#the dream sequence is so haunting

[deep-sea-gigantinism]

paper hearts mulder is the definition of doomed by the narrative. he finds himself in that same dream of samantha’s abduction, repeating those same lines, reaching for that same gun, even though he knows that he’s trapped in a memory. he’s torn between trying to see the memory more clearly and his desire to change its outcome. i wonder how often this scene plays out in his dreams and how many different ways he’s tried to alter it. he doesn’t at all seem surprised when it begins.

[couchtaro]

Do you get together with your friends once a week to imagine best friends you made up holding and getting held in desperation and terror as one of them rapidly turns to stone, the other flooding her with his literal life force, which manifests as a visceral compulsion to survive, in the hopes that it will somehow help her resist, offering “the closest thing to a prayer he has” as he begs his warlock patron to do anything at all, telling said patron “you don’t know her, but she’s everything” and pleading for her to live while watching her literal actual light gradually extinguish as the petrification overtakes her, all the while she is using what little mobility she still has to hurl lasers at the monsters attacking their friends who are defending them so he can focus his energy on saving her. Or are you normal

@justabitscrewy used every single one of her turns in a session-long combat to hold Phaela and RP her guts out and like. My word. I have to lay down. Let them hug. They’re goin thru it

ID and slightly more context below the cut

Image 1: a roughly sketched digital drawing of two D&D characters. Izen, a drider, is shown in his form of dread, a defensive state designed to frighten off attackers. In this form his face is bare skull, with four pairs of hollow eye sockets and purple mandibles on either side of his jaw. Tears run down the stark bone of his face. He is wearing the bracers that Phaela decorated for him by wrapping them in ribbon. With both hands, he holds Phaela’s face. She is a tiefling woman who looks up at him with wide eyes. Izen’s prized possession, a talisman secured by a ring of straps, is wrapped around her shoulders. Her chin is tilted up as if the stone spreading up her body is a rising tide she is trying to stay afloat in. She is petrified up to her neck with only her head and extended left arm free. Both are suffused by a starry blue glow, which is no longer present in the dull stone overtaking her. She holds starlight in her free hand that she has been trying to defend them with. Her expression is a mixture of desperation, determination, fear, and guilt.

Images 2 and 3: a roughly sketched comic. 1) Izen faces us. Phaela wraps her arms around him with her back to us, her head pressed into his chest and shoulders hunched. His hands rest on her back. 2) Izen bends down to hug Phaela properly, wrapping his arms around her and resting his head on her shoulder. His pedipalps also wrap around her for extra huggage. 3) Izen straightens and lifts Phaela up off the ground, his pedipalps forming a sort of platform that she sits on. 4) Phaela curls into Izen like a child, tail hanging limply down. One of his hands securely circles her back, the other rests on the back of her neck. He rests his head on her shoulder and one of his spider legs comes forward to hold her as well. Maximizing points of contact here. 5) Phaela wildshapes into a cat just to get super extra held. She is nestled in his arms, tucked under his chin, being gently stroked. Her face is still not visible.

End image ID.

[definitelynotshouting]

genuinely cannot remember if ive shown you guys this before but a while ago i rewrote that initial dream sequence from everything i loved and feared if anyone wants to see it

[dmicld]

Could I get a 15 for anatomy of a haunting and 22 for anything!!

yes of course!!!!

15. where did you get the inspiration for this fic?

oh jeez this one is hard because a lot of my fics don’t really have ‘inspiration’ in a concrete way but i will answer to the best of my ability bc there were a few things guiding how i wrote this fic.

so while writing sunlight seen there’s a scene that takes place in a forest in charon and i sort of had a little notion while writing it that i wanted to put dmcl fully in nature for a fic? and have elements of pathetic fallacy/an emotional arc that used nature as one of its components so that was sort of in the back of my mind

i also think the idea of dimitri and haunting is sort of a natural line of thought but i wanted to take it a step further and do something more like… well what if they were haunting each other? it wouldn’t really look the same. they wouldn’t ‘haunt’ in the same way

and then very early on in the writing process the title ‘the anatomy of a haunting’ just like… came to me dhdgsjsj and so i decide to let that phrase really structure the fic in some ways by adding in the ‘parts’ of a haunting—the things you need for it to be a haunting. this didn’t really change much except some of the pacing (where i chose to break some scenes essentially) and it helped influence the overall tone—i wanted the fic to feel eerie? i hope that came across djdhdjdj

andddd that’s abt it? i hope that answers the question. i was really looking to create a certain… atmosphere? with anatomy and that guiding/inspired a lot of my choices overall

22. have readers ever misinterpreted something from a fic or given it a new meaning that you didn’t intend?

YES lmao when someone commented on ‘second sight’ and said that they were really glad that dimitri blowing claude’s back out helped him decide to stay on for the rest of the war djdgsjs dhsgshs. i did NOT intend to imply that so early but it’s the funniest comment i’ve ever gotten so. love that for them.

[oh-snapperss]

realized mid dream last night that there’s a possibility that when the players run out of time not everyone might know about it… because technically there’s no death sequence involved… just spectator mode… so no death message…

anyways that’s gonna haunt me now. cheers!

[aethon-recs]

Tomarrymort Intermediate Pack — 16 Longfic Recs

As a follow-up to the Tomarrymort starter pack rec list, I put together a list of Intermediate Reads that are best enjoyed with a bit of context about the ship. If you’ve been reading Tomarrymort for a while, or have read everything in the starter pack, this next set of recs is for you. 

These recs feature a sampling of different authors than the first list, with an emphasis on underrated fic that I think deserve more recognition (hard to define, but for the most part, I tried to find fics with fewer than 2000 kudos). So I hope that even for the readers who’ve been reading Tomarrymort for a long time, there’s something new in here to discover.

This is Part 2 of a 3-part series (see here for Part 1, and Part 3 will be an Advanced reading list that will feature works of a more challenging nature). In the meantime, please enjoy these additional 1.8 million words of wonderful Tomarrymort fic.

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Tomarrymort Intermediate Recs

aurora polaris by @aglassroseneverfades (E, 136k, WIP)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Harry wakes up one day with no memory of his past, upon which he’s greeted by a handsome, doting older man named Gaunt who claims that he and Harry have been in a relationship together for years.  Why I rec it: A haunting psychological horror where the truth slowly creeps up on Harry that his domestic life with his devoted partner Gaunt is not as idyllic as it initially appears. The twisting, unhinged depths of Voldemort’s obsession in this fic are so beautifully portrayed. There were chills that ran down my spine as Harry starts to get his memories back and the mystery of what happened starts to unravel. I love the pacing in this fic — there’s no one big reveal; it’s a slowly unfolding sequence that gets delightfully darker and more fucked-up as the fic progresses.

dawn of a death of a dream by @cindle-writes (E, 66k, WIP)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Tom Riddle appears in London the morning of Voldemort’s defeat, with the last thing he remembers from 1944, and quickly realizes that Harry Potter is the key to all the answers that he’s looking for.  Why I rec it: A light-hearted take on the identity porn trope, full of playful banter and delightfully charged chemistry between Harry and Tom. It’s usually Harry who’s thrown back through time, so it’s fun to see Tom scramble to figure out what’s going on when he’s pulled forward into Harry’s time. It’s also fun to see Harry try every avenue to prove that this mysterious new Tom is the Tom Riddle, even as he ends up hitting dead ends, and subsequently falls so deep into his obsessive tendencies that he refuses to let Tom out of his sight.

My Lord, Master, My Soul by FletchleyRose (E, 69k, complete)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Voldemort captures Harry after the final battle and decides to break him — not with torture, but with pleasure and softness. Why I rec it: The soft, creepy non-con in here is so memorable and excellent! Voldemort takes a different approach to breaking in his horcrux than what we usually see, and this particular approach leads to such delicious and hot smut scenes between them wherein Harry utterly succumbs to all the softly pleasurable attentions. I can never get enough of darkly twisted captive Harry stories and all the ways that Voldemort keeps Harry isolated and utterly reliant on him. I gasped out loud at the part where Voldemort made it so that Harry can only speak Parseltongue — this exactly the kind of fucked-up content that is so perfect and fitting for this ship.

(never) let me go by @perhaps-sunlight (M, 28k, complete)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Harry returns to Hogwarts after the war for eighth year, and he’s the only person in the castle who can see and talk to the ghost of Tom Riddle.  Why I rec it: This fic completely destroyed me. The story unfolds in such a poignant and haunting way — it feels like the most natural thing for Harry to feel such a strong connection with Tom and fall in love with him as the year progresses. The angst in here is so delicately layered and beautifully portrayed — Harry’s feelings are muddled with a growing hope that Tom doesn’t have to move on to the afterlife and the desperation that he feels when he realizes they’re running out of time — such that the emotional beats will end up resonating for a long time after you’ve finished reading this fic.

One Year In Every Ten by @saintsenara (E, 124k, WIP)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If a series of gruesome murders 10 years after the war has Harry and the rest of the Aurors completely stumped, and Harry figures out how to bring Voldemort back from beyond the Veil in exchange for his help in solving the murders.  Why I rec it: This is a spectacular and richly layered murder mystery featuring incredibly complex character dynamics and gorgeously lavish prose. I am blown away at the sophistication of the storytelling here — we get to delve into Voldemort’s past and so many hidden layers of his character, as well as how Harry has been handling the ‘picture-perfect’ life he’s always wanted after the war (in short: not well) — and in between, following all the clues and disparate threads of a mysterious serial killer case that could be its own standalone casefic! One of the most impressively sweeping pieces of writing I’ve seen in this ship, and there isn’t an element of this fic that I don’t absolutely adore.

Perfect Places by @skaelds (NR, 72k, complete)

Setting: Post-Canon Premise: If Voldemort dies in the Final Battle, and then wakes up in a strange house with no one but Harry Potter for company, and there is no way for either of them to get out. Why I rec it: I absolutely love the trapped-in-a-room trope, and how Voldemort and Harry have to work out their differences if they want to have any hope of getting out. I adore that the entire fic is told from Voldemort POV — his arrogance and his malevolence and his rage and the utter force of his emotions are so palpable. The emotional journey in this fic is so intense from beginning to end, as they eventually come around to an understanding about each other and figure out a way out.

Promises, Promises (part 1) / Dreams in the Dark (part 2) by @mosiva (E, 72k, complete)

Setting: Time-Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry is accidentally thrown back in time to Tom’s 6th year, and then suffers a bout of amnesia from a memory-loss spell and can’t remember anything about Tom Riddle or why he spent all semester trying to avoid him.  Why I rec it: A brilliant fast burn featuring amnesia trope and tons of delicious dubcon. Tom is at his manipulative peak here, as he tries every underhanded technique to first figure out exactly what is going on with that new transfer student Harry Evans, and then when he’s figured it out, doing everything he can to keep Harry within his grasp. I cannot say enough about how hot the smut is throughout this 2-part series — so many layers of dubcon and manipulation that blew me away at every turn.

Sunspots by @crowcrowcrowthing (E, 249k, WIP)

Setting: Alternate Universe Premise: If Harry grows up in the muggle world without realizing he has magic, but he suspects there’s a bigger world out there because he’s had recurring dreams featuring Tom’s horcruxes his entire life.  Why I rec it: One of the most unique takes on a book 1 rewrite that I’ve ever seen. First of all, the characters are aged up to college-age, and since Hogwarts starts at 18 here rather than at 11, there’s a lot of character dynamics that are possible to explore with older characters that aren’t possible with 11-year-olds. Secondly, Harry has access to each of Tom’s horcruxes through a magical dreamscape dimension he can access in his sleep, and he has unique and distinct relationships with each of them, including (the main) Voldemort, so there’s a lot of fascinating and multi-faceted Harry and Tom dynamics. Also, the descriptions of magic in this fic are just stunning; it’s clear that a lot of thought went into the magical worldbuilding here that makes you feel as excited and awestruck by the concept of magic as reading the Harry Potter books for the first time.

Tender Reigns Our Night by @noumena-writes (M, 69k, WIP)

Setting: Time-Travel (1940s)  Premise: If Harry is sent back to the 1940s, just after Tom Riddle has graduated from Hogwarts, on a mission to stop Tom becoming Voldemort and imperiling the world of magic. Why I rec it: I love the mutually obsessive chemistry here as Harry and Tom quickly fall into each other’s thrall as their relationship heats up. The writing style is so poetic and beautiful, and I find myself rereading many sentences over again just to fully absorb the impact and beauty of @noumena-writes’ words. Even as Harry becomes increasingly entwined with Tom, he’s never blind to who Tom is, and he’s able to strike back with just as much viciousness — their relationship dynamics are so very intense and suspenseful, and the latest plot twist had me completely floored.

The Incantation of the Oak-Priest by @relic--crown (T, 223k, complete)

Setting: Alternate Universe Premise: If Harry and Tom are pulled into an alternate reality where Voldemort never existed and Harry’s parents are still alive.  Why I rec it: The richness of the magical worldbuilding in this fic blew me away — there’s a whole system of magic explored here that goes deeper and is far more brilliant and sweeping than what is covered in canon. The relationship between Harry and Tom develops in such an organic, lovely way, and it was fascinating to see all the changes in this parallel universe where Harry’s parents live and what Harry’s life could have been like, were there no Voldemort. Also, the plot! This fic was so intricately plotted that it felt like reading multiple books with a complex, epic plot spanning fifth through seventh years at Hogwarts, ending in a grand showdown like in the original book series, but with a surprising twist.

The Sense of Self by SpitFire97 (E, 87k, complete)

Setting: Time-Travel Fix-It Premise: If Harry and Voldemort find themselves trapped in a strange cycle of reincarnations where they visit different points in time in Voldemort’s past.  Why I rec it: A very cool take on a time-travel fix-it. Instead of traveling back to a fixed point in time, Harry and Voldemort are thrown back to various points of Voldemort’s past and relive life through certain people significant to shaping Voldemort into who he eventually becomes. The time travel theory in here is amongst the most complex that I’ve encountered — I love the concept that time is a river where multiple timelines and divergent events end up converging, rather than branching off and creating a bunch of alternate universes. I also love how organically the growing relationship between Voldemort and Harry unfolds as they progress through each cycle and gradually start to develop trust in one another and care and attraction for each other.

These steep woods and lofty cliffs by Rimeme (M, 76k, complete)

Setting: Canon Divergence – Book 6 Premise: If Harry runs away to America after Sirius’s death and disguises himself in the Muggle world for many years before getting discovered by MACUSA and offered a job with the magical government. Years later, he is recruited back to Britain to work for the Ministry, under none other than Undersecretary Thomas Gaunt himself.  Why I rec it: A thoroughly enjoyable read from beginning to end — I devoured this fic in one sitting. Harry makes an extremely rational decision here — why not run off from the war if Voldemort is trying to kill everyone you love? But then, when he comes back undercover 15 years later, things don’t quite seem to add up. Britain doesn’t seem like it’s been taken over by a genocidal Dark Lord, but there’s something nefarious simmering under the surface. Voldemort as a very rational Undersecretary Thomas Gaunt is a delight here, with his seemingly very reasonable focus on progressing wizarding society. It was fun to follow along as Harry slowly starts to put the pieces together, and I love how relentlessly Voldemort pursues and seduces Harry in this fic, until he's utterly unable to resist his attraction to a Voldemort who seems to have turned over a new leaf.

