#them throwing away all poetics and just cave in to the desire... to the want...

[hooned]

And yet, here you are on national television. Why?

Because I want to be seen. To remind you that I exist. To remind myself.

[shoyouth]

Hello again! So i have this idea, could i request a hc when mc is being particularly clingy with them? Like, ask to cuddle a lot or backhugs on the living room or when they go about their day, etc? She just feels very needy that day 😂 thank you! And i love your writings so much, it made me smile a lot :)

Hello, my friend! This is such a cute request tbh, ty for sending it in! And aww thank you so much, that makes me so happy to hear 😁💞

napoleon ; he loves it. If you’re not normally clingy, the first time you give him a hug he watches you amusedly, inquiring as to why. But in the morning especially, when you aren’t pulling away from his embrace so adamantly, when you aren’t scolding him to get up but instead linger and return his kiss sweetly—he’s reminded why he loves sleeping in so much, and why he loves you. He could definitely get used to this.

arthur ; will tease you. Instantly. He has that little grin on his face and he catches your hand before you can snatch your hug and leave, and he pulls you right back in to his hold. Though he really is all bark and no bite; the second he has his hands on you, his touch is feather-light, his warm arms circled around your waist delicately. He actually basks in your open affection-days, and he becomes so so soft and he hums in your ear and sways back and forth. He needs it just as much as you. On certain days he may be more playful and return your affection twicefold; one kiss to his cheek leads to him pressing his lips to both of yours.

mozart ; you’ll be hard pressed to get him away from the piano, peeking your head through the door or lingering around behind him. He may feign exasperation at your ‘insistent silent cues’ that you want affection, but he readily turns around on the bench to let you sit with him, his lips pressed against your temple. Once you’ve had your fill, he’s softened up as well, and he’s nonchalant as he says he would not mind if you just stayed and wrapped your arms around his shoulder while he played “if you’d like.”

leonardo ; when you throw him pouts across the library, he can’t help the chuckle that rises in his throat. He’ll close his book and make his way over to you, nuzzling his nose against yours softly as he jokes that you can hardly be away from him. Again, leonardo sleep often just like napoleon, so he really doesn’t mind when you want to cuddle. He’ll sleep with you anywhere but if you have qualms about napping on the hallway floor, he’ll make the effort to clear his bed (only his bed, the rest of the room is still a godforsaken mess) for the both of you to cuddle comfortably, faces towards each other and playing with each others’ fingers.

vincent ; all you have to do is give the word and his paint brush is set down and his arms are open. You either cramp yourselves up super close on his couch or you go to his favorite spot on the hill and lay in the grass. Vincent gives super warm, comforting hugs (theo can vouch for him), and he smiles so sweetly as he holds you against him. He fixes your hair and asks about your day absently, and you may hold hands as you talk or—on more mellow days—you interlock your pinkies as you watch the clouds.

theo ; he’ll be in the parlor reading poetry or talking to arthur when you come in and sit so close beside him you’re practically on his lap. He pauses to protect himself from the stutter lodged in his throat, and his eyes cast to you. At your innocent smile, he simply sighs; he knows what you want. He places his hands on either side of your waist and hoists you into his lap, his arms caging you against his chest. If arthur makes any comment he grumbles and glares, but it’s just to protect his dignity when a pink flush crosses his cheeks (all the while you just smile). Affection in front of the others always flusters him a bit, but he always plays it off and acts suave—he secretly loves it.

issac ; if you ever were to surprise him with a back hug out of the blue, oh boy. He will sputter and choke, whirling around with big eyes. He may huff defensively that you shouldn’t surprise him like that, but the feverish flush of his cheeks shows you that he’s not mad at all. Though it may take some time, he grows to love your surprise affection on your clingy days, especially when he gets too stressed or focused about teaching or tinkering. Also a major sucker for the intimacy of close embraces like dazai and arthur, where he caresses your cheek and kisses your forehead—it relaxes and reassures him a lot.

dazai ; this sly dog can instantly read when you’re clingy, but he won’t do anything until you tell him. Everytime you’re glued to his side or brush against his arm, send him needy looks—he just smiles and asks if you’ve eaten or read the book he recommended. When you finally cave and tell him, for an odd moment he will remain quiet and not do anything, maybe have you just follow him. But once you’re sat down somewhere more comfortable, he’ll turn to you and gently take you in his arms, similar to arthur, and just hold you. His fingers will card through your hair, and it’s only when you silently beg for affection that you are able to draw out this soft kind of intimacy from him.

jean ; like issac, he isn’t much of a fan of the surprises. I don’t think he’d ever come to love it though because he’s afraid of how he’d react—would he feel threatened and pull his sword on you? What if he hadn’t drank enough that day, would he turn on you? For this man’s guilt-ridden heart, please initiate affection slowly. He’d love the soft handholding while you walked and talked, or the hand on his guiding arm. As he grows more comfortable, you could initiate gentle but firm hugs or sitting in his lap, and like arthur, he would end up needing it more; he will melt in your hands with his face pressed against your shoulder, your fingers running through his hair. It helps him forget and feel loved in time.

comte ; quirks a brow at first, a soft smile crossing his lips at your inquiry. He’ll cup your chin in his hand and kiss you gently, assuring you that he is all yours and he is only there to fulfill your every desire (“Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast begins playing in the distance). He’d gladly let you latch yourself to his arm while he traveled the mansion, but he throws his tasks out the window quickly to instead sit in the gardens with you, admiring the landscape with his arm securely around your waist. At times like this, he feels very happy in a mellow sense; your affection helps him forget that he’s immortal, and that he can share moments so intimate like this with you.

sebastian ; quite honestly you’re both cooking in the kitchen when you slowly intertwine your fingers with his empty one on the counter. He pauses in reading the recipe to look to you for an explanation, but you’re nonchantly getting the ingredients together. Sebastian is observant, and so I think he would quickly understand that this is your silent confession of being needy, so he’ll just smile and press a kiss to your cheek before continuing with his work. He will try his best to leave your hands connected while you work, or return to your hold as quickly as possible if the task requires both hands.

shakespeare ; your shows of needing affection may have to be more subdued if you ever want a desirable reaction. If you come on too strong or lively, he will only use poetic words to answer your actions, his eyes flashing as he’s on guard, for you couldn’t be that happy to see him, could you? But if you’re more mellow, perhaps kissing the inside of his wrist or ghosting your touch along his neck, he may shiver and crumble. Such intimacy! Mayhaps you do hold such love for him in your heart of hearts, and he’ll gloss his lips down your forearm to kiss your inner elbow to show his own desire.

[lady-divine-writes]

31 Days of Ineffables - “Making an Effort” (Rated T)

Summary: Every morning, Aziraphale sneaks out of bed to go for a run without telling his husband.

One day, Crowley finds out. (1839 words)

Notes: Written for @drawlight’s ‘31 Days of Ineffables’ prompt ‘warmth’. Warning for talk of anxiety and self-esteem/body issues.

Read on AO3.

Slap … slap … slap … slap …

The soles of Aziraphale’s trainers hitting the wet asphalt sound exactly the way he thought they would.

Like the shoes of a fat man hitting concrete.

It’s not that difficult a thing to describe, nothing poetic about it.

He could definitely do with a break, stop into a nearby shop and warm himself up with some cocoa and conversation, but he won’t let himself. He’s committed to this. Committed to changing, to evolving, to becoming something better than he is.

Something better than he sees when he looks in the mirror.

He erases thoughts of warmth and cocoa from his mind and tries to focus on the positives of being out here … jogging … alone … in the early December gloom.

At this hour of the morning, he gets to see the glorious sunrise. It brings him closer to God, bolsters a connection he’s felt lacking as of late.

Though if that’s not entirely his fault, he won’t own up to it.

At three a.m. when he starts his fitness quest, he gets to revel in the peace and quiet that comes from London still abed.

Oh. But that reminds him that his claim to London, his claim to the world, is also still abed and asleep without him.

Crowley.

He’d rather be with Crowley.

He’d rather be in bed with Crowley, warm and toasty, sipping cocoa and watching the grey clouds pave their way across the sky from behind closed windows.

Crowley doesn’t want this.

He doesn’t know about it, but if he did, he wouldn’t want this.

But won’t he be proud of Aziraphale when he sees the change? The looser clothes, the smoother skin, the closer hugs?

Aziraphale doesn’t have to tell Crowley about his plans in order for his husband to benefit from them, so keeping him out of the loop isn’t a bad thing …

… necessarily.

Great.

Now he’s cold and tired and keeping things from his husband.

How can this morning get any better?

“Looking good, angel.”

A wolf-whistle follows those words and Aziraphale’s heart shudders.

That’s how, he guesses.

Serves him right. He could never really keep secrets from Crowley, could he?

If not, Crowley would have never walked down the aisle of that church, hopping like a drunk jack rabbit, and saved Aziraphale from getting blown to bits.

Aziraphale debates running on by, but he knows Crowley will simply miracle himself to the next bench and wait for him there. And if there isn’t a bench, he’ll snap one up.

Aziraphale slows to a stop, panting from the stress exercise takes on his human form.

“You don’t have to make fun of me.”

“Not making fun,” Crowley says, waiting for his angel to give up the stubborn attitude and come sit beside him. “I mean it. You look good. Of course, you always look good to me, particularly when you’re red in the face and working up a sweat. I just wish you’d stay in bed with me and do it proper. It’s colder than fuck out here!”

Aziraphale glances over at his husband curling in on himself and shivering dramatically in the cold – a subtle attempt to get Aziraphale to cave and sit next to him.

Which he does because dramatic or not, he hates seeing his demon shiver, knowing how thoroughly the cold seeps through his skin. With a snap of his fingers, Aziraphale miracles up his own coat and slips it over Crowley’s shoulders, wrapping it around him, frowning when he sees how loosely it bunches on Crowley’s thin form.

“What in the world are you doing out here at this hour of the morning?” Aziraphale asks, as if the answer weren’t ridiculously obvious.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I asked you first.”

Crowley watches his husband sit flush up against him, their arms touching, but from the expression on his face, he couldn’t be farther away. “Well, if you must know, it’s a sad and pathetic fact that I can no longer sleep without you.”

“Is it now?” Aziraphale says dryly.

“Yes, it is.”

“Sorry about that. But it’s easier to run in the morning.”

So I wouldn’t find out? Crowley thinks with a chuckle to himself. “And why’s that? Because that’s how the humans torture themselves, so you have to do it that way, too?”

“Because there’s less foot traffic,” Aziraphale defends. “Less chance of bumping into other runners.”

Or one runner in particular, Crowley surmises, knowing that Gabriel runs these paths on occasion for no reason Crowley can begin to comprehend.

Correction, he does comprehend it. But if he admits it, he’ll be running up the escalator to Heaven’s offices with all his might to punch himself an Archangel.

“If you’re really concerned with avoiding foot traffic, I could get you a treadmill. Or a stationary bike. Or one of those bizarre floaty contraptions that look like they’re from a sci-fi movie.”

“An elliptical?”

“Yes, an elliptical. Then you could exercise till your heart’s content in the comfort of our flat, and I’d get to sit on the sofa and ogle you all day long from behind.”

Crowley winks.

Aziraphale tuts and rolls his eyes.

“But that’s not the point, is it?” Crowley continues. “Because you’re not actually out here to improve yourself.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence,” Aziraphale grumbles. “You know, sometimes you really are a snake.”

“You’re a supernatural entity, Aziraphale. You don’t have to exercise. Not really. You’re not concerned with your heart and your blood pressure. If you wanted to look fitter, you could snap your fingers and do it. Or I could do it for you so Heaven won’t find out.” Crowley lifts a hand out of his coat cocoon for emphasis. “I’m a demon. Expert at taking things apart. One snap and …” He makes an obscene sucking noise “… instant liposuction.”

“So what am I doing, in your expert opinion?”

“You’re punishing yourself, angel,” Crowley says softly. “And you’re doing it over nothing. Over no one that matters.”

Aziraphale wiggles uncomfortably on the bench. He doesn’t move away, but that distance Crowley felt earlier begins to grow. “H-how would you know?”

“Because I know you. I’ve known you for thousands of years. I know your thoughts, your desires, your heart. And I know that the voice in your head, the one that tells you you’re soft, you’re fat, you’re a pathetic excuse for an angel – that voice doesn’t belong to you. It never has. And it doesn’t belong to me either.”

Aziraphale sniffles, digesting those words while he watches the sun rise higher in the sky, lending light and life and hope to a weary world.

And one weary angel.

“It’s … been there for such a long time,” Aziraphale only half-voices, “and I … I don’t know how to get rid of it.”

“Does waking up at the butt crack of dawn and running the soles out of a pair of shoes till your bum knee aches get rid of it?”

“For a while.”

“Is there a chance that … making love to me gets rid of it?”

Aziraphale swallows. When he answers, his voice shakes. “For a while.”

“Then why don’t we do that instead?”

“Because it’s not an easy thing to admit to.”

“I know that.”

“Really?” Aziraphale scoffs. He steals a quick, angry glance down Crowley’s trim body hiding beneath his bulky coat, but never meets his eyes. “And how’s that?”

“You don’t think I have a few voices in my head, too? They might not be your voices, they may not say the same things, but they’re bastards, I’ll tell you that.”

“How do you get rid of them?”

“By doing the things I love – driving my car, drinking, sleeping. But mostly by hanging out with you.” Crowley threads an arm through the sleeve of Aziraphale’s coat and takes his angel’s hand. “Which is part of the reason why you haven’t been able to get rid of me since the day you left Heaven and I left Hell.”

That remark coaxes a partial smile out of Aziraphale. “I’ve been wondering about that.”

“Well, now you know.” Crowley lifts Aziraphale’s hand to his mouth, kisses across his knuckles one by one. “Listen, if you wanna keep jogging, be my guest. I’ll even help you.”

Aziraphale shoots his husband a comical look. “How?”

“I’ll … I’ll … I’ll chase you all over this damned park! I’ll throw ducks at you …”

“Crowley!”

“I’ll scream that you stole my wallet till the cops come running!”

Aziraphale does his best to look appalled by his husband’s suggestion, but the laughter twitching his lips at the image it paints wins out in the end.

“But only if you’re doing it because you want to do it. Otherwise … what good does it really do you?”

Aziraphale nods. He goes back to staring while he thumbs through his options, but the thought of Crowley throwing ducks and crying out in fake distress lingers so vividly, he’s certain Crowley keeps planting it there.

“I don’t want to jog anymore,” Aziraphale says finally.

“You don’t?” Crowley asks, not even hiding his non-surprise.

“No.”

“Are you, maybe, in the mood for some crepes? I know a great breakfast spot not too far from here.”

“No,” Aziraphale says with the firm resolve of a man triumphing over demons he’s been battling for decades.

But seeing as Aziraphale married his demon, his answer becomes less convincing.

Crowley raises an eyebrow at him. Aziraphale looks resolutely away.

But he smiles, too.

“Yes, I am,” he relents. “But I think I’d like to stay like this for a while, if you don’t mind. Sitting by your side, holding your hand - I want this more.”

Crowley rests his head against his angel’s shoulder. “So do I.”

They sit in silence together and watch the sun climb into the sky.

“This is nice,” Crowley murmurs, closing his eyes to block out the bright and focus instead on the warmth on his face.

“It is,” Aziraphale concurs. Over the thousands of years they’ve spent as friends, and the months they’ve spent as lovers, this is something they’ve had yet to do. They’ve been together in the presence of the sunrise, of course. And the sunset. But sitting together and letting it command their full attention – this is a first.

“You know, maybe I was wrong,” Crowley says.

“How’s that?”

“Maybe we should get up early and do this every morning. Not the running. Just the sunrise.”

“Perhaps. It might be nicer to watch it from the balcony instead.”

“Of course, of course,” Crowley agrees, close to falling asleep. “Much less chance of encountering foot traffic up there.”

“Quite.” Aziraphale breathes in deep, then breathes out deep into the cold, crisp winter air. He should have brought a book. And a Thermos. And a snack. “Can we go get those crepes now?”

“Yup.”

“And after the crepes, can we have sex?”

Crowley grins. “Oh absolutely.”

[moonb-eam]

from tarot list: DEVIL?!?!?!?!? PLEASE?!?!?!?¿

the devil: failure, lust, temptation

“you want it too”

possible AUs/settings/ideas: desire, nsfw, unrequited love, demon au

tarot card prompts

alright listen anon i’m so sorry this was supposed to be SHORT and SEXY but instead it’s almost 8k of shmoop, which….are we even that surprised anymore

still, i hope you like it, darling 🧡

this was a pretty perfect prompt for a halloween-theme fic so here we goooo 👻

no sweeter innocence (than our gentle sin)

read on ao3

It begins with Eliott coming out of his room at seven p.m. to tell Idriss and Sofiane that he’s no longer coming to the Halloween party they’re hosting that night.

He’s groggy from a nap, still suffering from a headache that’s plagued him all day, and he’s desperate to dive back under the covers, to lock himself in his room and watch black and white monster movies until it’s safe to come out.

He’s not prepared for the looks of utter betrayal that meet him in the living room, Sofiane and Idriss freezing in the middle of stretching swaths of fake cobwebs across the ceiling, a techno mix of the Monster Mash playing in the background.

“But Eliott,” Sofiane says, eyes wide, “you promised.”

Eliott tries a weak argument, saying he doesn’t have a costume, definitely doesn’t have time to make one now, but that is quickly shut down by Idriss, who calls in a last-minute favour from Imane.

