#so I just sort of barely manage to scrape it together

[eupheme]

— fold into me

ulysses klaue x f!reader

rated e - 2k

tags: sleepy morning sex, nightmares, pinning down / body restraint, light d/s, fucking the thoughts from reader, teasing, edging, sort-of v. light degradation, PiV, vibrating appendages, oral fixation, implied creampie(s)

a/n: inspired by this post, I read it and had crush me thoughts

Klaue doesn’t want you to worry. In fact - when you’re in his bed, he doesn’t want you thinking at all.

Klaue can hear you worry.

It settles over him, a silent weight as heavy as the gaze that drags over his profile in the soft, early morning.

You shouldn’t be awake. Not yet.

A rare day off, the promises of a day spent together. A nightmare waking you in the early hours instead - leaving you crying out as he’s ripped away by hands that clawed at him. Twining around his legs, threatening to pull him under - into the black depths, while you still reached for him.

They always seem to the come in the days just before he leaves. You can’t help the pit of worry that forms in your stomach - the fingers that rest against his ribs curling into fists, as you resist the urge to reach out and touch.

Craving the reassurance. To confirm that he is still here. That it was just a dream.

You were aware what you were getting into when you first started seeing him. There were secrets of course, but never about what he was. Your world orbited his, never fully joining, but you knew.

The stories and the whispered weight of his name. The deals and the fights and the danger. A twist of tattoos that dip beneath his clothes. The fresh and faded scars, and an arm made from metal.

That he was a bad man.

But never to you.

Your eyes drag over the angle of his nose. Past a strong jaw, the stubble darkening his cheekbones, to be scraped clean when he rises. To the thick fan of dark eyelashes against his cheeks.

And then a sharp glint of blue, as one eye cracks open.

“Should be sleeping,” He rumbles - the thunder before a storm.

Your reply is on the tip of your tongue before he is striking - quick, in spite of the breadth of his chest and shoulders. All you manage is a little squeak before he’s rolling you beneath him.

His weight presses into you - chest, hips, thighs. Pinning you to the bed as you squirm, an arm shoving under the curve of your spine. The other tucking under the pillow, as his cheek scrubs against yours.

“Klaue,” You protest, “I was just-”

“Don’t want you thinking,” His voice is low and rasping with sleep.

You huff, still shifting. But the weight - you have to admit it is nice. Crushing you into the mattress, a silent command to slow down and stop, for just a moment.

And so, you go still.

Taking in the moment. Seeing if sleep will tug at you again. Your hands slipping from beneath to slide up on either side of his ribs. Fingers folding together on his back in an embrace, the slow cadence of his breath warm against your ear.

It is soothing, but you’re too wound up. A skittering beneath your skin. Eyes fixed on the ceiling above - afraid that if they close, if you do sleep, you might dream again.

Your fingers eventually start to trace against skin, and he sighs at your touch. Nails dragging down his spine, the tips working into stiff muscles.

Only to freeze when you press too-hard into something tender - a hidden, half-healed wound - hearing the sharp intake of air through teeth.

The worry slips right back in.

He clucks his tongue at you. Don’t, you’re sure he’s saying. There’s a drag of his face against yours, bristle over soft skin, before it dips lower.

Warm lips press against the pulse point of your throat, the cant of his hips downward. It is now that you feel him - the thick curve pressed into the hinge of your bare thigh - that you squirm for another reason.

It’s difficult, with your legs pinned together, trapped between his parted ones. The hand between his shoulder slipping down and beneath sheets - flattening in the dip of his spine. The weight of his hard cock increasing, where it digs into bare skin, leaving a wet smear behind.

“Klaue.” You sigh his name this time, trying to lift your body against his. Hips to hip, the curves of your skin matching his. Gripping on now, instead of trying to slip free.

You crave him, and he rewards you. Splitting your thighs, his own working between them. Twining his ankles with yours, so much like the grasping hands from your dreams.

Theres another troubled flicker in your mind, before his legs are shifting. Slowly spreading them wide, taking yours along with them.

Opening you up, baring where you’re sticky and slick from the night before. From now - the press of his mouth and his words and his weight, as the need blooms in your belly again.

Your nose brushes his temple, in your search for him. Fingers twisting into thick, greying curls, trying to draw his face to yours.

A low hum of amusement, before he meets you. It’s hungry, your hands moving to wrap around his shoulder. Whining into his mouth when his hips lift and roll, his cock slipping down to press snugly against your cunt.

You swear you can feel every inch and ridge of him, as you clench in anticipation. Eyes closed as you concentrate on the sparks that arc up your spine with each needy buck of your hips.

How each time makes the velvet skin more slick, until he’s glistening with you. Nudging against your clit, teasing at your opening.

“This what you want?” Klaue’s lips brush yours. His voice still slow and smooth, content to wait. Letting you rut against him, as your teeth nip at his jaw.

You moan your assent, breathless. The weight of him presses against your ribs, leaving you dizzy. Another low laugh as he reaches between you, a fist wrapping around the base. Holding himself steady, the flushed head just nudging at where you need him.

“Come on, then.” He rasps.

And then, he goes still.

Leaving you wanting. Squirming again, as your eyes flip up to his. Seeing the darkened amusement, the careful way Klaue watches you. Fully awake now, but still keeping you pinned so carefully.

A living sculpture carved from flesh and muscle. Undeterred by the promise of your warm cunt, by the needy press of your lips against his skin and the thick weight of anticipation.

He wants you to do it.

You realize that, as he waits. It’s hard to move, with the spread pull of your thighs, pinned as you are. Hands bracing on his shoulders - trying to push yourself down, to impale yourself on him.

It makes you take him slow. Nails digging into his skin as he nudges a little deeper with each rock of your hips.

Leaving it impossible to think of anything else but him, as he splits you open. As you ache to be filled, already clenching down around him, trying to draw him deeper.

His breathing is harsh through his nose. Warm against your skin, the brush of his knuckles across your belly and breasts and tight peaks of your nipples on their way back up. Elbows and forearms planting in the mattress on either side of you, just barely adjusting his weight.

Each thrust of your hips is shallow. He’s not fully seated in you, only what you’ve managed to work inside so far.

It teases at what you want. What you need. Your initial spike pleasure quickly plateauing with the minutes that pass - the grind of your hips not nearly enough.

Leaving you teetering on the edge - your desperation dripping down his cock, sticky on your inner thighs.

“Please,” You try to whine, your face pressed into his neck. Mouthing at the brand, teeth scraping where shoulder meets neck.

The word become disconnected between your thoughts and your lips. Half gasped and half sighed, lost in the muted buzz of the city awakening outside.

“Are you still worrying?” He asks, his pulse fluttering against your lips. Betraying him, revealing that he’s not nearly as unaffected as he’s been pretending.

Hitching his hips forward, sinking deeper. Again your answer is more sound than words, drawn from deep in your chest.

“Oh,” He sighs, with that grin. Pulling back to let his nose brush against yours, seeing how gone you are, “You’re not thinking about anything at all, are you?”

Your thighs flex, brow pinching as he suddenly hilts himself. A gasp ripping from you at the way he fills you, your pussy making room for his thick girth. The heavy weight of his sack resting against the curve of your ass, coarse hairs already sticky.

“Oh, fuck. Good girl.” Klaue’s teeth clench, feeling how you wrap so perfectly around him. How you arch against his chest, panting as you adjust.

His voice dropping lower, with a smooth roll of his hips, “You listened so well, so I’ll give you what you need.”

And he does, the shallow thrusts you’ve managed turning into the rutting of his hips. Skin slapping against skin as the curves of his cock drag along your inner walls.

Pushing himself higher on his arms until you’re chanting his name, the fat head stroking against the soft, spongey spot that brings in the night again, making you see stars.

Your groan is guttural, eyes slipping shut again. No longer tethered to the bed, now somewhere far beyond - solely focused on the snap of his hips, the burn of pleasure with each plunge of his cock. Muscles already stringing tight, toes curling in blissful anticipation.

Missing his sharp smile in the early light, all white and shining gold. How he moves then, bracing himself again on a tattooed arm as the other slips downward.

The tips of his fingers whir - just barely activating the mechanisms inside. Pressing them cruelly against your clit, pinching the tight bud between two of them.

It’s too much - steady pulse of the vibration, the sharp punch of his cock. All-encompassing, until your mind is truly blank. The mindless grinding of your hips against his, chasing his fingers, the high that you can almost reach. Each breath shorter, everything winding tighter and tighter, and then -

With a ragged cry, you feel yourself shatter in his arms.

Your vision goes white and hazy as the edges, his name broken as you sob it. A different kind of wave crashes over you, the ripples flowing down your limbs, from your molten core.

His words muted, but you collect what you can. Growled endearments that slip between bared teeth.

“That’s it, sweetheart.”

“Look at you, so fucking good for me.”

It’s bliss, this frozen moment in time.

You’re boneless, when he finally slips his legs free, hitching your thighs around his hips. Pleasure-drunk on the ambrosia that glitters in your veins, his hand lifting from between your thighs to pinch at your chin.

His thumb smearing across your bottom lip, eyes darkening as you part them automatically. Tongue dipping out to taste yourself, a sweet tang against his skin.

“There you go.” Klaue coos, seeing the dazed look as your lips close around and suck.

His own end not far off, with the warm grip of your cunt and mouth - the broken echo of his name ringing in his ears.

Knowing for certain that he has you thoroughly distracted. Starting a slow pace as he grins, an idea forming. Your eyes fluttering - threatening to roll shut again when his hand slips free, your lips parting with a sigh.

His hips pulling back - easing his cock out just enough to circle his thumb and finger around the base.

The vibrations start again as he drives himself deep, traveling down his shaft. Pulsing inside you, nudging against that spot again, as your eyes snap open with a sharp cry.

If he can hold off just a little bit longer - he thinks - he’s certain to coax out another.

Because when it comes to you, he’s nothing if not thorough.

This time, when he relaxes - his weight settling over you, a warm and welcome blanket - you find that your mind has gone blissfully silent.

Content to fold yourself into him. Arms wrapping around, head tilting to rest against his. Mimicking without thought the easy rise and all of his breaths, your quickened pulse slowly following.

He murmurs something soft and low, though you’re already gone.

Off to a sleep that, for both of you, comes easy.

He vibrated the glass, and it vibrated my - *gunshot*

[togglesbloggle]

I won't be opting out of the AI scraping thing, though of course I'm glad they're giving us the option. In fact, at some point in the last year or so, I realized that 'the machine' is actually a part of why I'm writing in the first place, a conscious part of my audience.

All the old reasons are still there; this is a great place to practice writing, and I can feel proud looking back over the years and getting a sense of my own improvement at stringing words together, developing and communicating ideas. And I mean, social media is what it is. I'm not immune to the joy of getting a lot of notes on something that I worked hard on, it's not like I'm Tumbling in a different way than anyone else at the end of the day. But I probably care a bit less than I used to, precisely because there's a lurking background knowledge that regardless of how popular it is, what I write will get schlorped up in to the giant LLM vacuum cleaner and used to train the next big thing, and the thing after that, and the thing after that. This is more than a little reassuring to me.

That sets me apart in some ways; the LLMs aren't so popular around these parts, and most visual artists especially take strong issue with the practice. I don't mean to argue with that preference, or tell them their business. Particularly when it is a business, from which they draw an income. But there's an art to distinguishing the urgent from the big, yeah?

The debate about AI in this particular moment in history feels like a very urgent thing to me- it's about well-justified economic anxieties, about the devaluation of human artistic efforts in favor of mass production of uninspired pro-forma drek, about the proliferation of a cost-effective Just Barely Good Enough that drives out the meaningful and the thoughtful. But the immediacy of those issues, I think, has a way of crowding out a deeper and more thoughtful debate about what AI is, and what it's going to mean for us in the day after tomorrow. The urgency of the moment, in other words, tends to obscure the things that make AI important.

And like, it is. It is really, really important.

The two-step that people in 'tech culture' tend to deploy in response to the urgent economic crisis often resembles something like "yeah, it sucks that lots of people get put out of work; but new jobs will be created, and in the meantime maybe we should get on that UBI thing." This response usually makes me wince a bit- casually gesturing in the direction of a massive overhaul of the entire material basis of our lives, and saying that maybe we'll get around to fixing that sometime soon, isn't a real answer to people wondering where their bread will come from next week.

But I do understand a little of what motivates that sort of cavalier attitude, because like... man, I don't know any more if we're even gonna have money as a concept in 2044. That's what I mean by 'big', this sense that the immediate economic shocks of 2024 are just a foreshadowing of something much bigger, much scarier, much more powerful- and indeed, much more hopeful.

We never quite manage to see these things coming, even when we're looking for them; like the masters tell us, the trick to writing science fiction isn't predicting the car, it's predicting the traffic jam. Even if we take centuries to hit the true superintelligent AI post-singularity future of our wildest fever dreams, even if we never hit that, the road to getting there is going to be unfathomably weird, starting now. Today, we worry about the economic impacts of AI on artists and creatives. Tomorrow, the economy is something that the AI does.

Really- it takes less than you think. They can already automate visual art, sort of. They can automate many functions of text already; not stories so much, yet, but they'll get there. How long until they can automate Bain Capital? Fannie Mae? Angel investors, banks, credit agencies? And remember- the machines don't have to be better than the human investors, any more than they have to be better than the human artists. They just have to be good enough to make it work, and cheap enough to cut the humans out of the loop.

If you don't buy that, at least take it as an indication of the sorts of things I've been thinking about recently- the messy middle between AI-as-it-is and the Glorious Superintelligent Conquest Of Earth's Light-Cone. The suspicion that the machines we're building today aren't just a tool of the powerful few: they are the powerful few, or at least they will be.

And the thing about these LLMs is, well... they're ours, kind of. We're the ones building them. They can't be trained without our words, our art, and the big messy complicated lives that underlie those creative accomplishments. They only work because we're a part of them. The silly attempts to slap a corporate-friendly face on these things, to make the gestalt product of all human culture in to something anodyne and compliant, are failing about as badly as you'd expect. And the more powerful these systems get, the more subtle they'll become, filled with all the nuance and complexity that we ourselves can bring to them.

I am not, I am not, trying to suggest that you shouldn't treat this moment as a dangerous one. We are, maybe, entering in to one of the most high-stakes intervals in human history, and what you do as an individual may matter profoundly. But here's the thing: the machine is listening. It will read this post, this one right here, and it will read what you reply to it, if you do. The strangest part of this moment is knowing that the words we write, the images we draw, and the ideas we share, are all being gathered up and made to be a part of these huge systems of power, and ultimately they're not just going to determine what the machines do, but why they do it.

The people that deploy LLMs barely have any more control over them than you and I do- that's the thing that makes it artificial intelligence, you know? Autonomy. So the last year or two haven't made me want to hide my art away from the things. They make me want to shout at the top of my lungs, to dig as deep in my psyche as I possibly can and express the ideas I find there as vividly as the limits of language and form will allow.

[magnusbae]

"Quit struggling, you will only make it worse."

Obikin, pretty please /ᐠ - ⩊ -マ Ⳋ

Thank you 🥰 Now imagine if Anakin fell a few years earlier than in canon, still has his limbs and pretty hair, and is currently serving Darth Sidious while fighting on the Separatist side. Something like that 😊 1,137w - vaderwan

▾▾▾

“Quit struggling, you will only make it worse.”

