simulair.

Well first of all anon, you can criticise anyone you want for any reason you want, you don’t have to ask me first ! Personally I don’t believe she should have shared this publicly or at least not without making sure private info was censored.

Secondly….Do you hate me anon 🥺? Making me look up law stuff ? /j

I’ll try to answer as best as I can, just keep in mind that the legal field doxxing falls under isn’t something that I’m specialised in. So, take it with a grain of salt, always.

(tbh i don’t think we’ll see the day a minecraft cc will do something that fall under my area of expertise but if it ever happens drop them immediately ahah)

French law

The closest we have to a law against doxxing is :

-« Endangerment of someone’s life by divulgation of private information in regards to their professional, personal or familial life »

-« Divulgation of data with intent to harm »

-Just general legal protection of someone’s private life.

Legally it would be difficult for a lawsuit against Lea because of her tweet to have a legal standing. Not only it would be very difficult to prove she had the intent to doxx anyone (not saying she did). But also because the information that she posted, and the informations people found because of it are extremely easy for anyone to access.

I know this because around a month ago when Léa first came out with her story, I stumbled upon it b, with just a very simple google search, while I was just trying to know in which US state Q’s company was registered. (I was curious to know under which state’s legal jurisdiction it was).

So both the malicious intent and the private element of the information would be incredibly hard to prove.

US law :

From what I understand, there is no federal law against doxxing in the US.

There are some state law, like in California, where doxxing can be considered a misdemeanour if you prove that it was done with the goal to harm someone.

I looked up some articles to help me answer this and I found this which can hopefully shine some light on how doxxing is seen from a legal standpoint. (Doesn’t mean doxxing is a good thing or that it doesn’t affect people’s lives, this is, again, just from a legal perspective)

https://joindeleteme.com/doxxing/is-doxxing-illegal/

There may be more but US law, not my thing at all so I don’t know !

Conclusion : I’ll be honest I can’t see her being sued for this, from a legal standpoint.

______

My own personal take on this is that no, Léa shouldn’t have posted what she did before making sure no personal info was on it, even if she had probably no intent to spread personal info. But also no, this could barely count as doxxing because like I said it’s very easily accessible information (don’t mean you should go look for it because like, why ?). Now she deleted it and it’s quite difficult to see what she had posted, good. There’s no point defending her nor hating on her for this.

I’d rather go back to talking about the main issue, workers rights and workplace abuse, than spend time pandering whether or not one of said workers is a bad person and how she should act. Not saying people should NOT talk about it just that it’s not something I’m interested in discussing✌️

#qsmp discourse #asks

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codfanficedits · 1 year

Text

Holy Water

A/N: Wrote this instead of sleeping </3

Pairing:

Simon 'Ghost' Riley x fem!Reader.

Wordcount: 807

Warnings: Mentioning of religious stuff.

He had been doing it from the start. Every time Simon, or Ghost as his coworkers knew him, touched you, he had to clean his hands. A little bowl of water next to his bed, dipping his hands in it before he got into bed with you. A little flask filled with water, sprinkling it on his hands before he could touch you. It didn’t matter if it was just holding your hand, caressing your face, any other form of physical contact, he had to clean his hands first.

You didn’t really question it, everyone had their weird quirks. You had to tap on a can five times before you could open it. He had to clean his hands before he could touch people. No big deal.

You had gotten used to it to the point that you would hand him the little flask before you’d do anything else. He made sure the little bowl next to his bed was always filled, and you made sure to cover it with a lid so dust wouldn’t fall into it. A little non-verbal agreement.

Simon had always kept you hidden from the base, although you had met a few of his coworkers, he wasn’t very comfortable with you being at his work, worried you’d stand out, or worse, be seen as his weakness, and he could never let anything happen to you. So when he forgot his flask you were torn, part of you wanted to drop it off, another part of you didn’t want to cross that boundary of dropping by at his work. However, without it he wouldn’t be able to touch anyone..