Do you or any of your friends have something Eliott can wear? He didn’t plan anything because he’s lame.

Just after nine p.m. Eliott opens their apartment door and a cascade of loud, giggling girls spills into the entryway, one of them wearing a skeleton onesie holding up a bottle of white wine like a ceremonial offering and another, dressed as Wonder Woman, thrusting a cloth bag into Eliott’s face.

“Eliott, yeah? Here’s your costume, gorgeous.”

So, it ends with Eliott standing in his kitchen, holding a cup of the “mystery punch,” and wearing a full angel costume, wings and halo and all.

(Or maybe, this is where it really begins.)

He’s alone, nursing his cup of disgustingly sweet punch slowly, closing his eyes so the neon colours from Idriss’s blacklight projectors are nothing more than muted flashes behind his lids. His headache is pretty well gone, but he’s tired, a bit grumpy, and the last thing he wants to do is throw himself into the pulsing mob of people taking over his apartment.

He drums his fingers restlessly across his leg, tapping out the beat of an imagined song. He thinks about sneaking onto the balcony for a cigarette, thinks about letting himself be carried away by the windy night, thinks about laying down in his dark room and throwing layers of blankets over himself until the throbbing bass of Idriss’s music is soft enough to be indiscernible from his own pulse.

He glances at the stove, at the digital clock displaying 23:00 in tiny blue numbers.

One hour, he tells himself. I’ll stay for one hour, then I’m going to bed.

“Yo.” It’s Idriss, appearing at Eliott’s side out of thin air, holding onto a plastic chalice filled with pale liquid that glows neon under the black lights. A gold crown is sitting crooked on the top of his head and he’s wearing an expression Eliott is immediately suspicious of.

“What’s up?”

“Nothing. I just think you should come into the living room. You know, to socialize.”

Eliott frowns. “I’m socializing.” He says it a bit defensively, a bit embarrassed, waving his free hand between them. “I’m literally socializing with you right now.”

“Not with me.” Idriss hisses, eyes darting to the kitchen doorway. “You should be socializing with other people. With the people in the living room.”

“What?”

“Socializing, Eliott. In the living room.”

“Why do you keep saying those words like that? Is it supposed to be a euphemism for something?”

Idriss sighs, long and loud, tilting his head back to the ceiling, his crown sliding further back on his head.

“Just know,” Idriss tells the ceiling, “I tried to be subtle. I really did.” He returns his gaze to Eliott. “That guy in Imane’s class you like is here.”

For a moment, Eliott genuinely has no idea what he’s talking about. “Who?”

Idriss stares at him. “Seriously? The guy you’ve been talking about for months? You know, the one with…” Idriss rests his elbows on the counter, blinking up at Eliott dreamily, “…eyes so blue I could drown in them.”

“My voice doesn’t sound like that.” Eliott argues automatically, which is good. It’s good he’s able to get an entire sentence out despite how his brain is whiting out in panic.

“It does when you’re in love.” Idriss coos, bopping Eliott on the nose.

“I’m not in love,” Eliott says, horrified. He darts his eyes over to the kitchen doorway, still thankfully empty. “I’m not…I just…”

Idriss laughs, gently patting Eliott on the arm. “I know. I’m just messing with you.” He dunks his cup into the punch, taking a loud slurp off the top when it resurfaces. “But he actually is here.”

“Oh god.”

“Which is why,” Idriss says, “you should come into the living room. Imane can introduce you.”

“Oh god.” As if the idea of leaving the safety of the empty kitchen wasn’t already terrifying. Eliott has been crushing on this boy for weeks from afar, ever since he saw Imane walking with him across campus one golden afternoon in September. Oh, he thought, taking in a small frame, bouncing brown hair, and a sweet face. He’s cute. Then Imane had said something that made the boy laugh, and Eliott felt his entire chest cave in.

Oh, he thought, clutching onto his takeaway cup of tea like a life preserver—helpless, unmoored, devastated. He’s beautiful.

Ever since then, Eliott’s life has been a swinging pendulum of desperately wanting to see him again, and then running in the opposite direction when he does see him again, overtaken by infatuated panic. One time he actually leapt behind a trash bin. He’s not proud of it.

“Eliott, come on.” Idriss ducks to meet his eyes. “You’re on home turf, you’ve got your boys to back you up, and you look hot as fuck.” He flicks at the halo on Eliott’s head. “There are literally no better circumstances in which to shoot your shot with your dream man.”

“Idriss, I’m wearing wings.”

“And? Maybe he’s got a thing for that.”

Despite himself, Eliott bursts into laughter. “Jesus Christ.”

“Calling in favours from your friends. Okay, I see how it is.” One of his hands falls to Eliott’s shoulder, squeezing it gently. “Seriously, Eliott, listen. If you’re really uncomfortable you don’t have to talk to him. You don’t have to do anything. But I’ve had to hear you waxing poetic about this guy for weeks, and I want this to happen for you. I really do.” He sighs. “It’s the romantic in me.”

“What if he doesn’t like me?” Eliott mumbles, and suddenly it’s like he’s in primary school all over again, staring down at his shoes while he asks Thomas Chartrand if he wants to share Eliott’s pencil crayons with him.

Only now there’s Idriss, staring at Eliott like he’s just asked him the easiest question in the world. “Then he’s an idiot, Eliott, because you’re amazing.”

The words could sound like trite placation from someone else, but there’s an easy surety in Idriss’s voice that makes something rattle free in Eliott’s chest, something ugly and heavy that he hadn’t realized had been weighing him down.

He takes a steadying breath. “Fine, fine, okay. I’ll come. I’m just gonna…” He wiggles his cup in the air. “…fortify.”

Idriss cackles as he strolls out of the kitchen. “Atta boy, Demaury!”

As soon as he’s out of sight, Eliott collapses back into the counter, knocking back the contents of his cup.

He’s psyching himself up too much, and he’s painfully aware of it, of the way his heart is stuttering in his chest, the way his fingers are restlessly dancing over his now empty cup. He’s so nervous just from the the thought of seeing him, and it’s ridiculous, it’s completely ridiculous because Eliott doesn’t even know if anything is going to happen, just because—

“Oh wow. An angel.”

Eliott’s head snaps up, and of course, of fucking course.

Just like that, he’s there, standing in the entryway of Eliott’s kitchen, plucked from the deep caverns of his thoughts and made real. He’s dressed in black jeans and a black long-sleeve shirt, he’s holding a beer bottle loosely by the neck and he’s wearing a smile that could only be described as wicked.

There’s a chance Eliott might pass out.

Then his eyes land on the two small, red horns nestled in the boy’s hair, and he lets out a hysterical bark of a laugh.

The boy’s grin deepens. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” He says, stepping into the kitchen, to where Eliott is stuck still at the counter, fingers gripping tightly onto the edge. “An angel and the devil walk into a party. The set up to a joke we’ve all heard.”

“Yeah,” Eliott says, scrambling for something to say. “Except I live here.”

“I know you do.”

Eliott blinks.

“Sorry.” The boy laughs, holding his hands up. “That sounded weird. I mean, you’re Eliott.” There’s another pause, and the boy rushes to fill it. “I know Sofiane and Idriss through Imane and they, uh, they talk about you all the time. I’m Lucas,” he tacks onto the end, tapping the centre of his chest with his beer bottle. “I’m in Imane’s year.”

It’s a lot of information to take in at once: that the boy’s name is Lucas, that Lucas already knew who Eliott was when he arrived tonight, the apparently Idriss and Sofiane have talked to Lucas about Eliott before. Apparently they do it all the time.

Eliott is going to have words with them about that later.

But right now—

“It’s nice to meet you, Lucas.” Eliott says, extending a hand out. The gesture feels a little formal in the setting they’re inhabiting: the empty plastic cups and neon lighting and distant drunken shouting, but it also feels like it might be the right one.

Lucas smiles, and grasps onto Eliott’s hand and that, holy shit that feels right.

“It’s nice to meet you, Eliott the angel.” Lucas parrots, and he winks.

It really shouldn’t work. It’s not even a good wink: it’s lopsided and awkward but Eliott still flushes from it, and then when Lucas huffs a laugh, lowering his eyes like he’s embarrassed, something feather-light and dangerously fond stirs under Eliott’s sternum. He follows Lucas’s gaze to where their hands are still locked together.

“Do you, ah…” Eliott licks his lips, shifting awkwardly on the spot. “Do you want to dance?”

Lucas’s gaze snaps up to his. “Yeah.” He say excitedly, his face lighting up in another smile. There’s a pink flush on his cheeks that Eliott wants to memorize, to try and recreate on his sketchpad later. “Yeah, come on.”

Eliott nods, and leaves his empty cup behind, letting Lucas tug him out of the kitchen by his hand, letting himself, finally, be pulled into the chaotic throng of people.

Somewhere, faraway, Eliott thinks he can hear a faint sound—maybe it’s a choir singing, maybe it’s the voice of god, if they exist, or the voice of the universe, but what ever it is, it’s telling Eliott to pay attention, not to forget what happens next.

Get ready, the voice, song, sound says to him. Get ready, Eliott.

Eliott can feel the wind racing past his ears. Like he’s at the top of a slide.

Let’s go.

🕸

It all feels like a dream.

There’s Eliott, dancing to Electric Feel with a boy, but not just any boy. It’s Lucas, the boy Eliott has been infatuated with from the first moment he saw him, and it’s not just dancing, it’s moving freely, rapturously, forgetting that he’s in a corner of the living room, forgetting that he’s inside his own apartment.

He’s aware only of Lucas: of Lucas’s hands ghosting touches along his waist, down to his hips; of Lucas’s toothy smile and his loud laugh; of the smell of Lucas’s hair when he gets bumped into Eliott’s chest, the feel of him pressed close.

Lucas giggles at Eliott’s flailing dance moves, then tries to copy him, and Eliott forgets to feel self-conscious. He expected he would be nervous around Lucas, and he is, nervous in a way that feels familiar and new at the same time, but it also feels so easy with Lucas: to dance with him under Idriss’s shitty black lights, to laugh with him when one of them trips and they collapse into one another, to sing in broken English along to the songs they both know.

It feels so easy. Like breathing. Like falling into the best dream Eliott has ever had.

He catches Idriss’s gaze across the room, and when Idriss points at Lucas and gives Eliott a conspicuous thumbs-up, Eliott only grins.

They give up dancing to join a semi-circle of truth or dare spilling onto the floor form the sofa, something that seems like a bad idea to Eliott when they first sit down, but turns out is a fantastic one when Lucas picks dare and Alexia, the girl who brought Eliott his costume, dares him to kiss the most attractive person in the game.

A series of oooooh’s rise up from the other players, but Eliott is barely able to register them before he feels warm, soft lips pressing to his cheek.

Everything stops.

Or more like, everything moves slowly. Like Eliott is underwater.

He can feel the weight of the collective gaze of the circle, expressions ranging from surprise to delight to smugness. Someone next to Eliott makes a swooning sound.

Lucas’s hand is on Eliott’s knee, giving him leverage to reach his cheek, and when he pulls away, Eliott can hear him make a small gasp, an exhale that shakes and shivers and tickles Eliott’s skin with warmth.

The entire moment lasts, in reality, a handful of seconds.

Then Lucas’s lips are gone, his hand is gone, and Eliott is physically holding himself back from following him, from kissing Lucas’s cheek, or maybe kissing him on the mouth, pressing him down into the carpet and making him gasp again, or maybe just leaning close enough to ask, Did you mean that? Did you kiss me on the cheek because you want to kiss me on the mouth? Do you like me? Do you feel as hopeless as I do right now? Do you also feel like you’re drowning?

Eliott doesn’t know if he’s ever wanted anything so badly as he wants to know the answers to those questions.

The game moves on, and it’s Lucas’s turn. He sends it right back to Alexia, asking her to reveal her most embarrassing sex fantasy when she picks truth.

Instead of shying away, she scoffs at Lucas. “That’s so fucking easy, Lallemant. It’s to do it in the dance studio on campus. You know,” she wiggles her eyebrows, “where all the mirrors are.”

That gets a riotous cheer from the group, and Eliott joins in, letting it distract him from the lingering sensation of Lucas’s lips on his cheek, from the obvious way Lucas is avoiding Eliott’s gaze.

Then, it comes to him.

“Eliott. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” Eliott answers immediately.

Alexia smiles, resting her chin in her folded hands. “If you had to kiss someone in the circle, who would it be and why?”

Eliott thinks he’s beginning to understand Alexia, the more time he spends with her. Underneath that sweet, bubbly exterior there lurks an evil mastermind.

Someone else in the circle, a girl who Eliott thinks is dressed as Britney Spears, complains that the question is too similar to Lucas’s, but Alexia shushes her.

“Well, I mean,” Eliott shrugs, painfully aware of how intently Lucas is staring at the floor now, like he’s about to find the meaning of life there. “I would choose Lucas.”

Another chorus of oooooh’s rise up, but Eliott is only aware of Lucas’s head snapping up, the tops of his cheeks coloured that same pretty pink Eliott saw in the kitchen.

He wants to feel that colour it under his fingertips.

“The second part of the question is why,” Alexia sing-songs from her spot on the sofa.

Eliott nods. He doesn’t think there’s an answer he can give to this question that won’t sound completely wanky. Saying because he’s beautiful would be trite, and a bit cheesy, and saying because I’ve had a crush on him since the moment I first saw him would probably make him sound like a creep. So, Eliot tries to go for something simple. Something true.

“Because I can’t imagine kissing anyone else.”

He’s not expecting the reaction that gets.

Two girls across from him in matching doll costumes let out loud, drawn-out awwww’s. The boy sitting next to him in a football jersey cheers, slapping Eliott on the back. Another girl in the circle, wearing a cowgirl outfit, practically melts, “And they’re wearing matching costumes! Fuck me, that’s so cute!”

Then, there’s Lucas.

Lucas, who’s finally looking at Eliott again, his mouth dropped open into a shocked o, his eyes wide and bright.

Eliott now wonders if that was the wrong thing to say. Maybe it was too much for Lucas. They’ve been flirting, yeah, but Eliott is working off of a month-long crush that’s growing helplessly worse with every minute he spends in Lucas’s presence. To Lucas, Eliott is sure he’s just a guy he met at a party.

Someone is telling Eliott to go, that it’s his turn, and he pulls himself out of his thoughts, locking on Sofiane’s warm, familiar face on the edge of the circle. He chooses Dare, and Eliott orders him to give an a capella rendition of Don’t Stop Me Now.

Sofiane does it happily, and as he’s bouncing around the edge of the circle, spouting Queen at the top of his lungs, Lucas is leaning into Eliott’s side, close enough to whisper in his ear,

“Is there somewhere quiet we can go?”

Eliott doesn’t even think about it before he nods, and this time he’s grabbing onto Lucas’s hand, helping him up from his spot on the floor, ignoring the conspiratorial looks being shot to them from everyone still in the game. The cowgirl winks at him.

He doesn’t know if Lucas is asking them go to somewhere where they can be alone, alone, but Eliott feels a little overwhelmed from the noise, a little sweaty under his robe, and he wants exactly what Lucas is asking for—somewhere quiet. Somewhere they can talk.

He leads Lucas back towards the kitchen, and on the way there they pass a group of boys huddled close together near the entrance. As they get close, Eliott can see one of them, tall, handsome and wearing a grey robe with a green pyramid taped to the front, raising his eyebrows.

“Well, hi Lucas.” He says cheerily, a smirk teasing a the corners of his mouth. “Where are you off to?”

“Nowhere.” Lucas replies, just as cheerily.

One of the other boys, blonde and dressed as a vampire, laughs. “Nowhere, huh? And who,” his eyes snap over to Eliott, “are you going nowhere with?”

Everyone turns to Eliott, and he feels his cheeks warm under their speculative gazes.

Lucas, though, rolls his eyes. “You guys know Eliott.” He says easily, tugging Eliott closer by their linked hands. “He lives here. With Sofiane and Idriss.” He points at each of the boys with his beer bottle as he lists their names. “This is Yann, Arthur and Basile.”

The third boy, Basile, sporting a head of curls and navy boiler suit, sticks a hand out to Eliott. “I mean, we’ve never met, but we’ve heard a lot about you, man.”

“Um.” Eliott reluctantly releases Lucas’s hand to shake the offered one. “Good things, I hope?”

“The best things,” Basile says sincerely. “In fact, the first time I heard about you was when Lucas—”

“Right, okay!” Arthur interrupts, yanking Basile away from Eliott by the back of his boiler suit. “Time for another drink, boys, or what?”

“Nice to meet you, man.” Yann claps Eliott on the shoulder, grinning. “I’m sure we’ll see you around.”

But instead of taking off to the kitchen, where the bowl of mystery punch and fridge stocked full with cheap beer and wine wait, they return to the living room, quickly swallowed up by the crowd that’s moving back to their tiny dance floor, Disturbia blasting from Idriss’s speakers.

Eliott spares a mournful thought for the inevitable neighbour complaints they’re going to get.

Then he feels a hand slide against his, fingers linking back together.

“You were taking me somewhere?”

And well, yeah. Eliott feels like he may have missed something with Lucas’s friends, some dramatic irony he’s not privy too, but he also has Lucas holding his hand, the memory of Lucas’s lips on his cheek, and Eliott wants to be alone with him. He wants it so badly.

“Yeah, just let me get some water.”

He fills an empty plastic cup from the sink and guides Lucas through the kitchen, to the hallway leading to their bedrooms, where Idriss set up a white sheet over a lamp with a sign hanging off of it that says, All trespassers will be haunted.