These Violent Delights by @heirofdragons (M, 55k, WIP)

Setting: Time Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry, Ron, and Hermione accidentally find themselves thrown back in time to the late 1940s, four years after Tom has graduated Hogwarts and is working at Borgin and Burkes.  Why I rec it: A highly entertaining time travel fic with Harry stumbling back in time to find Tom Riddle in the full dregs of his Retail Hell years post-Hogwarts. Their chemistry is delightfully charming as they prod at each other and do everything to get under each other’s skin (including attempted murder), while growing undeniably attracted to each other. They simply can’t stay away from each other, despite Harry knowing who Tom turns out to be, and Tom knowing that Harry is the one who destroys all his Horcruxes and ends up defeating him in the future.

Three Turns Should Do It by @vdoshu (M, 284k, WIP)

Setting: Time Travel (1940s) Premise: If Harry gets thrown back in time after an accident with the Time Turner in 3rd year, and ends up as a disembodied voice in Tom’s head from the time that Tom is 11. Why I rec it: I absolutely love Tom growing up alongside Harry who is a kind of caretaker presence in his mind, helping make his days a little bit less lonely and helping him navigate the unfortunate circumstances he’s thrown in. This is probably the most extensively researched WW2 era story I’ve ever read; at times I felt like I was learning more detailed history about everyday life during WW2 than I’ve ever read out of a history book. This fic does an amazing job of fleshing out the pivotal events of Tom’s Hogwarts years and showcasing Tom’s humanity, and the bond of mutual trust and love that he and Harry build over the years is so beautifully portrayed. It also does a great job of exploring the question of predestination and whether anyone has the power to change the fate that lies in store for them.

Til Death Do Us Part by @duplicitywrites (M, 117k, complete)

Setting: Voldemort Wins AU Premise: If Harry gets captured by Voldemort and held as his captive, in a world where Voldemort had won the war sometime before Harry was born, and Harry has been fighting against Voldemort his entire adult life. Why I rec it: The emotions that this fic evokes are so moving and heartfelt. The evolution from Harry as Voldemort’s prisoner to Harry as Voldemort’s trusted advisor unfolds in such a beautiful, unrushed way. Harry is in his early 30s when he’s captured, so he’s older than what we typically see in fics where he’s Voldemort’s prisoner, and his maturity and composure really shine through as he starts working together with Voldemort and trying to exert his influence to improve the fate of the wizarding world. He eventually breaks through Voldemort’s shell, and helps Voldemort to grow in so many ways as the story progresses — particularly in his understanding of love and acceptance of death as a part of life.

With a resolute heart by Act_Naturally (M, 84k, WIP)

Setting: Same-Age AU Premise: If Harry and Tom attend Hogwarts together and are selected as Hogwarts Champions for an AU version of the Triwizard Tournament that is structured more like the Hunger Games tournament.  Why I rec it: This is a skillfully-written generation mashup featuring an incredibly suspenseful and high-intrigue setting. There’s a dark overhang of dread and anxiety that permeates every character interaction and training session, as we’re informed that most of the champions (8 from each of the 3 schools) will not make it out of the Tournament alive. Yet the chemistry between Harry and Tom builds and builds despite the life-or-death stakes — Harry is immediately attracted to Tom, and Tom admires Harry’s resourcefulness — even while they each realize they may be the death of the other.

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[dtrghost]

closeness and proximity part.2

pairing: ghost x f!reader

synopsis: callsign is sunshine, because you're anything but. team 141 thought ghost was bad? at least they could crack a smile out of the guy from time to time, you? you were stone faced, all day, every day. until one day you're not, not with a certain someone anyway.

warnings: inaccurate military language and sequences, violence, angst, descriptions of interrogation and torture, INTENSE gore (imo), cursing, allusions to mental illness (reader has sociopathic tendencies) you get the gist. If you have a weak stomach or faint heart, please do not read this, like please.

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT:

word count: 3.5k

The heat choked her body as she threw the covers off, sweat causing her clothes to cling to her body in a way she hated. Her nightmares haunted her dreams at night, reminders of her wrongdoings, failures, moments in life where she had no one. She was reminded of every feeling she felt up until now, and it confused and hurt her at the same time. She stood up, unable to lay in bed any longer and threw on some black cargo pants with a black long sleeve top.

She walked out of her room, making her way to the range where dummies stood to practice on. Personally she thought they were partially useless, they were good to practice hitting targets standing still, but in the field it was quite the opposite. They were running, jumping, moving in every possible direction. They were hitting back, so she always preferred to train with a partner, however, she didn't have one at the given moment, so she had to make do.

She spent hours practicing, taking shots with the blanks provided, ensuring each one landed in the center of their fake forehead, and if they didn't she'd do everything again, and again until her training sequence had been completed perfectly. She had a watcher, and she knew that, ignoring their presence until she finished. Ghost watched as her final shot rang out, hitting the dummy in the same spot she had hit so many times before, announcing the finality of her session.

"You're up early Sunshine." His gruff voice bounced off the stone structure behind the dummies, coming back to her ears in a way she quite liked. The sensation of hearing his voice twice over even though he spoke once was soothing to her in a way, even though he sounded like he swallowed nails and it fucked up his vocal chords for life.

"How old are you?" She questioned suddenly, laying her gun down on the table and unloading the blanks, tossing them off to the side. His eyebrows jumped in surprise at the question, walking over to her and peeking over her shoulder as she cleaned the weapon off, black spots of gunpowder appearing on the cloth she used.

"I assume you already know since you dug through my file." His voice held a bit of contempt and hostility, but her reaction remained even and calm, chuckling, though to her it felt hollow as it always did. The sound followed that feeling, and Ghost noticed it.

"I forget unimportant things." He rolled his eyes and sighed, his hands gripping the top of his vest as he watched her work.

"I'm 28 as of last month." She hummed, glancing over to him. The conversation wasn't inherently interesting, she found no pleasure in the topic, but did find a hint of entertainment in the conversation being with him specifically. She didn't understand why, but she'd indulge for a while, at least while she was still on the team.

"What's on the agenda today?" She moved along, leaning on the table as his wide, tall frame towered over hers. She couldn't help looking over him again, even in his gear he was so... hot. Her mind wandered, the word putting her mind on a track as she yet again shamelessly checked him out.

"Hey." He snapped his finger in front of her eyes, snapping her out of it. "Have some damned respect yeah? I'm you're superior officer." He would be lying to say he hated it, he loved it actually, that the girl he was once so intimidated by still had some human qualities, like attraction and want. But she could tell he misconstrued her intentions, she didn't understand the want aspect of it, she just saw something she liked and looked at it, not because she wanted to have it, but because it was nice to admire.

"I'm not looking to sleep with you. You have a nice frame. That's all." His cheeks involuntarily burned, starting from his covered next and moving up. How could she say that so calmly? He watched her shrug and move on, looking back at her weapons as he sighed.

"Today's an off day. We don't get many so get your arse out the range." He muttered, turning around and walking out with heavy steps and a sway to his walk that she found addicting to watch.

She...

not liked... enjoyed? No, was fond of, close enough.

She was fond of the way he moved, she found it satisfying, how even he was, symmetrical in shape and incredibly fit. She thought long and hard at night about random things, and the male physique was one of the topics that crossed her mind. How much they had going on, as least the ones she'd met in her times of service, all muscular and built to take any blow sent their way. She wished there were more women working in her career, get the best of both worlds, but she found herself understanding why there wasn't.

"Sunshine! Get your arse out of there! That's an order!" Price yelled from the entrance, noticing she hadn't moved from her spot since Simon left. She followed his instructions, deciding to go back to her room and relax in there until she was needed. That's how these types of things normally went.

Her skill and forte for doing what she's technically not supposed to was something that kept headquarters bouncing her around. She'd be on team 141 for maybe a year before being moved, so she chose to not make connections with anyone. Most were happy to let her go for two reasons. One, how persistent she was about not sleeping with them, and two, the nasty scars left behind for even asking the question.

Most of the times she was the one requesting a team change, and they obliged because they wanted to keep her on their good sides for what it was worth. She knew she was being used, but isn't this what she signed up for? What they all signed up for?

She groaned at the knock on her door, loudly expressing her distaste for whoever was behind her, not caring who it was.

"It's time to eat breakfast. You have 2 minutes to sit your arse with us or I'll drag you out myself." Ghost called through the wood, his voice getting raspier as his volume raised. She snickered at the empty threat, getting up and opening the door to see him standing there, irritated that he had to come get her as if she were incapable of coming herself.

"You seem to really like my ass with how much you order it around." His mouth went dry as she pushed past him with a thud, walking over to the table, not looking back at him.

"Fucking hell." He murmured, annoyed by the fact that he was heating up again, mentally cursing himself for being flustered by something so immature. But he couldn't help glancing at it as she walked, how well shaped it was, the weight it had, how it-

Bloody fuckin' perv.

His eyes shut for a moment in shame at the fact he just checked her ass out before making his way back to the table and sitting down next to Soap who left him a seat. The table was tense and quiet, the team glancing around at each other as she ate as if they weren't there.

"So Sunshine. You heading to the pub with us later?" Mctavish questioned, shoving some of his MRE into his mouth.

"No." Everyone stopped eating at her blatant denial. She didn't care for team bonding, she hated it. She found it pointless when they had a higher chance of dying than being a friend to her.

"You should go. It'll be good to get out." Price pushed, looking at her expectingly.

"What do I get out of it?" If she was going to go, it better be for a damn good reason. They looked at each other, sighing as Price instigated the negotiation process. They discussed terms, agreements, benefits, etc, all for one night with her at the pub. This is what she liked about men, how easy they were to persuade, especially as a woman that peaked their interest. It was almost disheartening. She noticed how Simon didn't participate and ate his food in silence.

He didn't want to feed her ego, he didn't care whether she went or not, and he wouldn't waste his time with unnecessary terms for a single night. If she didn't want to go, she shouldn't have to. That's what he thought, and she knew that, she liked that. She liked that he wasn't easy, that he was a challenge to her, to crack, to break. She wanted him to hate her, to loathe her, to feel small compared to her, she wanted the satisfaction of being powerful no matter who she was with.

The terms were settled, they'd buy whatever she ordered and she was required to stay for two hours until she could leave and one of them had to buy her food by then for dinner. The day went by quickly, her having avoided interaction with them all together until she was forced to see them again. For the pub she wore a black crop top, a white button up over top, and some black trousers with some white shoes.

She slipped on a mask that covered half her face, straightened her curly hair, not wanting anyone but herself to see that part of her. Her natural hair was the only genuine part of her that she liked, it was true to who she was, where she came from, and she didn't intend to let people she didn't know or trust see it. She left it up in a ponytail and walked out to see Soap exiting his room.

"Ready lass?" He questioned with a genuine smile, one she couldn't return because she didn't want to go. So she replied with another curt nod, leaving him in silence and following him to the car.

"Sunshine. With me." Ghost commanded, getting into the driver's seat of the car he was going to drive. She found the way her callsign sounded from him to be odd because of the duality of it. A beefy, gruff, cold man calling her sunshine. She sat in the passenger's seat, the car lurching from the force of his foot hitting the gas, moving forward to follow Soap in front of him.

She turned on the radio, only for Simon to turn it off.

"I need to concentrate." He voiced, and when she tried again, he did the same thing, shutting it off.

"I don't care. If you can't think with noise than maybe you should quit before i end up having to drag your rotting corpse out of the field." She snapped, clearly pissed off about not being able to turn on the radio. He looked at her with a blank expression, realizing she was genuinely upset, with all the things she could be putting her emotion towards, she put it towards the fact she couldn't listen to music.

"Careful. Or I'll write you up for insubordination and have you dishonorable discharged." He threatened making her snort and look out the window.

"Do me the favor then will you." His eyes narrowed at her, his grip on the stick shift tightening in irritation. Part of him loathed her, how impulsive and arrogant she was, but then he was reminded that she didn't know any better, which made him angry too. Everything about her and associated with her made him angry, so he huffed and turned on the damn radio.

"This once. That's it." She snickered to herself, the anger slowly dissipating as they drove on in silence, filled by throwbacks from the early 2000s that she liked. They reached the pub and he parked next to Soap, walking inside. The smell of alcohol and sweat intensified the closer they got to the bar, maneuvering through people who were drunk and dancing to the music.

"What is it you're having then?" McTavish asked her.

"I don't drink. I'll take a coke, can preferred, thanks. His tab." He rolled his eyes, nodding to the bartender who later slid her a can of the drink of her choice, everyone watching her crack it open and take a sip, turning away to pull her mask down.

"So you really don't drink?" Gaz questioned her.

"Pretty sure I said that already. Fuck it's hot." She shrugged off her button up, leaving it draped over her chair. Eyes widened at her. She was ripped, her arms were toned, faded scars here and there with some tattoos not only there, but on her waist and sternum, though they weren't as visible due to her shirt.

That's when Ghost noticed it from his side.

"The fuck is that?" He asked, peering to get a better look. Y/N turned her head to him, eyes following his to her brand.

"Got it when I was kidnapped." She explained simply, shrugging off his shocked look until he grabbed her arm for a closer look. He recognized that brand anywhere, soldiers' bodies that came back from Verdansk after failing their initiation program to work under General Voroskoy, an ex-KGB wet agent who commanded the Russian forces in the region.

This changed, everything. This means she survived, she managed to endure the agony they put soldiers into and come out alive. Ghost had seen the autopsy reports, burns, cuts, electric jolts, mutilated bodies from head to toe, some had to be identified using dental records, if they had any teeth left.

"Had they came a week later they would've put me through my second round of ECT. Didn't get drugged up for it either. Then you'd be fighting me." She informed them, Gaz, Price, and Soap having came to look as well.

"What'd they do to you?" She didn't respond, her head turned to face the other direction, her eyes glazed over and distant. She couldn't think, she couldn't answer. Ghost knew that look, and he never liked it. He pushed past his team and stood in front of her, her eyes unwavering on the center of his stomach as he towered over her once more.

"Snap out of it sunshine, that's an order." She couldn't. She wanted to, she wanted to move her eyes, her body, her mind to any other subject, but she couldn't. It was as if she was frozen in time, in this moment, she wasn't even blinking, feeling her eyes beginning to burn.

Was she here? Was she real? It didn't feel like it.

It felt like the world stopped moving, and everything went quiet. Her heart hurt for reasons she didn't understand before various images of what happened rushed through her, and she felt trapped, trapped in her mind for good. Nobody could pull her out, she couldn't see anyone. Not in front of her, not in her peripheral. She was alone. Alone in a concrete box with a singular flickering lamp as her blood coated the floor, she had never left, she had made it all up, all the missions she went on, all the people she met, it was all in her head.

