#ship of the line was fine. it pissed me off a tiny bit less than beat to quarters

[quatregats]

I know that this is an act of the most extreme hubris and I expect to be struck down for it sooner or later, but what if....I attempted to write Hornblower in the style of Patrick O'Brian....

[soggy-platee]

It Goes Both Ways

Rating: M (Somewhat graphic talk of injury)

Pairing: Din x GN!Reader

Summary: You take a hit for Din, feelings and angst ensue.

Note: Hello sorry this is literally all angst, a tiny bit of fluff. I can't stop myself, I just love the whole "feelings being revealed through injury" trope. If anyone wants, I was thinking about a smutty part two to this one! Let me know. Also, y'all were so kind with Doubt, so thank you!

...

The fight went bad from the second it started.

Well, before that, if you were being completely honest. Everyone in the cantina had been too still, too tense when you and Mando entered. It was so clearly unnatural for the usually boisterous atmosphere of a Nevarro night.

Yet somehow, you both missed it.

The kid was really to blame. He had been a ball of energy all night, practically bouncing off the walls of the hull while you and his father did everything in your power to get him to calm down. You were both annoyed and tired as your set out to meet the contact, should have known there was no hope of success. When the eight men in the cantina converged on you both, you were immediately thrust into the defensive. Exactly where you knew Mando hated to be. You had taken down several attackers, using your blade to slash and hack until it broke off in the chest cavity of some blue creature. You had lost just a moment as you attempted to wrench the hopeless blade from the now lifeless corpse, but it was enough time for a rough tug to pull you to the ground and a heavy weight to climb on top of you. You remembered the previous night almost fondly as opposed to the impossibly tight grip on your throat now.

Your fingers dug into the hand around your throat to no avail as the man- a Twi’lek, you now realized- bared his teeth down at you. Hot breath brushed over your face and you grimaced even further. Eyes rolling, you managed to steal a glance at Mando who was engaged in his own battle. There were two on him, one managing to get Mando’s arms behind his back in a tight hold while the other approached with a raised blade as you looked on. Fear shot through you at his vulnerable position and you doubled your efforts.

Your fingernails finally caught purchase on the arm that held you down at the same moment you bucked your hips with everything you had. A hiss came from above as you managed to pull one leg above the hips holding you down. Twisting hard, you flipped the man into the floor at full speed, his cheek cracking against the hard dirt. On your hands and knees now, you whipped your head up to see the armed man raise his blade and prepare to strike at Mando’s exposed neck. The fabric of his cowl would do nothing to stop the glowing, razor-sharp weapon that was mear inches from him now.

You shot up, your boots digging into the dirt as you righted yourself directly into a sprint. It happened in a split second. You reached Mando just as the blade completed its arc, half-throwing, and half-pressing yourself in front of his armored chest in a protective stance. You followed your first instinct, forearm coming up to block the blow.

White-hot pain bloomed along your arm, reaching all the way to the bone, as the blade cut through you like butter. Gasping at the initial shock, you managed to get a gut punch into the man in front of you before dropping to one knee. You clutched your forearm, trying your hardest to not collapse and curl up right then and there. You dimly registered fighting directly behind you through closed eyes, hoping to God it was Mando dealing with the last guy.

No offense to him, but you felt like you had done enough.

A wave of nausea came over you as you dared to open your eyes, taking in the bloody mess that was now your arm. The cut wasn’t overly long, but it was deep. You knew you had felt it hit bone, but jeez, you didn’t think you would be able to see it.

A blaster shot from behind you gave your enough adrenaline to rise on unsteady feet, turning to see Mando with his arm still raised, blaster smoke rising from the body of the final hostile in the room.

He turned to you with an immediacy that made you sway, the speed of the movement causing another wave of nausea to rise up. You doubled over as he approached, pressing your good hand to the back of your mouth. He was mumbling something as he approached you, Mando’a you would realize later. His hands found your hunched shoulders as you finally heard a word you recognized well,

“Cyare-hey, hey, look at me-”

With your hand still planted firmly over your mouth, you glanced up at him. You were taken aback by just how shook up he looked, even underneath the armor. His hands were tight around your shoulders, almost bruising you with their intensity. His chest was heaving, but it couldn’t be from the fight now. His voice nearly shook.

The pain almost blinding you was nothing compared to the icing feeling that crept down your spine at the sheet panic he was radiating. It wasn’t right, you had never seen him simply break like this.

You had seen him trembling underneath you, above you as he came, but he was still always in control when you were together. This was different.

This was frightening.

His hand pulled up to cup your jaw as you faced him, tilting it back and forth, frantically searing you even though the source of your pain was obvious. You wanted to say something, anything, to get him to calm down. But when you managed to pull your hand from your mouth, all that escaped was a low groan of pain.

Well that didn’t work, you thought faintly before your face collided with Mando’s chestplate, blackness overtaking you a second after.

…

The swaying was what woke you. A constant, fast motion shook you all over. Most pertinently, it was shaking the hell out of your arm. Something was wrapped around you, holding you close to a hard metal surface.

Why did it hurt again?

Ah yes, the cut.

The cut. The fight.

Mando.

You forced your eyes open, instinctually pulling away from whatever was retraining you. A gruff voice spoke to you as you turned your eyes to face the dark fabric of Mando’s chin.

“Stop.”

His faceplate didn’t even turn to you, just one word directed outward to the now-dark street ahead of you. He was carrying you through the town bridal style, your damaged arm tucked up into your chest as your calves swung with each footfall.

The memories of the night flooded back to your in greater detail, mainly your injury. An injury, you now noticed, hurt a lot less than it had...a few minutes ago? An hour?

Your confusion formed a question. Fighting the dryness in your voice, you huffed out, “How long was I out?”

“Not long.”

Another short answer, again not facing you.

A frown tugged on your lips, brows furrowing. Had something happened you didn’t remember? Why was he suddenly pissed at you? Finally, you glanced down at your arm. Wrapped in several bacta patches, secured with more bandages.

When the hell did that happen?

“Cantina had supplies”

Sometimes his ability to read you pissed you off.

You finished the trip in silence, doing your best to let off a pissed-off vibe. It was childish. You knew how to communicate, you knew Mando hardly ever did. But you were tired, hurt, and you didn’t know why that was such a huge problem to him. You had saved his ass, anyway.

You should be the pissed one if anything.

You approached the Crest’s ramp and you prepared to be set down, tensing your legs and starting to push off his chest with your good arm.

His grip simply remained firm, however, showing no indication he would be letting you down. You twisted your head in an attempt to look him in the visor, confused as all hell. His face remained stubbornly to front, much to your continued irritation.

You pushed off him a few more futile times, wiggling your hips in an attempt to loosen his hand around your knees.

Nothing.

You just slumped in his arms then, waiting for what seemed like the world’s slowest ramp to hit the ground.

He stomped into the ship and didn’t set you down until the ramp started to raise. His demeanor still remained stony, but he set you down with a gentleness only reserved for you and the child. He steadied you as your feet hit the ground, but his hands pulled away as soon as he confirmed you could stand alone.

Before you could even speak, he was gone, heading to the ladder of the cockpit.

That was it, you had absolutely had enough.

You threw your good hand in the air before shouting across the silent hull.

“Yeah, thanks for the ride, I’ll just go fuck off then.”

It wasn’t your best line, but you were pissed. And confused.

And hurt more than anything.

To your credit, the words were enough to stop him, hand on the first rung of the ladder. You stood expectantly, breathing heavily from your words and your injury.

Silence.

You made an incredulous sound, turning around and folding your arms to the best of your ability.

“Leave it to me to fuck up and save your ass, my bad, it won’t happen again.”

You winced as the words left your mouth, it was mean. It was terrible. You didn’t mean it. You would lay down your life for him at any moment and he knew it. Well, you thought he knew it. You thought he would do the same for you, too. But here he was, acting like you were a liability. Like he didn’t care about you at all. It made you defensive. Maybe you misread things between you too. Maybe you were just sex to him. Maybe you didn’t go any further.

That was fine, you could handle that. You just needed him to tell you, and not do whatever this was.

Leather creaked as his hand tightened on the metal with your words, but silence persisted. The fight in your was waning as your thoughts continued to run wild.

Your next words came out more defeated than aggressive, “If I’m an issue, just tell me. I’m gone.”

That sparked something in him, hand flying off the ladder as he whirled to face you. The movement caught you off guard, combined with the weakened state it made you stumble back a step Then another, then more as the suddenly fervent Mandaoliran stalked toward you across the hull. Your back hit the wall before he finally stopped a foot away from you, helmet tilted down at you as his shoulders rose and fell with deep, ragged breaths.

His helmet searched you, looking you up and down while his hands came to hover near your shoulder. He didn’t touch you, however, simply grasping at air several times in contemplation before fisting them once more at his side.

“Of course you’re an issue, you are the issue -my issue.”

His tone was unreadable, half-angry, half-desperate.

You gaped like a fish in his face, trying to make sense of what the hell was going on. Where was this coming from?

Your silence rushed him forward. Pushing a finger into your chest, he rambled, “You did fuck up- saving me. I didn’t want you- you shouldn’t have- I didn’t need it.” He spat the final words, but there was something underneath it, far too similar to his tone earlier, his panic.

Still, his words reignited your anger and confusion. “What do you mean you “didn’t need it”. That knife was going for your neck!”

He threw his head back, hands coming up to grip the sides of his helmet.

“Exactly! A knife which you jumped in front of, with no plan, no defense. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking I didn’t want you to die, idiot! What the hell did you think I was thinking?”

He stumbled, whatever retort he had dying soundlessly on his tongue. Then, he spun from you, crossing his arms over his chest as he did. His next words were quiet, dismissive but firm.

“I didn’t ask for that. Never do that again.”

You literally could not comprehend his train of thought. Did he want you to just let him die? You grabbed his shoulder with your good hand, trying to force him to face you to no avail.

“You don’t get a say, you don’t have to ask. Don’t you get it? If I want to take a hit for you, that’s on me.”

He rounded on you once more, helmet coming so close that it nearly made contact with your forehead. “You don’t get to make that choice”, he growled, low and urgent.

Oh, now that was fucking golden.

“What? I don’t get to make my own choices with my own life? Is that what it’s come to now? Clearly, you don’t trust me, but I at least thought you could afford me my own autonomy.”

Finally, his hands came up and grabbed your shoulders, shaking you with intensity as he shouted in your face.

“Would you just listen to me? I won’t- cannot lose you. Not for me. Not ever.”

Your shoulders tensed in his grip and your eyes shot wide. His words startled you, the meaning washing over you in steps. They first relived you, convinced you that you felt the same way about each other, regardless of the fact this was the first time you were both voicing such outright feelings. But they also struck that same anger in you.

“So you get to protect me but I can’t do that same for you?”. Your voice was calmer now, eyes searching his visor for some sign he understood how unfair- if touching- his words were.

His hands loosened on your arms, shoulders dropping from their tense state. His helmet dropped from your gaze, swinging loosely before he sighed, “...Yes.”

His voice upturned at the end, almost in question of his own words. Of course. He knew how stupid it sounded.

Anger left you at his defeated look, head hanging between his shoulders. You raised your good arm, slowly placing your fingertips on the bottom of his helmet. He tensed for a moment at the touch, but you pushed gently enough on the metal that he simply followed your guidance. His visor came to face you once more, the blackness reflecting the look of concern in your eyes. You could only imagine that his held the same look.

Gloved fingers found your bad arm, still drawn tightly to your chest. They brushed over the patches gingerly, making their way to your hand and intertwining with your own digits. Your eyes fluttered at the touch, the familiar feeling melting away the residual pain like water down a stream.

He sighed heavily, before speaking with a subdued sincerity.

“You make me so fucking scared, pretty. I’ve never-I didn’t know that feeling until you and the kid. I can’t focus on anything else. I can’t lose you- can’t live without you.”

His fingers tightened around yours as he spoke, and your soft smile was reflected in silver back at you.

“Do you not think I feel the same thing, feel the same way about you?”

He gave your hand a squeeze before breathing, “...I do.”

Your smile faltered at his admission, worry coloring your next words.

“Then why do you think I could live without you?”

It was times like these you cursed his helmet, his creed. You wanted- needed to know that your words were getting across to him, that he understands just how fucking much he meant to you. While his face was unreadable, a short breath through the modulator and another sharp squeeze of your hand told you that you had hit the mark.

You took a deep breath before saying, “Listen. We protect each other. Equally. That’s how this works. You can’t stop me. So if you want to keep me out of harm’s way, then you have to keep your own metal-ass safe, yeah?”

You swore you heard a chuckle from underneath your helmet at your comment, and you broke into a grin. You pulled your good hand from his and placed it behind his helmet, tugging it toward you and resting the cool metal on your forehead. His hand mimicked your position, coming up to intertwine with the hair at the base of your neck.

You let your eyes slip shut before saying, “Do you understand now, dummy?”

His hand gripped your hair tighter, pressing your closer. His words were thick when he spoke, “I do.”

You released your grip on him, righting yourself, but his hand simply slid down your back. He still held you close when he said, “And I’m sorry… for the way I acted. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you. I was just…”

He faded off, but you knew where he was headed. You chuckled and flashed another smile, “It’s alright, make it up to me by taking the next knife, huh?”

The usual huff of laughter at your stupid comments didn’t come however, his helmet simply tipped down to take you in, hand tightening on your lower back.

“Actually…” he started, voice growing lower, softer, “I had another idea about how to make it up to you”

[my-writings-and-musings]

Not sure if you still want to write for old prompts but if so; May I request Rodimus, Brainstorm, and a bot of your choice for the kidnapped s/o defending their bot and giving the kidnapper a tongue lashing? Your writing is so good it seriously brightens my day reading through it all! :D

I never tire of my prompts, lovely anon! Thanks a million and here's the good boys! I couldn't think of anyone I wanted to do for the third bot but I poured my heart and soul into these two, I hope you like them!

Rodimus

·Your panic had never really gone beyond some light anxiety about when you'd get to eat next, but you credited that to the rescue party you knew was coming. Rodimus had bested bad guys far more competent than this loser, so you had few worries about getting out. Truthfully your greatest concern was how unfathomably annoying your captor was proving to be. Between their grandiose personality and their constant taunting over the communication line, you feel as if you're going to go mad. Unfortunately, when the mocking starts to be aimed directly at Rodimus without end, you quickly build to your limit. The gloves come off when your captor crosses the final line and calls your partner "Hot Rod" in an unacceptable jab.

·"Oh for God's sake! It's Rodimus you dolt, not Hot Rod! I know the extra syllable is a little difficult for you, but try to keep up!" Your shout echoes so loudly in the tiny cave that a bit of dust falls from the ceiling. Your captor is quick to try and shut you up, but that doesn't stop you in the slightest, as yelling feels far better than taking any more of their trash. For pete's sake, they stole you for ransom and they're expecting good behavior? Entitlement falls way short of describing what a jerk this bot is, and you let them know it, channeling the insults you know your partner would unleash if they could.

·"You think you scare me? You think you scare anyone?! You're dumb enough to piss off the captain of the Lost Light buddy, you should be afraid! Rodimus sees guys like you as footnotes compared to what he usually deals with!" Quite accustomed to your beloved captain charging in to save the day, you let loose a long list of his accomplishments, proudly defending and boasting at the same time. Your captor can't even get a word in edgewise. With a devilish smirk, you start to go on about all the less public ways Rodimus rules as a partner. His impeccable charm, his smooth wit, and his capacity to perform as a Prime where it really counts... That last bit is kept from vulgarity only due to a none too distant explosion cutting you off.

·Before anything can move, the door quite literally melts before imploding inward as molten metal, revealing Rodimus covered in flame. He moves in a fiery blur, his fist more akin to a meteorite as it collides with your captor to knock them out in a single punch. At your cheering of his name, he comes to your side in a flash, fire dissipating completely after he frees you of your bonds. Moments later the remainder of the crew is pouring in with Magnus scolding Rodimus for rushing ahead. He ignored him completely as he takes you into his arms, optics shining as if he's beholding something more precious than the Matrix could ever be. Though his words are flirty, his tone is tender and brimming with affection as he takes you back to the ship. His lovestruck expression doesn't seem to go away even when he throws a massive party to celebrate your rescue.

·In an incredibly rare moment where his responsibilities pull him away from you, a bot close to him tells you something they think you should know. Rodimus was initially devastated by your kidnapping. Though the entire ship had rallied for your rescue, he'd barely held it together enough to take charge, and hearing the bot mock him had nearly sent him over the edge. Your outburst had, as if by a miracle, revitalized him. Hearing you stick up for him, including your grand list of what you adored about him, had so inspired him that controlling his fire had become easy. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen. You believing in him had put into perspective what he was capable of, to the point it lit a fire in the most literal sense of the phrase.

Brainstorm

·Dating a bot brilliant enough to rend time had made you quite accustomed to shenanigans of all kinds. Thus, you were calm when kidnapped, both due to the aforementioned reason as well as your certainty of rescue. However, that calm had proved short lived when your captor proved to be an annoying jerk with a massive inferiority complex. Their ceaseless mockery through the communication channel was like torture the DJD would have found too cruel to condone. You'd been able to stay cool for some time, focusing on keeping the situation calm and looking for weak points your rescuers might exploit, but inevitably you'd been pushed to your limit. The final straw had been your captor having the audacity to mock your partner for being a hopeless inventor who only managed to make things no one needed, and that sent you over the edge.

·"Hopeless?! You call inventing time travel and creating the multiverse hopeless?! This coming from a loser in a cave with the most backwards security system on this side of the galaxy?!" Your outburst had come with a rattling of your chains to emphasize your point, and between your voice and the clanking metal you'd immediately had the full attention of the bad bot. Still enraged, you made a point of detailing every single categorical failure they'd displayed, having learned plenty about judging the quality of technology in Brainstorm's lab. There's more than enough material for you to throw at them with the nightmare of poor maintenance surrounding you. "When was the last time you bothered patching up these turrets anyway?! Hope you're not planning on using these for defense, Brainstorm will have them short circuiting before he's done hacking that door!"

·There's something resembling an attempt at a comeback, but you're a mile ahead before it's even halfway out. To say your beloved bot eclipses this loser's intellect would imply they'd actually register on the same level, and you have to laugh at the absurdity of someone so incompetent daring to come after one of the most brilliant bots in the galaxy, something you let them know in no uncertain terms. The litany of reality warping ways you might be rescued is as long as it is ridiculously plausible. You begin going off on the countless other ways Brainstorm might get around this captive situation, extolling his many talents in weapon design and paying special attention to how brilliantly he thinks outside the box. You're about to get into the details of other areas he's creative in when the lights go out and everything plunges in to darkness.

·Flashes of biolights, small explosions, and shouts of action are all you have to discern some incredible rush of activity. Before you can really figure out what's happening a beautiful pair of yellow optics light up the darkness, and in a split second your chains are broken and you're being lovingly cupped by a pair of careful hands. At the flip of a small device the lights flicker on to reveal a beaten but otherwise fine captor being cuffed, but you ignore that entirely when Brainstorm removes his mask to speak to you. Playfully fussing over your condition, he uncharacteristically kisses your little head in full view of everyone, something he's never done before. In fact, the next few days he's nothing but openly loving and outright showy in his affections, publicly presenting you with a series of fantastic gifts invented to profess his love.

·In a rare moment of solitude, you're unexpectedly taken aside by a bot who says they need to let you know something important. Brainstorm was almost dangerous. He'd already lost one love, and he'd been so intent on not losing another he'd been forced from his lab to prevent him from tearing reality asunder to get to you. He'd been nearly impossible to console or restrain until your voice came through the comm. Hearing you defend him so passionately had calmed and invigorated him all at once, grounding him in reality and giving him the clarity he needed to assist in rescuing you. The device he'd created to extinguish enemy defenses had been put together at a speed that impressed Perceptor. It was thanks to you that he remembered to go slow and take things one step at a time, because just as much as you were worth fighting for, you were worth living for.

[writingformadderton]

Still

Ship: Madderton

Word Count: 9019

Summary: Rich and T had been in different countries for a while now, both dealing with it differently. One night those differences lead to terrible mistake of Richard who regrets it deeply, but Taron isn’t able to forgive him just yet...

Additional Tags: tw: mention of panic attacks, breakup, cheating, Elton, angst, fluff

Requested via chat by: @queenmerabby

Kinda based on the songs “Bend the rules”, “Dear Patience” and “Still” by Niall Horan

------

Taron missed Richard with his whole heart. He hated being away from him and not having him right by his side. But Richard had to work in Los Angeles, on the other side of the ocean. Taron has a job in London right now, able to work from home and usually he loves that.

But coming home tiredly after a long day with no one who greets him, wraps him in a tight hug and helps him to shower before crashing in bed and not the other way around is horrible. Without Richard, Taron came home late and often fell asleep on the sofa, his dinner on the table only half eaten, and wakes up late remembering he still has to get a shower. It was a mess and he hates it.

It was never easy for Taron to be parted because he missed Richard so much that it hurt. He was needy for his cuddles, he missed his voice, his laugh and their lazy days. He missed fooling around with him, dancing through the living room late at night and exchanging cheesy nonsense. And the worst thing was that Taron missed being self-confident without him. T was in constant need of reassurance and getting told he did nothing wrong when something didn't go as it should have.

He steps out of the shower and looks at the clock seeing that it's already 4am. Taron groans and quickly rubs his hair with a towel looking down at his phone. It was 8pm now in LA, he could give it a go and try to reach Richard.

Richard looks up confused when he hears Tarons signature melody ringing. He grabs his phone and takes the call. "Hey." he says.

"Hey." T says and makes himself comfortable in bed.

"You're alright?" Richard asks startled as he calculated the time difference. "You should be sleeping, T, it's 4am." he chuckles softly.

"Yeah, I know." T sighs and rubs his face. "I'm just missing you, I guess."

Rich smiles at that and can imagine him cuddled up in bed. "I miss you too." he says. Hearing how tiny and tired Tarons voice sounded wrenched his heart. "You wanna talk until you fall asleep?" he offers.

"I don't wanna distract you from what you're doing. Just wanted to say hi." Taron admits and rolls onto his side looking at Richard's empty side of the bed.

