#the specters snippets

[t-lane-writes]

WIP: The Specters

[a snippet of scene #2]

WIP: The Specters Genre: science-fantasy, urban fantasy Tag line: Three Friends meet a Stranger whose demands send them on an expedition that changes their understanding of the world. POV characters: Neve Kailash, Noel Anaher, Emma Lee, Nersan Ziya Snippet from: Chapter Two, Neve's PoV

Chapter One (scene #1)

#2

[...]

This job was supposed to be one of the easy ones. Frederic Kielo’s son wasn’t expected to score beyond Red, but his family apparently believed that Orange Brand would get him more esteem. He wouldn’t get a job in the Open with either Red or Orange, not that they would want it, but Orange was more likely to be hired in administration in one of the enterprises that patrolled the nearer and farther surroundings of the Enclave. Those were still well-paying jobs. Meanwhile Reds were often treated the same as regulars, especially by higher ranking Sovernguard, and finding a job with patrols wasn’t as easy.

Then again, being Sovernguard was not as renowned as Neve used to believe when it was all but a dream for her. It paid well, alright, but it was only because there weren’t all that many people who could do it, not because of the respect Sovernguard thought they deserved. Especially lately. Most of them were self-important jerks anyway, who believed themselves better than the rest of the people just because of something they were born with. Yes, they were important. They were necessary, indispensable even. But so were doctors, miners and people who cleaned the streets.

Perhaps Neve should have gotten herself a job in one of those fields, instead of pretending she was Sovernguard.

Not just yet, though, not today. For now, forging Validation was the only way for her to leave the Majid Enclave and go out, into the Open. Alysia had a Yellow Brand, so she was allowed to leave the residential zone and go as far as the fifth circle, where most Validations were held. She left Neve in the desert with enough time for her to find herself a good hiding spot, from where she could watch the ritual. In the flat terrain it wasn’t easy. She risked ending up far away from her target, but at least they would hear each other over their radio transmitters, as no obstacles would disperse the signals. Neve chose a grouping of boulders, not much higher than herself, three meters long, one meter in the widest place. It was tight, but she could squeeze in, or go around it, depending on where the Sovernguard leading the Validation would choose to place himself and his charge.

When they showed up, finally, she recognized the Authority who arrived with young Kielo. Tall, massive, with long black hair tied in a bun on his nape. She had tricked him several times already. Noel Anaher, one of the seven Blue Authorities in Majid. He commanded Air Specters and while Neve didn’t feel particularly comfortable about Air, she could deal with either of them. Live ones, plants and insects, were easier, but she could score Orange Air for her half-brother, no problem.

Before the Specter emerged, Anaher stood still, eyes closed, focusing on the currents of energy in the space surrounding them – and Neve focused on watching him. He had that air of mystery about him. People said that on his Validation at eighteen he had scored Red and a very low Red for that matter. He was allegedly re-Validated at a later time. Neve wondered how he swung that. If he could, then perhaps she could do something about her situation, too? Not that she would attempt to, this was ridiculous.

It wasn’t that simple, especially not for someone like her. Noel Anaher came from a long line of Authorities, his father was the famous Mawrenn Anaher, none other than the one lost in the Open, on a rescue mission for the Expedition of Professor Francis. All this happened a long time ago, when Neve was a young teen, following the news with flushed cheeks, and dreaming of escapades, brave heroes and danger. She, David and Jorden would undertake the very same mission, in the corridors of their group home, at night, and Miss Sandra and other aunties would be Specters they had to hide from, to save little Cristina from her room on the other side of the house.

Reminiscing wasn’t getting her anywhere. Some people had families that would help them realize their potential, and others didn’t. She was among the unlucky ones. Not that she believed things would change once she found her mother, but a little part of her hoped that’s what would happen.

But first -- she had a client to work with. The wind was gaining in strength. Its Specter was present.

[...]

Thank you for reading. :)

tagging: @hithelleth, @echo-bleu, @silverhandy, @doughnuts-5ever, @drippingmoon (thank you!) @lire-casander, @jaqueswriteblrlibrary, @the-write-collective

If you want to be added to this list, please contact me. :)

[whichcouldmeannothing]

Girl, please write more suits fanfic. We are hungry 😔💗

anon.. this fills me with so much joy to hear from someone... i was so happy w golden w the daffodils!! im happy someone else enjoyed it too!!

my goal is to finish more things in writing this year but here are the plot summaries from the marvey fics i had planned two years ago, maybe ill write more of them if you guys are interested?

the summaries below the cut! hmu if you want any of them in a full fic!

the formula one one ----

Three years ago, Mike Ross looked at Harvey Specter with a challenge. 

This teenager looked up at him, bright blue eyes and mussed up hair. “I like to hang out with people who aren’t that good, you know, just to see how the other half lives.” And suddenly, the whole room fades out, and it’s just him and the kid. 

There’s a challenge here. Are you stupid enough to hang out with someone that inferior or will you wise up and do better? He would never take this from an absolute rookie, who’s here on a fluke. 

But he doesn’t break eye contact, like he’s evaluating Harvey’s intellect. 

The moment you stop taking up challenges and prove people wrong is the moment you should leave Formula One. 

“Alright, kid.” He says. He’s wearing the white, grey and red of a backmarker. By next year, this kid will win a race. He shakes the kid’s hand, and it feels like signing a contract. 

the devil wears prada one ----

“Mike Ross, I’m here for the new assistant position. Under Harvey Specter?” He holds tight to his messenger bag, and he bounces on his Converse. They don’t make a sound on the tiles. 

The girl only looks at him, rolls her eyes. 

“You won’t last a day.” She says, and her heels clack off on the floor. 

-

Mike Ross is smart. He couldn’t afford (Hell, he wouldn’t be let into a community challenge after what he’s done.) to finish university. But he could still be something worthwhile and lasting. 

So, what if he lies a little bit to get a job? 

It’s an assistant to some fashion guy, it won’t matter that much. 

Right?

the one where harvey is cursed to lose his voice ----

Against his better judgement, Harvey unmutes the call. 

Mike always did have a way to get to Harvey, like he was given a schematic to poke at Harvey’s Achilles Heel. He didn’t even know he had a weakness until Mike. 

“Oh.” The pause lingers. The surprise is evident. “Hi.” 

“You breathe really loud.” Well, he moved the phone right by his nose so Mike can hear him better. So, not to be childish but, duh. 

I like to remind you that I am still alive.

“Yeah, yeah.” The ambient sound fades, and Mike must be back in his apartment. Windows closed. House empty. “Wow, I haven’t heard from you in so long.”

Harvey hasn’t heard himself in so long too. If he spoke again, would his voice have changed? Permanently hoarse after weeks of disuse, or would it be the same timber he’s had for ten years? Maybe it’ll be shrill, reverting to a previous state, or maybe it’ll be completely unrecognisable. 

[clannfearrunt]

I had a beautifully suspenseful dream starring Arveyn and a very large network of Dwemer ruins whose upper layers were currently housing a booming mechanical industry. A lot of local artificers used the upper rooms as public workshops, and each day it was a race to get good spots to work in. One guy had what was clearly a half-remembered amalgamation of a washing machine and my family’s rice cooker which I remember clearly because What

Seemed like the dream wanted to do some shit where Arveyn has to discreetly join in a race between groups of adventurers and rival Telvanni researchers to the uncharted depths of the ruins. Dream setting was definitely implying that he had been working directly for Revus Demnevanni for a while and had gained a reputation as such, and that Revus had recently gotten in trouble with some nasty vaguely loan shark type company, so they were chasing Arveyn during this whole thing as well. There was a very intriguing tension of having to navigate between the dangers of the ruins itself, the rival expeditions (who were delving as groups), and the loansharks as someone who was definitely at a disadvantage. It was also interesting seeing my sleeping brain’s attempt to generate a snapshot in Arveyn’s life I don’t tend to spend a whole lot of conscious time in (since I usually spend time with him in either ESO era or Skyrim era). From the bits I could remember I thought it did a neat job of balancing a more established and confident Arveyn while keeping noticeable touches of a youthful naïveté. 10/10. There was a weirdly focused scene where he tries to move a cicada nymph away from some exposed pipes despite this being a severely unnecessary risk to his own safety yeah that seems right. Do you think there are regular cicadas on Vvardenfell btw

This dream also reminded me of some long lost in-game Arveyn Strats from many many years ago. Before ESO nerfed the nightblade class’ invisibility to uselessness I used to use it to navigate through dungeons so I could comfortably do quests solo. I completely forgot that this used to be a keystone of my playstyle on Arveyn’s slot, but the dream had him using this strategy extensively to safely navigate this whole mess while undertaking it solo and with a physical disability (as at this point Arveyn is an amputee with a heavy prosthetic leg. And his other leg is also not good). When I woke up and was ruminating on this dream I initially was like “lol, invisibility (or rather 100% chameleon) is Caennor’s playstyle”, but. Wow. I forgot. Used to have another invisible elf.

