#ive had so many situations where i just decided to not do an assignment and the prof or teacher ended up changing the due date last minut

[maaaxx]

I took a sociology class a few years and I had a ten page essay on the polarization of gender and I didnt start on it until like an hour and a half before it was due.

I ended up getting a 97- ish percent on it which ended up being the highest grade in the class. Mind you I was like 15 in a class full of 18-22 year olds and the prof actually ended up pulling me aside and telling me it was one of the best essays shes ever read. (or something like that)

Anywho I've been living off that high for like three years and now I can't force myself to write an essay unless its due in like an hour.

The reason for this post is to point out that I have a 1200 (ish) word essay due in 3 hours and I havent started on it and part of me is panicking because yeah. And the other part of me is like, 'its fine, we always get it done lets read freaking fanfiction' :))))

I need one of you to beat me with a stick again

[sonnet009]

Wilder: Jamal’s Story (Route Summary)

PROLOGUE:

MC decides to flee Ziya alone. A rotund wine merchant named Barlow offers her a timely rescue, smuggling her out in one of the wagons in his caravan. On their journey across the Shining Sands MC learns that Barlow is a wealthy and ambitious man who can afford not only a team of djinn guards but even a pleasure slave. It is this pleasure slave who warns MC that Barlow intends to ransom her back to Ziya and urges her to leave the caravan. Though afraid, MC chooses to stay rather than risk facing the desert alone. Jamal is not pleased at the prospect of continuing to share his wagon.

CHAPTER I:

The caravan stops so Barlow can take his dinner out under the stars. MC joins him and Jamal while the djinn guards keep watch. Barlow is very blatant about his sexual relationship with Jamal and Jamal for his part fawns over Barlow in return. MC has never seen anything like it. Left alone for a few moments, Jamal teases MC that she can't keep her eyes off him.

During the next day's travel the caravan is attacked by a raiding group of djinn come down from the Western Hills. The djinn guards rally around Barlow to protect him but change their minds when the leader of the wild djinn offers them a free life with the tribe. Barlow and MC are pushed onto their knees, faces in the sand, and Barlow is beheaded. MC hears Jamal's horrified gasp.

MC does not share Barlow's fate. She is restrained and brought back to the Hills with the tribe and their new recruits. She is not sure why, but feels in her heart that this is no salvation.

CHAPTER II:

While the new djinn are welcomed into the tribe, Jamal sneaks over to where MC has been tied. He probes her about her rich, important family and muses that she must have connections in Umar. Though he knew she was fleeing Ziya he doesn't seem to have the full story – he certainly doesn't know that MC is an accused murderer and therefore utterly without connections or power.

After a ritual in which each new djinn must eat a piece of a raw deer heart, the disgusted Jamal has had enough. In the dead of night he frees MC in return for her promise to take him to Umar. They catch their breath by the river but are soon discovered by one of the ex-guards whose disdain for Jamal the pleasure slave is obvious. He calls out for the rest of the tribe and MC and Jamal run.

The tribe pursues them far, all the way to the base of the mountainous Knives. With little other choice, MC and Jamal head up – away from the Hills but only into more danger.

CHAPTER III:

MC offers condolences for Barlow's death. Jamal is dismissive and MC realises that though he appeared to adore the man it was all just an act. He doesn't miss Barlow, just the security that being his personal slave offered. Jamal insists that MC is his master now, though MC insists that she is not. Jamal reveals his intention for MC to sell him to a famous pleasure house in Umar, and for that she has to be his master.

Jamal whines and gripes the whole way up the mountain path. In contrast, MC finds a fortitude within herself she never knew she had. In the night he attempts to seduce her though she rebuffs him, saying, “I told you, you don't need to do that.” The next day they stumble into the path of a mountain lion. Jamal hides behind MC while she scares it away.

They come across a hot spring and MC spends most of her time trying to avoid looking at Jamal's naked and shameless displays designed to get her attention. But when he asks her to wash his hair it is with genuine, vulnerable wanting so she does so. It is the most intimate moment MC has ever shared with anyone.

CHAPTER IV:

In the sprawling farmland on the other side of the mountains, MC and Jamal are caught in a sudden downpour. Sheltering in an old barn, they share a sweet, quiet moment that turns into an argument when she once again refuses to claim him as her slave. MC is secretly very drawn to Jamal, but fears that his affection is all a lie and that she will be taking advantage of their positions if she lets herself believe him. He accuses her of looking down on him and gives her the cold shoulder. This means that MC has missed another chance to confess that she is not the connected noblewoman he believes her to be.

As they continue on their journey in strained silence, a group of bandits appear and block their path. MC is afraid but not as afraid as Jamal. However, when one of the men grabs MC and makes lewd comments, Jamal exclaims, “Hey!” surprising no one more than himself. As the scene turns to violence, MC and Jamal learn that even a light slap from a djinn whose claws have been growing for weeks can be devastating to a human body. MC thanks Jamal for his protection while he desperately tries to get the blood out from under his nails.

They finally make it to Dijarah, a port town where MC intends to board a ship sailing for Umar. The one problem? She has no money.

CHAPTER V:

To earn money in Dijarah, an innkeeper agrees to hire MC and Jamal to work in the kitchen. Jamal is aghast at the prospect, especially when he meets the old battleaxe of a cook on whom his charms utterly fail. Jamal is terrible at every practical task put before him and, after only a few days, is utterly miserable.

MC is gentle and encouraging with Jamal, and he eventually is able to put aside his pride (a little) and improve. He finds it amusing to think of a world in which he worked here instead of as a pleasure slave. But when MC takes this question seriously he balks and insists that he would never want an unglamorous life like this. “I know what I am,” he says quietly.

As the two grow closer, Jamal tells MC the story of his life. Bred illegally and born sick, Jamal was passed under the table from master to master, role to role, failing at all of them. Finally dumped in a pleasure house as an insult, Jamal actually flourished there – able to put his natural charm and artistic talents to use. That is why he cannot even consider another life. MC asks if he would choose the same life if he were a free man. Jamal goes quiet and does not answer.

CHAPTER VI:

One day MC walks into the kitchen to see Jamal scrubbing pots with all his might then absent mindedly tidying up some things – not as part of his assigned task but just because it needs doing. MC announces herself and they compare their palm callouses and growing arm muscle. One night Jamal is asked to perform for the inn's patrons by playing the lute – he is giddy with excitement to be the centre of attention once more, though the audience is not his usual clientele. He plays and sings beautifully and MC sets off a standing ovation that nearly makes him cry.

An evening shift turns tense when a group of drunkards start causing trouble. Jamal shocks everyone by taking charge of the situation and intimidating them into leaving. Though, as soon as they are gone, his legs turn to liquid and he slides to the floor declaring how terrifying the whole thing was. The innkeeper draws him a hot bath in thanks. Jamal asks MC to wash his hair again. Though she won't join him in the tub – despite his persistence – Jamal does wash and style her hair for her in return.

Finally MC and Jamal have enough money to book passage on a ship. As they are boarding MC catches sight of Hamza in the crowded street. She drags Jamal away to avoid getting caught, though now she is less afraid of being arrested than she is being exposed to Jamal who still doesn't know that she is a fugitive. She resolves that she must tell him soon, even if it ruins the... friendship... that seems to finally be blossoming between them.

CHAPTER VII:

Hamza has also boarded so MC spends most of her time hiding in her cabin – and Jamal has no objections to passing the days relaxing on a soft bed. She tries many times to broach his misconceptions about her but is consistently thwarted by interruptions and her own cowardice. A rich passenger tries to buy some time with Jamal from MC but she staunchly refuses. Jamal is delighted by this, then confused as to why he is so delighted.

One night they lie side by side on the bed and MC asks Jamal why he is so set on being sold to this particular brothel. He explains that, not only is it a famous venue, but if they purchase him then by Umar’s laws he will no longer be a slave but an indentured servant. MC says that isn’t good enough – she wants to free him. Jamal is dismissive of such an impossible idea but MC insists that Lord Yasir, the most powerful man in Umar, could surely help them. Jamal asks why MC would be seeking Yasir’s help for herself and she prepares to finally tell him the truth when– the ship’s bell rings. They have arrived.

Hamza catches sight of MC at just the wrong moment. She drags Jamal off the ship, pushing past everyone else, and manages to lose Hamza in the moonlit streets of Umar. They come to Minerva’s Pleasure House. Inside is a whole new world to MC but Jamal is in his element. Then he goes quiet. “I don’t want you to leave me here. I want to stay with you. I want to be–”. The madam interrupts, realises exactly who MC is, and throws her and Jamal out of the place, calling MC a murderer and threatening to tell the authorities if either of them ever return.

CHAPTER VIII:

MC hurries to Yasir’s estate, a confused and suspicious Jamal with her, and fortunately finds the merchant-turned-lord to be very welcoming and willing to provide sanctuary. Jamal confronts MC and she finally admits everything. Jamal is devastated. He accuses her of using him, of dragging him through danger and hardship just for the amusement of it, of being just as rotten as Barlow and the others. “You think so little of me. You think nothing of me.” MC cannot explain her actions without admitting – to Jamal and to herself – that she has been falling in love with him. Jamal is stunned. Then he turns and leaves the manor.

He returns in the morning and apologises for leaving, kissing MC on the cheek and saying that he understands she was only doing what she had to do – she’s a survivor. He turns down MC’s attempts to make him a free man and instead asks Yasir to use his influence to place him in the pleasure house. “No more pretending,” he says in response to MC’s protestations. “I know what I am.” Yasir arranges for the madam to accept him as an indentured servant.

MC and Jamal say a fraught goodbye in the gaudy room that is to be Jamal’s from now on. Jamal kisses MC and, at his soft declaration that he has fallen in love with her too, she gives in to her passion and they come together in a tangle of flesh and emotion. After, as they lie in bed, the door is kicked down and in bursts Hamza to arrest MC. Jamal is remarkably unsurprised. “I should’ve known it was all a lie from the beginning. All those things you said about my potential. Trying to make me doubt who I am; what I am. But you know something, mistress?” There is nothing but cold resolve in his eyes. “I’m a survivor too.”

CHAPTER IX:

MC is transported back to Ziya to face her execution. She spends the journey thinking on Jamal. That night he left the manor he must have gone to Hamza to arrange the ambush. Anger and betrayal come in cycles but always give way to regret and the knowledge that she brought this on herself. MC’s execution is a public event on the steps of the shah’s palace, but the proceedings are suddenly interrupted by Jamal and Yasir’s right-hand-djinn Royo. Since MC was under Umar’s protection, Ziya’s actions in abducting her have been taken as a hostile act. Hamza takes justice into his own hands and attacks MC with his sword. Jamal tries to protect her but she pushes him away, taking the blade in her chest.

MC wakes in her old bedroom in her Aunt and Uncle’s villa. The blade missed her heart and, though badly wounded, she will live. Jamal is by her bedside. He asserts that he hasn’t forgiven her, and he’ll never forgive himself, but he wants her to know that Hamza was the one who caught and pressured him into the betrayal that night, and Jamal convinced himself that she deserved it. But he regretted it immediately and went running to Yasir for help. He confesses that he wasn’t lying when he said he’d fallen in love with her. He thinks that’s their shared fatal flaw – they’re dreamers.

When MC next wakes quite a lot of time has passed. This time it is Royo who comes to see her, informing her that the political pressure from Umar – and Yasir specifically – has worked. To avoid trouble between the two cities, Ziya has agreed not to execute MC but to exile her. Royo must return to Umar now but says that MC is welcome there once she is well enough to travel. MC asks after Jamal but Royo shakes her head. He is waiting by the carriage to leave and will not return to the villa. MC asks Royo to take something with her when she goes – a letter addressed to the madam of Minerva’s.

BITTER END:

Two years have passed since the almost-execution and MC has been travelling ever since, working tirelessly in whatever jobs she can in order to save money and send it periodically to Minerva’s to bit by bit pay off Jamal’s “debt” to the pleasure house. Finally with enough to complete the contract she returns to Umar.

When Jamal sees her in Minerva’s he covers his shock by asking if she is there to taste him once again. They go to his room and MC interrupts his cold, emotionless seduction with the last of the money he needs to truly be free. He insists at first to not want it then finally cracks open, tears spilling down his cheeks. “But where would I go?” MC says he can go with her if he likes. He doesn’t answer, conflicted, still so afraid to trust. MC backs off and says he can go wherever he wants to go; anywhere in the world. She leaves the pleasure house but lingers outside, hoping that when Jamal comes out a free man he will choose to go with her after all.

SWEET END:

Two years have passed since the almost-execution and MC has been travelling ever since, working tirelessly in whatever jobs she can in order to save money and send it periodically to Minerva’s to bit by bit pay off Jamal’s “debt” to the pleasure house. However when she journeys to Umar with the final payment she is informed by the madam that Jamal has already been freed from his contract and left months ago. MC turns to Royo for help, who informs her that Jamal had also been working hard to pay for his freedom – taking on extra chores and responsibilities at Minerva's – and that last she knew he was heading for Dijarah.

MC sets sail immediately. When she disembarks at Dijarah’s docks she is stunned to find Jamal waiting, Royo having sent word ahead. There is a tense moment of uncertainty then Jamal launches himself at her, catching her in a tight embrace. He thanks her for contributing so much to buying his freedom and says he’s never worked so hard for anything before – for the chance to live a free life. To stand before MC as an equal. To say he loves her and for it to be the simple truth. Hand-in-hand, Jamal escorts MC to his new place of employment – the inn in which they spent so much time before. He winks. “I hear they're hiring. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

[jessefandomunited]

I Will Follow him - Steve Harrington X Reader

After months of dragging my feet and rewriting i think im finally ready to post the first part. I write lots of spy fics and ive finally have just accepted that that’s just what i like writing so here is part one XD 

The reader is a spy who is typically sent on information grabbing missions but still finds herself in a lot of trouble. Shes reaching her limit and a coworker promises that after this mission she will be put into witness protection. However while info gathering she may make some friends shes not willing to give up.

I could barely open my eyes when I heard my name called, not my cover name, but my real name that only the agency knows. I coughed and tried to alert them to my location but I was in too much pain. One of my coworkers, Thomas found me and gagged, I must have been a sight. “ fancy meeting you here,” I choked out. “ Dear Lord ,” he hissed then spoke into his walkie , “ we need medics NOW!” He leaned down unsure of what to do. “ I can’t do this anymore,” I moaned, “ I didn’t even want to fucking do this in the first place.” “ That’s just the pain talking,” Thomas rationalized. “ and maybe it’s right, read my lips, I am DONE,” I tried to push myself to a sitting position but ended up falling back. “ We’ll put you on a very tame assignment, then you’ll realize how bored you’ll be if you leave,” He offered. “ I know my answer already, I am done,” I insisted. “ Listen, if you’re really done I will try and have you stationed somewhere in witness protection, however, I have to convince the higher ups,” He explained, “ So do one more good job in this simple information gathering assignment and I’ll sort it out okay?” I sighed and rolled my eyes, “ fine , what is it?”

I slowly opened another of my many boxes and began placing items around my small shack of a house. My mind hadn’t changed with healing I didn’t want to be a spy anymore, I was done with the thrill and leaving all the friends I consistently made, I wanted a normal life, but even in witness protection it be hard. My job title was called “ Traveler”,I would be plopped into a random town with a fake name and bio and collect as much information as possible and relay that to the higher ups. You’d think just being an information collector I wouldn’t get in that much trouble, but you would be wrong. I’ve been drugged, beaten, questioned, tortured, once for two months, and labeled as a lair by many people I grew to love like family. That last part was the most painful. You’d think i’d learn to distance myself from people because of this but it didn’t work. I craved the feeling of being close with another person but no madder how hard I tried the moment i’d tell them who I really was they would think I betrayed them or was lying the entire time. The time that hurt the most was with this guy named Jack. We had gotten very very close during my mission , closer than I had ever been to another human being, and the moment I told him, he looked betrayed , hurt, so hurt in fact he blew my cover and I was almost killed. I learned that day that even people you know intimately , can still hurt you, if not hurt you the most.But even through all that I knew that the problem didn’t fall on the people I was observing I didn’t blame them, it landed on the people I worked for which is why I was done!

