#just oscillating between despair and contentment

[explvrer]

look at this plate i painted !!! she is food safe but she is too frickin pretty to eat out of and potentially damage!!

[musicarenagh]

Mia Van De Loo's debut EP "Open Book" is perfect. Mia Van De Loo's debut EP "Open Book" unveils her musical vulnerability similar to a tentative spring bloom embracing the gentle sunlight. As countless newcomers carefully wade into music's turbulent waters, Mia takes the plunge, powered by silky, sultry vocals transforming raw emotion into resonant strength. https://open.spotify.com/album/36zpu4pT5wYi7eHFB0mI1e The five tracks tap into universal love and loss themes via intimate personal tales. The radiant single and my personal favourite “fairytale” dazzles like a jewel, resonating with any who've relished love's fleeting euphoria. Throughout this cathartic collection, Mia traverses varied soundscapes where strings/piano intertwine in indie symphony infused with folk. Her voice oscillates hope and lyrical despair, blending Florence’s soulful flare within Norah’s poetic elegance. From first crushes to heartbreaks, Mia chronicles the winding journey of youth – the slippery slope between crushed dreams and lofty ambitions. She artfully avoids clichés through inventive metaphors wrapped in melodies faintly recalling Joni Mitchell or early Sara Bareilles. [caption id="attachment_53228" align="alignnone" width="2000"] Mia Van De Loo's debut EP "Open Book" is perfect.[/caption] As expected, “Open Book” exudes raw authenticity too frequently polished out of modern music but saturating these tracks reflecting Mia’s metamorphosis toward self-realization. For fans wanting evocative lyrics aligned with vocal prowess, Mia etches her name among intrepid predecessors revealing their intimate evolution transparently. Though surely promising, a few tracks remain in cozy terrain without daring exploration. And occasionally the lyrics favor grand metaphor over palpable detail. Yet overall, “Open Book” exhibits creative genesis beyond mere talent – an ascending voice ready to spread her wings and abandon the familiar nest. This fledgling wordsmith may soon unfurl iconic anthems destined for singer-songwriter royalty. The EP proposes Mia boasts the stellar vocal control and nuanced songwriting abilities to potentially achieve the storied status of Mitchell/Bareilles with experience. But for now, this novice appears content mapping her own course gradually as she evolves into her artistic identity. Where that journey leads long-term remains thrillingly undefined – much like this initial foray "Open Book" suggests more tantalizing treasures await just beneath the tentative surface. follow Mia Van De Loo on Website, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

[ridofme1993]

oscillating between feeling content and just feeling despair. like something is wrong with my body.

[wardenannie]

A lot of baby/pregnancy fic tends to focus on the end of pregnancy/the beginning of the baby’s life. But I wanted to do a little character study into Levi, so here he is over the course of 10 hours after learning Hange is preggo~  (mildly nsfw)

Ao3

10 Hours

Hour 0

 “So...” She faces away from him. Her single eye locked on the sky beyond her window. Hange Zoe, fourteenth Commander of the Survey Corps, will not turn to face him. She is sat at her desk, hands folded on its top. Levi cannot see her expression, but he expects that it is as grim as her tone. 

He braces himself for bad news. 

“I’m pregnant.” 

The birds beyond the window stop singing. The clouds cease their trek across the cerulean sky. Levi’s breath is stuck in his chest, a painful lump between his lungs. 

“Come again?”

This time she does look at him, pinning him to the floor with an emotionless glance over her shoulder. 

“Pregnant. Expecting. Vertically impaired bun in the proverbial oven.” 

The short joke is lost on him. He exhales sharply, like someone punched him in the gut, “Oh.” 

Hange sighs and resumes her staring out the window, “Just think on it. You don’t need to say anything right now.” 

Levi swallows thickly and gladly takes the excuse to exit the room. His head is spinning, heart thundering in his chest. Pregnant. It doesn’t feel real yet. 

He retreats to the relative safety of his quarters. 

Hour 1

Levi punches a hole in his wall with a snarl. Untoward anger radiating through his limbs. 

Sheetrock and plaster rain down, dirtying his pristine floor, further incensing him. He kicks a second hole in the wall, shouting with the impact of his booted heel. More debris falls. 

He paces back and forth, occasionally tugging a hand through his hair. He’s sweating, he feels filthy. 

But he knows that Hange isn’t lying. This is not the sort of sick joke she would pull. But they had been so careful, hadn’t they? 

He replays the penultimate moments of their last few encounters over in his head, and quickly realizes that they haven’t been as careful as he’d thought. There is nothing quite like losing himself in the depths of Hange... Commander Hange. 

Shit. He curses himself and perches on the foot of his bed, resting his head in his hands. 

What the fuck is he supposed to do now? 

Hour 2

Eventually he finds himself spread eagle across his bed. His eyes trace along the wooden grain of the ceiling. His head still spins when he thinks too deeply about anything, and a strange ache has settled into his chest, like a fist around his heart. 

Does he love Hange Zoe? Would it be fair to bring a child into the world if he didn’t? 

They’ve never said the words aloud to one another, but he knows in his heart-of-hearts that he does love her. She anchors him to reality, instills in him a drive to live where there might have only been despair. 

His fists clench and unclench rhythmically in his linens. Levi shuts his slate eyes and breathes deeply, trying to calm and steady himself. 

He is in love with Hange Zoe. He can admit that to himself now, in what feels like the most dire of circumstances. 

But can he love a child? Is there enough room in his heart? 

He rolls onto his side and covers his face with a pillow. 

It still feels unreal. A bad dream playing out before his waking eyes. 

Hour 3

He oscillates back into denial, then anger. 

Who are they to bring a child into this terrible, cruel world? An Eldian child, a scapegoat, a martyr for Marley to string up and burn. 

She has to be lying. Hange cannot possibly be telling him the truth. No Walls, no Gods, no omnipotent powers could be so terribly sordid as to bring an infant into the world now. Not while they are on the brink of war. 

Hour 4

He remembers his childhood; years spent wasting away in a whorehouse. Starving while his mother wasted her ill-gotten wages on booze. Levi was a bastard, fatherless. The only male role-model he’d ever had was Kenny, and look where that had gotten him. 

“I can’t be a father,” he whispers into the dying light of his quarters. 

He doesn’t know how. 

Hour 5

He takes his supper in the mess hall when he would normally eat within the privacy of his quarters. He hopes that the noise might distract, that interacting with his... his kids... might help him to better grasp his current situation. 

The irony of it isn’t lost on him as he sits in silence amongst his young comrades. In a way he has been a father to them where their own had become titan food. 

He watches Sasha scarf her food with abandon, Connie teasing her between his own hearty mouthfuls. He watches Jean roll his eyes at the two of them, then take a moment to proudly pet the patchy stubble that has begun to grow in around his chin. 

Levi listens to Armin excitedly pontificate to Mikasa and Eren about Marlean cuisine and meal customs. Mikasa listens on in contented silence, a small smile on her lips. Eren’s eyes are distant, like he isn’t listening at all. 

Levi wants to smack him on the back of his head. The twerp has been acting up a lot more as of late. Secretly, it worries him. 

His kids. 

Who needs a baby when they have it this good? 

He sighs and looks down to his tray, food untouched. 

They’re Hange’s kids, too. 

Their baby. Theirs. 

Hour 6

He returns to his quarters, stomach tied up in painful knots. He remembers Kenny, how the man had taught him the cruel, ruthless ways of the Underground. 

He remembers Isabel and Furlan. How he had allowed himself to love so selflessly only to be burned and brutalized in the end. What if that happened to Hange? Hange who he had come to rely on more than anything, anyone. Childbirth was a dangerous thing, everyone knew that. Even with the new, fancy anti-biotics being imported from the mainland the risks were high. 

What if he lost her? 

Her remembers Erwin who he had loved as a father, a brother, a martyr and a dear comrade. He remembers his Commander dying on that rooftop in Shiganshina. He remembers the blood. Icy blue eyes cold and dead as Hange peeled back his lids. 

Levi’s stomach rolls and he flips his upper half over the side of the bed and promptly vomits onto the floor. 

Behind his eyes an image has begun to take shape. Hange laid out in bed, naked from the waist down. Bloody, sweaty, weak and dying as a shapeless creatures squalls on her chest. 

“No,” Levi rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

He feels so weak, so helpless in the face of this indominable thing. The sleep that takes him is unbidden and restless. 

Hour 7

Levi dreams of a cabin tucked away amongst the massive boles of the trees beyond wall Rose. Smoke rises from the chimney, filling the crisp forest air with a pleasant, homey smell. 

Sunlight breaks through the canopy and speckles the ground. Everything is bright and beautiful and alive. The simple wooden door of the cabin beckons to him, and he is helpless but to answer its call. 

Inside the space is cozy and quaint. The kitchen and living area inhabiting the same space. Hange is waiting for him, sitting on a small, plush sofa. She isn’t wearing her eye patch, revealing the milky iris and silvery scar she usually guards so carefully. 

“Levi,” she beams at him. For a moment he is stunned by her simple, unkempt beauty. 

He knows he is meant to be anxious over something, but suddenly he cannot remember what it is. 

He sits down beside her takes her face between his hands and kisses her. 

I love you, he wants to admit the truth. He’s ready. But his lips will not part. The words will not pass his tongue. 

When they part Hange’s expression darkens, long shadows falling over her hawkish features. 

“Levi...” she breathes. 

Shadows begin to creep in from the corners of the cabin. The walls suddenly feel as though they are caving in, and suddenly his peaceful dream has become a nightmare. 

“You’re pregnant,” The sound of his own voice is alien and distant in his ears. He feels small. Smaller than usual. Miniscule and helpless. Why can he speak now? 

Hange nods and then the pair of them are besieged by shadows. 

Hour 8

Levi sits bolt upright in his bed, sweat is gathered on his brow and sharp shivers wrack his limbs. He pants and wipes his face with his palm. 

“Fuck,” he curses. 

He’s used to nightmares, but more often than not Hange is in bed beside him waiting to soothe them away. 

Here, in his quarters, he is completely and utterly alone. 

Levi doesn’t want to be alone anymore. 

He tugs on his boots and stumbles out into the hallway, not caring how disheveled he must appear to any passers-by. He wants to be with Hange, he’s cursing himself for leaving her alone to begin with. 

How selfish does that make him? He’s not the one bearing the brunt of this burden. It isn’t his body and life that are at risk. What must she be feeling now? All alone because her lover left her in a fit of selfish upset. 

When he reaches her door he doesn’t bother to knock. It opens with a rush of air and he finds her where he left her; sitting at her desk, gazing out the window. Her elbows rest on the dry ink of a half finished letter. 

“Levi?” She spins sideways in her chair, facing him entirely. 

He shakes his head and closes the distance between them in two easy strides. He seizes her face between his hands and kisses her roughly, because he isn’t good with words, so he’ll show her how he feels. 

“Mmpf!” She makes a noise of surprise, but then she melts into him, hands lifting to rest on his chest, then caressing around to link behind his neck. 

When they part she gives a small, sad smile and says, “I didn’t think I’d see you again tonight.” 

“I was being an idiot,” Levi grunts, and he helps her to her feet. “A selfish idiot.” 

“No you weren’t, Levi. It’s a lot to take in, I know,” her thumb brushes his lower lip. “I love you.” 

Hour 9

The words are difficult to speak, so he shows her out he feels. He shows her in the reverent way he peels her clothes from her body, the rough, desperate caress of his touch, the slide of his thin lips over her chin and collarbones and breasts. 

He holds her hips and kisses from her navel to her abdomen, and he kisses her there too because despite everything he does want this baby. He loves this baby already, because it is him and it is Hange. The best of the both of them taking shape in her womb. 

Levi abandons all gentleness as he makes love to her. It is animal. Primal. His hands will leave bruises on her hips, and his lips suck hers swollen. 

When he finishes, just after her, he doesn’t bother to pull out. It doesn’t matter anymore. And as he pumps himself into her he whispers raspy and desperate into her sternum, “I love you.” 

The words hurt in such a sublime way. He’s never said them before, not once in his life. But here he is, speaking them, meaning them, bleeding them from his soul into hers. 

He loves her, and he’ll love this baby, too. 

Hour 10

They lay in bed, Hange’s fingers comb rhythmically through his hair, and she presses the occasional kiss to his crown. 

Levi has one arm wound around her waist, his cheek pressed into her sternum, his other hand cupping her abdomen, thumb caressing gentle circles into the skin there. 

“I know you’re afraid,” Hange finally speaks. Her voice is soft and loaded with emotion. “I am, too. But I think we deserve this, Levi. It’s a chance for a life beyond the Survey Corps, for a real family.” 

Levi tilts his head up and kisses her gently. She’s right, but he still cannot help but remember his vision and his nightmare. 

“There’s so much that could go wrong,” his voice is pained. He holds her tighter. 

Hange sighs and rests her cheek on his head, “You’re not wrong, but we’ve got eight months to figure things out, okay? For tonight, just hold me.” 

Levi sighs and melts into her, shutting his eyes. 

In Hange’s arms his sleep is dreamless. 

[furious-rogue-stuff]

Heat Chapter 11: Plans - Part 1

Another chapter that ran away from me and had to be broken up into parts 😅 Chalk-full of self-indulgent stuff I think we all wish we could experience with our roguish agent - at least as far as I’m concerned anyway.

 If you’d like to be added to the tag list, please let me know~!

Pairing: Javier Peña x OFC | Javi x Querida

Disclaimer: Written in 2nd person narrative, you can safely assume our heroine and love/lust interest is a Latina, written by a Latina. Here's my philosophy on my writing, for further context.

Rating: Mature/Explicit 🔞

Word Count: 17,000+

Summary: Everything between you and Javi is bliss, and now that you feel safe with him, you find yourself hoping and planning things you'd never entertained. Will you find the courage to let your guard down and tell Javi some of these pining plans?

Warnings: Javier Peña being the best boyfriend we all want, graphic descriptions of sex, including explicit depictions of masturbation, oral (m receiving) and unprotected sex 🤭 Use of provocative pet names, mentions of emotional trauma, violence, and adult situations. Some slightly Dom!Javi, Possessive!Javi, and Soft!Javi. In the vein of Narcos being a bilingual show, and Javier Peña being fluent, I felt it was apropos to include Spanglish and Spanish throughout.

Chapter 1: Nicknames | Chapter 2: Tempest | Chapter 3: Solterita | Chapter 4: Cagey | Chapter 5: Want - Part 1| Chapter 6: Want - Part 2 | Chapter 7: Insecurities - Part 1 | Chapter 8: Insecurities - Part 2 | Chapter 9: Passion | Chapter 10: Peach |  Read at AO3

Taglist: @redsilentwolf28​ @just-here-for-the-moment​ @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan​ @mandosmistress​ @sarahjkl82-blog​ @omgreally​ @knittingqueen13​ @mamacitapascal​ @chronic-nosebleed​ @hnt-escape​ @eri16​ @gracie7209​ @casssiopeia​​ @athalien​​ @qwertymx​ @rosiefridayrogersunday​

Chapter 11: Plans - Part 1

Your heart has no room to worry about the insecurities you've allowed to call the shots for so long, so it becomes very easy for you to settle into a sublime routine with Javier again. It's bemusing when you try to recall all the other times this has happened, and find that you're not worried or bothered over how easily you disregard all the previous heartache and despair. For some reason, you've insulated yourself from it and can look at it as if it'd happened to another person – a far more fragile version of you that you don't really recognize, or can't recognize that you're now so happy.

It would be almost wondrous if you allowed yourself the whimsy to fixate on it. Instead, you revel in being Javi's, and find yourself blossoming to the hopeful thoughts and considerations you'd previously been so averse to acknowledging. But now, after he's nurtured the trust you have in him, and made his love abundantly clear, you pine to make him feel the same. Today is no different, even though you are positively sweltering.

It's an unseasonably warm day in the capital, and no amount of breeze is coming through your windows or the balcony doors. You've had to break out the oscillating fan, and are currently trying not to look bothered as a certain roguish DEA agent smugly lounges in the nude on your bed with just a towel draped loosely over his waist while he reads an intel file, as if content to drive you mad with his teasing smirks and stolen glances, pretending this is the most normal scenario.

You're sighing as you stand in front of the fan and let it blow warm air on you, hair pulled up in a bun at the top of your head while stray strands stick to your nape and temples. The pink spaghetti strap bra clings to you and your little cotton shorts are risqué from how you rolled them up at the waistband in order to shorten them and give your thighs and crotch a chance to breathe.

"My place has air-conditioning," Javi volunteers simply, and not for the first time, so you huff and shoot him a haughty glance. "Just sayin'—"

"You've said several times now, Javier," you admonish in a sulky sneer and fan yourself with a magazine, abandoning standing in front of the fan and grumbling as you go down the hallway to the fridge.

Javi snickers, loving how hot and bothered – literally – you're getting. After all, he's used to this muggy heat. Growing up in Laredo, it was pretty much hot as balls year-round, being right up against the border with Mexico, so while not the greatest, he isn't really sweating…well, having to sweat a little. You'd been silly enough to start getting dressed after waking up, having sex, and showering. And now in the early afternoon, the heat had caused you to abandon your top and pull your hair up in what he considered a flirty bun that gave him a lovely view of your hairline and the sweat that dripped down the nape of your neck to catch in the cotton of your flimsy bra after trailing down your back. He'd have to mimic its path with his mouth later, once you've cooled off from your moody snit.

Besides the sudden ornery discomfort with the heat, you both had spent the latter half of the week content. He'd picked you up after work and taken you to a quaint bistro, and you'd gone to your place after and spent most of the night making love and in sensual repose, murmuring to each other in bed under the starlight that filtered in through the open windows and the thin shroud provided by the curtains. Javier had filled you in on the meeting with Noonan being basically a 'three strikes and you're out' kind of reprimand, seeing as he and Steve had been tagging along with Search Bloc after they'd been told they were disbanding and needed to sit back. While there was nothing that documented that activity in an official capacity, she wasn't an idiot and knew they were doing it. So, she'd warned the two DEA agents that any other issue they could be implicated in would result in a suspension.

Sighing, you'd toyed with the hair that brushed his temple while confiding that a suspension was more preferable than getting rotated out and sent back to the states, which had earned a terse grunt from Javi before he picked up your hidden meaning, and exhaled in agreement with you.

After Friday's happy hour, you'd waited up for him to come over, and admittedly been a bit anxious to see what his mood would be, seeing as he'd been notoriously gruff about you being anywhere social with Luke. But, when you answered the door, he'd smirked down at you and swept you up in his arms after breezing through and kicking the door shut before marching with you to your bed, where he proceeded to ravish you all night.

You're thinking about it as you stand in front of the open freezer and let the cool air curl over you. On the third time, Javier had declared with possessive sweetness in his honeyed tone, "They all get to be around you at work and the bar, but you're mine when and where it matters: here, naked and wet, with my cock buried inside this glorious pussy."

Needless to say, you'd practically shaken apart from the force of your orgasm, and had been titillated after, when he divulged all the gossip he'd heard about the others at work – how guys in Centra Spike dared each other to hit on you, the time Mil Group were like a sewing circle ragging on Luke about how he'd blown it with you, and all the crass praise Lou preached about you to him and Steve. Smiling cleverly, you'd teased Javi about how cute he looked when he was grumpy with jealousy, and he'd scoffed and cheekily groped your ass while growling in a husky snit, "You're cute when you spout off nonsense like that, but for being a brat, roll over so I can fuck you from behind this time—"

Your cheeks are flushing at the raunchy memory, so you huff at yourself, snatch the item you'd originally come to the freezer for, and saunter down the hall back to your room. When you come in, you wryly roll your eyes and scoff at the sight of Javier lying all Burt Reynolds centerfold style on your bed with the towel clinging for dear life to stay tied around his hip as he enjoys the swaying air from the fan caressing across his back thanks to it's vigil in front of the mirror tucked in the corner.

"You cool down yet?" he distractedly asks as he reads over some coordinates scrolled on the side of a report.

"I'll get there," you muse and place the bowl of ice on the nightstand before shimmying out of your cotton shorts and tossing them aside. You're now in one of your skimpiest pair of panties, which are also pink cotton, that cling to your warm skin and leave nothing to the imagination as they contour thinly to your mound. Javier's casual glance becomes a full-on longing stare as he sees how the V of your mons pubis stands out – how the crotch of your panties are damp and sweat is clinging in a thin sheen to your torso and an intrepid bead trickles down from between your breasts to skim down the line of your stomach.

You feel him staring, so you make a big show of scooping a couple ice cubes from the bowl to caress them in the curve of your cupped fingers to glide down your neck and across your collarbones. Javier watches your nipples pebble and press up against the flimsy bra when you dip the ice between your cleavage and let the cold drippings soothe your warm skin, sighing wistfully as you angle to stand next to the bed and preen to catch the oscillating fan's latest pass of blowing air.

Javier mutters, "I know what you're doing," as he tears his leering stare away to feign like he's really going to keep reading his file, shifting to lie on his stomach and adjusting to prop up on his elbows with the file between them.

"Hmm?" you hum in a lilting tone and deliberately let one ice cube fall into the cleavage of your bra before trailing the other down your midriff.

Javi presses his lips together – having been watching you from the corner of his eye, and exhales a cleansing breath. "Keep it up, and the last thing you're gonna be is cool," he drawls flatly, but the edge of his tone holds that irresistibly smooth purr you love. "I have a perfectly good air-conditioned apartment—" his taunting mutter hisses to a halt when he feels the cold ice cube draw a languid line down his spine as you lean mischievously over and drag it lower between your fingers before giggling when he flinches as you drop it beyond his towel. The way he fidgets and jerks up tells you the cold wet cube skated down his ass, and you squeal a silly laugh when he snatches you up from around your waist and wrestles you effortlessly down on the bed.

"No! You're too warm—!" you laugh out and flail as he rolls his torso over yours while you goofily stretch your legs open and kick them out comically in a lame attempt to buck him off while he snatches his files away and tosses them to the floor.