How foolish could she have been. Rescued? On foreign soil? It was a fairytale, and now she was back. She was going to betray her country by force, because she didn't know who she was, that part of her was ripped away. She couldn't stop it, she wasn't in control, she was weak for letting this happen to her, to truly believe for a moment that she was out at a pub with people that wanted to help her.

Nobody, was going to help her. This is it, this is where her life ends.

Ghost's fingers came up to her face, pressing her lids shut.

The blindfold was on.

"1." ...what?

"2." The room began to fade. Were they putting her under again?

"3." Noises flooded her ears, her straining to understand what was being said.

"4." That was... Ghost's voice, the gruffness of it was all too familiar. Years of inhaling dirt and gunpowder left his voice rugged and raspy, but it was recognizable.

"5." It was as if a wire was cut, and she was suddenly overwhelmed by the stimulation of the pub around her. The cold can in her hands, the sounds of music and voices pounding in her ears.

This was a technique he used on soldiers who dissociated and derealized, whose minds traveled back to the root of their ptsd. His hand dropped slowly, her eyes snapping open in alert. Her body jerked forward and he caught her shoulders. He gave them a reassuring squeeze as he watched her panic.

"Calm down love. You were gone for a moment, give yourself some time to adjust." The rest of the team watched in concern and curiosity as she scanned the area, her breath quick and uneven. Her heart pounded in her chest, unable to comprehend what was occurring as she place her can down on the counter and quickly walked outside, not caring who she shoved past to get there.

Ghost was quick to follow her, calling out her callsign over and over when she didn't respond. She felt his big hand grip her wrist, pulling her into a nearby alley. Anger and fear overtaking her as she quickly swiveled on her left foot. Before he could understand what was happening she jumped up, her legs wrapped around his neck before pulling him down to the floor with all her weight.

He grunted in surprise as his back hit the concrete. She was quick to get up, the need to survive pumping through her veins until arms wrapped around her waist, one hand covering her mouth.

"Get a hold of yourself soldier-" Her head came thrusting back, knocking whoever held her in the nose causing them the groan and drop her. Two strong arms pinned her to the wall, another two keeping her legs still as she struggled.

"Hey! Y/N!" Her eyes blew open, meeting the piercing blue of Price's as they bored into hers. The name call caused her to mentally stutter, since nobody called her that, not in the last 6 years.

"You need to calm down. You're a member of Task Force 141, you escaped Russian capture 6 years ago and have been working for the U.N. since." Her mind stopped racing, looking around at the damage she did as Ghost helped Soap with his nose, blood dripping from his hand to the floor as he cradled it. Gaz held her legs down, but made sure that she couldn't hit him in the face with her knee.

"Don't look at them. Look at me." Ghost looked at her, and she didn't like the look in his eyes. She expected some sort of hatred, mistrust, a need to kill her, but all she saw was pity. The word was like a knife to her gut. He felt bad for her, and she hated that. She wasn't weak, she didn't need his sympathy.

"Look at me Sunshine. That's an order." It dawned on her, her eyes snapping to his in frantic panic.

"They know my name." Why would he do that to her? Why would he reveal something she kept so close to her chest?

"I'm Johnny. Johnny McTavish." Soap called out, waving a hand to her as he held a tissue to his nose.

"I'm Kyle Garrick." The man kneeling in front of her said with a small smile. They watched her eyes flicker with confusion, not understanding why. Why were they dumb enough to give that away, to not realize the danger they were putting themselves into. Yes she already knew their names and almost everything about them, but to give that away willing was a principle she couldn't comprehend.

"Simon. Simon Riley." Ghost finished.

"Why. Do you not realize how important that is? Why're you telling me this?" Her gaze was intense, flickering between each of them analytically until she found an answer to her question.

"Because we're a team. We trust each other with our lives." Price answered for them. She searched his gaze, finding no hint of uncertainty or falsehood. They let her go and stood in front of her, not tense, not ready to grab her if she pounced. She took a step forward, and they didn't step back, remaining still and assured.

"Y/N." Her name sounded foreign coming from him, her look directing towards him. Simon's gaze wasn't soft, it wasn't gentle, but it wasn't demeaning either, it wasn't angry or mistrusting. She felt strange, but in a good way, the same way she felt when he called her love. How her chest tightened and her eyes watered, she hated it, but she loved it at the same time.

"Only way we can help you is if you tell us what happened. We've all experienced something, even if it doesn't quite amount up to you, it's enough. So quit being a pain in our arses and bloody say something." He quipped, his closer making the team chuckle, but she didn't understand why it was funny.

"I didn't think I was being a pain." They looked at her oddly, until it dawned on them as she stared back, utterly confused as to why SHE was the pain and not someone else who was less capable than her.

"We've got some fuckin' work to do."

This is part 2! I don't know how many parts this is gonna be, probably not many, but there it is! Thank you so much for reading! Lmk if you have any requests and I promise a relationship between ghost and the reader will occur but I don't wanna rush it so yeah!!

[wangxianficrecs]

Rewind 2023 - Part II

WangxianFicRecs - Rewind 2023

Here is part two of our favourite stories published in 2023! Reminder that if you also want to give a shout-out to a story, submit an ask and we will share it in an upcoming post featuring Follower Recs and Proud Author Spotlights.

Part I

~*~

the dream of the fisherman's husband

by luckymarrow (@luckymarrow)

E, 5k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: “Really? Are you fucking with me? Once for yes, twice for no.” Two taps. Wei Ying scrambles from his desk and over to the tank, presses his face right against the glass. “Was Wen Ning right?” he whispers. His breath fogs the glass. “Are you our new cephalopod overlords?” Once again, the little blue and white octopus taps twice against the glass. Wei Ying goggles. Then it taps a sequence against the glass. But Wei Ying has worked on enough expedition ships to know Morse code, or at least the most important code of all—SOS. This little octopus needs help.

~*~

New Perspective

by mrcformoso (@mrcformoso)

T, Series, 34k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary Part One: “Lan Zhan, let me go.” The last memory Lan Zhan has of Wei Ying was the soft, serene smile on his face as he fell to his death. It was, perhaps, what haunted him the most. When it came to the matters regarding Wei Ying, Lan Zhan was always too late. A character study looking into Lan Zhan’s character development between Wei Ying’s death and resurrection, and his struggles of changing in the wake of his newfound fatherhood.

~*~

The Art of Communication

by mrcformoso (@mrcformoso)

G, 4k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Lan Zhan can only say so much before the words get caught in his throat. He has long learned how to use his words sparingly, how to build enough of a reputation to minimize the use of words, has learned to hide behind little grunts and pointed looks. In contrast, Wei Ying never seemed to run out of words, speaking often and quickly, whatever was on his mind, mumbling equations and theories and his own thoughts as if he had a word quota to meet and exceed on a daily basis. So the Gusu University students found it rightfully strange that the two were dating. Chapter 1: Outsiders POV Chapter 2: Lan Zhan POV Chapter 3: Wei Ying POV

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❤️ Across the street to another life

by danegen (@danegen)

M, 99k, Wangxian | Kay's & Mojo's Rec

Summary: Wangji stays on the piano bench as they’re closing up. Wei Ying chews his lip, knowing what he’s going to do but horrified at himself. But what’s the alternative: kick the guy out and find him sleeping beside the dumpster in the morning? And that’s if the cops don’t take him in for vagrancy. “Wangji?” Wangji looks up. Please don’t be a serial killer. “So, we’re closing up for the night, but A-Yuan and I live upstairs. Do you want to join us for dinner?” Wangji blinks. His head bobs in what’s probably a yes. “Great!” Fuck. Or a ragged monosyllabic man wearing a collar shows up at Wei Ying's music store. Wei Ying and A-Yuan ask, is anyone going to adopt this guy? And then they don't wait for an answer.

~*~

💙 Concord

by Deastar (@youhideastar)

T, 41k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Lan Wangji hopes, somewhat frivolously, that his betrothed might find him an acceptable companion. Neither he nor Wei Wuxian are able to bear children, so there will be no need to share a marital bed; that should make it easier for the two of them to reach a natural, comfortable equilibrium. Two strings played in harmony: this is Lan Wangji’s quiet hope, as he arranges the Jingshi to accommodate a second inhabitant. Perhaps, he thinks, they might even become friends.

~*~

silk linked together

by theLoyalRoyalGuard

G, 6k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Lan Wangji runs a sanctuary for rescued bunnies. His life is quiet and routine. Until Mo Xuanyu needs a place to stay out of trouble. He doesn’t expect to end up rescuing him, too.

~*~

Making Mouths at Dragons

by athena_crikey

E, 10, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Wei Ying takes a slow breath, then another. “Then you’d want… that? A baby? A kid?” Lan Zhan’s low rumble has a hint of dragon in it, a lick of thunder. For a moment Wei Ying can almost hear the rush of the tide in his ears, storms and seafoam. His mind is full of the glint of moonlight on scales, silver and rippling like silk. “With you? Yes.”

~*~

Behind the Scenes

by QueenXIV

E, 5k, NMJ/LWJ | Kay's Rec

Summary: Nie Mingjue felt dirty. Horrible. He had paid to see his best friend's didi fuck himself with a dildo. He had jerked off to it. He had liked it. He was fucked.

~*~

Playing Possum

by DizziDreams (@dizzi-dreams)

T, 1k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Lan Wangji is woken in the night by the sound of animals fighting, and there is more to the opossum he rescues than there seems.

~*~

Once-body

by ByCandlelight

M, 10k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Years after he was disowned by the Jiangs, Wei Ying lives a quiet life working at a funeral home. Then he reencounters his former high school classmate Lan Zhan, who is planning his father’s cremation. Wei Ying won’t pass up the chance to get closer to his former crush, but first he has to hide all the brains in his freezer.

~*~

Lessons in Belonging

by Nyatci (@nyatci)

M, 12, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: Lan Zhan looks back at various moments during the years and thinks about the emotional wounds caused by Wei Ying’s adoptive family. Or alternatively: 5 times Lan Zhan worried about Wei Ying and 1 time he realized he didn’t have to worry anymore.

~*~

Jin Ling and Demonic Cultivation

by ImNobody122 (@colorsunlikeanythingseen)

Not rated, 8k, Jin Ling | Kay's Rec

Summary: Mo Xuanyu was not the first demonic cultivator Jin Ling had to rescue from his uncle's hands.

~*~

mother of mothers

by SpeedingCheetah

T, 11k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary:There was a girl in Gusu, who played the flute and sung songs to the fish in the rivers as townspeople let her sit on their boats; stirring away and humming. There was a girl who smiled, who had a blood red ribbon and blood red eyes. The girl was a boy who was not alive. A ghost who stayed in the city because his mother made him promise. He seemed happy enough anyway, coming to the docks, coming to the paths. He bought apples, he spoke Gusu’s dialect in a rustic tongue that was many, many years out of date—ancient, prosperous. Only a few elders understood the clicking accent the way Wuxian spoke it. He was Lan Wangji’s sole companion. He was also the being who had been cursed many years ago to never wake up, and never live. Lan Wangji wished to help fix that. (or: cangse sanren’s child is a ghost of nature, and cursed to sleep forever. a boy still makes friends with the ghost anyway.)

~*~

exit, pursued by fierce corpse

by hauntedotamatone (@hauntotamatone)

Not rated, 4k, WWX & WN | Kay's Rec

Summary: “The Jin clan of Lanling is rich beyond rich,” The second boy whispers, or rather, attempts to whisper. “If we bring them the head of the Yiling Laozu, they’ll have no choice but to reward us!” It’s quite a stupid endeavor, especially for three, unarmed, young masters whose knowledge of combat and heroism likely comes from playhouses alone. - “Wei-gongzi,” Wen Ning whispers, barely louder than the sound of a person breathing and all the more striking when it comes from one who does not. His face is still, the undisturbed waters of a pond, but there is something in his eyes that reminds him of brightness, the shine of a dragonfly skimming the water. - alternatively; wen qionglin, the method actor.

~*~

If I had to keep being separated from you like this (I'd rather die)

by katje

E, 30k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: “So, you’re here to become my blood thrall, are you?” Mr. Wei finally turned, and Lan Wangji had to fight to swallow the gasp that tried to escape his throat. He was beautiful. His long, pitch-black hair was pulled into a ponytail that flowed in smooth waves over his shoulder, and he was clad in a red dress shirt that was buttoned only halfway up his chest, exposing his sharp collar bones and a hint of the smooth skin of his torso. He was pale - too pale. And he had the most striking grey eyes Lan Wangji had ever seen. Eyes that immediately betrayed him as a nonhuman. As a cold, powerful, immortal vampire that Lan Wangji was about to sell himself to. OR Lan Wangji enters into a contract to become Wei Wuxian's blood thrall to save his uncle, and finds more than a heartless vampire at the end of the deal.

~*~

fracture fix

by phosphorous

G, 5k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: What he did not say: I don’t want to be anywhere in this world where you aren’t. I want to know you inside out. I want to know you forever. I want you to know me inside out and I want you to know me forever too. I am a burden. But I am yours. I want to be yours, for as long as you will have me. “I love you, Lan Zhan,” he had said instead. It had ebbed and flowed in the space over their heads like tides in a river. Eventually, it had settled. Eventually, it had stayed.

~*~

What Dreams May Come

by Admiranda (@ladypfenix)

G, 5k, Ouyang Zichen | Kay's Rec

Summary: Qiu Shiyu is a pragmatic young woman, she knows that the marriage her father wants to arrange will be more for his benefit than hers. But even so, she cannot help hoping that her prospective husband to be just might be someone who can match her romantic side too.

~*~

Mask

by BurningTea (@humanformdragon)

M, 30k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: The cultivation world knows that Wei Wuxian is dead. It knows that the Yiling Patriarch has appeared, dangerous and powerful enough for Wen Ruohan to offer an alliance. And a prize. The Wen Sect is happy to agree when the Yiling Patriarch demands one of their hostages, Lan Wangji.

~*~

Letters along a River

by Ilona22

M, 19k, Wangxian | Kay's Rec

Summary: They met at the stairs leading to the Cloud Recesses and when days spent together lead to a tentative friendship, letters lead to more. Meanwhile, trouble grows, quietly creeping along in the realms of politics and the supernatural.

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for these hard-working authors if you like – or think others might like – these stories.)

[cepheustarot]

What do your dreams want to tell you?

Attention! This reading is for entertainment purposes only. This tarot reading does not give a 100% guarantee that all the describes being ultimate truth. Only you know yourself best.

Paid readings

Pick a pile. Choose one or more pictures. Trust your intuition.

Pile 1: To begin with, I will describe in general terms the plots of your dreams so that you understand whether this option is suitable for you or you can choose another one.Your dreams are quite vivid, fabulous, they have many fantasy elements, a lot of magic, the actions in your dreams may not be connected by logic, the sequence of actions can be broken without any explanation. You can dream about yourself or another person/character who takes control of the actions and decides what to do in the dream (I would put it in the category of lucid dream), as well as you can often remember the dream stories after the awakening. Your dreams are also quite emotional, again vivid, but they are more pleasant emotions, not causing fear or fright. 

