#uh so yeah this still has several plot holes I think. But it’s a possible scenario

[the-fear]

hiiiii :3

i read tags on that post you reblogged for me and i agree that its most likely that kayne is nyarlathotep since it'd pretty much align with cthulhu mythos - it often takes human form to walk the earth and it's character is pretty similar to kayne's. It also acts with seemingly no particular goal again just like kayne! and i can't really think of any other gods in cthulhu mythos that would fit him so well

also I'd love to hear more about that theory of yours ^_^!!!!!!

Aw thanks for asking about this! :D

{Putting this under a cut because this is a lot of information. It’s pretty condensed but still quite long}

Please take in mind that this theory only just popped into my head when I read the post, so this has more holes in it than Emmental cheese.

I was thinking on the fact that Harlan’s post mentioned explicitly that Kayne’s identity will be addressed in season 4, and I was wondering what other things have been added to the podcast this season. Most notably are the characters (Oscar, the Butcher, Daniel, etc. - Noel is a Very Close Contender for being Kayne for me), but we’ve also had some other things at least slightly confirmed. Probably one of the most important things that have been confirmed it the time dilation.

I seem to remember that there were quite a lot of theories around time loops and similar phenomena (I think a few were on @ty-betteridge’s blog but I can’t find the posts for some reason). With Scratch’s apparent ability to live longer in dreams than in the real world, eldritch time dilation is basically canon, as far as we know. This could further open the door to other time-related shenanigans, including time loops, to be canon as well.

It’s also been mentioned in the time loop posts that John could in fact be a future Arthur (I may have got this wrong because it’s been a long time since I caught up on the theories). I personally don’t see that (I don’t know how that would fit in with the KIY stuff) but I do really think there’s going to be some stuff involving timeloops and Arthur and John.

Anyway, enough of that ramble! Let’s get back to the important part: who is Kayne?

I 100% believe Kayne is Nyarlathotep - or at least one version of him. Maybe not the one directly from the Lovecraft source material, but definitely an entity that shares the same role as him in the story. Especially with the common description of Nyarlathotep as “joyous”, and we can defintely say that Kayne is enjoying himself with Arthur’s story.

I say that Kayne may not be entirely based on Lovecraft’s Nyarlathotep, because that entity is described as an Outer God, and this theory hinges on the fact that Kayne’s origin is something much closer to home.

So what are some things that we know for sure about Kayne / Nyarlathotep?

From Lovecraft’s source material: his description tends to be of a “tall, swarthy man” but it’s often noted that he can shapeshift.

From the podcast: he has no canon appearance apart from wearing a black suit (and other details), as described by John in part 20. He is also noted to be playing piano in his first appearance.

He also has an Extreme interest in Arthur’s life, as far as to having “watched [Arthur’s] life unfold”. He wants to find out what’s “different” about Arthur compared to other people.

So here’s my theory:

Kayne is Arthur (+ John) from the future.

If you’re thinking that’s a slightly far fetched, I agree! There are several problems with this theory that I need to iron out. I’m replying to this ask because I hope other people can add to this theory, correct me on things that I got wrong, share some more stuff about Nyarlathotep, etc.

One question with this theory is that surely John would recognise Kayne if he looked like Arthur? Well, that’s already got an answer - Kayne can shapeshift, so probably changed his appearance to throw John off his scent. That might also explain the difference in accent between Arthur and Kayne: Future Arthur!Kayne is trying to be incognito, he doesn’t want Arthur and John to find out who he is.

Another question is why is Arthur!Kayne doing this? The motive I think Arthur!Kayne has is pretty evident: he wants to find out what makes him different, what allowed him to become Kayne. We’ve already been told that Arthur is different to most people in that he can hold a piece of the King in Yellow in his mind without succumbing to their will (compared to Marie’s sister, who was taken over completely by Mr Scratch, and the people who did not survive John’s book). Perhaps this difference allowed Arthur to become Kayne (remember that Kayne discusses hearing voices too, perhaps in a similar manner to John + Yellow in Arthur’s mind). Maybe what sets Arthur on the path to becoming Kayne is… accumulating other parts of Gods? Mr Scratch maybe - Arthur might be strong enough to keep charge of his body and Scratch just lives in his mind like Yellow did (if his plans with the stone go badly).

[amidstsaltandsmoke]

Hey! How about 113&90 or 133&68? Of course you can pick one or all or none, lol! I hope you're doing great!! 🤗🤗

Hiii!!! Thank you so much for sending these!! I've gone ahead with 113 ("I prefer blondes") & 90 ("Trust me") and I have zero idea where this idea came from, but some of it made me laugh, so I hope you enjoy my attempt at humor!! 🤣 I had to make a special moodboard for this one, too. I hope you're doing well!!! 💛

__________________________________

It was an ordinary day at the shop. Another day of people reminding her that she was stupidly alone and would probably never be the customer coming in to choose a nice, sexy piece for her (non-existent) partner or the girlfriend on the receiving end.

At least she had her work friends to complain to, although half of them were off the market, too. Dany never could figure out what it was about her that seemed to deflect men rather than attract them to her. Doreah had promised that, objectively speaking, Dany didn’t suffer from resting bitch face. Missandei proclaimed that she was just so beautiful, it was intimidating. Val added onto that, saying that most probably assumed she was already spoken for.

She was in the back room double checking inventory when Doreah all but broke the swinging door down, hissing her name. “Dany! He’s back!”

“Who?” Frowning, it took Dany a second to understand who she meant. Then, she rolled her eyes. “Oh. It doesn’t matter, Doreah, he very clearly had a girlfriend the last couple of times he was in.”

The least she could do was not drool atop their merchandise over a man who was probably trying to help his girlfriend spice things up in the bedroom. While it was a little unusual that there had been so frequent of visits within a short span of time - four times in two weeks, not that she was paying that close attention - there was no point in making it extra awkward for everyone.

He was extremely pleasing to look at, and yes, behind the scenes she had suggested to the girls some explicit things she might like to do with him if ever she had the chance, but a fifth return said something was either working or very much...not. The last thing she wanted to do was verbalize one of those thoughts she may or may not had fantasized about once or twice or...more. She would fire herself on the spot.

“In the last three years in this hell, how many times have you seen the girlfriend hang around outside of the store while her boyfriend does all the perusing?”

Dany shrugged, checking off a few boxes on her clipboard while she hooked several pairs of silky lace panties through her arm to help her keep count. “I don’t know, maybe that’s their thing? Maybe he surprises her and they have perfect, steamy sex.”

The first time he came in, the brunette woman joined him. He looked completely lost and overwhelmed by it all, and on at least two occasions he had locked eyes with Dany when she was trying to discreetly check him out. Mortified at how red his face had turned, she had busied herself rearranging their fragrances that hadn’t needed arranging. There had been some giggling and the woman had squeezed his arm, and Dany tried to avoid having to help them as much as possible, and that included each subsequent appearance after that, even when the brunette kept to herself outside the store. To the point where Dany put Val on the floor so that she could sit back and just ogle him guiltlessly.

Dany saw the way his girlfriend peeked in, beaming at him, probably trying to get a feel for what he would bring home that evening.

“Right, well plot twist: he has asked for you,” Doreah jabbed her finger into Dany’s back.

Spinning around on her heel, her braid whipping around her shoulders, Dany fumbled over her words. “No-no he did not! He doesn’t even know my name.”

“Obviously not!” Doreah chortled, then took hold of Dany’s shoulder with a shake. “He asked for a blonde, and when I pointed to Val, he said - and I quote - ‘the one with the blue eyes’.”

Dany blinked, her inhale suddenly hostage in her chest, shaking her head vehemently. “No, he’s definitely confused - it can’t be the same guy-”

“Get your cute little arse out there and find out for yourself, then!”

Just as pugnacious as she was when she came in to deliver the news, Doreah spun Dany around and forced her back into the main floor. She yiped and instantly wished a sink hole would appear under her feet and take her under, what with the obnoxious entrance she’d just made, the door smacking against the wall and every set of eyes boring into her.

Including his.

Doreah would not live to see another day after today.

Quietly, she cleared her throat, while everyone else went back to their browsing, but for the man who was the subject of her favorite dreams as of late. He turned to face her fully, still at the other end of the store across from her, and he fit his hands into his overly-tight jean pockets. A smile spread across his face, and stupidly, she looked over her shoulder, just to confirm that Doreah hadn’t been behind her. And finally, the cherry on top of the cake was when his eyes then drifted down to her arm, where she still had a whole armful of panties still attached.

Bleeding hells!

Hastily she yanked the door open behind her, Doreah right there and proud of herself, Dany stuffed her clipboard and the pile of undergarments into the woman’s arms. “I hope you enjoy your last few hours alive!” Dany whispered harshly, but that only made her friend splutter with joy.

Going back out, she squared her shoulders and folded her hands in front of her before approaching the obscenely attractive man. She couldn’t help but quickly sweep the area with her eyes just to be sure he wasn’t in other company. There didn’t appear to be anyone outside the open doors, either.

She stopped in front of him, and was horrified to discover, at the most inconvenient moment, that she didn’t know what words were. Her private dreams and distant stalking did not do him justice.

“Hello,” he supplied first.

For a beat, her mouth hung open without a sound until she finally managed, “Hi.”

“So-”

“I heard-”

She grit her teeth together and her cheeks lit on fire, the pair of them laughing awkwardly and immediately averting their eyes to anything but each other.

At the very least, it broke some of the tension. Dany gestured with her hand at the wall behind him, where various colorful, matching sets of lingerie were displayed. “Did you need help finding something?”

“Ah,” he sucked in a breath, briefly following the motion to see what she was referring to, but quickly looked back at her, hand scratching his head, “well, yeah, sort of...I, uh,” he cleared his throat gently. She was glad to know she wasn’t the only one who was nervous, but it was making her anxious, so she took matters into her own hands.

“Might I suggest the purple?” She crossed the floor to one of their mannequins donning one of their more flimsy pieces, silky and shiny bra and the thong to match. With one hand palm up, she tried to gauge his reaction as she pointed it out to him. “It compliments brown hair and fair skin quite nicely.”

His dark brow wrinkled a little, but he followed her, stopping a few feet away and not paying the fiberglass model any mind. Maybe they were fighting...so she had a better idea.

She thrust her finger up in the air to stop him from needing to explain any further, beckoning for him to follow her. They stopped, now, at something a bit more complicated, a red number where the lace bra barely covered the breasts and had a strap that wound around the neck and connected to the middle between the breasts. The panties were attached to a garter and stockings.

This time around, he flushed adorably, and she stored that away in her mind for later. If there was to be any joy found in this encounter, it might be so that she could torture his bashfulness.

“Actually...I’m...not here to shop for anyone else,” he explained, and slowly, she understood, nodding slowly, her mouth forming an ‘o’. Their bed play included some form of role reversal. She wasn’t here to judge anyone’s kinks, or preferences, not especially working for a lingerie shop. And, if it turned out that she was wrong, and perhaps he wasn’t into the ladies at all, at least she knew she never had a chance to begin with.

“Ooh, I see. Well, unfortunately we don’t have anything marketed towards men’s fashions right at this time-” an idea she needed to propose to their marketing and product team, “-but I’m sure we could find something that fits your fancy?”

Dany freely let herself measure him by way of a quick observation - he wore a fitted black tee, so it wasn’t difficult to see that he kept in great shape. Broad, muscled shoulders, biceps fighting to stay within the confines of the short sleeves, lean compact perfection. His thighs? Thick. Great for getting ones’ head trapped between. Uncaring as to what was left of her professional decency, she grabbed his arm to keep him still and rounded him, almost forgetting herself too much and just barely biting her tongue to not whistle. His ass? Perseus could never.

Just as she was moving to guide him toward another area with slightly larger sizes that could accompany his physique, a hand gently caught her wrist, and it was gone in the next breath, but she stopped, facing him once more. He’d stepped in closer, almost invading her space. “No, it’s not any of that,” he chuckled lightly. Then he word vomited, and she didn’t think he could possibly get any more chart-breaking attractive, but she was certain her eyes had shaped themselves into hearts. “Ah, fuck. I’m just gonna say it. I saw you in here a few weeks ago when I was here - I never come to the mall by the way, just...anyway, no offense. I stopped and I was with my sister-in-law and she told me I should try to chat you up...but I thought, who in their right bloody mind casually drops into a sexy lingerie store to hit on someone?”

He huffed dubiously, but she was half in love with him already.

“So, I bowed out like a coward, but obviously I kept coming back, and Margaery - that’s my sister-in-law, the brunette - tagged along for moral support, while I was pretending to be interested in…,” he looked about them by way of explaining, “I mean, not that I’m not - in fact, I am-”

Her toothy grin was so large by now that it actually hurt. Charmingly he rumpled up his face and scratched the back of his neck, then brought both of his hands in front of him and accentuated the space there as he made a go of it again. “What I’m desperately trying to say, and failing at, is...would it be super weird to ask you out? It’s so shallow, I know, and completely not like me; you’re just so beautiful and I know nothing about you-”

Dany couldn’t take it anymore. She kissed him, and he gasped through his nose, frozen in place for a beat until he finally relaxed and put a careful hand on her hip, leaning closer to her. She broke away, the taste of cinnamon lingering on her tongue, either from a mint or gum he must have just had. Peering up at him from beneath her eyelashes, she just needed to be sure…

“You’re sure that wasn’t your girlfriend with you?”

His head nodded once to punctuate his reply. “Positive. She’s my brother’s wife. And...I much prefer blondes, anyway. Trust me.”

“Okay,” she muttered, putting a little space between them, and going warm all over when she remembered where they were, and how about the entire store was putting their heads together and giggling and staring. “I have…,” she glimpsed at her watch, her heart sinking, “...three hours left.”

“I can wait,” he said, and when she was beginning to think he meant he would have the audacity to wait in here and distract her, he clarified, “I mean, I have some errands I can run, and then…?”

“I don’t even know your name,” she blurted with realization.

“Oh, right,” he chuckled, “it’s Jon.”

“Dany,” she returned, holding out her hand. He shook it with a gentle squeeze. After they took their hands back, she made sure nobody was within earshot when she closed in on him again. “Then it’s a date. Under one condition…”

His clear grey eyes narrowed down at her.

“Which one?” Her dark brows jumped and she clandestinely used her eyes to motion to the items on display.

“What? Wait…,” his voice lowered to a rumble, lips barely moving, “seriously?”

Gods, if he only knew the images that she had conjured up in her mind pre-meeting…

“Mhm,” she hummed.

“Uh…,” he was good, very good, as he pretended that he was carrying on a conversation with her while his hand scratched his bearded face, trying to make a hurried decision. She saw the glint in his eye when he had decided, never taking her attention off of him. His gaze dropped down to her lips before drifting back to her eyes. “Third rack by the front…,” she gave a secretive, sidelong look in that direction, “the fourth row down in the second column. Yellow.”

Her eyes widened a hair. “Oh,” she breathed, her chest going tight. It was one of those numbers that, when not on a hanger or mannequin, was difficult to figure out how to get on, but it was a good thing this was her expertise. She swallowed thickly. “May I ask...why yellow?”

Jon reddened exquisitely. “Well... the last time I was here, one of your colleagues was heavily suggesting the best colors that complimented blue eyes, so…,” to her surprise, he skimmed her thumb over the apple of her cheek, just under her blue eyes.

Doreah. That sneaky little shit. It was a script they sometimes followed when a guest first came in, a starting point to help guide them in the right direction and ease nerves, but this was deliberate.

Dany owed Doreah an extra life, now.

“Alright,” she conceded, beaming. “See you at five?”

Jon smirked. “See you at five.”

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

time travel aus, amirite? since we’ve all decided to start talking about our ideas, i thought i’d throw my hat into the ring. i’ve actually had this idea for a while, i just wasn’t sure what to do with it because i barely have the patience for one-shots, let alone the continuous plotted longfic this would need

it’s not my idea, of course, i’m incapable of original thought. it’s based off this can-i-really-call-it-a-genre-if-it’s-two-fics-with-the-same-premise where some combination of maedhros, maglor, elros, and elrond land in the blessed realm before - even the unchaining, in my take, when the ambarussa are still children and the world is blissful. it’s more specifically my take on this fic, which takes elrond and elros from very early in their captivity and maedhros from just before the silmaril theft and maglor from several centuries into the second age. i just plugged my own characterisations into it, and, uh. the specific setup this not-genre uses is that maitimo and makalaurë *~mysteriously disappear,~* throwing their extended family into chaos, blah blah blah, and then a few decades later -

well. with my characterisations, we have a nightmare hellbeast who’s burned up everything he used to be in singular pursuit of an unreachable goal and has carved his very self into a weapon, a completely drained beaten-up husk barely cognisant of reality past the screaming in his mind who’s so utterly broken it’s debatable if he even counts as an elda, and two extremely young extremely traumatised children in a completely unfamiliar land- and skyscape whose only adult they can maybe-kind-of trust is currently bleeding from the eyes and shrieking wordless notes of utter despair

yeah, this au’s Fun. elrond and elros have maybe eight words of quenya between them, most of which are obscene, maedhros will act completely normal until he suddenly stabs himself in the arm because can’t this stupid hallucination end already, he has a character arc to tank, and maglor seems completely unaware he’s not still on the beach having the same cyclic arguments with the ghosts of the people he failed. the elves of valinor aren’t completely unprepared to deal with this, at least not the ones who remember cuiviénen, but it’s still a massive shock to see two of the children they came to the land of the gods to protect twisted and scarred like the worst victims of the dark. especially since noone can figure out why

so yeah. i have trouble finishing oneshot collections, so i doubt i’ll ever write this out in full, but i do have a lot of Scenes. fëanáro staring in utter horror at the oath, whispering ‘i made this.’ elros and elrond’s somewhat hole-filled explanation of their backstory devolving into a sindarin argument, and when the family asks tyelkormo what they’re talking about he freezes before saying ‘they’re arguing about whether maitimo killed their mother.’ the moment maglor finally managed to get through what happened after they got the silmarils to maedhros, who immediately switches from off-the-cuff self-harm to well-planned suicide attempts. the five-minute period the family hellspawn’s working theory was ‘they’re maitimo and makalaurë from an alternate universe where we’re evil’ (‘is there an evil version of me??? does he eat kids???????’ - tyelko) finwë going full bulldoze taniquetil in the background. fun times, might write some snippets in the future

but i like to think through the mechanics of this kind of time travel story too much, so i started wondering where maitimo and makalaurë, yanno, went. i quickly came to the conclusion that they probably swapped places with their evil future selves, giving me three time travel aus for the price of one! technically four but (a) i’m not sure if or with who the twins would swap and (b) if they did their alternate selves are probably having a really bad time and i don’t particularly want to think about it. the stories maitimo and makalaurë are in... they’re not necessarily any happier, but they are a lot more wtftastic

maitimo falls asleep under the light of the trees, on a relaxing retreat from the demands of court life and family-induced disasters. he wakes up in a world that’s almost completely dark, surrounded by plants he’s never seen before and wearing clothing designed for a much warmer climate, the scent of death in the air. now permanently separated from all his old problems, maitimo rapidly acquires several exciting new ones, including but not limited to:

everyone he ever loved being dead or worse

the lone possible exception, his last surviving little brother, being an almost unrecognisable blood-drenched kinslayer who hates everything in the universe especially himself

said blood-drenched kinslayer almost immediately imprinting on him like a grouchy murderous duckling

his future self having apparently wanted to kill even more people, why

getting dogpiled by like thirty dudes in full armour the instant they showed up at the army of the west’s camp to surrender

getting soul-scanned by eönw two minutes later. not fun

arafinwë pulling him into an enormous hug and then bursting into tears

the subsequent explanation as to just what happened to him and his brothers, which somehow got worse after he’d already thought they’d hit rock bottom like four separate times

proceeding to lose a staring contest with findaráto

the way everyone in camp looks at him like he’s an incredibly dangerous wild animal that might bite at any time

how if half of what arafinwë said is true he can’t even blame them, fuck, fuck

the twin half-elven(?????????????) princes he and his brother apparently kidnapped and held hostage for years, inflicting unimaginable cruelties as far as anyone knows

his first meeting with the kids happening when elrond broke into where they were holding maglor to scream at him in very loud very fast very angry sindarin for like half an hour

maglor just staring at him, eyes wide, ears pinned back, the whole time, and then trying to maul the first guard who mocked him for it

getting saddled with kinslayer containment duties in the aftermath of that whole incident

elrond punching him in the collarbone when he tried to apologise, shouting ‘you weren’t there, don’t you dare try to tell me what it was like’

elros’ visible half second of pure terror after the blow hit home

elros then using recognisable techniques from maitimo’s debate team circuit during a speech to the edain

like, clearly some shit did happen, but it’s obviously not what the local leadership’s afraid of

this sour-faced scar-covered warrior slipping out of the shadows in an unpopulated part of camp, kneeling before him, intoning ‘the swords of the host remain at your disposal my lord’ and then immediately vanishing

he didn’t recognise them until after they’d left but they were definitely one of his philosophy club friends, what even

just generally having woken up in a future a thousand times worse than his darkest nightmares

his natural instinct is to try and fix things, but how?? what’s even left to fix????

maglor sometimes goes into these unhinged desperate spiralling rambles directed at the older brother who exists in his head rather than the one in front of his eyes. whatever’s left of maitimo’s biggest little brother is clearly in so much pain

all the things he’s trying extremely hard not to think about because if he slows down enough to he’s pretty sure he’ll collapse

all the people he’s never met who hate him for pretty understandable reasons and whose social structure he now has to learn to have any hope of making it out of All This

the edain’s collective insistence on calling him pasthros

curufinwë isn’t even a hundred how does he have a kid

makalaurë, on the other hand, wakes up on a beach beneath a giant glowing orb. finding himself in a land so much barer than what he knows, among people whose souls don’t even work like his, his initial working theory is he’s been abducted by aliens

[cheeriecherry]

Birds Of A Feather [6/7]

Hawks x Fem!Reader

Warnings: swearing, (badly written) smut, 18+ content, y’all virgin birds, my bff kinkshamed me when he read it

This chapter is not necessary to the plot of the story, so if smut makes you uncomfortable (or if you’re a minor) you don’t have to read this, or worry about missing anything important!