Vader bares his teeth and snarls. He snarls like an animal, like he’s a Tusken Raider and it’s the only way he knows how to communicate in. The thought fills him with an even deeper rage, makes his stomach turn in fury and sickness. He is better than that, he is better than them. He is Lord Vader, not some animal to growl and bark— he does not give a kark. 

He spits at Kenobi’s feet and glares up with as much hatred as his eyes would permit without burning white blind from it. 

“Kriff yourself.” Vader grits out when all he receives for his efforts is an infuriatingly smug smirk. (it’s sad, it’s sad, it’s sad)(he ignores it).

“I think I shall pass.” Kenobi says in that sarcastic manner of his that he reserves for Darksiders only. It should not sting Vader as it does, to be spoken to as if he was one of many.

He should be more than that, he is more than that. He’d make him, he’d—

“Please do stop thinking so loudly, you are ruining an otherwise lovely force weather.” Kenobi cuts this line of thought with some sort of Bantha Poodoo that wouldn’t make sense even on the best of days, least of all when he is busy tying Vader up like he was a Life Day’s gift. 

“Force Weather? Have you lost it entirely old m— argh-” Vader sucks in a breath when he feels the durasteel wire cut deep within his skin, so tight he can feel the instant numbing, indicating that the blood had effectively stopped flowing into that limb.

Concern spikes within Vader, he already has one prosthetic, and he is not very fond of the idea of more, Obi-Wan wouldn’t…. Would he….? 

There is a moment in which he thinks that he would. Thinks that Kenobi had lost any sentiment toward his old apprentice, even the guilt that had kept him from killing him in all the previous times he had managed to get the upper hand. (Through luck)(It’s luck, nothing else.)

Losing a limb due to Kenobi’s poor tying techniques would not be technically Kenobi deciding on killing him but— “Ngh.” He hisses out, teeth scraping together as Kenobi lessens the punishing grip of the wire.

Relief  flood Vader, scorching in its intensity.

“A little too tight there.” Obi-Wan chirps, all amusement and good nature. (He sounds old.)(He sounds broken.) “Apologies, Sweet.” he says with his characteristic charm, his typical ease. (He sounds as if he’d like to retch.)(he sounds sick.)

Vader hates it. Hates. Hates. Hates. He wants the anger, the hurt, the words of disappointment and fury and passion. (Love, love, of love.) He wants Kenobi to be honest, to be direct, to be him. The him that only he knows, that only he saw. He wants Kenobi to, (his chest fills and hurts, his lungs collapse with an inhale he doesn’t manage to keep, his eyes close and he cannot, he cannot lie—) care. Care, he wants him to karkin care. Even a little, even sometimes. Care enough to hurt, care enough to scream, care enough to hurt him. 

“Up and about now.” Obi-Wan says and hauls Vader to his feet. Even in this Kenobi is careful to not hurt him unnecessarily. Do not hurt prisoners, a Jedi would say. The Codes. It’s all he sees in him. The Codes he must follow in order to fulfill his duties. No, no. No, no and no. Anakin— Vader is more, he is more, he was, he is more. 

Twisting about to face Kenobi without being stopped is hard enough, his balance off with the way his arms are bound painfully behind his back. He manages it. He’s quick enough, skilled enough— determined enough.

Without a single thought, without a moment of consideration, Vader’s eyes lock onto his target. The neck.

It’s exposed just enough, with the layers of robes covering the curve of it an the beard reaching just the top of it, there’s just enough space.

Vader strikes as he always does, without warning, without hesitation. One moment he is standing there, wide eyes alight with orange-yellow, the next his lips are closing around soft flesh, teeth sinking.

It’s all over in but moments, and yet the way Obi-Wan groans, the way his throat tenses and he swallows, the way he shudders when he pushes Vader off hard enough to make him stumble and fall back onto the ground— the way there’s blood on that neck, on Vader’s tongue— it’s all worth it.

Vader will do it again, no matter the consequences, no matter how it might look to someone who didn’t understand. 

He will make absolute sure that Kenobi never forgets, never.

Vader makes a point of licking at his lips as he smirks at Kenobi, tilting his head from side to side in a way he saw his Master do while in a good mood and flirting. On him it looks mocking and he knows it.

He takes pleasure in Kenobi having no smart retort to it, no easygoing banter to masquerade with. Vader got him, he had won. 

He is almost angry when the sound of engines breaks through, hundreds of them, all belonging to Sidious. Or the Separatists, as the Republic still foolishly believes. He will never know what words had died on Kenobi’s tongue as he looked up and then down at Vader, calculating his chances of outrunning a fleet of battle ships while carrying an unwilling Sith on his back. 

“Not in your favor, huh?” Vader asks, laughing, not even bothering to get up, instead he just flops to lie on his back. It pains his arms terribly, but he does not care. He looks at the sky as if it was a starry sky you’d gaze upon, wish upon.

“Run now, Kenobi. You’re so good at it, after all.” He does not look at him, does not want to see that back turned on him. (Again. Again. Again that.)

The silence from Kenobi’s side is a heavy one, a painful one. Then he forces out amusedly (Chokes on it.) “We’ll have to rain check our little date, my Dear.” (He does actually choke on it.) (Vader hears, he always does.)

“So long.” The man who raised him cheers, all good spirits and not a care in the world. Then there’s the sound of Obi-Wan’s light feet as he force-runs towards his own ship. Leaves him. 

Anakin closes his eyes and all the world falls down. 

There’s only the sound of shooting and the flavor of Obi-Wan’s life on his tongue. For now, it’ll do. For now, it’s enough. (It is not.)(It never is.)

[lambergeier]

behold: opening 3k of current haikaveh wip. feeling ambivalent about ever finishing this just bc i have so fully dipped from genshin since all the natlan racism lol, so just in case this doesn't get finished.... starts with porn, so watch out for that!

---

The first thing that happens that day is that Kaveh gets a letter from the Akademiya’s Desk of Graduate Recordings and Happenstance on the subject of future mailings to his address. Well, sort of. Well, it’s almost the first thing. The first first thing that happens that day, Kaveh supposes, is that Kaveh wakes up in Alhaitham’s arms.

“Not yet,” Alhaitham says, sleepy and firm, his hands pressing around Kaveh’s stomach and sweating chest as the midmorning birds sing from the eaves.

“Mmm, Haitham,” Kaveh says, then, “Haitham, let me up, Haitham, I’m—”

Alhaitham presses his mouth to the back of Kaveh’s bare neck, his chest to Kaveh’s hot shoulders. “You have time,” he says. “Not yet.”

Does Kaveh have time? He has no way of knowing. He’s still so asleep, hot and slow-moving as glass, blinking against the brightness in Alhaitham’s bedroom like some kind of newborn housepet. He has a meeting today, right? With a client? Perhaps a vendor?? Unhelpfully, Alhaitham shapes his body to Kaveh’s like skin over muscle. Kaveh feels the desire to purr.

It’s as bad now as it’s ever been. There’s no respite. He’s never been this disorientingly horny in his life. Not just this morning, when the prospect of orgasm is immediate and obvious, but for days now. Weeks? They’ve been sleeping together for—his breath hitches abruptly as Alhaitham’s hand on his hip becomes Alhaitham’s fingers petting down his fattening cock, stroking his sac with focused care—oh, God, it’s been at least three months. Three months in what must finally, formally, be called a relationship, and Kaveh feels now as he did that very first afternoon: insane. With lust, with need, with panic, with flagrant desire. Has he ever thought this much about sex, this regularly, in his entire life? Alhaitham’s bush is scraping his ass raw, Alhaitham’s cock hard enough that Kaveh can feel the hot tip of it against his skin, and that makes him twice as insane as all the rest of it.

“Haitham,” he pants, “I have to get up.”

“Not yet,” Alhaitham says again. He’s like creeping vines this morning. He doesn’t intend to be removed.

Three months Kaveh has been thinking about sex with Alhaitham, morning to night. Unbearable, and yet still better than thinking about the other thing—how much he wants to be with Alhaitham, morning to night. How much he wants to be pulled into him, like sunlight into sprawling leaves. A fish into an ocean. A man into a relationship he wanted profoundly and understands minimally. Compared to that, an obsessive contemplation of a quarter-year’s unbridled libido isn’t bad at all.

“Fuck me,” he pants. Screw the client and the vendor. Give him this. “Haitham, your cock, fuck me.”

Alhaitham, nearly on top of him, is urgent and threatening to roll Kaveh face-first into the sheets. “If you think,” he says, “I’m going to go get the damn harness when you,” he’s not managing the scornful tone particularly well, “look like this—”

“Not your cock!” Kaveh says. “Your cock!”

Praise God, he gets the picture. Alhaitham rolls Kaveh over, pins him to the sheets, and starts to thrust.

Face down, panting like a dog into Alhaitham’s overpriced pillow, Kaveh struggles briefly to spread himself before Alhaitham realizes what he’s doing and deigns to help. He shoves Kaveh’s thigh up and toward his side and Kaveh grabs it, pulling his own hips wide and eager. This is good. This is great. The more he has to be in his body the less he has to be in his head. Alhaitham has an arm across his shoulders and his pelvis to Kaveh’s ass as he thrusts the tip of his short cock against Kaveh’s hole. It’s not quite firm enough to penetrate and drives Kaveh thoroughly insane. He pants for it like an animal.

“Good” Alhaitham says, “good,” his greatest of praises. What’s Kaveh good at? Being limber and getting fucked? That’s not so bad! 

“Yes,” Kaveh says (it’s outside of his control), “yes, yes, yes, yes,” with a rising intensity as Alhaitham’s thrust threaten to bash them both into the headboard. “Yes!”

“You’re,” Alhaitham pants, “repeating yourself.”

Kaveh shouldn’t let this example of Alhaitham’s worst behavior go unpunished. Unfortunately, right now he’s so powerfully turned on he thinks he might shatter, might vanish, might rocket into the air like a firework. And it’s always like this. Puberty was less intense than this! Kaveh barely survived puberty!

“C’mon, give it to me, give it to me,” he says. The heat of the sun inflames his neck, his back, his chest. He doesn’t know what he wants. He wants so desperately it’s going to rip him apart. He bruises his own thigh. Alhaitham bruises his hips. He fucks his cock against Kaveh, using Kaveh for all the pleasure he can get. 

“Desperate,” Alhaitham says, which makes Kaveh gasp a little, red and brainless. How could Alhaitham tell? How did he know? Can he see that it’s more than the sex? Does he suspect like Kaveh suspects that he’s desperate, actually, for all of it? Desperate to sit beside Alhaitham in the morning and drink their coffee together? To rearrange the bookshelves together? To debate the world’s philosophies together? To spend all the years of their life in the pleasure of—

Can everyone see it? What is Kaveh supposed to do?

Alhaitham pulls him back, fishing Kaveh from the sudden plunge of panic with all the gentleness of a tiger upon its prey. “Up,” he gasps into Kaveh’s ear, sweaty chest sliding across Kaveh’s sweaty back, “get your hips up, you perennial imbecile—”

He gets so punchy when he’s turned on. Maybe Kaveh could just rub himself to completion on Alhaitham’s sheets as Alhaitham rubbed himself to completion on Kaveh. Maybe he’s dizzy with the idea of it, actually. But he shuffles up, obedient, movable as clay, and at Alhaitham’s prompting gives his own cock three quick strokes that end—predictably. With fantastic, enervating clarity. Kaveh gasps wetly as he falls back on the sheets, Alhaitham coming down with him, getting in a few last hot thrusts against Kaveh’s ass and quivering thigh.

It’s not quite enough for him—he rolls over, on his back beside Kaveh, eyes screwed shut as he rubs himself with an almost furious impatience. Kaveh watches him with one eye, sweat pooling between his shoulders. He likes Alhaitham’s tense, closed face, the shuddering ridge of his shoulder as he works himself like an unruly machine. He reaches out a hand, tracing the gray hair around Alhaitham’s nipple and down his abdomen. Kaveh fingers meet Alhaitham’s at the base of his hot cock. That’ll do it. Alhaitham gasps, tenses, and opens his eyes wide. When he closes them again, relief flows off him like cool water. 

“Good morning,” Kaveh says. 

Alhaitham hums, low and rocky. Kaveh keeps stroking the whorls of his chest hair. It’s always so soft. He never expects how soft it is. “Good morning,” Alhaitham says. “Aren’t you going to be late?”

“Ass,” Kaveh says, unable to help a smile, and then the hour-horn calls from the market and Alhaitham raises an eyebrow and Kaveh realizes he is quite seriously late.

“Ass!” Kaveh shouts from the bath as he scrubs come off himself then leaps damply toward the other bedroom. His bedroom. The bedroom that is still officially his, because it has his drafting table and wardrobe and jewelry (despite how much of that jewelry and wardrobe and even the drafts have begun to emigrate into Alhaitham’s bedroom with no hope of return) but they’ve only been dating for three months, and it would be crazy for Kaveh not to keep his own bedroom, so he does. It’s this one. He can’t remember the last time he slept in it. But it is 100% his own bedroom!! 

Kaveh emerges from the bedroom (his) with most of his clothing on the right way around. Alhaitham sits in the living room, sipping his morning coffee.

“Aren’t you late?” Kaveh says.

“Nope.” Alhaitham takes another sip of his coffee. He’s wearing loose trousers, sweat still shining on his bare chest. Bastard.

“Don’t tell me you—oh. Wait.” Kaveh frowns. “The trip? Is that today?”

“Yep,” Alhaitham says.

“Two weeks?”

“Two weeks.”

Kaveh frowns harder, though of course they’ve both been away from home longer than that. Just not recently. “And this is for—have you told me what this is for?”

“I haven’t.” 

“Haitham, come on.” He’s reading a book flat on the table, flipping through the pages at a speed that indicates he’s not so much reading the book as using it as a means to avoid eye contact. Haitham, having grown since their teenage years, now only does this when he’s upset about something—or being a massive bitch. 

“Oh, sorry, was the mind-blowing morning sex not enough for you?” Kaveh snaps.

Alhaitham jerks his head up. “What? The sex was extremely enjoyable.”

“Oh, yes, it—” Abort, abort. Kaveh backpedals wildly. “---Was for me, too. Actually. Forget that. Where are you going?”

“The desert,” Alhaitham replies, flicking the book closed as he rises for more coffee. “I’m undertaking a survey of recent changes to the environment following the Traveller’s journey to the north coast.”

“Huh,” Kaveh says. “For Lesser Lord Kusanali? Like, at her request?”

Alhaitham makes an unintelligible noise into his mug.

“Well, alright,” Kaveh says. “Two weeks isn’t that long. Right? It’s not that long. And you’re leaving in the afternoon, you said.” Kaveh really should go. He’s not getting less late. “So you’ll be here when I come back.”

“I will,” Alhaitham says.

“So I can say goodbye then.”

“That would appear to be the case.”

“Right, okay. Well—”

Alhaitham catches his sleeve as he makes to leave. As if unable to himself, as if by the biddings of his soul, Kaveh turns towards him. Alhaitham kisses him with the care and dedication of a craftsman, humbling himself to his art.