"Goddamn little tease," he snickers between broody lips while his eyes crest with mirth. "So damned stubborn and snotty. You'd rather sweat and drive me wild than be nice and cool at my place—" he harangues playfully and you roll your eyes and snicker defiantly. "That's it, you've asked for it."

You have no chance to react when he shifts to grab your wrists and pin them at either side of your head before he bows his head and mouths at the melting ice cube you dropped between your breasts into your bra. It's almost melted away, but his tongue leaves a velvet heat over it that forces the ice to dissolve and edge free as a shard from the flimsy fabric. Javier laps it up and relishes as you gasp and arch, chuckling when you attempt to buck him off and only succeed in edging his towel from his hips and nudging his erection to skim flush with the crotch of your damp panties.

"Ahhng!" you hiccup in a gasp as you feel the head of his cock press into the hood of your clit. Javier grunts in that maddeningly sexy way, and rolls his hips so it increases the rutting pressure he knows you like against your pulsing bud, and when your wrists jerk in his grip and you bite your bottom lip, he's tempted to just get you off this way, but you thwart him by mewling, "Oh god, p-please let me strip, babe."

"Admit you're a devious little tease, and I will," he grouses smugly and ruts against you, earning a breathy whimper and the buck of your hips.

"I-I—I'm a devious little tease," you hiss, surly as you add, "And I want your cock inside me."

Javier is snapping up to lean back on his haunches and snatching your panties off at that, while you hastily tug your bra off and toss it. When you sit up to hook your arms around his shoulders, Javi nudges you back and reaches for the bowl of ice on the nightstand. "Let me cool you down first, diablita," is his tutted purr, resting the bowl close to your hip before taking a single cube between middle finger and thumb to press it to your neck, relishing how you whimper and tilt your slender throat back when he skims it down into the hollow there before tracing it along your clavicle.

Your nipples are already hard when the tip of the melting cube circles an areola, earning a hiss of excitement from you as you arch and sidle your calves to hook around his hips. "Javi," you sigh and lazily dampen your lips. "There's no amount of ice that's gonna cool me down right now—"

"Only one way to find out, mi amor," he chuckles and dips the cube to leave a melted wet trail down your stomach, around your navel, and over your mound before he glides it along your hot seam.

You gasp and stifle an enthralled mewl with the back of your hand while the other grabs fast at his wrist when he holds the cube against you and parts your folds with it. Javi lets you pull his hand away when you make a flustered sound as you squirm, and your little sigh is replaced with a needy hum as he presses the head of his cock where the ice cube had been. "Mmm, so much better," you gloat and pull his hand with the nearly melted cube to your lips.

He feeds it to you and watches as you slurp it showily while you bat your lashes at him. "Hmmph, you can be such a sinful little thing when you want, eh, querida? Just love to rile me the fuck up?" he rumbles as he drags the head of his cock through your soaked folds, watching you squirm deliciously. "You're my wicked little minx, aren't you," he purrs and starts to fondle a breast while he edges you with the head of his cock.

"Nngth-N-No, I'm your s-sexy solterita, n-not a minx," you contradict pristinely while he's literally getting his cock wet in your drenched folds.

"You're that and more," he husks as he pinches your nipple and you whimper and writhe, hands tucking against the front of your shoulders as you clenched them from desperately reaching to clamp around his broad frame and clinging to him. "You're my seductora divina, mi tentadora celestial," Javi rumbles hotly as he fondles his hand down your warm, sweat-beaded body to seat his thumb over the hood your clit as he begins to press his cock into your dimpled entrance. "M-My stunning hermosa—m-mi amada," he hitches tightly as he plunges his cock slowly into you, watching how you light up with pleasure at his words – how your eyes gleam and your lips part on a breathy sound before hiccupping into a delighted cry when he sheaths all the way in your silken heat.

The discomfort towards the heat is completely forgotten by you as Javi fucks you while the fan oscillates languidly in the corner, blowing air over your scorching skin every so often, the ambient buzz dimming the sounds of sweaty skin colliding at a scintillating pace as he drives you over the edge of a needy orgasm that has you mewling ardently. Javier prolongs your ecstasy by pivoting your legs up and clamping them shut so he can thrust through the rippling and impossibly tight clutch of your cunt. The position has you reeling with pleasure as you grip the bedding and dig your ankles into each other to not twitch wildly apart in his grip.

"So fucking hot—pussy strangling my cock like this—" Javi grits hoarsely as he pistons his thrusts just as your cunt floods and clenches around him. "I-I'll pull out and come on the towel, p-promise—"

"Cum goes inside me, Javi, or on me," you order on a tight whine, feeling yourself begin to wind up with another pulsing climax.

"Oh fuck, baby—" he begins to groan at your lascivious command, but when he feels your thighs tense and sees you clutch your eyes shut and exhale a wail, he can't hold back his orgasm any longer, so he pounds his cock hard into your quivering heat and shouts when he nestles deep and your walls clutch greedily around him as you come. His rough groan is at your ear when he hunches and folds your clamped legs over his shoulder after he ruts and growls as he pumps hot cum inside you.

When you recover, Javier is swearing, "Oh shit, fuck, baby, fuck—I'm sorry," as he scrambles up from where he collapsed over you – effectively folding you over yourself. Honestly though, it felt so good to get railed and doubled over by him that you're a little daftly befuddled while he keeps apologizing.

You giggle when he sits up and pivots your legs apart to ease down and bend at the knee on either side of his thighs before he goes to pull his cock out of you. "I'd swat you if I could move, querido. I'm fine. That was really hot," you sigh and smile dazzlingly up at him, loving how flustered he is and how he's trying to coax his awed expression into a flinty regard. "If you were doing something I didn't like, you'd know, babe," you weakly purr and smile when he huffs and bows over you.

He lets you wrap your arms around his broad shoulders and pull him to lie on top of you, uncaring of the muggy heat oscillating languidly in the room. After all, you've never felt more sated and sublime in your life. How you managed not to tip over the bowl of ice with all the bed's jostling is beyond you, but you can't help pluck a cube into your mouth and share it with him in a salacious kiss.

Once you've both taken a cold shower, you lie naked on the bed and eat ice cream out of the same carton, with the fan adjusted closer in a fixed non-oscillating setting. You share the same spoon, so you smile around the utensil in your mouth before he grunts and slips it free from your lips. "Aren't you from a tropical island? You should be built for the heat," he teases as he scoops a spoonful out of the carton and pops it into his mouth, mustachioed upper lip quirking puckishly when you wrinkle your nose goofily at him.

"Yeah, but this is a muggy heat at a high altitude. It feels heavier, and without a breeze?" you complain and sigh when he feeds you another spoonful.

"Good point. It is much more stifling than back home," Javier drawls, letting the air from the fan lull his eyes closed. "It wouldn't be so bad in my air-conditioned apartment—"

"Oh my god, if you repeat that one more time, I'm going to twist your nipple," you scathe acerbically and playfully flick your thumb teasingly over his left nipple for emphasis, earning a jolt from him before he fidgets to adjust the carton from where it sits on his chest to his stomach so he can thwart you. "Although you might be into that sort of thing—"

In his squirming, Javier jostles away and grits his teeth. "Maldita sea," he hisses snippily when the carton tips on his stomach and the cold spoon flops onto his midriff and spills the ice cream that was clinging onto it. "Great—"

You pick up the spoon and slip it boldly into his mouth while you adjust to sit up and lick the spilled, melting ice cream from his abs. You hear his teeth clink against the metal of the spoon when he grunts and etches his jaw tightly at the tantalizing sensation. "Mmm, strawberry-flavored Javi is really yummy," you tease and smile when he sits up and plucks the spoon from his mouth, drops it to the carton of ice cream and sets it aside as he loops his arm around your waist to herd you up against his hip.

"If it wasn't so fuckin' hot, I'd punish you—bend you over and eat ice cream off your phenomenal ass," he mutters with bawdy surliness, loving how you tense and suppress a little shiver of thrill when he tips your face up by your chin and purrs, "Maybe it'll happen once the sun goes down and it's cooler out."

While sweltering, it's a glorious weekend you spend holed up in your apartment with Javi, and regardless of your past resentments and trepidations, you do end up fantasizing about what it'd be like to stay in his self-proclaimed air-conditioned oasis. But even thinking about a big leather couch raises your hackles, so you don't voice your interest to him on possibly spending time at his place. Once the heat wave abates a couple of days later, though, you sideline the idea entirely and enjoy spending time with him, away from work, especially since you don't really get to see him around the embassy as much as you do folks from other departments.

You hope that'll change once you onboard CIA and then the DEA will have no excuse in holding out against the program, but they are the resident cowboys of the place, so you're going to bide your time. You tease Javi about it on your drives to work and he coyly grins, knowing as far as he and Steve were concerned, they were going to duck and dodge C.O.'s plans as long as possible. Really, you're not even bothered and find his stubborn hesitance to tech cute and endearing, because it's totally unavoidably inevitable, so you smile and wink at him whenever he thinks he's made a compelling argument to you against he and Steve being in the program.

It's insane how ridiculously happy and content you are in this moment.

Everything feels lighter and hopeful – helping you feel buoyant and unselfconscious about your feelings, about how much you love Javi and the yearning that simmers in knowing he loves you back. The closer you get to the middle of the week, you're feeling so good that you even start to consider mentioning how your birthday is the following Monday, not because you expect a gift or anything, but because you'd like to spend it with him.

You're deliberating mentioning it after dinner one night while you both lounge on your couch and watch the news. The balcony doors are open and the breeze is it's normal, brisk cool flourish as it refreshingly fills your apartment on the night air. Javier is nuzzling lazy kisses into your neck while you blithely recline between him and the back of the couch, fingers drawing circles in that spot just behind his ear that soothes him, when you think you finally have the motivation to mention it.

Then, his satellite phone rings from where it's stored in his duffle bag by the door. You hide your frown as he sits up and goes to retrieve it before answering with a crisp, "Peña."

He paces down to the hall as he talks in Spanish, so you settle on the couch, tucking your legs under yourself and leaning on the armrest covertly. You hear him swear, then a curt mention that he'll be there tomorrow. When he lopes back over, his mood is grim as he plops the phone to the table and gruffly sits next to you. He exhales in frustration while he rubs his temples and reaches for his cigarettes on the side table. Once he's lit one and taken a long drag, he puffs his huff out tersely before answering your silent question.

"Carrillo is getting reassigned to Spain," he remarks dourly and diverts his gaze when he feels himself get angry.

You frown, knowing this is something he'd been dreading, and how significant it was. Sidling close, you pet your hand over his hair before settling it to rub the tension from the nape of his neck. "You'll be gone a few days then," you muse, not ask, giving him a reassuring smile when his gaze flicks sidelong at you. "You boys will have some planning to do. The cartel's not going down without your help," is your lilting aside as you smirk at him.

He snickers and you feel the tension ease from his muscles as you lean in and kiss his temple. Javi sets his cigarette down on the lip of the ashtray to turn to you and confide, "I don't know where any of this is going, querida. It could either blow up in our face, be a shitstorm for a while, or be an underdog success if we can get things to fall into place. I don't want to worry you, but, there might be times when I have to go MIA," he prefaces before cupping his hand to your cheek and squeezing the other over your knee reassuringly. "I promise I will try to tell you if that's happening, but…I might not be able to."

You absorb that, and hesitate. Not because you don't believe him, but because you're nervous what that could mean for you – for what you two have together. "I understand," you reply tentatively and lean into his warm touch, sighing when he pulls you close and kisses you.

It isn't until he's on the phone with Steve that Javi remembers the present sitting on his dresser – the one your grandmother had given him. Mentally swearing, he realizes he and Steve might still be out of town on your birthday. Javi frowns, wondering if you'd planned on mentioning it to him at all, and now that he was leaving in the morning, you'd discarded telling him, deeming it completely unimportant.

While you're getting ready for bed, he's on his phone out on the balcony and finishing his cigarette, so he takes the opportunity to mutter, "—I want to be back in town by Monday."

"Okay," Steve drawls, curious. "I mean without Carrillo, I don't see how much we'll be able to get done on-site anyway. We'll have to see what ride we can catch back."

Javi grunts in agreement before telling Steve he'll pick him up early in the morning, so to be ready. Once he's shut the balcony doors, locked up and turned out the lights, he lopes down the hall and stands at the doorway to watch you. You're sitting on the side of the bed with your back to him, humming a song to yourself as you massage cocoa and shea butter along your arm, concentrating it at your elbow before moving along to your forearm. He quietly appreciates how soft you look under the nightstand's lamplight, taken with how lovely you are with your long, full hair swept aside to one shoulder so you can reach some lotion to your back. The nighty you have on is a dark blue, flimsy thin cotton that hits at your knees and V's out in the back.

You hear Javier kick his boots off, and you start a bit, but try to pretend you knew he was there the whole time by not turning and continuing to massage the hydrating lotion into your thighs now. "Need me to reset the alarm?" you ask as you cross your legs and lotion your knee and down to your shin.

"Nope," he muses and strips out of his clothes, stealing glances over at you, wondering if he should mention knowing about your birthday. "Got anything planned this weekend?" he asks in an innocuous tone after tossing his jeans aside before sinking his knees into the mattress and approaching from his side of the bed to caress his fingers down the exposed planes of your back.

You suppress a shiver and tuck your chin against your shoulder to shoot him a flirty look, loving how the low light casts shadows over his form that contour his muscles and broad shoulders delectably while he comes to lounge on a propped up arm beside you. "No, nothing planned. But if you must know," you preface, setting aside your lotion on the nightstand and turning to lean back and ghost a kiss against his lips. "I'm going to spend it missing you, most likely."

Javier buries his hand in the back of your hair and guides you close when you try to lean coquettishly away. His lips mold adoringly to yours in a chaste press of plush flesh before he brushes his nose against yours and lets out a sigh – breathing out in a wistful murmur, "I'll call you every night, querida—"

"You don't have to. Like you said, you don't know if you'll be able to," you reasonably insist and caress his cheek. You think about saying it won't be the first birthday you spend alone, but can't find the gumption to say it or be blasé about it, so you instead muse, "When you're back in town, maybe…maybe we can do a double date thing?" When Javi's brows quirk in wonder and his eyes widen, you add, "With Steve and Connie? I mean, after how I yelled at him, I assume he told his wife about us—"

"He hasn't. I told him not to unless he wanted to really incur your wrath," Javier muses on a chuckle and grins when you scoff, playfully appalled, and swat his shoulder. "Anyway…I doubt Connie is in the double date mood after the stunt he pulled this past weekend," he offers aloofly as he sits up and reaches for the lotion bottle, and pumps some into his hands before rubbing them together to then massage them into your bare, lithe back.

You hum sensually and melt, tipping your head to the side and gathering your hair out of the way so his hands can have full span of your back and shoulders. "…What stunt?" you ask, half-curious, as you press your thighs together to quell the excited flutter between your legs.

"He bumped a cabby's car in traffic, and when the guy kept talking shit, he shot his back tire out while Connie and the baby were in the car," Javi tells you simply in an aloof baritone, and when you whirl and stare at him, eyebrows rising in a 'you're serious?' expression, he shrugs. "He's wound a little tight."

When he doesn't elaborate or excuse it, you turn fully and adjust to sit next to his half-lounging form. "Wound tight enough to pull that kind of outlaw cowboy shit with you in Medellín on assignment?" you ask a little crisply, to Javi's surprise.

Shifting to sit up more, he remarks flippantly, "…I can handle Steve. His wife's a civilian. She doesn't get it—"

"That's not what I asked," you intone imperiously. "If he pulls any kind of reckless shit that gets you hurt, I'm fucking him up," is your calm threat as you snatch the lotion bottle from him and arch a sharp brow. "My wrath is nothing either of you have actually seen yet. So don't test me." Your eyes are blazing, and Javier is ridiculously turned on. You see it in how his abs and the muscles in his arms tighten, and how the outline of his cock fills out in his gray boxer-briefs. "Civilian or not, nobody wants to deal with a dude that's gonna snap—"

"He's not that far gone," Javier insists and gives you a half smile when he reaches his still-lotion-streaked hands to caress and affectionately squeeze your thighs. "Yes, admittedly, that was an extreme reaction to dealing with an asshole on the street after a fender-bender," he appeases and watches your eyes narrow cynically. "But Steve's just a little high-strung after all the bullshit with La Catedral—"

"And that's gonna get better now that Carrillo is leaving and you have Noonan cruisin' to clock you both? C'mon, don't bullshit me, Javier. You know it—"

"—Insults your intelligence and you don't like it. I know," he drawls in and tips his chin down when your glare flares at that, but his big brown eyes only soften when he adds, "I trust Steve. I have his back, and he has mine. Yes, he's a fucking ass sometimes, and gets ahead of himself with his overzealous jackassery, but he only means well," pausing, he remarks more soberly, "He has a lot to lose if this goes south—"

"Javier. Let's be real here. Steve can pack his family up and leave. He hasn't, because this? The hunt? It's become personal. He's turned it personal," you fume and idly turn the bottle around in your tense hands. "And it's the same for you. What do you really lose or care if that motherfucker gets his justice or not? I know this is important to you—it means something," your voice wavers, but gains its resoluteness as you add, "but really, put a bullet in Escobar's head tomorrow? There's just another scumbag that'll fill the vacuum the next day. Is it really worth going off the deep end for?"

When silence meets you at that, you press your lips together, feeling a wave of regret at how bluntly you've been when you see him swivel his stare away and adjust to pull away from you. He sits up to lean back on the headboard and exhales noisily, like you just dumped a litany of issues on him. You divert your gaze and internally admonish yourself, thinking of what to say to rewind this conversation.

"Why're you here?"

You pause, bemused by his flat, gravel-pitched question. When you don't say anything, he flicks his flinty, stoic expression over to you and exhales again, but this time he crosses his arms and regards you sternly. His eyes narrow in a 'well?' expression, lips etched in that serious scowl.

"Because I want to be here. I like my work, I like the people I work with, and I'm near the only family I give a shit about," you answer in a guarded tone as you place the bottle aside and stand from the bed to go crank the window slats to dim the breeze and light coming from the night outside. "Why're you here?" you counter after you adjust the curtains and shoot him an exacting look when you turn around and linger by the windows.

His hackles rise at that, expression etching into a hard look. "Because I want to be here and catch that motherfucker—"

"And if you don't? That's it? Nothing else matters?" you ask, furrowing your brows as your own questioning starts hurting your feelings for some asinine reason. "If you don't catch him, what else is there…if nothing else is defined, what happens?"

Javier's aggravation snuffs out as he sees the flicker of something he rarely sees cross your features before you rein it in and turn away. The realization hits him like a sledgehammer to the chest. Pivoting up and climbing off the bed, he goes to you and wraps his arms around you. "Baby, look at me," he murmurs against the top of your head when you're steadfast and don't let him spin you around in his arms. "Mírame, mi amor."

You sigh and relent, turning in his arms and tipping your face up to meet his handsome, albeit fond, expression. He sees your eyes are crinkled around the edges with self-reproaching tension, your plush lips pressed into a frown. His hands caress reassuringly up and down your form after you encircle yours around his torso and lean your head against his chest. Javi holds you to him, understanding now that your surly questioning was out of a deep concern for not just him, but a fear that because you've not defined anything, he wouldn't consider your relationship to be something that mattered.

"Wanna know what I'd want to happen?"

You flinch minutely and nod, too bemused to hazard looking up and wilting under his smoldering, confident grace.

"I put a bullet in Escobar's head, fill the paperwork out, file the case, and turn around and start the investigation against the Cali cartel. You and I maybe find a place closer to Don Gilberto's so we can walk there and rush back to have sex in an air-conditioned apartment with a balcony," Javier muses in a completely serious and fond intonation, his voice honeying over at the latter half of his dream scenario.

You laugh in relieved delight and squeeze your arms around him before nuzzling your face into his bare chest affectionately. Javi toys a hand into the back of your hair and nudges you to gaze up at him so be can lean down and claim your lips in a yearning, soft kiss.

When he pulls back and brushes his nose tenderly against yours, he adds in a murmur, "I'll even be fine with you letting a little black cat come around every so often."

Your heart overflows with enamored devotion for him, eyes lowering to sultry hoods as you hum and smile brilliantly at him. Skating your hands up his torso to frame his handsome face, you muse without pretense, "I want the same."

Javier feels a savage wave of pride fill his chest, shoulders broadening as he picks you up, claims your mouth in a hungry kiss, and takes you to bed.

He turns the lamp off once he's settled between your thighs in the middle of the bed and you shower kisses over his chest. The room is shrouded with only the dim light from night coming through the windows, but you can still make each other out as your eyes adjust. Your hands caress down his back and grope his ass as you pull his underwear down while he groans and adjusts to kick them off before he grabs the bottle from the table, placing the cocoa and shea butter next to your head on the pillow.

Blinking at the odd sight, you snicker and giggle, "Javi, you can't use that as lube—"

"Christ, I'm not that much of an idiot, cariño," he scathes as he hikes your nighty up your torso and pulls it off your head. "I just think you missed a spot," Javier chuckles as he leans down to suckle teasingly over a studded nipple while he picks up the bottle and pumps lotion into his hand. You mewl and arch up, chasing the heat of his mouth on you breast, already needy and wet beneath him. His hands clasp the hourglass curve of your waist and massage up, purposely dimpling your skin with his lotion-slick fingers, working them over your breasts and watching you react. Your eyes flutter and you stretch taut, mewling as you hook your knees around his hips and tug for him to lie on top of you.

"I-I'm nice and smooth already, atrevido," you mumble in a tantalized pitch, reaching for his hands before he can glide them down to your hips. "You, on the other hand, need some lotion," you snipe wryly and giggle when he snaps his brown eyes in defiant, albeit silly outrage down at you. Said outrage becomes a haughty pout when you manage to pounce up and pivot him down onto the bed. "Tú no te cuidas, so it's about time I do it for you," you playfully chide before straddling him and snatching the bottle to pump some silky stripes of cocoa and shea butter over his heaving, broadening pecs.