Anyways there was a brief interruption of the dream as it cut to like. A Dwemer metal style pier. And there was. Ash Ketchum. Talking to a Lugia about its missing child. And then I woke up. So. Thanks for that, the memory of the baby Lugia episodes that haunt me since my early childhood

[harmonyckrs]

making (slightly rude) assumptions about you based on your favorite Strangetown sim

remade to be more organized

Pascal: You're probably gay, trans, or both. Probably a Nervscal shipper as well. You're responsible for the amazing art within the fandom, which makes up for your surface level, black-and-white interpretations of every character and the fact that you reduce Pascal to either a boyfriend/husband or an alien incubator

Vidcund: You're either a CallMeKevin fan, an irony-poisoned individual, or have him on your hear-me-out list. You probably also projected onto him to some extent, whether it's being an introvert or being on the asexual/autism spectrum. You also have a very mixed relationship with the PSP game and you want Dominic Newlow's head on a stick

Lazlo: Either a chill person who ships Cryzlo or a Crystal hater who secretly wants to date Lazlo and projects onto the person that they're shipping him with. If you fall into the first category you have amazing taste and you should be proud of yourself. There's a possible chance that you might be bisexual/pansexual

Tycho: Pascal fans but instead of creativity you have objectively incorrect opinions. You probably haven't played the PSP game and just got all of your info from the wiki or someone else who only got their info from the wiki talking about it. This is like saying your favorite Pleasantview character is Unborn Baby Broke. If you wanted green with no personality, pick a Smith at random instead

---

Pollination Technician 9: You like aliens and have him on a hear-me-out list. Also you're probably some variant of gay/bi even though he and his family give off very stereotypically straight sitcom family vibes

Jenny Smith: You are in desperate need of a hug or at least someone to vent about your problems to. She either reminds you of your mother or she's the mother that you wish you had. I'm going to also assume that you're either straight or have very basic taste in women. At least she's a healthy choice

Johnny Smith: You're a JRO or TankJohnny shipper, and the reason why it's almost impossible to search up certain sims for reference photos without seeing ship art of said sim with another character

Jill Smith: Not sure if I've ever seen a Jill Smith fan but you're probably pretty chill, minding your own business and enjoying the weird snippets of Jill's character that we got from the PSP game. You probably also like Buck

---

General Buzz Grunt: I'm so sorry for what you have to deal with. You all seem chill but I know damn well it probably gets annoying seeing your fave get slandered repeatedly over popular headcanons that get interpreted as canon. Congrats on still hanging in there

Tank Grunt: Golden child with anger issues and therapy who's possibly closeted to some extent. You also have a very conflicting relationship with your parents and people misunderstanding you

Ripp Grunt: You're probably not straight, dabbled in alternative culture but coudln't afford to actually give yourself an alternative look, and you probably played the other neighborhoods before

Buck Grunt: You pity him for being constantly overlooked and the fact that the Bus Driver won over him in that one poll. You probably also like Jill, even if you don't necessarily ship them

---

Olive Specter: You think she's iconic/a girlboss and probably wish you could be six feet under her garden as well, not in a suicidal kind of way but in a "I'd be happy if she was the one who took me out" kind of way. The Life and Death pack was very important to you, and you think about Ichabod more than the average person

Ophelia Nigmos: You pick your favorites off of personality and lore rather than on how fun they are to play. You don't need to tell me that she's actually the best character because "she's an alternative teenage girl with anxiety who lives with her serial killer aunt and twenty one ghosts" or that she has a tragic backstory

---

(to either of these three: You have a very mixed relationship with the PSP game because you hate what they did to the characters)

Loki Beaker: You love the "hate everyone but her" type characters and people who would sacrifice the world to save the one they love over sacrificing the one they love to save the world. You're probably also a fan of malewives and make jokes about his eyebrows

Circe Beaker: You love girlbosses, you hate Dominic Newlow and want his head on a stick more than the Vidcund fans, and you probably have a very mixed perception of Vidcund. You probably also enjoy a good masculine woman/feminine man dynamic.

Nervous Subject: A fusion of the Pascal fans and the Olive fans. You were super happy seeing the Life and Death version of Nervous but got super pissed when you found out that they named him Nyon. You pick and choose which parts of the lore to care about and consume angst for every meal

Atom/Ceres: You're here from the Sims 3 and a stickler for canon. Also unrelated but Atom is a really bad name for a child, dunno why they couldn't name Atom after another Roman god like with Ceres. They even double as planet names which makes even more sense for knowledge sim Loki, like come on

---

Ajay Loner: You love how little there is to him because you can literally just make him whatever you want and it technically still works because the lore never said that he wasn't

Chloe Curious: You love chaos and drama, and you're either some variant of queer or the type who wants a gay best friend

Lola, Erin or Kristen: Girl's girl, possibly sapphic. You're also more into career/drama-based gameplay than family gameplay, and you're probably not the biggest fan of Lola/Ajay

---

Bella: You love sim lore and you love Pleasantview more. You also get super hyped up anytime she appears in the background of your game. Anytime Bella appears in the background of your game you become that one picture of a wojak who's pointing at something in the background

Crystal: Lazlo fan and probably really chill considering you had to put up with the really bad interpretations of her that either reduced her to either nothing more than Lazlo's girlfriend or made her super toxic so he could either break up with or "fix" her. Barbenheimer was also very important to you

Abhijeet/Meredith: why

[lullabyes22-blog]

Snippet - He's Back - Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

A confrontation long overdue.

(Happy Valentine's Day, folks :'D)

Forward but Never Forget/XOXO

tw: angst

"I trust," Silco says, breaking the quiet, "you didn't take that personally."

"What, you bailing midway?"

"Hm."

She doesn't frown. But her dipped eyelids shield a stormfront. "...Look. This arrangement? If it's not working out—"

"You know that's not the case."

"No?"

"I only needed..." To put my pieces in back together. "...Space."

"Yeah?" A flash a familiar vigilance.  "Sure it's not because of her?"

"Her?"

Does she mean Nandi?

Her sister's specter has ceased to interfere in the peripheries of their intimacy.

Or—gods, has she learnt about his dalliance with Medarda, the long-game laced together in exquisite deception?

Silco doubts it—he covers his tracks—but sometimes he underestimates the razor edge of Sevika's perceptiveness.

Too late to dissemble if that's the case. But before he braces for impact—before the blowback of her judgement leaves him a smoking crater—he prays for a chance to plead his case. To explain that Medarda balances on the precarious axis between personal proclivity and political leverage. To beg Sevika—

(Beg? That's unseemly for both.)

—convince her, that his attraction is a complicated calculus. His goals are on track, even if the rest's tangled in desire's gilded strings.  He'll not deny the thrall Medarda exerts; the fascination of her nimble wit; a rare gift in reading people, even the darkest facets of his own nature.

But it's survival—not need—that shares their bed. It's common ground—not devotion—that drives their bargain. It's the irrevocable necessity of circumstance—not goddamn choice—that turns him to the enemy as he once turned to drugs, drink, dissipation.

There is no tether there. Only game after bloody game, Sevika, and if you give the word, I'll burn the board to the ground—

"Sevika," he begins.  "I—"

As always, she preempts him.  "Jinx."

Silco struggles to conceal his surprise. "...Jinx.."

"You miss her. Miss her so much you'd rather be here, with me, than alone in your penthouse."

"That's not true." It is, and isn't. "I'm not here for—"

"Don't deny it. There's a piece missing with her gone.  And that piece won't be filled by any of us here."

"If by piece—," he dares a cautious sidestep "—you mean peace of mind—"

"You barely talk about her," Sevika cuts in. "Don't like to hear her mentioned. When I bring her up, you either ignore it, or change the subject. As if she's locked up somewhere too fucking precious to share with the rest of us. It'd be fine if you were at least drinking like a fish and smoking like a fiend and throwing yourself headfirst into anything involving disembowelment. Instead, you've been..." she gropes for a second. "Distant."

"Distant."

She gives him a meaningful look. "Like you're still in the Deadlands. Still… somewhere I can't follow."

Inwardly, Silco marvels. Outwardly, he says nothing.

