#with not a single bit of power that hasn't been given to him by other people

[transmascutena]

i know i've said it a million times before but i just. i hate it when people treat akio as some kind of god with supernatural powers to manipulate people's emotions and not just. a fucking groomer. like there's literally nothing he does that regular ass horrible people don't do every single day. and that's a hundred times scarier than whatever you're making up about him

like. no he fucking isn't ???? what show did you watch

[justatalkingface]

Let's talk about the Nomu and the Remnants

So, among all the other fuck fuck games Hori played with late-game MHA, I don't think anyone has really... picked up on just what implications he's made when it comes to Remnants.

You see, once upon a time, Remnants only existed because OFA let them, kept them, empowered them. Even when it wasn't really expanded on at the time, the fact that Izuku had them was a sign of his Heroic Mandate (TM) and Destiny(TM), it was something unique to him, something that even All Might didn't have. But... you know, now AFO is just filled with a screaming chorus of those he has damned or something.

Let's... let's ignore the general clusterfuck of AFO for this, and just... all the late game stuff. Let's just talk about one thing: the fact that he has Remnants, and the fact they've been trying to talk to (murder) him.

And first off, that's a big retcon, because even if the OFA Remnants didn't want to murder their users, I'm pretty damn sure they'd want to talk to them all the same, and yet somehow only Izuku noticed, even before the clusterfuck of the extra Quirks kicked in.

But even that's not the point, that's just an appetizer. Because the thing is? The Quirks AFO is holding aren't the only Quirks he's taken, far from it.

There are the Quirks he's given to various people throughout the years, subordinates, would be supporters and probably some random people he wanted to torture.

The Nomu he's made, experimented on for decades.

Hell, all the Quirks he and Dr. Diablo Ex Machina have made (somehow) throughout this time.

That's hundreds, maybe thousand, of Quirks. Millions potentially, if we're looking at the copies and trying to get a number out of the vague 'and then we invented a whole new science just to fuck other people over' bit. And according to this late game stuff? Every single one of them is host to the mental copy of the person they were stolen from (or cloned from, presumably). And outside of a few exceptions, (vanishingly few; while there were people in the past, and in rare occasions the present, who didn't want their Quirks... the magic dream copy in the Quirk would still have their Quirk. For them, the problem hasn't gone away at all! Maybe some of the reason they hated it is gone, but even at best they're still bearing that thing they've always hated... and that's not even getting into people who just... hated them, or thought they were wrong. Or were afraid of hurting someone... only to be given to someone who doesn't share those same concerns, or even the same level of restraint they had. Even though the actual person got what they wanted, there's a copy of them that is still in hell, and knows they're never going to escape it, because they are their own nightmare.) every single Quirk was stolen by force. Every single one of the remnants in these people are just... suffering, and for all intents and purposes will remain that way, until the person bearing them dies.

And all of that? All of that doesn't get into the Nomus. The largely brain dead living corpses made smashing together likely Quirks with the same energy of a child trying to force together Legos, even before whatever process happens to condition them into being loyal. What the hell does that do to a mind? Do they stay separate? Do they... blend together? Does the body/dominant mind/most powerful Quirk just get implanted with memories and desires of complete strangers?

Every single one of those exposed brain monstrosities is a walking, talking torture device filled with damned souls of some unknown number, and who even knows about how much is in the High Ends.

Hell, what about the copied Quirks? Do they retain the full knowledge of who they were? Or does each copy... lose something, each in generation away from the original? Do they realize that they're missing some fundamental portion of themselves, that they're not real?

I'm pretty damn sure that this, like so many things, is something that just happened because Hori didn't think it through, because this is horrifying on levels it's hard to comprehend. It's a level of human suffering on the level of you'd get from the Dark Eldar in WH40K, and on both Hori and AFO's parts, it's entirely accidental. And yet, I don't think there's one part of this that isn't canon compliant, that there's nothing to disprove the idea that, somewhere in Aoyoma, there's some poor sod that was shoved in there, that inside AFO there's a copy of Eri.

Just... just something I want people to think about, because I don't want to be the only one.

[milliesfishes]

𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚𝓢𝓹𝓮𝓵𝓵𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓭 (𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓽 𝓽𝔀𝓸)𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚

[fem reader] contains: talk of witchcraft, trauma, threats of death, non-suicidal self-harm, mentions of miscarriage, mentions of abuse pairing: billy the kid x fem reader summary: witch reader x billy the kid author’s note: thank you witch anon!! there'll be one more part to this series <3 Pinterest Board Spotify Playlist

If one based their opinion of you off the way the townspeople spoke, you'd be the spawn of the devil.