So you take the flask and you decide to go for it. Worst case he sends you home, best case you can steal a little kiss. The whole idea makes you a little giddy, as a highschooler about to visit their crush. In reality you’re not too far off. No matter how long the two of you have been dating, just thinking about seeing him makes your stomach so somersaults.

You’re struck with confusion when you spot him, fully in his gear, except for his gloves, giving Soap a slap on his shoulder, but not a bowl of water or a flask in sight.

His head snaps your way when he recognizes the engine of your car, and the mask comes off, the balaclava being pulled off, revealing his messy dirty blonde hair. “Lovie.” He croaks, as he comes to the window of your car. “What are you doing here?”

Hesitant you hold up the flask. “You forgot it this morning.”

His eyes shift to the flask before he looks at you again. “Thank you, lovie.” You watch while he unscrews the cap and wets his hands, cleansing them before he screws the caps back on. His hands are still damp when he cups your face and places a soft kiss on your lips.

“I have to go now, but I’ll be home tonight okay?” And with those words the balaclava goes back on, the mask too before he walks off. You watch the sway of his hips before you turn your car around.

You’re confused, not understanding why he could touch Soap without cleansing his hands, but the moment he cupped your face, his hands had to be clean.

It’s late at night when he comes home, you recognize the key in the front door, the little grunt when he takes off his boots, the little stumble to the kitchen, the door of the fridge opening, the soft hiss of the bottle of coke, the slamming of the door of the fridge, the heavy footsteps up the stairs. It’s such a routine that you can dream it by now.

The door of the bedroom creaks open and you see his large posture stand in the doorway.

“Lovie.” His voice is soft when he spots you. “It’s late.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Did you miss me?”

“Of course.”

He walks over to the bed, slowly taking off his gear, while you watch him, the sheets clinging to your chest as you cover yourself up. When he is wearing nothing but boxers he dips his hands into the bowl on his bedside table again.

“Why?” You have to ask it.

“Why what?”

“Why do you need to clean your hands when you touch me, but not when you touch Soap?”

A smirk tugs around his lips. “Do you know what it is?”

“Water?”

“Holy water.”

“Holy water?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t know you were a religious man.”

“Am not.” There is some amusement in his voice as he gets under the covers with you.

His hands cup your face again, a soft kiss on your lips.

“But someone as like me, has to be cleansed of his sins before he gets to touch someone so divine as you.”

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decks-writing-blog · 6 months

Text

Whatever the Fuck Benrey is: Chapter Nine: Can't Hurt

Chapter One

Previous Chapter

Benrey read whatever he could find online, searching specifically for weird and interesting stuff, until Gordon fell asleep on the other end, his soft snoring coming through the phone. He then read a little more just in case. Gordon had sounded awfully shaken after all. A not unfamiliar quality to his voice, he’d been that shaken or worse during much of their trip through Black Mesa together, but… Benrey now knew how fragile he was. And he’d decided Gordon was his pet so it was his responsibility to make it better.

Eventually he had to call it good enough though as he didn’t know when the hotel manager was likely to return and he needed to be gone before then. So he closed the web browser and shut the computer down, making sure to turn the monitor off as well.

“’Kay, uh, gotta get off the computer now before I get caught. I’ll call you later or text… I don’t know, whatever I feel like. Doesn’t really matter ‘cause you can’t hear me anyway. Bye.” He hung up and started back for his room.

He waited until the sun was fully up before pulling his phone off charge again. Gordon hadn’t texted. Not surprising, he’d have heard the ping but he was starting to get restless. Playing games was great and all but… no multiplayer games or anyone to chat with while playing was less fun. Something else to do again for a little while would be welcome.

‘awake yet?’ he sent to Gordon.

He stared at he screen for five minutes before giving up; apparently the answer was ‘no’. Maybe a good thing… unless Gordon was having another nightmare. Perhaps Benrey should’ve gone back with him. He’d thought about it but during the first trip nothing dangerous had happened and then on the car ride back, all the nosy, annoying, bothersome questions had convinced him not to. But if Gordon’s mind was an enemy… it couldn’t kill him though, could it? So it was probably fine.

