#let me start this by saying it's inspired by lethal weapon. i cannot be stopped when it comes to that show. i'm insane.

[queerdiazs]

i am just a fool, but i have loved you all along | 5.1k, teen

for @spagheddiediaz. love u loser.

“I made a list,” he says, digging in the pocket of his jacket and producing a wrinkled piece of paper. “I figured if you could see all the reasons why we shouldn’t date, it’d be easier for you to understand.”  Buck raises a brow, unimpressed, and holds out his hand. “Let me see it.”  Like a scolded child, Eddie hands over the crumpled piece of paper. Buck takes it stiffly, primly, and does his best to unfold it without ripping the corners more than they already are. He reads over the list; Eddie watches his face the entire time, unsure if Buck’s impassive expression is good or bad.  “‘His big tits stretch my shirts out every time he wears them,’” Buck reads aloud, sounding terribly bored and wonderfully amused all at once. “‘He won’t be able to kiss me properly the first time because he’ll be smiling too much. He keeps the AC at seventy-four.’” “That’s hot,” Eddie interjects pointedly. “That’s hot, Buck.”  Buck rolls his eyes. “It’s not that hot.”  “It’s seventy-four. It’s hot.”  Snorting, Buck moves on. “‘Aggressive use of cumin.’” He crinkles his nose and shrugs. “I do love my cumin.”  Eddie nods, swallowing around a lump in his throat the size of Buck’s tits. “As—as you can see, these are all valid reasons why we shouldn’t be together.”  “Oh, definitely. It’s a solid list.” He looks up at Eddie and grins, backlit by the yellow-orange-red of the setting sun. He looks like he’s on fire, but not like he’s going to burn Eddie up. He looks like he’s going to keep Eddie warm instead. “But you do realize it’s nowhere near complete, right?”  Eddie blinks. “It isn’t?”  Buck chuckles. “Nope. I can think of, like, a dozen more reasons why we shown’t date off the top of my head.”

read the rest on ao3

[vihattu-thethoroughbredofsin]

What you said with the broken aesop of Earthspark is exactly what me and my family member felt. Thank you. I was frustrated with the whole "humans are the real monsters" that was going on with the fandom so far because of this. Swindle threatened Thrash and Mo with his weapon to cooperate in his scheme when lying stopped working, the female seekers blew up the cave with the Maltos inside and LAUGHED when they left. Humans have every right to feel what they feel in this universe, because the Decepticons that are still loose are STILL. CAUSING. MAYHEM.

Some to more lethal levels than others! My only wish is that we either have more human civilians, not working for GHOST, whose anger/hate for Transformers can be explored to remind people how bad it all was for civilians to endure all of it. Or give us a Decepticon that ends up rallying the rest of the Decepticons and remind everyone why they were seen as a threat in the first place, AND reject second chances. Though...knowing the fandom, that probably won't make much of a difference.

Thank you that there is at least someone who shares my feelings about this! I share your expectations from future episodes and I really hope that the ambiguity will relate to all sides of the conflict, and not play black-and-white morality, where the Decepticons have become white (and fluffy). I'm betting on Shockwave as the main antagonist, because the authors are definitely inspired by IDW (too much and not in the right places, in my opinion). The trend "humans are the real monsters" is found at every turn and it's just boring. Yes, humans can do terrible things, but in the situation given in the cartoon, this is a RESPONSE to the cruelty and threat from the Decepticons and the Transformers war in general. Or do fans expect humans not to get angry when someone comes and starts destroying their home and killing those they care about? Surprise, IT MAKES PEOPLE ANGRY! And this anger is justified. If someone thinks otherwise, well, they can talk to people from some countries who will clearly explain this simple truth on, unfortunately, real examples. Someone can say as much as they like that the cartoon is for children and it is not obliged to delve into such topics, but the creators of the series have already done it! So the issues of gender and migrants are serious for them, and the consequences of the war can be presented in the form of a sad Megatron (the culprit of the war) and flowers from a comic book? Great. Let them not be surprised later that it caused opposite emotions in some viewers. I just don't understand the fans. If they like Decepticons so much who do cruel things because it's cool and epic, why not just love them the way they are? Why not love evil characters? That doesn't make their fans bad people. But for some reason, starting this trend with IDW, fans want to see and love innocent characters, but at the same time leave them all evil traits and actions, because this is the rule of coolness. You know, for the arch of redemption, the most important thing for a character is not to cross the point of no return, not to commit monstrous acts that cannot be justified or redeemed, or somehow work on redemption. It is impossible to make monsters in a work, then give them a remark "I'm good now!" and to think that everything, the character is justified (Hello, IDW). You can't sit on two oncoming trains. Either show characters worthy of sympathy not only in words, or show monsters that nothing justifies, or show the work of characters to overcome the evil caused. And stop blaming the victims for their anger. The humans in this animated series are not to blame for the fact that they suffered. They have the right to catch dangerous huge robots. Who threaten the lives of the population and do not feel any remorse, judging by several cases that were shown in the series. Or are only Decepticons worthy of excuses for all their evil deeds, but human characters are already too much, and they are no longer worthy of sympathy with justification? And what is happening in episodes 17 and 18 is just a wild farce. I recall, and someone has already said before me, that in the real world, underground fights, of any type, are entertainment for wealthy people, this is the meaning and source of winnings. Where do ordinary people from the street get money in the budget to buy a prize energon? Who knows. Dislike is expressed in a completely different way, not in underground arenas and not in graffiti. And transformers are not peaceful immigrants. It's not the Terrans' fault, but in the eyes of humans they belong to the kind of those who have brought pain, fear and horror for years. And it can't just be reduced to "humans are just evil bastards without motivation." But the fans like it, for reasons I partly understand. Someone always wants to see their favorite characters in a good light, wants to sympathize with them, understand and justify. Justify themselves for loving evil characters to some extent. Well, this is a holiday on their street, I hope that in the next episodes it will be on mine.

[genedara]

A Truly Selfless Act

((The following contains subject material that may be triggering/upsetting to some. Themes included graphic and intense violence, horrific imagery, mention of sexual assault/rape. Read at your own discretion.))

“Are you two ready?” Genedara asked, looking at both Cassian and Kylona. “There’s no turning back once we start this. Either we accomplish what we came to do or we die.”

“Gee, you’re sure good inspiring your troops before battle,” Kylona muttered with a roll of her eyes. “Let’s do this.”

“Hey, I’ve heard worse speeches,” Cassian said, smiling down at Ky before turning his attention to Genedara. “I’m ready. Let’s go get our family back.”

---

Since the twins had been kidnapped the remaining Felmann family members worked tirelessly to find them. While Cassian and Kylona were tearing apart both Elwynn Forest and Duskwood Genedara was busy at work finalizing the spell that would draw in and trap the Thing inside her. She saw no other alternative after scouring through the memories the Thing had left behind. Throughout the Thing’s long lifespan not a single person or group found a way to effectively kill it. Some had managed to weaken it long enough to seal it away in a box locked away in the depths of a place called the Heavens.

“He won’t make this easy,” Genedara had told Cassian and Kylona. “While our goal is to save the twins, theirs is to kill us. To ensure no one accidentally kills one of them I will be blunting the blades of your weapons. Oh, and please, avoid any blows to the head. Your friends won’t be of any use to you when they’re concussed and seizing on the floor.”

“What are we supposed to do, then?” Kylona had asked the elf.

“Distract them. Keep them busy. No matter what you do they cannot get to me. Once I start the spell there is no way for them to break it outside of killing me. There is a high possibility that the twins will ignore you two while making great efforts to stop me. I advise putting an anti-magic collar on each of them to keep Him from using any spells.”

“Seems simple enough,” Cassian remembered saying. “How long is this spell going to take to cast?”

“A couple minutes at the most. Most of the prep work is done already so it’s just a matter of drawing in enough mana to pull this off.”

“Are you capable of doing this alone?” asked Kylona.

“While you two were busy looking for the twins I was busy prepping the spell. Every day for the last two weeks I have poured most of my power into my staff,” Genedara told the two, motioning over at her quarterstaff composed of a shiny, silver-like metal. “The core is filled with crystals and other various reagents. There’s more than enough power contained within it to allow me to cast such a complex and powerful spell.”

“And you’re not going to fuck us over, are you?” Kylona asked, looking into Genedara’s milky white eyes. “Because if you plan on betraying us I won’t hesitate to slit your throat. I say this not as a threat, but as a promise. Fuck us and you die. We clear?”

“Abundantly clear. Now, are you done wishing me bodily harm or can I continue planning on how to save your friends?”

“They wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t paid us a visit. Things were fine before you reared your pretty little head,” Kylona snapped, glaring at the elf. “If this had happened to anyone else I wouldn’t stop that thing from tearing you apart.”

“Ky, that’s enough. You’re starting to sound like Kal,” Cassian told her, place a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get them back.”

---

Genedara took a deep breath and allowed her eyes to close. She held both of her hands out, each one hovering over a pair of weapons held by either Kylona or Cassian. The air shimmered as a spell was cast, each weapon rendered non-lethal. The revolvers the Felmann family all carried stayed in their respective holsters, neither Cassian or Kylona wanting to rid themselves of their strongest weapon. They both didn’t want to use the firearms but knew it would be foolish not to carry them should things go south.

Now that their blades were dull the trio slowly made their way through the darkened forest of Duskwood. They approached what remained of a wooden cabin to the south, having discovered that the twins were hiding in the basement. A week into their search Kylona had caught a glimpse of the twins trekking through Duskwood with a small group of assorted men and women, leading her to this very spot. The Thing was up to something and they all knew it. The time had come to put an end to whatever machinations the Thing was up to.

“KALLARD!” Genedara shouted, amplifying her voice with the use of magic. “Cease these games and face us! Either you both come our or I start dropping bombs. Make your choice.”

“Wait, bombs? What bombs?” Kylona asked, keeping behind the elf. “You never mentioned anything about bombs!”

Ignoring the girl, Genedara stared at what remained of the cabin. She slowly inhaled and let the cool night air fill her lungs. Several of the runes the elf kept secret flared to life, giving off a brilliant blue glow. The elf raised a single hand and let it hang there for a moment before tearing the hand downward and balled it into a fist. Cassian drew his sword and shield, taking up position in front of Kylona, standing before her, blocking her body with his own. Both him and the girl took up fighting positions, a look of cool composure washing over their features.

The elf brought her right leg up and stomped the ground as her hand made its descent. A red flame consumed her hand as giant, flaming boulders dropped from the heavens. Several of the rocks punched through the decaying cabin’s wooden remains as if it weren’t there, their impacts felt through the ground beneath their feet. Cassian and Kylona watched in awe as Genedara made fire rain down from the sky, her hatred towards the Thing fueling her magic.

“You better pray they didn’t get squished,” Kylona muttered.

“I could drop the moon down on them and they’d still come out alive,”Genedara replied, glancing back at the little warrior. “You need to stop underestimating Him and His power. Your friends are essentially demigods right now. If my spells don’t work I don’t see any of us walking away from this in one piece.”

Before Kylona could open her mouth to reply the group all witnessed a hand trust itself towards the sky as the dust settled. Kallard crawled out of what remained of the cabin, Marilini appearing at his side. The twins wore confident smirks and started advancing towards Genedara and the remaining Felmann family members.

(( Recommended listening: https://youtu.be/5MfYp3WMmdc?si=99FSOIf88O6yGrHE ))

“Alright, this is it!” Genedara shouted at the other two. “Remember the plan! We can do this, I kn—” Something let loose a bestial roar, cutting Genedara off mid word. She took a nervous step backwards as the ground started to rumble and shake.

The smell of decaying meat hit their noses the same moment dozens of men, women and children spilled out of the darkness. Their bodies were in varying states of decay, some people missing entire limbs where as others looked to be fresh kills. They all had matching shiny, silver eyes filled with mania and blood lust. The zombies roared as they charged forward, their bodies animated with necrotic magics. In the blink of an eye the swarm was within arms reach, their filthy hands hungry for flesh.

“Holy shit!” Cassian cried out and swept his sword from left to right. “This wasn’t in the plan!”

“No shit!” Kylona shouted back.

The two warriors closed in and stood in front of Genedara, assuming she was incapable of fighting in close quarters. The elf muttered hastily under her breath, quickly undoing the spell that blunted the blades the Felmanns carried. When Cassian left himself open Kylona swept in and covered the holes in his defenses, deftly cutting the head off one zombie. Genedara on the other hand was flinging spell after spell with apparent ease. The runes on her arms and hands gave off a brilliant baby blue glow as the elf expertly wove the mana around her and inside of her.

While the trio was busy defending themselves against a seemingly endless swarm of undead, the twins made a slow advancement forward. Their smirks grew and warped, eventually morphing into an unfriendly smile that seemed to match the dread that radiated from them. The crowd of zombies largely ignored the twins, their only focus on the three living people in front of them. The swarm wanted nothing more than to tear the trio apart and feast upon their entrails.

“How did we not know about this?” Kylona shouted at Genedara as she cut the head off a naked woman.

“You can’t plan for everything, Shortstack,” Cassian called out in reply as he swung low, slicing a horribly decayed woman in two before jamming the tip of his sword into her forehead.

“Quit complaining and focus on the task at hand,” Genedara snapped as she flung a spice of ice at the torso of a zombie. The foot long bolt drove itself deep in the undead man’s chest before exploding, sending large chunks of rotten flesh in ever direction.

The twins continued their slow advance, their undead companions swarming in and around the pair, pushing and shoving their way over to the trio. Despite their obvious advantage, the undead were being dispatched at an alarming rate, the soldiers tearing through wave after wave of shambling corpses. In less than a minute a pile of corpses started to build up around the survivors. Thick, black ooze gushed from the fresh wounds, mixing with the dirt to create a sickening smelling sludge.

“Don’t stop!” Kylona shouted while swinging her sword in an arc. The woman’s blade swept through a half naked older male and cut a small zombie’s head in two before getting stuck in a third corpse’s neck. Blood squirted from the wound, spraying Ky with a crimson mist.

“Don’t listen to her,” Kallard shouted over the sounds of war. “Drop your blades and cease your spell casting. Come, join us. Give into His love and become one with Him.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Kylona grunted as she tore her blade free. “Do not relent! Keep pushing!”

The trio continued their fight until the last zombie hit the ground. The battlefield was littered with dismembered limbs, heads and various internal organs. Some of the undead were still moving but incapable of doing any harm. A severed hand dragged itself towards Cassian only to be squished under his boot. With the immediate threat gone, Kylona and Cassian took up positions in front of Genedara, putting themselves between her and the twins.

“It’s over, Kallard. Drop your weapons. Let’s talk this out,” Cassian pleaded. “Please, don’t force us to hurt you.”

The twins laughed in unison as they came to a halt a few feet from the two warriors. But, despite their confidence, a single tear ran down Kallard’s cheek as his body moved on its own. He brought his sword up and pointed it at the Paladin, that cocky smirk of his never fading. Ever observant, Cassian watched the small display of humanity shine through the darkness that had consumed the twins.

“This isn’t the man I married, nor is this the woman who adopted Kylona. You both have such kindness in you. Don’t let this thing win,” Cassian told the twins.

“The twins are dead,” the two said in harmony. “Only I remain.”

“Bullshit,” Kylona spat. “C’mon, Mari. Is this what you want? Do you really want to let this thing win? What ever happened to the woman who killed a bunch of men after they raped me? Where’s that justice now?”

“Your words are meaningless,” the twins said, their voices slightly out of sync.

“Bullshit!” Kylona snapped back. “Mari, what are the wolves going to do with you gone? Those two wolves are miserable without you. Don’t give up on them. Don’t give up on us.”

The twins came to a halt and a vacant look washed over their features. Kallard’s eyes twitched and his head jerked from side to side. It looked as if they were struggling to free themselves from the grasp of a snake squeezing the life out of them. Their muscles bulged and veins rose to the surface of their flesh, eyes narrowed in concentration. Upon seeing this Genedara perked up and urged Cassian and Kylona to continue talking to the twins.

“Keep talking to them,” she said, looking between the twins and their family.

“Kallard, is this really what you want? You went back in time to save me! You broke every rule there is to get me back and now you’re just going to let this thing kill me? You need to fight this! Our love transcend time itself and I’ll be damned if I’m going to watch my husband become a monster! You’re going to fight this, dammit! FIGHT!”

“S-silence!” Marilini screamed in a deep masculine voice. “Cease your games!”

“Fuck,” Kallard gasped. “You. Let us go!”

“NO! You belong to me! Together we will bring a new world order! All who oppose us will perish and I’ll finally have the power to bring my people back. Your words are meaningless!”

While Cassian and Kylona kept the twins distracted, Genedara was busy casting a myriad of spells. The first was to bind her in place, magical chains keeping her tethered in place and making movement impossible. Despite having known the Felmanns for only a few days the elf put her life in the hands of the two soldiers, relying entirely on them to keep her from dying. Once the first spell had been cast she moved onto the second binding spell but did not finish it, leaving the spell hanging as she moved onto a different school of magic all together.

“Kallard, do you remember the day we got married? We had just finished boot camp and Mari was busy stuffing her face with chocolates. You dropped down to one knee and presented me with the cheapest ring you could find and said you’d rather die than be without me. Is that man still in there? I know he is. Our love is strong and I’ll fight to the bitter end to save you my love.”

“CEASE YOUR GA—” Marilini started to shout. Before she could continue her vague threat, the woman dropped down to to her knees and clutched her head with both hands. A pained groan pressed past her clenched jaw as she pushed against an invisible force holding her down. “Let. Me. Go.”

Kallard’s head snapped over to look directly at Genedara as he finally noticed the large amounts of mana the elf was building up inside of her. From underneath her clothes a brilliant baby blue glow could be seen. It appeared as if every runic tattoo etched into her flesh was alight and charged with raw mana. As the continued to draw more and more into her body the twins appeared to grow more agitated.

“NO!” Kallard boomed, his eyes wide with panic. “No, no, not their magic. NO! I WILL NOT BE BOUND!”

Genedara stood her ground and continued to work, too focused on her spell casting to worry about the ramblings of a madman. Before anyone could stop him, Kallard let loose a roar laced with fury and shot towards the elf. He roughly shoved Cassian off to the side and pushed past Kylona. His short sword was drawn back and then driven deep into Genedara’s abdomen. The tip of the blade was thrust forward and through the elf’s body, forcing its way through a kidney and out her back. She cried out in agony and squeezed her eyes shut, pushing past the agonizing pain rushing through her body.

“Shit!” Kylona gasped and spun around, trying to pull Kallard off of the Mage.

“Too… Late,” Genedara whispered in Kallard’s ear. “I win.”

The air around the elf shimmered with magic as eight golden lances formed around Kallard in a circle, evenly spread out with equal gaps between each lance. The magical weapons were then pulled inward and into the bodies of the twins. While there was no physical sign of injury, the spell did seem to agitate the being possessing the twins even further. The creature’s fury bled outward, seeping into the minds of the three survivors.

Kallard tried to pull himself away from Genedara, seemingly frozen in place. Marilini would start to scream in pain as a dense, black cloud burst forth from her open mouth. The man’s rage grew, his hands reaching out and wrapping around the elf’s neck. He squeezed with all of his might, cramming his thumbs into her wind pipe in an effort to stop her from casting more spells.

“I will not be beaten by the likes of you!” he shouted in the elf’s face, spraying her with droplets of saliva. “Entire worlds have risen against me only to fall in the end. You cannot stop me! You cannot kill me!”

“What makes you think I’m trying to kill you?” Genedara asked the twins with the last of her air in her lung.

Kallard’s eyes went wide when it dawned on him as to what the lances were actually doing. The cloud of smoke that had left Marilini shot over to Genedara and forced its way into her body through any means possible. Her entire body began to spasm, held in place by Kallard. A chain composed entirely of magic formed between the elf and Kallard, binding the spirit within him to Genedara, effectively trapping it within her body.

What remained of the creature was sucked out of Kallard and into the elf. He finally released her, letting Genedara fall to the ground before falling over backwards. Marilini ceased her screaming and drooped forward before falling unconscious. Kylona dropped her weapon and ran over to keep Mari from cracking her head open on a stone while Cassian dropped down to Kallard’s side.

“’M fine,” Kallard said weakly, waving a hand in the elf’s direction. “Go help her.”