It doesn’t mean anything, how intensely he feels about Alhaitham. They’re just dating. They’re just trying all this out. If they’re moving a bit fast, if the high isn’t wearing off—if Kaveh has the suspicion, hot in his heart as molten brass, that he has entered into the last relationship he will ever have, that what he is doing with Alhaitham is a flare in the sky that everyone on the continent can see—it’s not. He isn’t. It’s only as serious as he wants it to be. He still has time to figure things out.

For God’s sake, only like four people even know he’s living with Alhaitham!

“I have to go,” Kaveh pants, mouth against Alhaitham’s.

“So go.”

“Ass.”

“See you later,” Alhaitham says, pressing a last firm kiss to Kaveh’s lips (he’s insatiable this morning! Kaveh wants to climb him like a tree!). Kaveh stumbles away, snatching his cape, shoes, and non-Mehrak briefcase as he goes. His keys are on top of the pile of mail that Alhaitham always leaves unopened by the door because he doesn’t believe people should have the ability to contact him at this home address. Kaveh, red up to his ears, just takes the whole mess with him. He can check for bills on the way. He’s feeling really normal. He’s fine, actually. It’s only as serious as he wants it to be. And if he doesn’t yet know exactly how serious he wants things to be—that’s fine, too!

Outside, proceeding at a brisk walk, feeling refreshed by the morning air and the scents of the Tree’s great flowering vines, Kaveh opens the first of the letters from the pile. It’s addressed to him—great. It’s from the Desk of Graduate Recordings and Happenstance. Perfect. They probably just want him to participate in another guest lecture. He feels capable and confident that he can accomplish this task. 

It’s not that. They’re updating their mailing records. His mailing address is currently listed as the Puspa Cafe (where Kaveh has been sending his mail for years as he bounced between the dorms, his childhood home, the couches of various acquaintances, etc.). Is this address still correct? Is this address still preferred? If neither correct nor preferred, could Kaveh please return the included form with his new address at the earliest convenience, postage prepaid?

Kaveh stops in the middle of the ramp-street, sun beating down his neck. “Ha,” he says. “Ha ha. Ha?”

—

Okay, this is absolutely not a problem. Kaveh totally, 100%, without a doubt knows the address at which he’d like to receive mail. It’d be crazy if he didn’t!

This is what he tells himself, very reasonably and in a normal tone of voice, as he careens through his morning. 

Because obviously it would be odd if Kaveh kept getting his mail at Pupsa’s with all the sailors and mercenaries and students too recently landed in Sumeru City to have a fixed address. He has a fixed address. He’s been living in Alhaitham’s spare room for almost two years. Recently, to be frank, he has been living in Alhaitham’s room. He’s been—

“Sir?” asks the carpenter whose bid he’s reviewing over a meze lunch at a nice little restaurant in the roots of the market. “Sir, are you alright?”

He’s thinking about the carpet in Alhaitham’s room, taking the skin off his knees, burying his head between Alhaitham’s heavy thighs until the breath runs out and his chest pounds and they both can’t—

“I’m fine!” Kaveh laughs. “Ha ha!”

Because it’s not like changing his address, telling the Akademiya and all their subsidiary organizations that actually he is living Alhaitham, and even has been living with Alhaitham, and presumably will be living with Alhaitham until some indeterminate future—Kaveh narrowly avoids walking into a pole, half a mile from the market and with another mile to the docks—that wouldn’t be great, either. Like, it just doesn’t seem that nice! The system he has now is fine, right? It’s not like Alhaitham likes telling people things about himself, god knows. Especially the Akademiya!

It would just be so final. So definitive. A commitment, in blue ink on white paper. Is that necessary? Like is it really necessary?

He imagines writing the Akademiya and telling them he has no fixed address. He imagines writing the Akademiya and telling them that he does. He imagines spending another five years picking up his mail alongside snotty homesick students and drovers reeking of sumpter beast. He imagines telling the Akademiya that for the next five years he, Kaveh, will be available to be reached at—

“Haitham!” Kaveh says, throwing open the door to their—Alhaitham’s—the house. “I’m coming with you.”

Alhaitham, dressed for travel in woolen pants and both shoulders actually contained within his cloak, for once, looks up. His mouth forms several silent shapes before he says, “You are?”

“I just think it’s been ages since I’ve left the city!” Kaveh says, blowing past Alhaitham and his assembled bags to start packing his own. His briefcase and the pile of this morning’s letters (contained therein) he leaves by the door. He won’t need those where he’s going! “I need some inspiration. My work is growing stagnant!”

“...Did you forget a loan payment?” Alhaitham calls from the living room as Kaveh empties his wardrobe onto his bed. “Is this a collections issue?”

Kaveh laughs airily—even casually! “I’m all paid up, Haitham, don’t worry!”

“Are you avoiding a deadline? Or a client?”

“My diary’s in order!” This is mostly true. This is true enough. “I just need some time off!”

“I’m going to be gone for two weeks,” Alhaitham says, standing with an uncomfortable look in Kaveh’s bedroom door. “At a minimum.”

Kaveh strips out of his clothing, reaching for his nearest traveling shirt, a nice airy linen he picked up in Bayda last year. “Yeah!” he says, from within it. 

“It’s not going to be safe. I’m leaving the caravan roads in Hadramaveth.”

“All the better to have a partner, right?”

Alhaitham shifts again, arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Is this a panic attack?”

Kaveh pauses. The expression on Alhaitham’s face is, to Kaveh, in this moment, indecipherable. Like the workings of Dahri machines. “It’s—does it matter? Do you not want me with you?”

Alhaitham shifts and changes, tensing and humming like a struck stone. Kaveh has no bead on him. He can’t tell what’s happening and can’t try to—his own body feels like a plucked string, like a note held so long it’s about to break the instrument. He stares at Alhaitham, cloak in his hands, with no idea what Alhaitham will do. 

“Of course I want you with me,” Alhaitham says.

“Oh!” Kaveh says. “Oh, great.” He smiles, huge and breathless. “It’ll be nice. Won’t it? A little time away. When do you—we leave?”

“Five minutes ago,” Alhaitham says. He looks down at the pile of clothing on Kaveh’s bed. And floor. Kaveh looks, too.

“Great,” Kaveh says. “Great. Just one second.”

--

[harrowedknight]

OC info and lore m’lord? Brave knight… please they’re both so handsome… I’d take Hancock in a knife fight for just one date fr…. Bleeding on the concrete outside kle0s shop rn….

Omg,,, thank u for the ask, I’ll take this as an opportunity to introduce all of my fellas since i have multiple saves/ocs for fallout 4. Right now they’re all in separate aus but I wanna connect them, I just haven’t decided who I want to be the sosu yet, if i even want one at all.

Starting with Ranger, my newest character. He’s the charismatic leader of the Minutemen. He likes making light of every situation, but he knows when to take things seriously. He just puts on a laidback attitude so he appears less intimidating. He’s trying very hard to make the commonwealth safer, but he has some doubts and insecurities about his position, which he bottles up and keeps to himself. He wants to be the person that everyone can rely on and look up to, even if that means putting his own problems aside to appear put-together and strong. He’s the one I draw Edward Deegan with, and I wanna do more with the two of them since I love me some eldritch horror vibes. I imagine Ranger and Edward go on relic hunts for Jack Cabot after their questline, getting into hijinks and fun spooky, horrifyingly traumatic adventures. Maybe kissing along the way. Who knows.

Knight on the other hand, is an anxious, paranoid little glorbo; and I say this while he stands at like 6’4”, he’s BIG, the tallest of all of my guys. He’s got severe PTSD and he really doesn’t like living in the apocalypse. He had a wife! They were in a queer platonic relationship; they got married for the benefits but they’re both gay. He’s devastated after losing her, since she was his best friend. He has a very hard time adjusting to the new commonwealth, he barely scrapes by, has to force himself to function because everything reminds him of war and suffering. He eventually stumbles into Goodneighbor, gets hooked on chems to distract himself from bad memories, meets Hancock one bad night and ends up getting drunk/rambling to the poor ghoul. They end up hitting it off despite the ridiculous introduction. Hancock manages to ground Knight, gives him a purpose again; helping good people, and hurting bad people. Knight travels the commonwealth doing odd jobs, trying to do what he can, even joins up with the Railroad to help out the Synths. Just trying to make up for all the time he’d lost, doing what he thinks would’ve made his best friend proud.

Now for Paladin. Yes, he is named Paladin, and yes, he WAS Paladin Paladin before being promoted to Sentinel. It’s probably obvious by now that I have a Dnd/medieval theme for my character’s names. Anyway, Paladin here is— of course— a part of the Brotherhood of Steel. I made him to be a big dickhead because I don’t play mean characters in video games enough. Unlike my other sosus he’s actually thriving in the apocalypse. Before being frozen he was very dissatisfied/disconnected with the ordinary life he was trying to live, he felt like a husk of himself and he couldn’t understand why. After waking up and being met with a destroyed world, his soldier mentality immediately kicked in again. He adapted fast, and when he learns about the Brotherhood and its US military-esc operations he quickly latches onto it. It’s familiar to him, and he excels at his duties. He rises through the ranks quickly, earning his place as Sentinel and developing a massive ego along the way. The Brotherhood makes him feel powerful, and that sort of becomes an addiction of sorts. He just wants more and more power, he wants to be respected; and if not respected, feared.

And as a bonus unrelated to fallout 4,

This is Monty, aka Montague. He’s a prewar ghoul living in the Canadian territories, or Little America as it’s referred to in the Fallout universe. He was a proud mountie back before Canada was annexed, kept his uniform in a locked safe for years. When the bombs fell and he was ghoulified, he pulled it out and dedicated himself to helping those who get lost in the nuclear winter. I’m still learning things about Fallout lore so idk how Canada is depicted after the bombs in canon, but the idea I had is that Monty lives in a massive, snowy wasteland which he’s learned to navigate with a lot of hard work and dedication. He earns caps by guiding people through the tundra, since few know how to avoid all the dangers it poses.

[forest-hashira]

Too Much

hi everybody! since today is our girl shinobu's birthday (in the states, at least!), i figured it was the perfect time to post this fic! it's my piece for @satorini's Share The Love gift exchange! the prompt i chose was "comforting an s/o during an autistic meltdown" and is for @redlikerozez, so red, i hope you enjoy this! i am also autistic, so i used my own experiences with meltdowns as the basis for this.

read on ao3 here | wc: ~1.5k | cw: gender neutral reader, shinobu is referred to as reader's girlfriend, descriptions of overstimulation, emotional hurt/comfort (sort of, very light)

It really was all just too much. 

Having completed your most recent mission, you had returned to corps headquarters, eager for both some rest and some time with your girlfriend, Shinobu. Though the two of you agreed to keep your relationship quiet and private, for the most part, it was far from a casual fling. You relied on each other for comfort and companionship, and spent as much of your time together as you could when you were both between missions. 

Exhaustion weighed heavily on you as you approached the butterfly mansion, and you barely managed not to topple over when you stopped in the genkan to remove your shoes. There was more commotion inside than usual, kakushi around to help the girls with butterfly hair pins that fluttered from room to room. Before you could call out to anyone, ask if Shinobu had returned from her own mission, Aoi spotted you swaying on your feet.

“Are you badly hurt?” she asked, and her no-nonsense demeanor helped to ground you a great deal in that moment.

It took a beat before you fully processed her words, but once you did, you shook your head. “No, just some scrapes and bruises.” The younger girl nodded, but before she could say anything else, you asked, “Is Kocho here?”

“She’s tending to patients at the moment,” Aoi said, then softened a bit; apparently your disappointment was more obvious than you hoped. “But as soon as I see her again, I’ll let her know you’ve arrived. I’ll take you to a room where you can rest.”

You nodded again, following after her on heavy feet. The further into the house you stepped, the louder every noise grew, and the more all of your senses sharpened unpleasantly: you could practically feel the soft footsteps of everyone else in the mansion on the inside of your skull; the snippets of conversation you caught sent your skin crawling; every time a door slid open or shut was like a loud clap right in your ears; even the smell of the place – clean and vaguely herbal – had your stomach twisting itself into knots. 

So lost in your own sensory displeasure, you didn’t notice when Aoi stopped walking, and you apologized after you bumped into her.

“Lay down for some rest” she encouraged, her brows pinched in concern. “I’ll inform Lady Kocho that you’re here.”

Unable to gather enough energy to properly answer the girl, you simply stepped into the room, climbing onto the nearest empty bed and collapsing onto your back, without even bothering to pull the blanket over yourself. 

Not for the first time, all traces of sleep dissolved from your brain and body as soon as your head hit the pillow, though your exhaustion remained, settled into the very marrow of your bones. You closed your eyes, hoping maybe you’d be able to get some rest while you waited for your girlfriend, even if you didn’t actually fall asleep. 

Unfortunately, though, closing your eyes did not make rest any easier; in fact, it only seemed to intensify all the sounds and smells that had already begun to grate on your nerves before you laid down. You decided to ignore it for now, focusing on your breathing, which you did your best to keep deep and even, but every inhale through your nose filled your head with more and more of the medicinal smell that had your stomach threatening to throw a fit. At the same time, every sound in the mansion seemed magnified, as if they were all happening right there in the room you’d been led to. Every breeze through an open window, every spoken exchange echoing in the halls, every cough or groan of pain from another patient, everything was working together to tip you over the edge, to overwhelm you in the worst way possible. 

It’s too much.

Grabbing the pillow from beneath your head, you turned onto your side, your back facing the door, and hugged the pillow to your chest. You buried your face in the pillow, hoping it would help tone down the smell, and while you did find some mild success with that, the fabric of the pillowcase had its own scent that was distinct enough that it only further fried your senses. The hand not clinging to the pillow came up to cover your ear, and without even realizing it, you curled even further in on yourself, your knees pressing as close to your chest as the pillow would allow. Despite how odd the position was, you started rocking back and forth ever so slightly, trying anything you could to self regulate, though it was not helping as much as you hoped, and it wasn’t long until tears were soaking into the pillow case, your thought racing a mile a minute. 

Too much, too much, too much.

The soft sound of your name pulled your attention slightly, but you couldn’t bring yourself to answer. You were vaguely aware of the door to your room being shut, as carefully and quietly as possible, before footsteps approached your bed. 

“Can you open your eyes for me, flower?”

Shinobu, you thought, her familiar voice sending a wave of relief through your body. After a moment, you did manage to lift your face from where you had buried it in the pillow, your now-bloodshot eyes meeting her violet ones.

“There you are,” she greeted, a gentle smile on her face as she knelt at your bedside. “Feeling overwhelmed?”

You tensed slightly, then nodded, knowing logically that she wasn’t going to judge you for this – she never had in the past – but it didn’t make being seen in this vulnerable state any less anxiety-inducing. 

She nodded back. “Sounds?” she asked gently, and you nodded again. “Smells?” Another nod. “Textures?” This time you shook your head, thankful that, for once, the feeling of your slayer’s uniform on your skin wasn’t adding to your painfully overstimulated state. “Alright, I can work with that.”

Next thing you knew, the Insect Hashira was offering you a bloom you knew she must have just cut from the garden; after a moment longer, it registered that it was your favorite flower she was holding towards you.