It's true; he's kept himself to himself. Not because he's subsumed everything into his work—he has—but because he's lately sensed himself at a crossroads.

Not of Zaun but his own convictions.

Self-concept's not been in the cards for a while. It left when Jinx crashed into his life. Without her, he's not lost the measure of the game, but the measure of himself.

A father.

Except he's still Jinx's father. It defines him like a chalk outline around a corpse; a name carved on a gravestone. He'll always belong to her. No matter where their paths uncross into separate tangents, or where their roads lead together.

But Silco, himself? Beyond Zaun?

He's yet to find the answer, though tonight's left him on surer footing. 

From the streets, fireworks spiral, then fade. In the spreading silence, Sevika says, "You can be not-okay, you know. Nobody'd fault you."

Her gentleness unsettles. His deflection is reflexive. "No, they'd simply kill me."

"They'd have to go through me," she says matter-of-factly, "And nobody gets through me."

They trade a brief smile. Tight as tethers go.

Sevika says, "I figured… that was why you let them stay over."

"Who?"

"Pearl’s girls." She sips slowly. Her chest—still faintly sweat-sheened—rises and falls in measured exhalations. "The entire time they were over, you were so... unlike you. Or maybe you: times ten. Like you'd be with Jinx, only... safer." Her eyes meet his. "You must miss it. Taking care of a kid who looks up to you like you're Janna's godsdamn gift."

"Pearl's kin look to the future. Not to me."

"You care about them." A beat, "Same way you must've cared about Pearl."

Silco steels himself against his habitual response: Admit nothing, deny everything, destroy everyone.

Instead, he takes a long swig of tea, buying time before the final draft.

"Yes," he says.

"Yes, what? Which part?"

"All of it." A deeper swallow; tongue weighing each word. "I did care for Pearl. She was fine company. Generous with herself, and patient with my inadequacies."

Sevika scoffs. "Those being?"

"We both know better than to enumerate." A shadow of a smile slinks across his lips, then fades. "It was good, what we had in the Ditch. Not a matter of what my body needed. More... what my self required.  With Jinx gone, there was so little to steer me except survival. Except survival is a stalling tactic. It allows you to continue existing. But life, really living, requires meaning. And meaning demands engagement beyond oneself. Pearl gave me a second chance at that."

Silence from across the table. He waits her out: a stubborn force brooding in place. Finally Sevika shakes her head.

"I should've been there," she murmurs. "Should've gone with you."

"How could you have known I'd vanish?"

He thinks of all the things he could tell her of that time. His psyche-marred misery in wake of Jinx’s departure. His rage and emptiness. How he'd been left with the topsoil of his soul stripped bare. All that was left was a doppelgänger sustained on the fumes of memory.

A soulless medium compelled to descend to the darkest core to mine his purpose from stone.

Quietly, he says, "You pledged me your loyalty. Loyalty isn't grounds to follow a leader beyond death's door."

"Is that where you went? Six feet under?"

"A thousand fathoms deep."  Draining the mug, he sets it aside. "That's where Pearl found me. Her, and her girls. And from there... they guided me back. In their ordinariness, they were extraordinary. They had such little in the world. Yet they fought for everything in it. Tooth and nail;, blood and bone. Life took nothing from them without paying a price."

Sevika regards her own mug. "So they helped you figure out how to live again." 

A cogent summary. He nods.

"Were you and Pearl...?"

"In love? I'd not take it that far." Silco exhales. Pearl's presence is between his ribs—a vivid ache—but not a mortal blow. Her quintessence was pure steel; it'd steeled and purified him in turn.  Even in his blackest mourning, he'll carry that unyielding framework into the future. "We suited each other. A simpatico of spirit and flesh. In another life—perhaps that would've sufficed.  In this one..." He traces a fingertip down his left cheekbone: the rough corrugation of scar tissue like tear-tracks. "I'm grateful our paths crossed. But I'll always regret the way they did."

"Because she didn't make it."

"Because in seeking her out, I abandoned you."

Sevika doesn't flinch. But her expression, in tiny increments, softens. For the first time since his return, he sees forgiveness. Forgiveness, and a strange species of sorrow: as if she's bracing herself against worse to come.

She's already lost him in more ways than one; to war, to prison, to something else entirely.

To Zaun itself: the loss that keeps on giving.

"Do you ever wonder..." she falters, as if casual discourse might veer the night dangerously off-course. "...if it would've been better if we'd chosen a different path? Stayed apart, in Nandi's wake?"

"If our lives hadn't met at Zaun's center?"

"If the ...grief... hadn't changed us. If we never became this."

"This?"

"Us." She gestures: copper fingers singing on oiled servos. Their everlasting entanglement; their perpetual estrangement. "What if we'd kept it strictly business. No strings attached."

"Strings can be severance. Or safety ropes."

"What's the difference if both'll strangle you?"

"Have they?"

"Don't pretend." Sevika sets down her emptied mug. The knuckles of her good hand are pale on the handle. "If we'd kept it straight business, maybe we would've moved on. You with Pearl. Me with whoever this city threw my way. Instead it's always been this weird limbo. The life we're living, and life we could've been living. Except—it's not living at all. More like the coffin's nailed shut six ways from Sunday. But the grave's still yawning open. Open to chance. But ...never closure."

Hope's not a commodity Silco trades in. But right now it's rushing in like a high tide over sandbags.  

"Then—" he swallows, "—is it closure you're after? Or an escape clause?"

Sevika shakes her head. Her sigh is edgy.

"Escape," she says, "isn't freedom. Freedom's a choice."

Silco nods, but says nothing. The silence, seconds ticking by, is an unspoken invitation:

Step through, and show me what you'd choose.

"It's why we work," Sevika goes on. "We didn't choose each other. We chose Zaun. That was the big picture, and we were both in it, and the rest didn't matter. For the longest time, that was all I needed. It was enough. But then... then you were gone. Zaun fell apart, and everything else fell to me, and fell fast. And as it fell, I started thinking: what if things had been different? What if we hadn't been so afraid? Of failure; of fallout? Of... each other? What if I'd stopped staring at the big picture, and taken the risk on getting caught in close-up?"

She meets his stare dead-on. Silco forces himself to weather the spotlight of her scrutiny.  He feels, inordinately, like he's facing a firing squad, and his shirt's half-buttoned.

"The days dragged on, and there was no news of you. But even so—even though we'd been finished longtime—I kept wondering. Kept wishing. Just like the night we'd lost on the Bridge. Me, searching and not finding. Me, left waiting and not knowing where to stand."  The deep-seated hurt in her eyes—a flicker, then a flame—makes Silco want to gut himself.  "There were other offers. Same as last time. Other options. I could've taken 'em and escaped that fucking loop. But instead—fuck. I kept on waiting. I waited, and I waited, and I got sick of the waiting. And it hit me:  I wasn't waiting at all. I was stuck. Because I couldn't bear to start again, after losing so damn much. Because moving on meant stepping into the dark, and having nothing underfoot if I fell."

Silco starts to say something. He doesn't.

This is about honesty—not eloquence.

"You know what makes Zaun stand apart?" Sevika says. "We're all about change. About action, not inertia. Me? I wasn't acting. I was going through the motions. Surviving. And in my survival, staying in stasis. Meanwhile the gangs kept warring. The chem-barons kept demanding. The politics kept getting bloodier. My world was coming apart at the seams, and there I was, clinging to scraps like my sanity was worth less than a potshot to the skull." A hard smile surfaces: tough as nails, and molten bright. "It'd be easy to blame you. Say it all led back to you abandoning us. Except we both know the score. You taught it to me, over and over. Cost and reward. Win or lose.  Surrender—or fight like hell to keep going."

"You did," Silco says. "This city owes itself to your fortitude. Not mine."

"I tried," Sevika counters, blunt. "I held the center, until I couldn't. But that's the point. Holding the center isn't going anywhere. It's stalling in place." The smile fades, but the fire lingers. "I don't know what threw us together. Chemistry, or karma, or fate playing games. But I do know this. I'm done holding the center. I'm ready to move on. But I can't—won't—unless I know you're moving too. Unless I know you coming back is a choice. Not a dead man marking time."

The ultimatum is brutal. But he reads between the lines. She'd kept it together, and kept herself intact. Survived, not as his second-in-command or factional proxy but as a person.

Just Sevika, fighting for life in a universe of atoms.  Just as he had done in the Deadlands.

Tonight, closure's not un the cards. But choice is.

And upon that choice, the groundwork for the next stage of revolution.

