#now i get to chill until dunes ^_^

[comic-sans-chan]

Fic I'll never write where Dukat decides the biennial Cardassian Festival of Whatever the Fuck (it is never actually specified) should be hosted on Deep Space Nine as a way of bridging the gap between the Cardassian and Bajoran peoples. Sisko and Kira are both Ehhhh about it, but Dukat is obnoxiously persistent until finally the Bajoran government and Federation higher ups are like “K”, on the condition that no Cardassian military (or Order) personnel be allowed. All security for the event will be handled by Odo and Starfleet. Dukat is suspiciously cool with this, which puts everyone on alert, but soon Cardassian vendors and decorators start showing up and they turn out to be pretty chill people, so they let it happen.

While the preparations for the festival are underway, another operation has started. A motherfucker from Garak's past is doing typical motherfucker things on the station. One of these things is scouting Garak's quarters, learning the layout, tracking Garak's routine. It becomes clear very quickly that the rapidly increasing number of Cardassians on DS9 is putting Garak on edge, though, because he seems to be fiddling more with his security protocols, so the motherfucker realizes they need to make their move and they need to make it fast.

They succeed. Sort of. With the circumstances as they are, they had to get a little... creative, but it should do the trick.

By early next morning, every PADD, screen, and computer system on the station is streaming seventy-two different poems on a constant loop. Love poems. Ardent, anguished, often utterly indecent love poems, all with the central theme of being about one Doctor Julian Bashir.

Quark is one of the first to notice the problem, being the type of asshole who opens early despite this only increasing his bottom line by a fraction of a fraction. At first, he's furious that his systems have been tampered with, but after reading a few lines of what his normal menu and advertisements have been replaced with, he's laughing, and by the end of the third poem, he's on the floor.

"Odo!" he shouts, banging on the bastard's door twenty minutes later. "Odo, open up! We've got a problem!"

Odo slinks under the door and slips up between it and Quark's pounding fist with a glare. "Quark! I'm not on duty for another hour. What could possibly be so urgent?"

Quark's sharp little rat teeth are splitting his face clean in half as he holds up the PADD. "Take a look."

Odo scrolls through a couple poems, then squints and scrolls through several more. "Erotic love poetry? I didn't peg you for the type."

"To like erotica? Hoo, I thought you paid better attention than that, Constable."

Odo returns the PADD with a dry expression. "To read."

"Oh, you're hilarious." He taps Odo's chest with the PADD. "The whole station is filled with this stuff. My bar, the Replimat, the Celestial Cafe, the promenade. Someone's either desperate to make a statement, or we've been sabatoged."

Dramatic sci-fi music swells and we get a close-up of Odo’s eerily hairless face and nasal cavity.

The next few hours are dedicated to trying and failing to seize back the servers and briefing the bridge staff on the situation.

"Are we sure these are all about Doctor Bashir?" Sisko's voice booms across Ops. He's on his second cup of coffee and a pile of useless PADDs lay beside him.

Julian has remained stoic throughout the discussion and he remains so now, avoiding eye contact with anyone who's smiling a little too wide. Like Jadzia. "Oh, definitely," she says. "He's mentioned by name in three of them, and several others make a point of highlighting the subject's 'golden sand dune skin', 'aristocratic' features, and 'voice that never stops singing.' Sounds like Julian to me."

A few snickers break out, but Sisko is taking the matter seriously. Thank fuck, Julian thinks. It actually looks like it's giving him a headache, which would make two of them if Julian was capable of having headaches. The captain's rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. "And the source..."

"There's a clear data trail back to Garak's quarters. Whoever did this, they wanted us to know where it came from," Kira reports. A muscle jumps in Julian's cheek.

"I tracked Garak down for his statement on the issue," Odo says, gruff, "and he told me he had nothing to do with the virus. In fact, he denied ever having laid eyes on the poems in his life. He's claiming he's been framed." He rolls his eyes.

"Okay," Jadzia says, "we all agree he's lying, right?"

"But which part..."

"Oh, they're Garak's. I've read enough Lloja of Prim to be familiar with traditional Kardasi meter and syntax, and that isn't even going into all the parallels drawn between our doctor and Prime. Sand, heat, rainforests. Bit of Romulan imagery in there, too, if I'm not mistaken. A lot of flowers and vines. Wasn't Garak a gardener?"

"I see no reason why anyone would want to embarass themselves like this," O'Brien cuts in before Jadzia can make it worse. "Even if he is trying to distract us or something, this seems counterproductive in the long term. Everyone’s watching him now, not just us. The rumor mill is running rampant. Not exactly a spy’s MO."

"He did blow up his shop once."

"Because someone was trying to kill him," Julian pipes up for the first time, looking concerned. "Do you think this might be another cry for help?"

"Oh, it's a cry for something," Jadzia quips, and Julian shuts the fuck up.

"Dax," Sisko snaps, like the good benevolent Wormhole Alien Jesus he is, and Dax shuts the fuck up, too. Sisko gives them all the stink eye. "Constable, you're nearly as familiar with Garak as the doctor is," he says, and holds a hand up before any jokes can be made. "What do you think?"

"I don't think he's behind this, sir. None of the pieces add up, and he seemed genuinely agitated when I spoke to him, in his way. At present, I believe he is as much a victim here as the rest of us."

Sisko sighs. "All right. Do we have any idea who is behind this?"

The room is silent for a time, before Odo reluctantly answers for everyone, "Not yet, sir."

"Find out," Sisko demands, "and Chief, get these damn poems off of my reports. Dismissed."

Julian is out of the room before anyone else has stood up.

The rest of the day is spent ducking in and out of his office, only treating those who ask for him by name and keeping all conversations strictly professional. Any mentions of poetry, the festival, Cardassians, or Garak are firmly sidelined, and on a couple occasions, rewarded with a none-too-gentle hypo. He skips lunch altogether and extends his shift by two hours to avoid the dinner rush.

By the time he's leaving the Infirmary, it's late. Unfortunately for him, not late enough that the halls aren't still speckled with observers to his personal soap opera. With the Festival of Frank’s Hot Dogs less than a week away, DS9 is becoming increasingly crowded with tourists, mostly Cardassian, but a surprising amount Bajoran, too–apparently this festival was a rare bright point during the Occupation, when their oppressors were not only lenient with them for once, but generous with food and drink and freedoms. It doesn't hurt that the only Cardassians on board are civilian rather than military, so the atmosphere is rather more colorful, courteous and conversational rather than cold, dark and aggressive. It would make Julian smile if he wasn't so busy being gawked at.

"I don't see it," one Cardassian man grumbles and Julian's accursed augmented ears pick up. "He's even smoother than a Bajoran."

"Oh, yeah," his companion replies, "just think of how easily he'd slide around."

"Tanett!"

"Oh, hush, Grandpa. You're just xenophobic. He's cute."

"Well, you be careful who hears you say that. That Garak fellow is in the Order, you know. Ears everywhere. You don't want to know what things a man like that is capable of."

"Wasn't he exiled? Hardly intimidating now. Apparently all he's capable of anymore is whimpering over an alien like a pakrela."

Julian covers his ears and walks faster.

But that just brings him within range of a cluster of Bajorans. "Oh, there's the doctor now," one is saying, up on the balcony. 

"The one the Cardassian tailor wrote about?"

"That poor fool. He thought they were friends, but here this whole time it was perverse. I can only imagine how much that hurts."

"Happened to my friend once. He thought a glinn was being kind because he was having a crisis of conscience and wanted to help him escape. No, he just wanted to–"

He could go to his quarters, but a flash of memory - Garak's bright eyes at the end of his bed, his figure encased in shadow - sends him in the opposite direction. Before long, he finds himself on an oft-unused Observation deck, since it offers no view of the wormhole or either Bajor or Cardassia's suns. It's blessedly empty, as usual, and Julian settles on a bench and stares into the dark nothingness of space for a long time.

At some point, he finds that his hand has retrieved the PADD from his medical bag, and the screen is lit up automatically with the first poem.

He reads well into the night.

—

The next morning finds Garak with a tall glass of rokassa juice and two eggs, staring intensely into a mysteriously operational PADD at the far end of Quark's bar. Quark pops out of his backroom like a jack-in-the-box.

"Ha! Well, if it isn't the man of the hour himself, gracing my fine establishment so soon after nearly destroying it. Do you know I've had to have menus printed, like we're in the dark ages? Do you have any idea how extensive my menu is? I ought to sue you for damages." He catches a glimpse of the PADD's screen and its decidedly unpoetic contents. "Hey, you fixed it? How?"

"It was just a simple virus. Viruses can be purged," Garak says without looking up. He barely seems aware of Quark's existence.

When no other words are forthcoming, Quark huffs. "Well, can you purge it from the rest of the station, then?"

"I gave the program to the Chief last night."

"And he didn't immediately come here to fix my bar? I'll have to file a complaint.”

Garak offers no reply. Just continues to stare into his PADD.

There are other customers he could be seeing to, but Quark can't pass up this golden opportunity. He's known Garak a long time and known of him even longer, and now that he has the guy's guts all neatly lined up on several dozen isolinear rods, he's never felt closer to the man. He makes a point of knowing things about his customers, but before yesterday, the most he knew about Garak was that he was an assassin, a tailor, a mean, weepy drunk, and friends with Bashir, Odo, and a smattering of other shopkeepers. That was it. But now...

He leans over the counter, closer to Garak's unblinking face. "You know," he says, with a smile rising slow on his cheeks, "if it's humans you like, I have a couple holosuite programs that might be just what you need."

Garak's gaze ascends as if on a motor, smooth and mechanical.

Good. He’s considering the bait. Now he just has to get him to bite. "All completely customizable. Skin, eyes, hair. You like long legs, they've got long legs. Scrawny, they're scrawny. Whatever you want. Although if you're really hung up on the one face, that can also be arranged. For the right price." When Garak just looks at him, Quark switches tactics. "Or maybe it's the uniform that does it for you? I've got 'em, but I'd suggest something out of my lingerie databases. I've still got some little Cardassian numbers filed away that I think even a man with your discerning tastes could appreciate. Just imagine, Doctor Bashir in a–"

He doesn't see the hand coming until it's already crushing his windpipe. Quark claws at it for several long, desperate moments while Garak continues to look.

Leeta scuttling over and yanking him away is what ultimately puts a stop to it, and it's while Quark is gasping in dramatic bursts of air that Leeta says in a rush, "Garak, please! Whatever he said, he didn't mean it!"

"Oh, I meant it," Quark coughs out with a high, strangled laugh, "he just didn't like it."

"Whatever conclusions you've drawn in the last twenty-six hours, allow me to dispel them," Garak says primly, as if he hadn't almost committed murder in broad daylight. "I am not a xenophile and I do not have feelings for Doctor Bashir. There are no less than two-hundred Cardassians currently aboard the station, and I assure you, none of them like me. Those poems were obviously planted."

Oh, but Quark is a little pissed now, unwise as that is. "Please, Garak," he says, "who has time to write that many poems about Julian just to mess with you? Two or three, maybe, but over seventy? If you're going to lie, at least don't insult our intelligence."

Garak's eyes flash and Quark ducks behind Leeta, repentant. Leeta sighs. "Garak, what's so bad about loving Julian?" she asks softly. "I thought the poems were really touching. It’s sweet how much you care for him."

But he's already staring into his PADD again. "I'm sorry, Miss Leeta, but I am a bit busy. Perhaps we can discuss my hypothetical feelings for your paramour another time."

"Julian and I have never been serious," she tries to assure him, but he's engrossed again, or at least pretending to be. Her and Quark share a look and leave him to it. Lesson learned.

"Let the bastard be pent up and miserable, then," Quark grumbles from the other end of the bar as he pours Table 3's drinks. A prickle on his neck has him looking up and there Garak's eyes are again, piercing, and Quark rushes off to deliver the drinks.

The three young Cardassians there are much more friendly. One has their nose stuck in one of the useless poetry PADDs while the other two smile at Quark while he sets out their orders.

"Three Raktajinos, extra bitter," Quark says, and is thanked. Polite. One even praises the drink's exoticness. Klingon coffee, exotic. Heh. "Your food will be out in a few."

Before he can finish turning, though, a hand is touching his arm. "What is the title of this anthology you include at every table?" the young man asks.

"Oh, that's not..." He sighs. "It's new. I can't remember."

"Find out for us, please," he says. "Works like these can be hard to come by on Prime and we make it our business to collect them. Whoever this author is, they're very unique."

"If these aren't banned on Prime already, they will be soon," his friend comments with a giggle.

"No doubt."

"'In my desolation, I am as weeds: Cut my roots and Let the waters take me, To drown and bloom anew, in You,'" the one with her nose in the PADD reads aloud, and shivers. "They'd burn the whole Central Archive down just for this one. It's so explicit."

"Let me see that," the boy demands, as the other one is already surging over to read over the girl's shoulder. Watching them fight over the PADD has Quark thinking back to the isolinear rods in his safe, and he hums thoughtfully, glancing over his shoulder.

Garak isn't looking.

—

Glinn Halon Duvur. Former underling of Gul Dukat. Out of uniform, vacationing on Deep Space Nine with his wife and nine children. Spends his days gambling while his kids play unsupervised in the holosuites and his wife visits old friends. 

Beloved uncle sent to trial by the Obsidian Order in 2356 and executed that same day for crimes of attempted sabotage against Cardassia.

Garak watches the man wander down the promenade sans his proud lineage, jingling a fat little bag of gold-pressed latinum and yet-unconverted leks. He wanders out of range, so Garak switches to the next camera and there that unfortunate face is again. He drums his fingers on the desk. It won't be long now.

An alert rings in his ear and he almost initiates the shockfield on impulse, but the flash of smooth, brown skin on a monitor stays his hand. The knocking comes, and that haunting voice calls out, "Garak! Are you there?"

Garak rests his head next to the surveillance screens.

Predictably, the doctor tries to input his override, but the door remains shut. There's a long pause.

"Garak..." Julian sounds irate. Garak hums. "Did you deprogram my override code? Nevermind how illegal that is, that's dangerous! What if you're injured? Or fall ill?"

He says this just after attempting to abuse his station privileges for personal reasons. Infuriating hypocrite.

"Oh, my barging in at random, odd hours is no less than you deserve, Garak," Julian says as if in response to Garak's thoughts. "You set that precedent in our relationship yourself."

Terrible man.

"Fine. I'll give you some more time, since you want it so badly, but I'll be back and when I am, that override had better work. If it doesn’t, I promise there will be hell to pay, my friend."

Beautiful man.

"Goodbye, Mr. Garak."

Goodbye, Doctor.

Glinn Duvur dies two hours later of alcohol poisoning while his wife is in bed with Gul Rilimn's wife.

—

“I just can’t believe it,” Kira is bitching. Jadzia smiles and sips her drink, looking out over the Replimat balcony at all the happy brunchgoers. “A Cardassian writing poetry about something that isn’t conquest or the wonders of dictatorial rule or, at best, the pride of the traditional family nobly bowing and scraping. I’ve never seen it.”

“It would certainly seem to run counter to Cardassian values.”

“And about Julian!” she shrieks in her inside voice, slapping her hands down on the table. “Garak the spy, writing love poetry about Julian. Going on and on about his–his...”

“Ass?” Jadzia offers.

“Eyes. His eyes! Ohhh, I knew he wanted to have sex with him, everyone knew that, but to write about his eyes like... like that? It’s practically Bajoran.”

“That’s true.”

Kira stops long enough in her tirade to eye her, and presses her lips into a thin line. “How are you so calm about this?”

Jadzia takes another sip. “I’m just fascinated,” she says. “I’ll admit, I’ve been looking at this more through Tobin’s eyes than my own. Have I ever told you that he met Lloja of Prim during his exile?” 

“He did not.”

“He did, and Lloja flirted with him outrageously. It was embarrassing, looking back. Of course, nothing ever came of it, because Tobin was always hopelessly blind to those sorts of things even without the language barrier, but his children liked to joke that many of Lloja’s poems were about him.”

Kira’s jaw is hanging. “Were they?”

Jadzia grins and shrugs. Kira laughs.

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Perhaps,” Jadzia allows, “but I do wonder... Being able to call nervous, asexual Tobin the lover of Lloja of Prim would have been quite the notch in my belt. Think of the stories I could have told! And now here Julian is with the opportunity. I know it’s not the same, I mean, it’s Garak. But, you have to admit, to write about him like that...”

“He must really love him,” Kira finishes for her, stumped. “I just can’t wrap my head around it.”

“I didn’t see it, either,” Jadzia confesses. “I was still wrestling with the idea that they were actually friends. I thought their association was strictly professional and all the books and flirting were just a front.” She cradles her head in her hands suddenly and sighs. “Ugh, but those poems. The poems are so good! Kira...”

“I know,” she moans. “They’re heart-wrenching. Which one are you on now?”

“Thirty-nine. I came back home, but I came back gone.”

“Ouch.”

“I know.”

A shout from below interrupts them and they both shoot out of their seats. Below, a Cardassian man has just had a beam fall on top of him. Jadzia and Kira bound down the stairs to him, Jadzia already slapping a hand on her comm badge. 

“Dax to Infirmary, a man has just been crushed, possibly impaled. Send a medical team to Replimat and be ready for emergency beam out.”

“Acknowledged, we’re on our way,” Girani says, but already Kira is looking up at Jadzia helplessly, the man’s wrist laying limp between her hands.

“He’s gone.”

“Shit!” Jadzia hunches over, hands on her knees. “That’s the third one today. Are Cardassians always this accident prone? No wonder you won the war.”

“No,” Kira says. “They’re not. You don’t think...”

“I don’t know,” Jadzia says grimly, and looks around at the crowd that’s formed. All Cardassian, all terrified. “But we need to find out.”

—

A Cardassian is sitting at the bar. This isn’t an unusual sight now, with the Festival of 90s Funk and Beyond coming up, but seeing one so young and looking so hunted is odd. Quark approaches him casually.

“What’ll you have?”

The Cardassian’s eyes dart. “Uh...” He leans over suddenly, cups both hands over his mouth, and whispers, “E. G. Special.”

Christ, these kids are going to kill him. “Coming right up,” he says in a normal person voice, and reaches under the bar for a glass. A little drink-mixing magic later, a beautiful fizzy blue drink is sitting between them, with an isolinear rod tucked neatly in the straw.

The Cardassian takes the drink between both hands excitedly, and Quark snaps his fingers in front of him. “Oh! Right,” the kid stutters, and all but launches the latinum at Quark’s face. “Thank you!” And off he goes, out of the bar with the glass still tight in his grasp.

“Idiot,” Quark mutters to himself, crouching carefully down to pick the latinum up off the floor without dirtying his expensive pants. “You’re supposed to take the straw, not the entire glass. That’s it, I’m switching to plastic. These little rebel brats don’t deserve my ni—Oh, hello, Constable! I didn’t see you there. What can I get you?”

Odo looks as unimpressed as ever. “That’s a funny question since last I checked, I don’t drink.”

“Ah, right, because you’re a liquid. How could I forget. You know, one of these days, I ought to serve you up with a little umbrella, see how people like it. I’d bet you taste bitter.” Odo harrumphs, and Quark makes himself busy with wiping down the counter. “Well, out with it then. What nefarious scheme am I up to now? I love to hear your little stories.”

Four isolinear rods drop onto the counter, right where Quark was just cleaning. “Hey now,” he says, throwing a performative glare at the changeling. “Careful. If you shatter glass in my bar, you’re cleaning it up.”

“I just had the most interesting conversation with the Tokal family,” Odo says, steamrolling right over him. “It seems their four darling children had somehow come into some questionable reading material. They tried searching for it in the Central Archives and yet, despite it being clearly Cardassian in origin, they could not find it. And I don’t need to tell you that when a piece of Cardassian reading material isn’t in the Central Archives...”

Quark, from his plastered position on the floor, stares up into Odo’s face directly horizontal to his and smiles. “What?”

“It’s illegal,” Odo sneers, stretching his body even further over the bar and nearly sending Quark starfishing. 

“Okay! Odo! I get it! But what does that have to do with me?”

“Quark!”

“Okay, okay! Whatever it is you think I’ve done, I’ll stop! I’ll stop, okay?”

“I know you’re going to stop, because I am going to confiscate every copy of Garak’s poetry that you have absconded with and destroy them.”

Quark gasps. “Book burning? In this day and age?”

“Garak did not give his permission for you to sell his work! He didn’t even want anyone to see it in the first place! Those poems were stolen. Now, I expect a list of every person you sold a copy to and a full and complete refund to be issued by tomorrow morning. Do I make myself clear?”

Quark glowers. “You’ve made yourself something, all right.”

“Quark...”

“Okay! All right. Consider it done.”

-

Turora Lumok. Obsidian Order operative and old colleague. Usually in deep cover in the Organian sectre, but has abandoned post to explore the space station. Barren, unattached. Cold. A model agent, if you ignore her unfortunate habit of going rogue and eliminating civilians on a whim. 

Recruited into the Order by Enabran Tain’s former right hand, Euluk Bucun, who was assassinated by Elim Garak in 2341 under orders from Enabran Tain for suspicions of treason. Turora Lumok disciplined shortly afterward by Elim Garak for complaining that she had wanted to be the one to kill that bitch.

Garak watches as the woman pretends to touch up her makeup while scouting for cameras. “Oh, Lumok, you always were woefully obvious. Have you been expecting me? I wonder why.”