The last thing Genedara remembered hearing was Cassian speaking softly to her, praising her for her selflessness and bravery. While she was unable to see his face, she was able to hear the smile in his voice. Before she lost herself to fatigue, Genedara muttered the final word in the spell she had paused prior to trapping the thing within her. With the final power word spoken a series of chains sprung forth from the ground and wrapped themselves around the elf like a python constricting its pray. But, rather than kill her, the chains sealed themselves around her and vanished from view. It was then she lost consciousness, falling limp in Cassian’s arms.

---

One week later…

Genedara could feel the sun on her body as she lay in an unfamiliar bed. All around her she could hear the songbirds singing their lovely songs, the world seemingly at peace with itself. Her eyes fluttered open and she slowly sat up, wincing as a lance of pain shot through her torso. A hand fell down to her abdomen and gently landed where Kallard had impaled her. A jolt of anxiety rocked through her upon realizing the wound hadn’t been healed.

The sound of fabric rustling could be heard to Gene’s left. Her head snapped over to look in the general direction of the intruder. She tried to call upon her magics but found herself unable to do so. Her other hand reached up and gently tugged on the metal collar shackled around her neck. Whoever had entered the tent gasped and dropped what sounded like a bucket of water.

“Whoa shit! Cass, she’s awake!” Kylona could be heard shouting as she ran back out of the tent. “Cass!”

Well, that answered the question as to where she was.

“You’re finally awake,” Cassian said with a smile as he entered the elf’s tent. “I was started to get worried you weren’t going to wake up.”

“Did it work? Are the twins safe?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” Kallard said from behind Cassian.

“Oh, you are?” Marilini could be heard asking her brother. “You’re still fucked in the head.”

“Fuck off.”

Cassian stepped closer to Genedara and reached out with both hands. He muttered a spell under his breath, unlocking the anti-magic collar strapped around the elf’s neck. With a soft clink the device opened and dropped down into her lap. Cassian silently took the collar and placed it on a small bedside table.

Genedara couldn’t help but smile at the reaction of the Felmann family. With her magic restored, she looked between the four humans and was surprised that there wasn’t an ounce of hostility in any of them. They all wore clean casual clothes without a weapon in sight. For the first time it looked as if Kallard was actually smiling at her, a look of respect on the war hardened veteran’s face.

“I’m glad,” Genedara said with a bob of her head.

“But, there is a bit of bad news,” Cassian replied softly as he took a seat at the foot of the elf’s bed. “The blade you were stabbed with was poisoned. I was able to rid your body of most of the toxins, but it seems the main effect is slowly down the rate at which the wound will heal.”

“How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad. You’re down to one kidney. I had to surgically remove the damaged one so you’re going to have to change your diet to adapt. And, due to the nature of the poison used any attempt to tend to the wound with Light magic only caused more harm,” Cassian replied in a soft voice, placing a comforting hand on Genedara’s knee.

“We worked with some Druids during the third war that I’ve reached out to,” Kallard chimed in. “While most of them are busy with the new world tree, one of them is willing to swing by and take a look at the wound. He’ll need a couple days to shake off the Dream before he arrives. My hope is that the wound is only resistant to Light magics.”

“I appreciate the help you and your family is offering,” Genedara said with a respectful bow of her head.

“We’ve served with a lot of people in our time,” Marilini said from Genedara’s side. “But none of them have done what you did for us. Now that we know what was really behind your actions in the past, I want to say for all of us that we forgive you. You weren’t in control and thus cannot be blamed for hurting us and others.”

“Yeah, that was some serious hero type shit,” Kallard added.

“I was just doing what I felt was right,” Genedara said softly. “It is what my husband would have done.”

“I can say, without a doubt in mind that he looks down at you with pride in his heart,” Cassian said, giving the elf’s knee a comforting squeeze.

“So, with that said, I have a question for you,” Kallard stuck his hand out. “Do you wanna join us?”

“Join you? What do you mean?”

“What the big oaf is trying to say,” Kylona replied, playfully punching Kallard’s shoulder. “Is that we want you to join our family.”

“Even after everything that’s happened?”

“Lady, you just tore an evil being out of my sister and I and trapped it inside your body. You didn’t do this for yourself. You didn’t even do this for us. You did this for the betterment of the world itself and I refuse to let that kind of strength and talent go to waste. Join our family and we can work together to figure out a permanent solution to this problem so you can live a normal life again,” Kallard calmly said.

Genedara went silent for a moment as she through the proposal over. It was true, she would need help keeping the beast contained. Such a task is possible alone but easier with the help and support of others. For the briefest of moments she could feel the comforting presence of her husband and children as a warmth that spread through her body. Tears welled up in her eyes as the elf nodded in agreement.

“Okay. I will join your family.”

The Felmanns all let loose a collective cheer and applause.

“But I have a condition. I cannot live a tent. My tower isn’t far from here and there’s more than enough room for you and your belongings.”

“Shit, we get a new ally and a tower to live in? Yeah, I’m down,” Kylona said with a smirk.

“As am I,” Marlini added with a warm smile. “Welcome to the family, sister.”

“Yeah, what she said,” Kallard chimed in, offering a fist to Genedara to bump.

“You all know I’m okay with this,” Cassian replied.

The remaining four members all bumped their fists against Kallard’s, Genedara included. With the new addition to the family, the Felmanns would spend the rest of the day getting to know their new sister. While she normally was a very reserved and private person, Genedara found no issue in retelling her traumatic past to these people, knowing that they would understand her pain. Tears were shed and drinks were had and at the end of the night, the Felmann family drank and celebrated.

For the first time in a long time, the Felmann family was at peace.

[thiswasinevitableid]

Pleasant Surprise (Indruck Superhero AU)

A little fic I’ve had bouncing around my head for awhile, set in the universe of “The Thrilling Adventures of the Green Knight.”  It takes place after that story, and after the events of the small fics “Aww, Rats” and “Back in Time”. You can read it as a standalone, but it does contain some spoilers for main fic.

“You know how you always say communication is important in a relationship?” Indrid drums his fingers on the arm of the couch. 

Dr. Mwangi nods, the chain on her glasses glinting in the soothing lights of her office.

“I...there is something I am not sure how to communicate to Duck. I, it’s something I’ve been dishonest about. I” Indrid takes a deep breath, “I lied about the date of my birthday.”

Dr. Mwangi doesn’t so much as cock an eyebrow, much like she managed not to gasp in horror when he told her what his training regime involved when he was learning to be a villain. Indrid’s going theory is that this self-control is his therapist's super power. 

“Do you want to spend part of our session today figuring out how you’d like to talk with him about this?”

Indrid fidgets with his glasses, “Yes, please.”

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

Duck comes home to one of his favorite scenes; Indrid sitting with his easel in front of the rat run. His boyfriend decided he needed to cultivate his artistic streak, so that one part of his life would not involve superheroing or villainy in any capacity. From the look of it, he’s still on the theme of inserting the rats into still-lifes of different styles. 

Duck loves watching him paint, in a way at once connected to and completely different from the attraction he feels observing the other man train in the hideout or dig himself into engineering a new invention. There’s the same cleverness in his hands, the same concentration lining his face. But there’s an innocence that’s absent other places, a kind of happiness that only exists in activities untouched by his past.

“Hello, chivalrous one.” Indrid murmurs as Duck comes to drape his arms over his sweater clad shoulders.

“Hey sugar. I like the new paintin’--is that Dr. Harris Bonkers?”

“Indeed.” Indrid turns his head, his grin as bright as the streetlights flickering to life outside, “The fuzzy medical practitioner in the style of Seurat. I foresee Aubrey liking it as a Christmas gift, and I wanted to do it while the inspiration was still fresh.”

“Bet she’ll get a kick outta it.” Duck kisses the top of his head, then starts removing his work clothes, “you had dinner? Thought I might reheat some pizza.”

“I ordered us dinner, it should arrive within ten to fifteen minutes, depending on whether this is the broken stoplight timeline.” Indrid sets his brushes aside, stands so he can follow Duck down the hall to the bedroom.

“Thanks for doin’ that.”

“There is, ah, something I wish to discuss before it arrives.”

Duck turns and his heart twinges. Back when Indrid was his nemesis, Duck learned to read his emotions, a skill that eluded everyone else. He can tell when Indrid is nervous and, most often, when Indrid is nervous and doing everything he can to hide it.

“What’s on your mind?” He takes a soft step towards the other man, who goes very still as he summons his next words. 

“Do you remember what I told you about my birthday?”

“That it was in the spring and you’d let me know when we were gettin close to it. Wait, fuck, you never did, not this year or last year. Then again, last year was when the White Star boys kept tryin to fuck everythin up, think a lot of stuff got missed. Do you, uh, wanna do a birthday observed or somethin? Could even get a little goofy and do a half-birthday.”

Indrid shakes his head vehemently, “No. That is not it. I, I ah, I lied. My birthday is not in spring. And before you ask ‘when is it,’ the answer is I have no idea. We never celebrated birthdays. I only know my age because my father unleashed my brother and myself upon the world some time after I, or rather we, turned eighteen.” Indrid tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweater, “that is all I wish to say.”

It would be easy to giggle at his serious tone. 

Duck pulls Indrid into a hug, “Thanks for tellin me. Do you want help tryin to work out when it really is?”

“I...I do not know. I was simply tired of such a small lie weighing me down.”

“Okay. You wanna cuddle until dinner?”

“Of cour--oh damn it all.” Indrid steps back, pulling off his sweater, “Baron Thorne is going to try and hold an entire dormitory of students hostage in forty-five minutes.”

“More than a two hero job?”

Indrid tips his head back, then replies, “it’ll go best with for. I shall alert Barclay and Aubrey.”

“Roger. I’ll get the car.”

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

Duck’s researching potential plants for Dani to modify into non-lethal weapons when the secure elevator dings open and Agent Stern hurries out, looking a kind of excited he hasn’t seen since Barclay’s parents landed their ship to meet their son’s new boyfriend. 

“Gettin the feelin you got good news for me.”

“I do.” Joe pulls out his datapad, “I went through the files we confiscated from Abbadon to find the one on Indrid. It did indeed have his birth date, and you are not going to believe what it is.”

Duck looks at the little boxes of letters and numbers beneath the photo of a much younger Indrid with a much crueler smile. 

“No fuckin way.”

“I know right?” Joe grins, “ I think he’ll get a kick out of that.”

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

“My birthday is on Halloween?”

“Yeah!” Duck looks so happy that for a moment the emotion carries Indrid as well. 

“That is rather fitting. It’s always been my favorite holiday.” He can see it now; little orange lights, a black tablecloth, some cake.

“And it’s three weeks away, so we still got time to plan somethin to mark the day. I was thinkin we could have it Friday, since Halloween is a Saturday and I know at least Barclay and Dani got things they do every Halloween. How’s that sound?”

He isn’t sure. Something circles up from the deep, animal part of his mind, but he can’t name it and so does his best to ignore it. 

“It sounds wonderful.”

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

Indrid cannot escape. Everywhere he turns there are birthdays; on the T.V, in the restaurants he and Duck go to, on cards and balloons when he’s getting groceries 

It’s your big day!

“You don’t turn thirteen everyday”

To my son, on his eighteenth birthday

“To my brother, my favorite partner in crime”

“This week on ‘My Neighbor’s a Werewolf,’ Jamie throws Max a surprise party, and gets a big surprise of his own.” 

When that one flickers across the screen, Indrid clicks the T.V off with a little hiss. He’s tense, feels like the embodiment of the moment a knife-tip meets skin; resistance and resignation in the instant before it all comes pouring out. 

“You got a cake preference?” Duck rests his hand on the couch near Indrid’s shoulder, tone light as he continues, “know you like really sweet stuff, I could get mom’s hummingbird cake recipe from Jane-”

“Whatever you think best.” Indrid flexes and coils his fingers.

“‘Drid, it’s your party, you get to mark the occasion however you want.

“And what if I do not wish to mark it at all?”

“Uh…” Duck clears his throat, “uh, that’s fine too.”

Indrid turns his head to see the expression he knew would be there. 

“That upsets you.”

“N-uh, fuck, I uh, it don’t uh-”

“Duck, please do me the courtesy of not drawing out the lie.”

Ducks shoulders sag, “Guess I’m a little disappointed. I, uh, I was havin fun plannin it with you. Thought I could make up for all the times you didn’t have one.”

“Well, you can’t.” Indrid snaps, stands more dramatically than he means to. He just wants this to be over, wants to stop seeing the memories he thought he’d properly laid to rest, “you cannot make up for what I saw, what was done to me, what I did.”

“I-”

Indrid holds up his hand, “I know you see it as your job to remove all traces of my tragic past that you can.”

“Hold the fuck on.” Duck shakes his head, “Is that what you think I’m doin? ‘Drid, it’s just a party. If you don’t want it you don’t want it, but don’t fuckin pretend this is some indicator of us as a pair.”

“Oh but it is.” Indrid feels his lips curl into an old smile, “you get to play the nice, normal hero making everything better, while all I am is someone to pity, broken long before you ever met me!”

Duck goes still, and in his visions he sees the rats finishing skittering to the far side of Ratopia. It’s at this moment he realizes he’s been yelling. 

“I…I am going to bed. Goodnight.” He hurries down the hall, only bothering to change his pants before crawling under the covers. In most futures, Duck follows him and demands they finish their argument, leading to a far larger fight. But the hero doesn’t come. This gives Indrid time to get his breathing and heart rate back to normal, to try and work out why the thought of his loved ones gathering to celebrate his birth makes him want to disappear into the night. 

He’s not quite asleep when Duck comes in. He’s not quite ready to apologize. As he’s contemplating his options, his boyfriend slips under the sheet and lays in such a way that his right hand is inches from Indrid’s own. 

Without opening his eyes, Indrid slides his fingers across Duck’s palm. Duck shifts to interlink their fingers, and closes his hand. 

Indrid wakes up five hours later in two discrete stages. The first is coming out of the nightmare, of his body registering the need to move, to hide, before his brain is fully back to the present. The second is waking up enough to wonder why he always hides in the closet after these dreams; he didn’t have a closet growing up. 

He creeps into the living room, hoping he hasn’t woken Duck. He has woken Chicken, who decides it’s close enough to her breakfast time to yowl at him until he feeds her. While she crunches her cat food, he opens one of the doors to Ratopia. The mischief is mostly asleep, but at  the sound Void rouses from his spot atop Mallard and scurries over to Indrid’s hands. 

“You forgive so easily.” Indrid murmurs, cupping him in one hand and closing the cage with the other, “or perhaps you just forget with much greater skill than I.”

He knows when Duck is behind him. Without turning, he sets Void on his shoulder and says, “I think I know why I have been so unpleasant tonight. I...I have only ever marked two changes in age; being old enough to face the trials of my order and being sent out to cut down those who dared oppose us. My ‘birthday’ is a harbinger of suffering and death. And I, I know that is not the real truth, but it is the one my body believes, the one my mind has been bracing for without me fully understanding that’s what it is doing. I did not mean to take that fear out on you.”

“‘Drid” Duck’s voice is scratchy with sleep, but when Indrid turns his eyes are alert, “I’m so fuckin sorry. It, uh, it didn’t occur to me that your birthday would be wrapped up so tightly with the shit you went through as a kid. I never meant to push you into somethin you didn’t want.”

“But I do want it!” Indrid shoves his hands into his hair, “I want to have dinner with our friends, to get gifts, to enjoy a thing that millions of people partake in every day. And I am so, so very angry that I cannot, that instead I am dealing with all of this.” He gestures vaguely to himself, then looks at Duck, his body registering safe as the hero joins him by the rat run. When Duck opens his arms, Indrid nestles into them without hesitation. 

“Whatever you decide on, that’s what we’ll do.” 

Indrid hums, snickers when Void clambers onto Duck to tickle his cheek with his whiskers. After the shadows of the past recede in the warmth of Duck’s embrace, Indrid whispers, “I would like to have the party. I would like to help you plan it. But I...I would like a few of the details to still be surprises for me. It might be nice for my birthday to bring me a pleasant one for once.”

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

“Oooh, this looks so cool!” Aubrey sets a gift on the table as she admires the mothman string lights, banners, and balloons, “dang, Duck, didn’t know you had a decorator streak.”

“Don’t get a chance to flex it much. And it’s kinda easy when the theme is so specific.”

“I’m trying to compliment you, doofus.” Aubrey playfully whacks his arm, then squeals, “honey, look, rats in hats!”

“Awww” Dani joins her to regard the mischief in their tiny party hats (only Mallard is still wearing his, the others in various states of tossing them about), “Indrid, did you make these?”

“Indeed, though Barclay made these.” He slides the enclosure open and sets five rat-sized cupcakes on the floor, “which is wonderful, because I did not want them to feel left out. They’re getting them earlier than the rest of us because Barclay is looking for ways to keep me out of the kitchen.”

“It’s your birthday, that means letting someone else cook!” Barclay calls from the kitchen.

“But I modified the blender and the mixer to be self-operating!”

“Wait, what?” Is all they hear before Barclay is drowned out by whirring. 

“Should we help him?” Dani says through their laughter.

“He’s a professional, he’ll be fine.” Joseph steps from the kitchen, his casual wear of jeans and a Loch Ness Monster dress shirt still somewhat jarring to the former villain who only ever saw him in suits, “Aubrey, Dani, can I get you anything to drink?”

“Yes please. Okay doctor, time to play.” Aubrey opens the special hatch in Ratopia and deposits the rabbit, who settles in to be groomed by his smaller friends. 

Dinner is fancy macaroni and cheese and fruit salad, Indrid’s favorites. As Ned regales the table with his latest misadventures in fixing up his new van (“I was unaware an owl could nest in a seat cushion”) Indrid glances at the entryway. 

“Everythin okay?” Duck whispers.

“Yes. I, ah, I simply did not expect so many gifts. I know it’s customary to receive them but I thought you got one or two. Not that everyone brought them.”

“You wanna open them?”

Indrid nods, grinning, “very much so.”

He takes care not to peek at the futures when unwrapping them, wanting to preserve the excitement as long as possible. Aubrey gives him a six pound bag of Lucky Charm marshmallows, Dani sneaks out to the car and returns with a potted plant (“I modified it so that the blossoms will be extra attractive to moths”). Ned gifts him a signed, limited run poster from Red Dust on His Soul, Joseph and Barclay a stack of new romance novels (“I think you’ll like Agent X, it’s a mystery series but he romances quite a few characters in them”). Mama sent a package from West Virginia that contains a small, wooden duck she carved herself and made especially smooth so it would be soothing to rub). And Lydia Little, AKA Sylvia Cold, presents him with a mug declaring him “Favorite Brother.” 

Duck’s present is the last one he opens. Waiting for him in the rectangular box is a white shirt with “World’s Greatest Rat Dad” on the front. The back is covered in squiggle-scratches of five different colors, which Duck explains are signatures from the mischief made in rat-safe fabric paint. 

“It’s perfect.”  Indrid sighs, kisses his boyfriend and then beams at his friends, “it is time for cake.”

They dim the lights, sing to him as Barclay emerges from the kitchen with a massive, mothman shaped cake with lots of candles. To his delight and surprise, the inside is layers of pink and yellow, flavored with strawberry and vanilla. He eats far more than is perhaps wise, but it is his birthday and it is his understanding that such things are allowed.

His guests linger for a few hours more, Aubrey and Dani the last to leave with a reminder to put the plant on the balcony. Indrid waves goodbye, closes the door and arms the security to full. He turns back into the house, sees the cards and gifts his friends put so much thought into locating for him, the stray dishes and half-empty glasses that signify they were here. For him. Because they wanted to be, because they care about him.

“‘Drid? You want any more cake before I put it aw--oh fuck, sugar, what’s wrong.”

“Nothing” he sniffles, grins, “these are tears of happiness. I, ah, I hurried us into cake because I felt them upon me when I opened the gifts. It will take some time yet for me to be willing to show such feelings around our friends.” He wipes his eyes, “thank you, my love, for arranging this.”

“Any time, darlin.”

He smiles, “Have I mentioned lately that you are my hero?”

“Pretty sure you called me that this mornin. But I sure as hell don’t mind hearin it again.”

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

“What is this?” His brother scowls up from the paper plate Indrid passed to him through the complex delivery system keeping his cell from the world around it.

“Cake. Today is our birthday. Did you know that?”

