#soft fall prompts

[hopeintheashes]

buck looking after Chris outside, noticing he’s cold, and giving him his clothes then forgetting about it only for Eddie to notice when he joins them later on🥹

The sky had changed from dusk to dark in the time it'd taken Eddie to get his last beer. He steps out onto the patio in the glow of the string lights like tiny lanterns, a little bit floaty from the alcohol. The temperature has dropped, too. Almost like this place is a desert or something.

"Hi." Buck's arms around him from behind.

"Hi." He traces a hand up Buck's arm, and then back down. He's strong. Absurdly strong. And cold. He tips his head back against Buck's chest. Nudges Buck's chin with his temple until he gets a kiss.

Buck laughs. "Enjoying the fact that I'm the DD?"

"Mm." He angles for another kiss, and gets one. "Yeah." He rubs Buck's arm again. "You're cold."

Buck shrugs. "It's fine."

"Where's your shirt?" Not that he's not wearing a shirt. His second shirt. Flannel. Plaid. Lumberjack... vibes. That's what May would call it, right? He takes another sip of beer, contemplating.

Buck dips his chin down to rest on Eddie's shoulder and nods to where Denny and Chris are poking at something in the corner of the yard. Chris is wearing Buck's flannel with the sleeves rolled up. Buttoned all the way to the collar like it's a winter jacket. That's all Buck. Chris doesn't voluntarily do up any buttons he doesn't have to.

"Oh," he says, and it's more like a breath, warmth in his chest, and he turns in Buck's arms to kiss him again. "Yes. That's. Very dad."

"Very dad?" Buck's lips are playing like he's hiding a smile, but he's blinking fast against the sudden rush of emotion that Eddie can see in his eyes.

"Very," Eddie repeats, and walks them both the few steps to the patio furniture to sit down on the wicker couch. There's a blanket draped over the arm. Eddie wraps it around Buck's shoulders a little clumsily, and Buck puts his arm around Eddie so that he's under the blanket, too.

"This is nice." His eyes are already closing.

"Don't think Bobby and Athena want us spending the night in their backyard," Buck says, but it's quiet, just barely above the hum of everyone else washing from the house to the patio and back like steady ocean waves.

"You'll take me home," Eddie says, and Buck pulls the blanket tighter around them both, and nods against him, and Eddie closes his eyes and listens to Buck's breathing and Chris's laughter and the city-noises all around them.

Buck takes his beer from his loosening grasp and sets it on the table, and settles back in. "You know I will."

(send me a soft fall prompt and i'll write a little something)

[compacflt]

For the requests/open inbox, this may not be the lane you're looking for, but you made a throw a way mention in a response to the ask about Ice's enforcement of DADT that Bradley and Ice probably got into it at one point about Ice being totally okay with DADT as a policy (which I love your read on Ice being like, 'yeah, nobody should ask and nobody should tell. what's the problem here?') I would love to see that argument go down. Or honestly, just any Ice and Bradley interaction after the reconciliation that suits your fancy. I find that dynamic in your world super interesting. Bradley sees him as a father, Ice sees him as the person whose father I killed. I love the drama.

Five times Ice was so obviously Rooster’s dad + one time he explicitly wasn’t.

[Carole. 1994.]

He’s such a nervous man. Usually that’s not the word people associate with him. Nervous? Never! But he is. Carole Bradshaw’s more a religious woman than a spiritual one. She’s never put any stock into “chockras” or “ouras” or whatever the other girls her age were fooling around with in the late sixties and early seventies. But she does believe that you can understand a person just by looking at him or her, and when she looks at Tom Kazansky, she sees a little anxious creature, shivering in the cold, like one of those tiny spindly dogs who always needs a sweater. Maybe it’s her southern maternal instincts, something primal and animalistic inside her, I need to take care of you—and when he nudges her with a nervous shivering shoulder and whispers, “Can I bum a smoke?” —she reaches down to take his hand and says, “I only have one left. We’ll have to share.”

She knows she makes him nervous. His ears are red, and so’s the back of his neck. It’s early on a Saturday morning, and the church is crowded, and he’s self-conscious about the fact that she’s holding his hand. Good. It’s so rare she gets to make a man nervous anymore. She waves to Bradley, proud in his little striped button-down and his little blue bow-tie, where he’s lined-up with all the other aspiring pianists against the stage along the far wall, under the bare postmodern crucifix. The recital isn’t going to start for another five, ten minutes, and it’s organized by age, so Bradley’s somewhere in the middle. If Tom Kazansky needs a smoke, Carole Bradshaw will bum him a smoke.

They exit out the side door, and the low murmuring of the other proud parents in the church fades to the quiet of the alley. Birds chirping nearby. The sound of a latecoming car on gravel somewhere far away. Her cigarette and the flick of his lighter, her eyes on his mouth and his puff of smoke—it’s lit. He takes a drag, closes his eyes, then passes it to her. “Sorry to make you share,” she says, and she’s watching the red flush creep up the side of his throat with a silent pleasure. When she takes her own pull, she looks down to see that the filter’s gone the sweet red-pink of her old lipstick. Kind of like a kiss, sharing a cigarette.

“That’s okay,” he says. Nervous spindly little dog. “Uh, what’s he playing?”

“Beethoven. ‘Für Elise.’” Then, before he can think to judge, she goes on quickly: “It’s more complicated than you’d think. Goes up and down and all over the place.”

“It’s a good song,” Tom Kazansky says, “though I don’t know too much about piano.” He pauses. “I’m learning a little German, though. I think it’s E-leez-ah. She must’ve been an alright girl if Beethoven wrote a song for her.”

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know what to say to that. So she says this instead: “Thank you for coming. It made Bradley—well, over the moon, I guess.”

Tom Kazansky smiles shyly. “Sorry Maverick couldn’t come. I know he wanted to.”

Of course he brings up Pete Mitchell. Drags her back into reality. “He’s in Washington again, isn’t he?”

“Correct.” He reaches out for the cigarette; she gives it to him. “TOPGUN’s biggest advocate. I keep telling him he should go into politics. I just talked to him yesterday—he told me he went to the Natural History Smithsonian on Wednesday—he bought Bradley a dinosaur picture book, I think. Does Bradley like dinosaurs?”

Carole Bradshaw shrugs. What nine-year-old boy doesn’t like dinosaurs, but… “He’s more into sea life these days. Whales, sharks, fish.”

“Some fish used to be dinosaurs, they think,” says Tom Kazansky, clearly just trying to fill the silence. Ears red, lips red. Smoke out of his mouth like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carole Bradshaw doesn’t know how much dinosaur history she actually believes. So she says, “It’s still really nice of you to come. You know, Bradley—Bradley thinks of you and Maverick as his—well, his fathers, I s’pose. So it’s nice for you to be here.”

She watches his reaction—just nervousness. Straight anxiety. He doesn’t meet her eyes, like she’s just kicked him in the ribs. He does not want to be Bradley’s father. 

She says, “You don’t have to sign any papers, Tom. You don’t have to put a kid seat in your car. I’m just saying. Don’t worry about it.”

He says, “I can hear the kids starting inside—we should probably go back in.”

So Carole Bradshaw drops the cigarette butt to the ground and steps on it with the bottom of her flat. They go inside, and wait for a kindergartener to finish an overly simple “Canon in D” to take their seats again. She takes his hand. He lets her. After another half-hour, Bradley sits down on the bench in front of the hand-me-down Steinway and busts out “Für Elise” without a single missed note. It still shocks her, sometimes, to watch him play—it still shocks her, sometimes, that she is the mother of all that talent. And now maybe Tom Kazansky is the father of all that talent. How did that happen?

At the end of the recital, Tom Kazansky lets go of her hand. She knew he would. Knew his fatherhood is only temporary. But he lets go of her hand to accept Bradley’s great-big hug in the parking lot: “Gosling, that was so good.” Bradley’s proud smile is missing a few teeth. It makes Tom Kazansky laugh.

And after he drops them off at home, and peels away with a wave and a smile, Carole Bradshaw lights another cigarette from the half-full pack she’d brought with her to the recital and brings Bradley out to the backyard so he can play and she can watch him. But before she lets him go, she looks down at him and says flatly, “If kids at school ask you about Uncle Tom and Uncle Pete—you need to tell them they’re just friends.”

And in his eyes, she can see the confusion of a little boy who hadn’t been aware that Tom Kazansky and Pete Mitchell were anything other than just friends—the confusion of a little boy learning about duplicity for the first time in his life. 

“Okay,” he says, so she lets him go.

—

[Maverick. 1998.]

“Don’t go easy on him,” Maverick hollers breathlessly over his shoulder, fishing around in the ice chest in the sand for two cans of Coors; “He just joined the J.R.O.T.C.; don’t go easy on him; he’s tougher than all your squadrons combined; beat him into the dirt…”

“Thanks, Uncle Mav,” shouts Bradley from across the volleyball court, where he’s getting initiated into one of the volleyball teams of younger fighter pilots. 

Maverick flashes him a thumbs-up and finds his T-shirt on the first bleacher bench, pulls it on with one hand, and then hops up the rest of the benches to sit with Ice, who’s got his CVN-65 ballcap on and a book open in his lap and is offering informal career advice to one of the other lieutenants: “Yeah, so, in my opinion, it’s all down to what you think you can stomach… If you want me to look over your C.V., I can totally do that—I think I’m free Monday at around thirteen-hundred, if you want to stop in to talk. Not a problem. Not a problem. Alright. See you later.” He watches the lieutenant go, then lolls his head over to look at Maverick, who’s tossing an ice-cold can of Coors up and down. “Hey. Good game. —Coors, Mav? This is an insult.” But he takes the offered can anyway, looking out onto the court, where Bradley—fourteen and just entering his beanpole phase of evolution—is currently spiking the ball. “Cool.” It’s a nice summer Saturday, a casual opportunity for the officers of Miramar to socialize with their families (Ice is wearing a golf shirt and jeans), and by now pretty much everyone knows that Maverick Mitchell’s raising his friend’s kid and that he and Captain Kazansky are good friends, so this is pretty nice. Not much to hide.