I was currently stationed in Hawkins Indiana an unassuming place but one that housed many conspiracies, ones that seem to vanish whenever we would try and see what was going on, and because of the harsh conditions of my last mission they decided I needed something a little lowkey, something where I’d just have to find out who was fixing things here. They had some suspicions on a handful of likely candidates which most were high school kids and about six others , four young adults around my age and two adult adults. I was situated next to one of their houses, The Byers residence , home to Joyce and her two sons Will and Jonathan. There were a lot of mysterious circumstances surrounding Will in particular and he seemed to almost be a beacon for all the weird stuff going on. They also have me working at this Video store, where two of the other People of interest work Steve and Robin and apparently these higschoolers are very good friends with this Steve and visit him a lot so I will be at the pulse of everything weird in this town essentially. My timer went off on my stove shaking me from my trance. The cookies were done. I decided it would be a good neighborly thing to introduce myself to my neighbors while also getting a bug in there so my coworkers could start their around the clock surveillance. The plate I had had a wire built in so that it would be less conspicuous. I felt slightly bad but we weren't doing anything to harm them and I needed to seem like I was being productive. I put the cookies on the plate leaving a few for myself and burning my hand in the process and decided to quickly pop in the shower before heading over.

As I was tugging out some clean cloths my friendship book dropped to the ground. It was a book of all the friends I had made on my adventures and written next to each was a little descriptor of something that made them unique. The book unfortunately had  flopped over to Jacks page, I kept wondering if I should rip the page out, but it was my constant reminder that I needed to get out of this profession. I snapped the book closed and put on a simple sundress and pulled on my trusty boots which were equip with a gun in the heal and a knife on the inside. I never went anywhere unarmed because in my line of work you never knew if you’d run into someone who has it out for you. I grabbed the cookies and began my walk over to meet the Byers.

[aseriii]

Time// Toge Inumaki x Reader

WARNING// This was not proof read but hopefully you enjoy my little oneshot!    SFW / Fluff

EDIT: Ive decided to switch the ending up a bit, If you have already read V.1 of this fanfic please begin at “ 4 Days Prior To The Incident.” Happy readings! (3/6/21)

Time. 

/tīm/ 

plan, schedule, or arrange when (something) should happen or be done.

There Inumaki sat, against the soft bristles of grass. Looking among the blazing stars that dared to face the Celeste sky. Nothing was on his mind other than his beloved Y/N. She was currently out on a mission with Itadori and Satoru. Oh, how he wished it was him instead of those two knuckleheads. Of course, they got their work done and exorcised the curse but always had time to joke around. It wasn't a bad thing but it disturbed Inumaki when it came to serious things. Inumaki was never really called on missions unless there happened to be a Grade 1 Curse roaming around Tokyo. So of course, if that happened to be the case, during his free time he would always spend his nights like these. The wind brushed against his Silver-white hair, dusting a few strands away from over his eye. As time passed on, Inumaki decided it was time to head back inside to sleep. Nothing exciting happened other than Panda slipping onto Maki, making her go on a rampage. But it sure was a slow-paced and boring day for him. Not much screaming from Gojo, not much Itadori crying out for help because Megumi was tugging at his hair. 

It was all just peaceful now, Quiet enough for Inumaki to make his way back to his cozy room. As Inumaki crawled into his sheets he just couldn’t get the thought of Y/N out of his mind. Was he this infatuated with this girl? It boggled his mind but he decided to brush it off as an excuse to what he called, “looking out for my friend.” He closed his eyes then drifted into a deep slumber. Time skip// The Next Morning As Inumaki had forgotten he left his curtains completely open, The sunlight pierced through his eyes. This caused him to pry his eyes wide open in annoyance, grumbling, he got up and out of his bed and attempted to pull the curtains over. Finally, Inumaki managed to slightly pull the curtain to its center until he heard some ruckus outside his sliding door. “What’s going on out there..?” He thought to himself, wondering. That was until he saw both Panda and Maki holding up someone.. Who could this be? He took a closer peek and realized it was no one other than Y/N. Quickly, Inumaki closed the curtains and rushed to get his uniform on. Right as he zipped up his mask, He dashed out the door to go see Y/n. “Tuna!” The boy called out, attempting to get their attention. Maki looked over and smirked, she knew about his little crush on Y/N but Inumaki kept denying his guilty crush. Maki waited for him to take over and carry her arm around his shoulder. “Oh! Inumaki, you’ve finally arrived? Guess it’s my time to bounce on out of here.” She let go of the bloodied and beat up Y/N’s arm. Y/N grunting at the sudden movement, Inumaki soon caught onto her left arm and wrapped it around her shoulder. To be honest, He never thought he’d see you in this state and it shattered him to pieces. 

If only he were there to save and help Y/N, He knew he could’ve done it without those two fucking around. No, The more he thought about it it’s his fault for not begging to come along on the mission. It was only a Grade 2 Curse so either Gojo and Itadori were both testing Y/N or doing Dogshit. They were also nowhere to be seen, which pissed Inumaki even more. As Inumaki kept thinking about the possibilities of her not getting hurt or him saving her from the Curse, A soft and sudden voice spoke. “I-Inumaki..? Are you okay..?” It was Y/n. He looked over at her with his worried eyes, snapping out of his thoughts and nodding. 

“Tuna mayo.” He gave her a slight smile and she mirrored his actions. “You two should go out sometime, Always looking at each other with those loving eyes. It’s funny!” Inumaki shot the panda, a disgusted look in his eyes, warning him to shut his yapper. Though, Inumaki didn’t fail to catch the sudden blush on Y/N’s beat-up cheeks. He smiled under his mask. Thank goodness for that, otherwise, it would’ve been a disastrous evening. That was until Y/N Collapsed right in front of his eyes. Horror filled his eyes, he gasped and kneeled to check her pulse. Panda stood there, just as shocked as Inumaki was. There wasn’t anything Panda could do because of his body and Inumaki understood that, He always understood stuff no matter the situation. Still, Horror was in his eyes, he was relieved that her pulse was okay but she must’ve passed out from blood loss. Inumaki carefully picked her up without dropping her.

 Even passed out, he still thought she was beautiful from every aspect. To her (H/C) and Her Face. Sure it may have seemed creepy for him to be carrying her and just admiring her while she’s passed out but nothing could stop him from being this in love with her. He soon got up and attempted to carry her to the Jujutsu Tech Infirmary. Leaving panda behind, he wished Y/N was gonna be okay as well. As long as inumaki knew her pulse was still keeping up, he let out a sigh of relief and entered the school. Worried and curious again, He checked her pulse. Only a few minutes away from the infirmary, Her pulse stopped. 

She was out cold and Inumaki had once again been able to experience the terror and horror of losing her. He didn’t want her to die without him confessing his love. This was probably his first true love in years, Inumaki couldn’t give up so easily. He began to rush even faster than he was before and yelled out for the doctor. “BONITO FLAKES! TUNA MAYO!!” Was it already too late? He was on the verge of tears, he couldn’t do this today. Luckily, Shoko, the Nurse in Jujutsu Tech had opened the door and rushed him inside. She carefully took Y/N from his arms and slammed the door shut right in front of his face. Inumaki called out once again but there was no response. 

His only hope was for Y/N to somehow gain her pulse back and stop the bleeding. Unfortunately, that was nearly impossible for Inumaki to believe. He leaned his back against the wall, still traumatized as to what just happened. He looked to his side, then forward. He saw those Bastards. Inumaki couldn’t contain himself anymore. What the fuck was wrong with him right now? He’s never felt such hatred towards the two laughing men. He needed to somehow scold them both for being such dumbfucks. He threw on a furious face and soon after dashed outside to meet with the two. Being careful with his words he shouted out, “What the fuck is wrong with you two?” There he stood, furious in front of his Superior and Classmate. Who are they to think about leaving you in such a state? It wasn’t fair at all. 

“Yo, Inumaki! What’s with the sudden tone? Did something bad happen?” Itadori commented. Such bad timing for a terrible comment, His comment only enraged Inumaki more than ever. Just like that, His arm swung towards Itadori’s face. The impact caused him to tumble backward. Satoru only stood there in pure shock with his mouth agape. Itadori didn’t say or do anything, Finally understanding what Inumaki was upset about. He chuckled while covering his now bloody nose. “Inumaki, I understand why you’re angry now! Just please chill out before I explain!” Inumaki slowly put down his fists and waited for him to explain himself. “I think you might have misunderstood the calendar for missions! Y/N was assigned a mission on her own today while I was assigned to train with Gojo-Senpai!” As Inumaki started understanding the situation, he began to feel like a dumbass. All though, this didn’t change the fact that Y/N was possibly dead. Ding! A message? He pulled out his phone and signed for Itadori to hold whatever he was gonna say next. It happened to be from an unknown number. Out of curiosity, Inumaki opened the message and let out a loud gasp. His eyes began to tear up little by little. Satoru and Itadori stood there, puzzled. Inumaki looked up and once again carefully said,

 “She is alive.” Still, the two dumbasses were puzzled but Inumaki ignored it and soon turned around to run over to the infirmary. He began to slow down as he reached the door where his crush lied. Slowing opening the door, he saw Y/N. Thankfully the monitor was beating normally and there were no signs of terrible fate. She was fast asleep with many IV’s attached to her. Shoko, the Nurse nodded her head as to letting him in the room and watched over her as Time passed. “Don’t stay in here too long, Loverboy.” He scoffed and looked down at her beautiful (H/C) almost covering her face. Out of instinct, Inumaki decided to brush a few strands of hair away from her face and blushed. She looked so pretty.. Even with the little scars on her face. He admired her so much and he just couldn’t take it anymore. He wasn’t sure if she would feel the same but the poor boy took his chances. He glanced down at her one last time, 

“You’re the most beautiful girl in the world, I don’t know what I would do without you.. Y/N.” Just like that, Inumaki kissed her forehead and smiled down upon her. Silence filled the room for a few seconds... Maybe. “Awww how cute! Can you repeat that last part? I didn’t quite catch it.” There Satoru stood with his shoulder against the doorway and his phone out. Inumaki quickly parted away from Y/N and covered his face with his mask. 

This. Was. Not. Happening. 

Inumaki peeked out only to see Satoru running away and calling for the others in a sing-song toned voice. There was nothing he could do because all we wanted to do was stay with Y/N. Inumaki sighed and looked back at the now awakened girl. Her (E/C) eyes half-lidded now looked up at Inumaki. 

“Inu? Is that you?” He blushed at his new nickname Y/N had given him. He nodded in response and gave her a sweet smile. 4 Days Prior To The Incident “Hey Inu?” Her soft-toned voice called out for him. Inumaki turned his head over to look at the now smiling girl beside him. He hummed in response while still looking at Y/N, He’s never been happier than to be with his first-ever Love. She turned her head and looked back up at the stars. “How come you kissed my forehead?” 

Oh shit, she knew! But, how? Inumaki’s eyes widened and soon looked away as well. He was a blushing mess. “T-Tuna Mayo..?” (W-what makes you ask that?) She giggled in response only to soon turn her head towards him. He looked at her as well, probably knowing what was incoming but continued to deny it. They sat there silently staring each other off until Inumaki decided to pull his head down to look away.

Why was he like this? This is the first time hes ever really been in love with someone so why not take a risk for once? Fortunately, Now was the time to do so. Inumaki looked directly into her eyes, appreciating her beautiful eyes. This was the one time he’d actually had a good look a them, Especially with the outstanding scenery around them. As more time began to pass, He realized what he finally needed to do.

Inumaki put his soft and delicate hands on Y/N’s cheeks. His gaze as timid as ever. What’s she thinking about? Would she hate me? Am I really this perverted as Gojo-Sensei says I am..? Looking back at her now flushed face, her mouth opened to say something but soon stopped herself. Inumaki soon turned his head away in shame, This was all a mistake.. Shit! 

“Inu, What you plan to do next is your choice. Im not stopping you or defying your actions as you liking me even though its obvious.” Slowly, Inumaki pulled his hands down and raised his head back up to look at the now laughing female. She always looked and sounded so pretty when she laughed, Its nothing like Inumaki has ever heard before. He felt so lucky to even have you as a friend... Maybe more than that.  Inumaki puffs his chest and sits up so his back isn't slouching against the tree they lie against. This time, he was gonna get this right. No messing around this time, Hes tired of always running away from his crushes or even his problems. Not that she was a problem but, Something that Inumaki dearly cares about now. More confidently, Inumaki blushed and began to zip his mask down to reveal his marked lips. Y/N stared at him but Inumaki disregarded it, Now's not the time to fuck up.

He raised his gentle and loving hands up to her tender face. Its about time this moment finally happens. For so long Inumaki has been distracted with the thoughts of you while fighting off curses. You were the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with after having this feeling for years now. Inumaki caressed his beloved Y/N;s face to signify the deeper meaning to his love. Finally declaring this battle of confusion and distraction, His face grew closer and closer to her face. Only centimeters away from her delicate lips.

He closed his eyes and leaned into her face, embracing the kiss. It was a soft, sweet and comforting kiss. Nothing like how he imagined them to be. Inumaki finally knew his place and how he felt. He was absolutely smitten with the thought of being with this girl. As the kiss began to deepen within seconds, Y/N pulled away gasping for air. He had probably forgotten about that.. oops.

As they both softly gasp for air, He looked up at her with the sweetest and straightforward smile he could ever give someone. It really was all a matter of Time just to be right where he is.  “Sh-shake..Ehhh.. Tuna. (S-so I was uhmm.. Thinking.)” The boy suddenly spoke up. Her head turned around to see his once again flustered face. Of course she giggled and smiled at him, waiting for his next statement. 

On rare occasions, he would never use real words unless hes completely angered or this special person.. Y/N was around. “Do you think you’d like to be my girlfriend? I know what you're thinking, This embarrassment of a guy has lost his mind. Y/N, Please understand that i love you and I will do anything to protect you from the fuckery of this world.” Inumaki gave her a reassuring look, his eyes shining. Inumaki seriously didn't know how to read Y/N in these type of situations. If only there was some sort of manual to her. 

“Nah.” Y/n bluntly said. Inumaki’s face went from a giddy 5 year old little boy to a 37 year old middle aged mans gloomy face. This was not what he was expecting, really. I knew this was a stupid fucking idea, How stupid am I? This is so bullshit. Laughter erupted from his side, Why was she laughing right now? Inumaki was mourning his ego death. “You should've seen the look on your face Inu!!” Y/N continued to laugh. What is she even talking about? Inumaki tilted his head and his face now confused.

She leaned into his face for a small peck and pulled away. She smiled at him and pat his head. “Of course Inu, Im just messing with you! So adorable for no reason.” Forget the ego death, Welcome back from the dead ego! His face now a blushing mess. 

Boy, was this the happiest day of his life. To finally be with his beloved after countless times of running away. You were finally his girlfriend, His joy and light of his life. 

[quillandink333]

Scarlet Carnations ~ Part III

BotW Link X Zelda ~ Detective AU

Rating: T

Word Count: 2k

WARNINGS: death, murder, loss, trauma, blood and gore, terrorism, organized crime, self-harm

Summary: Inspector Zelda Hyrule, assisted by the faithful Constable Link Fyori, is infamous for cracking the most confounding of cases in a town dominated by crime. Her latest assignment is to solve the murder of her own godmother, Impa Sheikah, the late CEO of Sheikah Tech. Incorporated, while staying under the radar of the dreaded Yiga organization.

Part I • Part II • Part III • Part IV • Part V • Part VI • Part VII • Epilogue • Masterlist

The investigation was still underway a week or so later, still without even a semblance of a lead to go on, or at least not a favourable one. Auntie Purah still had yet to take the Slate into the lab as she’d promised, which was understandable. She was still in deep mourning, after all. I, however, still got up at six o’clock each and every day to make my way to the site, as if the murderer would one day just walk out into the open if I waited long enough.

Truth be told, despite my conscious efforts to suppress it, a part of me deep down was growing weary of one fruitless search after another. Most of the cases I’d led up to this one had been closed within a maximum three days. Admittedly I’d even begun to consider ways to dispose of the fatal evidence I’d been carrying with me since the start of all this. No one but Paya and I knew of its existence, and no one but us would ever have to. Besides, if these egregious felonies truly were the designs of the organization—which they had to be—there was no way I’d ever find any clues leading toward the perpetrator’s true identity, let alone that of their ever elusive boss.

And yet, every morning when I returned to the scene of the crime, with officers bustling about and those who remained of my family sitting quietly in another room, I was reminded of my ultimate purpose. It wasn’t a matter of being able or unable to catch my godmother’s killer. It was one of necessity. Letting them roam the streets as they pleased was not even a part of the equation. I hadn’t spent the better part of the last decade toiling away to reach my current level of authority as a detective investigator simply to throw it all away as soon as my will was tested. That wasn’t what Auntie Impa, nor what Mother, would’ve wanted. I had to uncover the truth, no matter the cost.

What happened next, however, would make my distress up until then seem almost laughable.

I was made aware of it via wire on one muggy afternoon at my office, when I’d decided to work on typewriting up some reports. I picked up the phone only to hear the wails of one distraught Auntie Purah on the other end.