"Sevika," Silco begins. "I never considered—"

"I'll bet."

"I meant—I never understood, either. That holding the center meant staying in place."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Why?"

"Because you're always ten steps ahead of everybody."  Her eyes flash a semaphore of secret admiration. "Every option weighed; every factor calculated.  No errors. No exceptions."

Her faith nearly fells him. He's never been more unworthy of it. Never more terrified of knowing he's unworthy.

"I'm not," he says, "as clever as you think I am."

Her snort snags between his third and fourth rib. "Bullshit."

"It's true. I'm—"

Gods, what does he tell her?

That for all his sturm and drang—laying waste to a city and resurrecting it into splendor—he's a fucking coward at heart? Too gutless to let himself bleed; too feckless to let himself hurt. That for ten years, he's held onto himself by the skin of his teeth, and kept a city in his crosshairs—only to be undone by a little girl's tears? Unmade by fatherhood and the promise a legacy more lasting than the wreckage in his wake?

That he's still unmaking himself, putting the pieces in patterns yet unseen?

And still, there's no promise the pattern will cohere into a whole. Into a man who is halfway worthy of a woman willing to be his spine, his shield, his tether. A woman who has been through her own hell, and yet embodies every quality forged from that hellfire: tenacity, toughness, truth. A woman who manages ninety percent of her life effortlessly and the other ten percent ruthlessly; who fights harder for Zaun than anyone but him; who demands respect without begging for approval; whose tolerance for bullshit ends at the doorstep.

Who grants him access to her body, but whose boundaries are uncompromising. Who compromises daily, for his city's sake, and his own, and still sticks around when she has no cause to care.

Silco starts to speak. Stops. His throat's seized up. Ten fingerprints; Vander's phantom chokehold.

And beyond that chokehold: choice.

Silence crawls between them: tense, terrible, tetherless.

At last, Sevika gusts a sigh.

"Forget it." Her chair scrapes across the tiles. "I shouldn't have brought it up." She rises with military precision: all the momentum, with none of the grace. "Let's call it a night. I need some shut-eye, and you need to be at HQ. I'll radio the crew—"

The mind-body connection reinstates with a wallop.

Before she can withdraw, he's cut off her egress. For some reason he cannot fathom, he finds himself kneeling, though what he has a right to profess at her feet is beyond him. 

Daddy, he thinks, proposed to Mother like this.

The recollection's absurdly random, and strangely relevant.

Stunned, Sevika backs into the chair, her elbow banging off the wood. "...What're you—?"

"I choose."

The dark lashes flutter. The tough exterior conceals a flashpoint of panic:

He's lost it.

He's gone mad.

Gone for good, oh gods—

"I choose," he repeats, compelling her stare with his. "I'd choose all the choices that brought us here. Because that's what it was: choice. Not karma, or fate, or sheer dumb luck. I'd still choose to crawl out of that river, and stick a knife in Vander's back. I'd still choose to ally with you, because there was nobody else worth allying with. I'd still choose Jinx, and all the wins and losses that followed. I'd choose freedom; I'd choose Zaun. I'd choose to march the streets with my army—every misfit soldier, every broken soul. And you by my side, leading the charge. As you've led everytime I couldn't.  As you've led me through the hardest parts of our journey—whenever I failed to light my own way."

The fear shifts to something else: half-formed, fiercer in its vulnerability.

"You—you don't mean that," she stammers. "You never would have chosen this. Not me, not us—"

Silco takes her good hand in both of his.

Sevika tenses, but doesn't tug away. Plainly her first impulse; to save them both from something irreversible. He recognizes that fear; it's his own. 

In another life, he'd never give credence to its silhouette. He'd take her hand, twine her fingers through his, hold on tight—all without a single red lie. He'd have cupped her head, smoothed her hair, then dragging her close, so their foreheads met in a familiar circle of warmth.

That'd been the go-to, once. When touch was easy, and trust a matter of course.

Replicating the gesture now seems a forgery. Worse, a travesty of what once was.

Except what once was is no more. Neither are they. Whoever he is—he must learn it all from scratch.

Starting now.

He stays his knees; he keeps her hand in his.

"I don't care," he says. "I don't care if the odds don't stack up. Or what probability matrix I'm fucking over. All I know is: I choose. Us—whatever us means. Whatever it doesn't. Whether it's you jettisoning everything we've built, or me burning it to ground zero—I'd still choose where it's led us. I'd choose whatever path lies ahead.  Even if it takes us out of Zaun's orbit altogether—or down to the last circle of hell. No matter where we fall on that spectrum: I choose, Sevika." He breathes, steadies. "I choose whatever's left."

The silence spins like a roulette wheel: a freefall between extremes.

Her hand's a tether. He holds it tight between his fists, until the subdermal tremor stills.

"Silco..."

"Yes?"

Her eyes are burningly dark. "I'm what's left."

"You are." He skims a thumb over her lifeline, where blue veins branch across her wrist. Life coursing beneath: vital, raw, real.  "And you're what I choose. Fuck the rest."

Her breath jitters on a rare laugh.  "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Funny."

"How so?"

"'Cause that's exactly how I feel."

He lifts her palm to his lips. Feels the pulse quickening at the base, overflowing with all he's lacked; with all he needs.

Warmth, want, wholeness.

Unexpectedly, her fingers flex; she twines them through his. The cybernetic hand reaches out to seize his jaw. Gently, then not. She drags him in even as he flows into her embrace. The kiss is like whiskey left mellowing over the hearth-flames: fiery, smooth, familiar. Cardamom lingers in the gaps; the rest's doused in the residue of adrenaline.

Then desire simmers back into the brew: a low smolder, but with the capacity to roar should they pour a stiff shot into the equation. Her arms span his shoulders; his teeth catch her lower-lip. The kiss drags them down deep.

 Love's like revolution. An entire paradigm rewritten from the ground up.

In the aftermath, there's always blood.

When they break apart, it's only to breathe. Their skins are pinked with inner-heat; pupils dilated. Sevika's grip is unyielding; her thighs have gone from a rigid V to a needy cinch. His body, fitted between, has traded languor for livewire greed. Memories of earlier burn viscerally bright. Himself inside her, a cock thrust deep; a body on fire against another starved of heat.

He lays a kiss, openmouthed, at her breastbone. Her throat vibrates against his ear: purr, chuckle, moan.

"You should get going," she breathes, "before this gets ugly."

He laps the words from her throat. "That's the idea."

"Tomorrow's schedule... is a shitshow."

"All the better to end on a high note."

"Silco..."

It's a quaver of syllables. Halfway to futility—all the way to surrender.

By nature, Silco presses his advantage: cool palms coasting beneath the hem of her nightshirt, blunt fingernails ghosting goosefleshed flanks. Her breasts fill his palms like decadent teardrops: nipples pebbling into silky little hellos as he rolls each with delicate intent, then roughly pinches. Her startled groan fills his mouth.

Gods above and below—the way she arches; the way she rocks. Her own kisses have gone from scalding to incandescent. He knows they're no longer going to make it to her bed—at least, not immediately. He'll have her here, first: in the kitchen, on his knees. With his tongue, then his fingers, then his cock in her cunt.

Nothing romantic to it, but what he wants is far more real.

"Sweet Janna," Sevika gasps, as he rucks up her nightshirt and fastens on her bare tit like candy, "do you ever ease up?"

Silco hums the negation between her breasts. "...You?"

"Gods, no—" She cups his skull, drags him closer, "but tomorrow—"

"Fuck tomorrow."  The crudeness earns him a grin. Her fingers tighten on his crown; her knee hikes higher around his torso. "Tonight's Jubilee. Not your father's bloody funeral. Save the damp squib for when it counts."

 Her spiky smirk was spreading. But somewhere, he's hit the wrong note. The spark douses into stillness. Her arms loosen; the Valkyrie wilts.

In her absence, there's only the shape of a wary woman: heavy-boned and hard-lined; scars all across the skin.

Breaking their embrace, she tugs her top down. Self-conscious; unlike herself.

"C'mon," she mutters. "Don't play roulette with the cards you're dealt."

"I thought that was our calling." Bemused, he searches her face. "Unless there someone else you're hedging your bets on?"

"No." An old exhaustion creeps into her eyes. One that prefigures Zaun in its entirety. "Just... no."

"No?"

"I need to be counting sheep tonight. Not stars."

 Rising, she gathers the empty mugs, ferrying them to the sink.  The shift is sudden and inexplicable. His XO is carved from bedrock, with all its obdurate depths.  Moodiness is a character flaw she rarely indulges. 