“C’mon,” Maverick says, popping open his own can, “you and I were having a scintillating conversation, a few minutes ago.” He’s hunting around for the sunscreen so the tops of his feet don’t burn to ashes in the sun.

“Scintillating. That’s a big word for you. Wow.”

“You’re rubbing off on me, Sir Reads-a-lot—”

“See, that’s funny,” Ice interjects, “because I seem to recall, before you so-rudely interrupted me to go play volleyball with the kids, I was telling you that it’s really not that interesting. It’s actually, Maverick, quite boring.”

“Well, I’m intrigued now. Go on. Finish it off, I wanna know.”

Ice slaps his book shut and gives the long tired sigh of a man who is very self-conscious about the fact that he’s about to turn forty. He pops the tab on his can of Coors and huffs in exasperation when it foams all over his hand. “I mean it, my family history’s really not that interesting. Typical eastern-European immigrant shitshow. U.S. officials change one letter in our last name and everyone loses their goddamn minds… Actually, that story might be apocryphal, I keep forgetting which former Soviet Socialist Republic I’m actually from, I just can’t remember, all the borders got redrawn so many times, one of ‘em…”

Maverick smiles and pulls his TOPGUN ballcap back down onto his head, tugs the brim down low over his eyes so he can tip his head back and not go blind from the summer sunshine. He’d thought Ice would be reluctant to share his family history, but it turns out that most people are just afraid to ask him, and he’s actually pretty eager to talk, if you just ask. Maybe over-eager. He’s rambling. Maverick cuts him off: “Yeah, you do have a left curve to you, don’t you. Genetic.”

The dirty joke strikes Ice dumb for a second, but then he forges ahead, wisely choosing not to engage. He keeps going, oblivious to the fact that Maverick’s not really listening… “Anyway, my grandfather was Jewish, but he died literally the second he stepped foot in America, so it doesn’t count…my grandmother was Orthodox, crazy story how they ended up together; actually, that story’s probably apocryphal, too…she’s the one who raised me, pretty much. I told you that. She brought my dad out to Southern California when he was a little kid, but I don’t know if you’ve noticed, So-Cal’s not exactly the Mecca of Orthodox churches or anything, so he wasn’t very religious at all… My mom was from Milwaukee, I think. Or maybe Minneappolis. Some kinda Protestant. Forget which kind. The preachy kind. But then she died and I didn’t have to go to church anymore, so I didn’t.”

“You just never believed?” Maverick mumbles, half-joking.

“Nah. I mean, I always had too many questions no one wanted to answer. For instance: okay, say you’re bad. Say you commit sin…”

“I’ve never sinned, sir. You’re talking hypothetically.”

“Right. Me, neither. Hypothetically speaking. So you go to Hell. Well, the devil’s there, too, ‘cause he’s a sinner, too. But why’s he want to punish you? What does he get out of it? You’re both in the same boat!”

“Probably a sexual thing,” says Maverick, watching the purple-green imprints of the sun dance around behind his eyelids. “He probably gets off on it. The devil, I mean.”

Ice laughs and laughs. “Sure. Try saying that in front of my mom and see if you survived. I learned pretty early on that they don’t want you to be too curious. So I kept all my questions to myself.” He’s also joking, not taking this super seriously, but that’s a pretty in-character answer. “What about you, Mav?”

“If I’ve told you my family’s history once, I’ve told you a thousand times…” That’s a joke. Maverick’s the one who doesn’t like talking about his family history. Ice hasn’t heard any of it, and for good reason. Maybe someday he’ll tell him about it. “Later. But, remember, I used to be Southern Baptist? Jesus, I was serious into that shit, Ice.”

Ice snorts. “Yeah, right. You.”

“Not joking. I had about eighty girlfriends between fourteen and eighteen, but that’s the most pious I’ve ever been. Lotsa loopholes to make my relationships biblical. Was thinking about being a youth pastor. —I’m not joking. It was my whole personality, for a while. Most of my childhood, anyway.”

Ice is still laughing in disbelief. “Oh, yeah? And then what happened?”

Maverick smiles. “…Got hooked on sinning.” 

“…Yeah,” Ice replies, and Maverick can hear the nervous smirk in his voice, “I guess I’d know a little something about that.”

And normally that would be the end of the conversation. But Maverick’s feeling a little sun-drunk, a little giddy, and he’ll never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Ice just for the fun of it. From beneath the brim of his ballcap he mutters, “…You think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

Ice huffs a laugh, and says through a lazy yawn, “I’m not militant in my atheism, no.” But he, also, will never, ever, ever grow out of instigating stupid arguments with Maverick just for the fun of it, and his curiosity’s clearly been piqued. He stews in it for a second before he snaps, “Do you think Carole’s brainwashing her kid?”

“I’m just saying she has him readin’ outta the Bible, like, five times a day. She sends him to church camp. Does something to a kid.” He has no dog in this fight, but this is fun.

“And what did it do to you?” Ice says, reaching down to shove his shoulder good-naturedly. “Weren’t you just telling me not five seconds ago how you used to be the perfect model of Christian charity?” Maverick mumbles a retort sleepily; Ice pushes on through it: “Bradley’s a human being. Either he grows out of it like you did, or he doesn’t, in which case, whatever, land of the free. That’s the First Amendment. You swore an oath to the Constitution. Maybe you should read it.”

“I’ve read it. I’m not Congress, shithead. How’s it go, you want me to cite it to you directly, ‘Congress shall make no law…’ actually, I don’t know what comes after that. Got me there.”

“Don’t call me shithead, dipshit. And whatever. Good thing he’s Carole’s kid and not yours, then. He’s got a mom who wants him to go to church. It’s up to him if he wants to listen to her or not. That’s growing up.”

Maverick tips up the brim of his ballcap to look at him, sprawled out in the bleachers very unprofessionally for the CO of this entire volleyball court, and snaps back, “Well, he’s a little bit my kid. The same way he’s a little bit your kid.” 

Ice just flicks his sunglasses down onto his nose and purses his lips and neither confirms nor denies this allegation. 

They watch the game together for a while, Ice’s toes pressed against Maverick’s lower back discreetly, trying to work their way under Maverick’s T-shirt. Until one of the young pilots approaches a few minutes later: “Sir!” / “What’s that kid’s call sign again?” Ice mumbles to Maverick, prodding him with his foot. / “Hooker.” / “No shit.” / “Sir!” says Hooker again. / “Which one of us, kid?” says Maverick. / “Captain Kazansky, sir. We’ve got a spot opening up. Wanna play?”

Maverick looks up at Ice expectantly. Ice sighs and harrumphs and waffles for a minute— “I’m too old for this shit.”

“Sir,” says Maverick, “it’s not a competition, but if it were, I’d be winning.” 

Lighting the fire of competition under Ice like that is always a good strategy. He rolls his eyes, but immediately stands and tugs off his shirt and rolls up the cuffs of his jeans; “I’ll only play if I can play with the kid.” 

So Maverick watches the teams get scrambled again with a smile, and sits up to watch Ice join Bradley in the sand. Bradley’s only just now taller than Ice, and Ice clearly isn’t used to having to reach up to curl an arm around his shoulders to strategize, his eyes narrowed like an eagle’s, staring down the competition. Maverick can read his lips from across the pitch: Alright, kid, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think I know these guys’ strengths and weaknesses…okay, here’s what we’re gonna do… And the game begins when Bradley spikes the ball.

Ice won’t always be this fun, this down-to-earth, this human. The admiralty and the guilt and the grief of the years to come will strip it all away from him, bring him back to the cold, remove him from his own humanity. And maybe, even if it isn’t conscious, Maverick can recognize that, right now, watching Ice dive into the sand with a laugh: this summer sunshine is only temporary. It’s gonna have to end at some point. So he doesn’t take it for granted. He keeps his eyes open and watches and tries to commit it to memory.

And after the game, Ice and Bradley come over so Ice can finish his beer and put his shirt and his baseball cap back on, and Maverick can make fun of them for losing. And: “What were you guys talking about for so long before the game?” Bradley asks Maverick with a grin.

“Whether or not your mom’s brainwashing you,” Maverick says.

“Oh!” Bradley says mildly. “…No, I don’t think so!”

“Oh, that’s a great start,” Ice laughs. “You would’ve made a great Soviet. No, I don’t think I’m getting brainwashed. Hey, by the way, Gosling, if you want a beer, Maverick and I won’t tell anyone.”

“Aw, really?” whispers Bradley. “Thanks, Uncle Ice!” And he races down the bleachers towards the ice chest in the sand.

Maverick watches Ice watch him go, fingers still pinching the brim of his CVN-65 ballcap, clearly worrying about something the way Ice always is. 

Then he looks down at Maverick, stares openly for a minute, and says, “You don’t think we’re teaching him to rebel too much, do you?”

—

[Bradley. 2000.]

“Kiddo! You’re here early!” It was Uncle Ice, walking through his own front door, catching a glimpse of Bradley watching the Astros-Nats game on the TV. He was still in uniform, but smiling wide, and he set his bag down near the couch and leaned over to ruffle Bradley’s hair goodnaturedly.

“Practice ended early today.”

“Oh, okay. Cool. Maverick should be home soon, still at work—your mom’ll be here in about an hour—she told me to put the chicken breasts in the oven, but you know me, every time I use this oven I set off the fire alarm, so you oughta help me with that…”

“And,” Bradley said, watching Uncle Ice wash his hands in the kitchen sink, “I got here early because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh, sure!” chirped Uncle Ice. Then he paused, sensing a trap. “What about?”