Part 6/7

Your bodies press together as your mouths meet hungrily. Keigo has his hands under your shirt, rucking it up so he can unabashedly paw at your chest, plucking and pinching at your nipples until they come to hardened peaks.

You can feel him against you, hard length pressing into your thigh. You trail a hand down his torso, nails scraping him lightly through his shirt, and grip at the outline of his cock.

He groans when you give him a few experimental squeezes, pressing himself further into your touch. “It’s all for you, sweetheart,” he says, desperation dripping in his voice.

You smirk, and give him a few strokes. “For me? I wonder how many times you’ve thought about this, then. You’re so hard, Kei, it can’t possibly be the first time.”

You toy with the drawstrings on his shorts, slowly pulling them undone. Keigo swears a little at the loss of contact, seeking out friction by rutting against your thigh.

You sink your teeth into his neck, and his subsequent moan trails off into a whine when you soothe the bite with your tongue.

“Well?” you prompt, “have you thought about taking me before? Thought about my body beneath yours, as you fuck yourself in your own hand?” You push his shorts down, just enough to get your hands on him, and stroke him slowly from base to tip.

“Yes, fuck, yes. So many times. As much as I could get away with.” His head lolls onto your shoulder, hot breath tickling your neck. “Sometimes, before you came up for lunch, I’d have to get it out of my system. I couldn’t help it, you just looked so good, and sometimes your wings would fluff up when I said the right thing, and I- fuck!”

You swirl your thumb over the tip of his cock, smearing beads of precome down his shaft.

“Naughty,” you tease, “I bet you liked the idea that I could catch you, huh? Liked that I could walk in on you at any time?”

He moans. Loud.

“Yes,” he whimpers, “Sometimes I...I…”

“You what, baby?”

“Sometimes I came to the thought of you walking in, and sticking around to help me out. The thought of your mouth on me always pushed me over the edge.”

Your lips curl upwards at his confession, and you drop to your knees. He trembles and has to lean into the counter when you kiss the head of his cock, your tongue poking out slightly.

“Just my mouth though, huh?” You glide your tongue up and down his shaft, supplying him some of the stimulation he needs, but not quite enough to bring him closer to the edge. Right before you take him in your mouth, you look coyly up at him and say, “I can only imagine what my pussy would make you do.”

You swallow him down in one go.

His moan is obscene, and he leans heavily against the counter as you bob your head up and down. In truth, you didn’t really know what you were doing, but you’ve heard enough stories to get the gist of it. In any case, Keigo seemed to be enjoying himself.

You silently slip your hand into your shorts and panties, and start rubbing small circles on your clit. He must catch the change in your moans, because he looks down at you with a hazy expression and ask, “you touching yourself, chickadee?”

You nod around his cock, and he continues to ramble.

“God, I bet you taste amazing, so warm and wet. That’s another thought that always got me off; bending you over my desk and eating you out until you were a squirming, moaning, squirting mess.”

Your walls clench around your fingers, the idea entirely too enticing.

You pull off him completely, continuing to pump him with your free hand. “You think you’d be good enough to make me squirt, huh? I dunno, only a handful of toys have made me do that~”

He swears again, and reaches down suddenly to haul you to your feet.

He kicks his pants off on the way to the bedroom, and once you arrive he pushes you down on the mattress. You bounce a couple times with a giggle, and sink back into the plush blankets. The room is wide enough that you can spread your wings out fully, instead of laying on them.

You maneuver your shirt off your body, while Keigo all but rips your shorts off, wasting no time in spreading your legs so he can get a good view of you.

He peppers soft kisses to the insides of your thighs, golden eyes connecting with yours. “Fuck, I wanna taste you so bad. Can I sweetheart? Can I taste this sweet, soaked pussy?”

“Yes, god, yes!”

He dives in eagerly, his tongue circling your swollen clit a few times before dipping into your drenched hole. He repeats it a few times, earning several shameless moans from you, until he deems you wet enough to slide two of his fingers in.

He crooks his fingers just how you need him to, pressing up against that soft spongey spot inside you. You tremble beneath him, his actions driving you closer and closer to the edge.

“Keigo,” you whine, “baby, I’m gonna come! Fuck, you’re gonna make me come, if you keep doing that I’m gonna make a mess-”

“Fuck yeah, gonna squirt all over my face, chickadee?”

“Keigo-”

He closes his lips around your clit and sucks, and you lose yourself. With a broken cry, you clench around his fingers, hot juices gushing out of you and over his palm.

He doesn’t relent, continuing to pulse his fingers in and out of you, milking out every last drop you can give him. Only when you start to squirm away from overstimulation, does he release you.

“How’s that for ‘good enough’?” he quips, and you break into breathless giggles.

Keigo shucks his shirt and climbs over you, mindful of your wings.

You shamelessly check him out, admiring his toned body. “I’m suddenly a little jealous of all the girls you’ve bedded before me,” you admit, smiling softly.

He strokes your cheek and presses a kiss to your lips. “The media isn’t so kind to me, huh? Making me out to be some kind of womanizer.”

“Surely you’ve been with at least a few people?”

“Nah,” he says, “nothing more than heavy petting, at least. I’m usually too busy for relationships. But you? You can keep up.” He kisses you again, “and you get me.”

Your lips meet a few more times after that, slowly but surely stirring the arousal back into your body. Keigo gently rocks his hips against you, his cock dragging between your thighs and sliding over your clit.

“You’ll -ngh!- you’ll be my first, you know. First all-the-way, at least.” You peek at him through your eyelashes, “is that okay?”

He lines his cock up with your entrance.

“As long as you don’t mind being my official first, either.”

He pushes in slowly, allowing you the time to adjust to the wider stretch. You tremble as he fills you, never having felt so full as with him inside you. It’s...strange. But good. So good.

“Fuck, you feel incredible,” he mutters as he bottoms out inside you, “my daydreams didn’t do you any justice.”

“Lucky you, then. You get to have me whenever -and wherever- you want, now.”

He groans, trying not to rut senselessly into you.

“Chickadee, you can’t say things like that when I’m literally on the edge of coming.”

“Awh,” you play innocent, “does my pussy feel that good?”

“Y/N…” he warns.

“What? You wanna stuff your fat cock into my tight pussy? Pound it ‘til it’s all nice and sloppy? Bet you could get me to squirt again, fuck me until I’m stupid and can’t move-”

You squeak in surprise when he suddenly flips you onto your stomach, nearly catching him in the face with a wing.

“The mouth on you,” he scolds lowly, making you clench around him, “when you’re sore later, remember that you’re the one who asked for it!”

You barely have any time to gasp before he’s pounding you into the bed, hard and fast. The obscene sound of skin slapping echoes throughout the room, and soon you’re moaning in earnest, hands fisting into the once-tidy sheets.

Keigo is all but laying on top of you, pressing you firmly into the mattress while he slides roughly in and out of you. You’re so close already, and with the way you’re convulsing around him, you’re sure he knows it, too. You reach down to rub at your clit, but he slaps your hand away and pins your wrists beside your head.

“Nuh uh, sweetheart,” he nips at your bare shoulder, “if you wanna come, you come on my cock. Understood?”

You quake and tremble beneath him, the onslaught of pleasure driving you wild. You babble mindlessly against the sheets, bucking your hips back to meet his every thrust.

“Please!” you beg, “please, Keigo, please make me come! Touch me, please, please, I wanna come again, I need-”

He relents finally, his desire to watch you lose control greater than his desire to watch you squirm. He snakes a hand beneath you, fingers gliding easily over your dripping pussy. He rubs quick circles onto your clit, and you keen, tumbling over the edge.

His own thrusts only last a few more seconds before he’s following you into bliss, emptying out inside you. He grinds against you for a while, drawing your orgasms out as long as he can, and eventually stills.

You’re both breathing hard, sweaty bodies sticking together. You can feel the wetness on the bed where you came (twice) but you’re too spent to care. All you care about are the gentle kisses Keigo is littering across your back and shoulders, and the soft praises he whispers.

“You’re gonna need to get a cloth,” you sigh happily, once you can breathe easier, “because I don’t think I can walk.”

You both laugh a little, still dazed with bliss, and he kisses the side of your head.

“On it, chickadee.”

[the-sheep]

ID GO ABSOLUTELY BONKERS IF U TYPED OUT HIS ENTIRE HISTORY FBFBFBFB i would like 2 see it..........

alright right right

This ended up being A HUGE POST so all info is under the cut.

Unless you’re on mobile, in which case, enjoy scrolling.

It all starts on flight rising. Well, Heart starts on FR. It REALLY starts with my webcomic/animated series.

It wasn’t well drawn or animated at first, but it steadily got better. One of the plot holes, back in 8th grade, was “who created priscilla and Jake?”

It was mostly summed up to “Penny made all the bots its all simple” but i was a middle schooler and i needed a complicated (and edgy) story. 

Thing is I had already made Fandragons of a good chunk of my ocs on flight rising.

I bred two dragons to get my main characters, so why not just use them?

Christy Suggested the name Cavet, and I liked it.

Yeah this is my first digital image of him as a human and he DOES NOT LOOK RIGHT

no necklace, no beard, orange eyes…

horrific.

So I made human designs for them both, but Chrysanthemum remains forgotten, not even canon to Mechanical Fury anymore.

Here’s old art of her and Cavet back before she got wiped out from existence.

the art is bad btu the Heart gimmick is there

Here’s him in his second image ever. The one that pretty much defined his design.He also quickly gained a husband

Anyway he quickly morphed into a villain several time more dangerous than the main villain

He’s responsible for the deaths of not ONE, not TWO, but THREE children.

Two his kids, one the younger sister of a character that one of the dead kids liked.

One of his dead kids got his own story, the other was literally a main character.

Chloride, (Charlie) in all his glory, lucky enough to get resurrected as an android but after finding out he’s not who he thinks he is, has to attempt to live a normal Human life… when his two best friends are paranormal investigators, his love interest having lost their arm and their only remaining sister to the main villain.

He originally found out he was an android by finding his own blueprints, hearing his Mom cry about it, and then cutting open his face (for his signature scar) and running off. 

Running into Cavet’s husband, Nathair Liu. He stitches him up, know all about robotic n all that but he is.

also a secondary villain….

I hate the art in this video but its not my worst.

(Video was Vendy’s debut, too. tho Vendy was more Nate(logan/mind/princi/whatever)’s kid than Cavet’s)

Okay i’ve gotten off track.

Yeah at this point I was really loving Cavet, on FR, and wrote an entire long story between him and Skittles based on the events of Mechanical Fury.

This was where I got the idea for reincarnation.

I needed an explanation for why the same character was in two different universes, and it was perfect. In fact, it lead to an amazing way to end it. 

But what is in control of all this? What does he see in the in between?

Well, Death was packaged with two other red herrings to keep people from thinking she was more important than them from the start, when in fact, she was. One of the plot points is that Cavet dies. He continues causing havoc, but nobody can figure out why or how. he doesn’t have a body.

Except he does. Death.

She was scary, but that was just her, she was a literal robot grim reaper. Nobody suspected she was spreading a virus to make robots susceptible to Augap’s control everywhere she went. Not even her. Cav liked hanging out in the AI scape, AKA the robot afterlife or virtual heaven.

What a fun way to make a real grim reaper.

I never really kept track of the transition from “cute robot char” to “cute real god char”

and i guess it never happened. Heart still thinks of her as she was, as cute little Litty. Except when she’s not. He gave form to the literal concept of DEATH. And became her friend. She still calls him Papa, sometimes.

In any case, Cavet’s doodles started being more and more revolving around his angst with the reincarnation.

in fact, i had a few character in the same boat as him, as I had made a couple dragons into MF characters as well.

I called them The Artifacts. It didn’t seem rounded out with only four, so I added a 5th. To give me more leeway in case I make a character i like enough to bring with them.

and turns out. I did.

I was sad enough about Cavet losing the love of his life, betraying him, creating a rift between them with his descent into obsession.

So he came with them.

They’re inseparable.

after a few lives of getting revenge on him for killing his sons and some adult humans and a BUNCH of robots, (not even counting his crimes in the vampire life he committed because he thought he lost Liu forever) Soul revealed to him something about Heart’s 6th life, which Mind doesn’t remember.

But he was there.

Long story short, he was Captain Shuggazoom. Yeah 10 lives of stuff he forgot before he started remembering his past lives. Messed Heart up.

ANYWAY BACK TO DEVELOPMENT!

I went around, making original characters to fill in Heart’s lives. I put him in a LOT of stories, but a notable one is My Old Ask Blog, @ask-musical-monsters

In which Heart is our lovable Tweedle, Bean.

He’s the bird. (this is also the blog where Willow was made!) (also a character i referenced when putting antauri on the baldi blog)

I still hadn’t abandoned MF so Bean has a lot of influence from Cavet. 

I REALLY liked bean. It occured to me here-ish that Heart isn’t constrained by being my oc. He can be whoever he wants and nobody will care. 

So of course I immediately declare him purple guy. No drawings of him, but I know I said he was purple guy at some point. Also at this point in time I started organizing the lives by number order, and making a simple arc for Heart and the others to follow.

1000 lives. 

I made a brief description of heart’s 1st life, but made it purposefully very superfluous so i can change it whenever i want. All i know is he had albinism, and a desire to live forever.

That summer I got an amazing idea. I would take advantage of the Baldi’s basics trend with a ASK BLOG.

It was a mathematically calculated success. I did as many things as possible to generate more audience. MAIN thing being posting as often as possible, and being REALLY funny. 

But knew I wasn’t going to like adding to the ask blog if i didn’t like the main character

I already knew he was going to be Baldi, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to characterize him either. 

Turns out making him heart solved both of those problems. He’s always been Heart.

And Princi has ALWAYS been mind.

Even if they don’t always show their artifacts, they always were the same people as all these other things ive made. They have a DEEP connection to both each other and me.

At some point, I re-re-discovered SRMTHFG. The first few seconds I saw SK I knew he was Heart. It was so perfect it scared me.

HE EVEN DOES THE POSE!!!!! RED EYES!!!! AAAH!!!

I got an idea for a storyline based on formless and regret and monkeys… so.. uh

Anyway that kinda brings us to today, where the events of the blog have happened based on Heart things, and i can play around with Heart as much as I want.

And Willie’s next life? Well, 23 is my favorite number. It’ll be cool, but I’m not sure how. All I know is 23 wears a striped shirt, and is a vamp again.

In summary, Heart is the most important character I’ve ever made, and I will never come close to anybody as wonderful and as complicated as him. He’s the greatest formless, the best villains, the heroes, and one character i want to hold out for finding irl.

 I love them even in scribbles i find on bus seats, in fanart of him, love her in songs i hear, in flowers i see in the wild.

Whoever they end up being, it’s safe to say I’ve fallen in love with Heart. 

If you want me to describe his in universe story, I’ll need a seperate post.

Other Heart Resources:

The Spreadsheet

The Playlist

[lawyernovelistpersonal]

Fall of Laketown Remix 4/7

*Bard climbs onto a bell tower and starts shooting at Smaug*

Bain: Da!

Tilda: Da!

*Bard keeps shooting at Smaug but it has no effect*

Kili: He hit it! He hit the dragon!

Tauriel: No.

Bofur: Yes, he did. It didn't make any difference, but he did hit it.

Tauriel: That's a little nitpicky, don't you think?

Bofur: Just saying.

Kili: He did, he hit its mark, I saw!

Tauriel: These arrows cannot pierce its hide. I fear nothing will.

Kili: OK, question: How come you know more about how to take down dragons than I do? Given my family history, you'd think that how to kill dragons would at least have been a subject of discussion around the place as I was growing up, even if it weren't an active part of my education.

Tauriel: That's irrelevant; I know more than you because I have to be the smartest person here.

Sigrid: Do you know about black arrows?

Tauriel: ... Sure.

Fili: You don't, actually; you just said nothing would pierce the dragon's hide.

Tauriel: Shut up.

Sigrid: Regardless, I know all four of these dwarves do, since their leader went out of his way to blame my great-grandfather for the destruction of Dale and Erebor. Which was entirely unnecessary, by the way.

Bain: Yeah, and I mentioned that thanks to him Smaug has a loose scale.

Kili: Excellent point. And that means that maybe we don't even need a black arrow!

Tauriel: Well, if you know that then so does your father, and if that were what it meant then he clearly can't shoot straight, so is it that or do we need a black arrow which we don't have?

Sigrid: Well, he can definitely shoot straight, so I guess we still need the black arrow for some reason.

Bain: Man, I was really hoping that there was a reason I brought up the loose scale.

Sigrid: I guess it really was just to prove that our great-grandfather got some sort of consolation prize, even though it was ultimately worthless.

*Bain notices the boat where he left the black arrow*

Bain: Huh. That's convenient. I thought for sure someone would have taken that boat by now, with all this going on.

*he grabs a hook and swings off the boat*

Bofur: What are you doing?

Fili: Come back! Bain! Come back!

Bofur: Bain!

Tilda: Hey, Sigrid?

Sigrid: Yes?

Tilda: How come we're not trying to call him back?

Sigrid: The movie's decided we've dropped out of existence again, I guess.

Fili: Come back here!

Bofur: Bain!

Bain: I'm going to get the black arrow! It's just there!

Fili: Why didn't you say so?

Sigrid: Better yet, why didn't you mention before that you'd hidden it? I thought the Master had confiscated it when Da was arrested!

Bain: I didn't think it would matter!

Sigrid: Did you tell me anything when you got back?

Bain: Uh... gotta go!

Tauriel: Leave him! We cannot go back.

Tilda: Bain!

Sigrid: Leave him? You're seriously going to just abandon my little brother to die?

Tauriel: We have to let him go because he needs to get the black arrow to your father to kill Smaug. By not bringing him back I'm making Smaug's death possible; you're welcome.

Sigrid: We established earlier that you don't know what black arrows are or that they're the one thing that can pierce a dragon's hide, so you don't know that!

Tauriel: Look, Sigurd -

Sigrid: Sigrid, actually.