A premonition prickles along Silco's nape. The monster stirring awake. He's never handled disappointment well. Rejection, worse. It makes his knucklebones lock around a blade's hidden heft; ready to dish out whatever collateral damage is necessary until his goal is within reach.

Mine, the monster hisses. Mine.

Ours, he counters, and wills himself to stillness.

"What's wrong?" he says, as mildly as possible. "A minute ago, you were ready."

"I was." She rinses the mugs. Her movements aren't tense, only sharply efficient. "But... tonight's not ideal."

"Bad head?"

Her sidelong smile is wan, but warms her eyes.  "Nobody'd level that critique against you, sweetheart."

The Sweetheart is a token; Silco pockets it as compensation. They don't do endearments; haven't in years. Perhaps, tonight, it's one of many rules they're unwriting.

Or perhaps Sevika's setting new parameters for intimacy altogether.

Not his strong suit: abiding by limits. But, then, neither is sharing.

Yet here he stands. Near enough for her heat to soak into him; not so close as to invade her space.  He's in no position to inveigle, especially after laying his cards at her feet.

The dice is hers to throw.

"If we're going too fast," he says, "say so. I'll match whatever pace you set."

Her head pivots. She looks—truly looks—as if he's an anomaly she's never encountered.  Something enthrallingly new, and far too dangerous.

"You're not angry," she murmurs.

"No."

"Why not?"

His shrug isn't effortless, but it's honest. "We've had a string of long days. We deserve to take the edge off, however we like. If that means shut-eye instead of screwing, so be it. But," and here the devil seeps to the surface, "I'd be lying if I said a quickie wouldn't put a spring in my step tomorrow."

She doesn't laugh, but it's a close call. "I think I'll manage without the extra bounce."

"Are you sure?"

"You know me. Always on the ball."

"You're not. Though you do a damn good job hiding it." He reaches out, thumbing a tangle behind her ear. "You're wired. You're always wired. But this is the first time it shows."

She tenses. But the touch, lingering, softens something within. Her eyes drift half-shut. "...It's nothing."

"No?"

"Just... there's too much riding on the line."

"We're the line, remember?" The caress drifts lower, cupping her nape. She arches into his palm: a dragon seeking shelter.  Yet within their closeness is  sense of something sinister. A splinter of truth, caught in between. "Unless, in honor of Jubilee, you've chosen abstinence for the month."

"Hardly." There's a trace of a smile; a shadow of bitterness. "That was Nandi's cup of hemlock."

"Hyssop."

"Huh?"

"Hemlock's the killer. Hyssop's the healer." Off her stare, he tips a shoulder. "Your sister taught me the finer points of herblore. During our courtship, I was always bruised, bloody, and bone-deep in doom. She couldn't steer me tidy, so she choose to teach me how to triage a broken arm."

Sevika's scrubbing slows. "That sounds like Nandi."

"A born dogooder."

She laughs—a frayed but genuine sound—just as he suspects her mouth may be running short on indulgence.

"Nah. She had a wicked streak. Only difference is that hers came with a heart of gold. Whereas mine..."   She performs a neat sidestep to hang the mugs off their hooks. "Got mine from my old man. Not a lick of shine in sight."

"I disagree."

"Your eyesight's one flaw worth enumerating."

"If I had to list yours, self-deprecation wouldn't feature among them." He catches her wrist, but lightly. "What's wrong? Because something is."

"Something." Her shrug's an imitation of his, but a poor one. "I guess... I'm just being superstitious. Thinking: if I let myself go now, I'll slip up at the next critical juncture. Or get so fucking pissed when you're back to being Zaun's reigning bastard, I won't be able to keep a lid on it? Because—" She swallows. "That's the deal between us. There's always a catch. Cost; reward."

He lets her wrist go. "You think I'm playing games."

"Everything's a goddamn game with you. Same way everything's a game with Janna her-own-damnself.  And those games always end up at cross-purposes—and into clusterfucks."

Her silence doesn't quite sit right; Silco feels its surface ripple like a sine wave. There's something vulnerable inside. Something, conversely, walled-off.  It recalls the gloss in her eyes when they'd been going at it before. A stormfront brewing north.

Now it occurs to Silco the storm may not entirely be his doing.

"What is this?" He's prowling a circle around her now. "And if you say 'nothing'—"

She nixes the warning with a sharp headshake. "It's not."

"What, then?"

Outside the flat, fireworks: scalding showers of garnet red and verdant green. The eerie fractals dance through the blinds.

On the last ebb of colors, Sevika swallows.

"I can't—" Her voice snags; her lips pull taut. "—trust a single thing about tonight."

"Why not?"

"Because you're you, and I'm me. Between us, there's always a flipside. Some wrench in the spokes. Some debt overdue. That's how this game works. That's how it's always worked." Her chin lifts, defiant, but the eyes hold a haunted sheen. "You drive a hard bargain, Silco. But tonight? This deal feels too good to be true. And whatever I have left... I'm not ready to lose. Not if—if you mean what you say. And not if this is the only shot I get at—at—fuck."

Abruptly, she punches the wall. The lapis tile cracks like ice beneath her cybernetic fist.

Dazed, Sevika stares at the damage, the copper knuckles flexing.

A heartbeat later, she's in tears.

Silco's at her side before he registers it. The monster—always slithering, always shapeshifting—is lured to the stress chemicals wafting in the air. The rest of him—the vestigial organ pumping the barest heat to every extremity—pulls rank over roiling appetite.

This isn't a foe to fight. Nor prey to penetrate.

This is Sevika baring a bellyful of hurt.

"Sevika." He catches her shoulders. "What's gotten into you?"

"Nothing." Furiously, she backhands the tears. "Look, forget it. Just—forget it. It's been a long fucking day. I'm tired. Tomorrow, everything will be fine. You'll be the terror of the deep, and I'll be the stone-cold bitch. Same old, same old. We'll move on; move forward. Like we always do."

"We will." His grip tightens, anchoring her in place. "But not tonight. Tonight, I want the truth."

"Nothing worth sharing." 

"Let me be the judge of that."

Abruptly, she wrenches loose.

"Since when do we swap sob stories?" she erupts. "Since when does the Eye of Zaun care what's going on between my ears, and not what deal's brewing in the the backrooms? Since when do you care about anything beyond the big picture, and not what's right in front of you? And why now, Silco? Why tonight, of all nights? When I'm at the end of my fucking rope, and it's just a matter of time before I slip up and strangle myself?"

"Because," Silco snaps, "I do care."

"You don't." She's breathing hard, as if she's sprinted miles to get here. "You're not Sil. You haven't been Sil in over ten fucking years. I was fine with that. Fuck, I was better than fine. I was grateful. 'Cause Sil was mine, and he'd stay mine, even if the rest fell, and our bones rotted. None of this—the dirty deals, the politics, the backstabbing—would touch him. He'd always be that dreamer with a big speech, and the best intentions, even if the worst came knocking.  But you—" Her mouth twists. "—you're the fucking monster, remember?  The goddamn anti-Sil. You're not supposed to care. You're not supposed to feel a thing. Except lately... you look at me like Sil used to. Like he's still in there, under fifty feet of icewater, and I can't take it. I can't stand you pretending to be him. You can't be. Because him, I knew. Him, I've I believed in. Him, I fought for, and for him, I'd gladly die. You—you're a changeling who stole his skin, and I hate you for it. I hate myself more for wanting you. Because it's too risky to want you. Not if it's all or nothing, and nothing's my most likely bet."

She's barely breathing by the end. The fury's spent itself. Her body's deadweight.

Silco's the one lost at sea.

"Is that what you think?" he says, low. "I'm a pretender in my own skin?"

"I think the last ten years have been a fucking nightmare. I think, whatever you are—whatever you've turned into—that you've still got a long way to go before you're a man I can trust."

"But you want to trust me." He's inching closer. "Trust us."

"I can't!" She jerks back. "I can't go back there. I can't let myself hope."

"Why not?"

"Because—" The bravado cracks. "Because what's left isn't worth losing. You're never gonna change, and neither will the game, and we're both too fucked up to make this work."

"You're wrong."

Inexorably, he advances; she retreats, until he's caged her against the counter. The monster's wide awake, instincts primed to strike. It's Silco's way; coercion as conversational art; proximity as pressure valve.

But here's neither advantage to be extracted, nor damage to impart.

Only his refusal to let her suffer alone.

"I won't," he repeats, softer, "And I'm going to prove it."

"How? By threatening your way into my pants?"