In general, there is no secret meaning in such dreams, this indicates that now you have a quiet period in life, with pleasant moments, that is, you do not experience severe stress. It may be the other way around that your life is going through such a difficult period that you only see quiet/calm moments in your sleep. In any case, you will definitely cope with the difficult moments, as dreams literally tell you that everything is in your hands, you are strong and you can change the situation, take control of it. You will overcome the hardships of your life, and your life will be the tranquility you await. 

Pile 2: To begin with, I will describe in general terms the plots of your dreams so that you understand whether this option is suitable for you or you can choose another one. At the beginning of your dreams appear bright, cheerful, you or the character of your dreams feels good, overall there are pleasant events. But everything changes with the appearance of a new character or event that changes the plot, in such moments you feel tense or excited, the surrounding reality changes, colors can become darker, locations can change. Something happens that revolts against the protagonist, and it ultimately has unfortunate consequences, you can see yourself in dangerous situations, like falling from a great height or you’re in a place, where there are monsters everywhere, be on fire and all that. 

As an option, sleep broadcasts your current life situation, there is a person or environment of people who are prejudiced to you, put sticks in the wheels, cause discomfort and while people can behave obsessively, do not depart from you and constantly be near you. You can’t get rid of them and it weighs you down. It may also speak of a long-standing problem that you have not been able to solve for a long time, and it haunting you even in your sleep.The cards offer you to ask for help from others, to share your thoughts.Undoubtedly, you are a strong person who is used to rely on himself and his strength, but it will be useful for you to look at the situation from the perspective of another person, to listen to his advice. This is evidenced by the dream with the character that appears in the middle of the plot, because if you listen to him, you can deal with problems or at least some part of them. 

Pile 3: To begin with, I will describe in general terms the plots of your dreams so that you understand whether this option is suitable for you or you can choose another one.You see yourself or the person in the dream as a wanderer, who often travels or is away from close people. You can also see in your dreams how you or the character often helps others, overcoming dangers and difficulties, in short you see some kind of hero. And in general, dreams appear colorful, bright, positive, but the stories can be repeated or be very similar to each other, as well as at the end you always see that the character of the dream something is missing in life. Yeah, he’s got the money, the resources, the things he loves, but he still feels empty and sad. 

These dreams tell you that you’re stuck in one place, you’re holding on to something or someone and you can’t let go, move on. You’re attached to someone or something, and that stops you. You may also have the feeling that you’re stuck in four walls, some dead end, a maze you can’t find a way out of. Dreams can also tell you that you are hiding your true emotions in public, you can suppress them. The cards offer you to listen to yourself, understand what worries you, saddens you, what causes discomfort and prioritize your well-being, your interests.

Thank you for reading! I will be glad of any feedback 🖤

[thebearme]

Got any re8 Heisenberg headcanons? (I definitely am so normal about him)

Don't worry, I'm completely normal about him too.

Ethan works with Karl to stop Miranda, but they aren't exactly friends after that, but they learn to like each other.

Chris was originally was going to put Karl into the military as a living bioweapon, but with enough convincing. Ethan got him to just let stay with him and Rose. They're roommates now.

Karl is thankful for Ethan to help him avoid that fate, but he is still frustrated on how his life is in someone's hand. Now he has to listen to Ethan or run the risk of being killed or weaponized. So the anger is the living arrangement is mutual.

Karl tends to be untrusting of everyone, like a feral stray dog. So Karl stays in the basement and minds his business.

Ethan and Mia had a mutual divorce, The relationship was built on rocky ground, and they understand that. But what Mia doesn't understand is why Ethan would have this moldy hobo live with him, and frankly- he doesn't know either.

Karl was a stinky man. His hands are rough and dry, chipped sharp nails that seem to always have something underneath them despite that fact of him wearing gloves most of the time. He covered in a layer of grease, sweat and car oil, smells like copper, gasoline, sweat, cigars, rain dew and a hint of mold and rot. LOVEY ISN'T IT! A sensory overload dream. His hair WILL make a crunchy noise if touched, and don't bother trying to comb through it.

Ethan made sure that his mf got a shower with some actual soap. He may look the same but trust in the fact if you were in a room with him, you'll actually be able to hug him without getting high from the gasoline.

Karl's hair gets so fluffy when conditioned.

It took months before Ethan trusted Karl in watching Rose or let alone hold her.

Karl LOVES sweets.

He originally didn't know about Home Depot because Ethan was worry that there will quickly be no Home Depot.

There's no longer a Home Depot.

Heisenberg will melt when he hears Rose's first words.

The day that Heisenberg finds out what a Samsung fridge is- IT'S OVER!

Heisenberg lived off of military ration meals till now, so he has to resort to the next best thing here: hungry man TV dinners. And kid cuisine when Rose goes into solid food.

HE CAN COOK! To be particular, grill. But he's kinda going through that depression that led you to not take care of himself.

Karl HATES the rain, It rusts all his metal, and he is in content risk of getting struck by lightning, He's a living lightning rod. Ethan tries to be nice and help him by giving him a rubber rain suit, leading him to wear three layers of protection: fishing overalls, rain boots, raincoat, rubber gloves, rain hat and a rubber poncho.

You can hear him from a mile away with all that rubber squeaking.

Heisenberg surprisingly was a virgin for a long time, and it makes sense. He was too busy in his factory to be with anyone romantically nor platonically, let alone get laid. He never really cared till he thought about it now, especially when Ethan has living proof that he fucked. *CUT TO FUNNY KARL SPEED DATING SEQUENCE* this is probably a very sharp contrast to others hc of karl but idc it's my hc

Heisenberg and Ethan have that opposite attract dynamic, Karl gets to teach him that life doesn't end or need to be tense just because they're mole zombies. While Ethan teaches Karl to unpack his years trauma, cuz that shit will come to haunt you.

Ethan found some room for Heisenberg to sleep upstairs instead.

Eventually Ethan gets so close with Heisenberg he actually starts calling him by his first name.

That was noticed by Mia and Chris, which made them nervous in where Ethan loyalty would lie when something were to happen.

Heisenberg never had clean water before, so just imagine him with the crisp 3am water.

Chris only allows Karl to experience the outside monthly. But Ethan sneaks Karl with him when he can. As long, he doesn't scare anyone in town.

Karl is like a caveman entering the present day, He's culture shock is out of this world.

He loves the phrase "metal as fuck."

When Karl has a nightmare he rearrange his room to push all the metal out or nap in the living room. When Karl and Ethan got closer he started sleeping in Ethan's room. Even though their hearts beat slow, the human warmth is still there.

Karl never wants to talk about what his nightmare was about or why he feels better sleeping in a room with less metal.

Here some songs that I always relate to Heisenberg:

Now I'm about to go into what my hc is for Heisenberg before re8.

tw body horror and child abuse

I have the headcanon that Karl wasn't from the village, but his family was. He was born in the states and unknowingly has the genes that make him very susceptible to the mold mutation. Eventually, after his grandfather died and passed the factory/mines to his parents, they all moved to Europe. Explaining the contrasting transatlantic accent.

But like all things, Miranda had to ruin. She noticed the newcomers of the village; she saw how they also have a child and decided to take action. Miranda killed Karl Heisenberg's parents and took him in to experiment on with the cadou parasite.

His gift was unknown till one check up later after all of his complaints of feeling of something tearing into him. Miranda realized that there seems to be scraps of metal like nuts and bolts dug and tear through into his body to his bones like a magnet.

When he's in is REM sleep, his electromagnet powers moves and attract scraps of metal to him. Leaving him to wake up with blood on his sheets, but the wound already healed like nothing happened. But Karl does know it feels harder to move every day.

Miranda made sure to test him on his gift. He looks completely human and is powerful, he was almost perfect… The one single flaw in him is the fact that even as a helpless child that had no one else to rely on but her. He still hated her.

Heisenberg was the youngest of the four lords and the favorite, and he hated it. Dude would just spend all his time by himself, leaving himself tape recorders. He eventually started to entertain himself as if he was a radio host. The theater kid possesses him.

Eventually when he got older he got into contact with The Duke and was able to purchase tapes and machinery scraps from him. The tapes turned out to be American documents of ww2, leading Heisenberg to his American freedom fighter rhetoric.

When he detransform from his big monster form, he has to go get a lil help. He has to get rid of the pieces of metal without just tearing off pieces of his flesh, That shit is hard to grow back you know!

[clairenatural]

hey sorry to ask you but what is the destiel lamppost thing? if u know what it is

Hi anon!!! I wasn't ignoring you I just wanted to be able to sit down and type out the lore.

So "why lamp"/the destiel lamp thing starts with 15x10, The Heroes' Journey, in which Dean and Sam are stripped of the luck/protections that being written as protagonists gives them by Chuck (very meta) and Dean ends up needing cavities filled.

Garth gives him laughing gas for the procedure, during which Dean has a dream of a black and white 50s style dance sequence. It takes place in the bunker and while initially it's Dean dancing with Garth, eventually Garth leaves and Dean runs over to pick up a lamp from the corner of the room to dance with. Here's the whole thing:

But once it's Dean and the lamp, the dance becomes markedly more romantic - he's dancing with the lamp as a partner, not like the tap dancing he and Garth do side-by-side.

Also important to note that they're dancing to "Let's Misbehave," which is about sex and also was written by Cole Porter, who was gay. This is a really good breakdown of the dance itself, the significance of the song and Cole Porter and its connections to old queer Hollywood.

At the end of the episode, Dean sees Bess and Garth dancing in their living room through the window and says "You know, I always thought I could be a good dancer if I wanted to be."

This is pretty clearly associating the dream sequence, and Dean dancing with a lamp, as about Dean longing for a partner and therefore the lamp as a stand-in for that partner.

NOW. Meta was written as soon as this episode aired with people linking the lamp to Cas, and there has continued to be much better meta than I can write here - this one is in-depth and connects it to themes across the seasons and Dean's years-long character arc. "Cas is Lamp" even has its own superwiki page.

But besides all the normal meta deancas reasons and the fact that this comes at a time when Dean's character arc had been building both to him wanting to settle down with someone AND that someone being Cas (this is the episode right after The Trap and Dean's "I should have stopped you/of course I forgive you" prayer), Cas (and angels broadly) is associated with light and lamps throughout the series, perhaps most iconically in 4x16.

So, after 15x18, "the lamp thing" was something frequently cited and that we held onto as another thing they'd dropped alluding to (nay, ensuring - because they'd surely somehow have to wrap up Dean's own arc of wanting a partner to settle down with) a happy deancas endgame where Cas is rescued and they live happily ever after.

And then. 15x20 happened. And "why lamp" took off as part of a long list of "if they were just never going to mention Cas again, let alone resolve the confession or this very key part of Dean's story arc of wanting to settle down, why did they include [long list of things that make no sense with the ending we got]." Why lamp has become shorthand for a long list of missing links and loose ends and things that just don't add up. If deancas wasn't going to be the happy endgame, then why lamp. Why did they drop so many clues and work up to a very clear resolution for Dean's character arc if they were just going to drop it. Why lamp. It's one of those things that will haunt us because we will never get an answer. Okay grandma, let's get you to bed. But why lamp.

[sleepyspoonie]

the unwanted guest spoilers:

i have an incoherent theory i've developed after reading tug that i dont know whether it has much consequence but would make a lot of sense if im on the right track

so the big focus of tug is the permeability of the soul and how exposure to other souls causes an interplay and intermingling between the two that causes shared memories, habits, etc.

my thought is this: what if this is why people are always quoting hamlet and the bible and fucking 21st century memes and pop culture and shit?

hear me out hear me out.

the 200 dead children from the ninth haunt harrow because they were used for her creation (abigail points out that harrow is MEGA haunted during one of the dream bubble sequences. additionally when harrow relates the story of her conception to john, he straight up specifically describes it as a RESURRECTION in htn).

compare this to john, who resurrected the original 10,000 (i think. dont quote me on this specific number.), caused the great resurrection, using the earth itself as a battery to do so. he was in a perfect lyctorhood with the soul of the earth (and thus intermingled with HER based on that same idea of permeation) when he did it.

now, we'll get to john specifically, but imo, it makes total sense that the interplay of humans living and dying on earth for thousands upon thousands of years would permeate alecto's soul and vice versa. alecto even when she had total amnesia as nona knew what an alligator was and drew it during school. but also, if that wasn't enough, look at JOHN.

because what do we know about john? mr none house left grief likes spitting dumb millennial memes and went to catholic school and thinks he's hot shit for knowing shakespeare (he named his first corpse kids titania and ulysses for fucks sake), and therefore may well be like. patient zero of all the nonsense that comes out of peoples' mouths around here.

TLDR. what im thinking is that the resurrection through alecto and john's lyctorhood and the interplay between the souls of john and the earth has caused a link between john and/or the people of the 21st century and the people of the houses who are descended from the people of the resurrection.

if it's john, i also have this afterthought of a tangent built upon the above - i think it makes MUCH jucier the idea that john believes he can kill everyone/wipe everyone's memories clean and start over as many times as it takes when his own memories and habits and feelings might be intrinsically interwoven into the souls of the people he does this to ("empty's just another word for clean?" you're not going to empty or clean much when your soul is intermingled with everyone your necromancy has ever come in contact with and your memories and your rage and your grief are a gaping wound bleeding into every human you ever touch)

[lauriegraham01]

haunting

pairings: will graham x reader, gn!reader,

summary: will's been going down a dark path and feels like he's losing everything, from control, his sense of self, to reality. he fears he'll lose you too.

tw: nightmares, blood, mutilation, angst, hurt/comfort

wc: 1,348

a/n: based off a nightmare i had a while back that to this day i still think about all the time because it felt too real. only difference is that will was the victim of violence displayed in dream sequence.

Will was shutting himself out.

It wasn't the first time that he had done this but something about this time around felt different, felt more dangerous.

You had seen the way Jack Crawford had been pushing him, and you were afraid it was only a matter of time before Will reached the point of no return. You carried a bit of guilt with you, since you had been the one to bring Will under Jacks radar. You knew about his gifts, his profound sense of empathy, and you thought by joining Jacks team he could make a real difference. While proven to be true, Jack saw a machine that he could constantly use without ever thinking about the rust that he would cause from exhaustion.

The light in his eyes had been slowly going out and you felt helpless as you felt the man you loved drift away from you. Countless nights you'd reach for him only to be met with cold sheets. Only then you would find him outside shivering, untethered from reality as the horrors from the murders he saw daily plagued his mind. Other nights you'd wake up to his shivers as he jerked from nightmares drenched in sweat.

"Will." Your voice comes out groggy as you turn to face the movement you felt within your shared bed. What you see strikes fear in your heart as you see Will shaking, trembling, drenched in sweat as ragged breaths escaped his lips.