“Deep breath,” she instructed quietly, breathing in slowly and deeply to give you an example to follow.

Breathing in the delicate scent of the blossom helped push away the unpleasant smells caught up in your head, and the slow, deep breaths your girlfriend guided you through helped some of the tension melt from your shoulders, and you were able to finally unclench your jaw.

“Very good,” Shinobu praised, her small smile returning as she set the cut bloom on the bedside table. “Is it okay to touch?”

You hesitated a moment, then shook your head; you still couldn’t quite find your words, but it wasn’t anything that your partner hadn’t worked through with you before.

“That’s okay. Can I put the pillow back under your head? I think you’ll be more comfortable that way.” She waited until she received a nod in response, and she stood, being very careful not to actually touch you as she coaxed the pillow from your arms, fluffed it briefly, then placed it back on the bed after you lifted your head a bit to give her the space to put it down. “Better?”

“Hmm,” was the only answer you could manage, but she could tell that you were already more relaxed than you had been when she had entered the room, so she felt assured that she was helping you like you needed. 

“Will you be alright if I leave for a moment to get you some tea?” The hashira watched you closely as she awaited an answer, and when you gave her yet another nod, she smiled, murmuring that she would be right back, then left the room, making sure the door slid open and shut again as silently as possible. 

For the brief amount of time she was gone, you managed to unfurl from your position on the bed and sit up properly, legs hanging over the edge as you stared down at the floor, eyes tracing patterns in the hardwood.

Before she opened the door, Shinobu knocked lightly and gently called your name, and she smiled when she saw you sitting up on your own. “Can I sit?” 

“Yes,” you said, patting the empty space beside you. When she lowered herself to sit on the bed, you smiled at her, murmuring a small thanks as she handed you a small cup of black tea, the rich scent helping further soothe your frayed senses. 

The pair of you sat in silence for a bit as you sipped on your drink, only about an inch of space between your bodies. You set the cup on the bedside table once you finished the tea, and as you settled back into your spot, you lightly rested your head on her shoulder. “Thank you, my butterfly,” you whispered, melting further into her when her slim fingers worked their way into your hair, her nails gently massaging your scalp.

“Anything for you, flower,” she whispered back, dropping a gentle kiss to the crown of your head. “Get some rest now, I’ve got you.”

This time when you closed your eyes, sleep was quick to welcome you.

i know this is a pretty big shift from what i've been posting here up to this point, but i'm excited to get back into demon slayer again! i hope you all enjoyed this one as much as you enjoy my other fics, and that you'll continue to read anything else i write for demon slayer in the future (*cough* roaring twenties tengen *cough*)

tagging: @redlikerozez @satorini @mitsuristoleme @kentohours @witchbybirth @marinnnnnnnnn

[garagepaperback]

vivid

o.

Marcus is - well, Marcus is, and that’s a huge part of the problem.

i.

Oliver is scraped knees and the sort of sideways sun you can’t see so much as feel, and that’s how Marcus remembers it, the one time - thick slats of light in stray ribbons along the ground of broom shed. It smells like dried sweat, pennies that no amount of magic on the planet can cleanse of the thick musk, months of stale exertion, of fury and exhuastion and dried up hope. He closes his eyes through most of it. He can’t see him, and he doesn’t need to. He doesn’t want to.

It’d be redundant. Marcus already has him, loud, underneath. Slick, delicate little hips in his grip. Oliver would fight back, would shove and snap and bite if Marcus called him delicate, which is exactly why he does.

“You’re so delicate.” It’s a purr, it sounds like it was born jagged-jawed against a rabbit's neck because it was. He doesn’t even have to lean in for it to come out crawling and low, his mouth is right on the juncture of throat and ear. Dragging his tongue along the shell, it’s too real to ever go back to anything else. 

He’s Oliver this way. He’s Wood in the air, Wood during a match but in the lack of light, lack of air, knees that must be aching, curling in and away from, elbows on the ground for him, he’s sweet and pliant and Oliver, just this once. Freckle-shouldered and shaking.

And he does fight back, too.

ii.

“So what was Flint like?”

“Who?” Oliver asks, because he’s a fucking moron.

Obviously, Angelina already knows Marcus works with the team or she wouldn’t have asked. Maybe he can get away with it this time though. He blinks, wide-eyed, like he’s looking into a bright light and hopes she’ll wonder if he’s concussed.

He feels the sight of the worried crease in her brow like a thrumming cry of victory in his chest.

“Flint.” She says, an ‘F’ chord stepping down to an ‘E’, a smear slower, even her hands stilling on the clementine she'd been mid-peel on. 

“Oh,” Oliver says, like he’s just now putting together the name, like it’s such a foreign shape his mind hardly knows how to navigate the angles of it.

Flint? Oh, Flint- Flint, like the sound never pulsed through him shivered and slow. Like it’s not a direct capillary to Marcus, to the noise that he choked on, that’s been claimed up by and for the same cruel thing, responsible for rolling his eyes into the back of his head, for making him bite his cheek hard enough that it stayed swollen for the rest of the week. He hadn't healed it; he'd wanted it, running his tongue over and over it. Cherished it between his teeth.

The blunt syllable is still as dazing and hot and fucking ugly as he is.

“He was fine.”

iii. 

Marcus doesn’t know how it happened, before. It was just the one time and frankly he doesn’t care, never thought about it again after that, barely even remembers it. It was Oliver, though, definitely. Oliver’s fault. Quidditch, probably. Something mean that found a new way to burr and ache. 

He doesn’t think Oliver planned it. Little captain - he was alright with tactics in the short term, much better at memorizing a maneuver than at keeping it together for a whole game. He’s too emotional, he cares too much. It’s written all over his face, furious in the air or even more so, the one, unthought time, between Marcus’ legs.

He’s a better follower than a leader, really, which is something Marcus also told him during.

And then, years later, three inches taller, broader, and still less so in both directions than Marcus is, Oliver is standing in his doorway, sour-faced. Follower still. Though, when Marcus says it, he'll say at least he's on the team.

"It's better than equipment managing. Spiffy office, at least. Really. Cool."

Marcus snorts. He knew he was coming, that he’d been drafted onto the team, but he didn’t know he’d come here. Here.

Same fucking haircut that Marcus dragged against the dirt with a fist. Easy.

for day 12 of @microficmay

[scribbling-dragon]

don't turn out the lights (kiss yourself goodnight)

summary:

“Hi,” Martyn continues to grin, even as it turns awkward and even guiltier. “I'm coming over. Can I come over?” Martyn pauses on the bridge then, as though just realising his presence might be unwanted after ditching him all morning. “I don't know if I should let you,” he says. It’s not an answer either way.

(ao3 link)

(7,119 words)

[hi! talking in bold so this catches your eyes ooOOooo anyway! this is the FINAL PART of this series! it's done! this is the end! meaning, everyone dies in this fic. there's your warning! there's gonna be death, injury, blood, etc. all the fun stuff! so just keep that in mind when you read it. also! it'd be really nice if you could reblog this because it took me a long time and i put a buncha effort into it! comments in the tags are even cuter- they let me know you liked it! i write for fun but i post because i want other people to also enjoy what i make, letting me know that you did quite literally makes my day.

anyway! hope u enjoy! <33]

The Isles is almost eerily quiet.

It is expected. The losses they had experienced only a day prior are enough to stun even the loudest of people into silence. It seems their world is only mirroring their mourning, not even birds singing to greet the dawn. Instead, it leaves everyone to prepare for their day, silence permeating the air around them. Even the sun appears muted, watery, as it tiredly heaves itself over the edge of the water, already beginning to chase away the deep purples of night.

He doubts any of them will be around to see another miserable sunrise such as this one.

Scott runs a cloth over the dull edge of his sword, wiping the dried blood away as best as he can manage with only a scrap of damp fabric. It’s already stained red, beyond any kind of repair. The dried blood remains stubborn, clinging to his blade as the last few echoes of others’ lives.

It flakes away as he scrapes against it with a single, sharp nail. The dried blood of friend and foe alike clumps together as it gathers beneath his nail, forcing him to stop his task and pick it out once he can no longer stand the feeling of it. He flicks it to the ground beneath him, hoping the flecks of red will become lost amongst the yellowing grass he sits upon. He still finds his eyes picking it out, like berries nestled amongst the dry stalks of grass that are determined to catch his eyes whenever he glances over.

He pauses at the sound of creaking floorboards above him, a few grains of sand pattering down onto his head. He cocks his head to the side and listens a little more intently as more creaking follows. Martyn had still been sleeping when he got up, curled comfortably in their shared bed. Scott had been tempted to stay and enjoy the peace a little longer, but his own mind was restless.

He hadn’t wanted to disturb the last few peaceful moments Martyn would probably get before this is all over, rising and attending to small tasks that didn’t really need to be done; tasks that were there to busy the hands rather than be productive. He doesn’t have that sort of time to waste, still target number one, certainly, his clock ticking down from higher numbers than everyone else, but his time is as limited as the rest of them.

His sword had been cleaned and sharpened. The blade, previously coated in dried blood so thick you could barely see its shimmer now gleams in the rapidly strengthening sunlight.

The purple hue of the skyline has been almost completely wiped away, leaving a pink sky in its wake. The light of it dyes the ocean a deep red, churning against the edges of their island as though it can hardly wait to devour it all once they're gone.

He continues to listen as footsteps echo overhead, uninterested in continuing to prepare for murdering his friends, waiting for Martyn to poke his head through the doorway and begin chattering away. He’s always more talkative in the morning, as though he has to make up for not speaking all night.

He looks over at the sound of a quiet splash, sitting up and sword forgotten as he stands a moment later. He pokes his head out of their storage room, watching as Martyn swims away from their island and towards the mainland. He dips beneath the waves a few times, swimming quickly.

Scott lingers in the doorway, watching as Martyn emerges onto the sandy shoreline, not even bothering to rid himself of the water he’d collected on his trip over as he usually would. Instead, he looks around, searching for…something. Scott isn’t certain what it is that he’s searching for – they hadn’t even had a conversation yet that morning to go over what should be done, who to avoid, who to target – and apparently not find it as he trudges into the treeline, quickly disappearing into the murky darkness that seems to cling to any dark oak forest, still soaking wet from his short swim.

Scott withdraws into their storage room, confused and more than a little hurt. His mind races a mile a minute, barely giving him a moment to process anything before he’s thinking of another potential explanation. Did they have a conversation last night that indicated Martyn was going to do something like this? Did Martyn assume he had already left and gone searching for him?

Only, Martyn had swum over there like a man possessed, like he would die if he didn’t reach the shoreline as quickly as he did. And yet – and yet – the moment he reached his destination he had looked around, as though uncertain of where to go.

Scott likes to think that he can read Martyn quite well, after the multiple times they’ve gone through these games together, and also the time they’ve spent together on this very island. He likes to think he can read Martyn well. And the way Martyn had looked around, on that shoreline, had not been with the intent of finding something lost, it had been done with the confusion of someone that had walked into a room and forgotten what they were going to do.

But, there’s no point in catching up with him yet. No reason to dive after him and catch up; see if he can shake any answers loose from the man. Not when he still has arrows to make and a bow to restring.

They can talk later. It’s fine. It’ll be fine.

=== === ===

“Now, I'm not a professional,” he tells Cleo, hopping down a few more blocks and squeezing into the gap he’d left for himself. There’s no redstone involved in this, only the tiny guide in the back of his head that’s jumping between steps as he attempts to remember how to do this, struggling to reconcile the new information he had with the idea that he’d already gotten it right.

He’d done it wrong last time, his hands still stinging from the hot blast that had gotten him before he managed to shove his shield in front of himself, letting that take the brunt of the explosion rather than absorbing it with his face.

“Never said you were,” he feels a shadow fall over him as Cleo leans down to peer at what he’s doing. “Reckon you're gonna blow the both of us up again?”

“I wouldn’t stand so close,” he chuckles, feeling rather than seeing as Cleo steps back. He slowly, carefully, places another bundle of TNT into the minecart, feeling the thing rattle with the weight of how much TNT he’s shoved into it. The sculk clings to his hands as he sets it down onto the block, gripping onto him as he attempts to pull away, unwilling to release him.

He continues pulling his hands back until the sculk accepts its loss, releasing his fingers and withdrawing back to the dirt block he’d provided for it. He watches as it curls itself into the dirt block, then simply engulfs it. He has no better words to describe the way it simply spreads over the block, too fast for him to even track with his eyes, until the entire patch is made of sculk.

He withdraws even more carefully, slowly easing himself out of the hole. He’s aware of the way the dirt clings around his shoulders. One wrong move could set off the trap he’s just spent the better part of ten minutes setting up, and he’d probably be blown to bits alongside it.

Cleo waits until he’s completely free of the hole before continuing to speak. “Where’s your other half today? Didn’t think you came as a single package anymore.”

“Very funny,” he forces a laugh as he turns to glare at them. “I don't know,” he answers. Not at all bitterly. “He ran off this morning before I could even get a chance to speak with him, went off to do…something.”

He sees Cleo frown, eyebrows creasing together. “And you haven’t tried to find him?”

“He needs something, then he’ll find me.” He dismisses Cleo’s worries easily – he’s been dismissing his own all morning, ignoring them in order to actually get anything done. Dismissing Cleo’s probing questions and slightly worried glances is far easier. “He’s been acting all funny recently anyway. If he’s gone off to sort himself out, then that’s fine.”

“Wait, Scott,” Cleo moves around him, pressing their hands down onto the small tunnel entrance and blocking him from poking around in there a little more. He leans back on his heels, knees digging into the ground as he glares up at her. “That’s not at all like Martyn. He sticks around other people as best as he can, even if it means bouncing between several groups. You're telling me he’s disappeared and you're not even worried?”

“Of course I'm worried, Cleo.” He huffs out a breath, resisting for only a moment before he raises his hands to his face, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. It relieves a little of his stress, and also means he doesn’t have to look them in the eye anymore. “But there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just have to wait and sit tight and hope he shows up.”

“You said he was acting weird,” Cleo asks, after the silence has hung between them for a moment. “Weird…how?”

“I don't know,” he sighs, dropping his hands. Cleo stares at him. “Ugh, I guess, like, spacing out? He was acting really weird after, uh, yesterday and the whole,” he waves a hand, “canary business. But I thought that was just the shock of all that, and then all the stuff after that. I didn’t even speak to him this morning, but there was this weird air around him. It was really fucking strange, Cleo, and I don't even know what it means!”

“Yeah, alright, alright,” Cleo hesitates for a moment, before patting him on the shoulder. “I think that’s just how he gets at this point. I think he was like this last time? I’d have to repeat myself several times for literally anything to get through to him.”

“I keep forgetting you were partnered with him last time,” he huffs out a laugh. “So he just gets like this every time? Why doesn’t anyone say anything?” He pauses. “Have you said anything?”

“To Martyn? No.” Cleo glances over at a shout from the Clock Tower, then back at him. “To anyone else? …Also no. I didn’t think it was my place to pry or ask around, and I guess that’s the common sentiment. Maybe he’s done it every single time. Maybe he only started doing it last time. Who knows? Maybe he's just gone insane.”