“Advice,” Bradley mumbled. He took a deep breath, and stood to follow Uncle Ice into the kitchen “I was just—I was just curious. If you had any advice for me joining the Navy. You know, with me being gay, and all. How do I—I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. It’s kinda been weighing on me. Do you have any advice?”

Uncle Ice was still drying his hands off on a kitchen towel. Rubbing them red and raw. And when he raised his head to speak, there was something dull and startled in his eyes: “I don’t, um—no, I don’t—I don’t know anything about that. —You should ask Uncle Maverick about that.”

“I did,” Bradley said desperately, because he had. Yes, he’d gone to Uncle Mav first. “He—he told me to talk to you.”

“…Oh,” said Uncle Ice, now standing in front of a shelf to return one of his books to it. This surprised him. Maybe hurt him a little. “No. I—I, I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“But—”

“And there are probably better people to ask than me or Maverick. I—I don’t know—that’s not really my…I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

Uncle Ice swallowed, put the book back on the shelf, then clasped his hands together and set them on the shelf, too, as if leaning over his captain’s desk to chastise someone. He blinked for a long moment. Clearly shifting gears. Becoming someone else so easily. Why couldn’t Bradley do that? “But I can tell you this,” he said, and his voice had gone grave and dim, “and I know you and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on politics—but I can tell you this, professionally, because I respect you, and I care about you, a lot—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Dismayed, Bradley said, “Why?”

“Why’s a funny question to ask about something like this,” said Uncle Ice curtly. He shrugged. “Why? Because it’s the law. That’s why.”

Bradley swung his bat at the hornets’ nest. This was always dangerous with Uncle Ice. “It shouldn’t be a law. Don’t you think?”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. It’s the law. And we get paid to enforce the law, internationally speaking. And the military doesn’t work if personnel refuse to follow the rules in broad daylight. So.” He trailed his fingertip along the spines of all his precious books, then eventually found a different one, started flipping through it absentmindedly. “And even if it weren’t the law, it’d still get enforced extrajudicially. You know what that means?” He did that, when he was intentionally being cruel; used big words that Bradley didn’t know to make himself sound smarter. “It means outside the law. The way people talk to you. The way people respect you or don’t respect you. And this business, the one you want to go into, is all about respect. Being a pilot is kind of like being a knight: you have to be noble, you have to be honorable, you have to respect your service and your adversaries and yourself. And because I respect you, and because I care about you a lot, I’m just telling you the truth—you’re going to have to keep it a secret.”

Bradley blinked. There was something crushing and overwhelming about the truth—maybe the fact that it was the truth, maybe the fact that he hated the fact that it was the truth. It made sense. But it also meant his future was unspeakably bleak. He tried to speak over the lump in his throat when he said, “Yeah. That’s what Maverick told me, too.” And what he’d wanted to hear from Uncle Ice was that Uncle Mav was telling a lie. 

Something went soft and slightly wounded in Uncle Ice’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Uncle Ice said gently. “I wish I could give you better advice than that. But that’s all I know. I don’t know any more than that.”

“Don’t you want to know more than that?”

“No.”

And thus did the generational gap widen into a chasm. 

—

[February 2003.]

Dear SN Bradshaw, / Please call/email/write me back when you get a chance. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2003.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I hope you’re doing all right. I hope at some point you and I can get in touch to talk. Please let me know if there is some other address I should be sending my letters to. I am not sure if they are finding you. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[May 2004.]

Dear AN Bradshaw, / I wanted to congratulate you on your acceptance to college. Yours is a very good AE program & you should feel very proud. Please let me know if there’s anything you might need as you prepare to start your first year. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[August 2010.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / I wanted to let you know that I’ll be at NAS Oceana for a conference from December 6-9. I understand that’s your neck of the woods—would you be interested in having dinner with me on either that Tuesday or Wednesday night? I would love to hear how you’ve been doing. You can reach my secretary at the number below. / Love Uncle Iceman.

…

[October 2014.]

Dear LT Bradshaw, / We Maverick and I want to wish you a Happy Birthday 30th Birthday. We heard you are deployed out in the Atlantic now—we hope you will be able to enjoy the enclosed gift card when you make it back to terra firma. Our updated personal cell numbers are below. / HAPPY BIRTHDAY! FROM UNCLE MAVERICK & Uncle Iceman.

…

“Haven’t heard back from the kid yet.”

“…You think we ever will?”

The longest silence.

—

[Pacific Air Type Commander Beau Simpson. 2016.]

You could see it in the way they held themselves. An utmost similarity. Aristocratic propriety. Maybe a little sense of entitlement: look how hard we’ve worked to be here. All three of them had it. More accurately: Captain Mitchell and Admiral Kazansky both had it, and had passed it down to their son.

“Captain Mitchell.” Everyone was watching. The sun had only just set; the sky was melting from horizon-red through orange and yellow and teal up to midnight black above them.

“It’s an honor, sir,” said Captain Mitchell, accepting Admiral Kazansky’s handshake. God, you’d never know it by looking at them. Half the people here on this Roosevelt flight deck knew about them, but they were so convincing that more people weren’t sure. TYCOM Simpson glanced at Rear Admiral Bates, who glanced back in confusion—I thought they were…? They were, TYCOM Simpson signaled, just abnormally good at keeping it a secret.

“Honor’s all mine, Captain,” said Admiral Kazansky, and he passed by without a second glance.

And when he made it down the line of aviators to Lieutenant Bradshaw—you could see it. The similarity in the way they held themselves. Straight and rigid and unyielding. Cold and dismissive beyond belief, even to each other. Admiral Kazansky held out a hand. Lieutenant Bradshaw took it, but refused to make eye contact. Quiet rebellion under the radar: Admiral Kazansky had taught him well. 

TYCOM Simpson glanced at Captain Mitchell, to gauge his reaction. And for once, he and Captain Mitchell were clearly thinking the exact same thing.

Like father, like son.

You could see it in their stubborn determination. How far they were willing to go. How hard they were willing to push. How long they were willing to hold their own hands to the fire, if it meant the familiar painful comfort of staying warm. “Ice-cold, huh?” TYCOM Simpson asked him the next morning, trying to pin down their strategy, trying to secure a guarantee that their family would do what their country asked of them, even if that meant death. Even if that meant the ultimate sacrifice.

“Only when I have to be,” replied Admiral Kazansky, which meant always, and—soon thereafter, he ordered Lieutenant Bradshaw to his death.

But also, Lieutenant Bradshaw went willingly, too.

“Dagger One is hit.”

“Dagger Two is hit.”

Loss is supposed to hit a man in stages. Isn’t that the truth? —Not so for Admiral Kazansky, whom grief obviously swallowed whole in just an instant. He did not break, or bend under its weight. Just stood there staring at the E-2D AWACS screen with wide wounded eyes—not disbelieving eyes. They were gone. Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw were gone. He was in no denial whatsoever. He had leapt straight to acceptance.

“Sir,” said TYCOM Simpson hesitantly, and he reached out to touch him—the stars on his shoulder—guide him back to reality—what must it be like, to lose a son?—to willingly forfeit your family?—

But before he could make contact, Admiral Kazansky drew a breath, moved away, and closed his eyes for just a second. Perfectly composed, even with the waters of grief closing over his head, even with three dozen observers in this C2 room all scrutinizing him for his response. Perfectly composed. How did he do it? How could he manage? How was he possibly still this proud?

“Vice Admiral Simpson,” he said calmly, “I relinquish my command to you, until you deem me necessary to return to my post.”

“Sir,” said Rear Admiral Bates, darting panicked, sympathetic eyes to TYCOM Simpson, but it was too late—Admiral Kazansky was already leaving the room. Head held high and steady. 

Some confusing weeks later, after Captain Mitchell and Lieutenant Bradshaw returned from the dead, TYCOM Simpson and Rear Admiral Bates would casually debrief the mission together in the lobby bar of the Waldorf-Astoria in Washington, D.C. No hard liquor, just beers. Just barely enough alcohol to give them an excuse to philosophize. “You think pride is a sin or a virtue?” TYCOM Simpson found himself asking, tracing the rim of his gilt-edged Stella Artois glass with a finger, after having recounted the above testimony.

“Neither,” said Rear Admiral Bates. “Gotta be a vice.”

“A vice.”

“Yeah. Good men die because of pride, bad men die because of pride…we send our sons to battle because of pride…wars are fought and won and lost because of pride… every war in human history, when you boil it down, begins when someone says, ‘You’re wrong and I’m right, and I’m proud of my own righteousness, proud enough to kill, proud enough to die, proud enough to send my sons to die…’”

“Oh, okay. That’s the root of all human conflict, then, according to you, Warlock. Okay.”

Rear Admiral Bates smiled and laughed at himself, too. Pride, he mouthed. Then shook his head. “We’re a proud species. It’s our vice.”

TYCOM Simpson was thinking about the two proudest men he knew, Admiral Kazansky and Lieutenant Bradshaw, and wondered what it was, exactly, that had driven a wedge between them, you’re wrong and I’m right and I’m proud enough of my own righteousness to send you to your death/inflict my death upon you… And then he remembered the warnings he’d previously received about Lieutenant Bradshaw and Lieutenant Seresin and their open relationship, and then he remembered Admiral Kazansky coldly shaking Captain Mitchell’s hand… and he wondered if the wedge between them was exactly that: the matter of pride.

—

[Tom. 2018.]

“Merry Christmas and a happy new year, and all that,” says Pete, raising his glass and reaching over the dining table to clink rims with Tom and then Bradley. “A good year! A really good year! —Sorry your guy couldn’t be here, Rooster. We’ll call him tonight before you go. Tell him we miss him.”

“Where is he again?” Tom asks.

“Washington,” Bradley says with a smile. “Big conference at the Pentagon. I’ll see him next week.”

“You know,” Pete says with a sly grin directed at Tom, “I’ve never actually heard the story of how you two got together.” 