"Will, honey wake up," you say tapping his face gently. When you see no response you begin to lightly shake him by his arm, not wanting him to wake up even more scared.

"Please," you whisper, pleading desperately as you give him a rather harder shake.

When his eyes shoot open, his breathing becomes even more rapid as he's brought back to reality.

"Hey, hey, shhh it's alright," you say softly as you let out an air of relief. Finding the tiniest comfort that he was able to come back.

As you push away the damped locks clinging to his forehead, he seems to relax underneath your touch. Wrapping a hand around your wrist suddenly, you're scared that the touch was unwelcomed, that the act of affection had been too much for him in such a vulnerable state. Yet when he moved his hand to place it on top of yours you knew that the opposite was true, that he found solace in your gentle touch.

"I'm here. I'm right here," you whisper before planting a kiss on his temple. He shuddered at the act as he felt overwhelmed by a sea of emotions. After a couple of minutes minutes his breathing evened out and you manage to coax him to sit upright in the bed.

As he hid his face in his hands trying to fully come back down to earth, you rubbed circles across his back hoping that it would help the process.

"I don't think I can do this much longer." His voice comes out muffled as he still had his face hid.

"Will, honey we don't have to talk about it." You tilt your head sideways at him sympathetically, not wanting to push him further into his pain.

"It was real. It was so real y/n." As he turns his head to meet your gaze you can see the pain hidden behind those eyes that carried so many beasts of burden.

"I can't save you, y/n."

Will extended a hand as he wiped the steam from his shower away from the mirror. He had a difficult time staring back at what was in the mirror. Somehow his reflection felt something so familiar yet so foreign. Familiar in the sense that he recognized these features as his own- his mothers eyes, his father hair, only his curls had now grown longer. Yet foreign in the way that he couldn't connect these features to himself, they didn't match the mental reflection of himself in his mind.

Closing his eyes for a second, he shakes his head as he pushes those thoughts aside, not wanting to spiral down a rabbit hole. Reaching for the towel he used earlier, he wrapped it around himself, tucking it lowly on his hips. As he opened the door and into your shared bedroom he was caught off guard by the darkness that consumed the room. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, scanning the room he saw your figure standing at the foot of the bed with your back facing him.

Calling out your name he reached closer to you, as an eeriness settled within his stomach. Extending a hand out as he reached for you and grabbed your shoulder, the sight he saw as you turned around made his blood run cold and his stomach drop.

"Will," you croaked out. Blood soaked through your clothes as a grappling hook had been pushed through your abdomen, flesh tearing and bone exposed and broken as it had clawed it ways through you.

"I'm sorry," was all that you could choke out as blood began to seep its way through the corners of your mouth.

Will took you into his arms as you both sank to the floor, clinging onto you tightly as he felt the world crumble beneath him.

"No, no, no, no. Y/n, stay with me," he pleaded as he took in the sight of your corrupted body. His mind couldn't even form a thought as he saw the way the hook had mutilated you completely from the inside out, hollowing you from the inside.

"Do you hear me? Y/n? You have to stay with me?"

His immediate thought was to call Jack. As he looked around the room frantically racking his brain as to where he left his cell phone, he freezes when he sees as familiar face lurking in the shadows. A face that's followed him everywhere and is there even when he closes his eyes. Garret Jacob Hobbs stands in the corner, face pale and just as lifeless as the last time Will saw him.

His breath hitches in his throat and he feels the room close in on him as he locks eyes with GJH cold lifeless gaze.

"See?" The ghost smiles sinisterly as he breaks eye contact to look down at his work. At the mutilated and dying corpse of the one thing Will loved most in this world.

"Will," you call out softly, "look at me."

If he heard you, he made no effort to obey you as he continued staring straight ahead.

"Will, please. Come back, look at me love."

Will slowly turned his head until he locked eyes with you and he felt the lump in his throat grow bigger and fear climbed it's way up threatening to suffocate him.

You moved cautiously so as not to spook him, you reached over to take one of his hands that gripped the sheets and placed it flat on your chest.

"Do you feel that?"

Will only looked sadly at your sandwiched hands, not knowing whether to trust what was in front of him.

"Will, i'm here and i'm alive." It was only then that Will could feel the faint beat of your heart beneath his hand. Steady and alive.

"I promise you, he can't hurt me."

When Will met your eyes again, his had glossed over and it was only then that he could finally feel relief. Feel secure in your touch and that you being alive was the truth. He buried his head into your chest as he began to sob, feeling his tears fall on your clothes.

Will was fragile. This you knew. His mind was a maze that even he couldn't fully understand. You'd never know if you would truly understand the terrors Will faced but you knew that you would be there to grant him ease of mind. To bring light to the darkness that is his mind because to Will that's what you were. A lighthouse shinning at sea, guiding him back ashore.

"I'm here Will, i'm always here."

[the-scandalorian]

like a moth to the flame, part III

Pairing: monster!Din Djarin x Female Reader Rating: E, 18+ Word Count: 10.8k Content Warnings: dark!Din, stalking, predatory/obsessive/possessive behavior, body horror/painful physical transformations, violence, gore, blood and hunting and monstery shit, verbal argument turned smut (finger fucking, cum eating, etc.), nightmares

DIN

The dreams started as soon as the kid left.

Angry vermilion dreams, fractured dreams—a flurry of images as sharp as shattered glass—played any time Din so much as dozed. He couldn’t make much sense of them, but the visuals seared into his mind. Pearly white incisors caught in thick, hot viscera. Rent flesh. Deeply gouged burns. The smell of scorched skin.

A war-ravaged planet. An empty gray-washed throne.

A pile of discarded Mandalorian helmets coated in ash.

As soon as they began, Din knew something was wrong with him. These weren’t normal nightmares, not like the quiet, melancholic blue of the dreams he’d always had about his parents, the ones that stayed tucked safely in his sleep. No, these…lingered. They slunk past the edges of his sleep to haunt his daylight hours. He’d wake up and taste blood on his tongue. All day, he ached in strange places: his shoulder blades, his teeth, his hands and feet, a spot behind each of his temples. Every one was a concentrated, bone-deep ache, like the growing pains he remembered vaguely from his teenage years.

The kid was gone, and something was wrong with him.

Din knew loss too intimately to mistake it for grief alone. He knew this was something else too. It was physical. He was ill. He told himself it needed to wait. He had to find the covert. Then, he could deal with whatever was happening to him.

So he put his head down and did what he does best: he hunted.

For two months, he searched. He took jobs for credits and jobs for information. Finally, finally, he tracked them down on Glavis.

He can still remember the fetid reek of the butcher where he went to find the final bounty, Kaba Baiz, the key to the covert’s location within that ringed maze of a city. Even through the filters on his helmet, the smell was an assault—raw flesh and congealed blood, singed bone and burnt marrow. All at once, it made him sick…and, to his own horror, ravenous. He should have been disgusted, but his mouth watered even as his stomach soured. Cold sweat beaded between his shoulder blades. He itched to peel off his armor.

He was most definitely ill.

The last thing he wanted was a fight. The last thing he needed was a fight. He wanted to take the bounty and leave, to find what remained of his covert and be still. But the Klatooinians closed in around him, and he knew he wasn’t going to get what he wanted.

It was the first real fight he’d been in since the dreams had started, and it was…different. He was different.

One of the Klatooinians lunged forward and bit him. The pain was sharp, and as he tried to wrench his wrist out of their grasp, all Din could think about was how much he wanted to sink his teeth into something that bleeds. Behind his beskar, he bared his teeth.

It only devolved from there.

He slipped so far into the flow of the fight that it felt like a fever dream.

He didn’t make an active choice to reach for the saber. It just happened. His blaster had been knocked out of his grasp, and there were too many of them. The beskar spear was strapped to his back, but his hand fell to the saber’s hilt as naturally as it falls to his blaster; his finger flicked the activation as naturally as it finds a trigger.

He lifted the humming blade, and for one short moment, it had sung for him.

The saber slipped through living and dead flesh alike, rending breathing bodies and hanging animal corpses just the same. He felt good. He felt strong. He moved with an ease he hadn’t felt for years, not since he was younger, before he had a tight back and knees that cracked. He felt distant from himself, distant from the fight, as his body fell into a controlled sequence of moves.

Somewhere in the back of his fogged mind he finally asked himself why? Why was it suddenly easy?

Then the saber grew heavy in his hand, and he faltered.

He stabbed one of the Klatooinians straight through the gut, and when he wrenched it back, the flat of the saber sizzled and spat against the flesh of his own thigh. The searing pain pitched him into a red haze, and he dispatched the rest in short order. He cleaved through two, took a hail of blaster fire, and stabbed Kaba Baiz between the ribs with his vibroblade. He lifted his dead weight with one hand on the hilt, and Din knew he was different.

Without thinking, he took up the saber and sliced clean through the Klatooinian, even though he was already dead, and Din knew he was different.

*** He was half delirious with pain and exhaustion by the time he found the Armorer.

“What weapon caused such a wound?”

“Paz Viszla, bring it to me.”

The moment Paz touched the hilt of the saber, Din’s body went cold, every part of him snapping to high alert. His hackles raised.

He knew then there’d be a challenge. A duel.

Sure enough, after he’d given himself enough time to assess Din’s state and skill with the blade, Paz had thrown the gauntlet, and something reared in Din’s chest in response. Something eager. 

The fight passed in a blur of scarlet. Smoke encroached on the edges of Din’s vision as they grappled, and something outside himself took control. By the end of it, by the time he had Paz on his knees with a blade to his throat, Din was barely conscious. He felt far away in his own body.

He heard the Armorer’s dismissal faintly, an echo of words through his hollow ribcage.

“Then you are a Mandalorian no more.”

He could barely stand, let alone process the devastating reality of her words.

He doesn’t know how he made it back to the surface of Glavis and all the way to the public transport. He has no memory of stripping himself of his weapons, signing them over to a droid, and stumbling on board. He has no memory of upgrading to a private room.

He remembers the room, though.

By the time he got there, he knew he was going to be sick, his insides roiling and churning. As soon as the door closed and locked behind him, he ripped his helmet off and paced the tiny space, massaging his temples and willing himself to calm down. His blood pumped hot and furious through his veins as he replayed the duel, as he remembered the Armorer’s words. 

He felt trapped, pent-up and weighed down; he needed to be out of his beskar in a way he hadn’t felt since his first days of wearing armor—back when he was just a kid and the weight was stifling and restrictive and unfamiliar.

And then the real pain came. Like a fever, it took him.

He buckled to the floor of his private room, collapsing to his hands and knees, his thigh guards clattering against the durasteel floor. Against his better judgment, slouched pathetically on the ground, he peeled off each of his layers—his beskar, his soft underarmor, his flight suit. He stripped to his boxers and stretched out in a prone position, face turned to one side. The shock of the cold metal floor felt good on his feverish skin. Din lay there and counted.  

He lay there and tried to compose himself.

Over and over, he watched his hot, panted breath leave a temporary shadow of condensation on the gelid floor and dissipate. Spread and evaporate. Spread and evaporate.

Just when he thought he was starting to get control of himself, it felt as though two hot blades pierced his shoulders, and he reached back reflexively, rolling onto his side as he convulsed in agony, his spine curling and straightening. He shoved his clenched-white knuckles against his teeth to muffle his scream, and he felt something hard protruding from his back.

Paz must have followed.

He writhed and pitched.

The door was locked. The room was empty.

Nothing made sense.

I’m dying.

Two points of white-hot pain sprouted behind his temples, his vision going gray and bile rising in his throat.

Then, blissful darkness.

*** Things are good. Things are calm.

Din has fallen into a routine, a sustainable routine for the foreseeable future. It will get him through the time period between now and whenever you leave—whether that’s a few weeks or a couple months. And that’s all that matters.

He lets himself hunt once a week. He’s finally accepted that concession lends him more control. He’s less on edge after he allows himself to turn and feed. So, once a week, he sheds his armor and changes. It’s just enough freedom to quash the urge to go armor-less when he shouldn’t. Plus, he has a clear purpose for it now. He stalks through the forest, kills a beast, and reinforces his territory.

He’s picking off the pack one by one, just as he planned. They’re onto him now—they’re wary and hyper-vigilant. They move constantly, retreat higher and higher into the hills. They place scouts along their flanks. Din picks off the scouts.

First, it’s a gray female.

Next, a tawny male.

The third, its mate.

And so on.

He hunts. He keeps tabs on you from afar. He trains with the saber.

Yes, everything is good.

You haven’t sought him out again, not since the market. His rejection was enough, apparently. He’s relieved.

He’s miserable.

Truly, he’s sick with it, and his regret is showing up in all sorts of tangible ways. 

All the tiles of his shower, every single white square at his eye-level, where he leans his weight on a clawed hand once a week, are scored now. The deep lacerations don’t bother him anymore though. Each one is a mark on stone instead of flesh, a tally of his self-control.

He breaks things more often, when he’s changed and when he’s not. He feels like some kind of adolescent animal, just learning the limitations of his own strength. It’s ridiculous. He figures it’s the incompatible combination of his new strength, his burning frustration, and the age of the house.

He’s had to repair his headboard, the door frame to the bathroom, and two door knobs. He’s had to fully replace his front door, hinges and all. He came back from a particularly grisly hunt, pent up and brimming with violent energy, and pulled the thing clean off.

It’s been weeks since he’s talked to you. Summer has had enough time to wane into fall, but this unexpected penance he’s enduring for the way he treated you doesn’t seem to be going away.

*** The next time he goes out for a hunt—in the early evening because he can’t seem to make himself wait out the few hours until nightfall—Din can tell you’re out walking in the forest before he’s even a mile from you. The wind shifts, and he can smell you as if you’re standing right next to him.

He could turn for home. He could skirt you completely. He could follow you from a distance until you make it home safely. He could do anything that ensures you have no chance of seeing him like this.

He’s not in the condition to make a rational decision.

Din continues on the same path, until you’re so close that in full daylight you’d be able to see his towering shape moving beyond the lattice of low tree limbs, and he scales the largest tree he can find, pulling himself lithely up into its high branches.

He waits, silent and still, as you wander through the trees far below him. You look so tiny from up here, like something too insignificant to draw his attention on a hunt, the perfect prey for some creature that’s one rung lower on the food chain. 

Possessive longing embeds itself somewhere tender behind his ribs and tugs: You look like something that needs to be protected.

The little fawn is trailing behind you like an obedient duckling. She notices Din’s presence right away, her tiny head craning upward to find him in the murky gloom. She goes skittish and fragile when she sees him, blundering ahead of you on precarious legs.

You look after her with mild concern. “Where are you going?”

If you were to glance up too, you might be able to make out his hulking shape, crouched in the tangle of the canopy, but you wouldn’t be able to discern the details. You wouldn’t see his face. His silhouette would be obscured by the wide, swooping contours of his wings, all detail lost to shadow.

There’s a part of him that wants you to look up, a part of him that wants to leap down and block your path—to make you look at him like this. He needs to know what you’d do.

You’d scream.

And then what?

Would you freeze or fight or flee?