“Ah. So this is the part where you take me to your bedroom?” Lucas teases when they step around the makeshift ghost, bumping his shoulder against Eliott’s.

He wasn’t planning on it, but the suggestion, the curve of Lucas’s lips when he says it, sends Eliott into a tailspin of images: flashes of Lucas spread across his bed, sitting on his desk, standing in front of his window, his silhouette outlined by moonlight.

“No.” He blurts out, clearing his throat to mask the roughness of his voice. “I mean, I wasn’t planning, like I wasn’t asking you too…” His voice trails off, and he points behind Lucas, to where the door to the balcony is. “We can go outside.” He says helplessly, still recovering from the onslaught of decadent fantasy.

Lucas hums, turning to follow the direction of Eliott’s finger. “Actually, that sounds nice. It’s kinda hot in here, isn’t it?”

Eliott takes a deep breath. “Sure is.”

It’s blissfully cold out on the balcony, the ground littered with brown leaves that flutter and dance with every gust of biting wind. Lucas shivers, crossing his arms over his chest. He leans back against the door, gaze roaming to the apartment buildings across from them, to the streetlight on the corner, pale orange and flickering at odd intervals.

Eliott can hear faint music coming from another apartment, something dramatic, filled with bold, heavy organ. Below, there are groups of teenagers marching in a line down the street, capes, cloaks and long dresses billowing behind them, drunken laughter wrapping around their bodies like a well-worn blanket against the crisp autumn night.

The comparative quiet of the street, away from the chaos of the party, feels like something from a film: the flickering glow of the streetlight soft and knowing, the wind whispering with mystery when it curls around Eliott’s neck. It reminds him so much of what he used to love about Halloween when he was younger: the uncanny strangeness that always came with it, like the night itself was separate from linear time and space.

“I used to hate Halloween when I was kid,” Lucas says, his low voice breaking the spell of quiet.

Eliott turns to face him. In the blackened, star-touched night and the slanted glow from the streetlight, Lucas really could be an otherworldly creature, devil horns or no; something ageless and ancient, ethereal and terrifying.

“Why?”

Lucas rolls his beer bottle between his hands. “I used to hate being scared.” He says softly. “But I never wanted to tell anyone. I didn’t want to be seen as…weak, I guess. And then,” he shrugs, “it wasn’t easy, before my parents split. Holidays in general could be pretty hard.”

“I’m sorry,” Eliott says, and he knows the words themselves aren’t meaningful but he really means them. He can hear the exhaustion in Lucas’s words, a heaviness that speaks of burdens still being carried.

There’s a crease between his eyebrows. Eliott wants to kiss it away.

“No,” Lucas sighs, his head thudding back against the glass. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to unload that on you.”

“It’s okay.” Eliott tells him softly, tapping his fingers along the rim of his cup. “And I—I mean, I’m happy to listen to anything you want to tell me.”

“You’re easy to talk to.” Lucas says, and Eliott smiles. “I feel like I’ve known you for years.”

“Me too.”

They stare at each other across Eliott’s tiny balcony, both of them smiling, cheeks pink from the cold. Both of them imagining what would happen if they were to kiss. If it would make the world itself fall away from beneath their feet.

Eliott leans back against the railing, tilting his head up to the night sky, to the half moon cast in cloud, “I used to love Halloween.”

Lucas smiles, taking a shallow pull from his beer. “Oh yeah?”

“Mhm.” Eliott’s angel wings are squished against the railing, pressing into his shoulder blades. “I started planning my costumes in the summer, and I’d make most of them from scratch with my mom. I was…pretty intense about it.” He can see it so clearly in his mind, the endless hours of sewing and glueing, and he laughs, closing his eyes. “I always loved how strange it is. How there’s an entire day devoted to everything that’s otherworldly. To everything that we’re scared exists, but love to believe in. I dunno, to me it always felt like the night where anything was possible.”

He lets his voice trail off, lost in memories.

“What changed?” Lucas asks after a moment. “You said you used to love it.”

Eliott shrugs, but he knows the answer. He got older, he got diagnosed and he began distancing himself from anything that was weird, any interests that would make him seem too different. It aches to think about, like prodding at an old scar. “I got older. I changed.”

“Do you feel any different about it now?”

Eliott slowly opens his eyes, smiling when his gaze lands on Lucas. “I think I’m starting to.”

Lucas nods, a matching smile curling at the corners of his mouth, dimpling his cheeks. “You know what? Me too.”

God he’s so beautiful.

It’s the sight of him: the wide, pretty eyes, the pouting, pink lips, the smooth curve of his neck, but it’s also the knowledge of him, of Eliott seeing firsthand how funny and sincere, sweet and sarcastic he is. He thought having Lucas as a crush that existed inside his daydreams was damning enough, but he was in no way prepared for the reality of Lucas: the endlessly endearing imperfections of him.

With every second that passes, he’s sinking deeper into an ocean of hopeless infatuation.

Eliott registers another silence growing between them and he realizes he’s staring, making moon eyes at Lucas like he’s a devout art student who’s just stepped into the Louvre for the first time.

He drops his gaze, face warm, and takes a swig of water to play it cool, but somehow manages to miss his mouth entirely, cold water trickling down his neck to his white robe.

“Fuck.” Eliott sighs, wiping a hand down his chest. Reason number three-thousand and five why he should never try to play it cool.

There’s a clink of glass being set down on the ground.

“Oh no, Eliott,” Lucas says on a laugh, and Eliott’s vision is suddenly filled with glittering red horns poking out of fluffy brown hair, Lucas stepping close enough to him that, if Eliott wanted, he could tilt his head down to rest his chin on the top of Lucas’s head.

“That wasn’t very smooth,” Lucas teases him, plucking the plastic cup from Eliott’s grasp. Eliott watches, rapt, his hand hovering uselessly in the air, as Lucas takes a sip from it.

“I have to tell you,” Eliott says, eyes fixed on a single drop lingering on Lucas’s bottom lip. “I’m not very smooth. At all.”

Lucas grins, leaning over to set the cup down on one of the metal chairs pushed into the corner of the balcony.

“I have to tell you,” Lucas says, matching Eliott’s solemn tone, “I really, really like that you’re not.”

“You make me nervous.” Eliott blurts out, and he can’t find it in himself to be embarrassed, not when Lucas makes this shocked, delighted face, like Eliott just gave him the best gift in the world.

“Oh my god,” Lucas giggles, and he’s gripping onto the front of Eliott’s robe. “Are you kidding me? You make me nervous. You actual, literal angel.”

Eliott blinks. “I do?” He asks, but the end of the question is caught by Lucas’s lips pressing against his.

It’s not rushed, not a desperate crush of their mouths like Eliott had initially pictured, based on Lucas’s frenetic energy, his bursts of confidence that exploded like fireworks. It’s gentle, a barely-there touch of lips that makes Eliott’s head swim.

They part with a quiet smack, but Eliott catches him before he can get too far away, cupping Lucas’s cheeks in his hands and lowering his head to kiss Lucas like he’s been wanting to all night, deep and lingering, stroking his thumbs across the smooth skin of his cheeks.

Lucas lets out a low whine against Eliott’s lips. His hands find his waist, skirting around to his lower back, pressing into the base of his spine. His lips part Eliott’s on a gasp, and there’s Lucas’s tongue, warm and sweet, and Eliott presses forwards, tilting his head to try and get closer, closer, until his halo bonks into one of Lucas’s horns, and both of them snap their eyes open at the impact.

They burst into laughter, and that, if possible, might be more blissful than the kiss itself—Lucas collapsing into Eliott’s chest, snorting in a way that’ shouldn’t be cute but really is, his eyes scrunching up at the corners.

“Fucking hell,” Eliott sighs, still shaking with laughter. “Why am I even still wearing this?”

“It looks good.” Lucas says emphatically. He brings his hands to Eliott’s front, fiddling with the collar of the robe. “It suits you.” One of his fingers follows a trail of water that dribbled down Eliott’s chin to his neck, stopping just above his collarbone. Eliott shivers from the touch.

“Yeah, well,” one of his hands moves to the back of Lucas’s head, brushing through the soft strands of his hair. “The devil horns suit you.”

Lucas giggles, and then his tongue is retracing the trail of water back up, all the way to Eliott’s bottom lip, gently kissing it.

“I think,” Lucas murmurs, lips brushing against Eliott’s with every word, “now would be a good time to show me your room.”

Somehow, Eliott manages not collapse to the ground in a pile of aroused, lovesick boy.

Small miracles.

🕸

They re-enter the apartment much in the same way they left it: holding hands, stepping softly, suddenly shy once away from the secure anonymity of the wide open night.

The party is still going strong by the sounds of it, a roar of cheers filtering into the hallway from what sounds like a nail-bitingly close game of flip cup, but Lucas and Eliott don’t bother to take a look. As soon as Eliott opens the door to his room they’re tumbling inside, Lucas pressing him up against the wall and kissing him, hot and open-mouthed, gripping tightly onto his shoulders.

“Oh god.” Eliott groans, flailing a hand out to lock the door. “God.”

Lucas breaks away from the kiss on a giggle, clasping his hands behind Eliott’s neck. “It’s so weird to have you calling out for god when you’re dressed like that. I keep expecting him, her, or whoever they are to appear out of thing air, punishing me for corrupting their little angel.”

Eliott nearly chokes on his own tongue. “What is wrong with you? That sounds like something from an old porn magazine.”

“Eliott, come on. What are the chances that we dressed in these specific costumes? When will we ever get the chance to make these kinds of jokes again?”

Eliott laughs, tugging Lucas closer to him by his hips, flushing only a little bit from his use of we.

“I mean it.” Lucas says. “We’re in some prime role-play territory right now.”

“You think so? Then let me try.” One of Eliott’s hands slides down to Lucas’s ass, his head lowering to whisper in his ear. “Oh, Lucas. You’re making me so hot, so…horny.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Lucas yells, tearing himself from Eliott’s grasp and spinning into the centre of his room. The look of sheer disgust on his face sends Eliott over the edge, bursting into a fit of cackles that has him bending over at the waist.

“You’re the worst.” Lucas flings his horns at Eliott, the plastic headband bouncing off of Eliott’s arm. “I can’t believe I ever wanted to kiss you.”

I can’t believe it either, Eliott thinks, straightening up. He’s still laughing, the occasional giggle erupting like a bottle of champagne in his chest. Across the room, Lucas is biting down his bottom lip, like he’s trying not to smile, but Eliott’s making it really difficult.

Eliott thinks he might be a little bit in love with that expression.

“Do you still want to kiss me?”

Lucas sighs, makes a show of being annoyed. “Yeah. Unfortunately I still do, so. Get over here.”

Eliott takes a deep breath. He removes his halo, dropping it onto the floor next to Lucas’s horns. “You know,” he says, sliding the wings down his arms, “I didn’t even plan a costume for tonight. Someone lent me this one to wear last minute.” The wings land with a soft thud on the wood. “It’s funny, you could say that it was—”

“Fate.”

Eliott’s head snaps up. At once, the mood in the room shifts, the shadows on Eliott’s floor lengthening with the weight of their gazes. In the darkness, Lucas’s eyes are pools of endless blue-black.

“Yeah.” Eliott whispers. “Fate.”

“You could say,” Lucas swallows audibly when Eliott takes a step towards him, “that it’s the universe trying to tell us something.”

Eliott takes another step forwards. “And what do you think the universe is trying to tell us?”

He takes another step, and one that brings Lucas close enough to touch. Eliott’s hands clench and unclench at his sides.

“I don’t know.” Lucas murmurs. “Maybe it’s saying that we should kiss.”

Eliott doesn’t need to be told twice. His hands find Lucas’s cheeks, tilting his head back gently while he leans down.

“Or maybe,” Lucas breathes shakily against his mouth, “it’s trying to tell us that we should—”

This time, Eliott cuts him off with a kiss. It’s a bit rushed, a bit clumsy, but Eliott doesn’t think he can be blamed, not with how his entire body is aching to touch, to hold Lucas in his hands, to feel his soft lips parting under his.

Kissing Lucas is unlike anything Eliott has ever felt. He could drown in him. Easy as anything.

So he does.

He angles his head to the left and coaxes Lucas’s mouth open, both of them whimpering as the kiss deepens, pressing even more tightly together. Lucas hands are at his lower back again, but they travel upwards, smoothing across Eliott’s back, fingertips digging in on certain swipes of Eliott’s tongue.

It’s dynamic, kissing Lucas, an intoxicating, euphoric push and pull. Their kisses will smooth out, become cleaner, more chaste presses of lips as they catch their breath, and then one of them dives in again and they’re gone, panting into each other’s mouths, kissing hot and wet, then teasing and biting.

Lucas’s hands come up to Eliott’s shoulders and he’s gripping him, turning Eliott on the spot, and shoving him down to the mattress unceremoniously, Eliott’s breath leaving him in a surprised gasp. He props himself up on his elbows, then nearly collapses back down when he sees Lucas, staring down at him like he wants to devour him.

“God,” Lucas sighs, lowering himself to the mattress, crawling up the length Eliott’s body. “You’re so fucking hot,” he says, and his hands are sliding into Eliott’s hair, tugging at the strands as he kisses him.

Eliott’s hands immediately go for Lucas’s hips, palming the curve of his ass, sliding under his shirt to touch the soft skin at the dip of his spine. His robe was pulled up with Lucas, and the hem is at Eliott’s knees now, making it easy for him to raise one leg up, pressing the inside of his thigh to Lucas’s side.

Lucas breaks away from the kiss to glance down. “Are you…what are you wearing under this?”

“Just boxers.” Lucas’s head snaps back up, but Eliott refuses to be embarrassed by it. “What? It’s really hot in the apartment,” he says defensively, digging his knee into Lucas’s side.

“Oh my god.” Lucas whispers. He untangles one hand from Eliott’s hair to smooth over his knee, eyes on the place where the hem of the robe is falling away from Eliott’s legs. “Oh my fucking god, I’m going to come in my pants,” he says, voice pained, and Eliott laughs, tugging Lucas back down into another kiss.

There’s an urgency to their movements that wasn’t there before—their kisses are desperate, the movements of their hands frenzied, roaming across each other’s bodies like they’re trying to touch as much of the other person as they possibly can.

Eliott doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this before—burning from the inside out with a thick, aching rush of want. He feels wild with it, terrifyingly out of control but he doesn’t want to stop. He can’t imagine stopping.

He gasps when he feels one of Lucas’s hands move under the hem of his robe, gripping behind his knee and sliding up to his thigh. There are small fires left in the wake of his hands, as scorching hot as the bruise his teeth left on Eliott’s neck, as the gentle scrape of Lucas’s tongue as it trails across his collarbone.

“Fuck,” He whimpers when Lucas kisses him, wet and warm and sloppy and mind-numbingly good.

“I know.” Lucas breathes. His hand slides a little further up Eliott’s thigh, scratches gently against his skin. “I know, angel.” He shifts his hips, letting out a choked-off moan when their erections line up. “Oh, fuck, you’re so hard.” He grinds his hips down, tugging Eliott’s leg higher up on his side. He kisses up the side of Eliott’s neck, bites down on his ear lobe. “You’re so hard for me, baby.”

“Lucas.” Eliott pants, and he’s asking for something but he’s not even sure what, some desperate release from the rubber band being pulled taut along the line of his body. “Please.” He grips onto Lucas’s ass with both hands, guiding him down to meet his own jerking movements up, searching for more friction.

Except, Lucas lets go of Eliott’s thigh, gripping onto his hands instead, pulling them away from his ass and planting them on either side of Eliott’s head.

“Lucas.” Eliott whines, so overwhelmed, so close to the edge that he doesn’t even care how desperate he must look right now, trying to buck up into the empty air where Lucas is hovering over him. “Lucas, what the hell, let me touch you.”

Lucas grins. “Hmm, no. I think I like you like this.” He squeezes Eliott’s fingers, lowering his hips back down so he’s sitting in Eliott’s lap.

Eliott lets out a strangled noise at the sudden weight.

“I could ride you like this,” Lucas says causally, as though he’s telling Eliott what he had for breakfast that day. “Until you can’t take it anymore. Until you’re begging me to come.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Eliott is so turned on by the thought of that he can barely see straight, but at the back of his mind, there’s something else, something he’s aching for.

“Okay, yeah, we could do that. Or, you could fuck me.” Eliott says. He tries for the same, casual tone Lucas has adopted, but it doesn’t work. He sounds too strung out, the rubber band inside of him a second away from snapping.

That makes Lucas pause, the slow, teasing movements of his hips stuttering to a halt.

“Yeah? You…” He blinks at Eliott, slow and hazy. “You want that?”

“Yeah.” He does. The more he thinks about it, the more Eliott is sure that’s exactly what he wants to happen tonight. He’s light-headed just from the idea. “I do. Please.”

Lucas releases one of his hands to brush his hair back from his forehead, his eyebrows furrowed together. “Are you sure, angel?”

It’s so sweet, the way Lucas is looking at him. He’s so sweet, stroking his thumb across Eliott’s temple, gazing softly at him. It makes Eliott feel warm, looked after. He smiles, plucking Lucas’s hand from his hair and bringing it to his mouth, kissing the underside of his wrist.

He makes sure not to break Lucas’s gaze. “I’m sure.”