Pocketing the phone, Benrey turned his attention to the window. Lifting the closed curtains, he stepped under them so he could look out and see if anyone was around. … No one seemed to be so he grabbed his new camera before walking through the wall, putting him out back behind the hotel.

It was warmer out here already, the pleasant desert heat starting to set in. He’d never given his enjoyment of warmth and heat much thought, they just felt nice, but perhaps Gordon was correct and he was cold-blooded; didn’t produce much heat of his own. Did that matter? … No, but it was kind of interesting.

Shaking off that thought, he started making his way around to the front of the building so he could follow the sidewalk. It would perhaps lead to somewhere interesting, right? Upon reaching it, he slowed his pace a little. He had nowhere to be, nothing to do, and no one coming to bring him back to the Black Mesa facility.

He fiddled with the camera, turning it on. Gordon had called it cheap when getting it for him but it was far from a shitty disposable one. It had digital display, making it feel fancy to Benrey. As he walked along he snapped a photo of anything that caught his eye. Roadkill, the way the sunlight glistened off the jagged edges of a broken window, what at first look like more roadkill but upon zooming in was actually just an old boot that had been run over a few times, and other such things. A lot of it wasn’t really that interesting but he’d never been in Tuefort unsupervised for more an hour or two before.

People passed him, going both ways. The sidewalks were bare enough that his slow pace didn’t bother anyone enough to bump him or tell him to go faster. No one paid any attention to him whatsoever. If he tried to talk to any of them, they’d brush him off, say they were too busy. He’d need a cop uniform if he wanted anyone to heed him. … Gordon had stressed he not cause problems though and borrowing a cop uniform to join their ranks, even for a little while, would undoubtedly cause some. Especially since cops were a lot like the military, right? They liked to shoot things. Getting shot if he got caught trying to sneak in would likely call attention because of the whole healing, not human thing – which Gordon would probably classify as a problem – and he was expressly forbidden from shooting back if he could even get a gun.

What if he did it anyway though? Or if he was breaking the rules, what if he did something properly fun? Like steal a car. He’d never driven in real life before but he could probably figure it out. A car chase with the police had to be even more fun if it was real, right? Not that something being fun in a video game necessarily made it fun in real life but it sure seemed like the kind of thing that would be.

There was car parked on the side of the road ahead. An old rusted blue pickup truck that if video games were anything to go by would probably be pretty slow and clunky to handle. So not exactly the fastest chase but for a first time might be good. He slowed to a stop as he reached it. It was empty, its owner nowhere in immediate evidence

Normally, he’d have just phased through the door and tried to figure out how to steal it from there. It seemed as if it might be fun so why not go for it? But if he did, Gordon would be mad. Not that making him mad was a big issue or anything but… it would mean no PS3 for sure. And Gordon might start hating him again. Not a huge deal but he was just starting to like Benrey and ruining that would be lame.

Also, Gordon might do more than just start hating him again. He might change his mind about keeping him secret from the rest of the scientists. Some or all of whom might decide to try to get Benrey back into Black Mesa’s custody, Gordon may even assist them in such an endeavor. With a car, Benrey could theoretically escape and evade any such attempt much easier than on foot. He could drive out of Tuefort and go anywhere in the world; lose them so thoroughly they had no hope of ever catching up. But that would mean no more Gordon or Tommy or the rest of the Science Team unless they came with him. Tommy was the only one who might and that was a big ‘might’. Probably he’d be alone, possibly for a long time. No one to play games with if he ever did get a console and TV of his own somehow.

And so, he lifted the camera and snapped a photo of the truck before turning away and resuming walking down the sidewalk. Following the rules wasn’t all bad anyway. He was always telling Gordon to follow them, mostly just for fun now that he wasn’t a security guard anymore. So Gordon doing the same to him was justified.