Richard leans back in the sofa and shakes his head. "You're my boyfriend, bubs, I always have time for you." Richard insists and hears T chuckling.

"How long until you're back?" Taron asks and curses at himself. He keeps on forgetting it.

"A week and then I'll be home for two weeks before going back." Richard states and smiles a bit. That was so typically Taron, forgetting this stuff.

"Phew still a week." he groans and rolls onto his back. Richard was already gone for three months. "Greet your mate Max from me, yeah?"

"I will." Rich says smirking. He moved in with his former roommate from college again when he got told he'd have to work for quite some time in Los Angeles. His friend just grinned and said he can stay with him.

They keep on talking until Taron fell asleep and Richard keeps his phone close on speaker for another few minutes, making sure he really is asleep, before ending the call.

 -

Taron's alarm blasts through their apartment at 6:30 am. He whines softly and reaches out for his phone growling. This would be such a shitty day.

He gets up slowly, his world is spinning as he stumbles over to the bathroom. Taron turns the shower cold, shivering underneath it but feeling himself getting a bit more awake. He texts Richard a sweet message and gets one back pretty soon.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he makes some coffee and curses as the cup falls down, making his clothes and the floor full of it. Taron quickly cleans up the mess, makes a new one and rushes back to the bedroom to get some new clothes, throwing the other ones onto the floor in the bathroom. He was late and had to deal with that later. Back in the kitchen he burns his tongue with the hot coffee and whines. "Fuck!" he growls.

His day continues being as shitty as it started. He messes up a scene, forgets his lines and destroys a costume during the shoot. Driving home he gets stuck in traffic and he just wants to cry, frustration welling up.

Stepping inside their apartment he wants to do nothing more than hide in Richard's arms and have a good cry. When he realizes he'll be on his own again, he feels the tears falling down his cheeks and he just falls into his bed. Reaching for his phone he dials Richard's number but gets disappointed when he doesn't take the call.

Almost three hours later Richard calls him back. "Hey, sorry, luv. I was attending to a dinner and then we went to a bar, didn't hear my phone."

"S'alright." T says and stares out of the window. "Why were you having a dinner at 3pm?!" he asks confused.

"Don't ask me, they set it then." Rich chuckles. "Why are you still up? It's already 2am again, you're gonna be wrecked tomorrow."

"I already am." T sighs and bites his lower lip. "I had a really shitty day and wanted to talk to you about it."

"I'm sorry I missed your call." Richard apologizes and presses his other ear closed, the music blasting through the bar. "You're better now?"

"Not really." Taron says and feels himself getting slightly irritated. What the heck was Rich doing that he seemed so absent, normally he didn't even had to explain it and Richard could hear it in his voice.

"I'd love to talk to you about it but Max is so fucking drunk right now, I have to get him back to the apartment." Rich says and sees Max stumbling towards him.

"At 6pm, congrats." Taron scoffs and rolls his eyes.

"Jus' let me help him sober up and I'll talk to you tomorrow when I can fully focus on you."

"Oh sure, fine." he says annoyed.

"Come on, don't be mad now. I promise I'll call you and-." he stops himself when Max stands close in front of him.

Taron’s eyes widen when he can hear a sound that definitely shouldn't leave Richards lips as long as he wasn't around him. Rich moans and he can clearly hear someone kissing. "Rich-." and then the call ends. What the fuck did just happen?

 -

Richard doesn't call him the next day, too caught up in thoughts about what he did. How should he ever tell Taron that? After three days, he hasn’t heard anything from T and decides to call him. Taron takes it after a while and doesn't say anything. "Hey, how are you?"

"Seriously?" he asks and stops to search his keys in his pocket.

"Yeah?" Rich asks slowly. He knows what he did, he knows he fucked up with not calling him.

"After three days you call me, when you promised me to call me on the next day. And then you're just asking how I am? What the fuck, Rich?" Taron spits out annoyed and turns around the key, slamming the door behind him aggressively.

"T, I'm so sorry. I was…I’m sorry, love. Really." he says and rubs his face. Fuck.

"Yeah whatever." Taron just says and kicks off his shoes. "At least one of us can afford to get drunk at 6pm."

"Hey, come on, I wasn’t drunk!" Rich protests. "You know I'm working my ass off and it was just one evening. I was out, not drunk."

"Mm." T hums and rolls his eyes. "Hope you had fun." and with that he ends the call and bites his lower lip. He was clearly hurt by Richard’s behavior and especially because of the end of the call, he still doesn't know what happened.

 -

Two days later, Richard comes home with mixed up feelings. He was looking forward to be back home and spend some time with his boyfriend, but he wasn't sure if Taron would be happy to see him. Especially not when he’d share the news of what he did.

Walking around in the apartment, he figures that Taron wasn't here and he sighs a bit at the mess. Some dirty dishes in the kitchen, some laundry on the floor in the bathroom and his script all over the living room floor. "Jesus, T." he sighs annoyed and starts cleaning up the mess.

When Taron comes back home later in the day, Richard gets confronted with how shitty he was feeling for the first time. He has dark circles underneath his eyes, is pale and his eyes are reddish. His hair is a mess and he looks immensely tired. Probably lost some weight. "Hey." he says low voiced.

"Hey." Taron mumbles and avoids his look.

No enthusiastic and excited greeting then. Richard sighs a little and steps closer to him. "You're okay?" Taron just shakes his head and stares down at the floor. "Come on, T." Rich says and carefully lifts his head by placing his fingers underneath his chin. He sees the tears in his eyes and bites his lip. "What's wrong?"

"I'm just fucking tired. Of everything." he says and shrugs his shoulders. "I'm tired of sleepless nights, messed up shoot, being alone and you pissing me off."

"Listen, I'm sorry because of what happened but you can't keep on being mad at me because of that." Richard sighs.

"Oh, can't I?" he asks and lets out a dark laugh.

"Seriously, you're behaving like a child now." he growls and rolls his eyes. "Yes I was out and couldn’t be there for you properly. But you've been that way as well before."

"But not when you needed me!" Taron bursts out.

"You want me to be mad at you for not cleaning up your mess as well now? Because that's the exact same nonsense." Rich answers pissed. He didn’t want to imagine how pissed Taron would be later.

"My mess." Taron nods slowly. "You mean the laundry that was too less to put into the machine and the script I was working on in the living room?"

"Forgot the dishes." Rich adds.

Taron shakes his head at him and walks past by him. "Seriously, fuck off! I was working all day and then falling into bed at 11pm just to have a sleepless night and get up after two hours of sleep again." T gets himself a glass of water in the kitchen. "I don't have the time to get drunk and have fun and I don't have time to clean everything up. I barely have time for myself at the moment." he spits out sour.

Richard leans in the door frame and folds his arms in front of his chest. "I wasn’t drunk, I can only repeat myself. So what’s going on?”

"What?"

"Seriously, what's wrong? I know you're having a hard time but putting that shit on me isn't fair. Being overworked and overwhelmed doesn't justify being harsh to me now." Richard states and watches him with cold blue eyes. "So what the fuck made you that upset, because you don't have to tell me it was me taking care of my mate?"

“Taking care of him, yeah that’s one way to put it.” he spits out sourly and Richard swallows hard. Taron looks down at the floor for a moment and it gets very quiet in the kitchen. "You're sleeping with him?"

"What?" Richard asks quietly.

"You heard me." T sighs. "The more time you were there the less you cared about me."

Richard watches him for a moment. “He’s a friend.” he says, which wasn’t a lie. Max was a friend.

"Fine." Taron says and shrugs his shoulders. "Then please tell me why kissing him made you moan so satisfied. Tell me why you're kissing him while you're having me on the phone." his voice is shaking hard now and he feels tears burning in his eyes. Richard says nothing and just watches him.  "That's an answer too." he whispers and nods slowly.

Richard rubs his face and groans. “I…I did something dumb.”

Taron looks at him and his stomach twists in pain. Did he really-? Panic settles in and all the past weeks come back to him, overwhelm him and he feels his chest getting tight. "Tell me you didn’t do that.” he whispers.

“I’m- Taron…I didn’t want to…” he searches for words but knows nothing will justify what he did. Nothing.

"You fucking asshole.” Taron presses out, tears spilling down his cheeks and he sees Richard’s eyes filling with tears. “Get out. Right now, I don’t wanna hear anything about it.”

“Taron, please, let me-.” he tries.

Taron sinks down on the stairs and buries his face in his hands. “Get the fuck out of here before I lose my mind.” he presses out and exhales shakily. He hears Richard leaving after a moment and presses his hand in front of his mouth. The panic takes over and he starts sobbing trying to calm down but he simply can't. It was over. Richard cheated on him and he doesn’t know why. What did he do wrong?

 -

Taron gets up groaning and turns off his alarm. He gets underneath the shower, drinks his coffee and drives to work. He arrives on set, gets into his costume and then has to sit in the make-up trailer for a while. They need to cover up the dark patches underneath his eyes, his cheeks that are irritated from all the tears and cover his wound nose. He feels as awful as he looks, and he can’t believe he’s been doing this for weeks now.

It’s almost two months after their break-up and Taron is completely messed up. He couldn’t sleep, ate way too less and forgot to drink water most of the time. He tries to concentrate on his job, knowing shooting this film is the only purpose he has right now. Richard and Taron haven’t talked since the day after their fight when they broke up. Not a single word from him.

But the issue that comes with dating an actor is that he’s in the eye of the public constantly. Wherever Taron goes, it seems like Richard never leaves his side. He sees him on the movie posters, in advertisements, and it seems like he can’t get away from him. Like a constant reminder that they fucked up and weren’t together anymore.

“How are you feeling?” his stylist asks him with a compassionate smile.

Taron just smirks a bit and shrugs his shoulders. “I’m alright.”

“You know we’re worried about you.” she says as she styles his hair. “You look terribly pale and messed up.”

“I am.” Taron agrees and nods slowly avoiding looking at himself in the mirror. It would only face him with the harsh reality once more.

“Taron, everyone would understand if you’d take a break, you know.” she says carefully, not knowing how he would react.

“I’m nothing without my job at the moment but thank you.” he says and smiles at her bravely.

“Just be careful, eat something, drink and sleep enough.” she answers and finishes his look. “I bet Richard feels the same way.”

“I doubt that.” he just says. It was him that broke up, not Richard. It was him who refused to talk about it and just wanted his peace and be alone figuring things out. If he had only known how much he would regret that.

“You wanna see it?” she asks and he raises his eyebrows as she gets out her phone.

 -

Richard is on his press tour at the moment and he hates it. Most of the people aren’t asking him stuff about the movie, the shooting process or anything about the chemistry on set. They are asking him about Taron, why they haven’t been seen so much together anymore for almost half a year now since he left for shooting. They ask about a possible break-up, the reasons for that or other reasons that they don’t spend time together.

Rich tries to stay polite, telling them he won’t talk about it, he doesn’t wanna answer it. But deep inside, the wounds get ripped open over and over again. Every time he thinks he healed a bit, they tear down his walls, rip him open and make him bleed again. Every time he realizes once more what he did and how he destroyed them.

He hopes so bad that today it will be different. The first half an hour it is and he’s glad about it, relaxing and opening up. But then it comes.

“Your boyfriend Taron hasn’t been seen for a while on your side now. Are you still together?” a interviewer asks him and he bites back a groan.

“I don’t know why anyone besides him and me should know that.” he simply answers.

“Why haven’t you been together recently?”

“Work.” Rich simply says and looks down at his hands annoyed. Just shut the fuck up, he thinks to himself.

“Any comment on-?”

Richard waves him off and shakes his head. “Is there anyone who has questions that are not about Taron but about why we are actually here?” he asks and looks around. No one answers. “Great, then we’re done.” he says and gets up leaving the room quickly.

 -

“When was that?” Taron asks startled and looks at her after watching the short clip from the press conference.

“Yesterday.” she answers. “You see, you’re not the only one who’s suffering.” she softly pats his back.

Taron gets up nodding and takes a deep breath. “Alright, I’ll have to work.” he says, his voice slightly shaking. Outside he rubs his face tiredly and groans. Richard looked tired and not really present with his thoughts. He takes out his phone and considers texting him but decides against it. He has his own shit to deal with.

 -

Richard opens the door to Brandon’s apartment and kicks off his shoes frustrated. Richard had to return for work to Los Angeles and decided to stay with his dear friend, not wanting to return to Max. He walks into the living room and falls down onto the sofa next to him, resting his head on his shoulder.

“Rough day?”

“Mm, I’m sick of this press tour.” he mumbles and closes his eyes.

“I’m sorry, mate. They’ll stop sooner or later.” Brandon assures him and fondles his shoulder comfortingly.

“I just want them to shut up and stop throwing his name at me over and over again. It’s gonna drive me crazy one day.” Richard groans and shakes his head frustrated. “Sometimes I hate my job so much.”

“We all do.” he sighs.

 -

Taron presses the doorbell anxiously and seesaws on his toes. Elton invited him over this afternoon to catch up a bit and get his head off of the things going on. David opens the door and greets him with a hug, then their boys come and greet him happily.

Elton takes him with him onto the balcony and they sit down in the sun. He watches the younger man in front of him and realizes he is in a really bad place and an even worse state of mind. “How are you?”

“I’m alright.” Taron says and realizes how monotone this answer became for him. Just say you’re alright and people won’t ask more.

“Be honest with me.” Elton says seriously with a compassionate smile. “I can see you’re far from alright.”

Taron laughs weakly and nods slowly. “I’m trying, Elton.” he leans back in the chair and tries to avoid Elton’s knowing and observant look.

“When was the last time you ate?” he asks suddenly.

Taron gets a bit surprised by the question and thinks about it. Yeah, when did he eat something? God, that must have been two days ago or so. “I don’t know honestly.” he admits and scratches his neck embarrassed.

Elton gets up and comes back with some sandwiches and water. “You should seriously drink and eat something.”

They sit there in silence, eating their sandwich and drinking nothing but water. Taron stares onto his knees and can’t believe he didn’t eat for whole two days. And his last meal must have been a forced one, going for lunch with the crew on set.

“Listen, mate, how are you really? Because you look like shit, I’m sorry, and you lost some weight.” Elton says.

Taron looks at him stunned, once more surprised how he could balance his honesty and compassion that good. He bites his lower lip and looks down at the glass of water he's holding tightly. "How am I?" he lets out a long deep breath and looks up at him. "If I'm being honest I don't feel like myself lately. It seems like I'm living in a bubble, getting up, taking a shower, working till late at night on set, going home, repeat." he braces his head on his hand and stares down into the water glass. "I feel sick because I know he's missing in my life. And when I come back home I just really wanna have him near and then I remember he isn't." Taron sighs. "Which leads to me crying my eyes out usually. I wonder if I ever won't have enough tears to cry anymore." he giggles softly and shakes his head. "I feel awful."

"That's what I was thinking. You don't have to pretend to be alright, Taron. No one will judge you for feeling bad." Elton assures him.

T tucks his legs up and nods slowly. "It's been almost two months now, you know. I should move on and -." he cuts himself off when his voice starts shaking. Not that shit again.

"And you two have been together for five years before." Elton says and sees tears welling up in Tarons eyes. "You two were happy and no one gets over that in only two months. You think it would have been real then?"

"No." he admits and blinks. Was it really real though? With Richard cheating on him he wasn’t so sure anymore.

"Taron, darling, it's okay to feel bad about it. It really is. And you don't have to go through it alone." Elton leans forward and pats his knee lovingly. "David and I talked about it and we would offer you to stay here with us and the boys. So I can keep an eye on you and you wouldn't be alone." he states and sees Tarons face soften.

"That's really sweet." he answers and smiles at him. "But I wanna finish this film before, it's only one week left." he explains and looks back at him. "But I would love to take your offer after it."

"That's a deal then." Elton says and nods satisfied. "But you'll have to promise me to take care of yourself until then."

"I will." he says with a brave smile.

 -

But, Taron goes on as before and feels himself getting more miserable and weaker as days pass by. He knows he should stop working so hard and get some sleep. He knows he needs some proper food and drink enough. But it simply doesn't work and on Friday Taron stumbles onto set, feeling like shit.

He nearly falls down as he steps inside and can hold himself up in the last second. His stylist watches him suspiciously but decides to say nothing.

Taron sinks into the chair and bites his lower lip nervously. He felt sick, his body was screaming at him suffering from the hunger, and his stomach was aching in cramps.

When they’re done, T gets up and feels his body getting hot. He gets dizzy and his world starts spinning, the sickness increases and there's a loud high tone in his ears. Taron feels like throwing up and stumbles towards the bathroom.

The next thing he can remember is waking up next to his stylist on the floor. He groans and presses his eyes shut, his dizziness still present. "What happened?" he groans.

"You just passed out." she explains and puts her phone aside. "Stay down, I've called an ambulance." she says firmly and pushes him back down. "God, T, you really need to take care of yourself."

"Yeah, I'm sorry." he apologizes and growls softly as she helps him resting his head on her knees.

 -

Taron stares at the ceiling bored before his eyes wander back to the IV that's stuck in his hand. The diagnosis was easy to make, he’s malnourished. Combined with too little sleep and emotional downs, it was predictable that his body would give up one day.

He had told his mum and Elton who both told him to rest and get better. Now he's bored, his busy life suddenly stopped and he doesn't know what to do with himself. "That's exactly the reason why I needed my work." he groans and rubs his face tiredly. He turns onto his side and suddenly the IV starts beeping loudly. "Fuck!" he curses and presses the button to call the nurse. She comes in laughing and he contorts his face. "I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright." she says and unwinds everything again before leaving.

Suddenly his phone buzzes and he can't believe seeing it's from Richard.

 Hey, I heard you passed out on set today. Hope you're feeling better now and can get some rest.... Take care, okay? - Rich

Doing my best, thanks for checking up on me. - T

He thinks for a moment before deciding to type more.

I'm sorry about the press stuff, must be annoying. - T

It is, but I'll get through it. - Rich

 Taron smiles a bit and puts his phone aside. His smile fades when he remembers that Richard was just being polite and it still was over between them. He pulled the blanket up to his face and closed his eyes. Just try to relax, you'll be okay one day.

- 

Richard puts his phone aside letting out a deep breath. Texting Taron had been a risk and he didn't know how he would react to it. He had been biting his lip nervously as soon as he sent him the text message. Fortunately, it went well.

Even though this short exchange only made him think about Taron intensely again. Thinking about them as a couple and having such lovely and happy times. Everything went down to shit and both of them knew who was to blame for it. At least there they had the same opinion.

When Taron told him he wanted to break up, it was a shock and felt like he stabbed him right into his chest. His brain tried to proceed the information it just got but he couldn't come up with a better answer than "If you think so." which made Taron only angrier and more upset than he already was. It made him look like he didn't even care and that felt even worse for himself afterwards. Of course he would break up.

He sighs and rubs his face tiredly. Imagining Taron in hospital, probably connected to an IV, scared him. He never liked seeing him feeling miserable or being sick when he wasn't around the whole time. Richard was the type of person that becomes overprotective then. How should he be able to focus on everything going on at the moment now?

Richard grabs his drink and downs it in one gulp, contorting his face as the alcohol burns in his throat. He stares at the glass in his hand and wonders how much of them he had over the past two months. It became his way to cope with everything.

 -

In the evening, he finds himself in a nightclub, the music blasting into his ears, his head spinning from all the drinks he had. If he was totally honest with himself he hated being drunk. He missed Taron, who always kept it at a good level for both of them.

And as usually he feels himself getting touchy with all the alcohol in his veins. It never had been different and ended quite messy sometimes with Taron. But now he wasn’t here and even though the sane part of his brain screams at him not to do it, he gives in when some random guy approaches him and starts flirting.

But Richard is lonely, needy for some company and this time he wanted to get his head off Taron. The time with Max he was just tensed up and needed something steady. He finds himself in a corner of the room, kissing the guy, sooner than he expected. Rich tastes his lips and moans at the contact, pressing himself close to him. He totally blends out the rest of the world and it doesn’t matter until he’s pressed against the bathroom wall. When the strangers hand wanders down between them Richard opens his eyes again and suddenly it hits him. What the fuck was he doing?

“Okay, stop.” he says and stops him carefully.

The man in front of him just smirks and shrugs his shoulder. “We already gave them enough.”

“What?” he asks confused and rubs his face trying to understand what he means.

He leans in and whispers into his ear, “All they wanted was a kiss so they could finally publish the headline that you’re not in a relationship anymore.” He pulls back and grins. “Have a nice evening.”

Richard feels himself getting sick and his world starts turning. He barely recognizes him leaving the room and sinks down. “Fuck.” he breathes out and tears are welling up in his eyes. Without fully realizing what he’s doing he pulls out his phone and dials Taron’s number.

 -

Taron wakes up confused when he hears his phone ringing and once more he’s glad he’s having a room for himself. Especially when he sees that it’s Richard. He thinks for a moment and decides to take the call. “Richard?” he asks and his voice sounds raspy, it’s 5am.

“Taron, I just did something stupid.” Richard says and his voice is shaking heavy.

Taron can hear the anxiety in his voice and his stomach twists. “What happened?” he asks worried.

Rich takes a deep breath and bites his lower lip. “I’m sorry, I’m such an idiot and I wanted to tell you before someone else does.”

“That you’re an idiot?” Taron asks confused and frowns. “Are you drunk?”

“No-yes. But that’s not the problem.” he says and leans back in the seat of his car.

The Welsh sits up in his bed and puts the pillows against the headboard so he can lean against them. “Okay, calm down, where are you?”

“Right now I’m in my car.” Richard answers and takes another deep breath to calm himself down.

“Driving?” Rich mumbles a no and T nods. “Okay. So, what’s going on?” And then he hears Richard sniffing and his heart wrenches at that sound. “Rich?”

“I’m so sorry for everything, T. I know I messed everything up and-.” he swallows hard as the tears start making their way down his cheeks. “And I know I did some shit that hurt you.”

Taron stares up at the ceiling and bites his lower lip hard, trying to stop himself from crying. Richard sounded completely messed up. “Richard, it’s not only your fault and-.”

“Yes it is, Taron.” Richard says and shakes his head. “We promised each other to keep our breakup between us, right?”