“Who cares for such frivolous things, little brother?”

“Those of us who do not spend our lives steeped in the misery of others, twin brother. If you do not want it, give it back and I shall share it with one of the guards.”

Apollo looks at the cake. Then he kneels on the floor, tearing into it with his hands. He doesn’t eat it what he destroys, and after a moment Indrid grasps why.

“Did you really think I hid some device to help you escape in there?”

“Yes.” His brother is now trying to light stab the cake with his gaze. 

Indrid rubs his forehead, “Perhaps some day you will learn to see things for how they are, not how you believe them to be.” He starts for the door, looks over his shoulder and says softly, “happy birthday, Apollo.”

A slam as his brother strikes the see-through front of his cell, “Get back here this instant you worthless, traitorous, coward!”

The door slides open and Indrid steps into the hall. Joseph is waiting for him, drops his eyes from the security feed to the man in front of him, “what a waste of Barclay’s cooking.”

“Agreed.”

A gentle pat on his shoulder, “You tried, that counts for a lot. Now go enjoy your night.”

“And my knight?”

“Him too.” Joseph waves goodbye, then adds, “and happy birthday!”

Indrid gets home before the city trick or treating hours begin; he’s feeling rather good, all things considered, and Halloween is so beloved by villains that the odds of his evening being interrupted by work are almost none. 

Duck is on the porch lighting their Jack ‘O Lanterns, grinning brighter than all the candles and lights on the block combined when Indrid walks up the steps to join him. He sees in the futures that he’s made him a special, Halloween themed birthday dinner. 

He pulls Duck into a hug, kissing the top of his head with happy sighs, thanking whatever twist of fate pushed him into the arms of the man who was, in many ways, his first-ever pleasant surprise.

[mordoriscalling]

The Shrike and the Lark (pt. 4)

Jaskier and Renfri are disaster twins ruling Creyden. When the Warlord of the North knocks at their door, Queen Renfri and King Julian are at an advantage - they know him. As in, they know him. (Inspired by the Warlord AU and “the heart is a winged beast”).

(Pt. 1) (Pt. 2) (Pt. 3)

Creyden, 1237

“My Queen is a match for your Lord,” King Julian remarks.

A match they are indeed. Queen Renfri’s skill with the blade is legendary, and the Warlord wields his weapon with the same level of mastery. The two are sparring in the courtyard, with a continuously growing audience. Witchers, the Royal Guard, courtiers and servants passing by; everyone stares at them in awe, for such lethal grace is staggering to witness.

The Queen and the Warlord are locked in a breathtaking, violent dance. One may almost see the sparks fly as they spin, duck, and par each other’s blows. When their swords cross, their faces mere inches apart, they freeze. The warrior and the wariorress stare at one another, panting heavily. The tension between them is palatable, but then Queen Renfri moves, and they are dancing again.

“That’s only because Geralt is on the defensive,” Eskel replies.

The sound of the King’s surprised laughter carries far. Some of the onlookers in the courtyard look up but, as they behold King Julian the Eskel standing together on the wall overseeing the ward, their attention returns to the ongoing duel. The King and the White Wolf’s right hand sharing each other’s company is an expected sight at this point.

The Warlord and his entourage arrived a week ago. Half of the witchers who came then have now left for good, for their presence is not necessary. In truth, only the Wolf and his two advisors have been constantly working for the past five days, endeavouring to negotiate the new treaty as quickly as possible. In the meantime, those witchers who remain in Creyden have taken to sparring in the courtyard, sometimes fighting with some of the more daring knights of the Royal Guard. Today is the first day that their Lord has joined them, soon followed by Queen Renfri.

“Why do you put so much faith in your Lord?” King Julian asks.

“Geralt is the strongest and fastest among us,” Eskel answers with a shrug. “If he were on the offensive, it would take him less than five moves to disarm your Queen.”

At least a part of Eskel’s claims is true – Queen Renfri has been the aggressor from the start of the duel. She attacks the White Wolf mercilessly, with viciousness she is infamous for. In a moment like this, the notoriety of the Shrike shows its foundations.

Yet, on the very same basis, the efficacy of Creyden’s army was built; after ascending the throne, Queen Renfri saw to the training of her knights and soilers by herself. Her experience in pardonless fighting proved invaluable; thanks to it, she led her warriors – just as she had led her bandits before – to victory.

“Beat him, my Queen!” King Julian calls loudly so that his sister can hear him. “I know you can, you’ve practised for this!” he cheers her on, “Day and night, you did! You’ve dreamed of defeating–”

“My King... please!” Queen Renfri exclaims between blows, “Will you... stop... that?!”

“Never!” her brother proclaims, drawing some laughs from the crowd below.

The King’s support seems to bear fruit then – Queen Renfri’s strikes become even faster and more violent. The White Wolf can no longer last under the assault and yields. As he does so, loud applause for the Queen rings out in the ward.

“He let her win not to cause offence,” Eskel says.

King Julian chuckles, shaking his head. “You know your Lord well, don’t you?”

“He’s like a brother to me,” the witcher replies, “We’ve shared a strong bond since we were boys.”

King Julian only hums in response. Eskel considers him for a moment, then speaks again, “And yet, when Geralt returned to Kaer Morhen for the winter after three years of not doing so, he refused to speak of the bard who had kept him away, even to me. He ignored all my questions. He couldn’t hide his hurt from me, though.”

King Julian does not answer at once. Instead, he observes as Kan, the Captain of the Royal Guard, and Lambert, a witcher with fiery hair and even fiercer temperament, begin to spar. Yet, Eskel’s gaze on him is a heavy, insistent weight, and he surrenders eventually.

“I am guilty of hurting him,” he admits ruefully. “Geralt only knew me to be Jaskier the bard. A troubadour who loved him... but who wasn’t honest with him. When he discovered who I really was, he didn’t hear it from me.”

Eskel scowls but calmly inquires, “Why didn’t you tell him?”

“My own safety,” the King replies. “I feared for my life. I couldn’t tell him of how Stregobor imprisoned me in one of the towers of this very castle. Of how after I finally escaped, I ran and ran, and ran. I lived in fear of being pursued, stole and forged identities to survive.”

“He would’ve kept your secret at all costs,” the Wolf witcher counters.  

“I know,” Julian agrees easily. “But the scars which Stregobor inflicted upon me were too fresh. I couldn’t bear to talk about it back then.”

The conversation lulls for a while after that. The two watch Kan and Lambert spar until it is Eskel who speaks.

“I’m glad to see that you’ve healed enough,” he says, bereft of any anger or judgement.

The King’s gaze snaps to his witcher companion, the look in his eyes as warm as a summer sky. “You’re too kind,” he says.

Julian then reaches out and tucks a strand of Eskel’s blonde hair behind his ear. His hand lingers there, by Eskel’s cheek. The witcher stills, clearly taken aback by the touch.

“Your Majesty?” he murmurs uncertainly.

The King hesitates. Gingerly, he starts rubbing his thumb against the witcher’s skin. The caress is met with no resistance and he confesses, “I find myself wishing to be near you every minute of the day. To wake up and fall asleep beside you.”

Eskel sighs and moves away. “King Julian –” he begins, his tone suddenly formal.

“Jaskier.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I’m Jaskier to my friends.”

The witcher nods. “Jaskier, then. You honour me with your attention, but I must ask you not to pursue any further intimacy with me.”

“Must?” Jaskier echoes. “Why do you “must”?”

“I... don’t want to make these negotiations any more difficult.”

“So loyal,” Jaskier says, regarding the witcher with admiration, “So dedicated, to staying in the shadows. Why won’t you let some light shine on you?”

Eskel smiles wryly. Then, he turns his head, displaying the side of his face that is terribly marred. “Some scars of mine will never heal,” he admits.  

Jaskier’s features twist into an expression both pained and compassionate. “I could provide you with some relief, at least for a short while,” he offers, “I could take your worries away, ease the tension in your shoulders.”

The witcher seems immune to the ardent willingness. “No, thank you,” he declines. “I suspect you want me so because you see him in me. We bear a lot of resemblance to each other, I’ve been told.”

Jaskier is not deterred by the bitterness, nor the self-depreciation, in Eskel’s tone. With an earnest, wide-eyed gaze, he steps in closer towards the witcher.

“I see wonder in you,” he says quietly. “All the things you’ve told me about, about how much you do to serve your lord... You achieve whatever is asked of you because you care about your kin so deeply. What is your limit? Or can you make anything happen for the ones you love? What a wonder you are.”

Eskel looks upon Jaskier as if he was seeing him for the first time. “You are sincere,” he says.

Witchers, with their enhanced senses, are able to notice when someone is being disingenuine. The human body does not function normally when a lie leaves one’s mouth, and witchers have learnt to discern even the barest hints of untruth. Yet, it does not seem to be the case now.

“That I am,” Jaskier affirms, bold certainty in the whole of his posture. Then, he moves even closer to Eskel, looking deep into his amber eyes. “I cannot stop thinking about the wonder of you.”

“Gods be damned,” Eskel breathes out. “How am I to resist your song, Lark? How am I to deny you when you call to me so sweetly?”

Jaskier tilts his head up invitingly. “I call to you because I can hear you howling, Wolf,” he whispers, his voice low and husky.  

Eskel cradles Jaskier’s face in his large, rough hands. The delicate features of Jaskier’s face seem overpowered by the lines of Eskel’s strong palms.

“You maddening creature,” the witcher murmurs.

They breathe the same air now and their eyes are half-shut, heavy-lidded with desire. They are drawn to one another, inch by inch. Their lips are about to meet in a kiss, but then loud cheers erupt below, extinguishing the heat between them. Eskel and Jaskier jerk away from each other and look down, searching for the source of the interruption.

Lambert has just won against Kan.

Eskel clears his throat. “Let me consider it,” he tells Jaskier, “I shall give you an answer later today.”

At dinner, Eskel and King Julian are seen to retire for the evening together.

Read the rest on AO3

[canongf-archive]

HI LIV! im so glad u liked those imagines for luke, bc I HAVE MANY MORE (literally most of these are imagines I play out with my f/os bc i am THAT romantically starved)

1. COOKING WITH HIM! maybe you both set aside time to have a nice dinner and spend quality time together, so u help him out in the kitchen! reading recipes, bickering over how much of an ingredient you should add, him guiding your hands while you cut up a pepper and holding u towards his chest...Yeah.

2. SPA DAYS! having matching robes, wearing face masks, painting his nails, taking a shower together the whole shibang!

3. MOVIE NIGHTS!!!! him setting out a space on the couch with blankets and pillows, taking you to get your favorite snacks n telling you that you can get whatever you want!!!! curling up to him n watching a rom com together (or buddy cop movie I feel like that’s very Him too)

and now *cracks knuckles* im gonna go crazy about erik. i have this cute au where Erik stays with the xmen (mostly bc i think erik looks SO good in his xmen uniform i go bananas at that scene) so that leaves me to think about: him getting back to xaviers late and curling up on the couch where i am bc he’s tired and just wants to not think for a moment. so he wraps me up in his arms n doesn’t let me go for a solid hour until i realize he has definitely fell asleep

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO BUCKY! this is INCREDIBLY late bu tell him to take it easy tho, we don’t want him in a nursing home :)! all jokes aside, I hope y’all have a great one! i know he will when he has you by his side :) —🥮

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE !!!!! 💗 I AM SIMPLY!!! SMITTEN WITH ALL OF THESE !!!!!

the way i’m about to adopt these 3 imagines and run them on a loop in my head for the next several months... i ADORE them!!! 

cooking with him!!! putting on music to inspire us... singing along, using wooden spoons as microphones to make each other laugh... navigating each other in the kitchen... him doing that thing where he puts a hand on my the small of my back and says something like “i’m grabbing something behind you”... starting a little food fight with each other that leads to him just grabbing me and spinning me around... feeding each other!!!!! 

spa days!!! showering together... washing each others hair... huddling in close so that we can both get the hot water... wrapping up in towels / robes after... sitting on the counter and having him slot himself between my legs so i can put a clay mask on his face... him doing the little nose scrunch because it’s cold... him offering to give me a massage!!! 

movie nights!!! our favorite take out, popcorn, candy, a couple of beers... my legs in his lap, my head on his shoulder, a blanket over the both of us... laughing at lines, repeating them to each other... pausing the movie to make commentary like we are our own MST3K... i think you are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, a buddy cop movie DOES feel like him!!! we’d start with the nice guys and then perhaps he’d finally convince me to watch lethal weapon. and i’d doze off on him on the couch and he’d carry me to bed... 

WHEW. ALL OF THESE!!! THE POSSIBILITIES!!! i am simply. weak. they are so good and to think of them with LUKE!!! even better. i am so grateful that you put them in my head. thank you, thank you, thank you!!! 💗💗💗

your Erik thoughts... absolutely exceptional... first off i am obsessed with the fact that you created an AU mostly because you like the uniform he wears like... be the change you wish to see. canon is YOURS, you might as well give yourself what you like!!! why NOT !!!

and then... the thought of him wrapping you up in his arms like that!!! like!!! the thought of him being so tired both emotionally and physically that truly the only thing he cares about doing is being close to you, and he feels so safe and comforted in that position with you that he is able to actually fall asleep... that is Love!!! and i feel like i say that every time but it’s because it’s true every time!!! what you and Erik have... it is such raw and genuine love and i truly. cannot get enough. 

ALSO!!!!! BUCKY SAYS THANK YOU!!!!! he has been feeling the love and he looks better than any 104 year old i have ever known in my life!!! and honestly, with some of the things he has to put up with and has had to put up with in his long life, i’m sure a nursing home doesn’t sound all that bad to him sometimes... but!!! he has far too much fight left in him for that !!! 

!!!!! thank you for stopping by, my sweet!!!!! i love you lots, i hope you never forget!!!!! 💗

[personinneedofmusic]

We need to have this conversation

I want to start off by saying that, while I was reading the petition, from the  time, I was worried. I was concerned about the procedures and the operations required to be able to complete this. That's aside from the fact: how are we going to establish this law unanimously across 50 states and the FUNDING holy shit! We trying to defund the police but when you wanna bring this in "Fuggett uh bowit"! 

Try to imagine how to explain all that in a petition. How would it look? You'd lose the message. This is not a Bill or an Act. This is the way citizens make Congress pay attention to our needs to pass those laws.

Let's forget about the single incident that brought this link in our hands. You says "you don't believe such measures are required". Why is that? When we have a current law enforcement system set in place for a set of local organizations to uphold and enforce laws that we have all agreed to pass through our constitution. But the law is not being upheld fairly (and "fairly" is an understatement).

Justice is not being equally distributed across our land. Just because our system is not functioning as intended does not permit the allowance of it to continue.  Let's bring a better solution not just talk down and reject ANY suggestion. For anyone who talks so much about trying to improve the problems we face, whether it be a fat guy going to the gym or the office job with shitty employees, what are these complainers doing to make the situation better? Absolutely nothing.

Let's go back, though to the George Floyd video. Anyone would agree that those cops had no reason to pin this man down the way they did. Anyone watching would of loved to shoot those bastards and you're right they did not carry firearms so a standoff would of worked against the officers. But like you stated in your opinion about this petition, this is unreasonable. To have all citizens in America carry a firearm is wishful thinking. It is not and has not been a easy thing to possess (I'm not talking about purchasing the firearm that's a whole other story. I'm referring to maintaining dominion). Look at the news articles reporting underage children killing themselves or killing others because these children got their hands on their guardians weapons. This was one of the biggest reasons for the school mass shootings we were experiencing everyday in 2019. The first 60 days of that year had more shootings than days. I remember seeing it on the news. Now checking, The Gun Violence Archive organization has recorded 417 mass shootings all over the U.S. in 2019.

People want want to stick to their statement that everyone should be strapped up? This includes children and students? Going to work or going to school, nobody should be forced to have to know how to operate or shoot a firearm. It's fun AF but it is not and should not be an all-time waking moment requirement, I'll tell you why.

This is a country of consumption and entertainment not a military state, we are not the middle east for christ sakes we've only had one war on this land and that was caused by the same bigotry and inequality we see today. That's the point of this being a free country, we have systems set in place to have to regulate the violence that's the direction that the people have chosen. Both the government and citizens don't agree with carrying guns everywhere they go.

Evidence of this is seen by big data companies and major organizations shoving advertisements of products, films, food, services but not guns not weapons. I'm not talking shit about guns cause I feel we all need one and I fully support the 2nd amendment. But carrying a firearm does NOT mean they decrease the chances of danger and for SURE do not eliminate it. I'll explain shortly.

Angel was right, anyone trying to forcefully stop these prejudice assholes  know their lives are in danger when all they were expected to do that day was go to the liquor store lol (No one owes you shit) You or I cannot expect anyone to step in to interrupt such a cruel act because we all know the outcome. This ain't talking about "what ifs" we know it would take dozens of unarmed people swarming those cops just to save that one life. I can't speak about the "what if" of creating a stand off against those cops because we do not live in that reality. In this dilemma, in the real world we live in I can say that my heart would break watching this in person and I may act irrationally by attempting to forcefully remove them from George's neck and almost certainly get killed in the process. But I would rather die than allow others to continue to watch and act out a murder. "treat others the way you would like to be treated."

If you received news that your loved one was murdered for a courageous and illogical act, you would only have your "what if he had a firearm" statement and it would do you no good. "Legally a cop can't shoot you if you stop being a lethal threat... Many terrorists do that so they don't get shot" -_-  A terrorist is considered a threat to the sovereignty of our home country. We are not the same threat. The fact that you bring that into the conversation is irrelevant because we're speaking about unarmed black civilians who are murdered in cold blood while they beg for their life.

The courts rule in favor of their law enforcement officers and white privileged citizens against minorities and please don't make me research this for you because this should be common knowledge. Once you can accept this common knowledge I can continue to tell you. Rioters fuck up the community, the stores even other people as we've seen in this last month. To the viewer of the organized media (narrow truth) it is narrated that this is hurting the message of the peaceful protesters. Just like every other person stuck at home you believe peaceful protesting is the way to get your voice heard because it's so amazing in getting the job done. Do you know how many peaceful protests have walked down the streets of our country for the killings and unjust verdicts slammed on our brothers and sisters since the 60's? Hundreds recorded and non recorded with absolutely no change.

Martin Luther King Jr. made the following statement: Riots are the language of the unheard. This is not a new statement, therefore not a new perspective, how can I verify this is not a new perspective? Because he stated this before his death in 1968. Who killed him? The CIA. The exact people who you just claimed have the jurisdiction to enforce the law/ protect its people against breaking the law and causing violence. What violence did MLK bring? Please tell me. I'll wait a thousand years for this answer and never get it. So why did they kill him?... Think about it.

The United States government killed Malcolm X because he was an obvious violent threat for his belief to overthrow their racial OPPRESSORS. The generational descendants of the people in power were slave owners and they are making sure they remain in power while the people under this federal system continue to build their wealth.

They ensure that these same "citizens" fight the wars against anyone who does not comply with their wishes. The murderous capital knows no bounds from extending their arms to developing defenseless countries (like Britain from 1400's to 1800's) to its own "citizens" it claims to protect. They see it easier to attack and influence small countries and if they had the chance they will overthrow another country they see as a competitor. But when you pay attention to how they attack the people who threaten their livelihood you will realize this is not for the greater good of the country. This is only serving the needs of greed from the wealthy politicians and business who profit from the dismantling and manipulation of others. ( I digress)

Let's go back to the U.S. in the 60's. They killed Malcolm & Martin to kill positive leaders who inspired self development. They symbolized the future of a race that was self-sufficient so this government that you've served saw it in their right to cut that class of minority's resources and leave people feeling lost & dependant. Apparently the department of self defense has also defended the previous verdict of the CIA killing MLK saying that there wasn't enough evidence in 2000. On paper they are not repsonsible for his murder, but logically speaking, the judicial system could not be forced to make such a monumental mistake in citing themselves as guilty. You can't just believe what others tell you, you need to dig deep and search for the truth.

Have you heard of what happened in 1920's the city called Tulsa?

Rioters have no other option to bring justice so they fuck shit up and will always continue to do so as long as we are oppressed and not treated fairly by our own so called brothers & sisters. Whether you are religious or not, look at the evidence and you will see we are all from the same family tree. So, how would you be able to claim to run a just country while it's representatives constantly put down and prosecute the disenfranchised who already have nothing and continue to take and take from them? Every bit of success or progress is highly praised within our community’s poor kids but women and men of color still experience prejudice & racism on all levels of our society.