“Oh,” Bradley says, shrugging as he tears open a dinner roll, “not that interesting. Pretty much what you’d expect. Inter-squadron competition-turned-sexual tension. Not exactly within regs, but we did meet each other before D.A.D.T. got repealed, so it wasn’t like we’d’ve ever been within regs, either…” (All the while, Tom’s smirking over the rim of his wine glass at Pete, No, Mav, I’m not gonna tell him I had them reassigned to the same boat…) “We broke up when I got sent to TOPGUN. But we figured it out eventually.”

“Glad you did. Sorry he couldn’t be here.”

Bradley hesitates, then says, “You know what I just realized? I never heard how you two got together…! You’ve never told me that story!”

Tom glances over at Pete, do you want to take this or shall I, and when Pete motions all yours, he sighs and says, “Uh, we don’t really know. We’ve just been telling people nineteen-eighty-six because it’s easy. But in a much more real sense…” He thinks about it, then shrugs. “Whatever. If you really want to know. In nineteen-ninety-three, right after I came back to San Diego to take command at Miramar, he and I had a drunken one-night stand. By accident. Which then turned into twenty-five years of accidental one-night stands. So.”

“Oh, c’mon. You guys bought a house together.”

“Yeah, that,” says Pete, “that was, uh, to facilitate the accidental one-night stands. Make it more convenient for everyone.”

“Cut out the middle-man,” Tom supplies, then shrugs again at the look on Bradley’s face. “That’s our story, kid. It’s not super romantic. We weren’t thinking about it that way. We didn’t know how.”

Pete raises the wine bottle to refill Tom’s glass—though it’s still halfway full—and then raises his eyebrows when he “notices” the bottle’s empty. Changes the subject as he stands: “Okay, what’s everyone feeling? Red, white, what’s next?”

“Red,” Tom says absently. “Anything big, I guess—first cab you see…” But then he thinks about it, and he amends his order before Pete leaves earshot: “Actually—we’ve got that petite sirah we gotta drink—two-thousand-four. Israeli. Might be somewhere in the back, sorry. But now’s a good occasion, I think, to bust it out for the holidays. No reason to save it.”

“Israeli sirah two-thousand-four,” Pete repeats, “okay. I got that.” 

Then he steps outside, leaving Tom and Bradley alone. It’s not awkward—they’ve worked really hard over the last two years to make it not-awkward, after the mission—but human beings are human beings. Prideful, stubborn creatures. There will always be a little guilt between the two of them, and a little blame.

“I have to be honest,” Tom says after a moment, interested in being honest for Bradley’s sake, “sorry we don’t have a better story to give you, about us. It is a little hard to talk about.”

“Why?”

“Well—we don’t know the words we’re supposed to use, for one. It’s your generation who sets the standard for that kind of thing. You young people. We’re a little out-of-date. And…well. I guess we’re just jealous of you. It’s hard to talk about.”

“Jealous?” Bradley repeats quizzically. “Why?”

Tom leans back in his chair and really thinks through what he wants to say. This is one of those impromptu speeches you never really intend to make, but are probably still important to get off your chest. “Maverick and I,” he starts carefully, “will never stop feeling guilty about what we did to you. Ever. You need to know that.” And when Bradley scoffs and huffs and tries to interrupt, he goes on, “Not just pulling your papers from the Academy. It goes back further than that. We will always feel like we deprived you of your father. The merits of that feeling are debatable, sure, but it’s a fact of life. A fact of our lives, anyway. And it’s dictated so much of how we live, and how we’ve lived, over the past thirty years. Part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with you and your mom. Because I felt I owed you that, in return for what I’d taken.”

“You didn’t kill him,” Bradley says. “Or, at least, I never blamed you for killing him. You or Maverick both. You guys were my dads. You didn’t take anything from me. —Excepting the obvious, the Academy, but that was mostly my mom, I guess, so, whatever.”

“I’m just telling you what our lives have been like since the day I met you. Why we did what we did.”

“Okay. But I still don’t understand why you’re jealous.”

Tom smiles, a little faintly. “Because the other part of the reason I came back to Miramar in nineteen-ninety-three was to be with Maverick,” he says, “and I’m jealous of you because I didn’t recognize that at the time. —Everyone hopes, when they have kids—because, look, I’m not your dad, but you are my kid, really—everyone hopes they can bring their kid into a better world than the one they had when they were a kid, and we did. But no one prepares you for how jealous you get when your kid grows up in a better world than you did. I’m not sure people your age understand how hard it was for us when we were your age.”

“I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t think you do. I—I didn’t…” He sighs. “I never meant to fall in love with Mitchell. He never meant to fall in love with me. There certainly were men in relationships in the Navy back then who could make it work—we weren’t those guys. We looked down on those guys. Most people did. And when you were an officer, your job security and your paycheck relied on your subordinates’ respect for you. If we’d rocked the boat, traded away our respect for our relationship, well, we’d have each other, but we’d be out of a job. And then, if we’d been fired—what did we kill all those people for? For nothing! What a waste of all the lives we took! It wouldn’t have been honorable. Would’ve disrespected the Navy, our careers, the men we killed. So we didn’t talk about our relationship. You know that. Didn’t talk about who we were, or what we were doing, or why, because we were afraid of losing our own honor. Didn’t talk about it until the day you two died and came back from the dead. That’s what it took. Maverick still hates talking about some of that stuff, all the labels, all the words—that’s why I sent him to get a bottle at the back of the fridge, he might be out there a while…”

“Cunning,” Bradley says softly, but leaves the space open after he speaks.

Tom looks away. “Maybe this is getting too deep into the weeds. I’m just trying to tell you what it’s been like for us. Not sure how much of this you want to hear.”

“All of it. —All of it.”

Tom clears his throat. “…Well, Maverick keeps trying to convince me that we never wasted any time. And I know there is some truth to that—we didn’t start out liking each other at all—even if we’d been as brave as people your age are nowadays, even if we’d been open with each other about that kind of stuff, we still probably wouldn’t have ended up together. I mean, we really didn’t like each other. Especially right after your dad died, and especially after you left, in two-thousand-two. So maybe it was better for us in the long run that we didn’t talk about it. But I look back on the thirty years I’ve spent with him, and…it still all feels like a waste to me.” Maybe he really is too deep into the weeds. But he just wants Bradley to understand. “Look, Mitchell is, beyond any possible shadow of a doubt, the love of my life. Always has been and always will be. Right? —I just wish I’d known that at the time. I’m jealous of you because you’re exactly the age I was when I came back to Miramar to be with you and your mom and Maverick, and you’re already married, and you won’t ever have to sacrifice any of your honor for your marriage. You’re one of the most respected men in the Navy.”

“So are you, Ice, and you’re also married to another man.”

“I’ll remind you, though it hurts a little, that I’m almost exactly a quarter-century older than you, and you and I got married within a week of each other. I had to wait for times to change.” He holds Bradley’s gaze for a moment, then finishes the last of his dinner and sets his fork down on his plate. “So, if you were ever wondering why Mav and I are a little bitter around you and Jake, well, it’s because we are.”

“Oh,” says Bradley. “See, I always thought it was just because you and Maverick are both notoriously bitter people.”

“We are,” Tom admits through a laugh. Then he continues, “But—you should also know how proud of you we both are. How proud of you we’ve both always been. We’re not very brave men—well, we are, of course, but maybe not in the way that matters. It’s pretty gratifying to have a kid who’s braver than you are. Every parent’s dream, whether we want to admit it or not. You’re brave enough for all of us.”

It’s at this moment that Pete opens the garage door and sticks his head inside and hollers, “Ice, I can’t find it. What about a merlot? Can we do a merlot?”

“No, baby, the sirah,” Tom answers without turning his head. “It’s on the second shelf, you might—have to rearrange some of the bottles—we have too much wine. We need to drink more, me and you.”

“Not a problem,” says Pete, and he shuts the door again.

“It’s on the third shelf,” Tom tells Bradley in an aside. “He’ll find it eventually. He would’ve tried to change the subject six times by now. —The previous Secretary of the Army—he actually just got married this week, I think; I need to send a card—also gay. He and his partner invited Maverick and me out to dinner the last time we were in D.C. Most uncomfortable I’ve ever seen Mav in my whole life. Asking us questions like, ‘How did you guys get together…?’ ‘Was it easier for you guys because you were in the Navy…?’ ‘When did you…know…?’” When Bradley laughs, Tom does, too. It’s really nice, it turns out, to joke about this stuff with someone who understands. “We just made our answers up out of thin air. I was uncomfortable too, admittedly. That’s what I’m saying. Mav and I never learned the vocabulary to answer questions like that.”

Bradley starts taking their plates to the sink. What a good kid. “You know,” he says from the kitchen, glancing over his shoulder when Tom joins him at the counter, “it’s so funny you bitch that you and Mav don’t have a romantic love story, or whatever. When I was a kid, you and him were literally the pinnacle of romance.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yeah. There’s something romantic about the secret, too. When Jake and I made our relationship official—the first time—I begged him to keep it a secret just for a little while. You know; it was sexy, for a few minutes! Something only he and I knew!”

“And you immediately discovered how awful it is, I’m sure,” Tom says noncommittally. “I’m jealous of you that you learned that lesson young. —Yeah, real romantic. Maverick and I could’ve ended each other’s careers fourteen thousand times over. Real romantic.”

“And trusted each other not to,” Bradley points out—

—which makes Tom reconsider. 

Yeah, okay, maybe it’s a little romantic. The way Grimm’s fairytales, once you wipe away all the blood, are just a little romantic. “I’m of the opinion that the only thing getting old is good for is looking back on your life through rose-colored glasses. Sure. Historical revisionism it is. It was a little romantic.”