“What did you do?” he asks and his voice shakes now as well. Did he expose them to the public now, did he break under the pressure?

“There was this guy.” he starts and hears Taron sucking in air sharply. “A-and then he kissed me and-T I could lie to you and tell you that he was forcing me, but I couldn’t stop myself as well.” A quiet sob leaves his lips.

“And then?” Taron’s voice is cold and sharp now.

“Well he guided me into the bathroom and-.”

“If you’re trying to tell me that you just fucked a random guy in a club’s bathroom and got caught then just say yes and I’ll end the call.” he presses out through tears. “Because I seriously don’t wanna listen to that after what you did a couple months ago.”

“No, Taron, I didn’t.” Richard says quickly and he can hear Taron exhaling relieved. “But when we got there I told him to stop and he just let go off me and grinned at me.”

“Yeah?”

Richard can’t bite back a sob now and buries his face in his hand. “He was getting paid to involve me in a kiss so they could get some pictures and prove that our relationship is over.” Taron remains silent after that and Richard’s heart starts racing. He really messed up now.

“I guess I can’t blame you for that.” Taron admits after a while and stares at his blanket feeling hot tears running down his cheeks. “It’s not like I didn’t kiss other guys to forget you.” Rich swallows hard at that and nods slowly. “Please get home now, get some sleep. We can’t change it anyways, but I appreciate your honesty.”

“Taron, I’m so sorry.”

“Just shut up.” T growls tiredly and shakes his head. “Get some sleep, Richie.” he says, way softer than he wants to, and ends the call.

Richard stares at his phone and sinks his head onto his steering wheel. Fuck.

 -

A few days later he barely gets down his breakfast and suddenly Brandon races in and shows him his phone. “Richard!”

“I know, I know, okay?” he sighs and rubs his face frustrated. “I was kissing him and it was stupid.”

“No, I didn’t mean that.” he says and hands him over the phone.

Richard reads the headline and squirms a bit in his seat. ‘Taron Egerton opening up about the rough breakup between him and his former boyfriend Richard Madden.’ “I don’t think that I wanna read this.” Rich admits and stares down at the table.

“No, Richard, I don’t think Taron really said those things. That’s why I’m showing you this.” Brandon says and hands him his phone. He wouldn’t show such thing to Rich if it was real.

Richard starts reading it and raises his eyebrows surprised. ‘Richard always has been a cheater, so this didn’t really surprise me’, with the picture of Rich and this guy underneath. ‘I loved him, but he broke up with me.’, ‘He hated not being my center of focus when I was working on set.’.

He puts the phone aside and somewhere deep down he knows Taron wouldn’t say such things but they hurt him anyway. “Thanks.” he just mumbles and abandons the rest of his breakfast. “I need a minute.”

Richard steps out on the balcony and lights himself a cigarette. He inhales deeply and tries to calm down and keep his breakfast in. His phone rings and he sees a message of Taron.

I did never say this shit, I swear. I got out of hospital yesterday evening, I didn’t even have time for an interview. – Taron

It’s okay. – Richard

Elton said he’ll kill them. – Taron

Good luck then. – Richard

He puts his phone aside and shakes his head, not believing to what a shit show his life turned over the last six months. How should he ever be able to erase what he did and get Taron back? He needed him so bad and he just wants to curl up in his arm, listening to him whispering cute shit in Welsh.

A bit later he finds himself in his room, biting on a pen and staring at the blank piece of paper in front of him. Talking made him emotional, texting was to emotionless, so he settled on writing a letter.

 -

“Taron! There’s a letter for you.” Elton says and waves with it towards Taron who’s on the balcony getting some fresh air and playing with Elton’s sons.

“Really? From who?” he says and doesn’t really pay attention until he hears it.

“Richard.”

Taron looks up quickly and studies Elton’s face trying to find out if he’s mocking him. But he sees no sign for that and so he apologizes to the boys and gets up taking it. “I’ll go and get some space then, if that’s alright.”

“Sure, go on. I’ll be here if you need me.” he says and Taron smiles thankfully walking away slowly.

But as soon as he’s around the corner he races upstairs to his bedroom and locks the door behind him quickly. He doesn’t know what to expect from this letter it could be everything.

 Dear Taron,

I could have told you all of that in an audio or send you a text message. But I guess we always preferred being old-fashioned sometimes, which is why I decided to write you a letter.

I could blame you or tell myself it wasn't my fault, but there's no use to do so. Because I know I would be lying to myself. You had and have every right to be disappointed by me and be mad at me. I fucked up. Not only because I wasn’t there when you needed me and then making a promise and not keeping it, but also because of the other thing I did.

It's been creeping back into my head quite often since you broke up with me and I haven't been able to push it aside so far. I've done something I would have never thought being possible, which is why I can’t fully realize it now.

I really don't know why it happened and I feel so bad about it. Max and I talked about it and we both have no feelings for each other, we never had. I'm really sorry and I would totally understand it if you won't forgive me.

Taron, I really tried to forget it and pretend it never happened, but then you passed out and everything came back to me. And then I pulled this stupid stunt, kissing this guy, which lead to exposing our breakup and this stupid fake interview with you. I’m so embarrassed for what happened that night and that I made you suffer. Again.

 Taron stops reading and stares out of the window for a couple of minutes. Richard cheated on him, probably lonely and when someone wanted him he gave in, and he knew he did it while they were in their happy and supportive relationship. Not afterwards, like with this idiot, when those things didn’t matter anymore. Where did they go wrong? He thinks about putting it aside and not reading one word more, afraid of what else might come to the surface. But Richard was telling him the truth here, opening up, it would be more than unfair to just ignore that. He blinks away the tears and continues reading.

He stares down at the letter in his hands and tries to make out the words on the paper, his watering eyes not making it easy. Hot tears fall down his cheeks and he covers his mouth with one hand, trying to stop any sound from coming out. He puts the letter aside and gets up to unlock the door again, not wanting to worry anyone before stumbling back to bed. He covers himself with the blanket and starts crying into his pillow.

Taron knew something happened back then between those two, but he tried to convince himself it hasn't been that way. All the time he tried to tell himself that they maybe just shared steamy kisses. It hurts even more now to get told it really did happen.

After a while, Elton checks up on him and finds him in bed, curled up, tears still rolling down his cheeks, quiet sobs leaving his lips. He sits down at the edge of the bed and rubs his arm comforting. "Just let it out, that's more than necessary."

"He really did it." Taron just mumbles.

"Did what?"

"Sleep with him. He slept with Max while we were still together." Taron presses out and sniffs. "I can't believe he really did it. I-I tried to tell myself they just…"

"Was he confessing it to you?" Elton asks gently and T nods.

"I couldn't finish reading it. I just couldn't." he says and sits up sighing. He must look like a pathetic mess to his dear friend.

"Take your time." he tells him and gives him a compassionate smile.

 -

A week later he gets back to work, knowing he still has to finish the film after he spent the last three shooting days in hospital. He's in a better mood, looking healthier. Staying with Elton does him good, he needs someone looking after him. When he feels bad he just doesn't care about things like eating, taking proper care of himself or sleeping. With Rich by his side it never had been a problem because he reminded him, guided him through the day.

He talks to his stylist and jokes around, she notices the change and says she's happy to have him back.

After lunch break he steps into the make-up trailer and sees her serious look. "What's wrong?"

"Richard broke down during a press conference." she says slowly and sees his eyes widen in shock.

"How do you mean ‘broke down’?" he asks quietly.

"Panic attack." she just mumbles and Taron curses.

“Thank you for telling me.” he says and she nods quickly.

They get him ready for the next scene and Taron gives his best to stay concentrated. He’s glad when he’s done and on his way back to Elton’s place. Taron tells Elton what his stylist told him and his friend watches him observantly. “What are you gonna do now?”

“I don’t know.” Taron mumbles and tucks his legs up on the sofa. “I really don’t know.” Elton remains silent and his thoughts are racing. “Should I call him and check up on him?”

“Maybe you should. But maybe you should finish reading the letter he sent you first.” Elton suggests carefully. He doesn’t want to push Taron into anything.

“Yeah, probably.” T mumbles and excuses himself, going upstairs. He gets the letter and sits down on bed searching the line where he stopped reading. After a few moments he found it and sees the letter still has some paragraphs to read for him.

 I haven’t been doing very well lately regarding my mental health, I feel like my head is completely fucked up. I miss you steadying me and helping me to focus and not to worry about all the nonsense. I realized once more how much I need you to stay sane in this world. And I realized that I destroyed everything we had.

Telling you the truth and being honest with you, was very difficult for me, because I knew I would hurt you. And it was never my intention to hurt you.

Thinking about the way we are right now scares me, thinking of the possibility we may never be able to speak to each other again.

When you passed out I was panicking, because I wouldn’t be able to help you or just hold you in my arms and tell you everything would be okay again. You are still so important to me and I don’t think that this will ever change.

And now that I’m pouring you my heart out and finally being honest, I’ll have to tell you another thing. The truth is, I am still in love with you.

I don’t know if we’ll ever be the same again or if you’ll ever forgive me. And if you don’t, who could blame you for it? It just kills me to think we have to stay this way and I’d love to talk to you again one day in person about everything.

I can only repeat myself, I’m so sorry for the shit I did.

I love you,

Rich

 Taron can’t hide a little smile at that second part of the letter and his heart beats a bit faster. His fingers strokes over the little ‘I love you, Rich’ at the end, something he has seen on several little notes before. He rubs his face and gets up quickly walking downstairs to Elton. “I won’t call him.” he says.

“That bad?”

“No, I’ll do something else but I’d like to hear your opinion on it.” Taron states and hands him the letter. “And I’d like you to read it before I tell you.”

“Are you sure? I don’t have to, it can stay between you two.” he offers but Taron shakes his head.

“I am sure.”

Elton nods and takes the letter reading it. When he’s done he looks at Taron and smiles a bit. “He seems to be just as fucked up as you are.” Taron just giggles at that. “But he apologized and I think he’s feeling really bad about himself. And obviously, still loves you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, the second page of the letter shows how much he needs you and wants you back. He’s hoping on a reunion but he’s giving you the time, space and choice to do so.” Elton states. “So, what exactly was your plan?”

 -

Taron steps out of the airport and gets into the next cab. He doesn’t have much with him, only a little suitcase, he isn’t really planning on staying long. Giving the driver the address to his hotel he leans back in his seat and looks out of the window. He’s nervous, as always when he is in Los Angeles, still not thinking he belongs here.

After getting to his room and taking a shower he dresses up and leaves it. He knows exactly where he wants to go.

Pressing the doorbell he seesaws on his toes nervously and then the doors open. He looks into a pair of brown eyes and swallows down his hurt and anger. “Hey. Is…Richard here?”

Max shakes his head. “No…He’s with a friend.”

“Brandon?” Taron asks and Max nods. “Thanks.” he nods and turns around. He had nothing to do here.

“I’m sorry for what happened, it wasn’t okay what I did. I asked him to…” he says and Taron just shakes his head.

“Whatever.” he quickly walks down the stairs and drives to Brandon’s place hoping it was still the right address. He pressed the doorbell anxiously.

“Oh…Hey.” Brandon says slowly and leans against the doorframe. “Looking for Richard, I guess?”

“Hey…Yes, is he here?” Taron asks nervously, Brandon shakes his head. “Okay, can you tell him I was here and wanted to talk to him?”

Brandon watches him observantly for a moment. “I’m sorry for what happened, he told me about it.” T just nods. “If you’re here to tell Richard he messed up, then please just don’t. He’s in an awful state at the moment and he already knows he messed up.”

“I’m not here to tell him such thing.” Taron shakes his head sighing softly. “I wanna talk to him about something he sent me.”

“Okay.” he nodded relieved.

“Is he still not here?” Taron asks and raises his eyebrows, seeing the way Brandon pulled the door a bit closed behind himself.

“He isn’t, just don’t want Charlie to run out of the apartment.” he chuckles realizing his mistake.

“Okay, then I’ll come by later, maybe?” Taron says and Brandon nods, they exchange their goodbyes. He walks towards the stairs and takes the first steps.

“Taron!” Brandon stops him and holds up a little card. “He’s there, finished in twenty minutes.”

Taron looks at it and raises his eyebrows surprised. “Therapy?”

“Yeah.” Brandon says and nods slowly. “I’m really not in the position to ask you this but please be nice to him, he’s messed up.”

“I will be.” Taron assures him with a smile and thanks him.

 -

Richard steps out of the office and puts on his jacket. He feels kind of relieved, but also agitated. Talking about him and Taron was never easy for him. When he walks down the stairs he gets slower seeing him leaning against the wall.

“Hey.” Taron says, softly and watches him closely. Richard looks tired, is pale and his hair is a bit of a mess.

“What are you doing here?” he asks carefully, preparing himself to hear once more how he destroyed everything. What a fucking idiot he was and how he ruined five years of love.

“Wanted to see you.”

“Well, here I am.” Rich says and walks down the rest of the stairs. He needs some fresh air right now and walks past by him towards the door.

“I got your letter.” Taron speaks carefully and sees him stopping in his movements. “The first part made me cry, not gonna lie. I didn’t read more for about a week.” Richard looks up and glances at him now. “But when I heard about your panic attack I read the rest.”

“What are you doing here?” he asks again and Taron can hear the fear in his voice.

He takes a step forward and carefully grabs Richard’s hand, who looks down at them. “Listen, you hurt me, a lot, but you were honest to me. I don’t want you to feel bad about it for the rest of your life.” he says and sees him biting his lower lip nervously. “I didn’t come here to be mad at you.”

“You didn’t?” Richard looks up now and Taron can see the pure anxiety in them.

“I came here to tell you that I accept your apology and I wanna apologize myself.” he says and sees Richard frowning. “I overreacted and I hurt us both with it. And it wasn’t fair to just end the call when you told me about that guy.” Taron searches his look and his voice gets soft as he strokes over his knuckles. “Richie.” He looks at him and Taron sees the tears in his eyes. “I wanna get rid of this mess between us. But the real reason I came here was that I wanted to check up on you. I know how intense your panic attacks can get.” And that’s all it takes to let Richard’s tears escape his eyes. “Come here.” he encourages him gently and wraps him into a warm hug.

Richard buries his face in his shoulder and starts crying, holding him close. He can feel Taron starting to cry as well and holds him tight. “I’m so sorry.” he chokes out.

“Shh, it’s okay.” he whispers and fondles over his curls gently. “It’s gonna be alright, love.”

Richard pulls back and looks at him with widened blue eyes. “You just called me love.”

“Yeah.” Taron says and giggles softly.

“So you’re not mad at me?” Rich asks hopefully.

“No.” he shakes his head smiling. Richard falls back into his arms and Taron places a soft kiss into his hair. “I hope you’ve seen they’ve taken this fake interview down.”

“I didn’t know that.” Rich chuckles weakly. “I didn’t really spend time on my phone anymore.”

“Elton told me.” T explains and cups his face with one hand, wiping away some tears. He sinks into Richard’s beautifully deep blue eyes and somehow he knows they’ll be alright again. “They couldn’t publish the pictures because you couldn’t be identified on it. That’s why they came up with this interview.”

“Seriously?” he asks shocked.

“Yeah.” Taron says and rolls his eyes. “Fucking idiots. Well, that means if we’ll go back out there together no one will know what happened that night.” he smirks at him and looks up to him. “Now the only question is if you’d like to be my boyfriend again.”

Richard swallows hard at that and bites on his lip for a moment, caught up in thoughts. “You’re sure? I don’t wanna say yes when you feel bad about getting back together.”

“I took the next flight to LA when I finished your letter, of course I’m sure.” T states with a slight grin. Richard cups his face and leans down connecting their lips to a soft kiss. Taron opens his eyes slowly and smiles. “I suppose that means yes.”

“I love you.” he breathes out and kisses him again.

“Oh god, I forgot how good that feels.” T sighs and tangles his hand in Richard’s curls. It has been months since they kissed the last time. Richard just chuckles and lifts him up, making him squeak surprised.

“You’re working on something at the moment?” Rich asks curiously as he carries him outside and towards his car.

Taron shakes his head and grins at him, playing with Richard’s hair. “I finished it yesterday. You?”

“Nothing as well.” he says and stops in front of the car fumbling for his keys. “How’s about going on vacation, just us two?”

Taron cups his face and kisses him passionately. “Yes.” he nods quickly and Richard lets him down again. “I love you too.” he says remembering he was too busy caught up in kissing him before.

 -

They decided to stay in Taron’s hotel room, staying up talking almost the whole night. Taron was cuddled up in Richard’s arm just like he wanted to be all these months ago. Now they are standing at the airport, holding hands and waiting for their flight back. Taron leans his head on Richard’s shoulder and closes his eyes.

“Tired?” he asks.

“Mm.” he just hums and giggles surprised as Richard pulls him closer, facing him now.

“You’ll be able to get some sleep during the flight, bubs.” Richard says and places a tiny kiss onto his forehead before pulling him into a loving hug. Taron buries his face in his chest and wraps his arms around his waist. Rich rests his head on Taron’s and rubs tiny circles on his lower back. It already feels like nothing ever happened.

@taron-eggmcmuffin @maddertonmyheart @madderton-obsessed @ispewglitter @primaba11erina

[spookyfbi]

Untitled, Unfinished Commission Dave fic

This premise wouldn’t leave me alone but I have NO idea where to go with it so I offer this up to the void with no strings attached if anyone wants to take it and run with it, because I��d sure love to read more! Hit me up if you want to chat about it, or don’t, up to you. If you want to change anything here, feel free. Honestly I just had to get this idea out of my head and onto digital paper and now I have, whatever happens next is just gravy!

———

1963

Dave looked around his bedroom as he lay on his bed. It wouldn’t be his bedroom for very much longer, soon he’d be shipping out. Dave wasn’t really sure how he felt about joining the army, but he supposed it was about time he did something, so it might as well be this. He wasn’t a coward, he wasn’t a… well, he wasn’t a coward. He was willing to die for his country if that’s what it took. It was the right thing to do… wasn’t it?

Dave’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on his door. He grinned when he saw who it was and, quick as a flash, he jumped up and raced to hug his sister.

“Liz!” he exclaimed, then he leaned back from the hug and looked her up and down. “Wow, you sure look fancy!” She looked about as elegant as Audrey Hepburn. “How’s New York treating you?’

“New York is amazing!” Liz gushed. “It really makes Dallas feel like a drag.”

“I’ll bet.” Dave sat down on his bed, while Liz took a seat on his old toy chest.

“I just got a lecturing from Uncle Brian.” Liz rolled her eyes and Dave pursed his lips sympathetically. “You’re never gonna find a husband if you keep being so high and mighty about this career of yours.” She repeated their uncle’s words mockingly. “Like I’d want to marry a man who’s intimidated by my success. I’d rather be a spinster! The right guy should be proud of me for my accomplishments.”

“Well, I’m sure proud of you!” Dave told her. “My sister living the high life in New York City!”

Liz beamed. “Thanks, Dave! I knew there were enlightened men in the world.”

“It’s really good to see you, Liz. It’s good to be reminded that Uncle Brian’s opinions aren’t the only ones out there.”

The mood in the room shifted and after a moment, Liz said: “He told me you enlisted in the army.” There was no pride in her voice, the way there was whenever Uncle Brian talked about his decision, and it made Dave feel even less certain about it. 

Dave nodded, but he found himself unable to look her in the eyes. She looked at him and said nothing and after a while Dave found the silence deafening so he filled it with what little he had of an explanation. “You heard about the President? Uncle Brian said it’s gonna make America look weak. He said the Commies might invade and the army will need every man they can get.”

Liz shook her head. “You’re so young…”

“I’m eighteen!” Dave shot back. “I’m an adult!”

Liz got up and sat beside him. “I just meant that you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you. I don’t want to see you dying a young man in some war. I want you to fall in love and get married and have kids and live a long life.”

Dave raised an eyebrow at her. “The same life Uncle Brian wants for you?”

“Or find a career that you love, or travel the world, or… whatever makes you happy, Dave. And the army isn’t it, is it?”

Dave looked at Liz, knowing she could tell how unhappy he was with this decision. He collapsed back onto the bed with a sigh. Liz lay down next to him and he was suddenly reminded of their first night at Uncle Brian’s house after their parents had died, when he’d crawled into her bed because he was scared and she’d told him not to worry because she’d always look out for him. “I can’t stay here.” He said softly, and for all his talk of heroism and the right thing, deep down he knew that was the real reason he’d enlisted.

Liz hummed in agreement, then she nudged him with her elbow. “Why don’t you come stay with me!”

“What?”

“Yeah!” Liz sat up, her eyes sparking with excitement. “I could probably pull a few strings and get you a position with my company. They’re always looking for new recruits. You’d probably have to start at the bottom but it’d be better than the army.”

“I don’t know…” Dave said cautiously. “If I back out now after enlisting, Uncle Brian’s for sure gonna think I’m a coward. Or worse… And I’m not a coward!”

“Who cares what Uncle Brian thinks? You never have to see him again if you don’t want to. Why do you think I haven’t been here in 5 years?”

Dave considered for a moment. Then he sat up. “What exactly does your company do anyhow?”

Liz turned to face him. “Okay, this is gonna sound real batty. The company I work for is called The Commission.”

———

Somewhere outside of Time and Space, 11 years later

…Dave? Dave!

…Medic!

…Stay with me, Dave! Stay with me!

Dave bolted upright. Klaus’ cries ringing in his ears, the sharp pain in his chest, the blood… He was panting and sweaty and confused. The memories felt distant. Where was he?

“Morning, Sleeping Beauty!”

Dave looked at Liz, sitting in a chair next to the… hospital bed? “I was shot.” Dave touched his chest where he was sure he’d felt searing pain only moments ago. There was no wound.

“Yeah, and I had to call in a shitload of favours to get you all patched up.”

Dave lay back down on the hospital bed. So he had been shot, but the Commission had saved him. Liz had saved him. She looked pissed. He took her hand in his own. “You’re the best.” He gave her the most charming smile he could muster. “I love you.”

Liz withdrew her hand and rolled her eyes. “What the hell happened, Dave? You were in Vietnam for 10 months! Did you get your mark?”