Satisfied with the positions of the cameras, she puts away her mirror and strolls out of sight.

Garak shakes his head. “Fool. You forget how long I’ve lived on this wretched station. I don’t need to see you every second to know where you are.”

But then, the smell of antiseptic. Starfleet issue soap. Herbal shampoo, unique, robust. Gels. Oils. Sweat. 

He’s near.

Forcing calmness with a deep, measured breath, he takes off his eyepiece and slips it into his sleeve. He pays for the food he barely ate. He stands. He turns.

And is promptly thrust into the dark, deep woods of Julian Bashir’s eyes. “There you are, Garak! I’ve been looking all over for you,” the doctor says as if it’s just a regular day on Deep Space Nine. His hot, mammalian body caging him tightly in place against the table betrays the ruse. “Who was it you were talking to?”

Garak tries to step around him. Julian steps with him. “Oh, only ever myself. Forgive me, but you’ve caught me just on my way out. I have a strict appointment at 2.”

There’s Julian’s hand now. On his shoulder. Garak is calm. This is normal. “Well, why don’t I walk you there then.”

“My dear Doctor, I couldn’t rob you of your meal. Clearly you’ve just walked in.”

“Actually, I’ve found I’m craving something a bit different now.”

Garak makes to step around Julian again, and still Julian’s steps match his. It’s like they’re dancing. He doesn’t let this deter him. He’s not sure he’s capable of letting anything deter him now, with his heart trying to pound out of his throat. He keeps stepping doggedly forward, and Julian keeps mirroring, still with that damned hand burning through his tunic. “Well, you only have so much time before you must return to the infirmary, I know. Do not allow me to delay you in securing a table at a different locale.”

“Oh, but you’ve already delayed me so long. What’s a few more minutes?” A peek of teeth, a hint of warning. “Though I will admit... I’m not sure how much longer I can wait.”

“Then don’t.” Finally, Garak manages to elbow past this madness and shoot out of the restaurant. The station is so crowded these days, it’s short work to get lost in it. In a sea of ridges and black hair, Garak slips his eyepiece back on and lets the wave take him. 

“Garak!”

Oh, for the Union’s sake—

He does not run. He does not stumble. He walks normally and not desperately, keeping his eye on both the path to the turbolift and Lumok. She’s down the corridor now, pretending to check her makeup again like an imbecile. Just a few paces more. Almost there...

“Garak, you’re the best dressed one here! You are not difficult to spot, you ridiculous dandy! Oh, no offense, Ma’am. Lovely scarf. Excuse me.”

There.

In the reflection of the mirror, Garak makes eye contact with the rogue and taps in the correct sequence on the device sewed into the seam of his pants just as the turbolift doors close behind him.

Like that, Turora Lumok is beamed into space and dies instantly, without a soul to mourn her, and Elim Garak walks back to his quarters with a hand over his mouth and a warmth on his shoulder, without a soul to mourn him, either.

—-

The Festival of Fierce and Fantastic Frogs is two days away and already it is being protested.

Outside Quark’s Bar is a growing army of dissident children with voice amplifiers and holoprojectors shouting to the stars that if they don’t get their porn back, they’ll tear it all down. Signs are projected in the air with essays cycling through them that look to be several pages each, a small holographic fire barely reaching ankle-height is lighting up the length of the promenade, and – perhaps most disturbingly – a comically inaccurate approximation of Odo is rotating at the center of the group, fitted in the typical regalia of the Cardassian military and holding a Klingon bat’leth. It is certainly... something.

“They’re Cardassians,” Quark is saying as he pours out some root beers. “They’ve probably never seen a protest in their lives, they don’t know what they’re doing. The Union puts an end to things like this pretty fast on the surface.”

“Heh,” Jadzia says, “what happens on DS9, stays on DS9.”

“Where’d you hear that?” Kira asks.

“It’s something Julian likes to say. Basically, they figure they can get away with speaking their minds here.”

Kira drums her fingers on the bar, staring into the flailing protestors thoughtfully. 

Right then, Odo arrives back on the scene. It looks like he’s trying to get through, respectfully, but the protestors are not making it easy. Jadzia and Kira come to his rescue just as about fifteen Cardassians start forming a blockade around him.

“I walked around as you do, investigating the endless stars,” one young woman is yelling at him while he stands there with big helpless baby eyes, “and in my net, during the night, I woke up naked, the only thing caught, a fish trapped inside the wind!” 

“I don’t know what that means,” Odo says consolingly.

“Clearly!”

“Okay, okay, let him through!” Kira wiggles her way between the crowd and Odo, snatching him by the arm like a fish with a hook. “He’s not your enemy here, he was just upholding your laws!”

“The Cardassian government has no jurisdiction on a Bajoran station!”

“He made his choices!”

“Beautiful Julian would be ashamed of you! Repent! Repent!”

Kira and Jadzia manage to reel him most of the way through the protesters and he shapeshifts the rest of the journey. The protestors try to follow, but Quark bustles over to stop them. “No, no demonstrations inside! Remember who your allies are,” he says, and they all cow back. “Thank you.”

Odo ripples his form a couple times to make sure everything’s back in the right place and harrumphs. “Allies, Quark?”

“Yes, allies. It’s terrible what you’ve done to them. You can’t police art, Odo–-this is culture we're talking about here, the very bedrock of society.”

“And I’m sure this virtuous attitude of yours has nothing to do with the incredible profit you made and lost at the expense of our mutual friend.”

“Oh, I did him a favor.” Quark uncaps another bottle of Kanar and gestures back to the entrance, with its swarm of frothing Cardassian children. “Look, he’s got fans!”

“How has Garak been handling all this?” Kira asks Odo, sharing a look with Jadzia. “I haven’t heard a peep out of him since he gave us that antivirus program.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Didn’t you have breakfast with him yesterday?”

“Hmmm, that would have been routine. Except he didn’t show. When I made it back to my office, I found a message from him apologizing, telling me he’s so busy with orders he’s lost all track of time.”

“How has he been getting commissions?” Jadzia asks. “His shop’s been closed all week.”

Odo rolls his eyes. “Oh, I’m sure the reality is he’s simply avoiding the issue. Dr. Bashir has informed me he’s been treating him like ‘the black plague’ as well.” 

“Julian’s one to talk. He practically pole-vaulted over a vedek the other day to get away from me.” 

“Speak of the devil,” Quark says, looking towards the door, and everyone turns just as the commotion starts–or, more accurately, the commotion abruptly stops. 

The protestors have all gone quiet, in apparent awe as they part around Julian like the red sea around Moses. He’s smiling stupidly as he stands in the center of them, nodding at something a Cardassian man is exclaiming. It’s an incredibly awkward scene, and Quark starts choking at some of the things his ears are picking up. “They’ve deified him,” he tells them, and Jadzia bursts into giggles at the idea, but Quark isn’t joking. “Really. He might as well be one of the prophets to them. You read the poems. You know.”

Ugh. Kira wrinkles her nose in disgust. The worst kind of blasphemy–horny blasphemy. “What is he even doing here?” she asks. 

“Getting his head inflated,” Jadzia says dryly, because now that Quark has mentioned it, it’s pretty clear from the shit-eating grin on Julian’s face that that’s exactly what’s happening. 

“Poor Garak.” Quark says it absentmindedly, but the comment gets several eyes turned on him. He’s shaking his head as he watches the scene unfold. “First, he falls for a human… humiliating… but then that love becomes public knowledge and several young beautiful Cardassians decide that he’s onto something, and now that human is going to get more action in a week than he’s seen his entire life. I’ve witnessed the rise and fall of more than a few star-crossed romances, but this might just be the saddest.”

“Julian wouldn’t have an orgy the same week the whole station found out Garak’s in love with him,” Jadzia says, insulted on his behalf.

Quark hefts a tray up onto his shoulder. “He just did,” he says as he leaves to go do his job, and Jadzia whips her head around to see Julian escorting two attractive Cardassians away from the protest. Her jaw drops.

“Bastard,” Kira spits, surprising everyone, herself most of all. Those poems must’ve affected her more than she realized.

Odo clears his throat unnecessarily. “I’m no expert on the behavior of solids, but it seems to me that neither party is handling this situation well.”

“I’ll tell you how the pakrela should be handling this,” an older Cardassian sitting at the far end of the bar cuts in, with a twitch to him that makes it clear he’s more than a few deep. “He should be settling his assets, because he doesn’t have long now. Whatever his human is doing is the least of his worries. Ha. Hehe. Being a traitor wasn’t enough for him. No, now he’s gone and corrupted the next generation with his degeneracy. Exile was too soft a punishment. Uh-huh.”

Kira opens her mouth to tell him to fuck off, but Odo touches her shoulder. “You speak as if you know him,” he notes mildly, because of course, the exact reason for Garak’s exile isn’t public record. It’s barely even private record. The Order doesn’t work that way–or didn’t, as it stands. It is interesting that this man is acting like he has classified information despite being a civilian. 

But then, sometimes day drinkers just like to spout speculation as fact.

The man looks into his glass and laughs at his reflection. “Who doesn’t know Garak these days? But that’s temporary. He’ll be forgotten soon enough, just like the Order.” He finishes his drink and gets up. He insincerely mutters some friendly Cardassian farewell and starts to walk past them, but Kira can’t let it go.

“Excuse me, but what’s your name, sir? You’ve been so informative.”

He looks at her for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says, and elbows past the protesters.

—

“Solt Mebol, left behind a widow and child six years ago when he was tragically killed in a transporter accident. In reality, he accepted an undercover mission which required him to fake his death and have his bond dissolved. A significant sacrifice. Certainly not one many Cardassians could have made.”

The Cardassian stares at Garak sitting on his couch. Turning, he tries to exit his temporary quarters, but the door won’t open.

Garak tuts. “Oh, you know better than that, Mebol.” He taps his disruptor with his forefinger, resting harmlessly against his knee. “The festival isn’t for another couple days, yet here you are. Catching up with old friends before the festivities, I assume? Only I haven’t found you in anyone’s company but your own. You must be lonely. Please, let me alleviate your loneliness for a while.”

The Cardassian sighs at the closed door. “Solt, is it?”

“I can tell you the names of your wife and child as well, if you’d like, and the city they live in. Do you know your wife never rebonded? Unusual behavior for a Romulan. Quite dangerous, as I understand it.”

Solt steps carefully into the small living space and sits in the chair opposite Garak, with the coffee table between them. “As one of the last living members of the Order, I don’t suppose you would consider letting me go?”

Garak smiles pleasantly. “I would be delighted.”

“Would you? I had a deal with Central Command and they’ve been good to me so far. You, however, have been known to…” He eyes the disruptor casually turned in his direction.

“Yes, I imagine I must be something of a mystery these days to my people. I have been… squirrely, is what I suppose a human would say, and I must as well now that I’ve been painted with their brush. Oh, it is an incredible sin, I know. That I should enjoy the company of an attractive alien while in exile.”

Solt snorts. “You expect me to believe those poems were the natural result of a fling?”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything you do not wish to. I only say that it’s convenient that I should be seen as even more traitorous just as a swarm of Cardassians should enter the station.”

“What’s convenient is that you’re still alive. You have friends in high places willing to go to bat for you, in spite of everything you’ve done. It’s a disgrace. You are a selfish disloyal anarchist and no one is holding you accountable, because you just happened to be good at your job once and everyone likes the idea of having you as a potential weapon should the need for one arise. Until then, they’re content to keep you in a cabinet collecting dust and sentiment. You can wave that disruptor all you want, but we both know you make a poor operative now. You’re in love.” 

Garak is still smiling, but Solt can see the signs of a grimace. Dusty, indeed. Too passionate. Too human. “I’m hardly so foolish. You know better than I the dangers of such things in our line of work. You’re little better than a puppet now that you’ve had a whiff of the truth, Mebol.”

“You’re right.” Solt attempts to raise one eye ridge, despite it being unfit for such maneuvers, and leans forward towards that disruptor. “Pull my strings, then, and let’s test that grip Bashir has on yours.”

—

Kira crashes into Garak’s quarters and kickflips past all his booby traps like Indiana Jones’ hotter cousin.

“What the fuck, Richard?” is basically what she says, only it’s in character, so it’s more like, “What the fuck, Garak!”

Garak spins around in his maniacal villain chair with a look of surprise. “How did you get in here, Major?” Miles bustles his way in after her with his impractically enormous toolkit, and Garak lets out an, “Ah,” then, sedately, “I suppose Dr. Bashir filed a complaint about my tampering with the door codes. Of course, there’s a perfectly logical explanation. You see, it–”

“This isn’t about door codes, Garak,” Kira yells. “What I want to know is why our best suspect for the sudden influx of murders on the station was just found drowned in his own toilet!”

“Oh my,” Garak says. “What an unfortunate end.”

“Don’t play dumb. Not now. We know what you’re capable of, but we’re good people and we didn’t want to accuse a victim until we had exhausted the rest of our line-up. Only, interestingly enough, they’re all dead, so now…” she marches over with the fury of the Prophets on her heels and stands imposingly over him, her teeth clenched, “here we are.”

“That is interesting.” He runs a hand down a roll of fabric in his lap, smoothing it. “I suppose you must have some of that ironclad evidence that the Federation so treasures.”

Kira glares at him.

Garak feigns looking around. “Oh, but I can’t help but notice the good Constable isn’t here with you. What could that mean? Surely not that you broke into my quarters without due cause or a hint of warning–at your own word, not even to fix my glitching door. For all you knew, I could have been in here writing one of my vaunted Bashir epics.”

Kira’s hands are in fists now. “The evidence we have would be more than enough to have your face plastered on every viewscreen in Cardassia and you know it.”

“The Federation and Bajoran legal processes do seem a tad inefficient in moments like these, don’t they?”

“Okay,” Miles cuts in, because he has Turbo PTSD and is not in the mood for a flare up. “I think I'll just wait in the hallway, then. Holler if you need me. Good luck, Major.”

Kira and Garak spend a few moments watching him waddle out of the room and then go back to staring each other down. 

“Look, you ass,” Kira starts, “we couldn’t link every victim to the Cardassian government or some third-party organization, but we were able to link enough of them to recognize that these aren’t just random nobodies having ‘accidents.’ Someone was able to break into your computer and embarrass you and you don’t like that so you’re pitching a fit. I can’t have Odo arrest you – yet – but I can tell you to cut it out. This vigilantism isn’t helping–”

That gets a reaction. “Vigilantism!”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“Self-defense.”

“They attacked you?”

“Possibly.”

“Goddamn you, Garak! Just… don’t do this anymore, okay?”

Garak looks at her with innocent astonishment, like he’s still bewildered by her totally plausible accusations. “Well. You have my word, I suppose,” he says, bemused.

—

Gul Skrain Dukat. Blessed with a wife, seven children, two sets of living parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, minus one father. Habitually cheats with lower ranked military officials, slaves, and barely legal adults, unbenownst to his family. Father was interrogated by Elim Garak and executed by the Union over live broadcast in the year 2350 for the crime of being a piece of shit. 

Elim Garak was shortly thereafter levied with an amateurish execution attempt by Gul Dukat. It failed.

The second attempt will succeed, but at a great cost.

The Festival of Filthy Fucking Foot Fetishists has officially begun, but Garak is struggling to feel any enthusiasm. He is surrounded by his people. The station has been dimmed by 15% to better suit Cardassian eyes and misting stations have been set up in limited locations. Extinct and invented flowers crafted by Cardassian and Bajoran artisans decorate the banisters and doorways. A wash of blue, green, and sparkling gold lights up every direction. There is the smell of freshly prepared Cardassian sweets on the air, a gentle warmth suffuses the atmosphere, and children are laughing on the promenade. It’s the first time the station has felt not just tolerable, but nearly pleasant, in years. 

But then, Garak has never felt particularly welcome among his people. As a child, he was an orphan generously cared for by service workers and sponsored by a government official, and as an adult, he was a member of the Order, which granted him more fear and loathing than it did admiration and respect. Companionship, in its truest form, was a rare thing to come by and not something he was encouraged to come by at all.

Perhaps that is why Dr. Bashir blindsided him. 

In any case, Garak is delicately balanced on the line between proper misery and numbness. He gave up imbibing around the same time that he gave up the implant—or rather, the implant gave up on him—but he’s on his third cup now, wandering through the festivities with no particular direction in mind. The exact spot of this last operation isn’t important, only the timing.

He finishes his drink while a group play a spirited game of cold moba in front of him. It shouldn't be long now.

All the nearby screens suddenly flicker from the event schedule to Dukat’s sharp grin and Garak hums. There we are. He knew the bitch wouldn’t be able to resist showing his face.

“Welcome everyone to the biennial Festival of–” a baby wails, “generously hosted here on Deep Space Nine by Bajor and the Federation, and of course organized by our own prodigous Detapa Council. Ah, that wormhole… quite the view, isn’t it?”

Garak looks around for another food stall that serves alcohol. 

There aren’t any stalls in his immediate vicinity, but there is a young Cardassian couple marching towards him while making dogged eye contact. 

Oh no. 

Garak starts to make a break for it. Not too fast, it won’t do to cause a stir, but there are a number of very good reasons for him to stay far away from any Cardassians who might recognize him right now. Especially if the source of that recognition is those damn poems he was too stupid and sentimental to destroy.

Before he can make it more than a few steps, however, he looks up to see another few Cardassians working their way towards him, also making eye contact.

No, no, no.

He makes to move towards the stairs then, only for his eyes to land squarely on him. 

Him, wearing the silky green outfit he lovingly crafted for him a few months ago. Him, shining in the festival lights, casting him in an even more arresting shade of gold than usual. Him, looking determined and coming straight towards him.

Oh, fuck no.

“Garak,” Julian calls out, likely reading the panic on his face and stance and soul.

“Today, I am not a Gul, though,” Dukat is saying. “I am but a humble representative of the Cardassian Union in its totality, and as such, I would like to thank Colonel Kira Nerys and Captain Benjamin Sisko for their hand in this week’s festivities. They have been nothing if not accommodating these last few weeks while our coordinators ran rampant through their halls.”

He should have accounted for the possibility of this. Thinking of Julian had become excruciating as of late, but that was no excuse. Whatever interaction Julian had been hoping to have with him couldn’t be allowed, not now, and not only for the sake of Garak’s traitorous, disgusting feelings. Even if it would give the sweet man closure, it would not be worth his life. 

“Now, it may be a bit unorthodox, but I thought it would be only fitting if the first Reenactment was carried out by our benevolent hosts, and the Lakarian City Acting Troupe were all too happy to take them under their wing.”

More eyes are turning towards the screen now, the laughing and playing and sloshing of cups quieting down. Julian is nearly with him, his approach halted only by the gathering crowd, and Garak can only pretend to be interested in Dukat’s speech while he racks his brain desperately for a solution. Any solution. Anything.

“I trust that the history of Cardassia is in capable hands.”

The screen flickers again and changes to a shot of one of Quark’s holodecks, where a lone Bajoran man stands in a beam of red light.

A hand grabs Garak roughly by the arm, and he nearly cries with relief when he sees that it’s Lumok.

Well, Lumok with the face and attire of a Bajoran, but that ever-present spark of unchecked malice in her eye is quite unmistakable to someone who worked with her for over a decade. 

“Surprised, you ugly old regnar?” she asks under the actor’s impassioned opening monologue.

He sucks in a breath as the sharp edge of something presses into his back. “Impossible. They found your body caught on one of the station’s spires.”

“A simple bait and switch,” she purrs, pressing the weapon closer, slicing through his tunic. A pity. This was one of his nicer ones. “You’ve gotten sloppy.”

He manufactures a smile. “A knife, then? A favorite of yours, I recall, but terribly messy for such a public venue. Not to mention if your aim is even an inch off, I’ll be in and out of the infirmary within the day, as if nothing at all had happened.”

“Don’t lecture me,” she growls. “You can’t do that anymore. You’re not anyone to anyone. Your master is dead, and what did you do the second you were off leash for the first time in your life? You went and choked yourself on the first Starfleet sotl you could find. You’re pathetic.”

It took incredible effort to keep his eyes from rolling to the back of his skull. “Oh, just stab me already.”

“I’m not going to stab you. I’ve done a bit of outsourcing, in fact.” She slid the knife from his lower back to his side and looped her arm through his, pinning him in place with a wide smile. “All I had to do was suggest to my new friend that you were infiltrating the Federation. That you were poisoning them against Bajor from the inside, uniting Cardassia and Starfleet in a secret alliance under the guise of wooing the CMO. No, no, you won’t be killed by one of your peers. Your death will be at the hands of a perfect stranger. A pointless death for a pointless man.” She leans in and whispers into his aural ridge, “It always was so easy to make people hate you.”

The next few seconds are a flurry of chaos. One second he’s watching as Human, Bajoran and Cardassian actors alike are all holding hands and reciting ancient poetry and the next he’s on the floor with a searing weight bearing down on him from calf to shoulder. There are screams and footfalls coming from all directions and Odo’s voice is immediately discernible shouting over the commotion. His back is on fire, he can’t breathe, and there’s a slash in his side, but he doesn’t miss the thump of Lumok’s body a few feet away, dead before she hits the ground.

“Garak? Garak?” the weight on him is speaking frantically, pawing at his head and shoulders. The weight shifts and the hands flip him onto his back. Those same hands pat him down, blazing a path down his chest and his stomach and his sides, stopping at the superficial gash near his rib, and Garak knows who this is before he even opens his eyes.