“What’s a little romantic?” says Pete, stepping into the kitchen and triumphantly brandishing his 2004 petite sirah; “Have I missed something funny? —It was on the third shelf, by the way. Could’ve told me that before I went and reorganized the whole fridge.”

Tom graciously accepts the half-annoyed kiss to the cheek, and answers, “Nothing you would’ve laughed at, I’m afraid.”

“Oh, one of those conversations,” says Pete, hunting around in the drawer for the corkscrew. “If you were planning on continuing, I can go out and rearrange the wine bottles by region instead of by year—” and scoffs when Tom kisses him back to reassure him, conversation’s over.

“Did you know,” Bradley says, “your husband is now openly calling you the love of his life?”

“Oh, yeah,” says Pete with a smile, popping the cork from the bottleneck, “he tells me that all the time. Nothing new.” Tops up their glasses, then deftly changes the subject: “Oh, gosh. I never asked. This is the big news. How are you and Hangman enjoying SOUTHCOM?”

“Oh, God,” says Bradley, rolling his eyes. “Let me tell you…”

“I think we did good,” Pete says later that night—they’re alone now, so he’s fine talking—as he tugs loose the tucked sheets to clamber into bed, and when Tom moves to turn off the light he adds, “No, you can keep reading.”

Tom sets his book down onto his chest and pulls his glasses off anyway. “Well, you and I are known for doing ‘good,’” he muses after a second. “We’re pretty universally renowned for being good at stuff. But, regarding what in particular? —Raising our kid?”

“Yeah. We did good.”

Actually, they didn’t do very well at all. But of course that’s not what Pete means. Pete means: it’s shocking and stunningly fortunate that they did as poorly as they did and still somehow ended up with such a good kid. Tom’s looking up at the ceiling and feeling very small. “How did that happen? Genuinely, how did that happen? I did always build getting married into my plan for my life—but I never thought far enough ahead to consider having kids. And now you and I have a kid who’s in his thirties. How’d that happen? I remember when he could barely walk!”

Pete yawns and rolls over onto his side and closes his eyes. “You and I have a kid who earned a Medal of Honor.”

“I know exactly how that happened” —and doesn’t like to think about it too much. “I suppose we’re just a family of overachievers. A lot of failing upwards, you and me. Somehow we failed our way upwards into a very happy lifelong relationship, a superstar kid…a few dozen medals each, ourselves…”

“That’s life,” says Pete sleepily.

“That is not most people’s lives. You’re aware that our lives look nothing like the average person’s life, right? You understand that?”

“That’s our life.”

Tom considers this. Yeah, it is their life. Wild how that happens. 

He smiles at the singular word life, sets his book on the nightstand, presses a kiss to Pete’s bare shoulder, and turns off the light.

[skyward-floored]

Alright, everyone who wanted a continuation for the three sentence fics for pinned and searching, here you go! I made this longer then it needed to be but that’s ok it was fun *looks guiltily at other things I’m supposed to be writing* ...heh.

Warning for some blood, injury, and uhhh being stuck under a collapsed cave.

——————————————————————

Warriors shut his eyes a moment, trying to focus despite the pain in his middle and the small space he was trapped in that felt like it was closing in around him. He needed to get himself and Wild out of here in one piece, but he had no clue how on earth he was going to do that.

Warriors breathed out, and felt around the hand he’d found, trying to brush the debris off of it. He couldn’t reach any further then a little past the wrist though, and he couldn’t tell how buried Wild was.

He needed to get himself out first, it seemed.

Warriors swallowed and momentarily let go of Wild’s hand, feeling around the large thing he himself was trapped under. It felt heavy, but Warriors tried to shift it anyway, gasping as pure agony burned up his side at the movement.

He fell still again and panted as he waited for the pain to go down, coughing out some of the dust coating his lungs. Even once the worst of it faded, there was still a sharp pulse of pain that remained in his middle, somewhere near his ribs or lungs. Warriors didn’t know for sure, but either way it hurt, and that along with the fact that he was half buried, he knew he wouldn’t be able to free himself or Wild.

It looked like they’d just have to wait for rescue.

Warriors felt out Wild’s hand again, wishing he could move the fabric away from his wrist and check his pulse. It was too thick for him to feel anything, but the angle was wrong for him to pull it off. All he could do was hope Wild was still breathing, that the rest of him was okay.

I don’t even know if his head is uncovered, he thought suddenly, panic stealing his breath . He might be too buried to breathe, I don’t even know if his head is okay, who’s to say it wasn’t bashed in by a rock and I’m holding the hand of a—

A weak cough interrupted his spiraling panic, and Warriors froze, his heart thudding in his ears. Another followed it, faint and rasping, and the fingers in Warriors’ grip twitched just a little.

“Champion?” he asked, barely daring to breathe.

The coughing faded, followed by a wavering inhale, and Warriors held tighter to the hand in his.

“Wild?” he asked again, trying desperately to see though the darkness. He couldn’t make out a thing, but he was certain he hadn’t imagined the noises. Unless of course, he was starting to run out of air and was hallucinating things. Which was always a possibility.

“...W-Wars..?” a voice finally croaked, and Warriors breathed out a sigh of relief, ignoring the ache that shot up his middle due to it. Looks like we still have some air yet.

“Yeah. Yeah, ‘s me,” Warriors whispered back, giving the hand in his a squeeze.

“Wh-what...” Wild stammered, his voice weak and crackling, “wh... where..?”

“Wild, are you hurt?” Warriors asked, and it was quiet for a second.

“...Dunno. Th-think... ‘m arm h’rts...”

Something faintly rumbled in the distance, and Warriors held his breath as a few stray pebbles fell on his face. It faded again moments later, but he thought the pressure on his middle had slightly increased with the noise.

Wild’s breath suddenly hitched. “W’re... buried.”

Warriors breathed out. “Yeah.”

Wild’s breath hitched again, and the hand in Warriors’ began to shake, fingers fumbling as they tried to clutch at Warriors’.

“Wild, hey, easy,” Warriors breathed, holding more tightly to his hand, but he could hear Wild’s breathing speed up.

“No... n-no I can’t—”

“Wild, calm down,” Warriors said in as clear of a voice as he could, then coughed, the pain in his middle feeling worse. That’s starting to hurt an awful lot. “The... the others ‘ll come.”

“W’re buried,” Wild gasped, panic making him cough, and Warriors heard rubble shift, like Wild was trying to move. “W-Wars I can’t—”

“Wild. Listen,” Warriors said in a commanding voice, ignoring the urge to cough again. “You need to stay calm. I don’t kn-know how much air w-we have, we need to stay... calm.”

He grabbed firmly at Wild’s hand, and Wild clutched back at it, his breath still rasping loudly in the enclosed space.

“‘S too small,” Wild whispered, fingers shaking as he clung to Warriors’ hand. “Too... tight, ‘s like the... too small.”

Wild’s voice was small and scared, lacking the usual bright and teasing quality it almost always held. Warriors squeezed his eyes shut as he ran his fingers over Wild’s, then reopened them, trying to think past the fog trying to overtake his senses. Something was trying to break through it, an idea of sorts that they could use to get out, but it hadn’t succeeded yet.

“‘M not a fan of smaller spaces either,” Warriors admitted in a soft rasp. “Not fun. Gimme... ‘n open field any day.”

“Don’ sound so w-worried yr’self,” Wild muttered shakily, and Warriors coughed out a laugh.

“Perfected th-the art of faking it, bud.”

Wild let out a small, hysterical croak, a distant mirror of a laugh, but his frantic gasps had begun to ease. His breath still rasped more then it should, but Warriors was relieved at even the slight improvement.

Things fell silent between them for a moment, and Warriors took a minute to breathe, an action that was getting harder and harder to do successfully. The hot, painful feeling in his middle was starting to grow to an agonizing degree, and the fog was growing thicker around his senses. But the idea that had been forming in his head finally broke through, and Warriors shifted his head towards where Wild was.

“Wild,” he said, unable to keep his voice from hitching with pain. “C-can you reach your... slate?”

The fingers in Warriors’ twitched, then slowly withdrew, the quiet sound of rocks and pebbles being shifted reaching him. For a moment it was all Warriors could hear, that and an occasional shaky inhale like Wild was stopping himself from letting out a more pained noise, but then he heard a small hum.

“I... I c’n touch it,” Wild said, voice more shaky then it had been before. “Don’ think I can... pull it, but... m-might be able to get... Wind.”

“Okay,” Warriors breathed, squeezing his eyes shut and reopening them. “See if... you c-can—”

A cough spilled from his lips, and Warriors was unable to stop the fit he suddenly broke into, coughs that were thick and painful, bringing tears to his eyes with how they made his chest burn.

He wasn’t able to stop for several long moments, and his head spun dizzyingly as he caught his breath, middle full of a liquid fire so intense he could barely breathe.

“Wars?” Wild asked in a sharp, terrified voice, and Warriors coughed again, something warm dripping down his lip.

“‘M fi...” he rasped, dragging in another breath. “Fine, ‘m fine Wild. Call... Wind.”

Wild didn’t reply, but Warriors could feel the disbelief radiating from him as the quiet sounds of him shuffling in the debris sounded out again. The only other noise was Warriors’ wheezing breaths, and it was a few moments before Warriors heard a soft click.

The faintest bit of blue shone through the rocks nearby, not enough to see by, but enough that Warriors knew Wild had succeeded in turning on his slate.

“Sailor,” Wild rasped, trying to make his voice louder, and then coughing due to the effort. “S-Sailor... y’there..?”

He fell silent, and both of them strained their ears, even though Warriors was having an extremely hard time focusing. It felt like a Goron had sat on his chest, and was occasionally stomping around on his ribs, painful and heavy on his bones. But he couldn’t free himself, so it was just something he’d have to deal with.

Warriors shivered, and tried not to wheeze as his middle ached at the movement.

The sooner the both of them got out, the better.

“...hea...know I...see if...”