“Yeah, I got my mark!” Dave replied indignantly. Of course he got his mark, he always did. Like a good soldier.

“So what happened?”

Dave closed his eyes and sighed. “I don’t want to work for the Commission anymore, Liz. You know I never wanted this, I only joined so I could avoid the army. But how is this any different?”

Liz looked at him for a moment, her expression softening. “It’s not that simple. You weren’t shot by an enemy soldier. It was the Commission.”

“What?!”

“You should’ve told me, Dave. I could’ve talked to my bosses and we could’ve worked something out. The way you handled it, it just looks like you abandoned your mission.”

Dave sighed. “I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan this.” Liz didn’t respond, just looked at him expectantly. “I met someone. He’s another agent, at least I think so. We didn’t talk about it, I don’t know why. But he had a briefcase. I think maybe it was his first mission or something. He looked so scared and confused so I stayed for a bit to help him adjust to the time period. I swear that’s all I meant to do at first… Every day I kept telling myself I’d go back to HQ tomorrow, but…” Dave felt one of the corners of his mouth pinch into a smile. “I really liked spending time with him.” He looked at Liz and shrugged wistfully. “I fell in love with him. And before I knew it we were making plans to get an apartment together in San Francisco once our 12 months in Vietnam were up and Liz, I’ve never wanted anything in my life more than I want to live in that apartment with him, or anywhere with him.” Suddenly Dave remembered. The blood, the pain in his chest, the panicked cry. Medic! Dave! Stay with me! He scrunched his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh god… He probably still thinks I’m dead.” He looked back at Liz frantically as he started to sit back up. “I have to find him, I have to let him know him I’m alive!”

Liz put a hand to his chest. “Slow down, Romeo. Look, I don’t think you realise how serious this situation is. They wanted you dead, they still do. You need to lay low until this thing blows over. Do a few more missions, show them you’re willing to toe the line, and then when you’re back in their good graces we can talk about you leaving to go find this Sweetheart of yours, okay?”

Dave sighed reluctantly. He wouldn’t even know where to begin looking for Klaus anyway. “Fine, but then you’ll get me some time with the Infinite Switchboard and help me find him, right?”

“I’ll do what I can.” Liz said with a tiny smile. “I gotta meet this guy who finally lit a fire under your ass.” Dave grinned and then Liz handed him a canister. “Your first mission, and it’s a doozy. There’s six on that list. I think they’re a family though, so shouldn’t be too hard. Hopefully they’ll all be in the same place.”

Dave felt sick as he unscrewed the lid. “There’d better not be kids on this list.”

“If there are, you’ll do as you’re told.” Liz said firmly.

Dave ignored her and looked at the order he withdrew from the canister. His blood turned to ice when he read the order.

TERMINATE LUTHER HARGREEVES DIEGO HARGREEVES ALLISON HARGREEVES KLAUS HARGREEVES NUMBER FIVE VANYA HARGREEVES

Terminate. Klaus Hargreeves. Klaus must be in the same trouble Dave was for going off mission, only he didn’t have a sister in the Commission to bail him out. Dave didn’t know who the other names on the list were. Klaus didn’t talk much about his family, and Dave knew what it was like to be on less than stellar terms with a family member so he hadn’t asked. He looked desperately at Liz. “Klaus Hargreeves.” he said, showing her the order. “That’s him.”

Liz glanced at the order and then closed her eyes, letting her head fall into her hand and massaging her temple with a sigh. Dave searched her face for any indication that she had a way to fix the situation. Finally, she looked at him and spoke with an eerie calmness. “Dave, if you don’t kill everyone on that list, the Commission will kill you, and I won’t be able to save you this time.”

“Liz, I can’t!”

“Yes you can.”

“I won’t.”

Liz looked at Dave for a moment, and he couldn’t read her expression. She took the order from him and cupped his cheek. “Okay. I’ll fix this, don’t worry.” 

Liz stood up and started to leave and for the first time in his life, Dave was afraid of his sister. He knew she was ruthless. He also knew she would do anything to protect him. And that was exactly the problem, because apparently it was either Klaus or Dave. Dave knew who he would choose. And he also knew who Liz would choose. Dave leapt out of the hospital bed and put himself in her path. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to fix it.” She said, and it would sound so innocent if Dave didn’t know her better.

Dave’s mind raced. If she really had a way to fix this without Klaus being harmed she’d tell him. He knew exactly what she was going to do and he could only think of one thing he could say to get her to back down. “No, I’ll fix it.” He said, taking the order back from her. He walked around her back towards the bed and faced away from her because he wasn’t sure if he was a good enough liar to pull this off if she saw his face. “I got carried away. It was exciting, being with someone, but I’m not gonna die for this guy. I’ll get back into the Commission’s good graces, don’t worry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” He still didn’t turn around, but Liz came to him, and he knew it would be suspicious if he avoided her now so he looked at her.

“Alright.” She agreed. “But if you bail on this mission I will finish it for you. I’ll always look out for you, Dave.”

Dave nodded, remembering a time long ago when the though had made him fee safe and loved.

———

2019, the next day

Dave looked around the alley that the briefcase had landed him in. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected to land in 1968, but this place was much more modern. He started walking aimlessly trying to get his bearings, then he stopped at a phone booth. He took out the phone book from the shelf underneath and opened it to H. “Hargreeves, Hargreeves, Hargreeves…” he muttered as he searched.

Hargreeme, Olga Hargreeves, Reginald Hargreeves, Vanya Hargref, Kenny

No ‘Hargreeves, Klaus’ or even ‘Hargreeves, K’. Damn. Dave looked at the Commission order again. Vanya Hargreeves was the last name on the order, and it seemed the only one of these listed in the phone book. If they really were a family, perhaps this Vanya Hargreeves would know where he could find Klaus. Having nothing else to go on, Dave tore out the page and folded it up. Now, he just needed a map.

———

[ashtheshortstack]

make them learn - ch 1

Rating: T Ship: Adrinette (sorta)  Chapter 1/3: broken frame 

Tags: Princess Justice AU, Akumatized Marinette, Bullying, One-Sided Reveal, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Read on Ao3

Next Chapter

“You’re either with me, or you’re against me.” 

Lila’s words were clear and harsh, but Marinette battled akumas on a daily basis. It wasn’t something she couldn’t handle. She feared some things, but Lila Rossi definitely wasn’t one of them. Did the lying brat piss her off? Oh, big time. At first, it was jealousy revolving around Adrien, however, the blond seemed to figure out Lila’s lies all on his own. He didn’t need the constant proof. So, Marinette was comfortable that Adrien would never date someone like that. He wasn’t the type. 

“From now on, you and I are at war. You will lose all your friends and be all alone. And Adrien will soon be mine.” 

Marinette had to give her credit. The brat tried her best, that was for sure. Lila had successfully gotten her expelled, but suddenly just recanted all of her statements the next day and confirmed she made it all up. Blaming it on some stupid disease that didn’t exist, but whatever. It worked. She was thankful for that. Even though Lila’s change of heart clearly had something behind it, Marinette decided to not fret on it too much. It was clear the brat was still out to get her, but Marinette knew that taking the high road was obviously the best option. Adrien was right, there was no need to feed the troll. 

No way could she have predicted that Lila had something more sinister up her sleeve. Of course, she hadn’t assumed that the incident was the last she’d hear from Lila, but Marinette didn’t realize there could be something much, much worse. 

It had been a typical day for Marinette. There had been an akuma attack the previous evening, so she was a bit sleepy, but nothing she’d never pushed through before. She was Ladybug for a reason. She wouldn’t let a little lack of sleep ruin her day. Besides, Marinette looked forward to school. Seeing Adrien every day always uplifted her mood. He was such a kind soul, often lighting up the room more than she was sure he realized. Marinette knew he didn’t have a great homelife with his mother disappearing, assumed dead, and his father being an uptight, strict, recluse. It amazed her that he could be so positive every day. That he could be such a good person. Knowing what he went through just made her admire him even more. 

Despite how she tried to hide her fondness for him, it was difficult. Luckily, Adrien was the oblivious type and had no idea what feelings Marinette harbored for him. And she planned to keep it that way. No matter how much she wanted to be with him, she knew that Adrien loved another girl. She assumed that it was Kagami. They had gotten awfully close lately. And it hurt even more because she and Kagami had become friends. So, it wasn’t like she could hate her or be angry at her for liking the same boy as her. Even though Marinette liked him first , she digressed. Kagami would be good for him. They had so much in common… so it was okay. No matter how painful it was. No matter how much it made Marinette’s chest tighten with an ache. No matter how she desperately hoped that Adrien would see her the way she saw him… 

Taking her usual spot on the bench, Marinette sat with her knees pulled up to her chest as she doodled a few sketches into her sketchbook. However when Adrien arrived in the courtyard and made a bee-line for Nino, Marinette couldn’t help but follow him with her eyes. She could feel a soft small cross her lips when Nino swung an arm over the blond’s shoulder with Adrien grinning in return. It was wonderful to see him happy. She was glad he had a friend like Nino. 

“Hey, girl,” a familiar voice chimed. 

Startling at Alya’s sudden appearance, Marinette gave a tiny yelp. “Oh, hi.” 

“You had that dopey look on your face again. You could try to be a little less obvious, you know,” her best friend teased. 

Marinette laughed and tugged at a pigtail, “Sorry, I don’t mean to,” she glanced back to Adrien with her smile returning and shrugged. “Besides, he never notices anyway.” 

Scoffing, Alya shook her head. “Adrien does notice you. You know that, right?” 

“Well, yeah. But in a friend kind of way. He doesn’t see me the way… well I see him,” there was a sadness in her tone that she didn’t like. 

Marinette didn’t want to be disappointed that Adrien liked someone else. He was human. He was allowed to have his own crushes, right? But… she was also allowed to be human as well. And be sad she’d have to let him go. Maybe it was for the best? She had to focus on defeating Hawkmoth before she could even think about pursuing anything romantic. The world she lived in was dangerous, and she wouldn’t dare get Adrien dragged into it. If he got hurt… well, she wouldn’t know what she’d do. 

Alya bumping her gently. “You sound like you’re giving up.” 

“Not giving up,” she said with a shake of her head, “just respecting his choices. He’s such an amazing person, and I don’t want to get in the way of his happiness.” 

“Oh, Marinette, he’ll see it someday…” Alya fell silent as Marinette gave a non committal hum in response. “In the meantime, are you gonna take all those pictures of him down in your room?” she asked.

“No way, he’s easy on the eyes.” 

The two shared a laugh at that. Marinette returned to her drawing as Alya watched over her shoulder. Eventually, Alya flagged down her boyfriend. Nino, with Adrien in tow, came over to join the girls. Marinette was able to keep her cool when Adrien took a seat between her and Alya and watched her sketch. 

“That looks great, Marinette. Have you thought about entering my father’s next contest?” 

With a giggle, Marinette did her best to stop her heart from pounding. Stay cool, she reminded herself. “U-Uh, maybe. When is it?” 

Adrien smiled. “It’s in a few weeks, I think. I can check with Nathalie and get back with you?” 

“Yeah, sure,” she replied quickly. 

There was a beat before the blond spoke again. “You really are talented. I wish I could draw like you and Nathaniel.” 

“I’m sure you can draw just fine. Someone as amazing as you? I’m sure you're great at anything,” she blabbered out. 

He laughed at that. “Well, thanks. May I?” he asked, bobbing his head towards her sketchpad and holding his hand out for her pencil. 

“O-Of course,” she sputtered and instantly handed him her pencil and book. 

Marinette couldn’t help but watch him as he doodled in her sketchbook. His tongue poked out between his lips, wiggling slightly as he focused on his art. She noticed his brows pinch as her eyes wandered along his face down to his hands. Hands she’d held so many times and wished she could again and again. Granted, it was usually when Adrien was tugging her along to escape an akuma or that time he pulled her in to dance. 

Sucking in a breath, she looked away as she felt her face warm. Marinette silently prayed that he hadn’t noticed the vibrant flush that kissed her cheeks. When he finished, he held up the completed product. “Ta-da! What do you think?” 

In the middle of the page was a poorly drawn cat with a large body, stick legs, and a thick tail. There were dots for eyes and a squiggly cat mouth. Marinette couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of it, and Adrien quickly joined her. 

“Maybe, I need more practice. You should teach me sometime.” 

Marinette’s heart fluttered at the statement. “Yeah, maybe sometime. You may need quite a few lessons though,” she teased. 

Adrien smirked at her. “You gotta be kitten me, Marinette, I thought I was pretty good.” 

She couldn’t help but laugh at the horrible pun. There was a dull sense of familiarity that she shoved into the back of her mind. It was common to make puns. No need to overthink it. 

The bell chimed, echoing through the courtyard. Her friends all stood, ready to head to class. Adrien returned her sketchbook, smiling at her. “You coming?” 

“You guys go ahead, I need to pack up my things.” 

The blond tilted his head. “Need help?” 

“No, no. I got it,” she assured him with a smile. 

Adrien didn’t seem convinced, giving her a once over with a concerned pinch in his brows. But after a moment, gave a slight shrug and started up the stairs. 

Letting out a loud sigh, Marinette took a moment to gather her wits. She was proud she was slowly able to interact with Adrien despite how nervous she still felt around him. Her heart always pounded while her palms felt clammy. Wiping her hands on her pants, she corrected herself. Marinette glanced down at her sketchpad, glancing over the drawing. Adrien signed his name at the bottom with a smiley face next to it. She smiled, hugging it to her chest. Marinette would always cherish any moment she had with him. 

Standing, she gathered her things and headed up the stairs. Class went as usual. Lila was absent for the day, making Marinette relax a little knowing she wouldn’t have the brunette glaring at the back of her head for the day. 

 She took her notes, occasionally glanced down at Adrien (no one could blame her, really, he was so easy on the eyes), and drew tiny doodles on the corner of her paper. Marinette surprised herself with a little cat drawing that replicated the blond’s sketch from before. There was so much to learn about Adrien still. Did he really like cats? Maybe, he was a Chat Noir fan? 

Marinette was yanked from her musings when an akuma burst into the door of the classroom. Her classmates screamed and took cover beneath their desks as Madam Bustier shouted for the akuma to be gone. But the akuma locked eyes with her before smirking wickedly. 

“Ah, there you are Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I was hoping I’d find you here. I’m Crush Detector, and I’m here to expose your crush.” 

Her heart pounded with panic. “W-What?” 

Crush Detector gave a mused hum before prancing over to Adrien who stood at his desk with a gritted frown. “Don’t you want to know the truth , Adrien? We know how you feel about people who lie. I’m here to be honest… because we’re friends, aren’t we? ” 

Marinette watched as his expression changed. His eyes hardened. “Lila!” he hissed. 

Gaping, she looked at the akuma. “Lila?” Again!? How many times could this girl be akumatized intentionally? Was she working with Hawkmoth at this point? 

With a grin, Crush Detector turned her attention to the projector holding up a camera that was clearly the inflicted object. “Why don’t we all see the truth, hm?” 

Marinette watched in horror as the pictures of Adrien on the walls of her room flashed onto the screen, then Adrien’s schedule in detail, her desktop screen, then her. There was literal footage of her pieced together from before school. The entire conversation she and Alya had before class was played back in front of her, as well as her hugging the sketchpad after he’d doodled in it. 

Tears pricked her eyes, her heart dropping into her stomach. Her throat felt tight as her hands began to shake. She was utterly humiliated. It wasn’t a secret to her classmates how she felt about Adrien, but for him to see…

Kim laughed aloud. “You have his whole schedule on hand?” 

“I knew you liked him, but I didn’t realize you were a stalker, Dupain-Cheng,” Chloe mused. 

Her bottom lip wobbled as more and more images of her cooing over the blond were shoved into her face. As booked towards the door, vaguely hearing Alya and Adrien call after her. 

Crush Detector blocked her exit. “Oh, running away from your feelings again , Marinette?” 

She saw red. Marinette shoved Lila’s akumatized form out of the way. She booked it to the bathroom. Knowing that the akuma would be after her any moment, she locked the door, knowing it’d at least delay the process of Lila entering. 

Taking deep breaths, Marinette held her head as she slid down the door. Sobs wracked her body as she buried her face into her knees. 

“Marinette…” Tikki’s voice murmured as she floated out of the purse. “I’m so sorry…” 

With a sniffle, she wiped her face. “We have to catch an akuma.” 

“Marinette, are you okay?” 

Her body felt numb. An emptiness swirled within her. There wasn’t time to care. Lila had done this to purposely humiliate her. And she wouldn’t let that witch get away with it. Marinette called on her transformation. 

She left the bathroom, seeing Adrien searching around the courtyard. He hadn’t noticed her, thankfully. 

Crush Detector laughed spitefully. “Oh, c’mon, Adrien! We know you don’t like her! Don’t pity her!” 

The glare Adrien shot her was bone chilling. “This was the last straw, Lila. I told you to leave Marinette alone.” 

“Oh, but… I’m not Lila anymore, am I?” she snickered as she sat on the railing. 

Ladybug’s fist clenched. Rage flowed through her veins. A heat took over her she’d never felt before. It boiled at her back, shooting up her spine. Her fingers trembled with anger, her teeth grit harshly together. 

“Shut up!” she screeched before wrapping the akuma in her yo-yo. Ladybug yanked her victim harshly, forcing Crush Detector off the high railing and down onto the concrete of the courtyard. The akuma shouted in pain as she met the ground forcefully. “That’s enough! That’s enough! ” 

Adrien was stunned by Ladybug’s appearance, jaw hung open. She didn’t blame him. Marinette had never felt so much pain… hurt… anger… bubble through her. She’d never hurt an akumatized person intentionally. But Lila deserved it. She deserved so much worse!  

Ladybug tightened her yo-yo. “Do you just love to hurt others!? Does it make you happy? What do you think will happen now, huh!? Do you really think Adrien will love you after this!?” 

“Adrien will be mine,” Lila hissed. 

She tightened the string. The akuma gasped for air. 

Adrien took action. He ran over, snatching the inflicted camera and smashing it on the ground. The akuma flew out, but Marinette didn’t budge. When she saw Lila deakumatize… when she saw her at her mercy… she kept her wound in the yo-yo. 

“You have so much hate in your heart. You’re a horrible person! You just love to humiliate others, and for what? It’s not going to make anyone like you. It won’t make Adrien like you. You’re just a coward! Too afraid to be yourself, so you lie to everyone and bring everyone else down to bring yourself up!” 

“Ladybug!”

She gasped, glancing over at Adrien. His face was red. Had he been shouting at her the whole time? 

Quickly, she released Lila and snatched the akuma from the air. She waved off the butterfly silently. Adrien was staring at her with an emotion she couldn’t read. Lila was glaring at her with more fury than ever before. Swallowing, Ladybug gave Adrien a nod before whipping her yo-yo and fleeing quickly. 

                                                           o~o~o~o

Sobs wracked her body. Marinette hadn’t even made it to her bed. She wallowered on the floor, her face in her hands. Hot tears spilled onto her hands. Breathing was difficult through her cries, unable to catch necessary air. She vaguely felt Tikki’s pats of comfort on her head. 

“Marinette, you have to calm down… Hawkmoth will--” 

“I know , Tikki… I know. I-I need to--” she glanced down at her phone. There were many, many missed calls from both Alya and Adrien. Even one from Nino… which may have just been Alya calling from his phone. She couldn’t be sure. Her throat felt tight as she scrolled through her messages. 

There were texts from Lila. How’d she even gotten her number!? Who would’ve given it to her? 

  Hope you learned your lesson about crossing me. He’ll never love you. 

  Marinette didn’t dare open any more of them. She felt sick. Nauseated from the pain and anguish that stirred within her. There were texts from Adrien and Alya, both begging her to call them. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t bring herself to speak to anyone. 

She trembled as she reached up to take her earrings from her lobes. Tikki gasped, looking at her chosen with worry. Marinette held the miraculous out in her palm, gazing at her kwami expectantly. “I need you to take these and find Chat Noir.” 

“Marinette, no--” 

“Tikki, please. I can’t let Hawkmoth get my miraculous. This is the only way to keep the earrings safe.” 

Tikki’s gaze was pleading. “B-But Marinette, you could lead him right to Master Fu.” 

Shaking her head, she took a breath. “I can tell you… the only person I’ll be after is Lila. She--She’s the reason for all of this. This is entirely her fault. A-And if I get akumatized and whatever I do… she deserves it.”

“Marinette, don’t talk like that.” 

“Go to Chat Noir.” 

It was a command. And Tikki knew it. The heartbroken expression on the kwami’s face was answer enough. She floated over, giving Marinette a kiss on the head. Watching her kwami phase through the window, she knew she’d done the right thing. She knew that the best option would be for Tikki to go to Chat. Chat had used the Ladybug miraculous before. If anyone could save her, it was her crime-fighting partner. 

When the black butterfly floated into her room, she wasn’t surprised to see it. The utter feeling of hopelessness that overwhelmed her was like fodder to Hawkmoth. It absorbed into her purse, and a voice echoed in her mind. 

“Princess Justice… your feelings have been exposed to the boy you love against your will…” 

[kbstories]

Hegemony

he·ge·mo·ny (n.) A dominant influence or authority over others.

One cell, two captains and an uncertain future ahead.

(Or: Kidd’s prison makeup is flawless. Here’s why.)

Tags: Captivity, Enemies to Friends, Bickering, Fluff (?)

Read Chapter 1 here. Set in Wano. Spoiler warning for Act Two of Wano.

***

Kidd is awake before Strawhat, that first day.

Time is a nebulous concept, measured by shades of grey and shifting shadows. A mouse scuttles by, looking for scraps, and Kidd lets it nip at his boot for a bit before he shoos it away.

Outside, not a single soul moves. The stone pit will be busy soon enough.

Strawhat snorts in his slumber and turns around, sleeping off his clash with Kaido one snore at a time. He’s a mess, hair plastered in place with blood long dried, the yukata he wears torn and drenched in it, too. Blue from his fingers to his wrists, and Kidd didn’t even know a rubber man can bruise. It makes him wonder whether his metal fist would withstand whatever punches the brat dished out to get those.

Kidd smirks. Something to keep in mind for the day the shackles come off.