Fili: Ironic, really, since Sigurd famously killed a dragon with a sword.

Sigrid: I thought you were meant to be compassionate!

Tauriel: How am I not being compassionate? Look at me getting everyone to safety!

Sigrid: You're coldly saying to me and Tilda that we have to abandon our father and our brother to burn to death! Could you at least pretend you care about how traumatic this is for us, even if you don't give a damn about his life?

Tauriel: Are you main characters?

Sigrid: No...

Tauriel: Then your feelings are irrelevant.

Sigrid: You are a horrible person.

Fili: What's more, who exactly put you in charge?

Tauriel: Pardon?

Fili: It was already an issue, but now it's a serious issue because you're ordering us to do something morally wrong. Since when were you in charge?

Tauriel: Since I was the main character, now get back in your plot hole!

Bofur: Fili, I agree with you, but she killed several orcs without breaking a sweat, none of us have weapons, she clearly has no regard for life, and there's Oin, Kili, Sigrid, and Tilda to consider. I think you need to keep your head down because I suspect she'd kill any of us just as easily.

Tauriel: Of course I care about life! I'm compassionate!

Kili: I think I should remind you about the way you refused to give me a dagger to defend myself when I was being attacked by spiders, implying that until you saw how hot I am you were OK with letting me die.

Tauriel: Whose side are you on?

Kili: Just saying.

Fili: Do you care about anyone other than yourself and Kili?

Tauriel: Well, I've got to say I don't see you jumping out to go get the kid either.

Sigrid: His name's Bain.

Fili: I have to stay and look after Kili.

Kili: I can walk!

Fili: No you can't.

Tauriel: Any of the rest of you?

Bofur: I'd love to, but the movie seems to have decided my only role is comic relief. I don't even know what the point of me being in Laketown at all is.

Oin: I'm old and deaf except when the movie forgets. I don't really know what the point of me being on this quest is.

Sigrid: Plus I suspect both of you have joined me and Tilda in having dropped out of the universe.

Kili: Question.

Fili: Kili, be quiet.

Kili: No, seriously, what's wrong with this picture? Tauriel's healed me, so why am I still lying in the bottom of this boat being ignored by everyone? I'm supposed to be the romantic lead in this film. Why am I not an option for going to help Bard?

Fili: Maybe she hasn't actually completely healed you.

Kili: I'm going to walk to Erebor tomorrow.

Fili: ... Just get some rest, Kili.

Kili: I'm actually serious. I really ought to have a role - or at least a real line - in this scene. And I'll tell you another reason: I'm supposed to be an archer. These movies have repeatedly gone out of their way to draw attention to that, and for what? Why can't I be involved in the scene where my ancestral enemy is taken down through archery, especially since the black arrow was right there? Surely there's a reason it was separated from Bard to begin with, especially since Bain was able to just find it again with no effort?

Sigrid: That's a good point. Why couldn't Da have just had the black arrow if he was going to need it? Why does Bain need to risk his life for this?

Fili: I agree. Kili obviously can't get involved in a fight right now -

Kili: True love, Fili!

Fili: - But why was the black arrow separated from Bard if not so that someone who has been set up as a badass and an archer can go and get it to him and help, as opposed to a child?

Tilda: Elves are good archers, right, elf-lady? That's a good reason you could have gone to help him.

Kili: Not to mention all the awesome parkour we saw you doing in Mirkwood. You'd even have a better chance of getting past crowds, fire, and canals than any of us.

Tauriel: How did this become about me again?

Sigrid: I'm sorry, isn't everything? After all, you're the main character.

Tauriel: You know what? I'm getting Kili out and that's what matters. Anyone who has a problem with that is welcome to get out and walk.

Tilda: *crying*

Tauriel: OK, look, Tilly -

Sigrid: Tilda.

Tauriel: Whatever. It's going to be fine. Your father and brother are both going to survive without a scratch on them.

Tilda: You don't know that!

Tauriel: Yes I do, because if Bain were killed then it would mean I'd just done something awful, and that can't happen, so he's going to be fine.

Tilda: That doesn't make any sense!

Tauriel: *handwave* It's going to be fine.

Sigrid: *handwave* Asshole.

[testingcheatsenabletrue]

My One, My Only, My Guardian…

[pt.1] [pt.2] 

[pt.3] (???????????????)

——————

“Uhm… Guardian?”

The exo grumbled, tugging her jacket over her shoulder.

“Guardian, I-I don’t think-“

“Neit’er do I. Let me sleep."

I whimpered and rattled in my shell. This.. wasn’t how I expected this to go. Granted, I don’t really know what I expected. But it sure wasn’t this.

“Guardian-“

“Mot’erfucker!” my Risen sat up abruptly and glared at me, which is possibly the most terrifying sight in the solar system. “Why do ya keep calling me ‘Guardian’, t’at isn’t my name, ye little gobshite.”

“Y-you remember your name!”

“Yeah? Who teh fuck doesn’t?”

“Well, n-normally after resurrection, people don’t really remember, well, anything of their past life. Mostly because they’ve been dead for so long, the memories have deteriorated, a-and just generally stuff gets lost in the resurrection process…. W-whats your name, Guardian?”

My Risen stared at me, her glare still in place, but a little less… glare-ey.

“Guardian?”

“Lets just stick wit’ ‘Guardian’.”

“Oh! We-well, that’s okay. The past isn’t important, what’s important is the here and now, and the future we make together!”

“Toget’er?”

“Oh, right, uh, the basics. Take a seat, because this is a long one-“

“Oh no,” my Risen grumbled. “Can we get somewhere else first? I’m not likin’ teh vibes of t’is place. Too out in teh open.”

“Good idea – I-I don’t like the, uhm-“

A distant rumble of pykes made us both tense up.

“Did you just fart?”

“No, that’s Fallen. We need to get somewhere and hide. You’re not prepared to fight them yet.”

“Yet?”

“That’s part of the long explanation I’ll give you. Hold still.”

I moved towards my Risen, who flinched as I did. I hid away – it was strange, almost natural. I just. Faded away. Like a ghost.

Maybe that’s why we’re called that.

“What teh fuck-“

“I’m still with you, don’t worry. I won’t ever leave your side, Guardian.”

“Full offense, floaty marshmallow dude, yer freaky as shit.”

“Ow,” I winced. “It’s.. that’s fine, I’ll explain everything later. It’ll all make sense then!”

“Pinky promise?”

“Not enough time. Run!”

My Risen scoffed, throwing her hands in the air in frustration. She looked around the area quickly, almost not giving any thought before she ran towards the nearest building.

“Not a good idea, head the other way. Away from the pykes.”

“Yer shitting me,” she instantly turned heel and bolted in the opposite direction, fixing her clothes as she went. “Why are my clothes all fucked?”

“You were dead a long time. Also, I may have messed them up while unburying you.”

Her voice snarled as she hopped along on one leg, tucking her pants into her boots, “I was fuckin’ buried?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Well t’at’s just grand!”

After a hilarious show of tumbling through the streets towards the outskirts of the city, tripping over every possible piece of rock, rubble, and scrap imaginable (all while spouting all manor of unsavory and… just in general things I refuse to repeat on principle), my Risen was able to run far from any place the Fallen would think to go.

“We should find a place to hide.”

“Tell me what I don’ know.”

“You’ve been dead for centuries.”

“On me ass I was.”

“You were.”

“What year is it?”

“I… actually don’t know.”

“T’at’s sad, Marshmallow Dude.”

Not sure how I feel about that name. On one hand, I’m insulted, but on the other, I feel like screaming and flying around in circles from happiness because its... so nice to have a name of my own. Marshmallow...

My Risen eyed the nearby houses, slowly stalking through the streets, like she was hunting for something. She had a very tough walk, radiating a confidence and swagger I don’t think I’ve seen before. She didn’t seem to care about being subtle. It.. it was kinda cool... just a little...

She turned on her heel very suddenly, half-jogged towards a house that, despite the half caved-in roof, seemed relatively untouched in comparison to the previous buildings we passed by. She peered in the window.

“I can see if the doors unlo-“

She smashed in the window with her elbow and climbed in.

“Or.. you could do that.”

My Risen slowly walked through the long-abandoned living room, taking a brief look around before peering up through a hole in the ceiling. I came out of hiding and flew up, giving the upper rooms a quick scan.

“Looks like the floor in this room caved in a while ago,” I called down. “But everything else still accessible. Might be something in here we could use to arm you.”

“Nice.”

“Stairs are due East, far corner.”

“That’s gas, ya have a compass, do ya?”

“No?”

“T’en can ya give me directions in ‘left-right-forward-back’ ‘cause I have no clue which way is deweast.”

Huh?

“Uh… towards the far wall from the window we came in, left, forward to the far wall then left again?”

“T’anks.”

A ruckus came from the stairs. Stomping, presumably from my Risen walking up the stairs, then a thump, and a loud swear.

“Forgot t’is is made fer short people.”

“Sorry?”

“Not yer fault, Marshmallow, unless ya built t’is place.”

“I don’t have hands.”

“No way, I couldn’t tell.”

I… giggled. She was funny! I couldn’t help it!

“Kay, well, while we’re looking – whats teh craic?”

I turned to the door, “What?”

“What- uh. What’s… up?” my Risen hobbled forward into view, rubbing the back of her neck as she leaned forward, the top of her shoulder blades dragging across the ceiling. I… did not realize how tall she was.

She has to be a Titan… has to be.

“Uhm. Nothing much? Well, actually, a lot. Like. Life changing a lot. I mean, I just resurrected you after searching for hundreds of years, after all.”

“Hundreds of years?”

“You’ve been dead for… a long time.”

“I was dead?”

“Uh- yes? You were buried, remember? Sorry, I-I thought the connection was already made-”

“Shit.”

“I-I know that can be kinda scary to hear, but just, uhm, just don’t think about it! I mean, you’re alive now, and that’s what matters.”

“Wait, so are you some sort of like… I dunno… t’ingy t’at resurrects people?”

I shook with excitement. This was one of the things I have been waiting for, for so, so long….

Did not expect it to be in a decrepit house with my Risen stuck in a doorway and pinned between the ceiling and floor like an oversized doll in a toyhouse, but who could expect that?

“In a way. I’m a, uh, thingy that resurrects you. I’m your Ghost.”

My Risen stared blankly at me.

“There are a lot of Ghosts. Hundreds, thousands, maybe even millions of Ghosts. Each one was created by the Traveler to find their chosen, their Risen, so that they can protect humanity from the forces of darkness.”

“T’is sounds like a plot to some sort of epic fantasy game.”

“It-“ I paused. “It kinda does, but it’s reality.”

A thousand different expressions crossed my Risen’s face.

“You’re my Risen, my chosen, my Guardian of Humanity. Ergo the whole.. calling you ‘Guardian’ thing. You wield the Light to combat the darkness, and I’ll be right by your side the whole time!”

“T’is really does not sound… real.”

“It is really, really real,” I said. “Oh! Also I can resurrect you if you die again, so don’t worry about that.”

“I-“ my Risen put a hand to her forehead. “Give me a moment.”

“Sure thing.”

She took several deep breaths, drawing invisible lines in the air with her free hand, “Wait, what’s teh Traveler?”

“I’ll show you once we get back to the city.”

“’T’ee’ city?”

“It’s the Last City, protected by the Vanguard and the Guardians, built under the Traveler.”

“Oh so t’is is like a zombie apocalypse t’ing.”

“Not.. not entirely.”

She gave a ‘hmph’ in response and glanced down the hall, then headed right. I hovered just behind her, staring up at the back of her head. Her hands moved slowly, gently grazing over everything in her reach, curious eyes studying every detail down to its finest grain. We came upon a spot where the wallpaper was coming off the wall in thin sheets, and she ripped a piece off without so much as a second of hesitation, ducking into the room just after. She turned the piece over in her hands as she paced about the room, picking pieces off like flower petals, them spinning and twirling as they fell from her fingers like leaves from a tree when the weather starts to get cold. 

As the last bits of the wallpaper fell to the ground, she started to look at her hands. Flexing each one of her fingers in order, waving her hands in front of her face as if they were some sort of alien object she had just discovered.

I wonder how she’d react to real alien tech... It might be funny. But this? It was just. Fascinating to watch. I couldn’t describe the feeling. Relief? Adoration? For a moment, I forgot where we were. What we were doing. I was completely distracted by the sight of my Risen, watching her take in all the sights and sounds and feelings as we slowly walked through this abandoned house.

We’d have a house together, soon. Like a itty bitty one that Guardians get given. I’ve heard they’re really cute... I wonder what ours will be like. We can grow plants! Maybe those flowers I wanted to pick her? Do you think she likes red flowers? No, pink? Yellow? Red. She seems like she likes red. She has red-liking energy.

My Risen halted at the window. She inspected her clothes, running her hands along every seam and through every pocket, head rising as she gradually turned to look out though the warped glass. The dim light from the cloudy-day sky surrounded her silhouette, the dust in the air dancing through the beams of light. My shell twirled and I sighed.

My Risen…

Her head suddenly snapped to the side. I couldn’t make anything out, save for her bright, teal eyes staring at me from the pitch darkness of her silhouette. I fell to the ground like a rock, stunned by a wave of fear.

“What? What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Lightbulb,” she said, shoving her hand through the window and pulling out the window’s vertical cross section.

And that was all she said for the remainder of the hour as she ferociously assembled what looked to be a staff, with shards of glass and broken wood hastily attached via all manner of tape an knots. I wasn’t exactly sure where she found the tape. She claimed it was in the drawer of a nearby dresser, but I wasn’t too sure about that. I didn’t notice her finding it at all. The whole time, I sat in just. Complete awe. The fact she came up with this, seemingly on the fly, astounded me.

She really was the perfect Guardian.

“We should get you to the Last City,” I said, still only half aware of what was actually going on.

My Risen grunted in response.

“It’s not too far from here, a week’s travel by foot, maybe.”

She twirled the staff in the air, presumably testing it to see what needed to be fine-tuned.

“If we grab ourselves some sort of vehicle that was a least a little functional, that could be brought down to a few days.”

“If we could get a plane it could be a few hours.”

“A plane?”

My Risen pointed to the collar of her jacket. I lifted myself off the ground and hovered closer, inspecting the spot. There was a rusted metal pin, seemingly in the shape of a bird of sorts. At the very least, it had wings.

“It’s.. a bird? Winged thing? What about it?”

“Wing t’ings means I used ta be a pilot. Not sure what kind, but t’at don’t matter. I could probably fly a plane. Planes are fast, right?”

“How do you know that?”

“Know what?”

“The- the pilot thing. The wings could mean anything! And even if you were a pilot in your past life…” I spun my shell anxiously. “What makes you think you can fly a plane in this one?”

“Well, what could happen if I fuck up? I die? Ya just said you can revive me.”

“That-“

Oh no.

She’s clever.

My Risen slammed her staff against the wall, it - remarkably - stayed in one piece as it punctured the wall with a watery thunk. I shivered at the sound of her resulting cackle.

“Here’s teh plan, Marshmallow,” she propped herself against the staff and climbed to her knees, looking down to me with wild eyes. I could tell: she was ready for an adventure. “We’re in a big city. We wander I fer a bit, pick up a zoomy boy and fix it up real quick, use it to find a place wit’ planes er somet’in’, ‘cause big cities always have t’ose. T’en we nab one of t’ose big boys, I get us in teh air, and you give me directions to t’is Last City place. T’en, boom-“

“We crash?!”

“Hell yeah!” she stood excitedly, slamming her head against the ceiling, causing dust to poof out of it in thick clouds. She winced, instantly hunching over and placing a hand on her head. “Fuck!”

“Careful!”

I bolted to the air and scanned my Risen, squeaking with worry. I healed whatever damage she sustained.

“Let’s get outta here. I wanna fly a big boy.”

“You’ll fly a big boy eventually, but let’s take it slow, okay? There’s still Fallen… and I just resurrected you.”

“I have t’is pole, t’ough.”

“They have guns.”

My Risen stared at me.

“Lots of guns.”

“So I gotta steal teh guns.”

“I- You definitely could, yeah, if you could get to them.”

“I’ll get to t’em.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I said I would, and when I say I’m gonna do somet’in’, I do it.”

I chirped and spun my shell, staring at my Risen as the illuminated dust floated about her. She’s amazing, “Before we go-“

“Ya.”

“I just want to say: I love you, you’re amazing, and we’re going to get that big boy.”

“T’at’s the spirit!”

[fanficimagery]

Imagine one of the witches finally finding out just exactly where your loyalties lie when it comes to witches vs. warlocks (Part 2 of 2).

GIF credit: @daebom

Michael X Reader

Downplaying Michael's importance to the witches didn't exactly go as planned seeing as the warlocks couldn't help but brag that one of their own was in line to become The Alpha, which was basically the male equivalent of The Supreme. Sure the witches sighed and rolled their eyes when you waxed poetics about Michael's eyes and smile, and they quickly dismissed your trip as unimportant, but the warlocks couldn't help themselves and now the witches were curious again.

This time when the warlocks put forth a summons, they wanted The Supreme herself. Not one witch wanted to make the trip, but a summons was a summons and The Supreme had to abide by it. So with Cordelia went Myrtle and Zoe, and you were left behind to keep an eye on the newest recruits and help them grow.

You didn't know what to expect from their trip, but them extending their stay wasn't planned. Nor was them coming back with the newly resurrected Queenie, Misty, and Madison, and the fact that Michael had passed the trials of The Seven Wonders. The witches all believed him to be the most powerful warlock they've ever seen and quite possibly the upcoming Alpha Warlock given that Cordelia's own powers were waning. But you? You knew better. You'd tasted the power wafting off of Michael and it was not the essence of a warlock. No, it was the essence of something much, much more.

And though everyone was excited for the return of the three witches, you couldn't help but think that the warlocks had been played and that Cordelia had all this planned. The Supreme freely shared her worries over Michael and told anyone who would listen that she had a vision- a vision of the world on fire and a demon boy standing above all else. The demon boy in question was Michael's true face- a face she saw and tried to warn the warlocks about but none had taken her seriously.

Fortunately for you, Cordelia still believed Michael to be a warlock of some sort and could be eased down a different path- a path of good. However, it soon appeared that a witch under the same roof as you was showing some questionable powers and could quite possibly be the next Supreme herself.

But if Mallory was to be the next Supreme, then what was Michael?

You knew he was no Alpha Warlock, but you didn't think the others would catch on quite this quick.

While Cordelia and Myrtle were keeping tabs on Michael and the warlocks, you'd been keeping an eye on Mallory. Her powers were.. unimaginable and you knew things would quickly get out of hand the moment Cordelia realized the girl's true potential. And then came Mr. Chablis, an instructor from Hawthorne and apparent traitor to all warlocks. When you realized he was running scared after the sudden death of Mr. Moore, yet another instructor from Hawthorne who questioned Michael's intentions, you knew you needed to warn the Grand Chancellor.

Then the last straw that ended up with you fleeing in the middle of the night was when Cordelia made plans for Madison and Mr. Chablis to return to Michael's birth place and question those who knew him. If Michael was as bad as everyone was making him out to be, then you knew no good could come from Cordelia learning any of his weaknesses.

As you left, however, you hadn't realized you'd been followed.

Having sent word ahead to the Grand Chancellor, you're not surprised to be meeting Michael in the woods that surround the Hawthorne school.

Smiling as you reach him, you randomly blurt out, "Bibbidi bobbidi boo. Boy, am I glad to see you." Noting that he's taller, his hair is a bit longer, and that he looks really good in a suit rather than the school uniform, you can't help but blush when he suddenly smiles at you.

"Y/N. Grand Chancellor Augustus told me you had urgent news."

You blink stupidly before clearing your throat. "Uh. Yeah." You clear your throat again when words seem to fail you and then roll your eyes when Michael smirks. "Listen. There's a new witch at the school by the name of Mallory. Cordelia thinks this girl is the next Supreme and right as we speak, I'm pretty sure Madison and Chablis are on the way to where you were born."

"But I'm-"

"Michael, really?" You huff. "Remember who you're speaking with. You don't have to play warlock with me."