“Zelda, it’s terrible!” she cried. “The Slate—Impa’s Slate—I’ve looked everywhere, and so have Paya and Symin and all the men here on duty, but I—it’s...we can’t—we haven’t...” The poor, old woman was hyperventilating, creating awful static noises through the speaker’s papery membrane.

“Auntie, it’s okay. Calm down,” I urged gently. “Take a few deep breaths.”

“Alright...” A few moments of silence went by before I heard her voice again. “Thank you, dear.”

“Not at all. Now, what were you saying about the Slate?”

“It’s been stolen.”

I froze, breath stagnant and eyes glued to the edge of my desk. “It’s—what?”

“Stolen,” she repeated, only deepening the pit forming in my stomach, from where my heart was now pounding. “Right out from under our noses. We’ve searched high and low for it, but there’s been no sign of it, or the thief.”

I had to reign in my voice before I’d start shouting at her. “H-How can you be sure it was stolen?” The vigilant Link’s eyes now bore into me with intensity from his place by the file cabinets.

“The lock on the safe,” blubbered my auntie, “the one in the study that it’s always kept in. You know the one?”

“Yes?”

“It was broken, and the safe was empty.”

“But...that’s impossible.”

“Precisely!” she cried, giving me a start. “I still haven’t the foggiest how they did it.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

With that, I hung up and prepared for immediate departure, my assistant just a few paces behind me. I had to see this for myself.

Surely enough, when we arrived, the safe’s lock was destroyed beyond repair, and there was nothing but dust to be found inside. Unsurprisingly, the thief had been careful to leave no fingerprints behind, just as the killer had been. For now, though, it was too soon to say for certain that the same individual was behind both crimes.

Upon closer inspection, it seemed the lock mechanism had been melted. My eyes widened. “That’s not something you see every day.” Constable Fyori crouched down beside me, then gave a similar reaction when he noticed the cause of my astonishment.

The thief had to have been someone with access to a welding torch or something along those lines. There certainly weren’t many who fit that description, save for the police. In fact, the whole reason they were issued out to a select few officers was for this very purpose, but situations requiring said officers to break locks such as this one using such extreme methods were few and far between. Nevertheless, the possibility stood.

It was for this reason that I finally gave in and decided to take up the case with the chief detective once we’d finished here. As always, Constable Fyori accompanied me thereto.

Chief Bosphoramus’ office was neither too grand nor too modest, not unlike my own, though it still clearly belonged to someone of high rank. It resided on the third floor of the three-storey building where my dear colleague and I made our livelihoods, boasting a broad view of the deceivingly peaceful streets below.

“It seems UC3680G662LL was the only officer on the scene who was equipped with a cutting torch,” relayed the old man, hunched over the records lain across his desk. “Unfortunately, however, he resigned just yesterday.”

I waited a number of seconds for him to follow up with something useful, but to no avail. “So...what? You’re saying we can’t go question him now? Because he ran away?”

He clasped his fingers together in front of him, looking at me like an elementary school principal. “That is what I am saying, yes.”

I wanted to growl like a bear as imitated by a child, but I held it in. “You do realize what this means, don’t you?” I scoffed. “No doubt he was a member of the organization sent to steal the Slate after killing its owner.”

“Now you listen here, Inspector.” The chief’s tone turned serious. I closed my mouth. “You of all people should know that not a single square inch of this town is safe. Not even this precinct.”

“Yes, but Sir, surely you agree that this entire case has ‘Yiga’ written all over—”

“Are you mad?!”

His thundering voice made Link and I jump. The room fell silent, the chief’s eyes flickering between the door and the open window behind him.

Then he rose from his seat to close the shutters. “Have you some sort of death wish?” he continued at an infinitesimal volume in comparison.

I bit my tongue, restraining the urge to retort with, “Whose fault is that?” for I knew I would only be spinning my wheels. There’d once been a saying in this city: “When one sheep leads the way, all the rest follow.” And Chief Detective Bosphoramus was a perfect reflection of this. Every last member of the force was the same. Weak-willed curs. Shirking from their sworn duties and hiding away behind their shields of specious ignorance.

But despite the virus of cowardice festering throughout the bureau, my partner’s lasting air of calm resignation reminded me that no one could truly blame those affected by it.

The power that the Yiga organization possessed over the town was beyond compare. Those on City Council were nothing more than their puppets, and likewise were the police. Fear and massacre were the whips they raised to drive us all into submission and to punish any and all who had the will remaining to fight. But the one group who’d dared to challenge their might, who’d stood tall ever in the face of their tyranny, had been my godmother’s company. Thanks to her intelligent mind and righteous heart, the people had been given access to technology that would keep them safe, to a degree, from crime, and little by little, the company had developed into a beacon of hope for the town and its inhabitants. Until now.

Now, that hope had been snuffed out, like it had never been anything more than a week and vulnerable candle flame, flickering faint against the darkness of obscurity, in the first place.

Later that evening, when my gaze happened upon the knife block sitting on my kitchen counter at home, my steps halted. The scars on my arms left over from my last couple of years in secondary school—the period in my life following the yet unexplained events that had taken away the one I’d cherished most—had only just begun to fade. Even so...

I shook my head, turning my back to the kitchen. But then, I couldn’t help but look over my shoulder once more. I recalled the rush of adrenaline that took hold each time my skin was breached by icy steel. It was true that letting my emotions control me would get me nowhere, but maybe...maybe just this once, I could at least do something to assuage them.

Then the image of the gaping, dark red hole running straight through Auntie Impa’s neck flashed before my eyes. I covered my mouth, quickly swallowing the bile rising up from the bottom of my throat. The idea slipped my mind that very instant.

It wasn’t until the following day’s investigation that a substantial piece of the puzzle finally revealed itself to me.

For it to have taken a whole two days to find wasn’t all that unbelievable. Even I had to admit, although my stepsister was a spineless, tattling suck-up who’d always received far more credit and affection than she was worth, no one could have imagined her ever turning criminal.

Even so, I was certain that what I discovered there in her bedroom went against the expectations of all. Upon my entering, a faint glow of teal and tangerine peaking through the floorboards caught my eye. I went to lift the plank doing such poor work of hiding the thing from sight. There it was, unscratched and in perfect working condition, its screen lighting up and displaying that dastardly riddle I’d been confronted with several days prior and still didn’t know the answer to.

Although the mystery of where it had disappeared to had been solved, its reason for being here of all places was still unclear. Why would Paya have gone to such lengths just to get her hands on the Slate? It was difficult to imagine there being any information contained therein that she would want so direly to be kept secret from the world. She and her grandmother had been close since before I’d become a part of their family as a six-year-old.

Then something hard and marble-sized went flying across the floor when struck by the pointed toe of my shoe. I gave chase, soon realizing what it was when it slowed to a halt just before the south-facing wall of the room:

A bullet.

I didn’t even need to perform a striation comparison; anyone could clearly see that it matched the one I’d pried out of my mother’s memorial shrine. Whatever blood might’ve been here at one point must have simply been wiped up, and she must have stolen Link’s revolver with whatever methods she’d used to steal the Slate. Without a doubt, this room was the true crime scene I’d sought after since day one of the investigation.

But even in the face of this victory, I could hear the voices of those who would oppose me ringing in my ears. “Paya’s the mastermind?” they jeered. “Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?” But at this point, this case had already pushed me far beyond the boundaries of my patience. I didn’t have a single damn left to give about how flawed my logic might or might not have been. All that mattered now was that I had a suspect, and so help me, if I was correct in my line of thinking as suggested by the evidence, this criminal would receive no mercy.

[certifiedceraunophile]

DISCLAIMER :

SMUT SMUT SMUT and FLUFF. (NSFW)

It’s basically a 5k porn smut-shot about dimples and dick. Mostly dimples but there’s gratuitous dicking too, because of course my brain saw a gif set of Mr. Klaus Forbes flashing his dimples and thought PORN.

ALSO,

Nominated for Best Smut Oneshot in the 2020 KC awards

(I mean I have been called an excellent homoerotic muse so I shoulda seen this coming)

Tags:

D/s undertones,

Dominant Caroline

somewhat bregrudgingly submissive Klaus.

——————————————————————————

TREAT AT MY BEHEST

The conversation was flowing smoothly, a little too smoothly, it truly was a sight to behold,

She doesn't find awkward bumps that the participants uncomfortably had to step over stilling the flow, no problematic cracks people either ignored or tried to tear open with their teeth, no blunt blows to the back off the head, or venom tipped words sharper than the fangs the Mikaelson family sported, Hell, even Kol kept his sexual innuendos count to an all time low of two per sentence, and it wasn’t tedious either, it was sunny honest conversation one that flowed and ebbed in tranquil warmth enveloping all those who took part in it.

But of course, the insufferable bastard she’s been calling her husband for the last handful of decades, and her last love for two centuries now, decides he’ll singlehandedly throw all progress out the backdoor.

Her husband, and his freaking audacity to flash those dimples, in that exact way, throw all progress out the backdoor if she’s being more accurate.

God he’ll be the end of her.

It’s no grand truth, that she’s very very closely acquainted with his dimples, and she means, ‘lick a sweet path from dimple to lip as per her wish’ closely acquainted, those perfect indents on his cheeks, make no mistake, they are hers for the taking,

But she admits, she has her preferences, she’s a bit finicky with her interests,

She’s not too fond of his shit eating ‘Yet again I’ve bested you, my love.’ dimples, or any other variant of that he flashes in the rare case he has the upper hand between the two of them.

She’s quite partial to the one sided dimpling the evil villain smirk has to offer, one she’s privy to during their hunts, or the ‘Ive got one word for you: run.’ smirk he displays before transforming into a walking talking guillotine, those are quite entertaining to watch bloom, and the customary thorough debauching of her body that follows any such murder work out is nothing dismissible.

Now the almost bashful and youthfully eager ones he shows her when he talks about his place in the world as an artist, when for once his hand can create instead of destroy, those are entirely just for her, that sit there pretty on his cheeks in the privacy of his studio, where they continue to relive a thousand different times in a thousand different places including Rome, Paris and Tokyo, that one day, when he thanked her for the first of many things he feels gratitude for, her honesty,

He still remembers it as the day he allowed the truth to be something he didn't particularly like for the first time in a long time, she however still remembers the day by the absolute fishing he did, standing there in his studio as he introduced his passions to her, patiently waiting in silent humility for her to notice these paintings were his and compliment him.

He still doesn't allow this truth to remain, she of course always knows better.

Then again she also loves the shy soft little ones he offers her and only her, the ones he gently picks from the buried bounded depths of his heart and places in her hand with such care, as he sweetly leans into her palm, moist plump lips pressed against her pulse. When he is so beautifully hers that the hybrid gold of his eyes is the sun and when directed at her is as warm and sweet as golden honey. Or when he nuzzles his nose into the curve of her neck, the swell of her breast, half laying on top of her, when he gathers her close pauses and then closer, as if he finds the flesh separating them offending, as though his very existence is meant to directly infect her soul unimpeded by skin and bone, as if he means to exist in her and through her, and live only within her.

He’s a bit pretentious with his love.

But she’s told him

‘Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.’

His simple response was to pull her to him and offer his neck,

“Drink.”

She’s never brought it up again,

His devotion for her, his raw thirst for her, it unnerved her at first when she finally decided after

The numerous ‘Sweetheart, they were not bloody staged’ run-ins in every continent she dared to set foot on,

The two times she needed his blood in the century she spent on her own,

The one night she needed his arms and scent to engulf her and his dead heartbeat to soothe her when Elizabeth Forbes passed at age ninety four,

The one time when she realised somewhere along the way between the sporadic meets and witch hunts, the werewolf venom and death counts, the art and music and culture their souls burgeoned to connect, the great cities they carved into their own stars, the languid conversation as they winded through both cobblestones and pink sands, underneath both fluttering snow of and steady stars, the silent moments of equal awe they both shared between the most downtrodden godforsaken places of hunger and poverty and the most lavish heavens, between all the beauty and filth in the world when they only had eyes for each other, amongst the scent of both death and life when they only inhaled a shared breath so sacred they locked it in and never let it out, when seas and continents and words couldn’t keep them apart, when neither his ego nor her stubbornness could count for any importance in the face of each other, when the one time she realised immortality for her wasn't the ungodly number of years she’s left behind still apple cheeked and smooth as milk, but was the ungodly amount of years still ahead of her that somehow always evinced his hand in hers,

When she finally, one balmy faultless Sunday afternoon, in the thick of Thanjavur’s humidity in India, sitting barefoot as per the town’s religious customs on the ground, sprawled carefully in the warm green grass that precedes the entrance of the glorious Brihadeeswarar Temple, that is almost as old as the man occupying her thoughts,

She finally finds her deviously elusive,

Oh.  

moment, proceeded by the

Oh fuck.

Moment,

Realisation hits her with the weight of immortality and her acceptance that there was no other possibility but this, that this has been inevitable for the better half of the last century, carries the weight forward into her heart and fills it with such indisputable finality, that Klaus’s place is by her side and hers alone.

And after that, well, what else was there to do?

After all of that, it’s one knock on his door, and,

“Alright, apparently However long it takes only lasted a total of 113 years, 6 months and 25 days. I thought I’d last longer, but I’m not as stubborn as I wished I was.”

That night was the first time she realised it wasn’t the first time they’ve made love, slow and sweet and beautiful, But it was the first time Klaus with all the vulnerability of a little boy back in Mygradrir who wore a sterling around his neck tight as a noose because his mother loved him so much, asked, mouth against her skin, face hidden in her neck, a whisper that shook in the middle and dissipated at the edges,

“You’ll stay, not just tomorrow, but after?”

“Yes, yes I will.”

That was about two centuries ago, and apparently after did not mean the day after tomorrow.

But she hasn't had too many complaints, she admits the novelty of him has worn off, he’s a bit grating on the edges, the sides and the middle, he’s entirely too insufferable to put up with for an extended period of time, definitely is only enjoyable in moderation and bite sized doses,

But she did let him put a ring on her finger, and also stood there holding his hand as they were bound by a witch in supernatural matrimony, so she can’t really tell it’s wholly his fault, but she apparently likes him too, in addition to loving him, so she’ll stay.

But she digressed a whole lot,

Where was she again?

Yes, his dimples.

Correction, her dimples

Their appearances are continual and each unique situation had one kind assigned to it, but that does not mean they are repetitive, Klaus is many things but least of all predictable, So he presents her with new ones every now and then, dimples she’d like to kiss till they imprint on her lips,

She knows that even if she goes on to live twice the millennium Her husband experienced, and even if every glittering rarity becomes a hackneyed iteration, and every resounding wave of novelty is a mere echo she’s experienced a thousand times, even if there is nothing new as she leads time through this carousel world as the closest thing to omniscient, then she’ll at least know her husband’s smile will always catch her a tiny bit off guard. That she will always take a second to touch it and see it widen even further when she does.

But there was this one single type of smile he flashed from time to time, a rarity in its own right, that one smile basically threw all progress out the backdoor,

The smile is always characterised by the fact that it’s not for her, or for his siblings, or his enemies, it’s for the world, it’s a smile that he never intended to give but slipped out of his hand anyway, and somehow ends up smiling with his entire body, but he’s done that countless times for her, smile with his whole being, she’d say at least twice everyday, usually more, but when he does it for the world, she’s a bit unprepared,

She knows his hostility against the way of the world all too well, it’s why he’s so adamant on dictating it, she knows the millennium of undead life under Mikael’s hatred left him with a tight grip on the world but only because he was hanging on to the edge of it with both hands, his legs dangling, but he doesn’t show it that way, instead phrases it as ‘I had the world at my finger tips, Now I have it beneath my feet.’

He’s a bit flashy with his pretty words, that total honesty to this man is as difficult as love will never surprise her, but the fact that this same honesty sometimes slips out so easily, unfettered and ensconced in peace and content, that does surprise her, like for instance, right now, He’s sitting there ankle over knee, occupying an entire settee with the way he’s sprawled because of course he has to be the biggest being in the room, he needs to know his ego easily accomplishes that for him, holding in his hand one of the thousand sketchpads he’s still kept after paper was no more the norm nor necessity but became a relic of bygone ages for centuries now, and as he sits there sketching god knows what, in the same room as his siblings, their chatter as perfectly idle as a family’s,

He’s smiling, not at her, not to his siblings, hell not even at his drawing, she knows he’s not listening to the conversation, so it’s not something Kol said or Rebekah whined, he’s perfectly uninterrupted in his smile that just bloomed on his face with no given reason, and there as he bows his head a little closer to the page, not because he wants to hide the smile but because he simply wants to see the sketch closer, she knows he doesn't even know he’s smiling, but he is.