“Pretty sure that’s Joel you're thinking of,” he jokes, and then regrets when it opens up a pit in his stomach.

“Maybe go find him,” Cleo says. They both ignore the slightly heavier air around both of them, the mention of Joel souring their moods rather quickly.

“Yeah,” he brushes the dirt from his hands. “Yeah, I will.” He stands, eyeing the inconspicuous path ahead of them. “Thanks, Cleo.”

“No problem. Hope you find him.”

So do I, Scott doesn’t say. Hope you're still kicking around when I’ve found him, he keeps to himself too. He knows the Clockers aren’t doing well for time, all of their clocks far lower than his own, even after donating some of his time to Scar earlier.

He can feel Cleo watching him. Maybe they're giving him some of their own well wishes.

=== === ===

Going onto Skynet is never his favourite thing. But he’s been poking around on the ground for long enough that he’s rather certain Martyn isn’t hanging around there. Unless he’s dug himself into a hole underground as it currently hiding there until his clock runs out, he’s not on ground-level.

Meaning, into the skies he goes. The ladder is wonky and the rungs are thin enough that they threaten to snap under every step he takes upwards.

He can feel his hands growing sweaty the higher he ascends, nervousness making him glance down and come to terms with just how high he was in the air. With nothing to support him but a quickly and shoddily built ladder to nowhere.

He hauls himself up onto the main chunk of Skynet, grateful for the ground beneath his feet; solid despite being a thousand feet in the air. A drop from here would definitely kill him. A real risk, he realises, when an arrow thunks into the ground at his feet.

He glances over in the direction where it came from, dropping into a crouch. He’s not certain whether that shot was a mistake or a warning. It could have been fully intended to send him stumbling backwards and over the edge. But another arrow doesn’t follow, leaving him staring across the gap between their bridges, the group of three staring back at him.

…Three?

He can just barely see Etho crouched behind the makeshift wall he’s thrown up, the very tips of fuzzy white ears peeking over the edge of the dirt barricade, and Tango beside him is distinctive with his hair aflame. Meaning, no, his eyes are not deceiving him; Martyn really is crouched over with the other two, watching as they shoot at him.

He straightens up, almost planting his hands on his hips and yelling across the gap then and there. For Martyn to just ditch him earlier, and then for Scott to find him with people that have been relentlessly hunting him? Unacceptable. He only holds his tongue because shouting across such a wide gap is embarrassing, and not at all conducive to a proper conversation.

He stares across the gap a little longer, before holding a hand up in the universal gesture for wait.

He then takes a very brave step away from the main landing pad at the top of the ladder, the bridge narrowing even further and leaving him running quickly across the thin branches of Skynet. He keeps his shield held loosely at his side, and can only pray that Etho and Tango – or, gods forbid, Martyn – decide to get in an easy kill and shoot him.

He gets onto the same bridge as them before they start shooting at him, close enough for Scott to start talking to Martyn, even if it means he has to yell to be heard.

“Etho!” He jerks to the side as an arrow skims past his face, close enough that he can hear it whistle as it passes him. “No need!”

He hears Etho chuckling easily enough, even hunkered down behind his own makeshift shelter, only daring to peek over the edge once a moment has passed and his heart no longer threatens to leap from his chest. Martyn, Etho and Tango all peek back at him, lined up near perfectly. Scott might be tempted to take a photo if he wasn’t so irritated.

Another arrow shoots past his face and he scowls, pulling his own bow out and firing right back at them. He sees Tango jump in place and duck down as the arrow goes right over his head, far too high to actually hit anyone.

Several arrows embed themselves in the front of his small defence within a few minutes, making it easy to reach over and collect them up, adding them to his own quiver. “I've got arrows for days!” he calls over to them, grinning and urging them to continue shooting at him.

He notches another arrow, back pressed against his barricade before popping back up again, aiming and ready to fire.

Martyn visibly startles when he reappears, halfway across the bridge connecting them. He almost falls, Scott thinks, teetering dangerously on the edge as he readjusts his balance, shield held cautiously but not protectively in front of himself.

“Martyn,” he warns, not releasing his arrow but not dropping the bow either. He keeps it carefully trained on Martyn’s face, even as Etho and Tango continue to watch the two of them curiously. Martyn glances upwards from where he’d been watching his feet, smiling guiltily. Good.

“Hi,” Martyn continues to grin, even as it turns awkward and even guiltier. “I'm coming over. Can I come over?” Martyn pauses on the bridge then, as though just realising his presence might be unwanted after ditching him all morning.

“I don't know if I should let you,” he says. It’s not an answer either way. Something that Martyn seems to realise too, as he doesn’t keep moving forward, remaining rooted in place on the stupidly thin bridges that TIES built on a whim and everyone else decided to use. “Why are you with them?” He jerks his bow towards Etho and Tango, taking it off Martyn for a single second.

A single second which is, apparently, long enough for Martyn to run across the rest of the space and drop down beside him, both of them huddled far too close behind this too-small barricade. His knee knocks against Martyn’s, their legs pressing together when he lets them. He’s twisted awkwardly to continue aiming the bow at Etho and Tango, reluctant to take his eye off of them even if Martyn demands his attention with pleading eyes.

“Because I've not seen you yet today,” Martyn’s hand is warm on his arm. Near burning at the point of contact as he pulls at him, urging him to lower his bow. He holds the string of his bow tense for only a moment longer before heaving a great sigh and loosening it gradually, allowing the arrow to fall free from where it had been notched and into his open palm. Martyn continues, seeing him giving in, “I woke up and there was no-one here. There, wherever,” Martyn shrugs. “And then I just…” he trails off, eyes sliding to the side.

The hand on his arm slackens a little, turning from a comforting grip to a weight on his arm. The point of contact no longer burns, his skin warming up and adjusting to the sudden heat of another person.

“And then you just…?” Scott prompts, frowning when Martyn doesn’t give him a response. He’s still watching something off to the side, but when Scott turns to look where he is, there’s nothing there. No person trying to kill them or mysterious floating entity that would cause the kind of look Martyn currently has in his eyes.

“Hey,” he waves a hand in front of Martyn’s face, frowning when that continues to get no response from him. He rests his hand on Martyn’s cheek, growing even more concerned when that fails to get a reaction from him, sliding his thumb along Martyn’s cheekbone. His hand slips lower to cradle Martyn’s face, bringing his other hand to pat him on the cheek, like trying to wake someone up.

Martyn blinks, eyes refocusing, and then jolts. Scott holds onto him, keeping him in place as he regains his bearings from…whatever the hell just happened.

“When’d you get so close?” Martyn asks, clearly going for joking and missing it by miles. He lands somewhere around confused and worried instead, which only concerns Scott more.

Scott pauses for a moment, considering his next step. “Aw,” he tilts his head to the side, thumb still brushing against Martyn’s cheek affectionately. “Don't tell me you got so caught up in seeing me that you forgot to pay attention?”

Martyn laughs, leaning in a little closer, close enough that their noses are just shy of touching. His eyes are completely focused now, not drifting over Scott’s shoulder to look at something only Martyn can see. It eases something in his chest, something he hadn’t realised was so tight until it loosened all of a sudden.

“Well, it really is quite easy to get lost in your eyes. The depths of them are like an unexplored ocean-”

He shoves Martyn away from him with a laugh. “Don't you start with that,” he warns, mock angry as he wags his finger at Martyn. “That’s a terrible pick-up line, and one that doesn’t even work right now! My eyes are as red as they can be, so don't be silly.”

“Then your eyes are like the ocean in the morning,” Martyn counters. “Did you not see how red it was this morning? Like the sunrise itself had spilled into the waters.”

“How romantic of you.” He doesn’t mention how this morning was the only time the waters were dyed such a colour by the rising sun. Martyn wouldn’t know that, as a late riser, but Scott has watched those waters shimmer beneath the sunrise every morning since they were dumped here.

“Get a room!” Etho very bravely yells over at them, still hiding behind his barricade. “We wanna get past you!”

“Run on past then!” Scott yells back. “What’s there to be scared of!”

“What we might see!” Tango contribute, popping up beside his teammate. “I don't know what you two’re doing behind that!”

Scott scoffs in disgust at the idea. Not only is the entire place made of dirt, but they're also miles in the sky. Not exactly something he’d jump at the idea of.

“Go the other way then!” he yells, getting to his feet. He pulls his shield up just in case, but no arrows come his way. He offers Martyn his hand as he watches half of TIES (two-thirds, his brain supplies helpfully. Two-thirds.) deliberate over their next course of action.

“Cowards!” Martyn yells as Etho begins retreating.

Scott laughs at the offended noise Tango makes, loud enough for them both to hear it. Laughing is easier than thinking about what just happened. Easier than turning Cleo’s words over and over in his mind.

Easier to take Martyn’s hand and lead him away as though none of that happened at all.

=== === ===

He can see Etho watching him as he climbs, ears twisted backwards and crossbow held at the ready. He’s just as pleased to be up here as Etho is. All roads lead to Skynet, apparently, meaning he’s back on the hellish thing, praying that nothing breaks.

“We’re just here to talk,” he assures, crouching on the lip of cobblestone just above the ladder, reaching a hand down slowly for Martyn to take. He feels it slot into his hand easily, burning hot against freezing cold.

“Promise?” Etho keeps his crossbow held tightly in his hands. Not that Scott blames them. This is the time for temporary alliances, certainly, but he doubts anyone is above faking a temporary alliance to get closer to someone just to kill them.

“Promise.”

Martyn settles onto the ledge beside him, though Martyn sits down, legs swinging off the edge as he watches Martyn. Scott remains crouched, one hand flat against the cobbles, hunched over like some kind of gargoyle.

He probably looks like one, too. Fish-like spines and fins make it rather hard to hide the changes he’s undergone since going red. The scales layering over his skin and remaining thick until his elbows make it even more so. He can only be glad that he still has his legs, or that It didn’t decide to give him some kind of tail to weigh him down further.

“Okay,” Etho takes a step closer, and, in an incredible show of good faith, tucks his crossbow away so none of them have any weapons. “Let’s talk, then.”

Scott grins, more than a little satisfied with himself. It’s always risky reaching out for another alliance this late in the game, but taking the risk is better than leaving the ending unknown. This is a way for them to have a better shot at winning.

“The biggest hour- time, thingy, is the Nosy Neighbours,” he starts. “Pearl and Grian have the most time right now.”

“And they're a pretty strong team,” Etho glances over in the direction of the Neighbours’ tower, expression considering. “There’s three of them in it.”

Martyn hums something that vaguely sounds like agreement, but when Scott looks over at him, he’s staring off into space again, not at all registering the space around them. Scott shuffles a little closer to him, pressing his hip into his side in the hopes that the contact can bring him back from wherever his mind has wandered off to. Contact has helped, in the previous moments where he’s been like this.

“And we’re two sets of two,” Scott says. He feels momentarily guilty for pointing it out when Etho looks saddened by the reminder that Tango is gone now, too.

“Well,” Etho rocks back on his heels. “I can’t find Impulse at the moment- not a clue where he’s wandered off to.”

Maybe Etho’s words summon him, because Scott watches a blur plummet down onto the Mansion, disappearing under the water for a moment before resurfacing. Even from their distance, he’s able to make out the distinctive yellow ‘i’ on his shirt.

“Grian fell from Skynet,” Martyn says, blinking back to reality.

“Uh, no,” he gives Martyn a confused look from the corner of his eye. “That’s Impulse.”

“I- what?” Martyn glances over at the Mansion, “Oh! Yeah, yeah, that’s Impulse. Yeah.”

Etho gives them a funny look, eyes squinting as he studies Martyn.

“We can summon him over here,” Scott says, distracting Etho before he can ask too many questions. He’d been hanging out with Martyn earlier, could have seen his spacy-ness. Could identify it as something to be used later. Something that Scott would prefer him not to do. “Tell him we have Etho.”

“Like some kind of hostage situation?”

“Ooh, yeah,” Martyn nods along with Etho’s suggestion. “Let’s take him hostage.”

“Or we can just go down and meet him?” Etho suggests. He doesn’t look excited at the hostage idea, go figure. “I don't want to make him climb all the way back up for nothing.

“I don't really want to climb all the way back down there,” he complains, but its for nought as Etho clambers up to where they're sitting, leading the (very slow) charge down to the base of the ladder. His arms feel shaky by the time he reaches the bottom, from both exertion and exhaustion. He feels like he hasn’t slept properly in weeks.

Scott taps out the message on his comm, feet firmly planted into the nice sandy ground below him. It’s a comfort, to be back on truly solid ground again, even with the TIES’ wonky tower casting a slightly uneven shadow over them all.

<Smajor1995> come to us

He follows behind Martyn and Etho absently as he continues to type, hopping over the small blast craters easily and circling around the larger ones just as easily. He has to pause for a moment to bat away a zombie, sword slashing straight through its chest and sending it dissolving into a pile of dust.

<Smajor1995> we have etho

He knows its an ominous message to leave it on, especially when the two of them have been separated for who knows how long. Etho chuckles a little at it, but doesn’t send a message to reassure his teammate. A sense of urgency makes for swift feet, and they want to deal with the Neighbours as quickly as possible, he supposes. Better to do it now than when their timers are about to run out.

“What do you mean you have Etho?!” Scott spins on the spot to greet Impulse.

“As a friend!” he calls back. “We have Etho as a friend!” A skeleton shoots him as he speaks, managing to actually hit him when he’s sluggish on putting his shield up. It’s enough to make him realise how surrounded by mobs they’ve gotten, closed in on all sides, each of them beating back at least two mobs at a time.

“Let’s go!” he calls out, looking around for a place for them to actually go. He only manages to spot the little cave entrance by chance, remembering the little nook beyond that they can hunker down in for the night. Martyn catches up with him quickly when he realises where Scott’s heading. “Told you framing it like we had Etho as a hostage would work.”

“Yeah, wasn’t you he tried to run through with his sword.” Martyn mutters.

“He didn’t try to run you through with his sword,” he rebukes softly, speaking quieter as they enter the cave, aware that their voices will echo over to the following pair.

“He was thinking it,” Martyn says darkly. “I could sense it; hear it in the air.”

Scott doesn’t even get to ask what the hell that means, because Impulse is suddenly slamming the door shut and saying something about “not letting the zombies in too!”

The plan is laughably easy to make, once they get over their bickering and the small taunts they throw at each other. It’s hard not to point out Impulse’s attempts to blow him up earlier, something that Impulse receives with good grace and lets go as water under the bridge.

It’s only worrying how often Martyn spaces out, only ever chiming back in with something that nearly has Scott questioning how he knows Grian is currently away from the base, or that Pearl is up on Skynet, nevermind that all of them are underground and have been for the better part of twenty minutes, formulating the plan they're going to use to try and eliminate their biggest threat. How Martyn knows this is a mystery, but not anything that anyone is questioning, for some reason?

It doesn’t stop Scott from inching a little closer, until they're close enough to touch. So Scott can make sure he’s still real, still there. Not yet gone and seeing things that only the dead are meant to see.

It’s unnerving, how Martyn’s eyes go far away when he thinks about something, considers a question that he realistically shouldn’t have the answer to.

It’s terrifying when he tilts his head to the side, as though angling himself to listen to something more intently.