"By owning the truth. Whatever that truth is." He doesn't touch her. Only breathes the salt-scented air between them: stress, sex, tears. The sensory olio solidifies the stakes. "I'm not Sil, and I'll never be again. But he's what I became, Sevika, and he's in me. All the pieces, and none of the pretty. But whatever's left, you can have it all.  So long as you'll give me the same."

She shivers. Doesn't move a muscle. Doesn't lash out.

But nor does she run.

"You're asking a lot," she says, raggedly. "What if it's not worth it?"

"Let me be the judge." He holds her eyes. "Tell me what's eating you alive. Because whatever it is—whatever's got you so scared—it won't be the end of us, Sevika. I swear."

Sevika resists; a muscle quivers in her jaw. But the tears are relentless.  Each drop's a surrender, unmaking hard-won stoicism by stages.

Finally, she sags. Her voice is uncharacteristically small.

"It's my old man. He's back."

[mokulule]

A Pinch of Salt - snippet 2

Okay, so I have been reminded by @clockwayswrites that I could post some things instead of just hoarding them like the dragon in my icon. So here ya go. Maybe I'll even get around to updating Catnip in the coming days who knows. Previous

Fuck, Danny cursed internally as he struggled to keep up with the long-legged stride of Trenchcoat. Whatever had happened to that ghost to make it into something like that was not good, he needed to do something! But as long as Trenchcoat was here he couldn’t exactly do as he usually would: transform and punch it. The man had seemed very ready to do something to Danny and the unspeakable soul situation going on had Danny extremely leery of finding out what that something was.

At least getting eaten seemed unlikely from the man’s earlier horrified response.

So running.

They went down a hallway, up a staircase, down another hallway and into a would have been shop. They stopped for a moment in the square space catching their breath. Trenchcoat let go of him to go peek back around the corner. Finally Trenchcoat’s shoulders relaxed.

“We lost it for now.” Actually it was more like the ghost lost interest in them; as they’d gotten further and further away from the central plaza of the mall the ghost had stopped following them. Not that Danny was going to tell Trenchcoat that. He had no idea how he’d explain it in a way that didn’t make him extremely suspicious. His hair was dripping salty water making it hard to forget he’d already been assaulted twice - he did not wanna know what else the man stored up his sleeves.

Preferably, somehow he’d get Trenchcoat to leave.

The moment of inattention cost him as he was grabbed once again by Trenchcoat and towed through the would-maybe-someday be a store to a door in the back. This led to a store room and a door to the outside. It was unlocked it turned out and Danny realized this was probably how the man had gotten in.

“Alright, kiddo, time to leave.”

Trenchcoat opened the door and pushed at Danny’s back.

“No way!” Danny exclaimed digging his heels in.

“Yes way,” Trenchcoat mocked, “go home kid, I’m a professional.”



 There was no way Danny was leaving, not at this point. Ghosts were his area of expertise - or well, Danny couldn’t really claim to be an expert, but they were his responsibility at least! He had a unique skillset and no matter what Trenchcoat claimed, he did not look any sort of professional. He made his opinion of his claim known by giving the man his most dubious look.
 - 
John hated teenagers and this teenager in particular.

He didn’t know what it was about teenagers, but they were just merciless in their judgment in a way adults were probably usually too polite to be. In any case that little up and down there, with the slightly raised eyebrow made him feel like he’d worn a clown costume to an accounting job.

“Bloody Hell, will you just leave before I decide to feed you to the specter!”

The boy crossed his arms, standing his ground. “You can try.”

John dragged a hand down his face, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly.

“What are you even doing here?” “I’m here for the ghost.” Plain, even, said with not a smidge of hesitation. “You’re here for the-“ John cut himself off, hands opening and closing, inwardly cursing children and their stupid dares. “And what pray tell where ya gonna do when you found the ghost?”“I figured I’d try talking to them.”“You what?!” John spluttered. He’d expected him to say he hadn’t expected to find a ghost, there went his theory of this being a dare.

“There is no talking to that!” He pointed vaguely in the direction they’d lost the spectral storm. “Of all the sodden-“

“Them.”

John’s thoughts screeched to a halt. “What?” “Them. They are a them, not an it or a that.”

John opened and closed his mouth. Was he really getting a lecture on pronouns?

“It is a spectral storm. Whatever poor spirit it used to be, is not there anymore. There’s no mind there, it’s pure emotion out of control. There’s no way back from that.”

The boy scowled at him, clearly disagreeing. It didn’t matter. 
John pointed at the door.

“Leave.” “No.” They stared at each other neither giving an inch.

Urgh, this had to be why Batman was so grumpy all the time. John could not do this. He threw up his hands and turned around. He worked around things, not through them and here he was engaging in the folly of arguing with a bloody teenager.

“Suit yourself.”

Gods, he needed a smoke. He’d hardly finished the thought before he was pulling the package of smokes out of its pocket with practiced ease. He was lighting the smoke by the time he noticed the unimpressed look he was getting. Satisfied, he took a deep drag and slowly breathed out the smoke. The kid grimaced and John smirked.

“Those are gonna kill you.” “As opposed to the rest of my lifestyle?” He returned with a nod in the direction of the Storm that probably couldn’t kill him, but the kid didn’t know that. Satisfied at the way the kid’s nose scrunched, he walked back the way they came from.

“And what are you supposed to be?” Kid asked falling in step with him, and John just knew he was being annoying on purpose with that tone of voice. He was not gonna bite. He was an adult. He kept his gaze straight ahead as the kid started guessing.

“Excorcist? Ghostbusters wannabe?”

There was a pause, then a flash of a sly smirk John only caught because he’d stopped to look down the hallway.

“Ectologist?” The suggestion hit John like a metaphysical sledgehammer and he recoiled in disgust.

“Fuck. No.” He shuddered an extra time as if that would remove the oily feeling. “I’m an occult detective. You happy now? Shit kid, you don’t pull your punches do you?”

-

“So what’s the plan, Trenchcoat?”

“Trenchcoat,” John mouthed to himself before shaking his head. “The plan is you keep out of the way and I deal with the raging ghostie.”

“Yeah, no, you’re gonna do better than that. This is not my first time dealing with a ghost. But I don’t know what occult detectives do.”

John pondered the statement about this not being the first time he’d dealt with a ghost, and maybe there was something to the death magics he gave off after all. He groaned internally, why was he doing this?

“Standard practice, kid. Contain and banish.” He held up first one finger then two.

Danny rolled his eyes. It didn’t sound too different from his approach to ghosts, he caught them and sent them back to the ghost zone, but Mr Occult Detective didn’t exactly carry around a Fenton thermos.

“And how do you contain? No,” he offset the clearly sarcastic response. “I mean what are your requirements?”

Trenchcoat rolled his eyes, but humored him.

“I need a large enough open space and a small moment of preparation, then just gotta lure it in and do a binding spell.”

Danny narrowed his eyes and looked towards where he felt the raging storm of ghost energy. “Like the plaza.”

“Ideally yes.”

“So you need a distraction.” Danny started walking. A hand fell on his shoulder.

“Where do you think you’re going? If you’re so insistent to stay, you’re not leaving my sight.”

Danny shrugged off the hand and turned around.

“The plaza is the center of the their power. You need someone to lure them away.” Danny watched the emotions flash across the man’s face with a small bit of amusement. He really didn’t want Danny involved if he could help it. Finally the man’s face settled on exasperation.

“I will figure something out.”

Danny smiled, taking a step backwards.

“No, you will give me a ten minutes headstart to lure our ghost friend far enough away they won’t immediately notice your stench so close to the heart of their haunt.”

As if sensing his intentions Trenchcoat made another grab for him which he dodged. And then he ran. He was sure it was only the threat of the ghost that prevented the man from yelling after him.

He just hoped he’d listened, because Danny was about to go piss off an already raging spirit. Trenchcoat better be ready.

Fun times.

[kanerallels]

For the ask game, an au where Sabine and Ezra are Kanan and Heras ages and vise versa. Sabezra is now spectres one and two and Kanera is specters 5 and 6

At first I was like hmmm tricky but fun! And then I started writing it and now OH BOY THE POTENTIAL have a snippet:

“Are we sure this is a good idea?”

Ezra glanced up at Sabine. The Mandalorian woman had her arms folded, a frown twisting her face. “What?”

“Hera going to Shantipole.”

Ezra shrugged, sitting up. “Kanan thinks it’s a good idea.”

“Kanan’s a kid with a crush.”

Snickering, Ezra said, “Fair enough. But you and I both know Hera’s the best pilot around, even at fifteen. She can handle this new fighter, whatever it is.”