“Garak,” Julian sighs with relief. Garak was meant to be dead by phaser blast right now, but instead Julian Bashir is smiling down at him like he’s important, kneeling beside him, his hands on him, branding him with their incredible heat. It shouldn’t be possible. No one could be that fast. 

“Doctor,” he manages on a wheeze. One of his ribs might be broken, actually.

“Dukat,” Sisko growls from the monitor in billowing robes and a long flowing wig, surrounded by flowers.

—

“Explain,” Sisko commands.

Having decided that showing weakness right now can only help his case, Garak is sitting hunched to the side, holding his reeling head in one hand. It’s through a hiss that he replies, “A woman named Turora Lumok was responsible for sabotaging the station with those poems forged with my data signature. The Bajoran woman who was just assassinated–she was no Bajoran, but rather one of the last remaining members of the Obsidian Order. She was hired by Dukat to kill me during the festival under the guise of a hate crime. No doubt because of her indomitable reputation, I’m sure. A number of Cardassian casualties these past several days were at her hands.”

Sisko walks to the viewport to stare out into the stars for a moment, processing this. “All his talk of friendship between Bajor and Cardassia…” he trails off, the ghost of a sneer on his lips as he turns back around. “His goal was just the opposite. He wanted to destroy any hope of cooperation.”

“And get me out of the way in the process,” Garak grumbles. 

Sisko hums and wanders over to Garak’s side, looking down at him thoughtfully. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me who assassinated Ms. Lumok?”

Garak stares at the floor through his fingers, his eyes glazed.

“Or who your informant is on Dukat’s involvement?”

“Captain,” Garak mutters, not looking up, “I have sat here concussed after an attempt on my life and shared with you everything that I know, and here you have not even told me who the tailor of your magnificent robe is.” He tugs half-heartedly at a strip of embroidery on the fabric. “I must admit, I am feeling a touch betrayed you didn’t come to me.”

Sisko flicks his eyes up to Julian, who has been standing in the corner with his hands behind his back. “Very well, Mr. Garak. I release you into Dr. Bashir’s care for now, but I expect to continue this conversation soon.” He massages his forehead. “Once I figure out what to do about this damned festival.”

Julian comes over to help Garak out of his chair, but Garak snaps upright and to the door before he can touch him. Sisko takes the opportunity to lean into Julian’s face and whisper, “Get more information out of him.” The doctor nods.

Julian isn’t angry when he steps out of Sisko’s office and sees that Garak is walking in the exact opposite direction of the infirmary, but he is disappointed. 

“Mr. Garak,” he says urgently once he’s caught up to the idiot.

Mr. Garak interrupts him in the same tone, “Now, now, my dear doctor, we both know I have a dermal regenerator in my quarters, so we need not extend–”

“And I think we both know this is about much more than a few bumps and bruises. I’m afraid the time for beating around the bush passed quite a while ago.”

“You’re right, Doctor,” Garak says, coming to an abrupt stop and rounding on him with wild eyes. “There is an urgent matter we must discuss.” Julian’s eyebrows raise, and Garak nods severely. “Oh, yes, let us not ‘beat around the bush.’ We should talk about how you threw yourself directly into the line of a lethal phaser blast on the one in a millionth chance that you might save my life. The cost of such an action being almost certainly your own life, and yet, here you stand, and here I stand. Will wonders never cease.” Julian opens his mouth, but Garak raises a finger. “Nevermind that I was in the middle of an altercation with a very dangerous, very volatile woman who would not have hesitated for a second to dispose of you. She had a nasty habit of that. Now I knew that you were naive, Doctor, Doctor! I knew that! What I did not know – what I never could have guessed after all these years – was that you are an idiot.” 

Julian stares back into Garak’s hissing face, unimpressed. Garak feels a wave of deja-vu and does not like it. It has no place here. And yet, Julian takes in a breath and smiles, raising his shoulders. “All right, Garak. If it’s really so important to you, we can talk about your suicide attempt.”

“What?” Garak bites out.

“You were going to let yourself get shot, yes?”

“I was n–” Garak starts to lie, disgusted, but is stopped by Julian stepping entirely too close. He stumbles back a step, then another when Julian attempts to crowd him again, and the familiarity of the routine has him shutting his eyes, rueful. They’re dancing again. It’s humiliating, the things this man makes him do, how effortlessly he can gain the upperhand. Most of the time without even having to lift a finger.

“You figured out Dukat’s plan and arranged for Lumok to die if she succeeded, but you expected her to. You didn’t expect to be saved,” the doctor tells his blank, unresponsive face. His eyes are still closed, his hands tense at his sides, but he knows Julian’s stepped closer again by the heat of his livid breath. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Very well. I didn’t figure it out. I was informed.”

“So, the captain was right.” He sounds bored, but Garak seizes his chance. His eyes open in a sudden burst of animation.

“Yes, I had an informant. I believe the major was familiar with him, a fellow by the name of Damoc who was recently presumed dead? Though I knew him far better as Mebol. We first met on Romulus, you see. In the event of my death, he had strict instructions to reveal Dukat’s plot in my stead and protect my remaining assets. In return, he was to receive some valuable coordinates, which by now he will have long accessed. I suppose he’s already booked passage off of the station, if he hasn’t already gone.” 

“Quick to abandon you,” Julian says, completely off-script. Garak’s carefully measured breathing stutters.

“Surely Captain Sisko would like to have a word with him.”

“I’m sure.”

“Doctor…” Garak says, lost. “There isn’t time to was–”

Suddenly there are two hands slamming into his chest like they’re iron forks and he’s a slab of meat, rocketing him back into the nearest wall with a loud thud. Garak gasps at the strength of it, astounded, but all his attention is quickly monopolized by Julian’s snarling words.

“Stop trying to distract me, Garak! Stop racing away before I can even properly get into the room, stop begging off lunch, stop ignoring my comms, and stop acting like your bloody life is over just because it was found out that you have feelings for me!” 

“I–I don’t–”

“Lke hell you don’t! Thirty-seven.”

Garak blinks several times. “What?”

“Thirty-seven. That’s how many direct references to our literary discussions are in your poems. All chronologically concordant with the dates of those discussions, and six of which from that classic Earth album I recommended to you a year ago that you swore up and down sounded like a pack of voles had been crammed into a bucket and shaken around. I knew you were having me on. You love Mitski, and you love me.”

Garak’s face shutters. 

Finally, Julian takes a step back. His hands remain on his chest, pinning him in place, but he allows him some oxygen. Exactly twenty seconds pass like this, before the doctor becomes impatient and huffs, “You can’t possibly have nothing to say.”

“What would you have me say, Doctor?”

“I would like you to admit it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’ve heard it from friends and coworkers and strangers and every tourist on this damn station, it feels like, but I haven’t heard it from you.”

Garak is silent for a long time. Finally, he quietly asks, “You would further humiliate me this way? Knowing what you do? My dear friend…” He, carefully, with only the gentlest of pressure, puts a hand over one of Julian’s. “Please. You’ve read everything I could possibly have to say. What more could there be?”

Julian’s hands are unforgiving, but his eyes soften at the simple lowering of the curtain. It’s not the direct confession he was looking for, the I love you completely, traitorously, ruinously that his poems professed and a deep, broken part of Julian desperately wants to hear, but it is, it is. For Garak, this is as explicit as it gets, and Julian can feel his heart trying to catch in his throat.

“Garak,” he starts to say.

Garak isn’t scowling anymore. His eyes are shining as he looks away and sucks in an aggrieved breath. “Oh, please, let us skip this excruciating precursor. I have no intention of remaining on this station.”

Julian goes unnervingly still. “Excuse me?”

“I will need time to pack up my shop and settle my lease, but then I promise, you will never suffer the consequences of my unfortunate… condition again.” When Julian only stares at him with mounting alarm in his lovely eyes, Garak grimaces. “You must know I had no intention of pursuing you.” At least, not after the implant had been shut off and he’d realized what horrors he’d stumbled into with the doctor while under its influence, and by then, it was already too late. He was too weak to stop speaking to him, but he was not a complete monster. “I wouldn’t have. My writing was never about nurturing the emotions, only managing them.” A bit of a lie, but only a bit. He does love to languish and he never could resist a good innuendo. Their friendship had been infinitely precious to him, though, and he couldn’t bear the slow death it would undergo now that everyone knew the truth.

The worsening rumors that would spread. The suffering of Julian’s reputation, career, and love life with the Cardassian spy’s drastic affections hanging over everyone’s heads. The danger it would place them both in, the damage it had already done. The way Julian would know every time Garak flirted now, it was never idle. It had never been and could never be. 

It would be a torture hitherto unthinkable. Better to sever the limb before it could rot.

Still, Julian is silent. The pressure on his chest is more a suggestion than a command now.

“Doctor, I…” he swallows back anymore hideous truths. “I apologize. Your rage is understandable, but I swear to you, I have every intention of righting this wrong.”

“Oh,” Julian says then, softly, as if he isn’t speaking to Garak at all,  “you don’t know.”

“Doctor?”

He makes a bizarre human gesture, skimming the heel of his hand off his forehead. “My God! Of course. I thought it was pride, or shame, or paranoia. Anything and everything but this, but of course you would be this ridiculous. Well. That’s an easy enough problem to solve.”

“Doctor–?!”

The hands on his chest are gone. Instead, they’re seizing him by the head and pulling him up to connect his mouth to Julian’s.

Oh.

If Julian’s touch was a brand before, this is lava running down his throat, into his stomach and down, down, down to eat through the twenty inch thick duranium floor. Slow, thorough, and final in its devastation. A transformation that cannot be persuaded. He grapples with it, hands scrambling stupidly over and across his doctor’s shoulders. Whether it’s to pull him closer or push him away, he doesn’t know. He’s too busy being brutally altered to give it much thought.

His hands settle for burying themselves in his hair at some point. When doesn’t matter. Time holds no power here. It happens, and then he knows how soft Julian Bashir’s hair feels, and there is no going back.

The loss of control becomes alarming enough that he finally manages to pry himself away, gulping in desperate, anxious breaths of frigid station air. It works. The fire and the madness that followed it calms down and he manages the strength to push Julian back, but the wet smack of their lips disconnecting will echo in his dreams for the foreseeable future, as will the dizzy grin on Julian’s face inches from his own. There’s a hand on his ass keeping him from tumbling through the hole in the floor and a couple unlucky passersby gawking at the gruesome scene and Garak is a different creature entirely, incandescent and strange, forged anew in the curious fires of mutual attachment. 

He feels insane.

“Doctor, you cannot truly be this naive.” 

Julian looks anything but naive right then. He can’t focus on that, though. He needs to focus on the fact he was nearly assassinated; the fact that the kindest man alive nearly died with him out of some misguided terran idea that all lives are of equal value and importance.

And yet, Julian is leaning in to kiss him again, so Garak puts a hand on his chest and says, “You know what I am.”

Julian’s expression turns complicated and it’s clear he understands. Garak’s roiling emotions can’t settle on being relieved or horrified. How to go on after this? After knowing intimately what he almost had, with the smoke of it still thick in his eyes and his throat and his heart?

A gentle hand on his jaw brings him back to the moment, where Julian’s eyes are serious. “I know,” he murmurs.

Garak sucks in a wet breath.

“The question is,” Julian continues, even quieter, “do you know what I am?”

His head is spinning. “Doctor?”

Julian just smiles sadly, and it's clear that there are some long conversations in their future. But for now… “About that dermal regenerator in your quarters,” Julian begins, and Garak is relieved to find out that whatever stupid, lovely thing he’s become can still appreciate an innuendo.

—

Not long after, in the middle of telling Sisko all about Mebol over Julian’s comm badge while its owner watches expectantly in a state of teasing half-dress, he’s horrified to find that whatever thing he’s become is also rather eager to please.

—

A couple days later, the two of them are picking from a generous cut of flaming taspar in the Replimat.

Or, Garak is picking, anyway. Julian is stuffing his face. Ordinarily, this would mildly scandalize him, but the fact it’s taspar, one of the most traditional delicacies of his homeworld, being shoveled enthusiastically into that pretty face makes it so he can feel only hope.

Rather than giving into that inadvisable feeling, he takes a dainty sip of his tea and tries to look nonsuspect. Cardassians from all sides and angles are staring.

“About Miss Leeta…” Garak begins.

Julian wipes his face with the side of his hand. Disgusting, but oddly compelling. “What about her?” 

“When will you be breaking the news to her?”

“Oh.” Julian smiles, bemused. “She knows.”

A tightness in his chest dispels slightly. “Does she?” he says faintly.

“She’s the one who first brought it up. We performed the Rite of Separation days ago. She said it was great timing, what with the festival and all. We didn’t even have to leave the station.”

“So you were together then.”

“Well, in a sense. We weren’t in love, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Garak takes another sip, lowering his eyes. “I wasn’t worried. Only concerned for the young lady’s feelings.”

Julian’s face is incandescent. A Cardassian to his far left is openly gaping. “Of course, of course.” He leans suddenly over the table then, moving a hand forward to rest on his knee. “So, should I take this line of questioning as an indicator that you’re open to a relationship with me?”

Garak shifts a little in his seat, moving his knee further under the table and its shadows, but otherwise doesn’t pull away. “It would be unwise,” he says quietly, without actually saying no.

The hand squeezes. “It isn’t as if people won’t assume anyway.”

“Rumors can be dispelled. Redirected. Altered.” He reaches forward to take a small saucière and pours a bright red sauce over a couple groatcakes. “There would be no coming back from a confirmation.”

Julian’s hand falls away. “Would it be so bad?”

“I don’t know,” Garak says, splitting a cake up into three neat sections. “Would it, Doctor?”

A Bajoran couple walks past their table then, and while one purposely avoids eye contact and seems to be giving them a wide berth, the other throws a meaningful glare Julian’s way. This is the fourth judgemental or pitying look he’s received since they came in for brunch. Julian calmly returns the look, refusing to be the first to look away, until finally the man averts his eyes and Julian looks back to Garak with a stern smile. Garak inclines his head.

“Be careful, Doctor,” Garak goes on. “Rumors can ruin lives. End careers.” He scoops up a bite of his cake, dripping with red sauce, and lifts it to his mouth. “Kill,” he finishes, and eats.

At that, Julian leans back in his seat with his arms crossed tight. Garak gives him his time. It’s a relief to have finally made a dent in Julian’s lovesick, idealistic conviction–and Garak can admit, after the last few days, that it is lovesickness. Julian’s decided he loves him back and there will be no stopping him from pursuing this, but there may yet be some tempering. A small, equally stubborn, sentimental part of Garak despairs at the whole horrid affair, but the behemoth of his good sense squashes this part down with little difficulty. 

It’s this moment that a smattering of young Cardassians, accompanied by one Jadzia Dax, arrive at their table. Immediately, Garak recognizes them as the ones that nearly intercepted his meeting with Lumok and his stomach drops. Julian, on the other hand, brightens back up.

“Well, hello there,” he says warmly.

Jadzia responds first, with each elbow leaned on a Cardassian’s shoulder and a knowing sparkle in her blue eyes, “Hello to you.” The Cardassians all echo with similar greetings, some shy, others giddy.

One young woman standing at the front, with her hair in three elaborately plaited braids and little makeup, is looking at Garak with particular interest. “You’re the one who wrote the poems about Julian.”

Garak looks at the girl coolly. “Do you mean Dr. Bashir?”

She goes blue. “Oh, um. Yes. I do.” She tucks an imaginary lock of hair into her perfectly coiffed hair and lowers her head respectfully. “My apologies, Doctor.”

“Hey now,” the doctor scolds with good humor, “none of that. We’re all friends here.” 

The girl throws another searching glance Garak’s way. “Friends?”

That’s enough of that. “This is certainly quite the surprise,” Garak says genially, plastering on his most pleasant smile. “Is there something you needed? As Deep Space Nine’s resident Cardassian tailor and reputed troubadour, I’m always happy to be of service.” Julian sends him a sharp look, which he ignores. 

Jadzia is looking as foxy as she ever does, with a grin nearly to her spotted ears. “Julian asked me to bring them here,” she says too happily, and Garak has to sit back in his seat to process that. Julian scratches his neck with a guilty smile, obliviously alluring. It cannot be overstated that there are, still, eyes on them from all directions and angles.

“Garak, sir,” the Cardassian woman-child begins again, earnest, “let me start over. My name is Inia Milam. I am the President of the Ivory State Liberation Library. We collect–”

“Madam,” Garak interrupts her quietly, stunned. “This is hardly the time and place.” He blinks, still shocked stupid by her brazenness, and leans towards her, peering into her distressingly young features with beseeching desperation. “And I am hardly the audience.”

Milam doesn’t appear to process his warning at all, though. She just continues to look inquisitive. She has that gleam in her eyes that is common in Cardassian women, calculating and intelligent, but there’s something else there. Something indefinable that he’s seen hundreds of times over an interrogation table, but without the fear to staunch it. Without the hopelessness. It makes his stomach flip. “On the contrary, you are exactly the sort of person we look for.” She bows her head. “Dr. Bashir promised that if we assisted him a few days prior, he would introduce us so that I could formally welcome your book of poems into our shelves. I apologize if this comes as a surprise. I wish only to thank you for your excellent contribution, E. G., and tell you that we hope to welcome many more pieces from you in the future. I’ll be in touch. Dr. Bashir.” She nods to him, returns his gentle smile, and walks confidently away. The rest of the group mirror her, voicing similar words of polite farewell and appreciation, and leave.

Garak forces himself not to track their departure and instead picks up his fork again, as if nothing world-shattering has occurred at all. The cake is tasteless in his mouth.

Julian is concealing nothing of his thoughts, however. He’s staring openly at Garak, as if he’s a bomb and he’s trying to figure out which color wire to cut.

Ultimately, it’s Jadzia that breaks the tension. “Well,” she says, “that is some harem you’ve got there, Julian.”

“Jadzia,” Julian barks. She laughs.

“I’m teasing, I’m teasing.” Uncharacteristically, her impish smile turns regretful. “Now that that’s out of the way, I do have to bring your friend in for questioning,” she says, and that explains that. “I’m sorry, boys. I stalled Ben as long as I could.”

Garak polishes off the last of his meal and takes one last gulp of his tea to wash it down. With that done, he stands with a placid, conciliatory smile.

Julian puts a hand on his shoulder before he can take a step. “I’ll come see you after my shift.” Those lovely, dark, deep eyes search his, pinning him like a moth above his fireplace. “Okay?”

Garak inhales. “Without end,” he murmurs, waits for Julian’s eyes to light in understanding, and then aloud says, “I am at your disposal, Doctor. Good day.” With that and a firm, friendly pat on Julian’s hand, he limps away.

Jadzia rather pointedly watches him limp to the exit for a few long seconds before throwing Julian a rakish grin. “Well, well,” she says largely. Julian pretends not to notice, and Jadzia pivots on her heel after Garak.

“Before we lock you up and throw away the key, could you sign my datarod,” Julian hears Jadzia asking, and he shakes his head, unsuccessfully trying to rub away his smile.

Without end Do I think of you and so Come to me at night. For on the path of dreams at least, There's no one to disapprove! Ono no Komachi

[kayawolfhorse]

As It Was | Read on AO3

—☾—

Desert nights, in the shadow of the sweltering hours of daylight, are improbably, intolerably cold.

Neither Scar nor Grian had anticipated the biting chill that rose with the moon over the sea of sand dunes, and their castle, for all its formidable glory, had not simply not been built to retain heat. Drafts of frigid air seep through glassless windows and the slats cut along the uppermost edge of the outer walls and drift across the tall rooms, coming to a rest against bare floors. The base’s design works beautifully against the sun’s relentless rays, but the night’s clever fingers find purchase all too easily between every brick and beam.

“I think you’ve straightened that barrel four times by now,” Scar comments from where he’s sitting upon wrinkled covers in front of the furnaces. The bed’s placement is temporary—they have actual bedrooms now, decidedly the most reasonable place for a bed to be, but in lieu of any real chairs in the kitchen, Scar’s willing to delay its relocation.

“It was crooked every time,” Grian answers, and adjusts it again. His sleeves are wound tightly around his wrists, colorful wings held firm to his back, and there’s hardly a plank out of place in the double row of barrels that line the walls. Scar’s reluctance to leave the warmest room in the castle is clearly shared.

They continue to swap idle chatter and half-hearted battle plans until Grian runs out of excuses to linger and they’re both stifling yawns after every word.

“I guess that’s it, then,” Grian says, and his words drag along like stubborn heels wedged in sand.

“Guess so.” Scar makes no move to get up, and Grian remains rooted in place. After a moment of mutual inaction, an idea sparks to gleaming life. “You know, we could just stay here.”

“Yeah, but I’m tired,” Grian says. “Need to sleep at some point, and it’s not getting any warmer.”

“Well, lucky for us both, then, there’s already a bed right here.”

Two ticks pass undisturbed.

“You want to—share?” Grian sputters. His wings splay out slightly, seemingly of their own accord; Grian’s quick to smooth them back down.

“No reason not to!” Scar says. “I’m cold; you’re cold. Pooling body heat would be a very economical move.”

Grian stares at him, and Scar can practically hear the gears churning in his brain before he decides, “We can make adjustments to the castle tomorrow.”

“Of course.”

“This is a one-night thing.”

“Sure, sure.”