So wide and beautiful and honest, and just because, a smile directed at the world, and to think he doesn’t even notice, to know that it’s so whole and full, that there isn’t a place left in his heart or mind to remind him to restrain it.

She knows she’s smiling just as wide too.

God, the things this man does to her heart,

And not just her heart, apparently her body too if the heady arousal that rushed straight to her clit as if a phantom hand rubbed it is anything to go by, because of course, she’s never so aroused by him as she is when he dimples.

TO CONTINUE READING

AO3

ff.net

If you find this plotless 5k smutshot of my infernal sub Klaus fantasies doing things to you that are best not done in a church parking lot, please feel free to vote for it in the upcoming KCAWARDS under the BEST SMUT ONESHOT category.

Much love and peace

XX

Srishti🤍

[setterspirit]

just shove him

───────────❏.

it wasn’t that y/n hadn’t performed before, she’d performed plenty of times. the reason she was more panicked than usual was because of the sheer amount of people within the bar that night. she’d never performed in front of such a packed venue, and it honestly terrified her. she knew a few of the faces within the bar, but most of them seemed unrecognizable and if shirabu and kawanishi hadn’t of shared why they were all here, y/n would’ve probably chickened out.

when y/n felt somewhat calmer, kawanishi stopped rubbing her back and backed away, allowing her room to stand on her own. shirabu simply smiled at the girl, handing her a mic that he seemingly conjured out of nowhere (when in reality, it came from the table behind him). the girl smiled at the studying doctor, taking the microphone and walking carefully on stage.

when y/n felt somewhat calmer, kawanishi stopped rubbing her back and backed away, allowing her room to stand on her own. shirabu simply smiled at the girl, handing her a mic that he seemingly conjured out of nowhere (when in reality, it came from the table behind him). the girl smiled at the studying doctor, taking the microphone and walking carefully on stage.

ichiro clicked off his phone, silently snickering as he glanced over to his band mate and friend before searching for the rest of their band mates. when he spotted them, he lifted his hand to show them where they were before giving them a small nod, turning his attention away from them and back to semi, who was still paying no mind to him. with a forcible shove on his back, semi stumbled forward, stepping up onto the stage so he wouldn’t trip and land sprawling across the front of the stage — right into y/n.

ichiro could hear the crowd start to laugh at the exchange, thinking semi was simply an overexcited, drunk fan who jumped at the chance to greet y/n, when in reality, it was the exact opposite. semi was completely sober, as he’d been assigned as the designated driver that night, claiming he wanted to be sober when shirabu and kawanishi were sure to make fools of themselves so he could have his own blackmail to use on them. semi quickly glanced back at the snickering ichiro, eyes narrowing in an almost imperceptible, murderous gaze before turning back to face the visibly panicked girl.

“ah, i’m really sorry about that,” semi quickly apologized, stepping away from y/n so they could have their own spaces back. “some idiot named ichiro shoved me and i almost fell. again, i’m really sorry.” y/n could only slightly nod her head, trying to wrap her mind around the situation at hand. she could faintly hear shirabu and kawanishi snickering at her from their spots off stage, so she slowly turned her head to glare at them. semi, noticing her turn away from him, followed her gaze and couldn’t help but mutter in annoyance upon spotting who she was glaring at.

excusing himself and allowing the girl to continue with what she was doing before he had been shoved, he marched over to stand with shirabu and kawanishi who, upon him reaching them, exchanged smirks and greeted their old teammate with as much sarcastic enthusiasm as they could muster.

ichiro watched his band mate through narrowed eyes as he made his way to the little offstage area, curious as to what eita thought he was doing, exactly. sure, he might be friends with those people, but that didn’t give him permission to watch from there, did it? ah who was ichiro kidding, he didn’t care, it gave him more freedom to drink, something he never had when he went out drinking with his best friends. of the entire group, ichiro was probably the worst drunk, not in a bad way, just the fact that he tended to lose all control of his motor and bodily functions, which meant the band needed to limit the amount of alcohol the man could consume.

the rest of the night passed at a relatively uneventful pace, though semi spent his time hanging out with his old teammates, getting to know more about y/n, and keeping an eye on all his band mates. when it was time to go, semi, with the help of y/n, got all of his band mates into his car, exchanged numbers with the girl, and headed off, promising to text her when he made it home safely, having dropped off all his band mates.

with that promise made, y/n walked back into the bar to wait with shirabu for kawanishi to get off.

OPENING ACT

[ masterlist | iii | iv | v ]

fun facts;

fact #1; y/n is a performer, so obviously she can perform in front of crowds, but she likes to have an idea on how many people will be attending the show when she performs. she likes knowing what to expect, so that night, when so many people attended, it caught her off guard so her little panic moment was worse than it’s been in a while, though both kawanishi and shirabu know what to do in those sorts of situations because they normally deal with stuff like that with her.

fact 2; ichiro is usually limited to three drinks (depending on the alcohol count on the drink) whenever the band goes to bars. they know they can’t stop the headstrong guitarist from drinking, so suo, eita, and kobe usually take turns being the dd. kobe usually stays the night at ichiro’s (or vice versa) whenever ichiro drinks so he can help ichiro with whatever the other might need. it’s become a habit since high school for the pair.

fact #3; semi will probably never admit it, but he’s sort of thankful ichiro shoved him onto the stage, otherwise he would’ve felt awkward to approach y/n after her performance ended.

fact #4; shirabu and kawanishi kept making disgusted faces to each other when they would see eita try to flirt with the oblivious y/n. they would laugh, though, whenever y/n would ignore his obvious attempts at flirting because she is just that oblivious.

fact #5; suo’s gf was there as well, though she stayed sober so she could watch over her boyfriend. she also became friends with y/n, the two hitting it off easily.

🎤) summary; y/n is a simple girl simply living her life in tokyo, working at the local music store by day and singing at the local bar by night. her childhood best friend — somewhat akin to that of a younger brother — and his best friend are two of her biggest supporters, so when they make contact with an old friend and an offer opens up, they immediately sign y/n up to take part in a competition that may change her career forever. semi eita is now a full time rockstar, touring with his band of childhood friends around japan and the world. when swan feather records decides to hold a competition to be the opening act for their biggest band, the band thinks little of it. but making contact with old teammates could prove to be a major turning point in a certain rockstars life. follow y/n and semi as they go down an uncertain path in “opening act!”

taglist; @unlasting @angrylittleriri @winunk @420-uwu @kac-chowsballs @its-the-aerieljeane @seijqhigh @pjihoowns

bolded and strike through means i couldnt tag. ):

don’t forget to check the masterlist to see how you can be added to the taglist! <3

[a-libra-writes]

about asoiaf sex scenes, incest, pedophilia, etc... i know it's fantasy and you have "freedom" to write whatever you please, but it is absolutely fucking fascinating to me (not even in a negative way) how grrm is pretty much exempt from that criticism amongst the general public and people are like "oh misogyny" and "white savior complex" when that shit goes on. i feel that grrm is rarely criticized for more problematic shit and idk why that is (not saying he should be)... ya feel?

Somewhat (?) Incoherent 6am thoughts:

I dont want to say "no one can write about these dark topics ever" in my opinion it's just the way theyre presented, if that makes sense? In asoiaf it's not presented as a Good Thing in the setting, but it's def a Normalized Thing That is Not Good. Like idk on the misogyny claim bc he writes fantastic female characters but the setting itself is not kind to them - and there's a deluge of women in the setting who know this and try to turn the game to their favor... and several women who self-internalize misogyny and hurt each other because of the system.

The sexual abuse is an extension of this setting putting women as second class. Which, yeah, is historically "accurate" and still true today. It doesnt mean I enjoy reading about it, nor does it mean GRRM endorses it. Male creators of any medium like to throw in sexual violence to show how dark and gritty their world is. It's everywhere. And ive seen this argument done many times:

"Well, it's based off [x historical year/setting that had violence against Y group], so ofc itll have it here!", which the response is "its a fictional setting, it only has those bc the creator decides it", to which the next response is "if theyre trying to be 'accurate'...."

And so on and so forth.

There's many situations where the author clearly believes the biases of the characters/setting in their books (HP Lovecraft), and there are situations where the author is just writing bad people. I've noticed people getting these conflated, especially if the author isn't nailing them over the head with "THING BAD!" (That's very prevalent in YA and it drives me insane).

Examples of that - Sansa isn't happy about these older men creeping on her + she's learning how to play stupid and be unassuming, Cersei constantly remarks on a lot of the shitty sexism and hypocrisy (and she indulges knowingly in misogyny), Catelyn has a lot of internalized monogyny, generally judgmental thoughts & she perfectly follows the role assigned to her gender and rank, the creepy pedo/rape is obvs being done by bad people, etc etc. Tho I do wish Daenerys' chapters had more of her thinking 'wow this is fucked up!!!' and less 'falling in love' with Drogo after all the shit he puts her through :/ but she's also a freaking teen and dealing w a fucked up childhood. Kid!Dany thought she was gonna marry her brother ffs, and it doesn't occur to her that's fucked up bc her whole family does it.

Theyre still way too young tho. Gross.

sorry if this isn't coherent. A lot of this is up to taste for some people, like i rlly cant stand to read sexual assault/rape so i skip over that in any book i read. And theres people who arent bothered by that at all in asoiaf and dont even recall it

If anyone starts ranting at me or getting pissed this is all subjective and we can be adults & have our own opinions here lmao.

[not-freyja]

2019 T’hy’la Fics of the Year

According to Kudos on Ao3. In the Interest of fairness, winners of previous years were excluded.

1. And Then I Let It Go by kianspo

Post-Star Trek Beyond. The crew of the Enterprise gets a breather while they are waiting for their new ship. Jim uses the time to do something he had sworn he would never do.

2. Vulcans are Fangirls Too by jouissant

Kirk is a secret astrophysics genius who publishes under a pseudonym; Spock sends him fanmail. Shenanigans ensue.

Less fluffy than the title might imply, but a feel-good story nonetheless.

3. This Is How You Remind Me by kianspo

Jim invites Spock to his high school reunion for moral support.

4. Take This Sinking Boat (And Point It Home) by sinestrated

In which Spock pines, Jim isn’t stupid (except he kind of is), and Christopher Pike has had enough of this bullshit.

5. Something Smart to Do by kianspo

In which Jim finds himself fake-married to his first officer every other month. It's not his fault. Mostly. Dowries and Klingons are involved. Starfleet is decidedly not amused.

6. cast out fear by s0mmerspr0ssen

Kirk saves Vulcan from Nero at high cost to himself. It falls to Spock to pick up the pieces.

7. The Lotus Eaters by aldora89

Stranded on the planet Sigma Nox while searching for a missing away team, Spock and Kirk find themselves pitted against a disturbing native life form. With the captain out of commission on a regular basis and Spock struggling to preserve his stoicism, staying alive is difficult enough – but when a slim chance for escape surfaces, their resolve is truly put to the test. Together they must fight for survival in the heart of an alien jungle, and in the process, uncover the mystery of the planet’s past.

8. The Handmaid of Genius by ladyblahblah

When the replicators go offline, Jim reacts unexpectedly.

9. Asymptote by tahariel

Anticipation was not an emotion Spock had intended to allow himself to feel; yet, it made itself known despite him, and that it was never satisfied made it harder to suppress, each time the Captain walked past or stood near and conscientiously avoided even the brush of their sleeves.

10. AT THE SAME STARS by spicyshimmy

First Officer Spock of the USS Enterprise is part of the away team that discovers the survivors of Tarsus IV. Captain Pike assigns him to the curious case of James Tiberius Kirk, who steals one of Spock's sweaters. There were no sufficient Vulcan poetics to describe the emptiness of the colony as it was found on the morning of stardate 2249.43. The fully-completed residential sector was neither ugly nor beautiful but simply remote; a hollow landscape of metal alloys and sensible architecture, with determined vegetation growing alongside the support beams. They did not flower.

11. Measure of Happiness by writeonclara

When Spock chose Starfleet over the Vulcan Science Academy, he had not anticipated cohabiting with the most illogical, irrational, emotional human he ever met.

On the flip side, Jim never asked for a Vulcan chaperone, especially one as snotty as Spock, son of Sarek.

A Starfleet Academy AU in which Spock adapts to human life, Jim learns very, very quickly never to play a prank on a Vulcan, and there are far too many people after Jim Kirk's life.

12. Hurricane by sinestrated

Five times Winona Kirk was a badass mom, and one time she realized she’d raised an equally badass son.

13. The Third Wheel by littlebirdtold

Academy AU. In which Cadet Kirk constantly crashes Cadet Uhura's dates with Commander Spock and monopolizes his attention.

14. A Logical Match by walkandtalk

The elders of New Vulcan decide to resurrect an ancient custom, and suddenly Jim must help find his First Officer an honorable Vulcan husband.

15. You Lied by ksalterego

Spock bought into that whole stupid Vulcan practice of being secretive about shit (sexual practices) that had the potential to fucking kill him. So Kirk may have lied - well, implied, actually - to get into Spock's pants save Spock's life.

16. So Much for Gravity by Regann

The last thing Jim wants is telepathic proof that Spock hates him, even though that's exactly what he gets. It's just one more thing Jim needs to figure out on his bumpy road to a destiny he doesn't even know if he believes in.

17. not once but always by estelares

The Day Jim Kirk Died And Was Revived is also, perhaps more famously, remembered as The Day Spock Lost His Proverbial Marbles and nearly killed a superhuman who had fucking regenerative blood, for crying out loud.

18. My Golden Sun / Kin-Kur Las’hark T’nash-Veh by giddytf2

When Jim feels the first gush of slick soaking down the inner seam of his pants, he shuts his eyes and turns his face away from Spock towards the mottled-stone wall of their solitary cell. Spock is staring at him. Spock has no idea what's just happened, what's just begun. Spock has no idea that their situation is about to get so much worse.

Fuck, Jim thinks, curling up into a ball of bruises and ragged gold, his arms quivering and clutching his bent legs. Fuck my life for being a goddamn Omega.

(Or, a Star Trek: AOS story post-Into Darkness in a universe where both Alpha/Beta/Omega gender dynamics and pon'farr exist, with Jim being an Omega going into heat and Spock experiencing his first pon'farr while trapped in a cell with Jim. Oh my.

19. THE SUM OF BOTH OF US by spicyshimmy

Jim Kirk is nine when a massacre on Tarsus IV leaves him without a family and without a home. Spock is twelve when a strange boy in the desert saves his sehlat. Families aren't born; they're made. The look in mother’s eyes at his correction remained a mystery long after the colors of the night sky and the complex patterns of distant nebulae had become translatable by means of distinct and relatively straightforward equations.

20. Leave No Soul Behind by whochick

If you're Starfleet, you spend your whole life wishing you never see an EPAS uniform right up until the moment they become your only hope. Whether you're dying a slow, cold death in space, or a long painful one on some godforsaken planet, they're going to come for you. So count your last breaths, son, and hold on tight. They leave no soul behind.

[goodnightyoongi]

[Yoongi x fem!reader] pt3

genre: hurt/comfort/fluff

rating: gen

word count: 2,5k

summary: Yoongi and you are childhood friends, but you’re overcome by inability to take care of yourself or your life, lately. He’s right by your side to help you, and you recently discovered there might be something more than friendship between you.

warnings: implied depression, some self-critical thoughts, alcohol, drunken kissing. 

Can be read as standalone, but this fic is part of a chaptered series:  

Part I: Catalyze

Part II: Flicker

Part IV: Release

Your arms were awkwardly clutched around your midriff as you watched Yoongi rummage around the crowded corner shop, throwing thing after thing into the shopping basket without much consideration. 

The two of you were probably a peculiar sight right now. One of you looked ready to hurl any second, uncomfortable about being out in public again, and the other one resembled a small-time burglar with his snapback, dark sunglasses and hoodie pulled securely over his head.

“Just want to remain incognito, is all,” was the explanation he provided you earlier, after you giggled at the sight of him as he picked you up. “Fangirls tend to recognize me a lot...not in the mood for writing a gazillion autographs today.

Your initial reaction to that statement made you inwardly kick yourself. You actually felt a tiny ounce of what could only be described as jealousy when picturing him with all these fangirls – before a rational, inner voice reminded you that you were, firstly, being very silly, and secondly, about to head out with him in just a moment.

Oh, how shamelessly smitten you had become. It had already been a week since he surprised you by kissing you before taking you out for coffee, but there had been no second one yet, and this fact pushed you back into the pit of insecurity.

Maybe you were hoping for too much. You were a commoner, dealing with an array of different issues, and Yoongi was Yoongi. Famous, while you weren’t, and even your friendship couldn’t change this fact.