What happened to LaVena Johnson (read up please)?

Watching someone drown is one fucked up immoral thing to do, but to purposely hold them down to watch the last bubble of air leave their lungs, it's beyond twisted. It's not just dispicable it is systematic corruption. So to say there are a "few bad apples" is not just wrong. Not just a few bad apples... watching all local law enforcements and national guard being deployed spray tear gas and shoot NON VIOLENT PROTESTORS in the face with rubber bullets (some dying from these so called "non-lethal" methods), this is a muthafuckkin INFESTATION BRUH! You don't see it?! That's called privilege. Because they haven't shined their spotlight on you don't mean you ain't subject to these methods of punishment.

These riots are not sprouting out of the blue just because they felt like it. Rodney King was not the only time between then and now that we had killings and beatings of unarmed minorities.Knowing our history is the reason for the hatred of our federal government (Govern = Control -/- Ment = Mind)

Our mind controllers have been doing a fine job at keeping us asleep for long periods of time, but when you threaten our basic civil rights we can't allow them to continue for the love of our children... for a better world.

I personally cannot loot. And I laughed when a looter was being dragged across the pavement from being stuck under the Semi truck they were trying to rob. Because looting is for the desperate. But focus on why they are desperate. Do you think you'll see rich people looting? You think these people are poor only because they spend money on alcohol? It's because the resources to become richer are made out of reach. Then we have these stock market bubble crashes that not only make people want to commit suicide from being systematically robbed but they widen the gap between poverty and wealth. The rich are not losing, they winning during every period of despair caused within this monopoly game and not sharing. They stock up and keep their resources away from everyone and get fat. Trust me dude, “when these fat muthafukkers get heavy enough, the ground of the people they walk on gonna open up and the hungry gon' EAT!”

You mention that these store owners may become depressed to commit suicide or become a shooter. That's a pretty big "what if" dude, and your whole essay was created based off the fact that you hate "what ifs". Based off my actual experience from speaking to the bankrupt, these people look for another way, they don't lose their composure and take their anger out on others. They could be turned to crime like drug dealing or other illegal services. But that's not because of the looters and rioters, that's specifically because their country's economic system has failed them. Everyone stuck in poverty is just trying to make ends meet.

The right thing like you say is the best procedure where no one gets hurt. But desperacy and greed is a bitch. It's a human element we all possess from top to bottom. Your short story of a sad business owner is heartbreaking but does not apply to every person.

So you agree an officer should be properly equipped to handle a dangerous situation as peacefully as possible. But we have CONSTANT monthly evidence of this not being executed correctly (correctly is an understatement). The petition doesn't even talk about changing police officers physical real world training. It's simply pushing for a Psychological evaluation of the people who have a deadly weapon in their fucking hands. SWAT team killed 7 year old Aiyana Jones performing a Flashbang while she was asleep bro! Where was the value of life? Where the fuck was the rationality? Where the fuck is the justice? Check on her killers and you'll see they're still walking "free" on this land. Flashbangs were made for wartime raids. I know you and I can both agree that this career will break your spirit. But these stories are beyond fucked up. Which is why we need to check on these people and maybe even get them the help they need. We don't know yet cause we're just trying to bring this shit to conversation.

You may feel personally attacked by this request because this may include your career, but we have a secret group of officers called the grim reapers (roughtly 2000 members) mainly white supremacists who KNOW the law they KNOW how to hide from the light so a social media evaluation aint SHIT on the people who could exercise their 1st amendment but against biased, racist and lethal internal terrorist is taking power AWAY from them. Tell me, where are these detectives that you speak of to prosecute these hate groups? "What sounds good to them"? These suggestions are not random dawg. Where is your solution?

If you followed your own advice to educate yourself you'll see throughout history the oppressors have brutally forced their way into a community and into another person's personal property for their own taking. These same oppressors now follow the same procedures to hold the highest power of dominance under this stolen land.

The "why the rules for law enforcement are set in place" is because they are ENFORCING their power over the masses. They created the monsters that you're scared of in the prison cells. These people (remember, these are fucking people) are compressed and compressed with hate, bigotry and systematic abuse throughout bloodlines. Stop looking at this from an individual perspective and within one generation. This has been specified abuse and re-designed slavery for generations almost 500 years now. Slavery has not ended homie. You & I are forced into it when we are forced to comply with actions against our health or will.

No, the law is NOT black & white. Because it should be the people who run the body of the system who decide what right and wrong is and perspectives change over time. Slavery used to be right. Public lynching or beheading throughout history was a public activity. So law is grey and the way we use law to seek justice is grey. That's why we symbolize Lady Justice to be blind. Because we begin our search for truth in square 1/ zero evidence. We gather our verdict, our decision of right and what is true from the evidence provided or there the lack of.  What I was telling Will yesterday about "perceived truth" is that it is not to be confused with total reality. Truth is defined as- in accordance with fact or reality. But reality is PERCEIVED through the eyes of the beholder. "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". That's the grey area. That's why Jerome gets a different sentence compared to Chad: same age, same crime, same points, same judge, same courtroom even on the same goddamn day. Just because you have not experienced this horrendous atrocity of having your life threatened by an ominous hierarchy, does not mean it does not exist. It for sure does not mean you should leave it alone just because it's already in place and it seems to be working. It's not working, that's why we are trying anything we can think of to make a change and stop the menacing slaughtering of a certain people.

This is discouraging to see every bit of progress being undermined and pushed back. This is why people say their vote doesn't count and ignore politics, but that's exactly what the wealthy want you to believe. We are the masses not the minorities. The illusion of power is theirs. The real power is ours and we've just been tricked to hand our ability over to the money hungry power hungry FEW! Many different countries attach the representation of law enforcement as pigs. You ever wonder why they all have similar analysis? The characteristics of swine are they are consistently eating and eating without even thinking despite their great intelligence.

Law enforcement has been consistently eating more salary and more power gaining more rights over people and you think this kind of person should not be required to have an Associates degree. You know elementary school teachers are required to have a bachelors degree (4 years of college). I'm not even gonna ask you and give you the chance to ponder whether or not a kids school teacher should have a higher education than the officer who can carry a deadly weapon and interact with full grown adults from all walks of life and still get paid SHIT compared to them. That's not right, sir. And if you don't believe that's fucked up, I now know you prefer to be in a militant state and not a free state. Abuse of power is not within a few, it is within the very core of every powerful government.

Cali gaining more gun laws is still only directing the narrative to the scenery where people all agreed to carry firearms... Again, we do not live in that reality.

Peep this action. When someone hates & dislikes someone or something, you'll notice that these are products of misunderstanding.

There has not been sufficient compromise from the law for a comfortable life because these same issues lawmakers and congress have promised to look into and consider have been thrown in the backburner to suffocate just like the lives of the innocent our so called heroes have taken.

So, I know I mentioned defunding would be difficult to do if we continue with this but I am for defunding the police. Not abolishing but re-allocating their funds. One great way is removing the pension plan to those many fuckers who have a trackrecord of violence on the clock especially the murderers. You want more details about what qualifies or disqualifies someone to receive pension? I could continue but because I'm not a legislator and we're just speaking of a petition, I feel like it's a waste of time right now. Let's see this pass and then we'll dive in.

Defunding does not mean that we're creating an anarchist state. This does mean our heroes will be left on the streets. We can optimize the funds if necessary, but we can't allow the department of self defense to take so much away while it's own people are starving and living in motels or on the brink of losing their homes. This bullshit of lack of healthcare insurance coverage is a whole completely different ball game but also affects poverty and could also use assistance not in providing the government coverage but (for example) regulating these private physicians and hospitals on how they charge different prices for mediations or services in different countries.

Other services that drastically need that re-allocation funding (not overfunding past the law enforcement, remember that): Public housing, mental health services, public education & department of unemployment. Cutting after school programs and defunding your society's children is detrimental to our future and we've been allowing that (not just to continue) to progress for years. We are currently in a crisis of unemployment not caused by a typical economic downturn but nevertheless we've had problems within this public service for years that needs reform in it's method to assist people with finding a job like creating relations with employers for different job classes.

Sarcastically suggesting to fund the weed program because you can't think of any other programs that desperately need reform just shows your disconnect with our society. This is a direct statement to you but this is not a personal attack to you, I just want you to understand that there are many problems that need fixing and throwing money at it is not the solution. That goes for any of the public or federal departments that I've mentioned in this message.

The exponentially growing debt is NOT going to its citizens. Going back to the main topic, we as a body of people are not equipped with the right resources to equally seek liberty and pursuit of happiness. Also, we cannot fully blame anyone else for the decisions we make ourselves so don't expect people to be panhandling. We all just want an equal shot.

Taxes- Are a financial charge or levy imposed by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures. This means that the people are constantly being depended on to increase the salary of every government funded worker and it's supplies and other expenses to supposedly run properly. But throwing MORE money at something is not going to always fix a problem. As a country that has always found the need to be in debt and constantly spend on the wrong things this is my reason for validating that we need to re-allocate from dangerous or unnecessary spending.

People have argued that the standard technique to privatization will incur by: first defunding, then MAKING sure the facilities will not work which make the people even more angry until those facilities are shifted to the private capital. That's how we began seeing charter schools. You can't feed or educate the people of this country properly and the house of administration wants to defund NASA unless we all agree to work towards building a space station. get THAT shit out of here. The heirs of the Trump family were just recently cited to use taxpayer dollars to fund a trip to another country for a hunting game against the largest sheep in the world (reminds me of the novel, The Most Dangerous Game ;-) hunting their own supporters). TAX PAYER money, for fun! Defund whatever the FUCK they think they can do with our money. The department of defense claims it knows what's best for another country  and so it decides to train that other country's military in an act of diplomacy in hopes to gain a new ally and drain that other country of its resources. Put THAT country in debt so that they help this country with it's spending problem. (This happened multiple times) Get THAT FUCKIN SHIT out of here. Then the U.S wanna act surprised when the threatened country starts to shove the U.S. away when they begin digging their finger in their ass and so we (yes, we. You and I allow this) attack them while creating a narrative here at home that they are savages with no organized government and therefore a broken community with immoral culture (sounds like a male's narrow perspective here in the states that gets butt hurt when they get rejected by a fine ass hyna "fuck you! Slut! You dirty ho". You know there are connotations of this). But the most dangerous areas with these so-called immoral cultures are claimed to be the countries we are at war with. And that does not always mean our home's narrative is accurate. So stop looking to the taxpayer again to bail out the wall street corps and lawmakers who want to infiltrate a new country for its dependence on us. Fix THAT trillions of dollars of spending and we don't have to increase taxes.

People want to have so much faith in the judicial system of this country saying all will be resolved with jury and judges. Do yourself a favor and read up on George Stinney and then Breonna Taylor. Then let me know what kind of rationality you create for that.

QR Codes? I'll admit this had me chuckle. I don't carry a QR scanner on me but I think it's creative and smart to have a bargaining chip you're willing to lose in this conversation.

I feel I have already addressed all bullet points previously mentioned in your response, but one more thing about the re-hire: You can't be serious to think that the main focus of a rehire banning will significantly attack those heroic officers who willingly quit. This petition is specifically calling out for the group of officers who abused their power and had to be fired. Some departments will silently suggest to those officers to quit voluntarily after their post verdict of an abuse of power. But that's another loophole that we need to address possibly in another petition or when this one is passed.

You stated "we can't cookie cutter it, people are all different...". I agree with you. If certain states have a law where an officer can be fired simply because "their captain does not like them", that sounds like another piece of bullshit that deserves a different petition to gain attention. But you fail to acknowledge the cookie cut systematic oppression. El Che (Simón Bolívar) & Pancho Villas did not rise to power for rebellion against a fair system or just for the fuck of it. Neither are we and we're not even as radical. We're still civil. No longer asking, demanding equal rights still after centuries of racial violence.

You may be completely okay with a few bad doctors, lawyers, pilots or cops because it's minuscule to associate them with the term "bad apples". But these are not just only a few bad apples that create a little bit of a sad story here in America. You can't condone an attempt to pass legislation for a petition based on too many "what ifs". But that little girl has to grow up without a father now. Your abundance of what if's are leaving her with the most traumatizing “what if's” at an early age as well as others in all communities for the colored. What if George wasn't murdered? What if he was just tried and sent to years (I don’t doubt they would of found a way to make it years) of incarceration still unable to raise his child for passing an illegal tender that HE WAS NOT GIVEN THE RIGHT TO A FAIR TRIAL FOR? So to this day remains innocent based on the views of this judicial system. And now what if this same system will eradicate this little girl's life? I will not ask you if a human's life is worth less than the security of our fellow "heroes" because it is not. They took an oath to protect and serve, and all they've been protecting and serving is the interest of the wealthy. The wealthy made from the base of the citizens, the taxpayers so we are the hand that feeds them. And they are threatening us.

[thepartyresponsible]

here’s the first soundtrack fill! it’s for @the-fallofperdix​, who asked for winteriorn set to “gasoline” by halsey.

so here’s what happens if hydra kills howard but keeps maria alive so they can force tony to work for them.

this one is dark. warnings for violence, alcoholism, some gore, references to torture, and brief but recurring suicidal thoughts.

The first time he says it, it tastes like blood. Like his mother’s blood. Coppery and bright.

He looks at her blood while he says it. Not the clotted mess around her split lip or the dark ring of bruises around her throat. He doesn’t look at the picture at all.

He looks at the rusted red flecks on the Winter Soldier’s metal arm, and he says, “Hail Hydra.”

The Soldier nods and sets the photograph on the desk in front of Tony. Metal fingers brush over his mother’s face, blotting her out, and every muscle in Tony’s chest clenches up, because the newspaper she’s holding is from this morning, but it’s been hours, it’s nearly midnight, and she could already be dead.

Just like Howard.

“I want to talk to her,” he says.

“You will speak to her,” the Soldier says, “when you require inspiration.”

Inspiration, Tony thinks. He’s staring at the bruises around his mother’s throat. He’s thinking about the burned carcass that didn’t look anything like his father.

“She’s worried about you,” the Soldier says. There’s nothing in his eyes, in his tone. There’s nothing. “She is a good mother. Be a good son.”

“Fuck you,” Tony says, but he will be. He will be a good son. At the cost of everything else, he will at least be that.

  He hears from his mother three times in the next year. It is always brief, always horrible, and always after he’s fucked something up.

He spent his whole adolescence spitting in his father’s face, and here he is, at twenty-one, as well-trained as any lap dog. His early attempts to find a way out are met, at every point, by a smiling man, hand-extended, whispering Hail Hydra in his ear.

Every gala he goes to. Every office he walks into. At the FBI, at the CIA, at SHIELD, where Alexander Pierce finds him waiting outside Peggy’s office and claps him on the shoulder and smiles and says, “What are you doing here, Tony? She’s an old woman. Do you want her to end up like your mother?”

So he stops looking for a way out, and he builds what they ask him to build. He doesn’t think, and he doesn’t fight, and he builds with the music up so loud that there’s no room in his head for phrases like war crime and collateral damage.

He’s sixteen months into what amounts to full-scale treason when he sees one of his weapons unleashed on a refugee camp. The lethality, as he predicted, is absolutely devastating. And nobody knows who built it or used it, but he sees the world terrorist, and he knows, if there are words for what he is now, that’s probably the kindest one.

He pillages his liquor cabinet and locks himself out of his lab and goes on strike.

Two days later, he gets a call from the Soldier, and he listens to the soft sounds of a woman crying until the Soldier’s voice, quiet and even, says, “Your son is listening, Mrs. Stark. Say hello.”

“Tony?” he hears, like a gutpunch. “Tony, are you--”

There’s a heavy, thudding impact, and then a soft, muffled noise of pain.

“Your mother is a brave woman,” the Soldier says. “But she has been brave enough. Go back to work, Stark.”

“I’m gonna kill you,” Tony tells him, a little delirious, very drunk, stretched beyond the point where he can make any kind of good decision. He’s out of whiskey; he’s been thinking about drinking bleach instead. “I’m gonna murder you with your own fucking hand, you asshole.”

“Are you?” The Soldier does not sound concerned. “Not with any of the skills you’ve shown so far, Stark.”

And that’s fair. That’s accurate. Tony can’t map his way out of any of this. Hundreds of people just died so his mother could live, and, if he were better or stronger or less of a complete fuck-up, maybe he could find a way to make this work without killing anyone else. But he’s none of those things. He’s drunk and weak and useless, and he’s only good for finding newer, flashier ways to kill better people.

He hates himself, sure. But he’d probably hate himself more if he had to listen to his mother die.

He puts his head in his hands. He breathes in. “I’ll go back to work.”

“Hail Hydra,” the Soldier tells him, conversationally.

“Sure,” Tony says. “Sure, you piece of shit. Hail whatever the fuck keeps my mom alive.”

“Hail,” the Soldier says, coachingly this time, “Hydra.”

“Hail Hydra, and go fuck yourself,” Tony says.

The Soldier makes a soft noise that is almost – almost – a laugh, and the line goes dead.

Tony catches his breath, cleans his face, goes back to work.

  Tony’s at a party thrown by the Air Force to celebrate the weapon he designed for them that might, if they’re lucky, counter what he built Hydra two months ago, and he’s drunk out of his mind because it’s the only way he can look Rhodey in the face. He doesn’t know how many of these people would mutter Hail Hydra if he shook their hands, so he’s not touching anyone, not getting close to anyone, and he’s got Pepper running around, telling everyone he doesn’t like to shake hands or be handed anything.

Anything other than flutes full of champagne and tumblers full of whiskey, anyway, because he’s damn sure tossing those back like breath mints.

The Winter Soldier’s here. He does that sometimes. Tony think it’s because there are people in this room that could help him, if he could figure out who and where and what to say.

Tony doesn’t try to dodge him. That’s a lost cause. But he’s drunk enough that making the Soldier work for it seems like a justifiable level of juvenile, which is how he ends up in a bathroom on the opposite side of the hotel, finishing his whiskey and forcing himself to look right into his own bloodshot eyes.

“You should be careful when you leave,” the Winter Soldier tells him, as he shoves the door open and walks in. “There are people here to kill you.”

“Cool,” Tony says, “great. Tell them to remember to double-tap to center mass, because I don’t wanna walk away from this.”

The Soldier gives him a look of very thin patience. “You shouldn’t drink so much. It makes you disagreeable.”

In that moment, Tony cannot believe that this asshole is here, telling him he needs to stop being disagreeable. He throws the remnants of his whiskey, and the liquor splashes out across the Soldier’s face, but he catches the tumbler easily and then hurls it at the ground. It shatters at Tony’s feet, and he doesn’t mean to flinch, but he does.

Well, that’s more or less the story of his life these days.

“We’re building a better world,” the Soldier tells him. “You should be grateful that you’re allowed to contribute.”

“Is that how you feel?” Tony’s shoes crunch on shattered glasses, and he almost slips, has to grab onto the sink to stay vertical. “Tell me something, asshole, you know a lot of better worlds that get built by murdering people? You think there’s gonna be a place for you in any kind of ‘better world?’”

The Soldier stares at him for a long moment. “No,” he says, finally, “I don’t expect there will be a place for either of us, Stark.”

Tony swallows. He wants more whiskey. He wants to go home. He wants to be back at MIT, with Rhodey, dodging calls from his parents, daydreaming about making the kinds of weapons that made the world safer.

He’s starting to realize that you can’t trust anyone to make the world safer.

“Get me out of here,” he says.

The Soldier nods and then he steps back and holds the door open, and Tony lets himself be herded out.

  They finally let him work on the Soldier’s arm two years after his father is killed and his mother is taken. It’s a brutal piece of machinery, and Tony studies the x-rays long enough to know that it hurts. All the time, at least a little, but there are ways to make it hurt more.

Tony cycles through every single one of them, watches the way the Soldier takes the pain like someone swallowing medicine they don’t care for. Easily and quietly and without objection, with only the smallest frown of distaste.

“Jesus,” Tony tells him, “your pain tolerance.”

The Solider blinks at him. “It’s not real,” he tells him, eyes vague around the edges, like he’s retreated. Like Tony did something to him that made him go away. “Pain,” he says, after a second. “It’s just noise. You don’t have to listen.”