He leaves Strawhat to it; the guards are still a while out anyways. Instead, Kidd twists in his chains, far enough to wipe his lips against his fur coat. The thing is done for anyways, crusted with dust and filth of all kinds. There’s a handsewn pocket on the inside that Kidd reaches into, straining his wrist to grab what’s inside.

Despite the encounter with an Emperor (among other things), his lipstick has yet to break. The case is a little dented, sure, bullet worn almost to the nub – Kidd didn’t exactly count on being imprisoned for a week – but it’ll do. After years of daily use, Kidd has no need for a mirror or any sort of diligence for this, the shape of his mouth traced in one fluid motion.

Finding this shade of red in the New World was a pain in the ass to say the least: The rest of his stash is on the Punk and that’s another reason his ship better be fine and not on the bottom of the ocean. Lives have been lost over much, much less.

Kidd smacks his lips when he’s done. Repeats the process with the trusty kohl pencil he takes to each of his eyes, the black lines surrounding them reinforced with easy precision.

Much better.

His nails are a whole other story. In the dim morning light, Kidd runs his thumb over their smooth, lacquered texture; he doesn’t get very far before hitting scratches and the odd hole where crimson polish has chipped off entirely.

On any other day, it would be a quick fix. Just a matter of nudging Killer awake next to him and watch him paint on another coat with patient hands. Return the favor in Killer’s favorite blue, if needed.

Now, the bottle of nail polish is an odd weight in his hand. Kidd frowns. It’ll be impossible to get the right angle like this.

“What ya got there, Spikey? Food?”

Kidd doesn’t as much startle as throw a glare over his shoulder – only to realize that Strawhat is right next to him. Big, curious eyes are all the bigger mere inches from his face, and Kidd jerks his hand away before Strawhat can finish grabbing for it.

“Paws off or I’ll bite them off”, Kidd barks between clenched teeth. Who knew the little shit could be this sneaky? Strawhat straight up ignores him, climbing over Kidd to get to his chained hand.

“C’mon, share! I’m so hungr– Ah!”

Even clad in Sea Stone, the guy tastes like rubber and sweat. Urgh. Kidd bites down all the same, only letting go when Strawhat pushes at his head and scrambles for swift retreat on flip-flopped feet.

His arm comes away bloody, teeth marks a perfect half-circle on his skin.

“You bit me!”

There’s a grin on Kidd’s lips, growing wider when he wipes at the corners of his mouth and nothing comes away smudged. “Told ya”, Kidd spits the words out along with the dirt on his tongue. Disgusting. “This ain’t even food, you stupid fuck.”

Strawhat tilts his head at him and Kidd rolls his eyes, shows him the tiny flask held between two fingers.

“Oh! It’s that stuff for the nails. The one that smells bad.”

Look who’s talking. Kidd huffs. “Yeah. Stop bothering me.”

A moment passes and Strawhat actually stays away, sitting cross-legged and slumped with his elbows on his knees. That should’ve been the end of it: By the time Kidd has shaken and opened the bottle and balanced it somewhat precariously on his leg, Kidd’s full attention is focused on the wet shine of the delicate brush.

But so is Strawhat’s. It’s unnerving.

“What?”

“Huh? I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re staring. Fuck off.”

Strawhat doesn’t fuck off. “Isn’t that kinda hard? With, um…”, a vague gesture towards what remains of Kidd’s left arm, “that. How are you gonna do your thumb and stuff?”

Kidd turns his head slowly. His pulse thrums hot in his veins. “You looking for a fight?”

“What? No.” The brat has the nerve to look annoyed. “Jeez. I’m just saying, this place is boring as hell and there’s no food. It sucks.”

Kidd stares. Waits for the connection between one and the other to make sense. “And?”

Chin on his hands, Strawhat’s eyebrows draw into an even deeper frown, cheeks puffed out. It’s… a pout. Strawhat is pouting.

“I can help with that, y’know. Robin and Nami let me paint their nails all the time.”

A laugh bubbles up before Kidd can stop it. He shakes his head, “You’re so full of shit”, turns back to the task at hand. The tip is dipped in again and–

The cuff jerks at his hand. Kidd freezes. The bottle wobbles dangerously without anything to steady it, its precious contents on the precipice of spilling all over the dirty floor.

Breathless seconds later, it stabilizes enough to screw the lid back on.

A defeated sigh. “Monkey.”

“Hm?”

Kidd tells him, “This is my last bottle”, slow and deliberate. “Break it and you will die.”

Strawhat blinks, lifts his head. A smile is quick to burst on his lips, all sunny and delighted, damn him. “Gotcha!”

A rather clumsy shuffle to Kidd’s side makes him regret his decision almost immediately but Strawhat’s fingers are careful as he takes the nail polish from Kidd, handling it like one would a fledgling bird or perhaps a rare butterfly. When Strawhat gets to work, he does so with his tongue sticking out of his mouth and a look of concentration on his face that Kidd has only seen in battle before.

Huh. Perhaps there are worse things out there than having Strawhat Luffy as a cell mate.

*

That first day in the stone pit ends with a veritable feast for both of them.

By the second, Strawhat has managed to piss off the guards enough that they hook his shackles to the wall, too, and the twisting and pulling and gnawing on the chains for hours on end had provided some form of entertainment.

On the third, Kidd catches heat right along with him for helping that old fart with not-starving, and they’re locked in two separate cells right next to each other instead. Which, as much as Kidd doesn’t care, means he can kiss the semi-functional plan he’d come up with goodbye. Strawhat attracts trouble like shit does the flies – it’s… not exactly new information. Sabaody is a little hard to forget, even two years later.

(This is the reason why Killer’s the one with the plans.)

Fuck it. He has never been the guy to shut up and follow another, no matter how many times the world will go tits up in Strawhat’s wake. No, Kidd has his own path to walk: One that will lead him to a crew to be saved and a ship to be recovered and traitors to be hunted and there, at the very end of it, to One Piece itself.

The fourth day sees Queen return to Udon under thunderous applause. By then, Kidd has slipped the guards and climbed his way to freedom without a single glance back.

*

The Wasteland is ahead, Flower Capital beyond that.

Sea Stone weighs heavier with every step, the sun too-bright in his eyes. Over and over, Kidd runs his thumb over his nails and smiles grimly.

There’s not a single crack in the polish.

[bionicdragonguardian1]

Ranma 2/4

Part  Two: Chapter 13 - 25

Unless someone comes up with a better name I’m sticking with this one

HOW tf is the principal crazier than before?!

Yup, spreading out the Kuno-Principal thing

Is Sasuke seriously an anime-only?!?

Like I said Ryoga needs to chill a little first

Main reason I don’t like Ukyo That scene where she blatantly states she’s fine with turning Ranma into something he’s not rather than helping him

(Ignoring the near constant amount of undermining his abilities)

“I’m gonna cheer him up” as she holds a sword! Why?!

 Ranma you dummy, hug Akane!

I hate this demon/ghost cat

Shampoo, you manipulative bitch

Akane learns to swim like a normal person

The lifeguard in me can’t do it

 The principal is background shenanigans

Totally forgot about the kid who wants to play video games and is “weak” bc of it

Definitely need to find a different reason tho

 Lazy little shits are a pain

Also his mom is crap

 Akane… why you be dumb?

 Weird Happosai is Santa plot…

What is with the Excalibur meets lucky 1000 meets fairy godmother?

Good news is, with what I’ve done to Kuno’s understanding of Ranma’s curse Ranma knows Kuno wouldn’t give him that wish and calls it quits sooner

Someone just needs to explain Ranma’s really confusing sense of morality to me

 Cuz it’s either on 110% or it’s nonexistent, now normally nonexistent is for Kuno but still

 Look Ranma’s got ego problems but he ain’t stupid

No betting the Tendo Dojo at five!

 On what planet is that a legal document?!?

Some1 tell me why Shampoo using Ranma as a stop ramp bugs me so bad

That mo when you can’t remember if the Hot Spring Challenge is when Ukyo met Shampoo in the anime…

I don’t think so…

Akane you made me need to google a word

That like never happens Ranma you idiot

So close but so far

So much more logic, thanks

I mean more insanity, but it explains why Ranma swapped clothes

Finally! Ranma apologizes

Jesus Christ someone would think I won the goddamn lotto with how loud I cheered when this happened

600% approve of this over what happened in the anime

Oof poor Ranma

Hahahaha in your face Shampoo, but I also think I know why Ranma chose it

Poor Ryoga

I KNEW this guy was coming I still hate it

YEET you can’t PAY ME to  do this arc

Look, is it the fact that I had etiquette and dance classes as a child and everyone assumed this is what it was like? Probably.

It wasn’t so I won’t.

Any1 else notice how Nabiki is one of the few ppl that uses she/her when Ranma is in his cursed form no matter what?

Why does this bug me?

Akane, stop beating Ranma up, honestly

This is closer to abuse rather than teasing

*sighs*

 Gotta work that out of the narrative, intentional or not

Every1 sayin she’s violent isn’t helping

Like I said really fucking morally GREY Nabiki

How grey can you go before you get black? 

 Let’s find out together

Can everyone PLEASE stop treating Ranma like an object?!

 I literally can’t tell if Nabiki is fucking Aro or not…

STRESS

Why is this so hard?!

I hate seeing Akane cry

I know she’s playing Ranma like a kazoo, but the point still stands

WHY ARE YOU TWO SO DUMB?!

Nope, nevermind it’s just Ranma that’s a fuckin idiot I blame Genma

No, I’m not kidding

*sighs* I don’t condone Nabiki doing this in any way just for the record THAT’S not an apology Ranma!

This mess is totally your fault Nabiki

STRESS

am I intentionally pointing out where this work of fiction is stressing me out since I’m now online schooling and suffering for it? Yes, fuck off.

 Actually, don’t.

But Fuck Covid19

Aww his hat’s back!

Why do I love his hat so much?

No, seriously Akane’s so cute!

Oooww tree

y’know the sec she realized what Ranma was doing Nabiki should’ve TOLD him!

Congrats Ranma ya got the wrong sis- I mean the right- but wrong- dammit y’know what I mean

Some1 give me a logical explanation for why Ranma goes on a date with a panda doodle, PLEASE

I do appreciate the epic battle background fight for the anime

Further proof that Happosai sucks

Manga name’s somehow less believable I think it’s the use of “snowman” rather than “yeti”

Did Soun just find out that Pchan is Ryoga, and say nothing?

Ooo, Imma commit arson

Remember when I said obey Physics and Medical, I meant it

Arson is wrong and I know this but “transgender bitch” crosses the line

I will do it

Shampoo is a fucking yandere psycho

Just sayin “we’ll see who can get him first” 

honestly, any other group and I’d be annoyed, but these four can’t work together for shit I

’m still pissed at Taro, but he can kill Happosai, please

I can’t tell if Shampoo, Mousse and Ryoga are being purposefully obtuse or not

I just reread their names I know the answer to at least two of them

Idk how I feel about Kuno-amnesia we’ll see

yep, Kuno gives me the creeps w or w/out his memories

kinda wish this was anime

jesus christ, poor Ranma

press f to pay respects for Ranma’s stomach

InstaRegret

 Also Ukyo’s assumption that some1 can make Ranma doing anythin he doesn’t want to is crap

Like HELLO! Wake up moron!

Nabiki, I mean this in the nicest way possible, shut the fuck up

You’re making it worse

Also TALK to each other you ding dongs!

OH RIGHT! I almost forgot about the biggest fucking insult that Ukyo said of her own freewill!

It also proves that she doesn’t know Ranma as a person AT ALL!

It’s not a pick one or the other kind of thing

The fact that she thinks Ranma would accept that is insulting

The fact that she thinks that is insulting and makes me hate the patriarchy

Again, treating him like a prize than a person

*tries not scream, sighs*

Nabiki, you’re the cause of at least 30% of the stress I get from this

You having feelings ain’t the fucking problem here Ukyo, you not acknowledging Ranma’s is

 I hate fake criers, anyone who does this I hate you

Always let others in on your plans, kids

When’s every1 gonna realize Ranma’s “wishy-washy” cuz no one’s ever committed to HIM before?

This episode confused me, I’m prepared to be MORE confused

Less confused, I’m surprised

 Gonsunkugi, you creep

There is SO much wrong with this

*shudders*

WHAT?!

Y’know I didn’t think Gosunkugi could surprise me, I was wrong

Happosai still sucks unfortunately for all of us he’s now weird on top of it

I love how much Ranma needs to be kicked in the teeth to get any character development out of him

Ryoga is my #1 choice for it, always

Ranma… why are you like this?

Genma, emotional range of a goddamn wall

I am jealous of Ranma’s brain

I could be SO mean with the Shishihokodan

Also, are they implying that Ryoga has depression?

Gimme Ranma’s brain

I won’t ask for his confidence cuz that’s impossible but I want his brain

In Akane’s defense, given what she knows she couldn’t’ve known how badly that would affect Ryoga

 I ain’t gonna say “leave Shampoo” cuz that’s cruel

I like the “turn into a Cat” rather than the “Can’t Cross” & the use of New Year’s rather than random but this still brings around the fact that she doesn’t LISTEN to him

Mousse you’re NOT helping in fact you’re actively making it worse did you miss when he said blatantly “I don’t wanna”

oh, sure, NOW you’re ok with it

ugh Mousse, you have a brain, I’ve SEEN you use it. Do so now.

This entire episode weirded me out

IDK if it’s the age-dff or the fact that he was makin it up and somehow everyone thought this was okay … 

I won’t YEET it but MASSIVELY change

heheheh

Light bulb

NOPE I’m keeping this surprise to myself

it was a rather sweet end tho

Oh, this episode is a mess and a half, honestly

Also Nabiki, congrats you’ve literally enabled a stalker S

o many laws are broken here

okay, so Kodachi not being in on Ranma’s secret after so long makes sense purely because she doesn’t go to their school

however, with what i’ve done to make Kuno marginally less dumb it makes a little bit less sense…

I literally hate Kuno with what I’ve done to his logic of Ranma’s transformation, but that’s the point Kodachi… how do I handle you… oh, duh!

Ok, so Kodachi is now also terrible

 I’m trying to figure out where this is in the plot since there is ZERO

Ok, there’s a LINE, Nabiki

This one would be touching, if it didn’t end the way it does

TALK gentlemen! 

It won’t kill you

Fuck a parent that says they’re not your parent for no reason, EVER

I am going to make this hurt

 Also gonna take out Genma’s fail at stealth

 Remember I said Akane’s going to learn to cook

heheheh

sorry, I just love this idea

Oh this is SO against the rules it’s not even funny

 tiny adjustment so they actually have quasi-competent referees

Crazy wants crazy?I won’t stop ‘em

I reiterate: CHEATING!

I am aware that the “ending” apparently sets them back to the start in terms of their relationship but I swear to God if they pretend shit like this didn’t happen I will scream

 Someone ships something other than Akane x Ranma PLEASE explain why/how

don’t ship bash but I would insight when you explain 

STICK TO CANON

please trust me, I’m a multi/poly/crack shipper

(for frame of reference to a bnha I ship DabiHawks)

I understand the appeal of Fanon

however, I would like to stick to Canon here

so no Fanon

Canon Only

Fully love that high kick

Genma shows Ranma’s secret here, but they already know… so… I shall find out

Ooo, you’re not getting out of this Ranma

Do you know how tempting it is for Akane to at least tell Ranma she’s a girl- oh wait gendered sports… right…

Ranma… 

if you didn’t realize it was Akane when she hit you for calling her klutzy I can’t help you

I want to commit arson at some of the comments…

but can confirm that these are HS boys

 Doesn’t mean I gotta like it

I was wondering how long I was going to have to wait before tearing into Nodoka

FINALLY

Took me WAY too long to remember that Nodoka calling Ranko tomboyish is due to how he speaks in Japanese

I’ll need to figure that out since… English

Can I explode on Genma’s choice to take Ranma at TWO?!

Can I further explode on both of them for making a TWO YEAR OLD “sign” a Seppuku Pledge?!

I hate both of them, honest

ALSO communication! 

Genma! Just fucking TELL HIM!

Making her transphobic is SO tempting

I don’t mean in a “i hate you” way I mean in a “I sheltered my whole life” way

 It’s still bad, and painful, but she can easily learn from that

Or be worse, this could go 2 ways

I feel so bad for Akane for this entire conversation

Also poor Ranma like ouch… 

 Awkward

I’m going to make this hurt something fierce

Slight change since I’m hoping Ranma isn’t as “peak fight or flight” by this point

Genma don’t be an asshole for FIVE MINUTES

Please, that’s all I want

If she doesn’t learn the truth before the end I will make a bad decision

Really, I will

Don’t kill Genma, you can’t

 Akane, don’t say like you wouldn’t… honestly

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, honestly, just look the other way Ranma

*sigh* 

Ranma…

See, this kind of crap here is why I really don’t like Cologne

any other day Akane’d be right

oof, that means he self aware that girls flock to him

I’m quite frustrated by that if I’m honest

Ranma is clueless about all the wrong things

I love him but God I wanna punch him sometimes

Why is there a swing from the ceiling?!

I had a jolt from the way they set that panel up, thanks

Are you trying to kill me?!

Thank you Cologne, now fuck off

Oh thank God, at least he learned

This is nonanime stuff so I have no clue what’s happening but anything to make Happosai miserable

I’m enjoying this immensely

 ugh, “think of it as a compliment” ghost

Eat me

 okay, yeah, as much as I want him dead, that’s worse

I’m glad he’s not a one-and-done character

I will forever ONLY call him Taro when it is NonDialogue

Wait Saffron as in big-bad Saffron?

I literally only know pieces of the end so I’m just pulling from what I know

Lol, wait… was that soldier Anime only too?

I almost liked you there for a sec Taro

Now I’m pissed again

bravo

Oh, YIKES

… if Ranma falls into the Spring of Drowned Twins would he split?

 I’m not going to DO IT, obviously!

I’m just curious okay… 

that answers that… and kills anyone other than Ranma’s plan to turn back to normal I hope everyone is aware of that

oof

Since when is there a castle on an island in Japan

tis just a scratch, I’ll admit that was funny

Ranma… your stomach gets you in so many problems

ok, that was wholesome

I approve

Okay, so my understanding is that Mrs. Tendo got sick, so I can understand the reactions to Kasumi

BUT I still find it odd because… well… anyone in my house gets sick and you mostly can’t even tell I mean, minus a worse attitude and a mask, other than that though, nope we keep ‘er movin’

 I’m moving this section sooner EVEN IF IT KILLS ME!

I like her mom’s cookbook tho

I could make a Ranma x Ryoga joke here, but I won’t

I also won’t make a Ranma x Ryoga joke chapter cuz I’m nice like that

Actually I might have no choice

I’m FINE just dying

 Help

my multishipper heart is dying here

 I love this

InstaRegret for THREE people

If nothing else, I’m impressed

(well three once Ranma’s back to normal)

I need help

Fangirling/Fanboying/Fanpeopling is dangerous folks, remember that

Poor Ryoga

Though I too feel that right now like where do I look because everything coming in at mach 6

I’m changing that one scene tho cuz I can’t justify the aftermath without it

This… is… weird to say the least

I feel like I should just expect anything with Gosunkugi remotely involved to be weird at this point

okay, not as weird as I expected

glad it was short tho

I think I am officially out of anime terf

YAY, new content!

This is why I ask about any ship that isn’t Ranma x Akane

Also, names?

That- that- that can’t... 

I DIDN’T NEED TO KNOW THAT!

EWWW

gross

WHY?!?!!

also, biology, that’s not how that works!!

You two ARE idiots

Ryoga you die I’ll kill you

Well… that hurt to see so quick…

Ranma, get up!

I officially hate this Herb guy

ok, so if you put HOT water in the ladle do you stay that way forever?

Alright! Way to go Ryoga!

I need to stop shipping Rivals it’s bad for my health

fucking eat it you dick!

 Poor Akane

nevermind, Ranma you idiot

awwwww

ok, so that whole no more Anime-content… I was wrong, and I admit that, but still

I’m just thinking of my bff when they realize she’s an adult cuz, yeah, she’s like that too

 except like physically an adult unlike tiny-Hinako

 oh MY GOD Ukyo you’re driving me up the goddamn wall I swear!

THANK YOU AKANE!

 “You’re all Ranma’s fiancées” when only one of them actually is 

GIANT SIGH OF ANNOYANCE

Ranma, learn to communicate, PLEASE!

Okay… so is this where they figured it out or are some ppl still in the dark?

TIMELINE!!

Honestly, mood Ranma, mood

This entire plot line confuses me if I’m being totally honest

I mean I live for the Akane focus, but there are so many better ways to do this

[haloud]

prettiest thing i ever stole

A malex outlaw au  ---  ao3 --- rating: m

shoutout to @seeaddywrite and @christchex for the beta!

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

Jesse Manes was a mean bastard, and the whole town knew it. A military man down to his bones, he got shunted to the side for every single promotion after it came out he was hitting his wife. The years went by, and the man got meaner. Their mama left, and none of those boys of his grew up quite right, people said, and the town was glad to see them ship off too, one right after the other.

No one blinked an eye the day Manes turned up dead on his kitchen floor, a bullet in the back of his head. They turned up at his graveside and said he was a hero, then they turned up at the bar and said it was only a matter of time.

Alex Manes disappeared that same night, and people talked on that too. Either he was the one who did his old man in, or whoever did it did him in too; but that talk faded fast. Nobody was interested much in gossip about the littlest Manes boy, a subject all kinds of played out around the watercoolers of Roswell ever since word got around he was kissing on boys out behind the school.

So the Manes family legacy went like that. If Alex had been around to see it, he would’ve wished Jesse wasn’t dead after all, just so he could’ve watched it happen. Or maybe he would’ve made the town pay in blood some more for forgetting the ugliness they let go on right in front of them for all those years, thinking it wasn’t any of their business.

Alex wasn’t there to see it, though; he was busy leaving his family name behind for a boy in a beat-up pickup truck.

----

The gun came from foster number seven, a prepper freak with so much artillery he never even missed one little 9 mm. Michael locked it in the glove box, and it made his safe place feel a little more safe, made him a little more on the level with some of the ways the world wanted him hurt. He waited in the dark that night for the man to come after him with even more firepower, but the sun came up with him still alive, still armed.