His smile falters and then his shoulders slump. "You must have come here with a plan. What do you have in mind now that those witches are going to get the information they want?"

"Divination. The Sight was a bit of a specialty for those in my family." You shrug as if it's no big deal. Michael, however, suddenly seems apprehensive. "But don't worry. I'm not here to judge you for your past. I will admit though that I'm a bit curious about your.. present," you grin while looking him up and down, "but I'm more curious about your future. We need to see if your path crosses with any of the other witches, specifically Mallory."

"Okay. How do you want to do this?"

"I need to touch you." Stepping closer, you hesitantly reach up and hold your hands out on either side of his face. When he doesn't object, you grin and grasp his face in your hands. Immediately, your vision whites out and your head falls back as you go in a trance.

The first thing that comes into focus is a very young Michael as he sits in a rocking chair, blood smeared on his hands and cheek as a woman lays dead at his feet. Scenes of ghost after ghost appear, all of them giving a toddler Michael a wide berth. Michael ages several years over one night, his grandmother getting the scare of her life the following morning. Hundreds of crows circle the house Michael grew up in. Michael experiences odd boughts of heat flashes. A Priest attempts an exorcism, so Michael stabs him with his own crucifix. Michael attempts to choke his grandmother in her sleep, but fails. The grandmother takes her own life when she realizes her grandson is a monster.

You watch as Michael struggles to care for himself out on the streets. Miriam Meade introduces herself to Michael. Miriam feeds and clothes him, she treating him almost as if he was her son. You watch Michael kill a meat butcher who was rude to Miriam. Michael gets locked up and then Grand Chancellor Augustus frees him. From there, the scenes turn to Michael at Hawthorne School and your visit. You see yourself from Michael's eyes and thank whatever deity is listening that you can't blush while under when you hear Michael ask about keeping you.

You ignore the flashes of Michael and the Grand Chancellor plotting, and then sharply inhale when you get to the future. It's.. it's mayhem. Michael is the literal Anti-Christ and has made plans to wipe out nearly everyone.

Ariel, Miriam, and Baldwin are burned at the stake. Michael finds them and swears vengeance against Cordelia who tries to make him see reason. Michael attacks the school- your school!- and kills every witch alongside a robot Miriam. The witches suddenly disappear and Michael becomes in charge of something that's called The Cooperative. Michael, long-haired now, chooses distinct individuals to be holed up in Outposts as the world is nuked.

Mallory is back, as is Coco, but they are different. They have no idea who they are. Mallory's powers flare up when alone with Michael and Michael's true demonic face shows. Surprisingly it doesn't bother you.

There's a battle between Michael and the witches. Madison dies, Marie Laveau is brought back and then killed as Myrtle and Cordelia whisk away Mallory. Coco stabs Michael, so Michael snaps her neck. Mallory gets stabbed and is on the verge of dying, so Cordelia takes her own life. Mallory absorbs the powers of the Supreme and uses a spell that hurls her back in time.

The flashes of Michael's future seem to stall before hurling backwards until you're looking at Michael after he's just killed the Priest in his room. He and his grandmother get into an argument that results with her kicking him out, and then as he's walking outside he's suddenly ran over.

You gasp, your eyes widening as the vehicle reverses over his body and then speeds forward over him yet again. Michael is broken and bloodied, and struggling to breath. When the car momentarily parks and the driver glances out the window, you see red. It's Mallory.

Screaming, you're vision goes white again until you’re back in the present.

"No! No, no, no."

Michael's hands gently wrap around your wrists, he keeping you in place as he tries to catch your gaze. "What is it? What did you see?"

"Mallory." When you meet his gaze you utter the two words that make no sense to him, but makes your heart beat triple because you know the consequences they can have. "Tempus Infinituum."

His brow furrows, but before he can ask what that means.. a gunshot rings out. You both flinch and then you frown when see his now blood splattered face. With wild eyes, Michael's gaze drops from your face to your chest. As if possible, his eyes widen even further. "Y/N!"

You don't understand what's going on until you glance down and see the front of your shirt blossoming with blood. "Oh." It's then the pain finally hits you and your knees buckle.

Michael catches you as you fall, he settling on the forest floor with you in his lap as you struggle to breathe. "Y/N? I don't- what do I do? I don't know what to do."

Twigs snap and leaves crunch, and both you and Michael glance over to the source of the noise. Madison steps forward, pulling down the hood of her cloak and gun still in hand. "Surprise, bitch. We knew something was off with you."

Michael, shaking in his fury, demands, "Why?"

"Because you're somehow going to be the end of our world," she says. "And Y/N would have happily walked at your side. Cordelia couldn't have that."

Gasping for breath, you manage to shakily raise a hand in Madison's direction. She's smirking at you until you squeeze your hand shut and cut off her air supply. Her eyes widen and the gun falls from her grasp, her hands scratching at her throat in a panic. You sneer at her as she struggles to breathe too, but you've had too much blood loss. Your magic wanes and your hand falls limp, and Madison gulps down air greedily.

"Enjoy your stay in hell," she then says as she frantically takes her leave.

Your glare softens as you return your attention to Michael and your heart breaks when you see his tearful gaze. "Tell me what to do," he says.

"Mal-Mallory. Kill her," you stammer.

"What about you? You can't- I can't let you-"

You can taste blood in your throat as you cough. "It's too late- too late for me. I'm sorry."

"No." Michael holds you tighter and he starts rocking you. "I won't let you go."

But the Fates have other plans for you. As you take your last breath, you make sure that the last thing you see is Michael's face. Then everything goes black.

"Y/N?" Michael gently shakes your body. "Y/N!" With no answer, Michael angrily cries out, shouting his anguish towards the sky. He then closes his eyes as he hunches over your body in defeat.. and pleads. "Father, help me. Don't take her." The sound of leaves rustling greet him in response and he has a feeling there's no use in even asking. "Give me a sign. Any sign, Father. Please." Still nothing and Michael's anger bubbles over. He explodes in a rage. "What am I supposed to do?!"

Several minutes pass before Michael hears someone approaching. When he glances up, the Grand Chancellor steps into the clearing. "Michael? What happened?"

"She's dead. Cordelia sent a witch to follow her."

"Why?"

"I- I don't- Y/N said something before she was shot." Sniffling, Michael sits up straight. "Tempus Infinituum. Does that mean anything to you?"

The Grand Chancellor's eyes widen. "Are you sure she said that?"

"Yes. What does it mean?"

"It means they're going back in time. Did she say anything else?"

"No. But she screamed. She looked scared when she came out of the Sight."

There's a moment where warlock and anti-christ stare at one another before the Grand Chancellor seems to come to some sort of conclusion. "Michael, look at me." He waits until Michael does so. "I can bring her back, but if I do this then Y/N has to remain at your side. The two of you must-"

"I will not let her out of my sight."

The Grand Chancellor smiles before lowering himself to the ground. Taking your body gently into his own grasp, the Grand Chancellor situates your body so your head is in his lap. "I can trade a life for a life. It's called Vitalum Vitalis." Michael shows a bit of hesitance, but the Grand Chancellor waves off his concern. "When the two of you are ready, I want you to destroy those witch bitches."

"It shall be done."

The Grand Chancellor smiles before grasping your face in his hands, he then lowering his face until it's hovering just an inch over yours. Then muttering the spell, the Grand Chancellor gently opens your mouth and blows- his life's essence filling you back up.

Gasping awake, you scramble to the side only to have Michael pull you into his lap. Confusion clouds your thoughts as Michael tries to check you over, but you don't bat his hands away. Instead your gaze falls on the Grand Chancellor who's laid out before you on the forest ground and whose expression looks rather content. You frown. "Ariel?"

The Grand Chancellor tiredly smiles. "Make me proud." He stops breathing all together and you choke back a sob as you stare in disbelief at his sudden death.

"Shh. Shhhhh." Michael shushes you. You're both on the ground, you situated between his bent knees with your back to his chest. His arms are wrapped tightly around you and his chin rests on your shoulder. "He gave his life for yours. This is all their fault. They must pay."

"And they will," you deadpan. Still a little out of it, you manage to turn around in Michael's hold. Sitting on your knees, one of your hands comes up to wipe at the blood still splattered all over his face. "Come. We must warn Baldwin of what's happened and then we need to find Miriam. Cordelia will be going after her."

Anger bleeds into Michael's gaze and he stands to his full height, he then offering you a hand up. "Together?"

You grasp his hand and stand. Then with a wicked smile, you nod. "Together."

Reader tag: @hakuriro 

[seeaddywrite]

stars, hide your fires: chapter four

this chapter wouldn’t exist without @soberqueerinthewild‘s cheerleading, handholding, willingness to let me rant at her about my plot holes, & assistance with the word ‘soldier,’ which really shouldn’t be this hard to avoid. also, big thanks to @lire-casander for her cheerleading, assistance with middle names, & general fabulousness. 

the plan is to upload chapter five by Thursday evening :) thanks for reading this crazy adventure of mine.

AO3 LINK

chapter index: 1 || 2 || 3 || 4

It’s frighteningly easy to get a meeting set up with the oldest of Alex’s brothers. Charlie responds almost instantly to the email he sends requesting a face-to-face, and surprises everyone by saying that he’s already in Roswell, and would love to see Alex the next day at 0900. His presence doesn’t bode well for the secrets they’re trying to keep; Charlie’s a sniper in the Air Force Special Operations Task Force. He’s rarely stateside, and for him to be in Roswell either signifies that he knows something, or that there’s something else going on that Alex doesn’t know. Neither option makes Alex particularly optimistic, but he can’t allow it to change anything.

Going in the next day isn’t ideal. Alex had been hoping for longer to research and develop his narrative, but there’s no stalling now. He’d been the one to request the meet -- it’ll look suspicious if he asks to postpone now, which is the last thing he needs. Charlie always had a soft spot for Alex when they were kids, but Alex knows better than to think that will matter if he gives the slightest reason for Charlie to doubt his sincerity. While Charlie may have smuggled him snacks when their father locked him in his room, and brought painkillers to the shed when Alex hid there after a beating, he’s still Jesse Manes’ son. There’s no such thing as the benefit of the doubt in that world.

And, well -- Kyle had said it best, the evening before, when they’d finally settled down to review files and put together a game plan. “Aren’t any of you Manes guys normal meatheads?” he’d demanded, thumbing through Charlie’s file with increasingly anxious fingers. “Look at this! Charles A. Manes. Air Force Silver Star Recipient three different times. Sniper. Special Operations Task Force. Best known for taking out thirteen armed terrorists in a shoot-out by himself -- this is the guy you think has a soft spot for you? Seriously? What if he’s already talked to Flint and decides to shoot you on sight?”

At the time, Alex had waved off the concern and pointed out that none of Jesse Manes’ sons could ever be average. Not if they wanted his approval. Charlie was Spec Ops, Hunter was an ace pilot, and Flint was head of Research and Development in several major projects. They were all brilliant in their fields -- but Alex had the distinct advantage of being the only one who’d given orders. The rest of them, as he’d once accused Flint, are sheep. They’re exceptional as long as there are directives in play; without them, they’ll fall like marionettes with their strings cut.

At least, that’s Alex’s hope. As he stands in the middle of the bunker he’d requisitioned from Jesse Manes all those months ago, face-to-face with a brother he hasn’t seen in close to a decade, he’s not so sure. Valenti may have had a point, after all. Charlie looks nothing like the young man Alex remembers from brief visits between deployments; where once there’d been a liveliness to his dark eyes, there’s now only a cool, calculating stare. Age seems to have wiped away all traces of similarity to their mother, and Alex feels an uncomfortable wave of deja vu. Staring Charlie down in this bunker bears way too much similarity to the day he’d played the same game with their father and come out on top.

Sandy colored hair, shorn in military style that hides the greys just beginning at the temples, posture so ramrod straight that it looks painful, and features that may as well be carved out of granite -- Charlie’s entire appearance screams ‘Jesse Manes’ son,’ and Alex can’t help but wonder if he’s made a mistake, expecting any measure of softness from this man.

Just as he’s psyching himself out, though, Charlie steps forward and slaps Alex’s back in greeting. It’s as close to real affection as any of the Manes boys get, and, paired with a cool smile, it signifies that things are going even better than Alex could have hoped for. “It’s good to see you, kid,” Charlie tells him, glancing around the underground headquarters as if he was reacquainting himself with a space he hadn’t seen in a while. “You’re looking pretty good for a guy who got on the wrong end of an IED not so long ago. I’m impressed.”

Alex can’t help but stand a little straighter as Charlie looks him over, the response as automatic and ingrained as jerking awake at the first ray of sun on his face or jumping to attention when he hears the order. He’s spent a lot of time on base acting as if he’s still got two legs -- pity isn’t something he can tolerate, and at first, there’d been no escaping it. It’s not pity that he’s worried about with Charlie, though; he just doesn’t want to give away any weaknesses. His missing leg is something that can’t be helped, nor can his brother’s knowledge of the injury, but he can damn well be sure that it’s made clear that the prosthetic doesn’t slow him down.

“Sorry I couldn’t get back Stateside when you lost the leg,” Charlie continues, still scrutinizing Alex from all sides. “I tried, but I got shipped overseas two days later. Did you get my letter?”

It’s so far from the suspicious welcome that Alex had been bracing for that he’s momentarily speechless.

“I -- uh, yeah, I did,” Alex says when he pulls himself back together, and nods jerkily. “I meant to write back, but -”

Charlie shakes his head, a bizarrely affable smile on his face. “Don’t worry about it. You had more important things to worry about.” He moves around one of the temporary tables Alex has set up in the bunker, his every step infused with the sort of deadly grace that Alex could never hope to emulate. Charlie glances at some of the carefully-selected files spread out on top of the table. He never pauses long, but the laser-focus of his gaze tells Alex that he’s cataloguing every detail for later perusal.

It’s part of the plan, for Charlie to see the work Alex has been doing, to believe he’s as dedicated to protecting the world from aliens as the rest of the men in their family, but he still has to clench his fists in the pockets of his jacket to stop from fidgeting. There’s nothing about Michael or the Evans’ twins in the contents of those pages; Alex refuses to endanger them further, even though Max and Guerin had both told him to use whatever he had to in order to get the information he needed. There are too many ways for that to backfire, though, and he refuses to risk it. There are other ways to earn his way into Project Shepherd than by throwing his people under the bus.

“So,” Charlie says, after another moment of rifling through the files. “Dad decided to read you in, huh?”

This is where it starts to get tricky, and Alex feels every muscle in his body tense. It’s an effort to maintain his nonchalant facade, but he manages it. “I had to hack into his databases first,” he tells the other man honestly. “But, yeah. Eventually.” He’s talked through his story with Kyle and Guerin at least twenty times the night before, and he’s prepared for anything Charlie might ask. Anxiety ebbs away as he slides into the well-rehearsed cover, and Alex feels himself becoming steadier, more dangerous -- more of the man who’d survived Baghdad and ten years of active duty service.

“You know Dad would never trust me voluntarily. That hasn’t changed.” It’s no use pretending that Jesse had a magic change of heart about Alex’s ‘weakness.’ No one would be fooled. So the narrative isn’t so different from the truth, at least to begin. “But since I figured out the truth, even he can’t deny how useful I can be. At the very least, I can shore up your cyber defenses, because it took me less than half an hour to break in and get all of the intel on the Project’s servers. His access password was ‘password,’ for Christ’s sake.” There’s no pride in his tone, just matter-of-fact honestly and scorn for Jesse’s computer illiteracy.

“And then I found out about Caulfield, and I wanted to see it for myself, you know? I thought Dad was crazy, but if there was proof …” Alex lets the thought trail off deliberately, knowing that sometimes less is more when it comes to this sort of story.

The mention of the off-books base makes Charlie’s expression darken, just enough that Alex notices. He leans back against the wall, arms crossed over his chest in a way that makes his muscles stand out in stark relief against his brown t-shirt, and Alex’s jaw tightens momentarily. If Charlie thinks things like overt displays of physical dominance are enough to scare him, he’s got another thing coming -- after growing up in a house with their father, Alex is pretty much desensitized to anything that Charlie could possibly try.

“And then you went to Caulfield,” he prompts expectantly, eyes narrowed shrewdly. It’s a standard interrogation tactic employed by the military: don’t give away any of the answer when the question is asked. Use prompts rather than specifics. Lets the detained person say what’s really on their mind, take the answer in the direction they want -- and usually, they’ll implicate themselves.

Alex isn’t that stupid. He blinks wide, guileless eyes, and nods slowly. “Yeah. Then I went to Caulfield.” He leaves Kyle out of the story for now. Flint knows, so it’ll come up at some point, but Alex isn’t eager to bring his friend into the tale, and it’s not really relevant at the moment, anyway. “I had to see them for myself, Charlie. I mean, aliens? It sounds like something out of a fucking Star Wars movie, not real life. I needed to see it. So I went.”

As he speaks, Alex is careful to maintain that careful air of naivete. The act balances on the knife’s edge between uselessness and innocence, and he needs to stay just on the side of innocence. If he takes it too far, Charlie will write him off as foolish and unhelpful, and that’s the last thing he wants -- but it’s important he play the awed younger brother just trying to follow in the family footsteps. That’s his ticket into the game.

Charlie nods, his expression no less guarded. “And?”

Christ, he’s not making this easy. Not that Alex had expected him to -- but it would have been nice.

“And it’s hard to deny the truth when you’re standing right in front of them,” Alex says bluntly, letting some of the incredulity and fear he’d felt in that place seep into his expression. It feels odd, to be so calculating of his every movement and facial tic around someone that’s supposed to be his family, but he doesn’t let that stop him from doing it anyway. “Dad’s right. You’re all right. There are fucking aliens invading our planet -- and I want to be part of trying to stop them.”

Silence echoes in the space between the two men, and Alex doesn’t look away from Charlie, doesn’t give him the chance to think that he might be lying. Instead, he lets that announcement sink in for a moment, then continues: “I know you’ve heard Dad saying that I’m weak for our entire lives, but I’ve served three tours on active duty, and did my time on the ground, just like the rest of you. I signed up to serve and protect my country, and I’ve done it. That’s part of who I am, now, and I can’t just ignore the alien threat. Dad may not like it, but I’m part of this family, too. Protecting people is in my DNA just as much as it is yours -- I want to be a part of Project Shepherd. I want to help.”

The lies taste like ash in his mouth, and everything integral to Alex’s being rebels against the idea of being just another Manes sheep with no free will of his own. He’s had literal nightmares about that, about what he could have been capable of if his father had been able to crush his will. But he knows what Charlie wants to hear -- it’s the same thing all of his brothers have wanted to hear for his entire life. They want him to be one of them, another nameless airman in the generational parade, want him to stop asking questions and fall in line. And, most importantly, Alex knows what Charlie will be willing to believe. He’s learned from experience that people remember their first encounters with a person more than anything else. And to Charlie, Alex is always going to be the little boy determined to follow in his big brother’s footsteps, desperate for approval and in need of protection and advice.

Charlie shifts his weight on his shiny, black boots, and looks at Alex steadily. “We’ve already got three people trying to run things here, Alex,” he says carefully, and the omission of ‘kid’ is either a sign of respect, or a signal that Charlie is trying to distance himself from Alex. Guessing which is dangerous, so Alex doesn’t try. “And even if I say yes, Dad’s not likely to be happy about it when he gets back. He’s been pretty clear about not wanting you onboard for a long time.”

He appreciates that Charlie doesn’t try to pretend that Jesse Manes gives two shits about Alex. It’s easier that way, with at least some honesty between them -- and Alex has always hated it when someone tried to tell him that his father does care about him. Fathers who love their sons don’t break their bones to show it. They don’t spend years attempting to reshape their souls with their fists, like it’s nothing more than clay on a potter’s wheel.

Alex snorts. “Dad’s never wanted me around, Charlie. That’s not news to me. But you said ‘when he gets back,’ right?” He’s walking the razor’s edge, now, and knows that if he over or under sells the act here, this is as far his mission will go. “If he’s not here, you’re running things.” It’s not a guess; Alex is no stranger to chain of command, and Charlie’s the highest ranking of the brothers by virtue of age, at the very least.