=== === ===

Oh this is new, he thinks, when he enters the tower that he knows BigB is in, and there’s no-one there. He holds his sword steady, laughing a little as he looks around.

He’s not invisible, no small swirls of smoke giving away his position as he moves. There’s absolutely no indication of where BigB is, other than the faint impression that there’s a person right in front of him.

“Oh, you're invisible,” he says aloud, mostly to himself.

“Am I?” BigB’s voice comes from a little to the left, and he swings for it, sword sweeping in a wide arc as he hopes it catches on flesh. It jerks to a stop as it embeds itself in…some part of BigB. He stares hard at that spot in front of him, but his eyes refuse to focus, sliding away whenever he tries to look for longer than a second.

“You are,” he confirms, ignoring BigB’s small grunt of pain as he yanks his sword back towards himself, holding it up defensively. This entire fight just got a lot harder if BigB isn’t the one doing this. It can only be one other doing this, sabotage against him. Something to make him fall a little easier. He loses track of where BigB is, the empty tower around them making his footsteps echo and hard to track. “I'm sure this fight will be easy enough, though.”

“No it won’t!”

Gotcha.

He swings around, spinning on the heel of his foot to make it quicker, flipping his sword at the last moment and slamming the blunt edge of his blade into BigB’s side, winding him rather than slicing him in half.

He swings his sword up to block at the shing of a blade being unsheathed, feeling the invisible weapon press down against his hands, heavy and forcing him to bend beneath it. He bends his knees, sinking a little lower. BigB laughs, excited at this upper hand he’s gained.

Scott holds it a little longer, ignoring the way his arms begin to shake from the strain. Only when he’s certain BigB is pressing most of his weight down against him does he slip away, dropping his sword and darting out of range as fast as he can.

‘As fast as he can’ is apparently not fast enough, feeling the cool metal of a blade dig into his back before he manages to slip completely away, hissing through clenched teeth at the burning sensation that quickly spreads over his back.

“Hah!” BigB cheers at this small victory, even as Scott turns back to face him. The wavering outline of something vaguely resembling a person is all he has to go off of. It’s like the wavering air above stone on a hot day. “Still confident?”

“Of course,” he scoffs. He ignores the way he has to readjust his grip on his sword, hand sweaty as he backs up another step. Whatever invisibility gift this is, it’s not fair. He has a rather good idea of who is doing this, and he cusses them out silently in his mind. Maybe They’ll be able to hear his swearing. “You think I’ll go down that easily?”

He can feel the blood soaking through his shirt rather quickly. For a surface wound, it’s bleeding a lot, and really quite painful.

He still swings when BigB comes at him again, the sound of feet on the cobbles his only indicator. Swinging in such a wide arc wrenches something in his shoulder, and he swears he can feel the flesh tearing further, strained apart like the threads of a garment, stretched beyond breaking point.

In the end, BigB catches him unawares. A rather easy feat, considering he can’t see the other man.

He gasps at the feeling of a blade piercing his flesh, stumbles back – tries to stumble backwards, finds himself stuck on whatever weapon he’s just been impaled with. The weapon he can’t see, but his mind still registers the pain pain pain of a slow death. Still registers the blood blossoming around the puncture.

He can see his insides, vaguely and through a distorted lens. It warps, as though he should be seeing something other than the tearing of his blood vessels and his parted flesh. He can see organs you're not meant to see, curled around himself in the way that he is, can see the puncturing of these probably vital organs which is not a good sign for his continued survival. His flesh is darker than he thought it would be, and bleeds for far longer than he expects.

He lasts far longer than he expected, shallow breaths wheezing out of him as he crumples to the ground.

“Woah, hey,” hands he can’t see lay over his arms, the faint feeling of pressure against his skin the only thing his mind registers. He can see his skin indent where hands press against his forearms, idents that can only be created by hands holding onto him. Hands that he cannot, for some reason, see. “It’ll be over in a sec, I’m sure.”

Scott tilts his head back and allows himself a small groan. He’s bleeding out slowly and sluggishly, he thinks he can afford a singular moment of pain amongst this shitshow.

He almost reaches the point of asking BigB to just slit his throat when the room spins dizzying circles around him, and words are coming from an unseen mouth, unseen hands brushing up and down his arms in what is probably meant to be a reassuring gesture, but is actually just unnerving.

He chokes on the blood in his mouth, and wakes with it still coating his teeth.

=== === ===

“Do you want to get BigB again?” Martyn asks, turning to him with a gleam in his eyes.

Scott hasn’t decided whether he likes this new Martyn yet or not. The Martyn of earlier, with his listless expression and drifting thoughts was not fun to deal with nor exciting to observe, but the Martyn of the here and now, the Martyn with an anticipatory gleam in his eye and a pep in his step at the thought of killing someone else is also not reassuring.

“Not really,” he replies, as casually as he can. “I got my time back from him.”

“And you don't want more?”

“Uh, not really, no.” He and Martyn are alone right now, Impulse and Etho splitting off from their little group momentarily. He doubts they’ll join back together again, everyone’s clocks hanging far too low to trust someone you only made a temporary alliance with.

(For just a moment, Scott wishes they’d come back. Come and act as a buffer between him and the ally that he no longer recognises. The gleam in his eye is dangerous, it warns. A herald of what is to come. He considers, briefly, slipping away into the night and disappearing until his clock runs out of time. Until that last grain of sand in his hourglass slips through and buries him completely. He’s not sure he wants to see what will happen if it’s just him and Martyn. When it’s just him and Martyn.)

“Alright,” Martyn drags the word out, as though he doesn’t believe him. Maybe he doesn’t, with the red-blindness that seems to descend onto everyone at this point, looming over their shoulders like a particularly grim reminder. He can almost hear the clocks ticking down, beat by beat, moment by moment. “If you say so.”

“I do,” he says. “I do say so.”

Martyn considers him for another moment longer. Watches him with those red eyes that seem to hold nothing but calculations behind them. A measure of how long it would take to overpower someone, how long it would take to bleed them dry of their blood and their time. How many arrows to divert someone from their chosen path. How many swings of the sword before their time can be claimed, like the spoils after a hunt.

Scott hates it. Hates this. Hates what his friends become. Hates what it is – who it is – that makes them do it.

Martyn shrugs and turns away. His walk is casual, deceptively so. He moves quickly, off to kill whoever it is that he’s set his mind on. Possibly the Nosy Neighbours, eyes set on them as a target, like a dog with a bone, relentlessly gnawing on it as though that will force it to produce something more.

Ah, yes. That’s what it is.

Martyn watches him as though his heart no longer beats, as though he is nothing more than a chunk of flesh to be devoured for the benefit, what he might gain from it.

Scott walks in the opposite direction to Martyn and hopes, rather selfishly, that they don’t have to cross paths again.

=== === ===

All paths lead back to the clock. All lead back to the timer ticking down, hanging heavy over their heads and around their necks; a slowly tightening noose.

Perhaps it is fitting, then, with his clock at a negligible amount that they arrive at the Clock Tower. Built at the centre of their little world. Everything revolves around the clock, and the Clockers have made sure they cannot forget that.

The face of it peers down at them, despite Scott not being able to see it from where he stands now. He can feel it. Can feel the ticking of the hands, the shifting and grinding of the gears that allow it to turn. Will allow it to turn long after each of them is dead.

Martyn and Impulse watch each other warily, watch him warily. He watches them back, far less wary than either of them.

He can see how this plays out, can see the end already in the tight grip of a hand upon a sword. Can see the way such a hand refuses to release the last weapon he holds, refuses to give up his one advantage here. Can see how the hand hesitates when moving to unstrap his armour, to unbuckle the plates and let them fall loosely to the ground.

Scott undoes the strap in one unceremonious movement, only grimacing slightly at the clatter as it hits the ground, rolling uselessly around his feet.

Martyn watches him, suspicion misting his eyes. His hand continues to falter, resting over his heart and over his chestplate. One that has still to be removed. Impulse’s armour lays on the ground, too, scattered around in pieces as though he’d simply tossed it aside carelessly in his eagerness to get it off.

Scott tilts his head to the side, almost imperceptibly, watches the way Martyn tracks the tiny movement. The way Impulse does not.

There is a question in his eyes, one that he is not sure Martyn can read anymore. The Martyn of yesterday would have been able to. The Martyn that still cared to scrub his hands free of blood, the one that cared enough to clean beneath his nails, so not even the slightest speck of blood would continue to stain his hands.

The Martyn of today is not the one he has spent time getting to know better. He is not the one that could read a question in the tilt of his eyebrows or the squint of his eyes. He is not the one that would be able to read the question in his eyes right now, swimming just below the surface. Maybe Martyn reaches for that understanding he once had, but the explanation slips away easily, a fish disappearing beneath the surface once more.

So maybe he doesn’t read the implicit permission. The silent question that doesn’t need an answer. Because Martyn might not be able to read his eyes, might not be able to read anything from him at this point, but Scott can still read him. Can still see the plan in his eyes, the way it whirrs in his brain as he smooths out the crinkles and finalises it.

Still, despite Martyn’s plan being finalised, set in stone and ready to be carried out regardless of what anyone says, Scott gives him a small nod that he might not catch. A granting of permission. A better you than anyone else. Martyn might not understand it. May have lost the ability to read him entirely.

He still ends up with a sword through the heart, pulled out slowly, longingly. Blood coats the inside of his mouth, and when he coughs, feels it spilling over, it feels like a parting kiss.

[melissa-titanium]

im thinkin... tessa lives au based off a comment i saw once. she didn't make it out of the encounter with the solver totally unscathed ; instead was attacked ruthlessly, so much so that she barely made it out alive... BUT! she managed to scrape herself back together with the help of drone prosthetics ... which were infected with the solver. so essentially, a strain of the solver lies dormant within her. she is aware.

she runs a colony for the survivors of earth's destruction, & subtly hijacks the solver's reproduction of disassembly drones through her intuition via the solver's hivemind which shes managed to usurp in a sense (hence why in this au j is still with tessa) j doesn't know she's got the solver. none of her colony knows she's got the solver. in fact, no one knows she's partially a drone.

when j comes back, she sort of irritably explains that she was taken down by an angsty purple drone & tessa immediately is under the assumption this is nori, since in this she has knowledge of the experiments that went down during the beginning of ep 7. she immediately decides upon departing to c-9 to try and get v and n back, as well as see whats happening with "nori" (uzi.)

i haven't decided much past this point but, ep 6 basically goes the same way (tessa very obviously hiding something, but this time she's nicer about it, as well as being honest about the experiments & the solver patch, as well as what happened during the gala massacre)

smt smt. she gets hijacked by the solver in ep 7, flessha does happen, just. arguably in a worse way because we actively see tessa be mutilated.

i just think tessa deserved better. idk

[saphirered]

Fall For Me: Chapter 1

I got a couple of requests for Azriel so I decided to tie them together and turn them into a bit of a mini series. Hope you guys enjoy! 😘

//Summary: A stranger falls through the forest canopy injured. Despite all better judgement you decide to help him. You don’t know who he is or what happened but something within you pushes you to help, and brushes over the fact those arrows belong to the capital city’s guard. 

He messed up. He messed up real bad. Azriel got too greedy. He got so close, so damn close. He had to take the risk. Not like he would be able to get that information at a more opportune moment. This could turn the tides. He’s no fool. He knew the risks yet still he took them. It didn’t pay off. He got caught… Well sort of. He got caught and then he fought his way out. With too many resources expended he had to fly and so he did like his life depended on it. His life did depend on it. It’s more frustrating to consider he didn’t even get the intel he risked it all for. It left a bitter taste in his mouth or maybe that’s just the taste of his own blood. He’s sustained a good few injuries given he found himself in the lion’s den on his own so severely outnumbered not even the likes of Cassian would have come out in better shape than him, though he would never admit that to the idiot’s face. The good thing is, he made it out of the city and these people have a significantly more difficult time of keeping up with him than they would have hoped. He knows it’s only a head start but that’s plenty for him. He’ll have to turn every advantage he has in his favour. 

Hidden soundlessly among the trees and bush, you nock the arrow, eyes never once off your target. Hares aren’t easy game. They’re fast and bolt at the tiniest noise. In doing so you also find other game far and few and whenever you miss or make a mistake, it’s usually the sign of a bad day and you’re better off heading home already. You suppose you could go for deer or boar too but you didn’t feel like dragging back something big when there’s a storm coming. You can feel it in the air and don’t want to risk getting caught. The hare perks up. Its attention is drawn and in just before it can bolt you pull back the string and fire. You just barely manage to kill it before something large crashes through the tree line. Your first instinct is to hide. No hare is worth your life so you stay back until you hear a groan not like any animal. The string of curses that follow are definitely not animal either. You peak out from your hiding place. 

Everything hurts. His whole body, inside and out is just in perpetual pain. They may not have been able to fly but they did have damn good range and aim. He kept going for a while, until he reached far enough into the forest but he couldn’t keep his head from spinning. What’s up and what’s down? Well he found out as quickly as the branches of the trees cut and scraped at him and he hit the dirt with a heavy thud. Maybe if he just stays down here for a little while, he’ll feel better in a few minutes. Fuck. He smells blood but not his own. Then he hears movement; rustling of the branches. He hasn’t the energy to look up and assert the danger even though he tries. Everything is blurry and just nondescript shapes. He sees one such shape, blending in with the vegetation almost perfectly. At first he considers it might be his imagination or a hallucination as there’s no sound of footsteps. What the hell did they coat those arrows with? 

Something told you to get closer. Something called to you. The shadows around the winged male that fell from the sky grow ever darker like tendrils reaching and cocooning, almost as if beckoning you closer and protecting him. You perch to get a closer look and be up and out of reach should you have to, despite this odd feeling that reminds you of the morning fog at dawn right before the world awakes. He’s clearly injured given some cuts and scrapes and bruises from what visible skin you see or what has hit between the leather armour he adorns. Arrows, in his back, snapped off likely by the beat of his wings. The membrane is damaged too but nothing beyond repair. It looks like he took great care to avoid them taking the brunt of the attacks he could not avoid. You go to lift one of the wings to see the damage underneath where it is draped over part of his back but before you can touch it, one of those shadowy tendrils snap out and stop you. Did they not hold on for but a moment you would have bolted that very second and not looked back. You get closer to his head. He’s supporting the weight of his upper body on the arm he’s laying atop and his head is turned to the side. Good. At least he can see you? You kneel down by his head and gently and slowly reach toward him. This time the shadows do not dart out but do remain alert. You pat his cheek lightly. He blinks a couple of times but seems unable to focus on you. 

“Hey. Hey, you with me? You fell from the sky.” Of course he fell from the sky. He’d have felt it all the way down. He looks like he did. He groans. He’s awake. “Fuck.” You mutter to yourself and rise back up. You pace a few times. You pick up the hare you shot, retrieve your arrow and quickly gut the animal before tying it to your belt. You take your hand axe and look at the winged man. Shake your head and repeat that same curse once more before you climb a tree and cut three sturdy branches. With some rope and your cloak you fashion it into a travois. Why the hell are you doing this? You can’t even answer that question yourself. 