“Alright, we're almost set...just need to get the – hey, what's up? Are you okay?”

Yoongi had noticed the sickly green pallor of your face, and now his dark irises were regarding you with concern. You forced a strained smile, quickly unfurling your arms.

“Oh, yeah, sorry...I just...I'm not really used to being around people, is all...”

Once again, you cursed the way your voice sounded so frail. And you cursed the way everyday tasks such as shopping were so difficult all of a sudden. 

Shopping. It should be easy as pie, but no.

Yoongi was quick to calm you, sneaking an arm around your waist in a bid to chase away the anxiety. 

“You're good, hun. It's all good. We're almost done, just sit tight while I pay.”

Some thirty minutes later he swung the door to his apartment in Hannam open, and you scuttled inside, grateful to escape the ruckus of the busy streets of Seoul. Yoongi's gaze lingered on you, wandering to your behind as you bent down to untie your shoes, and this didn’t go unnoticed by you. You were flustered as you straightened out, and he smirked apologetically.

“Oh god, I’m sorry...I was staring, wasn't I...you just...you look really nice today, sweetie. Well you always do, but...” 

He paused, stepping closer, and your ears instantly heated up. You’d finally washed all your laundry, and the neat combination of light jeans and a loose white top apparently caught Yoongi's eyes.

“You're the most beautiful girl I know, you know that?”

“No I'm not –“

“Y/N...what did I tell you?”

Yoongi dug warning eyes into you, his arms tight over his chest. You yielded with a sigh. This guy wasn't about to allow one single chunk of self-critical narrative escape you anymore, that much was apparent by now.

“Sheesh, okay, okay...I'll accept the compliment...thanks.”

Yoongi looked satisfied, and a while later you were seated by the kitchen island with a glass of wine in your hand. You sipped it casually, trying your best to seem relaxed and unbothered.

Come on. Pull yourself together.

But you felt on edge, even though you'd been in this exact same scenario with Yoongi a million times before. 

Yoongi had discarded his hoodie, and you discreetly watched his t-shirt-covered back as he prepared dinner – just like you had a million times before. And your lower regions stirred just a little as you witnessed the muscles in his arms tense, veins getting more prominent as he cut up some vegetables – just like he had a million times before.

But now was different.

Now your feelings might be reciprocated. You still weren't entirely sure, though, but your sky was illuminated by a big fat maybe.

You cleared your throat, taking multiple distracting sips of wine to calm yourself.

“So um...you guys are just on a break now, then? No shows coming up or anything?”

Yoongi swung around, grabbing his own glass of whisky and stirring the liquid slightly. “Had some stuff scheduled, but I canceled it. I’m taking a few months off, we’ve been working so much this year...so yeah. Have all the time in the world to spend with you, sweetness.”

“BTS taking a break. That's a first. Are you sure the charts can handle that?”

“They’ll have to. I should have taken one earlier. You've been lacking from my life...way too much the past year.”

A blanket of melancholy settled over his face. You wondered what he was thinking. Was he, perhaps, thinking the same as you – that so many years had passed, that so many hidden feelings were harbored and never acted upon, and now the two of you were here. 

And maybe about to change that?

Yoongi blinked cryptically, before returning to his vegetables, and your heart performed a series of double somersaults. The bubble Yoongi created for the pair of you was safe, and you never wanted to step outside of it.

Never. 

Being in here was easy, here in Yoongi's lofty penthouse, tucked away from the real world with all its scary responsibilities.

Unfortunately, Yoongi decided to poke a hole in the protective layers of said bubble, just a moment later.

“Anyway, so...sorry to bring this up, but...have you given any more thought to return to school...to uni...soon?”

Yoongi's face fell when he saw you turn gloomy following the touchy subject. It had been avoided like the plague the past week, but of course you were aware, even though you just postponed it. 

Your mail was overflowing, flooded with reminders of overdue assignments and missed schedules, your phone full of unanswered calls from the guidance counselor. 

You didn’t avoid it by choice, but it had just...happened.

“I have,” you answered, gaze lowered. “Well...no I haven't...but, I know. I know I need to take care of it. I'll get kicked out soon unless I do, but...it just feels so overwhelming.”

Your tone was brittle as you hung your head in shame. The truth was you had made attempts to deal with it daily, but it was hard.

“Hey. Look at me,” Yoongi requested when he noticed your dejection. “It'll be okay. You can do it, just need to start small. But you should go see your school counselor you know, explain the situation, and uh…”

He paused a moment, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant. You weren't sure you liked where this was going. You grabbed the glass of wine, chugging the rest of it in one go.

“...I think you should consider seeing a therapist. To talk about this, the struggles you're facing with your mental health and...everything.”

Yoongi's hand had sneakily crept into yours, and he sighed when you instantly ripped it away and pushed your chair back.

“I'm not crazy, okay, I don't need –”

“Y/N.” Yoongi's voice had a sharpness to it now, and it silenced you before you even had a chance to expand on that note. He continued, cautiously, with a hand brushing loose strands of hair out of your eyes as he moved closer.

“No one said that, pumpkin. It doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean you're crazy. But you might be...depressed. And there's help for you, ways to deal with it.”

“I'm not depressed,” you claimed, weakly. An uninvited tear clawed its way out, rolling down before you could prevent it. You angrily mopped your cheek dry, and Yoongi settled a hand on your neck, gently running it down your back.

“Y/N...I know it’s daunting. But you need to figure things out with uni, alright. I'll come with you, baby. You'll be okay. Don't worry about it, we'll handle it.”

You stared at the white marble of the kitchen island a moment, gratitude warming your chest because he said we. You managed a wordless nod, and Yoongi gathered you into a sideways-hug.

“Good. I'll give you a refill of wine, just a sec. Oh, and the stew should be ready soon.”

Yoongi was an excellent chef, but even despite this, eating wasn't the easiest for you, because your appetite had disappeared somewhere unknown the past few months. This fact was neither appreciated nor accepted by Yoongi.

“Come on, sweetheart. Need to eat,” he tutted from across the table, and you sighed, peering out the tall window. The sky was a periwinkle blue, a congregation of soft cotton clouds passing by in the distance, and the view was majestic from up here – it was perfect. You wish you could be too.

But Yoongi shushed you when unnecessary apologies started falling off your tongue, and somehow you managed. Half the plate, with the help of patient cajoling and encouraging nods.

Drinking wasn't hard, though, and Yoongi was the epitome of sweet and gentlemanly as he prepared fresh cocktails for you to sip on during the course of the meal. By the time you moved to the couch you had become charmingly flushed, slurring a little on your words as you thanked your host for dinner. 

“You seem a little tipsy, baby,” Yoongi observed, chuckling when you almost spilled your mojito down your chin as you attempted to take another sip. “Want to try a bit of whisky?”

“Oh, hell no. That shit is nasty.”

“It's an acquired taste. You're just too much of a kid still.”

You glanced at him, feeling your body gradually heating up to blazing temperatures. The comfortable buzz traveling through you thanks to the alcohol definitely didn’t help slow it down. Yoongi's lips looked so pink, so soft, his fingers so elegant and inviting when he raised the whiskey glass to his mouth.

You wanted those fingers to wrap around you.

Impulse overtook you, a coil of tightly packaged desire that spurred you into closing the distance between the two of you. The bitter taste of whiskey mingled with sour lime in your mouth as you pressed your lips against Yoongi's, and the kiss was sloppy, but tender. You half-expected him to jerk away, but he didn't – instead he wrapped arms around your waist, pulling you against himself with a possessiveness that made your downstairs regions scream at you to move this forward asap.

It had been ages since you’d been intimate with anyone. Ages. And this was your dream. Your longtime crush, your Yoongi.

Yoongi's hands were all over you, his fingers threading through your hair, his tongue finding its way into your mouth – but when your brain finally caught up, you ripped yourself away, catching your breath as Yoongi's inky eyes blinked at you in surprise.

“What's up?”

“I'm...shit, I'm sorry, Yoongi...I shouldn't have thrown myself at you like that, like what the hell...I don't know what I was thinking...”

You turned away from him, lowering your head into your hands. Once again you’d just assumed that he was game for whatever it was you wanted...and one kiss meant nothing. After all, Yoongi had acted totally blasé since then, like it never even happened.

A hand settled on your shoulder, tugging in a request for you to turn around.

“Yeah you should, dummy. Why apologize, huh? I want to kiss you.”

“Then why haven't you yet?” You straightened up, glaring at him. You knew you probably sounded accusatory and like a brat and you might regret this, but you couldn't help it.

“Why haven't you, since...last week? I mean...I thought you shared the same feelings as me but then you just didn't make a move and I figured –”

“I didn't want to rush you,” Yoongi bit you off, his eyes radiating sincerity mixed with regret. “I wanted it to be your call, and not just...eh, screw it. That was a mistake. I care about you so much, Y/N. I want to do everything right.”

His lips moved impossibly close again. The backdrop turned into smudged colors and vague contours as his warm breath pumped you full of life again, woke your body from its slumber, made you limbs tingly with need. And you could do little to stop it.

The room around swam around you when you parted from him, roughly pushing him onto his back and settling on top of him, your movements jerky and hasty. You eagerly kissed him, arching your back and grinding against his crotch and smirking when you noticed the blatant hard-on forming inside his jeans. 

“Wait, hold up, hun...wait a second.”

Yoongi had a firm palm on your chest suddenly, acting as a roadblock, and you couldn’t help but feel wounded as you came to a surprised halt.

“What's wrong? Don’t you want me?”

Yoongi shook his head, violently, his hand moving up to cradle your heated cheek. “God, Y/N. I want you. I want you okay, I want nothing more. But...you're drunk, and I'm not. I don't want to take advantage of you, I need you sober. Okay?”

“You're not taking advantage of me,” you stated grumpily, and Yoongi pushed himself onto his elbows, tilting his head sympathetically. He scrambled into sitting again, but you shied away, still reeling from the rejection when he attempted to haul you in.

“Y/N...baby...don't get any funny ideas. I want you. Your mind, your body. But you've been cooped up at home a long time, okay, alone...and this is still new. We have to go slow, i don’t want to hurt you.”

You grumbled something inaudible in response, refusing to look at him. He moved the curtain of hair away from your eyes, his voice honest and pleading when he spoke.

“Please, hun...don’t take it the wrong way. You’re beautiful, I mean you noticed what effect you had on me, but...I just want to treat you well, and I need you to be onboard and completely clear-headed...because you mean the world to me. Okay, pumpkin?”

“Fine...okay, fine” You relented with a huff, but it transformed into giggling when Yoongi dragged you into his arms, peppering your cheeks with kisses.

“Good. Want to watch a movie? What do you fancy?”

You cruelly picked out a horror flick even though you knew your couch company hated them with a passion, and Yoongi agreed with a sigh, stating “anything for you, hun.” He threw a blanket around you, wrapping it around you snugly and collecting you into his arms as the opening credits rolled on the TV screen.

Silence followed as the lame plotline took off, but you weren't focusing on it. You were trying your hardest to still your beating heart, rays of warmth shooting through you when Yoongi drew you closer in, breathing hot air into your hair as he burrowed his nose into it.

It took a while for you to muster the courage to phrase the question lingering on your tongue, but you finally managed it.

“So...do you want to...”

“Be your boyfriend?”

You were stunned. You actually had planned on asking if he wanted to go for a proper date, but this was much better. Yoongi gripped your chin, turning you towards himself with an affectionate smile.

“Yeah, I do. I’ve wanted to be your boyfriend for quite some time,” he mumbled, before leaning in for a kiss that made you drunk. Drunker than all the alcohol you'd had during the course of the entire evening.

[kinetic-elaboration]

July 17: 2x26 Assignment: Earth

Finally finished up S2 of TOS yesterday. That was... a rough episode tbh. I’m just gonna say it: back door pilots are bad! They’re bad. If I wanted to watch that other show, I’d watch it.

Wow, they’re just really jumping right in, huh? “Here we are, on a routine mission into the past, using a time travel method that we invented nbd.”

Investigating desperate problems in the year 2020...2016.... no wait 1968.

Ooh, Spock in the transport room today. Does he have a whole extra random station there? That’s so weird; I’ve never seen that before. It’s like hidden in the corner.

Cat!! Cat!!

What a good actor. I’m still bitter that wikipedia has a whole section about the casting for “Isis the cat” that talks entirely about the human who played Isis for 2 minutes and nothing about the talented feline actor. Where did they find her? How did they teach her to act?

She has a lot of thoughts about Kirk.

I wrote down “Scully, you’ve got to see this” in my notes and I’ve already forgotten what it refers to lol. Some moment that I thought would fit well with my favorite x-files meme.

Change history, you say? Spock is intrigued. ...Admittedly, Spock is often intrigued.

“What if it turns out you’re an invading alien from the future?” Honestly...let him invade. You’re not supposed to be here anyway.

I’m pretty insulted by this. The aliens went through all this trouble to help in 1968...where are our alien helpers NOW?

The cat straight up attacked his face.

Kirk is so fond of Spock being fond of the cat.

“It’s a lovely animal. I feel myself strangely drawn to it.”

Kirk is way too confused by Seven--an allegedly human person with super-human abilities that he says come from aliens--and yet, he’s met Charlie X so??? Is this not the same?

Kirk’s got the whole crew checking in on zoom.

(I actually do like this sequence of him getting video calls from different parts of the ship.)

“Weren’t orbiting H-bombs a huge problem in 1968?” Looks at the camera like he’s on The Office. Not the subtlest bit of writing in the “social commentary” genre. I do say this with love, though. I always enjoy when they comment on contemporary problems.

“He has a totally perfect body.” Lol don’t distract these two bisexuals.

[soft meowing]

“The prisoner has escaped.” The way this is shot, it looks like he’s talking about the cat.

Hmm, I do love the decor. Very 60s. This honestly immediately feels like a different show, and a much more dated show; even when the Enterprise time travels, it tends not to time travel to... office space.

Love the little sounds the computer makes.

So is Isis supposed to be one of the fancy aliens? It’s never explained but one must assume she is.

Aw, he’s petting her paw.

So I assumed the cats sounds are real, but just dubbed. They’re not lol. Which I guess isn’t surprising: this cat makes a lot of noises! They were provided by a human voice actress.

Damn.... I want a secret bookshelf that turns around to reveal a super computer with a big screen. “Computer... play Netflix.”

That’s what Seven does in his spare time.

The computer is an AI. “Beta 5 snobbery” lol.

Where are OUR alien overlords to stop US from destroying ourselves before WE can mature into a peaceful society?

This is really masterful exposition lol. Not forced or awkward at all.

ST sure does love the snooty female computer trope.

“Get us the proper costumes.” Yes, get Spock his Requisite Hat.

Omicron IV....that’s one of the names they use in Futurama lol. Such nerds.

Another excellent Spock Hat.

I love Seven’s various IDs. Great style. I wish my driver’s license looked like those.

“Who do you think you are?” He hasn’t decided yet. That’s why he was shifting through his IDs.

Seven is not smart lol. Like, he should have figured out way faster that this lady isn’t one of the Alien Overlords. He asks her the code question, she doesn’t understand it, and he... assumes she’s just really in character? Dude, that’s what the code questions are for!!! To help you identify people! Otherwise you could just straight up ask: are you an alien?

Instead he’s like “oh, you silly alien, you’re playing with me,” and then is forced to trap her, reveal his whole mission, and ultimately ensnare her in his plan.

I want that typewriter. Voice recognition typewriter.

"My incompetence has made you aware of very secret devices." Well at least he knows.

Trained cat!

The alien overlords were killed in a random car accident. That’s ironic.

Oh look, a real rocket!

Brown pants + short sleeved shirt + tie is such a Classic 60s look.

This security guard doesn’t think it’s weird that this random dude has a cat with him? Is this part of Isis’s alien power?

Except for the part where it’s a weapon, it’s pretty cool to see all this build up to, like... launching stuff into space. Exciting.

Isis likes to be on shoulders. Just like Little Guy.

New hat for Spock. His outer wear hat, and now his fancy hat. There is something to be said for this ep, and that is Kirk and Spock in suits.

Amazing how they literally launched rockets with computers that old. Like seeing the big bank of primitive computers is totally wild. We put people on the moon that way! Amazing.

“Meow.” Lol, Isis is stressed so she’s speaking like a cat. That’s a pretty funny joke actually.

Seven is so incompetent. If he’d just let the Enterprise help, Scotty could have fixed that rocket issue in like 3 seconds.

Lol everyone’s just pulling Gary through space. Now on the Enterprise. Now in the office.

Why does this computer have a hug black screen if it only displays images on the small white circle?