As if blessed by resisting the urge to stop behaving, his phone pinged in his pocket. Putting his camera away, he pulled it out instead. Gordon had responded. ‘I am now. Good morning.’

Not wanting to attempt texting and walking – he’d seen people on TV doing so walk into poles a few too many times to risk such an embarrassment himself – he continued walking until he found a bench he could sit on while he typed out his reply. ‘not gonna ask if im still behaving’

‘No. I trust you. Don’t betray that trust or no PS3 for you.’

Benrey had made the right choice for sure; Gordon trusted him now. Neat! ‘sleep well no more nightmares?’

‘None that I remember.’ Not a ‘no’ though or any kind of confirmation that the rest of his night had been good. ‘Thanks for last night. I appreciate it. Do you think we could have a phone call before I go to sleep tonight?’

‘sure’

‘Thanks. Talk to you then. I need to go eat breakfast.’

Well, now Benrey had something interesting to do later. Not until tonight though. … Bubby was supposed to come back to Tuefort today, right? Benrey closed his text chat with Gordon and scrolled until he found Bubby’s number.

‘hang out when u get back to 2fort play games maybe?’

It was only a few seconds before the answer came. ‘No’

Seems getting back on Gordon’s good side didn’t mean he was back on everyone’s. Not surprising but still…‘:(’ He put his phone away and resumed walking.

Not even five minutes went by before his phone buzzed again. It was Bubby. ‘Fine. We can hang out. I got nothing better to do anyway.’

‘sweet text me when u get here’

***

With the half the survivors off on their rescue mission deeper into the facility and a few more dropped off at the hospital, there were only a few of them left to begin the salvaging of resources, research documents, experiments, computers – even the damaged ones, as long as the hard drive was intact or other parts that could be sold or reused elsewhere – and anything worth taking in general. A small enough number that even Breen was all but forced to bodily help as well. Gordon’s single hand gave him the perfect excuse to drift between assisting Dr. Coomer and Tommy instead of going off on his own like everyone else was doing.

Most of the work involved breaking into the living spaces not marked as belonging to any of the known survivors. They were looking for bits of experiments brought home, research papers, or anything else related to the work done by the scientists of Black Mesa. A lot of scientific advancement had taken place here, some of it with the potential to be pretty big, anything that could be salvaged would likely be worth the effort. At Gordon’s suggestion, they were also collecting personal artifacts to send to families who’d lost loved ones. Which added a whole new layer of work; putting things into boxes marked with the appropriate person’s name.

Naturally, going into unexplored rooms revealed more bodies. Well into the process of liquefying, some were genuinely hard to tell if they were human or alien. After last night’s nightmare, that was even more unsettling than it otherwise would’ve been. Gordon used his missing hand as an excuse to not be the one to drag them to new body pile in the center area to be burned once they were all done here. That left him to search those rooms alone and sadly, the smell didn’t leave with the body. Somehow, he managed to not vomit until the third such room.

By the time his body gave on heaving his guts up, allowing him to straighten, darkness danced at the edges of his vision. He swayed as he left the corner and stumbled out of the room. The smell seemed to follow him, closing the door helped only a little. With a groan he leaned his back against the wall next to and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Surely a break was warranted.

He pulled out his phone and pushed it open. ‘Hey.’ he texted Benrey because he hadn’t closed their chat.

‘yo’ came the answer a short time later.

‘What you up to?’

‘hanging with bubby u?’

Perhaps Gordon should be worried about that given what happened the last time Benrey and Bubby got buddy-buddy. But he’d moved past that with Bubby a while ago now and seemingly Benrey now too somehow. ‘Taking a break.’ He wanted to talk more but what could he say to continue the conversation? And Benrey had just confessed to being busy hanging out with Bubby so all he added before hitting ‘send’ was, ‘Don’t have much time though. Talk to you later.’

‘k’

Gordon was sort of starting to not be bothered by how bad his texting was. Enough so that reading back over their prior conversations was somewhat comforting. Not as much as more conversation would’ve been but enough to keep him sane until Dr. Coomer announced his return with a classic, “Hello Gordon!”