"What're you saying, that I'm ashy?" he deadpans and shoots you a mocking look.

"No, but you're not silky smooth, chulito," you purr teasingly and go to work rubbing the lotion into his chest, fingertips kneading lovingly into the sinew of skin and muscles beneath and feeling his pleased growl buzz up from your touch. When he relaxes and gives you a goading little smirk, you lean down and peck him on the lips. "Now stay still and let me rub you down," you lilt dutifully as you toss your hair over your shoulders and span your hands across his chest and over his collarbones before radiating them in massaging circles at his shoulders and down to his biceps.

The tension melts out of Javier, and even with you straddling him naked and warm in his lap, he closes his eyes and sighs, getting lost in your loving touch as you hum and smile down at him. You pick up an arm and massage every cord and ripple of muscle from his triceps to his forearm before rubbing soothing pressure points into his hand.

"'S'nice…feels nice, preciosa," he mumbles as you mimic the same treatment to his other arm, smiling when he purrs, "I could get rubbed down like this more often."

"I'm sure," you muse and finish with his arm, so you lightly tap his side and order, "Roll over for me so I can do your back."

He grunts and opens his eyes to smolderingly smile at you as his lips grin. "I don't think I can lay on my stomach right now," he jokes raunchily and punctuates his point by rubbing his hard cock against your ass before strumming his smoothened fingers along the length of your thighs.

Smirking devilishly, you shrug and shift as you chime, "Well then, I'll have to work my way down and take care of that."

Javi's smug grin melts into pure arousal as you slink down and take his cock into your mouth while you impishly grope your lotion-slick hands over his belly, across the carved edge of his hips, and down his thighs before you knead his muscles there. He watches, lust-dazed and slackened features riveted as you let his cock slip from your mouth before you smile and kiss it, licking down it to suckle his frenulum and hum against it.

You worship his cock with your tongue, drinking in every stuttered breath and hoarse, croaky groan he desperately tries to contain under the lascivious silken heat of your mouth. The combination of the massage and now you going down on him with gusto has him hovering over the precipice of rapturous bliss, so when you stroke him through the tight circle of your fist and drive him down the velvet, fluttering ring of muscle that trembles around him in the back of your throat, Javi shouts his pleasure and comes, features burning hot from the mixture of primal triumph, feral delight and wanton completion as you moan around him and hollow out your cheeks to prolong his ecstasy.

Javi dreamily decides then and there that he really likes your version of a happy ending.

He's buzzing like a dopey ravished fool when you kiss his softening erection after swallowing his cum and merrily going back to massaging your way down his long, toned legs. Javier is putty in your hands once you've coaxed him onto his stomach to work on massaging the fragrant, soothing, decadent lotion into every plane of his back while he moans in sated bliss. He doesn't even put up a fuss when you adjust to straddle the backs of his knees so you can massage his lower back and ass before kneading down his thighs and calves, then all the way back up.

"…Gunna be mush in'da morning…" Javi mumbles lazily when you finish rubbing his trapezius muscles and kiss him on the back of his nape.

Snickering, you set the lotion bottle aside and slink off of him so you can lovingly roll him over and maneuver the comforter around his broad frame before draping it over you both and nestling up against his side while he exhales a content grunt.

"I'll just have to get you nice and hard first thing then," you chime with luscious sweetness before kissing his cheek and settling down to sleep.

He rumbles an irreverent little scoff, purring, "Already did," before he rolls onto his side to fold you under him as he captures your gasping lips in a hungry kiss.

You feel his hard cock press against your hip, and are stunned for the hundredth time at his insatiable stamina, but when he's dipping his fingers between your legs and trailing them along your dampening cunt, your brain misfires as pleasure drenches you over. His warm and now-silky skin presses against you as you open your legs wide to him so he can carve his hips into the open cradle of your thighs and press his cock inside you.

Javi takes it nice and slow, enjoying how you cling to him and throb from how he makes love to you while pivoted on your sides, facing each other and relying on the upswing style pace of his thrusts, which is ruinously exquisite as he clutches your lower back and guides you over his rutting cock with the hand that squeezes the globe of your ass greedily with every slide into you. When you come and bury your mewls into his shoulder, Javier shoves to the hilt into your sheath and holds there, letting your walls flutter and ride him through the onslaught of pleasure while your heavenly cunt floods over with your essence.

He kisses you back from the stratosphere where you've been floating post-orgasm and smiles against your jaw when you whimper from him pulling out of your fluttering pussy. "D-Did you—?" you ask breathily, still trembling from the climax as he tucks you against his side after he rolls onto his back.

"Shh, don't worry. I'm just so fucking relaxed from that massage that the hard-on was involuntary. That happy ending was top notch," Javi praises and smirks when you hiccup an irreverent sound and press exhaustedly against him.

You both have a fantastic night's sleep, not even annoyed when the alarm goes off. Javier does, however, roll over onto you and fucks you with the fervor of a man who knows he doesn't have much time to revel in the bliss and delicious post-coital repose that he's used to. So, when you're both coming back into the room after sharing a shower, you pull him over and bossily sit him on the end of the bed and give him the expedited, albeit equally as sensual, cocoa and shea butter rub down, which has him buzzing as you work the tension out of his back and nuzzle kisses behind his ear whilst you tell him how much you love him and can't wait to see him.

Steve's never seen Javi look so rested and easygoing, and the sated little smile he does a terrible job of straightening with the impulsive pinch of his fingers over his moustache speaks volumes for his partner. It isn't until they're both in the car in the lower elevation and warmer clime of Medellín that he inhales a huffy breath and quirks a curious brow over at Javier.

"What is that?" Steve asks as Javi drives.

Shooting him a glance from his amber-tinted aviators, Javi grumbles, "What's what?"

"That smell," Steve gives him an eagle-eyed stare with those sharp blue eyes as he takes another intake of breath through his nose. "Like…chocolate?" he gravels out curiously before watching Javi's expression pinch and concentrate on the road ahead. "Is that you?" Steve chortles and grins when Javi presses his lips together and scowls.

"You're talking crazy. Finally losing it," Javi laconically evades as they approach the Search Bloc headquarters. Steve bites his lower lip and chuckles deprecatingly at his partner and friend, who can only drawl dryly, "Why're you sniffing another man. Should I be concerned?"

"Hah! Nice try, loverboy. What, she dip you in chocolate after fucking your brains out this morning?" Steve cackles while Javier scoffs and drives through the checkpoint and cruises down to the carport.

"Why would she dip me in chocolate, you dumbass," Javi snidely scoffs, parking the car and shooting Steve a berating glare. "What, your wife doesn't rub lotion on you?"

"Fuck no," Steve chuckles and grins. "I'd be lucky if she offers me lip balm, you lucky bastard—"

"Really selling the whole marital bliss thing for me, Steve," Javi deadpans derisively, taking his shades off and putting them in the dash cubby to avoid his partner's goading expression, but when he doesn't relent, he grunts and stares him down, conceding when the other man wiggles his brows. "It's cocoa butter," he answers before muttering, "It's good for the skin…"

"That is lavish. Nice to know she has a good side," Steve teases wryly, enjoying riling his partner into surly annoyance. "On a scale of 1 to 10, how's the sex—?"

"As if I'd answer that," Javi grumbles and makes an impatient 'can we go?' gesture before opening his door and rushing out while Steve snickers and follows suit.

It isn't until the end of the day when they're drowning their sorrows at a local watering hole, when they were already demoralized post-chat with Carrillo, that Steve tried asking him again.

"She makes you happy, so, why're you so cagey about it?"

Glancing sidelong across at his partner over his 3rd whiskey, Javi exhales through his nose and reclines in his chair. "This coming from the guy who pointed a gun at a cabby in front of his wife and kid. And I'm cagey?" he counters sarcastically while Steve nurses his drink and gives a lame one-shouldered shrug.

"…I'll concede that point, but still, where's it going?" he glances at Javi. "If all this shit falls apart and we're stuck with fuck-all at the end, what happens with her?"

Javier downs the rest of his whiskey before signaling for another while he pulls a cigarette from the pack and lights it. He only answers after the third puff. "She literally fucking asked the same thing last night. You two sharing notes on me or something?" Javi jokes, trying to obfuscate, but when Steve just gives him that unrelenting, unblinking look of his, Javier grumbles and adjusts uncomfortably in his chair before crossing his leg over his knee and taking another soothing drag of his cigarette. "I want to be with her. I…I can see myself being with her, sharing a place…" Javier verbalizes his stream of consciousness, pausing only when his drink is delivered so he can down it and offer the waitress the empty glass and tip it in the international language for 'another,' before glancing over at Steve and relenting. "I don't think I could do marriage. I'd make a shit husband…"

Steve sits back, brows rising and lips twisting in an expression of 'well shit,' before he drawls, "Does she want that?" and when Javi arches a brow in question while he smokes, Steve elaborates, "To get married?"

Befuddled, Javier realizes you've never brought it up. "I don't know," he answers honestly and glances tensely at Steve. "Don't all women eventually want that, though?"

"Only one way to find out," Steve mutters and gives him a commiserating smile. "Is that why you wanna be back in town by Monday? Cuz you're gonna ask her?" he jokes, and Javier flicks his cigarette's ash into the glass tray and rolls his eyes.

"No. Her birthday's Monday, and I want to surprise her," he answers and perks up when the waitress delivers his next drink. Once he's taken a sip of liquid courage, he confides, "She didn't tell me about it. Her grandmother told me, and I have a feeling she didn't bother to bring it up because she thinks it's a burden or something, especially with all this shit going on."

"Aw man, that sucks," Steve genuinely frowns. "Don't she got family locally?"

"Here, but she couldn't spare the time off. She's banking it all for the holidays," Javi remarks and stubs what's left of his cigarette in the ashtray.

"The manifest said the next chopper ride to Bogotá is Sunday morning with the fellas. We meet with Lou and your CIA buddy tomorrow after they get the debrief from the Colombian Military, see if they can get us intercepts over La Catedral, and head back on the early-bird ride. You'll be at her door by lunch time," Steve plans out, giving Javi an encouraging smile. "Question is, what're you gonna get her for her birthday?"

Javi stares at him for a few seconds before reaching for his drink. "Shit. I have no fucking clue," he rumbles, and Steve chuckles at his expense.

By the end of the night, Javi is drunk off his ass, but manages to stay upright to make it to the crash house. He sways up into his studio's entry while Steve practically crawls up the steps of his upstairs hovel. They both somehow manage to sober up and drag their asses to the meeting at a surveillance location where they share the infuriating aerial photos of La Catedral and press for resources on intercepts. Steve's eagle-eyed stroke of eureka in spotting the pigeon coop has him and Javi driving up the mountainous terrain where the luxury prison in disguise is nestled in that same day.

While his partner chugs from one of the coffee thermoses to catch his second wind, Javi drives with the window rolled down so he can smoke and not feel sick from the hangover he's nursing. The day is cool, so their windbreakers are coming in handy, as the mountain air is brisker than back in the city. Breathing in the fresh air does wonders for their hangovers, and they both feel in better spirits as they settle into their stakeout. It isn't until an hour later into staking out the prison from afar in hopes of spotting a message going up, while they eat the lunches they brought with them, that Javier realizes he never called you last night.

"Shit," he sits back to lean on the tree he's sitting under as he tosses his crumpled sandwich bag into the paper sack. When Steve looks up from his own lunch and shoots him a questioning look, Javi gruffly huffs. "I forgot to call her…"

Steve takes a swig of his Coke, sighs, and muses, "We got shitfaced last night. I didn't call Connie either. She hates when I call her drunk."

"Yeah, well, it completely slipped my fuckin' mind," Javier says with a hint of disgust, the edge of his self-loathing peeking through as he mutters, "Couldn't make it 24 hours without fucking up…"

Not knowing what to say to that, Steve rifles through his lunch sack and fishes out a bag of plantain chips, tears it open, and reaches it over to offer him some. Shaking his head sardonically, Javi plucks a few pieces out of the bag and nods his thanks. They eat in silence for a beat, silently taking personal stock in their relationships.

"You have your phone on you, right? Just call her now," Steve pipes up as he offers Javi another pass at the bag of chips.

Declining the offering with a shake of his head, Javi sighs. "It's the middle of afternoon. She's at work," he mutters flatly and leans his head back against the tree trunk. "I warned her I might not be able to call, but not because I fucking just straight up forgot to," he grumbles and takes a swig of his own soda before draping his elbows over his knees to balance the bottle in his hands.

"Damn, she's got you whipped," Steve jokes, and Javi shoots him a dirty look.

"That's the thing: she doesn't. I've gotten more shit from the informants about expectations or conditions. Meanwhile, I can barely get her to tell me what she wants," Javier unburdens in a grouse, glancing off to the lushly forested mountains beyond the sprawling meadow they're camped at.

"That's pretty odd, man. Usually that's the first thing they do. Boom: 'here's what I expect and my deal breakers,' yadda-yadda. Connie told me she wouldn't fuck with me if I wasn't serious about marriage like, a month into dating," Steve volunteers, finding that he really wants to cheer his partner up.

Cracking a smile, Javi shakes his head sardonically. "Well, the only thing that has come close to that is, uh, the other women," Javi muses haltingly, scratching at his chin and amending, "The working girls—"

"No-fuckin'-duh," Steve sneers comically. "That is a given, I would think. Oh…shit," he pauses as he comes to a realization. "Does she know about Elisa?" Javier gets moody and glances off gruffly as he nods, and he remembers back around that time how wound up Javi had been. He also remembers the time he'd ordered him to come to his place so he could go take care of something that was important. "Safe to say every time you were in a furious shit mood the last few months, was because you were on the outs?"

"…That would be a safe bet," Javi deadpans, still staring off as he muses, "I really…really want to not fuck up things with her. I think that's what keeps her from setting her cards on the table and telling me exactly what she wants and expects. And yes," he glances at his partner when he grunts knowingly to drawl, "I am aware that sleeping with informants and prostitutes is a given. But I can't help the reputation I've already gotten saddled with, and that was the main hurdle to get over."

"And what a huge one to get around," Steve can't help goad, and when Javi huffs and starts packing up his stuff, he continues in a humoring tone, "Dude, if she's rubbing you down with cocoa butter, I think you're on the right track. Just call her later."

Javier laughs, snickering as he stores his lunch remnants and thermos to the side, sliding his sunglasses on, and picking up the binoculars and the shotgun they'd commandeered. "You really have a way with words," Javi purrs sarcastically as he offers his hand to Steve and helps him stand.

"Seems like you do too, puto," Steve snickers and pronounces the word he remembers you having snapped at Javier in your fury.

"Jesus, your Spanish is for fuckin' shit, man," Javi muses while Steve grabs his thermos and starts heading over to the spot they've been using to stakeout the back of the prison where the pigeon coop was.

Smirking, Steve deflects by asking, "Does she talk dirty to you in English or Spanish?" When Javier scoffs and shoves his sunglasses to balance on the top of his head so he can feign like he's inspecting the binocular lenses as they stroll over, Steve needles, "I bet both. She call you papi—?"

"She most certainly does not," Javi can't help rebuffing. "I called her mamita once and she practically tossed me out of the bed."

Steve laughs, jovially grinning when Javier rolls his eyes and shoves past him with a well-placed shoulder bump. "I never got the whole 'daddy/mommy' thing during sex anyway," he conversationally drawls while Javier raises the binoculars to his gaze so he can rescan the terrain towards the prison. "C'mon, just tell me: scale of 1 to 10?"

The terse huff seems to be the only answer he was going to get, so while Steve fiddles with the cup cap of his thermos, he doesn't expect his reticent partner to offer resolutely, "It's the best sex I've ever had."

Steve almost drops the cap and has to adjust the thermos against his chest to hold it from toppling out of his grip. He just gapes silently at his back, so Javi can't help turn and squint at him before smirking.

"Now fuck off with your scale bullshit and get a look, would yah?" Javier grouses humorously and holds up the binoculars and gestures for Steve to have at it.

While the DEA agents are on their stakeout in the mountainous countryside, you're wrapping up a big tutorial with the straggler embassy staff that has ducked and dodged getting the clearance for their very own laptops. Ellis and you have been run ragged today with all the meetings, so it isn't until you're both sharing a quick snack break from the vending machines that you realize Javi hadn't called you last night.

Pursing your lips as you chew the Snickers bar, you wonder if you should call him later and see how he's faring, when Ellis pipes over his chip nibbling, "You got any plans this weekend?" You are glad for the mouthful you're chewing so you can shake your head and not elaborate, but, of course, your work buddy squints his eyes and pouts, "Wait...isn't Monday your birthday?"

You swallow and frown, having hoped he wouldn't remember. "…It is, but I'm just going to spend a quiet weekend at home. I have to save up for the holidays," you lie and fill up a cup of water from the cooler in the corner of the break room. "I'll just relax and have a lazy weekend."

Ellis makes a silly wounded sound before insisting, "That's lame. Let's do something tonight then at happy hour—?"

"No, nope—I forbid you from bringing it up to the fellas. I am not in the mood to be the birthday girl, got it, Rose?" you challenge and wag your finger at him. "No toasts to me, or references to being treated for my special day—nothing, promise?"

Exhaling dramatically and punching in his soft drink selection from the soda machine, he grumbles, "Fine, you antisocial killjoy."

By the time you get home, you are aloof and rescinding yourself to spending a nice weekend all to your lonesome. Nothing special, and nothing inherently mopey about it, after all, you've spent plenty of birthdays alone. Instead of wallowing in missing Javi, you decide to have a treat yourself kind of night after happy hour. You make yourself a stiff drink, set all your work in a neat pile on the corner of the coffee table to make room for a bounty of snacking in front of the television. Having shed your work shoes and skirt, you lounge in your blouse as you munch on chips and sip your drink. Once you're nice and mellow, you draw a soothing hot bath for yourself and slink into the bubbles once you've fastened your hair up in a clip and washed your face of your makeup. The water is divine, and you can't help acknowledge how your aching and sore muscles are breathing a sigh of relief from the salacious, exquisite marathon of carnal delights with Javi. You smile to yourself as you daydream about it, smitten with the thought of him getting you all sore again soon.

A while later, you're pulling a comfy oversized tour shirt over your head before going to work massaging some homemade skincare over your face and neck when the phone rings. The girlish flutter of anticipation in your chest has you giddy as you skip down the hall to answer the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hey, sexy," Javier purrs in a canela pitch, and you tingle and smile despite feeling anything but right now in your frumpy up-do and baggy t-shirt. "Sorry I didn't call last night."

"No worries. How was it?" you easily assuage and ask while you lean back against the wall adjacent the phone.

"It fucking sucked," he sighs, unworried about being blunt with you because you've never discouraged it, and right now, he's tired and gruff with angst about the whole thing. "He showed us some aerial shots of the place, and the motherfuckers have a soccer field to play on. If that's the shit they have out in the open, imagine how decked out the inside is. It's infuriating," he grouses and you can't help shake your head at the shamelessness. "Carrillo officially transfers out next week, so we're wrapping stuff up here and figuring out our next move until the government appoints someone new."

You deliberately decide not to ask him when he'll be back in town, not wanting to put any pressure on him. "Hopefully it'll be someone just as capable as him. And who'll put up with your shenanigans," you muse and jibe, and relish hearing his raspy chuckle.

"We'll see," he remarks and lowers his voice to rumble scathingly, "By the way, because of you, I had Steve literally sniffing for information – asking why I smelled like chocolate—"

The giggle that bursts out becomes a gleeful cackle at the visual of the blue-eyed blond nuzzling Javi and complimenting his scent, and he lets you laugh effervescently. "Oh god, I needed that. Should I be worried?" you joke, and Javi snickers. "It's bad enough having to threaten sluts in club bathrooms. I don't wanna have to dropkick your partner from stealing you away—"

"Yeah fuckin' right, you  loquita," Javi chides wryly. "The only one I want to be seduced by is you, with or without lotion."

You laugh enchantingly at that, and Javi lies in his bed and smiles, loving how your discordant little sigh fizzles into a delighted muse of, "Good. Eres todo mío, so it's only right you know where you stand, querido."

He hums and stretches out on his bed, missing being able to spread out, as well as having you sidled naked against him. "That, I do, hermosa," he drawls and stifles a yawn, but you hear it and tut at him.

"Go to sleep, chavón. Love you," you murmur affectionately over the line.

"Love you too," he easily purrs and relishes your sweet hum, so he adds, "Sleep well, preciosa, because I sure will after I unwind with your little gift—"

Your silly scoff is delightful. "Beyako, you gonna subject Steve's ears to your sexy, naughty sounds?! For shame."

"Yep. And if he complains, I'll blame it on you," he derides, smirking.

"Figures. Good night, fresco."

Javier says his goodnight and hangs up, smirk etching into a smug smile as he holds up your panties to his nose, deciding this is the only scent he needs and definitely will not be giving it up any time soon.

The next morning, you wake up early, out of habit, and start to tidy your place up. After you water your plants and frown about how you've neglected them, you contemplate whether you should go for your favorite coffee and pandebono when someone's knocking on your door. Perplexed, you lope over and open it with the lock chain still bolted.

"Anita?! What're you doing here?" you exclaim before rushing to unlatch the chain and open the door to the smiley and trendily dressed wife of your best friend.

She gives you a tight hug and declares, "I'm here to take you to a non-negotiable day of shopping!" When you gape at her and begin to modestly protest, she scoffs and shakes her head bossily. "No negotiating. Ellis told me you weren't doing anything this weekend, so instead of being a hermit, you're coming to that riquito mall I've told you about, so, go get your shoes on."

Snickering, you relent and rush to slip into a pair of leather flats, grab your purse and keys, and head out with her. You figure it can't hurt, especially since it has been a while since you've hung out with your friend's better half. Anita is a kind, funny, and thoughtful woman with a heart-shaped face and devastatingly alluring almond-shaped eyes. Ellis fawns every time he tells you of the first time he'd laid eyes on her in the Tallahassee office she was interning at while he was settling into his first entry position right out of school. It was an utterly romantic story that you never feigned getting tired of hearing since it was lovely and you liked seeing his bright wide eyes twinkle with content delight.