"Spock and  I in custody. Main characters, doing nothing, knowing nothing, totally useless and irrelevant. I have never felt more helpless." Literally what is even the point of them today? Does Spock even have lines outside of “I like the cat”?

Isis is jealous of Roberta. Is she.. in a relationship with Seven lol?

Uhura is listening to everyone in the world. She probably has a universal translator on, but I do feel like this scene implies she just...understands all the languages.

So now the warhead is armed and heading to somewhere vague... in other words, everyone has collectively made the situation worse.

....Or this was Seven’s plan all along? To scare people into ceasing to be so careful with nuclear weaponry? As someone who knows humans better than this guy, I think this is a dumbass plan.

“That’s why so many people in my generation are kind of crazy and rebels.” Same, sweetheart.

Really this is just a story about bad communication. If Seven had told Kirk his plan upfront, Kirk would have helped him. And if Kirk weren’t so insistent on involving himself in something just because he happens to be somewhere he probably shouldn’t be, we wouldn’t have this issue either. The hubris of everyone.

Overall, just a really forced narrative imo.

Or that’s how it was supposed to be lol. The Irony of time travel. By it’s nature, everything has already worked out.

Kirk and Spock are like “You’re welcome. Peace out.”

Honestly... Isis was the only good part. Such a talented cat actor!! Or trio of cat actors, I guess. Had to do all those stunts and stuff.. .amazing. I also liked the concept of Isis. How she turned into a human later just to troll Roberta. How she’s never really explained--one must assume, an alien? Plus I pretty much never get tired of human + animal teams where the animal makes animal noises and the human just understands and answers in English.

As a stand alone sci fi concept...it was okay. Kinda dated by now. The alien tech was nifty and Roberta could have grown on me. Maybe even Seven, though he left a lot to be desire. That said, the narrative relied a lot on people getting in each other’s way for no reason, which I find very frustrating.

But as a Star Trek episode....no. The main characters were just nuisances on the side lines!! I’m not even sure what Kirk’s mission here was--to try to figure out what Seven was doing? And stop him if necessary? But he never really decided if it was or not, until the point where not trusting him would basically cause a nuclear war? I don’t know, I found it all very frustrating. The melding of the original show and the spinoff was not smooth.

If I were watching this in 1968, I’d feel very cheated. THIS was the season finale? That’s it? I don’t even get a real Star Trek episode and now I have to wait months for anything new?

And what I get after all that waiting is Spock’s Brain?? I’d be tempted to quit. If I had a tumblr in 1969 I’d be writing multi-paragraph rants about how the best show on television has completely nose-dived lol.

But then there’s The Enterprise Incident, which is one of the best episodes... I don’t know, man. It’s a conundrum. I’ve only seen maybe half of season 3 but from what I remember it’s very uneven: some of the best eps (The Enterprise Incident, For the World Is Hollow, Day of the Dove) mixed in with some of the worst (Spock’s Brain, The Paradise Syndrome), plus some that are good concepts but shoddily executed (The Way to Eden). So we’ll see what I think about it when I see it all in one piece, in air date order.

[elizabethwydevilles]

Jaime/Brienne Recs (or, it’s my birthday and I’ll rec what I want to)

note: this is by no means an exhaustive list of recs; this is just a short list of some of my absolute favourites.also note: the summaries for open by ssstrychnine and You Can’t Save Her by SigilBroken are not the ‘official’ summaries. they’re just my very brief attempts to give a taste of the stories.

open (t) by ssstrychnine/@oneangryshot

post 8.03, Brienne helps Jaime to shave

one-shot

You Can't Save Her (e) by SigilBroken/@chickren

three years later (diverges from canon in 8.05/8.06). angst like woah (currently consuming my soul)

WIP

our long love’s day (m) by winterkill/@kurikaesu-haru

"Brienne rejected me, more than once."

Lord Selwyn looks at the sun, high above Evenfall's keep, blinding in its midday glory. The sun Jaime thought he'd never live to see again.

"Ask her again. Ask her here. You’ve all the daylight you need, especially on this day."

complete

Battle is the Great Redeemer (m) by Lady_in_Red/@ladyinredfics

Jaime Lannister dies in a tunnel under the Red Keep, and wakes up days earlier at Winterfell. And then it happens again. And again. But he's not the first to live the same battle over and over again. Arya Stark, the slayer of the Night King, went through it first in the Battle of Winterfell.

Edge of Tomorrow AU

complete

More Than a Memory (e) by Luthien/@luthienebonyx

Brienne believes that all she has left of Jaime are memories, both bitter and sweet.

She’s wrong.

complete

The Assignment (e) by languageintostillair/@shipping-receiving

She is supposed to call him Jaime, Jaime Lannister. Her name, her new name that is now also the name she was born with, is Brienne Lannister, née Tarth. Soon enough, they said, her backstory would become her memories. His children would become hers, too. She floods her mind with a rush of renewed faith in the Cause. Infiltrating enemy territory in the most daring way possible. As a perfectly ordinary family.

An AU inspired by The Americans—in which Jaime and Brienne are spies working undercover as a married couple, with two children, for as many years as their country requires.

WIP

Confluence (e) by GRRM

“Why did you come here, then?” she bites out.

“Brienne,” he says, with infinite exasperation.

one-shot

bathe me up in light, call me when you drown (m) by janie_tangerine/@janiedean

“Jaime,” she whispers. “Jaime, what are you doing?”

“Dying,” he whispers back.

What — is he — oh, no. This has gone way beyond her oath now. Fine, she swore she’d keep him alive, but after what she saw this morning… he does have some of that fire in him left. And he does want to get out of this. And he doesn’t deserve such an undignified death. Not a swordsman like that, not a man who could fight like that, not a man whose eyes were so bright even when chained inside a dirty dungeon. Not a man who had the guts to try and steal that sword.

“No,” Brienne urges him, “no, you must live.”

“Stop telling me what do, wench. I’ll die if it pleases me.” He sounds like he’s done for, and like he has lost everything he had going for him, and gods, she gets it, she gets it, but — no. She can’t let him give up. She won’t. She never would have gone anywhere if she let that feeling get to her and he’s certainly not done for, handless or not.

Or: ASOS, Jaime IV and V, from Brienne's POV.

one-shot

silence is golden (e) by nubbins_for_all

She brought him here because he insisted on privacy and she heard from Tormund (who is still looking for any chance to speak to her, damn him) that they’d finished the repairs last night. She can’t believe it, that Jaime is still so proud after the Long Night, that he doesn’t feel he’s earned the right not to be laughed at. Sparring in front of people using his left hand shouldn’t bother him anymore.

“I was fighting for you,” he says when she tells him he’s being silly, “and I was fighting to live. I’m not ashamed to admit what gave me strength. But I don’t want any future living opponents to know how much strength I still need to make up for my…failings.”

Bullshit, she thinks.

In which Jaime and Brienne, through no fault of their own, find themselves trapped in a delicate position where being discovered would bode very ill for them...so Jaime decides to take advantage of the situation.

one-shot

It was almost Yule, and there was almost a murder (t) by greyathena

Brienne thought things were going shockingly smoothly after Jaime arrived, alone, at Winterfell to join the armies of the North. But then there was the sword through the window.

one-shot

though our paths diverge (I travel with you) (m) by robotsdance/@robotsdance

For a moment it's almost like Jaime is Brienne, out in the wilderness, on her horse with Podrick beside her.

It must have been his imagination, he rationalizes as he opens his eyes where he lies soundly in his own bed. He had been thinking of Brienne and had been almost asleep. He must have dozed off and dreamed of her. That’s all. It was nothing. Nothing at all.

Jaime puts it from his mind.

But it happens again.

Intermittent Body Swapping/ Freaky Friday AU

complete

Hold This Threadbare Heart at Needlepoint (e) by nire/@nire-the-mithridatist

Jaime wielded a sword well enough with his left hand, but a quill was a different beast altogether. Brienne found an ingenious solution, proposed in the form of a wager.

Or,

Jaime learned how to embroider to train the fine motor skills of his left hand.

complete

Everyone Has Secrets (e) by ellaria

Political journalist Jaime Lannister finds himself out of alternatives when Millennium, his magazine, becomes endangered by his reckless actions. Brienne Tarth, a professional hacker charged with the task of investigating him, will stumble upon more than she expected. The mystery of a disappearance ten years earlier will draw them to Winterfell, where more than one secret might be uncovered.

Based on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

complete

From This Day Until the End of My Days (m) by dreadwulf/@dreadwulf

Jaime Lannister should have returned to King's Landing weeks and weeks ago. Instead he brought an injured Brienne to the Quiet Isle and somehow ended up married to her. Now he's riding for the Vale with a strange assortment of companions on an impossible search for Sansa Stark, and Brienne won't even look at him anymore, and why does that bother him so much? Why is he even here? He should just go home. He'll do it any day now.

complete

If Tomorrow (e) by nicasio_silang/@nicasiosilang

There came a spring of high blue skies that never softened to summer. The churned mud of every battlefield slipped into a dream of wildflowers and the children of the realm who ran through them, children whose fears were only ever small. Every dawn a miracle, every night another debt that could never be repaid. A lifetime of such days, each one the impossible gift. A long life, long hours, birdsong, the tide in and the tide out, and trees heavy with apricots. All this, and grief. It was enough.

This is the fifth year of their marriage.

[stronglyobsessed]

If you’re still taking prompts, I’d love Merwin with Merlin realizing how much he loves to hear Eggsy talk when put in a situation where he can’t hear him (be it Eggsy in the hospital, on a secret mission with no audio, or whatever you want) and deciding that he’ll do whatever he can to make sure that not another day goes by without Eggsy’s voice in his life :)

If I’m ever not interested, or willing, to write angsty hurt/comfort Merwin, assume I’ve been replaced by a poorly designed clone ;).

Breathe...

There were many times Merlin assumed he’d never hear the sweet sound. A soft, gentle whisper where the warmth of his lover’s breath brushed against his ear, or the mirth filled chuckle through mission audio. How quickly Merlin knew it could be torn away. Assignments where Eggsy’s life was put at greater risk than the average man. There was always that uncertainty, that perhaps Merlin’s job wasn’t enough to bring the young agent home. To bring his husband home.

A relationship with a Kingsman agent brought so many risks. Some more deadly than others. So the last thing he’d expect to hear, were the voices of sorowful cops.

“...an accident.”

“...rushed into the ER.”

Merlin felt all the air leave his lungs. His chest ached with need for oxygen that his body just stopped providing. How could he be concerned with something as vital, so important to his survival, when he was being told his husband fought for his own life.

“...cab ran a red light. T-boned him before he could see it coming.”

It was painted for him. An accident Merlin hadn’t witnessed with his own eyes, but be damned if he wasn’t going to pull up surveillance around the city. Though revenge was the least of his worries, especially when his presence was needed at hospital. Merlin was fortunate to be dressed for the day, though he doubted clothing would be of a concern, and followed without question. He left behind a curious JB, and made sure to notify Harry on his ride. Thankful the cops offered him a lift; Merlin was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to drive himself.

Worry. Merlin lived in a constant state of worry. He had to learn to separate it from the job, needing to be the best he could be, guiding all agents; his own husband included. Worry was well ingrained by now. And worried he did, but he never once accounted for worry that would be brought by a civilian accident. Not when Eggsy faced the worlds villains on a regular occurrence.

Suddenly that bright, sunny laugh that resonated through their home, when JB did something that tickled Eggsy, or Michelle sent a video of Daisy walking on her hands, it all vanished. It was as if, in their five years of marriage, he worried for the first time he’d never hear it again. Or how Eggsy crooned their wedding song when missions went poorly, and Merlin was left feeling failure and regret. Soft melodies that caused him to yearn for a child, hoping one day Eggsy would sing tender lullabies to their children.

These were things Merlin worried, mourned the loss of, before he had a chance to find out how bad Eggsy was. Logistics didn’t concern him, not as he barreled through hospital doors, demanding information before he gave his name. His heart pounded, doing leaps and bounds against his chest, threatening to bust through his chest cavity and rush to find Eggsy. The man who was his world, every reason for living, his physical, breathing, living heart. Who at this very moment lay on a surgical table as London’s finest surgeons removed a lung—damaged beyond repair, Merlin was told—and repaired his shattered femur. The question of his ability to walk without assistive devices were on the table, but none of this was what troubled his mind. If Eggsy made it out of this alive was of the utmost importance.

It felt like years, decades, before he was given more information.

“...he made it out.”

“...if he wakes...”

IF he wakes. Merlin felt his heart stop, breathing halted at the notion Eggsy could possibly leave this Earth.

“...a long road ahead of him. He has age on his side.” They ran down the list. Four broken ribs, removed lung, repaired femur, broken humerus and wrist. All on the right side. Multiple contusions, bruises and swelling accompanied the ever growing list.

Merlin thanked them, and counted the seconds until he was permitted to see him. It was hours, Merlin was sure, when a nurse called his name. He felt numb. Unaccustomed to being the one to receive the information, and not the informer.

“We have him under a medically induced coma, to help him recover from the trauma.” The nice, short middle-aged nurse said. Bethany, he read her name tag, guided him through double doors that proclaimed this area the ICU. “He can hear you,” she promised with a gentle smile.

The expression was thought to bring him comfort, but he felt little right now.

From the right side Eggsy was near unrecognizable. The swelling was so sever it nearly took up his whole face. Merlin would have been afraid to touch him, but took some comfort that he could caress his left arm, avoiding wires and IV’s as he did. He didn’t speak for a long moment, afraid if he tried, he’d break down and if Eggsy could hear him, his ears would be filled with the sorrow of his husband. That’s not what Eggsy needed to hear now, not when his life hung in the balance.

It was as if Merlin’s voice was taken, too. Because he barely said a word since he’d been brought here. Only enough to insist on answers when Doctor’s gave updates. He waited, with baited breath, when they eased the sedatives three days later. Pleased with Eggsy’s recent MRI results, the swelling on his brain had gone down. They were uncertain if there would be any lasting damage from traumatic brain injury, unable to determine that based on his scans.

The first signs were slight, hand twitching, involuntary movements that confirmed Eggsy was in the process of waking. It wasn’t like you saw in movies, where the injured woken and recognized their surroundings, or even the person who sat beside them. The process was far slower, painful as it were to watch, and took a solid week before Eggsy opened his eyes.

They were unfocused and blearily scanning his surroundings. Merlin would have jumped the first moment Eggsy did this, but he knew not to startle him. He very carefully reached over Eggsy to press the call-light, earning attention to himself even as he tried to avoid it.

Glossy blue-green eyes widened for a moment, until recognition washed over his features, and his eyes softened.

Before he could speak a word, hoping to coax a small response out of Eggsy in desperation to hear his voice again, nurses and his surgeons arrived. Merlin was ushered out in order for an examination to be done, and by the time he was allowed back in, Eggsy was asleep again.

They told him he’d wake sporadically. Eggsy may or may not address him, but this was the process. Again, not flowery and romanticized like films. It was a long, grueling thing. Torture to the one who had to watch it, but watch he would.

And he did wake, on and off, sometimes he stared at Merlin, others it was just quick little spirts that didn’t even last thirty seconds. A day went by, hours passed where Merlin hadn’t seen Eggsy’s gorgeous eyes. His longing grew. When would he wake WAKE and just say his name? The answer was not an easy one to bear. Time, he was cautioned.

On the second day, when Merlin was sure he’d slip back into a coma and never speak to him again, Merlin began to sing their wedding song.

The Way You Look Tonight, never sounded as smooth off his tongue. His voice was too deep and certain notes were beyond his abilities to match Frank Sinatra. Though that never seemed to be a problem for Eggsy.

Merlin was on his second attempt at the song, feeling sure he butchered something that repressented the best day of his life, when someone softly said:

“I sing it better.” The voice was rough and scratchy, a hushed whisper that could barely be heard. “Hamish.” It was his name spoken by this foreign, yet familiar, voice that earned his attention. Eggsy’s eyes locked with his, realization filled the pair that Merlin loved so much.

All he could do was chuckle as tears filled his own, spilling down his cheeks until they soaked his face, and nodded. “Aye. Ye do.” He wouldn’t voice how relieved he was to hear Eggsy speak, not when his careful kiss said it all. “I love ye,” Merlin whispered in a rush, worrying Eggsy wouldn’t be up long enough to hear that.

Dry, chapped lips drew up in a crooked smile as Eggsy’s left hand fumbled to hold his. “I love you, too.”

Eggsy didn’t say much more past that, not for another day, but it was everything Merlin needed to hear to keep hope.

His heart would pull through.