Scar lays down with his head to the furnaces, scooching back until there’s a nice, Grian-sized spot next to him. Slowly, hesitantly, Grian kicks off his shoes and slides into bed.

The narrow mattress is certainly meant for a single body, and the wall is cold against Scar’s exposed shoulder, but at every point where his other side meets Grian’s is blissful warmth. He resists the urge to melt on the spot.

The space between them is a held breath; just enough tension strings along Grian’s frame to be palpable, and his hand is balled into a loose fist at his hip.

After a moment, when his fingers uncurl in a quiet exhale and start to reach instead of refrain, Scar turns towards him and snakes a careful arm around his waist. Grian huffs, but relaxes his stiff shoulders, which Scar takes as an invitation to draw him closer into himself.

“Dude, you’re like a teddy bear,” Scar says into Grian’s soft hair.

“And you’re a barnacle,” Grian grumbles, and shifts beneath Scar’s grip. Scar releases him, unsure if he’d gone too far, but all Grian does is tug Scar further into his space and tuck his head beneath Scar’s chin. Scar chooses to blame the heat that spreads across his cheekbones on the sudden temperature change. “You’d be warmer with a shirt, you know.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” Scar says. Grian mutters something unintelligible, but his argument evens out with his breath; in one last sigh, he’s asleep.

Scar pulls the blanket more securely over them both before returning his arm to its position around Grian. They’ve hugged before, of course—Scar enjoys showering his friends with physical affection, and Grian’s a very huggable guy! The only real contrast is between their usual verticality and how horizontal they lay now.

It shouldn’t feel different. It shouldn’t. It’s rather late to be picking apart how it does.

For all Scar hid from it, sleep finds him with swift assurance, and the darkness pulls him under.

—☾—

It’s been a few minutes since Scar had gasped awake on his final life, gear-less, enchanter-less, and utterly alone. The wind that blows across a lonely mountaintop beyond his hut’s walls is the only sound that dares fracture the silence suffocating him.

His stuff is still back at the Southlands, if there’s even anything left of it. Murmurs of white-hot phantom pain ghost across every part of his skin the lava had touched.

He should go get his stuff. He should gather his few bits of TNT and ignite a trail of ruin within the base of those who have taken so much from him. There should be anger crackling at his very marrow, urging him forwards, avenging his death.

Scar stares at a scuff mark left behind on the calcite floor, and doesn’t move for a long time.

Eventually, the rattle of the doorknob startles Scar up onto his feet and into his usual place behind the just-for-show register. No one has business here anymore—he’s run out of his most precious commodities to sell. His fingers tighten against the counter.

Grian’s near-shoved inside by a particularly inspired gust, and he grunts as he hauls the door shut behind him. Everything about him is mussed; the scarf around his neck, the breaths that fall rapid-fire from his lips, his wings. Scar’s immediate instinct is still to offer a preen. He doesn’t.

“Hello there,” Scar greets instead. What else is there to do? Maybe he can work in a scam before Grian leaves.

Grian’s gaze snaps to Scar’s face before the words are fully out of his mouth. It’s foolish, really: there should be mockery swirling within the amber of Grian’s eyes; teasing pity, or, if Scar’s lucky, fear, but all he can find in the pinch of Grian’s mouth and the furrow of his brow is concern.

“I brought your items,” Grian says, and holds a pair of diamond trousers aloft. “D’you have a place to put them?”

Scar steps back from the counter and gestures to its empty surface. As Grian dumps what meager gear had survived the lava onto it, Scar briefly entertains a fantasy in which he’d sent Grian to deposit the items in the mess of chests outside instead. He supposes he couldn’t have prevented any thievery, should it have arisen, if Grian was out of his sight, but somewhere deep within, Scar gets the feeling Grian agrees that he’s already taken enough.

The sound of leather against wood brings Scar back to the present. He glances down; a book whose cover is marked by Bdubs’ familiar looping handwriting lands next to his pickaxe. A second book bearing Joel’s signature is soon to join it. Contracts.

Scar looks sharply at Grian, who shrugs. “I didn’t see mine.”

“So that’s it, then,” Scar says, and something bitter coats his throat.

Grian empties his bag of a final unlit torch. “I came all the way out here, didn’t I? The contract’s still on.”

“Oh,” Scar says. He blinks. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” Grian says. Uncertainty washes over his features in one second; it’s gone in the next. You wouldn’t happen to have tea, would you?”

Scar doesn’t, but from his inventory Grian produces not only a pouch of tea leaves but an entire kettle to prepare them in. He crouches before Scar’s tiny fireplace and fusses about setting water to boil while Scar uselessly rearranges things on the shelves that line the far wall. Against the brush of his fingers, a rack of crystals hanging from chords of string chime softly against each other, and Scar savors the sound; Grian, too, pauses to listen, and continues only when the twinkling has faded.

Long after the dregs of tea have cooled, it becomes apparent that Grian isn’t leaving, and Scar doesn’t understand why. Even his contract didn’t oblige him with this—the stipulations may protect Scar from Grian’s physical harm, and give demand for resources when he needs them, but they’re not really allies, not this time around.

Scar doesn’t know what to make of it. He certainly doesn’t know what to make of Grian’s tired eyes and empty hands as he sits on the floor beside Scar’s bed.

He holds his tongue for an admirably long time. Company is so few and far between, after all.

“What are you still doing here, G?” Scar asks.

Grian stares for a fierce, resolute moment at the floor before answering. He must’ve found the same scuff.

When he looks up, his mouth churns for a second before words start to come out of it. “It’s awfully cold out,” he says. “I figured I’d let the worst of it pass.”

Scar considers this. It really is quite frigid, and where the rest of the server is swathed in the honey-boughed trees of autumn, his mountain sees only the hardiest of evergreens. Dusk brings a fierce bite that threatens to close its jaws around any player foolish enough to traverse its snowy cliffs.

“It won’t get any better ‘til the sun comes out, I’m afraid,” Scar says lightly.

The thing is, Grian’s not lying. It’s not a lie, but it’s not the truth, either. He’s keeping something from Scar (when’s the last time he told Scar anything, anyway? Scar knows the answer) and Scar can’t figure out what.

Though, Scar supposes, full honesty is hardly a ware upon his own shelves. If things were different, if they stood on different ground and the air between them wasn’t filled with static, Scar would press harder.

He lets Grian keep his not-lie, free of charge.

“That’s alright,” Grian says. He removes the goggles perched in his hair and tilts his head back against the corner of the mattress behind him, closing his eyes. “I’ll be gone before you know it.”

Scar gives himself exactly three seconds to breathe before he unclasps his cloak and leaves it on its hook by the door. He’ll have to dig his black one out of whatever chest it’s stashed in tomorrow to better drape over his last life. Carefully, haltingly, he climbs into bed, and, once beneath the covers, gives Grian’s shoulder a gentle tug.

A single half-slitted eye flicks up to Scar’s outstretched arm.

“Just for tonight?” Scar asks. He thinks he might be pleading. “A one-night thing.”

Just when Scar’s about to take back his words and encase them in fake laughter, insisting he didn’t mean them, Grian shrugs out of his boots and crawls into bed, and easily curls around Scar.

His hand finds Scar’s own and squeezes, briefly, before letting go. It travels up the side of Scar’s neck—Scar shouldn’t trust this much, and Grian shouldn’t be this gentle—until his fingers twine around a strand of Scar’s hair.

“It’s getting long,” Grian says, and his eyes are far too pained. Scar wonders if he, too, is thinking about the nights they passed a pair of shears between them to trim each other’s unruly messes of hair before remembering that neither of them should care about that anymore.

“Haven’t had time to cut it,” Scar lies. The echo of what’s left unsaid is unbearably loud.

Grian fully retracts his hand; his countenance shutters with it. After a moment, he rests his arm over Scar’s waist. “A one-night thing,” he says, like it’s a reminder.

For all he can foolishly hope otherwise, Scar knows Grian means it. It’s a far cry from countless nights spent scheming in whispers on a single bed whose crevices always held pinches of sand, no matter how hard they shook out the covers. Tomorrow night, he will be alone again.

For the fleeting moments he has him, Scar holds Grian close and aches.

—☾—

There’s a second heartbeat intertwined around Scar’s own between his ribs, and it’s as familiar as a path trodden down by years of use; as foreign as the untouched grass of a new world’s spawn, and its owner lies across the room from him.

The sensation is odd: to share something only ever meant for one body feels like it should feel wrong, like it’s breaking a line of code within the Universe itself. Stranger still is to be so far away from his counterpart, when surely they’ve been melded as one. Every part of him yearns to reach across the expanse between their beds.

Grian’s heart drums out a wrenching sort of homesickness within his ears. Scar kind of hates it.

“Grian, did you move the diamonds somewhere?” Scar calls over his shoulder. With a collective distaste in organization, the pair of them make for a blight upon storage systems everywhere, but Scar could’ve sworn the few diamonds they had left were right here a day ago.

“Hm? Oh, yeah, I moved them further in. Let me grab them.” Grian appears with an axe in hand, and pries up a few floorboards near the back wall to expose a hidden chest. He gestures to it. “Gathered up our iron and TNT supplies, too.”

“You never tell me anything,” Scar muses as he crouches down to grab enough diamonds for a pickaxe. When he looks up at Grian, he’s got a funny expression on his face, like he’s bitten into a melon that’s been left out in the sun for too long.

“I tell you plenty,” he says, and his tone edges into something defensive.

Scar examines a nail. “Didn’t tell me about the secret chest though, did’ja?”

“I was going to,” Grian says evenly. His pale knuckles are in the process of turning whiter around the handle of his axe.

“When?” Scar asks. “After you gathered all the courage you needed to share plans with your teammate? After I’d caught you with red enough hands that you had no choice?”

“No!” Grian must’ve noticed his tightening grip, and shoves the axe back onto his belt. “No, Scar, that’s not it.”

“Then what is it, I wonder? I don’t think you trust me, Grian.”

“I trust you plenty,” Grian dismisses. Liar. Something cracks beneath Scar’s eye. “It’s not like you tell me everything you get up to, anyway.”

“It was a bit of light arson, everything’s fine.” Scar waves a flippant hand. “I can make my own decisions and you should support me in them, as my soulmate.”

“Making enemies behind my back isn’t fine,” Grian says with a glare. “Not when both of our lives are at stake.”

“Sure, but I would’ve told you straight away,” Scar says. “It’s not my fault you heard about it through rumors before I could get to you. You clearly don’t feel the same about what you keep from me.”

“I just didn’t think it concerned you,” Grian mutters.

“Concerned me?” Scar exclaims. “They’re our resources! Why wouldn’t that concern me?”

“Cared. I didn’t think you cared,” Grian corrects himself. A nasty little thing worms its way into his tone as he says, “It doesn’t affect the pandas. What reason do you have to care?”

“We’re supposed to be a team,” Scar spits out. “And let me tell you, you’ve done a crap job so far.”

“Oh, Scar, we haven’t been one for a long time,” Grian says, and his blade softens to barbs wrapped around Scar’s flesh. “Why start now?”

The wire tightens. Scar bleeds.

He doesn’t grace Grian with another word before storming out of the haphazard storage room. Grian can hide any chest he wants, Scar doesn’t care. He doesn’t.

Dread prickles along the nerves of Scar’s palms. The darkness before him is blinding; he can’t see, no matter how wide he tries to open his eyes. Weight presses down upon every limb, and he’s trapped, he’s vulnerable, and all around him, inky blackness roars—

“—Scar? Scar. C’mon, buddy.”

Scar bolts upright. It takes a moment before low torchlight burns into view, and the room around him sharpens. He holds a hand to his brow. It comes away sweaty.

“Scar.”

Right. Grian’s kneeling beside Scar’s bed, his red sweater a bloodstain in the dimness, and his hand hovers close to Scar’s arm. When Scar meets his gaze, his reach drops entirely.

“Yes?” Scar asks expectantly. He had avoided Grian for the rest of the day after their argument, and was asleep before Grian had returned to the base; this is the first they’ve spoken in hours.

“You were having a nightmare,” Grian says, and gestures to his own chest. Scar’s heartbeat had given him away.

“Oh.”

Uncomfortable silence falls between them. Scar fidgets with the blanket and vaguely debates what time it must be.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Grian says. His delivery is lacking, in Scar’s humble opinion, and at least some of that must show on his face, because Grian continues: “Really, I am. I should’ve told you straight away.”

“You should’ve trusted me straight away,” Scar adds. He’s been taken off-guard, admittedly. Grian’s always been the type to argue fast and apologize just as quickly afterwards, but this is the first time he’s said it here. Scar wouldn’t have expected it to come in the middle of the night, but Grian’s also never been one for general reason.

“I should’ve,” Grian agrees. “It’s pretty lousy to go behind your soulmate’s back like that; you deserved to have known.”

“Thank you,” Scar says, a bit stunned.

“We kind of suck at this whole soulbound business,” Grian says, with a humorless little laugh.

Scar shrugs. “We’ll manage.”

Grian’s forehead furrows and he scans Scar’s face before he nods once, slowly, decisively. “Yeah, we will.”

It’s too late in the night for truthfulness, and Scar’s edges are feeling rather raw, so instead of releasing the hundreds of words that threaten to tumble from the tip of his tongue, he extends an arm in invitation to Grian.

Grian doesn’t hesitate to haul himself forwards and settle his head upon Scar’s chest when they’re both properly laying down. Scar might cry. He buries his face in Grian’s hair.

“For what it’s worth,” Grian says, a final breath before sleep, “I’m glad to share a heart with you, as accident-prone as you sometimes are. I don’t think I’d want it to be anyone else.”

Scar squeezes him tighter. Grian hugs him back. The distance gaping between them doesn’t feel quite so insurmountable.

—☾—

“Hi Grian! I’m so sorry, but it had to happen. Thank you.”

Grian’s unblinking stare doesn’t waver. If Scar squints, he can almost convince himself he sees some semblance of life in the stiff form of his body through the water that cascades between them.

“No—this isn’t an apology session, he tells you your future,” Bdubs says, and the group crammed together in the little stone room erupts into giggles. Scar defends his position against their teasing through his own laughter.

Still chuckling, Scott says, “You know what, this can be whatever you want. For Scar, it can be a confessional, and for the rest of us it can be fortune telling.”

“Okay, hold on, one second.” Scar clears his throat and peers back through the waterfall. It’s almost easier to hold Grian’s eyes when he’s not behind them. Scar misses their spark. “I’m sorry that I baby-talked you so much, you were just so cute on your little llama. I’m so sorry that I killed you, but I had to. It was part of the moment, things happen. Thank you.”

Someone gives a short-winded clap.

Scar turns around with a flourish before straightening. “I feel better.”

“Lovely,” Bdubs says.

After the bit has run its course, Scar shuffles aboveground with everyone else and lags behind when they head for their respective bases. When the coast is clear, he doubles back to where Grian’s been left.

First he plugs the water, and in its absence, the room is shockingly still. He then drops into a crouch by the wall next to Grian, and unhooks his legs beneath him until he’s sat flat on the ground, leaning against the cool stone.

“I lied,” Scar says, staring into nothing. “I said I was sorry for killing you, but I’m not. Well, maybe I am. I’m sorry for not being more sorry.”

Will Grian be mad when he wakes? Surely he’d expected chaos upon leaving his unoccupied body on a server like this. It’d be, frankly, unreasonable not to. If anything, he’s lucky he’s not on red, or a shimmering spectator floating through the night!

Scar is briefly distracted by visions of a ghostly Grian wearing a leather jacket as solid as the moral world around him, like when one forgets to remove their armor after taking a potion of invisibility. He voices as much to the real Grian, and the faint echo that follows his own voice is his only response.

It feels wrong to let the stifling hush fall back into place, so Scar fills it.

He tells Grian about the Clockers, and how their tower is coming along. He recounts a funny encounter with Martyn and all of the spectacular ways Scar’s traps have failed. Joel had complimented Scar’s triple kill, Scar can’t help but gloat, and winces when he gets to the part where all three of the players who’d died were yellow.

“You’d be proud,” Scar says. “Almost a quad.” There is something undeniably warm and inexplicably aching in his chest.

“I miss you sometimes,” he confesses, “and it’s silly, because you’re right there in front of me. You’ve got your sunglasses and your bread bad bridge boys—however you say it—and it’s stupid to miss someone you can see, right?”

He tilts his head up and traces patterns in the ceiling. “I’m happy with Mom and Bdubs. I’m not sorry for burning your mansion down or maybe sort of poking around your chests. We both know how Double Life ended.”

From his pocket, Scar produces a bedroll, and he briefly shuffles around to place it where he’d been sitting and re-settle upon it. His legs were getting sore.

“We make a good team.” Sepia-toned kitchens and grey trouser pockets lined with TNT bleed into spiked fortresses and mildewed cities deep underground. “Or maybe we don’t.”

Scar sighs. “Silly of me, isn’t it?”

A stuttering cough jolts Scar from the hazy area between wakefulness and sleep. It takes him a moment to place where he is. There’s a crick in his neck from where he’d been awkwardly leaning it against the stone.

“Of all the places to be, I don’t think this is what I was expecting,” Grian says contemplatively to Scar’s right, his voice a little scratchy.

“Oh!” Scar says, startled. “Good… something, sleepyhead.”

“Scar? What are you doing here?” Grian asks. Scar watches as he clambers out of the hole he’d been put in on unsteady feet. “Actually, scratch that. Where is here?”

“Somewhere under Entertainment Mountain!” Scar frowns. “I think.”

“Right, okay.” Grian’s remarkably composed for someone in his position. “Getting back to my first point, are you a guard or something?”

“You were telling fortunes,” Scar says.

It’s astonishing how different Grian’s blank stare is now compared to his previous state. He shakes his head as if to clear it and says, “Actually, I’ve decided that I don’t want to know.

“You told Scott he’d soon come into a stack of diamonds and promised Bdubs a puppy,” Scar says, just to mess with him.

Grian snorts. “Sad to have missed it.” Something like relief floods through Scar.

“Fun times, fun times,” Scar says. “Off to your bread boys, then?”

“Are you off to your Clockers?” Grian asks. He nearly smirks with it.

“It is pretty late,” Scar says, and his own smile grows.

“The boys will definitely want more of an explanation than what I’m awake enough to give,” Grian agrees. He gestures to the space next to Scar, and asks, “That seat wouldn’t happen to be taken, would it?”

Though their teams will worry, though they’ll wake up tomorrow and join opposite sides once more, Grian’s legs tangle between Scar’s own and his breath puffs gently against the juncture of Scar’s neck. Scar’s fingers dig into the softness of Grian’s sweater. He’s glad Grian had left his jacket behind before taking off for… wherever he went.

“So, what was your fortune?” Grian asks, and Scar can feel the words against his skin. They dance as they fall from Grian’s lips, light and teasing.

“That I’m going to win Limited Life, of course,” Scar says with a grin.

Grian hums. “Guess we’ll see.”

—☾—

Twilight catches between each of the sunflowers’ petals that have not yet been shrouded in the shadow of the wall around Scar’s valley, a pretty contrast to the craters he’s been tripping over on the way home. He catches the edge of the nearest flower between his forefinger and thumb as he passes by and releases it before the petals can tear away.

The glow of his outpost is a beacon; once inside, Scar collapses against the door on weary bones. He’d been set on fire a couple times today, and none of it compares to the burn nipping at his feet now. Exhaustion barely begins to cover the shape of his lungs and every limb.

Scar’s moved to sitting on the counter’s edge with his boots removed when a knock sounds at his door. “Come in,” he calls without looking up.

“You’re in a sorry state, aren’t you.” Grian appears in front of Scar. He’s looking rather disheveled himself—his wings, in particular, are just as rumbled as the rolled-up cuffs of his sweater and the white undershirt that peeks out from his collar.

“Wow, rude,” Scar comments.

“Nah, I didn’t mean it like that,” Grian says. “I came to check on you. Big day, yeah?”

Scar scoffs. “That stupid thing chased me for like—an hour!”

“And you made a valiant effort,” Grian says, and gives Scar’s shoulder a compassionately gentle pat. “I brought a golden apple over, if you need it.”

“Here at Trader Scar’s, stock is looking unfortunately low at this very second.” Scar waves a hand in the vague direction of the barrels on the wall. “Come back tomorrow.”

“At no cost.” The corner of Grian’s lip quirks up.

“Well, in that case…” Scar holds out a palm, and Grian passes him the apple. He takes a bite and savors its sweetness, ambrosia whose warmth runs over top of his wounds without truly mending them. The kindness of the gesture itself soaks deeper, and Scar’s determined to savor that, too.

Grian watches him for a moment. His gaze seems to skirt across every inch of Scar, never lingering on any specific part. “Got any other general ailments?”

“Can’t do much about them, now can we?” Scar shrugs.

“Sure, but I could at least clean them.” Grian’s tone is nonchalant, but his words, Scar knows, are anything but. This matters to him. The corners of Scar’s eyes crinkle.

The Wither—and the rest of the day’s shenanigans—had left a number of scrapes and bruises along Scar’s skin that turning in his task hadn’t fully healed. A dull sort of sting gnaws at the lines of Scar’s nerves, residue from the withering he hadn’t been able to dodge. His legs hurt and his head throbs and there’s a twinge in his shoulder from where Scar had collided with a wall at an odd angle.