Warriors and Wild both stilled at the faint words, and listened in silence, Warriors’ heart beating loudly in his ears.

“—ampion! Is that you?!”

Wild let out a slightly hysterical laugh, and Warriors smiled, even though he knew Wild couldn’t see it.

“‘S me, m-me and Wars,” Wild said, relief thick in his voice. The connection that had come through was weak and staticky, and Warriors couldn’t entirely tell who had spoken, but they’d made contact at least.

“Are you two—kay?” the voice continued on, and Warriors thought it might’ve been Twilight’s. “We’re working on digging you—might be a bit.”

“Wars isn’t... he’s pretty b-bad,” Wild replied, and when Warriors opened his mouth to protest that Wild was equally bad-off if not worse, all that came out was another string of thick coughs.

He missed whatever was said next, a swirl of pain and fog clouding his senses, more warmth dripping down his chin. When he finally checked back in, Wild’s hand had grabbed at his again, and Warriors dragged in a rasping breath, the faint light from Wild’s slate growing blurry.

“—old on a bit longer, we’re going as fast as we can,” the voice came through again, more frantic then before. “Just hold on you two, we’re coming, I promise.”

“Y’ hear that W-Wars?” Wild croaked, holding his hand with a shaky grip. “Jus’... hold on.”

“Only ‘f you... do too,” Warriors rasped, and Wild hummed softly in reply, the sound thin with pain.

The voice from the slate said something again, but Warriors didn’t catch it, and he didn’t think Wild did either, based on how the voice seemed to grow frantic again, and louder. He couldn’t make out any of the words, and Warriors began to sink into the fog of pain his mind was fighting so hard to resist.

He thought he might have heard the rumbling sound in the distance again, like the rocks trapping them were being shifted, but he wasn’t sure. Dust fell on his head, but Warriors merely closed his eyes against it, too numb to even be scared any more. If he was going to be crushed, so be it. He only wished he’d gotten the chance to speak with his friends in his own time once more.

The fog had fully enveloped him now. The only thing that was clear was Wild’s hand pressed against his, fingers trembling, coated in dust and dirt and something sticky.

Warriors drifted along like that for what felt like forever, clinging to what few sensations he had left, Wild’s hand the only thing keeping him from fully falling away.

“—found them!”

And then there was light, so bright that Warriors had to close his eyes against it, and couldn’t help the whimper he let out. The voice was louder then ever, like Wild’s slate was right against his ear, and Warriors wished he could cover his ears.

“—get the rocks off, this thing is huge, he must be—”

“—lot of blood, that’s too much—”

“—lia I don’t know how either of them didn’t just—”

“—easy Link, easy, we’re getting you out, hold on.”

Something touched his face, and Warriors flinched, sounds and light and the endless pain in his middle too overwhelming for him to focus on anything. The voices kept floating around and over him, but Warriors could only catch bits of what was spoken.

Was Wild’s slate glitching?

The thing touched his face again, gentle and soft as it carefully turned his head to the side, and when fingers brushed his forehead, Warriors’ scrambled senses finally put together the fact that this must mean they’d finally been rescued.

He wheezed out a soft gasp of relief, and did his best to squeeze Wild’s hand, their fingers still connected. Wild faintly twitched back, and Warriors exhaled, relief swamping over him.

He didn’t remember any of the rest of their rescue, his senses fading out as the others pulled them from the rubble of the cave. Any travel or bandaging was lost to him, and he had no clue how long it had been when he flickered back awake.

The first thing he noticed was that he was on a soft bed, and that there was sunshine and a fresh breeze spilling in through the curtains. Time and Twilight were asleep on chairs by the bed, Wind flopped on their laps, Twilight’s head resting on Time’s shoulder. They all looked exhausted, and Warriors listened to Twilight snore for a minute, then looked down at himself.

His injuries were bandaged, blood and dirt cleaned from his clothes. His scarf had been cleaned as well, the blue bright and soft, and when Warriors looked beside him and saw Wild in a similar state to himself, the relief hit him again, even more intensely.

They’d made it.

They were out, and they were both alive.

Warriors exhaled, closing his eyes again. His head hurt and he was sore what felt like everywhere, not to mention his breathing still held an odd rasp, but he and Wild were okay.

They’d made it.

He felt out Wild’s hand again, and gave it a soft squeeze, relieved when Wild softly squeezed it back. The champion nestled up a bit closer to his side, and Warriors let himself drift off again, feeling perfectly content.

[wisteria-whump]

it's spring so i have to remind everybody that you can and maybe should make your characters afraid of thunderstorms!!

[nompunhere]

You've been staring me down all day. Not that I don't appreciate the attention, but it's... getting a little unnerving. My reading is interrupted a rather loud rumble from your stomach, from your position on the couch. I look up from my book to see you, of course, still looking at me. There's a sort of conflict in your eyes. Consideration, as you eye my curled up form, tucked into my favorite chair.

I offer a nervous smile and speak up. "So, eheh, sounds like we're about ready to get started on lunch-?"

"Get in my belly."

...I must've misheard you. "I- Sorry, what was that?"

"Get. In. My belly."

That low growl hardly sounds like you. I can see saliva building up at the corners of your mouth, your features painted in sharp relief to my eyes as fight-or-flight starts to kick in, involuntarily. It must be evident in my expression, by the way you jerk that piercing gaze off of me so abruptly, bowing your head to run your hands down your face.

Hesitantly, I set the book aside and sit up, tense. "I'm- I'm afraid I.. don't understand?"

You growl again and snap your eyes back up to mine. "It can't wait any longer—I need you in there. Now."

I flinch back and scrabble against the chair as you abruptly stand and start towards me. I can't get my limbs to work right. I don't- what- "What's going on? I-I- W-what are you- you doing?"

"You have no idea how long I've been holding back, do you? For your sake. You'll be fine. But I'm not, and I won't be, not unless you can sate me." You're exceedingly close, now, looming, arms to either side of me and watching my every move with what I now recognize as hunger in your eyes.

Out of panic, my arm flies toward your face, but you catch me by the wrist before it makes contact. The reflexes of a predator, I can only imagine. I tug at it with a whimper, cowering against the back of my seat. I trusted you, but now- now-

"I don't want this either. But this has to happen, before I start actually hunting down strangers. This is the better option. You'll be fine, I promise you. But I need this."

Your growl is the last thing I hear before my world goes dark, and damp, and hot.

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

It's... calmer than I expected. No acid, for one thing. Seems you weren't lying about me being alright. ...Physically, at least. The walls shift and knead, but they're strangely passive. You'd gone quiet after, er, eating me, even if your guts hadn't. It took a while for you to come to your senses and reassure me that you truly mean no harm, dragged out of your instinctual post-meal bliss by the sound of my terrified and betrayed sobs. I'd only just calmed down a bit, soothed by the sound of regret and urgency in your voice to make amends, before you succumbed to the urge to nap.

And now, I... don't know what to do. It seems safe enough, at least? So here I sit, hidden away deep within you, listening to your sleeping body's inner workings. All that fear, slipping away into.. boredom? ...Peace, let's call it that.

It's soft, at least. I think the warmth is starting to get to me, bringing with it a deep drowsiness. Maybe this.. isn't so bad. Maybe I can still trust you. Maybe I could, mm, join you, in your.. nap...

———————————-

DNI NSFW blogs, blogs that post exclusively hard and/or fatal vore, weight gain blogs, proshippers, TERFs, ace exclusionists, etc.

[averlym]

,,, sun-dappled sheets...

[pyrepostings]

whumpee who's only given soft water to drink/bathe with.

[ff7-has-taken-me-over]

(Au where Daniel comes to West Valley a year or two before he does in the movie)

After the beach the guys give Daniel a chance because he’s stubborn as shit and they find he’s not into Ali. Not even into girls but that’s nothing new around their part of the country. They find he’s actually really funny and annoyingly nice and loyal. Daniel gets so fucking worked up and angry when people say shit about them, even if it is true and the guys find it both amusing and kinda nice to have another one of them.

Daniel sort of becomes the baby of the group, both because he’s the youngest (both in age and in terms of being apart of their group) and because the guys all think he’s adorable. Not that they tell him or each other that, because that’s kinda gay.

It’s not until there’s this match, they’re all competing and Daniel’s there to cheer them on. He didn’t have much interest in participating but he enjoyed watching the guys compete, found it fun and liked the post victory high they all held.

Johnny wins (again) but Dutch comes second this year and he’s absolutely glowing with pride. He usually gets disqualified after round 2, too hopped up on adrenaline and ready to fight anything that breathes funny.

The guys all come out to the parking lot, looking for Daniel so they can all head to their favourite diner and celebrate. Thoughts came to an abrupt stop when they find him in the parking lot, leaning against Johnny’s car with a scowl and some big guy from the tournament standing in front of him. He’s got his arms crossed, the guy leaning with one arm up by his head while the other keeps trying to tug at Daniel’s arm.

The Jersey kid keeps pulling away, glaring as he says something or other. The big guy laughs, hand coming up to cup Daniel’s cheek.

The guys don’t need to know what happens next since their all running forward. Dutch is the fastest and loudest, pulling the guys attention toward them before he’s tackling him to the ground. Daniel’s eyes go wide but he doesn’t get the chance to react much, Tommy and Bobby coming up to him and dragging him away as Johnny, Dutch and Jimmy square off with the guy.

So maybe they care for Daniel a little more than they were willing to admit to themselves. And maybe Daniel’s been crushing on them since he met them all a year ago. And maybe they all turn out to be a bunch of possessive, jealous assholes when literally anyone tries hitting on their baby. And maybe! They take him home to Johnny’s (cause the guys parents are gone again) and take their turns and their sweet ass times showing him exactly who he belongs to now that they’ve gotten their heads out of their asses.