Tony could dump enough electricity into this monster to stop his fucking heart. He thinks about it. But he doesn’t do it. “Then don’t listen,” Tony says and patches the arm up worse than he found it, sends him out over-sensitized, so that every bit of pressure on the arm goes straight to his nerves.

It bothers him more to inflict the pain than it seems to bother the Soldier to bear it.

Tony drinks more than he should and thinks Howard was right. He doesn’t have the stomach for this line of work.

But he thinks, also, about It’s just noise and You don’t have to listen and Then don’t listen.

  The first time he sees the chair, he damn near throws up on himself. Well, he’s hungover. He’s almost always hungover these days.

He watches the Soldier jerk and seize and scream and shake back to awareness. Blinking, docile and quiet, ready to comply.

Oh, he thinks. Oh, you’re in here, too.

And they aren’t, either one of them, caged up. Looking at them most of the time, you’d think they were here willingly.

“Hail Hydra,” Tony says, because he’s supposed to be working on the chair, and they’re going to run it again and again until they get it fixed. He’s surrounded by Hydra scientists, and he’s going to be here, all day, watching. Making improvements. Listening to the Soldier scream, listening to the handlers give commands in Russian that make the Soldier blank and biddable and silent.

The Soldier blinks up at him. There’s nothing on his face. He doesn’t know Tony at all. “Hail Hydra,” he says.

This whole time, Tony’s hated him. He’s been hurting him. The only member of Hydra he’s ever managed to hurt, and here he is, getting his brain blended, ready to comply.

It’s bullshit, Tony thinks. It’s all bullshit. He doesn’t know how many people have died because of him. He hasn’t spoken to his mother in months.

He’s been thinking, lately, that maybe the noblest way out of this is to drink and keep drinking until it kills him. Maybe, if the weakest part of something can’t be fixed or patched, you just let it run until it burns itself up.

But he hadn’t known, until just now, that he wasn’t alone. There’s two of them.

You’re in here, too, Tony thinks, staring at the Soldier.

  Tony hacks Hydra very, very carefully. The last time he did something like this, the Soldier showed up at his house to tip a handful of teeth onto Tony’s bedside table. Three teeth in total, washed carefully clean. They’d rattled against the wood like dice.

Tony keeps the teeth on a desk in his lab as a reminder, and he stares at them off and on the whole time he works his way into Hydra’s files.

I’m sorry, he thinks, over and over, like a rosary, like a spell. Like some shield that will protect his mother, if he just thinks it enough times. I’m sorry, I have to. I’m sorry. I have to.

He discovers that the Winter Soldier is James Buchannan Barnes. He discovers that he’s been mind-wiped and brainwashed and tortured for decades.

Tony wants a drink. He wants out. He wants to go to sleep and wake up in a world where none of this is real. He wants to go to Obie and tell him everything, but he’s not sure, even now, what Obie would say. He’s terrified that Obie would look up at him and smile and say, “Hail Hydra.”

You can’t trust anyone to make the world safer. And you can’t put your faith in fallible things.

But revenge seems reliable. If he were Bucky Barnes, he’d want to murder every single Hydra fuckhead who ever put their hands on him.

All he has to do, he hopes, is give Barnes the chance to do that.

  “It’s a subdermal comm unit,” Tony says. “So you can be contacted and tracked remotely.”

The Soldier looks at him. He’s thinner than usual, and he’s shivering, just a little, in the cold of the lab. “Subdermal,” he repeats. It’s slow, sounds heavy, like he has difficulty saying anything at all.

Tony wonders how long he’s been awake this time.

He taps his finger right above the Soldier’s ear, and the Soldier tips his head obediently, gives Tony all the space he needs. “Part of it goes around here,” he says. “And then inside, too. Electrode array in the cochlea.”

The Soldier stares at him. There’s assessment in his eyes. Whatever questions he has, he doesn’t voice.

Tony’s been informed that the Soldier is resistant to anesthesia. It’s a cruel thing he’s doing. And it’s no comfort at all, the knowledge that the Soldier’s endured worse.

“It’s a surgical procedure,” Tony tells him. He doesn’t say It’ll hurt, and he doesn’t say I’m sorry, and he sure as hell doesn’t say This was my idea. The Soldier won’t remember any of this any way.

“Ready to comply,” the Soldier says.

“Hail Hydra,” Tony says, and feels like a monster, like a traitor, like a coward.

  Tony’s in Malibu when the chatter starts up. An abandoned military compound in Russia is on fire, casualties unknown. There’s aerial footage of a building already reduced to a smoking ruin, so Tony figures the incident happened hours ago, maybe a full day ago.

He pours himself a drink and sets the security system in his lab, sends a notice to Pepper to keep herself and all the household staff out of the building for forty-eight hours.

He expects to have another ten or twelve hours, but the plane lands in five.

“It’s okay, J,” he says, “let them in. And, remember, if they try to take me out of here, blow the whole fucking place up. I don’t care what I say.”

“Sir,” JARVIS says.

“C’mon, J,” Tony says, holding the tumbler against his chest, feeling his heart hammering in the cage of his ribs. “You promised.”

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS says. “Should I deploy any of the suits?”

“Just the Mark Five,” Tony says. “Sentry duty. Don’t let them get me out of here, J. Don’t let them in the lab. Don’t let them have the suits.”

“Sir,” JARVIS says. And then, a moment later, “The Mark Five is on standby.”

“Thanks, J.”

Tony takes a breath and checks the security footage, and it’s like a hole opening beneath his feet, when he sees the Soldier dragging his mother up the driveway.

He thinks she’s dead, and then she shifts sideways, stumbles, and the Soldier pauses to right her, and he realizes she’s not dead, just weak. Weak and frail and alive.

“JARVIS,” he says. Because he wants to call the cops, wants to call SHIELD, wants to call Rhodey and Obie and his father and anyone who could help him with this, but he just sent the Winter Soldier to rescue his mother, and it’s entirely possible he failed, and the Soldier’s here to make Tony watch her die, instead.

The front door isn’t locked, but the Soldier kicks it open anyway. He half-carries, half-drags Maria into the front room and then drops her on a couch not ten feet from Tony.

“Make it stop,” the Soldier says, snarling at Tony. It’s the most emotion he’s ever seen from him. “Jesus fucking Christ,” he says, voice accented for the first time, sounding like any aggravated guy from Brooklyn, “get this shit out of my fucking head.”

“JARVIS,” he says, a little listless, trying to hold himself straight and tall, trying to keep himself from falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around his mother. He feels eight years old all over again. “Cut the signal.”

JARVIS stops the loop that’s been playing on repeat in the Soldier’s brain, Tony’s voice over and over, blocking out every other sound: Your name is James Buchannan Barnes. You are a prisoner of war. You need to rescue Maria Stark and bring her to 10880 Malibu Point, 90265.

The Soldier sags, runs his hands down his face. He’s shaking. He looks unwell. His eyes go to Maria and then to Tony. “What the fuck happened?” he says. He sounds lost and scared and exhausted. “I woke up and—that fucking place. Do you know what the fuck they do there?”

Tony swallows. “Are you going to hurt me? Hurt my mom?”

The Soldier’s face screws up. His eyes drop to his hands, and he wavers on his feet like maybe he’s going to be sick. “Is it real?” he asks. “The shit in my head? I remember—but I didn’t, right? It isn’t real? It’s just shit in my head, like your voice. It’s not---”

“Tony?” And that’s his mother, faint but sharp, pushing herself up. Some of her fingers are crooked, like they were broken and left that way. She’s twenty pounds lighter than she should be. All her hair is gray. She’s his mom. “Tony?”

Tony looks at the Soldier. He thinks about Pierce, and Rumlow, and all the people who’ve shaken his hand and whispered Hail Hydra in his ear. He thinks about all the weapons he’s built, the prototypes he’s kept, the suits he’s been piecing together in his basement.

Hydra built its monsters. So did Tony. He thinks – he hopes – that his have sharper teeth.

“Hey, Barnes,” he says, because he thinks, maybe, that’s who he’s talking to. “Fuck Hydra.”

Barnes stares at him. There’s horror in his eyes, and hate, and rage, and it should be ugly, but it feels like Tony’s finally stumbled his way home. “Fuck Hydra,” he says, voice steadying, shoulders snapping straight. “Let’s cut off a few heads.”

[edogawatranslations]

Danganronpa Kirigiri (3) - Chapter 2, Part 4

Table of Contents | Previous: Chapter 2, Part 3

We made our way from the fourth floor to the fifth floor, and then the sixth...

But when we reached the sixth floor, the sound of a blaring alarm stopped us in our tracks. We exchanged a quick glance.

“A fire alarm...?”

“Let’s head back to the shop area.”

Hoping to uncover the reason behind the ringing, we went through the stairwell door and found ourselves in an area filled with shops selling furniture and lifestyle goods. The alarm had rattled some employees and customers, but the situation hadn’t yet descended into outright chaos.

A voice came over the department store’s PA system.

“Attention all customers. A fire has broken out on the restaurant floor. Please follow the instructions of nearby staff and evacuate the building in a calm and orderly fashion. I repeat...”

Everyone was in an uproar following the announcement. Ear-piercing shrieks and the noise of frenzied footsteps filled the air.

“Please use this emergency staircase!” an employee shouted from nearby.

The urgency of the situation finally sank in. Customers fled to the emergency exits in droves.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“The timing of this makes it hard to believe that this commotion doesn’t have anything to do with Rei Mikagami,” Kyoko replied calmly. “The question is who’s behind this: the hunters or the prey.”

“Then we need to get to the roof ASAP and find out.”

Slipping past the shop staff undetected, we walked opposite the flow of traffic, setting a course for the employee staircase from earlier. The crowds had drastically thinned, a result of the smooth evacuation. Watching as people gradually disappeared from the normally bustling floor inspired a peculiar feeling in my heart, like the end of the world was drawing near.

We arrived at the stairwell door, but when we were about to open it, a voice called out to us from behind.

“Hey, that ain’t the evacuation route.”

Turning around, we spotted a security guard eyeing us warily from a few dozen feet away. He probably noticed us sneaking about and chased after us.

“Where do ya think you’re going? Hurry up and get outta here.”

“Um, well, you see, we thought this way would be faster...” I stammered.

“It ain’t safe that way. Come back o’er here,” the guard said, beckoning us with his hand.

I obeyed and stepped away from the door, but neither Kyoko nor Lico followed his command.

“You deaf? That way’s dangerous!” the guard repeated, his voice seething with impatience.

“W-We’re sorry,” I apologized. “Come on, Kyoko, we need to go.”

“Don’t listen to him.”

“What? Why?”

“Alright, time’s up!” the guard shouted. “You disobedient brats deserve a penalty!”

He reached around his back and pulled something out from behind him. It wasn’t a flashlight or a walkie-talkie—

It was a gun.

“Die!”

The gun, equipped with a cylindrical silencer, was pointed squarely at us.

However, before he could pull the trigger, Lico had already made the first move. Lico picked up an abandoned umbrella from off the ground and flung it forward. It transformed into a javelin as it accelerated through the air and flew towards the guard.

But the umbrella wasn’t heading for the man’s body—it was aimed at the barrel of the gun. The tip of the umbrella slid right into the silencer.

Bullseye.

Naturally, the trigger couldn’t be pulled with the umbrella lodged into the barrel, and the weapon became too unwieldy to hold with one hand. After tugging at the umbrella for a few moments to no avail, the man cursed in some foreign language and tossed the gun to the side.

Those precious seconds were enough for Lico to sneak up behind the distracted guard. With no hesitation, he twisted the man’s right arm upwards with ease, bending it into a grotesque position. The sound of a bone snapping distinctly echoed through the air, even over the deafening fire alarm.

The guard let out a horrific scream as he fell to his knees and slammed face-down onto the ground.

Showing no mercy, Lico pressed his foot against the man’s neck, gaining full agency over his movement. The man was powerless to resist from underneath the small boy.

But Lico wasn’t finished with his assault. He pulled out a hammer from inside the suit around his arm. It wasn’t a small, garden-variety hammer you would use for a nail; the tool looked like it was entirely made of carbon steel, implying that it was designed to be used as a lethal weapon.

Lico raised the hammer over his head—

“Lico, stop!” I grabbed his arm to prevent him from swinging down.

He turned towards me. His fairy-like face appeared as innocent as always.

“Why are you stopping me?”

“You’ve done enough!”

“I cannot leave things like this.”

“You’re gonna kill him?”

“No way, of course not.” Lico spun the hammer around in his hand. “I’m only going to smash his throat, eyes, and fingers.”

“Excuse me?”

“To prevent him from speaking, seeing, or grabbing anything ever again.”

“You don’t need to do that!”

“Please calm down. You have no reason to stand up for this man.”

“I’m not standing up for him. I don’t want you to do such a thing!”

“I’m not doing it because I want to. Someone like him will inevitably come for revenge unless we take preemptive measures. It’ll be troublesome dealing with him in the future. What I’m doing is comparable to putting up storm shutters before a typhoon.”

“Yes, kill me!” the man pinned down on the floor shouted. “I’ll come flying over and over again. Unless you wish to despair over a murderer coming for you every night, deal the finishing blow right now!”

“Well, he’s saying as much himself, so... don’t mind if I do.” Lico smiled and once again raised the hammer over his head.

"That’s enough.”

Kyoko’s voice made Lico stop. She had grabbed the gun and pointed it at the boy. The silencer pierced by the umbrella was lying by her side, no longer attached to the muzzle. She stabilized the gun, firmly gripping it with elbows bent and both hands close to her chest. In the hands of a middle school girl, the gun appeared heavy and bulky.

“It’s almost four o’clock. We need to hurry and make our way upstairs.”

“If you say so.”

After raising both hands up in defeat, Lico stuffed the hammer back into his suit and stepped off the man. He was finally listening to us.

“But I’ll incapacitate his left arm too.”

As Lico warned, he seized the man’s left wrist and twisted it effortlessly. The man let out another scream, sweat dotting his entire face.

“Lico... Just what kind of school did you go to?” I asked, staring timidly at Lico.

“Both of my parents died when I was young, so I never received a proper education,” the boy said with a hearty smile. “My dream is to attend college and study astronomy.”

“Right...” I was too astonished to pry any further.

Kyoko found a roll of packing tape by a cash register and used it to tie up the security guard. She then started looking through his belongings. There was a wallet in his pocket, but the man pictured on the driver’s license tucked inside was a completely different person from the guard before us.

“He must have stolen a guard uniform to disguise himself, but he’s clearly not Japanese. I presume this man is Night Flyer?” Kyoko asked Lico.

“I don’t know. Why don’t we ask him directly?” Lico took a step towards the man, who was quaking with fear. “Are you Night Flyer?”

“No!”

Lico reached into his suit and pulled out the hammer.

“Yes! Yes!”

“There you have it.”

“A forced confession doesn’t tell us anything...” I sighed.

“Yui, it’s almost time,” Kyoko said.

“Oh, you’re right,” I said, checking the time on my phone. “It’s already 3:59!”

“Let’s hurry.”

We left Night Flyer behind and went up the escalator from the empty floor all the way to the ninth floor. After running past a clock shop and an eyewear store, we opened the door to the rooftop.

Snow was still falling outside.

A chilly gust of wind greeted us through the door. The rooftop plaza served as the venue for a beer garden and various events in the summer, but in the dead of winter, the entire area was covered in a sheet of white.

Multiple sets of footprints dotted the ground, but since anyone could freely access the roof area even in the winter, we couldn’t glean much information from them.

Nobody seemed to be around—

“Someone’s lying down over there.” Kyoko pointed across the plaza, while using her other hand to stop her hair from getting ruffled by the wind.

In the shadow of the bricks lining the flower bed, a pair of feet were pointing up towards the sky. Only the feet were visible from the doorway, so nothing about the person was discernible.

We stepped out onto the roof and crossed the plaza. Snow clouds were hovering overhead, close enough that I imagined being able to reach up and touch them.

We circled around the flowerbed.

There wasn’t one person on the ground—there were four. Two Asian men in professional suits, and two seedy-looking Russian men in tattered coats and slacks that frankly made them look unpresentable.

They were lying on the ground beside the chain-link fence bordering the roof, each of them contorted into a strange pose. Beyond the fence, the sky stretched wide over the gray cityscape.

Kyoko crouched next to one of the Russian men and put her hand to his neck.

“He’s dead,” she announced.

“No way... He’s dead?” I checked the wrist of another man. “No pulse, but the body’s still a little warm.”

“What’s the time?”

“4:05.”

The promised time had passed. Had we missed our chance?

“Is Rei Mikagami behind this?” I wondered aloud.

“These four men appear to belong to the organizations chasing after Rei Mikagami,” Lico said while rummaging through the pockets of the men on the ground. He came across their wallets and passports, but nothing referenced Rei Mikagami.

“I don’t see any external injuries... How did they die?”

“There are bruises around their necks,” Kyoko responded.

“So they were strangled to death?”

“All four of them have the same bruises. Would Rei Mikagami really use such a time-consuming killing method against four enemies? Even if none of them were trained for battle, in the time it takes to strangle one of them, the others could easily flee.”

Kyoko lifted one of the corpses’ heads to check the nape of its neck.

“Oh...” Kyoko let out a small gasp as she realized something. “His neck is completely snapped.”

“The same is true for this man over here,” Lico added, checking another of the bodies.

Something about the corpses seemed to fascinate Kyoko and Lico. They crouched next to the bodies and were eagerly discussing something.

The four of them died from having their necks snapped? What in the world happened here?

Without any knowledge of forensic science, there wasn’t anything I could contribute, so I stepped back and watched the two of them from afar.

Because of that—

From where they were, neither Kyoko nor Lico could’ve noticed if something had ever-so-slightly stirred on the other side of the fence, on the very edge of the rooftop below which there was no foothold.

Only I picked up on the small disturbance. But I couldn’t tell what it was at first, since I couldn’t get a clear look.

Gradually, the thing became larger and larger, before finally revealing its true shape.

It was a head.

From the other side of the fence, where only the sky should’ve been, the shaved head of a man was staring in my direction.

“G-Guys, over th-there...” I brought my trembling finger up and pointed at the fence.

“What’s wrong—”

By the time Kyoko and Lico had noticed, the man beyond the fence had leapt up and revealed his true form. He was wearing a tight three-quarters length wetsuit that outlined his muscles in an ostentatious display of his figure.

Before I could even scream, the man stuck his fingers through the fence, tore it wide open with no difficulty as if opening window curtains, and slipped through the resulting gap.

He had to be the former Ultimate Rock Climber, Tsurugi Hitomoshi.

He didn’t have a rope or harness to support him; the only equipment on him was a small chalk bag hanging from his back. Did that mean he had somehow crawled up the side of the building with his bare hands and was silently lying in ambush?

The man made his approach.

Kyoko pulled out the gun, but the man noticed and charged at her with the force and speed of a raging bull. With no way to stop the oncoming attack, she was knocked back, causing the gun to float through the air and land on top of the water tank. Retrieving it would be no easy task.

“Kyoko!”

Her body was weakly shuddering on top of the snow.

Hitomoshi then trained his sights on—

Me.

During my moments of hesitation, he quickly rushed at me.

There’s no time to dodge!

All I could do was watch helplessly as the man charged forward.

I shut my eyes, bracing my body for the force of being knocked back, but an unexpected sensation hit my body.

...I couldn’t breathe.

I opened my eyes and found the man’s hand clamped around my throat.

Ah, that’s right.

I was experiencing first-hand how those Russians had met their fate. Once Hitomoshi injected a little more power into his fingertips, the bones in my neck would be reduced to dust.

The face of the man about to kill me displayed no bloodlust or hatred—rather, it was more like the expression of an athlete with everything on the line giving it his all. For someone who had been exiled as a climber, his ultimate goal must have been to conquer the precious cliff that was human life.

As the light in my world began to fade, the last thing I saw was—

No Trespassers Allowed!

Kyoko had grabbed onto a sign and was sneaking up behind Hitomoshi. She swung down, smashing it onto the back of his head.

However, Hitomoshi didn’t even flinch, and the expression on his face didn’t change one bit. But some blood started trickling down his forehead, as his body wasn’t made of steel.

He released my throat from his grasp.

I collapsed onto the ground. Hitomoshi’s muscular right arm now had locked onto Kyoko as its prey. Like a snake, it quickly coiled around Kyoko’s thin neck.