Sabine sighed. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.” She hesitated, studying him. “You’re planning to get ready to do the run if we don’t get back in time, aren’t you?”

“...yeah,” Ezra admitted. “The people of Ibaar need our help. And we need to be as ready as possible to help them. But you’ll be back in time.”

Scowling, Sabine said, “I don’t like this. What if we’re not.”

“Then it’s a good thing we have Rex as backup.”

“Not sure that’s a good thing, Ezra.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Ezra said, “We also have Chopper. And Kanan’s getting pretty good on the cannons of the Ghost. Honestly, the hardest part of this is gonna be convincing Hera to leave the ship.” Despite the fact that the Ghost was, technically, Sabine’s, Hera had developed an attachment far more quickly than anyone had expected.

Sabine grinned a little, but it faded. “Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

Ezra shrugged. “Come back quickly, then.”

They held each other’s gazes for a moment, then Sabine nodded. “Deal.”

[makeitmakefolsense]

I think it's very interesting how in the flooding cutscene in Last Specter, they don't even give us a snippet of what Clark was doing. Previously I assumed he was directing everyone to higher ground then assessing damages but now I think as soon as everyone was safe he was hightailing it to the Black Market to get to Brenda. To see with his own eyes that she was safe. To make sure she wasn't hurt or starving.

[layton-heritage-posts]

So, what did you think of that Level-5 vision?

Oh I think of that Vision alright. Putting it all under the readmore for people who couldn’t watch the vision yet:

Right of the bat, we get introduced to our antagonist and the big bad scary spooky mystery. Cowboy Ghost.

So this design obviously goes hard but would go harder of he was a woman. It’s kinda giving Specter’s Call vibes, but maybe that’s just me. Can’t wait for the explanation they come up for this, but then again, I feel like a ghostly appearance should be somewhat easier to explain than like, idk, making theme park visitors suddenly disappear.

Also. There was this snippet of text:

Is that some motivation? Probably! I’m intrigued.

Next, we got some new locations in steam bison. Did I say that I loved this place yet? I love that place. I am not immune to cool cluttered illogically built steampunk city.

But we not only get to see more of the city, but also more of its citizens. And I'm happy to say that the character designs in Layton games are still. Like that.

Great and stylized designs, as always. I'm so glad that this element of the games is still here.

Damn. I already hit 10 images. This will continue in a reblog.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

tagged by @imogenkol @lilywatt @direwombat @neonshrike @josephseedismyfather @cloudofbutterflies92 @ellswips and @carlosoliveiraa for wip wed/ 6 sentences this week. Thank you all <3

Been hopping between wips lately with not much to show for it, but spent some time playing around with the mw3 canon for Rory as I outline and reaearch for it. This is still a very rough first draft snippet taking place shortly before the assassination of Shepherd via Price. warnings for implied major character death (yes, Soap's death is still a thing in Rory's verse, but I'm trying to make it mean more than it did in game)

"Not right f' me to put this on you.”

Her eyes narrow immediately. Something is off, she knows it is. That quiet alarm in the back of her head starting to blare. The one that has existed from the moment she said yes to being his in Syria.

“Put what on me," she asks, completely sobered up. The eyes that can see through even the thickest cloud of John's bullshit suddenly burning through the fog with a pointed stare.

“Nothin’.” With a sharp shake of his head he tries to sweep the matter aside. 

“John? What are you planning?”

“Nothin’, darl –”

Her finger presses to his lips, cutting off the lie before he can finish it. “You want to try that again?”

Wrapping his hand around her fingers, he pulls them away from his mouth, pressing a kiss to the tips. “Nothin’, Ror.” He says it with the finality of an order given, enacting the pavlovian response that gets her to comply, to stand down. 

Rory's stomach twists, the turns of her intestines knotting further as every instinct and impulse tells her something horrible is coming, the same way birds take flight en mass before a tsunami hits, emptying the sky as the waves are drawn back revealing the hidden base. Her heart rabbits in her chest, pounding against the confines of its cage, and frigid, creeping terror unfurls down her spine as if she can feel the specter of death’s kiss herself. 

Someone is going to be made to pay. He can’t get his hands on Makarov, someone else is going to be the scapegoat for his anger, something to take out his cold, merciless fury on.

She can see it in his eyes, in the cavernous depths of them, the way they seem to go on and on forever, deeper and darker, like the very circles of hell and at the very bottom of the pit is the place reserved for traitors. 

Shepherd.

She knows it. He knows it. And neither of them are saying a word. It’s already long since been decided. I’m comin’ for you. John had warned him, and he always kept his word. He just needed another reason and it had landed in his lap and had sprayed across his face. Warm and dripping and red.

tagging (no pressure to interact):

@lasersinthejungle @aceghosts @devil-kindred @taciturntraveller @sukoshimikan @voltac @voidika @chadillacboseman @g0dspeeed @simplegenius042 @strangefable @la-grosse-patate @clicheantagonist @tommyarashikage @inafieldofdaisies @raresvtm @finding-comfort-in-rain @cassietrn

[wwwdamerc]

Pretty Boy - Marvey fic idea

I am thinking of combining two of my ideas into one.

Harvey Specter is a successful, established, critically acclaimed actor, doing movies only if he loves the script. Mike does commercial rom-coms. The new script is called "Pretty Boy". (The detective and hooker idea, which I have posted before in one of my previous posts). The director, Jessica, wants Mike to play the part of hooker. Harvey doesn't think he can do it justice... A long fic which combines two co-actors falling in love while simultaneously their characters, the detective and a hooker do the same. It will have slight enemies to lovers arc. I'll develop both the stories in same fic, characters names will be Harlen and Mark (keeping it close to Harvey and Mike)

Here's a little snippet of the fic:

“I must be in this film. I must.”

“I knew you’d say that.” Donna smirked. “So, you want me to call Jessica?”

“Tell her I’ll read the lines if she wants.”

“Oh, you’re stooping to read for a role?”

“For this one, I’ll read.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to. You’re the actor she wants.”

“I don’t care if she pays me less. I must do this.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you this excited about a part.”

“It’s a fantastic part. I can see where this Benjamin guy drew some inspiration from me. Besides the crime, the suspense, the subtle romance. It’s interesting.”

“I’m glad you’re reacting this way. And I don’t think you’ll have to settle for less.”

“Have they cast the other role? Who do they want for Mark?”

“I’m not really…”

“Because I have some ideas about that."

“Harvey-”

"Dylan Sprouse, he’s perfect for it, I bet he’d love this part –“

“Harvey!”

“What?”

Donna sighs. “I fear you’re not going to like this. There’s been no offer made, but the casting director told me that Jessica wants Mike Ross.”

Harvey’s stomach dropped. “What?”

“I can’t believe I agreed to this,” He muttered, rolling and unrolling the script in his hands.

“Shut up,” Donna snapped, handing him his coffee. “You’ve got to play this part.”

“If they cast this idiot, the movie’s sunk. All this potential? All this brilliance in these pages? Mike Ross will piss all over it with forced acting and obvious choices. This calls for subtlety, not the tooth rotting over acting of a man who only knows how to do so-called adorable banter with the lead of his nth chick flick.”

“He did some really interesting character work when he started out, you know.”

“And how long has it been since he’s been asked to do anything more challenging than a Meet Cute?”

“He’s an actor, just like you.”

“He’s a generic boy-next-door, the die-cast Unthreatening Male. I need a co-star with a bit more edge to him. Give me something to act against! He’s a fucking piece of wood!”

[devilcatdarling]

Shadow~

Its piercing white eyes locked onto him, and he froze mid-step.

The specter lurked just behind the Pure Vessel. Tendrils of darkness curling around its form in something disturbingly close to an embrace - but with none of the warmth or gentleness that would normally accompany such a display.

Claws gripped the Vessel's pauldrons; mirrored horns curving upwards beside its shoulder as the thing stared him down with all the attentiveness of a reaper waiting for a symphony of dying breaths to herald its arrival.

The Vessel itself did not move. Did not acknowledge the harbinger of death that leered over its shoulder like a shadow.

A little snippet for my Hollow Knight AU "The Echo"

[five-and-dimes]

👻 for Make me Write!