His hands are in arguably the worst state of it all; bare to the earth Scar caught himself upon when he tripped, and tight around a bow when he dared to turn and shoot. He offers them up first to Grian, who takes them, one at a time, and cleans away the dirt and blood with invariable carefulness.

From his pocket Grian pulls a roll of bandages, which he uses to wrap each of Scar’s palms. The rhythm is soothing, and Grian’s steady warmth is familiar. The pain ebs, if even just for a moment, in the wake of his touch.

“Anything else?” Grian asks after he releases Scar’s hands. Though he remains close enough for his breath to fan lightly across the tip of Scar’s nose, Scar mourns the loss of contact immediately.

“Nothing that can be wrapped, it seems,” Scar says. “You?”

“I’m pretty alright,” Grian says. “I feel like I could sleep an entire week, though.”

“Sleeping on wings looking like that?” Scar says conversationally. “They’ll be worse by morning.”

“Oh,” Grian says, sounding a little surprised. He tosses a half-glance over his shoulder. “They’ll be fine.”

“Nonsense!” Scar says. “I’d be a terrible host if I let a guest stay over in such discomfort.”

“Really, there’s no need,” Grian says, leveling Scar a look. Unfortunately for him, Scar’s thoroughly familiar with his tactics.

“You fixed me up,” Scar says, “it’s only fair if I do the same, right?”

“You don’t owe me anything,” Grian says. “I didn’t come over for any deals.”

“Consider this to be on the house,” Scar says. Softer, he adds, “I want to. If you’ll have me.”

Grian’s quiet for a long moment. His wing twitches in seeming contemplation.

“Fair is fair,” he concedes soon after. “Want any help getting into bed?”

“Please.”

Scar wraps an arm over Grian’s shoulder, careful to avoid his wings, while Grian braces Scar across his back. Together they make their way into the outpost’s second room, where Scar’s bed is nestled amidst a pile of chests. Scar tugs off his poncho and tosses it onto the nearest surface, then settles onto the bed against the far wall. Grian perches on the edge in front of him and spreads out a wing.

They really are beautiful this time around, all earthy browns and creamy tans, speckled with spots of black that remind Scar of rich, dark soil. He runs gentle fingers through the nearest plumage, carding out debris and straightening feathers knocked out of place.

The repeated motions are comforting, like petting a cat (and gosh, does he miss Jellie, but he’d asked her once if she’d wanted to accompany him, and she’d meowed back with what he’s pretty sure meant no, thank you very much, death games would be terrible for my coat, and that was that), and after he finishes the section he’d been working on, he runs a flat hand over it appreciatively. Grian very generously allows about three seconds of this, punctuated by a slight shake of his shoulders and heavy sigh, before shrugging Scar off.

Moving on to the next part, Scar asks, “How’s life been with Etho and Cleo?”

Scar can see Grian’s slight smile where it raises part of his cheek. “It’s good. They’re weird, but, like, in a good way. Chill.”

“Sounds like them,” Scar says, and murmurs an apology when he plucks a broken feather. Grian hardly flinches, and Scar knows why it must be done, but he can’t help but feel the slightest bit of guilt every time. “So the Wither, it was your task?”

“Yep,” Grian says, popping the p. “Me and Etho’s, actually. We had to set up a boss fight between the Wither and warden. Definitely didn’t expect it to lock in so heavily on you, though. Sorry about that.”

“A task’s a task, right?” Scar says. “Thanks for saving me, back there.”

The rift Grian had pried open in the server’s code had left a gash without taking hearts; Scar has the ripped sleeve to prove it. Floating between worlds is hardly pleasant, however anchored he’d still technically been to Secret Life, and solid ground upon his return had been a relief. Even more immensely relieving was spotting the Wither on Scott’s tail instead of his own.

Scar doesn’t know why Grian did it. Though friendly enough, they aren’t teamed.

“It’s the least I could’ve done,” Grian answers, and releases his other wing from where he’d been preening it across his lap. “Are you about finished?”

“Almost.” All that’s left are the tiny feathers at the juncture of Grian’s wings and his back, sprouting from the open panel of his shirt. They’re not particularly out of place, but when Scar smooths them down, he’s rewarded with a shiver that reverberates down the length of Grian’s spine. Grian whacks Scar with a wing. “Hey! You’ll mess up my work.”

“Should’ve thought about that,” Grian says primly before he twists to face Scar and pulls his legs up onto the bed. “It’s nap time, anyway.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Scar says, and collapses sideways, pulling Grian down with him.

The outpost feels all that less lonesome when Grian’s tucked into Scar’s side beneath a blanket of feathers. Grian’s warmth is soothing against Scar’s pains, and for all the questions that still buzz behind his eyes, Grian’s presence puts Scar’s somnolent-syruped mind at something close to ease.

Grian traces slow patterns into Scar’s arm. Scar falls asleep trying to decipher what they could be.

—☾—

The footsteps that pad up the mountain long after Lizzie and Jimmy have passed out are a surprise. What little remains of the reputation board still smolders a mere few blocks away from Scar, and his yellow life sits fresh in his chest. He’d assumed their little arrangement had drawn to an explosive end.

“Come to take your revenge?” Scar asks the shadow over him. “It’s against the gentleman's code to kill a guy in his sleep.”

If Scar admits it to himself, he’s happy to see Grian. From nearly the first second Scar had made his bed, Grian had claimed half of it as his own, and Scar would be reluctant to give up his nightly company, with what ease they slot together in and how warm Grian is looped around him. Scar’s teammates have long given up their protest, but Lizzie declares a continual disregard of principle if Grian’s still around by the time she rises from her own slumber.

“I’m still mad at you,” Grian says, and though he can’t see it, Scar can hear his scowl. “Move over.”

Scar graciously complies, and Grian shoves beneath the blanket. He keeps his back towards Scar and his legs curled firmly away, a display that’d achieve more of an effect if his head wasn’t a breath away from Scar’s on the bed’s single pillow. His feathers are ticklish where they brush lightly against Scar.

“You’re about to fall off,” Scar observes.

“Shut up,” comes the grumbled reply. Grudgingly, Grian scoots all of an inch inwards. “It’s none of your business if I choose to sleep on the ground, anyway. It’d be more tolerable than your company.”

Grian would do no such thing, and they both know it. Still, Scar says, “But the thud, skip, and squawk would definitely disrupt my beauty sleep, so it’s really in my best interest to make sure you don’t go tumblin’.”

“I’ll go tumbling if I want to,” Grian answers, tilting his head to the sky to glare at Scar from the corner of his vision, “and it’d be your fault when I die from fall damage. Again.”

“We’re even!” Scar says. “That’s all in the past.”

“We are not even, and that was like, five hours ago!”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” Scar challenges.

“That’s different,” Grian says, flat.

Scar pauses. He doesn’t want to antagonize Grian into actually leaving, not really. The steps to their dance have worn well into his soles, and the shape of his partner is familiar between his arms.

He’d missed Grian. For all of their posturing, twirling the line between enemy and friend, to have him by his side once more beneath the winking moon’s light is a gratifying reprieve.

“A truce, then,” Scar eventually says, “if we’re not even.”

“A truce,” Grian agrees. The anger in his voice has faded like lips pulled over once-bared teeth. Scar can’t quite make out what replaces it, but through the tiredness that seeps in along Grian’s edges, Scar’s fairly certain he’s not about to be bit.

“And friends?” Scar teasingly tries. He can envision the scrunch of Grian’s nose as clear as day when he huffs in reply.

“Not friends,” Grian says. “But beyond someone’s cheap shot, we’re not really enemies, are we?”

“Not if you don’t want to be,” Scar says. Something surges out with aching fingers from the cavity between his ribs where two hearts had once beat in tandem. It’s fun to rile Grian up, but what side he stands on hardly matters in stopping Scar, anyway. It’d be nice, he thinks, to not be enemies.

“Though you’re still dead to me,” Grian says, “we’ve had plenty of practice being enemies before. We can stay affably neutral here if you don’t go taking any more dirty kills.”

Scar shrugs and nods, but he can’t help his grin. “Gotta keep it fresh.”

Grian clicks his tongue in the same way he always does when they’ve reached the same conclusion. Scar’s sure that, if he’d been watching Grian instead of the stars above them, he would’ve caught Grian’s accompanying wink.

“Goodnight, Grian,” Scar says, and closes his eyes.

“Goodnight, Scar.” Grian turns fully back onto his side. He scoots in another inch. The blanket undergoes a considerable amount of rearranging before it adequately covers them both.

After everything’s been sorted, Scar reaches out. Grian’s hand meets his own halfway across the mattress. Their linked fingers are awfully close to honesty, and a shared pillow is the nearest Scar’s ever been to trust.

A truce hums behind Scar’s eyelids, and he lets the darkness pull him under.

“And we’re best friends?”

“We’re best friends.”

The sun is shining and the morning feels ripe with opportunity when Scar wakes. Grian’s hold on Scar is fierce even in sleep, and Scar takes a moment to bask in it.

It’s all a bit hard to fully wrap his mind around. They’re allies again—no, better yet, friends. The sensation is apricity against frost-nipped fingers. It’s the light of a campfire and the jaunty melody of the song shared around it. It’s home.

After a tick or two—Grian’s never been one to let too much of the day’s beginning go to waste—Grian shifts and blinks the bleariness from his eyes. Scar’s chest feels impossibly aglow with fondness.

“Hi,” Grian says when he lifts his gaze to Scar’s face.

“Good morning,” Scar says, and, just to make sure: “Best friend?”

Grian snorts. “I meant it. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

There’s a mace tucked away somewhere in his inventory and a thousand things piled between them. Scar remembers sand, and wood, and stone; he remembers sleep-warm skin and linens as soft as a death game can afford beneath his fingertips.

Scar kisses Grian, once, just to feel his startled laugh against his own mouth. They rise in staggered tandem, and Grian presses his lips to Scar’s temple before disappearing down the mountainside to rejoin his team.

Smiling, Scar stretches his shoulders with a satisfying crack, and goes off to find his own.

[n0tamused]

Hiya

Please can I request some hurt/comfort with Kaveh, like maybe the reader gets injured. Also I saw on one of your posts a couple months ago you weren't secure with writing him, so if you still aren't I would mind Alhaitham or Ayato <3

A/n: Hello, I'm not sure where I was going with this honestly, I haven't written for Kaveh in what feels like a decade so I hope I didn't butcher him. However, I admittedly rushed a bit so I can get back to you with it and I do hope I was able to provide some comfort to you with this. Hope you enjoy🌙

Contents: Kaveh x reader, gn, hurt angst to fluff, sensitive reader? Imo... Drabble wordvomit

“Where have you been?! Do you know how worried I was about you-” the loudness his tone reached pulled the octaves of his voice higher, unlike the sweet lilt he usually addresses you with. Turning your head sharply to look at him through the thin veil of the dark night, your tear stained cheeks stun him for a good moment, making him choke back words and audibly he stutters and sputters as his eyes widen further. His eyes flicker over your face, across your features until he follows the bend of your arms that hold your leg and foot, both hastily wrapped in bandages - if the situation wasn't as dire as it was Kaveh would've scoffed and made fun of it. 

“Where were you-” he asks again, his voice swimming in fear as a chill runs up his spine despite the scalding desert air. More than one question is squeezed into those three words as he rushes over to kneel beside you. Cautious, airy hands hover over the ankle and the shin of your leg, but he refuses to touch you, as if you break from the simplest of touches. He looks up into your eyes again, silently pleading for a response to all the questions brewing in his mind. “What happened to you? Were you attacked? W-When did this happen? Do you not know how long I've been looking for you?!-”

Mehrak swoops into the sands, releasing a little sound that was both alarm and curiosity, the blinking green dots for eyes angled in your direction. Soft little beeps come from the suitcase looking machinery, yet you have little strength to pay any attention to it. 

“I-I’m fine..! I just sprained my ankle really badly while I was looking for you and.. I couldn’t walk properly, I thought I wouldn’t be able to make it back” you explain, a breath of ease filling your lungs as you paw at your eyes with your hands to dry your tears, fear still grasping your bones with chilly hands. Not only were you dazed from the scorching sun, but now the cooling night air was slowly creeping up, already heralding a fever in your fatigued muscles. “I didn’t even know which direction to go in, everything looks the same around here” adding that, Kaveh holds his breath as he carefully takes your shin in hand to lift it from the ground, his other hand holding your foot to take a better look at it. He could smell the fear on you and he couldn’t blame you one bit for feeling so scared, he had his moments too where he thought he was lost to the dunes. But not a moment has passed before he was already gritting his teeth, saying “I shouldn’t have agreed to bring you this far out.. ugh, and to even leave you alone.. Why did you go after me? I told you to stay in the shade, I wasn't going to be away for so long and..” he sighs, nearly wincing as he trails off. 

He’s grumbling, taking the whole weight of the blame on his shoulders, again, his brows knitting together, angling in sadness as his chin lightly tips down so he could look at your foot, gently probing the skin. 

“It’s fine, I shouldn’t have been so stubborn to leave the camp.. Had I gone any further out..” you trail off, dreading to think what could have happened. 

Kaveh goes to open his mouth and say something, ready to scold you and lecture you all about how Eremites could have found you, mercenaries, scorpions, and how all of it could have impact him if all he found of you was pieces hanging between a vulture’s beak. He shivers and closes his mouth, remembering the fear and glistening tears on your eyes, tears of frustration and fear and fatigue no doubt. 

Keep quiet, Kaveh, he scolds himself instead. 

“But you did not, and that is good.. that is a relief.. Would you like to try and stand, with my help of course. We still need to get back to camp” his voice mellows out towards the end, and he lets go of your ankle when you wince at one particular touch from his fingers. He lowers it to the sand slowly and turns to look at you, his elbow resting on his knee.

“No..no..I tried. But… Let me try again” you persist, suddenly feeling a wash of determination to ease his worry or perhaps prove to yourself that what you've done isn't as stupid as it was. Kaveh looks at you, unsure but he doesn't go against it as you're already grasping on his shoulder and trying to lift yourself up.

His hands fly to your waist, stabilizing you when you stumble, bringing you closer to his side so you have something to hold on to. But it all came crashing down when you accidentally went to step on your injured foot, sending a shock of pain up your body. Kaveh sighs, frustrated at the situation, and he is swift to lower you back to the ground. “You can't walk with a foot like that..” he says through his teeth, his heart constructing painfully at your own pain. For what seems like the nth time, he sighs and his arms swoop underneath you. “Hang on to me.. let's try this. One, two and- three” he tells you, and waits until you're clinging onto him before he lifts you up in his embrace. 

His arm is underneath your knees and the other supports your back, and now that you're closer to him you can feel the shaky breaths he's pulling into his lungs. He's refusing to look at you now as he begins to tread through the moving sand underfoot. 

“Kaveh…” you whisper as you look at him, greeted by the side of his face. The fine sheen of sweat is visible in the dying daylights, and his hair is a complete mess, and you can feel grains of sand throughout his scarves and clothing.  “Are you… alright?”

“I am alright.. just..” he looks to the side for a moment, his eyelids falling heavy over his dark colored eyes. “I was just really worried about you..” he confessed, as if it was hard to tell. Were it any sort of other situation, you would've teased and cackled at him, but you can feel his tense muscles begging to feel you, and you're sure he'll begin trembling at any moment.

“Oh, Kaveh…” you coo gently, creeping onto his shoulder like a shy doe, apologetic and sad. “I'm sorry.. I really am. I am fine now, okay? It's just a sprained ankle, it happened before, and this surely isn't the last time I'll sprain it”

Kaveh steals a glance at you, his eyes flickering over your face before he turns his gaze forward again, watching how Mehrak floated ahead to light the way in green and pale lime hues.  “It's alright..  I'm just glad to have found you, and that the injury wasn't any worse. But I hope you know I will not forget this, ever” his tone gains a part of its natural flare and passion, still wishing to scold you as if that would teach you a lesson and make you forget how to get hurt.

“I promise to be more careful, okay? Will that soothe you any better?” You lean the side of your head on his shoulder, feeling the tension slowly melting from his shoulders.

“Yeah, right. That's what you said last time as well, and look where that got you”

“Last time there was an accident, that guy pushed me!”

“Oh, spare me- and this wasn't an accident?-”

Ⓒ n0tamused. Do not repost, translate, edit, and/or copy any of my works. Likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated.

[s1k0zu]

Hey everyone,

While I was a bit (okay a lot) late to board the Austin train, once I did, I fell HARD. Before I saw him in Dune II, I knew about him, but never thought to take a second look.

Then I saw Dune and I still can't get Austin's performance out of my head. He was amazing! 😍

I've devoured everything I can find with him since then, and I've been reading a lot of fan fiction lately, and a scene has been playing on repeat in my mind, so I decided to write it down.

I love all the Feyd fics but I find myself wanting more of Austin and less of Feyd (he's just a bit too intense and I kinda miss the hair). So I came up with the idea below.

Let me know if you liked it and if you want me to try writing about something else. 🫣

Fair warning ⚠️ I've never written any fiction before, so this will probably be a mess...and it's maybe a bit too long.

🔞 It's pure smut, so minors stay away!

Under his skin

You and Austin have been together since before his Elvis movie.

You'd met when you were teenagers and became fast friends, but until you had to spend two weeks locked together in his apartment in Australia, because of the pandemic, that was all you were - friends.

You'd visited him for the weekend and then the lockdown forced you to stay.

The tension between the two of you had started escalating gradually, until one night he couldn't resist kissing you any longer. All it took was that one kiss and you were his forever.

You started getting jobs in the crew of all of his projects so you could stay together, which is why you're now in Budapest on the set of Dune II.

It's early morning and it's already as hot as hell. Add to that the giant sound box you've been setting up, so Austin can film his fight scenes in it later, and you're close to fainting.

You haven't seen Austin in two months, because he was busy training in L.A. and you were on location in Jordan with the rest of the cast.

You flew in with the night flight, dropped your bags at his place and went straight to set. He was already there, getting into costume, and you didn't have the time to see him.

Once you're done setting up and finally have some free time you head to his trailer to surprise him and wish him luck.

You open the door and cool air hits your face. Then you see him and you're sure the chill running down your body isn't from the AC.

He's gloriously naked, a black loincloth is all that covers his body. They've painted his torso with black lines and he's got his bald cap already in place. You've seen him in full costume before, but only in photos. This hits differently.

There's something feral and imposing about him and it's doing things to you. Gone is the sweet, gentle Austin you know and in his place is a man who exudes power and dominance.

His body is pure perfection and you know how hard he worked to get here.

"Hey, Earth to y/n. Are you ok?" Austin's voice comes through the fog.

"Yeah", you sigh, "It's just..."

"What?", he asks, a sly smirk forming on his lips.

"Let's just say if you weren't about to shoot, I'd be ruining your makeup right now", you say, raking your gaze over his gorgeous naked body.

"Fuck", he mutters and steps toward you, biting his lower lip, his eyes darkening with want.

"Ah, ah", you stop him, placing a hand on his chest, "makeup."

"Damn you woman! How am I supposed to focus now?", he asks brushing a stray hair behind your ear.

"Hey, I'm not the one wearing next to nothing here," you tell him, "and you're not the only one having a hard time focusing."

You brush your lips against his and his hands instantly grip your face as he deepens the kiss. All the frustration of not being able to touch each other for the past two months melts as your tongues dance frantically, fighting for dominance.

"I'll make you a deal," you say, panting, "you go slay them with your talent and we can come back here during the lunch break, to finish this."

"Deal", he says huskily in your ear, melting you with his beautiful voice.

A crew member comes in to call him to set and breaks the tension before you two can go any further.

You watch him perform, always in awe of his ability to switch between himself and the character in seconds. You busy yourself with work and bringing him water bottles and towels between takes, and just like that the hours go by and it's time for lunch.

"I can't wait to take this thing off my head. I'm sweating like a pig," Austin says, taking a towel from your hands. He's been doing fighting scenes for the past hour and he's in full combat get up.

"I'll stick around to help with the set. Text me when you're done and we can take a shower," you say, walking your fingers playfully up his chest. You lean up to give him a quick kiss but he grabs your waist to keep you there, turning it into a steamy makeout session.

"I've missed you so much," Austin breathes out, his forehead touching yours.

"I've missed you too," you say, tilting his head lower to kiss his nose.

You disengage and he heads to his trailer so the makeup team can remove his bold cap.

A while later you get a text from Austin:

R u coming? We had a deal remember?

You mutter an excuse and head towards his trailer, willing yourself not to run.

#

When you enter, you see him running a hand through his wet hair, the bald cap gone. He still hasn't removed his costume.

"Want some help with that my lord", you ask, starting to unzip the back of his wetsuit.

When he hears you call him that Austin feels a shiver run down his body. He turns and wraps his arms around you.

"Say that again," he growls.

His eyes are dark with desire and you swear you can see Feyd still lurking in the background, ready to pounce.

"You should play the bad guy more often. It's a good look on you...my lord."

"Yeah? Wanna show me just how much you like it?"

You grip his neck, fingers tangled in his hair, and kiss him long and hard, your tongues fighting for dominance. You bite his lip when he pulls away and the groan that escapes from his throat sets your whole body on fire.

He returns the favour by placing kisses on your jaw and down your neck. When he reaches your collarbone he gives it a bite in just the right spot, making heat pool between your legs.

You lean into him, feeling his erection against you and bite his earlobe, whispering into his ear: "I want you inside me."