There’s no sudden frenzy, once he says it, no montage of stripping down and getting to business. There’s Lucas, leaning down to kiss him, unhurried, still holding onto Eliott’s hands. There’s Eliott, breaking the kiss to tell Lucas that yes, he really wants to be kissed, but he’d also really like to have sex now, please, and there’s stuff in his bedside table.

Lucas laughs and says stuff in a mock-sexy voice, but he goes, rifling through Eliott’s drawer, holding up the Anne Rice paperback Eliott forgot he stuffed in there with a smirk, and returning with a condom and a bottle of lube.

Eliott gets distracted by Lucas’s abs when he pulls shirt off, feeling the desperate need to apply his tongue to every ridge and divot of them, and then Lucas gets distracted when they wrestle Eliott’s robe off, kissing all the way from Eliott’s shoulder down to his thighs, mouthing up and down the lengths of them, biting into the sensitive, tender skin on the inside, high up near his hips.

By the time Lucas gets the condom on, they’re both delirious with want, overwhelmed and shaking when they come together, Eliott gasping into Lucas’s mouth and Lucas slamming a hand into the mattress, desperately trying to hold himself still.

Even when Eliott whispers move, please, Lucas goes slowly, gentle movements that are long, dragging and deep, that make Eliott feel taken apart, piece by piece until he’s nothing but one centre of ecstasy. He digs his fingernails into Lucas’s back, moans so loudly that he’s briefly worried everyone else in the apartment will have heard him, and he realizes he has no idea how long he and Lucas have been fucking for. It could still be around midnight, it could be three in the morning, but the thing is, it really doesn’t matter. It’s just him and Lucas, the time between one kiss and another stretching infinitely into the heavy night.

Lucas is sweating above him, biting down on his lip as he pistons his hips forward, stroking one hand down Eliott’s chest to his stomach. He’s thrown into broken shadow by the moonlight pouring in through Eliott’s window, and Eliott remembers when they were standing out on the balcony, how otherworldly Lucas seemed to him then. And now, Lucas is panting, tense and swearing under his breath and inside of Eliott, his skin scorching hot where they’re pressed together. He’s so unmistakably human in this moment, raw and real, and Eliott thinks it’s the most beautiful he’s looked all night.

Maybe Lucas can hear his thoughts, or maybe they were written on Eliott’s face, the proverbial open book, because Lucas brings hand back up and smoothes Eliott’s hair back, tender and adoring.

Beautiful, Lucas says, and Eliott has to kiss him. He has to.

He pulls Lucas back down to him and the kiss is clumsy, with how they’re moving, but it’s good, so good that Eliott can see the edge of the cliff coming, the inevitable plunge to oblivion right under his toes.

I’m close, he tells Lucas and Lucas nods, starts picking up the pace of his hips, reaching between them to grasp Eliott in hand.

Lucas says, Come for me, angel, and Eliott does, arching his back off the mattress and pulling Lucas close to him, biting down on his shoulder to muffle a broken cry.

Lucas follows only seconds after, and they collapse onto the mattress, sticking together in awkward places and gasping for breath, giggling and kissing each other on the forehead, cheeks, lips, occasionally gasping variations of holy shit and that was fucking amazing.

Lucas throws away the condom and Eliott uses Lucas’s discarded shirt to clean himself up, laughing when Lucas notices and snatches it out of his hands.

You can borrow one of mine, Eliott says, and he pauses before he adds, when you leave tomorrow. Or the day after.

Lucas grins, and searches for his phone so he can text his friends.

🕸

It’s four in the morning and they’re still awake, curled together under Eliott’s duvet sharing stories and secrets in low voices.

Eliott’s head is pillowed on Lucas’s chest, Lucas is playing with his hair, and his eyes are drooping shut. Exhausted and happy. So unbelievably happy.

“I’m really starting to like Halloween again.” Eliott says, and Lucas laughs, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

He feels himself drifting off, on the edge of sleep, when Lucas shifts under him, gently tugging on his hair.

“Eliott?”

“Mhm.”

“Can I tell you something?”

“Mhm.”

“I didn’t have a costume planned for tonight either. Mine was a last-minute borrow.”

Eliott frowns, his near-sleep brain slow at processing the words.

“I…I know Alexia gave you the angel costume, and, well, I think it was the girls’ idea of matchmaking? Because Emma gave me the devil horns, although it took me a while to put it together.” He pauses. “I mean, what I’m trying to say is I should have known my friends would try something because, well, I’ve had a crush on your for weeks and uh, they all know about it.”

“Oh.” Eliott murmurs. He snuggles into Lucas’s chest, yawning around a smile. “That’s funny.”

But then—

Eliott’s eyes fly open.

“Wait, what?”

[kateelizabethporter]

“my writing advice is..” stop listening to writing advice

I know that posting this to writeblr may seem contradictory, but consider the line of thought that writing is an inherent craft, one that lives within ourselves and therefore cannot be wrangled and stuffed into a neat column.

I only say this because writing is one of the most personal things a human can do. You are quite literally splitting yourself into pieces of story, birthing characters with understanding of unique slivers of perspective that you bestow upon them with syntax, entire worlds with societal barriers, structures and expectations, fragments of narrative in the form of the macro- “the Chicago skyline,” to the micro- “fluttering of her eyelashes in the blue light as we stood on the porch steps.”

Writing is a means of exposing your soul for the world to see, for a stranger to hold in their hands and consume, judging and dissecting with each grave turn of the page. Sharing your writing should feel like stepping naked into a grocery store, and if you don’t feel this way you most likely haven’t dug deep enough.

I ask you, how is it possible for any given person to give another writer advice on the manner in which we must, should, potentially will, might want to later write? For any person to give me advice on the practice of my craft, they would have to garner the ability to unscrew my neck from my head and climb inside my brain, (being prepared to stay awhile), sip a few cups of coffee, and read the files I’ve stored in very specifically categorized boxes labeled, “fragments,” “story openings,” “characters without discourse” etc. until their fingers are bleeding from papercuts and their eyes can barely open from exhaustion.

(In other words, you would have to be me because nobody in their right mind would stay in there that long with such a mess.)

I know that this may come across as if I deny the aid of others, and that my writing process will cease to grow, and therefore my writing itself will cease to grow and never splinter into facets of wondrous ability and fostered potential, and I’ll never find those perfectly perfect metaphors to describe the way water rests on someone’s skin or learn to use the word pulchritude in a sentence--and I will inevitably stagnate into the murky depths of unpublishedhood-- however, I’m pretty optimistic about my unprocess, disprocess, lack thereof?

My thought is that if you’re going to bare your naked, vulnerable, multifaceted, illustrious soul to the world, you better know and trust yourself, your words and your rhythm.

You know it well. That internal rhythm that tells you--even though you just got comfortable in bed, phone charging across the room, the moisturizer still drying on your cheeks, neck propped perfectly by two pillows--that a character is pinching you to get up and write down the death of their grandmother, because this will deepen their emotional bond with the love interest whom you have just created in your head and she has long flowing midnight hair that rests on her shoulders like rorschach inkblots.

“Inkblots.” That’s beautiful and precisely the kind of poetic laser focus idealization you want them to have for one another, and so you (if you’re me) groan and get up to write, and probably stub your toe after you’ve shut the light back off, but you feel full and satisfied, like you’ve just eaten a piece of fresh apple pie or took a cold shower after a long run in the summer.

Writing is just like that, like wandering around in the dark until you stub your toe, turning the light on you realize the edges of your bed are far too close to your nightstand, and you wonder if its always been that way or if it seems this way because you’ve taken your glasses off for the night.

And as you’re wondering these things, you realize you too are a character, and that the fact you often clumsily stub your toe, wear wire framed glasses, have a carpeted bedroom with one light switch by the door, are aspects that craft your literal humanness. They make up your character. And so you use it. You write and you use those moments selfishly and rightfully. They are yours and you apply them.

If you wish to write with your soul, stand in a cave in the dark and use your existence as lighter fluid for the chance something might spark from the nothingness, then you my friend have the desire and drive to complete your story, poem, sentence, word tangling--whatever you may call it. You don’t need advice.

On the offhand occasion I have engaged with these so called ‘writing advice posts,’  I shudder at the thought, in which another writer asks me kindly to sit at a clean desk, put my phone away, find a fun gel pen at Target, and set the timer for fifteen minute to write as much as I possibly can, I have been left feeling confused.

Thinking of writing as an impersonal act, one that I must carve pieces of time from the day and night deliberately and calculatingly, one that exists in a proper journal with a key, to essentially inspire inspiration is unfair to impress myself and upon others. (Inspiring inspiration, can it truly be done?)

I don’t want to feel that way by any means, and respectfully speaking, the moments of clarity and true inspiration do not always come when we need them most, but then again with the mindset that verse is a natural occurrence--one that flows in our veins, not on command, why should we be able to conjure it from nothingness? From a blank sheet of paper, or an empty google docs, or the spiraling void of writer’s block simply because we followed a “process?”

Any writer knows this, that we do not select the fleeting, fluttering, twisting, effervescent, lovely ideas that fragment beneath our tongues and crawl up our throats when we’re safely in bed, in the midst of conversation with a crying, heartbroken friend, or taking an exam with fifteen minutes left to answer twenty-six more questions but you can’t stop thinking about the sound of all those pencils hitting the paper, the dullness, repetition, tap tapping in harmony.  

It is not a definable process to see a person you love with a face full of tears and consider the way the mascara has seeped down their cheeks like contusions and to wonder if you could write that into a poem when they finish crying.

It is not a definable process to feel everything and nothing all at once and bottle it, channel it, throw it in the blender, box it up in the garage, stuff it into light sockets using shredded poetry as insulation as you sit in the livingroom and knit together syllables, breaking syntax over your knee while the sound of the rhythm pulsates through the room, the air, catching itself on your sweater sleeve.

Any writer knows that anyone can create anything if they make themselves do it enough times, at enough intervals. You will create. You will produce something that will live on the paper. (If that’s your goal, for your writing to simply live ON the paper, rather than jumping from it, leaping, dancing, shouting so loudly that the reader thinks you may very well be in the room.)

My non-advice is that the root of all inspiration lies within ourselves. The root of inspiration is what deems our processes unique and infallible. So the next time someone tells you how you should write, what you should write, where you should sit, stand, breathe when you write--think about those moments of clarity that sweep over you without notice, like a gust of wind in the middle of August when your clothes cling to your skin-- and trust yourself.

[disaster-bi-shan]

eh figuring out ry’s backstory and it Really Hurts, it’s probably incredibly convoluted and bc of sleep deprival doesn’t make much sense, but I think @bunny-loverxiv did send an ask about it like yonks ago too so…. *shrugs*

(under the cut)

to make more sense of why Baras has a Cathar as his apprentice and give more incentive to Ry for revenge, i figure maybe he’s more involved in Ry’s life earlier on outside the class story - having made Master Zhet a friend of Nomen Karr’s, then there’s a reason for him to know about Ry if he monitors Karr’s contacts. At the time he doesn’t yet consider him for actively manipulating, but notes of his volatility/isolation from others AND being Juhani’s descendant that would be easy to use against him should the opportunity arise. 

(plus there’s supposed to be a Republic/Imperial conflict around the time of the Treaty on Dantooine  which Baras goes to visit, also wanting Satele to turn to the dark side as Revan’s descendant, according to canon which I very briefly read over. I also did not realise there was an all out conflict on Dantooine there either, so uh, shit, poor Dvuhmi family being caught up in the crossfire of Another Goddamn War after getting away from Ord Mantell’s civil war/unrest, so more trauma and opportunity to resent the Republic \o\ not my fault this time, I swear)

Could prrrrobably have it so Karr and his newly knighted padawan Somminick Timmns are after him too, so Ry could have met him as a Padawan. (later on that would be a hilarious and sad reunion on Belsavis with Jaesa involved too, the ex-padawans of his old master, his master’s old friend that got killed, oof.)

anyway, Baras plants a trap meant for Karr by using his spies in the Order to make him suspicious that there are Sith operated slave rings/pit fights on Nar Shaddaa that he’s manning and using to funnel force sensitives into his ranks, but Zhet takes the bait first, doing so on behalf of Karr. Zhet takes Ry along with the intention to capture the Sith in charge and end the operation (liberating the slaves is a secondary objective) and ends up with more than what he expected. Baras was covertly funding a gang/cult to keep tabs on Palladius/Republic activity and the gang’s occasionally thrown a few recruits his way as cannon fodder, but for all intents and purposes it appears to Zhet before he died as if it was just a lowly Sith in charge in his last report back to the Jedi and a random gang that killed him, not people under Baras’ order.

Baras is annoyed because it didn’t go the way he wanted with Karr, but instead he’s left considering the idea again of turning Ry, but to do so he needs to see if he’d be capable of becoming Sith and being a useful asset and to break his spirit enough to be a viable candidate. He leaves him there for a few years instead of having his lackeys kill him outright, and deciding he’d settle for a descendant of Revan’s entourage instead, should he survive that and the trials. 

Ry’s assumed dead by everyone he knew before through a combination force-repression cuffs and trauma he slowly cuts himself off from everyone, (unintentionally) severing Force bonds - which probably feel when the connection’s broken like they’ve sensed he’s died, even Vanami, (but she denies it anyway in a combination of denial and faith that he’s still alive despite what she felt. and she’s right. she blames herself at the time a lot for not being able to train him herself in the first place, then she would still have him and not’ve gone missing getting mixed up in idiotic Jedi and Sith conflicts.)

Story goes on, Ry goes on a murderous rampage killing most of the gang about four years later, the remainder of Baras’ surviving agents try to track him down and extract him, but they fail thanks to the friend Ry made in slavery, Hannen,  (and was probably Ry’s first crush, which is Unfortunate because he only started to realise he really loved him in the month and a few weeks they had after busting themselves out and freeing everyone. Also he ends up naming Teffhan after him). 

Since Penndi’s story starts a year before everyone elses’ and she’s already at the end of Chapter 1 with an established cult, he gets recruited by her instead, fuelled with spite and a whole lot of pain to get back at the Jedi any way he can, especially Karr. Logic kinda fails, he’s just really bitter at that point, willingly going off to join Baras because uh, self destructive, massively suicidal but taking everyone with him kind of mentality, mostly Jedi, and joining the Sith is the direct route, and what bigger irony than joining sides with his master’s friend’s nemesis? (Somewhat according to plan for Baras, I guess, just gets him later than intended.)

He also decides to go by Rylthos by this point and not Rai’lyos because 1) he’s too ashamed of himself and doesn’t think he’s deserving of the name/burying his past? 2) less likely to attract attention as a standardised name instead of Cathar,

Luckily he mellows out with Vette, since he was under Penndi’s tutelage and not immediately thrown into the meat-grinder that is the Korriban education system and he’s angry. but Not angry enough to take it out on her since he knows very well what it’s like to be a slave and it’s the first time in a while he’s Actually had someone to relate to and they both understand each other as alien ex-slaves. But still, he’s Pretty Damn Angry. 

Getting tangled up in the whole conflict of Karr and Baras would make it a lot more meaningful and give some deeper parallels to Jaesa too. Gradually he’d come to realise he’s doing the same thing to Jaesa that had happened with him in being a pawn for Baras against Karr so he ends up going oh fuck, I am an Idiot and tries reaching out to Jaesa instead of ruining her life even more on Tatooine and Alderaan. There’s about when he starts getting reluctant to continue Baras’ orders, and potentially wonders if he’s had more of a hand in Zhet dying than just an intel slipup because he’d never thought to consider that before, but he’s not got anywhere else to go, (who would take him back after what he’s done?) and he’s still disillusioned with the Jedi. He continues to serve Baras but gets increasingly bitter and starts trying to go behind his back to sabotage him, it’s the least he can do to start making up for what he’s done, but he’s still just kinda. waiting for something to off him.

Karr gets sent back to the Order, unable to use the Force like Timmns says, but relaying back to them that not only was his friend’s Padawan alive, but under Baras’ thumb all along. and maybe he’s more invested in the whole trying to reform the empire thing with Jaesa since they’re both stuck there now.

(also Brenki!!!! they meet on Taris!)

It’s only when Draahg drops the cave on him on Quesh that Ry gets to know the full extent of what Baras did, confirming Ry’s feelings by mocking him about how he was always too weak, out of the loop, and how easy it was for Baras to manipulate him into his puppet by telling him that it was Baras’ doing he was a slave and ruined his life as thoroughly as he did, just to twist the knife in the wound. And that’s enough to get him out the cave, and Draahg’s mistake, because he’s powered on Absolute SPITE ^TM at that point, currently outweighing his desire to just let something kill him because Oh Boy, he’s Super Suicidal but he’s gotta take down Baras AND Draahg before he’s letting himself die, even if that means doing things for the Emperor and it’s ROUND 2 of being someone else’s puppet, and taking a few steps backwards in development and holy shit. He’s not ok at all. He throws himself into the Wrath thing at first because he just wants revenge and he doesn’t feel powerless, but at least has some of the control/maturity he lacked the first time around.

(his relationship with Brenki sours a little because he’s just fixated singlemindedly on revenge, and doesn’t contact her for a while either. mostly because what’s there to say apart from, i’m doing even more terrible things? brenki kinda gets railroaded into it too with Tormen, but it’s Definitely not the same scale. they fix it post class story round about corellia/ilum it’s just…. oh jeez. complicated. while he went back home after taris, the second dantooine visit doesn’t happen until after the class story ends/post-ilum, just because he feels he’s not ready to come home again in the state he is until then.)