Daniel shows up to school Monday, limping like a mf, sporting a shit ton of hickies (some of them just barely hidden under his clothes) and with the widest smile anyone has ever seen on him. The Cobras don’t really act any different, nor does Daniel honestly, but everybody knows there’s a change in their dynamic.

It’s in the way Dutch gives up his food even though he’s the most possessive over it. It’s how Bobby smiles at the mere mention of Daniel. How Tommy snuggles in close to Daniel in the halls or at lunch. How Jimmy quiets near instantly when Daniel places a hand on his arm or smiles his way. How Johnny hovers constantly and glares at everyone who looks a moment too long.

Even Daniel has changed around them. He’s a little softer (more tame some would even dare say) has these little tells with each Cobra Kai member to get them to do whatever he wants. It’s kinda adorable to see the baddest kids in school wrapped around his little finger.

[ineffablemossy]

Flufftober / Good Omentober Day 1

Mashing up the fluff and GO prompts because I love my fluffy celestial beings <3 Posting on AO3 tomorrow as its late now, I'm as tired as a hard-working angel

Prompt: I got you / Pre-Fall

Words: 2419

Rating: Teen I guess (SFW, kissing only)

---

They padded down the long, bright corridor, the white flagstones cool under their feet. Leaning round pillars and corners as they moved lightly on the balls of their feet. A shock of ruby curls bounced around their ears as they half-ran to and fro.

"Stars, where are you? Uhh, I hate these offices, go on forever and ever just boring white, white, pale white, off-white, bone white, bright white..." Raphael stopped and sighed, planting their hands on their hips. "Aziraphale! Where are yo.. oh!" They called out and turned, spotting an opening in the sheer white wall. Through the doorway, they could see a desk piled high with parchments and scrolls.

Grinning, they approached the entrance slowly, dragging their fingers on the smooth surface of the wall as they peered in. On the desk amid the stacks of documents, soft white curls peeked out. Something fluttered in their chest. Oh, now that's a nice white, white as the brightest star. They let out a soft hum, the heart beating in their corporation suddenly feeling twice as big as a moment before.

Raphael took only three steps to reach the desk, their long gainly legs almost dancing across the room. They knelt down to better see the chaos around the Principality and chuckled softly. Some of the papers had toppled, falling over the angel's head which lay unmoving, cheek pressed against the translucent surface. Aziraphale was half sprawled across the desk, one hand still holding onto a quill. His back rose and fell slowly. Raphael rested their forearms on the edge of the desk and leaned towards the peaceful, sleeping face of their beloved. Aziraphale let out the softest of snores, and Raphael scrunched their face in delight.

"Look at you," they whispered, "you're gorgeous."

They raised a hand to move the fallen bits of parchment from Aziraphale's sleeping form, then gently plucked the quill from his hand. The angel snorted a half-snored intake of breath then let out a long, low moan of displeasure, brow furrowing. Raphael moved to smooth the brilliant curls, making soothing noises.

"Shhh sshhh, it's alright Angel. You fell asleep, you must be exhausted," said Raphael. They didn't habitually sleep, but sometimes these new corporations they'd been issued with seemed to get very weary. It would all settle down in time, they'd been reassured, just a matter of getting used to it.

Aziraphale huffed and moved his forearms under his head, glaring up at Raphael through tousled hair and dust motes from the papers. He closed his eyes and pressed his head into the redhead's palm. And huffed again.

"What have you been up to? I expected to see you ages ago. I guess you've been buried in plans for Earth, hmmm?" Raphael grinned and wiggled their eyebrows. Aziraphale moaned in response, but they could see his ears move with a smile hidden behind those robust arms.

Raphael bounced up and circled the desk, placing a delicate hand on the other angel's back, between the shoulder blades. Aziraphale felt warm, even through their robes. He always felt warm, it made it feel so cosy being next to him. He was like a tiny Sun all for them, and when he smiled at them, well. It made them feel all shimmering and liquid inside, like a brand-new nebula shifting and twinkling in a perfect sky.

"So...much...paperwork..." Aziraphale's voice was muffled by his sleeves. Raphael slipped their hands down and around his waist, giving a gentle tug.

"Come on Angel. You need some rest. The paperwork will be here later," their voice dropped to a mumble, "s'not like anyone else is going to do it for you."

Aziraphale either didn't hear it pretended not to, and pushed himself up off his arms. He turned towards the tall angel, eyes hooded and dark with sleepiness. Raphael giggled and reached up to peel a scrap of parchment that had stuck to his cheek. Aziraphael cleared his throat and half smiled up at them.

"My dear, what are you doing here? Has so much time passed already? I am sorry if I missed our rendez..." he yawned widely, "vous."

"Oh don't be a silly angel, I knew you'd be here," they gestured widely towards the long corridor, "somewhere. Come on now, let's get you up." They tugged at Aziraphale's waist again with one arm, holding out the other to catch his hand.

Aziraphale pushed back in the chair and rose, enveloping the angel's slender hand in his own. Raphael saw him blush and turn towards the doorway.

"Oh no. I don't. I don't want anyone to see me taking my leave on work time though. That's why I stayed here, I was only going to rest my eyes for a moment. I should stay, I really MUST stay." He turned back towards the desk. Raphael tugged on his hand and bit their lip to stop the exasperated sigh that rose unbidden.

"Oh no you don't! You are coming with me!" They said firmly. Aziraphale spun back around, eyebrows knitting together and lips pursed in annoyance.

"Raphael it's not so simple! You know the rules, we..." he stopped as Raphael placed a long finger against his lips.

"Sssh, now, tired angel. Stroppy angel," they winked at him mischievously and rubbed their thumb across his knuckles, feeling the wide strong bones found there. "I know a place. No one ever goes there, I promise." Aziraphale sighed heavily them met their gaze, all the fight and heat drained out of his face.

"Promise? You're sure?"

"Absolutely! Just a couple of..." they looked up and waved their spare hand around, "Ngh I don't know. Units of time, we've not really nailed down a name for them yet. But you know, a couple of units let's say. Then you'll feel all better, and no one will have noticed a thing."

They looked down at him, tilting their head forward with wide eyes, and blinked a few times in succession. "Pleeease..."

Aziraphale blushed again as he met their gaze. "Alright then, but just for a little while!" He rushed out the words.

Raphael wiggled on the spot, feeling very pleased with themself. Squeezing that big, strong hand they led Aziraphale to the doorway before popping their head around the edge and looking both ways. The corridor was empty in both directions.

"All clear, come on!" Raphael said. They rushed through the doorway, hopping along the shiny floor as though it prickled their soles. They turned back the way they'd come in, heading in the vague direction of the stairwell.

They turned around, feeling Aziraphale's hand heavy in theirs. The angel was yawning again and they couldn't help tilting their head and letting out a soft sound of adoration. When they turned back, the door to the stairwell was suddenly in front of them.

"I'll never understand your offices, Angel." They pushed through the door and the two angels found themselves in a white and grey space, with stairs spiralling up and down. Raphael looked over the railing and shivered when they saw the gloomy blackness swallowing up the stairs far below.

"Right, we're going up. Come on Angel! It's not too far."

"I do hope not or I might just fall asleep right here on the stairs," Aziraphale said tritely. They started up the stairs together, side by side.

"Mm, don't think that'd be too comfy. What I've got in mind is much better." They flashed a smile at their companion.

After a few turns around and up the spiral, the stairway narrowed. They ascended one more flight and found themselves in front of a nondescript grey door.

"This is it," Raphael fizzed inside. They loved showing their Angel new things, little secrets they found here and there across the Universe. It made them feel something divine when they shared these moments. They raised their hand to the door and pushed, leading Aziraphale in by the hand.

The door closed behind them, and it was dark. A warm, velvet dark that lapped over them.

"Let there be light," Raphael whispered and made the tiniest motion. It was important that no one find this place, so they used the tiniest miracle they could. A small orb appeared in their hands glowing just enough to show them the floor and close surroundings.

They started forward again with Aziraphale trailing very close behind. They could feel his breath on the back of the neck. It sent tingles down their spine.

The shape of a doorway materialised out of the shadows and they stepped through. There was more light here, and Raphael snuffed out the light. They drew Aziraphale forward and snugged their arm around his waist. He was looking at them quizzically.

"Angel, look up," said Raphael and they both craned their heads back. Aziraphale gasped then.

Above them, the ceiling was not high. But it was entirely made of glass. Beyond the transparent canopy, the Vaults of Heaven were laid out in all their glory. The dark sky shifted through shades of dark blue, to purple, to almost black, with ribbons of lilac and pink and green meandering across the firmament. Golden stars twinkled, scattered across the vista like thousands of tiny lamps straining to shine the brightest. It was a singular, ethereal beauty. Despite all the work Raphael had done creating star systems, nebulas, and novas; there was still something a bit special about that view. The light coppery hairs on their arms prickled and stood up at the sight.

"Whaddya think?" They whispered.

"It's.. it's.. just divine! Beautiful!" Aziraphale paused for a moment. "Gorgeous, even!" Raphael grinned from ear to ear.

"I hoped you'd like it."

"Oh, I do. Very, very much." Aziraphale turned towards them, a contented smile creasing his eyes. "Thank you so much dearest! It really is wonderful!" Raphael felt their cheeks heating up.

"Aha, and that's not all!" They moved further into the room, easier to see as their eyes adapted to the low light. The room didn't appear well kept, strewn with a variety of oddly shaped dark shadows. Some of them looked like boxes.

In The middle was a particularly large shadow. Raphael smiled and reached down, clutching a large piece of fabric and pulling dramatically. They spun round and let the fabric flutter down to the ground, revealing a dusty, but soft-looking chaise longue with plush navy blue velvet.

"Now, come over here Angel," they stretched out their hand. Aziraphale took a few steps and then lurched forward, arms flailing.  Raphael rushed towards him a step and felt the full force of the angel slam into them. They toppled backwards, tripping in turn against the end of the bed.