Putting his phone away, Gordon looked up at him. “Hello Dr. Coomer.”

“Did you find anything in the room while I was disposing of the corpse?” His voice was chipper as always… or not always, but most of the time. Was he really chipper or was it something else making him speak like that? Some kind of speech impediment that effected his tone? He definitely had some kind of speech something going on so… maybe. Regardless he certainly didn’t seem bothered.

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Not lose your mind.”

“Well, it helps that my mind is in my brain which is inside my steal-plated skull.” He tapped the side of his head. “That makes it quite hard to lose. Have you lost yours? I could help you find it. What does it look like?”

Seemingly Gordon had indeed lost his mind because it had been his idea to come back here to help any survivors they could and he’d volunteered to help with this too. Why had he done that? He could’ve just let it be, not come back to help anyone because he was already out. Surely he couldn’t have been blamed for such; he owed no one any more than he’d already given. But here he was… and he was about to get up and continue, wasn’t he? The research was important but more than that was taking care of the bodies. Burning them in a big heap wasn’t the best funeral but it was far better than letting them continue to rot alone. And their loved ones deserved closure in the form of whatever could be gotten to them alongside the news. Breen hadn’t been planning to do the latter until Gordon had pressed him to, making Gordon’s presence valuable.

And so with a heavy sigh, he stood. “Nah, I’m sure my mind will turn up on its own eventually. For now, let’s go back in here and finish searching it for stuff.” Before Dr. Coomer could answer, he turned and headed back in.

Despite their plans and best efforts, they were unable to finish going through the whole living area in a single day. Gordon could perhaps still leave on the morrow, let the rest of them to finish the job. Tempting but he should at least finish making sure people who’d lost loved ones would be getting what they could of said loved one’s possessions. It was the only thing left he could do.

And so after exchanging greetings during the promise pre-bed phone call with Benrey… “Also, I’m probably gonna be staying another day.”

“Why?”

“Gotta finish with this area then most of us are heading back to town. Except for Breen,” at Gordon’s suggestion because he was the head of Black Mesa and thus should stick around until everyone else was out, “and a few others waiting for the rescue team.” After that would come the long arduous process of sending teams down to save what all they could to bring back from the other areas of the facility since it’d be a long time before it was operational again and some of it would be needed at wherever their temporary setup ended up being. Not to mention, hiring the people to even start fixing it couldn’t start until as much of the top secret stuff was removed as possible.

“Lame.”

Lifting his coffee half way to his lips, Gordon paused to look down on the phone, currently on speaker and resting on the couch’s armrest. It was a bit precarious with how close to the edge it had to be to allow the charging cable to reach it but as long as he was careful not to bump it, it should be fine. “Why’s that lame?” He hadn’t expected Benrey to care much.

“It’s boring and your rules are dumb, making it more boring.”

“You got plenty of video games though.”

“Yeah, no online games though and no one to play with. Bubby’s worse at Melee than you and you only got one hand. He doesn’t even like it, said it wasn’t ‘very fun’ don’t know what I see in it.”

“Well… sorry. I’m sure you’ll survive though.”

“Barely.”

“Just uh… continue to behave, please.”

“I will, I will… only ‘cause you promised to buy me a PS3 though so you better keep your promise.”

“Well, when I do head back, Breen’s lending me the company card to rent a space to store all the stuff we’ve already recovered and to rent a building to start setting the lab up in if I can find a good one. And uh… we’re kinda owed something nice, right?”

“Ooh, naughty. Gonna steal some money, huh? I could report you for that. But uh… I ain’t a security guard anymore so… I guess I can look the other way. Just once, only ‘cause I want it real bad.”

“It ain’t stealing. He’s lending me the card and I’m like basically second in command of the company now anyway. I’m calling multiple shots on this salvage operation so… I probably won’t do it but it’s a fun thought, huh?”