And then after a second round of realising “OH FUCK. I AM A MORON, I WANT OUT” fighting draahg/mid chapter 3 and in the final confrontation with baras changes the plan slightly with Jaesa to sabotage as much of the Sith as possible or at least reduce their effectiveness enough for more reasonable people to get in charge.

Maybe he ends up sparing Baras this time round - while he desperately wants revenge for what Baras did and death feels final, that’s also what Baras wants, and isn’t it more poetic to let him wallow in the knowledge he’s been beaten?

[lunaraen]

July 27: Fusion AU

Jesse hasn't spent much time outside of fusions during this adventure.

(Adventure isn't the best word for it, though.

Nightmare?

Disaster?

Armageddon?

Jesse wouldn't normally go with the last word, but Lukas has a different, more extensive and poetic vocabulary, and they both like the suggestion.)

Fusions require cooperation and are best done when the involved people aren't stressed out of their minds and ready to hide in the dirt forever, but there's enough trust between them that they can manage even during the end of the world.

There's a comfort in that.

Fusions are also almost necessary at this point, capable of doing more than one or two people by themselves, able to run faster, carry more, and do more damage.

Jesse knows some of the worse things that could be said of that, that the group is too weak to function on their own and needs to fuse, that Jesse must need to fuse to be useful since Jesse's been the one doing the most fusing, but there's also the fact that Jesse might just be one of the only things holding the group together.

That's not meant to be bragging, because it's exhausting and not fun in any way, and it does make things harder sometimes, when Jesse has to pull out of a fusion to stop more fighting or make a decision not meant for the others.

Not that they wouldn't be capable, or that fusions couldn't still get the job done, but sometimes it's stuff like the F-Bomb, deadly and dangerous, and Jesse refuses to let anyone else throw themselves in harm's way. Not everyone agrees with that idea, but, well, fusion is usually at least a two way street.

Neither Axel or Olivia would try to keep Jesse in a fusion, make it a trap instead of an experience or make their fusions unstable, and so it only really takes Jesse's refusal.

Maybe they want to help, but Jesse would never let them run into danger if there's a way around it.

Jesse survives the Formidi-Bomb, anyhow, even if the Witherstorm depressingly does too, and the following group hug is tight and relieved enough that Jesse's surprised a fusion doesn't happen then and there.

It gets significantly less joyful once Ellegaard dies.

(Soren tries to get her to fuse with him then and there, insistent that fusing would increase her chances of surviving, but Ellegaard refuses to let him risk himself, giving the same refusal to Magnus and Gabriel afterwards.

She says something about wanting to die as who she is at her core, as a real hero for once, and while that might cover not wanting to kill her friends and their fusions with her injuries, there's more to the statement that gets the Order members to stop arguing, to watch quietly as her breathing shudders, chest heaving one last time, before she goes limp.)

There's yelling and fighting after that, after they try to move on only for the storm, the storms, to rise and shriek and destroy what Ellegaard died for.

That makes fusion both desirable and the last thing Jesse needs, because hiding away, becoming more, sound perfect and also too much like cowering when there's things Jesse has to argue for, has to think over. Arguing with Soren one on one, pushing against his fury, instead of becoming a different person feels like the right thing to do.

Just like going out in the snow, both to comfort Reuben and figure out where to go next, feels right when done alone.

Jesse wants some alone time in general, to process how Ellegaard's death is on Jesse's hands, the same as the trauma of all the people they couldn't save, how Gabriel's condition is only getting worse and Petra's memory of anything to with all of them is entirely gone is also entirely Jesse's fault.

Until Jesse runs into Lukas, at least, bright eyed and worrying his horse's reins between his fingers as he glances between the world outside, a flurry of slowly falling snow and quickly escalating mayhem, and the rest of the group huddled within the cave.

The long and the short of it is that he wants to go after the Ocelots, Petra's description too close to them for it to be anybody else, and he wants to go after them, to find them.

Jesse can't blame him for that and doesn't. Lukas, despite his best efforts and all the help he's given them, has been the outsider, blamed at first for losing Petra and then slowly accepted, with guarded looks and more of a weary agreement to let things lie from Axel than a warming up to.

There's probably also something to be said for how, for all their fusing, none of them have fused with Lukas. They haven't had the history with him that they've had with each other, used to him being a rival and looking down on them and what they do. It can be hard to open up to somebody like that, especially someone they used to compete with and definitely during the end of the world, and fusion requires that kind of bond.

Every fusion has been a reminder that Lukas isn't part of the group, not really part of the team, and it's a reminder of the people he has fused with, the friends he thought he lost until now.

Jesse won't try to hold any of that against him. When none of them know what to do next, at least Lukas has an idea, a plan.

He wants to be with his friends and make sure they're okay.

Those friends might be people Jesse has never gotten along with, but Jesse's not petty enough for that, not now when everything's gone wrong and everyone's so tired.

The hug is short but warm, and understood by both to likely be the last they'll see each other in a while, if not the last time altogether.

Except that when Jesse's eyes open, Lukas isn't there, the cave is considerably more cramped than they would like, and they're stumbling into the snow before they realize they'd even begun to move.

Strike that.

Jesse knows exactly where Lukas is, because he's where Jesse is. He's what Jesse is now, who they are.

An odd time to fuse, maybe, but Jesse's sense of being is melting quickly into Lukas's own and the wonder of existing at all, of being whoever they are. A small chuckle, made more out of surprise than humor, bubbles its way out their throat as they clutch at their hair, one hand going there while the other covers their mouth.

Others, actually. There's a third arm, as lanky as the other two, the hand attached to it shifting quickly to busy itself with prodding at their clothing and the rest of their body.

The lock of hair they manage to grab, pulling into view, is curly, looping between their fingers and easily tugged at by the wind. The bright and pale blond, almost more silver than Lukas's nearly golden hair, stands out well against the dark clouds, rumbling in the distance with thunder, heavy snow, and the screams of a monster.

They would have thought their hair would be dirty blond, a mix of Lukas's hair color and Jesse's brown.

There's another comfort in realizing they'd both already wondered what their fusion what look like, and that they'd both come to the same conclusion on at least a few details.

Being proven wrong by the reality doesn't bother them at all, not any more than it's pleasantly surprising.

It doesn't take long to figure out there are two tongues inside their mouth, lined with smooth teeth that grow sharper the further back they are, or that they now have a long scarf, useful against the current weather and curled around their neck, the flesh there oddly icy. They're tall, though there are far taller fusions out there; this is just one that gives both of them a chance to be at eye level with Axel, if maybe a bit lankier.

They're both startled and not shocked at all when Reuben nudges their leg, tilting his head as he looks up at them.

They'd both forgotten he was there and never stopped thinking about it, and their attention easily shifts to him, his skin oddly warm as they scratch behind both his ears.

Maybe that's them, then?

Their body that's cold, instead of his being toasty, or maybe it has something to do with the environment they fused in, or how they've never fused before.

Another chuckle, this one filled with more warmth, escapes them as Reuben leans into their touch after stiffening for a moment, and there's something to be said for how he'll take attention, even if it's cold. They don't mind crouching more, getting onto their knees even as snow clings to the worn kneecaps of their jeans, to better let him get comfortable with them, to know they don't mind being there for him.

The amusement dies then and there as they're reminded of where they are, who they are, the soft crunch of feet trudging through the snow behind them having them spin around as they draw themselves to their full height again.

There's panic and considerably surprise then, protests about how they don't want to keep Lukas from leaving, or force Jesse to go with, dying on their tongues as they freeze up.

It's just Axel and Olivia, but it's also the end of the world and they're far more Jesse's friends than they are Lukas's.

"Hey, if you want to go, then get. But give Jesse back first." Axel's voice is worn, defeated and tired as the flat looks he levels at them, and they don't miss the way his jaw clenches or how his fingers curl into fists.

Neither does Olivia, if her tugging on the elbow of his sleeve and hissing back at him is any indication.

"Axel, you know that's not how it works."

Whether that's how it works normally or not, it's enough in this case, and he gets what he asked for.

It may be the shock and panic of being caught, of being viewed as a trap, or it may be the faint but steadily growing argument, Ivor and Soren sniping at each other with hardly a pause between words, which is equally startling, but whatever's the reason, they unfuse as quickly as they came into existence, Lukas and Jesse both staggering into the snow as they pull away from each other.

[sake-and-whiskey]

Siren’s Gold Chapter 7

//It’s been a long time coming, but here it is Siren’s Gold Chapter 7 Read on AO3 HERE Rated M  “ An olive branch is extended, and information shared. “

The first week went well, all things considered.

Well, as well as it could have gone. Hanzo had been insistent upon the rules he had set, which meant Jesse needed to be able to bridge the expanse of water in the cavern to go from the central rocky outcrop to the bank at the back. This had been an ordeal, the two arguing relentlessly. Hanzo could not fathom why Jesse would not just get in the water, and Jesse was not at all eager to return to the sea after nearly drowning the day before. Not to mention that after coming down from his panic attack, he wasn’t positive he could trust getting in the water with the siren in the first place. They argued over the best method, whether or not it was safe, and why Jesse couldn’t just stay on the center island, among other things. It ended with nothing but shouting and cursing, until finally Hanzo had relented, but only for the time being.

That was the first argument between them, and certainly not the last. Hanzo held grudges to prove a point, and would not speak unless Jesse apologized. Jesse was stubborn as all hell, and not willing to budge. So the first night, no words were shared between them, silence filling the space between the rock where Hanzo lay and the shore where Jesse curled up, neither sleeping yet neither speaking, only listening to the sounds of the other breathing and the gentle lapping of the water on the rocky bank.

The day after had been its own adventure. It started with fish, to be specific. Hanzo brought McCree fruit in the mornings after his hunt, and would spill them onto Jesse’s side of the bank before moving to his own to eat the creatures he had hunted. Normally the dragon fed on large fish, which was quite a sight. Hanzo would tear the creature apart with his claws, strong jaw full of sharpened fangs ripping through the flesh easily. McCree would watch from across the cave, slowly chewing his meal of coconuts or mangos or something of the like, eyebrows raised as he watched the dragon feed. He could not decide if he watched out of curiosity or disgust, but either way he couldn’t look away.

Suddenly the dragon had looked up, eyes locking with Jesse’s. Blood was painted across Hanzo’s lips, dripping down his chin onto his scaly tail, and it spilled from the rocks to the water, clouding it with its rich color. The two didn’t speak, only looking at each other before Hanzo wiped his mouth with his hand, only serving to smear the blood further across his face. He looked like a real hunter then, a predator covered in blood, and he gave McCree a challenging smirk, a flash of teeth painted red glinting in the early morning light.

“What is the matter, captain?” he chuckled, clearly amused with himself. “Got something  to say?”

McCree narrowed his eyes before shrugging, nodding his head towards the dragon. “I was admirin’ your dinner. Or at least, what it was before,” He motioned again to the pile of flesh that sat in the dragon’s hands.

Hanzo blinked at this response, thinking a moment before cocking his head in thought. After a moment he grabbed what remained of the fish’s carcass in both hands, heaving it over his head and throwing it at the human. McCree jumped back in surprise as the mass of scales and stripped bone hit the rock in front of him with a wet slap, specks of blood and other liquid splattering around him. “You may have the rest if you are so interested in it,” Hanzo said as he began dunking his hands in the water, slowly clawing away the blood that crusted his nails.

Now it was Jesse’s turn to stare, blinking slowly at the dragon before turning to the pile of raw mush in front of him. A smile slowly cracked on his lips until finally he burst out laughing. Hanzo’s head snapped up, eyes narrowing as he took in the pirate, laughing like a fool before him. “I did not realize I was so humorous,” He snarled, glowering at McCree. “I can take it back.”

McCree shook his head quickly, laughter trailing off but smile remaining. “Nah, nah it ain’t that. I’m mighty happy you were willin’ to share. Just don’t know if I have the stomach for a pile of raw meat.”

Hanzo’s eyes widened, and he raised an eyebrow in surprise. Humans could not eat raw meat? If he remembered correctly, the Shimada clan had been able to eat raw fish. Infact, he knew they had, and could remember beautifully plated and crafted dishes being presented to him and his brother long ago. And yet the foreigner didn’t have a taste for it. That figured, he mused, it was unlikely a man such as the one before him would have a taste for the finer things. “How predictable… Such an unsophisticated taste,” Hanzo grumbled.

Across the rocks, McCree rolled his eyes. “Well excuuuuse me. I’m not sayin’ I won’t eat it, I just can’t eat it raw. If you had any way of cooking it I wouldn’t mind none. But now I’m fine without it, thank you very much.”

The dragon pondered this for a moment, and then turned away, silently washing the blood from his hands and body. Jesse took that to mean the conversation was over, which was fine by him, and turned away, continuing to munch angrily on his breakfast of fruit.

The hours of the day passed slowly for McCree. Hanzo would leave the cave for hours on end, and Jesse would have to find things to entertain himself with. Sometimes it was counting the drips of water that fell from the ceiling. Other times it was building piles and shapes from the empty carcasses of the fruit he had eaten for breakfast. On more than one occasion he did nothing at all, simply laying on the rocks and looking up, or sleeping for many hours.

Hours felt like days when there was nothing to do, which was dangerous for McCree as the voices of the past would whisper to him, filling the silence with their wants and desires. Fareeha would call to him occasionally, reminding him not to give up and to avenge her, or sometimes Reyes would whisper evil things in his ear, taunts and threats of the past. Of course the voices were all in his head, a coping mechanism to keep him from going mad he had developed long ago. But sometimes the voices were too much, and to drown them out, McCree would sing.

While Jesse McCree was a man of many flaws, he was also one of many talents, and one of those was singing. He was not one to brag of his own abilities, but he could hold a tune quite well. His voice was always strong and confident, be it in a pub leading a group of drunken friends in song, or on the deck of his ship, carrying his motley crew in the chorus of a pirate shanty. So sometimes, when the voices became too loud in his head or he couldn’t be bothered to count the stalactites in the ceiling, he would sing.

The songs would vary, for McCree knew a great many. Sometimes they would be filthy pirate songs detailing pillaging ships and sexual conquests. Other times it would be songs from foreign countries, ones he had heard sung by Captain Amari or Fareeha in his youth. And occasionally, he would sing slow songs, romantic and heartfelt. His deep voice would reverberate off the rocks, filling the cavern with his melodic words.

It was during one of these songs when Hanzo returned, silently breaching the surface of the water after a long (and particularly exhausting) conversation with Genji. He had spent the later parts of the day complaining in great detail about everything the pirate did that drove him mad, and Genji had listened with a bemused expression but offered nothing in the way of genuine help or advice, only giving cryptic responses. “If you want the human to like you, try being a little nicer. Get to know him,” Genji had said with a shrug. “You are both too stubborn to make any progress if you do not try.” He sounded like Sojiro Shimada, Hanzo had thought with a huff. All cryptic answers and poetic verses, nothing straight forward. He had left with the same amount of irritation as when he had  arrived at Genji’s lagoon, nothing gained. As he made the journey back to his lair he thought of all the things he could say to the human to put him in his place, to make him be less stubborn.

But as he broke the surface, his thoughts were put on pause. The cave was filled with a beautiful sound, singing unlike any he had heard before. He slowly drew closer to his side of the bank, crawling up the rock just enough to peer at the human on the other side. McCree was laying on his back, eyes closed as he sang. His words were uninhibited, voice low and deep, slow and rumbling across the water.

The words of the song were sweet yet sad, a bitter story of a sailor’s unrequited love with a mysterious woman he had met one night sitting on some rocks on the beach. The woman was beautiful and mysterious, and the two shared a wonderful night together, making love on the sand before falling asleep in each other’s arms. When he awoke in the morning, naked and sprawled out on the beach, all he held in his arms was a pile of shells. The man was, of course, confused and unsure of whether the whole thing had just been a dream. So the next night he came back, and again there the woman was, sitting on the rocks at the beach. The two ran to each other and again made love, and again he fell asleep with her in his arms and awoke to nothing but shells. This went on for several days, until the sailor soon had to go back aboard his ship. The night before he was to set out, he went to the beach to tell the woman that he loved her, but she never came. The man was, of course, heart broken, and set out to sea the next morning with nothing but pain and bitterness.

Hanzo found himself not breathing, hanging on every word the pirate sang. The story progressed on, with the sailor’s ship getting trapped in a storm, and he was thrown overboard. The sailor, of course, could not swim, and as he began to sink into the waves the last thing he saw was the face of the woman he loved, reaching out towards him in the water. When the man awoke, he was on the beach of his home town, and there was the woman he loved. Only now, as she laid with him in the sand, a tail like a fish replaced her legs. The man had fallen in love with a siren, and she had fallen in love with him. And because sirens can see the future, she had known where he would crash into the sea, so she had left so that she might have the chance to save him. The sailor was so happy he could not speak, and the two made love under the stars once more. Eventually the siren gave up her tail and kept her human legs for the man, and the two were together forever, always holding each other under the stars.

When the song ended, Hanzo felt his heart sway, and he let out a quiet breath as the last note resounded off the cave walls. His body released the tension he had built, and he slowly propped his head on his hands, watching the human who continued to lay on the rock across from him. The sun was fading quickly, and pinkish beams of light filled the cavern with a glow as warm as McCree’s voice. After a moment, Hanzo gathered his words, speaking gently.

“That was quite a story,” the dragon said. McCree sat up quickly, reaching for his pistol that lay beside him on the rock, before he realized who had spoken and relaxed, turning to Hanzo.