You’re not one to flee on instinct. You’re too smart to fight something more than twice your size. His credits are on freeze.

And when you stood there staring at him, how long would it take you to tear your gaze from his clawed hands and pointed wings and sharp teeth to meet his eyes? How long would it take you to look up from the threatening bulk of his body to his face? Would you put it together? Would you recognize the unzipped flightsuit tied loosely at his waist? 

Would you hate him?

He doesn’t want to think about the possibility of disgust reflected in your features. As hard as he’s tried to convince himself that it would be easier if you feared him, he despises the idea of you seeing him like this and being scared or repulsed.

It would be the final confirmation that he’s a monster.

You’re almost out of sight. You could still look up. All you’d see is a dark void—a space that swallows more light than any of the surrounding shadows.

You don’t look up, though; you wander on. You’re close enough to your home, headed back in that direction, that he’s not worried about you. He’ll be attending to the potential threats elsewhere anyways.

He jumps down when you’re a safe distance away, falling gracefully and with control, and the thick bed of pine needles muffles the thud of his landing. But he’s so heavy like this, so dense with muscle, that the forest floor vibrates just for a moment when his feet touch down.

Din turns for the hills, where he knows the pack is waiting. 

He thinks he’ll kill two tonight. 

When he returns home hours later—sweaty and fed and sticky with blood—he heads right for the shower, reaches for the knob, starts the hot water…and the metal snaps off in his hand. 

Fuck.

*** All the necessary repairs mean that Din is in town more often than he wants to be.

The next evening, fuming, he heads there for the replacement part for the shower. With the newly purchased knob slung in a bag over his shoulder, he starts for home. He’s skirting the main roads in town, sticking to the side streets and alleyways to avoid people, but Din pauses when you step out the door of the cantina. 

Alone.

No, not alone.

A quiet growl escapes the modulator when that boy that bothers you at the market comes stumbling out the door behind you, tripping over his own feet as he calls your name. Din has noticed every time this boy lingers too long by your stall on Saturdays. You always have the same vague, disinterested smile plastered on your face until he leaves. He annoys you, and that annoys Din.

Din waits in the shadow of the alley, out of sight, to ensure this boy doesn’t do anything more than annoy you.

The urge to protect you isn’t a want for him anymore. It’s a physical imperative.

“Wait, wait up,” the boy pants when you turn at the sound of your name. “Let me walk you home.”

You turn and give him a pacifying smile. “I’m good, Terek.” You wave him off amiably and keep walking.

Terek follows.

Din starts forward as soon as Terek reaches for you. He covers the short distance in a few strides, coming up behind both of you. Neither of you hears his approach.

“Don’t,” Din says, his voice low and threatening, just as Terek grasps your wrist.

You and Terek freeze and whip your heads around, surprise apparent on your faces. When you both register Din’s presence, Terek’s surprise melts into fear, yours into…disappointment?

That stings.

In an attempt at chivalry, Terek hesitates for a moment then steps all the way in front of you, putting his body squarely between yours and Din’s, swallowing audibly as he looks up at his visor.

Din sighs.

“What do you want?”

“Release her.”

Terek splutters for a moment, trying and failing to form a sentence that expresses his utter disbelief, but you save him the trouble by wrenching your hand from his and stepping away.

“I’m fine,” you say to no one in particular. Then, to Terek, “Go home.”

“I’m not leaving you with him,” he says, disgusted, eyeing Din warily.

“I’m fine,” you reassure him, adding, “Just go,” when he hesitates.

Terek leaves, his pride sufficiently wounded by the dismissal. He mutters under his breath as he does, disappearing around a corner. Then it’s just you and Din.

You look up at him for a moment then turn abruptly on your heel and stalk away.

You waited to be alone with him just so you could leave first. The pettiness of it almost amuses him.

You’re upset with him. Hurt. For good reason. He doesn’t blame you, and as much as he should be thrilled that you want nothing to do with him, he’s suddenly desperate to fix it. Now that you’re standing in front of him again, he can’t help himself.

“Wait,” he says, following you instinctively. “Let me walk with you.”

As soon as he says it, he regrets it. He sounds just like Terek, who obviously annoys the shit out of you. Sure enough, you reject the offer. 

“No,” you reply, tossing the word carelessly over your shoulder.

Din watches you walk away, disappointment coiling in his chest like thick smoke.

He makes an impulsive decision, overtaking you in a few strides, turning around in front of you to force you to stop walking. “Please.”

You’re surprised, caught off guard by his plea, but you recover quickly. You deliberate for one painful, infinite moment.

“Alright,” you say, your expression softening. “Come on.”

He’s so relieved he sighs audibly. He’s so relieved he doesn’t even let himself think about what a bad idea this is—how it’s going to completely erase the progress he’s made in keeping you away from him. He shoves those thoughts aside and falls into step beside you. 

Din looks down at the reluctant smile pulling at your lips, and he smiles behind the helmet.

In that moment, everything changes. His resolve evaporates. Nothing about this could be wrong, he decides. It feels too good. Even more importantly, you look happy. 

That means he’s doing something right.

YOU

Summer gifts you a final handful of warm days as fall pushes in.

Your weekly harvest shifts from the best of the summer fruits and vegetables to what fall has to offer—pears and apples, squashes and pumpkins, leafy greens and broccoli crowns. A chill slips in at night, first a light breeze, then more insistent until it’s enough to necessitate shut windows and drawn curtains.

In the forest, the deciduous trees are just starting to turn. The tart greens of summer have waned to a muted olive in the heat and the drought, and they’re beginning to give way to the first golden hues of autumn, heralding the oncoming winter months. It’s your stark annual reminder of the transience of the growing season. In a few months, the weekly market will all but close, reduced to a handful of stalls selling preserved and prepared foods. Your part in it will be over for the year. 

You’re even more relieved than usual. You’ll miss the finer weather, of course, but not the work. Or the weekly slog to the market…and the constant reminder of the Mandalorian’s rejection.

The memory tastes like sweet cherry gone sour on your tongue.

You try not to think about it—how stupid you made yourself look, flirting with him when he wasn’t interested. Pursuing him outright and cajoling him to come to your stall when he’d made the choice to avoid you. You’d made some bold moves, and they hadn’t paid off. No, they’d backfired rather spectacularly. 

You’re grateful that the Mandalorian’s constant radius of solitude—the area around him that his intimidation keeps clear—means that no one else witnessed the whole embarrassing scene up close. A small blessing.

The last Saturday markets of the season pass without event. Just like the previous handful, Mando walks by. You see him coming and avoid his gaze; you avoid looking at him altogether in fact—you don’t even sneak a sidelong glance to see if he’s willing to spare you a nod. You don’t want to know.

You both act the part of the strangers you are. Whatever nascent thing flickered between you for a moment has been snuffed out completely.

You pack up your kiosk and head home from that final Saturday, knowing it’s time to get to work on the necessary preparations for winter: some repairs, the work in the orchards and gardens, tending to the chickens. The final push feels extra hard this year.

You’ve never been more ready to leave this planet. 

So naturally, when you head into town a few days later to check on the progress of your ship, you find out that the last few parts are back-ordered. Everything slows down here when the first chilly winds start to pick up the fallen leaves—everything. People hunker down preemptively, incoming shipments of all goods slowing to a trickle. It doesn’t help that your ship is an old model, out of production. It already takes extra time to find the right parts.

The mechanic estimates an early spring completion date.

You’ll have to wait out the cold months patiently. Knowing he’s still out there. A small comfort is that you probably won’t see him at all now that you won’t spend hours at the one place you reliably crossed paths. Maybe you’ll pass each other when you’re visiting the tiny winter market briefly for necessities. Likely not, though, when you know exactly the time he shows up and therefore just how to avoid him.

You wish he’d leave the planet entirely so you could stop thinking about him.

No, you wish he’d seek you out. Just so you could reject him.

Who are you kidding? That’s not how that would go. 

What you really want is for him to seek you out, explain that the whole thing was some kind of misunderstanding, whip his helmet off to reveal his handsome face, and kiss you full on the mouth.

It’ll probably happen. Any second.

*** Right away, you’re proven wrong. It’s not so easy to avoid him. But you don’t run into him at the market—no, you’re in town, coming out of the cantina, when you see him next.

A slightly drunk Terek is trying to talk you into letting him walk you home, and the Mandalorian appears out of nowhere.

Again, the absurd idea that he follows you seems not entirely improbable.

“Release her.”

The protective tone of Mando’s voice makes your stomach clench. Terek is perfectly harmless. You’ve dealt with him for years, and he’s never done more than offer his company, sometimes too insistently. Some deep, vicious part of you wants him to get uncharacteristically angry and brave right now—to escalate the situation by refusing to let you go.

You want to see how effortlessly Mando would put him down. 

Fuck, what is wrong with you?

The man does things to your head. 

You pull your hand out of Terek’s loose, sweaty grasp and step away. He protests when you tell him to leave, but eventually, reluctantly, he listens. And then it’s just you and the Mandalorian. As you wanted.

He got protective over you, and your curiosity is unyielding. You have to know how this is going to play out.

He stands there like a metal statue and says nothing.

So you turn and walk away.

“Wait,” he says belatedly, his footsteps picking up behind you. “Let me walk with you.”

It’s embarrassing how easily the request makes your irritation disappear. The reality of just how much his attention means to you cinches uncomfortably in your gut. You remember your last encounter, and the combination makes you defensive.

So you say the opposite of what you really want, an ugly satisfaction settling in your chest: “No.”

He rounds on you. “Please.”

He sounds well and truly fraught—even though the modulator, the sharp emotion comes through.

The Mandalorian seems to be someone else entirely tonight: you think he’s the man you’ve glimpsed behind the armor, sweet and real, the one he usually tries to keep hidden. It’s intoxicating.

“Alright,” you say, relieved. “Come on.”

He falls into place beside you quickly, a little eagerly.

You pass the entrance to town, and the wind whistles through the dry leaves in the forest, tugging the last few hold-outs from their branches to join the rest. They skitter across the hard-packed dirt road.

As much as you’d rather avoid the topic altogether, it feels necessary to address the awkwardness between you before diving into anything else. It doesn’t feel so daunting at this moment. His energy tonight has changed the dynamic completely. 

“I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable that day at the market. I didn’t mean—”

He surprises you by stopping abruptly in his tracks and turning toward you. You pause too. He extends a hand like he wants to reach for yours then decides better of it and lets it drop.

“I was rude,” he says. “I’m sorry, it had nothing to do with you.”

You scrunch your nose. That doesn’t seem true. “Really? It seemed like—”

“Forgive me.”

It has the quiet desperation of a plea, and he says it with so much sincerity that you don’t feel any qualms about agreeing.

“Of course,” you say. “It’s forgotten.”

He nods once, decisively, then turns to keep walking. Apparently, the matter is settled. You let him change the subject when he tries.

“How’s the progress on your ship?” he asks.

You let out an annoyed huff. “Delayed. Again.”

You explain the specifics to him.

It feels like a gift to be alone with him for this long, to finally have an uninterrupted, prolonged, one-on-one conversation. You’re learning so much about him, his quirks, already. He has a way of keeping you talking without saying anything. He gives you a look, cocks his helmet, hums. Not talkative but not aloof. He wants you to keep talking, and he communicates that openly.

You like it—like learning him—and at the same time, you can’t help but want to wheedle more out of him. You want the man behind the mask, all of him. You tell yourself to settle for this. This is easy. This is comfortable. You’ll give him time. You’ll let him unravel you a little before you start in on him.

So for now, he goads; you answer.

Ten or so minutes pass like that.

“So, it looks like I’m stuck here through the winter,” you conclude. 

That fact is starting to feel less bleak by the minute.

“Yeah?”

Either there’s a faint glimmer of potential in his question or you want it to be there so badly you’re projecting. It feels real, though—real enough to press a little.

“What about you, Mando? How long are you here for?”

“Still deciding.”

“And what’s informing that decision?”

He looks you over for a long moment. Leaves crunch under his boots, and you feel exposed under his naked attention. 

“Several…factors,” he says finally, perfectly cryptic.

You roll your eyes at him playfully, prompting him to expand with an open hand. 

“I’ll…be here through the winter too.”

It feels like he’s just deciding right now. And you want to believe that—that your timeline is somehow, improbable as it is, affecting his. 

You can’t help but smile at him. “Good.”

You walk in companionable silence for a few minutes—until something howls mournfully into the night.

“You walk this alone at night?” he asks. There’s concern there.

You shrug. “I’ve lived here all my life—long enough that I know what to expect, long enough that nothing on this planet really scares me anymore. I know how to deal with it.”

A grunt of acknowledgement, then he goes thoughtfully quiet.

You’ve reached the turn-off for your house. You expect him to leave you here. He doesn’t. He walks with you all the way down the path, all the way to the stairs that lead up to your front porch.

You turn to him, he turns to you, and you’re painfully aware that in any other situation, walking home with someone you’re interested in might culminate in a kiss. If you wanted it to.

You look up, meeting his visor, feeling shy under his gaze again. “Thanks for walking with me.”

He nods and reaches into a pouch on his belt, fishing out something small. He hands it to you. “In case.”

You look down at the little silver device, closing your fingers around it. A com. A direct link to him, given freely. You’re surprised. And pleased. “I—thank you.”

“Use it if you need it.”

“I will.”

“...if you want to,” he amends, a little hesitantly.

“I definitely will.”

He bids you goodnight with a final nod, but he waits to leave until you let yourself in your front door and lock it behind you.

From the window, you watch him go, watch him turn and melt into the syrupy darkness like he’s always been part of it.

*** The next day, you’re buoyed by the hope of last night’s conversation. He was friendly. He wanted to spend time with you. He was protective. You float through your work mindlessly, daydreaming. 

The little silver com feels heavy and significant in your skirt pocket.

The air smells earthy, and there’s a chilly bite to the morning breeze. Luna follows you as per usual, moseying behind as you graduate from one task to the next. Her ankle is fully healed. She wanders in your vicinity, searching out the best food sources without leaving your sight. 

You replay your conversation with Mando—the questions, the interest, the amiable silence—while you work. 

You pause in the middle of pruning an apple tree, clippers poised over a branch to be cut: you might actually be friends with the Mandalorian.

Of course, what you really want is to be fucked raw by the Mandalorian every day. But being friends is probably a good first step.

When you’re done in the orchard, you move the chickens from their outdoor enclosure inside, counting each feathery butt as they titter their way through the door of the barn. The last one meanders away, pecking at the ground in search of bugs, and you have to herd her back toward the waiting warmth. 

“Come on, silly.”

You usher her inside, check the feed levels, and latch the door behind them. All accounted for. You haven’t lost a chicken in months. 

It’s odd, honestly.

It’s usually a constant battle to keep them from being picked off. You always factor in an expected loss each year. But for the past few months, you haven’t lost a single one, haven’t seen a single offending footprint of a predator—large or small—anywhere on your land. Even the rats have stopped coming for the eggs.

It makes you curious.