“Boo! Lame. Gordon Goody-two-shoes-man over here being a big loser. I finally let you steal something and you chicken out.”

Gordon chuckled hard enough to almost spill his coffee. He had to lean forward and put it back on the coffee table in front of him. “Don’t worry, man, I’ll still get you a PS3, soon as I can, I promise. Gotta worry about getting a more permanent place to stay first though which is gonna be expensive because … duh. But soon as I get back, I’ll play more Melee with you or whatever you wanna play, ‘kay?” That actually sounded like a good time.

“Yeah, ‘kay.”

“Now, uh, in the meantime…” He paused to retrieve his coffee cup, giving him a bit more time to figure out how to word this. He hadn’t given it as much thought as he should’ve before calling. Benrey had given him a good opening angle though. “You said that uh… you like playing games with people. Obviously we can’t over the phone but maybe uh… you play something and talk to me while you do, read the text and stuff, maybe talk to me about it a bit? It wouldn’t exactly be hanging out, watching you play something, but it’d still be less lonely, right?” And more importantly would keep him on the phone with Gordon for potentially a long time, hopefully even all night, if he was willing.

“Don’t you gotta go to sleep soon?”

“Nah, skipping a night of sleep won’t hurt.” Or at least not as much as the nightmares he’d likely have should he attempt to sleep. He’d spent the day rooting through dead people’s stuff and occasionally coming across the dead people themselves, after last night’s nightmare, that was bound to make getting good sleep impossible. So really, not trying to sleep was likely to be more restful in the end.

“Really? You sure? ‘Cause uh… don’t humans sleep every night?”

“Usually, yeah but only because not doing so makes us kinda tired. One night isn’t a big deal though so since you’re like… bored and lonely, hanging out over the phone should help, right?”

“Oh, okay.” Benrey, as expected, didn’t need much convincing. And staying up apparently wouldn’t do him any harm either, making it a win-win. Having a non-human friend was fantastic. “I haven’t started Wind Waker yet so I’ll do that one.”

“Sounds good.” Gordon finally took a sip of his coffee. Brewed as strong as he could bear it, he winced a little at the taste but he’d likely get used to it long before the night was through because it was going to be a long one. Benrey should help make it bearable though.

Doing the same stuff as the day prior but this time after a night of no sleep was both harder in some ways and easier in others. Harder in all the ways staying up all night made everything harder; trouble focusing, mild headache, general overall ucky lethargic feeling. Easier in that, emotions and thoughts dulled by exhaustion were harder to stir into despair even upon discovering another forgotten body behind a locked door.

Even when it got up to start shambling towards him he didn’t feel as bothered as he should. Instead he raised his gun hand and riddled it and the headcrab controlling it full of holes. His gun hand wasn’t as loud as normal guns but that didn’t mean it wasn’t loud.

“Wow, that uh… woke me up a bit, I think,” he said over the ringing in his ears as he watched the headcrab zombie fall.

“Fine shooting, Gordon!” Dr. Coomer said, patting him on the shoulder before stepping forward to bend down and grab the corpse’s wrist. “I will drag this to the corpse pile now while you continue our search.”

“’Kay, see you in a bit.” The adrenaline had been the exact thing he needed. He was doing just fine.

They finally finished a few hours after lunch, just a bit too late in the day to justify going back to Tuefort today. Instead Gordon sat down with the rest of the group again. While they all set to chatting, he folded his arms into a pillow for his head on the table in front of him. Surely a quick nap while everyone’s conversation floated over him would be fine. If the nap lasted long enough maybe he wouldn’t even need to go to bed proper tonight… wouldn’t that be nice?

Gordon woke with a jolt, his heart racing, his breath fast. Despite that, the dream was already starting to fade from his mind, leaving nothing clear in his memory other than that his dreams had conjured the mass of rotting flesh again. He could almost still smell it even now… no not almost, could.