“Isn’t it? It was always one of my favorites,” He said, only slightly embarrassed. If he had known the dragon was listening, he might’ve picked a different song.

“There are a few things that are incorrect,” Hanzo mused, tilting his head. “But for the sake of the story, they were passable.”

Jesse raised an eyebrow, interested. “Oh? Like what?”

“Well for one,” the dragon began. “Sirens cannot see the future. So she would not have known he was going to be thrown overboard.”

“Well I’ll be damned,” Jesse muttered, taken aback slightly. “I always heard sirens could see the past and the future, and what a man wanted most.”

“A man’s true desire, that is correct,” Hanzo nodded approvingly. “That is how they are able to lure their prey, by appealing to them with that which they desire most. But to see a man’s life is not a skill they posses unless it is directly related to their desire.”

“I see,” McCree muttered.

“And another thing that was incorrect was the part about her legs,” Hanzo said quickly. “Sirens are sirens, they do not possess shapeshifting magic unless they are put under a spell of some sort by another being, they cannot do it themselves. Very few magical creatures have the ability to take the form of man. So the two would have had to remain lovers by the sea.”

Jesse blinked in surprise. The two hadn’t spoken to each other this much since their discussion when Jesse had first arrived, and now the creature was giving him a plethora of information. Perhaps this was a gesture of some kind, an offering of calm instead of the hostility he had grown used to. Whatever it was, he would take this olive branch and extend his own, as well as use this conversation for its potential for valuable information.

“Other magical creatures? How many are there? We sailors only ever really talk about sirens and krakens. Well, the sailors around here anyways,” He corrected. “Some of the foreign sailors talk about selkies and water horses or other things.”

“Ah, there are a great many more than that,” Hanzo nodded. “But those kinds of creatures come from colder water, or fresh waters in different lands. Just as animals on the surface require different conditions to live, so do we under the water. Most do not venture here, but some find their way into the warm waters in which we live.” If he wasn’t mistaken, he was pretty sure Genji actually owned a selkie in his collection of creatures. He was never very interested in Genji’s horde, but now he found himself curious enough to ask in their next meeting.

McCree’s mouth fell open, dumbfounded. Many more? How many more? All the legends and myths were real, just with slight inaccuracies? It was almost too much for him to believe. But his mind drifted to the events only a few days prior, to the creature of smoke and evil intentions that had sunken his ship and put him in this situation. If something like that could exist, then there was no telling what else could live in the world, just out of sight.

“So then… If sirens can’t do all that stuff in the song, where do people get those ideas?” He asked warily. “Surely they can’t all be made up?”

“I would say there is surely a portion that is made up to make your stories more interesting,” Hanzo mused. “But no, a good portion are abilities other stronger creatures possess, as I said before. Humans just can’t tell the difference between us.”

Jesse pondered on this for a moment before coming to a realization, snapping his fingers with understanding. “Like when I called you a siren, and your brother laughed at me? It’s ‘cuz you two aren’t the same as sirens?”

Hanzo rolled his eyes as he remembered Genji’s guffaw at the human’s mistake, but nodded. “Yes. Because we are finned creatures humans imagine us to be the same as Sirens, because that is the only race of sea creature they know. But we are far different.”

“What, uh,” McCree began, unsure of how to phrase his question politely. “What exactly are you two?”

Hanzo cocked his head, smiling with a flash of sharp teeth. “We are Dragons.”

McCree blinked, taken aback only for a moment. “Dragons? Like sea dragons?”

“Something to that affect, yes,” Hanzo chuckled, brushing a piece of long hair behind one of his finned ears. “We are, how would you say… More pure bred creatures of magic. Sirens are born from the sea, where as we are born from a different place. It is hard to explain to someone with no knowledge of the world of magic.”

“Well I, I reckon I wouldn’t mind learning,” Jesse offered, mind racing a thousand miles a minute. Dragons? What in the hell did that mean?  

“Hmm…” Hanzo pondered for a moment before shrugging his shoulders. “Perhaps another time. The sun is gone, and you need rest. I intend to start your swimming  training tomorrow, so you need all the energy you can get. Perhaps depending on your level of success, I will tell you more of what you wish to know.”

McCree hadn’t noticed that the sunlight had died away, pale moonlight streaming down in thin beams. He soured slightly at the concept of getting in the water, but after tonight, he was a little less nervous about the siren- no, the dragon- being there with him. So he sighed, but gave a nod. “I suppose that’s fair. I’ll try and get some rest then.”

Hanzo nodded approvingly, pulling himself onto the rock, his long tail coiling around himself as he tried to get comfortable on the outcropping. “Then we shall speak again in the morning, Jesse McCree.”

The pirate nodded, pulling his coat up over himself as he laid back down on the rocks. “Til then, Hanzo.”

The two did not speak to each other again that night, the cave filled once more with the dripping of water and the lapping of the waves. Their minds were full, and both had many a thing to think about. Eventually, as Hanzo had just closed his eyes, he heard a low rumbling from the otherside of the cave. His ear twitched, picking up the low and sweet voice of Jesse McCree. He sang softly, just loud enough for Hanzo to hear, in a language he did not know. But the words rolled from his tongue, and the dragon felt his mind ease as his breathing grew heavy, lulled to sleep by the songs of the pirate.

[rantceratops]

Insecurity

(Warning: this is roughly the size of a small fucking novel, sorry.)

(Also I skipped Agendas for now because I REALLY wanted to get this episode done. This has been in my drafts for like a month or two)

I fucking love this episode. Have I ever mentioned that before? Because if Failsafe is all aboard the feels train, this episode is all aboard the roller coaster of emotions. Like, wow is this one of my all time favorites.

IT’S SPIDER-MAN– oh wait, never mind it’s his evil twin, it was hard to tell in this lighting.

Cissie! Who I know nothing about except that she’s in the Arrow fam eventually and that everyone was dying for Artemis to be her mentor in s2 of Young Justice. I kind of miss some of the fandom ideas for what s2 would be like. :(

“I’m sorry, you know how it is. I’m on dead line. And so are you.” OH HO HO SPIDER-MAN, YOU SO PUNNY.

Aw yeah, archer babes to the rescue!

Look at them, looking all badass with the moon behind them! Could there BE a better time for your name to be Artemis and your talent to be archery? Definitely not.

Small detail that’s nice: you can tell whose arrows are whose because Ollie’s are tipped with a lighter shade of green than hers.

Awww, I love that part! I love how the camera kind of specifically pans more toward Artemis to convey that Cissie is awestruck by her in particular. Like, she’s seeing this badass female archer with blonde hair just like her kicking bad guy ass and saving her dad. And you can tell she’s just thinking “I want to be like that some day!” Artemis is literally being a badass inspiration right here and she doesn’t even know it, and it’s just so fucking cute! My baby is an amazing role model!

Fuck you, Sportsmaster, go away! (I will say that I like Sportsmaster’s voice though, and whether intentional or not I almost feel like a huskiness to the voice is just another trait that Artemis shares from his end of the gene pool.) Speaking of Artemis sharing in Sportsmaster’s end of the gene pool, have I ever mentioned that I honestly adore the decision to have Jade (the villain daughter) share more with Paula (the nice parent) in looks, while having Artemis (the hero daughter) sharing more traits with Lawrence (the awful/villain parent). I just thought it was an interesting thing, I don’t know whether they did that on purpose or not, but it’s just a thing I picked up on and thought was kind of neat.

Ollie stop trying to sound cool.

Damn, Artemis must be pretty fucking strong to still be standing after a possibly grown ass man just did a literal backflip off of her shoulders! 

“Good girl! Uh… take the lead on this one!” Oh, Ollie. XD He’s just letting her take the reigns while he tries to recover his wounded pride. Also, I just got feels thinking about how different it must be for Artemis to work under GA’s tutelage instead of her father’s. Like, can you imagine the contrast? All that praise and affection Ollie no doubt showers her with, compared to the harsh commands and emotional/mental abuse from Lawrence growing up? She probably hardly even knows what to do with Ollie’s praise half the time. 

Out of the penalty box. Sportsmaster, please.

“Bonus points for poetic justice.”

“Did you see the look on his face!? O-okay, he was wearing a mask, but– did you see the look on his mask!?” Oh my god, she’s so precious and giddy! I really wish we had gotten to see more of her interactions with Ollie, like this moment is seriously the most giddy we ever see Artemis in the series. You can tell she absolutely loves kicking ass with Ollie, and once again, tying in with the contrast between Lawrence and Ollie as mentors to her, it must be so exhilarating to literally be given the reigns on a mission, and then praised and encouraged for doing so! I don’t think Artemis would ever admit it, but I could honestly see her craving that interaction with Ollie every week, that kind of fatherly guidance. This is why I so love the idea of her seeing Ollie as a father figure, etc. 

And Ollie’s just so amused by her giddiness!

Shut up, Roy, go away. 

It must be really awkward at parties when your belt starts talking to you.

Can someone explain to me why Sportsmaster is having to sneak inmates out of Belle Reve when it’s under control by Strange? (I guess most of the guards still think it’s a legit detention facility or something? That would make sense, actually)

“Set a good example, join the Team first.” OKAY, IN WHAT UNIVERSE IS ROY EVER A GOOD EXAMPLE, OLLIE. (god I’d like to smack that scowl off of Roy’s face!)

“You should have seen the look on that little girl’s face, she was so grateful that her dad was safe.” (awwww, Artemis, babbu, this is why you were made for the hero life

“This life suits you, Artemis.” Yes, yes it does mama Crock! “Most mother’s would be horrified, but for me, it’s a relief. You don’t know how nervous I was when Arrow and Batman first confronted me about your… activities.”  STOP. “Confronted us. They figured out I saved my soulmate Kid Flash and confronted us.” “Not… initially. I’m your mother. They talked to me first.”

OH MY GOD PAULA’S SMUG TONE AND FACE AT THAT PART ALWAYS CRACK ME THE FUCK UP.

Look at that fucking smug ass face! XD She’s like I fucking pushed you out, they talked to me first because I’m the badass that made the tinier badass they were after. 

“What-what did they say!? What did you say?” Artemis is like OH GOD MOM HOW DID YOU EMBARRASS ME THIS TIME.

“I was afraid you were in trouble. While I was in jail for my crimes as Huntress, I lost one daughter, I couldn’t bear to lose another so I begged them to help keep you on the straight and narrow–” “You begged!? So I was some sort of pity case!?” 

Ooooh, man, Artemis is fucking PISSED. All the confidence that she’s built up since joining the Team shatters almost instantly as soon as she hears the word begged. Paula, of course, didn’t mean it that way; she didn’t beg them to let her on the Team because she was afraid she would still turn out to be a bad seed. She begged them to keep her on the right path: a path that Artemis had clearly already chosen on her own. Artemis had already been saving lives all on her own, and I think that Paula was relieved and proud when she found out, and I think the “begging” that she did was nothing more than a mother desperately wanting what was best for her daughter. Artemis had already CHOSEN the “straight and narrow” on her own, and I think Paula wanted to make absolutely sure that she had the tools and connections she needed to keep going in that direction, and to stay out of Sportsmaster’s influence. Artemis, of course, doesn’t see it that way, and instead takes it as an insult to her skill; this whole time, she’d thought that she’d impressed them enough on her own for them to come calling, but now she’s thoroughly convinced that they only wanted her on the Team as a favor to Paula, who begged them. Which, of course, is not actually the case.

“This isn’t T.O. Morrow!” “Klarion, this is Professor Ivo.” Oh my fucking GOD, the way Sportsmaster says that is actually kind of HILARIOUS, because his tone suggests that he’s trying to appease a bratty kid… which he pretty much IS. XD 

“Okay… so maybe I wasn’t brought in because I impressed them.” Oh, my poor baby! :( Just sitting on her fire escape with her knees pulled up, stewing in fucking insecurity. 

“I just spent the last four months doing nothing but. I’ve got nothing to prove, I’m one of a kind.” Yes you are, bby! (You can tell she doesn’t believe her own words though, because even though her hands on hips body language at that moment might LOOK confident, the unsure flick of her eyes over toward the alley wall conveys that she’s doubting herself.)

“Artemis! Just in time, look who’s agreed to join the Team.” “Finally!”

Oh, wow. I feel so sorry for poor Artemis in this particular episode. I’ve joked around that this episode could have been her super villain origin story, because man oh man is it just one thing after another piling on top of her insecurities at the beginning of this episode (it’s called Insecurity for a very good reason). So not only has her confidence just taken a very heavy blow because of her mother’s revelation that GA and Bats talked to her alone first, but then she Zetas to the Cave and what the fuck is the first thing that greets her upon materializing there? Roy. And GA smiling and saying “Artemis! Just in time, look who’s agreed to join the Team.” and Wally happily throwing his arms out and saying “Finally!” I can honestly only imagine the horrible sinking, burning feeling in her gut in that moment; seeing her father figure mentor and her crush standing there, smiling happily at another archer that she had, only a few months earlier, been accused of taking the place of by Wally. She had literally just been trying to convince herself that even if she was a pity case, she’s done nothing but prove herself over the last four months… only to Zeta to the Cave and see Roy Harper ready to join. (”We have no quota on archers.” “Yeah, and if we did, you know who we’d pick.”) Another insecurity dropped onto her already overburdened shoulders; Roy is here, and she feels like she’s not going to be wanted or needed anymore. And really, that insecurity has been lingering in the background since Infiltrator.

“Sure. Team’s needed a real archer.” The derisive sarcasm in Artemis’s tone is fucking palpable. Roy is a threat to her at that moment; what other reason would they finally have him on the Team other than to push her out, to replace her with someone “better”? She already thinks that she was not actually chosen out of skill, but out of pity, whereas Roy has always been the desired archer for the Team. She feels like her place on the Team is being compromised, and that she’s not good enough. And that terrifies her.

Wally, meanwhile, isn’t completely oblivious to the scathing remark that Artemis makes in response to the news. We see his expression visibly shift in response, his mouth drops and his eyebrows raise in something like surprise. He hadn’t expected that kind of response out of her because he himself has always wanted Roy on the Team simply because they go way back as friends, and at first I don’t think he understands why Artemis reacted the way she did. He even casts her one last aside look as GA and the others turn toward the screens.

For Wally, Roy joining the Team can only be a good thing! Right? I think, then, that it slowly starts to dawn on him between this briefing room meeting and boarding the Bioship, that Artemis is upset. I think he stews on it, tbh. He was truly bothered by seeing Artemis react that way, that she seemed so upset about something. And I think it begins to dawn on him, the more he thinks about her posture and her comment. “Sure. Team’s needed a real archer.” I can almost imagine the sinking feeling he starts to get in his gut when he realizes that he himself largely contributed to the obvious threat she’s feeling from Roy’s presence. HE treated her horribly and acted like she wasn’t good enough in the beginning, HE wanted Roy on the Team instead of her, HE accused her of replacing Roy and driving him away, and HE just now showed extreme happiness and RELIEF at having Roy join their ranks. How must that have looked to Artemis? Like he was happy that her better had just showed up to replace her, the archer that the Team (that Wally) wanted more than her to begin with? But she’s Artemis, right? She wouldn’t let that bother her! But Wally realizes very quickly that he has royally done goofed. That the way he treated her in the beginning really has stuck with her, that it didn’t just roll off her back as her confidence always suggested. And Wally, at this point, is very much aware of his crush on Artemis, he’s finally dropped some of that denial, and he’s moved on from trying to trick himself into thinking he wants Megan (or even has a chance with her). So ultimately he realizes that he needs to take a chance and open his heart up to her and try to make things right. This antagonistic behavior they’d kind of harbored throughout the season needs to end; Wally’s no longer suppressing the way he feels about her, and I think he’s more than ready to be a man and just… make the step to change the way they behave around each other, to try and lead this relationship to the place it was always meant to be. And I think he comes to the conclusion that letting her know that he doesn’t see her as some replacement nuisance, that she is a real archer, that she has made her own place on the Team and has absolutely nothing to prove to him, is the right first step.

“In full costume? Nervy.”

This is it! The single most important Spitfire moment in the entirety of s1! Oh god, all aboard the feels train!

“Aaah, this could wind up being one of those things that sounds better in my head than out loud.” 

He’s so nervous about saying this to her. You know he was stewing about what to say to her this whole time, how he could word it so that he comes off as genuine about it as he feels, so that she’ll know he’s telling the truth. He’s alone in the main cabin with her for the few precious moments in which Kaldur and Roy are storing his motorcycle in the back, and he finally just grits his teeth and tells himself that it’s now or never time. She needs to hear this before the mission.

“But, you are a real archer.”

Complete sincerity in his eyes. Complete sincerity in his voice, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world to him. “You are a real archer.” How could she think otherwise, after everything she’s done? Wally might not have been so sweet on her at the beginning, but she has more than proven time and again, has saved his ass with the same arrow TWICE. He would still be lying to himself if he thought she was anything less than capable. (I think he has honestly begrudgingly accepted that she’s an amazing archer for a long time, or at least for the very beginning when he was still pinning her on Roy’s aversion to the Team. And even pinning that on her was less about Roy and more about him having a gross crush on her and being embarrassed by their first meeting.)

Artemis seems less than impressed. I don’t think she believes him at first. Her face almost screams, “Really, Wally?” Like, she saw how relieved he was that Roy joined the Team, she knows that he prefers him as the Team’s archer, right?