Austin's hands tighten on your ass and he gives you a smouldering look. His blue eyes are dark with desire as he dives in to kiss you again.

You start undressing each other frantically, hands running all over, tongues locked in a dizzying dance. The room fills with the sounds of heavy breathing, your moans, Austin's groans and wet kisses.

He grabs you by the hand and pulls you into the shower.

You're both panting while he turns around to fidget with the water tap. You admire his naked body while he adjusts the temperature. He's a work of art - all lean muscle chiselled to perfection.

Your eyes travel down his chest to the trail of hair under his belly button and between his thighs and the sizeable erection he's got. His penis is perfect: a round red tip, its length marbled by veins. You can't wait to taste it and feel it inside you.

You can't believe he's yours.

"My eyes are up here, gorgeous", Austin's amused voice brings you out of your dazed wet dream.

"And what a sight they are," you smile up at him.

After seeing you standing gloriously naked before him, raking your lust-filled stare over his body, Austin can't hold himself back any longer.

His hands come up to grab your face and he bends down to devour you. As the kiss deepens, Austin's hands travel down your body, lingering on your breasts. He pinches one of your nipples and you moan into his mouth.

He breaks the kiss to look at you.

Before you can answer he bends down and licks your neck, slowly descending to your left nipple.

"Fuck you're gorgeous. I can't wait to be inside you."

You start kissing his neck, his chest, his abs, your hands trailing down to his hips. His skin tastes salty from the sweat. You kneel in front of him and lick his length slowly, feeling the veins with your tongue. He lets out a groan and braces himself against the tiled wall.

You place tiny nibbles on the head, squeezing his balls, teasing him. He shudders in ecstasy as you swallow as much of his length as you can and start moving your head up and down slowly.

"Fuck, y/n, you have to stop or I'll come...," Austin pants on top of you. You speed up your pace, locking eyes with him.

Seeing you kneeling before him, your mouth on him, looking at him like that drives him over the edge. Austin comes with a groan and you feel his seed spill into your throat. You take him out of your mouth and give the head a little kiss.

"You taste so fucking good every time," you say standing up.

Austin grabs your cheeks and gives you a rough kiss.

"You have no idea how hot you look on your knees, do you?"

When one of his hands sneaks between your legs and he rubs his fingers on your clit you feel a jolt run over your whole body and you can't stop the moan coming out of your mouth.

Austin hears you moan, hands digging into his back and throws caution away - he bites down hard on your nipple, sliding his fingers into you.

"Fuck Austin", is all you can say, your mind going blank with pleasure. You don't know what's gotten into him, but you love this new, dangerous and dominant side he's showing you.

Austin places wet kisses and nibbles all over your breasts and stomach, pumping his fingers into you. You writhe in his arms, hands tugging his hair.

When his mouth descends on your clit you moan loudly. He bites it and then licks the sore spot, curling his fingers inside you. This sends jolts of electricity all over your body and you feel yourself coming, nails digging into his hair.

"Tell me what you want me to do to you," he says, voice hoarse from lust. You can feel his hard length pressing against your entrance.

Austin groans in pleasure when he hears you moan his name, the pain from your nails digging into his scalp sending bolts of pleasure straight to his groin.

He gets up, grabs your hips and lifts you, your back against the tiled wall.

You look at his soft, puffy lips and can't help kissing him again. Austin groans and slips his tongue into your mouth, making you dizzy.

When he finally breaks the kiss to look at you, you see the passion burning in his eyes, but there's something else there too - something feral. You realise he hasn't shaken Feyd off completely.

That sparks something in you, emboldens you.

"Have your way with me, my lord na-Baron. I'm all yours", you say, threading your fingers through his hair and pulling on it, your hips bucking into him.

Hearing you say that, something in Austin snaps. He can't think anymore, all he knows is that he wants to be inside you, now.

With a quiet growl he bends down to crash his lips into yours, sliding into you in one swift move.

You can't help the cry that comes out of your mouth when he slams into you. You were already wet, but he's big.

The sharp pain quickly turns into intense pleasure as he starts thrusting into you with abandon. You can feel every vein on his hard length as he's stretching you and filling you in the best way.

You've been together for years and every time he enters you feels like the first time. It's like your bodies are pieces of the same puzzle. The feel of him inside you is divine.

Austin doesn't wait for you to adjust to his size, he couldn't even if he wanted to. He's possessed by the desire to be inside you, to own you. He picks up his pace, slamming into you, his teeth leaving red marks all over your neck and shoulders. His left hand is moulded to your thigh, his right squeezing your breast.

You've never seen him like this, so forceful and primal, and you realise you love it. As the pain shoots through the pleasure you find yourself coming, trying not to scream. You mould your lips to Austin's to stifle your moans and that just spurs him on. He continues to slam into you, balls-deep, throughout your climax.

After a while, Austin comes to his senses and realises he's too rough, he's hurting you. Just as he slows down his pace, releasing you from his grip, he hears you say:

"No, don't hold back. I want you to lose control. Ravage me."

He looks into your eyes, making sure he didn't just imagine that, and sees only carnal desire and love there. He can't believe you're his.

"Fuck, I love you," he whispers.

You smile and bite his neck hard. The little control he'd managed to take back shatters. Austin slips out of you so he can turn you around, your back towards him, and slams back into you.

One of his hands travels to your neck and squeezes, the other goes to your nipple.

This angle helps him sink even deeper inside you. The sensation is almost too much and you feel the waves of another orgasm coming. Sex with Austin is always great but this is different. He's lost all control and given in to his desire, and you fucking love it.

Austin feels your walls clenching around him and he knows you're close. The hand around your throat tightens as he moves his other hand from your breast to your clit, running his fingers in agonisingly slow circles, and right before you come he inserts two fingers in.

The feeling of his fingers and his hard length inside you is too much and you trip over the edge, your whole body shaking. You claw at his neck and bury your fingers into his hair as he swallows your moans with a kiss when you both come.

You've never seen this side of him before. He's always so protective of you, so gentle. You realise he's been holding himself back, afraid to lose control and hurt you.

He looks at you apprehensively and you smile at him, tugging him close so you can wrap your hands around his neck and give him a slow, tender kiss.

For a while the only sounds in the shower are the running water and your heavy breathing as you're both coming down from your highs.

Eventually, Austin lets you go and eases out of you with a groan. Your legs are shaking as you lean onto the tile wall while he turns around to adjust the showerhead.

He melts into you, relieved you're okay.

You disengage and proceed with your shower, washing each other's hair and bodies, placing soft kisses here and there.

When you're done, Austin stops the water. He swaddles you in a huge fluffy towel, picks you up and carries you to the bed.

He lies next to you on his side, head propped up, facing you, tiny droplets of water running down his face and torso.

"I'm sorry", he says quietly, giving you a sad puppy look and caressing your face.

"For what? Giving me multiple orgasms?"

"No..." he laughs and then falls silent.

"I hurt you. I don't know what came over me."

"Not what, who. You've still got some of Feyd lurking in the background," you say a soft smile playing on your lips.

"That's not an excuse y/n. I should've stopped...I should've..." he trails off, looking remorseful.

"I don't know if you noticed Butler but I liked it. A lot", you lift his head so he can look at you.

"I'm not made of china you know. Promise me you'll stop holding back on me. This was fucking amazing."

"Yeah it was, wasn't it," he says, finally relaxing, "Okay, but on one condition: you promise to tell me if I cross the line."

"Deal," you say and mould your lips over his.

[space-blue]

Stilgar at the Water of Life scene

is a moment in the second Dune film that has been on my mind but I never wrote about.

You remember how Lady Jessica uses the voice to FORCE Chani to take her place in the prophecy and be the one to wake up Paul?

We know from Paul screaming "Silence" at Mohiam and others reacting to it that the use of the voice on others is pretty visible.

So in that scene, Chani is speaking a lot of sense. Jessica 100% "did that" and to her "own son" and by all right she should be the one to fix it.

And Stilgar looks on as Jessica argues, and when it becomes clear that Chani won't budge, she uses the voice on her! Saying DO IT!

And nobody in the room, truly nobody, and especially not Stilgar, seem to care that force is being used to trigger the prophecy. Unlike in the books, the act is non-consensual.

I think that moment is fascinating for Stilgar.

Up until now, he has been softly manufacturing the prophecy, but from his POV it is more that he "sees" more than most, and helps enable what seems to "already be true".

He is capable of helping Paul and giving him the extra edge because anyway the Mahdi should have good and faithful followers, right? So what if Stilgar tunes the thumper to summon a big worm? It's still Paul's success in riding. What if he strong arms Jessica into taking the reverend mother position? The timing of their reverend mother dying and Jessica's arrival is not Stilgar's doing, and it's a sensical choice to have a Bene Gesserit weirding woman in the position, because by fremen rule Jessica can offer nothing else as a waterfat outworlder.

These things can be excused, they can be subtle nudges. His zealous leading of others into seeing Paul as the messiah is also sensical. It's what zealots do. You preach.

What is crazy for me in this scene is that the Bene Gesserit Jessice, right next to Stilgar, will use a power (one not shown to be possessed by any Fremen) in order to overpower Chani and trigger a prophetic event.

Instead of seeing Jessica as an outsider who is manufacturing the prophecy in broad daylight to further her plans for her son, Stilgar sees a fellow believer doing what it takes to trigger a necessary part of the prophecy.

"As written", he says. Qithlas-ha!

And it's clear that what was written is ALL that matters, and not HOW it comes to pass. Consent doesn't matter. Manufacturing the moment doesn't matter. What matters is ticking the list of signs. Everything else is excused in the face of Stilgar being right, being alive in the moment of prophecy, after thousands of years of religious manipulation by the Bene Gesserit.

I really like that the change in Chani triggers this scene. It would be darker and sadder in some ways if she were gang-ho as she is in the books, but the fact her tears aren't willing/are used against her will, really serves to highlight the toxic depth of zealotry everyone has decended to around Paul and Jessica.

(Gurney is chilling in thge back like, whatever shenanigans his Lord is getting up to is cool with him anyway).

Stilgar is truly reduced to an unthinking blind believer. He's not Paul's friend or Paul's tribe leader anymore.

So it makes perfect sense that later on he stands before Paul ready to die himself. Literally WHATEVER it takes so long as it furthers the prophecy.

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

Alright ya'll. Longish first excerpt from The Dune Fic below vvv

Cw: mild wound description, suggested suicidal ideation

His sleeping quarters had little light – but just enough  to let her faintly make out the grey, crumpled figure on the floor.

Irulan stilled, fingers gripping the door handle. Made an attempt to slow her breathing and thoughts. Was he even alive? She was so sure she’d timed it right, that she wouldn’t be too late. If she was...if they found her here with him...

Shit.

Closing her eyes for a moment, she tuned into her senses, her instincts. What was truth, and what her own flighty imagination? I must not fear.

Darkness aside, she could hear his rapid, uneven breaths. So she had timed things right. Okay. Okay. Some emotion she couldn’t name rose up in her – was it frustration, despair that he had to go on living?

If so, she would have to smother that.  Alive, she wouldn’t be accused of murdering the most powerful person in the known universe.

Alive, she knew what to do with him.

Irulan released her white-knuckled grip on the door. It locked with a quiet hiss under her hand as she crept towards him, the slender beam of light behind her shrinking until the room was even darker than before.

The Emperor of the Known Universe resembled his title even less so than when Irulan had first seen him. Collapsed on the ground, weedy limbs curled together like some dead insect, his breathing ragged. She stood warily by him, calculating. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead, brows and lips both drawn tight together in pain.

And it would be a good deal of pain. Since childhood her body had been trained against the effects of a variety of poisons; from mental Sisterhood-taught techniques that lessened bodily responses to such substances, to ingesting tiny amounts day by day. Strengthening her defences. Making her that much less likely to end up like the figure in front of her.

At a far lesser scale, in a non-residual form, this poison was unpleasantly familiar.

Irulan knelt, close as she could get without touching him. “Can you hear me?” she asked quietly.

No response. Reluctantly, she tapped his pale face. “Paul. Can you hear me?”

She shook his shoulder and he flinched suddenly, violently. The sound that came from behind his tightly closed lips would have torn the heart from her chest had it been someone she loved making it.

His own gloved hand shot up from the ground and held her wrist tight. “Not yet,” he rasped. The hand shook. There was an almost wild look in his eyes, barely open though they were. “It’s not time...not yet.”

He’s delirious. His hand released hers and fell limply back to his side, still trembling.

 Irulan sat back on her heels, wary. If she did nothing, he would die. Perhaps within hours. Didn’t she want that? Hadn’t she dreamed of it?

Think. Think of what will happen. The vial lay hidden in a pocket within her sleeve, heavy against her skin. They will kill you. There won’t be time for anything else, once he’s gone.

No time...was that what he meant? They said he could see things. A sudden chill rippled up her arms; would he know when it was the time?

Whenever – if ever – that came, it could not be now. She could wait. She was good at patience.

Paul – her husband – winced in pain again, the fingers of one hand twitching feebly as if he meant to grasp something that could not be held. A sudden disdain came over her, repulsion at his weakness. He had been trained as she had – even against a poison such as this one, a person so powerful as he had made himself might show a bit more dignity.

Unless that was the point. Unless his training was exactly what he was utilizing.

This is how he does it, she thought grimly. Exactly this. He gets into your head.

Very well. She could play his game along with him. He’d never have to know she was playing.

She laid her hand on him once again, on his arm below the injured shoulder. That was where the blade had cut him, wasn’t it? This time he didn’t flinch. Why not? What was real, what manipulation?

It was enough to make her want to scream.

“Paul,” she said quietly, “I need to turn you, to look at your shoulder. It will hurt.”

The slivers of his eyes met hers, just barely focusing. Trickery, she told herself, not breaking from the unnatural blue gaze. Or not. Or the second I let him believe he isn’t fooling me will be the second he wins...which is it, Atreides?

With one hand she clasped his arm, the other slipping under his head to steady him. His hair was damp with sweat under her fingers – real sweat. But a Bene Gesserit could do that, couldn’t they?  

She began slowly turning him onto his back, but was stopped when he drew in a sharp gasp behind his teeth, eyes flying open as he tensed against her.

“Be still,” she said, unrelenting.

He gave the smallest of nods, breathing out slowly in a way she hated to admit she recognized. Pain management techniques. One of the earliest things she had been taught, too.

The lean muscles under her hand were so tightly held his whole body shook; startled, sharp cries escaping him until she’d dragged him onto his back where he lay panting unevenly, skin greyish.

She was still cradling his head. She could have let go. Whatever compelled her not to was not something she wanted to think too hard about.

Running on instinct, she brought her other hand to his forehead. His skin felt too hot, clammy, the poison burning him up from the inside. It was a long moment she knelt there by his side, for the first time having no idea what to do next.

Only when his breathing had eased a little, the tremours lessening, did she speak again. “How do you take it off? The suit. I need to see the wound.”

His eyes met hers, gradually comprehending. We’re both playing a game, she thought, not breaking his gaze. Even if I’m not sure what either of ours are anymore.

Slowly, Paul raised his uninjured arm, gesturing shakily to his opposite shoulder. “There’s a seal,” he muttered. “Pull it towards you.”

She did so, the seal breaking with a hiss. There was a strap at his neck she undid next, the movement drawing a small sound of pain from him. But he went on directing her, in two or three words at a time, how best to work his arm out of the skin-tight material.

By the end of it he was sweating, teeth ground together. No more sounds, but Irulan could tell every muscle was taut as it could be, both of his hands clenched into fists. “Remember your training,” she said. Speaking, maybe, to them both.

Her heart stuttered when she saw his shoulder. She wasn’t squeamish – no one with her training could afford to be so for long – but still her hands went cold at the sight of it. Though it had been weeks since the duel it remained bloody and raw, the skin around red and swollen. Worse, black threadlike tendrils clustered around its edges, spreading through his veins.

Harkonnen poison. For a Harkonnen blade.

Irulan shut her eyes, steadied herself. When she opened them the blackened  wound was far away, something clinical and impersonal. Not something that held any bearing on her own life. Certainly not on the Imperium itself.

When she tried to examine it more closely the arm jerked violently out of her hands and he cried out sharply, the lightest touch to the inflamed skin apparently agonizing. “Hold still,” she commanded.

He did so as much as he could, unable to stop himself from shaking. Irulan glanced at his face and to her surprise saw tears clinging to the lashes of his tightly shut eyes. Instead of bringing her any satisfaction, they only infuriated her. He was a fool, he was a fool.

“It’s badly infected,” she said, surprised by the steadiness of her voice. “You should’ve seen a medic sooner. As it is you could lose your arm – or die.”

“Because your father had the blade poisoned.”

It was the longest sentence he’d managed to string together so far. Heart in her throat, she met his eyes. Control yourself. These moments are critical.

Curiously, the look on his face wasn’t one of accusation. “Yes, he did,” she said.

“Did you know?”

Careful. Very careful. “I know now.” The vial was cold in her sleeve. “Did you know?”

He watched her closely. If only she could look into his head and know...the desire to understand, in unquestionable truth, what he was thinking gnawed at her relentlessly.

“I guessed,” he answered.

So why had he done nothing? Why admit, now, that he could have done something and hadn’t? What game was he playing?

“What happens? Now that we both know?”

“That’s up to you.” Irulan checked her breathing again, her pulse thrumming against the vial. Both steady, for now. “If I made you an offer, would you take it?”

Unreadable as his emotions usually were, she could tell in that instance she had surprised him. Good.

“Are you?” he said, his voice still a low rasp. “Offering?”

In a deft motion she slid the small vial out of her sleeve and into her palm. Would he wonder why should she just happen to have on her person the exact thing he needed, in that exact moment?

“This works on many poisons.” A lie.  “Including this one.” Truth. “My father carried such things on him at all times, and he taught me to do so as well. You’re dying, Atreides. I think you know that. This dose is enough to slow what’s in your system until we can get a proper amount into you.”

His eyes narrowed. “And what do you want?”

“I want you. Alive. I’m not stupid – I know what you did to me by making me your Empress. You’ve tied my lifespan to yours.”

He didn’t respond, his face clouded with confusion. Did he really not understand?

Grasped by a sudden rage, Irulan took his jaw in her hand, forcing him to look at her. “Listen to me. I’ve seen the way your followers look at me, I’m nothing to them but another threat to their messiah. If you die, who’s in charge then?”

“You,” he said, as if it were obvious.

She almost laughed. “That easy, is it? Me against a planet full of fanatics waiting for an excuse to kill me? By marrying me you’ve made it so your own death would mean mine too. I am saving your life because I am not ready to die – however ready you might be.”

Something shifted in his face – she’d guessed right. “You don’t care. It’s out of your hands once you’re dead; you don’t have to worry about who kills who once it’s not you giving the orders, is that right?”

He wasn’t looking at her now. Away, some place and time that wasn’t here.

 She tightened her grip on him. “Look at me. This war will not end with you.” Unlike me. “You’ll only become a martyr, something else for them to rally behind. And someone else will take up your place, and make all the choices they think you would have. Some of them might even be better than yours. Will you risk them being worse?”

She shook him, pressing her thumb deliberately into his shoulder and ignoring his hiss of pain. “This is your doing. If you want to control it then control it. By taking that antidote and then taking some fucking responsibility.”

If he refused, this was all for nothing. Training aside, she wasn’t confident she could force him to take it. To save himself for her sake. He had training too; more and stranger teachings than what she had been given.

But they both were trained. Not for the first time, Irulan noted that as at thing she could use.

We are the alike, she thought with grim satisfaction, refusing to take her eyes from his face where a choice was forming – though which choice it was she couldn’t say. I am not what the Sisterhood hoped for, and neither are you. Both of us overlooked, thought dead. Our fathers rivals. And here we both are, at the very tip of the mountain.

Something dark stained the tip of her finger. The black poison, on her hand where she’d grabbed him. Harmless unless ingested. Poison in him, on her, leaking onto everything their lives had become. Maybe it had always been there, waiting. Doesn’t it feel good, at the top? she thought bitterly. Isn’t this sweet? Aren’t you enjoying yourself?

 She made to stand, but gloved fingers brushed her wrist. “Wait,” said Paul.

It wasn’t a command. She waited.

A stony, determined look had crept into his face – for the first time he looked how he normally did. His arm trembled, awkward in the half-removed suit, but he reached out to her. “You still have it?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Help me stand.”

@fuckyeahisawthat hey so

[f1girliefics]

Sun-Kissed and Yours

Lando Norris x Reader

Summary: It’s a weekend of sunshine and stolen glimpses, where Lando realises his favourite season is whichever one has you in it.

The sunlight spilt across the dashboard, and you leaned your head out the window, hair dancing in the breeze. 

Lando was singing along to some ridiculous summer playlist he’d insisted on blasting at full volume.

It was perfect.

The two of you had escaped for the weekend. 

No racing, no media, no pressure. 

Just a rented beachside cabin, a half-packed bag of snacks, and a boy who smiled like the sun had been waiting all day just to kiss his cheek.

“Are you going to get out or just sit there admiring me?” Lando teased, already out of the car, sunglasses perched on his nose.

“I’m trying to soak in the fact that I’ve willingly let you drive me somewhere with no GPS.”

“It’s called adventure,” he grinned, reaching for your hand. “Trust me?”

You took his hand and stepped out. “Always.”

The cottage was tucked in the dunes, barely visible from the road, with a crooked little porch and soft white curtains swaying in the breeze. 