“I’ve been stateside for three days, Alex,” Charlie says with a sigh, running a hand over his shorn hair. It’s the first sign of stress that he’s shown since arrival, and it’s enough to tell Alex that he’s getting somewhere. Charlie wants the extra help, wants to have another person to depend on -- it’s a fair bet he’s got access to Alex’s personnel file, too, and knows that Alex has the skills to actually be helpful.

In other words, Alex has got an opening, and he’s going to exploit it.

“And I’ve only been in Roswell for less than twenty-four hours. Dad fucked off somewhere without any warning months ago, and Flint and Hunter have taken on most of the responsibility here. I can’t just read you in without talking to them first. It wouldn’t be right -- especially since Flint is pretty damned sure you purposefully blew up Caulfield with Kyle fucking Valenti.”

The words don’t particularly surprise Alex; of course Charlie and Flint would have been in contact in the last six months if they’ve been working together. To make matters worse, Flint likely would have contacted Jesse as soon as it happened. Alex can’t be certain, but he’d be willing to be that intel is why Jesse showed up in Roswell despite Alex’s warnings and tried to kill Kyle, around the same time Max brought Rosa back to life. So no, he’s not thrown off by the fact that Charlie knows more than he let on initially -- but it’s still irritating to have it thrown back in his face.

Alex narrows his eyes and crosses his own arms over his chest, keeping his weight perfectly centered on his legs to hide the ache that’s started in his bad knee from standing and posturing for so long. “Flint thinks I blew up a secure facility and nearly killed myself on purpose?” he asks, acid dripping from the words. “No wonder he’s been stuck in R&D for ten years. He’s clearly got no fucking common sense.”

Charlie quirks an eyebrow in an expression that Alex recognizes from looking in the mirror. “So you didn’t blow it up on purpose?”

“I didn’t blow it up at all!” Alex says, the anger in his exclamation genuine. He’s not willing to take all of those deaths on his conscience, not even in a lie. “Some security protocol went off and the whole damn base self-destructed before I could do much more than stare at an old woman through the glass door, and get some insane story about a cancer-causing alien that sent Valenti off the deep end.” He sits slowly at the computer desk and tapped out a short sequence on the keyboard. On the monitors, the security footage of Valenti Sr. being shoved into the alien’s containment unit and, presumably, contracting brain cancer. Alex watches steadily, refusing to waver now. “If I’d realized that Valenti was going to find out our father murdered his, I would’ve left him in Roswell.”

Talking about something that is still causing Kyle so much pain in such a cavalier fashion makes Alex hate himself. He wants to scream when Charlie just nods, his lips twisted in disdain, like Kyle’s reaction to realizing his father had been murdered was somehow pathetic instead of justified. Thankfully, Alex doesn’t have to work very hard to hide his reaction; both he and Charlie are looking at the screens. “My guess is that he cracked one of containment cells, trying to get at the one who gave Jim the tumor, and it sparked the self-destruct.”

Guerin hasn’t been mentioned thus far, and Alex knows Flint had no idea of his presence at Caulfield, so there’s no hesitation as Alex rewrites the truth to fit his needs. It would be stupid, if he didn’t know for a fact that Guerin’s not on any surveillance footage from that day -- Alex had been sure of that. He’d torn his way through the cyber defenses of whatever server the video had been backed-up on without any finesse and erased everything, practically daring them to trace the data trail back to him. It hadn’t been smart, but Alex hadn’t been in the right headspace to be smart, back then. Not after witnessing Michael losing his mother a moment after finding her. Not after their near-escape from a deadly explosion. Not after being shoved out of Michael’s life and losing the only sense of family he’d ever known for his best friend --

At the time, Alex had almost hoped they’d come for him.

But Guerin is safe, for now, because of that stupidity, so Alex can’t bring himself to regret it.

Charlie’s brows furrow as he digests that explanation, and Alex can see his certainty waver. In that moment, Alex goes for the throat -- figuratively, of course. “Charlie, please,” he says, closing the video on the server and spinning his chair back around to look at his brother head-on. “You and Flint and Hunter are the only family I’ve got left. And you know I can be useful. None of you have the tech skills that I do, or the inside knowledge of Roswell. I’ve been here for months. I still have roots and connections here that none of you do. I can help. All you have to do is let me. And when Dad gets back, I promise, he won’t be able to deny that I’ve done good work.”

As he speaks, Alex is eight and standing in the kitchen of the house they all grew up in, begging a twenty-year-old Charlie to stay home after their mother had finally had enough and left. Then it’s Charlie, coming back on leave and swinging a six-year-old Alex around while he laughs. Or Charlie, smirking as Alex proudly smashed a guitar over Flint’s head at twelve, or the man in uniform, boarding the plane to take him back to the Middle East with a small smile over his shoulder just for Alex, who’s fifteen and cradling a broken wrist against his chest. It’s almost easy to want Charlie to believe him, to want to truly be on his brother’s side -- because despite everything he knows about Project Shepherd and the horrible things his brothers have done, a small, childish part of Alex is always going to want their acceptance.

But as much as Alex cherishes the memories of Charlie’s kindness, he hates the feelings of helplessness and impotence they evoke more. Since enlisting, Alex has built his life on the pillars of control and logic, his own sort of power, to make up for the lack in his childhood, and stepping into this situation has cost him all that work.

But this is for Michael, for Liz and Kyle and everyone in that group who’d come to mean something to him, and for them, Alex will allow his foundations to crumble, if that’s what it takes. This is only shaking them a little -- and tonight, at least, Alex has the promise of returning home to the one person who always makes him feel safe and stable.

“I’ll talk to Flint and Hunter,” Charlie says after a long, fraught silence.

Alex can read the answer in his eyes, though -- he’s convinced the man that he can be trusted, and he’s done a good enough job that he can be sure Charlie will persuade the others one way or another. The calculating, ruthless part of his mind that Alex tries to keep locked down is pleased at the ease with which he manipulated Charlie -- the rest of him, the human parts, just feel cold.

“I can’t guarantee anything until I talk to them, and I’d be thinking of some specific ways to show them you’re worth the risk,” Charlie continues, and Alex’s stomach sinks. Proving his worth to an anti-alien task force is going to involve doing a lot of shit he doesn’t want to think about, he’s sure -- but that’s a problem for another day. He made it through today’s set, and Alex has every intention of taking the whole match. And he’ll have some time to plan, now -- if Hunter’s still in Afghanistan, as his records indicate, there’s no way Charlie will have a response for him in the next day or even two. Alex will make damn sure to take advantage of that time.

“Thanks, Charlie,” Alex says with a smile that rings false to himself, but would fool anyone who didn’t know him well -- which, ironically enough, described his brother perfectly.

“Don’t thank me yet,” the older man says with a grim twist of his lips, and for a moment, Alex wonders why he looks so unhappy. Is he really that worried about selling the idea to Flint and Hunter, who hang off of his every word? Or is this fear of their father -- reluctance to go against his will? Alex doesn’t know, but he wishes Charlie would stop looking at him with those pitying, worried eyes. It’s making it harder to keep the smile on his face.

To the younger brother’s unending surprise, Charlie pushes away from the wall he’s been leaning against and moves closer, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “Take a couple of days of leave and think this over while I reach out, huh? This isn’t like the other ops you’ve been involved in. It’s not something you ever get to walk away from. Just -- remember that. Consider your options. You never wanted this life, kid, and you’ve already lost enough.” Dark eyes, so close in color to Alex’s own, sweep over his body to linger on his bad leg, and Alex shivers despite himself.

Shock jolts like electricity down Alex’s spine at the thinly-veiled warning, and he opens his mouth to ask why Charlie is suddenly so worried about his choices -- or maybe to deny that he wants anything but the mission? Alex isn’t even sure. But Charlie is already walking away by the time Alex pulls himself together enough to speak. “I’ll call when I’ve got an answer for you,” he says over his shoulder, deep voice echoing off of the cavernous walls of the bunker as he begins the ascent to the surface.

Alex stays seated in his desk chair long after Charlie disappears, staring at the blank wall in front of him. Doubt and insecurity encroaches on him, flickering like shadows in the corner of his mind, and for the first time, Alex allows himself to wonder if he’s gotten in over his head. For a long, dark hour, he lets his mind conjure one possible scenario after another, each one growing darker and darker, and all ending in the death of everyone he cares about. What if Charlie’s warning was a hint that they know his plan? What if his brothers are three steps ahead while Alex is lagging behind? What if they’re going after Guerin and the others as he sits here feeling sorry for himself? What if he loses the few parts of his soul that the war left him with?

Eventually, Alex can’t take it anymore. The walls of the bunker are closing in on him, and if he doesn’t leave this place soon, he’s not sure he’ll be able to pull himself out of the spiral Charlie’s warnings had started. It’s so stupid that he’s reacting this way -- but he’s been running on caffeine and adrenaline and sheer stubborn determination for the last thirty-six hours, and now that the immediate threat is past, everything else is crashing down on him at once. The burden he’d taken on. The responsibility he’s shouldering. The fact that to succeed in this mission, he’s going to have to send Charlie and the rest of his biological family to prison.

Usually, when he has moments like this, Alex finds himself sitting behind the bar at the Wild Pony, or in the middle of Liz’s living room, or even with Mimi DeLuca in her little apartment. Being alone had never been particularly good for Alex’s mental health, and he knows that none of them would turn him away.

But there’s only one other place he wants to be right now, and it’s not with any of them -- and for once, Alex is pretty sure that he won’t be turned away.

Drawing in a deep, determined breath, Alex stands slowly, finds his equilibrium, and points himself toward home.

[sceptilemasterr]

ES Act 3, Scene 9 - Midnight Vigil

Title: Endless Summer: The (un)Official Screenplay

Main Pairings: Estela x Ian (M!MC), Jake x Alyssa (F!MC)

Other Pairings: Craig x Zahra, Grace x Aleister, Michelle x Sean, Diego x Varyyn

Genre: Full Rewrite

Rating: PG-13 for swearing, violence, alcohol, and sexuality

Summary: That night, Ian gets an unexpected visitor.

Previous Scene: “Not Just Anyone”

Masterlist: Link

A New Note: Being an Estela stan myself, I know the slow burn of her relationship here must be frustrating, especially in contrast to Jake and Alyssa in the previous scene! I felt it fit her character better to open up more slowly, but don’t worry, she and Ian will get their “30-diamond” moment eventually. Plus, this scene has a lot of plot and I didn’t want to alienate anyone who’d rather skip the steamy scenes!

The Note Strikes Back: There are some hints toward it here, but the whole backstory with Olivia, Rourke, and Lila is going to be significantly different from canon and probably the biggest plot divergence thus far!

Return of the Note: Those of you who’ve read my Estela anthology fic might recognize a certain moment here... 

INT. HONEYMOON SUITE - NIGHT

Much later that night, Ian lays in bed, eyes open, turning restlessly as he tries to fall asleep. There is a soft knock at the door. Ian jumps and narrows his eyes at the door suspiciously. Slowly, carefully, he gets out of bed and creeps as quietly as possible to the door. He peeks through the peep-hole... and immediately opens the door when he sees who it is, trying and failing to smooth down his bed-head as he does so. Estela is standing on the other side, looking incredibly nervous. It is a massive contrast from her usual demeanor.

IAN: ...Estela?

ESTELA: Ian. I can’t sleep. Do you mind if I... if I join you for a while?

IAN: I, uh, well... of course! Sure! I- I mean... I couldn’t really sleep much either, to be honest.

Estela sighs in relief and visibly relaxes. She enters the room, closing the door behind her, and crosses to the bed, where she sits down. After a brief hesitation, Ian joins her, and the two sit side-by-side. Neither says anything for several moments, until finally:

ESTELA: I hate this... it’s like this island is taunting me. I’m no closer to finding what I came for, and now we might die tomorrow at the hands of these... these “Hostiles” that apparently just appeared out of nowhere!

She grunts in frustration. Ian tentatively puts an arm around her shoulder, and to his surprise, she leans in rather than pulling away.

IAN: Come on. We’re tougher than that. You’re tougher than that. If anyone’s gonna die to those elf guys, it’s not gonna be you.

ESTELA: You don’t know that.

IAN: Pretty sure I do, actually. I’ve seen you fight, Estela. I may not know your mission, but I promise you’ll get the chance to do... whatever it is you’re here to do.

ESTELA: I probably owe you an explanation, don’t I? I’m sorry for not telling you sooner-

IAN: Seriously, I get it. You don’t need to tell me if you don’t want to.

ESTELA: I do want to. You’ve already earned my trust. You deserve to know.

She takes a deep breath and sighs, then continues:

ESTELA: I don’t... don’t exactly know what to say. Where to start. My mother, I suppose.

She takes Ian’s hand in hers.

ESTELA: I grew up in San Trobida. My father died the day before I was born, and I was raised by my mother and my tio... my uncle. But my mother was always traveling. Working. All for me. Trying to save enough money to move my tio and I out of San Trobida and into a peaceful, safer life. She wanted nothing more than that. To know that I would someday be able to live in peace, grow old, start a family if I wanted. Everything she did, she did for me.

IAN: It sounds like she cared about you a lot.

Estela smiles.

ESTELA: She was. That’s why she spent so many years working for Rourke International.

IAN: Wait, what? Your mom worked for Rourke?

ESTELA: Yes. Here on this very island.

Ian’s jaw drops.

IAN: Here. At the Celestial?

ESTELA: I’m not sure. On La Huerta, certainly. She was always so secretive about her work; it was for our own safety that we not know too much. I think even then, some part of her knew how dangerous this island, and Rourke, could be.

IAN: Rourke is... dangerous? I mean, from what I’ve heard, he’s kind of a smug jackass, but-

ESTELA: Very dangerous. More than you know. More than I realized... until her last letter.

She shuts her eyes tightly, blinking back tears. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a yellowing, wrinkled, torn sheet of paper, handing it to Ian.

ESTELA: This letter hasn’t left my side since it was sent to me, two years ago. I haven’t shown this to anyone besides my tio.

Ian unfolds the letter, reading it aloud. As he reads, his voice transitions into the voice of Estela’s mother, OLIVIA MONTOYA, in voiceover.

IAN/OLIVIA: My dearest Estelita: I do not have much time. This island is no longer safe. Someone here is trying to have me killed. I do not know who, but I have discovered a horrible secret about this island, and about our very world. If I do not survive, you must finish what I began. Go to Rourke’s island. From the gates: 55, 90, 19, 08. Look beneath. You will understand. Trust no one there but Rourke. Someone on his staff is the killer. Stay safe, my daughter. Stay safe, Estelita.

Ian stops reading and looks at Estela, who is staring down at her hands, clenched tightly into fists.

ESTELA: If only she knew. Not two days later, we received another letter. Directly from Rourke International. It claimed that my mother had died in an “unfortunate incident.” But I knew better.

Ian nods, coming to the same conclusion Estela had.

IAN: Rourke did it. Your mother thought she could trust him... and he killed her.

Estela’s gaze turns cold and steely.

ESTELA: I vowed, then and there, to come to this island, discover the secret that my mother had died for... and to avenge her death.

IAN: You’re here to... kill Rourke?

ESTELA: Or die trying. I got lucky, winning this contest. I had come to Hartfeld because I knew Rourke had a son who hated and resented him; I planned to find out who he was and convince him to help get me to La Huerta.

IAN: So that’s why you stood up for Aleister back there.

ESTELA: Exactly. As soon as he told us he was Rourke’s son, the pieces all clicked into place. He’d been the one I was trying to find all this time.

IAN: Makes sense. So do you have any idea where Rourke might be? Aleister said he was supposed to be here this week.

Estela pauses, looking at Ian curiously.

ESTELA: I don’t know what reaction I expected, but... you really still want to help me? After I told you I want to kill Rourke? Most people would try to talk me out of it. Tell me I don’t need revenge. Or that “it’s dangerous,” as if I don’t already know that.

IAN: I promised I’d help you, didn’t I? And I never break a promise. Besides, Rourke’s the reason I’m stuck on this island in the first place, so it’s not like I’ve got any love for the guy. He already seemed like a total dick anyway.

Estela laughs for a moment at Ian’s comment, then turns serious once more.

ESTELA: I... I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this. All this time, I never... I never wanted to trust anyone. I never even told my tio what I’d done, before I left for Hartfeld under a fake name.

She swallows hard and looks away, searching for words. Ian waits for her patiently.

ESTELA: I can’t explain it. I don’t really... I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. I feel like I can trust you, Ian. With anything. When I’m with you, it just feels... I don’t know. Comfortable. Familiar. Like we’ve known each other...

Her voice trails off, and Ian finishes the sentence:

IAN: ...our entire lives.

ESTELA: Exactly.

IAN: Estela...

Estela embraces him, and he returns the hug. They hold one another tightly for several moments. Then they finally break apart, and Estela holds Ian’s hand, gazing into his eyes. Both of them look equally nervous, yet hopeful.

ESTELA: Look, I... I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing. I don’t exactly know what to say, or...

IAN: To be honest? Me neither. So there’s no pressure.

Estela visibly relaxes.

ESTELA: So, uh, what happens now?

IAN: What do you want to happen?

In response, Estela grabs Ian and pulls him into a sudden kiss. He flinches, surprised, and she breaks away, averting her gaze.

ESTELA: Dios, I’m sorry, I- why did I-

In response, Ian returns the kiss, holding her tightly. When they finally break apart, Estela’s eyes are watering.

IAN: ...Was my kissing really that bad? I know I haven’t really had any practice-

Estela’s tears turn to laughter as she shakes her head, hugging him.

ESTELA: What? No, I- I was just so scared-

IAN: You, scared? You faced down two sabertooths, a giant crab, some warrior elves, and a sea monster! I’m pretty sure you don’t get scared.

ESTELA: Those kinds of things? I know how to handle them. But this... being open, vulnerable with someone... trusting someone like I trust you... that does scare me, Ian. But somehow in a good way. Sorry, I know that must sound strange!

Ian considers this, then smiles at her and nods.

IAN: Like how I froze up downstairs. I was scared, too.

They both start laughing at the memory.

ESTELA: We were both such idiots!

IAN: ...Guess we’re idiots together, then.

Estela leans into him, all fear and nervousness forgotten. They sigh and lay down on the bed, suddenly feeling tired.

ESTELA: ...Ian?

IAN: Yeah?

ESTELA: Can I... stay with you tonight? Not like- you know- not yet. But I just-

IAN: I get it. ‘Course you can. I can sleep on the couch if it would make you more comfortable-

ESTELA: No. Please, just stay here. Beside me. So I know you’re safe.

IAN: Of course, Estela. Don’t worry. I’ll be right here.

Lying side by side, the two of them drift off to sleep, safe in each other’s arms...

Next Scene: If At First You Don’t Succeed...

Tag List: @brightpinkpeppercorn @mysteli @edgydepressedchoicesthot @bbaba-yagaa @endlesshero1122 @endlessly-searching-for-you

[twilightsunclan-fr]

A Cold Winter’s Morning

Ivory woke from a dead sleep to Bean’s tiny, yet suspiciously heavy body, hitting his face.

“Ow.” He muttered, easily trapping the eternal hatchling under a paw before she could make a break for the entrance tunnel, and freedom. Bean screeched her outrage at being thwarted from leaving the den. “Yeah, I know.” Ivory mumbled, blinking the sleep from his eyes, if Bean was up then Ivory was too. “I’m a horrible parent for stopping you from freezing to death.”

At his side, Ophrys slept on, not even stirring from Bean’s audio assault. Ivory didn’t expect him to. During the winter into the first few days of spring, Ivory was essentially a single parent.

Ophrys’ link to all things green and growing went a little further then his springtime escapades. In the late fall he started slowing down, sleeping later, going to bed earlier. And eating every chance he got. By the time the first snow fell, he was already fast asleep. Curled up in their large collection of blankets and furs, deep in the central room of the den. If Ivory was lucky, he might be able to rouse Rhys enough to shove some extra food or water down his throat about once a week or so. For the most part though, Rhys was dead to the world until spring.

Which left Ivory to take care of things around the den and their tiny charge until Ophrys was back on his feet.