“No, I mean I’m jazzed about Red Arrow! We go way back, you know? But, you…” He’s making it clear that he’s happy about having one of his best friends finally join the Team, that he’s not happy because oh, the guy she “replaced” is finally coming to push her out of the Team and take her place, or prove that he’s better than her at archery. None of that ever even crosses Wally’s mind; in fact, when Artemis first Zeta’d into the Cave and Ollie told her the news and Wally says “Finally!” with happiness, his eyes are actually on Artemis. Like, I think he fully expected her to share in the happiness, or at least be okay, because to Wally it was only ever about “one of my best friends is finally joining, hell yeah!”. Robin, Kal, and Wally all wanted Roy to join from the beginning, so it stands to reason that Wally is happy when he finally gets the stick out of his ass and joins. (Wally definitely knew that Artemis never really “drove” Roy off the Team, not by any intention or fault. Roy was honestly being a huge pain in the ass about it from the beginning, continuously ignoring their attempts to get him to join up BEFORE Artemis even showed up. And I doubt Roy had any intention of joining when he brought the Roquette mission to them either. Again, blaming Roy’s refusal to join the Team on Artemis was just a “peg for his insecurities” about Artemis and his self.)

Honestly, the way Wally says “But you…” kind of makes me fangirl so hard. The way he just looks up at her when he says that, the emphasis on her. Like, woah, did she come in and make her own place on the Team! He very much noticed throughout all these months; she just waltzed right onto the Team like she owned it and then proceeded to be a huge badass at every turn. He thinks she is amazing and somehow that fact is so brilliantly conveyed just by the emphasis he pressed into the word “you”. (It’s like he’s saying “You’re not Roy. You’re something else entirely.” in the most sincere, endearing way imaginable.)

And Artemis just can’t even believe that Wally West is saying these things to her. That he’s actually sitting there, making an effort to just wear his heart on his sleeve for her in this exact moment. 

“You’ve made your own place on the Team. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

He is making her feel wanted and needed and maybe, just maybe re-convincing her that she has, in fact, proved herself over the last four months. That she is, in fact, one of kind, that she’s not replaceable, that he doesn’t want her to leave so Roy can finally take her place. Some of his words even echo the very words she used to try and convince herself: “I’ve got nothing to prove, I’m one of a kind.” “You’ve got nothing to prove.”

“Not to me. Okay?”

“Not to me.” He’s very specific about adding that, about mentioning himself. Because once again, I think he knows that he has stemmed a lot of this insecurity she’s displaying; I believe he may have even seen her obvious eagerness to join in on the mission as a giveaway. Roy joins and the boys get a mission immediately, and Artemis is intent on joining in, and her expression is serious and intense. Wally is not stupid, he made that connection, realized that the reason she was jumping in was because she wanted to further prove that she IS a real archer and that Roy isn’t going to take her place. But to Wally, it’s almost funny that Artemis would think she’d even need to prove herself; she’s already done that so many times over the past four months! But her scathing “Sure. Team’s needed a real archer.” comment just really clued him in on the fact that he specifically is partly to blame for her insecurities. So when he says these things to her, he realizes how important it is to come from him; he knows she needs him to say this to her, it’s a sort of “apology” long overdue, an acknowledgement of how useful and amazing she is and how she’s made her own place on the Team. And he emphasizes “Not to me.” Not to him, least of all to him.

“…okay.”

Artemis just lets the words sink in, and I could only imagine how warm the Bioship probably felt to her in that moment. And she just slowly looks up at him through her lashes, and I swear to god this was probably one of the single most important moments of her life. Like, she needed to hear Wally say this to her; it had to be Wally. I sincerely do not think any words of encouragement from anyone else would have had even remotely the same impact, it only would have felt empty, like hollow words of reassurance. 

Can we just all remember and appreciate the fact that, at her core, Artemis is a teenage girl with a crush? Put aside all the missions, the costumes, the fighting, the secret Cave, the life or death situations… and all of them are still just teenagers. And I bring this up because honestly, as I rewatch this scene over and over to try and commentate it as best I can, it just really strikes me how self-conscious Artemis gets once Wally starts spilling his heart to her; the way she kind of looks at him with wide eyes, then swiftly drops her gaze down to her lap, with this almost shy expression. She’s self conscious, a teenage girl with a serious crush.

Look at her. Having his attention on her, just between the two of them, and him saying words that she’s needed to hear from him for so long. She’s known she has a thing for him for quite some time, yet that whole time she’s been scared, afraid that her past would come out and that Wally would reject her in every way imaginable. They already started out on the wrong foot, and their relationship suffered from it; obviously they found a comfortable place, full of banter and snark and quite frequently barely contained antagonism– all because he tripped in front of a cute girl, and she snarked because of a cute, shirtless boy. To Artemis, that tentative friendship with Wally could have all tipped right over the edge of the cliff if the truth about her criminal family came out. To her, that’s all it would take for him to fully reject her, maybe for him to even accuse her of being the mole. And those thoughts terrified her, because Wally means so fucking much to her that it’s unreal; rejection from him in any form is unthinkable. She cares about him too much. 

So then, just when her confidence is being completely shot, just when she thinks maybe nobody needs her, that the Team– that Wally –wants to replace her with Roy because she was just a “pity case”… Wally tells her that she has nothing to prove. Not to him.

This moment means so damn much to Artemis that I can’t even properly put it to words. Wally is opening up to her, letting her know that she’s amazing and needed and he was stupid for giving her such a hard time when they met. He’s meeting her halfway, as Greg once put it. And it’s this show of something deep and sincere that makes Artemis all the more terrified of the secret of her family coming out. Something is happening between her and Wally, something is finally giving and they’re both so, so close to giving into previously suppressed feelings… and her past could royally fuck that up. 

So she goes to the extreme to keep it locked away. Artemis goes into that mission with the intent of proving herself, of further cementing her abilities and proving to everyone and Wally that she’s NOT to be replaced. But after Wally says those things to her on the Bioship, for Artemis the mission then becomes a drive to confront her family on her own to keep her secret. Wally's words meant the world to her, she wasn't trying to prove herself anymore after he told her she didn't need to, she was trying to protect the bond forming between herself and Wally, as well as her past.

“And, um... Wally?”

“It sounded... fine, out loud.”

UGH MY HEART. LOOK AT HOW SHE GAZES AT HIM AND HOW HE’S SMILING TO HIMSELF DJSNFJSDFNSDJFNSD

Like, UGH you can tell Wally feels so GOOD for saying that to her, and the fact that it seems to MEAN something to her, that she LISTENED to him and genuinely, sincerely echoed his “okay” back at him when he was done. God it took him so much nerve to even work up the courage to tell her those things, but he knew he needed to and then he did and that risk was rewarded. He’s SO ready to change things between the two of them, to tentatively stick his foot in the water and see where it might go. And Artemis is ready too!

Or at least, she would be, if not for that one final obstacle: her family tree.]

GOD I HATE ROY. 

“And suspect number 1 is Artemis.”

“No offense guys, but even my boredom is bored.” “Maybe a night off wasn’t the best idea.”

Come on, Conner, we all know you’d just go all angry and shit if you went on a stake out, especially since you’ve started doing drugs-- I mean, Shields-- just last episode. He’d probably hulk the fuck out and go on a rampage.

TORNADO OUT. Seriously Tornado gave like no fucks at all. He has important things to do like make a human android so that he can flamingle with the humans.

Oh, Zee, you curious thing you. She’s probably a riot at parties.

“Pursue, but maintain a discreet distance.” Roy says, as he jumps on a fucking jet ski and starts immediately following Sportsmaster in his fucking rental boat. Like, damn dude. I suppose that the ski would sort of be drowned out by the boat engine but that still doesn’t seem like the most discreet method that could have been used; at least Wally’s on a motorcycle on the road, that could be conceived as pretty inconspicuous to Sportsmaster. Geez.

Also the rental boat is kind of making me laugh because it reminds me of the whole “What do you call this, the Arrow Boat?” “I call it a rental.” Like, I feel like in the Young Justice universe, that boat rental shacks make an ass ton of money renting boats to superheroes and villains and they don’t even know it. (or maybe they lose money, because half the boats mysteriously come back with giant holes in the center, and gashes in the paint, etc. Being a boat rental person must be a tough job in that world. They’re obviously the real heroes (or villains?) at the end of the day.)

“That goes double for you, Artemis.” Wow Roy could you BE anymore fucking hostile? I’m not sure who’s worse, Wally in Infiltrator, or you in this fucking episode as well as Performance. God.

Kaldur in his natural habitat. It would have been nice to have more chances to see Kaldur in his element tbh. Then again, I suppose there was a bit more of that in s2 with the whole Black Manta sub and shit.

I bet Wally is itching to run instead of use that motorcycle. (There should have been more Team on motorcycles, imho.)

Artemis, bby, no. T_T I sort of wish she had just stayed put. Then again I wouldn’t have wanted to listen to Roy’s stupid mouth, either. Or, you know, let my shitty criminal dad ruin like everything I’ve ever worked for.

CHESHIRE! <3

“Heeey, sis! Long time no reveal who you really are to all your friends!” Wow, it’s like Jade LITERALLY popped in just to remind us of what’s driving Artemis for the rest of this episode. Like I mentioned before, I feel so sorry for Artemis in the episode, it’s like the cards are all just stacked against her, everything is at stake and that’s why she’s so goddamn reckless in this episode.

You know how there’s that episode in s2 where everything keeps going wrong and Artemis keeps saying “Perfect.” to herself in her mind? I feel like Cheshire showing up in this episode is one of those moments. Like, now not only does she have to worry about her dad, but now she has to worry about Cheshire spilling the beans on her as well. Fucking perfect.

CROCK SISTER FIGHT! (they’re both so badass I love them)

Appreciation time:

I always loved that badass little throw that Artemis does. You go babbu!

“Bet you run out of arrows before I run out of sword. Unless you plan on breaking out the pointy ones to use against your own sister.” “Why shouldn’t I? You are working with Sportsmaster!”  Damn Arty got some fury in her voice.

“Why, Arrow, if you wanted another date you only had to ask.” “You two are dating!?” LOL oh my GOD Artemis’s fucking cracking voice of disbelief makes me laugh every time! She is so fucking horrified it’s not even funny! Like holy fucking HELL I’m crying. 

“Really I’m so fond of you both, I couldn’t bear to hurt you. Much.” Yeah, yeah, play is up Chesh, but we all know you would never seriously hurt Artemis, and probably not Arrow either considering. 

Goddamn that was a brutal leg sweep, Jade. (it’s even worse with the sound)

“Oh, too bad, lover boy.” Woah, Jade, chill with the bedroom voice, there are children present! 

I’m... honestly unclear on Jade’s motives for obviously holding that kiss until Artemis saw it. Like... idk? I mean it seems like a very Jade thing to do, but I can’t quite pin her motive for specifically making sure Artemis saw it. Possibly just to mess with her though, I suppose, and perhaps to pin some suspicion on Roy for some reason or other? IDK, JADE TELL ME YOUR INNER WORKINGS.

“But at least a kiss is still a kiss.”

“And a sai is just a sai!”

“And quite the souvenir, by the way.”

Oh, Wally. <3

“He’s out of range.” I can’t honestly tell if Artemis purposely didn’t put the tracker on or... okay, yeah, she had to have done it purposely, because our girl Arty can seriously hit pretty much any target, she’s hit some hum dingers throughout the season (Home Front, anyone?), there’s no way she couldn’t make that shot. But why, then, did she hold back? Did she want to let Sportsmaster get away and then try to track him down on her own? Like, idk, girl, tell me your thoughts.

“You’re abandoning!?” “I’m prioritizing!” 

“Oh, that’s gotta sting. He makes the shot you were afraid to even try.” Jade, I really think you hit a fucking nerve, considering how Artemis’s night has been going.

Siblings can be a real pain, huh, Artemis?

Always loved that Wally sort of gets in a defensive position between Artemis and Cheshire.

Wow, Roy. That was... spectacular. You sure did distract Sportsmaster so well. ‘_’

“Leave him alone!” Yessss, gimme dat Revelation parallel!

“Artemis!” YAS LAWD GIVE ME MY OTP

“Did you...?” “Tracer’s on her sword.” “Brilliant. I knew you could-- hey, there’s the guys.”

WALLY. It takes a LOT of skill to cock block yourself.

But in all seriousness, look at him fucking encouraging her! <3 God he’s just continually encouraging her and having her back in this episode! He knew she fucking needed it and tbh I think he just WANTED to. Like ajsdhjdhjshfjdsfh god he’s so fucking supportive in this episode because even though he said that meaningful stuff to her on the Bioship, he STILL continues to point out how amazing she is and to defend her against Roy’s suspicions. WALLY IS SUCH A SWEETHEART SOMETIMES I SWEAR.

“So we threw the fight as ordered. After Artemis planted the tracer.” That tone in his voice,  he’s like “Hell yeah my girl Arty nailed that shit like always.” <3

“Sportsmaster was headed south-- kinda like this mission.” I hate you, Roy but that’s a good line XD

Ugh, it pains me to see Artemis trying so hard to protect her identity. Like... it’s made all the worse because of Wally defending and standing up for her so much. Like... fuck. This whole episode hurts my soul. Wally’s on her side but she’s throwing all sorts of wild goose chases to try and protect what she has with her makeshift family and Wally... Artemis may not be doing these things for the stupid ass mole reasons that Roy thinks she’s doing them, but she is in fact fucking with the mission. And that’s why the end of the episode hurts so much. On the one hand I 100% don’t blame Artemis and can see her reasons for acting as she does in this episode... but on the other I’m just shaking my head and begging her to STOP. T_T

“Artemis...”  UGH. GOD JUST MAKE IT STOP.

Goddamnit, Artemis, you stubborn fool. I LOVE YOU BUT STOP IT.

Love Zee’s little magical boost! The animation on it is so smooth, and the brighter colors mixed in with the puff of smoke definitely gives off a “magic” feel.

In the episode or so where Conner isnt actually seen using a Shield, I love the small detail of him kind of subconsciously scratching his bicep all the time. Don’t fucking do drugs, kids.

“Bark if Tornado comes back.” LOL 

“Is that what I think it is?” A dead body. Yes, Zee.

I must confess I’m a little fond of the MONQI’s and their dumb laughter. It was refreshing to hear it again for the first time since Schooled. Then again I also really like the episode Schooled.

Sportsmaster is such a lackey in this episode. The dick.

Hey look, it’s the same Madri Gras warehouse background that was used in Terrors.

“Pulled it off my sword about a minute after you put it there. Thought you’d want it back, since it goes so nicely with the one Red Arrow gave you.”

Of course Jade would know that Artemis put a tracker on her. You know, as much as I love the Jade and Artemis dynamic and the fact that they still love and care about each other despite being on opposite sides, I would still love to see a good, even playing field fight between them, post s2. Because like... at their core they were both trained by the same man as young ones, but after that it starts branching out. Jade probably learned more from the streets and from the Shadows. Artemis learned a hell of a lot from Black Canary’s training as well as sparring with her Teammates, etc. I definitely wouldn’t want them to truly hurt each other (and I don’t think they ever would), but a straight up fight between them would surely be an awesome sight!

“*sing song voice* Someone on your Team doesnt trust you.” Goddamnit, Jade. I honestly wonder whether Jade would truly WANT to actually out Artemis’s connections in s1. She threatens her with it a few times, obviously, but... there’s this part of me that honestly thinks maybe Jade is proud of Artemis for finding her place, even if it is on the hero side, so I can’t see her ruining that. But I suppose that’s another bit of meta for another episode or something. (I tend to think Jade mostly just bluffs about revealing her identity because she knows it’ll make Artemis back down, because it means too much to her)

Jade why are you carrying around a tablet and where the fuck is that camera view even coming from?

Can’t get to Arrow in time? Blow the door up and knock him on his stupid ass! You’re welcome, Roy!

“So you’re pretty much allergic to radioing a warning?” “Artemis to Arrow: look out.” I love my sarcastic babbu <3 (also pretty sure if she had tried to radio him he would’ve either NOT listened to her, or else it just would have taken too long to relay and Sporty would have stabbed him with a big ole javelin. So yeah, explosion was the best option)

“Sooo, is Red building a friend or what?” LOL 

So I’m guessing that considering the fact that it doesn’t show the android below the waist (and when it does there’s another part in the way), and Zatanna’s “friend” line, and the fact that she says it really needs some pants... that it’s, ahem, anatomically correct. Or something. Kinda freaky. But okay, Red. I don’t even want to know.

“Wolf.”

LOLOLOLOL.

“Is this a sign of disrespect?” “Curiosity!” “Boredom.”

Fighting time! 

Okay, Roy, this is one of the only times I’m gonna say this but... KICK SPORTSMASTER’S ASS, OKAY. He’s an even bigger dick than you!

I just really like the animation on Artemis landing there. 

LOOK AT HIM. Helping her gently to her feet! Using both of his hands to hold her’s even though he could have easily just done it with one. OH my god please kill me, THEY’RE TOO ADORABLE 

JUST. FUCKING--

LOOK AT HIM CUPPING HER HAND IN BOTH OF HIS. I’M DYING GOOD-BYE.

“Do as she says: Freeze!” I honestly love Klarion. XD

WALLY YOU BROKE JADE.

Hello I just wanted to point out how close they’re standing to each other okay

OH NO, HERE WE GO. SHIT’S GETTING REAL :(

“You know, I’m getting pretty tired of you dumping on her!” Do it, Wally. Punch his stupid face!