You kicked off your shoes the moment you stepped inside, and Lando did the same, until he caught sight of a bottle of sunscreen on the windowsill.

“Nope. Absolutely not,” he said, grabbing it and marching toward you. “You turn into a tomato faster than my tyres wear on softs.”

You laughed, already backing away. “I’ll do it later!”

He lunged and caught you by the waist, spinning you until you collapsed onto the worn-out sofa in a pile of limbs and giggles.

“You’re such a menace,” you breathed.

“And yet, you’re still here.” He grinned and gently started dotting your nose with sunscreen, his thumb brushing your cheek in slow circles.

His hands were warm. But his gaze was warmer.

That afternoon, you walked hand-in-hand along the shoreline, the waves licking at your ankles. 

Lando kept nudging you with his hip until you stumbled into the water, shrieking at the chill. He laughed and ran in after you, arms open wide, scooping you up in one splashy twirl that soaked you both.

You ended up on the sand, breathless and damp, your cheeks pink from laughter and the sun.

“I think this is my favourite summer,” he said suddenly, propped up on one elbow as he looked down at you.

You turned your head. “Yeah? Why’s that?”

He shrugged, smile soft now. “Because you’re in it. Because this… this feels real.”

You reached up and brushed the wet curls off his forehead.

“It's real,” you whispered. “I’m yours, you know.”

He leaned down, kissed the corner of your mouth, and said into your skin, “Good. Because I’m yours too.”

That evening, as the sun dipped low and everything turned golden, you sat curled up together on the porch swing with a blanket wrapped around your legs and a half-melted tub of ice cream between you.

Lando fed you a spoonful, missed your mouth entirely, and you laughed so hard you nearly choked.

Later, he pressed a kiss to your temple and murmured, “Let’s never let this go.”

You smiled, eyes closed, heart full.

“Never.”

[officialbucky]

TLDR: I have returned to Tumblr to reconnect with past and current fandoms. Looking to follow new accounts!

I used to be extremely (embarrassingly) active in fandom culture on tumblr until they banned nsfw content and it seemed like everyone left and moved to twitter. It was fun, but now obviously Im not using twitter anymore. Ive been using reddit a lot, but it doesn’t really feel the same.

I remember really liking being a part of fandoms and recently with many shows and movies out/coming out that are part of the fandoms I used to be obsessed with I feel like I should be more excited. I want to be more excited.

I think whats missing is not having a group of other people that are also fans to discuss with. Im also burned out from work, burned out from the state of the world and older than I was when I was active in this stuff. Im hoping I can get back into it and I can get reconnected.

Anyway Im gonna try to be more active on here. Of course my interests have expanded beyond Bucky and Marvel so will be sharing that as well. Idk if i have the energy or time to make this blog look different or pretty on desktop. I think I will just leave it as is for now. I have absolutely zero memory of who I used to interact with on here or if anyone i used to know on here is gone. If anyone wants to say hi, feel free!

As a background for me Im 27, use he/him pronouns, am very queer, love cats and art, have a BA in sociology.

I have a lot of stuff i liked in the past that idk if anyone cares about anymore and new stuff I have recently got into. Im gonna post here what I am interested in and be looking to follow people that post!

Marvel (comics, movies, tv) : Stucky, Bucky Barnes, Scarlet Witch, Loki, Daredevil, the Netflix Defenders series, Agents of SHEILD, Legion, almost everything that is good

Drag, art, music, travel, nature, cats, video games, movies, Dune, into the Spiderverse, Mad Max, sci fi and fantasy books

Tv shows I was obsessed with that aren’t Marvel: Shameless, the magicians, altered carbon, OITNB, Westworld, the Umbrella Academy, Harley Quinn, his dark materials, love death + robots, Outlander, Raised by Wolves, the Boys, The Great, Avatar, Legend of Korra, the OA, the Witcher, Watchmen, You, What we do in the Shadows, Andor, Black Mirror, the White Lotus, Yellowjackets, Invincible, Game of thrones, Hazbin Hotel, the Nevers, Broad City, Derry Girls, the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Fleabag, severence

[thelastevilregal]

14, 15, 17, 20, 44, 75, 82, 95, 119, 127

Indulging you in your love of talking about yourself .D

You're the best 🥹

Putting a read more option because my response really did get long.

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

Yes, absolutely. Everyone needs a little bit of both in their life.

15. What good thing happened this summer?

So many good things happened last summer. I don't think I can pick between when my sister came to visit and when I went on a family vacation to the dunes. When my sister visited, I dragged her to an In This Moment concert and we both had a really good time but it was an especially transformative experience for me because they've been one of my favorite bands since I was a teen and I really relate to, and find comfort in a lot of their songs. The dunes was fun because I hadn't been on a family vacation in years. I got to go offroading, splash around in one of the Great Lakes, and see one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen in my life. Oh and my mom also kicked my ass at go carts, as usual 🙄

17. Do you think there is life on other planets?

The universe is such a vast place, I'd be shocked if there isn't. I mean didn't they technically already find some? There was like some bacteria or something on Mars right? (Looked this up and apparently there was a rock on Mars that had the appearance of housing past, now deceased microbes but no definitive evidence that that was for sure what it was.)

If the question is referring to intelligent life, I think that's probable as well. Just look at the humble octopus. We divulged from each other at a very early point in the evolutionary tree and then developed high intelligence independent of each other in very different environments, so we know already that there isn't just one specific condition that would allow for the development of sapience. I've seen it theorized that octopi would have societies similar in complexity to ours if only they lived longer.

So taking that into account, as well as the sheer number of solar systems out there, I think there's definitely other intelligent life. However, I am also pretty convinced that none of these aliens have come into contact with us or our planet yet.

20. Do you like your neighbors?

Yeah, they're pretty chill. I've dogsat for both of them before. Don't like the ones on the right as much because one of their dogs is a scared little chihuahua that pees on me whenever I try to pick him up to take him outside and one of the others is an aggressive boxer that growls at me like he wants to take my face off. The ones on the left have a schnauzer who is a respectable older gentleman and a husky/sheltie mix named Gizmo. Gizmo is very cute. I don't know if it's ethical to post pics of other people's pets online so I'll have to dm you a pic of him.

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

Bottom of the ocean. Show me those fucked up fish!

75. Favourite animal?

Barn Owl. I think the way they hunt is so cool because, unlike most other owls, they hunt primarily using their hearing rather than eyesight. Because of this, they can hunt in total darkness. This feature is also the reason for their distinctive, heart shaped face. And the color and patterning on them is just gorgeous.

Also I was a huge fan of Gaurdians of Gahoole as a child so I'm sure that influences my preference as well.

82. Favourite movie?

I could not, for the life of me, pick a single favorite movie so I'm just going to list the ones that I feel like I could watch over and over again until the heat death of the universe without ever getting tired of them:

The Princess Bride, Labrynth, Jurassic Park, Aliens, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Parent Trap (the Lindsay Lohan one obvs), The Prince of Egypt, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, How to Train Your Dragon, Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, the Twilight Saga, Train to Busan, and Talk to Me.

95. Last movie you watched?

Midsommar (it was so good, highly reccomend)

119. Favourite book?

Winter Dance by Gary Paulsen. It's an autobiographical piece about a man who decides to run the Iditerod, and all the trials and tribulations of doing so when you don't really know what you're doing. It follows him as he expands from having a simple trapline team to a full blown long-distance sled team.

I love Paulsen's writing style. His imagery is so vivid, the action scenes are sufficiently tense, and there are parts that are so hilarious that I still laughed at them on my second and third read through. Highly recommend.

127. What makes you happy?

Gonna list some things that I either don't do often enough or haven't done in a while but I think it still counts.

Dryland mushing, offroading, tarp surfing, writing, going for a walk on a mild day, finding a book that just engrosses me from the first chapter until the last word, deep conversations with intelligent yet strange women, being in a large body of water, solving a problem I've felt stuck on for forever, maple syruping, spearfishing, canoeing, camp fires, communing with spirits, waking up sore after a previous day of intense physical activity, someone I care about telling me they were thinking of me or that they miss me, long road trips, riding in the car on a hot day with the windows down and the music blaring, putting together a really cute outfit before going out, laying in the grass under the sun, laughing with friends until my sides hurt, eating a fresh fruit/vegetable from the garden, and so many other things because the world is full of small wonders.

[unlikelysaintdelele]

some interesting things i've noted during my ACOTAR reread Pt. 2

*SPOILER WARNING for those who haven’t completed the series*

I finished ACOTAR a few weeks ago but I haven't gotten the chance to transfer my notes until now. Once again, names have been color-coded!

Feyre couldn’t keep her mouth shut only around Rhys. It’s almost like her true self comes out around him.

Anytime Feyre calls on some strength, the image of Nesta comes to mind. She sees Nesta as strong and admires her for that.

A queen without a throne

Are tattooed bargains a night court specialty? I was listening through the graphic audio, as a reminder, so some things slip through.

Pearls in Nesta’s hair. It makes me think of the pearl jewelry Elain later receives from Lucien. I think pearl is meant to represent luxury, and it seems to complement their features.

Elain is the only one with their father’s eyes and I always found it interesting. How similar is Elain to her father? Her father favored her, but I think that’s only because Nesta was cold and Feyre was busy.

Warrior beast vs half-wild beast, Tamlin and Feyre bonding for being unrefined (Disney Beauty and the Beast reference?)

“Don’t ever disobey me again” is honestly not the vibe, Tictac.

I don’t like knowing Tamlin’s anger is on a tight leash with Feyre. He’s angry at her. It feels overprotective in such a suffocating way.

“There you are, I’ve been looking for you.” SOB

The most beautiful man she’s ever seen

Blue eyes so deep they were violet

They just stared at each other! As if in a daze! 

Night pressed in closer around him, smiling

Molded from the night itself, star-kissed night

I have a random “until dawn” note… idk

Cauldron boil me (double, double, toil and trouble… sorry, random silly thought)

Elain began learning to grow veggies! Reminder, the soil at the cottage was crap, it couldn't sustain the veggies. Elain could barely grow flowers. People keep forgetting that Feyre was their only access to nourishment because there was no other choice. Sweet Elain gets so much hate for not using her gardening skills to help, but it was set up so that she couldn't.

Nesta’s iron-will allowed her to resist glamour! I want more on Nesta’s strength. This is one of many reasons why I’ve been a Nesta stan since day one. I know she was cruel but we’re told why in book one. She wanted her father to do something, anything: be a father and care for them. I’m not saying it was any excuse to be cruel, but they were in a shitty situation and she showed her love for her family in other ways. Being willing to lay down her life for Elain? Going after Feyre even knowing it was risky? Asking to be taught to paint? She loves her sisters, she just shows it differently.

Heart of Stone was mentioned for a second time! hehe

Wyyyyyyyyrrrrmmmmmm. I’m a fan of giant worms (Dune, Star Wars). Fun fact about me: I went through a short phase where I just kept writing about worms.

Feyre deems Elain as stronger for being hopeful. She sees so much strength in her sisters and admires them for their differences.

Love Nesta! More Nesta love. She wondered what a woman might do with a fortune and a name. She wanted to travel! She wanted that independence! Pre-war Nesta hurts to experience. She’s opening up now that she’s safe socioeconomically and physically. It makes me wonder what else would have begun to heal if she got more of that peace and security.

Rhys: because I’m tired and lonely. The things he does and willingly puts himself through to protect his court and anyone else he can spare. Love his complexity.

(apparently there's a character limit for each block of text so here's a lil divider)

Honestly? I was vibing with the Tamlin romance, it was chill. The bite was nice. UNTIL Rhys appeared. Timtam just seems so stale in comparison. The chemistry is immediate between Rhys and Feyre, the tension is palpable. I’m still not over how Feyre chose Tampon over Lucien. why would I pick someone so clumsy with affection and who isn’t around nearly as much as the sassy redhead who bickers with me like an old friend? Rhys > Lucien > Tamlin is the order at the moment, and the order will stay until I have to consider the other boys (wait for me batboys).

Tamlin’s dad was Amarantha’s friend! They fought together in the war. Rhys’ father killed Tamlin’s, so Amarantha took Rhys in as a lover as punishment. Amarantha is so greedy honestly, and it's so gross. She wants Tamlin and Rhys but the only reason Tamlin hasn’t been forced like Rhys is that she wants to be chosen, she wants him to come to her willingly

Even in their last moments together, Rhys and Feyre are honest with each other. Honest in a way I've never seen her with Tamlin.

Very excited to begin ACOMAF, my fave book of the series.

[lagooneah]

Another late night writing, so naturally my brain acted like English was a foreign language half the time

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

"Sweet Desert Flower..."

A small Dune Blurb of Husband!Paul Atreides x Fremen!Reader by (me) Lagooneah Content: Domestic fluffiness, Husband Paul, Paul being super touchy and obsessed with you, etc etc. Sort of Proofread Warnings: It might suck (I think it sucks so sorry if it does lol) None, except for a slight fear of water from Fremen Reader. W/C: 1505

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

“My love…” he whispers soft and sweet into your shoulder, somehow snuggling even closer to you than he already was. Beneath the soft satin sheets of his bed, your limbs tangled together as the constant storm on Caladan beats down against the windows of your room.

“Are you awake?” he mutters sleepily, now into your neck, lips brushing against the soft skin of your nape. You let out a sleepy groan in reaction to this, your body stirring gently with an attempt to roll over that he quickly combats with the tightening of his arms around you. He chuckles deeply at this, continuing to press his warm lips against your chilled skin.

He loved moments like this, moments that were quiet, moments that were just filled with you.

The pair of you had been visiting his home planet, Caladan, for your honeymoon. You were from Arrakis, only knowing the land of sand, worms and spice- that’s where you met Paul. Your Duke, your Messiah.

Your Husband.

You were the owner of his heart, the keeper of his woes, you were his everything- and he should’ve known it ever since that first dream he had of you, in this very palace.

“Y/n…” He uttered again, smiling almost giddy at the sight of you. So sleepy, skin kissed by the dim grey light coming from the window in the room. He brushed a strand of hair from the side of your face kissing the edge of your ear before speaking just a bit louder- awaking you just slightly.

“Sweet desert flower…” his tone was almost a tease now, seeing how long he could go, how far he could push before you awoke.

“Hm..?” You mumbled a bit, stirring even more, your eyes fluttering gently in inquiry. He almost giggled at your reaction, seeming to enjoy teasing your sleepy, unaware self.

“You can’t sleep forever,” he mumbled, almost in a sing song tone, “though I wouldn’t mind watching you forever.”

His hands travel around your body, the warmth of your bodies becoming one beneath the thick blankets of your bed. This would usually only lull you to sleep, but his giggles and touching kept you from slipping further.

“Paul…” you grumbled, and you attempted to move from your spot again, at least a small roll over to get away from his teasing, but unfortunately, he had the upper hand here.

He kept you trapped in his hold, continuing his ministrations until you yourself covered his mouth with your hand. You frowned at him, which only seemed to amuse him more,

"Will you ever let me sleep past the early morning?" You rolled your eyes, looking off to the bedside table, "At least let me get up and start the day..." but he couldn't, because that'd mean that he wouldn't get this alone time with you, this quiet time- to feel your warmth, touch you, talk to you- all without interruption, all things he seemed to need more than the spice he inhaled.

"My love..." He nearly whined the pet name like a child that wasn't getting what they wanted. Pressing another chaste kiss to your nose he combats, "I just wanted to hear you... Don't leave me, flower. We can never have moments like this."

You thought back on fighting, it was true, the two of you hardly got such privacy and lazy hours. Though you'd already gotten roughly four days of his clinging and kissing already, these four days were up against near months of separation, work- responsibilities needed to be met, and oftentimes time for you two was forgotten in that.

He knew he won when you placed your hands on his boney cheeks, a smirk formed on his features before you could even scoff at the idea,

"You're lucky you're right." You smiled, kissing a few of the dusting freckles that he got from the sun, some on his nose, some on his cheeks and jaw, a few on his forehead...

He let you smother him in your affection, soft and deep giggles filling the air as you simply enjoyed each other's presence in this moment. His snark was a hassle, but you loved him, and he surely loved you.

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

"Just this way." He tells you with a squeeze of your hand, assuring your currently blinded self that the charade was almost over. You scoffed and smiled,

"How much longer do I have to wear this blindfold? The rocks are not exactly good terrain."

"Not that you're used to." He shakes his head, "You'll be ok, dearest. I'd never let you fall."

"You let me fall once, down that sand hill when you swore you had me-"

"That was one time!"

You let out a hearty laugh at his defensive response, entering further into a fit of giggles as he continued to defend himself. To no avail, you weren't truly mad at him from that small mistake so long ago. He just still seemed guilty of it- so it was perfect ammo to poke fun at him.

"Besides," He says after finally coming off of his tangent, "I know this terrain much better. You grew up on sand, and I grew up on gravel and grass. These rocks are no trouble, flower."

You refrained from taking a jab at his overconfident remark, instead chosing to smile and hum,

"Yes, yes my love. Please keep me safe on these treacherous rocks." You entertain, and he let's out a hearty laugh,

"No worries, sweetest! You'll be safe with me. Your husband would never steer you wrong."

You giggled more at his retort, shooting back,

"I'd sure hope so, otherwise I'd be concerned at your status as a leader..."

He snorted at your response, fighting the amusement in his tone,

"Oh hush..." And he continues to lead you for a few more steps before stopping.

You stop as he does, and he whispers "We're here~" and you can here the smirk on his lips. You smile wide and ask,

"Where? Can I see?"

"Hold just a minute, flower." He hums, and you can feel him get closer. His breath is on your lips, and before you know it, his meet yours. You let out a huff of surprise, kissing him but quickly pulling back,

"P-PAUL!" You shouted, maybe a bit too loud because it makes him laugh even louder. He finally lets go of his amusement and whispers softly,

"Open your eyes..."

And you follow.

You open your eyes, letting them adjust to the grey lighting of Caladans' skies. You find yourself looking over a cliff, watching as violent waves of water crash against the cliff. Your eyes widened and they remained so as you took in the view for a few more minutes, it was only when your partner beside you spoke up,

"Hey..." He mutters softly, grabbing your chin and tilting your face to him. His eyes meet yours, worry flashing for a mere moment, a moment that lasts forever. It's as if your eyes speak to him, and his own soften in reaction, "I know, I know... It's a lot, I bet." he chuckles, referring to the water just a few feet away from them. You gulp, nodding and wetting your lips,

"Yeah it's... It's fine, it's not terrible just..."

"Scary?"

"Yeah, new, scary, exciting?"

He chuckles deeply at your navigating of emotions, and he brings himself closer, close enough to place your palm over his heart.

"I know." He begins, "I bet it's overwhelming, seeing so much of something that you hardly knew existed for so many years." His thumb brushes back and forth over your knuckles, a slow and comforting touch that you've grown used to by now, but that still makes your heart beat just a little faster.

You nodded, forcing a smile as you answered,

"I... I'll be ok-"

"You don't have to be."

You faltered, letting out a breath of surprise,

"What?"

"I said that you don't have to be 'ok'." He smiled, bringing his face close enough to brush his nose against yours, "This is a lot, I know it is, it was a lot for me to move to Arrakis, a land of pure sand and rock. It's only natural that the complete opposite would be just as valid." His words were soft, understanding, something he always managed to keep up, no matter how distressed he was. You hummed to his words, eyes flitting away from him,

"Yes... It's a little scary, I suppose. I know I'll be ok it's just-" you sigh, meeting his eyes once again, "I'm sorry that I'm so scared of your home."

His eyes soften even deeper, and he brings your knuckles to his lips,

"It's ok... It is no slight to me... I'm just glad you don't seem to hate it." You shook your head,

"No... No not at all. Just- terrified." You giggled and he brings you in, kissing your temple,

"It's ok... Like I said, your husband would never steer you wrong. I'll protect you, from any and everything."

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

A/N: So... Little blurbs of cuteness and fluff just to get more used to writing Paul. I wrote this in the late hours and I sort of hate it because I've been looking at it for roughly two weeks but whateverrrrr I won't grow in my writing if I don't write! #Growth. Anyway! I do hope that you Paul lovers enjoy just a little cuteness, I love you and will see you soon!

[mx-piggy]

Hooray! I'm not several days late to reviewing this week's Futurama. Though, I did forget it was Hulurama day until like an hour ago. If you want the TLDR, I really enjoyed Quids Game, more than I think other people might have. As always, spoilers ahead!!

I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure what I think about this episode. I really liked it, but it definitely had things that I know people will take issue with. At the moment, I'd confidently give the episode a 7/10, though I'm more than prepared to bump it up to 7.5 or 8 if I watch/read a review of it that reassures me that I'm not being blind to this being the secret worst episode of Hulurama.

All of us watched the episode and knew that all of the characters would be somehow revived by the end. So, of course the focus of the episode was more on the comedy. I personally think that it worked well enough, though I think that some of the comedy easily could come off as meanspirited, not unlike some of the comedy in the Comedy Central era of the show, seeing as the joke is 'oh this character's dead'. I read through some posts on here to gauge the reaction to this episode, and right away I saw a complaint about the joke where Fry decapitates Professor Farnsworth and reacts to it casually. I completely understand why you would take issue with that, and I'm a little on the fence about it myself. But, also, I think maybe (and feel free to disagree with me) it would have been even more 'upsetting' to see another moment of Fry being made to feel awful in this episode.