She drives you to the sprawling shopping center and you catch up merrily about how she's been, how she's liking her latest group of students at the elite academy she teaches English at, and enjoy commiserating about Ellis and his idiosyncrasies.

"—Keeps saying that Samson is smitten with you, and I keep having to remind him that you're not going to entertain dating anyone from the embassy," she giggles as you walk through the enclosed promenade of the mall, and you roll your eyes. "He's cute, but if you were interested, I'm sure you'd have no problem rocking his world—"

"You make it sound like I'm an undercover nympho, Anita! Is that the kind of impression Ellis passes along to you?" you joke as you enter the beauty salon she cajoled you into trying.

While you continue to have silly chitchat, she also persuades you into getting a mani-pedi with her, and while your nails dry, the staff offers a deal on bikini waxing. You reluctantly let Anita cajole you into getting it done so you can both get the deal, and when you're on the table and the aesthetician asks if you'd like a Brazilian, you blink over at Anita before asking in Spanish, "What's that? Have you gotten it done?"

"Yeah! I did it before Valentine's Day. Ellis loved it," she giggles and winks at you while you scoff and chuckle as you nod to the technician and make a 'what the hell' gesture.

Your yelp is more of surprise than pain, but it does sting like a motherfucker, and when you glance down and see the results, you balk. It isn't until you've both paid and ambled away from the salon that you squeak to Anita, "She stripped it all!"

She laughs and tells you it's the latest trend – going completely baby smooth down there, and it's all the rage because in Brazil the women wax everything off so they can wear skimpy g-string bikinis to the beach. You shake your head in amused disbelief as you head into a department store. Before long, you're shopping like fiends – even finally purchasing something you've desperately needed to replace to bring your apartment into the current decade – and grumble that you have to watch your spending, but end up eyeing a particularly lux and sultry baby doll on a mannequin in a display window of a lingerie shop you've both walked by.

"Let's go in!" Anita is chirping as she ushers you in, and you laugh.

"If you tell me Ellis loves you in lingerie from this place, I'm outta here—" you begin to joke, but she scoffs and shakes her head.

"Not at all. He likes it when I wear a bra and his boxers," she confides affably, and you muffle a cackled laugh.

After you both model ensembles for each other in the fitting rooms, she persuades you into buying the sexy baby doll, and as you're prying your hoarded funds from your wallet to pay the cashier, Anita gasps and rushes over from a section of the store you hadn't perused, with something in a little box, and hands it to the woman.

"My treat! For your birthday," she hurriedly explains and assures you that she will not let you argue with her. "You'll thank me, I promise."

Eyeing her suspiciously, you relent and when the cashier hands you the chic shopping bag, Anita wheels you out of the store before you can look at what the boxed item is and whirl around to return it. It isn't until you're both eating at the food court that you venture a glance into the bag and balk at the discretely boxed up slender-shaped vibrator.

"Anita!" you exclaim and gape at her while she innocently eats her sandwich. "Why the hell would you buy this for me?! Trying to tell me I'm hard-up or something—?!"

"Are you?" she asks angelically and smiles at you as she sips her drink through the straw.

"…I don't use vibrators," you deadpan and wryly eat your empanada.

"You mean you haven't needed one lately," she muses knowingly as she dabs pristinely at her lips with the napkin, goading you.

Shiftily, you drawl, "Well, I've been busy at work, and everything's going well over all, but I don't have the time to date—"

"And what about the man you're seeing?" she queries simply and leans back in her chair after adjusting her ponytail to drape over her shoulder.

"…Has Ellis been talking conspiracy theories about my love life to you?" you deflect and chug your soda through the straw, diverting your gaze.

"No, he has no clue. It's my little suspicion," she snickers and watches you roll your eyes. "Well, if I'm wrong, then the vibrator will come in handy, no?"

You squint at her and grunt, but the mirth is plain when you can't suppress your smirk and derisive headshake.

After the day of shopping, she insists that you come over to dinner, so you let her drive to her and Ellis' place and put up with all the early 'happy birthday!' shenanigans her husband lays on you. He's gifting you your favorite chocolates, pulling out a VHS of a movie you'd mentioned wanting to see, and acting as cocktail man for the night. You're on your fourth drink when you all eat dinner around the coffee table as the movie plays, and once the movie is over? You're on your sixth drink and laughing it up with Ellis, teasing him about his lingerie preferences while he gets as red as a tomato whilst Anita giggles.

By the time he drives you home, you're loose and carefree, smiling dreamily and struggling to keep your eyes open, so he helps carry all your purchases up to your apartment while he jokes, "Gotta make sure you don't topple backwards and roll down these stairs!"

You stumble into the apartment and take your shopping bags from him before giving him a bear hug. "I had the best time! I love your wife. If I swung that way? I'd steal her away from you," you deride and wink at him while he guffaws at the prospect and shakes his head amusedly. "Thanks for putting up with me. And thank Anita for dealing with me all day."

"I'll be sure to let her know! But just so you know, I would fight you in a duel for her. Friendship be damned," he jokes and kisses you on the cheek. "See yah Monday, kid."

You give him one more platonic hug before seeing him off, then deadbolt the door and sway as you dig through your shopping bags. Sure, you're drunk, but not drunk enough to be incapable of what you've been dying to do since you made the purchase at the department store.

Javier is staring over the different topography maps and aerial images of La Catedral that are sprawled out over the rickety table in Steve's upstairs studio, having both opted to research there to take advantage of the cool breeze coming through the space from his balcony sliding door.

"I'm not seeing a fuckin' sign of anything that'd look like the exit or entry point for a tunnel, man," Steve complains in a huff as he leans back and wrings his hand over his eyes.

"Yeah, well, we won't know for sure until they get us the tomography and seismic reporting—" Javi begins to mutter when his satellite phone rings. It's fairly late in the evening, and calls this late are usually shit news, so he grabs the phone and walks over to the shoddy little balcony. "Peña," he answers in his curt tone.

"Bad time?"

Javi's shoulders relax at the sound of your voice, so he shoots a covert glance back over to Steve, and when he sees his partner isn't watching him, he answers, "No, not bad—"

He hears you hum in a sultry intonation that makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "So I can tell you what I'm doing right now?" you murmur alluringly.

Steve is shuffling through some maps and muttering to himself distractedly, so Javier whispers, "What're you doing?"

"I'm laying on my bed, talking to you on the phone," you purr, and when he tries to figure out why that's news, you add, "On my cordless phone. And, I'm feeling warm and mellow from being fed drinks all night, so I'm naked and thinking about you."

Javier's eyes widen and his lips press together while he tries to train his body language to not hint to being riled to his eagle-eyed partner who is mercifully trying to match up a map to an aerial photo. "…Tell me more," Javi tells you in Spanish in a level baritone.

"About the drinks? Or about being naked and thinking of you?" you tease in a sexy musing that has heat pooling down his body to tangle in his gut.

"The second one," Javi answers, tone guarded, but his arousal is simmering in him at how raunchy this is.

"So…I'm naked because I'm drunk, and I stripped so I could try out all the chic things I bought at the mall today, but then this one thing I got is something I thought I should try out while on the phone with you," you drawl in a silky tone, making sure you enunciate and not slur, because that cannot be sexy – a woman who slurs her speech, at least that's what you tell yourself drunkenly.

Javi knows he should take this outside – he should excuse himself and go down to his flat, but then Steve glances up at him and signals that he's going to his fridge – silently asking if he wants a beer. Javier nods, and while the other man goes over to his kitchenette, he rumbles in a hushed tone, "Try out what?"

You answer his question by engaging something that has some kind of pulsing sound, and it isn't until you make an enthralling little noise and the sound gets muted as if it's pressed against something soft that he realizes what's happening. "Nnng-mmm, I-I've never u-used one before—" you hiss out on a tight mewl, and Javier has to lean his hand onto the edge of the sliding door to grip something as he listens. "—Ah, n-not as good as you—"

"Here, bottom's up," Steve calls out as he uncaps the bottle and sets it on the table for him and drops back into his chair, swigging his own beer while staring down at the maps again.

Javi hears your provocative little giggle as he coolly goes over and takes the beer before loping back to the balcony. "Are-are you listening with Steve there?" you taunt, as if scandalized. "If you're working—"

"I'm not," he answers curtly, but his pulse is pounding, turned on beyond belief and a little flustered in what to do here. "Keep going."

You moan at that, and he swears his cock throbs in response while frustrated arousal coils like a spring in him. "I-It's like a bullet-shaped thing, so," you pause your explanation as he hears you shift on the bed and settle down with a pleased hum before continuing, "So I'm pressing it over my clit—"

Javier exhales a stuttered breath before biting at his bottom lip, the cold beer he presses to his forehead, nor the breeze coming in from the balcony door he's leaning against, doing anything to cool him down. He knows that Steve will suspect something if he says what he's dying to say whether he whispers it in English or Spanish, so Javi puts his beer down on the kitchenette counter and makes a gesture to him, as if to say this is something he really needs to hammer out, while he stalks across the small studio and heads out the front door. Once at the top of the apartment's staircase, he rumbles tensely, "Tell me how wet you are."

You sigh, "So wet, Javi. W-Wish you were here—" hiccupping a mewl as he hears the pulsing vibration press against something damp. You whimper, and he grips the railing, knuckles blanched white from how tight his grasp is around the metal while he listens to you writhe over the sheets and cry, "Te quiero a ti, mi amor—"

"You'll have me soon. Go ahead and come for me, baby," he croons over his own surly arousal beseechingly pulsing in his core and throbbing in his loins, the hot flush creeping up his tan neck as he hears you gasp and whimper a needy, 'Javi!' as you climax for him. He listens to your staccato panting and breathy mewls as you come down from the orgasm, picturing you in raunchy detail as he licks his lips and purrs, "Bet you look so fucking sexy, all arched on the bed with your pussy dripping wet—"

"Oh god—you're saying that naughty stuff with Steve in the room?!" you yelp bashfully as if the buzz has burned itself up and your sense of shame is rebounding, pulsing hum ceasing over the line and the sound of your panting, pitchy breath filling his ear instead.

Javier exhales a surly scoff as he leans against the opposite wall from the railing before chuckling tauntingly, "What if I was? What're you gonna do about it when you're calling me and being a naughty little tease on the phone?" When you tensely grunt, he assures in a velvet-over-steel murmur, "I walked out before that. You enjoy getting me hard? Like knowing I can't do anything while you touch yourself over the phone?"

"Did you like it?" you purr as a counter.

"Not as much as I'm gonna like having my dick in your pussy while I grind that thing over your clit," Javi growls provocatively, and you give a breathy, tantalized exhale. "Now I have a raging hard-on because of you, pinche tentadora," he grouses in a husky chuckle.

You give him a sultry chortle, as if delighted by the effect you have on him. "Well, if you were here, I'd take care of that for you," you entice lusciously, and when he groans with yearning approval, you add in a susurration, "I'll be thinking of all the ways I can take care of it, querido."

Javier grunts in frustration over the line, and you can picture his surly look, how his lips twist in a hard scowl and his eyes darken with the promise of debauchery, so you set the vibrator aside and just rub your fingers over your pussy as you chime sweetly, "Tell Steve I say hi," and when he scoffs at your saucy audacity, you purr, "Love you, you sexy grump."

He chuckles wryly at that. "Goodnight, you naughty seductress. I'll talk to you tomorrow," he rumbles affectionately, so you say your goodnight and end the call by pressing the button on the cordless handset before placing it aside and smiling at the raunchy thoughts your horny mind is letting run wild as you sigh and keep touching yourself.

When you wake up the next morning, you're drowsily flustered as you look down at yourself and the disheveled mess on your bed. The box the vibrator came in and it's inner packaging and instructions are strewn about, clothes you'd tried on and discardedly draped haphazardly on the opposite side of the mattress, and the hot pink vibrator taunting you in the middle of it all. The realization that you'd called Javi while drunk and horny hits you worse than any hangover, and you gasp and sit up in delayed embarrassment, feeling depraved and filthy for having behaved that way.

You thank goodness that you're not really hung over as you force yourself out of bed and into your slinky robe. Cleaning up your room and bed, you shower and pull on a loose t-shirt and running shorts you use to lounge around in as you admonishingly hang up your new clothes and fold the sexy baby doll lingerie before storing it in a drawer. By noon, you feel a little less flustered with yourself as you water the plants on your balcony, and by the time you're looking in the cupboards for something to snack on, you figure the whole thing was a bit of revenge after all the times he's gotten you hot and bothered.

Smiling, you're pulling out the cereal box and going to another cabinet for a bowl when someone knocks on your door. You jump, and pause, wondering if Anita or Ellis are back to cajole you into more birthday-sanctioned mischief, so you set things aside on the counter and prance silently to the door.

"Who is it?" you call out in Spanish when you tell yourself they wouldn't come by unannounced on a Sunday.

The voice behind the door muses in Spanish, "Delivery, señorita."

Furrowing your brows, you undo the locks and open the door.

It's exhilarating how your heart summersaults in your chest and elation scampers up through you at the sight of Javier standing there with a roguish smile and those molten, coffee-brewed eyes affectionately quirking at your shocked expression before it melts into happiness. His duffle is hanging on a strap at his shoulder and he's holding a bouquet of red roses in his hand while the other is pressed into the doorframe to allow him to lean close and smirk at you. He's wearing his Javi-issued ensemble; only today it's a light-blue button shirt under a green windbreaker with his sunglasses hanging from its pocket.

Taking in your titillated, gentle stare and beaming smile, Javi gives you a playful peck on the forehead before walking in, closing the door, and offering you the flowers as he purrs, "I know I'm a day early, but, Happy Birthday, querida."

You are sure that you're melting for real this time as your knees feel like jelly and your core turns over into ripe, unadulterated amorous pining – completely overcome and alight with love as you throw your arms around Javi and kiss him with passion. He grunts affectionately and unseeingly sets the duffle down and places the roses on the side table before he wraps his arms around you and pulls you up and against him. You feel him wearing his shoulder holster underneath his jacket, so you make sure you keep your hands around his nape as you slink up against his broad, tall frame.

After you manage to kiss each other breathless, you hug him and let him hold you as he easily picks you up so you can wrap your legs around his waist. "I thought—when did you get back?" you ask him in a pensive murmur against his neck when he carries you and sits on the couch so you can sit in his lap as he holds you while he caresses you lovingly.

"Got in just a little while ago," he answers simply and nuzzles you. "I have something for you. Figure I should give it to you now," he remarks and smiles when you pull back and raise your brows in surprise. "A Monday birthday makes for a Sunday celebration, bravita."

You snicker and kiss his lips before musing, "Let me guess: 'Buela told you."

He nods and smirks, squeezing your waist affectionately. "Yep, which brings me to the other thing," he nudges you off his lap so he can get up, take his jacket and holster off, and retrieve something from his duffle before loping back to sit next to you. When he offers you a wrapped gift, you blink in surprise before taking it and seeing the little tag with your grandmother's name signed to it. Unbidden, you feel your eyes begin to burn with the impending welling of tears, so you take a deep cleansing breath and open the gift.

Javier has no idea what it could be, so he's just as curious when you set the wrapping paper aside and open the lid of the box. Inside, nestled in protective paper, is an antique silver rectangle-shaped picture frame, and inside is a newly-developed photo of you, your mother, and your grandmother, with the matriarchs standing side to side with you as a young girl standing in front of them. Each has a hand on your shoulder as you all pose with a demure smile in front of a plaza.

Your astounded gasp hiccups in your chest as you stare down at the photo and feel a wave of emotions wash over you like a warm tide, and you are suddenly overcome, feeling your lip tremble and your eyes sting with the tears you are dead-set on not letting spill free. Javier senses how affected you are and wraps his arm around your shoulders, squeezing you reassuringly to his side as he nuzzles a kiss to your temple.

"So you'd grown out of the bangs and pigtails by then."

You laugh out loud, able to swallow the welling emotion and thwart the tears by inhaling a fortifying breath and smiling up at him. "I'm gonna need to see your baby pictures in order to get even, chulito," you tease and kiss him before resting your forehead against his. "Thank you."

He smiles and helps you curl up against him on the couch once you let him take the frame so he can look at the photo closely. "How old were you here?" he queries softly against your hairline.

"Fourteen, I think. That was the last time she and I came to Colombia together to visit," you whisper, and bury your face against his neck, trying to suffocate your bad memories and wanting to instead concentrate on how warm and good he smells – on how much you love him right now and don't want to be pulled down into the quicksand of sadness.

"Beauty runs in the family," he compliments and sets the frame aside on the coffee table so he can shift you to lie on top of him on the couch as he reclines into the cushions. "And lucky for me, my baby photos are over 2,000 miles away," he jibes, and you purse your lips defiantly at him. "What? No man walks around with his own baby photos."

Snickering, you concede and kiss his cheek. "I'm sorry about last night—"

"Why? It was the highlight of my day," he remarks, smile genuine when you sit up and fiddle with the top button of his shirt while you sheepishly grin. "It was a perfect exercise in self-control," he jokes, because after all, he managed to rein in his lust long enough to go in, grab his cigarettes and take his beer to-go once he'd joshed Steve about being dead tired and needing to get sleep before their early morning 'copter ride back. Sure, as soon as he was inside his quarters, he'd stripped and taken a cold shower, and when that didn't work, he'd jerked off like a fiend to the lewd fantasy you'd painted for him. Javier didn't think he had to concede that to you, though – at least not yet. "You sound really sexy when you're tipsy," he murmurs and watches you scoff prettily.

"I shouldn't have called when you're working, though," you insist and shift to sit at the edge of the couch cushion so you can let him stretch out more comfortably.

"If we'd been doing anything important, I would've told you," he reassures and gives you a debonair look before changing the subject charmingly with, "Alright, go get dressed. We're going out to celebrate."

You smile, dazzled and infatuated as he sits up and affectionately coaxes you to hop to it. Once you're dressed in a cute, cream-colored floral print peasant dress and leather flats – hair brushed up into a chic clip with delicate tendrils escaping the twist to dangle across your shoulders and frame your face, you flounce over and give him a flirty look. Javier is tempted to just pick you up and take you right to bed, but he wants to spoil you today, knowing he won't have the complete chance to do it tomorrow. You pick up the bouquet and smell the roses, loving their alluring scent and quickly put them in a vase with water that you place prominently on the kitchen island before Javi affectionately herds you to collect your purse and keys so he can take you out.

First stop is the coffee shop, where you sit at a cozy booth at the back and you cuddle against his side while he sits with his arm reclined over the top of the seat. You tell him about hanging out at Ellis and Anita's and how much fun you had, he tells you about the ridiculous stakeout with Steve, and you both enjoy the afternoon over the delectable brew and fresh-baked treats. After the shop, he takes you for a walk to the park you both strolled that first day you'd run into each other. Luckily, a monsoon didn't strike this time, so he's able to take you to the botanical garden at the end of the park. Javier threads your arm through his and leads you as you both banter about.

When he takes you back to the car and drives you to a romantic little café for dinner, you are reciting to yourself that this is something you should cherish with fond devotion, and the small part of you that has always held out hope to hoping suggests something radical. As you drive back to your apartment, though, you find yourself becoming amenable to the flight of fancy.

You want to tell Javi you're open to telling your trusted confidantes about your relationship – bold and eager to share it explicitly with your friends, to tell him that you'd love to meet Steve and Connie, and want him to meet Ellis and Anita.

But, before that fearless part of you can get you to work up the gumption to tell Javi, he surprises you by suddenly musing pensively, "Have you ever…do your plans – the long term ones, do they include a commitment?"

You blink incredulously over at him, taken aback and trying to decipher what and where this is coming from. When he keeps his gaze straight ahead as he drives, you read his demeanor as being uncertain and…tense? Since you don't immediately answer, he spares a sneaked glance at you, and that's when you see it.

He's nervous, and asking you the fundamental question every couple eventually have to deliberate.

"You mean marriage?" you ask and try to ease your demeanor into a relaxed, conversational consideration. Javi glances over and senses you're trying to quell him, so he diverts his gaze. Before you've even screened the thought, you blurt out in a flippant dismissal, "I'm not the marrying kind."

Silence greets you, then a gruff chuckle. "I'm going to kill Steve."

"…What? Why?" you exclaim bemusedly, watching Javi ruefully shake his head before derisively scoffing at himself.

He navigates the car down your street. Once he's parked at the curb and shut the car off, he turns and parcels out haltingly, "He spent most of our stakeout insisting I had to figure this shit out, and really…we've never talked about anything concrete, so it got me wondering…whether you want that."

"Do you want to get married ever?" you counter, and put him in the hot seat.

Javier thinks about Lorraine, and sets his jaw as he shakes his head and mutters, "I'd make a shit husband."

"Well, I doubt that, but there's nothing to really talk about – I'm not looking to get married, really," you answer honestly and tuck a rogue strand of hair behind your ear as you snicker, "We gotta stop letting dumbasses tell us stuff."

Javi laughs and rubs at his chin as he humorously drawls, "Alright, good point."

"So…have you thought about it and just decided it wouldn't work?" His soulful eyes twinkle with questioning at your cautious query. "Getting married?"

He tenses a little, and seems like he's quickly deliberating whether to reveal something, so you make a 'never mind,' gesture, and it seems to trigger a decision in him. "I was engaged once." He has your undivided attention at that, so when he doesn't sense anything but curiosity from you, he shrugs. "It didn't work out. I…well, I called it off," he explains carefully, and your brows rise while your lips soften in surprise.

You have so many questions, but do not want to pry. However, you are talking about plans and intentions here, so it's only fair you know what his deal breakers are. "Did she yell at you too much and run you ragged too?" you joke self-deprecatingly and give him a small half-smile.