Hitomoshi lifted Kyoko’s body into the sky, her legs raised off the ground.

Stop! I tried to shout, but nothing came out. My throat still hadn’t recovered from the assault. I’ll kill him...

With renewed determination, I attempted to get on my feet, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate.

Kyoko’s face began turning pale.

At this rate, Kyoko’s gonna...

A moment before I was about to hang my head in despair, a black cloth fluttered through the air and landed on Hitomoshi’s face.

A suit jacket...?

Lico had flung the garment that had been around his arm.

With his free hand, Hitomoshi pulled the suit off his face. Once he did, he turned and faced the young boy standing in the snow.

“Come at me.” The boy loosened his tie and gestured for Hitomoshi to approach. “Mr. Former Ultimate.”

Hitomoshi appeared to accept the challenge. A wide, menacing grin formed on his face.

He tossed Kyoko aside like some sort of old toy and charged straight at Lico.

Lico had fully untied his tie.

With such a big disparity between their body sizes, I didn’t have much faith in a favorable outcome. Lico’s body looked to be thinner than Hitomoshi’s thighs. This was one fight he shouldn’t have picked.

Hitomoshi thrust out his right hand as he ran, prepared to grab onto Lico’s neck. Lico stood perfectly still, making no attempt to dodge the attack.

A smile spread across Hitomoshi’s face, filled with confidence in his certain victory.

Once he grabs Lico, it’s all over...

I felt an urge to scream.

But Hitomoshi’s arm suddenly froze midway through his attack.

Wrapped around Hitomoshi’s outstretched right forearm was Lico’s tie. Lico was pulling tightly on both ends, creating a bind around the man’s arm.

Hitomoshi winced. Blood began streaming out of the parts where Lico’s tie was wrapped around.

“There’s a thin wire inside. The more power you put into your prized muscles, the more the wire will eat into them.”

Paying no attention to Lico’s warning, Hitomoshi grit his teeth and clenched his right arm to try and break free.

“Aaaaaaaaargh!” he yelled.

Blood erupted from his arm, staining the surrounding snow bright red. The tie wouldn't come off, no matter how much he resisted.

Giving up on his right arm, Hitomoshi now swung at Lico’s side with his left.

Lico released his grip on the tie and gracefully leapt backwards to dodge the attack.

Hitomoshi had regained his freedom. The tie was still wrapped around his right arm, but his left arm was unrestrained. I didn’t know which was his dominant arm, but as a rock climber, he must have had considerable grip strength in both.

I wouldn’t wanna be on the receiving end of an attack by either of his arms.

Hitomoshi predictably channeled all of his strength into his left arm. Lico managed to dodge the man’s swings, but only by the skin of his teeth. Their size difference had placed Lico at a disadvantage.

Before long, Lico found himself with his back against the fence.

“You’re quite the opponent,” Hitomoshi growled, speaking for the first time. Knowing that he had fully cornered his prey, he had the leisure to boast. “Why don’t you tell me your name before I kill you?”

“Is that necessary?”

“What?”

“Do you really need my name? If so, I’ll tell you. I’m Rei Mikagami. A number of people call me by that name.”

“You’re Rei Mikagami? Huh, I guess it’s my lucky day.” Hitomoshi pulled his left arm back, preparing to swing with all his might.

But before that could happen...

He collapsed to his knees, falling flat onto his face.

What had happened?

“Good night, Mr. Former Ultimate.” Lico pulled out a spare tie from his vest pocket and deftly tied it around his neck.

Hitomoshi was no longer moving.

I had no idea what happened, but the battle appeared to have been settled.

“Y-You...” I stood up and somehow managed to call out to Lico with my raspy voice. “You’re Rei Mikagami?”

“I apologize for keeping it a secret,” he said, picking up his suit jacket from the ground.

“I don’t get it. You’re seriously Rei Mikagami?” I staggered towards him, lost in confusion. “If you told us sooner, none of this would’ve happened...”

I stopped, realizing that there was something more pressing that deserved my attention.

“Kyoko!”

Lico and I hurried over to where Kyoko was lying down.

“Kyoko, are you okay?” As I gently pulled her up, she opened her eyes and let out a weak groan. “I’m so relieved... I thought he had crushed your neck!”

I rubbed my cheeks against her soft hair.

“What happened to him...?” Kyoko looked around and spotted Hitomoshi lying in a pool of blood.

“Lico took care of him.”

“I see...”

“The poison on the wire knocked him unconscious,” Lico explained. “Since his body is strong, it likely won’t be enough to kill him, but he’ll be paralyzed for a short while.”

Lico must have had poison in his tie all this time. He was a frightening little boy.

“Let’s get out of here before anything else happens,” I suggested.

With Lico’s help, I got Kyoko onto my back. We left the rooftop terrace and rode the employee elevator to the first floor. After sneaking out a back door, we made our way to the front of the station and found the nearby streets flashing red from the lights of fire trucks and police cars.

We hurried into a cab stopped on the side of the road.

“Lico, get in.”

“Aren’t you angry at me?”

“I’m not angry!”

Lico hesitated for a moment, but slid into the passenger seat with a troubled expression.

With that, we bid farewell to the bloody battlefield of the station.

Next: Chapter 3, Part 1

[padfootagain]

I can't believe I reached 3k followers!!! Thank you all so much!! When I started this blog, I hoped to reach 100 followers one day, and now here we are!

So to thank you all and mark the date, I'm making a little event! The theme is simple : movies!

What is it all about?

Under the cut are a list of prompts and scenes from different movies. You can choose between two different things that you would like me to write:

-        You can choose between 1 and 5 prompts along with a character and I will write a one-shot based on these prompts for the character you have chosen

-        You can choose one scene in the list and a character, and I will re-write that scene for the character you have chosen

A few rules to follow if you want to send a request.

-        If you request for the prompts :

- You can request up to 5 prompts, not more

- You can add a few details that you would like to be featured in your request if you have precise ideas

 -        If you request a scene :

- I will write a one-shot that is inspired by that scene, not the exact same scene (obviously, otherwise, where is the fun?). The idea is to get the same spirit and some references, or the same situation, but not a simple copy.

- These scenes will require me to turn AU!, so don't be surprised.

- You can request only one scene, so choose wisely ;)

- I will most likely 'erase'  the characters who were in the original scenes, so don't be surprised.

 No matter if you request for prompts or for a scene :

- You can request for any character on my masterlist, no matter if I've already written for them or not.

- I have no trouble with anons, if you're a little shy. So don't hesitate to send a request on anon if you feel more comfortable this way.

- Please, send me your request through my askbox and not in a PM. It's much easier for me to manage, and I might forget about your request if you send it to me privately. If you're shy, send an ask on anon.

- Sadly, I will probably not be able to write all the requests that are sent my way. I will write as many as I can, but I'm only human. I'm sorry if I don't get to write your request. But I invite you to send it anyway, because I might write your request! If you don't send it, then you can be sure that I won't though. Again, I'm sorry if I can't write all the requests I receive, but I usually get too many to be able to write them all.

 Requests for this event will be up for one week, which means until January 14!

Considering how well this event works, I may change that date along the way.

Thank you all again and I hope you like this event :D

Prompts :

Every prompt is a movie quote. The movie it comes from is written under the quote in italic

 1. "Was that a joke?"

"What if it was?"

"I don't like jokes!"

"I don't like you!'

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

 2. "Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking, nerf-herder!"

Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back

 3. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

 4. "Well… my philosophy is that worrying means you suffer twice."

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them

 5. "A heart's a heavy burden."

Howl's Moving Castle

 6. "You're far away, where are you?"

"In a world that's disappearing, I'm afraid."

The Sound Of Music

 7. "No, I'm not mad. I… I'm hurt, and disappointed and… and mad."

Funny Face

 8. "I'm always gonna love you."

"I'm always gonna love you too."

La La Land

 9. "I'll just take my ego for a walk…"

An Affair To Remember

 11. "Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"Would you like to stay forever?"

Mulan

 12. "At midnight, I'll turn into a pumpkin and drive away in my glass slipper. And that will be the end of the fairytale."

Roman Holiday

 13. "Strange, isn't it? Each man's life touches so many other lives. When he isn't around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn't he?"

It's A Wonderful Life

 14. "Whatever crimes I commit against you, remember, I have diplomatic immunity in 46 countries. Including Puerto Rico."

The Princess Diaries : Royal Engagement

 15. "Anything can happen if you let it."

Mary Poppins

 16. "Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still you find reasons to keep on living."

Princess Mononoke

 17. "Everything is possible. Even the impossible."

Mary Poppins Returns

 18. "Love isn't a thinking thing. It's a feeling thing."

Playing It Cool

 19. "That is one big pile of shit."

Jurassic Park

 20. "I love you."

"I know."

Star Wars : The Empire Strikes Back.

 21. "Sadness, anger, hate… we were not allowed to express anything. So no, how do we express love?"

Dear Zindagi

 22. "Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."

Dead Poets Society

 23. “Always believe in yourself. Do this and no matter where you are, you will have nothing to fear.”

The Cat Returns

 24. "I'll probably lose my citizenship for that."

Mission Impossible III

 25. "Oh, don't waste my time with flattery."

"Not to seem rude, but I wasn't actually talking to you."

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

 26. "But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass."

The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers

 27. " I guess we need to register you as a lethal weapon."

Lethal Weapon

 28. "Just because it is, doesn't mean it should be."

Australia

 29. "It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

 30. "A lot of people are in love… but none can love like me, because they don't have you."

Kal Ho Naa Ho

 31. "Just follow your heart. And keep smiling."

Kiki's delivery service

 32. "That look in your eyes is a pain in my arse, you know that, right?"

Mission Impossible III

 33. "Can we take a flight back to reality, or do we have to change planes in Denver?"

The Santa Clause

 34. "Yippie-Ki-Yay, motherfucker."

Die Hard

 35. "I retire for like five minutes and it all goes to shit."

The Avengers

 36. "Would you like to know the probability of her using it against you? It's high."

"Let's get going."

"It's very high…"

Star Wars : Rogue One

 37. "I'm too old for this."

Lethal Weapon

 38. "Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it or learn from it."

The Lion King

 39. "Now, think of the happiest things. It's the same as having wings."

Peter Pan

 40. "I'm in love with you."

"So what?"

"So what? So plenty! I love you! You belong to me!"

"No. People don't belong to people."

Breakfast at Tiffany's

 41. "It's called Karma. And it's pronounced 'Ha! '"

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

 42. "Whoa, lady, I only speak two languages: English and bad English."

The Fifth Element

 43. "You were my new dream."

Tangled

 44. "Any question?"

"Yeah. Could we get a cappuccino machine in here? Cause I don't know how you call this."

Mission Impossible

 45. "I'm not used to people sticking around when things go bad."

"Welcome home."

Star Wars : Rogue One

 45. "Stop, you'll kill them!"

"That's the idea!"

The Mummy

 46. "Probably best not to tell anyone about this."

"Right, no one. I mean, I'll tell myself sometimes but don't worry, I won't believe it."

Notting Hill

 47. "Once you've met someone, you never really forget them."

Spirited Away

 48. "I hit my head on something."

"Yeah, my head!"

Balto

 49. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you okay to drive? A minute ago, you were dead."

"What are you talking about?"

"This is not going to end well."

Mission Impossible : Rogue Nation

 50. "I've got a bad feeling about this…"

Star Wars

 51. "A little consideration, a little thought for others, makes all the difference."

Winnie The Pooh

 52. "If she loves you then she will turn around and look at you... turn around... turn around!"

Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge

 53. "Can I stay for a while?"

"Stay forever."

Notting Hill

 54. "Promise me one thing: don't take me home until I'm drunk - very drunk indeed."

Breakfast at Tiffany's

 55. "This California dew is a little heavier than usual tonight."

"Really? From where I stand the sun is shining all over the place."

Singin' In The Rain

 56. "You need to stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders."

Spider-Man: Homecoming

 57. "Who ever said the human race was logical?"

Star Trek IV : The Voyage Home

 58. "Blow up the car."

"Oh, it's such a nice car…"

"And yet, do it."

Mission Impossible III

 59. "Why complicate things that are really quite simple?"

Mary Poppins

 60. "Who are you?"

"Your worst nightmare."

Mulan

 61. "You said 'whoopsidaisies'."

"I don't think so. No one says 'whoopsidaisies', do they? Unless they're…"

"There is no 'unless'. No one has said 'whoopsidaisies' for fifty years and even then it was only little girls with blonde ringlets."

Notting Hill

 62. "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."

The Wizard Of Oz

 63. "Are you out of your corn-fed mind?!"

Star Trek : Into Darkness

 64. "You're a good man, with a good heart. And it's hard for a good man to be king."

Black Panther

 65. "It is mine to give to whom I will. Like my heart."

The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring

 66. "There's no place like home…"

The Wizard Of Oz

 67. "I'm with you till the end of the line"

Captain America : First Avenger

 68. "You deserve better than this. You deserve people who value you. You deserve to go somewhere where you can be proud of who you are."

The Shape Of Water

 69. "No matter how many weapons you have, no matter how great your technology might be, the world cannot live without love."

Castle In The Sky

 70. "There is nothing more reassuring than realizing that the world is crazier than you are."

Thor: The Dark World

 71. "I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone."

The Lord of the Rings : The Fellowship of the Ring

 72. "I love her."

"Does she love you?"

" I don't know now. Yesterday, you weren't alive."

"Well, I apologize for not being dead in a ditch."

"I don't think I can accept your apology."

"Is that a joke?"

"Yes, yes, sort of. I'm not... I've never been very good at jokes."

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen

 73. "English, motherfucker, do you speak it?"

Pulp Fiction

 Scenes :

The links to the scenes on youtube are set in the titles of the movies, so it can be easier for you to choose. I'll re-write the scene entirely so you and the character of your choice can live it ;) It can be set either in the universe of the character you have chosen or the universe of the original scene depending on the scene you choose.

 1. Indiana Jones : Raiders Of The Lost Ark

You are so close to finding this lost treasure. Bad for you that you have fallen in a cave filled with deathly traps.

 2. Jurassic Park

You thought you would enjoy a nice weekend discovering an amazing scientific breakthrough. Now, here you are, hiding from a T-Rex and wondering how you got yourself in this situation…

 3. The Shop Around The Corner / You've Got Mail

You have a date with someone tonight, but you don't know who. All you know is that you are to meet in that café. All turns crazy when your date is actually this colleague of yours whom you hate… kinda…

 4. L'Arnacoeur

Your family engaged him/her to seduce you, so you would break your engagement with this guy they hate. Bad luck that for once, he/she falls for you too…

 5. Love Affair / An Affair To Remember / Sleepless In Seattle

It's love at first sight. But perhaps the two of you are getting ahead of yourselves. You give each other a bit of time to think, and set up to meet at the top of the Empire State Building, if in six months, you still feel the same for each other. But will you both be there?

 6. The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian

The only way to win this war is to earn more time. And a fight one on one with your enemy is the best way you can come up with. But who will survive the fight? Will it be enough?

 7. The Lord Of The Rings : The Fellowship Of The Ring

You are trapped in Moria. A Balrog chasing after you. This looks pretty bad… yep… that's bad…

 8. Roman Holiday

You are a princess in your country, but for one day, you have managed to escape your duties, and you are now roaming through the streets of Roma. A stranger helps you through the streets of the city and you spend a magical day…

 9. The Holiday

You have exchanged your house for the holiday with a woman in England. You expected a quiet week, but that was before you would meet the woman's brother…

 10. The Lake House

Through your mail box, you somehow receive letters from the man who used to live in your house 5 years ago. Through the letters you exchange, you slowly start to develop feelings for each other. Until one day you decide to meet, and set up a date. But he never comes. You realize that he didn't come because he had died during these five years that separated the two of you. But you may have one last chance to save him…

[hazelandglasz]

Just Get Ignited - A Klance fic :)

Inspired by this gorgeous drawing by @catneylang

And because I couldn’t resist such a solid plot bunny!

Title is from the lyrics of the Bee Gees’ song, “Bodyguard” :)

Available on AO3

“I do not. Need. A. Bodyguard.”

Keith doesn’t stomp his feet but it is a close thing.

Allura and Shiro exchange a glance from their pedestaled throne and Keith could just scream if he had lost all sense of decorum.

And if the Galra unit was not standing on the side of the throne room, waiting for his tantrum to end.

Quiznack.

“Keith, as you are going around the Empire to reassure our allies of the strength of our bond,” Allura starts, marks glowing slightly, “we cannot take the risk of having you without a guard. There are factions of populations opposed to the Altean-Galra union, some who claim for their independence from the Alliance …”

“As talented as you are in close combat,” Shiro adds, “we need a guarantee to your safety.”

Keith sighs and makes the mistake of looking directly at his brother.

Shiro’s puppy eyes are a lethal weapon and it should come with a warning.

“Fine.”

From the corner of his eye, Keith sees movement in the Galras’ ranks. One Galra steps forward and saunters towards him.

The guy is tall, Keith can give him that. He’s not buff, contrary to his companions, but there is a definite strength in his shoulders and legs and Keith should stop ogling the Galra this instant.

He still fiddles with the end of his braid to get his composure back.

“Hey there,” the Galra says with a cocky smirk as he pushes his hood away, revealing bright blue eyes, “looks like I’ll be the one in charge of guarding that hot body of yours.”

“Lance,” Captain Kolivan says sharply, raising one eyebrow at his soldier.

The Cocky Galra--Lance, okay, pretty easy to shout, and where is his brain going with this--straightens up, but he still smiles down at Keith. “Can’t say that I will mind this ass-ignment.”

“You do know that the sentence for a bodyguard who flirts with a prince is death, right?”

Lance leans forward, his breath brushing the tip of Keith’s sensitive ears. “I’ll keep that in mind, sweetheart.”

***

“Arrrgh!”

Pidge doesn’t even bother looking up from their screen. “Let me guess,” she deadpans, “Lance did something arousing and infuriating?”

“Argh!”

“Keith, we discussed this, use your words.”

“This …” Keith starts, foaming at the mouth and growing up without even realizing it, “this lunatic keeps on making inuendos whenever no one can catch him!”

“And you secretly love it.”

“No!”

“Your ears are pink and your marks are glowing. Beg to differ, Your Highness.”

Keith snarls at them but they only have to cock one eyebrow at him for Keith’s anger to deflate--and for his body to return to its normal size. “I do not like it,” he insists, flopping back on his bed. “Or him. But whenever he says that … nonsense, he has this smile that’s just-- and his eyes are so …”

“I’m going to make you eat a thesaurus.”

“Pidge, I’m serious, this bodyguard is going to be the death of me.”

Pidge closes their machine with a snap. “Then do something about it. Never heard of angry sex?”

Keith gapes at them. “I have. How have you heard of it?”

“Dark Web, my liege. Now go shut that bodyguard up the only way that will make you feel better and stop filling my chambers with your sappy energy.”

Keith stands up and frowns at his closest advisor. “You need to stop hanging out with the Earthlings, Pidge.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve spent a good time hanging out with your mother lately.”

“That’s even worse.”

---

“Arrrgh!”

Hunk keeps on cleaning his hatchet but Lance totally sees him rolling his eyes to the skies.

“Hunk, you’re my bestie, you’re supposed to have my back!”

“And I totally do, Lance, but if you throw your sword to our wall one more time, I will not hesitate to ask for a new bunkmate.”

Lance gasps. “You would never.”

Hunk stares at him stone faced before chuckling. “You’re right, I would never. But by the Archivist’s torch, stop pacing and tell me what your Altean prince has done this time.”

“He’s not my prince,” Lance mutters, sitting down next to Hunk to rest his head on his shoulder. “And he wants me dead.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

Lance huffs dejectedly.

“Aww, come on, man, what happened during this last tour?” Hunk wraps an arm around Lance’s shoulder and pulls him closer. “Did he finally openly reject your flirting?”

“Nope. Might have been better though.”

“Come on then. What happened.”

Lance stands up because obviously, storytelling requires all of his limbs. “We were in a market on Azudor, because the planet’s governor really wanted the Alteans to see what good the alliance had done to its agriculture.”

“Oh, did you bring me--”

“Hunk, not a good time, but yes, I did bring you a bag the weird spices you wanted.”

“You’re the best. Go on.”