“Alright, alright.” Ivory heaved himself to his feet, untangling his wings and tail from the blanket mass. “Let’s go.” Bean subsided into baleful muttering, but on the whole seemed pleased with Ivory’s choice to carry her up the tunnel mouth. Ivory squinted against the blinding glare of the sun off the snow, he nosed the double layer of heavy oil cloth and insulation drape back from the cave mouth.

“Ugh.” He groaned, tugging his mantel a bit tight around his shoulders and neck. It was quite chilly out, Bean whimpered and ducked closer into his hold. “Oh sure.” Ivory mumbled. “Now you’re having second thoughts.” He tucked her into a warm fold of his mantel, settling her in like it was a sling and set off across the sleeping garden. It hadn’t snowed last night, making his progress easier. He followed his footsteps from the previous days, out of their den area and along the forest path into the clan territory proper.

In the main market area of the clan, snow had been cleared away and it was nice not to have to squelch his way through wet, cold, snow. Several dragons he knew called hello, and Ivory greeted them back. Not staying long to share more then a few words. He had a mission after all. One that only heightened when he caught sight of Regnum’s hunting party carrying the spoils of their latest hunting trip in.

“Good Morninghellohi big cousin!” He recognized Ophrys’ apprentice AllMartyr under the carcass of a griffin. He dipped his head in greeting. “Goodbest week for hunttrip! See you at tent!” She waddled off after her elder brother and sister, walking awkwardly on her back legs, her front claws full of bundles of fish tied together, while the griffin was draped over her back, secured with several lengths of rope.

Ivory followed sedately behind her, taking time to enjoy the subdued hustle and bustle of the clan around him. The market place was always busy as a way stop, though quieter in the winter when travel slowed. It was still far more populated then Ophrys’ relatively isolated garden lair.Traders were waiting out the season before moving on, buying supplies and goods to take to the road as soon as spring came. Performers working on new shows for the Trickmurk Circus at the end of the winter season. Crafters taking the downtime of low to no traveling to build their stock back up for the spring festivals. Ivory enjoyed the sounds and movement of dragons going about their business around him.

It was a short walk to his destination. Which sat square in the center of the marketplace. While Regnum and her siblings went around to the back to make their deliveries, Ivory pushed his way in through the front tent flap.

“Oh look who’s wide awake and ready for action.” Iubar’s warm sarcastic voice greeted Ivory with the warmth of the cooking tent. During the warm months the pavilion was open to the elements, small magics keeping the rain and wind at bay. But during the heavy winters, the pavilion was enclosed in a tent, enspelled with anti fire enchantments and charms to keep the warmth from the cooking fires in and the cold of the season out.

“Yeah, yeah.” Ivory endured his friend’s teasing. Finding his usual table near Iubar’s cooking station, the right size for an imperial, empty. He deposited Bean on the table top. “Got anything warm and filling for the baby sprout here?”

“Of course.” Iubar set down a shallow bowl delicately in front of Bean. While adorably tiny for an imperial to handle, it was still twice the size of Bean herself. And filled with a faintly steaming serving of oatmeal. Ivory caught Bean by her furiously wagging tail, just barely stopping her from diving headfirst into the meal. Snickering Iubar sprinkled a finishing touch of cinnamon and maple sugar on the oatmeal.

“What do we say?” Ivory prompted Bean. Bean didn’t even look up from the bowl of her dreams, yet still managed to squeak out something that sounded vaguely thankful. “Good enough.” Ivory let go and Bean, quite literally, flew into the oatmeal. Iubar laughed out loud at Bean’s enthusiastic attack on his food.

“It’s always good to see my work appreciated.” He commented mildly. “What can I get for you?”

“The usual.” Ivory said, placing a stack of treasure on the tabletop. Far away from Bean’s shenanigans.

“Coming right up.” Iubar turned away, the sizzle and smell of meat making Ivory’s stomach growl. Ivory distracted himself from Iubar’s knowing smirk by checking out the clientele in the tent. Even though it was long after the breakfast rush, there were still some dragons lingering over their breakfasts, warm drinks or starting an early lunch. He could spy Dai, the brightly colored skydancer, holding what looked like a very animated discussion with his assistant, Chanticleer, and the alchemist, Disco over steaming plates of eggs and waffles. Ivory mentally made note to check out Dai’s Trickmurk show, it was bound to have some interesting pyrotechnics. (Rhys would love to hear him describe it when he woke up.)

At another table Preafloro and Cerintha were sipping tea from mugs, listening to PicassoMoon describe his latest jewel spell project. The small coatl was puffed up with excitement and Ivory had to tell himself it would be terribly rude to interrupt their conversation to pet him. He clenched a fist under the table.

Finally at a far more isolated corner of the tent, co-clan leader Obadiah was pouring over a thick stack of notes. A bowl of oatmeal forgotten at his elbow.

“You seen Caelum lately?” Ivory asked Iubar, as his friend set an imperial sized plate of scrambled roc eggs and big horn steak in front of him. “How’s he holding up?” Caelum was possibly worse then Ophrys at handling the winter. Which was hilariously ironic considering Tundra’s were made for the snow and ice. Iubar shrugged, a simple lift of his shoulders and wings.

“Stella’s been by a lot more lately, but not more then usual for this time of year.” He named the clan’s medic and Caelum’s best friend/possible life partner. No one could tell and/or had the guts ask either. “So I guess Caelum’s doing as well as he normally does.” On the table Bean made a mess of both herself and the bowl of oatmeal. Getting as much if not more smeared around her face and paws then in her mouth.

Ivory chewed his steak thoughtfully. He liked foods that required some chewing.

“How’s your mate?” Iubar poured him a large mug of coffee. “He still a sleeping beauty?” Ivory nodded, washing down his steak with gulps of coffee, which Iubar quickly topped off.

“It’s so quiet out there. You’d think the whole wide world was asleep and not just that one little piece of it.” Bean crowed with delight on finding a dried berry hidden in the oatmeal, attacking it with gusto. Ivory smiled faintly down at her. “Decided we needed a bit of a change today.” Iubar nodded, propping his elbows up on his counter.

“Gonna walk around the market then? I hear there’s a new weaver in this morning. Might have their wares set out.” Ivory forked up some of the roc egg while he thought.

“No reason not to. I could probably convince Dai to get Ezili to carve Bean something to chew on too, while he’s here.”

“Haven’t seen Val around lately either.”

“He’s holed up at his clan. It’s not as easy to travel for just a night, ya know. And they need him there. He’s coming by this weekend though.” Iubar nodded, sipping at a glass of water. “How about you? Saw Reg and her crew bringing a delivery by.” Iubar grinned.

“Damn right they did. Can always count on those kids to bring me the good stuff. Nerio brought them up right.” He turned back to his prep work. “Gonna start a stew tonight. And we’ll have a fresh fish fry tomorrow while it cooks. Martyr’s a more then decent fisher when she has the patience to sit for it.” Ivory hummed, taking slow mouthfuls of his coffee now.

“Tell me about it. She’s got too much energy on the whole. Rhys is always having to send her off to dig a new plot before he can get her to weed or water.” Iubar and he shared a laugh. They moved onto other topics, Ivory’s plans for the spring (“I’ll be uh...spending it with Rhys.”), Iubar’s plans to expand (“We’re getting more traders every spring and summer, to say nothing of the fall.”), the latest debate (“Glad I wasn’t the mediator on that one.” “Heard Nike had to rule on it, you know how she hates that.”), and other small gossip (“Word in the market’s that Disco and Miranda might finally tell us if he’s her charge.” “No!”)

The late morning turned to early afternoon and Bean sat back on her haunches with a satisfied burp. Iubar handed Ivory a damp cloth to clean her with.

“I’ll see you in a few days then. Bring Val by for brunch.” Ivory mock saluted, settling Bean back into place in the folds of his mantel. She’d be conked out in no time for an afternoon nap while he walked around the marketplace.

“Will do. Thanks for the grub.”

“Anytime.”

[atmilliways]

Stuck on the Outside Failing to Look In (Just Like in Real Life)

This @mtl-trick-or-treat fic is for @tanyonlee, who asked for either a treat of “Very cute Skwistok!!” or a trick of “Skwisgaar and his gmiltf girlfriend XDDD.” 

It was while writing this bit that I realized, hey, I’m writing this for a Halloween event, maybe it should have some actual Halloween in it. Thank you to @little-murmaider for the costume suggestion. All the other suggestions were close seconds, you are all superstars. 🎃 

Here’s part three! (1562 words)

(part 1) (part 2)

~

Halloween day dawned cold and crisp over Mordhaus — but the five members of Dethklok all slept through that part. It wasn’t until a much more reasonable eleven am that three hunched figures sat around the sawblade kitchen table, piled high with breakfast pastries, clutching steaming cups of black, black coffee in their hands.

“Fuck, okay,” Nathan rumbled after a few mouthfuls of blessed caffeine. “I call this what-the-fuck-do-we-do-about-our-guitarists meeting to order.”

“Uh, exchusche me, I’m a guitarischt?”

Pickles rolled his eyes. “Yeah, bass guitarist. That’s barely an instrument.”

Murderface glared at the drummer, but chose not to dignify it with a response. Not an audible response, anyway — he may or may not have mumbled something containing the word Thunderbottom into his coffee.

“Stop bitching and pay attention,” snapped Nathan, who was absolutely not a morning person. “Look. Toki keeps going off and costing us money in damages and lawsuits, and Skwisgaar’s being even more of a moody asshole than usual. We’ve gotta do something about it.”

There was a drowsy silence while the three men tried to think while still in the process of waking up.

“Does anyone else get the feelin’ that they’re, like... eggin’ each other on or someshit?” Pickles asked finally.

“Let’sch juscht put ‘em in a room together and lock the door,” Murderface grumbled, still smarting from the jab at his instrument.

“That’s...” Nathan paused, mulling the suggestion over for a minute. “... Not the shittiest idea I’ve ever heard. Good job, Murderface.”

The bassist replied by flipping him off with his still-bandaged band, his other busy grabbing for a powdered donut.

“What if they kill each other?” Pickles asked.

“We’ll stay nearby,” Nathan said firmly. “I’m pretty sure if any of us get seriously hurt, that... thing would happen again.”

They all shifted a little uncertainty at that — except for Murderface, who inhaled at the wrong moment and started coughing and hacking on powdered sugar, which diffused the feeling somewhat. Because sure, That Thing had been brutal and badass and a rush, but the idea of it was still unsettling. It was the kind of experience that you half hoped, half worried would happen again someday.

Nathan reached over and gave Murderface a helpful couple of thumps on the back, which helpfully knocked over his coffee into the bassist’s crotch.

~

SEVERAL HOURS LATER.

A klokateer had just finished bringing three fresh drinks to the hot tub when Pickles suddenly sat up from his relaxed slouch and asked, “Wait, don’t we gotta figure out how to get both’a them in the same room in the first place?”

“Uh.” Nathan’s brow furrowed. “Yeah... I guess we do.” He took a long pull from his beer. “So, uh... if anyone has any ideas, that’d be great.”

“Schuper leaderschip right there,” Murderface deadpanned.

“Shut up! I had the idea to come up with an idea, I’m fucking worn out.”

“It is Halloween,” Pickles said slowly, ignoring the bickering with the ease many years’ practice and more substances than just alcohol in his system. “Meybe we could tell Toki some story about trick or treatin’?”

“But what about Schkwischgaar? He doeschn’t even want to go out for schweet poontang anymore now that he’sch deschided to schack up with that fat grandma.”

“Yeah, what’s up with that?” Nathan grunted. “Skwisgaar doesn’t even know the word monog... mogon... m... hrnnnnn... He doesn’t know what settling down even means.”

Pickles shrugged. “Feck If I know. Meybe we can grab ‘em while he’s still sleepin’, throw him in wherever, boom, lock the door, done.”

“But that only worksch if he’sch aschleep... What if we juscht tell him the fat grandma isch waiting for him schomewhere, and when he goesch in that’sch when we lock the door.” Murderface sipped thoughtfully on his Bloody Mary, then made a face. “Ugh, thisch thing isch dischguschting!”

“Dood, then why’d you ask for one? Give it here, I’ll drink it.”

“No, it’sch mine,” Murderface whined, holding the glass as far away from Pickles as he could and thus giving Nathan a good look at the cocktail onions decorated to look like eyeballs and a set of plastic vampire fangs floating in the thick cocktail. “It’sch feschtive!”

“What’s you guys all doin’s up so earlies? Trick or treats hasn’t even starts yet!”

The three men in the hot tub turned in unison to look at Toki. Somehow he’d managed to sneak up on them despite his costume, which requires a moment of blank staring to fully take in — from the ridiculous umbrella hat on his head to the ludicrous arrangement of base drum, cymbals, and various horns slung on his back like a backpack, completed by an array of mouthpieces clustered around his face like an addition to his already weird facial hair and his Flying V strapped to his front.

Plus, there were coins dangling from the umbrella, clinking against each other every time he moved. Nathan and Pickles exchanged one of those what just happened here and could it have anything to do with…? looks, because he shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on them with all those noisemakers on. They weren’t that drunk yet.

“What the fuck?” Nathan asked finally, speaking for everyone as per his job description.

Toki grinned proudly. “I ams a one man band!” He punctuated the statement with a cymbal crash, operated by some sort of hand lever. “Where’s Skwisgaar? I bets he ams too lazies to even does a costumes...”

“He’s prahbly still sleepin or something. What’s... with all the coins, dood?” Pickles asked.

The flicker of disappointment in Toki’s eyes was so brief that his band mates didn’t even notice, quickly replaced by exaggerated childlike glee. “They ams my tips what’s I get for playing goods!”

“That’s, uh...” Nathan glanced around, searching his brain or possibly the room for something to say that wasn’t too jackassy but not an outright lie either. It was hard to tell sometimes what might set off one of the rhythm guitarist’s violent tantrums, and Toki’s bubbly mood could just be the manic before the storm. “...Uh... sugar-free?”

Murderface, still staring, spoke up in lukewarm agreement. “Healthier than playing for candy, that’sch for schure.”

“You got your insulin, right?” Pickles asked reflexively.

Toki nodded and beamed and played a riff on his guitar, accompanying it with various clashes, bashes, and honks.

In the midst of the cacophony, Pickles turned to the other two and said in a low voice, “This is a tickin’ time bomb. You guys wanna get this over with now?”

“...Yeah.”

“Schoundsch good. I’ve got my tascher in with my clothesch over there.”

“Okey.” Pickles leaned back and raised his voice again. “Hey, that’s real good, Toki! You wanna start trick or treatin’ early this year?”

Toki stopped the assault on their ears and clapped his hands together in excitement. “Oh boys, does I!” He paused. “But… it doesn’ts starts until suns-set, I thoughts?”

Murderface, ever a champion of messing with people, literally leapt up in his eagerness to cover this plot hole in their story. “Nope! I know a neighborhood that schtartsch early, scho letsch get thisch schow on the road!”

As one, everyone in the room groaned and shielded his eyes in dismay.

“Goddammit Murderface,” Nathan bellowed, “stop freeballing in the hot tub!”

~

ABOUT HALF AN HOUR LATER.

Nathan pulled his dethphone out of his back pocket. “Okay, I’m going to text Skwisgaar now. Everybody ready?”

Pickles nudged at Toki with a sneakered foot to make sure he was still down for the count, getting the hoped-for lack of response. He nodded and flashed a double thumbs up.

From his position by the door, Murderface held up his taser in wordless salute.

They’d decided that the one man band getup presented too many improvised weapon possibilities, so they’d tasered him into unconsciousness, removed everything but his clothes, and made a couple klokateers carry him down to the studio. To make the whole thing more fair, they’d also decided to do more or less the same to Skwisgaar as soon as he stormed in.

“... Wait, how come I gotta do all the taschering? My hand schtill hurtsch, schomeone elsche do it thisch time.”

“This isn’t the time for whining, Murderface,” Nathan called as he and Pickles hid behind the couch, just in case. “This is your time to shine!”

~

Text log between Skwisgaar Skwigelf and Nathan Explosion:

NE (5:29:27pm) — Hey, come to the studio.

NE (5:41:02pm) — GET YOUR ASS DOWN TO THE STUDIO RIGHT NOW.

NE (5:43:26pm) — Some of your pickups in the new track need some work.

SS (5:43:56pm) — WHAT

SS (5:43:57pm) — BOLLSHIT

SS (5:43:59pm) — THEMS WAS PERFECTION

NE (5:45:37pm) — Prove it. Just get in here.

SS (5:45:44pm) — THIS AMS SLANDER ON MY NAMES I WILLS PROVE IT ALL OVER YOURS DUM BITCHTITS

~

ONE AMBUSH LATER.

Pickles was helping Nathan drag an unconscious Skwisgaar into the booth with the equally unconscious Toki, when the drummer suddenly dropped the pair of booted ankles he’d been lugging and asked, “Wait, don’t I have some sorta dentist appointment to go to later today?” 

He glared at his band mates. 

“How come neither’a you dooshbeags reminded me? Now I don’t got time to pour bleach on my teeth first!”

[hausofgucci-blog]

Fuck Thy Neighbor

I would like to preface this by saying that this is as whipped as it gets for me. I started this blog as a 5sos blog then it became a makeup/fashion blog up until I saw Black Panther. All I did was look up the BP tag on here but I fell into a rabbit hole that I’m all too happy to be stuck in. So yeah, here I am a few weeks later writing again. I deadass haven’t written anything in mf years but a bitch is inspired and horny so here y'all go. This 2.5K word mess is dedicated to @sweettea-and-honeybutter!!!

Erik Killmonger x WOC!Reader

Tags:SMUt (with plot), Power play, dub con, daddy kink, choking

The hot Oakland sun somehow found a way to beat down on you even though you were in your car. Being the broke college student you are you resorted to buying a mini fan for your car after the AC decided to quit its job. Unlike its job description, the fan didn’t create cool air to blow in your face instead it redistributed the hot air around you all over your face. Like a gift from the gods, you spotted a 7/11 roughly half a mile down the road, ‘if I’m going to die of heatstroke might as well do it with with a blue tongue,’ you thought to yourself. You’re nearly shaking with excitement as you pull some money out of your wallet and head to the store.

It doesn’t take long for you to mull over your choices before finally picking blue raspberry. With barely contained glee you hand money over to the cashier in exchange for the large Slurpee. It sounds exaggerated but you’d swear that after a few sips your life got better. The cold drink definitely made the 15-minute drive to the beauty supply store way more enjoyable. At last, you reach the grey building, you reach into the back seat for the bag of products you’d intended to return but you only find air. Realization dawns on you as remember that you’d set the bag down as you took a call from your mother earlier that morning. After contemplating for few moments you decide you’d be damned if you don’t your money back, you worked hard for that $21.58. With a switch shift in gears, you back out of the empty parking lot mentally cursing yourself for being forgetful and wasting your time.

Half an hour later you pull into your parking space with an exasperated sigh. You dash out of the car, slam the door and race to your front door which you find very conveniently locked. You instinctively pat your pockets even though you know full well that you put nothing in them but who’s to stop you from imagining the impossible. It then dawns on you that you’ve locked your phone and keys in your car. Unwilling to give up you jiggle the knob and bang and kick the door as if it’ll magically swing open or someone will open it up for you. This continues for several minutes until you hear a door open, you’re quick to assume your methods worked until you realize the door still hasn’t budged and your neighbor is looking at you from his doorway.

You wave at him and offer what you hope is a friendly smile, “Hi I’m your neighbor, I’m in a bit of trouble do you mind if I use your phone?”

He looks you up and down for a moment or two before replying “fuck I look like? Mother Teresa? I ain’t got favors to give out.”

You take a few steps toward him, trying to keep a friendly demeanor “I’m really sorry to bother you but I really need help, I locked my keys and phone in my car and I really need to get into my house.” A few seconds pass and his eyes are fixed on yours, void of all emotion. ‘Alright y/n time to turn on the waterworks ‘ you think to yourself, your lip trembles a bit and within seconds you allow fake tears to pool and fall from your eyes.