Javier scoffs amusedly and shakes his head. "Not at all. I just wasn't…" he pauses, trying to choose his words wisely, but when you stare at him openly, expression tender and promising no form of judgment, he exhales and just bluntly says it. "I just wasn't ready. I broke it off right…before."

He holds his breath, expecting an appalled scoff, or a flare of serious trepidation to cross your features. Instead, you lean back and tilt your face intriguingly as you lean your chin against your cupped hand, arm propped against the side panel, eyes gleaming when you drawl, "Hmm, well, I hope they managed to tell the caterer before they opened the champagne."

Javi is stunned, and so is his laugh as you grin and watch the tension fizzle out of him. It's not at all the reaction or response he'd expected. Hell, even Steve had been incredulous, albeit snarky when he'd told him the story. Granted, he omitted the part about how he'd been running late and everyone was waiting in 110-degree heat at the chapel when he'd suddenly decided to pull over on the side of the road with his best man, so Javi volunteers it now to see if your reaction will sharpen towards him.

"…She eventually forgave me," he finishes telling you, and when he stares over at you warily, your expression hasn't changed.

Well, save for the wry tug at the corner of your plush lips when you muse, "All's well that ends well." Javier exhales a relieved chuckle as you tsk, "I got you beat anyway."

His soulful eyes sharpen into a full-blown smolder as you deliberately do not elaborate and collect your purse as if you're going to hop out. "You cannot say something like that and leave me on baited breath, preciosa," Javi sneers sarcastically and squeezes your thigh cheekily. "C'mon, I was sweating telling you—"

"Why? I can't be ornery about your past fiancée!" you laugh and swat his hand playfully away.

"Ok, well, just how do you got me beat at leaving someone at the altar?" he goads; fascinated when you blink as if you'd hoped he wouldn't cajole you.

"Well, fine…I, uh, turned a guy down when he proposed. In front of his family. At the top of the Rockefeller Rooftop garden that overlooks the cathedral. At his parent's anniversary party. In front of my father, who'd orchestrated the whole thing…"

You give him a silly glance when he just gapes at you.

"Holy shit," Javi muses and gives you an enthralled look and idly caresses his chin.

"Yeah…" you muse meekly. "I wasn't even done with my senior year of college, and only started dating the guy because…well, I was trying to appease my father, but figured once I graduated, I'd have the perfect excuse to break it off, and then next thing I know he's pulling me off to the side and getting down on one knee," you explain and shake your head, embarrassedly covering your face when Javi stifles a snort. "It was awful, and then I obviously made a beeline out of the party and my father and I spent the elevator ride down screaming at each other…"

This is the most you've mentioned your father, so Javi notes it and decides to give you a reprieve by leaning over the console and ushering you closer so he can hum a rugged grunt as he nuzzles your cheekbone before purring, "So we're both not the marrying kind, it seems. Guess I'll just have to keep you satisfied every way I can, querida."

That being his response to your mortifying story ignites a rapacious lust in you for him, and when his lips trail down to capture yours, you feel that fire soak arousal through your core. Pushing him lightly at the chest, you smirk and lean over the console to bore your searing gaze into his molten depths.

"Wanna keep me satisfied? Well, I've been waiting very patiently these few days, but now? It's time for you to give me what I want, querido, so…" eyes narrowing provocatively as you snake your hand to cup him through his jeans, you order in a sensual grouse, "Upstairs. Now."

His brown, coffee-brewed eyes flare with scintillating desire as you arch a brow and squeeze his hardening cock.

He's rushing out of the driver's side in an instant, and you do the same, hopping out of your door with your purse and sprinting around the jeep to meet him at the sidewalk, where he threads your arm in his again and practically floats you along his side to cross the courtyard and up the stairs to your apartment.

The anticipation is thrumming between you both, and the only consideration either of you can even fixate on outside of your ravenous lust for each other is which of you is going to be begging for it first.

To be continued…

____________________

Read Chapter 12: Plans - Part 2

Spanish-English Glossary:

Diablita = Little devil girl

Mi amor = My love

Querida/querido = Affectionate term, akin to expressing one's want and desire

Solterita = Single gal; bachelorette

Seductora divina = Divine seductress

Mi tentadora celestial = My heavenly temptress

Hermosa = beautiful

Mi amada = My beloved (female)

Maldita sea = Damn it

Mírame, mi amor = Look at me, my love

Cariño = darling/sweetheart

Atrevido/Atrevida = Daring man/Daring woman

Tú no te cuidas = You don't take care of yourself

Chulo/Chulito = cute guy; little cutie

Preciosa = Gorgeous; precious

Puto = Fucking; male whore

Loquita = Crazy girl

Eres todo mío = You're all mine

Chavón = a man that's pestering you

Beyako = Puerto Rican slang for horny/naughty guy; akin to "horn dog"

Fresco = a guy who's being 'fresh', or naughty/pervy

Riquito = Richie/rich people

Te quiero a ti, mi amor = I want you, my love

Pinche tentadora = Fucking temptress

Señorita = Little lady; little miss

Bravita = Tough girl; feisty girl

Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment and sharing your feedback. I would be eternally grateful.

[bestworstcase]

"[Rapunzel] stops accepting blame for things that aren’t her fault". I've seen this mentioned before on other blogs talking about Rapunzel's character growth over the series, but I don't understand what it's referring to. Sorry if this is too vague/broad an ask, but what are you thinking of in seasons 1 and 2 when you say that Rapunzel has learned to stop taking the blame for things that aren't her fault by season 3? Apart from Rapunzel's Enemy and maybe QFAD, I can't think of anything.

i think this is one of the more understated things about rapunzel’s characterization in that there is never like, a specific moment where rapunzel Verbalizes acceptance of blame for things she clearly isn’t responsible for, but it still imo informs a lot of her behavior?

and it goes all the way back to the film. right out of the gate we see that guilt tripping and blame passing are two of gothel’s chief weapons: when rapunzel’s feelings get hurt by one of gothel’s “jokes,” gothel chides rapunzel to “stop taking everything so seriously,” which is abuser-speak for “nothing i say is wrong, it’s your fault if you’re hurt.” 

then there’s digs like “oh, rapunzel, you know i hate leaving you after a fight—especially when i’ve done absolutely nothing wrong...” 

and the big one, after gothel loses her temper and yells at rapunzel, and then immediately collapses disconsolately into a chair and says “ugh, great—now i’m the bad guy.” overtly blaming rapunzel for “making” gothel snap at her. (this of course gets called back to at the end of the film, though it’s less a guilt trip there than it is a threat.)

aaaand right before “mother knows best (reprise)” when rapunzel asks how gothel found her, gothel says, “oh, it was easy, i just listened for the sound of complete and utter betrayal and followed that.” this one imo is the clearest illustration of how all this impacts rapunzel emotionally, because she goes from scared/alarmed/startled to just. sagging, in obvious guilt. 

but then of course there’s also the scene right after rapunzel leaves the tower, where we see her oscillating wildly from jubilance to despair and guilt as she frets over what her leaving will “do” to gothel, how mad / upset / betrayed gothel will feel, etc. so even when gothel isn’t there, actively reinforcing this behavior, we can see that rapunzel very much feels that gothel’s feelings are her responsibility—and if gothel is upset, that’s rapunzel’s fault. 

anyway!! all this adds up to rapunzel leaving the tower with this subconscious mindset that all problems are her problems, and we see this expressed very early on in s1. i would even argue as early as before ever after... with both frederic and eugene. 

BEA goes really hard right out of the gate with driving home how restless and uncomfortable rapunzel feels in corona; how stifled she is, and how badly she wants to go out and explore the wider world. but it also shows how hard she tries to stuff it down, because her success as a princess is “important to [her] dad.” she tries to bring up her discontent with eugene, but in a roundabout way so as to avoid actually saying she’s unhappy—and then when he says that he’s perfectly happy and content, rapunzel takes a deep breath and agrees with him. it isn’t overt text, but she’s still in “managing other people’s feelings” mode, and there’s a reason the only person she is honest about her own feelings with is cassandra—because cassandra signals very clearly that she is not going to feel hurt, offended, or disappointed if rapunzel is less than happy in corona. quite the opposite, cass is the one who suggests sneaking out in the first place!

now obviously, neither fred’s nor eugene’s feelings are rapunzel’s responsibility and i think both would be horrified to know that rapunzel feels like it’s her job to make them happy... but that doesn’t really matter, because rapunzel has been trained all her life to do this and that’s not a pattern that just goes away overnight. 

and then also in BEA, we see how quick rapunzel is to castigate herself for doing something that upsets someone else... when eugene proposes and she panics and runs away, her reaction is “i feel horrible about eugene” and to feel guilty/upset about not wanting to marry him Right Now.

aaaand of course caine blaming rapunzel for stuff frederic did goes entirely unremarked upon, partly because things like the hair reveal took priority over that but partly also, in my opinion, because rapunzel just kind of Accepted That because she’s so used to being blamed for everything.

this is sort of a recurring theme throughout a lot of s1. you mentioned RE, but for the sake of completeness—i think the most telling thing in that ep is that, when rapunzel finds out what booing really signifies, her first question is what could i have done to this person?, because the concept that this might be a HIM problem doesn’t even cross her mind. she assumes that it’s her fault he doesn’t like her. 

and then there’s stuff like pascal’s story, which i think is an interesting one because like... frankly, it’s not entirely rapunzel’s fault that she stood pascal up. yes, as the princess she could have stood up at six o’clock on the dot to say no more petitions, i am going to dinner. but also she’s the princess, and she’s busy, and pascal’s story is as much an episode about pascal learning that just because rapunzel is busy that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still love him as much as it is about rapunzel learning how to navigate work/life balance—but it’s also very clear that rapunzel’s perspective is “i have been a HORRIBLE friend and i need to put EVERYTHING ELSE on hold until i have FIXED my TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR” when the reality is more like “rapunzel and pascal are both going through a major adjustment period and need to have a realistic talk about expectations now that rapunzel is, like, training to rule a country.” 

in painter’s block, rapunzel feels so traumatized by the (largely correct) decisions she made in QFAD that she can’t make any decisions at all and falls prey to sugracha’s manipulation, and i personally think this is the beginning of the tipping point for her where she begins to see that hey... she’s just a person, she literally cannot be responsible for every bad thing that happens, she can’t be in two places at once, she can’t fix everything for everyone... and sometimes she needs to prioritize one problem over the other. that’s why the emotional climax of that episode is rapunzel saying “difficult choices are what make us who we are.” that’s her letting go of the horrific guilt she felt about choosing corona over varian, and letting eugene and the others put themselves in danger to save her parents. 

that epiphany carries her through SOTS and enables her to make the tough calls she needs to make re: stopping varian, but it also doesn’t mean that her tendency to blame herself for stuff that isn’t her fault goes away altogether. just look at BTCW: while she’s trying to make sense of how/why eugene could be marrying stalyan, her first instinct is to blame herself. to wonder if maybe this is a response to her kind of sort of turning down his kind of sort of second proposal. 

and the rest of the vardaros arc is like... i would say half rapunzel delaying moving on because she’s scared of what waits for her at the end of the black rock trail (as freebird confirms) and half rapunzel making vardaros’s problems her problems and trying to fix them because she feels responsible. 

curses is... not a good episode (canardist, why) but the plot basically hinges on canardist successfully making rapunzel feel guilty / dubious enough about taking back her own telescope that she starts buying into the curse stuff and psyching herself out. 

*as a sidebar here, there are also instances in this same period of rapunzel acknowledging her culpability in stuff she DID do wrong, for example in under raps—but in these cases, it’s interesting to me to note that her apologies actually aren’t very good apologies. in the under raps example, for instance, she also foists off blame on cassandra (saying basically, well i wouldn’t have interfered and put you in danger if you had told me everything, even though i am terrible at keeping secrets and we both know it). and this makes sense, because gothel certainly did not model good, healthy apologizing habits for rapunzel, lol. so she’s in this weird zone where she tends to feel guilty for everything / feels responsible for other people’s feelings but when she DOES mess up for realsies she also doesn’t really have the skills to navigate a true apology. this poor girl

i would say that RATGT is about the point where rapunzel switches gears from accepting blame (both for things that aren’t her fault, like all this stuff, and for things that are, like when she apologized to cass for being a dick in goodbye and goodwill or when she apologized to pascal for belittling him in king pascal) to sort of... overcorrecting and entering her “i’m right, you’re wrong” phase. RATGT is when she starts overtly shutting cass down, and RATGT is when cass’s injury happens—something so horrific and scary that i tend to think rapunzel just cannot process the guilt. it’s too much, too painful, and not something she is emotionally equipped to hold onto or work through in a healthy way...

...so she shoves it away and blames cass instead, very openly. she transmutes her guilt into anger, lessening the pain she feels. and she sticks to that throughout RDO, throughout the rest of s2, and evidently through the rest of the series given she literally never apologizes for it. which is outside of the scope of what you asked alksdfjklsfd but i tend to think basically, rapunzel is not very good at distinguishing between “i feel guilty, but it isn’t my fault” and “i feel guilty, because it is my fault” so in the process of unlearning the former behavior she also forces away the latter, and at the end of s3 she’s in a place where she needs to re-learn how to feel guilt in a healthy, reasonable way. because guilt isn’t always a bad emotion, sometimes it’s just your brain’s way of saying “i did something bad, and i want to make up for it” and That’s Good. 

[rigelwrites-blog]

Lorelai: Discussion and Review

The Cat Lady, from the basis of my personal perspective, was a brilliantly haunting, poignant experience that tactfully and cleverly explored grim, deeply philosophical concepts such as death, grief, self-harm, depression, and suicide. It adroitly cultivated its atmosphere to effectively and realistically convey the overhanging bleakness of Susan’s life while avoiding miring the narrative in unnecessary, ostentatious darkness. In many ways, it seems Lorelai has managed to emulate the harrowing realism of its predecessor, while similarly employing abstract imagery to establish and amplify the palpable emotional tone. The expression of this profound pathos and visual symbolism was augmented through variation in both the color palette between settings and the intensity or saturation of certain hues, particularly red. More specifically, I appreciated the implementation of softer, warmer tones to embellish the wistful filter overlaying Lorelai’s joyous memories with her father, which contrasted the harsher colors and shadows denoting her stark reality. Additionally, it was devastating to see Miranda’s death even though it had been unfortunately rather likely, considering that, when someone’s thoughts are as despairing and volatile as hers were, it’s exceptionally dangerous to be left alone with them.

Beyond the seemingly implied, deeper connection between The Queen of Maggots and Lorelei, I wonder if the Queen selected Lorelei in particular as the executor of her will as a result of Lorelei’s tenacity and her embodiment of a true “survivor”. In a sense, an individual with an indomitable spirit, who essentially represents the refusal to capitulate even amidst confrontation with the vilest of circumstances, would harbor the insatiable desire to protract their life and quell any lingering regrets, thereby rendering them susceptible to the tantalizing bargain offered by the Queen. Lorelei cannot expunge the compulsion to protect her sister from the maleficent hands of John and finally secure freedom for them both, and, consequently, she acquiesces to the Queen, just as the demonic woman likely anticipated she would.

Concerning the characterization of Lorelei and Zack, I personally found them to be just a bit too calm when conversing in Zack’s apartment in consideration of the traumatic, ineffably disturbing situations they recently endured and witnessed. Perhaps their somewhat relaxed and even flirtatious attitudes at this particular moment could be attributable to difficulties in processing the reality of what transpired, as well as the immediate need for the distraction and comfort of each other’s company and congenial, flippant conversation. Regardless, I still would have preferred some additional development for these characters during their quiet scene together, particularly through the presentation of their respective emotional responses to the profound stimuli of facing death and irredeemable wickedness. Further intimate moments between the two could have sufficed to augment the audience’s personal connection and understanding of these characters and the true depth of their personalities.

In a way, the chapter with Al was rather reflective of the anxiety mini-game from The Cat Lady, which externalized the precarious balance of Susan’s mental stability by demonstrating the pronounced repercussions incurred from her cumulative experiences of various stressors. For Al’s circumstance, it seems that the nature of Lorelai’s sudden influence over him serves as the sole determinant of the fragility of his resolve and represents the dangerous tenuity of the line existing between redemption and regression. Essentially, Lorelai was imbued with the ability to either inspire Al to surmount his depressive state and become a survivor like her, or, shatter his attempts at remediation and force him to submit to his pernicious tendencies, just as her stepfather and mother did. Though Lorelai is supernaturally capable in this situation and can affect both Al’s surroundings and his mind, I consider some of her whispered sentiments to be rather emulative of intrusive thoughts that, in their injuriousness and pessimistic cruelty, oft hinder the path towards sustained progress.  

In addition to their literal meaning as a method of transportation and escape, trains have also been rather metaphoric in this game, seemingly representing a more symbolic journey or liberation from the debilitating circumstances and mentalities that have entrapped both Al and Lorelai. Lorelai is impeded in the forward momentum of her life by her corrosive home environment, and, as potentially implied through the imagery of a train battering through her apartment building as it speeds along, she is a survivor who fights for her future, regardless of what she must do or destroy to progress. Conversely, it seems in Al’s negative route that he himself was an obstacle in the track towards betterment and, in his inability to move forward, he was left behind, his journey coming to an abrupt end.

In general, the quiet moments and honest discussions on the intricacies of depression in The Cat Lady were more resonant with me personally than the situations that Lorelai is subjected to. That being said, the conveyance of the harrowing events of this game and their emotional undertones was beautifully accomplished. Additionally, the lingering possibility of redemption or progression for these characters certainly contributes much appreciated instances of warmth and hope to an otherwise rather dismal, grave story.

In consideration of the dialogue and visual representation of the Queen, it seems certain interpretations of The Queen of Maggots and her symbolic significance can be discerned. Essentially, imagery appertaining to mirrors or facing one’s reflection, prevalent in the final confrontation between the two Lorelais, appears to infer that the Queen herself is a physical manifestation of the darker, pernicious, yet oft concealed inclinations that all of humanity experiences to variable degrees. In a sense, the Queen and her machinations are also rather representative of the external or environmental stressors which trigger the emergence and outward expression of these negative attributes. In the context of the game’s universe, the “thorns” of the Queen’s corruptive influence ensnare the frail, suggestible minds of her victims, translate their desperation into capitulation, and, eventually, induce dire, grim consequences. These ramifications often involve considerable anguish for the individuals trapped in the vicinity of someone else’s destruction, thus, the cycle of trauma, mental devolution, and death exists in perpetuity, thereby fulfilling the monstrous Queen’s insatiable need to consume, like a true maggot, the corpses of the pained, lost, or damned. Lorelai can perhaps be interpreted as a symbol for the transcendence of these tribulations, as it appears she ultimately overcomes both her stepfather and the Queen herself regardless of the route, though the lingering grasp of the Queen and the regression she represents restrains Lorelai and somewhat limits the extent of her personal progression in the “bad” endings.

With respect to the overall impression Lorelai imparted upon me, I suppose I feel rather ambivalent, as certain scenes and elements were beautifully portrayed while others seemed to be a bit lacking in substance and depth. There are indubitably positive attributes to be enumerated, particularly the depiction of alcoholism and the generally inspiring message underlying the narrative and its culmination. It’s certainly quite appreciated and somewhat aberrant for a game to conclude with an accurate presentation of the mundanities and natural oscillations of highs and lows which define the course of an average life. As explored thematically throughout the extent of this game, grief, devastation, and turbulence are immutable inevitabilities of human experience that necessitate solidity of the will and persistence to healthily overcome. Though the path towards self-betterment, redemption, and contentment is sinuous and occasionally regressive, the cumbrous journey is undoubtedly worth the tribulations and set-backs we endure along the way.

As I’ve already expatiated on my interpretation of Lorelai’s purpose as a representation of resilience and pertinacity in spite of horrific circumstances, I’ll instead delve into a few of the aspects and sections of the game that I consider to be a tad weak. I mentioned earlier on that certain conversations seemed somewhat out of place and irreverent in contrast to the depravity and disillusionment the characters had recently experienced. The tonal shift was quite rapid, and, consequently, these individuals were deprived of the opportunity to emotionally respond or effectively contend with the actualities and implications of their harrowing situations. Overall, it seemed there was some misappropriation of time and focus throughout the game, as certain characters such as Maria, Zoe, and the other nursing home residents were granted comparatively considerable portions of the narrative despite, ultimately, having little significance to the overarching plot or Lorelai’s personal development. In general, ancillary characters and sections are beneficially employed to showcase facets of the protagonist’s personality and facilitate their growth, or, further the conveyance and clarity of the main theme. Outside of Al, Chapter 2’s characters were essentially forgotten about and devoid of greater purpose and detailed exploration, retrospectively rendering this chapter slightly hollow and empty. I was anticipating the replication of Lorelai’s experiences with Al in future chapters where these discarded side characters would be more effectively anatomized.

Concerning Zack and Lorelai, I still somewhat maintain my aforementioned perspective on the extent of the development and depth provided for them individually and as a couple. To me, it seemed their interactions were a tad flat and shallow with respect to the subject matter discussed and the depicted intimacy of their personal, emotional connection. Zack, himself, appears to have no demonstrable or notable personality arc beyond the rather commonplace, archetypal neighbor who finally acquires the ability to articulate his love when faced with the prospect of imminent death.