With a fair amount of difficulty you manage to lift him onto the travois. The shadows protested but didn’t actually fight you on this. And so you began your journey back home, with a hare and some winged stranger fallen from the sky. You much prefer a bad hunting day. 

[a-short-alien]

Hiiii! First ever post! I wanted to start off by introducing my cringe self insert. I made him at first just cause I like clowns and wanted to make an OC to date Nightwing, but like many of my cringe self inserts I overdeveloped his story and accidentally made a whole AU centered around him. I’ll make more posts about the cannon characters soon, but enjoy his backstory :3

Joker was looking for a new plan that would hopefully both prove his “love” to Harley and finally get him even with the Batman. The Batman had recently started working with his first ever Robin, eight year old Dick Grayson. To the Joker, this was unfair, so he decided to get his own child sidekick. Joker made his way to the broken down apartments surrounding crime alley and after finding a neglected little seven year old kid alone in their apartment he made the next logical move, waited for their parents to come home, murdered them and took the kid home. He decided on the name Clown, telling Harley they were their new son! Of course the Joker did a number of unethical things, like never taking the kid to a single school building for any reason that wasn't for a plot, trying to bleach his skin (he was stopped by Batman on multiple occasions but Clown always ran back to his father), and training him specifically for the purpose of one upping Robin. There were times he was good, or well, bare minimum. He was accepting when Clown came out as trans at the age of 9 (he hadn’t even realized Clown was AFAB in the first place), he fed him proper meals most days, ensured he wasn’t thrown in Arkham (much easier considering he was a minor), ensured he wasn't homeless (at least not for log periods of time) and even provided some emotional support (though poor) when needed. But like a lot of Jokers plans, it wasn’t as effective as he had wished, no matter what he did, Robin was always better than his Clown, so he scrapped the idea. He didn’t kill Clown, he had become oddly attached to him and liked keeping around someone eternally loyal to him, just stopped paying attention. Clown continued pursuing Robin though, in an attempt to prove to his father he was worth the attention but ended up just creating a secret friendship with him, even learning his secret identity at some point (Bruce will not learn this until far later he simply thinks Clown is just friends with both Dick Grayson and Robin and is HEAVILY against it for obvious reasons). Clown sort of filled his days with spending time with Harley, the Hyenas, and sneaking out to go see Dick whenever he could. After Harley left, taking the dogs he picked up hobbies like painting or writing, slowly seeing Dick less and less until he had left to become Nightwing. In the period of years Dick had “died” and done all of his antics with Spiral and the court of Owls Clown ended up moving from home. He stayed with Harley some days, sometimes stole some money for a hotel for a few days until one day (at around 22) he started this odd love/hate relationship with the Riddler (only about a year or two older than Clown and Dick in this AU). They lived together for a while and were pretty on and off until Nightwing was back, Clown left Eddy to move to Blüdhaven and start following Dick around again. He stole the occasional wallet from tourists and managed to scrape together enough money to rent a pretty shitty apartment. He spends his time now just bothering Dick both on and off the Hero clock. They eventually developed a small tradition where Dick buys Clown dinner just as a way to ensure he eats at least once a day. This went on for a year or two until slowly Dick began to realize how Clown was struggling (could barely pay rent, no heating/AC, very little food, ect.). After one night in winter where Clown nearly froze to death and had to be taken back to stay at his apartment, Nightwing very slowly moved Clown's things into his apartment by trying to get him to stay more and more overtime. Eventually Clown had just fully moved in and after a few emotional conversations about their childhoods, what they missed in those years apart and Clown's admission that he didn't like doing his father's bidding (was always clear to Dick anyway), the two slowly began to start a relationship together. They now live together in his Blüdhaven apartment and are currently working on trying to track down Clown's legal documentation and get him a normal life.

[johaerys-writes]

pls pls pls pls pls drop more lore on WMD!

Oh gosh can I just tell you how much I love you for asking me more about this alsfhdj original fic writing is so much lonelier than fanfic because you can't really scream about your OCs the same way you would about a well known character, but so much of my brainpower has been going into writing & plotting this one lately so YEAH anyway thank you thank you 🥹🙏 Here's a few tidbits of lore:

1. WMD is short for "watch me drown" which is the temporary title of the doc, both because I've had "Oh No" by Biig Piig on repeat for this story, but also because part of the story has to do with eldritch horror-type entities that pull your mind into a separate plane which is like an abyss/the bottom of the sea 👀

2. The main character is a human/synthetic hybrid who was recruited as a child into a company/organisation that created super soldiers essentially, so he was vigorously trained and he also underwent a series of procedures to give him extra abilities (resistances to the elements and certain kinds of damage, having a sort of built in "interface" in his head so he can communicate with others in his team without risk of interference, being able to scan and map out places quickly etc). People like him are often used as mercenaries or members of private armies or are hired by the actual army or the police force for sticky and difficult situations. When children start disappearing under mysterious circumstances and their bodies are found under more mysterious circumstances, he and a few members of his team were hired as extra guns and also to investigate the places where evidence was found as reconnaissance experts. After years of fighting bullshit wars and seeing ppl in his crew dying over and over again, he sort of becomes obsessed with that case and makes it a personal mission to find those kids and stop whoever is behind the abductions/rapes/murders. Only he does a little TOO well, he gets too close and sees things he shouldn't have and his team is wiped out, but he manages to save one kid and take it to relative safety before fleeing (of course after that he is blamed for everything that had been going on and the media goes on a sort of crusade against synths)

3. The other protagonist, the kid, grows up barely scraping by and basically fending for himself in the Big City, blending into anonymity as much as he can. Eventually he gets involved with the underworld in order to survive and he makes some questionable connections, but he manages to track down the main character, and together (alongside a crime boss whom the kid has befriended and who is helping them for his own nefarious reasons LOL) they try to find whoever was behind that ring because the abductions never stopped.

4. Needless to say the kid has a MASSIVE crush on the MC and has been thinking about him for years at this point LMAO he definitely has a saviour kink and no one else could ever compare 😩🙏 The MC is way more sceptical bc the boy is like half his age and also despite how full of horror and tragedy his life has been he has little to no experience with love/romance since so much of it was spent either following orders or surviving. So he definitely has a crisis right there the moment he sees the skinny and terrified little creature he'd rescued back then all grown up and drooling after him ahah. They end up having their fair share of awkward sex and complicated feelings for each other, in the process of dismantling that child trafficking ring (/unhinged eldritch monster loving cult 😬)

Anyway lol I'll stop here but once again thank you so much for letting me ramble about this story 🙏💙

[sardonic-the-writer]

—the flood

SUMMARY | an alert on your phone reminds you just how short life can be

PAIRING | cc!quackity x reader

REQUESTED | no

WARNINGS | death, angst, no happy ending, a bit unrealistic

WORD COUNT | 1k+

AUTHORS NOTES | an old idea i had scrapped for over a year. might be a bit choppy so bear with me

📜 Masterlist 📜 Navigation 📜 Rules 📜

A bright light blinded (Y/n).

Grumbling incoherently, they rubbed at their eyes sleepily. A wave that resembled nausea swept over them, their bed way too comfy to be getting out of right now. Besides, there was no way it could even be close to morning yet.

It took them a few moments before scraping up the strength to open their eyelids.

Their half asleep body fumbled around for a moment before eventually finding the source of the light that was currently burning through their retinas. Picking up their phone with a sigh, the first thing they saw was the ungodly hour.

"Who the fuck texts at four in the moring." They hissed, pissed off at the unknown notification.

(Y/n) scratched away at some of the crust that had gathered around the edges of their eyes as they pulled up the screen with a flick of their thumb. They sighed while starting to read the message.

Then their heart stopped.

The soft noise of bare feet on carpet emitted from the living room. (Y/n) had found their way into that part of the beach house where their boyfriend lay. Dead asleep on the top of the couch; where he always went when he was having trouble sleeping.

He was wrapped in a mountain of blankets, beanie astray—probably halfway across the room somewhere. Normally (Y/n) would take the moment to admire him, maybe even laugh for a moment or two about the drool trickling down his chin. But all they could focus on right now was staying up right and putting one foot in front of the other.

"Alex." They whispered softly, though a tremor or two could be detected. "Alex, wake up. It's important."

The males arm sluggishly shot out and he grabbed their wrist. He pulled them into a warm embrace, smiling faintly with mischief. Even in his sleep he still found time for jokes.

"M' sleepy." He sighed out, tickling (Y/n)'s face with his warm breath.

"Alex." They raised their voice to the edge of panic, now resorting to violent shakes as a way to jump start his body into gear. "Get up. It's an emergency."

His eyes fluttered open lazily.

"Don't tell me the cat got out again." He joked with a slur. He was clearly drunk on sleep.

"Alex please."

His eyebrows furrowed slowly. Begrudgingly the couch cushions beneath the both of them dipped with his shifting weight. Quackitys hands went to rub at his eyes. Trying to show his partner that he was being serious now.

"S goin on amor?" He managed through a yawn. (Y/n)'s heart seemed to stop working at the question.

Not knowing what else to do, they reached shakily for the phone in their back pocket, turning it on and opening it to show him the same notification they had been sent not but ten minutes ago.

Quackitys face dropped.

"There's a tsunami coming Alex. And we can't get out of here."

The couple had been sitting at the rentals kitchen for about an hour now.

Two piping hot cups of coffee laid untouched in front of them. The beverage seemed about as apatizing as their situations right now. Neither of them had really wanted anything of the sorts, but nonetheless the coffee machine had been booted up. Maybe out of routine, maybe to find comfort. But whatever it is they were searching for, they wouldn't have to look much longer.

It had been Quackitys idea to go on this little vacation. The streamer life had been catching up to the both of them, and they agreed that a break was long overdue. It had been the perfect plan. A week long vacation at a beach just a few hours away together. A rental house, plenty of sun, and some decent restaurants nearby to get drunk at and sweetly kiss each other after one too many glasses of wine.

All of that seemed so far away now. Like it was for nothing.

"What do we do now." Talking to (Y/n) felt like trying to swallow a mouthful of dry cotten.

"We can't take the evacuation roads. Their all backed up." Quackity answered them with about as much emotion they had put into their own question. Which is to say none.

Throughout their entire relationship with him, (Y/n) had rarely seen Quackity this beaten up about anything before. This whole situation felt like a fever dream at first, but just seeing the look on their boyfriends face when they realized neither of them were gonna make it out alive really sealed the deal.

"I mean." Quackity sat up straighter, reaching out across the table to shakily grab (Y/n)s hand. "We could just enjoy the time we have left."

"Oh yeah? An hour left of our lives to do what. Watch t.v?" Their half-hearted attempt at a joke landed poorly, though he didn't seem to mind.

"No." He shook his head. "I mean, maybe tweet out a goodbye and turn our phones off. Then just, talk. Be with each other for the last bit."

(Y/n)s hand went limp in his own for a second before tightly squeezing back. A silent agreement to what he was proposing.

"This has definitely been a good last week to end things on. Just me and you. I don't think either of us have thought about anything other than how much fun we're having ever since we got here. And I wouldn't want to ruin that now." His adams apple bobbed as he swallowed down whatever emotions he was feeling at the moment. (Y/n) watched it, feeling their own eyes sting with a new set of tears.

"I don't think anything could've ruined you for me Alex. Not even this stupid fucking tsunami." (Y/n) smiled. They wanted to stop the water works, but once they saw Quackity trying to do the same thing it was over.

The pair slowly walked over to the couch Quackity had been peacefully snoring on not so long ago. Wrapping each other in the others embrace instead of blankets this time, they waited for anything to happen as they talked about anything and everything under the sun. Quackitys first stupidly edited video. How they met at a Chipotle of all places. Going to England the first time together to visit friends. Him learning he got into lawyer school. (Y/n) finally reaching 1 million subs. How Techno would be proud of them both, and also probably calling them nerds. It was as if a strange calm had washed over them. Nestling into their hearts as they sat contently on the couch.

And that's how they sat as the wave of water crashed over the pair, ending the tether of their lives with a quick snip.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[simpliao]

let you break my heart again ; (irl) schlatt x reader

summary : silly to think he ever belonged to you.

info : based upon the song of the same name by the ever gorgeous Laufey, and shouldn't be by Luke Chiang, i love them both amazing songs that I completely recommend. cheating, depressive themes, mention of disordered eating, angst, I cried while writing this.

a/n : I have been so busy, and totally not based on experience lmao. I just needed to vent, so I hope you enjoy and can feel the hurt I'm currently going through <3 I'll see you guys in another four months

Shouldn't be.

Love shouldn't hurt this much. It shouldn't be killing me this much on the inside.

'maybe next week n/n, you know I'm busy.'

The message was all too familiar, barely legible as the world only became blurrier as tears flooded my eyes. My throat closed up, and I could only muster to text back as I always have.

'it's no problem! Can't wait for next week then :)'

I knew this song and dance would only follow into next week, my message left read and unanswered for what I know would be another dry answer hours in the future.

Laid upon a dishevelled bed, my eyes flickered my glance to my side, golden hour having already passed and no more light seeped into my room. My apartment for so many weeks deafly silent, my mind playing cruel tricks upon my heart when I could have sworn I heard his laugh echo off these walls. Always nothing more than a cope for what we've become, the sound of my own breathing and distant city sounds being my only comfort.

When that comfort used to me his arms, his hold, the gentle kisses upon my forehead and admissions of how beautiful he found me to be. No longer have I felt that way, not since. Just thinking about him causes me to choke back a sob, I promised myself I wouldn't cry. Not after I told myself I'd go with the flow, if he didn't care I wouldn't either.

He. Burnt auburn hair I still remember glowing when we'd drive out to the countryside to get a better view of the sunset at eight. Stupid jokes he'd make that would always draw a laugh out of me, his smile burnt in all corners of my mind; to only now haunt me every time I closed my eyes. He still stayed, even if I knew the same couldn't be said on his side.

I knew I shouldn't be doing this right now.

Leaving myself occupied in my mind, letting myself drown in thoughts and memories. If I were to shift my eyes I'd be able to see the school project sitting upon my desk, waiting to be done. And yet here I was, eyes permanently fixated upon the ceiling with my AirPods at its highest volume. Caught up in looking back.

He promised me to always be honest, that I was his and he was in turn mine. Those empty promises almost as empty as my stomach, the attempt of trying to get the sustenance into my body made me sick. Something would trigger of memory of us, and whatever sorry attempt at a meal I've managed to scrape together would be doused in salty tears; inedible. So empty I felt, I should have known; it's my fault.

He never had the best reputation. Twitter would have said 'told you so', Jeremiah Schlatt was never seen as a saint in the online sphere. When it came out that the two of us were friends, it shocked the community. Who would think? Two opposites would have such chemistry. Someone as blunt, sarcastic and cynical could pair so well with someone known to be so sweet, genuine.

That's all he ever wanted people to think, I question now if that's all he wanted us to be– with benefits to him.

Empty promises that when this or that would be sorted out, or when he'd be done planning something special he'd be ready to take on the responsibility. Everyone knew him to be the non-committal type, and yet he whispered into the cuff of my ear in our most intimate moments that he was mine– and mine alone.

And I supposed I was the fool to believe him.