“Aye stop crying okay? Just come inside.” You can barely contain your joy as he opens the door wider and you step through the threshold.

The place is pretty bare, there are no pictures of anyone in sight but you stop yourself from making further observations. “So,” you draw out the ‘O’ awkwardly, “what about that phone call mm?”

That’s when he rolls his eyes, “I thought we already discussed this, I ain’t no Mother Teresa. If you want something from me you gotta do something for me first.”

The look on his face is a bit too menacing on his face to suggest that he wanted you to just vacuum or something. “Uh, I think I’ll just go,” you say hastily.

“Aight suit yourself,” he replies with a nonchalant shrug. A few seconds later you’re outside again stuck with nowhere to go. You resume your futile attempts to open a locked door with the will of a desperate woman. When that doesn’t work you try your luck on the car, that too has the same results as the door. There’s only one option left for you so you suck up your pride, march to his door and knock softly. You’re pretty sure he heard you even though he leaves you waiting for a minute or two. Finally, the door swings open and you step inside.

“Okay I take it back, I'll do anything! Please!"

He chuckles sizing you up, "good girl, what did you have in mind?" You stare right back at him as you take in his appearance. He wore a loose black long sleeve V-neck and some grey sweatpants that left little to the imagination. What did you have in mind? You'd kinda just hoped he was kidding and he'd let you make a phone call.

"Uh um ya know" you trailed off trying to ignore how stupid you must've sounded. You focus every cell in your body on being sexy as you step closer to him, “why don’t I just show you what I had in mind.” You keep your eyes locked on his while lightly grazing your hand on his bicep then gradually escalating to running it down his torso before stroking him through the thin fabric. You get on your knees in front of him and waste no time freeing his semi-hard cock from its restraints.

“What a fucking slut,” he says sounding amused. You ignore him and keep your attention on his dick. Taking your sweet time you lick the underside slowly and work your way to sucking just the tip. Before you knew it his palm smacked your cheek, leaving behind a stinging pain. “You’re going to have to do better than that ma.” Mouth still full of his cock you look up at him and nod.

This time you put much more focus and energy into pleasing him. You bob your head enthusiastically while stroking whatever you can’t fit into your mouth. “You look so good on your knees shawty. Sucking me off like your life depends on it.” You preen at the praise feeling yourself getting moist in your panties. His moans and grunts do nothing but egg you on as you take him farther and farther down your throat until your eyes water. That’s when he grabs your hair and starts facefucking you, “you like that baby? You like when daddy shoves his cock down your throat?” You nod furiously, “good girl. Let me see those titties.”

Without warning, he rips your shirt in half exposing your bra which he wastes no time undoing. He fondles your breasts and plays with your hard nipples while you suck his balls. His actions cause you to moan deeply around him which in turn create sensual vibrations on his cock. You can tell you’re doing a good job by his firmer grip on your hair. His speech is littered with softly spoken expletives which soon turn into moans and grunts. “You -oh fuck- you want daddy to come in your mouth?”

“Yes, daddy please cum in my whore mouth.” You genuinely meant it, unbeknownst to him being treated like a fucktoy was your biggest fantasy.

He slaps you again, “did I say you could stop sucking? You know what take all your clothes off, I wanna see you on that couch with your face down and ass up. Do not move until I get back.” He exits with a brisk walk before you obediently follow the instructions given to you. Your mind is so hazy you can’t even process what exactly you’re getting yourself into, all you need is his dick in you as soon as possible.

The position you were in made it a bit hard to hear what was going on, the silence was killing you not to mention how good the cool leather felt against your warm skin. Your need for sexual release grows with every passing second till you can’t stop yourself from reaching down and touching yourself. The action sends waves of pleasure so strong through your body that you have to bite your lip to contain your moans. Your few seconds of pleasure comes to a screeching halt when his menacing voice comes from behind you, “when I tell you to do something I mean that shit.” The unmistakable ripping sound of a foil packet follows his words before he nudges you with his knee, “legs wide bitch.”

You obey without a second thought, nothing mattered more to you than getting dicked down that second. He thrusts into you so fast and deep that your walls struggle to stretch to accommodate his impressive size. You’re a mess of moans and whimpers as you feel yourself getting closer and closer to the edge, to speed up the process you bring your hand to your clit rubbing furiously. You get noticeably louder and you feel your body approaching ecstasy but it seems your neighbor has different plans. “You wouldn’t think about cumming without asking daddy first would you?” He enunciated each word with a spank, “put your hands behind your back now!” You’re happy to oblige by locking both arms behind you so that each hand is wrapped around the opposite wrist. He takes your joint wrists together into one of his massive hands and proceeds to use it as leverage to fuck you deeper. With his free hand, he rubs your clit till you’re almost tipping over the edge of ecstasy. “Please, daddy can I cum? Please, please, please let me cum,” getting the words out is a struggle amid your moans but he still understands what you mean.

“Come all over my cock babygirl,” a wave of pleasure washes over you as you succumb to the primal need that’d been building inside you. Even as you ride your orgasm his fingers don’t stop working on your clit even though his thrusts slow down and get sloppier. The room is filled with the lewd unfiltered sounds of sex: your incoherent blubbering and his grunts of pleasure mixed with the sounds of his hips hitting yours. He stops to let you catch your breath but doesn’t pull out, instead opting to hold your hip as he lets his breathing return to normal as well.

He finally pulls out and commands you to flip over, you comply and get yourself into a position where you’re laying on the couch facing him while your legs hang off the arm of the couch.  that is when you get a better look at him. The first thing you notice are the peculiar bumps scattered across his torso, intrigued you open your mouth to ask about them but he beats you to it. “You’ve been such a good girl, you think you deserve a reward?”

All questions about his chest fly out of your mind, “yes daddy.”

“I like the way you think babygirl,” he gets on his knees in front of you and you instinctively open your legs. “You’re so wet for me,” he states as he runs his middle finger down your pussy collecting your juices before offering it to you. “Taste yourself,” you greedily accept his finger into your mouth sucking it like its the only thing keeping you alive. He takes his finger from your mouth and wraps his hand around your neck without putting too much pressure. “Let daddy taste your sweet pussy,” with that he attaches his full lips to your inner thighs kissing and sucking them while still keeping his hand latched around your throat. His hand moves to grope your breast while he teases your slit with his tongue. The soft caresses of his tongue against your cunt coupled with his persistent fingers around your nipple causing you to lie back and cry out in bliss. He speeds up the pace of his licks alternating between doing that and teasing your entrance with the tip of his tongue. Your hands find their way to his hair to pull him closer as a second orgasm builds deep in your belly meanwhile he wraps his arms around your thighs spreading you wider. You feel one of his fingers teasing your entrance before slipping it in with ease. The combination of his tongue on your clit and his finger fucking you has you screaming daddy and begging for release in no time. “Cum all over daddy’s fingers you dirty slut” he commands before adding another finger to fuck you with. His words turn you on even more, so much so that you’re basically doing all the work for him by bucking and rolling your hips to meet his fingers. It doesn't take long for the metaphorical floodgates to burst as a powerful orgasm rips through you. Your breaths come out rough and ragged and he continues to fuck you through your orgasm till the only word you can form is ‘daddy’. He silently watches you come down from your high waiting for your breath to return to normal before ordering you to get dressed. Although your eyes are shut you hear can still his footsteps as he walks away from you. With shaky legs, you pull yourself off the couch to locate the small pile of your unscathed clothing and hastily put them back on. You’re clipping your bra when his approaching footsteps meet your ears causing you to tense up a bit.

“You gotta go,” he states with a threatening tone.

You turn around to face him, confusion written all over your features, “wh-what about our deal?”

“I changed my mind, now go,” he replies unlocking the door. You plant yourself down, he wasn't going to get you out that easy. Anger flashes in his eyes, he gets up close to you to say in your ear “go right now before I do something you and I will regret.” The cold, unwavering quality of his voice trumps all reservations you had about going outside in just a bra and shorts. You nod fearfully and scamper out the door, just as you hear the sound of something small hitting the ground and turn around to see what it is. “If you got any street smarts you’ll know how to use that,” he declares with a smirk before slamming the door leaving you looking at a small plastic card in confusion.

[newhologram]

Glorious purpose, sacrifice, and the god who started it all

Send a heartbeat to The void that cries through you Relive the pictures that have come to pass For now we stand alone The world is lost and blown And we are flesh and blood disintegrate With no more to hate

- The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning by Smashing Pumpkins (because this song is 100% about Avengers)

Been on an MCU binge to put everything under a microscope, so here’s what’s been rolling around in my brain. 

Infinity War spoilers below with speculation/theories for Avengers 4 that includes A4 spoilery set leak stuff. 

**SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT**

* * *

There’s a lot to talk about as far as theories as we were given some hopeful leads in IW and other films. Just to take inventory on some other speculations and fun ideas: 

Shuri may have backed Vision up

Soul World: is that where Gamora is? Is that where everyone who was dusted went?

Nebula may get a meaningful role in helping to take Thanos down

Captain Marvel’s role in all this??

The possibility of Adam Warlock coming out of his cocoon

The Eternals maybe

Hawkeye/Ronin

Thor’s Stormbreaker handle being made of Groot somehow solving something

Thanos being overcome with grief in his isolation

The possibility of a major time jump in A4 to see how Earth has moved on after the snap, which may include Tony’s future with Pepper and their child. Everyone will have lived so many years with the consequences of the snap.

It also feels like each character might have to go on their own hunt for the stones, which might lead to an interesting reversal of the loss and sacrifice they faced in IW. I wonder who gets assigned to each stone and how that’ll play out for their individual character arc? There’s one stone for each original Avenger, so that’s cool to think about 

Erasing versus dying. If you’ve heard anything about “the Event” that a lot of astrologers have been talking about lately, basically our reality is due for a cosmic event which splits us—leaving people behind and taking the rest into a prosperous new universe. Some will be “erased” from this existence. It’s been called the Rapture. Which is uh. Pretty interesting considering IW premiered on the actual date of the rapture prediction and how the Snap is absolutely a kind of sad superhero bad ending rapture. 

Rewriting everything that we’ve seen in the past 6 years in canon

I’ve also seen some talk of theories such as “Loki is Bruce Banner in disguise”. I can see why this theory is popular because Bruce acts really weird the whole movie and seems to know things he shouldn’t. But I’m not too into it because it feels like there’s a big payoff coming with the Hulk (as in, we better get a cool shot of him bursting out of the Hulkbuster armor, like the toy).

There’s also some talk about spotting Quicksilver and even Wolverine on the set but I have nooo idea what those would even mean, not just in regards to the plot but with the whole joint custody thing Sony, Fox and Disney have been working out. 

All of that said, I’ve been thinking about a few other threads in particular though, so that’s what I’ll be exploring here. Just speculation for fun. Let’s see where it leads.

☀ Undying Fidelity

The opening scene was really suspicious to me for many reasons. These directors are sharp and I believe there is purpose to everything we see as well as what we don’t see.

Let’s talk about my boy Loki.

He starts out pretty scared. The guy is sweating bullets. 

After the Hulk engages Thanos, Loki isn’t on screen for several minutes. We don’t see him reacting or hiding or anything. I don’t trust that, especially not with the Russo bros directing it. I feel as though something is being hidden from us in this moment, distracted by the Hulk just as much as the bad guys are.

When he reappears to offer himself as a guide to Thanos, suddenly his demeanor is totally different. He seems calm, resolved even. 

His choice of words is very important. The most suspicious to me are: “rightful heir to Jotunheim”, “God of Mischief”, “do hereby pledge my undying fidelity”. Loki does not want us to forget that he’s not only a Jotunn, not Asgardian by blood, but he’s a God, and a very, very cunning one. To be honest, it doesn’t feel like that last line was for Thanos at all. It honestly feels like he’s saying it to someone else—maybe himself. To his own duty in this moment. Which brings me to the next bullet point:

After that last line, dagger forming, his eyes quickly dart down. There’s a pause. A small beat there. He looks as though he’s steeling himself. That, to me, is the face of a man who very much knows he’s about to die. It’s a very Obi-Wan moment, right in front of Thor. It’s somehow even more heartbreaking if he knew it was coming, and was still so scared and small when Thanos wrapped his fist around his neck. 

Loki’s a smart cookie. He may be relatively young for a god/alien but this isn’t his first rodeo. He already knows how deadly and terrifying Thanos is without the Gauntlet/stones, so what does he think he can do right now? He knows a little dagger isn’t going to win this for them and that’s precisely the point. He isn’t dumb enough to try that sincerely, which makes me believe even more that it was strategic. I have a feeling Thanos chiding him about his choice in words (”undying”) is going to come back to bite him in the ass.

Back to Loki’s words being important. When he’s first about to surrender the Tesseract earlier in the scene, he says to Thor, "I promise you, brother, the sun will shine on us again."  He says it with so much purpose.

And his final words to Thanos: “You will never be a god.” Another reminder: Loki is a god. He’s survived a black hole, stabbing, Hulk-smashing, Grandmaster’s orgies, and likely more in his years. We’ve come to expect him to fake his own death by this point, though I’m still on the fence about whether this one was fake, or a necessary one he knew needed to happen, or somehow a bit of both. I wonder, only a little, where did Loki’s body go, is it just floating around with the rest of the dead? 

For that matter, where the hell is Valkyrie? Is there any meaningful payoff rather than just humor for Korg calling Loki a ghost in Ragnarok? I’m not too hopeful for something like that, but it’s a thought. 

Later on in the film we see Thor, another god, (barely) survive the concentrated full force of a dying star. I’m supposed to believe Loki, an incredibly gifted frost giant child trained in the arts of magic, Loki Ha Ha Duplicates of Me Everywhere Odinson, Loki I’m Right Where I Need to Be Laufeyson just has a sudden brain fart, tries to stab the Mad Titan, gets his neck snapped in front of his brother, and it’s not on purpose? 

BITCH. DID. NOT. TURN. BACK. TO. BLUE. 

Do I really think Loki is still alive? I don’t know. Loki is very, very dear to me but like I said, I’m on the fence. Because it seems like the deaths that happened before the snap, save for Gamora, might be permanent because we needed to feel that the stakes were high. On the other hand, again, Loki is very gifted. We’ve seen him “die” before and I still have a very hard time believing he’s fully dead and not god-level deep coma smacked down needing time to regenerate if he doesn’t just turn blue right after since his iconic look is an illusion too. His line about the sun shining on them again uses the word “us”, which could indicate a revival and reunion somehow. 

But I’m cry because you know he and Thor got into a lot of trouble growing up, and big brother was always there for him. But then little brother goes through some hard stuff, falls into a black hole, gets picked up by a cult, and it all comes down to this moment now: no home to return safely to, no mother to console him after Odin’s discipline, Thor unable to save him. 

♥ We Don’t Trade Lives

Before I go into A4 speculation, let’s look at how each character deals with sacrifice, just for fun: 

Loki is given a choice: his brother’s life, or the Space Stone → Loki surrenders and sacrifices himself 

Quill is given a choice: the love of his life, or Thanos getting closer to winning → Quill is hesitates and is unable to keep his promise of sacrificing Gamora

Gamora is given a choice: her sister, or the location of the Soul Stone  → Gamora surrenders to spare Nebula 

Thanos is given a choice: his favorite daughter, or the Soul Stone → Thanos sacrifices Gamora for the stone

Dr. Strange is given a choice: Tony Stark, or the Time Stone → Despite earlier warning Tony he wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice either him or Peter if it means keeping the Time Stone safe, he surrenders the stone → He sacrifices his duty, his life, and the lives of everyone else who gets dusted in order to put them on the one right path he saw out of over 14 million

Wanda is given a choice: Vision, or the Mind Stone → Her struggle with this choice starts earlier on when Vision offers to sacrifice himself to destroy the Mind Stone → Cap tells him “we don’t trade lives”  → Wanda is also not willing to immediately kill him when asked → They run out of time and options, Wanda finally sacrifices Vision, which as we saw didn’t really work out the way they wanted

Our characters struggle with sacrificing something important to them in order to save the universe (remember, in the eyes of Thanos, he’s saving the universe too). Many of the characters value their loved ones above everything else and don’t want to have to make that choice. They don’t want to face the pain of a life without that person, or they don’t want another person to suffer or die painfully because of them.

Alright. Let’s talk bidness. 

♛   Reframe the Future

Yeah—remember B.A.R.F.? Binarily Augmented Retro-Framing. 

This has to be what Tony will use to look back at things. I see him replaying the events of the first Avengers over and over, trying to figure out how it all could’ve gone so wrong, what clues they missed, and how to fix it. 

Which brings us to the question of time travel. Is this where the idea of Infinite Avengers will come in, if the multiverse is explored? I don’t have too much of a lead on that, but it’s interesting to think about. If that ends up being the title of A4 it would certainly point to that.

(Note Tony’s greying hair which supports the idea that A4 will start 5-10 years after Infinity War)

Many have speculated about the devices on their wrists in these photos, as well as the fact that while Tony and Ant-Man seem to be their present selves, others are in their old costumes from the first Avengers. Doesn’t quite answer why Cap is wearing a device, unless they recruit lots of multiversal Avengers from various timelines/realities/points in history to help? (Wouldn’t it be crazy to find out that Ant-Man has been a secret tiny time traveling Avenger the whole time?) 

It’s hard to know exactly what kind of time travel shenanigans we’re dealing with. Maybe we’ll learn more when we see Ant-Man and the Wasp, since they’re going to be dealing with the quantum realm, where time doesn’t really exist. In the quantum realm, every possibility exists at the same time. 

We do have some clues though. 

Exhibit A: Loki in all his muzzled glory, as seen at the end of Avengers.

We know that this time travel plot would involve going back to where it all started. But what could be done, what is Tony’s play? 

Exhibit B: Tony Stark in S.H.I.E.L.D. gear. More specifically—

As one of Loki’s escorts.

What we don’t see in Avengers is how everything goes down when they take Loki back into custody (after grubbing on shawarma). We don’t see the discussion about what to do with him and Thor’s decision to take Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard. 

So, again, what the hell is Tony’s game plan?��

If he’s disguised as a guard, there could be a chance to get alone with Loki and talk to him. Tell him everything that goes down. Get him to help. Get info from him, and make sure he knows how things need to play out in order for this all to work.

I’m not sure how yet though. It seems this could somehow involve Stark making his own Infinity Gauntlet, but that’s later down the line. Where does Loki fit into the plan beyond the time travel scene? That may be all we get of him. 

I’m so excited for the possibility of my two favorite characters working together or even having just once more scene together, however it plays out. Tony and Loki both smiled at each others’ jokes in A1 and I loved it. I feel like their dynamic would be so interesting to explore more. Tony totally clocked that Loki is a diva, because they’re both like that lol.

☮ Glorious Purpose

But what’s most interesting to me right now is the implication that if this is the closed loop kind of time travel, it would mean Loki has known about all this since the end of Avengers. 

When the Hulk was distracting everyone, was Loki hiding behind a wall, readying himself for what he knew he needed to do next? I’ve heard talk of the possibility of a duplicate since that’s what Loki does, but would Thanos have been able to tell he was killing an illusion? He didn’t have the Soul Stone then which likely helped him tell which Strange was real later. I’ve also heard talk of a Loki switchout, but I’m not too convinced because it would involve somehow transporting another Loki there. Not so sure there would be a stealthy way to do any of that. 

Did Loki die in the beginning of Infinity War fully knowing all those years that it was going to happen, that it needed to happen, in order for the sun to shine again?

Did Loki die to help save the universe?

...

If Loki knew those few weeks on Sakaar were going to be his last, do you think he was like, “Guess I better live my best life and spend my final days sipping cocktails on Grandmaster’s lap.”

My final speculation prediction REQUIREMENT from Marvel Studios is to have Avengers 4 end with a beautiful Pepperony wedding filled with superheroes. Whoever’s left, that is. 

(This also means if there’s a time jump, Tony will possibly erase the present he has with Pepper and their child in order to save everyone... Should be interesting.)