An earlier snippet than the one I posted before! From the night Hob meets Dream:

Hob didn’t manage to make it back onto the bed, instead sliding to the floor to sit with his back against it, elbows on his knees and chin in his hands. The ghost, meanwhile, had seated himself in the armchair across from him, looking unfairly regal and poised. “So, like…” Hob looked the figure up and down, his mind finally calming enough to fully take him in. Along with his pale skin and dark, bird’s-nest hair, he was wearing all black. A thick peacoat over a black shirt, black skinny jeans and black boots. What stood out to Hob the most though, was how modern the clothing was, “How long have you been dead? You don’t give me medieval vibes or anything like that.”  The ghost furrowed his brow, humming in consideration, “I do not believe I have been dead for very long,” he mulled, “This hotel seems familiar, and none of the technology I’ve seen has been confusing to me. But I am uncertain exactly how long ago I died.” He glanced down at his hands in his lap, “I have trouble keeping track of time. And I have not been able to leave the hotel premises.”  Hob nodded thoughtfully, not entirely sure what he was meant to do with that information, but curiosity still driving him forward, “Do you know how you died?” The ghost flinched, and Hob backtracked quickly, “Wait, I’m sorry, that was- that was so rude-” “It’s fine,” the ghost interrupted his rambling. Hob still felt bad though. The ghost wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I…”  The moment stretches, and Hob forces himself to stay quiet. To let the specter take all the time he needs.  Finally, he looks up, his eyes watery. Hob had never considered if ghosts could cry. “I don’t remember.”

[swordbisexual]

WIP Whenever

Thank you for the tag, @amasec! Taking every excuse I can to drip feed this next chapter of Tread Softly in WIP snippet form because god only knows when it'll be finished:

She’d been eager for it, no less demanding than he, no less desperate. With her hands fisted in the front of his cloak and her whole body curved in to his, leaning, beseeching, needy, she’d melted against him as if he were the flame. She couldn’t possibly know that he was the one drawn to her, pulled in by the sheer force of her will. He should call it weakness and sting from the shame, but the thought soothes him instead, the memory of her certainty and resolve shoring up his own slipping defenses. It is a quiet shock that grows to a bone-deep, illicit thrill when he considers its every implication: could this be what he truly needs? Is such solace truly the shortcoming he’s believed it to be for so long? There have been others, brief and fleeting, an empty motion to satisfy a base need he has found to be little more than an inconvenience, but this… He will not close his eyes, lest he paint every emotion across his face for all to see, but in the space between every blink, every slow, deliberate breath, he feels the arch of her back beneath his palm, sees the deep pink flush spread out over her cheeks, hears her satisfied little sighs, tastes the lingering burn of pepper and amasec on her lips. It fills him, practically nourishes him, even in the specter of a memory he would do well to forget. Vetiver and lemon drift by him like a ghost, and he clenches his jaw and stiffens his spine to keep from turning to see if perhaps she’s come upon him in secret, slipping past every carefully-made defense, just as she has over and over again since they first lay eyes on one another. All around him, his vision practically glows with the copper of her hair, the rose of her lips, the flash of carmine that glitters in her left eye. It could be a breach of the warp, or it could be the light at the end of a long, dark, ship-black void; to his dismay and delight in equal measure, he thinks he might welcome either with open arms, so long as it’s Enid who he can wrap those arms around at the end.

Tagging @femmeharel @calcazars @eregar @meowse and whoever else wants to share!

[lullabyes22-blog]

Just saw the reblog of Ambessa and Silco talking about their kids, and immediately I needed to ask your opinions on Ambessa x Silco as a ship!

I've answered this ask here c:

Also have a snippet on their dynamic in FnF here c,:

Tbh i truly believe they'd be Godzilla vs Ghidorah levels of terrifying, and united there is every chance they'd actually be able to span an empire across the entirety of Valoran, Ambessa by way of conquest and Silco by way of espionage. However, I equally believe that though they'd be a formidable power couple in the spotlight, behind the scenes they'd routinely bring out the worst in each other (veering past titillating dysfunction to full-on disturbing levels of toxicity and domestic abuse.)

Imagine, if you're familiar with the franchises, a mix between Atia of the Julii x Marc Antony from HBO's Rome, but also Lucretia x Quintus from Spartacus. Plenty of backstabbings, mutual infidelities and political machinations on both sides. Also a tendency to pit each others' children against one another in intellectual gladiatorial combat/chessgames. (And, for the sake of completeness, I also think they'd have a very intense hate sex thing going on, with plenty of slapping and biting and hair-pulling. It'd be hot. It would also be awful, and not be healthy in the slightest.)

I do think the marriage/alliance would crumble eventually, largely by both of them crossing certain lines. For Silco, this would happen if Ambessa attempted to entangle Jinx in their games, in an attempt to undermine his bond with the girl, and/or use her against him. For Ambessa, this would happen at the point - and I do believe in the FnF multiverse this is a looming threat in every relationship she enters, whether Silco or not - when her ambitions threaten to eclipse Piltover in their shadow, which would antagonize Mel, and compel her to seek Silco out in an underhanded attempt to sabotage her mother's agenda.

At which point Silco - also in every FnF timeline, whether this one or not - would realize Mel is, in fact, the more adept and dangerous leader, and in fact the perfect blend of foresight and ambition that would serve Zaun's interests better in the long term. He'd begin courting her as a serious ally, and somewhere along the line we'd end up with the specter of terrible incest-y stepfather/stepdaughter shenanigans creeping closer -until Jayce, Mel's inner voice of morality, would convince her not to take it beyond verbal sparring and pragmatic cooperation.

Together, they'd work to overthrow Ambessa, which would likely be a bloodbath of epic proportions. In the end, Mel would either end up having to banish her mother, or killing her, like in the canon timeline.

Silco would mourn the loss of his promised empire and his formidable lover, and give her a send-off worthy of a Noxian epic. He'd also be forced to come to terms with the realization that Mel's political savvy and foresight far surpasses his own, and that in Jayce she has a true equal and a good-hearted moral compass, and that his own personal ambitions were always meant to be secondary to the greater good of his city.

He'd make the necessary preparations for the future, and quietly withdraw into the shadows, spending the last of his years watching his city grow and prosper without him, and spending time with Jinx (and the dozen sumpsnipes she's decided to adopt).

He'd die happy and at peace, knowing he's at least left a world better than the one he'd inherited.

[magnificentbirb]

wip wednesday thursday!

thank you for the tag, @seaplease~! sorry this is a day late, i was a busy bee yesterday.

the only wip i've really made progress on lately is still carcar apocalypse/the last of us fic, so ta-daaaaa a snippet:

Oscar’s fingers curl into fists. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know you can.”

“You don’t even like me.”

Oscar finds himself pinned by wide brown eyes, surprised and hurt. 

“I like you,” Carlos says, and the world maybe shifts on its axis.

“Really?” Oscar’s voice is dry, a defense mechanism. His heartbeat feels loud in his chest. “You’re always so careful around me.”

“Yes,” Carlos says, sounding almost exasperated, “because I always thought you did not like me.”

Oscar fidgets, plucking at his jeans. “I don’t… dislike you,” he admits, wincing slightly at the half truth. It was better if Carlos never knew just how much Oscar didn’t dislike him. “It’s just always been you and Lando, or me and Lando, not… you know. You and me.” It hurts, to say Lando’s name again after days of pretending not to think about him, but Oscar buries that pain before it can take root. He focuses instead on his own bitterness over the specter of Carlos that lingers indelibly in every corner of McLaren, treasured and loved no matter how far down the paddock he moves, no matter how many years it’s been, making it impossible for Oscar to ignore Carlos and his stupid doe-eyed face.

“Lando and I have always been close,” Carlos says quietly. “But that does not mean we can’t get along too, Oscar.”

Oscar doesn’t respond. There is blood beneath one of his fingernails. He digs it out. When he looks up again, Carlos’s eyes are closed. Oscar’s throat seizes.

“Hey.” He leans over, shaking Carlos by the shoulder. “Eyes open.”

Carlos sighs, but his eyes slide open again. “Cruel,” he mutters, but there’s no heat in it. 

“Deal with it,” Oscar says. And then, as a half-joking olive branch, he adds, “Lando would kill me if I let you die.”

Carlos’s jaw tightens. “If Lando is alive.”

“He is,” says Oscar, fiercely. “No body, not dead.” It’s a rule he made up that first day the world went to hell. It’s the only thing keeping him sane, some days. The only thing giving him hope that they might not actually be as alone as they feel. That maybe somewhere out there, on a distant continent, his family is still alive.

Carlos looks impossibly tired, his eyes dark with something almost like pity. Oscar’s hackles rise, prepared to get defensive, but instead, Carlos just nods.

“Okay,” he says, lying back again, eyes sliding shut. “No body, not dead.”