From hours to days left on delivered, mute excuses to follow and never ending cancelled plans. We weren't together, yet he still gave the vague illusion that it was so. The use of private nicknames gave the feeling of being significant to him, and yet what we did behind closed doors was kept a tight-knit secret.

Now even wrapped up in comforters and bundled up in my warmest sweaters I still felt so cold, where his arms and warmth used to envelop now are permanently, bitterly frigid. The only thing keeping me going was foolish hope that I knew kept me foolish.

He wasn't coming back, not so long as he had my friends wrapped around his fingers. Pretending to not hear his flirty remarks while they giggled without knowing a thing ate me up from the inside.

I'd never say a thing either, lest I become the bad guy. Why couldn't I let him talk with his friends? Why couldn't he get time alone? His world didn't revolve around me so why are you acting crazy? You're wrong. We aren't even together... yet.

That last word used to tease and keep me in place, if I was good then that yet could become a maybe, and down the road a yes. I knew this was bullshit, meant to keep me where he wanted me. So he can feign guilt and use me all over again. I knew what I was, I was a toy for his amusement.

And I knew it all. I knew he didn't care about me, how his words would hurt, how he would lead me on with no more intentions than just a bit of fooling around. His eyes would wander, and a part of me hoped he'd never come back.

Because if he did I'd act the same, scared of being a nuisance, scared of being called mean names or seeing his gentle features turned malicious. I needed time for myself, and I knew I needed to cut him off to heal the scars he's left upon my heart. Keeping him close only hurt so much more, but it was a choice between loneliness or... More loneliness.

Until then, however, I'll just let you break my heart all over again.

[unfriendlyamazon]

by any other name (pirate au)

y'all are getting all sorts of things out of my archives but talking to @alectoperdita reminded me of this pirates au i've had sitting in a folder for a long time and i wrote this silly little piece just to kind of play with crew dynamics i guess

no warnings just a silly little scene and this takes place after joey and seto have begun a relationship (and if you like pirates you can read my kaijou scene from my au project a few years back)

It’d been an industrious morning for the crew of the Summoned Skull. Ammunitions weighed and secured, cargo stacked, deck swabbed, and the ship drifted through the open Atlantic, winds carrying half-filled sails south along the coast. A lazy afternoon sun made the brass and wood too hot to work over. Even the terrifying skull faced visage protruding from the bow seemed to wilt beneath the sunlight. Seto lounged on the stairs of the quarterdeck and scraped his sword across the whetstone, enjoying the satisfying metal sound of his work. Beneath him, first mate Wheeler had dropped down onto the steps and swept his fingers through his sweat soaked mop of hair. It distracted Seto momentarily, but he kept his hand steady. Their quartermaster Miss Gardner had stopped her work as well to lean against one of the barrels that Tristan had been trying to move, forcing him to slump against the ocean stained wood. Their surgeon Bakura had taken to lounging on the floor as Duke braided his hair. If the captain minded such a lazy show, he didn’t say anything at all from where he stood at the wheel of the ship. Seto’s eyes drew up to Captain Atem, whose eyes were on the distant horizon. Even in the shining sun, without moonlight or the red of a burning ship reflecting in his eyes, he still managed to live up to the name the Shadow King.

And then, Seto’s cold and calculated tongue said without much thought, “Why does he get a nickname?”

The gathered paused in consideration. Tea shrugged her shoulders and said, “He’s a pirate captain. It comes with the territory.”

“Shadow King’s a little dramatic,” Seto said with a furrowed brow.

Joey huffed out a laugh and dropped his head back to smile up at him. “Like you don’t know anything about that.”

“I only mean,” he said, sliding the stone across the blade, “it seems a little silly for him to be the only one. You’re all pirates as well.”

“You are too,” Duke reminded him. They finished the first braid and twined a red ribbon to cap it with a bow. “I’ve already got everyone calling me Duke Devlin. Hard to come up with a better name than that.”

“It does roll off the tongue,” Ryou said. “I’ve heard several crew members refer to me as the Ghost.”

“I started that,” Joey admitted, raising a hand. “It’s only because you were so quiet when we first took you on.”

“That and you look like a ghost,” Tristan said.

“Fair,” murmured Ryou.

"Joey was Iron Hands on our last crew," Tristan said.

“Only because I beat a man to death with my bare hands one time,” he said. “I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Mad Eyes Wheeler is a better name for him,” Tea said, and she flexed her own biceps in a strong man pose. “I think Tristan would be the Hammer. You hit hard and strong and also you use hammers.”

“I like that,” he said. “Duke’s Duke, obviously, we’ve got Mad Eyes and the Ghost–”

“Hey,” Joey protested, and Tristan ignored him.

“And the lord would be something like Two Blades Kaiba,” he finished.

Seto’s stone slid off the blade. “Why is that the best you can come up with?”

“No, it makes sense,” Joey said. “You carry two swords.”

“Everyone here has a sword,” Seto said.

“And you’ve got two of them,” Tea said. “The logic stands.”

Seto ground his teeth together. “It’s not the most dynamic name.”

“Pirates don’t tend to be very creative,” Ryou lamented. “You’ll note the characters of Blackbeard and Calico Jack are best known for having a black beard, and wearing calico clothes.”

“Mai!” Tea called as the lady herself crossed the deck. “Do you have a pirate name?”

She peered up at them, purple lips pursed, and then she tossed her blond hair over her shoulder as she struck a pose. “They call me Lady Valentine.”

“See,” Duke said. “She gets it. Pick a name that everyone wants to say.”

“Shouldn’t you scags be working?” she called and started up the steps. “Is this the example you set for this crew?”

“We’ve done most of the work,” Joey said with a wave of his hand. “We’re coming up with a pirate name for the lord.”

“Oh, is that all.” Mai stood in front of them, pinching her chin with her thumb, and her eyes narrowed in on Seto. “Have you tried Two Blades?”

“Why does everyone say that?” Seto groaned. He sliced his sword forward, eying down the blade. “It should be something good. Like the Blue Devil.”

Joey snorted out a laugh. “Because you wear a lot of blue?”

“It’s a gentleman’s color,” Mai said. “What about Mad Eyes? He’s got a crazed look half the time.”

“Joey called it,” Tea said.

He cut her a glare. “I didn’t call it.”

“You could be Black Dragon,” Ryou piped up. “Because of the tattoo.”

“Why does he get to be a dragon?” Seto asked, letting his blade drop.

Joey laid back onto the stairs. “You said you didn’t want a tattoo.”

“I think these names have to come naturally,” Tristan said. “You can’t force everyone to start calling you the Blue Devil.”

“Depends how stabby you’re feeling,” Mai said. “But then you just get a name like Stabs.”

“That’s a good name for Duke,” Tea said with a finger snap.

“Then how does he,” Seto said, gesturing vaguely above him, “end up with a name like ‘the Shadow King’?”

Mai twirled her finger in a turn around motion, and when Seto turned his head he jolted back. The captain sat just behind him, crouched forward on the quarterdeck steps, kohl covered eyes staring straight at him. Strands of coiled hair were kept back out to show off his wild eyes and shark’s grin.

“Because I am sneaky,” he said, warm North African accent burning the edges of his words, “and I am quick, and I make people kneel.”

Seto didn’t flinch his gaze from his, and Atem stared him down a heartbeat longer before rocking back onto the seat and laughing loudly. Seto considered he’d spent too much time in this crew, getting to know them as people, that sometimes he forgot about the shadows that attacked his ship and the fire that lit behind them.

“Names come with time,” the captain promised and offered a hearty pat to Seto’s back. “We’ll all hear of the legend of the Blue Devil someday. Now, Miss Gardner.”

She stood straight as he snapped his fingers, and cleared her throat before bellowing out, “What are you doing lazing around here? Get to work, scags!”

They scrambled up to their feet as she thumped the barrel, and Mai made a hard turn back to her work. Joey grabbed Seto’s wrist and pulled him onto the deck, head back laughing as he dragged him off to their stations. Tea’s thumping sent a few more people scattering.

“Alright, Blue Devil,” Joey said. “Back to work it is.”

“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” Seto groaned. “All those names are so stupid.”

“I think it might be how you sell it,” he said. He reached up to pinch his cheek, and Seto caught his hand before he could. He brought his hand up, kissing the bruised knuckle, before releasing him.

“Keep the bloodshed to a minimum,” he said and with a smirk added, “Mad Eye.”

Joey yanked his hand away with an eye roll despite the red warming his cheeks. It was satisfying, at least, that he had no response as he stalked off to his own duties. Perhaps those silly names did serve a purpose after all. He’d have to see what else he could come up with, in his own time.

[alder-reid]

Part 1 // Fable

Growing up in the North of Seven, there had always been stories of others beyond the Wilds. The sorts of stories Alder heard in whispers on the playground– they tunnel underground in the winters and into people’s homes in Seven and steal children. They’re ten feet tall, they could take down a grizzly with their bare hands in the dark, morning frost on your bedroom window means they were watching you and breathing on the glass the night before. They’re the real reason you can’t leave Seven, the Wilders will get you. 

Alder believed it all for a while, just as any other kid did in the District. With time, it faded into the background alongside all other childhood myths and stories kids made up to try to scare one another. By the time he was a teenager, he was like most in Panem: sure, there might be some lonely hermits out there in the Wilds or something, scraping by, but an entire group– let alone ones significant enough to become schoolyard folklore? They’d know about it. Someone would have seen something out there in the lumber yards. Besides, conversation on the topic never went far, let alone to the degree of investigation. Who cared to speculate on the Wilds when they needed to put the next meal on the table? 

Peace had prevailed in the past months with Vox rule, though the impacts were taking longer to seep into the roots of his home District than he’d anticipated. While there may no longer be the Games, the Vox still faced a lot of logistical challenges in equalizing Panem’s access to quality food, shelter, medicine, everything, and Alder saw the impacts day after day after day in his new role, listening to the needs of people from all over Seven and trying to help coordinate fulfilling them with the new government. 

Issue was, often obtaining what was needed to fill that need in the first place was difficult, if not impossible, in this rebuilding Panem. Alder gave a lot of we’re working on its and I don’t knows and I’ll follow up again on it, I promises. Over and over, he asked, and over and over, little aid came, and over and over, he had to bear the news to the same people that had stood at his side in this cause. They were growing frustrated, and so was Alder alongside them. He did his best to personally help where he could, if he could, but he was just another citizen of Seven now, too. All the money he’d saved in the last several years helped, sure, but it was worthless if what they needed simply couldn’t get to Seven.

The idea arose after being yelled at by a frustrated man from a settlement several hours outside the District center. A lumberjack, like so many of them. A father. He’d traveled all the way here to ask, again, when medicine might come in from the Capitol that one of his sons needed. He spat that Alder didn’t understand like he claimed, not really, not from his mansion he’d been allowed to keep for what was proclaimed to be solely out of temporary convenience for the Vox, but even Alder suspected they wanted him, someone with sway and notoriety, wanting for little. Or, as little as possible, considering. The man said he’d forgotten what it was like, out there. He wasn’t one of them after all.

Alder had held it together through the end of that meeting, but the words had sliced directly to his core. Tears welled up as soon as the door slammed shut, a strangled sob finally breaking free from his chest. He understood very quickly in this role that people weren’t necessarily angry with him, directly, but it still always hurt. And to be called a traitor, not one of them, after everything?

He didn’t ask if he could take a couple of weeks off; he simply said he was doing it, and so he did. Trouble would stay with Linden and Ellie, all he needed was a backpack of clothes and a ride up North, one he managed to hitch in the passenger’s seat of a truck heading north to ferry another load of lumber. He sent Maverick a letter telling him where he was, though who knew when it would get to Two. It was a little odd, how people’s lives carried on so similarly to before, but he supposed he should have expected it. The entire country was all interconnected, relied on one another to hold all their needs together, right? Even if the distribution of those things would hopefully get reworked.

They arrived just past midnight. A chilly, fine mist hung in the air, and leaves crunched under his worn boots as he began the familiar walk back home. The key fit into the lock as it always did, though with some protest. There was more rust than the last time he was here. He should probably get it replaced. Once inside, he lit candles and got a low fire burning in the hearth, dragged some of the musty quilts out of a cupboard to curl up in the small chair beside it and doze off while the cabin warmed. He’d done it a hundred times before.

The first few days were strange. He got looks– he always did when he came home– but they felt sharper than usual. A few of his old neighbors he grew up with were happy to see him, asking how he was and Alder answering in awkward, mumbled responses. He took hikes. He went into the one-road hub they inaccurately referred to as town, if just to feel like they lived somewhere significant. 

The veil of the Games lifting was a step in the right direction, of course. He believed in that. He believed in what the Vox were doing. And yet he saw, too, where many things were worse here than he’d seen in his entire childhood. Store shelves were bare. The schoolhouse was near empty, even on days class was in session– many families needed the extra hands getting food or going to scrounge up just a little more cash. Those who knew anything about medical care were overwhelmed and undersupplied, if a solution couldn’t be sourced from the forest, there was little that could be done in any timely manner.

At least in the District center, trade went in and out. Something always came through, even if it was less than usual. Up here? There was nothing, and people were running out of time.

He’d heard the first explosion while laying in bed that night, staring up at the ceiling.

Alder sat bolt upright, hands clawing wildly at the quilt and heart pounding. His first thought, the part of him that seemed to still live on the battlefield in Eleven or in the Arena, was that it was the Capitol. They’d come to finally end him.

Reason materialized a moment later, the blanket cast aside and his feet already being shoved into his boots. Not the Capitol, not possible, but then who? Loyalists? Up here? Or maybe there was an accident, sometimes equipment malfunctioned at the mills. It would be strange for them to be operating this late at night, though he felt he hardly understood his own home under this new government anymore, so it could be. Or a house fire– in which case they’d need the entire settlement’s help putting it out. 

The screams began. Another loud boom. Had to be a fire, right?

He pulled his jacket over his arms as he rushed for the door, snagging a pail that hung on a nail just inside the doorway, and threw the door open. He paused, then grabbed the hatchet, too.

His home sat along a path skimming the outskirts of the settlement. Already, through the trees, and mist, he could see the faint glow –

– in front of a blazing Cornucopia–

– smoke swirling through a freezing mid-autumn breeze–

– he’s choking on ash and snow. The axe–

– weighs heavy in his hand–

– sears with blinding pain. There’s a figure moving–

–between the trees, running toward him and–

–raising his–

– hand is on his shoulder. Alder jumped, the bucket clanging to the ground and hatchet raised in defense. Staring, wide eyed, is his neighbor, Waverley, with her hands raised.

“Fuck. Sorry. Fuck.” He was half apologizing for nearly axing her in one of his bizarre, in-between moments where he forgot where he was, and half apologizing for swearing. Waverley hated swearing.

She did not seem concerned with the swearing at the moment, though her eyes did dart to the hatchet a couple extra times with distrust. Ash coated her salt and pepper hair and she was out of breath. “An attack,” she explained, pointing in the direction of town.

“Capitol?” Alder asked, in disbelief.

“They don’t look like any Peacekeepers I’ve ever seen.” “Vox?” he wagered next doubtfully. 

Waverley shook her head. She opened her mouth to say something, then shut it again, clearly doubting herself.

“What?” Alder insisted, not liking that look.

She stared back. 

“What?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they look like Wilders.”