You venture into the forest early that evening, slipping under the patchwork of fall colors: amber and olive and burnt orange. Luna follows close at your heel. You’re not sure what you’re looking for until you find it.

A ways into the forest, quite far from the edge of your clearing, you come across a large tree, its trunk wide and thick, and the bark is shredded. It’s cut with long, deep lacerations. And lying at its base is a sizable ladder of vertebrae. Mammalian. Something big. The bones have been picked clean, left almost pristine by the elements and hungry critters.

You’ve never seen something like this so close to your house.

And you haven’t seen any live predators lately. You’ve heard them, far off.  It doesn’t make sense.

You circle the trunk and notice a little way off, there is another tree just like this one—ribboned bark, an offering of bones gathered at its foot. And then, from that tree, you spot another. There’s a series of them, one after another. You follow one to the next, marked tree to marked tree, and find that they form a massive ring around your property. 

A halo of slashed trees hemming you in. 

You can tell they’ve each been marked repeatedly, newer lacerations scored across older ones, newer kills piled atop older ones. There are scattered bones everywhere—husks of shattered skulls and splintered femurs, the pristine skeletal structure of a paw as big as your hand. Some are stripped, but decaying muscle and flesh still cling to others.

Dread has dropped into your stomach like a stone, growing heavier by the minute. Something is…stalking you?

Has been stalking you.

For weeks. Maybe months.

Something that’s large enough to kill the largest predator on this planet.

Something new.

Someone new.

You know.

You’re almost back to where you started; you’ve almost completed the full circuit when you find one spot that’s more disturbing than the rest. The kill that sits at the base of this tree looks fresh, maybe a day or two old. It hasn’t rotted yet, and you can smell the coppery tang of dried blood. You can see it too, dripped like black ink across dead, curled oak leaves.

There’s something else in the air too—something strong and alluring—

You turn abruptly when you realize you haven’t heard the quiet crunch of Luna’s steps in a minute, haven’t felt the gentle press of her nose and the warm chuff of air when she exhales against your leg. Your tiny companion is several steps behind you, completely stricken. She looks as terrified as the day you took her home—trembling legs splayed, eyes huge, ears alert.

She is not pleased with the grisly scene. For good reason.

You scan the area, listening intently. There’s no movement, no immediate threat you can discern. You know this kill is abandoned.

But you’re not going to subject Luna to this fear. You scoop her up, trudge back through the forest to bring her home, and put her inside. And then you head back to the spot.

Something aside from the macabre mystery of it all brings you back.

The smell of blood is overpowering, but there’s that other scent lingering on the still forest air, something warm and pungent and vaguely familiar. You can’t put your finger on what it is, but it smells good. Mouthwateringly good. Not like fresh baked bread, not something benign like a food or flower or early morning. 

It’s something overtly sexual, something personal.

You can’t remember ever being this attracted to a scent, but it conjures images of intense coupling. It smells like tangled limbs, like burying your face against the hollow of a sweaty throat. Like skimming the tip of your nose up the inside of a thigh. Like having two thick fingers thrust into your mouth, pressing in, pressing down on the wet muscle of your tongue until you choke. Like those same spit-wet fingers slipping out of your mouth, streaking a glistening trail down your chin, and closing around your throat.

It’s leather and sex and smoke and salt and…so many more unnameable things.

It has you wet between your legs.

It has you following a faint trail of dripped blood and remnants of dismembered carcasses across the pine-needle strewn ground—a path that leads away from your property. You wander from one trace to the next, a little dazed, searching the forest floor for more signs of the violence that took place here.

Every step you take has you moving a little faster, until you’re all but running through the maze of tree trunks.

You pass cracked ribs, stripped almost completely clean.

The smell is getting stronger, more magnetic. You barely have to seek out the trail of the blood and scattered viscera to find your way; the smell itself is enough. It keeps you on track.

You know it’s crazy. But you need answers.

Halfway there, you’re sure of where the path leads. There’s nothing else this far in the forest. You know who will be waiting at the end of it.

You step over the sharp angle of a jaw bone, shiny teeth lined up like snow-covered mountain peaks.

No wonder the nights have been loud with desolate howling.

You’re vaguely aware that dusk is gathering quickly, spun like silk between the tightly packed trees. It’s dangerous to be out this late, in this part of the forest, in the dark.

You keep moving, fingers clutched tightly around the com in your pocket.

*** The Mandalorian is waiting for you.

He’s standing comfortably, leaning against a tree, as if he’s been expecting you for some time, like he’s known you’ve been on your way. His house lurks somewhere in the blue mist behind him.

How could he possibly have known?

When he straightens, his body language is stiff. Something is off.

He greets you with a gruff, “You shouldn’t be out here.”

You hesitate. “What—why?”

“It isn’t safe.”

“It’s not—”

“Don’t come here again.”

The contrast to how he spoke to you last night is jarring. You’re speechless for a second. He turns on his heel and starts to walk away. He’s gone mercurial on you again—retreated fully behind his armor.

You find your voice before he’s disappeared between the trees. “I told you—I’m not afraid of anything on this planet.”

He stops in his tracks and turns slowly to face you, his silver armor glinting dully in the gloom. 

“I know,” he says, “but you should be.”

You bristle. “Why are you acting this way? Yesterday—just yesterday you gave me a com link.” You pull the thing out of your pocket and hold it up. “And told me to use it. You wanted me to.”

“That…was a mistake.”

“Don’t say that. It wasn’t.”

“I shouldn’t have been so familiar. It won’t happen again.”

He turns and is almost completely lost to darkness, the looming outline of his roof just barely visible beyond the trees.

“Why is there a trail of carcasses leading from my house to yours?”

He stops in his tracks. Silent.

“You owe me an explanation,” you press. “I’m not leaving until I get it.”

He stands there for a long moment.

“Come in,” he growls finally, jerking his helmet toward his front door.

You follow him inside. The house is old but beautiful—hardwood floors and sky blue walls. It’s clean and uncluttered, just as you expect his space to be. He nods toward his kitchen table, offering you a chair, and leans against his kitchen counter, thumbs tucked into his belt.  

“Explain the bodies.”

He’s not looking at you. He chooses his words carefully. “They…were a threat.”

“They were a threat…?”

“So I eliminated them,” he says simply.

Eliminated feels like a generous euphemism for the way the beasts were obliterated, ripped to shreds and scattered. To be honest, though, you’re less concerned with the details than you should be. You care more about the reason. You want to hear him say it. 

“Why?”

“I’m a hunter. It’s what I do.”

“There was a bounty on those creatures?”

He tilts his helmet in a way that feels like an eye-roll.

“They weren’t bothering anyone,” you say. “It wasn’t necessary.”

“They were stalking you.”

The lake. The fight. Here it is, finally: the truth. You’re going to have to drag it out of him.

“And how do you know that?”

He tips his helmet up, his visor finally meeting your eyes, but he says nothing.

“You’ve been following me.”

Again, nothing. He fixes his gaze downward again.

“Why, Mando?” you prompt, some mixture of dread and desire pulsing through your veins. “Tell me. You owe me that.”

“You know,” he says quietly.

Your heartrate kicks up. “I know what?”

He says it begrudgingly, like it’s an ugly reality: “That I want you.”

You laugh. He can’t be fucking serious. “How would I know that? Should I have guessed when you stopped talking to me? Or when you refused to look at me? How could I possibly have known when you can’t seem to decide whether to let me in or push me away?”

“You’ve known,” he says, addressing none of your questions. “You flirted with me.”

“I did,” you admit. “But that had more to do with my feelings than anything I assumed about yours. I didn’t know what you were feeling. I just knew what I wanted.”

“Mmm.”

You’re going to kill him if he doesn’t start giving you more than monosyllables.

“If you want me, why do you keep pushing me away?”

He rolls his helmet to the side, annoyed. As if he has any right to be annoyed. You can hear how tightly his jaw is clenched when he speaks. “Because I can’t have you.”

“Shouldn’t I be the one who gets to decide that?”

“Not in this case.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s…complicated.”

“Fine. Explain it to me.” You make a show of settling back in your chair. “We have all the time in the world.”

He bunches his shoulders, rubs a heavy hand down the back of his neck, uneasy. “You’ll get hurt.”

“What does that even mean? How would I get hurt?”

He ignores that, deflecting. “This isn’t your decision to make,” he spits. “It’s mine.”

“That’s insane—we both want the same thing—”

“I won’t let you get hurt.” His voice is low, his visor pointed at his boots—almost as if he’s talking to himself, trying to convince himself.

You stand, frustrated, your chair squeaking on the hardwood floor when you shove it backwards. “Why would I get hurt, Mando—how? What are you going to do? Or is it me you’re worried about? Is this how you really think of me? As something fragile? Do you just think I’m that fucking weak?”

He breaks.

The sound he makes is brutal and anguished, a dull roar, and you can’t help but flinch when he slams his fist against the counter behind him. The windows shake with the impact. He laughs when you flinch, something low and dark rumbling through his chest, a sound tinged with vindication.

“Good,” he says. “I said you should be scared.”

“That sound startled me,” you say, rolling your eyes. “It doesn’t mean I’m scared of you.”

He moves like a gunshot. 

He shoves your empty chair away, and his massive metal frame forces you backwards with faltering steps. You stop when your back hits the wall, looking up at his visor defiantly. He’s trying to provoke you, to orchestrate a situation that forces you to push him away, that justifies his own worry. 

“What will it take?”

He gets so close that his chest brushes yours, so close that you can feel the cold metal of his armor through your clothes. He looms over you, dropping his helmet toward your ear.

“Hmm?” he prompts. “What will it take to convince you?”

“Of what?”

“To leave this—leave me—alone.”

You open and close your mouth, at a loss for words, overwhelmed by his closeness.

He dips his head again, his helmet nudging your temple, his voice pitching low and dangerous. “You want me to hurt you?”

“You won’t hurt me.” You say it so quickly, with such conviction that it surprises even you.

Mando lets out a quiet sound like a wounded animal and looks away, his visor fixed on the ground as his chest heaves in deep breaths. You’re about to speak again when he looks up and cradles your cheek in his gloved hand.

He’s gentle suddenly. Reverent.

“You’re right, sweet thing. I won’t hurt you. Not on purpose.”

“See?”

“Not on purpose,” he repeats, the words heavy with significance.

“I trust you.”

You reach for his helmet with a tentative hand, waiting for him to stop you—fully expecting it. He doesn’t. You trace the sharp relief with light fingers, running them down what would be his cheek.

“I want you. Let me want you.”

A low growl rumbles through his chest, but this one is different from the others. This one sounds pleased. You’ll take it.

You tuck two fingers into the soft leather of his belt and tug his hips forward those last few inches, guiding him close until his whole body is flush to yours, until you’re caught between his unyielding metal and the wall.

You let your hands wander to the spaces between his armor, let them run up his sides, let one slip under the layered fabric at his neck. Your fingertips find warm skin, and you sigh at the feeling.

He’s real. He’s here. He’s not moving away. 

He’s leaning into your touch, his breath coming thick and fast through the modulator. His hands, though, are hovering by your hips, uncertain.

“Touch me,” you beg, grabbing them and moving them to your sides. 

His fingers tighten against your middle, and he presses the solid length of his body harder against yours. He’s half hard against your hip.

“Please.”

He’s considering. He’s drawing out the longest moment of your life.

You can feel the moment he decides to give in, to let himself have what you both want so badly. He sighs and curls himself around you, dropping his helmet toward your shoulder, slipping his arms around your waist to hold you tight.

It’s achingly tender. Intimate in a way you weren’t expecting.

You breathe together.

And just as suddenly, everything shifts again. He pulls back and fixes you with a hard look. 

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You need to be sure.”

“I’m sure. Just—please—”

His fingers follow the line of your jaw, his thumb settling on your lower lip. At the merest hint of pressure, you open your mouth.

“Bite,” he whispers, pushing just the tip of his thumb past your lips.

You graze your teeth lightly over his fingertip, catching the seam. The potent taste of leather and blaster residue invades your mouth, sitting heavy like ash on your tongue. You want to taste his skin, not his glove.

You’re desperate to know what sound he’d make if you wrapped your lips around his bare thumb and sucked. But before you have the chance, he eases his hand out of his glove—revealing golden brown skin—and drops it to your side, squeezing your hip so hard it makes you gasp. The leather slaps quietly against the floor when your jaw falls open. He yanks his other hand free and lets that glove fall too.

Your hand slips down his chest plate, skates over his belt, to settle over—

His bare hand covers yours, clamping it in place over his cold metal buckle.

“No.”

You look up at him. “What—?”

“No,” he repeats.

“Why—?”

“Are you sure you want this?” he asks again. “Are you sure you want me to touch you?”

“Yes,” you gasp. “But why can’t—?”

Before you can finish your question, Mando is spinning you around and ushering you backward toward the table. When the edge nudges your back, he turns you again, pushing your shoulders down until you fold forward over the oak top. 

He arranges you to his liking: a boot kicks your feet wider, and rough hands grip your hips to shift them backward so he has enough space to work open the button on your skirt, shove it down, and let it pool at your feet. He takes your underwear with it. 

Your gasp melts into a moan when he fits himself behind you, bent over you with his hips bracketing yours, and drags his warm, dry hands up the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. You can feel him through his clothes—his cock is hard against the small of your back—and you’re on fire with the thought of trying to fit him inside you.

You’d take it. You want that burn.

But he doesn’t reach for his belt. He stays like that, folded over you, the edge of his helmet sharp on the back of your shoulder, and slides one hand further up into the v of your legs. He grunts and presses his hips harder against your ass at the first feeling of your wet heat on his fingers as he parts you. 

The pad of his finger finds your clit and skims it, applying barely any pressure. Teasing.

He speaks softly, his helmet close to your ear. “Is this what you wanted? Is this what you needed?”

You push your hips back against him, seeking. “Please, Mando—I need—”

“You’ll take what I give you, pretty thing. And you won’t ask for more.”

He goes torturously slow, clearly unconcerned with your urgent need. He’s enjoying the build-up, you think, enjoying feeling you squirm against him. He lets you whine for a couple minutes while he plays with you as he pleases. Until finally, he decides to give you the pressure you need, two fingers rocking gently against your clit, his other hand dipping lower.

Out of all the things that have happened tonight—all the weird, improbable shit—what shocks you the most is this: Mando can be a talker. As soon as he sinks two fingers into the warmth of your pussy, he starts to run his mouth. And he doesn’t stop.

In his sinful voice, he tells you how much he’s wanted this, how good you feel around his fingers.

He groans deep. “I’ve thought about this tight little cunt every night for months.”

With both his hands between your legs and a steady stream of filth murmured in your ear, he takes you apart in minutes. He pauses only to rip your shirt over your head, palming your breasts with a quiet oh fuck, and then resumes.

“I’ve imagined the sounds you’d make—the way you’d cry for me when I make you come.”

He fucks you with two thick fingers, stretching you open in a way that’s making your arousal seep down his palm.

“Fuck, you’re even wetter than I thought you’d be—hngg—you’re dripping on me.”