[poorrichardslegacy]

Kacxa Week 2020 Day 6 - Battle Injury

Words

SUMMARY: Keith and Acxa’s daughters have passed their Trials of Marmora and embark on their first combat mission, against the pirates of Penzarance. The girls learn that words can cut just as deeply as any Luxite Blade, and just as importantly they learn about the power of forgiveness.

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26910880

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Rating: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Acxa/Keith (Voltron) Characters: Acxa (Voltron), Keith (Voltron), Original Blade of Marmora Character(s) Additional Tags: Kacxa Week 2020, Family Drama, Family Issues, Family Dynamics, Family Bonding, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence

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

It was the call Keith hoped he would never hear.

“Dad…please…come quickly…Mom’s down!”

His heart about to explode in his chest from its rapid beating, Keith races across the battlefield to his daughter’s position.

This raid was the first combat assignment with Blade of Marmora for both of his daughters since the successful completion of their Trials of Marmora two decaphoebs earlier. Keith had high hopes for this mission. This would be the opportunity for his girls to prove their worth, that they can function as full-fledged members of the Blade of Marmora.

Unfortunately, events began to spiral out of his control even before the start of the engagement on Penzarance.

And now it seems things have gone horribly wrong.

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

Twelve Vargas Earlier

Against Keith’s wishes, Acxa sets the assault team rosters so that Mireya is a member of her team. As Blade Master he does not countermand her decision because he does not want Acxa’s authority undermined within the Blade of Marmora. He also knows that he will catch hell from at least one of the women in his family no matter what he does.

However, he warns her about how this move will be perceived not only by the other Blades, but by Mireya.

Mireya is anything but pleased about this turn of events. To her, this is another example of her mother hovering over her, nitpicking everything she does. This time, Mireya decides to stand up for herself. She confronts her mother in front of her father, great uncle, and sister, and starts a rather vociferous argument over the assignment. Anyone observing it would call it a blowup of galactic proportions.

“Why, Mom? Dad explicitly stated that he wanted Cataleya and I assigned to Uncle Meltok’s command. I don’t get it. Why are you doing this?”

“There is nothing to ‘get’, Mireya. I’m the tactical leader of this operation, and I have the final say on team assignments. I am not used to having my orders questioned and I will not tolerate it now. You are a Blade of Marmora going on a combat mission. You are expected to obey orders, and I expect you to obey these orders.”

Mireya, just turned 18, storms out of the briefing room but not before screaming at her mother.

“You’re suffocating me, Mom! I hate you! I HOPE YOU DIE! Maybe then I can finally breathe.”

Not happy with his daughter’s choice of words, Keith calls after her just as she slams the door to the briefing room. “Mireya you don’t mean that.”

Cataleya, just as upset with the situation as her sister, takes a deep breath before trying to calm her visibly upset mother.

“Mom, she didn’t mean that.”

Cut deeply by Mireya’s words, Acxa tries to hide the hurt from Cataleya. “I don’t know Cataleya…your sister and I have been butting heads for so long now.”

“Mom that’s because you two are so much alike in personality. Stubbornness and all. Give her some space. She’ll come around.”

Keith starts to go after Mireya, but Cataleya stops him.

“Dad, wait. Let me talk to her. No offense, she might listen to me.”

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

The scene is the nightmare scenario Keith feared it would be.

His wife lay in a bomb crater, bleeding from a shrapnel wound to the stomach. Her right arm and shoulder are badly lacerated. He thinks to himself that it is a good thing she is unconscious. The pain must be unbearable.

He races to her and begins treatment to stabilize her. He does his best to keep his emotions in check as he works to save the life of the woman who said she would be his until the day she died. He does not want today to be that day.

“Mireya did you call for medical backup?”

“I…uncle…coming…”

She stands there, frozen by the sight of her critically injured mother.

Meltok leaps into the crater and quickly moves to Acxa’s side, his first-aid kit already open. “Medivac is on its way, Keith. Bars is talking to them. Let me check her.”

Keith steps back as his uncle, an accomplished field medic, hurries to stabilize Acxa until medivac arrives. Cataleya joins them and stands next to her shell-shocked sister.

Struggling against the flood of his own emotions as he battles to hold it together, Keith turns to his daughters.

“Cataleya, take your sister to the rear. I’ll meet up with you two once your mother is stabilized.”

Keith looks calmly at his daughters, both now frozen by the sight of their injured mother. He speaks to them in a calm and level voice. “Go on, soldiers. I gave you an order. Move to the rear.”

Cataleya snaps out of it and manages a shaky, “Yes sir.”

Blade of Marmora Sergeant Bars joins Keith and Meltok. “Medivac is incoming. They’ll be here in two doboshes. Master Chief, how bad?”

Meltok does not pull any punches. “Bad, Bars. Really bad.”

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

As the medivac team moves in to prep Acxa for evacuation to the field hospital, Meltok reminds Keith of something.

“Go back with her and talk to her.”

“What?”

“Remember what she did for you after you nearly got blown to kingdom come by one of Honerva’s white mechs?1 Talk to her. Give her a reason to hang on until the docs back at the field hospital can stabilize her. Don’t worry about this operation. I’ll take command and mop these pirates up. You worry about your wife.”

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

Keith goes with the Acxa and the medics to the rear. After seven hours of surgery, with Keith present, she emerges, in critical but stable condition.

His aunt Miara, a first-rate doctor in her own right and in charge of the field hospital, comes in to keep a close eye on her.

“Keith, you need to talk to Mireya. She’s been inconsolable since Cataleya took her to the rear. Come to think of it, Cataleya isn’t doing much better.”

“I guess the sight of their mother…in that state…that would do it. Aunt Miara, would you send them in. They need to see that their mother is going to be ok”

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

The girls are ushered into the room by Miara. Mireya rushes to her mother’s bedside, takes her hand, and begins sobbing inconsolably.

“Mom…I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean what I said. I don’t want you to die. Please, Mom, don’t leave.”

Cataleya sits on the other side of her mother’s bed, holding Acxa’s left hand. She remains silent, but her tears flow just as freely.

Keith goes to console Mireya, taking her in his arms and letting her get her emotions out. When she finally calms down enough to speak, he asks her what happened.

“We were pinned down. We were taking heavy ion rifle fire and we couldn’t move forward. Mom was so calm. Dad, she was amazing. She said the only way we could beat them was to distract them, flank them, so that we could get close enough to lob grenades into their position to take them out. She asked me if I could do that…I said I could. I wanted her to trust me and this was my chance. Two of us made a flanking maneuver around the right side of the pirate defensive line. We drew their fire, and Mom was able to get close enough to throw two grenades into their position.”

“One went off. The fuse on the other was defective. One of the pirates threw the grenade back into her position. It exploded before she could take cover. I saw Mom go down…and I freaked out.”

“Freaked out in what way, honey.”

“I was so mad that I charged the pirate position single handedly. I think I took out, seven, eight pirates?”

While Mireya explains what happened, Meltok joins them and, standing at the entrance to the room listens to most of her explanation. When she gets to the part where she guesses at how many pirates she took down, he clears his throat to get Keith’s attention.

“That’s not quite true, Mireya. You didn’t take out 8 pirates. It was more like 20.”

Shocked, Keith looks first at Mireya, then at Meltok. “She did what?”

“You would have been proud of her, Keith. She took out twelve with her blaster pistol. Twelve shots, twelve kills. The last eight she took down with her Blade. Watching her with the pistol, she reminded me of her mother; watching her with her Blade, she reminded me of her father.”

“For the record…Cataleya is no slouch in those categories either. She’s just as good as her sister and she proved it today. She took out and entire gun line in the bunker complex, about 20 pirates, by herself.”

Mireya looks at her father hopefully. “Dad…is Mom going to be ok?”

Keith calls his daughters to him and gives them both a tight hug.

“She’s going to be sore, honey, but she’ll pull through. Your mother is tough. She’s been through worse than this. Let’s see, she’s crash-landed inside the belly of an intergalactic space worm, she was poisoned by Bralarian Hyenas after flying her ship to Braylar IV with a broken arm2 , she was almost skewered by Sendak after fighting him on top of a cruiser that was plummeting to Earth3…and she gave birth to you two hellions. She’ll pull through. Besides, she loves you girls too much to leave you now.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret. Mom heard everything we just said. She heard Uncle Meltok say what you both did today. I know when she wakes up, she’ll tell you proud she is of her daughters.”

A still very agitated Mireya is not so sure. “Yeah…if she ever forgives me for being an ungrateful little bitch…”

“She knows you are not that, honey. Hey, I have an idea. I think Mom would like it if the three of us sat here with her and talked to her for a bit. Would you be willing to do that with me?”

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

Six vargas later, Acxa wakes up from her ordeal.

Vaguely aware of her husband’s presence, she reaches out for him. “Keith…?”

Keith squeezes her hand and leans closer so she can see him. “I’m here, love.”

“Thank you…for staying here with me. And talking to me. I heard you. Where…where are the girls? Are they…?”

“They are safe, and they are well. Aunt Miara took them to get something to eat.” Keith gently strokes her hair and horns. “You my dear have two heroes on your hands. Cataleya took out an entire gun line in the middle sector by herself. Mireya single-handedly took out the heavy rifle emplacements in your sector. It would seem that our daughters are now seasoned combat veterans. They’re not little girls anymore, Acxa.”

Acxa closes her eyes for a moment as she desperately tries to hold back the tears. Opening them, she turns towards Keith, sadness reflected in her deep blue eyes. “Where are my girls? I need to see them. I need to…”

From the shadows, her daughters tentatively emerge. “We…we’re here Mom.”

Mireya rushes to Acxa’s side and buries her head against her mother’s arm. “Mom, I’m so sorry about what I said before the mission. I didn’t mean any of that. When I saw you go down, I…I went crazy. Mom, please forgive me. I’m a horrible daughter.”

Fully awake now and aware of her daughter’s mental state, Acxa easily slips back into Mom mode. “No Mireya…you are a wonderful daughter. I forgot how much you’ve grown these past two decaphoebs. You’re an adult now. It’s time I started treating you like one.”

She looks at Cataleya and calls her over. “It’s time I started treating both of you like the adults you are. I’m so proud of both of you.”

Keith looks on with pride at his family.

“Acxa, you need to rest. I’ll sit with you. You girls need to get some rest as well.”

Cataleya does not want to hear that. “Dad, we’re not leaving. We’re staying with you and Mom.”

Acxa looks at Keith. “You know they get their stubbornness from their father.”

“Said the pot to the kettle. Go to sleep, woman!”

“No! I’m going to lay hear and let my daughters entertain me with stories of their exploits.”

Keith looks first at Acxa, then at his daughters.

“And your mother says I’m the stubborn one…”

1 Rejected by the Galra, Chapter 14 The Shared Path

2 Return of the Prince, Chapter 14, Cry of the Wolf

3 Rejected by the Galra, Chapter 12 Lions Pride

[banashee]

Part 6/25 of my @badthingshappenbingo​ round 2

Prompt: Denied food as a punishment

This is also Part 1 of a new series: “Like a ghost in the back of my mind”

please mind the tags and warnings!

 A growing emptiness

 A big part of his childhood, Clint spends either hungry or worrying about food.

 He learns early on to take food whenever possible, because the likelihood of there not being any later is high. Most of the time, it’s due to poverty. This is often paired with his father (or later, other caretakers) spending money on booze rather than food. Satisfying their own needs instead of feeding the kids. Sadly, he is used to it and so he learns to eat whenever possible, whatever he can get his hands on any. Clint isn’t picky at all.

 He’ll eat something even though it may be off. Clint has scraped mold off of bread more than once, forced himself to choke down something he doesn’t like at all, because it’s still better than nothing.

 Sometimes, when things get bad, he’ll steal food.

 He is ashamed of it, but not enough to stop. Running from someone who is angry he took some sort of fruit or vegetable from their garden is much preferred to digging through a trashcan. He does that, too. Some days, he’s got no other choice, especially if he managed to piss off Duquesne or Chisholm and they decide to cut him off.

 “Pissing them off” can mean many things, and as much as Clint can be sassy or big mouthed when he wants to, more often than not, it’s not even anything he said.

 He might not train hard enough to their liking, he might fail because he is sick or distracted. Any number of things that are out of his control.

 Sometimes, they just feel like it. “You owe us your life” they’ll say, or “I decide if you’ll eat or not. Today you won’t.”

 Clint gets used to this, too. It is one of the biggest reasons he’ll hoard food whenever he can get any. Occasionally, Barney or Chisholm will find it, and then all hell breaks loose, leading to more yelling, more bruises, more cuts or broken bones.

 He is more careful after that. Clint also gets used to ignoring hunger - he’s been used to it long before, but living the way he does only makes it worse.

 It’s not until much, much later when Clint is an adult and with SHIELD that he realizes just      how     fucked up his upbringing really was.

 Yes, it hurt, and yes it sucked, in countless different ways. But he never knew anything else back then.

 The thing is, if it happened to anyone else, he’d have started a riot for their cause. But him? That’s just how things are and better deal with it he kept telling himself.

 Now, that Clint is older and out of this environment,  he has learned that, despite his experiences, not all people are bad.

 There are people who love and support him, people who see more in him than someone who is worth something because of his skillset. People who see him as a friend because of him, and not what he can do.

 Until he gets there, it is a long way.

 Clint doesn’t trust anyone, avoids personal interactions whenever possible. It’s easier to protect himself that way. The one exception is Agent Phil Coulson, who has recruited him - that is, he pulled him out of a shithole and offered a new job, a new life. Him being his assigned handler helps, too. No one else wants to deal with him, and he’s okay with that.

 He’ll do his job and do whatever is asked of him, but he doesn’t want anyone around him, really. People mean risk means attack means loss of control.

 Never again.

 Apart from the obvious, working with SHIELD also means a lot more freedom than he had before. Sure, he’d spent 3 years on the streets and working highly illegal jobs, but he really doesn’t count “on the run” as freedom. The army, circus or foster care don’t come anywhere near that word and neither does any other part of his childhood.

 Now, he has legal work with times and places to be when it’s ordered, but he’s got a place to go back to, a bed to sleep in and a cafeteria that’s open 24/7.

 If he is being honest, that last part is kind of overwhelming. Especially in the first days and weeks, he expects the access to it to be revoked at any time, to find the doors closed some day. It never happens, but it doesn’t stop him from squirreling more bread rolls and packets of chips for later into his pockets. No one notices, or if they do, no one calls him out of it. It is as good as permission as it gets.

 The thing is: Clint is used to starvation. He never really had regular meals, it was always eat whatever you can, how much you can and then hide more for bad times. Sometimes, that meant 6000 calories in one day and a few granola bars over the course of the next week.

 It’s a pattern he is used to, and as such, his visits to the cafeteria are few and far between, but he does pack away more than most when he is there.

 Clint doesn’t think anyone would care enough to notice.

 He is wrong.

 Clint has been with SHIELD for several months when Phil Coulson approaches him after a meeting. There are other Agents present, so he simply tells him, “Barton, a word please.” while walking past, trusting that he’ll follow him. He does.

 When the door to Coulson’s office closes behind then, Clint asks,

 “What’s up, boss?”

 “Sit, please. This isn’t strictly work-related, but it worries me.” Phil knows he needs to be careful how he approaches this situation, because Barton doesn’t trust most people. He does, however, trust him, which is half the reason he is talking to his asset about this when most would have booked him an appointment with psych with no questions asked. In this case, it would be a sure way to lose whatever trust Barton managed to build in the past few months since he joined the organisation.

 Clint sits down on the chair across from Coulson, frowning. He isn’t sure where this is going, and he hates that.

 “Yes?” he asks curtly, waiting for more explanation.

 Coulson speaks deliberately, keeping his body language open. The last thing he wants is for this to come across as accusatory.

 “It’s something I noticed, and to be honest, I think you need help. Ever since you joined us, I’ve never seen you eat anything for more than a few times a week. Let alone multiple times a day. Not here or when we are out on missions…”

 A deep flush creeps up Barton's neck. He isn’t angry, which surprises him. But he is deeply embarrassed that someone noticed his patterns.

 “Oh.” he says, and stays silent for a bit. Thankfully, Coulson lets him, waits for him to say anything else.

 “It’s fine, I’m used to it.”

 Except, it isn’t fine.

 It’s never affected his work before, but things get stressful and then, a mission goes to shit in all the wrong ways.

 The circumstances are out of anyone's control, but when it gets down to it, people die and Clint, who has a bullet stuck in his shoulder, can’t react fast enough to save them all.

 He finally gets a clear shot and with pain shooting through him, he manages to bring down the men who shot a group of civilians and two of their agents just seconds before, saving the remaining people. Unfortunately, they can’t do anything to help either their two agents or the family that was captured by them. One teenanger, a toddler and two adults. All of them are dead.

 He failed.