I’m a bit more equivocal when analyzing Lorelai herself and, by extension, the overarching structure and flow of the narrative itself. I suppose the greatest issue I encountered when recollecting the events of the game is the limited internal elasticity and growth that Lorelai seems to experience between the beginning and end of her journey. Though her circumstances and surrounding environment are improved substantially, her inner personality, beliefs, inclinations, and desires remain rather immutable and unchallenged by her experiences with the Queen. Regardless of your choices in actions and dialogue, Lorelai is generally the same person and an uncompromising “survivor” in the end, varying only in the amount of regrets and lingering difficulties she faces. However, Lorelai can potentially express wildly variable opinions throughout her time in the afterlife on the basis of your direction, for instance, she can harbor little sympathy for the frustrated mother in the AA group and the alcoholic Al, resolutely deciding that his life is irredeemable and should be sacrificed for the sake of her own desires. Alternatively, she can help him and defy the Queen, though the significance of this choice is rather undermined considering Lorelai suffers no evident consequences from her insubordination. I suppose I would have preferred greater divergence in the endings to reflect the pronounced dissimilarity in her perspectives and submission to the Queen’s will. Even in the positive, “golden” route, I believe Lorelai’s characterization and progression would have been a bit more realistic and dimensional had she initially lacked empathy and compassion for others who cannot as easily combat or surmount their debilitating situations. Lorelai’s unwavering strength and tenacity are not ubiquitous traits, and it would have been interesting to explore her process of recognizing and accepting the innate heterogeneity of human resolve and mental stability. Perhaps she could have accomplished this through her experiences delving into the specific circumstances of her assigned “parasites” and witnessing the true fragility of the boundary between recovery and capitulation.  Conversely, the negative route would demonstrate the ramifications of austerity and the unwillingness to understand or forgive the flaws and injurious behaviors of others, instead electing to acrimoniously judge and consequently punish the people she gains influence over.

An evocative experience, nonetheless.

[marypsue]

More stuff from the Symbiote Ford AU! This time, it's an AToTS retelling. Ish.

I’m also on AO3, as MaryPSue!

...

The portal swirls away into nothingness, taking the last of the blue light with it, and the basement lab goes dark.

Stanley stands frozen in place where he'd stopped when Ford had unwound his scarf, torn somewhere between fear and despair. He keeps oscillating between a desire to throw himself between Ford and the awestruck and confused children in the corner, and the vague hope that Ford - or the thing he thinks is impersonating Ford - hasn't noticed them yet. The cycle is only broken by a flash of worry about the - 

Ford pinches the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, unable to believe what he's hearing from Stan. "Government agents, Stanley? It's not bad enough that you restarted the portal, you had to end up on the government's radar while doing it?"

Stan snaps back, automatically defensive. "Hey, I'm not the super-genius who decided to build the stupid portal in the first...place..." His anger tips to confusion, and he eyes the fronds flared on either side of Ford's head suspiciously. "...Ford?"

"Yes, it's me," Ford says, but before he can explain any further, the girl - Mabel, without a hint of fear in her, what a curious and remarkable child - is interrupting. 

"Whoa, what? Stanley? Grunkle Stan, what -"

"You took my name," Ford says, before Stan can decide how he wants to put the thought into words. "Oh, and my house. And you turned it into a what?"

"Tourist trap," Stan mutters, crossing his arms and looking away from Ford's face, deliberately avoiding eye contact. As if Ford can’t see perfectly clearly at the very surface of his thoughts just what kind of a farce he’s made of Ford’s home and research. And he has the audacity to be - proud of this - this mockery of a museum he’s created!

“What on earth possessed you -” Ford cuts his own sentence short, waving a hand as though he can brush the sense of - of violation away like something tangible. “Never mind. It can wait. We need to deal with the government first.”

He starts across the room towards the elevator - or where the elevator should be, if Stanley hasn’t ruined that too - but once more, Mabel interrupts.

“Okay, nobody’s going anywhere until somebody tells us what the heck is going on! Grunkle Stan, why is your brother-guy saying this is his house? And -”

Ford sighs, and presses a hand to his temple. He has to unwind his scarf a little further to give his fronds room to move, to be able to match the patterns of Mabel's brainwaves. She’s truly a remarkable child, he’s never encountered a wavelength quite like hers. 

Once he’s synchronized brainwaves with Mabel, though, it only takes a thought to dump the whole sordid story directly into her mind.

Mabel’s eyes go glassy, and then her knees collapse under her. Her twin catches her before she hits the concrete floor, torn between concern for his now-unconscious sister and fury at Ford. “Mabel! What’d you do to her?”

“I may have overestimated her mental capacity,” Ford admits, and the glare Dipper fixes on him is pure poison, any trace of hero worship boiling away almost instantly. “Not like that. I attempted a psychic transference and overloaded her brain. She’ll be fine once she’s had some time to process.”

“You did what,” Stanley growls.

“I transferred my knowledge of our history directly to her mind,” Ford says. “We don’t have time to sit around down here telling stories for thirty minutes with half the US government breathing down our necks.” He pauses, considering. “It is still the US government, correct? We haven’t been absorbed by the Soviets?”

Stan’s got more than a few choice words for Ford, words Ford is fairly sure you’re not supposed to use in front of children in this dimension, but he bites them back. Ford has to admit he’s astonished Stan even has the maturity to do that. 

“Yeah, we got a lot of catching up to do,” Stan says, with his mouth, anyway. “But I guess we probably should do something about the jerks trampling all over my lawn first.”

Ford doesn’t snap, “Your lawn?” It takes a surprising amount of self-control.

“I’ll handle it,” he says, bushing past Stan as he strides towards the elevator.

...

The lawn is, as Stan had said, swarming with black-clad government agents. They’ve set up a perimeter outside, and have apparently secured each room in the house. The two stationed in what had been Ford’s office-cum-laboratory, but now appears to be some kind of gift shop, start when Ford steps out from behind the basement door, but Ford adjusts their expectations with a wave of his fronds and a thought. They go back to their patrol, satisfied that nothing is out of the ordinary.

Ford walks out of the gift shop and down the stairs onto the lawn, broadcasting authority and rightness until anyone who might have questioned his presence is completely convinced that he’s meant to be there, that there’s nothing strange about him, that challenging him would be above their pay grade. It’s a handy little trick that he’s relied on time and time again during his travels. Of course, it’s easier when the crowd isn’t actively pursuing a hostile fugitive with his face, but still.

The man the others are looking to as the person in charge is deep in a discussion with what appears to be his number two (and possibly his boyfriend?) when Ford walks up. He glances up, and Ford shifts his focus from keeping the crowd’s expectations under control to a full-scale assault on this man’s memories. He tears through them like he’s upending a metaphorical trunk onto an equally metaphorical floor and sifting through the contents, unraveling each strand of logical connection and certainty he finds and obliterating any information too damning. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demands, and the man in charge of the government agents blinks in confusion. “What authority do you have to search and seize my client’s property? And hold him against his will?” He prods at the memory of Stan in custody, like a sore tooth, and the government agent winces, almost imperceptibly. “You never even formally arrested my client, and I can see why. Your evidence is circumstantial at the very best, and your primary grounds for suspicion are - oh, I don’t believe this. An entirely unrelated incident, which you clearly must have hallucinated, because everyone knows zombies are fictional.”

The man, utterly blindsided by Ford’s psychic assault, blinks several times and presses a hand to his forehead, looking down at his shiny black shoes to break eye contact. “There was...a doomsday device...?”

“Oh, really. Did you find it during your unlawful search and seizure of my client’s property?” Ford crosses his arms over his chest, tapping one foot against the gravel. “You should be grateful my client is giving you an opportunity to clear off of his property. If it were up to me, this suit would already be before the courts.”

The man Ford’s speaking to seems properly bamboozled, but his partner peers suspiciously at Ford. He starts to speak, and Ford shifts his attentions, giving the second agent’s memories the same thorough scouring as the first. The man shuts his mouth, confused and chastened. He offers no resistance when Ford takes the device he’s holding - a tablet computer, fascinating - and swipes through its contents, until he’s satisfied that it holds nothing truly incriminating.

Both of the agents are blinking, now, trying to repair the mental connections Ford had broken. Ford gives the whole yard another blast of authority, just for good measure. He’d better get them all out of here, give them something else to focus on to mitigate the risk of their reforming those connections. “Well? What are you waiting for, a kiss on the cheek?”

Both agents give themselves a short shake, like they’ve just woken from a nightmare. The one Ford had first spoken to recovers first, giving his enormous walrus moustache a nervous stroke. “Uh - yes,” he says, uncertain about everything except that he absolutely, one hundred per cent does not want to be sued. “Right! Men, pack up. We’re moving out,” he shouts, the command carrying over the lawn. Ford steamrolls the few inklings of resistance from the lower-ranking agents, and the swarm of black-clad government guys begin to tear down the perimeter and pack their gear back up.

The man Ford had first spoken to, the one in charge, nods once at the sight before turning back to Ford. “Please pass on our...apologies...to your client,” he says, and even though he means it more to cover his own ass than because he actually feels any regret, at least Ford’s story has convinced him. He’s picked up the narrative Ford had fed him - that Stan has been wrongly accused, and they’ve botched the arrest - which means there’s a much, much smaller likelihood of his brain reconstructing the memories and conclusions that Ford took. Excellent. The government shouldn’t be bothering them any longer.

Ford just nods, suddenly too tired to speak, and watches as the two agents bundle into a large black vehicle marked with an eagle-and-magnifying-glass insignia. He feels himself sway as the vehicle trundles away, but forces himself to stand upright. The government agents can’t be allowed to sense weakness from him, and, selfishly, he doesn’t want Stan to see how exhausted pulling this little stunt has left him. 

“Whoa! Grunkle Ford, that was amazing!” a voice pipes up from behind him, and Ford turns, carefully, to see Mabel sprinting across the lawn towards him. Dipper follows a little more cautiously in her wake. Seeing Mabel awake and unharmed seems to have worn the sharp edges off of Dipper’s suspicion, but he’s still wary as he approaches Ford, watching him with distrust as Mabel skids to a halt beside him, and maintaining a safe distance. Unlike Mabel, who practically slams into Ford’s side, sticking out her tongue at the retreating government guys.

“How did you do that?” Dipper asks, and Stan, coming up behind him, echoes the question.

“Yeah, I’d really like to know the answer to that one too, poindexter.” The question itself is innocuous, but Stan’s intent is clearly hostile. He still doesn’t quite trust that Ford is still Ford, though - oh, how insulting, he thinks that no alien brainworm could be this much of a jerk.

“It’s a symbiotic lifeform,” Ford explains, briefly, gesturing to his fronds. “Not a parasite, Stanley. Feeds on brainwaves. It means I can read - and manipulate - the thoughts and memories of anything with a brain.” He frowns. “That made the Jellyfish Dimension a little more difficult to navigate through than I expected, I’ll admit.”

Dipper cocks his head to one side, peering at the waving movement of Ford’s fronds, his curiosity warring with his distrust. Mabel, on the other hand, has thrown caution to the wind if she ever had it. “Ooh, can I touch it?”

“I’d...rather you didn’t,” Ford says, taking in the glare Stan’s fixed on him. 

“Yeah. C’mon, you two gremlins, let’s head back inside. Think we left Soos passed out in the basement,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on Ford. Ford thinks that he wouldn’t even need to be able to read Stan’s mind to know what Stan’s thinking.

You stay the hell away from these kids. I don’t want you hurting them again/don’t want your sci-fi weirdness rubbing off on them/don’t want you -

“Um, uh, Mr. Author?” Dipper asks. “Your nose is bleeding.”

Ford reaches up, swipes a hand under his nose. “So it is. Thank you, m’boy.”

Stan’s jaw shifts, like he’s biting his tongue. “Move it or lose it, kid. My brother can take care of himself.” He shoots one last, pointed glare in Ford’s direction, and then turns and starts to usher the kids towards the house.

[hooyoshouse]

We Have Created Mankind In A State Of Kabad

By Mohammed Ibrahim Shire. The liver is one of the most important laboratories in the body – an incredibly vital organ – that we often take for granted even though it performs key functions. Without it, the body would refuse to function. Everything that we put in our mouth – whether its garbage or otherwise – must go through the liver before it does anything useful elsewhere in the body. In the Qur’an, there is one particular term – an hapax legomena– that caught my attention and that is the term ‘kabad’. Allaah says: ‘Verily, we have created al-insaan (humankind) in a state of kabad’ (4:90). The word kabad (to mean: affliction, distress, toil and trial) shares the same root with kabid (to mean: liver). The liver is in a state of constant suffering in its bid to purify the body’s blood. Its duty is to toil uninterruptedly and graciously – to process the useful and reject the harmful. It’s a resilient organ that’s easy to ignore – until something goes wrong. Just like the liver, mankind is born to struggle and strive; and since we are born to struggle, we are also born to conquer. In a continual state of struggle, humans survive and evolve facing challenges so that their choices have meaning and purpose. The liver is the only organ in the body that, if chopped down to a fraction of its initial size, will rapidly regenerate and perform as if brand-new. It can withstand 80% to 90% loss in function before symptoms occur. Similarly, the human spirit is remarkably resilient, adjusting to seemingly unbearable circumstances, when fortitude and patience are exercised. Suffering of all kinds is necessary for the cultivation and expression of the strength of character. It’s a requisite to navigate through life and accomplish much of significance. The liver has to taste (process) the harmful substances that we ingest before it can commence the detoxification method. Similarly, we have to go through tough times in order to appreciate the change and develop resilience. Without ever tasting any adversity or any knowledge of what it may mean, would the feeling of respite and comfort become meaningless? Without misery, would joy and happiness lose meaning? How would one know how to truly appreciate happiness if they had never felt sadness? Trials are meant to test our resolve, to assess our mettle, to enable us to make the best decisions and compound it with perseverance or reactively wince it with impatience and sprinkling doubt on the certainty (i.e. relief after every hardship). The selfless liver doesn’t complain when faced with an infection, it will proactively fight the good fight until it succeeds or its functions are hampered and even then, it still refuses to complain until it throws in the final towel. We were all born crying whilst our loved ones laughed in happiness for our arrival. We navigate through life’s uncertainties, oscillating between the calm before the storm and the actual storm and in the process build character and establish our authentic self through struggle. We aim to leave this world laughing and feeling content whilst our loved ones will cry at our departure. To the human condition: to joy and loss, happiness and despair, passion and tears, bliss and remorse. Struggle is inevitable so strive beautifully. For more lovely posts like this, check out the Somali Mind Blog. Read the full article

[zureo-blog]

◈

                                My muse makes a drunk confession to your muse. 

On nights of opulent solitude, he chooses to submerge himself in a torrent of his own thoughts. This is when he delves into everything that has been bothering him for the past week or so and searches for a solution to his problems. Tonight, Taeyong had taken to the balcony with a few bottles of soju and aimed to drink the night away (or at least, until he feels sick to his stomach). 

Taeyong lingers near the back of the balcony, leaning over the metal baluster with a half-empty bottle of soju wielded between his hands. He twiddles the bottle, absentmindedly, watching as its contents oscillate from one side to the other in a quicken pace. He’d been doing this for the past forty seconds now and still does not know exactly what he finds so enthralling about this. However, he stops when he raises his arm mid-air and takes another swing out of the bottle. It has been months since he last had a drink, let alone on his own. But given today’s occasion (re: his birthday), he figures he’d do what the majority normally do on their birthdays and celebrate, even if that meant doing so on his own. He doesn’t mind, though, he finds comfort in being by himself every now and then. 

He gradually loses himself with each bottle that he consumed. It isn’t long until he’s inebriated. Taeyong does not drink often, but when he does, this is the problem that almost always arises: he hasn’t an ounce of control in him, especially whenever he entertains a myriad of despairing thoughts. Losing count after the third bottle, he discards the one he’s currently drinking on the floorboard and settles down beside it, lissome fingers ensnared in his hair as he shut his eyes. 

His head is spinning, his vision is waning. 

It isn’t until he vaguely picked up on the distant reverberation of the front door being unlocked that he diverted his attention into the apartment. Due to his bleary vision, it was actually rather difficult to make out the features of the face his eyes flickered over. Difficult, but not impossible. “Jaehyun, is that you?” He succinctly asks, words slurred when uttered. Grasping onto the railing in an effort to haul himself off of the floor, he struggles to stand; nearly loses his footing. His shoulders meets the iron balusters, knees planted firmly upon the cement flooring. 

This is embarrassing, he looks pathetic. 

Making his way into the apartment and down the hallway, he stands before Jaehyun sporting a perplexed expression and a flushed countenance. “What are you doing here? You told me that you’d be back late tonight,” he takes a long pause, brows skeptically furrowed. “Did you, by any chance, happen to miss me while you were away? Is that why you returned home early?” 

He’s three long strides away from invading Jaehyun’s personal space. As soon as he does, Taeyong drapes an arm over the younger’s broad shoulders and turns to face them with a sardonic simper embellished across his mien. “You did miss me, huh? Fortunately for you, I missed you, too. I was wondering when you’d return home. I wanted us to spend the evening together.” His head falls onto the other’s, eyelids faltering with each second that crawled by. Taeyong remains in this position for god-knows how long, breathing slowly: inhales, exhales. 

           “Taeyong, have you been drinking?” 

Before he had even been given time to answer, he was already being dragged to his bedroom. Taeyong follows sluggishly, feet scuffing against the carpeted floor as he obediently follows in Jaehyun’s lead. Needless to say, it is almost always this way between them: Jaehyun will pave a path to safety and Taeyong will follow the other as if he was a newborn puppy following around its mother. 

He’s being pushed onto the bed, but he doesn’t want to lay down. He’s being told to rest, but he doesn’t want to sleep. He does not want to do anything other than what he had mentioned earlier, and that is spending this evening with Jaehyun. Taeyong has waited all day for this; he had even thrown on the ‘night’ shirt the other had given him and saved his birthday cake for them to share together (although he had blown out the candles). 

Yet, looking at Jaehyun like this, It gets him thinking: his thoughts contain no plausible answer as to why he feels the strongest emotions he does towards them, neither can he even fathom the inexplicable feeling in his chest whenever he exchanges so much as to a single glance with the younger. Taeyong does, however, have a remote inkling as to what these feelings are and where they’ve derived from, but he’s terrified of acknowledging them. Acknowledging them, professing them, wouldn’t that put a strain on their relationship? He just got Jaehyun back, he doesn’t want to lose them again. However, he has been keeping this to himself for ages now; any longer, and he just might combust internally. 

Unbeknownst to even himself, Taeyong prevents Jaehyun from leaving his bedroom by grasping onto their wrist and heaving them towards him. In a matter of seconds, his arms swarm around the younger’s torso from behind, chest pressed flush to the flat of their back. He embraces the as if he had not seen them in ages – tight and secure – with no intention of releasing them from his arms. When was the last time Taeyong had last held Jaehyun like this? When was the last time they had last shared any form of skin skip with each other? It’s been too long that he’s no recollection of either or. 

“Jaehyun, do you have even the slightest clue as to how precious you are to me?” He breathes out in a soft susurration, nose nestling into the nape of their neck as his lashes gradually flutter shut. “So precious that I want to be the only person who understands your heart the most.” 

[explvrer]

look at this plate i painted !!! she is food safe but she is too frickin pretty to eat out of and potentially damage!!

[transformationstuck]

makatu43 asked: Rose getting shrunk and sat on by a naked Kanaya, flattening permanently to her booty

(They sent this prompt in as a submission instead of an ask for some reason, but w/e.)

It’s really easy to get bored on the meteor. Being on a rock hurtling close to the speed of light through the Furthest Ring is all well and good, but if all you have to do on that rock is eat, read, watch movies, and peruse the dormant internet, it can get pretty boring pretty fast. There are only so many times you can re-watch The Shawshank Redemption before you want to tear your own hair out.

So lately, you’ve been playing with the Alchemiter, trying to make something truly new and fresh. Most of the time what you get out is useless, like a coffee mug with the handle on the inside, or a deck of cards where all the twos have bite marks on them. But occasionally, something completely unexpected pops out. Something so utterly unique and interesting that it alone can entertain you for a week.

This time, you get the distinct feeling that it’s gonna last a lot longer than that.

You made a ray-gun. An actual vintage 50’s sci-fi ray gun, with the completely pointless circles around the barrel and everything. This alone would provide at least a few hours of amusement, but when you aimed the thing at a nearby can left over from the Mayor’s last supply run, you realized the true potential of what you had made.

A beam of energy erupted from the gun, surrounding the can in an aquamarine aura, and over the course of a few seconds the can had shrunk down to about 5% of its original size.

You’d picked it up. It was tiny, only about half the size of your thumbnail, whereas before you’d have been able to comfortably wrap your hand around half of its circumference. You’d held it between your fingers, and it had crumpled between them.

Oh yes. You could do some very interesting things with this thing.

Your first thought was to show Kanaya, and so you did just that. She was skeptical when you’d described it, but after you’d unleashed its power upon a poor, unsuspecting lamp, her eyes lit up at the possibilities.

“This is incredible!” she’d said. “If you could build a growth-ray, we could store so much stuff in a much smaller area. I could weave small complicated designs at an inflated size and shrink them down when I was happy with them. If you could-”

You’d interrupted her tirade to suggest an alternative. “Those are all very pragmatic uses, yes. But I have a different suggestion: let’s mess with Karkat.”

It took some convincing, and repeated assurances that you could build the equivalent growth ray to reverse your mischief, but she eventually acquiesced. That’s how you ended up here, hiding with Kanaya behind a doorframe, watching Karkat read an Alternian romance novel to Dave.

“Hang on a minute I thought Murfle was Ralana’s matesprit?” Dave interrupts.

Karkat glares daggers at him. “She is, oh my god, how could you miss something so basic?”

“Come on dude don’t tell me you don’t see it. The way he’s looking for an excuse to get out of the redder activities they do together.”

Karkat raises his eyebrows at Dave.

“That subtle concern he shows when Ralana looks distant. The way he’s gradually opening up to her more and more.”

Karkat’s eyes widen in what you can only imagine is disbelief.

“Murfle totally wants in Ralana’s diamonds, dude.”

For a moment Karkat just sits there, mouth agape, staring straight at Dave.

“… What?” Dave asks. “Am I wrong?”

“Holy sweet mother of fuck,” Karkat says, shocked, “how did you even spot that this early? That’s meant to be the big twist in chapter twenty-three, and you, a human, have already figured it out? How?”

“What, isn’t it obvious?” Dave asks with a hint of incredulity. “Tell me it’s obvious.”

“When I first read this I only caught it last chapter. Most people don’t see it for ten more.”