They dragged your name through the mud, kicking dirt on it and beating it bloody. The difference from them you exhibited made you foreign to them, and they hated you for it.

Whispers about rituals and sacrifices passed their lips, as they criticized your clothes, your hair, your habits. Whenever you were spotted there was a bevy of excitement in the world of gossip.

"She's just so strange," one woman said after a lengthy account of how she'd seen you standing by the lake with a basket of herbs. "It's an insult, honestly, so have her so close to town. Isn't there any way to get her out?"

"Hasn't done anythin' wrong, honey," her man wrapped an arm around her waist and rubbing her side. "Ain't a crime to be a lil' odd."

She huffed, folding her arms. "I suppose."

That interaction was one of the least scathing ones Billy heard. Your image was painted as a bitter, cold woman with powers used for a black evil beyond anything the town had seen before.

It couldn't have been more different from the sweet, mild-mannered woman currently in Billy's arms.

You were lying there lazily, the stem of a flower between your fingers as you hummed to yourself. Body nestled between his legs; you rested your head back on his chest. His arms were settled over your collarbone, cheek smushed to your head as he watched you play with the flower.

The gentle nature of your being practically radiated off you. Billy was idly picking wildflowers around him and sticking them in your hair messily. He buried gentle kisses in your temple. The entire clearing seemed to vibrate with your contentment.

Looking at you now, he hadn't a clue how anybody could ever find you anything but wonderfully sweet. Hating you would feel like hating a butterfly or a baby deer. He tightened his arms around you protectively, as if he could remedy all the awful things people said about you that way.

"I wish I was better," you murmured absentmindedly, studying the flower in your hand.

Billy kissed your hair. "You've got more goodness in your little finger 'n anyone else does in their whole body." He held said little finger up, touching his lips to it gently.

"Nobody else seems to think so," you mumbled, and Billy frowned, shifting you in his arms. He tried to think of a single time you'd ever been anything other than sweet. Memories of the past little bit swallowed his mind for a moment.

You reciting harmless little enchantments in French. You'd told him the witch who'd spellbound you was French and so you learned all your spells and potions in the language.

You telling him that the strongest magic you'd dared try was when a woman in your old seaside town had come to you with a tale of an abusive husband. She'd asked for a spell that would knock him out for a few days so she could run away. And you'd given it to her.

You sleeping under the stars within the bounds of your little garden, and him riding up early one of those mornings to find you passed out under the lilies like you were made to lie with flowers.

Not a single detail about you was tainted. As far as he was concerned, your soul was as pure as a lamb's.

"Darlin'," he started, and you looked up at him with hopelessly adorable eyes. For a moment he was distracted, but he quickly found words again. "The fact you worry so much 'bout bein' good just proves you are."

Your lashes touched your cheek as you looked back down at the flower in your hand. Then in a motion that melted his heart, you reached up, tucking the stem into his shirt pocket. Turning sideways in his arms, you pressed your cheek to his chest, closing your eyes. "We're a pair, aren't we? An outlaw and a witch." The second word was said with so much contempt, and he dropped his lips to the part in your hair.

"I love you," he breathed, and you smiled softly. Billy had only said it for the first time a month ago, and you never got tired of hearing it.

"I love you," you whispered it like a spell, with more power in your voice than you would have put if it was.

Your trust was not a thing easily given. Billy knew that by the way you shied away from the town, by how you’d been so hesitant to initiate touching and kissing him at first. Even now, there were secrets he hadn’t been allowed to dive deep to discover yet.

There was a hurt in your past that you covered fiercely, determined not to let it become you. But at the same time, you were tethered to it, wary of its events. Billy didn’t pry even though he could see it, knowing you’d let him in if you wanted.

Some of it couldn't be helped. The weight of your magic weighed heavy on you, and it irked him to no end.

One day he'd ridden up to your cottage only to find you collapsed to the floor, your weight supported by one of your cabinets. You were listless, eyes closed.

Billy went into overdrive, stumbling to his knees and scooping you up, cradling you in his arms. His heart had raced, convinced you were on death’s door. “Angel…oh, angel baby stay with me. Please? Keep those pretty eyes open f’me.”