That man had an accident while cleaning some other gun a few days later; Michael heard about it on the radio, since he hadn’t been back to that house. At sixteen, Michael had stopped caring where the foster system might put him next--at this point, it barely even mattered. Besides, who could care that a man was dead when that was the day Alex Manes actually noticed him in pre-calc? Their eyes locked as they jostled to beat each other for the one good desk in the back of the room, Michael’s ringed in a greening bruise, Alex’s ringed in heavy liner and concealer a shade or two too pale.

They split the desk after that; they split the textbook more often than not, because everything Alex owned was military-grade tidy, and Michael mostly lost things or just never had a chance to have them at all. They shared other things, too; food, homework, headphones, just once, when Alex followed Michael to his truck, crowded him into the bed, and held his legs in his lap so he couldn’t run away.

Then they started sharing words; then they shared a tool shed, and hands and skin and eager bodies..

Jesse Manes came to take that from them, and he took. He stole it, stole the most precious thing either boy had ever held, ripped them apart like it was his god-given right. He left Michael mangled on the dusty floor, and he dragged Alex out by his hair, back to the house he kept so clean and gleaming and pure.

But Michael stole for a living; stole to feed himself; stole to keep gas in his tank and clothes on his back. And he never got caught. And he’d never shot the safety he stole, but it turned out he didn’t need two hands to do it.

Alex stood in all that mess, blood and brains decorating the salmon-colored tile, sprayed high up on the gleaming stainless steel appliances, on the white walls. Looking at Michael like somebody who cared might’ve named him after an archangel, he wiped down the kitchen of fingerprints and evidence, quick and methodical, then he vaulted himself into the driver’s side of Michael’s old truck without even asking permission.

The only reason that house didn’t burn was because they couldn’t find the matches.

They cleaned up at a rest stop with soap and gauze Alex lifted from a Walmart that sat alone and hulking by the highway, and with Alex holding him it was okay, a little, for Michael to shake apart from the killing, for him to gag and howl and almost piss himself from setting and binding his hand the best they could.

Throughout it all, the whole horrible night, Alex stood sentinel beside Michael, who succumbed quickly to exhaustion and delirium, and he thought about the war he wasn’t going to fight anymore, and he relived again and again the crushing smack of the hammer, and the ringing crack of gunfire, and he held Michael’s head in his lap, and he smiled.

--

“Who taught you how to shoot a gun? Because you kind of suck at it.”

“Taught me? Nobody  taught  me, but you can learn an awful lot just by lookin’.” Michael smiled a lazy smile—he’d took some painkillers a while back, and without the hellfire in his hand and up his arm, he almost felt  good.  He glanced aside and let his eyes travel the length of Alex’s lean body, and he thought about how under all that black he looked like the boys in the magazines.

“Well, someone ought to. Teach you. Otherwise you might kill somebody someday.”

The light pleasure in that voice, the prom-night twinkle in those dark, dark eyes: it made Michael shiver.

Michael shot Alex’s daddy dead, and it felt good, felt so good he knew he couldn’t do it again or else he might never stop finding men with loud voices and heavy hands to put down in the ground.

Michael shot his daddy dead, and now Alex lounged against the cracked leather of his truck’s bench seat with his knees spread wide apart and his lips all smeared with sticky clear gloss, and he held that gun unloaded in his lap. That gun that was still hot the first time he touched it, when he eased it out of Michael’s shaking hand, when he fumbled on the metal and let it burn them both, brand them both at the very same time.

Over the years, in placement after shit placement, Michael had learned the ways men die and left them for dead too, quiet ways and loud ways, damn tragic and damn deserved. They choked on vomit in bar back rooms; they slipped away on the streets when winter came down. They huddled behind laundry machines that roared like trucks on the road, that shook like the whole world was ending, until the man stopped yelling and the screaming stopped and only, only silence followed, ringing, and his crying was broke so when he slipped out the back the night was quiet too.

He’d been quiet too long, now, so Alex filled the silence for him.

“Actually, don’t learn,” he said. “You should leave that bit to me. I was taught, after all.”

“You don’t have to—"

The words cracked out like a question, Michael’s voice flinching and young as he kept his eyes trained on the crumbling gray asphalt instead of on the beautiful boy beside him. If he touched the gun again, he might do something awful, like cry like a little baby. But he already made a choice with no going back. With Jesse Manes dead, Alex’s options were unlimited, the whole world big desert-sky blue, and Michael’d drive him anywhere he wanted, anywhere at all, for nothing more than a look from those dark, dark eyes.

“I know I don’t have to. Most people will give up anything at the threat they might get hurt. No bullets needed, just the suggestion of them. But you should leave it to me anyway; I’ve got steady hands.”

One of those steady hands touched Michael’s knee, light at first then, when Michael didn’t pull away, solid and hot and heavy, thumbnail worrying at a thick ridge in the stitching. They flashed past a faded green sign: fifty-two miles ‘til Farwell and the state line. They had three nights’ motel fare in change and small bills stuffed underneath one of the back seats and all else Michael owned in a fraying duffle bag.

In a couple hundred miles or more, they’ll be out of the desert proper and out of gas and out of money, and they’ll coast into a rickety dead-end gas station where Alex will swing his long legs out of the truck and hop down off the seat, and his too-small t-shirt will flip up at the back and reveal the gun tucked in his waistband. But the attendant will be passed out in a puddle of Jack, not even coming to when Michael shoves him over out of his seat just to check if he’ll pop up swinging. Alex will linger over the counter, hand behind his back, and when the man stays still he’ll lick his lips and keep his hand on the gun regardless.

Michael will clear out the till, and someday they’ll call it a beginning.

But before all that, Michael tipped his head back and closed his eyes until Alex’s stroking hand put him to sleep. It was less comfortable than what Michael wanted, which was to pull off under the stars and zip them both into his sleeping bag, knocking knees and breathing each other’s breath and trapping himself in a cage of vinyl and muscle and bone. It wasn’t what he wanted, but Alex let him sleep ‘til Texas, and the nightmares never came.

When he woke they were stopped, the truck wedged into a parking spot in between a nondescript sedan and a busted-up camper in front of the  Ala-mo-tel. Alex had the gauze mitt of Michael’s left hand cradled in his lap, just where the gun was sitting hours and hours back.

“I didn’t mean it like that, about your hands,” Alex said as soon as Michael’s eyes rolled open, before he could even make them focus on how gentle Alex held him. He must’ve been waiting for who knows how long that he couldn’t stop the words from falling out as soon as he detected the tiny rhythm shift of Michael’s breathing.

“’S fine,” Michael managed through his gummy throat, and he groped with his fingertips for the water bottle by his foot so he could snag it without moving an inch away from Alex.

“It’s not. But we’re going to be. We’re going to be okay.”

They got a room from a guy who didn’t even glance at Michael’s shitty fake ID, a room with a shower and no roaches they could see. They sat on the bathroom tile and let water get all over the floor so they didn’t have to be apart for even a single second, not even to get clean. Alex curled his elegant hands in the hem of his black t-shirt and stripped it off slowly, stomach and chest flexing in the washed-out fluorescent light, and the collar raked through his hair and made it stick up in the back. Michael watched, mesmerized, as Alex popped the button on his jeans next, slid them down his legs and slid his briefs down at the same time, until he was standing there naked and raw in a way he hadn’t even been their first time.

“If you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” Alex said, face half-turned away as he checked the heat of the shower instead of looking Michael’s way, and Michael reached out for him, wrapping his fingers around Alex’s ankle, making him jump when Michael touched a gentle kiss to the delicate skin behind his knee.

“I’ll only need a picture if you’re saying you’re not gonna be mine from now on,” he said, following the kiss with the tip of his tongue, tasting salt and the slightly coppery tang of water out of old pipes.

“Oh, I’m yours, alright.” Alex stayed staring in the middle distance, but he smiled then, and reached down to twine his fingers in Michael’s hair. “Finders, keepers.”

Once the water got hot enough, Alex held Michael’s head under the stream and scratched his chipped black nails over and over again through Michael’s curls; he soaped them both up with his shirt, careful, so careful not to get Michael’s dressings wet. Michael kept his eyes open the whole time, and let them sting.

“D’you think they’re looking for us?” he asked, right after they turned off the lights and both their heads hit the pillow, so close he could feel the leftover heat from the shower radiating off of Alex’s skin. He shifted closer on the scratchy sheets, until their foreheads rested together and he could press his lips to Alex’s damp cheek instead of waiting for an answer.

“We’ll know soon enough if we start hearing about a murder or reading it online, but I’m not scared.”

“You’re not?”

“Nah. He was gonna kill me anyway. Either right there or by letting somebody else do the job in basic. At least this way I’ve got you.” Alex’s hand closed around Michael’s good wrist, and he whispered, “Let me show you, let me show you how you don’t have to be scared.”

Alex could have told him all about the plans his mind ironed flat and neat while Michael slept, haloed in evening sunlight with his cheek mashed against the window. He could have fetched the gun and stripped it right there on the stained bedspread and showed Michael everything his daddy taught him about killing. There were a hundred different practical ways Alex could have spent what could’ve been their last few hours, but he spent them another way instead.

He threw his leg over Michael’s hips and bore him down, down onto the squeaking box spring, steady hands slipping on his skin to touch more of him, all of him, rolling their hips together and holding Michael, his Michael, holding him tight with his hand splayed all across Michael’s freckled back while Michael shivered and shook and spent between them. And then he kissed them back to sleep again with lips that were sore and bitten and chapped, but he couldn’t stop smiling, because he knew that he was holding on to Michael’s wrists, and the hands that killed his daddy, and only kisses would bruise his mouth ever, ever again.

---

“I’m not scared,” Michael said two weeks later, in the bed of the truck while Alex knelt up behind him to cut his hair. “We make a good team, don’t we? I thought—but I’m not scared anymore.” And regardless of the scissors in Alex’s hand, Michael settled back against his thighs and tipped his head back to nuzzle into his stomach.

Yeah, Michael thought. He thought about futures; he thought about consequences. He tried to get Alex to go outside of Canyon, tried to leave him the truck and all the money and just one kiss for the road—he laid out a whole road map he saw for Alex’s future, a future where Alex left him behind, a future without him in it. And when he spoke he spoke with shining eyes and shaking lips and his hurt hand cradled to his chest, right over top of his heart.

But Alex watched him; watching him was the only habit Alex had left. He flinched at slamming doors; he flinched at sirens in the distance, and Alex watched and Alex  knew him, as well as he knew himself. So when he offered every night to turn himself in so Alex could get back home and graduate and get his life back to any kind of normal place—every night they were at a motel Alex would walk out the door, and every night they were in the truck he walked down the road. He walked away and he counted to one hundred, and then he turned around and walked back, to the sound of televisions blaring behind cardboard-thin walls, to the sound of cicadas screaming.

Every night, Alex walked back, and Michael would collapse against him with red-rimmed eyes and only one hand that could clutch his shirt like a scared little kid, and every night, Alex said, “This is all that’s going to happen if I go home or if you run away. Me coming back to you.”

And Michael folded into Alex’s chest like a collapsing star, like a branch on a rushing river caught against a rock.

In the early evening, Alex kissed Michael’s forehead and set the scissors aside in favor of draping them both in the battered old sleeping bag, making them cuddle up tight so it fit around both their shoulders. The sun was starting to set, but it still looked high off in the distance with the world laid out flat and gold and swaying as far as the eye could see but for the violet smudge of the mountains on the horizon, and for a moment Alex pretended he had no idea where they were.

They talked all through the deepening blue and into the lavender dusk. They talked of how to go about stealing a guitar next, and the songs they would play for each other. The bottoms of the clouds caught fire, and Alex practiced chords on the inside of Michael’s thigh, and Michael said that if Alex wrote him a song, he’d steal the money and get it tattooed, right there.

The stars came out, dizzying and bright.

They kissed in the cold night, Michael’s shoulders naked against the icy metal, a sharp counterpoint to the feverish pounding of his heart. They kissed until they couldn’t anymore, too shivery and sensitive to go on, and then they made up their bed in the back of the truck and found themselves kissing some more.

They slept out in the open; they slept in each other, all closed in; and they called it home.

Jesse Manes was a mean bastard, and his boys were too busy being war heroes to come to his funeral. If they’d been there, someone might’ve cared enough to ensure the investigation went right, that justice got served—for a Manes definition of what justice might be. But the town buried him instead, and then they moved on a little happier, all around.

Michael and Alex moved on too. Alex started reading crime statistics reports, but the needle didn’t shift at all. The gun stayed in the glove box, except when somebody just needed to see reason. Michael’s hand got better, though it never set quite right, and sometimes Alex would kiss his crooked fingers and have to go off on his own for a while.

He always came back to kiss Michael’s crooked hands again.

---

Once every year, Michael and Alex came home to the desert, to sit under stars just unlike the stars anywhere else in the world, and Alex would play music, and Michael would hum along.  

And Michael would say, “I bet I could build us a house here; I bet I could do that for you.”

And, every time, Alex would reach for their almanac, and find their next destination, with stars they’d never seen before.

[scandalsavagefanfic]

So, I was reading through a few panels of a comic in which Tim kicks Jason in the balls and I got a little upset that both Tim and Dick were smirking over it as they walked away leaving Jason clutching his nuts on the roof. I am not 100% everything that was going on (seemed like something to do with Bruce's death?), but Donna had just said that she didn't believe Jason did whatever they were accusing him of at the time because he should sadness over it? In some ways it seem a little out of line.

2/2 I mean, I can get why Tim might have done it, since Jason did try to kill him, but for Dick, for all I hear that he has tried to ‘redeem’ and ‘fix’ Jason, it felt weird that he showed no sympathy. They both looked like they were just flying off the rails and accusing Jason of doing whatever it was because it was the easy option and they wanted to vent their frustrations? Do you know if this is a result of Batman dying? Did Donna stick up for Jason because they had already teamed up at this point?

They’re talking about the murder of Duela Dent. I’ll get into it in a sec.

I am also not a fan of how that went down but less for the fact of Tim kicking Jason in the nuts and more that he freaking crosses the roof to Jason head on, and takes a big ol’ kick that any Bat would see coming from the 100 feet away Tim was.

You’re absolutely right, Tim and Dick are written really bad here. This is before Jason tried to kill Tim in Battle for the Cowl and, despite what many people think, he didn’t try to kill him when he broke into Titan’s Tower. At this point, they’ve been building Jason up for redemption. Both Dick and Tim come off unbearably petty (especially Tim) and they jump to some crazy conclusions with practically no information. Jason, on the other hand, comes off fine (other than any newbie Bat would be able to avoid that kick).

Anywho, here’s how all that went down.

Countdown to Final Crisis (which, as the name suggests, started at 51 and counted down to 1), began with the death of Duela Dent, a.k.a. The Joker’s Daughter. She tried to kidnap a celebrity and was stopped by Jason:

(Countdown #51)

When he hears her fighting he runs off and tries to save her. With notable lack of resistance from the police despite ostensibly still being a wanted criminal (?)

(Countdown #51)

Then Superman helps Jimmy Olsen track Jason down to get the story of what happened. You may have seen this first panel on Tumblr lately (it’s come across my dash a couple times lately). I can’t include it because Tumblr is telling me I can only put ten images in a post and this one doesn’t make the cut. But it’s the one where Jimmy says “That was impressive mister Todd.” (Countdown #50)

And THEN, the Titans attend Duela’s funeral because she was a Titan for a minute and Donna runs into Jason. He tells her the story of how the monitor killed Duela and he felt terrible when he wasn’t able to save her (which is nicely depicted in the above panel where he’s holding her). Jason and Donna have a really nice moment and it sets up their teamup for the rest of the series.

(Countdown 48)

Now that brings us to Teen Titans #47. The Titans are investigating Duela’s death and they’re interviewing the celebrity she tried to kidnapp. Literally all the girl says is “…she dropped me, some guy in a red hood showed up, I woke up with the cops…”

Literally. That’s it. That is what Dick and Tim base everything off. They don’t ask for any clarification, don’t ask anything deeper.

Lol, Tim. Rose is gonna have a good time ;)

Side Note: I like the juxtaposition of the girls in the background of that second panel, calmly walking forward suggesting that Dick and Tim barreled in like hotheads and all three boys are physically fighting when they could have just had a conversation, even if it was tense.

Look at Rose. She’s a blessing. She needs to be in more things. I just adore her. And I ship her with Jason so hard. So hard, guys. And it’s almost entirely because of this scene and they don’t even really talk. 

Some context, I forgot earlier. This is very soon after Jason dressing up as Nightwing and fucking with Dick in New York but I actually thought that ended kind of amicably (again, crappy memory so I could be way off) so the venom here feels a tiny bit forced. Tim still has a pretty good reason to be pissed. Even if Jason wasn’t trying to kill him, he did beat the shit out of him.

Donna defends Jason because of their conversation at the cemetery in Countdown which is the beginning of their team up AND because she’s open to the idea that people can change.

(Teen Titans #47)

That, and the fact that they allowed Jason to punch them both off of him a page earlier, is probably why they give Tim this. And I’d have been cool with it if it had been better. My problem is, the way it’s written. I don’t feel like Dick’s and Tim’s actions are validated. I’m not cheering for them. I just think they look bad here. They’re smarter than this. And Tim isn’t this jealous and petty. I do think Jason is dumb with his last line though, even if the way the Titans went about confronting him this aggressively on so little information does actually seem like an excuse to pick a fight.

But look at that panel with Rose and Jason. Just look at it and tell me they’re not perfect.

So I hope this exceptionally long response actually answered your ask. I got very excited and maybe a little carried away :D

[victorscanero]

FELT// Chapter two [tyrus]

Hey okay guys so the rest of the book will in cyrus' pov sorry of thid makes anything confusing I deeply apologize.

If you haven't seen chapter one that's here:

It's been weeks since Amber and I first hung out and we have been hanging out every day since. We have hung out so much that buffy and Andi were getting jealous, After I told Amber she suggested that the we have a mini party while her parents are out, Nothing crazy just a few friends of amber and T.J. that way there isn't so much pressure. "You would sit through Jandi drama for me?" I asked in aw. Amber gave me a look "Jandi...drama?" She asked clueless. "Jonah and Andi. it's their ship name." I sighed disappointed at my friends lack of fandom knowledge. "Right...anyways if it gets too bad I'll just talk to you but I think I can handle it." she laughed "and T.J. is going to agree to this?" "And is T.J. gonna agree with what?" T.J. asked slowly looking towards Amber. "Small party tonight! very tiny but you can invite reed and lester." Amber smiled hoping he would just go along with "Why would I do that when I could just hang out with reed and lester in my room?" He asked "because the party has to look chill and laid back and unforced." Amber said  "So to not make it look forced you're going to force me?" T.J. rose an eyebrow and I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous it must seem. T.J. and Amber to both break eye contact and looked at me "This really is crazy maybe we should just deal with the forced awkwardness of hanging out with buffy and Andi" "No, I'll do it." T.J. said "but it is crazy" he smiled at both of ud before turning around and leaving. Amber rolled her eyes and we began planning.

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

The party seemed to be going well Jonah,gus and walker were hitting it off and Andi and Buffy were off to a fresh start there were others, but none that I really cared to talk to, that was until I saw T.J. alone at a table.

“What happened to your friends” I asked pulling out a chair to the right of T.J. at the end of the table he seemed taken back I assumed it was because the most I've spoken to him in the past weeks were when he would answer the door, but even then he just called for Amber and left.

After a moment, he replied. “Lester is looking for pudding despite my attempts of telling him we don't have any and I sent reed home.” he said “why'd you send reed home?” I asked letting my curiosity take hold. he raised an eyebrow and I began to regret prying “Do you always ask intruding questions?” but then laughed “Reed is... complicated.” he adding shaking his head “Great friend, but we are very different.” here's where I realized I made the mistake of assuming I knew who T.J. was. “I also might have gotten tired of his comments about my sister”  he said causing me to laugh “Just tell him to ask her out she's been dying to use one of her reject lines” I smiled turning to where she was at i watched as her and Andi were dancing and for a moment I thought maybe she could lime her too

Just for a moment though because before i could blink Jonah was pulling her away. her smile falling only for a moment before turning around and sitting next to amber

“Cyrus?” I heard turning my head “yeah?” I asked looking at T.J. “You didn't hear me did you?” he said looking amused my face fell “Sorry I was seeing how Amber and Andi were doing.” truthfully that happened a lot, me getting distracted worrying about other people but he didn't need to know that. “Yeah so was I” he said still looking at amber when he turned to me i guess he could see my confusion because he then asked me a question i wasn't sure how to answer “Amber likes Andi, doesn't she?” i thought I sensed a bit of sadness in his voice and hoped it was because she didn't tell her and not it was a girl that she liked I waited too long to respond i know I did silence says a lot but i answered him anyways “I think if you want to know something about Amber, you should ask Amber.”

I partly felt like it was my fault he asked. If I lied and said i was just say dreaming, the conversation would have been off them and T.J. wouldn't have asked.

“How are my favorite boys doing?” Amber perked between us a hand touching each of our shoulder “We were doing fine before you showed up.” T.J. joked causing me to smile because relief of T.J. being mad at her went away.  “Aw! that's what i said when you were born.” she took a seat beside me “Amber we're twins” T.J. said in a duh tone. Amber reached her arms back pretending to stretch “best 8 minutes of my life” she sighed “So how exactly do we kick everyone out of the house now that you guys are… Shall I say friends? We should watch the conjuring tonight.” she smiled “I'm down” T.J. smiled clamping his hand on my shoulder and getting up “IT WAS NICE HAVING EVERYONE COME AGAIN NEXT TIME” he shouted at the 10 people in the living room “well that's a passive aggressive way to tell someone to get out” I smiled walking to sat the living room and saying bye to buffy and walker before she left i couldn't find andi and jonah so I assumed they had gone home. After about 15 minutes the house was cleared. “I told him” Amber smiled “told who what?” I asked “i told T.J. said i looked really happy talking to andi and then said i always look happy when i talked about andi so he asked me if i liked her and i may have ended up telling him i liked girls and he was cool with it.” my face dropped and i took her hand and smiled “Amber! That's great I'm so happy for you!” I said and i meant it i was unbelievably happy for her. “yeah i know” she was still smiling “Can you spend the night?” “yeah but I have to walk to my house first and get some things first.” I said “T.J.!” Amber called from the room we were in and T.J. came in seconds later “yeah?” “Cyrus is spending the night so can we take him to get his clothes?” Amber asked “Yeah if we can go now I'm ready to watch the movie” he said

I forgot all about the movie I thought I could sneak past it but seeing as T.J. is excited for it and I want to have some kind of connection with him i decided to just deal with it.