“So we were in the market and I was keeping an eye on all directions because if I wanted to hurt someone, I would definitely do it in a market, you feel me?”

“I feel you. We need to talk about all the Earthling lingo you’ve been using, but I do feel you.”

“And out of nowhere, Keith--”

“Prince Keith. Or His Royal Highness.”

Hunk gives Lance a pointed look and Lance sighs.

“Yes, Prince Keith stumbled on a basket and fell right into my arms.”

Hunk starts smiling.

Lance has a rotten best friend. He should hold auditions for a new one.

“Anyway, obviously, I saved him from crashing his princely face onto the ground--”

“Princely face?”

“And you know I had to say something because Hunk, my man, let me tell you this about the Altean Prince,” Lance adds, lowering his voice, “but he’s all muscle and I’m only Galran, okay? Strength is like my one big button.”

“Along with purple eyes, long, silky black hair and snark by the pound, yeah I know your type buddy.”

“Precisely.”

“What did you say?”

Lance bites on his lower lip. Hunk holds up his hands in supplication. “Lance, what did you say to the Altean Prince, present heir to the throne of the Empire?”

“Told him I knew he would fall for me eventually.”

“Oh, Lance …” Hunk starts, barely repressing a snort. “That is … that’s bad.”

“But that’s not even the worst!” Lance exclaims, dropping back next to Hunk who instantly hugs him because he is the bestest friend possible.

“Oh?”

“I mean, if he had snarked back or pushed me away, or something like he usually does, I would be fine!”

“But?”

“But he said nothing! Just looked at me upside down with those eyes wide opened and those perfect pouty lips parted like--like …”

“Like?”

“Like I was right.” Lance’s voice is barely above a whisper as he buries his face in Hunk’s shoulder.

“Why is that a bad thing? Au contraire, mon frère,” Hunk says happily, “if he did fall for you, then you can--”

“What? What can I do, Hunk? He’s royalty and I’m … me!”

“A catch?”

“I love you, Hunk, and you flatter me, but--”

“You’re about to talk unkindly about my best friend and I cannot let that happen,” Hunk interrupts, putting his hand over Lance’s mouth. “Now you’re going to listen to my wise words and you’re going to actually listen carefully.”

Lance tries to bite Hunk’s fingers but not to avail. “Humph.”

“Good boy. Now, from what you’re saying, the prince may feel something akin to interest for you, despite what you may think about your worth.”

“Brumph!”

“Those laws about bodyguards and their charge are antiquated at best, classist at worst, and really, what is the worst case scenario here?”

Lance mimics cutting his own head.

“Drama king.”

Lance pushes Hunk away. “The law may be ancient and inadequate for the modern world, but it still exists!” he cries out. “If I were to date Keith, and if we were caught, the lesser punishment would be an exile, Hunk. I can’t--”

“Isn’t love worth the risk, though?” Hunk’s voice has gone soft like it always does when he thinks of his fiancée waiting for him on the outpost of Balmera.

Lance sighs. “Maybe it is.”

“Stop feeding him lines, though,” Hunk adds, pushing himself to his feet to clap Lance’s shoulder. “Be true about your feelings, and see what comes out of it.”

“Lance!”

Kolivan’s voice booms into the tent, preceding him by a solid couple of tiks.

Hunk and Lance immediately straighten up, at the ready when their commanding officer enters their quarters. “At ease,” Kolivan says roughly. “Lance, the prince has asked me to warn you that he wants to go to the fair organized in the town’s agora so get ready.”

“A-all right, sir,” Lance stutters. It is unusual for Keith to let him know where he wants to go in advance. Usually, Lance has to sneak on him to prevent the prince from going out by himself.

---

Keith does not pace nervously at the palace entrance.

Absolutely not.

A prince does not display nervous behavior, after all, Coran raised him better than that.

He’s just ….

Impatient, there you go. Keith is impatiently waiting for his bodyguard to deign to show up.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, your Highness.”

Speak of the devil …

As Lance approaches, Keith has to remind his body how to breathe. Did Lance do something to his hair? His face? His what?

He looks … taller, and yet softer at the same time.

The absence of metallic clinging when Lance comes to a halt in front of him gives Keith his answer. Lance looks softer because he’s not wearing his armor. No, he’s dressed … casually smart, if Keith was inclined to use Coran’s vocabulary regarding fashion. A soft looking tunic with white embroideries around the neck under a khaki jacket with a hood--once a member of Blade, always a member of the Blade, even out of the uniform?--, tight Galra pants with shimmering lines and ankle-boots that look well-worn and well-cared for.

He looks …

He looks cuddly and Keith wants Voltron to bury him before he does something stupid.

“You look good.”

Or say something stupid, but some wishes are not to be granted, are they?

Lance flushes at his praise and smiles shyly. “Thank you, Your Highness. I figured it would be better not to attract any attention on you by wearing my armor.”

“That’s … very considerate, thank you, Lance.”

They start walking toward the hoverpod waiting for them. Lance keeps on sneaking glances at him but Keith tries his hardest not to look back.

“So,” Lance starts, voice strangled for some reason before he clears up his throat, “you finally decided to accept the idea of having me around for protection?”

The last two words sound like a hasty addition. Keith does look at Lance and sure enough, the flush hasn’t faded from his lavender face.

“I never resented you, Lance,” Keith starts but huffs when Lance raises one eyebrow at him. “All right, we had our disagreements, but it’s the idea of needing a bodyguard that gets on my nerves not--not the bodyguard per se.”

Keith can feel his marks glowing as he blushes too, but Lance’s beaming smile is worth the temporary embarrassment.

“I’m glad you feel that way,” Lance says softly, holding up his hand for Keith to grab on as he climbs on the pod.

Keith climbs behind Lance and wraps his arms around his waist. If he holds on tighter than strictly necessary, that’s for him to know and for Lance to gloat about.

“Can I drive on the way back?” he asks, leaning closer to Lance’s ear.

Close as he is, he can feel the full body shiver that goes through Lance’s long frame. “We--we will see.” Lance pauses, glancing at Keith and praise the Lions but if he just turned his head a bit Keith could easily kiss him … Lance’s eyes widen and Keith feels like a kid who just got caught with his hand in a jar of nunvill jam. The corner of Lance’s mouth lifts every so slightly.

“Depends if you behave, sweetheart.”

Usually, when Lance starts flirting, Keith finds a way to shut him up or simply barks in his face. But this time around, he doesn’t want to.

No, if he’s going to see if there is something behind Lance’s words, if there is a genuine attraction and not just a need to flirt with everything with a heartbeat, Keith needs to play along.

“And if I misbehave?” he retorts, not moving away and allowing himself a smirk of his own. “Will you punish me, darling?”

Keith never saw a Galra turn this particular shade before, but it’s a very interesting one for sure.

---

Lance is going to die and it will be all because of Keith’s flirtatious smile.

That thing is a weapon of mass destruction and should come with a manual.

---

The fair is animated when they reach it, but they can still walk through the stalls without having to fight for their lives.

In spite of his teasing, Keith doesn’t want to walk away and lose Lance in the crowd. If anything, he walks as close to his bodyguard as physically possible without climbing him like a tree and his brain should stop the images right there.

Around a corner, a group of kids come running stampede-style and Lance puts his hand on Keith’s chest . The warmth that comes from him is insane.

“You ok?” The worry in Lance’s eyes is not faked, and there is no punchline, no flirtatious pun following it.

Well, fuck.

“I’m fine,” Keith replies a bit gruffly. Lance’s face falls and Keith doesn’t like the guilt it evokes immediately. “I’m fine,” he repeats, more softly this time as he pats Lance’s shoulder. “Let’s see who has the best aim.”

Lance brightens up, even as his eyes drop for a tik to the spot where Keith’s hand was. “Naw, come on, your Highness, you know I’m the sharpest shooter in the Blade!” he exclaims, opening his arms wide. The gesture pulls the fabric of his shirt across his chest and Keith would love to follow it with his fingers. “It’s not a fair fight.”

“But I am not in the Blade,” Keith replies sweetly, tapping the tip of Lance’s nose. “So even when I do beat you--”

“Doubtful.”

“--your title won’t be contested. What do you have to lose really?”

Lance crosses his arms over his chest and squints at him. “Promise you won’t have me punished for humiliating you in public?”

“Promise.”

“Then let’s whoop your ass and win some fluffy toy!”

In the end, the merchant ends up giving them both plush toys to get them to leave his booth--between Lance’s competitiveness and Keith’s aggressive throwing, the poor guy wasn’t sure his attraction would survive if they stayed for one more round.

Lance carries his Voltron on his shoulder, like a toddler, while Keith wrestles with his White Lion for a couple of booths until Keith decides to go for it and just tell Lance that they should solve their disagreements in the most pleasurable way.

That was his intention, anyway, until Lance stops in a quiet spot near the fried food section.

“Keith, may I tell you something?”

Keith sends a silent prayer to whoever is listening that Lance won’t say something that will make Keith run for the hills and nods.

Lance takes a deep breath, his fingers tightening on the leg of Voltron. “I wanted to tell you--to make sure that you understand, without subtexts or possible misunderstandings,” he starts, taking a deep inhale, “all that flirting I have thrown at you since we met is over.”

Oh. Keith almost drops his White Lion in the dirt but he squeezes it harder. “Oh,” he says, dropping his gaze.

“No, no, not like that,” Lance hurries to say, his hand finding Keith’s chin to make him look in his eyes. “I mean that I am going to stop the outrageous lines because I need to be true about--about how I feel. For--for you.”

“Oh!” Keith leans into Lance’s touch and takes a step closer to the Galra.

Lance moves his hand to cup Keith’s cheek fully. “I would really like to call you ‘sweetheart’ and take you on dates,” he says in one breath, “even though I won’t be able to take you to high-end places or gourmet restaurant--I make mean milkshakes, though …”

“Lance,” Keith says, putting one hand on Lance’s chest, “I--I don’t need high-end places. This,” he adds, gesturing at the fair with his plush lion, “is good. Anywhere where we are honest with each other and having fun is fine, really.”

His ears feel like they are one fire and he’s pretty sure his marks are glowing insanely, but Lance’s marks have taken a darker hue too, so Keith can bring himself to care. Not when Lance’s eyes shine so bright, not when his smile is so wide and not when this little hiccupy sound come out of his mouth as he leans in.

Not when Lance’s kiss silences the fair around them.

When they part, Keith smiles and pushes the lion in Lance’s arms. “This was for you, by the way, you insufferable git.”

Lance gently lands the Voltron plushie on Keith’s head. “And this is yours, your Haughtiness.”

“I’ll show you haughty,” Keith growls before pulling Lance for a second kiss by the lapels of his jacket.

[gffa]

Sometimes it’s easy to lose track of how amazing STAR WARS fandom can be, when there can be so much awful behavior by fans that never seems to end. But then you fling yourself back into reading fic and maybe not all fic all across fandom is perfect, but some of it is so incredibly talented and some of it is so incredibly good spirited and some of it is so incredibly fun that you remember, ah, yes, this is what makes fandom so much more than worthwhile. FIC SAVES ME EVERY DAY OF MY FANDOM LIFE and bless it for that.  Fandom is amazing. ✦ Bitter Confessions by FireflyFish, obi-wan/anakin, 4.7k    Obi-Wan Kenobi is having a secret affair with Satine Kryze and Anakin Skywalker is trying very hard to be okay with that. Until Satine ends the relationship because she’s tired of sharing Obi-Wan’s attention with a mysterious third person. ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 30.1k wip    During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone. ✦ Little Notes by Dragons_Heart, obi-wan/anakin, modern au, 1k    The idea of the secret admirer has been around for decades, possibly centuries. They never speak directly, but instead choose to leave little notes for their love to find. They only dream that one day they’ll be together. ✦ to prove it so by retts, obi-wan/anakin, force ghosts, 3.5k    ‘Then it was real, my Padawan.’ ✦ Don’t Let This End by SoftlyFocused, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 4.9k    Anakin is frustrated by how devastatingly handsome Obi-Wan looks at one of Padmé’s political parties, he gets drunk to cope. Obi-Wan is frustrated with how needy and demanding Anakin has been, he gets drunk to punish him. Both of them really need to release some tension after this seemingly endless war. ✦ Four Letters, Starts With L by frodogenic, anakin & luke/mara, 3.2k    A fluffy oneshot set in the Limpet AU. A terrorist attack, a medcenter, and the unpredictable consequences of a certain four-letter word. ✦ the sanctity of dreams by SpaceTimeSkywalker, obi-wan/anakin & bail, ~1k    Right before reaching Zigoola, Obi-Wan receives a transmission from home. ✦ closing in by SpaceTimeSkywalker, obi-wan/anakin, 1k    Anakin and Obi-Wan were already long gone at that point, as their souls had perished together in the lava and amidst the acrid smoke; and all there was left was their shells, empty, remembering fragments of happier times that had long since passed. ✦ Helpless by DonkerRood, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, bondage, d/s, 1.9k    Anakin finds himself helpless. ✦ just a little bit by retts, obi-wan/anakin, 1.9k    Anakin took a deep breath and leaned into Obi-Wan’s space. Obi-Wan kept his ground and arched a brow at him. This was curious. ‘I like being tied up,’ Anakin whispered conspiratorially. Obi-Wan blinked. 'I beg your pardon?’ ✦ Young Lust by Writer_Markilyn, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, NSFW, modern au, 19.1k    Obi-Wan is only human, he sometimes forgot to turn off the stove, spent all his money on coffee, or even forget to change the oil in his car that now sounds like it’s going to explode when he turns it on. He ends up finding a mechanic shop that luckily isn’t too far from his home, and when he arrives, he lays eyes on a messy haired, oil streaked mechanic, with bewitching blue eyes, and it’s in that moment, Obi-Wan knows he’s a goner. ✦ slices by springsoldier (ladydaredevil), ahsoka/barriss & luminara & cast, modern au, pushing daisies au, 1.7k    In which Barriss bakes pies and wakes the dead and Ahsoka is her alive-again childhood sweetheart. ✦ Tiny!Obi-Wan and the Red Man, Part 6 + Part 7 by phosphorescent-naidheachd, obi-wan & qui-gon & mace & cast, 2.2k wip ✦ to be made right by SpaceTimeSkywalker, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, 10.1k    Anakin is not angry; Obi-Wan is dead, and he feels hollow. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan realizes his mistakes, and Ahsoka is left to clean up the mess. full details + recs under the cut!