In conclusion, have this whiteboard drawing I did for @spazzeon as I tried to explain all of this

[fluffyllamas-23]

All I can say is poor Bucky.  Shoutout to @strange-capers for helping me with the plot lol

There’s some mention of death and like...maybe some very brief mention of suicidal thoughts (I don’t even know if you can consider it that, but I’m just being cautious)

Life was never the same after Bucky’s older sister passed. Life was never the same after that asshole decided to get behind the wheel after drinking.  Life was never the same after he ran the red light, and plowed straight into the driver’s side, right into Becca.

Bucky had only been eighteen at the time, and even though it’s been three years, that night is still ingrained in his memory.  

They had decided to go out to see a movie, Bucky had been stressed with his first semester in college, and Becca (who was just about to turn 30 at the time) decided that he needed a night away from his books and papers.  

They didn’t even make it to the movie. Instead of their night being filled with a movie, and dinner, and laughter and fun...it was filled with trauma, and hospitals, and pain, and loss.

Becca died on impact, which is the only thing that brought him comfort.  

At least she didn’t suffer.  

Bucky, though...he wished he had died that night, too.  

He walked away from the accident with a severe concussion, broken ribs, and an arm that had been so crushed and mangled, that they had to amputate.  Doctors said he was lucky to be alive, but after losing his big sister (his beautiful, wonderful, caring sister who was his best friend, and the person he went to for everything) he didn’t feel so lucky.  

He met Steve shortly after the accident, while he was still getting used to the prosthetic. Steve, who is a tall, muscled jock, who was so patient and kind and wonderful and understanding, it made things a little bit easier.

He had lost his mom when he was younger, and so he understood.

He was there, he let Bucky be upset, and angry, and scream because it wasn’t fair that this incredible person who did so much good in the world, who dedicated her life to working with special needs kids, had everything taken from her. It wasn’t fair that the good-for-nothing, drunk fuck up walked away with barely a scratch and ripped apart Bucky’s entire family and left them reeling.

One day, almost two years after Becca was killed, after Bucky had been going to therapy for a while, after he finally started coming to terms with her death, after he stopped blaming himself, Bucky realized that maybe, just maybe, he liked Steve as more than just a friend.

And the rest was history.

Steve didn’t look at him like he was broken, Steve loved Bucky for who he was, scars and imperfections and all.

*

Steve walks through the door, and deposits his bag on the floor with a groan.

He’s exhausted - classes had been hard, work had been taxing, and he’s just looking forward to spending the rest of the night on the couch, cuddling with Bucky.

However, he’s greeted by a hoarse “ih’tsch! Hh’ihtsh! Hhihhtch!,” all of which sound congested and itchy enough for him to frown.

“Buck?” Steve asks, closing the door behind him.  

When there’s no answer, he walks into the living room and stops in his tracks when he sees Bucky sitting on the couch, looking through photo albums, pressing a tissue to his nose as he sniffles incessantly.

“Hey,” he whimpers, choking on a sob as he stares down at the pictures.

“You alright?”

Bucky looks up at him, just barely holding back tears as he bites down on his lip, “I miss her.”

“I know,” Steve says softly, walking over to him.  “Are you feeling alright?”

Bucky shakes his head and gives a little cough as he rubs at his forehead, “no...my head...huh’tsch! *snff* guh...I just...I miss her so fucking much it hurts.”  

Steve sits down next to him and presses his hand to the back of Bucky’s neck and hums in disapproval, “bless you...you’re warm. Have you been looking at pictures of her for long?”

Bucky bites back another sob and buries his face in his hands.  Steve rubs between his shoulder blades, closes the photo album, and then pulls Bucky into his lap.

Steve tries to keep Bucky away from pictures of Becca when he’s sick.  It’s been three years since the accident, and after a lot of therapy, he’s finally in a better place. He still misses her, and nothing will ever be able to completely fill the hole her death left, but he’s handling it better. When he’s sick, though, it seems like all of the progress is lost, and he can’t stop thinking about her.  

“How about I get you some medicine, and we can watch a movie, huh? Get your mind off of her and how you’re feeling.”

“That sounds nice,” he says in a tiny voice, Steve’s shirt balled up in his fists.  

When Bucky doesn’t make any effort to move, Steve kisses the top of his head, “do you want to come with me?”

“No.”

“You’ve gotta let me up then.”

“No.”

Steve chuckles lightly, “honey, come on.  Just for a second. I want to get a thermometer and something to help you feel better.”

He groans, coughing a little, “fine.”

“I’ll be right back, I promise. Two minutes, you can time me.”

True to his word, he only took two minutes, and once he takes Bucky’s temperature (101.5) and has given him medicine, Steve sits back next to him and lets Bucky snuggle into his side.

“Did you just start feeling bad today? You’re starting to sound pretty sick.”

Bucky nods, face pressed against Steve’s chest, “I stayed home from classes and work.”

“Probably for the best, honey,” Steve says softly. “Are you okay?”

“No...not really,” Bucky sniffles, rubbing his nose on Steve’s shirt absentmindedly.

“I’m so sorry,” he sighs,  “what do you feel like watching?”

He shrugs listlessly, “you pick.”

*

Bucky is much worse by the next morning.  He had stumbled out onto the couch from the bedroom in the middle of the night, too congested to sleep, and too achey to be flat on his back.  He spent the rest of the night drifting in and out of sleep, and when he wasn’t sleeping, he was muffling coughs and sneezes into the blankets.  By the time Steve wakes up, Bucky is a bleary, congested mess.  His throat feels like it’s been ripped to shreds, and each swallow feels like knives are being shoved down it.  

Steve frowns, walking over to him, “you look so, so sick.  Are you okay?”

Bucky shivers, curling into himself, “I feel awful.”

“Have you been out here for long? I didn’t even realize you left.”

“Beend out here all ndight,” he rasps,  “Heh!...HehEHtsch! Nnntsh! *Snff* ugh...I’mb so sick of s-sndeezi’gg-ehtsch! *snff* guh.”

“Bless you,” Steve frowns.  He was only on day two of whatever the hell he had managed to catch, and he already sounded worn out and tired. “You’ve been out here all night? Why didn’t you wake me?”

Bucky coughs into the crook of his elbow, “you have...umb...I cand’t rebember what...but you have a lot today...didnd’t wandt to wake you up.”

“I appreciate that, but I’d like to know when you’re not feeling well so I can keep you company and make sure you’re okay.”

Bucky was right, though.  Steve does have a big day.  He, unfortunately, has something in every class, whether it be a test, a group presentation, or a paper due, which means that he can’t stay home and take care of his very sick boyfriend.

“Text me if you start feeling worse,” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s forehead.  He frowns as he pulls away, and presses the back of his fingers to Bucky’s temple, “I think your fever might have gone up...you feel warmer.”

Bucky groans, “I’mb finde, Stevie...just...go to class.  Good luck ond everythi’gg.”

“I’m serious, Buck. I’ll have my phone on me.”

He sniffles, “go. I’ll be finde.”

Steve sighs and cups his cheek, “I just want you to be okay...I hate seeing you like this.  I wish I could do something.”

“It’s okay.”

When Bucky finally convinces Steve to leave (after Steve makes sure he has everything he may possibly need), he rolls over in bed coughing.  The center of his chest burns and aches, and the coughing makes his headache and sore throat flare.  

His eyes fill up with tears.  

He hates being alone when he’s sick; he’s always hated bit.  Becca always used to sit with him when he didn’t feel well - she always told him stories to get his mind off things, and if that didn’t work, they would watch movies, or play board games. Their mom was never great when it came to germs, so Becca would be the one to take care of him.  She would make him soup, and tea, and just...make sure he was okay.

God, he missed her.  

*

As soon as Steve turned in his paper, he booked it back to his car, and sped back to their apartment.  

Being away from Bucky for so long when he was this sick was making Steve anxious.

He had only been sick a handful of times since Becca passed, and Steve still has no idea how to help him through it. It’s killing him to see Bucky in this much pain and not be able to do anything about it.

“Bucky?” Steve says softly, walking into the apartment.

Bucky is sprawled out on the couch, eyelids half open as he stares blankly ahead of him.

Steve crouches in front of him, and presses a hand to his cheek.

“Stevie?” He rasps.

“Yeah, hey. How are you feeling?”

Bucky just shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Okay, Okay. How about some more medicine? Have you had any lately?”

“Ndo.”

“I think your fever is up,” he says grabbing the thermometer from the coffee table before he sticks it in Bucky’s ear. “Do you feel worse?”

“Uh-huh,” he sniffles, pitching forward with a trio of tired, scratchy and congested sneezes. Steve rubs his back as he groans, “sorry...mbeant to cover.”

The thermometer beeps, and Steve inhales sharply when 103.1 flashes on the screen.

“It’s okay. I’ll be right back.”

“Why’d that guy have to drink and drive?” He asks, voice thick as he tries to hold back tears. “Why did-why did he have to do that? Wh-why couldnd’t he have called a cab? Or a friend? Why couldnd’t he have just waited?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t,” Steve says quietly, cupping his cheek.

“It’s ndot fair,” he whimpers, tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

Steve wipes them away with his thumbs, “I know, I know.”

“She should still be here...she always wandted to be a mbomb...she ndever got that opportundity...she would have beend the best mbomb. It’s ndot fair.”

Steve swallows the lump in his throat, and blinks back tears of his own, “I know.”

Bucky goes into a miserable, lung-seizing coughing fit that sounds like it’s tearing at his throat, and is so full of congestion that Steve visibly flinches.

Bucky sniffles, “I dond’t feel very well.”

“I know,” Steve repeats, smoothing Bucky’s hair back.

“I’mb exhausted.”

“How about I get you something to help you sleep?”

Bucky nods, “please.”

“I’ll be right back,” Steve says, kissing Bucky’s cheek.

He closes his eyes, muffling a cough into the blankets.

He’s a mess, and he hates it.

When Steve comes back, Bucky is asleep.  He wakes briefly when Steve prods him to take the medicine, but then he’s asleep again.

Steve just hopes that this is the worst it’ll get, because he’s not sure how much more of this Bucky can take before he loses it.

He pulls the blanket over Bucky’s shoulder, kisses his burning temple, and then goes into the kitchen to start some soup and tea.

[gurguliare]

do you have any ideas for how a Good version of TLJ might have gone? Assuming TFA stayed the same

Okay here I have summarized a convoluted revised version of TLJ for you, keeping as much of the plot skeleton as possible. What I am proposing is not so much a “Good” version as a “trashy version I would have enjoyed.” I feel comfortable in the knowledge that no one is going to read to the end of this read more.

Rey plot: have the initial focus/mystery be the fact that Luke having voluntarily cut himself off from the Force, and the “darkness” on the island then is some kind of very literal dissociated embodiment of his trauma, or whatever; like, Rey talks to Luke and gets nothing from him, Rey goes to the kelp pit and gets the same traumatic memory projector effect as she got from the lightsaber but x1000. Kelp pit is grief pit. Also instead of the porgs retrieving the lightsaber it would have washed up in the sea cave there, obviously. Also logically the pit should be under the tree/temple/whatever, I don’t know why the pit wouldn’t be under the tree. OH maybe there is no tree and Luke destroyed it years ago lmao. And is like, somewhat sheepish about this, but not that sheepish. Luke gives an actual cogent argument for why the Jedi need to end + a description of what it’s like to be submerged in the Force and be tempted, constantly, by the ‘destiny’ the Force recommends, even after having already failed—he wanted to restart the school! He dreamed of finding other children to replace the dead students! He couldn’t bear the hope, so he cut himself off. Rey: “… it’s nothing like that for me. are you sure that was the Force. btw there’s a mirror underground here and it hates you.” The ROTJ parallel isn’t Luke and Vader / Rey and Kylo, it’s Rey distractedly, bemusedly saving Luke.

(As far as the Kylo backstory goes, uhhhh, my problem is that I really LIKE “Kylo thought Luke was going to kill him” from the Kylo side, it’s a classic fucked-up thing triggers massively fucked-up reaction type scenario, my favorite, but I Just. Cannot. Do It. with any amount of finagling. on Luke’s. And all the stopgaps I’m coming up with are ridiculous. “Snoke makes a projection of Luke attack Kylo, foreshadowing Luke’s projection of himself at the end” “Snoke makes a projection of SNOKE attack Luke, Kylo tries to ‘defend’ Luke and accidentally blows up the temple, foreshadowing his failure to blow up Luke’s projection at the end” These are all so bad. I’m realizing that I cut the Luke-projecting-himself element. Maybe uhhhhhh Luke realized that Snoke had been tampering with Ben’s mind and tried to temporarily cut off Ben’s access to the Force >_ Or asked Ben to close off the Force and Ben interpreted that as a threat, rapidly escalated things into a physical confrontation, pretty much accidentally did serious injury to Luke, and then panicked? I don’t know that’s still pretty shitty but I like the idea of this then leading to the world’s most melodramatic self-punishment on the subject, also could tie into “the vanity of the Jedi, thinking they own the Force!”)

0k that’s my tentative proposition. Luke explains this to Rey in five minutes or less, she’s like, “bye,” jumps down the hole. She is crying the whole time for reasons probably. For the record, I would keep a lot of the stuff with Kylo’s and her minds being bridged, or at least I would keep the fact of them being linked all throughout her time on the island—actually, wait, I got it, Kylo is one of the things waiting on the other side of Luke’s severed bonds, so when she goes to the pit she accidentally picks up on that. BTW the Force speech Luke gives her would be all about “bonds” and would be MUCH more Orson Scott Card as a consequence. So now Kylo’s manipulation to the tune of, When I was a child, the galaxy was so silent. Mother was there, and Uncle Luke was there, and everywhere else, silence. Don’t you know what it’s like to be alone? Imagine if someone had asked you—to shut your ears—and she’s like I STAYED ON JAKKU FOR 23 YEARS and smashes the mirror

Luke, extremely Force-hungover: oh

AND THUS, HUT EXPLOSION.

Then Rey and Luke have some kind of excitable shouted conversation in the pouring rain where Luke is like “he’s looking for me!” “YEAH, HE’S LOOKING FOR YOU.” “no, you don’t understand—he’s looking for me!” “HE’S LOOKING AT YOU RIGHT NOW, ACTUALLY.” “but he wasn’t—he disappeared for years! he did take my advice, in the worst way possible! i feel so connected!” “ARGHHHHH”

luke + rey pilot the millennium falcon resistanceward, she discovers he is also a backseat driver

Finn plot: I assumed in the first five minutes of the movie that the way the First Order was “tracking” the Resistance was through Finn, and I still think that makes the most sense/offers the easiest dramatic tension. I mean it’s cheap but whatever this is still a hypothetical Disney movie we’re talking about. Uh… I don’t know there are a bunch of directions you could take this but like … I guess playing on Rose’s initial hero-worship of Finn, make it a thing where… mm. Finn convinces her that the reason he’s sneaking onto an escape pod is because he’s nobly trying to save the Resistance by removing his implanted tracking beacon from the ship (there is no such device and he’s making this up, to the best of his knowledge); she comes up with the plan to uncouple the devices on-site, if they can sneak aboard the ship, because he’s Finn and it’s so important that he escape finally and for real! he makes up a bunch of mumbo-jumbo about First Order security and an expert codebreaker who might be their only hope, planning to lose her on Canto Bight; on Canto Bight, they have some uncomfortable conversation about growing up as slaves and the appeal of the Resistance, Finn maybe assuming that Rose joined for her sister’s sake? wrongly, blah blah extended annoying conversation about how there’s protecting the actual person and then there’s protecting the things that person would want to protect; Lando Calrissian arrests them for parking violations halfway through the conversation, which continues in the prison, where small child jailers throw bones and debris at them; he tries to ditch her in the confusion of the prisonbreak, she catches up to him and is Very Betrayed; then the First Order scoops them up because it turns out they were using Finn to track the Resistance, and the reason they managed to do so even at lightspeed was because Kylo Ren could detect Finn’s force signature. Because of how Force-sensitive Finn is.

Cue tragicomic re-recruitment sequence in which we POSSIBLY meet some of the other Knights of Ren, and also, Phasma is there, “helping.” Phasma: it’ll be just like endurance training! You LOVED endurance training! You did so well on all your diagnostics! Finn: …………………….

Finally Kylo kicks everyone else out and is very casually like hey are you and Rey force-bonded because for some reason she’s stopped talking to me and I’d really love to consult her about somethinggggg, I was wondering if she’d trust me more if I already had your support! Don’t you want revenge? I’m going to kill Snoke. It turns out my uncle loved me!

Finn: should you just say that

Kylo: I’ve been thinking it every day for the past fifteen years so I doubt he’s too worried

Finn: DO YOU NOT SEE THE ISSUE HERE

then unfortunately right at that moment he does actually hear Rey’s voice in his head. Some prior buildup with Rey actively reaching out toward Finn before that and being SUPER FRUSTRATED to constantly get Kylo. Rey: Finn, don’t worry, Master Luke has a plan, we’re coming for you! We’re .… . . crashlanding in the main docking bay and being arrested. Oh my g

I’m basically picturing Luke, like, uselessly draped over several stormtroopers’ unwilling arms because he’s so high on being In Tune With The Force Again, and oh btw the stormtroopers received orders to toss Luke to Kylo but bring Rey straight to Snoke—Kylo: fuck!!! He weirdly ignores Luke, seeming satisfied now that he’s gotten his validation from him. So then Finn and Luke are left alone under guard and Kylo storms off to confront Snoke.

Luke: mmmmmmmm. huh. hello.

Finn: Hey quick q if I’m so fucking Force-sensitive why can’t I read minds and control people’s wills

Luke: [surprised voice] Can’t you? I thought you didn’t want to

Finn: OH MY GOD, I HATE YOU PEOPLE

Luke: Or I could blow up all the electronics in this room, hold on

(later in the chase sequence finn mindcontrols hux and is like “oh god it was so SLIMY like holding an eel”)

Probably some dumb climax where Snoke makes a pitch to Rey re: Luke not training her, which is a true established thing in this version of TLJ, and tells Rey to kill Kylo because he (Snoke) can only afford one apprentice. Rey: are u serious, I actually kind of don’t want to murder him at this point, it seems like a lot of hassle. I want to learn, and you and Luke both suck—Kylo won’t you teach me

(Luke as Finn hauls him across, likely, a catwalk: Do you remember feeling like you couldn’t fit in, like you were always different? The one person you knew who wasn’t part of a whole?

Finn: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Luke: I’ll tell you a secret. That’s because you’re part of something bigger. Something much bigger than your squad, or Hux’s army, or even the Resistance. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

Finn: is it the jedi.

Luke: no. NO. i said BIGGER)

To be fair to Rian Johnson, I have no clue how to write a satisfying multipart star wars climax. something something where Kylo explodes grandpa’s lightsaber in order to finish off Snoke, and I guess takes unconscious Rey prisoner, is realistically how I would end this?? The triumphant Lando-restocked Resistance decloaks, but the First Order fleet turns tail and runs after a few rounds? Finn deliberately uses the Force to find Rose and trace a (reluctant, angry) path through the disintegrating star destroyer, goes with Luke and Rose on the Millennium Falcon, having fought off Phasma but sort of in a hurry? Rose maybe killed Hux? Idk what the reasoning for Finn agreeing to leave Rey would be, other than I guess “the awareness that Kylo wants to use him to manipulate her, however ineptly.” Rose probs involved somehow. Rose: It’s still important that you escaped. Finn: I HAVEN’T GOTTEN AWAY ONCE

end scene where Finn has just finished an offscreen argument with Luke about Luke training him in the Force, and therefore comes to Leia

end-end scene where they all hear Rey’s voice at once because she picked up telepathic specialization from Snoke, because it’s traditional that Rey gain wild new Force powers in every movie purely through observation.

end-end-end scene where Luke has an audibly two-sided argument with Anakin’s ghost behind a closed door (“I’m not the last Jedi. I should have been, but I’m not. It’s my duty—” “what duty. it’s been ten years you haven’t answered my calls” “Daaad.”)

Start of the next movie: Kylo: You know, I used our telepathic bond to mislead Snoke. Rey: cool, don’t care. Kylo: It is ironic because of how he used that same bond to manipulate me. Rey: RED MEN ARE GLISTENING

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Poe plot: Can someone else do this one