And you’d wearily looked up at him, smiling softly. “Billy…”

“Hey sweet girl,” he laughed slightly in relief. “Hey…whaddya need, baby? What’s goin’ on? Did somethin' go wrong?”

“My magic…” you mumbled. “It…hurts…sometimes. Makes me tired.”

And he’d exhaled, a mix of gratitude and frustration. You weren’t dying. But you were still infirm, and he was helpless. “Can I getcha anything? How can I help ya?”

You tugged on his sleeve. “The…the lavender. It helps. In the blue bottle.”

Thankfully it was within arm’s reach. Billy stretched his arm out, uncapping it and holding it to your lips. You drank it, breathing softly afterwards. A little light came back into your eyes, and you sat up a little against him. “Thank you.”

“‘S no problem, sweetheart,” he cooed, smoothing your hair. “Just rest, m’kay? I’ve gotcha.”

You closed your eyes soon after, finding it in you to sleep. It killed him that you had such a thing forced upon you. He wished you would have told him about your frequent ailments, but it couldn't be helped.

He only felt privileged that you’d let him in the way you had. There was an obligation on his shoulders that came with being able to know you this way, even if you weren’t conscious of it. It was something that he was more than happy to shoulder.

Now, in the safety of the clearing, Billy pressed a gentle kiss to your mouth, his nose nudging yours. He pulled back, thumbing your cheek and leaning his forehead to yours. “I’m always gonna protect ya. No matter what, sweetheart.”

The love in your eyes could have fueled him for the rest of his days. You twined your arms around his neck, your face in his neck. “You’re the only one I trust, Billy. The only one in the world.”

Witch.

The word left such a bitter taste in your mouth. It struck fear into the hearts of any who'd heard of your reputation before actually encountering you, leaving you alone and despondent.

You hadn't been careful enough in your hometown, thinking that because most of the residents had known you for your whole life, they wouldn't forsake you.

Quickly proven wrong, with a heavy heart you'd bid farewell to the salt air, and soothing sea, forced to relocate further east.

The town you'd picked was one you'd thought inland enough that your reputation wouldn't follow you. But it wasn't long before the townspeople caught wind of your unusual activities and spewed that word strung to your name. It was a hurtful thing, to be judged so harshly when they hardly knew of you. At least those in your hometown had something to go off of.

Any hopes of finding a replacement had been dashed. You hadn't dared venture into town, wary of being turned away or stoned or any of the other horror stories you'd heard from the old coven by the sea. At least there'd been something of a sisterhood there. Here there was nobody.

So you went about your duties, tending to the earth around your home and maintaining your magic, casting little spells to keep it alive, keep it healthy. However much you despised your abilities, you knew the consequences would be worse if you starved them.

It was a rough existence, missing your home and cursing your ability to curse. It was so very lonely out here. You couldn't find it in yourself to blame anyone for ostracizing you. It was an awful part of yourself that wasn't even you.

When Billy had pushed through that patch of thorns to save you, gallant and fearless, your heart had skipped a beat. Seeing him standing in front of you with only the purest of intentions, covered head to toe in scratches, you couldn't help the stirrings within you, no matter how dangerous your head told you it would be to grow attached to anybody.

Falling in love with him was exactly that- falling. It happened hard and fast and wonderfully, and you quickly made him the center of your world. He was a distraction from your guilt over your reluctant title, and he made you feel like more than the magic within you.

Billy made you feel like you were magic.

He swept you in his arms, kisses and soft touches abound, telling you things you'd never heard from anybody. To him you weren't a doomsdayer, you were his angel.

In his arms and his presence, you felt more alive than you had since the old witch had found you desolate. He loved so purely that you felt undeserving.

With his own qualms about his status as an outlaw, Billy understood yours about the life you lived. You spent many nights under the stars with him, each of you trying to forget your respective places in this world. A safe haven, an oasis, he completed you, filled in the spaces around your heart that you couldn't bring yourself to occupy.

But like a prophecy, you were doomed to self-hatred.

The rain beat down on your roof as you sat by the window, Fish in your vicinity. He purred as you stroked his cheek, the little creature reading your emotions and trying to comfort you. The windows were misty, and the room was darkened. You couldn't bring yourself to light even a single candle.

Your past was a stone that weighed you down at the bottom of a river you wished to swim out of. It had jagged arms, gripping you in them whenever it could come close enough. You bled trying to push them away.