"Ouf!" Aziraphale said as he fell on top of the fiery-haired angel, who had instinctively wrapped their arms around his shoulders. "Oh darling, I'm so sorry. I tripped on something." He tried to raise himself up but Raphael tightened their arms around him, giving him a reassuring squeeze.

"S'alright Angel, I've got you," Raphael whispered into Aziraphale's ear and nuzzled into his soft curls. The smell of him was intoxicating. They felt him relax into their embrace, their breath rising and falling together.

"We should probably move a little dearest," Aziraphale's voice was muffled again, this time by Raphael's robes. "Shame to not make full use of this lovely spot you've found."

"Mm, I suppose you're right. I was just, you know, enjoying this for a moment." Raphael unwrapped their arms to release the angel, then scooted up onto the recliner which was practically a bed. Conveniently sized for two angels in fact. They leaned back and beckoned to Aziraphale with wide open arms.

Aziraphale climbed onto the bed on both knees and almost crawled upwards towards them. The sight made them feel giddy and glad to be lying down already. The Principality leaned over, planting a thick arm roped with muscle on each side of their fire-crowned head. They licked their lips, taking in as much detail as they could in the dim half-light. Looking up, they found Aziraphale's gaze. His eyes sparkled, shifting tones of grey and dark blue. Feeling his tender smile beaming down at them Raphael thought they might just discorporate there and then.

Aziraphale shifted and Raphael felt his hand against their cheek. Their breath hitched in response to the touch.

"You never cease to amaze me, my dearest darling Raphael." The angel's voice was warm. "My existence wouldn't be nearly as interesting without you."

Then they felt their lover's breath hot on their face, and they reached up to swing their arms around his back.

"Come here Angel."

Aziraphale dipped and they felt his soft, plush lips meet theirs. Sparks shivered through their limbs as they kissed, contented sounds escaping them. They closed their eyes, losing themself in the moment, in the warmth and love rolling off of their Angel's mouth and tongue. When Aziraphale broke their touch Raphael sighed into the space between them. They brushed noses affectionately, and they couldn't help but grin lazily when their beloved shifted to place a soft kiss on their forehead.

"I do love doing that you know," Aziraphale murmured into their hair.

"Mm, me too. S'great" Raphael replied. "But you should be getting some rest now. Come and lie down here." They patted the velvet beside them. "We can kiss some more next time you're free and not falling asleep under paperwork!" They teased.

Aziraphale shifted to lie down and they both looked up at the star-lined vista above them. Raphael wriggled closer, nestling into Aziraphale's shoulder and breathing deeply, trying to inhale the very scent of him, to capture the olfactive memory of the moment.

They shook out their wings then and draped one across the both of them. Aziraphale slid an arm under their neck and reached down to stroke the downy feathers st their shoulder blades.

"That you my dear, that's very nice. Very, what was it that word you found again? Cosy?"

"Mm, yeah, cosy," they sighed, tingles running through them as the angel's fingers stroked their feathers.

They both looked up in silence at the celestial skyscape, their breathing gradually slowing.

"I think I might quite like to come here again, with you darling." Aziraphale's voice was thick and heavy with sleep.

"Me too Angel, me too."

Raphael heard gentle snores and smiled happily. Then, tucked up warm and cosy and loved, they closed their eyes and slept.

---

tagging @disaster-dog thank you for the pre-Fall prompt!

[hopeintheashes]

Buddie watching a scary movie that’s it that’s the prompt

I was tagged by @renecdote and @mellaithwen for Seven Sentence Sunday, so I'm going to count this for that and also throw in a bit of a sickfic angle, just because.

"No, come on, he's behind you—" Buck gestures at the screen with a blanket-covered hand like he can affect the outcome of a movie released 40 years ago. "Why are people in these movies so dumb?"

"Wouldn't have a movie otherwise," Eddie mumbles against Buck's shoulder.

"True." Eddie shivers and Buck lifts his arm so that Eddie can tuck himself against his side, then smooths the blanket back over them both. "You doing okay? You don't sound good."

Eddie sighs, and there's faint congestion in the sound. "I don't know. I was hoping it was nothing."

Buck hums and pulls him close. From Eddie, that's basically an admission that he feels like shit. "We don't have to finish the movie. Do you want to go to bed?"

"No." Exhausted, but sure. "I like your running commentary."

Buck nudges Eddie to sit up enough for Buck to turn sideways on the couch, then settled back with Eddie heavy and warm against his chest. "Better?" he asks quietly.

"Yeah," Eddie breathes, and sinks down into the warmth. "This is good."

Feel free to send in soft fall prompts, either from this list or not. :-)

[seaside-writings]

Prompt #518

"Looks like you're stuck with me forever,"

"And that's supposed to be a bad thing?"

[dizaryswrites]

TW: Suicidal thoughts, mentioned past abuse. See ao3 notes for more details & story context

Gotham was beautiful.

Up high, towering over bright streets and big tops, it was almost peaceful. The breeze wasn’t bitingly cold. It was lovely as it whispered in his ears. Gentle as it ruffled his hair and caressed his cheek. Tonight, he listened happily as it sang about the ones loved and lost.

The ones loved and failed.

A flaming sword clenched tight in his hands, mindlessly slicing through clothes, flesh, bone. Clarity and horror colliding at the same time.

“…Alfie?”

A solitary tear dripped from his cheek, spiraling down, down, down until Dick lost sight of it amongst the street lights. He didn’t deserve any more than that.

After all, murderers didn’t get to mourn.

The sharp bang of the metal rooftop access door ruined the peaceful reverie. “Dick!” Someone, clearly winded from their sprint up the apartment building stairs, called. Why were they in such a rush? What was so important about him? Why would anyone care about reaching him so quickly? “Hey man,” they said with a forced levity, “Whatcha doing up there?”

“Getting perspective.” Dick continued to stare out at Gotham, the city that never would’ve been his home if it weren’t for one act of violence. What would his life be like if he was still with the circus? Would he still be with Haly’s in some other state or maybe even another country? Or would the universe have routed him back to this city in the end? Was Gotham his inescapable fate? Even running to Bludhaven failed to sever the tie between them.

Reluctantly, he tore his eyes away from the miniature figures moving below to glance over his shoulder. Hunched over, hands braced on his knees, was Jason. “Looking for answers.”

“To what?” Jason’s voice sounded steadier now, less winded. He was straightening up, taking a step closer.

“Why. Why is it that despite spending my life fighting for independence…I always lose it? My mind, my free will, it gets overwritten again and again. My body is used for other people's ends. And when I’m released…my life is in tatters. What makes me such a perfect target?”

“Dunno.” Gravel crunched as Jason took a couple steps closer. “Life’s a bitch, that’s the answer I’ve come up with.”

Continue reading

[softboy-pillowman]

Soft-tober Day #6: Fall Leaves

Even Softboy can't resist the allure of a pile of fallen leaves.

[scham-wcan]

Winter, carrying Cinder to bed after a successfully relaxing date night: I love you~

Cinder, half awake: Noo, we’re not done yet… There’s still half a movie to-

Winter: Alright, hush down, Ashes. We can finish it tomorrow

Cinder, being sat down and assisted in undressing: Promise?

Winter, with Cinder’s shirt neatly folded in hand: Promise, now, arm up

Cinder, raising her left arm weakly, as Winter goes through disconnecting it and setting it aside to charge: You know you’re the best, right?

Winter: Mhm, you have been telling me so all night

Cinder: good, now comfy clothes?

Winter, laughing as she barely pushes Cinder backward into the pillows: No, now bed

Cinder, having herself buried in the covers and blankets: Aww, then… come here and let me hold you.

Winter, getting in the other side after getting herself also ready: Yes yes, calm down, Fireball. Good night, Cinder

Cinder, with her arm around Winter as the hold is returned: Go… nigh… Damn I am tired

Winter, pressing their brows together tenderly as Cinder falls asleep: Told you so… Idiot

[randonauticrap]

𝓒𝓸𝔃𝔂𝓽𝓸𝓫𝓮𝓻 𝓦𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓰𝓮

.

Hello, spooky friends! I am hosting a fluffy writing challenge this October, that I am colloquially calling "Cozytober"! We all know about Kinktober, the legendary horny phase that takes most of us over during this month. But what about those softer moments? When you're too cold to move, or just want a nice cup of hot cocoa with your favorite fictional boyfriend? That's what this writing challenge is for!

I have compiled a list of 30 total prompts; 15 general prompts and 15 dialogue prompts. Feel free to use any of them for any character/fandom of your choice. Use them once, use them more than once, or don't use them at all! It's up to you. All I ask is that you credit the event list to me at @randonauticrap, and use this hashtag (#Cozytober Writing Challenge 2022) for the event. I am SO excited to read all your warm Fall fuzzies.

[silhouettecrow]

365 Days of Writing Prompts: Day 286

Adjective: Calm

Noun: Waves

Definitions for those who need/want them:

Calm: not showing or feeling nervousness, anger, or other strong emotions; (of a place) peaceful, especially in contrast to recent violent activity; (of the weather) pleasantly free from wind; (of the sea) not disturbed by large waves

Waves: a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore; a ridge of water between two depressions in open water; a shape seen as comparable to a breaking wave; an effect resembling a moving wave produced by successive sections of the crowd in a stadium standing up, raising their arms, lowering them, and sitting down again; (literary) the sea; a sudden occurrence of or increase in a specified phenomenon, feeling, or emotion; a gesture or signal made by moving one's hand to and fro; a slightly curling lock of hair; a tendency to curl in a person's hair; (physics) a periodic disturbance of the particles of a substance which may be propagated without net movement of the particles, such as in the passage of undulating motion, heat, or sound; a single curve in the course of a wave; a variation of an electromagnetic field in the propagation of light or other radiation through a medium or vacuum