The car ride there was nostalgic fergie bops Glamorous, big girls don't cry, and london Bridge. Most people i know listened to these songs but i was still shocked to see T.J. sing all the lyrics to fergalicious. Me and Amber were both in the back screaming the lyrics along with him and when we got to my house only Amber ran in with me. I told my mom I would be back tomorrow around 6:00 and we left. Amber begged to stop by the store and seeing a neither me or T.J. wanted to go in we both stayed in the car.

“So” T.J. turned around to face me “ I know about Amber.” he seemed happier than when I first found out he suspected it. “And you're okay with it?” I asked finding that having a conversation with T.J. was becoming less and less forced. He nodded “I'm just really happy she's happy” he smiled “Plus it is a relief knowing she won't ever date reed just to piss me off again”

I laughed at that “Again?” I questioned he raised an eyebrow “She didn't tell you?” I shook my head “ofcourse she didn't tell you she was probably embarrassed. Anyways, well In 6th grade i broke a vase, it wasn't important and it was 10 dollars but,  i blamed it on Amber anyways. She didn't get in trouble she actually got a hug for crying at my accusations but she was out for revenge anyways and ending up dating reed for a whole week. He cheated which obviously amber didn't care since she had zero feelings for him but to this day she regrets it because reed thinks that's whole reason she won't get back together with him” he explained the story and it was my turn to raise an eyebrow “No one thought to tell him she never had feelings for him? That could end this whole thing.” I laughed surprised.

“Reed hitting on amber has been a thing since elementary school no matter how much either of us complain the moment Reed gets into a real relationship and stops will be a very sad day” he said before I could reply I heard a known on the trunk and turned to see Amber, her figure disappearing behind the hood as she lifted it up.

“You heard all of that and we will make sure she knows you know.” T.J. smiled at me before turning back around. Amber came in the car and I couldn't help but make the first punch. “it's funny you have a crush on andi who has short hair and dated reed who has short hair… you must have a type” I smiled innocently “T.J. YOU TOLD HIM” she pulled the strings on her hoodie hiding her face “Sorry I couldn't help it, you can't just let your friends stay alone with me and not expect me to tell your darkest secrets!” he cranked up the car beginning to drive off “T.J. thought you were in love with me when we first started hanging out” that shocked me but i couldn't help but burst out laughing along with her “I did for a week and then i told you i think that's just how he acts” he said “what is that even supposed to mean” I continued to laugh “you know like your nice I noticed your nice to everyone” T.J. started to drive and the laughter died down “that's so not true!” I said knowing that it was very much true “Dude, Jenkins dropped his books while knocking yours out of your hand and you helped him pick his up.” T.J. laughed “that's so cyrus” amber said “Jenkins isn't that bad he is just douchey” i said knowing he was THAT bad. “Trust, he is i play basketball with him. That reminds me, if you ever decide to be fully out Amber and Jenkins gives you shit let me know. He is known for being homophobic.” We pulled into the driveway and she jumped out “That's the exact opposite of what I'm going to do but thank you for the tip” i began to wonder if that's why jenkins was always a total dick to me, could he tell I was gay? I pushed the thoughts aside when we got to Amber's room we all decided to watch it there and Amber had the bright idea to make a fort so we brought in chairs and blankets and moved her bed to the side and the mattress off of it.

A/n this ended weirdly but i wanted to start chapter 3 from the fort being done.

[soaringlanddormitory]

Because I freaking love your writing so much, I hope it’s okay if I request a few more: 🎭 Soren/Nana, 🔮 Keiko/Takashi (I just need more of the NGM in this au tbh) and 🔍 Tori/Takara (as in your Takara)

Ahhh thank you so much!! I love your writing too!!

It got long so !!!

🎭 - Theater AU

Soren Nakiri has everything in the world to be a great actor. He had rich parents who always approved on his choice, he had the charm of a prince that immediately made him gain fans, he had a handsome face that fit to be the center of attention and his voice? Remarkable. Splendid. Heavenly. There was so much things you could compliment about his voice, the list was endless!

No wonder he had a great potential to be one of the greatest actors in the world once he graduates from Drama School. He was walking on the hallways, trying to spot the next room he had to enter. He was highly-demanded when it came to plays, and even if there were many offers… he had to pick one of his favorite Musicals: Hamilton. 

He entered the room and he dazzled inside the room, people immediately faced him and he only smiled at the people who did. 

“It’s Soren Nakiri!”

“I heard he was the top of his batch in Drama School!”

“He looks even better face-to-face!”

Soren did like the attention, and he believed that he deserved it. For now, it wasn’t his time to act yet. In fact, he was going to judge who could be perfect for the role of “Elizabeth Schuyler” from all the possible contestants that were present in the room. He walked to the middle seat which was between the school principal and his teacher. 

The principal tapped the microphone and told all the contestant to go out and they would be called one-by-one. They did as he said and Soren only hummed to the microphone as people followed general directions. He was ready for this play- he even had his lines memorized in advanced because he loved the musical. But he wondered… who’d be the perfect fit for her?

After a few contestants came in, no one hit him right to play the role. There were some that were very close, but not there yet. “Contest 49, can you please come in?” With that, someone with blue hair and a flower on her head nervously came on the stage.

She came in, and she was basically shaking. She didn’t really like presenting herself on stage since she had stage-fright and she couldn’t handle talking in front of people. Soren knew that people like her could have the potential in being an actor, but they should get over their fear first. “Hold on.” He stands up from his chair before quickly going on stage.

He held the girl’s hands, and he gave her some breathing exercises to ease her down a bit. “May I ask your name, pretty flower?” He asks for her name and she looked at his eyes. “I would prefer calling you by your name instead of Contestant 49.”

She looked down as her grip on his hands tightened. “Nana… Nana Yukihira…” She mumbles her name and he nods his head, signalling that he understood her name.

“Okay, Nana. I’m very happy that you’re trying to face your fear to try and get the role… I believe in you.” He smiles before he gives a quick kiss on the hand, hoping it would motivate her. “You can do it.” 

“Thank you…” Nana thanked him and once he went down on stage, he mouthed her the word “I believe in you.” She exhaled loudly and she closed her eyes before singing the song “Helpless” from the musical.

She hit the notes perfectly, she nailed the expressions… She was so good that Soren decided to do the part of Hamilton during the song, while his teacher did Angelica’s.

Soren knew she would be perfect for the role.

🔮 - Fantasy AU [Keiko belongs to @polar-star-dorks and Moe belongs to @polar-stars!!]

Parties can consist of 3 or more members. It all depends on the team, and what they all wanted. Currently, the team that was doing a simple quest consisted of 4 members. They called themselves the NGM, and the people part of this party were: Keiko, Moe, Takashi and Yuriko. They splitted up into two groups to make the quest faster.

“We’re supposed to fight off some bandits of properties, right?” A male with blonde hair clarified with the girl with glasses who was holding a staff. The moment she confirmed he was right, he cracked his fingers before grinning. “Easy! All you have to do is use your magic then I’d punch them on the face!” 

Keiko began laughing, but she did agree that would happen in a nutshell. “You make it sound so easy!” She did love her friend, but the fact that he made bandits sound so weak made her less nervous about quests. She was a great mage who memorized chants and the alike, so it wasn’t surprising that he was so confident in them being a pair.

“You see the team of of the NGM is undefeatable! Yuriko has her fists! She can punch someone to the freaking Sun if she wished! Moe is a medic… a medic who can fight! Like wow! She’s so amazing! Then there’s you! The greatest mage in the entire next gen planet! You memorize all the chants and you’re so quick! You’re so awesome!” Takashi basically cheered her on and this made Keiko smile. Her smile was so wide and she never felt so much praise before.

“You’re praising me way too much! You have to know that you’re great too!” She pointed at him before pointing out facts she knew. “You’re a Berserker! you can literally fight someone without feeling that hurt! You’re the tank of the team who can basically go through a lot! You’re great too!”

These two would always talk about the sweetest of things. Whether it be about some ships or compliments like this.

He flustered a bit before scratching the back of his head. “You’re really nice, you know that?” He begins bringing up how nice he believed she was and they only ended up smiling at each other while having the most casual conversation. 

After a short while, the bandits started coming and they knew it was time to be serious. “Takashi, are you ready?” She prepared her staff as she observed the bandits in front of her, trying to guess their weakness.

“Heck yeah, I am!” He raises his fists above the air. “I’ll show them to never mess with us, the NGM, ever again!”

Yuriko released a guy she was holding by his clothes, throwing them into jail bards she made through stealing their weapons. “Moe, did you hear that?” She asks Moe who was currently standing on top of a fainted body… They probably thought Moe was the weaker one, but they were terribly wrong.

Moe blinked before nodding her head. “Yes. I heard them. I think that he’s fighting people already.” She steps off the person she was standing on and Yuriko only giggled before patting the head of the tinier girl.

“Takashi is right though. We really are amazing.”

After the whole thing was over, the party met up with each other. It was usual for this to happen. 

Moe was seen on the shoulder of Yuriko because of the taller female carrying her while Takashi had his arm wrapped around Keiko.

“Should we do the thing?” Takashi eyes the pair in front of them. “Because Keiko and I were telling each other that we should like… totally do it after we’re done with the quest.”

“Yes.” Moe spoke bluntly before she hopped off the shoulder of Yuriko and she even had a perfect landing.

With this, the four placed their hands together.

“NGM!” 

With that, they placed their hands in the air as they all began smiling at each other. It might have been very tiny and hardly noticeable, but Moe did as well.

🔎 - Detective AU

It was currently break time inside the headquarters of the Cops and Detectives. Tori was able to catch about three criminals in a single day and her performance was extremely remarkable for her age. People made rumors that being caught by her was scarier than facing the judges themselves. She didn’t care about those rumors floating around her. 

Tori was sitting on chair drinking some of her tea. She didn’t want to fail her family’s expectations since they were well known cops, so she wanted to do her best in being a great one too. She closed her eyes and soothed herself down. Tea always helped her become calmer… unless it has something to do with an Eizan. Then even tea couldn’t work. 

She heard a chair being moved and a mug being placed in front of her. Her eyes opened slowly, and she prayed to all the Japanese gods to not make it Ichiro Eizan, who’d only want to sit in front of her to piss her off. The gods and goddesses answered her prayers, once she saw a detective.

“Hello, Tori!” The white haired girl waved at Tori and she only placed her mug on the table. “How is the great Isshiki?” She had a smile plastered on her face and if there was something about her- her smile was contagious. Luckily, Tori was able to control herself very well, and the contagious smile never worked on her.

“I’m doing fine, Takara-senpai.” She calmly responded. Takara was somewhat a big sister to her- or at least acted like one. She’d always give her praise when she needed it, support her every time she had a chance to and try to invite her to go shopping with her… Her mother always said that she had the same relationship with the female parent of Takara. 

Maybe some relationships do pass down from generation to generation. 

“That’s great then! I heard the great news that you were able to capture some “WANTED” criminals today! Three of them! You’re doing so great in this job! Woo, you’re probably beating some of your superiors with this talent! Keep it up!” Takara decided to stand up and move her chair beside Tori, and she also transferred her mug closer to herself as well. 

“It’s a surprise that you look at me so highly when you solve murder cases. I only capture the possible suspects or known criminals.” The moment that she brought this up, the older female began pouting at her. The reaction of hers made her somewhat confused. “What is it, senpai?” 

“Don’t talk like that! Detectives and Cops works hand-in-hand! If it weren’t for you capturing them, we’d be pretty useless and no justice will be given!” Takara crossed her arms. “So you shouldn’t be surprised that I look at you so highly! You’re an amazing cop and no one can ever change my mind, got that?!”

A tiny smile emerged on the face of Tori and Takara was proud of that little accomplishment she was able to solve. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me!” She grinned. “Ya deserved it!”

[the-resurrection-3d]

Somehow wrote 1.1k of a scene for the deer fic? Alright. Brief Paultryck, brief minor character death. Will probably have a version with citations up on dreamwidth soon because it’s almost 5 am and this is what happens when I’m left to my own devices. 

Shakespeare was wrong; most of us are not players. To say that the average man is a player in the course of his own life is at best misleading and at worse tragically comedic. Orwell summarized it best; the truest impulse for the average man is that towards being consumed. Stepping onto the whale's tongue and lying down in its stomach, the final irresponsibility short of death.

Yet I am here. 

Don't mistake me, I have no pretenses that this new 'Red Army' is going to accomplish much of anything, much less anything important, but you also must understand a whale has poor TV reception and few bookstores, even fewer sharp edges with which to drive into one's eye, solid walls against which to smash one's occiput. What else am I supposed to do for fun?

A large man with thick caterpillar brows asks for my name.

Yves, I say. Our name-tags are fill in, and all I have put is my old cat's name in my inherited doctor's script, which thus far not one person has managed to read. His says "Paul," upside down.

We are pretending to mop up a hallway while we smoke, he lolled against the door frame going out into the camp's shipping bay, door propped open against his broad shoulder. Cigarettes are rare and subject to raids during piss-breaks, so we have decided to share one, one toke at a time. That was another thing Orwell prepared me for, excited me with - the breakdown of normal codes of conduct.

I am still a bit caught, though; every emotion is still a little bit disgusting. Such as the way the setting sun paints itself across his arm, up his neck and unshaven jaw.

Paul who is my superior. Paul who is so my type it's pathetic.

He passes me the cigarette, his glove without fingers, leather black and well-worn. He doesn't look he's shaved anywhere but his face since his voice first cracked.

Funny name, he says. I swear I've heard that name before. He snaps his fingers. Isn't that a --

A french designer, Yves Saint-Laurent, I say. And the name of the Pardoner in Patience Agbabi's rendition, from a crooked churchman to a self-help profiteer, You want to know the consequences of sinning? Don't ask a saint, O ladies, ask a sinner.

Getting stabbed and left comatose for ten years, watched over by the corpses of the men I'd meant to poison. Shakespeare would approve.

Paul smiles, but then seems to catch himself, and looks down, taking a long drag. A cool wind is blowing in; I can smell the snow in the air. There's still blood on the floor from a fight Yanov had picked earlier: nosebleeds, a few lost teeth. I'd had to press the cloth to the new recruit's face and listen to him blubber about his innocence, his poverty, his sick mother. A caretaker's white noise machine.

Paul is wearing a fur-lined bomber jacket over his red sweater, one hand in his pocket, the other idly twirling the cigarette. I re-envision the way he'd gotten dressed this morning, out of the very corner of my eye: sitting on his stiff pallet against the wall in only his boxers, back turned so we could all see the way his muscles tense as he put on his black muscle shirt. Exercise first thing after breakfast.

He catches my eyes and I step out, sitting down on the first stone step. A lovely horizon of barbed wire fences and shipping crates. Beyond the first fence, where the other men usually play cards under the mid-day sun, Red Leader has had a dissenter hung. I can't see from here, but I wonder if his blood has already settled, lips blue while his feet are swollen purple. Overnight he may freeze so thoroughly you could cut off a limb without losing a single drop.

A doe has found the corpse, lying in a patch of dead grass amongst the concrete as her infant licks at his pale fingertips.

Hey! Paul calls in Dutch. Get away from there! He bangs his fist on the door so loudly they scatter. Go on, get!  

Better in them than strung up there, I say. Besides, they'll simply come back when Red throws him into the ravine tomorrow.

A noise of discomfort. Maybe so, Paul says, slipping back into English. But that doesn't mean it's gotta be in front of me. Are you sure you're not cold?

I am only wearing the sweater and my fingers are soon to be throbbing with pain. I say, No.

Something hits my back, making my heart leap into my throat with an embarrassing noise. Paul laughs heartily. I twist to grab his jacket, turning my eyes back up to him - the cigarette dangles off the corner of his smile. He's rolling up his sleeves, gesturing for me to put it on. I drape it over my shoulders, allowing it to hang loose and open on me like a blanket instead.

Thank you, I say, voice quiet of its own accord. Turn my gaze back to the hanged man, who is still in the wind, a shock of white with his shaved head and prisoner's clothes against the crimson sunset.

No problem, he says, just throw it on my bed when you come back inside. I'm gonna go see if there are any leftovers; do you want anything?

If I take my gaze away from the sun I'll go with him. Turning into a pillar of salt would be better than sharing another dinner with him, returning his jacket in person, our fingers brushing for a fraction of a second too long to be accidental, having to sleep in too-small on almost opposite sides of the room. Too many entries in-between Auslander and Desmet.

Turning into a pillar of salt would certainly be better than standing up and having him spot my erection. I ask without turning away, You think Red would appreciate the bold aesthetic choice we've left in the hall?

He'll be fine.

I shrug. You know him better than I.

A small laugh. Unfortunately. Last chance for leftovers.

I'm fine. Thank you.

Your loss. The door falls shut. I pull the edges of his jacket closer in, imagining myself a child again, blanket tight around me as my brother and I watched TV with the volume off, because it was close to 11 pm on a Saturday, and we weren't supposed to even be using any electricity. Every creak a sign of the house's incoming treachery, every motion in the peripheral of my vision a tiny little monster, taking notes.

Come to think of it, I called him a dissenter earlier, but I have not actually confirmed that's the case. Does it matter? What's done is done. Either way, the deer come back for us.

For some reason, looking at him hanging there makes me almost want to cry.

The other Yves's home is now a museum. In mine, the statue of Hermione collects scarves and keeps her mouth shut.

[twitchesandstitches]

Viscountess Belladonna Parvus

Basic Concept: Recurring bad guy human antagonist, an absolutely useless wanna-be military commander who fancies herself a patriot and is obsessed with beating the heroines, and just will not go away! She is literally the Worst.

Appearance: Imagining herself the greatest beauty of the Imperial Commonwealth, she stands about 5’9, reasonably slender for her height though very fit from a lifetime of active training. Her psychic powers clearly assist with her strength, as her body has telltale glowy bits on her veins; these flare whenever she loses her temper, which is about once every few hours.

She seems made in the image of one of the Commonwealth’s three great founding ur-societies, and are modeled after Victorian England. She wouldn’t be out of place as the heroine of an old novel: so pale that her skin might be made of porcelain, and in fact some of her limbs are made of a material that is like porcelain but suitable for prosthetics. Her blonde hair is so light as to be nearly platinum-colored, and is cut fairly short. She tries to maintain an air of disdainful haughtiness, but she’s too hot blooded to keep it up for long and her mannerisms tend towards the flamboyant.

Parvus likes to wear the latest fashions, or what she assumes is the latest fashions; as she spends much of her time far from high society, she is largely clueless and can come off as an arrogant blowhard to those in the know, and she certainly likes her outfits overdesigned. Even her porcelain prosthetics are ostentatious, inlaid with elaborate gold patterns and clockwork that tunes out her name whenever she enters a room. (This is SUPER annoying.) Everything about her appearance screams ‘PAY ATTENTION TO ME’. In general she has the look of a Disney villainess, but one that isn’t self-aware enough to realize she’s invoking the image.

Backstory: To understand this egomaniacal bundle of pride and obliviousness, you must know that the Imperial Commonwealth is divided into strict social classes; the dregs of society who labor in virtual slavery, a lower class who maintain the day to day works, several other groups who do similar jobs in different capacities, and above them all stand the warrior aristocracy, who operate the military as officers and do every job of any significance. As the Commonwealth is a heavily militaristic one, this means the aristocrats effectively run their society. However, they do little training and simply do as they please, believing that their breeding alone promises them all the competence they require, and laze about.

On the outer parts of the Commonwealth it's a little different, and the aristocracy is expected to perform well and consistently. Viscountess Belladonna Parvus, the crown jewel of a long line of military officers mostly known for their inability to stop killing their own men in political wars, won a prestigious duty in pacifying the frontier. She was excellent at courtly manners, wowing her fellow socialites and otherwise navigating the fraught political difficulties of home, but was absolutely incompetent at actual warfare. She became less liked as she kept wiping out her own armies through extremely bad tactics meant to earn herself glory and a fine reputation, and grew desperate to bolster her career.

Now entered the Endowed Nomad Fleet, and she saw an opportunity in ridding  the multiverse of dangerous mutants and aliens (as she thought it). She attacked them with her entire army, and lost all of them. Many of them were devoured by the hungry MILFs of the fleet and later spat out as tasting too sour, and others defected once they saw the fleet had it pretty good. She herself was apparently killed when a ship fell on her by accident.

Less than a few weeks later, though, she was alive again, in a new cloned body, and seething at this loss ,she sought to avenge herself. She fought them again, and failed. She challenged them again, and failed too.

Since then, she has recklessly pursued them, gathering together the populations of entire worlds and forcing them into service, leaving Commonwealth worlds totally unpopulated, her eyes fixed on the goal of destroying the Endowed Nomad Fleet once and for all, and no matter how many time she has been incinerated, exploded, digested, or point-blank annihilated, she shows up again in a new body, vowing yet MORE revenge.

To this day, they barely remember her name and for some reason that REALLY pisses her off. She attacks them almost constantly, endlessly hunting them down and pausing only to entertain other little rivalries or moments for her to get some glory. The Fleet still tends to interfere for moral reasons, but find her so irrelevant they still don’t realize its her, over and over again.

Personality: Egotistical, arrogant, prideful; if there’s a synonym for ‘smug jerkface’, she fits the bill. A fairly standard member of the Commonwealth aristocracy (and unaware of the irony in the term there), she’s a conceited bundle of social prejudices, anti-intellectual snobbery, obsession with purity and essentialism, and generally being an absolute pain in the neck to everyone around her. She’s so bad, she even goes beyond hating anything that isn’t strictly baseline human to looking down upon the working classes of her homeworlds. A snob of the highest degree, she firmly believes that she is the cream of the crop, and better than everyone else by virtue of her lineage. By definition, every other being in the universe is beneath her, and that she owns everything by default. All things, to her, are hers to take or destroy as she wants.