Every circumstance that had marked your path to this moment stacked like flat stones on your heart, forming unmistakable, undeniable regret. Every choice you could have made to remove yourself from the past situation was now blatantly obvious, calling you a fool for being blind before.

Now here you were. Armed with the burden of a power you never wanted.

Fists tightening, your nails dug into your palms, a self-control tactic necessary to keep you pacified. Peering out the window, you searched for the moon, or even a single star, but the clouds mercilessly hid them from your view. It felt like nature was taunting you.

Tears rained down your cheeks, and your nails bit your skin harder. Like a typhoon, phantoms of the past swirled and surrounded you, whispering things in your ears that buckled your knees. Blandly, you whispered, "Stop."

That only seemed to encourage them, and you felt the urge to scream building up in your body. Tension waltzed into your body, stepping on every crack and corner on its way. A single, undeniable emotion unburied itself and stitched that awful word on your soul.

Witch.

Springing to your feet with hot tears raining in your wake, you found your way to the embroidered book of spells on your table. Tearing through the aged pages, your blurry eyes combed the various enchantments, searching desperately for something, anything to fix it. To kill the misfortune sitting on your shoulders.

Nothing would remedy it, nothing you'd seen so far. Turning toward the back of the book where the heavier curses lay, you nearly ripped the parchment from the spine when you saw it. While it wasn't a direct fix, your frenzied mind figured it could tweak it, turn it into what you needed it to be.

You closed your eyes, committing the ritual to memory and slamming the book shut, throwing your door open and fleeing into the night, into the rain.

It was so stormy that you hardly saw two feet in front of you. Water soaked your white dress as you ran wildly to your destination. The ground was freezing, and it made your feet ache, but you hardly cared.

Finally reaching the pond that fed into a nearby river, you collapsed to your knees at the banks, whispering the French incantation. You must have looked a fright, hair soaked and sticking to your shoulders, dress drenched. Opening your eyes, you threw your head back and stared at the round, pale moon, which had been revealed briefly, a respite from the cloudy expanse of the sky.

A force overtook you, and you welcomed it, letting it pull you to stand once more and move your feet into the water. You walked straight underwater, head disappearing under. It was useless to hold your breath. For a moment you were elated, feeling the strings of magic wrap around your wrists and creep up your arms.

Then there was a pang in your heart. Fire ignited in your body, burning to reveal a great, awful thing that strangled your insides. Your eyes shot open in the water, and you struggled, moving your hands to try and swim to the surface. It didn't work, it didn't work-

Suddenly, a firm pair of hands grasped you under your arms, dragging you above water, out of the peaceful darkness that lay beneath the pond. You gasped as the sweet gift of air rejoined your lungs, coughing out whatever of the body of water you'd swallowed. Now you were being pulled in a direction you couldn't see, senses too faded to make anything out between the darkness and the rain.

You were lifted to sit on the banks, falling back onto the grass. Someone picked you up around your waist, and the next thing you knew you were being carried. The following journey was lost to you as your shivering body gave out, falling limply against something solid.

When you rejoined the present, you realized you were back in your cottage, supported against a firm, warm body as your dress was removed.

Body already prickled with goosebumps as the cold air hit you, your arms lifted to cover yourself and a whimper drew itself from your throat. A familiar voice spoke in a gentle hush. "Shh, sweetheart. Just gonna getcha somethin' dry, alright?"

Rubbing your eyes, you took in the scene. There was a fire roaring in the hearth in front of you, filling the space with a cozy visage. Your waterlogged dress was thrown over a chair, dripping onto the floor.

Billy was standing in front of one of your cabinets, holding up a white nightdress and studying it, seemingly trying to determine whether it was acceptable. Apparently, it was, because he brought it back to you.

Instructing you to lift your arms, he cast his eyes away to give you privacy, sliding the garment over your body. He looked back to adjust it over you, his expression tender. Once you were clothed, he produced a blanket, wrapping it around your shoulders and pulling you into him, holding you tight.

It was only then that you realized he was in his underclothes. Though it was clear he'd carried you home in the downpour, he was still warm as ever, holding you tight to his chest. The fire warmed your back, but your front was cuddled into him.

There was a content silence. Every thought you'd had before throwing yourself into the pond was lost as you embraced your lover, remembering he was here.

He kissed the top of your head, holding his lips to you for a moment. Then he murmured against your head, "Y' scared me, baby."