I do think that, if you don't like the Squid Game plot of the episode, it's going to ruin Quids Game for you. And, I can see why you wouldn't like it. It did remind me a bit of the anthology episodes, like in the Prince and the Product when the car versions of the characters all get murdered and it's given very little weight, because it's supposed to be comedic/without canonical consequence. So, I can understand that people might have found the episode not enjoyable because you're just watching your favourite tertiary characters get killed without it actually meaning anything. But, I had fun with the episode. As a Squid Game parody, it really worked for me even though I haven't seen it. Parasites Regained, the Dune parody episode, was an episode I didn't enjoy much because of its reliance on Dune. So, I think this episode did a good job at being its own interesting thing while borrowing from Squid Game's premise of 'childhood games to the death'. I thought that the games themselves were cool, and all in all, the setting and premise of the episode was cool and I thought it was executed pretty well. (I'm going to stop 'both sides-ing' this review from now on, though, so I can give my opinion of the episode and stop worrying about other people's opinions lmao.)

I'm a huge fan of Fry flashback episodes, and I think that they make for some of the show's strongest emotional moments. It's weird because I had no idea that this episode was going to be a Fry flashback episode, and, coincidentally, I rewatched Cold Warriors last week because I was sick. I'm glad I did, because this one definitely reminds me of Cold Warriors, probably because of its focus on younger Fry.

Anyway, while I don't think this is the best Fry flashback episode we've ever had, it's definitely a good one and it felt like it brought something new to the table. I like that we get to see a more humanising side to Fry's parents, and I thought that the ending really was emotionally effective. The ending montage of Fry's parents helping him win reminded me a lot of the flashback to Leela's parents helping her throughout her life without her knowing, or the flashback in Lethal Inspection. But, and I didn't think about this until reading someone's post on here, it was really refreshing to get a flashback for once where it's not necessarily a moment that's secretly sweet. It was one of those moments of Futurama that gave me chills with its weight. Fry is distraught at losing his best friend, in a moment that we know sort of sends his 20th century life into a sort of friendless trajectory, and his mom thinks she's just given her son a great birthday party by making him feel like a winner when he so rarely does. God, it's such a great moment. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but I could definitely see this as being a key moment that would make Fry completely give in to his sort of innate mediocrity, associating this one victory with losing his friends. That's just the angst lover in me. I would love to read some Fry character analyses after this episode.

I liked that the episode used Gedgie, seeing as we're already familiar with how is relationship with Fry turns out later on (as shown in Cold Warriors).

Anyway, this episode was pretty funny, I'd say more than The One Amigo. It was fun seeing so many of the characters there together, and I think that the writer(s) handled this episode well given the sheer amount of characters there. Of course, probably my favourite moment was Zapp sliding between Fry's legs and saying 'hello, sailor'. The Frapp nation must be elated. Honestly, I need to write something Frapp-related. If I do, I'll share the link here.

Another joke I found funny was Fry saying 'I hope my grandma's proud of me down in hell'. My favourite line in the original run of the show is Fry's 'we can't just dump him in the gutter like grandma's ashes', so I think it's a small but funny bit of continuity that grandma was probably fucking awful.

Anyway, great episode. Seeing as The One Amigo felt like it should have been more emotional, I was glad that this episode handled its emotional beats very well. I really am looking forward to the rest of the season after this banger episode. As always, I'd love to hear what you guys thought!

[eluminium]

SKIZZ WEEK 5!!! THE GRIND CONTINIUES!!!

How the fuck did this one GET SO LONG????? AND HOW DID I FINISH IT IN TIME??? IT'S A MIRACLE!!!! I probably won't be able to finish day 6 on time due to LIFE STUFF but TRUST ME I AM GOING TO GET THE DAYS I MISSED DONE.

As always: @skizzlemanweek is the goat for giving us all these prompts!

Prompt 5: Stars/Hearts

-

A serene desert night. Something surprisingly rare, but more common in solo worlds. The hostile mobs keep away while the passive and neutral have long since fallen asleep. Out in the endless dunes, nothing moves. A true quiet.

That quiet swiftly comes to an end when a man with tussled black and grey hair crawls out of his tent. A simple t-shirt and a pair of loose shorts cover his scarred body, very unlike his usual outfit of choice. In his grip is a ridiculously large bath towel and a thicker blanket as well as a lantern. His feet are bare of any dress, and he relishes the feeling of sand brushing against them. What he likes less is the sudden chill graciously given to him by the desert’s nightly winds. He quickly ties the blanket around him like a cape. 

“Brrrr! I’m freezing my butt off! Kevin! Come out here!” He calls into the night. The previously still as a coffin tent bursts into activity as a “Woof!” erupts out of it. A medium-sized reddish-brown dog leaps out and bounces over to the man’s side. His tail wags like a metronome on steroids.  

The man's hearty laugh soars over the desert dunes as he leans down to give his dog some TLC. “Who’s my big puppy? Who’s my favorite in the whole wide world? Who’s my Kevin Bubbles Malone Jimmy Madeye Dugan? Yes, you are! You are!” He coos as Kevin rolls around and coats his fur in sand. When the man stands back up, Kevin copies him. The dog takes a few steps before-

“No, boy, don’t!” He borderline begs, but it’s too late. Sand goes flying everywhere as Kevin rids himself of the coarse and itchy feeling. 

“Augh! Bubbles! Bad dog! Now I got sand in my jibblets!” He pouts while trying to brush said sand off. Kevin tilts his head but otherwise continues to pant at him. 

He sighs with frustration and fondness as he walks away from the tent. "I can't be mad at you for long, it's not fair" He grumbles as Kevin walks attentively by his side, sniffing the air in search of any stray mobs who would dare to show their faces. But the desert is still quiet. Only the steps of the man and his dog as well as the lonely winds echo through the landscape. They keep walking with a clear goal in mind, each step intentional.

Until the man spots his destination in the distance. A giant vaguely circular glass donut-looking thing. The moonlight reflects beautifully off its slightly wonky surface, casting the area around it in an ethereal glow. With a cheer the man breaks out into a run, his loyal Kevin right behind him barking up a storm.

"Here it is, Kevin! Our overnight home!" He explains excitedly while throwing the giant towel over his shoulder so he can summon a silk touch pickaxe from his inventory. With it, he breaks just a few blocks of glass and steps inside. Kevin jumps in after with no hesitation. With everyone accounted for, the hole disappears as he refiles it. He wastes no time getting to work by spreading the massive towel over the sand. It's big enough to take up most of the ground inside the glass donut. After that, he places down a few other supplies before he unties his blanket cape.

"Sleeping under the desert stars on a clear night has been a bucket list item for a while, dude. I can't believe I'm finally doing this!" He says as he lays down on the towel. However, a cringe crosses his face when he feels the packed sand against his back. "Ouch! I thought it would be softer!" He exclaims. His solution is to wiggle his body around and create an imprint of his body into the sand. It's better...but not by much. It's good enough for now though, and he calls over Kevin who happily snuggles up to him.

With no more distractions, the man turns his eyes to the sky. And what a sight it is. A massive tapestry of light and color upon an ink-black background greets him. Hundreds if not thousands of stars scattered across the sky in an undescribable dance. The moon, ever the overachiever, shines bright and full. The spectacle of the scene before him fills every bit of his body with childlike wonder. He almost feels out of breath, and he's just lying there!

"Woah..." He mumbles.

With a clumsy hand, he points toward six stars located near each other. "See that Kevin? That's the Pickaxe." His hand then moves towards seven new stars. "And that's the Universal Bell." For a last time, he points to a cluster. "And that's the Head of the Great Dragon."

Suddenly, a distant feeling of fear hits him. His hand falls back down to Earth, and a frown decorates his face. "We really are miniscule, huh Kevin? We're tiny, insignificant little ants in the face of the Universe. Isn't that crazy?" Maybe he's the crazy one for talking to his dog alone in the desert. Kevin, for his part, continues to snore.

"Nothing we do matters on that scale. We can create a million solo worlds, yet it won't even make a blip on the radar!" He continues, the slight fear building strength in his chest.

"It's so vast. Borderline infinite. And I'm just one player out of millions...Maybe one of them is looking up right now, thinking the same thing. Mathematically that's gotta be the case. A million's a big number, and there's probably even more than that..." This ramble has to stop if he wants to keep that existential crisis at bay. Because at this rate he's on the minecart heading to the stress station!

He sighs and refocuses his eyes on the sky. It glows back at him just as before.

"Maybe we gotta focus less on what we can influence in the big picture and more on what we can influence in the small picture." He says, trying to inject some optimism into his tone. "Maybe the only impact we really need to make is the impact on those around us. Friends, family, other loved ones..."

He looks down at his beloved canine companion sleeping next to him. A smile creeps up on his face. Even just looking at Kevin's peaceful mug makes a happiness bubble in him. He giggles to himself. "I guess you're doing great on that front, Bubbles," He pets Kevin's head carefully to not wake him up. Afterward, he looks back up in the sky. 

"I could talk to my brothers more. Maybe invite Dop, Top, and Bop to do some silly challenges together. Or I could hit up Logic and get him to show me his newest duds. Maybe Pearlie Pop can help me build something for the fun!" Yeah! Yeah, that would be delightful! That would be great!

...Except that all of them are parts of servers he has no access to. And are also very busy. Well, that takes the wind out of his sails.

"Man, this sucks!" He pouts, trying to drown the genuine pang of loneliness with overdramatic sulking. But there's no one around to find it funny. His palm falls to his face.

"Dang it, Skizz!" Now he's just back in the sad. He shakes his head, this is not a productive mindset to have while alone in the desert under the infinite sky!

"You know what? They'll invite me to Hermitcraft next season. Then I'll have all the time in the world to hang out with my buddies!" He claims dramatically to bullshit his way out of this.

Then he stops.

Impulse is being cagey lately...Gem accidentally referred to him as a Hermit...Tango seems uncharacteristically excited about season 10...

Could it be?

A part of his mind screeches on instinct. Of course not! This hasn't been the first time he thought he was gonna get invited! And him? Hermitcraft? Yeah, sure. Like that would ever happen!

But, perhaps just this once, the other parts of his mind beat back those thoughts, and he gets to indulge in the possibility. Him on Hermicraft. With his friends. His brothers. And so many new people to get to know. A happy smile settles on his face at the thought. Wouldn't that be something? To have a proper home server again? Be able to look at the sky with those he loves the most. 

With that scenario in his mind, the starry sky above him doesn't look nearly as beautifully intimidating. Because if he's with his friends, he's in the right place. His place.

Eager to quit while he's ahead and to prevent those doubting thoughts from making a comeback, he summons the final pieces of his glass donut stargazing sleep place thing. Some glass, and a pillow. The glass is quickly used to cover the ceiling so no spiders or sandstorms could ruin his nap. The pillow lands where the indent of his head is under the sand. Somehow, Kevin doesn't stir, still sleeping away peacefully. The man, now very tired, lays back down on his towel and cozied up in the thick blanket. He gives a quick kiss to his dog's head, mumbles a "good night" and passes out on the spot.

But before he sinks into the sweet comfy unconsciousness, a vague memory, almost a dream, comes to him. It's a fragment of something players can never fully remember, but they hold it dear all the same.

Does it know that we love it? That the universe is kind?

Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the universe, yes.

[cobbssecondbelt]

Dincember 2023 - Day 2: Fire

Night time fell quickly on Tatooine. Without warning, the burning air turned bitter with a chill, blowing a breeze that felt like a blessing at first, before giving up all its mercy like everything else having to fight its way through the desert. Beige dunes and orange ridges turned blue, carefully looked upon by the watchful eyes of three moons. Tatooine had a unique way, especially at night, of making anybody feel always and never alone all at once, as if the planet herself was a constant silent looker, frowning upon every stranger who dared stomp over her cracked skin.

Din had camped among Tusken company more than once, but if he had to guess, he would affirm with confidence that Marshal Vanth never had. The jitter in his leg, the jitter in his eyes, the jitter in his fingers; he was a man ready to run and scowl and shoot, boiling with the anger of a prey who had grown a little too comfortable in the wolf skin it was hiding under. Din could understand, which doesn’t mean he pitied, for he knew the man was plenty competent. Few were those who got to live long enough to see their hair turn gray on this planet, and any silver mane was a trophy in itself, a well-earned one at that.

Vanth remained quiet after his little hissy stunt. He only began to settle once the Tuskens left one by one to retreat to their respective tents, until they were the only ones left by the fire. Din couldn’t help studying him from the corner of his eye. What a strange man. Loud but quiet, calculated but impulsive, angry but kind. Decades of bounty hunting had given Din a keen eye for puzzles, and this was an enigma he was oddly determined to solve.

‘’So,’’ Vanth eventually said. ‘’You really think this’ gonna work?’’

‘’Yes. The Tuskens know those territories better than anyone.’’ It didn’t seem enough to convince the antsy marshal. ‘’I know what you think of this, but you have to trust them. It’s the only chance we got.’’

Cobb kept his eyes on the fire, watching the embers pop. He choked out a scoff. ‘’You think I’m a bastard, don’t you?’’

Well, 

‘’I do.’’ The answer startled a quick chuckle out of Vanth. Although, for once, he didn’t seem shocked. Din rested his elbows on his knees with a tilt of his head. ‘’But that’s not my problem to fix.’’

Cobb rolled his eyes. 

‘’We’ll see about that…’’ he mumbled, the rumor of a smile ghosting over his thin lips.

They fell silent, letting the minutes stretch, easily, lazily, and for the first time in probably way too long, Din almost felt as if he had all the time in the world. 

Unsurprisingly, Cobb broke the silence first.

‘’Can I ask you somethin’?’’ he asked, voice gone soft, gaze up towards the night sky. 

‘’Yes?’’

‘’You must travel a lot, right?’’

‘’I do.’’

Cobb toyed unconsciously with a string coming out of his right glove. ‘’What is it like up there? In space?’’

Din turned his head to look at the man properly, before leaning back to look at the sky. The stars had fully come out by now, hundreds visible from the ground, and so many thousands more to see from up way above. Thysk was shining bright tonight, always by Chenini’s side.

‘’It’s quiet. Quite… quite beautiful. Peaceful.’’

‘’Doesn’t it get lonely?’’

Din’s fingers stilled from where they were rubbing idly at his vambrace.

‘’Sometimes.’’ he murmured.

Cobb nodded. ‘’Good to know.’’ he said, mostly to himself.

‘’You’ve never been?’’

‘’Mm?’’

‘’In space.’’

Cobb chuckled with a rise and fall of his eyebrows. ‘’Nope.’’

‘’Oh.’’

‘’Yeah.’’

The fire was dying out. The chill in the wind was getting more biting. At Din’s feet, Grogu groaned in his sleep, curled up in a heap of beige robes.

Cobb sighed and brushed the sand off his lap. ‘’Better hit the sack, got quite the day tomorrow.’’ he got to his feet with a grunt and a few pops from his joints. He eyed the tent that had been assigned to them through eyes still squinted in apprehension. 

‘’I’ll be right behind you.’’ Din replied as he bundled Grogu in the crook of his arm and kicked some sand over the remains of the fire.

He watched the marshal go, the lanky length of him swaying through camp with what could have been mistaken for nonchalance, if it hadn’t been for his right hand hovered over his holster, still ticklish. 

Soon he was swallowed by the night, and Din followed him, a fuzzy kind of amusement fluttering against his sternum and an absurd proposition juggling in his mind he would never dare to offer.

[adamwatchesmovies]

Dune (2021)

Even upon a rewatch, 2021’s Dune: Part One is spectacular. The memorable, foreboding score by Hans Zimmer, the costumes that bring this world to life, the scale of the action and the unique sets, ship & weapon designs all come together to complement a story of mythical scale. After seeing this film, two thoughts start competing for your brain’s attention. 1) If Frank Herbert’s Dune was adapted this successfully, then no work is unfilmable and 2) the sequel can’t come soon enough.

In 10191, the universe is ruled by an Emperor who assigns the exploitation of planets to powerful ruling houses. Interstellar travel is possible through “spice” a substance found exclusively on the harsh desert planet of Arrakis. For 80 years, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) and his house have overseen the harvest of spice. Now, Duke Leto I (Oscar Isaac) of House Atreides is the new steward of Arrakis but only for as long as the flow of spice continues. This shift puts House Atreides, particularly the Duke’s son, Paul (Timothy Chalamet), in danger.

At 155 minutes, you’d think this movie would feel long, but it doesn’t. One of the reasons is that there’s a lot within to keep your mind busy. What’s a Freman? What’s a Kwisatz Haderach? What’s “the voice”? If director Denis Villeneuve tried to cram this story into 90, or even 120 minutes, it would move so quickly that all these questions would leave you in the dusty sands of Arrakis (that’s the planet, right?). By taking its time while moving at a good pace the film allows you - in time - to answer all of your questions. Since you understand what’s happening, you’re engaged. It helps that if you can’t remember what each name means, the visuals pick up the ball. The grotesque, scheming Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is clearly a villain. It's particularly obvious once you see his nephew, the psychotic and childish Glossu Rabban (Dave Bautista). You know you can’t trust the Bene Gesserit because their leader, Reverend Mother Mohiam (Charlotte Rampling) makes Paul take a painful, life-threatening test to prove he isn’t a threat himself. These are only a few of the many examples I could choose and they show how the story is both complex and easily digestible.

Even without the gripping story filled with backstabbings, political intrigue, violence, quests for revenge and harrowing struggles for survival, Dune would still have you tightly in its grip. Throughout, Paul’s psychic abilities give him visions. They foretell the future… sort of. They give hints of what’s coming but hints are not the same as clear answers. These all tie to this planet he’s on; a world that doesn’t end where the screen does. The details in the dialogue, sets and costumes make you wish the Harkonnens would just chill, and save their grudge for later. This way, you’d have time to see House Atreides befriend the Fremen and familiarize themselves with their customs.

There’s so much happening in this film that some of it you won’t “get” until later. For example, the early assassination attempt on Paul’s life. The would-be killer? A Harkonnen cutthroat, hidden in a bedroom wall. What kind of wealth, power and/or terrifying influence could persuade someone to take on that sort of assignment, knowing they would have to wait in darkness for weeks, slowly starving to death, just to kill a boy?

The passion within Dune is as clear as its ambition. You’re only getting half of a movie with it, but this choice feels like a necessity, rather than a Breaking Dawn-type of cash-grab or an attempt to start another franchise for a money-hungry studio. It certainly doesn’t feel presumptuous. Everything we see feels important; like it’s building up to not just one, but many bigger character arcs in a world that contains hundreds of stories. You know the threads that are left hanging will be tied up - that’s the kind of confidence all of the artists at work instill in you. Dune/Dune: Part One is a film that’s going to be remembered. (March 1, 2024)

[rebeccalouisaferguson]

Angela Bassett earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a devoted mother in the sequel “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.” So I couldn’t help but wonder while watching “Dune: Part Two” whether Rebecca Ferguson could follow a similar trajectory to awards glory.

The two roles are similar in that both women play mothers whose life partners are killed and whose children carry great power. Of course, beyond that there are significant differences. Bassett’s Queen Ramonda is thrust into leadership reluctantly after the deaths of her husband and son. Ferguson’s Lady Jessica, on the contrary, actively seeks power for herself and her child Paul (Timothee Chalamet), preying on people’s faith and fear in order to fulfill a prophecy.

But both actresses give standout performances among their films’ ensemble casts. Bassett lends emotional depth and raises the stakes of what might have been a conventional superhero sequel. Ferguson deepens her film’s narrative in a different way. We recognize her love for her son and unborn daughter, but there are subtle shades of Lady Macbeth underneath; her pure love for her family is twisted by a thirst for power. It’s through her unsettling performance that the film comments on the dangers of religious fanaticism and begins to suggest that Paul’s rise might not be as heroic as we’re first led to believe.

Clarisse Loughrey (The Independent) writes of the performances that “Chalamet and Ferguson take all that was regal and dignified about their performances, and apply to them a poisoned tip.” Brian Truitt (USA Today) adds that “Ferguson’s Lady Jessica rises to become a gripping ‘Dune’ persona, who goes from being extremely dry in the first film to an intriguingly determined figure.” Brian Tallerico (RogerEbert.com) argues that her “slippery performance” adds “flavors here that weren’t in the first outing.”

Ferguson’s career has been building for more than a decade now. She earned a Golden Globe nom for her breakthrough performance in the 2013 TV limited series “The White Queen.” A couple of years later she got a Critics Choice bid for Best Actress in an Action Movie for “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” (2015). She also received a smattering of awards attention for her role in the “Shining” sequel “Doctor Sleep” (2019) and made additional appearances in awards contenders like “Florence Foster Jenkins” (2016), “The Girl on the Train” (2016) and “The Greatest Showman” (2017), but she has yet to be nominated by a major industry peer group like SAG, Emmy, BAFTA or Oscar.

The question, of course, is whether Ferguson can survive the gauntlet of the rest of the 2024-2025 awards season, which to be honest hasn’t even really begun yet and won’t get into high gear until this summer and fall’s festivals. Still, we’ve seen early releases survive the long haul of an Oscars campaign like “Black Panther,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Past Lives.” And the Oscar success of the first “Dune” film (six wins out of 10 nominations) indicates that awards voters will surely have this sequel on their radars. Will Ferguson also garner attention for her chilling performance?