The headcrab zombie he’d killed had been close enough that some of its gore had splashed on him when he’d shot it. Tired, he hadn’t changed his clothes, especially since a shower wasn’t available; this part of the facility had run out of reserve water yesterday. There wasn’t enough to be overpowering but it did make his stomach churn with nausea.

Shaking his head, he reached over to the nightstand, fumbling along it until he found his glasses. The clock read 11:35pm. Dr. Coomer must’ve brought him to bed, either immediately or once bed time rolled around. His nap had lasted a while. … It didn’t leave him well rested by any means, especially since he’d still had nightmare but it had helped a little anyway.

With a groan he dragged himself out of bed and over to the light switch so he could see well enough to change clothes into something that didn’t have the smell of death clinging to it. Once done, as was becoming habit – whether good or bad was hard to tell – he checked his phone. Benrey had texted several times since their last exchange.

‘yo want to do another call before bed?’ ‘u good?’ ‘tomy said u fell asleep at table wierd place to fall asleep but ok’ Each was about an hour apart, according to their time stamps.

Having been off charge all day, the battery was running low so Gordon wondered back out the living room area to retrieve the charger, bringing it back to his room to plug in while he sat down on the bed to reply. ‘Yeah, exhausting work so took a nap, lasted longer than I thought.’ Should he apologize for worrying Benrey. That’s the vibe he’d got from the texts but… it was hard to tell for sure with just words on a screen. Much more likely, Benrey was bored and thus looking to converse to pass the time. Probably best not to assume anything. ‘You keeping yourself entertained?’

Perhaps lending credence to the idea that Benrey had been worried by Gordon’s lack of response, his reply came swift. ‘sort of im bored call?’ He was saying he was bored though so probably just that. There was no reason he should care enough to be worried.

As Benrey had done to him, instead of responding, Gordon pushed the keyboard back in place, allowing him to call. The charging cable meant that he had to keep it on speaker as it couldn’t reach to his face comfortably but he’d likely have to set it so eventually away like he’d done before.

“How often do you need to sleep anyway?” he asked as soon as Benrey picked up. How many nights in a row could he depend on Benrey to keep him company while everyone else was asleep?

“Uh… like once a week or every other week if I’m really not in the mood. Humans gotta sleep more than that, right?”

“Yeah, we gotta sleep uh… most nights, missing a night here or there is fine though, not an issue at all.” And he didn’t need to mention the whole eight to nine hours thing. Not that Benrey would care but if he told Tommy or Dr. Coomer that Gordon was intentionally not sleeping as much as was recommended, they might try to bother him about it. And then he’d have to explain he wouldn’t be able to sleep well anyway so might as well try to avoid the nightmares via not sleeping until the was too exhausted for them. … Or maybe they wouldn’t care either. Gordon was the only normal human in the group, the weakest among them by far. Why would any of them care about how fragile he was?

“But uh…” he continued before the pause could carry on for too long, “that means, the other night, when you were here and joined me in bed you, um, didn’t need to, right? You just… wanted to?”

“Yeah, bro, you’re warm, it’s nice. Won’t happen again.”

“Nah, it’s fine, you can… I mean, uh… it was nice. So you know, if um… again wouldn’t be bad if you wanted to and… stuff. Only if you want to though… or um… uh…” He shouldn’t have brought it up but if Benrey were physically here right now it would’ve been really fucking nice. So it was probably a good thing he wasn’t because Gordon’s desperate loneliness was pathetic and he really needed to get over it. Especially if it was making the thought of cuddling Benrey of all people sound appealing. Not that it had been bad, just he shouldn’t want to do it again. But could he really be blamed whilst in Black Mesa, the source of his nightmares? Once out, surely it would be better.

“Uh… maybe. Let’s talk ‘bout something else, huh?”

“Yeah, good idea.” Anything would do as long as he wasn’t alone in this horrid little room. He’d go back to Tuefort tomorrow, in the same car as Tommy or Dr. Coomer, didn’t matter which, and then things would go back to being good.

Next Chapter

#hlvrai #frenrey #benrey #hlvrai gordon

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