✦ Bitter Confessions by FireflyFish, obi-wan/anakin, 4.7k    Obi-Wan Kenobi is having a secret affair with Satine Kryze and Anakin Skywalker is trying very hard to be okay with that. Until Satine ends the relationship because she’s tired of sharing Obi-Wan’s attention with a mysterious third person.    Oh, this was such a lovely piece because it’s so incredibly true to Anakin’s character, that he’s consumed by this storm of feelings, that he’s so incredibly unfair to the people around him, he stomps right over the boundaries they’ve rightfully set up for themselves, because he feels things so intensely and cannot let them go. That Obi-Wan has made it clear he doesn’t want to talk about this, yet Anakin forges ahead anyway, that he knows full well that this is hurting his friend and their friendship and does it anyway, yet you cannot help but have sympathy for him and understand why Obi-Wan loves him so much. Because Anakin, mess though he may be, perfectly written here to show that anger and the dragon that lives in his heart, a metaphor that is used just the right amount, is still this incredible alive person, this brilliant star in the sky that Obi-Wan loves so very much.    So, I would have loved it just for Anakin being unfair and selfish and so, so sympathizable! But, oh, Obi-Wan, who tries so hard to be gentle yet firm with him, who has every reason to think that the truth would only hurt their friendship, who has put up with so much and will reach a breaking point here–such good characterization, oh my god. Especially when you realize that Obi-Wan is always warm and kind with Anakin, but that moment when he’s truly angry, Anakin gets a taste of the lethal and predatory side of Obi-Wan that has always been part of who he is. The moments where he stalks towards Anakin in fury or where he backs Anakin up against the wall, those are beautiful and appeal to my id like you wouldn’t believe (SO HOT OMG) but also are used to show just HOW MUCH Obi-Wan is kindness with him, that contrast shows exactly how different he usually is with Anakin.    But this is a happy fic and it has such warmth and kindness in the end, there’s a great line from Obi-Wan that’s utterly sparkling and perfect, there’s so much of Anakin being a mess in a way that should make me want to smack him, but instead just makes me want to wrap a blanket around him and feed him a cookie, which is exactly how I should respond to his character. It’s a shorter fic, but it was so pefectly made for me and so lovely and just a really, really great thing to pick up and enjoy! I LOVED IT SO MUCH. ✦ Equinox by lilyconrad, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, sith!obi-wan, 30.1k wip    During the Clone Wars, Obi-Wan and Anakin crash on a remote planet and take shelter in the ruins of a grand estate only to find they are not alone.    Chapter 6: This is an update rec and will focus on this chapter, rather than the fic as a whole. As always, my thought whenever I finish a chapter of this story is, “Noooo, why does it have to end there, I want to keep reading!” And this is a chapter that’s about Anakin and Isten’s interaction, as well as the growing mystery of whatever creepy thing is happening in the house, and it’s all just so very lovely. There’s a sense of something shifting and roiling with Anakin here, he’s unsettled and I can really feel it in everything he does, whether it’s tossing and turning in bed at night or in his angry conversation with Isten. Whether it’s the house getting to him or being confronted with things he doesn’t want to think about (my answer: PROBABLY BOTH), it’s getting under his skin and let me tell you about how much I love Anakin Skywalker being a mess and being contrasted against the Sith version of himself and not wanting to hear what he has to say or feel how much more settled that version is in his own skin. The nightmares that haunt him (which are beautifully used here, how that’s something that still lingers in his heart and drags him down again and again, how it claws at him), the darkness that terrifies him, the way he feels like he’s not really in control, all of it is building and, oh, I’m so entirely here for that.    The insights Isten has into Anakin’s character, what he utterly understands about the person who is a mirror image of himself in a lot of ways, is fascinating, because it’s true–for all that Isten has Fallen, for all that one shouldn’t trust him, for all that he’s probably capable of terrible things, that just means that he knows how to face the truth and turn it into a weapon that cuts and undermines Anakin, he knows how to hurt with it. And the unsettling thing about the dark is that it’s not always 100% wrong, especially why he isn’t bothered by the house, but Anakin is. That he’s right about what Anakin wants when he acts out, how desperately he wants attention, how giving himself over to the one he wants will stop the noise–and, whatever else Isten may or may not be wrong about, he’s not wrong about that, when he himself is proof of it. And, oh, that contrast, that parallel between these two Anakins, that’s so good for me.    Of course, there’s still more going on. The house and the shadows that are slowly creeping forward are more pronounced now, even if the character themselves don’t see them. It’s slow and insidious and there’s something there, but you can’t put your finger on it yet and it’s beautifully creepy. And I still have no idea what drew these people together, if the Sith versions are just id made flesh or if they’re something else, I don’t know what they want or which of them is telling the truth about who Fell or if both or neither are, and there’s a growing closeness between Jedi Obi-Wan and Jedi Anakin, partly sparked off by seeing these other two together and the lust that inspires in both of them, but also because they’re in a situation that unsettles them and it’s natural to look to the other to or for help. And, oh, the ending of this chapter got me, I didn’t see it coming, but it was built up to perfectly and it made so much sense with everything Anakin felt up to then and Obi-Wan’s response to Anakin gave me a ton of feelings. Because it’s always just Anakin that he thinks this way for, that he wouldn’t care as deeply about someone else, he wouldn’t have such sympathy for someone else, he wouldn’t draw the parallel (because they’re not the same thing) for anyone else, he wouldn’t say what he does for someone else, just Anakin. And wrapped up in the darkness they’ve been forced to confront, it’s a beautifully built narrative element, all added to how it’s Anakin crying on Obi-Wan and that’s just like one of the easiest ways to my fannish heart, especially when it’s so beautfiully written. ✦ Little Notes by Dragons_Heart, obi-wan/anakin, modern au, 1k    The idea of the secret admirer has been around for decades, possibly centuries. They never speak directly, but instead choose to leave little notes for their love to find. They only dream that one day they’ll be together.    This was a short and cute modern AU where Obi-Wan is leaving notes for Anakin and it’s just pure adorable fluff, not even really angsty for all that it’s about pining. There’s not much resolution here, it’s just about the pining and the cuteness of it, that sweet period of just holding feelings you have for someone else and enjoying the mystery of it, but it’s really enjoyable for being exactly that! It’s utterly cute and a fun read to pick up when you want something soft and adorable. ✦ to prove it so by retts, obi-wan/anakin, force ghosts, 3.5k    ‘Then it was real, my Padawan.’    Oh, I really loved this a lot, it’s such a lovely look at just after Anakin’s death, that it doesn’t matter if the Force works this way or not, it’s about the emotional story being told and what it says about Anakin Skywalker, as well as Obi-Wan Kenobi. It’s hard to explain the solidity of this piece, how warm-hearted it is and touching it is, because it seems like a fairly simple thing on the surface. But it says so much about the characters, what they want in their hearts, the things Anakin years for and is terrified of, the things that Obi-Wan wants to do for Anakin, how much he loves this person, even after everything Anakin had done. The scenes themselves, just as nothing more than scenes in a story, are lovely to read, as Anakin is a Padawan again and has such a tremendously good, warm day, but the deeper meaning for both characters is what really got me here. It was heartwrenching, but in such a cathartic, hopeful way. It’s something of an honest look at Anakin’s character, that he was a monster, but that he’s let it go, and what’s left behind is still him and he’s loved. And Obi-Wan will lead him again, will take care of him again, and I’m not explaining this well, but the fic does a beautiful job of it and got right at my feelings on the whole thing. ✦ Don’t Let This End by SoftlyFocused, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, 4.9k    Anakin is frustrated by how devastatingly handsome Obi-Wan looks at one of Padmé’s political parties, he gets drunk to cope. Obi-Wan is frustrated with how needy and demanding Anakin has been, he gets drunk to punish him. Both of them really need to release some tension after this seemingly endless war.    Ah, this was a lovely thing to read this morning, it’s soft around the edges in a way that makes my heart warm and feel entirely soothed, because they’re drunk and affectionately bantering but also genuine with each other, until Anakin can’t take the gentle teasing bites and touches and needs more and Obi-Wan finds him so devastatingly beautiful, is obviously just so completely in love with him, that it’s only so long he can hold out before having to touch him more, too. It’s just this really kind-hearted piece with some really satisfying sex, as Obi-Wan gently holds him down and opens him up until Anakin promises to be good and is writhing on his fingers and so, so gorgeous. Until Obi-Wan finally slides into him, Anakin nearly shaking apart with how much he wants this, and Obi-Wan keeps taking him apart, layer by layer, until there’s nothing but this in Anakin’s head, how much Obi-Wan loves him, how good Obi-Wan feels in him, how much he wants to hold back to make this last. It’s lovely and kind and ridiculously hot and satisfied my need for banter and the two of them in a situation where they can be drunkely affectionate and to just fuck the noise ouf of Anakin’s head, for Obi-Wan to have this chance to express his affection this way, to help this dear one he loves so very much. But also really, really nice sex, like that’s exactly what I’m here for, it’s so good for me. ✦ Four Letters, Starts With L by frodogenic, anakin & luke/mara, 3.2k    A fluffy oneshot set in the Limpet AU. A terrorist attack, a medcenter, and the unpredictable consequences of a certain four-letter word.    It would probably help to at least be familiar with the rest of this universe to understand the set-up, but other than that, this stands well on its own and it’s a fun read about Vader fussing over Luke and trying to deny his feelings, while also cat fighting with Mara. I really, really enjoyed Luke especially in this fic, he’s such a good person, but he’s not a pushover, that balance can be hard to strike sometimes, but it’s perfectly done here, and it’s so easy to see why these jaded, cynical, bitter people love him so much. And I really love this Luke/Mara dynamic, it’s so wonderfully them, even when it’s not really the point of this fic, and it was just an incredibly fun read! ✦ the sanctity of dreams by SpaceTimeSkywalker, obi-wan/anakin & bail, ~1k    Right before reaching Zigoola, Obi-Wan receives a transmission from home.    This was short, but a lovely little addition to the Wild Space book, where Anakin is a complete mess when he fears that Obi-Wan is going into danger and maybe won’t come back, where Obi-Wan remains strong for Anakin, because that’s what he needs, because that’s who Obi-Wan is, and it just slips between the pages of that book very nicely (though, you can read it without having read the book) and was a nice treat today! ✦ closing in by SpaceTimeSkywalker, obi-wan/anakin, 1k    Anakin and Obi-Wan were already long gone at that point, as their souls had perished together in the lava and amidst the acrid smoke; and all there was left was their shells, empty, remembering fragments of happier times that had long since passed.    A post-ROTS short fic that’s lovely and all about the hurt of how these two lives have crashed and burned. I don’t usually read “all hurt, no comfort” fics, but shorter ones I can handle and I do enjoy some good angst about how fucked up everything was by the end, especially if Vader’s just miserable about the wreckage of what he’d hoped for, because it’s really cathartic and heartbreaking when done right, like it was here. ✦ Helpless by DonkerRood, obi-wan/anakin, NSFW, bondage, d/s, 1.9k    Anakin finds himself helpless.    Oh, this was really, really lovely and such a good read for me, because it’s all about Anakin’s getting tied up and sinking into subspace, where all the noise in his head just goes away, where he doesn’t have to be anything he’s not, where he doesn’t have to many any decisions, where he’s utterly trusting in the hands that are holding him and can just let everything go. I would have picked this up for just the pretty sex, but I wound up loving this aspect of it just as much, that this is an Anakin who can find some quiet, this is an Anakin who is getting what he needs, this is an Anakin who can trust that Obi-Wan loves him and would never hurt him and so Anakin can turn over control to his Master. This is an Obi-Wan who is entirely focused on Anakin, on giving him what he needs, telling him what he needs to hear, being incredibly vigilant about how it’s going for Anakin, and why the d/s relationship works so well for them–because Obi-Wan wants to help Anakin and Anakin wants to have his head cleared out. That Anakin can push back initially, can go against the rules, can be demanding and greedy, can push his hips up for what he wants, knowing that he’s supposed to be still and quiet, and it leads to holding Anakin down so he can’t do more, which just leaves him feeling held and secure. But also, you know, Obi-Wan gently and surely opening Anakin up with his fingers, then sliding slowly into him, telling him how good he is, takes his time gently fucking Anakin until the pace builds and even then it’s unhurried, this will go on all night, and, yeah, okay, I was really very here for that as well. A straight shot at my id as always, but also what it says about Anakin’s character and the relationship between these two characters, all of that was so good. ✦ just a little bit by retts, obi-wan/anakin, 1.9k    Anakin took a deep breath and leaned into Obi-Wan’s space. Obi-Wan kept his ground and arched a brow at him. This was curious. 'I like being tied up,’ Anakin whispered conspiratorially. Obi-Wan blinked. 'I beg your pardon?’    This was adorably funny, as Anakin can’t stop telling Obi-Wan about his kinks (and, yes, yes, Anakin likes getting tied up and/or spanked and/or getting rimmed to hell and back, yes, he does) and Obi-Wan is just so entirely put-upon, like this is just another day of dealing with Anakin and he walks the line of handling this as well as anyone can versus not actually engaging with Anakin on this, in that way that’s so Obi-Wan, where he’s really more weak to that pouty look on Anakin’s face and worried about what’s going on with Anakin to be behaving so oddly like this and just some really cute, funny banter. I’m usually on the demi!Anakin train, but I will happily throw that out for Anakin being high as hell and unable to stop talking about his adorable kinks and for Obi-Wan’s delightful banter right back at him, while also obviously caring deeply about him. ✦ Young Lust by Writer_Markilyn, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka, NSFW, modern au, 19.1k    Obi-Wan is only human, he sometimes forgot to turn off the stove, spent all his money on coffee, or even forget to change the oil in his car that now sounds like it’s going to explode when he turns it on. He ends up finding a mechanic shop that luckily isn’t too far from his home, and when he arrives, he lays eyes on a messy haired, oil streaked mechanic, with bewitching blue eyes, and it’s in that moment, Obi-Wan knows he’s a goner.    It took me a bit to get into the swing of this fic, but by the time Obi-Wan and Anakin were in a relationship, the fic hit my id right straight in the feelings and didn’t let up on it. It’s a fic that whole-heartedly embraces a lot of tropes of modern AUs, which I think helps to know ahead of time, it put me in the right mindset for the fic and by the halfway point, I was just having a ton of fun with it. That and the super, super ridiculously id-pleasing sex, so many times that Obi-Wan would either gently and teasingly open Anakin up slowly before fucking up or so many times that he’d flip him over and grab hold of him to fuck back into him again or he’d spread Anakin out over the table and wrap his legs around Obi-Wan and fuck him hard and fast right there and it was all so enthusiastic, like it was super hot already but then Anakin was just so happy to have Obi-Wan’s attention, to be filled up with him, to have everything else out of his head for awhile! I will always enjoy sex that makes me happy for both characters!    But, seriously, though, they had sex like five or six times in this fic and I’ve stillgot that image of Obi-Wan fucking Anakin on the table in my head. Or all the times that Obi-Wan almost finished in him, only to pull out and flip him over so that he could push back in harder, Anakin pushing back against him for more of it, his hands scrabbling for purchase anywhere he can get, a whine in the back of his throat for how much more he wants. Like, okay, give me a minute to recover after that! It’s also a fic that comes with a lot of the two of them just being instantly attracted to each other and the fun trope of bad communication that leads to a breakup and then reunion sex where Anakin’s not going to forgive him immediately, okay! Except he still really does want Obi-Wan to fuck him! And it’s just so damn much fun that I loved every minute of them both being totally over the moon for each other. It’s just a really pleasant, happy-making fic, sexy times, enthusiastic fic that was a solid length and was pretty much exactly what I wanted to read. ✦ slices by springsoldier (ladydaredevil), ahsoka/barriss & luminara & cast, modern au, pushing daisies au, 1.7k    In which Barriss bakes pies and wakes the dead and Ahsoka is her alive-again childhood sweetheart.    I didn’t mean to get sucked into this fic, I’m generally not at the place with Ahsoka/Barriss where I want modern AUs, but I was lured by the promise of Obianidala, and just… got swept up in this, which has really lovely writing and just does a great job with Barriss’ quiet yet intense personality, how she’s so withdrawn but feels things so intensely, and it somehow just really captured the atmosphere I want for these characters, both in her relationship with Ahsoka and Luminara. Plus, the Obi-Wan/Anakin/Padme stuff was cute and I’m glad to have found a fun little fic for one of my favorite f/f pairings! ✦ Tiny!Obi-Wan and the Red Man, Part 6 + Part 7 by phosphorescent-naidheachd, obi-wan & qui-gon & mace & cast, 2.2k wip    When an intruder with a red lightsaber invades the Temple creche, 6-year-old Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life is set on a new course. But taking a different fork on destiny’s path doesn’t necessarily alter your destination…    This is an update rec and you can follow the links for the previous parts and, oh, man, I really do enjoy this story! A lot of it is tension here, as they’re chasing after a kidnapped moppet!Obi-Wan but LET ME TELL YOU about how much I love moppet!Obi-Wan and how, even as a kid, he was getting tangled up in Sith plots and hijinks. I’m glad this is still being written and look forward to more! ✦ to be made right by SpaceTimeSkywalker, obi-wan/anakin & ahsoka & cast, 10.1k    Anakin is not angry; Obi-Wan is dead, and he feels hollow. Meanwhile, Obi-Wan realizes his mistakes, and Ahsoka is left to clean up the mess.    Oh, my god, this fic was one beautiful revelling in Anakin’s depression after Obi-Wan’s apparent death, how withdrawn and devastated he is, which appeals to me for the shipper feelings, of course, it was so good on that front, what it said about how desperately Anakin loved him, what it said about Anakin’s character and how emotionally unstablized he is by this (even more than he already was), and about Obi-Wan’s growing concern for Anakin when he doesn’t see him around during the undercover mission, how deeply worried he is, and how Anakin’s reactions (and sometimes lack of them) change the course of their relationship and possibly everything. I went into this fic for all the feelings it would give me about Anakin crying or sleeping in Obi-Wan’s bed or the other Jedi being worried about how deeply Obi-Wan’s loss affected him, but I got something that was even more satisfying than that.    And it’s really good-hearted and caring about the path it takes the characters on as well, it comes from such an obvious place of love. I hate when I have to bail out of a fic because it’s not how the characters themselves would act or because it gets too preachy or mean-spirited, but this one was really nicely considerate of the characters’ motivations and reasons, it had me believing that, yes, this is how the characters would act! When Obi-Wan comes back to Anakin, he realizes he made a mistake, but so much of the narrative is about Obi-Wan’s tendency to blame himself in ways that he’s not always a reliable narrator about, and there’s nothing but sympathy for everyone who’s in this shit war they’re all in, they love each other and that shines through here. And I loved it for that, but also that it’s used to bring things to a head in a better way than they did in canon, that it’s used to lance open a wound that was already festering, that it’s used to make certain things rear their head because they needed to be said here, not later, that they find their way back to each other in the way that they would. The final scene had me letting out this breathy, happy, satisfied sigh for how perfect it was, how things that didn’t matter were set aside, how of course Anakin would forgive him here, how it was just the right amount of apologizing versus confessions versus turning towards something better. It was so good for all of that.

[lurkerviolin]

Ok so this is weird buuuut I saw @comtessedebussy and Code16 had a verse were mage!John was enslaved to mage!Harold and it sort of inspired this incomplete mess comment fic. Concept: John is captured by a foreign magical organization and – as the CIA viewed him as expendable anyway – is left to be punished for his crimes with a life sentence of servitude. He doesn't care. The worst they could do to him has already been done. They mistake his spiteful silence for loyalty, he can smell their frustration. He smiles with blood in his teeth and lets them think what they want.

Another concept: Harold Finch never meant to hurt anyone, but this… project he was working on – the Magic Machine – was... immature, a child made of the strongest natural magic around. It broke things without meaning to. The Organization punishes him for this by making him continue his work. They want a weapon and he wants protection. He doesn't know how long he can keep those two things separate. (And it was stupid; Harold was fit – but not very – and powerful – very, very – but his body was not strong enough to hold all that the Machine could offer. It broke him without meaning to. It retreated into itself and Harold… laying on the ground, losing consciousness and feeling, abruptly thought it was cruel to call it a machine. It… She felt guilt. She recoiled from him in shame.)

When they bring John to Harold’s workshop, – a kind word for a penthouse prison – Harold is not interested in the slightest. However, he still cannot stand – though with the aid of his of his own magic, he imagines this will not last long – and John is wearing a voodoo protection piece around his throat. If he hurts Harold, he cripples himself. John does not want to hurt Harold or anyone else. He’s tired. He kneels because that’s what he’s supposed to do. What else would he do at this point?

Imagine: Harold has him stand.

It takes a long time, but eventually, John can sneak up on Harold. His presence has become so familiar and nonthreatening, so readily accepted into the background that it doesn’t always register. John likes this – that Harold who could probably flick his wrist and have him drooling on the carpet, always just jumps and looks at him disapprovingly – really, Mr. Reese? – even though he smells of queasy amusement.

Reese is not inclined to active magic, but with all Harold has him doing he learns a few things. Most of the spells Harold uses are strung together too quickly for John to understand, but he learns to recognize a few words and knows which potions are used for what. He learns to make some himself, quietly. Harold must know, though, because when the Organizers come and go – thankfully with no violence this time – John finds his vials hidden under the floorboards. One of his failed attempts makes fragrant pink smoke – he manages to make it explode into a heart shape before it dissipates. Harold’s face turns a similar shade of pink before admonishing him for wasting time. The smell of his happiness almost overshadows the smell of his fear. John does not understand the mix, no matter how many times he smells it. It is loudest when John – instinctively, completely reflexively startling the both of them – goes to his knees to listen to Harold read. He hardly recognizes the smell of his own peace.

John has not given gifts in a long time, with very good reason. Gifts implied favor and favor implied points of exploit, a trail to follow to your own demise. The last person John had given a gift had died in her own living room at the hands of someone he should’ve protected her from. John did not give gifts. But. He was at the bottom of where he could be; a life sentence of servitude in a place where he barely spoke the language and only one other person spoke his. Of course he was fond of Harold. When he walked in to find Harold on the floor, his cane feet away and his pain medication on a table he couldn’t reach, he made him another one. One that was twisted with verses from his favorite books to hide the one verse of spell he’d carved in. If it hit the floor and was not immediately picked up, the words john had carved into his own thigh would start to burn. The first time he follows it, Harold’s eyes jerk to the scars – even under layers of clothing and a haze of pain – immediately, something like horror and awe curling in the air. He’s careful with it then. He only drops the cane once more and it is because he has been slapped. The Organizers have John prostrate on the floor before he can even breath on them. Harold tells him to be still and John does, instantly with no question. He feels all of their eyes on him but doesn’t understand what that means. When they leave and Harold sits down and puts his hands in John’s hair, he allows himself not to think about it, high on the smell of his affection.

After even longer, Harold sits him down. John is bleeding, from several places, none lethal he assures Harold. Harold does not care, John can smell his misery and thinks – briefly – this is why he never made a good agent. (Kara has his pills, without his pills, he can smell too much. He wonders why he’s never tried to remake them. No, actually, he doesn’t he knows exactly why he hasn’t. Harold smells like the closet John will ever get to a home.) Harold is wasting his magic to heal him, but it makes his misery less sharp; John’s stomach stops churning. He mentions this… thing he built. Mentions that the Organizers want to use it for harm, but Harold refused. They hurt John because he refused and Harold… reacted to it. He saw John being hurt and just—he couldn’t help it, he begged. John knows what this is, shuts his eyes against the apology, wishes he could hold his breath against Harold’s dread, because he gets it. He’s been made into a bargaining chip.

We have to be quick, Harold tells him and John kisses him. Harold looks stunned, but the brief flash of pleasure in the air is too potent to pretend it didn’t happen. John kisses him once more before Harold’s determination seeps into him. The Organizers are smart and will catch on if they don’t make this work the first time around and the horror Harold feels at that confession makes John’s hair stand on end. He cannot watch John be tortured again, but John will risk it, if it’s a chance they can go free. One more kiss for luck, before Harold stands. I’ll ask Her, but we have to be quick.

John is not afraid when he stands in the middle of the sigil, but he can smell fear – more than just Finch’s. It’s an odd, inhuman smell, but not a – though the jars around him and the markings on his arms are still and dull and cold – a dead one. She’s alive and She’s terrified. She doesn’t want to hurt people. John tilts his head with a smile. Better to learn how not to on me, then. He holds his arm out, though the motion causes his fresh tattoos to sting. I’m not scared. He says which is the truth as much as it is a lie; he’s clamped down on his fear, but it’s not Her he’s afraid of. She moves around him and he watches it happen, flashes of light across the bottles, across the floor. He stills when he feels a tickle in his palm, watches the runes in his skin flash timidly up to his wrist and stop. In the pause, he glances to Harold before he closes his hand around the feeling. His arms flash bright and suddenly he can smell the whole building.

Every person (their cologne and their hormones and the body fluids they shared), every creature (and the dirt and wind of its homeland, its misery), every potion being stirred (and what it was meant to do), every item of food (the ink of its expiration date or the poison mixed in). He can smell his own blood where it is pouring out of his nose, but he doesn’t let her go. She’s trying to take him somewhere. Cells and cells and cells blur by and he knows everything about the people in them, can smell it on their skin. There are two cells, though, far away, almost outside and they smell… blank. Not empty, but blank. The women inside them smell of few emotions – most of which are directly shared between each other. He feels the one that smells of faint rage go still when he sniffs the air, the one that smells of faint hope breathe out in bland confusion. Then he smells Her urgency, her fear and need, before She drags him back to his own body.

John is on the floor and bleeding, but it’s ok this time. His head is on Harold’s good leg and Harold himself is dabbing his nose, fretting. John smiles, partly at Harold, partly at the sensation in his right hand. He looks down to where She’s still touching him, just a faint light on his fingers, and as the blood in his nostrils clears he can make out her worry under Harold’s. He’s smart enough not to close his hand around Her again, but he doesn’t pull his hand away, even as he reaches up to touch Harold’s face. The sensation brings relief to Harold, the scent of which brings relief to John. I’m ok, he says, which is good.

I think She has a plan, which is better.