“Well fuck,” Dave says, leaning back, his head now resting on the back of the couch. “Looks like I’m a bona fide quadrant aficionado now. Better watch out Karkat,” he turns his head to face him, raising one arm in the air, pointing into the sky, “your undisputed rule is about to be challenged. A new contender enters the arena, and that contender,” he lowers his hand and places it open palm over his chest, “is me.”

Karkat’s just staring at Dave, clearly enraptured by your brother’s perceptive skills. You spring your trap whilst he’s distracted, poking the shrink-ray around the corner, taking aim at his head, and firing.

The same aquamarine hue envelops Karkat, snapping both him and Dave out of their headspaces.

“What the fuuuuuUUUUUUAAAAAAHHHHH-“ Karkat trails off as he begins to shrink, and shrink fast. He rockets past shoulder-height, his legs no longer reach the floor, and before you know it you can barely see his little orange horns poking out from behind Dave’s thigh. Dave’s poker face is shattered – he looks shocked, frozen with indecision. He starts scanning the room around him, and you and Kanaya dart back around the door just before his gaze sweeps past you. You wait a few seconds, then Kanaya peeks out and gives you the all-clear. You resume your vigil.

“Uh”, Dave says, at a loss for words. “Are you… okay?” he asks with such sincerity, such deep concern, that you’re taken back for a moment.

You can hear deep breaths being taken, and you can tell by the noise level that Karkat’s trying very hard to keep a level head. “… I think so”, he says after a few seconds. “Physically, at least.” You see one of Karkat’s now-tiny hands reach up and feel one of his horns. “I’m not… it doesn’t feel any different. But…” You see both or Karkat’s arms gesturing upwards at Dave. “Look at you! You’re gigantic! What the fuck!”

“Uh, pretty sure you’re just small dude,” Dave points out, “unless the couch grew with me or something.”

Karkat waves a hand dismissively. “Fine, whatever, relativity, who gives a shit. The point stands.”

After a brief pause, Dave concedes the point. “Yeah this is a pretty ‘what the fuck’ situation.”

They sit in silence for a few moments, Karkat’s horns tipping down as he no doubt buries his face in his hands.

“So how heavy are you?” Dave interjects.

“What?”

“Do you still have all that mass you used to have, or did that get scaled down too?”

Karkat throws up his hands. “How am I supposed to know that? Either way, my muscles would have been scaled down by the exact same amount, so I wouldn’t feel a difference.”

“I’m just wondering like,” Dave rubs the back of his neck awkwardly, “would I be able to pick you up? You know,” he mimes a grabbing motion, “carry you around and stuff.” He shrugs. “Gonna be hella inconvenient to get yourself around at that size.”

Karkat’s arms fall out of your view. “… You’re right,” he says after a time, resignation in his voice. “Oh god, you’re right.”

“What, Strider Airlines not good enough for you?” Dave quips as he smirks.

“No!” Karkat says, suspiciously quickly. After a pause, he repeats: “… No. I… appreciate the offer,” he says carefully. “It’s just… I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

After a protected gap, Dave ventures “… We could always just try it. See what happens.”

“You know what, fuck it, why not. Do it before I change my mind.

Dave reaches down, and when he brings his hand back up, he’s got his palm and fingers wrapped around Karkat’s torso, his legs dangling down and his arms stuck awkwardly out to his sides. He looks absolutely adorable, and Kanaya fights to suppress an “aww” at the sight. Dave brings his other hand up to form a cup, releasing Karkat into it. You can see his face now, and you can spot… red tears?

“Shhhhh,” Dave says softly as Karkat begins to vocalize his despair. “Shhhhhhhhhhhh.” Dave’s thumb reaches out and starts rubbing Karkat’s head, slowly, gently, like he’s afraid of hurting the troll. “It’s okay, Karkat. We’ll figure out how to change you back.”

As the head-rub continues, Karkat’s cries subside into hiccups, and then into… a purr? You look to Kanaya for answers, and the enormous jade flush overrunning her cheeks is answer enough.

“Got a lot of smart people on this meteor, and three literal gods.”

Karkat’s starting to nuzzle into Dave’s hands now. The angle gets too awkward for Dave to continue the head-rub, so he switches to a full-body stroke instead. “Can I…” Karkat says, his pitch oscillating as the purr interferes with its normal operation. “Can I stay here for a while? It feels… safe. Here. With you.”

“What you think I would leave you here right now? I ain’t a troll, dude, that’s not how humans roll.” Dave starts to smile so genuinely it’s kind of disturbing you. “We don’t abandon our bros when they need us most, that’s like, against rule zero or the bro code. It’s so implicit nobody ever tells you about it.”

Karkat starts interlacing small, high-pitched chirps with the purr.

Kanaya taps you on the shoulder and whispers, awkwardly, “We should go. We shouldn’t be watching this.”

But you keep staring, enraptured by the scene. Karkat, so small and vulnerable, cupped between Dave’s hands, hands that are one errant muscle twitch away from breaking apart and sending him tumbling down to the lap below. And yet, despite what just happened to him, and despite his precarious position, those sounds he’s making are triggering something deep in your brain, telling you that he’s content – nay, happy. It’s fascinating to watch the dance play out – Karkat’s trills and purrs in response to both Dave’s ministrations and the occasional whisper exchanged between them. It feels deeply intimate in a way you don’t have words to describe, and you’re absolutely fascinated by it.

In the end, Kanaya has to physically dray you away from the doorframe. You’re pliant to her wishes – you feel strangely relaxed, content, almost as if Karkat’s display was contagious. You catch yourself trying to figure out how to purr, but lacking the vocal structures to do so, you just end up gurgling.

Kanaya shakes her head at you, her head in her palm.  “You have no idea what we just watched do you.”

It’s not a question.

—————

Surprisingly, it was Kanaya who brought up the idea of delaying Karkat’s reversion. She cited “them needing to figure out their relationship” as her casus belli; you’re just happy he’ll be adorably tiny for a little longer.

In the meantime, your mind had drifted once more to the possibilities of the shrink-ray. After a minute of thought, your mind locked onto one particular scenario that sent a burning flame through your loins. When you’d described it to Kanaya, her eyes lit up and her cheeks flushed in arousal. She agreed almost immediately.

That’s how you ended up here, with your girlfriend holding the device as you show her how it works.

“So I depress this piece of plastic here?” Kanaya says, her finger tapping on the trigger. It’s incredibly clear she’s never wielded a gun before – she’s holding it all wrong, her thumb on the sights and two fingers under the trigger. You take her hand and shift it down, showing her how to clasp the grip. Ah, the benefits of an American upbringing.

“Yes. Don’t pull it suddenly,” you warn her, “make sure the entire motion is smooth. If you jerk it, you’re more likely to miss.”

“Okay, I think I’ve got it.”

You’re not so sure she has, but your arousal is leaving you impatient, so your remove your hand from hers and take your position, sitting down upon a wooden desk-chair.

“Are you ready?” Kanaya asks.

You take a moment to mull over the question. Is this a good idea? Should you make the growth-ray before you do this? But eventually, your libido wins the day. And so, closing your eyes, you mutter two simple words.

“Do it.”

A blast of energy washes over you, surrounding you in its warm embrace. It’s cozy, like a warm blanket after a night’s sleep. You smile as you feel your feet leave the ground and your head come clear of the backrest, and when the feeling dissipates and you open your eyes, Kanaya is looming above you, pointing the ray-gun where your chest used to be.

She’s huge. Oh god, she’s huge. If she had grown instead of you being shrunk, she’s easily be the height of a three-storey building, plus a chimney, and that’s not even counting her horns! She’s awe-inspiring in her beauty and stature. You feel yourself starting to get moist.

“You’re… beautiful,” you tell her, your voice laced with arousal.

Kanaya stares at you for a moment, her mouth open in amazement, before quickly moving to take her shirt off. You do the same, pulling your god-tier robes over your head, removing your leggings, unclasping your bra and dropping your panties. You look up and see Kanaya’s almost finished doing the same, her bulge writhing in the air, looking for something to grasp onto, to wrap itself around. It’s about the same size as you are now; just as you’d calculated.

Kanaya saunters towards you; slowly, steadily, one immense leg after the other. You’re mesmerized by the sight, and you reach down to stroke lightly at your clit.

Before you can get very far, though, Kanaya reaches a massive hand towards you, gripping you in her strong grip, surrounding you with her cool flesh. You close your eyes and take in the feeling, enraptured, and surprisingly relaxed. You understand Karkat’s state of mind a lot better now. It does feel safe here, being in the grasp of someone you trust.

You feel your legs leave the chair as Kanaya lifts you up; you open your eyes and you’re soaring past your girlfriend’s breasts, adorned with nipples larger than your head, and up in front of her stunning, vast face. She brings you forward, giving your entire head a kiss, covering your top half in her saliva. You try to kiss her back, but at your size the effort is futile, so you settle for pecking one of her fingers instead.

Kanaya’s lips retreat, and you look up at her eyes – her big, round, wonderful jade eyes, alight with passion, aflame with her love – and you smile. She smiles back.

And then you’re moving down, past the soft curve of her chin, the arc of her neck, the globes of her breasts, and the tight muscles of her belly, before you stop just above her crotch. You strain your head to look past Kanaya’s fingers and down at your ultimate destination – her bulge. It’s powerful, writhing like it is beneath you, and you shudder in anticipation. Kanaya’s lower fingers release their grip on your legs, allowing them to hang free. You kick them on instinct, your hind-brain afraid of falling; the movement attracts the probing tip of your girlfriend’s bulge, and it wraps around your legs, slithering up between Kanaya’s hand and your body, until you see the tip poke out next to your head. You reach out and caress it lovingly, kissing its tip, and Kanaya’s whole body shudders at the sensation.

Then she removes her hand from you, and you’re being held up only by her bulge.

It’s… disorienting. Obviously. It moves about in ways you can’t predict, coiling and uncoiling itself, rearranging its grip on you. You’re flipped around, moved upside down, and your entire body is coated in jade fluids. You idly wonder if hair can stain.

But then Kanaya’s bulge starts to rub against your clit, and that’s it, you’re gone, goodbye coherent thought, there is only pleasure now.

And what pleasure it is. Kanaya’s bulge has always brought you tremendous orgasms, but this one is shaping up to take the cake. It’s not her bulge that’s doing most of the heavy lifting, though – it’s your predicament. Here you are, just shorter in height than her bulge is long. You’ve got your girlfriend’s plump bulge wrapped around you, writhing, squeezing, caressing. Kanaya’s fingers press against the thing every now and then, along with whatever parts of your body happen to be exposed at the time. It’s humbling. You feel small, both in body and in mind. And that turns you the fuck on.

You can’t get yourself off from here – your arms are pinned to your sides by the bulge surrounding you – but it’s looking like you won’t have to. The tip pokes at your breasts, exploring the chasm between them, and occasionally flicking at your nipples. Further down, another section is splitting your legs, as if you were riding a horse, and rubbing against the full length of your crotch. Occasionally the entire ensemble springs up and down, as if your entire body was a cock it was stroking.

And above it all, in the rare instances where you can see past the part of the bulge above you, you can see Kanaya, pinching her nipples, and looking down at you with such pure, unfiltered pleasure. This, right here, right now, is exactly where you need to be. Where you want to be, with all your heart. You’re a pure instrument of pleasure, a tool to get Kanaya off. And that thought, right there, is what sends you over the edge of the most powerful orgasm of your life so far. Your pussy clenches down around nothing, your eyes roll back into your head, and your entire body shudders with rapture.

Bliss.

When you come to, you’re falling, headed straight for the chair below you. You slow your descent just in time, firing up your god-tier flight abilities to land if not softly, then at least not bone-shatteringly hard. Kanaya’s bulge must have let go of you when she came and it straightened itself out. You lie face-down on the wooden surface, panting, and grinning to yourself while laughter bubbles up from your throat.

Holy shit. You have to do that again.

It’s then that you notice the shadow looming over you, creeping past your position and up the chair, growing more defined by the second. You turn your head and look up.

There’s a massive grey sphere descending towards you at an alarming pace. Kanaya’s going to sit down.

You scream and cover your head with your arms, bracing for impact. You’re too small to get out of the way in time.

With a squelch, Kanaya’s butt covers you, plastering you between her and the chair. You feel your body distort, contorting into shapes you’re positive it can’t make, until finally you’re pressed flat against the ass above you.

Given the circumstances, it doesn’t really surprise you when you pass out.

—————

When you come to, your entire body is rumbling. For a moment you’re confused by the sensations you’re feeling – hard wood beneath you and soft flesh above you, your body feeling like it lacks depth – and then you remember.

And you scream.

Kanaya’s snoring ceases and she darts up, peeling you away from the chair. You hear a chainsaw rev up.

“Rose?” She asks, suddenly alert. “Rose where are you?”

You keep screaming. “This can’t be real” you think to yourself, repeating the mantra over and over again. “This can’t be real this can’t be real this can’t be real!”

You feel Kanaya spinning around, looking for you, but wherever she turns your screams continue to come from behind her.

“… Rose?”

You feel the skin around you distort, and a nail brushes up against your face. She covers your mouth for just a brief moment, muffling you, before your screams return in earnest after it passes by.

“Rose!” Kanaya says, alarmed and confused. ‘What happened?”

You don’t answer. You keep screaming, only pausing to take enough air in to continue the act.

“Sshhhh…” Kanaya says, stroking the dull side of her claw over you. “Shhhhhhhhhh…”

Gradually the screaming subsides, only to be replaced with silent tears.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…” she continues, the sound slowly soothing your mind.

After about ten minutes of this, the tears stop, the only sounds escaping you being the occasional sniffle.

“… Rose?” Kanaya asks, probing for a response.

Weakly, and without much fanfare, you offer a simple “Mmn” in response.

“Are you… okay?”

The sniffles stop and slowly, you shift into hysterical laughter.

“Rose?” she asks, puzzled.

“K-Kanaya,” You manage to get out between giggles. “I-m a- I’m a mole on- on- on your ass now. Take- take a guess.”

The tears start to flow again as you keep laughing and laughing. You want to hug her, you want to bury your face into her shoulder and let it all out; let her see your weakness, you don’t give a shit anymore. But you can’t even move your arms to cover your eyes. You’re trapped here, pressed flat against an ass you were admiring not long ago – an ass that is now your prison.

—————

Kanaya tries everything she can think of to get you off. She works at you with her claws, she wipes at you with a cloth, she tries peeling her own skin off – but no matter what she tries, the result is the same. You remain squished against her butt, in continued anguish at your situation.

An anguish that you’re abruptly thrown out of when you notice the ray-gun pointed at you.

“Kanaya, what are you doing?” You ask, trepidatious.

“I-” Kanaya stutters, struggling to control her emotions. “Maybe- maybe if I shrink you again you’ll pop off,”

Your entire brain suddenly crystalizes around the word “No!”, and you shout out the same.

“No! No… If you miss that shot, you’ve lost every other avenue you could possibly explore.”

“I’ve explored every avenue!” Kanaya yells, desperation wrapping around her voice. “This is all I have left!”

“You don’t know that! How could you know that? You haven’t even left this room yet!”

Kanaya breathes heavily, hiccupping, contemplating your words. Finally, fifteen seconds of tension later, the ray-gun falls from her grasp and tumbles unceremoniously to the floor below.

“I’m sorry…” She says, starting to weep. “This is all my fault. I should never have agreed to this, should never have let you go through with it. And I should never have so carelessly flopped down in post-orgasmic lethargy.”

“I’ve let you down Rose,” She says, sniffling. “I… I…”

She collapses onto your bed, forcing you to look up to the ceiling, and cries jade tears into your pillow.

You can’t blame her. Not just for the crying, but for the whole incident.

“Kanaya…” You say, trying to be comforting. “It was my idea. I pushed you to o it. I gave the final okay. And I certainly can’t blame you for the unconscious haze after you came. I should have spotted that in advance, and planned for it accordingly. This is not your fault,” you say decisively. “Do you hear me? It’s. Not. Your. Fault.”

Gradually, the crying subsides, replaced with an uncomfortable silence.

“… Kanaya?” You ping her. “Are you there?”

“Yes…” She says. “I just can’t believe that you’re the one calming me down right now. That’s… that’s…”

She pauses, and after a second of silence, you both burst out laughing simultaneously.

“She’s right,” you think. “That is so stupid.”

As you bask in the happy moment with your adorable matesprit, your spirits rise. Maybe… maybe you’ll be okay after all.

—————

The first thing out of Karkat’s mouth when you both enter the common room is, understandably, “Kanaya, where the fuck are your pants?”

In response, Kanaya turns around, letting you face them. Dave’s sitting at a barstool, with Karkat up on the counter next to a coffee mug that reads “I hate ironic statements on mugs” in black-outlined Impact.

“What the fuck is that?” Dave says, devoid of his usual ramblings.

“Hi Dave,” you respond.

Karkat’s eyes widen and your brother removes his shades, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing through them.

“Rose?” he asks, rubbing his eyes.

You sigh. “The one and only.”

“But… but…” Karkat stutters, for once in his life struggling to think of the words.

Kanaya walks backwards towards them to give them a better look. Dave leans back over the counter, looking for a better angle, and Karkat walks up to the edge, reaching out his hand. His palm touches your face, then Kanaya’s skin, and then your face again.

“How?” He asks.

“We, ah,” Kanaya beings before you cut her off.

“A shrink-ray, followed swiftly by shenanigans of the highest order.”

“Figures,” Karkat says. ‘It’s always shenanigans.” Suddenly, his eyes light up. “Wait… that means…”

Oh, right. That other shrink-ray incident.

“Oh you son of a whore,” Karkat says, his voice rising in volume and becoming much more menacing. “You absolute festering pile of hoofbeast-manure. You… you did this to be, didn’t you? Didn’t you!” he yells, spit flying into your face.

“Shh shh shh,” Dave interrupts, rubbing his index finger down Karkat’s back. “Not now.”

“Why the fuck not now?” Karkat yells, turning his rage onto Dave. “She’s- one or both of them are responsible for my size right now!” he says, gesturing to his body. “And I’m sure as hell going to hold them accountable for it!”

Dave starts rubbing Karkat’s head with his thumb simultaneously. “Dude, as much as I like your signature rants – and trust me they’ve grown on me – do you really think yelling is gonna solve anything?”

Karkat takes a deep breath in, and deflates. “No,” he admits. “No, it won’t.”

He turns around, freeing himself from Dave’s fingers, and stares you in the eye. “So. How do we get out of this mess?”

“That, dear Karkat,” you say, “is the million dollar question.”

—————

It’s been a week now, and none of you have any leads on either front. No progress on getting you off Kanaya’s butt. No progress on the growth-ray to get you and Karkat back up to normal size. In a screw-up of the highest order you never wrote the recipe for the shrink-ray down, and the one you already have broke when Kanaya dropped it. You’re left with wracking your memory and trying the Alchemiter combinations it spits out, but with how esoteric these recipes can be, none of you are sure your efforts will ever bear fruit.

And so, you’ve all been adapting. Kanaya’s cut holes in all of your dresses, so you can always see and be seen. She’s gotten remarkably skilled at positioning herself so both you and her can see something at the same time, and she’s come up with a tube she can surround you with so that you don’t drown in sopor slime when she goes to sleep. Karkat’s taken to his reduced stature remarkably well – it’s still impossible for him to carry most things around, but Dave let him have his hash-map modus, so it only becomes a problem when he decaptchalogues something. He seems surprisingly happy all things considered – you’re beginning to suspect even more so than when he was full-size. His relationship with Dave seems to have settled into what Kanaya is calling a “flush-tinted moirallegiance”, which she seems happy with. At least that goal was met.

All four of you are in the common room together. Kanaya’s lying down on a beanbag, you and her staring up and Dave and Karkat on the couch. Karkat’s reading a book to you all – the same one you’d seen him reading a week ago.  He’s walking around the page, reading paragraph after paragraph, using the entire length of both of his arms to turn every page. All three of you agree it’s adorable, and as much as Karkat vehemently denies that, the blush on his cheeks tells you all everything you need to know.

It’s at that moment that Vriska barges in, proud and cocky.

“Alright,” she interrupts, all high-and-mighty with her eyes closes as she points towards the ceiling, “it’s been long enough, we need to talk end-game strategy! Karkat!” she says, opening her eyes and looking for him. “Give me-“ She cuts herself off and stares at you all, wide eyed.

You all stare back, your eyebrows raised.

“Sup?” Dave says, deadpan.

Vriska rubs her eyes and mumbles something about another week being fine, before slowly backpedaling out of the room.

You hear her run down the corridor away from you all, and after a few seconds you all stare at each other, and burst out laughing.

Okay. Maybe this isn’t ideal. Maybe everything would be better if you had never make that shrink-ray. But this is where you are now. You can’t change the past, no matter how many time players you have. All you can do is work in the present, towards a better and brighter future.

And that, you think, as the laughter begins to die down, is all you need. All any of you will ever need.

Your name is Rose Lalonde. You’re a human girl, squished flat against your alien girlfriend’s supple, ample ass.

And you are going to be okay.

[alltheworldsrpg-blog]

SAVEK JAESEME |THE LAMINAR | CENTAURIAN | 31

There is an anger seared into the crevices of your memory, one gives you flashes of hot and cold, visions of your extended family stripped from the planet they so dearly loved. An empty shell of the person you once were, the only motivation you have in this empty world is revenge. The human race cannot be so easily forgiven for their sins, especially against you. 

BIOGRAPHY 

Savek is no alien. She is no immigrant. She is no ally. Though extra she might be, she is not terrestrial. Especially not of this planet. And last but not least, she is not yours. However, connotation of that word your planet entertains, however customs they’ve attached to it, and however highly they regard it and the “honor” of being owned, it only takes one factor for Savek to define one’s existence as slavery. That is the bending of your own will. Humans, come to find out, regard the mildest form of that as love, but they are never the first to bend their own. No, they’d much rather break the backs of the rest of the inter-species, all the while using the term integration to veil an invasion.