(I kind of wonder... if part of the reason Wally was getting so fed up with Roy’s shit was also in part because he realized that’s how HE must have seemed towards Artemis when she first joined, you know? I mean in Infiltrator, specifically. And maybe it just made him doubly pissed with hearing Roy talk to her that way, because it’s kind of echoing how rude he was to Artemis when she first joined, and it’s kind of getting under his skin that he behaved that way. Maybe I’m thinking too much into things, but I really do think it’s possible.)

“Her tracer, so? Cheshire ditched it.” “No. Artemis ditched that to send us on a wild goose chase. She put this one on Cheshire.”

Oh god make it stop. Look at his face

“Artemis. Are you that freaked out about Arrow joining the Team you had to prove yourself by bringing down the bad guys solo? Please tell me I’m wrong.”

Oh dear fucking god the end of this episode is seriously downright PAINFUL for me to have to watch! There’s just so much misunderstanding and holding back and blaming and just... it distresses me so goddamn much. This episode is only tied with Failsafe for how many feels it gives me, I can’t bear to watch them be SO fucking close to each other, yet so far away.

And all because of Artemis’s stupid criminal family. 

And oh, oh god the worst, the WORST fucking part is when Artemis opens her fucking mouth to tell him and then just falters!

First of all look at the completely HOPELESS fucking face she’s making when he’s asking her to tell him he’s wrong.

Like oh god, he’s got this angry, disappointed look on his face and it’s directed at HER and things had been going so fucking well between them, she could feel it. But now everything is just hitting her right in the face, all the mistakes she made, the last ditch, desperate measures she took just to try and keep herself from getting outed. The saddest part is that she did all this to try and keep what she had with the Team, and more importantly, with Wally, safe; but in the end it all still winds up leading her and Wally straight back to square one, the same antagonistic, unsure distance they’ve had for the entire season. Only now... now it hurts ten times worse.

Fucking look at her. She’s desperate to tell him, she wants to, or at least to just fucking defend herself, to let him know that she wasn’t trying to prove herself, that his words to her on the Bioship did fucking mean something to her, that they meant the world to her, that she was only trying to protect herself, that she’s related to Cheshire and Sportsmaster!! But she fucking can’t, she stops, freezes up, and just stops looking him in his disappointed eyes; because she can’t tell him. If she tells him that she’s the daughter and sibling of criminals, then he’ll reject her in every way. If she just lets him think that his words on the Bioship meant nothing to her and that she was still trying to prove something... at least he’ll still be around. At least he’ll just be mad. 

Mad is better than gone. She can’t lose this Team... can’t lose him.

“Well, nice goin’. What you proved is that you’re insecure and selfish. Keep the sai. This is the right souvenir for the mission.”

And oh god. Oh, Wally, bless his fucking soul. He’s so goddamn hurt at the end of this episode; both of them are, in two very different ways. To him, her display, her leading them all astray and seemingly trying to go after Sportsmaster and Cheshire all by herself is basically like her rejecting what he said to her aboard the Bioship; to him, it’s a slap to the face, it’s her showing that his words, his heart, meant absolutely nothing to her. He told her she had nothing to prove, not to him, because he was the one that caused her insecurity and he knew that. And she told him okay, that it sounded fine out loud, and he felt so good, so happy that she had seemed to take his words to heart, that she wouldn’t feel the need to try and go an extra mile to prove herself better than Roy, or to prove herself to Wally (whom she certainly never needed to prove herself to in the first place). But obviously she didn’t care, right? She didn’t care about his words; she still went off recklessly, sending them all over the place and making them look stupid and fucking up the mission-- and for what? 

To prove herself better than Roy. As if Wally’d never said any of that heartfelt stuff to her before the mission.

All for nothing. 

He’s embarrassed, and hurt. Oh man, is he fucking hurt. Finally he gathered up the courage, and the maturity, to want to try and move things forward with Artemis... only to seemingly be rejected in the most painful way.

But of course, the most painful part is that it’s absolutely not true. None of it. 

His words meant the world to Artemis, and she wasnt trying to prove herself anymore... but Wally can’t know that. They’re both at a crossroads.

“So how will you betray us next time?” SHUT THE FUCK UP ROY YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE. MY BABIES ARE HURTING, LEAVE THEM ALONE.

(Also, remember that in outing Artemis for sending them astray with a tracker, Roy was trying to pin Artemis with evidence as the mole. But that thought never even crossed Wally’s mind; he didn’t think she was a mole for it, just that she was disregarding his feelings. Wally never suspected Artemis was the mole, why would he?)

“Enough! If making a mistake was a betrayal then we would all be traitors.” Thank you, Kaldur, bless.

Ugh, I just realized... the entire Team was standing there. The ENTIRE fucking Team sat there and watched that exchange between Wally and Artemis. Oh god...

“You’re not who you say you are. This isn’t over. Not by a long shot.”

Oh my poor baby. :[ You have just had a fucking horrible night, haven’t you?

“Artemis? Is everything--” Paula just wants to help her upset bby :(

“Shhhh. We wouldn’t want to upset your mother.” God stop being such a fucking CREEP, Sportsmaster.

“What are you doing here!?” Fucking do it, Artemis. Turn him into a pin cushion; it’s the least he fucking deserves.

“Blamed you, didn’t they?”

(You know how Sportsmaster is mentally and emotionally abusive? This whole scene is a shining fucking example of that.)

“Will they keep you around now that Red Arrow’s joined up? And what if they learn the truth about the family ties you’ve worked so hard to hide? Would they ever trust you again?”

Like... Lawrence is literally throwing every insecurity Artemis has had in this episode, right back in her face. He’s undoing Wally’s reassurances; he’s re-enforcing the fear she has of her family being discovered; he’s playing off the fear she has of being untrusted and rejected by her makeshift family. He’s tearing Artemis down mentally  because he knows she’s in a vulnerable spot. He knows that this is the time to strike, as it were. To say these things to her while she’s down, to try and use her insecurities to manipulate her onto his side of things; she’s his little soldier, after all, he made her what she is. 

“Thanks for the pep talk, dad, we should have these family reunions more often.”

I love the lighting on Artemis’s face throughout this scene.

“You tried, baby girl. You can fight Jade, you can fight me. But you can’t fight who. You. Are. Time to switch sides, Artemis. You’ll never be one of them. You belong with us.” 

And there’s the emotional abuse. You tried, you failed, and the reason you failed is because you were meant to work on the side of evil. You were born into this, you don’t have a choice. And everything that’s happened tonight is proof of that; you mislead your Team, they brought in someone to take your place, they won’t trust you anymore now; what else is left for you now? You can’t fight genetics.

If any of that were true, if Artemis were a lesser person, if her heart wasn’t fucking golden and if she wasn’t meant to be a true fucking hero... this episode might have been her villain origin story. 

But Lawrence was fucking wrong. Artemis Lian Crock was never meant to be a villain, not in this lifetime. 

[chameleonspell]

178: you

The smallest possible hour of the night, in Holamayan Monastery. In the chapel, cold incense and still bells. In the kitchen, in the alchemy lab, all swept clean and put away. In the dormitories, tired acolytes snatching a few hours' rest between the Midnight Invocation and preparations for the Blessing of the Dawn. In the library... bare feet, treading softly. Silently, even, but accompanied by a constant, urgently-whispered monologue.

"...just hope everyone's really asleep this time. They all think I've gone mad. I think I might have gone mad, too. But I have to keep talking to you, Iya, so I don't forget again. I made Viatrix remember you for a while, that's how I know I haven't lost it completely, and invented someone who never was. She remembered you getting her into the Ministry, so I know you were there, alive, not captured. But then she forgot you again, and gave me that Temple look, and said, Julan, I hope you're not going to do something crazy. She didn't say crazy, she said something else, but she meant crazy. Yeah, I know. You didn't like that word, either." He carried a scrib-oil lamp and a steaming redware cup. He put the cup down among the floor cushions in the meditation area, and began swinging the lamp along the bookshelves, searching for a volume. "Pretty sure any way you slice it, I'm gonna do something crazy, though." He found the book he was after, and placed it with the cup on the soft rugs heaped in the corner of the library, positioning the lamp nearby. After a moment's thought, he began arranging the cushions into a sort of nest shape around him. Once he was satisfied, he knelt before his equipment, cleared his throat, and addressed the empty shadows as loudly as he dared. "This is a summoning ritual. You never taught me any Conjuration, so I'm making it up. Or... I guess it could be a teleportation spell, for all I know. It's not meant to be a soul-trapping spell, because you're not dead, but... I don't care what kind of spell it is, as long as it works. You told me magic was about willpower, and desire, all the rest was just ways to focus and direct that energy. I hope you were right. I don't know much about magic, but I know a lot about wanting things." He reached into his right-hand pocket, and deposited a slightly bruised fungus onto the rug in front of him. "So," he said. "OK. First, while I was out, I got you a mushroom. The small, purple kind you like. You told me the long name once, but I wasn't listening, so you have to come and tell me again." He rolled the mushroom gently with his finger, furrowing his brow at minor signs of damage. "I remember you," he said, louder, emphasising his words to the silent darkness, and to himself. "Not everything. I can't see your face properly. I don't even have your name, except one letter: Iya. But... I still know you. I remember you. I miss you." He frowned harder, still manipulating the mushroom. "I miss your hands, and the way they move. Like you're afraid of touching things... or not touching things. And of regretting it either way, so your fingers hover in between, tying themselves in knots. I miss them in my hair. I miss them brushing mine, in the street." Taking gentle leave of the mushroom, he transferred his attention to the redware cup. "Second, I made you tea. I sweetened it. I think I finally worked out the pattern - you sweeten it when you're trying to relax, and leave it bitter when you're trying to do something difficult, like write, or get out of bed. Is it like the tragic stories, you find pain more motivating than pleasure? Or maybe you're just scared of sweetness, because you know you get addicted so easily. You shouldn't worry, though. You're stronger than you think." He took a small sip of the tea, and grimaced. "Too sweet for me, you definitely have to come drink this." Twisting the cup against the rug, he watched the bittergreen petals swirl, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. "I miss your tongue. Sharp as scathecraw, but I never minded. You could make it sweet enough, when you wanted. I miss its long words, and its silences. I miss the way it gets all veering and musical sometimes, like chimes jangling in the wind, when you let it run ahead of you." From his other pocket, he drew a small scrap of fabric, folded several times around its hidden contents. He placed it gently on the rug, with the rest. "Third, I have a tooth. It's OK, you don't have to look at it. I know it's yours, but you still might be scared of it. You were always so scared of the things you thought were inside you, but... we've all got them, Iya. Anyway, it's embarrassing I kept this, so for Azura's sake come and laugh at me." His finger still rested on top of the cloth. "They say every bone is a door through the wall of the world. I never had ancestors, and I never learned those rites either, but you're not my ancestor, and you're not dead, so I'm trying it anyway. Wherever you are, this is a door, and I'm calling you through it. If that's not real magic, if it's not possible, come here and tell me to my face. Look me in the eye and tell me, because I miss your eyes the most. I miss them smiling, and crying, and filled with such... I don't know. Things you said didn't count as love. I think you're still a liar, sometimes." He pinned the tooth to the rug, shoving it into the pile until it had its own small valley. "Gods, Iya, it was you who said I needed to trust my own judgement, and not other people's, so that means it's OK for me to ignore some of the complete blighted nonsense you talk, right? Sheo-fucking-gorath! Like... that time you said only amnesia could fix us, and then right after that you said I'd turn you back into the person you were when we met! So... I mean, what am I to...? Oh, and then later, you said that person was gone forever, except by then it was a bad thing! And... and... it's not just that all this stuff doesn't make any sense, when you take it all together - although it doesn't - it's that every single time, you're using it as a reason why you're unlovable. And if that's not guarshit, I don't know what is. Come here and tell me I'm wrong. I challenge you. I summon you." He jabbed the tooth one more time, eyes narrowed, demanding a response from the shadows around him. Receiving none, he hesitated a few moments longer, then moved his hand onto the book. He ground his jaw at it, fingers jittering against the blue, gold-embossed leather. "Uh... I don't know what I expected to happen, exactly, but if the other stuff didn't work... I have one other idea. A back-up plan, kind of." He cleared his throat, and threw a swift glance towards the doorway. "They don't have any sad romance books here, I asked. As you can probably tell, it's not that kind of library. I did find this, though. Mehra says it's about love, but I don't get how. I don't think Vivec uses words the same way I do. But then neither do you, and you were always reading these with a faraway look on your face, and, well. I like it when you read me things. So, uh... I'm not as good, but I'll try. And this doesn't mean I agree with any of Vivec's guarshit, so don't start." The library had no doors, only dark archways, leading towards the chapel on one side, and the sleeping quarters on the other. Julan watched them suspiciously for for a few more seconds. Then he scrabbled between his shoulder-blades till he had a fistful of shirt, and yanked it off over his head. "Not strictly necessary, but..." His mouth quirked briefly, then with a shrug, he began removing his pants as well. "No sense chancing half measures. I mean, this IS a library. If I want to summon you, maybe I have to beat you at your own game." Opening the book, he flicked through pages of scholarly preamble to the beginning of the text itself. Took a last, nervous glance around, listening for footsteps. Then he adjusted the lamp, took the book in one hand, and began to read. "The formulas of proper Velothi magic continue in ancient tradition, but that virility is dead--" we'll see about that, you flame-brained s'wit "--by which I mean at least replaced. Truth owes its medicinal nature to the estab...lishment of the myth of justice." Azura's star, what is this crap? "Its cura...tive properties it likewise owes to the concept of... sacrifice." He broke off, and stared wildly into space. "Hey," he said, "I just remembered! You had a... you had that awful song, didn't you? About all the things some girl had to sacrifice for love. Listen, I'm not doing that, like you're some dead khan I have to kill a guar for! Because that's all death ritual, and you don't need that! I'm not cutting myself into bits for you, Iya, or throwing them away. All of me is staying right here, because you're coming back for it." He exhaled sharply, and returned to the page. His initial fervour had worn off. He read mechanically, uncomprehendingly. "This is a view prim...arily based on a pro...lific abo...lition of an implied prof...anity..." oh for fuck's sake! This is stupid, why did I think--DON'T THINK, JUST KEEP GOING. The words were stiff and awkward, catching his tongue, taunting him with his own stupidity at every stumble. He resigned himself to none of it making any sense, and forged onwards. "...seen in ceremonies, knife fighting, hunting and the exploration of the poetic." This isn't worki--SHUT UP. FOCUS. He tried fixing his mind on Iya instead, on the fragments he had shored against forgetting. "On the ritual of occasions, which comes to us from the days of the cave glow..." I have no idea what that meant, but hey, remember when you exploded your eyeballs with overpowered night eye potions in that bandit lair? And... after a while... "...seen as an act of the highest love, which is a return from the astral destiny, and the marriages between." ...he had the creeping sensation parts were almost making sense, he was just too slow to catch it. Individual words would leap out, and he'd try fixing his mind on those, on what they meant to him, regardless of what Vivec intended. But he couldn't stop to think, before the sentences moved on, dragging him with them. "To keep one's powers intact at such a stage is to allow for the existence of what can only be called a continual spirit." He tried to identify and separate out the alien echoes in his mind: what would he say to me now? What in Oblivion do you think you're doing? "Make of your love a defence against the horizon." What do you want from me? "The lover is the highest country, and a series of beliefs. He is the sacred city, bereft of a double." You know what. "The uncultivated land of monsters is the rule." Then... not even the words, but... something behind them, raw and desperate. Building, yearning, flowing through him, reaching outwards. He wasn't sure it had anything to do with the spell, but he went with it, gave himself over: all or nothing! "This scripture is directly ordered by the codes of Mephala, the origin of sex and murder, defeated only by those who take up those ideas without my intervention." It gripped him, as if by the throat. Breathing was difficult. "The religious elite is not a tendency or a correlation. They are dogma complemented by the influence of the untrustworthy sea and the governance of the stars, dominated at the centre by the sword, which is nothing without a victim to cleave unto." They all could have been watching him now, for all he knew. He couldn't tear his eyes from the words, and his ears were full of the rushing of his blood, the thundering of his heart. "This is the love of God and he would show you more, predatory, but at the same time instrumental to the will of critical harvest, a scenario by which one becomes as he is, of male and female..." Some sentences never seemed to end. His head swam, from forgetting to breathe, from the way the words jammed themselves into his subconscious and levered it open, spilling things out. Panting, he groped for the next line, the book swaying in his hand. The air he drew in was heady with energy... magic? faith? desire? Was it working, was something happening? He couldn't tell, but it filled him, forced him onwards. "Mark the norms of violence and it barely registers, suspended as it is by treaties written between the original spirits." ...mpossible invalid ritual completely impossible why must he always... "This should be seen as an opportunity, and in no way tedious, though some will give up..." NO. ...not how summoning works at all... "...for it is easier to kiss the lover than become one." fuck you it is! but... i'll take the easy way, just this once, if i-- just-- please-- ...he's completely misinterpreting the text... He couldn't tell what was out loud or in his head any more, imagination or sensation. Everything was swimming, shaking, tilting. But he was over the crest of it now, running on empty, but running downhill, words flowing unstoppably forwards. "The lower regions crawl with these souls ...ask for nothing need nothing don't force these messy desires onto... caves of shallow treasures ...how could he why would he how dare... meeting in places to testify by way of extens-- His balance went. --ion, when love He flailed forwards, lost the book and upset the lamp-- is only satisfied --the final words a neon after-image as shadows blinded him by a considerable but he was (incalculable) almost-- effo-- next: 179: i previous: 177: curses beginning: 1: numb