 Cold dread and nausea rise in Clint, and he manages to find an empty corner of the rooftop he is perched on before he is sick all over the place.

 He is dry heaving while the Senior Agent whose name he keeps forgetting yammers into the commlink, causing it to blow out with certain tones that are painful despite his already shitty hearing. The sensation makes it all worse, but Clint can’t talk, choking and coughing still, when suddenly, his private channel to Coulson crackles to life.

 It’s always in place, no matter what. Clint doesn’t trust anyone else like he trusts Coulson, and he appreciates him looking out for him that way. He is always more comfortable, when he knows that there is a line of communication open with him.

 “Barton, status report. Talk to me.”

 Clint chokes on air and stomach fluid again - there isn’t anything but water that he could throw up, but his body is reacting violently. There is blood, dripping from his shoulder and soaked uniform onto the floor. As much as he wants to say anything, he can’t.

 “Stay put, I’m coming.”

 With the other Senior Agent still yelling over the comms, with the pain, guilt and panic in his chest and dizziness in his head, Clint can’t focus on anything. He collapses on the floor, uncaring whether or not he lands in the mess, gasping for air and trying to get a grip on himself.

 Then, Coulson appears by his side. He faintly notices that he is talking to him, but he can’t make out his words. He is too far gone, and then he starts to black out. Part of Clint is glad that he can blame the tears in his eyes on pain from his bullet wound and the fact that he’s spent the last few minutes throwing up violently, but even in his sorry state, he knows he’s fucked up.

 When Clint wakes up, he does so in a hospital bed, drugged with pain medication. He hates it immediately, because hospitals, in his experience, are one of the unsafest places one could ever be in. He’s forced to stay in bed, hooked up to machines or IV lines, people know where he is and who he is and there is no way of defending himself in this state.

 His heartbeat speeding up and breathing gets hard. Before he can do anything else, a warm hand is placed onto his arm, and it takes Clint a while to realize that it’s Coulson, who is talking to him, trying to help and he doesn’t leave.

 Clint is too out of it to say or do anything about it. After a while, he falls back asleep.

 He doesn’t eat.

 The nurses pick up full trays every time, and they, along with the doctors and most of all, Coulson, express their concern.

 “I’m not hungry.” he insists every time, and gets more irritated with every attempt to talk about this.

 It must be a trick - Clint knows he fucked up, people died because of him. There is no reason he should eat - if he tries to take anything, things will get so much worse, and in his current state, he would be unable to defend himself. Better not risk it - he isn’t going to eat.

 At this point, Clint isn’t even half aware of how wrong this mindset is, and just how much damage was done to him over the years to believe all of those things. Another reason for this, that only occured recently: it is his way to stay in control over himself. No one can force him to eat, and no one can take it away from him.

 He is the one in control, even when he loses weight quicker than ever.

 Medical wants to keep him there, not because his injuries would demand it, but because he isn’t taking anything but liquids.

 Clint disagrees - he is fine, he insists, and takes the next opportunity to bolt when it presents itself.

 He hides out in his bathroom, doors locked, sitting on the cold tile floor and shaking apart.

 He is overwhelmed, anxious with guilt, nauseous from hunger and crying soundlessly out of sheer habit. It doesn't matter - there is no one around to watch him.

 Part of him is angry and disappointed with himself - being with SHIELD was the best chance he’s ever had, and he messed up after such a short amount of time. The aftermath sure doesn’t help, and all he wants is to get away. It might be less painful than being kicked out.

 He doesn’t know what to do, so Clint just keeps hiding until there is somebody at his front door,  knocking intently. He curses it, but eventually drags himself to the door and opens - he knows he can’t escape forever.

 To his surprise, he isn’t faced with an entire team of agents to be hauled away. The only person there is his handler, and Phil Coulson looks more worried than anything else. His frown only deepens when he sees Clint.

 To be fair, he really doesn’t look good at all. He’s lost a lot of weight, hasn’t slept and is holding onto sanity with his bare teeth at this point.

 “Hi Boss. You here to kick me out?” he rasps, and the look he gets in response is puzzled.

 “No, of course not. May I come in?”

 Clint steps aside, letting him in. He doesn’t look back while shuffling to the living room, and it is clear that his shoulder is still giving him trouble. Despite his best attempts to hide it, it is obvious to Phil, who is close behind him.

 Once they’re sitting down, Clint remains silent. He is fidgeting with the fabric of a throw blanket, waiting for Coulson to talk - if he isn’t here to kick him out of SHIELD, he really doesn’t know why he would bother to come.

 “To be honest, Barton, I’m not entirely sure what is happening. But something isn’t right, and I hope that we can find a solution.”

 It’s all he can do to nod. He is exhausted and besides, he doesn’t know what he could say, either.

 Coulson continues, “The last mission…” but Clint pales at the thought of it and he can’t stop himself from blurting out,

 “I’m sorry. I know I fucked up. Wasn’t fast enough... Six people died...“

 “You got hurt.” Phil replies, looking over to the couch where his asset is slowly shrinking into himself. Shit. He really must have underestimated this young man’s state of mind. Carefully, he continues.

 “None of this is your fault - did you think we would blame you for the outcome?”

 This seems to genuinely confuse him. “Uh - yes?”

 Slowly shaking his head, Phil replies,

 “No. Sometimes, things just go wrong and there is nothing we can do about it, except our best. You were injured, which you reported, and you still managed to save five other people. This is more than we could have hoped for. You did a good job out there, especially under the circumstances.”

 “...Right.” It doesn’t sound like Clint believes it. He doesn’t have a reason to - nothing he knows or lived through would have indicated that something like this wasn’t to be blamed on anyone - probably him.

 “I understand that this is hard. We have mental health professionals to help with that sort of thing, and I think it would be of benefit for you to talk to them.”

 Clint remains silent - he doesn’t trust them. He has talked to them, right after joining the organisation - it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Giving away any kind of personal information makes him want to crawl out of his skin and hide somewhere. People knowing details about him is a dangerous thing, and as much as they’d needled and pushed, Clint managed to keep quite a bit to himself still. He is ridiculously proud of that.

 Right now though, he is tired. So very tired.

 “I don’t trust them.” he confesses silently.

 Phil nods slowly. He figured as much, understands even - he, too, isn’t too keen on sharing certain issues. But it is a well needed support system that exists for good reason. This is what he says, surprising both himself and Barton with his words, but truth be told, this is everything but a professional conversation. He wants to help, not just because Clint is his asset - he cares, on a personal level. Phil cares for all agents, especially the ones assigned to him.

 But something in this young man in front of him brings out his protective streak. It doesn’t matter that Barton is well trained in armed and unarmed combat, amongst other skillsets. He is 22 years old and as far as Coulson can tell, he’s never had a single soul he could trust or rely on in his life and he is determined to change that.

 “Medical say they’re concerned about you coping. And so am I. Have been for a while, actually.”

 It is clear that Phil refers to their conversation in his office a little while back. Clint sighs heavily.

 “I’m not very good at it right now.”

 He is beyond exhausted at this point, or he wouldn’t have opened up at all. As sad as it may be, but his handler is the only person who hasn’t fucked him over yet. He really hopes it stays that way.

 “It’s just that, I’m used to things going certain ways.” Clint explains, rubbing a hand over his face. Then, he suddenly finds himself talking about the circus.

 He is talking about food and shelter constantly being held over his head and how he eventually started to take back control in the only way he knew how. He is talking about starving and binge eating on purpose at first, and later out of sheer habit. Clint talks about the way the latest mission specifically triggered all of this, and he is pathetically proud of himself for being able to keep his emotions in check the entire time. It’s hard, harder than usual - but he is sharing so much already. He can’t do more.

 Phil is listening to him without a word, careful to keep his face even. On the outside, he is calm and collected, but the more he listens, the more furious he gets. There is no other way to say it. Seething anger boils in him, directed at every single person responsible for years of abuse and mistreatment of a child who grew up to be a damaged adult, still doing his best and thinking it isn’t enough.

 For how long he is talking, Clint wouldn't be able to tell. But once he is done, the room is completely silent and he is staring at a stain on the table - it’s easier than facing the fact that he just told all of these things to another human being. As much as it scares him, it may be just the right thing to do.

 Staring ahead and keeping his breathing as calm as possible is all he can do for now. But maybe, some day, he might be ready to accept help.

*+~

Warnings:

- Past Child Abuse - Food issues - Eating Disorder - Starvation - Denied food as punishment - Food hoardig - Dealing with related past trauma, PTSD - Death, dying children (non-graphic) - Vomiting - Blood and injury, gun wounds

[2ofswords]

I cannot draw but I still wanted to bother everyone with assigning Tarot cards for the Patho Characters. It just combines two fixations of mine and so I absolutely couldn’t resist. First and obvious disclaimer: Since I am only doing the major arkana and I have some more abstract concepts for the cards not every important NPC is assigned a card. I tried to include as many as I can by making some groupstuff but not everybody made it. Sorry Grief, I still love you!

Here is just the list, some ramblings and explanations are under the cut. (Btw. this is after the Rider Waite deck, since there are other tarot variations)

0 The Fool - Tragedian I The Magician - Isidor II The High Priestess - Clara III The Emperor - Big Vlad IV The Empress - Capella V The Hierophant - Khan VI The Lovers - The Saburovs VII The Chariot - Block VIII Justice - Dankovsky IX The Hermit - Rubin X Wheel of Fortune - Victor + Clockwork XI Strength - Notkin + Jester XII The Hanged Man - Eva + Cathedral XIII Death - Executor / Murky’s Friend XIV Temperance - Artemy XV The Devil - Immortell + The Theater XVI The Tower - Polyhedron + The Stamatins XVII The Star - Lara XVIII The Moon - Maria XIX The Sun - Sticky and Murky XX Judgement - Aglaya  XXI The World - The Town

The Fool: I mean... not much to say here. I wanted to include some more abstract and general things, since I couldn’t bare to put anything but the town itself as the world. And the Tragedians are such an important part of Pathologic that fit the Fool quite well. 

The Magician: Isidor just has this role as a powerful figure and this “controlling the forces of nature” thing that the magician has going on. And he has a face which at least makes including him in a deck... doable. Not that it really matters here but even inner visualization is fun. Btw. I also had this image of Rubin as a Magician where the table on the Rider Waite deck is the autopsy table with Simon on it. That was nice but Rubin as a character just makes for a better Hermit and again, I think Isidor is a nice fit as an important power figure with mystical inclinations and this controlling aspect. If we want to include a character that is alive in the game, Georgiy and his house in the crucible would also be a good fit.

The High Priestess: Again one I find easy to justify. The High Priestess as the person inclined to the mystical nature behind things works really well for Clara. Also the high priestess is considered to have the highest mythological value in Tarot, so this is kind of nice. Clara has a lot of Cards that fit her, but this one is a position not a lot of other characters fit into. Another person I could see as the High Priestess is Aspity though.

The Emperor: I once wanted to have the head of every ruling family here, to also include Gerorgiy in the deck but then I got a big problem with the lovers and the lack of canon relationships to represent it, so we only get him. That’s fine too, even if I would love to exclude him in favour of some characters, I appreciate more.

The Empress: Capella fits perfectly and I kind of like to keep this cards to the Olgymski’s, because it does make for a nice connection in between. But the nurturing way of ruling is nicely represented by her.

The Hierophant: Khan is also a person of mystical inclinations and also a very strict keeper of secrets that fits with the Hierophant. He is a leader and having him next to Capella in the Arkana also fit quite well, so I like him in this spot a lot.

The Lovers: Again, the lovers are kind of a character set, so having multiple here was just a nice touch. I think Saburov and Katerina are the only couple that really fit for me, since their love for each other is a very important aspect of their characterization while most other characters are very independent. (There is an amazing version of the Saburovs as the lovers by Yura btw.) I have discussed a patho tarot and there was also Clara brought up as a possibility but that could have been interpreted visually in a bad way… Still I think the theme of connection and love would also fit her quite well.

The Chariot: The army arrives with the train which already made this quite fitting just by imagining the card. Also including the Canon which is, driving the plot and time forward by brute force. (After all the army strike marks the end of the game.) His arrival and appearance in the game just marks a “point of no return” driving the game to it’s conclusion, so it’s a nice reference for him. Character-wise there might be better fits for him but… I don’t know I think it fits the narrative.

Justice: Yeah, I know, weird fit for Dankovsky. To be honest, if I could decide freely my favourite place for him would have been “The Fool” but I really wanted to include the Tragedian and that one literally only fits there and it’s pretty much perfect. And I wanted to have the Polyhedron for the Tower (and the Stamatins fit there also quite well), while giving all healers their own space, so that was also taken… Justice is my third option for him. I think it still fits, especially with the opening and the “You will act justly but the justice will blind you and become his demise” Also the visual of blindfolding him can also be a nice metaphor. ^^

The Hermit: Come on, Rubin just makes for a great Hermit! His whole way of dealing with the plague has a “lone wolf” vibe and he has this silent wisdom and knowledge. Also a lot of self-contemplation even if it mostly consists of him thinking that he is a bad person. God, now I have made myself sad for Rubin yet again…

Wheel of Fortune: I just couldn’t shake the image of Victor and one of the game saving Clocks for this one so this it is! I mean, a Clock as a wheel of Fortune just makes sense, especially in a game where time is of the essence and the rather abstract card also fits the Kains. There are some other cool options though, involving either Grief and his gear filled warehouse or the fellow traveller with dice (though this also would be a brilliant death card)

Strength: Artemy could also be a strong contender for this one, but I wanted to include Notkin and his connection to animals fits rather nicely. His way of applying force but also being tender and caring fits the card well, I think.

The Hanged Man: Again, one of the cards where I just couldn’t shake the image and Eva barely hanging onto the cathedral’s railing with her foot will now haunt me forever. I could also see Yulia for this one though since she has a rather contemplative way of thinking that is about dealing with one’s fate while bearing and contemplating it.

Death: Again, if we include some more abstract characters there is just no way around the Executors and Death is just a no brainer for them. They are literally a costume for death in game. The fellow Traveller could obviously work as well.

Temperance: I have seen a card with Artemy as Temperance by sneez and it just blew my mind since the card fits him perfectly and since then I just cannot imagine him as anything else (even if I have also seen some amazing versions with him as strength and this is also a very fitting card). His whole attitude being about preserving and offering stability is just amazing. Also it is a card about upholding duty so… heck yeah!

The Devil: I will be honest with you, I am not satisfied with putting Mark Immortell and the Theatre here. It is fitting but a bit too much on the nose and I think it lets the theatre appear a bit blander than it is. I just have literally no other idea about what to do with the devil. Also I wanted to include the theatre and both my other spots – judgement and wheel of fortune – where kind of occupied… At least you can use the image to maybe chain Mark to either the puppet versions of the main characters or to the tragedians and have the whole “who is controlling who?” thing in there, which is also nice.

The Tower: I definitely wanted to use the Polyhedron there. The Stamatins can be here too. Firstly because I just tried to fit more characters into the deck and secondly because forcing things to be broken in order to be rebuild is kind of their thing. It still has the tower theme with them and is not only “look! It’s a tower! For the… Tower!”

The Star: Lara is a very nurturing and also honest person which fits the star very well. It is a card about harmony and selflessness but still has a rather nocturnal side, which is also nice. Also the Rider Waite deck shows a woman getting spring water, which fits her fabled barrel quest and her hunt for supplies to give to other people.

The Moon: I mean the moon exactly has the vibe that fits Maria and the mistresses in general. It is about inner power, dreams and inner darkness, which fits the Scarlet mistress. It also links to her mother the mistress of the night quite well.

The Sun: A bright card and a card that literally shows children, so including Sticky and Murky here might be simple but is also quite nice. I think they would make for a very cute and happy card and god, we need some of them here!

Judgement: Aglaya often gets the justice card but that one was already taken. I also kind of think that judgement fits her slightly better, since she is the person judging the situation and her giving out sentences and defining what crime is, is kind of her thing. She also is a power house who appears more at the end and decides, so putting her in one of the most important and strongest cards in the deck feels quite fitting. The picture of a person who stands above the rest to tell what shall be told also… literally happened in one of the theatre plays, which is a nice touch and the inquisition gets compared to angels as well.

The world: I mean… the town is the world and it also fits the “completion and harmony” vibe, even if it is also fractured. Not to get sappy, but for me the town and it’s different aspects felt always more complete than any of the endings and it is the thing, that makes the game what it is in the first place. It is… kind of everything what is happening, the game is about the town and it is the protagonist (as it is stated in the Artbook (god that sentence reads like the Artbook is the holy text of Pathologic xDD)). I just think it fills this card the best and having the town as its own entity and character just feels right for me.