He flicks your clit with his other hand, a little mean, then soothes the sting with just the right touch, the right rhythm. You come like that, spasming around his fingers, and he growls when he feels it. 

“Oh fuck, come for me, just like that.”

He pulls his hands away too quickly.

“Let me—just let me—”

He guides you into a new position with gentle but hurried movements. There’s a frantic air to them that has you obeying without a second thought. He draws your shoulders up and spins you around; his hands slide down your back and over the curve of your ass, gripping the backs of your thighs to lift you onto the edge of the table.

He presses you backwards until you lie flat for him, and he parts your knees and slides his palms up the insides of your thighs, forcing your legs apart so you’re completely spread for him. You don’t have time to be startled by the depravity of it because he does something you’re not expecting. He drops to his knees with a clank of beskar and lets his helmet fall forward into the v of your thighs.

You gasp at the cold shock of metal, flinching away instinctively, but his hands curl around your thighs and keep you in place.

He presses the front of his helmet against your sex.

There’s no way he can see anything at all with his visor shoved up against your skin, no way there’s enough light to make out the details of your cunt.

Then you realize, he’s smelling you. His fingers are digging into your thighs as he tries to drag you closer to his face—as if he could drag you any closer when you’re already pressed up tight against him, as if he could pull you straight through the mask of beskar if he tries hard enough.

He’s making sharp, animalistic sounds: growls and huffs and desperate inhalations.

You watch in fascination as his shoulder starts to shift and roll, the dim light glinting on his pauldron, and you push yourself up onto your elbows and drop your head to one side to discover he’s palming himself over his pants where he’s kneeling, rubbing the erection straining against his zipper.

He’s touching himself to the smell of you.

It makes you desperate to touch him. You reach for him.

“Mando, please.”

He lets you pull him up, but when you go for his belt, he swats your hand away. Instead, he grips your thighs and yanks you further down the table; you slide easily over the wooden surface until the solid weight of his body stops you—until you can feel the hard bulge of his clothed erection against your core. You must be leaving a gloss of slick arousal on the front of his pants, but something tells you he likes that.

His hands cup your breasts, run roughly down your stomach, and pause at your hips. His helmet snaps up to your face.

“Can I taste you?”

You don’t even know what he means—don’t know how that will be possible with the impediment of the helmet—but you truly don’t care. You’d let him do anything he wants to you. 

“Yes.”

Mando slips a hand between your bodies and teases you open again, easing his fingers inside where you’re hot and leaking for him. He gives them a few leisurely pumps, curling them against you in a way that makes sparks skitter up your spine. And then he pulls them back.

He shoves his hand under the lip of his helmet and lets out the filthiest groan yet, his head tipping back in bliss as he sucks your taste off his fingers.

You brace yourself on your elbows to watch. It’s a deeply erotic sight. It makes you throb for him.

You’re about to reach for him again, to pull his body down over yours when he steps back and suddenly looks…disoriented. Caught off guard. His hands hang loosely by his sides, like he’s… waiting. Something foreign wracks through him—a shiver, no, more violent than that. A tremor shakes his body; he jerks his head to the side sharply and pulls his shoulders up tight, tensing, resisting something. It passes in a moment, and when it does, he leans his weight on slightly bent knees, catching his breath as if he just sprinted up a hill.

What the—?

“Are you alright?”

He shakes his head in a quick jerk. “I’m fine.”

He brushes past it as if nothing unusual has happened.

You don’t have time to question it because he takes his place between your knees again and leans over you, bracing a forearm above your head, the side of his smooth helmet sliding against your cheek. His fingers are still wet with his spit when he slides them home. He presses in close, and you can see the evidence of your slick smeared across his usually pristine visor. You can smell yourself on his helmet.

And you like it, like seeing him undone for you. By you.

He knows it’s there. You’re sure he can see the hazy smudge that extends across the vertical line of his visor.

“Fuck,” he says, breathless, resting his forehead lightly against yours, his hand moving between your tense thighs, “taste it.”

It takes you a moment to understand. His fingers press deeper, the feeling of him curling and stroking radiates outward.

“Lick yourself off my helmet.”

You don’t even think about it. Your mouth falls open obediently, and you drag the flat of your tongue up the glass, cutting through the taste of your own arousal.

He loves it. He lives for it.

You’re not sure if it’s the fact that you’ve just shown him you’re wiling to do whatever he says, without question; or if it’s the idea of you tasting yourself; or if it’s the filthy visual he must have of your mouth, up close and personal—maybe the closest thing he will ever get to a kiss; or if it’s something else entirely.

Whatever the reason, he likes it.

He mutters a string of praise so panted and broken that you can’t follow it. It somehow manages to communicate his meaning even better than if it were intelligible.

Mando shifts the arm braced above your head lower so he can press the pads of two fingers against your lip, a question.

Just what you wanted earlier.

You part your lips, and he coaxes another orgasm out of you. With one hand, he moves two fingers inside you, his thumb slipping over the tender pearl of your clit, and the other is cradling your chin, his fingers pressing down on your tongue as you moan around them.

It takes no time at all to work you back up to that same precipice.

“You’re—fuck—you’re choking my fingers.”

The broken pant of his words is enough to push you over the edge.

And all you can think about while you’re coming on his hand is how impossibly full you’d feel if he was fucking you with his cock instead of his thick fingers. And how much you want to know what that feels like.

You lie there, trying to catch your breath for a few moments, Mando braced over you, his breathing just as labored as yours. Eventually, he straightens.

“Up,” he invites, offering a hand.

You take it, and he pulls you into a sitting position on the table, your spread legs snug around his hips. You both look down between your bodies, and you hope he’s thinking the same thing you are.

This table is the perfect height for him to fuck you.

He could take himself out and sheath himself inside you so easily. Or you could do it for him. You’re hesitant to reach for him again, the echo of his unyielding no still loud in your head.

But you can see the rigid outline of him straining against the dark fabric of his pants. Your mouth waters at the sight. You’re itching to touch him—you can almost feel the weight and heft of him against your palm, hot and hard. He must be riding the edge of painfully aroused by now, absolutely aching for relief. And based on where his gaze is fixed—on the inches of space between your body and his, the meager distance that feels like a gaping chasm—he’s definitely thinking the same thing you are. 

He wants it.

You’re seconds away from throwing caution to the wind and reaching for his zipper when he clears his throat, and you look up to his visor. His tentative fingers brush your cheek, and your filthy thoughts are successfully derailed by the only thing that could possibly derail them: Mando being sweet to you.

“You’ll stay here.”

It’s neither an invitation or a question, just a fact. Stated warmly and firmly.

He finds your discarded clothes for you then leads you to his bed and waits for you to climb in. You settle under the thick quilt at the far end so he has enough space to lie down beside you. Which he does. Awkwardly. On top of the covers. In full armor. He’s even pulled his fucking gloves back on.

You’ll push him on that at some point—the armor thing. Not now, though. You’ve just barely gotten this far with him. You feel like you’ll spook him if you push too hard.

He leaves a gulf of empty space between your bodies when he settles on his back, his hands clasped together over his belt. A safe, respectful distance away. Hands completely to himself. As if he hasn’t just made you come on his fingers twice, buried knuckle-deep inside you as he whispered filthy things in your ear. As if he hasn’t just tasted your cunt.

If it wasn’t already perfectly clear, this drives the point home: He doesn’t know how to do this—how to be close to someone. If you want this to be anything else, anything more, you’ll have to show him.

You close the space between you, shifting toward him, guiding him closer with a hand on his arm, and he makes a quiet, surprised sound as he turns onto his side, into you, his arm instinctively circling your back. The instinct is there—the desire too—just not the how.

You curl into his metal chest, and one of the very good reasons he had for staying so far away from you on the bed becomes immediately apparent.

Ow.

He murmurs what you’re thinking: “I know the armor can’t be comfortable for you either.”

He makes no offer to take it off, extends no apology for its presence, just acknowledges that you’ll want to move away because of it. It’s not that he doesn’t want this; it’s that he’s accepted he isn’t suited for it.

“It’s fine,” you murmur, afraid he’s going to pull away. 

You tighten your fingers in the duraweave at his side. The hard lines of his beskar press into the front of your body, cold and pinching, in all the wrong places. He’s right. It is absolutely uncomfortable. You try to adjust subtly, try to get more comfortable without confirming that you’re really uncomfortable in the first place. You nudge your face further into the fabric bunched around his neck, chasing one of the few soft, warm parts of him that you can reach.

The tip of your nose brushes skin, and he sighs.

That scent. The one that lead you to him. It’s strongest here, heady and potent. You think you could get drunk on it. Live in it. Right now, though, it’s not so urgent. It doesn’t compel you; it’s not the catalyst it was before. It’s simply…comforting. Sweet and soothing, like the cloying edge of a sedative. No, it’s less demanding than that. More of a gentle suggestion, a reassurance.

The warm embrace of safety.

“It’s fine,” you mutter again, and this time you really mean it. “I don’t mind.”

His arm tightens around you, his hand traveling up your back to cup the nape of your neck, holding you in place where you’ve nuzzled in close. The gesture feels protective. Intimate and familiar.

Somewhere in the back of your mind you register how difficult it will be to give this up, but you release the thought as soon as it comes. No good can come from thinking like that. The end is inevitable: neither of you are meant to stay here forever.

You’ll enjoy this while you have it. Enjoy him while you have him. However brief that is.

You start to doze off, tucked comfortably against him, your thoughts spreading out and losing their shape, like ink bleeding across a wet page. It allows several things to click into place at once, settling into a recognizable pattern like puzzle pieces.

The bloody path. The dismembered carcasses. His unwillingness to let you touch him. The trees around your house. His inner conflict—his worries about hurting you. The armor. The odd physical reactions. The scent. Luna’s fear.

You’ve suspected for a while. You’ve known for sure since you saw the bodies, and in the liminal space on the edge of sleep, you finally let the truth surface.

He’s not human.

[thosewildcharms]

I haven’t stopped thinking about Michonne screaming his name literally haunting his dreams. I never considered he heard her 😭

seriously! and whatever you do DO NOT think about how that was the last time he ever heard her voice in almost a decade and that it was probably ringing in his ears when he washed up on the riverbed AND every time he woke up from his nightmares about it because it will make you feel SICK.

i also think about how in those nightmare/dream sequences we also hear rick screaming her name back to her, which definitely didn't happen on the bridge and implies that he screams for her in his dreams the way he wanted to in reality but was too weak and out of breath to do so. which! also makes me feel sick!

[mysteriouslybluepirate]

Season 2 OFMD: Replace Prince Ricky with Benjamin Hornigold

Hear me out.

S2Ep1: Introduce Hornigold in disguise to Stede. Make 'Ben' an old trusty sea dog who still knows a bit too much about Stede Bonnet. Have Ben compliment Stede in the same way Ricky did. -HAVE STEDE TRUST HIM- Ben being an old pirate who misses the life, the adventure, the brutality. Make Stede sympathise with him.

Make him wear a shitty disguise at Jackies until he's caught near the end of the episode (and gets away), because DUH. That's Benjamin fucking Hornigold, Jackie fucking hates him(we see her shoot at him as he runs). Maybe have Jackie tell Stede he's dangerous, only for Stede to reply 'that's just an old man' and brush off her concern.

NEXT WE SEE HIM:

S2Ep3: ED'S DREAM SEQUENCE

It's finally revealed to the audience through Ed's dreams that the old man they left behind is the infamous turncoat Hornigold. Change the line about abandoning Ed's body at a beach, to at a port town, and the 'Ed was mutinied' lie can be told like how it was in ep 3. But now we as the audience can catch hints that Ben isn't acting right. Ed still sees him as the brutal pirate and not the old man Stede met a few episodes ago.

THEN(replacing Ricky's speech on that British ship):

Hornigold discusses how brutal pirate life is to the British sailors under his command. Focus on how best to hunt them down. We can even have another sailor remind Hornigold that he's a pirate hunter due to Ben's signing of the act of grace.

Him and Zheng on Zheng's ship: Keep the scene the same. Auntie points out that Ben betrayed his pirate crew to go serve the English. Have both captains talk about how pointless this all is, but make it clear that he's willing to negociate. Have Ben roll his eyes at the British's gifts(clocks), but say it's all a formality and they can 'sell them off if she wants'. Knowing that she won't have the time to in the next 24 hours and that this will be her ships downfall.

The Zheng and Stede Fight: I hate that she gives this whole speech about defeating idiot men, only to get defeated by Ricky- an actual idiot. From this scene on she's less 'Pirate Queen/Captain' and more 'badass side chick that fits in with the crew'. BUT in this write, she lost to a pirate legend. Who sold his crew out for his own freedom. She lost because she was outmaneuvered, and she SHOULD have known better. (seriously though, why did Zheng trust Ricky, he was a british fucking officer, GOD I hate that shit)

NOW THE FUCKING PAY OFF:

Hornigold captures the crew post ep 7. We can keep Stede and Zheng getting away. BUT HORNIGOLD AND IZZY INTERACTING? Izzy siting up and defending his family from a person from his past????

Look, we know Ed has been a pirate for at least 20 years (he's known Fang for 20 years), so there's a very good chance Ed and Izzy were together on his ship.

Let Izzy give the speech about crew being family, about how you sacrifice everything for your crew. Spitting in the face of the piracy Izzy himself once lived his life by. Of this dog eats dog world.

Also: Izzy would have absolutely searched Benjamin fucking Hornigold for weapons. Now. We can keep Ben killing Izzy, maybe he runs up and grabs a sailor's gun, I don't like it. (Izzy didn't need to die for the story to work) But at least NOW Izzy died to a man whose haunted his every life's decision. A person he said he would never be, and slowly did become through years of trying to survive. It's not a good ending, but now it has a bit more meaning than Ricky getting a lucky shot he didn't earn.

Make Ed furious over Izzy's body, but show him visibly holding back from getting revenge. That throwing himself back in won't fix Izzy. So he fixes himself. This also pays off the consequences of signing the Act of Grace. Showing that this might just be the end of piracy as Ed knows it if his former bastard Captain was willing to turn coat.

This also means a BIT more for Stede, as his blind trust in Ben in episode 1 meant a dangerous pirate got away. Maybe in episode 1 Stede tells Ben about Ed. About how worried he is his 'friend' has gone off the deep end. Ben of course, actively hunting down Blackbeard and doing anything to get to his old prodigy. Have Stede regret that his 'plan to sell off Hornigold to the English' got Izzy killed. Have Stede learn to hold his cards closer for next season, to be slower to trust people. This would be a better arc than 'stede learns to be an excellent captain for his family and gives it all up in the end as soon as he can get his dick wet'.

It's still REALLY shallow, and I don't like it. This season should have had a better villain than trying to introduce the possibility of Zheng hunting them down, Ned Low, AND the British. But now, at least it fits better thematically for Izzy and Ed's arcs as growing past the traditional pirate life and Stede for learning to control his ego, showing him that he STILL has a lot to learn.