A bombastic, loud and extremely dramatic personality, she’s used to treating all life as a performance and even seems genuinely unaware that actions have consequences. She doesn’t seem to understand the impact of people dying, and its implied that she views her military failures as test runs to figuring out what works; that her own men die by the thousands just doesn’t seem real to her, or relevant.

While she’s a complete failure as a military officer, this has little impediment to her career; among her society, anyone born to her rank will succeed regardless of their failures, simply because of their social standing. However she constantly worries about that standing falling, a consequence of her time at being a socialite. To her credit, she was a genuinely skilled and cunning master of politics, but that simply doesn’t transfer to the complexities of military work. She is, in the end, someone who thinks that brave charges are the same thing as strategy and that shouting at people will make them surrender. And, apparently, that constantly screaming at robots that they are soulless machines or that aliens are inhuman monsters will make them not squash you into a flat smear.

Incredibly vain, she regards her permanent injuries as honor marks. This is why she retains prosthetics despite being able to have her limbs regrown, as they are a point of pride to her. Ironically, she tends to get extremely angry over tiny wounds to her face, since they’re not too impressive and throw off her fabulous looks. She’s prone to complaining about the oversexed and hypersized attributes of her foes; she’s not jealous at all, she genuinely dislikes them being that big. She’s one of those kind of people who think that being anything besides super skinny and petite is a sign of personal failure.

She is a patriot, but this isn’t a good thing in her case; she is a blindly loyal devotee of her people’s unofficial reverence of the human form, and has a convoluted philosophy mixing social darwinism and romanticism that is tied into her beliefs about human supremacism. Everything she does, she believes, is for humanity. Or at least a very tiny section that she believes counts as human; anyone beneath her extremely specific standards is a sub-human animal fit only to be a tool or to be destroyed.

Species: Human; technically a metahuman, as she is a powerful psyker. This would probably annoy her, too.

Fandom: Original character.

Abilities: She’s actually a pretty skilled combatant one-on-one, making use of a ceremonial power blade to cut through enemies, in conjunction with a style of swordplay incorporating ballet-like movements and extreme agility into a rapid attack. This, combined with her deeply intimate understanding of her society’s rules of high society and political intrigue, has created an assumption by herself and her rivals that she is a cunning and skilful elite.

Her actual military skills, particularly in terms of tactics and logistics, are completely incompetent. She is much like Yatruiga in this respect, but where Yatruiga is oblivious, Parvus is genuinely cruel and indifferent to the suffering she causes, regarding feeding her men to her enemies as a way of making them useful. Perhaps, she fancies, the bloated bellies will slow them down. She is unaware of the digested men being reborn as children, and thus she is expanding their numbers. If she did know, it wouldn’t stop her, because she’s just… not very good at her job like that.

She is a genuinely powerful psyker; she has considerable influence over the minds of organics, and is something of a brain torturer, breaking into minds to force information and take what she wants without caring about the damage she causes. She is more fond of her telekinetic powers, augmenting her sword strikes into flying cuts that open wounds a dozen feet away, or crush enemies beneath nearby rubble. She is very strong psychically, able to go toe to toe with a giantess with her mind powers alone.

Problem is, she’s likely to be killed in a single hit, and she’s so foolhardy she often ends up being accidentally swallowed through sheer incomprehensibly bad foresight. Jumping into an enemies mouth to stab them in the throat, that sort of thing.

She has access to a war idol; the disturbingly realistic tributes to her people’s obsession with the human form. Her’s resembles herself, but on a very large frame and made of delicate-looking porcelain and enough gold to fund a medium-sized country. About seventy feet tall, it amplifies her powers to the point that she can rip hills out of the ground to use as melee weapons. Interestingly enough, it is somewhat hyper curvy, in the hourglass style. No one knows why, it just has done that on its own. Possibly she is becoming affected by the very powers she so disdains?

Relationships: She does not have friends. At all. She might have allies who respect her station, she might have soldiers who revere her as a living embodiment of humanity’s will, but no one who knows her personally likes her very much. She doesn’t care, being too much of a conceited twerp to think about anything but what SHE likes, which is herself. She might have a snarky manservant who mouths off to her, but that’s as close as it gets.

As rivalries go, she has one with the entire Endowed Nomad Fleet, but it's one sided. Despite her forces constantly harassing them for a long time, they barely know who she is and haven’t really made the connection that the human forces constantly pestering them are all led by the same woman, who just will not stay dead. In particular she resents Sierra, whom she sees as an uneducated barbarian who has abandoned her humanity in favor of monstrosity, and is obsessed with defeating her. Sierra has accidentally digested her and otherwise slain her on dozens of occasions, and still has no idea who she is. Her resentment of Sierra existing is largely classist, not just personal.

She and Yatruiga have come into conflict on many occasions, and they have a great resentment for one another; they’re notable for being some of the only military conflict that resulted in complete annihilation on both sides.

She might have something of an Ahab-ish thing for killing Mama Defleini, viewing her as a great and terrible foe to be vanquished on behalf of humanity.

Sekhma considers her an… interesting case study in how terrible a person can be, but the two otherwise have no real interaction. She and Pavumi have met, and Parvus still wakes up sweating at the memory; she has seen Pavumi’s true nature, and was horrified at the unthinkable reality.

In general, she detests all of my OCs on the grounds of… well, because she’s a terribly unpleasant person, really.

Pred Level: Absolute zero. She has no devouring abilities or interest in getting them, and would find the idea gross. She’s kinda boring like that.

Prey Level: Extremely high! She’s so foolhardy she charges right into the mouths of preds, daring them to stop her, and completely fails to realize when she is swallowed up and melted on the spot. She’s apparently super tasty, and many long-time preds seek her out to have another sample of her; pure nastiness has a special flavor, and while its an acquired taste, she is soaked with it. If someone has a predator rating above zero, she is almost certainly destined for their belly.

Relevant Kink Material: She’s a target of predator-types, as mentioned above, but she isn’t so much intended for these things in general as she is an antagonist and source of ‘bad guy of the week’. Someone to be constantly digested, over and over, and pop up again having learned nothing from the experience. She is different from Yatruiga, even though both have ‘incompetent military commander’ as a theme, because she is intended to be an unpleasant monster with zero redeeming features, present solely as someone you really wanted to see get whupped.

[chalantness]

Let It Snow - day thirty

(for my “season of shipping” giveaway)

Rating: PG-13 Word Count: ~1,600 Characters: Steve/Natasha + Bucky/Wanda + Sam/Sharon Prompt: gift-giving

For: an anon

A/N: Last time I wrote about the girls so now it’s time for the boys!

Read on: [ ao3 ]

“So,” someone says, and Steve glances over his shoulder as Sam walks up to him at the bar, sliding his emptied tumbler onto the counter. “Pregnant, huh?”

Steve feels his heart sort of jump in his chest, a smile tugging at his lips before he can quite catch himself. Not that he’d want to. Ever since he’d learned that Natasha was pregnant – pregnant – he hasn’t been able to wipe the grin off of his face. He remembers almost a lifetime ago when he wanted things like a wife and a house and kids with wide, bright eyes and toothy smiles. Even when he woke up in a new time, in a new world, with an entirely different life, part of him still hoped for that dream, and maybe that had been part of why he had such a hard time adjusting. He was stuck decades in the past, clinging onto a dream he knows (now, at least) he wasn’t opening himself up to. He wanted it, but he didn’t want to try.

He was terrified of having the ground yanked out from underneath him again. He was terrified of going under.

But then Natasha knocked him on his ass, and, well. That had been exactly what he needed.

He has always found her beautiful, of course. But in that way that seemed distant, like something he would always admire, but never quite have for himself. She had those big, bright eyes that drew him in, and that soft laugh that made his breath catch, and that secret little smile that made him feel like he wasn’t so out of place.

Like maybe he’d come to this time for a reason.

He remembers, too, the night that he felt like he could make a new life for himself. That night when Tony had them over at the penthouse, for another one of his dinner parties Steve didn’t see the need for. But they were fun, especially when he could see Natasha so at ease, lounging on the couch and sipping on some fruity drink he knew she hated but still drank because Pepper put it in her hand. They crashed at the penthouse that night, and Nat, with her cheeks flushed and her eyelids a little heavy and that little grin of hers, had tugged him onto the bed with her, laid on her back and stared up at the ceiling with this faraway look in her eyes as she told him what the Red Room had done to her. What it had taken from her.

He never thought a smile could look so beautiful and bittersweet at the same time, but hers did. And he couldn’t remember the last time his chest had felt so tight.

She’d drifted off to sleep before he could say anything, and he laid there beside her, listening to her steady breaths. He wondered what it would feel like to have something taken from him before he realized he wanted it. Maybe his dream felt less like his with every passing day, but he could still have it, if he wanted. He could have a lovely wife and a white picket fence and kids running around the front yard. He could. But, lying beside Natasha, her words still lingering in his head, he realized that maybe he finally moved on. He finally let go of the past.

He didn’t need it anymore. Not the way he needed Natasha.

“It’s crazy to think about,” Steve admits to Sam, leaning against the bar as he looks across the room at Natasha. She’s sitting on the couch with Wanda, the two of them laughing, and Bucky is standing behind Wanda with his hands massaging her shoulders, maybe the happiest Steve has seen his friend.

His best friend and his fiancé, and his wife, pregnant with their child, chatting like they’d been old friends. Like they were meant to come into each other’s lives all along.

“You two deserve it, man,” Sam says, giving Steve’s shoulder a squeeze. “She looks so happy.”

“She is,” Steve says, grinning a little wider. He knows part of Natasha is still in a bit of a daze over the situation – over the fact that she was able to conceive at all – but they’re just taking each day as it comes. For once, he thinks, neither of them is all that worried about the future. “We both are.” Arching an eyebrow, he adds, “It’s your turn, you know.”

“What?”

“Nat’s pregnant, Buck and Wanda are engaged.” Steve’s lips quirk at the corners. “You and Sharon are the next in line to do something big.”

“Maybe we’ll elope,” a voice chimes in, and Sam laughs as Sharon comes up beside him, tucking her hand into the bend of his elbow as she kisses his cheek. “Hi.”

“Hello there,” Sam says. “I hope you know if we elope, babe, your best friends are going to come after me.”

“I’ll protect you,” she promises with a cheeky smile, and Sam says, “yeah, you will,” before leaning in for another kiss, this time on her lips, and Steve sort of chuckles as he glances away to give them some privacy.

He turns to find Natasha waltzing up to him, with Wanda and Bucky following behind her, Bucky’s arm slung over Wanda’s shoulder and Wanda giggling as he whispers something into her ear. Nat has that smile of hers that’s somehow sweet and incredibly sexy at the same time, and, fuck. Steve hopes he always gets that tingle that slides down his spine whenever she walks his way. “Hi, beautiful,” he says, grasping her hip and drawing her close. He slants his lips over hers as his other hand slides between them, flattening over her stomach.

“Hey, soldier.” Her voice is soft and breathy, and he kisses her a little harder, deeper, pressing his palm more firmly against her stomach. “Steve,” she laughs. “Stop.”

“Can’t help it.” He smooths his fingertips over the silky material of her dress, sliding his hand up her side, to her tiny waist.

“Okay, okay,” Bucky cuts in with a feigned groan, half-heartedly tugging Natasha back to break their kiss, and, instinctively, Steve draws her to his chest. Bucky looks totally smug as he shakes his head at them. “We’re still in a public place, you know. We don’t need to see a reenactment of how you knocked her up.”

“James,” Wanda says, holding a hand over his mouth. He kisses her palm and then tugs it away, dropping another kiss onto her temple, and she shakes her head with a grin.

“Did your friend tell you the big news?” Natasha asks Steve, glancing at Sharon and Sam with a smile.

Sam opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, Wanda practically bursts out, “He asked Sharon to move in with him!”

Sharon giggles, and Sam is practically beaming when Steve says, one eyebrow raised, “He left that little detail out, actually.” Sam shrugs a shoulder and Steve reaches over to give his shoulder a squeeze. “Congratulations, you two. I’m almost too touched to be pissed that you didn’t tell me first even though I told you about Bucky’s gift for Wanda.”

Natasha shoots him a glare. “You knew about Wanda’s kitten and you didn’t tell me?”

Steve laughs, smoothing his hand over her back. “Love, you’re terrible at keeping secrets from your best friends. You’re a sucker for her pout.”

Natasha rolls her eyes, her lips twitching at the corners in a smile, and Wanda giggles as she tells her, “If it makes you feel better, Nat, Steve is even worse than you. I barely even had to bat an eyelash for him to tell me about your trip to Russia.”

“What?” Natasha asks, arching an eyebrow at Steve. Wanda’s eyes go a little wide as her gaze snaps onto Steve’s, and he just laughs again, shaking his head. “What trip?”

He can tell Wanda’s about to start apologizing, so he just tugs her close, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “You’re fine, darling. It’s more fun telling her this way.” Wanda shrugs her shoulders cutely, tucking herself into Bucky’s chest, and Steve grasps Natasha’s chin with his fingers and tips her head up to hold his gaze. She blinks up at him, her eyes big and bright and sparkling as she waits for him. “I planned a trip to Russia for us, if you’d like to go,” he tells her, stroking his thumb over the apple of her cheek, relishing in the feel of her flushed skin under his touch. “I know not every memory is going to be great, but it’s still a part of who you are, and it’ll be part of our child, too. And that’s enough for me to love it.”

“Steve.” She blinks once, twice, three times, her eyelashes dotting with the tears he knows she’s trying to hold back. “Fuck, if you make me cry, I swear.”

He laughs, wrapping his arms around her and tucking her face into his neck. “You can blame it on the pregnancy hormones,” he whispers into her ear, and he knows their friends are watching them, but all he doesn’t care. All that matters is Natasha. “I promise I won’t tell.”

She breathes out a laugh against his neck, tipping her head up to meet his gaze. “You might not love Russia,” she says, and he grins because he knows she’s mostly teasing.

“I will,” he promises, sliding his hand between them again, smoothing it over the flat of her stomach. She blinks up at him, her smile bright and brilliant and beautiful, and he wonders if he’s imagining the way her stomach flutters ever so slightly under his touch. “There’s no part of you I’m not in love with.”

[ladynorbert]

Hey ladynorbert!! This is your Wintersend secret Santa lady. I have been watching you from afar (in a totally non-creepy way I promise) and I've noticed you're a really avid writer. I would like to therefore make you an art. I know your fave pairing is Varric/Bethany, so I was wondering if you could write a little bit about why? And how you characterize Bethany in your head. I don't know much about them and DA2 is probably my least-played game. So anything you might share would be so helpful!

MY MOMENT HAS ARRIVED. SOMEONE ACTUALLY WANTS ME TO TALK ABOUT MY LOVE FOR THIS OTP. MANY APOLOGIES TO THE REST OF YOU BECAUSE THIS IS A SUBJECT ON WHICH I HAVE A LOT TO SAY AND RARELY GET THE OPPORTUNITY TO SAY IT.

Let’s see, where do I begin?

[Editor’s note: With me, obviously. I’m right here.]

Ah yes, excellent point, voice in my head that never quite goes away.

Varric Tethras is a member of the Dwarven Merchants’ Guild, though not entirely by choice I suspect. He’s rich, he’s well-connected, he’s charming, he’s cultured. I am deeply attached to him because there are many things we have in common - we both had an alcoholic parent whose drunken rages were a defining part of our childhoods, we both write stories which are strangely well-received, we both prefer to be by the fire, we are both intensely loyal to those who have earned our loyalty, and we both like pretty much everybody until they give us a reason not to like them.

Varric has a very painful past for a number of reasons. The Tethras family was always, in many ways, more like a business than a family; his official biography (for the DA tabletop RPG) even says that his older brother Bartrand always treated him more like a colleague than a sibling. His father died when he was a toddler; his mother was a drunk; and his brother cared more about making money than anything. He had a torrid love affair with another dwarf, and Inquisition makes it clear that there’s still some lingering feeling, but she broke off the plan to elope and instead went through with the marriage her parents arranged for her. 

Basically, I feel like for years, all Varric knew about love was that it hurt you in one way or another. Then he met the Hawkes.

Bethany Hawke is the youngest of the three Hawke siblings. In the games where she survives the prologue, she’s already lost her father to the Blight and her twin brother to an ogre. She’s also an apostate mage, so she’s spent most of her life hiding from Templars and trying to conceal what she really is. Despite hardship and personal anguish, however, she’s an incredibly sweet, warm-hearted, generous person. (In games where she dies, Hawke tells Anders that Bethany never turned away anyone who needed her help.) If she goes to the Circle (which is where I always send her, because becoming a Grey Warden makes her miserable), she becomes highly regarded even by the Templars and is given a position of authority over younger student mages. 

She loves her family, she cares deeply for her friends, and she’s kind to practically everyone. As a result, she’s the only companion besides Varric who is liked by everyone else in Hawke’s personal circle. Even Fenris, who absolutely despises mages on principle, develops a strong affection for Bethany as well as respect for her mastery of her magic.

So that brings us to why do you ship it? Frankly, there’s so much ship tease inherent in their interactions that I have a hard time believing that the devs didn’t intend us to ship it. Here’s what I’ve observed.

1) Varric gives nicknames to everyone in his social circle (except Hawke and Aveline, and later the Inquisitor). By and large, these are either superficial (Blondie, Elf, Curly) or sarcastic (Tiny, Junior, Chuckles). Bethany’s is one of the few exceptions to that rule. Bethany’s nickname is Sunshine. It’s clearly affectionate.

2) Varric has several lines in which he talks about the sun. One of these is in a party banter with Bethany herself; she asks him about the Tethras family being Orzammar nobility, and he concludes his thoughts on the matter by saying that part of the reason he prefers the surface is because “it’s sunnier here”. He also tells Hawke, in a possible cutscene dialogue, that he was born on the surface and is perfectly happy about it because “Sunshine suits me just fine.” Plus, his final tarot card in Inquisition is literally The Sun. 

Sunshine is one of Varric’s favorite things. He named Bethany after something he loves.

3) When he first meets the Hawke siblings, Varric is very suave and charming toward Hawke because he wants Hawke to go along with his plan for the expedition. But when he starts talking to Bethany, his tone of voice changes. I don’t know how to explain it - he’s not quite flirting, but he’s damn close to it.

4) Varric snarks at everybody. Everybody. It’s just how he relates to people. But he’s never snarky toward Bethany. His voice is always full of fondness when he talks to her.

5) Bethany rarely laughs. But when she does, it’s either Hawke or Varric causing it - and her laugh for Varric sounds way more like a flirty giggle than anything.

6) If Bethany dies in the Deep Roads, Varric is devastated. I mean full-on crushed. (Props to Brian Bloom, because his voice acting brought me to tears. “Oh, Sunshine.”) And he continues to hate himself for years because of it… clicking on him during Act 2, which is set three years later, will sometimes prompt him to say “Poor Sunshine… Bartrand will pay for her death, I promise you.” 

7) Bring Varric and Bethany as companions for either/both of the DLC campaigns, then try to tell me that there’s not something there.

(a) Legacy has less flirting, probably because of the seriousness of the situation. Regardless of when it’s done, Bethany is so upset by what’s happened that it shows on her face. If the DLC is done in Act 1, Varric actually thinks she’s ill because she looks so upset, and he’s worried. If it’s done in 2 or 3 with Circle!Bethany, she’s understandably freaked out because the Carta actually attacked her in the Circle, and only the presence of Templars saved her. Varric’s remarks to her are soothing, reassuring, and a little bit teasing (which gets her to laugh). And even if it’s done with Warden!Bethany, there’s something there - he flat out tells her that it’s good to see her, and he’s the only companion toward whom she can’t be cold.

(b) Mark of the Assassin, though… bring Varric and Circle!Bethany. He straight up hits on her. First there’s this interaction where she’s fussing about her clothes.

“I can’t believe I wore this to the Chateau. Maker, what was I thinking?”

“That it’s the uniform of the Circle and you could make a burlap sack look good?”

“It’s hardly the height of fashion.”

“You would kill these people if you wore the height of fashion.”

Later, when they’re running around in the dungeons trying to find Hawke and Tallis, he makes a comment about the quickness of her stride. She quips back at him, rather playfully, and he says, “There’s my Sunshine.” That single line is spoken in absolutely the warmest and sweetest voice we ever hear him use in either game where he appears. 

8) In Act 1, after the Hawkes have reclaimed Grandfather Amell’s will, Varric has party banter in which he addresses Bethany as “Milady Sunshine” (making her giggle) and also “my lady.” Coupled with the “my Sunshine” line mentioned above, that’s a lot of possessive pronouns, Varric. She is literally the only character in any of the games whom he ever calls “my” anything other than “my friend.”

9) Like the rest of the DAII companions, Varric makes comments when someone falls in battle. If that someone happens to be Bethany, his reaction is very interesting. The line itself is a bit of gold - “Hold on, Sunshine, I’m coming!” - but the tone of voice is especially delightful. It manages to sound equal parts reassuring and really pissed off, like whatever took her down is going to pay dearly for touching her.

10) If she’s still alive in Inquisition, Varric has several lines in which he indicates that he writes to her frequently. He also has a very interesting line if Bethany went to the Circle and is still alive as of Inquisition; following the events of the quest “Here Lies the Abyss”, he may have party banter with Cassandra in which she inquires, “And Hawke’s sister - she’s still alive, isn’t she?” Varric’s response is to say, in a slightly hostile tone, “Better be!”

So why do I ship it? In shortest form, they are both generous people who give a lot to others. They both care a lot about other people, sometimes even when they know it’s not the wisest thing. Most of all, their interactions make it very clear that, romantically or otherwise, they genuinely love each other. Theirs is a warm, honest, mutually respectful relationship and I think that they could really be happy together in a healthy way. And after the amount of crap they’ve both survived, I really want them to be happy.

For more stuff like this, come to @sunny-stories - it’s the greatest boat in the history of boats.

Thank you so much for the ask, anon! I look forward to whatever beautiful gift you decide to craft for me - I’m sure I will love it!