That’s how Savek feels about the human race, and she is not afraid to say it. But you won’t take her seriously because she’s such a small, petite little thing. It doesn’t even seem like she’s grown out of the ten-year-old body Proxima Centauri B last hosted, or the one Earth welcomed only to break the heart of. But what many fail to realize is, though small she may be, she is much smaller compared to her contempt for human life.

Humans—the conquerers. They themselves are the things they fear most. Their own weakness and ignorance piloted the vessels they used to master the unknown. They are too self-absorbed to think of any reason why what’s unfamiliar to them isn’t actually unfamiliar objectively, of why what is not theirs should not be owned definitively. And they taught her these lessons long before she could even think to make friends on her new planet. She’d already had friends on Proxima. They were her family, cousins and half-siblings that she would know the whereabouts of today if they hadn’t played into the promise of a new world. One no longer divided by space and time. A new world combined with the great (humans) and the great unknown (everyone else). Savek laughs at the sentiment of integration now. She finds it so funny how small minds and big ideas meet. Everyone gets so focused on the big idea they never consider the small, itty bitty mind that intends to control it, and by the time anyone wakes up to find the wrong man in charge they’re already ïmµhftµed (translation: fucked).

On Earth, the days never change for her. Every day, Savek wakes up content, her lids having served as refuge from the world she hates. She yawns with the smile of a newborn, stands to her feet with attention, and turns to her bedroom window completely out of custom. But then she sees the orange-red delight Centaurian skies once blessed her with replaced by a pale, wonderless blue one. She wakes every morning to find her favorite sign of home has been traded for a sky she can no longer be amazed by—not since all illusion shattered that day the ships sailed her into them. It is a heartbreaking reminder—and proof they should’ve never came. Not them to her. Not her to them. And she knew this before it happened, as well as her mother, a Starweaver more powerful than most Centaurians had ever seen.

Savek still remembers that feeling of regret underlying the buzz in her country air the same day news got out about human contact. Some dainty human aristocrats, all eager and none the wiser for it, had landed sinisterly on Centaurian soil, but it had only been sinister to a few it seemed. Surely not her father, a wishful man who was particularly excited about the crossover.

          “Oh, what a day! What a day!” he’d exclaimed.

“Oh hell” she remembers thinking in response. “Oh hell” is what she says in the mornings. And hell is the vision her and her mother shared that day in the Universe’s will.

It is true, they saw the great new world. They saw the mass immigration. They saw the budding war, perpetuated by riots and violent attacks. Yet, they also saw the laughter amongst humans and Tau Cetians at bars. They saw the excitement and they saw the allure Earth marketed and sold to their people, but only Savek saw the vision that tipped the scale between her world rejuvenated and her world resented. She saw her mother’s death at the hands of a disease she’d never heard of before—a disease her home’s ecosystems could’ve never fostered, let alone let manifest in the bosom of her favorite, favorite soul. Not alien. Not out-lander. Soul.

After ignoring the prophecy and foolishly choosing optimism as her parents had, she greeted Earth with a sort of semi-hopefulness. She didn’t tell her mother about what she knew to be inevitable, afraid telling her would secure the tragedy’s place in the universe’s will. But it turns out it didn’t need words to come to fruition. It only needed time, and nonetheless one year later Savek’s mother was dead, her father was fighting a depression that would ultimately drive him to self-inflicted demise, and Savek had finally made her mind up about Earth and its humans. The humans are a virus and this Earth is a curse, one that if Savek had had the courage to speak against she might still have her family, faith in her starweaving, or even just a slither of happiness to seek instead of retribution

That is why, when it comes to Savek, you can save the welcome banners. You can save that popular alien movie phrase, “We come in peace.”. And you can save the ravaging of her home, the false hope, the colonization, and the blatant disrespect of her people. You can save it until she takes it—till she becomes the ravager of the human’s peace of mind, the conquerer of what she knows to be evil, and the entity that gets to decide how and when it will poison your people. Savek has revoked her own invitation to planet Earth and the “amity” that supposedly comes along with it. She does not want your welcome because she does not come in peace. She comes indignant with her heart in flames. She is a wrath quelled the same amount each day by her own meditated vengeance.

So, yes. At the start of each day she is sad. But once she is done cringing at the sun’s duplicity, she closes her eyes and almost smiles at her place in the great new world, figuring she has come one day closer to taking more than what her people are owed from the creatures who have taken more than she could ever live—or love—without.

CONNECTIONS

THE CIRCUIT: Once you found their weakness, it was all but mere child’s play to become the sort of temptation they so desperately wanted. Truth be told, you care little for them, but pulling the human’s prize possession out from under them is a delight in itself. They are but a piece in a larger plan, to be tossed aside when no longer useful. 

THE OSCILLATOR: They were never apart of the plan, the human with red stained fingers and fists full of anger. Peel back a layer and they’re simply a child, lost and in despair. You’ve dried their eyes and wrapped them in your arms, for a moment you forget you’re supposed to hate them. If they ever found out, what you’re planning away from their ears, they would certainly succumb to darkness.  

THE VECTOR: The infiltrator, the greatest weapon in your arsenal, you’ve done well to keep them close. Their motives are unclear, but as long as they are allied with you there is little reason to dig deeper. They have everyone fooled, falling into their web of lies like flies to honey. It’s only a matter of time before you strike, together. 

THE LAMINAR IS PORTRAYED BY LESLEY ANN BRANDT AND IS CLOSED

[nickpappasauthor-blog]

The Day Marcus Ryser Went Around the Bend

The day was May 27, 2009, when Marcus Ryser was officially “around the bend.” He called me that day in a state of unmitigated panic and despair. It appeared that some sort of obscure mania was prickling at his mind, and while we communicated – a brief yet illuminating conversation – he disclosed to me his troubles through a mixture of stifled groans and uninterrupted dialogue, a total reversal from his everyday behavior, which had me severely perturbed.

When I answered his phone call, the first thing he said to me was this: “I’ve got bad business going on in the brain, Nicholas. I can’t decipher whether the entity that I’m in contact with is benign or evil. They’ve been forwarding me cryptic information for 12 consecutive hours. The transmissions are causing me great fatigue, yet I can’t tune it out. And my fear of all fears is that I may succumb to an eternal torpor.” 

“Did you talk to God?” I asked him. 

“I don’t know… Could be an oracle. Could be epilepsy.”

“Stay calm – I’ll be right over.”

It was cold that night, and the breeze was invasive. But the brisk air was the least of my worries. Marcus was withdrawing from reality: and soon he would be gone for good.

My mind was paralyzed by the revelation of Marcus going mad. He was a close friend – a friend that I would regret to lose. And despite the obvious symptoms that a man of a feeble and convivial nature could produce, I would’ve never suspected Marcus to suffer such a breakdown. Moreover, I couldn’t bear thought that his sanity had begun to debilitate, and so, out of pretext, I fancied that perhaps Marcus was a medium – yes, a medium. Performing seances. I.e., an acceptable psychotic.

I had arrived at Marcus’ home. While under the unruly impression that my every action had to be carried out with the utmost prudence, I decided to bypass the formalities of “front-door-knocking” and “doorbell-ringing.” Instead, I became an intruder, committing a home invasion: the front door was unlocked. Next, I searched for him, frantically. Where is he? I thought with despair. Shadows loomed and the rooms were ominous. Stillness. Seclusion.

This was unnatural.

“Marcus!” I hollered.

“Who goes there?” rasped a familiar voice.

I turned around and saw Marcus lying on the floor in a heap. Going over to him, I gingerly raised him up from the floor, placing him down on the nearby leather chair. Scrutinizing him, I noticed that his hair was matted down from having his head pressed against the floor. What was also glaringly unhealthy about him was his rather pallid skin, and a pair of eyes that were as vacant as the eternal void. But not another moment later I understood what was going on–

Marcus was undergoing religiosity.

“What’s the first thing,” I said, “that pops into your mind, Marcus?”

And he answered back with a rapid sequence of words, like a machine spitting out a transcript: “Delphic Mysteries. Dancing Gentiles. Draconian Nightmares. Symbolical Ceremonies. Before me now is the definitive heralding of Palestine and the Kingdom of Modernism. Judeo-Christian parables cross-referenced with monotheistic scriptures. The Gnostics; the material creator. But what intrigues me the most is the Eye in the Sky; he can be quite evasive…”

Marcus concluded his verbal musings, and thereupon I gazed at him quizzically, traces of incredulity emerging from my inner conscience. Warily, I said to him, “Can you, humble Marcus, confirm your connection with what is, ostensibly, a connection with the divine? Was there an apparatus or spirit involved, such as a ‘time machine,’ or even, perhaps, the ‘Holy Spirit’? Are you oscillating between separate matrices? Have you taken any narcotics in the past 24 hours?”

“I’ve been administered phenobarbital.”

“Was it a potent dosage?”

“Yes; an ample quantity was described as ‘adequate’ by my examiner.”

“An examiner?”

“Yes; he’s very affable. But anyhow, the effects of the drug have been nullified by you know who.” He twitched faintly, then added, “What’s more troubling is the fact that the nixing of such a powerful sedative by an otherworldly potentiality is hardly the apotheosis of my experience.”

It dawned on me right then that, if it were feasible to placate Marcus, it would require the taxing labors of blind indulgence and excruciating patience. But I wasn't intent on such a dangerous course. Marcus was in peril, and I had treat it that way. However, it's never easy to tell someone they're crazy.

Suddenly, I was very nervous, engulfed by angst. Then I decided that perhaps I should keep on improvising:

“Who or whom,” I said, “has been transmitting the information?”

This seemed to have caught Marcus off guard. “His surname eludes me. Allow me an interval of cogitation.” Marcus bent his head, furrowed his brow. Tiny dots of perspiration were manifested on his neck and cheeks. A desolate expression took shape in his features: there were traces of frankness, disillusion, and mild discomfort, much like a man who’s been jilted at the altar on the day of his wedding. His face was already tattered, which could be attributed to the lethargy he was experiencing; but those droopy eyes alone were perhaps the most convincing indicator of a haggard image. After more than enough time had passed, Marcus finally said, “The man responsible for the transmissions abides by a title known as ‘The Master of Enigma.’”

“What does he look like?” I asked gravely.

“He’s a foppish gentleman – very presentable.”

“Go on.”

“Well…he performed it in a rather bawdy manner. It was quite perverse, to be frank.”

“Give me an example.”

“Er… Ok.” Marcus thought for a moment, then said, “At one point, he may have compared the descending of the Shekinah Glory to that of a ‘sexual awakening,’ as if Christ himself was aroused – in an erotic manner – by his own spiritual prestige in the abode of the Lord.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” I blurted out in a display of mild contempt, committing a faux pas. But Marcus was heedless of my tactless conduct – heedless of everything, for that matter.

“Furthermore,” Marcus went on, “the foppish man made it abundantly known that he expatiates his sins at the ‘Purgatory Palace’; he calls it a ‘stable gig.’ I suppose that, from what I can interpret, the confessing of his depravity is part of a comedy routine.” He suddenly looked at me severely and, somewhat abruptly, said, “What do you make of this, Nicholas?”

An acute sense of dread poured over me. What was Marcus talking about? It all chalked up to nonsense, like a religious crank who prattles on about the contrasting nature of God’s will. It only strengthened my conviction of his sickness.

Yet I continued to dither between alternatives. My instincts betrayed me. What would it take to make Marcus aware of his illness?

But then, quite unexpectedly, Marcus sprang up from and, in a spell of renegade terror, upended the leather chair. He ran into the next room, which served a sanctuary for his philosophical dissections. I made chase for him – I couldn’t let the madman out of my sight.

I entered the room, and before me was an arrangement of textbooks and literature of manifold persuasions. Marcus was retrieving a volume from a shelf on the far side of the room–

“What you got there?” I asked him uneasily.

“My exegesis,” he responded. “Give it a once over” – and he handed it to me.

I opened the exegesis to a random page. Then I turned the page over. I repeated this process. Soon I was leafing through the exegesis. And then it occurred to me: the contents of the exegesis were nothing but esoteric hyperbole. Not a single word could I understand. There was a plethora of sophisticated and theological terms, such as: intra-loquacious dictum, extraterrestrial meta-sapiens, the Unholy Heretical Messiah, etc. It was all beyond my wits.

“I can’t discern any of this,” I said drearily.

“Why not?” Marcus was thoroughly disgruntled.

“It’s too prolix, Marcus.”

“Pshaw,” said Marcus as he snatched the exegesis from me. “You need more spiritual training.” He consulted the exegesis, determined to sway my sympathy in his favor. A diminutive yet luminescent twinkle could be observed in his eyes, uncompromising in its quasi-shimmer. He glared at me – a skeptical expression – and said, “Answer me this, Nicholas: are you an authority of the Humbug Regime? It would break my heart if I were to uncover your dastardly motives.”

“I’m on your side, Marcus.” But I sensed that I was beginning to lose him.

Marcus grunted, evidently dissatisfied with me. But at least he was rational enough to grasp my deception. That was an encouraging sign. However, I wasn’t sure what my next move would be. I felt like an impostor. There simply wasn’t a healthy way to break the news of his condition.

“Marcus,” I intoned, “What other unusual, autonomous phenomena have you been experiencing?

“What do you mean by ‘autonomous phenomena’?”

“Well, suppose that – and I’m just throwing this out there – there are things happening outside of your own awareness, such as catatonia. Or somnambulism, perhaps.”

“Somnambulism?” Marcus found the implication of sleepwalking to be preposterous. “What are you getting at, Nicholas?”

“There's no cause to be disconcerted, Marcus,” I said to him calmly. “This is an informal inquiry. Think of me as a scientist: I'm merely extrapolating.”

“I'm not making this stuff up, Nicholas. I've been inaugurated into a higher divinity via God’s Wisdom.” He pointed at my face, as if I had committed a heinous crime. “I’ve got a firm grasp on what I perceive, and you can't convince me otherwise."

“If you believe me to be throwing dust in your eyes, you are greatly mistaken, Marcus. I interpret your findings with the utmost sensitivity.” But what I said just now was a bold-faced lie. Marcus was a total nutbag; and now, more than before, I was adamant in securing him the proper care.

“Have you not been listening to me, Nicholas? I know secrets – secrets that'll strip our world of all that is mundane.”

“What do you mean?”

Marcus blinked. “You know… Paradise, Elysium, the Firmament. We can undercut reality.”

I was beginning to feel numb and desensitized. The walls were receding and the ceiling caved in. Weightlessness was abounding. This is what happens when you must hurt someone close to you: reality loses its verisimilitude. As I continued to lapse into stupefied remorse, I thought: Why did my friend – of all the people in the world! – have to lose his mind?

I presently said, “You’re in a bad way, Marcus. I can help you.”

Marcus was silent as he brooded over the developing quandary. And in that instant, there was a fundamental change: his presence was suddenly bereft of human qualities. Listless and alien were the descriptive terms that represented the deportment of Marcus Ryser.

But then another change had incurred. There was some squirming and writhing. Bleakness was swaddling him like a blanket. It appeared that I had gotten through to him, but he seemed to be experiencing an anti-catharsis. Equilibrium: shattered.

Marcus spoke: “I can’t believe it…”

I spoke back: “Don’t believe what?”

“You’re a…”

“I’m – what?”

“You’re the Quotidian Monster! You’ve been masquerading!”

“I don’t know what that means, Marcus!”

“Animus! Animus!” Marcus’ head snapped back violently. He clutched his right eye in a frenzy of disturbing apprehension. “Those are the sirens I hear!”

“Get a grip on yourself, Marcus!”

Still heedless of his crumbling sanity (somehow), Marcus made a break for the hallway. I promptly followed after him.

In mid-retreat, he yelled at me: “I had an intuition that you were an agent of the Evil and Villainy! When will the bloodletting ever end!” He turned the corner towards a remote section of his home.

“Marcus!” I shouted back, turning the same corner.

“Godless heathen!”

“Marcus!”

“Don’t make me hurt myself!” He entered a bedroom at the far end of the hallway…

…I, too, had entered the bedroom. “Marcus!”

And he jumped out the window.

A second later I heard a dull thud from outside. The sound itself had a macabre effect on me: Horror began to set in. I was weak and scared. The shock wouldn’t go away, so I waited it out. Time crept along. Then, staving off enough of my fears, I inched my way over to the window. And when I peered out of the aperture, and saw Marcus, inert, unstirred, sprawled out on the ground like a sack of wasteful flesh, I nearly lost it. However, I was able suppress most of my most erratic emotions, albeit with great struggle.

Panic has its catalysts. Things can go wrong at any moment. God inflicted harm on my dear friend – where’s the predestination in that? But I shouldn’t be mad at an impersonal Deity. Some of us are more vulnerable to cosmic condemnation than others.

The good news was that Marcus survived the fall, but not without an aftermath, and a stigma to boot: mental illness. He would go through life with obstacles too daunting to overcome. There would even be a pivotal juncture in his life where the mounting pressures of psychological disorder and excess medication would nearly push over the edge and induce him to take his own life.

Don’t worry. He’s still alive right now.

I vividly remember the moment when the paramedics arrived. There I was, demoralized and mad at universe for manufacturing such a travesty – a distortion of all that was, at one point, unadulterated. I could barely look at Marcus. I cried, plaintively.

And as they were wheeling Marcus away on a stretcher, the little wretch turned to me and said, “Nicholas, Nicholas.” He looked me square in the eyes. “Promise me that you will contact the Master of Enigma and inform him that I found his veiled assertion that Christ had masturbated to the thought of divine prophecy to be a rather penetrating witticism.”

“Absolutely, Marcus. Absolutely.”

I watched as Marcus went away, for good. He’ll be in and out of hospitals until it’s no longer “in and out” but merely “in.” I lost my friend, and from that moment on my poignant thoughts would never cease. 

[villes-noires]

Quarters

The accommodations that need to be made in close quarters. Quarters that accommodate too many; wages that have to be stretched a long way, and if a household is lucky, it waits for the little bit of money that comes from a long way away. Short pants hiked high above the waist compete with pants always slipping to new lows. The internationalisms of different devotions, different ways of getting by and adhering to codes remain attuned, necessarily complicit with each other. After all, petty informants and ladder climbers are all around funneling half-baked theories to authorities that swim in waters for which there is no known depth.  

Eyes are on prizes somewhere else. There are different destinations in mind. So even on a single hallway in a building of chipped concrete, the dealers, the Salafists, and those who are devout about nothing in particular don’t so much carve out territory but allow paths to be constantly crossed so that there is nothing recognizable to defend. If the police and their bevy of hangers-on report infractions, then the proliferation of possible mistakes makes everyday life nearly impossible to police. Yet simple courtesies and signs of respect are offered no matter how profound the fundamental disagreements about life orientations. The repetition of prayer, intoxication, petty scams, and household chores induce a haze of tolerance allowing the most minimal of actions to provoke small but pliable alterations in the unfolding of a day or night and the prospects this might bring.

Everyone is convinced of big people behind the scenes. They can even sometimes name names. But they are also skeptical of these convictions. Ever attentive of each other, regardless of whatever lot they have thrown themselves into, the profusion of words, gossip, stories, and impressions make up their bets on shaping the near future, indifferent though they may be as to what that actually consists of. For in these quarters existing under permanent suspicion and suspension it is important to manufacture evidence that can be sifted through for clues that point to culprits in all directions; where the attentiveness of gazes, so vital to keep everyone in line, can’t look everywhere at once, and so small gaps open for a quick deal, a quick fuck, a quick way out.

Those who wear the pants may be weakly united in their need to occupy the public sphere, to mark out a domain amidst a landscape of dilapidated cafes, mechanic sheds, and tin can laden corner groceries. But these are quarters of endless favors, sincere and feigned respect for those with the semblance of any kind of connection. Silently the occasional young woman keeps her head down, resists the temptations of domestic dramas and household problem solving to finish enough school to get salaried somewhere. The financing for a new mosque or two may suddenly appear from disputed sources, but the pipes in most flats leak, often run dry, there are few repairs; neighbors hear everything and know little about what to make of it.

Again, it is not that collective denial or stasis rules.  For despite the stereotypes, the public and private are subject to oscillating inversions. Sitting in a café may be the only opportunity to be alone, even when, especially at night, all of the tables are taken. “Holding up the walls” as is the common expression for unemployed men may indeed actually hold something up, as in intercept, block or sustain. For the walls that divide domestic spaces, the purview largely of women, are not just porous sieves of information but marks of complex geographies where bonds and cuts in webs of lateral relations are made.  

All of the doors that open and close a hundred of time a day where nothing tangible seems to be exchanged, all of the stairs that are climbed up and down even when no doors are opened, all of the turning of the next corner, the hesitations between school, shop, mosque and home, all of the shared taxis hailed to reach the next kilometer, all is where the quarter is turned inside out and back, all while maintaining the customary pretense of acceptable sight lines and zones of influence.

Despair wears its heart on a sieve and thus can’t consolidate itself for long periods of time. Just as the quarter is a sieve for long-term leakages to many elsewhere, the practicalities of maintaining a hold on things means that each hallway must let its occupants go. Not without a fight. There are heated arguments, well-rehearsed, familiar. There are professions that this is the last time. There are warnings that serious consequences will ensue. 

But everyone seems to stay one step ahead of each argument, as if practicing an obligatory nostalgia. Beards will be grown and shaved. Hijabs dawned and discarded. The sounds of contentment muffled and amplified. The ‘stuff” quartered and drawn. The apparently useless stored in the corner of kitchens and then, out of nowhere displayed on a small balcony. Somewhere up the road hundreds are packed in exchanging stolen phones, random numbers, as if everything in these quarters is packed into these small devices, all claimed to be brand new but valuable only for the traces they carry, yet remain devices that can’t be traced.

Such is the instrumentality of these quarters. Not as a means to a particular end, but as a constant way of doing something differently, even when despite so many ways out no hallway has a clearly marked exit.