The concern and love and light in his voice caused tears to fill your eyes again, and you were helpless to stop them from spilling over. Shaking from both the cold and the realization of your actions, you cried against him, and he held you through it all, rocking you back and forth.

"You're okay now, sweetheart," he soothed, kissing your forehead. "I've gotcha...I've gotcha..."

"I hate this," you whispered, voice shaky. He thumbed tears from your cheeks, eyes somber. "I tried to get rid of it...I tried but I did it wrong..."

Billy hugged you tight, and you buried your face into his chest. His heartbeat thumped firm and steady against your ear. Another kiss was laid to your hair. Then there was his voice, steady and constant as you'd always known it to be. "Why'd ya do it, sweet girl?"

You sniffled, looking up at him. The past was moments away from spilling from your lips. "It was all too much. The magic, the reason..."

"What reason?" He asked it softly, reverent of the details of your life before that you'd never dared tell him. Oh, you'd been so timid before, but now it was coming to the surface.

"When the older witch found me," you started, trying to rein in your tears but failing, voice hitching in hysterics. "I was nearly dead. I...I..." You felt so guilty you could have curled up and disintegrated.

But Billy, ever steady and smooth, merely brought his lips to your brow, murmuring, "Don't hafta tell me if it's too hard."

Shaking your head, you sat up. "I have to. I need to." If you didn't, you'd burst into flames from the shame.

He kept his arms around you to keep your body steady, but nodded, encouraging you to keep going.

Taking in a shuddering breath, you continued. "In my old life...before I was spellbound...I was married. To a man who was awful. He would hit me...force me into his bed...and tell me things I'll never repeat to anybody."

There was a modicum of shock in Billy's eyes, but to his credit it didn't stray past there. He squeezed your hand, sympathy evident in his being.

"I was pregnant," you breathed. "And he was angry at me for it. I'd told him one night by the water and he beat me within an inch of my life. I was bleeding out on the beach. I remember seeing blood in the water and wondering whether it was mine or the baby's. Later I was told it was both." You swallowed. "The witch found me and healed me even though I was wishing for death. She forced me into this life-" your breath hitched. "I can't even resent her for it. She wanted out as badly as I do now."

Raising your eyes to meet Billy's, you held your breath, certain this was the end. He'd get up and leave you, unable to handle the fact that you were damaged beyond repair. And you would never hold it against him. You'd only be grateful he'd loved you at all no matter how temporary.

Instead, he surprised you and leaned in, kissing your cheek gently and holding his lips there. Billy's arms slid around your waist and drew you tight to him once again. He whispered with a voice that betrayed his heartbreak over your situation, "I'm sorry sweet girl. I'm so sorry."

He didn't cast you from his arms. He didn't curse you out or call you a burden. That wasn't Billy's way. He only loved. The realization caused your tears to reappear. You burrowed into his arms, and he let you, holding you tight as you drifted off into dreams that, for the first time in months, didn't hold ghosts of what had once been.

The last thing you heard before you slipped into sleep was his voice, quiet and steady.

"I love you."

Previous part | Next part

[acourtofthought]

Would you still consider it a celebration if Gwynriel’s book is next, bc it at least confirms endgame couples?

I will be very happy for Gwynriels and very relieved that it will help lessen the ship wars though I think I'll still feel disappointed.

I want Elucien to happen but I also adore Elain and Lucien as individuals so an Elucien confirmation isn't the entirety of what I want for them.

Az and Gwyn absolutely deserve a HEA and their own healing arcs but there is something to be said for the fact that right now, they are surrounded by love even without a relationship. Yes, they have their own internal struggles but they have a really strong support system, people that have their backs, that encourage them, that believe in them. Az and Gwyn both have their found families but neither Elain or Lucien do.

Elain and Lucien are regularly pushed to the side in favor of the other characters. I understand why that is, SJM has to stay on course with the narrative that they still need to find the court where they'll thrive, but in the meantime that has resulted in them being misunderstood by the others. It results in others speaking for them, the others not encouraging them or helping them find their powers. Hell, Feyre has known about Lucien's real father since ACOWAR and it's almost two years later yet she's still letting him wander around aimlessly thinking he has no place to go.

A Gwynriel book being next means we're going to have yet another book of Elain floating around the River House with no real purpose. Lucien drifting between Spring and the Human Lands while Tamlin remains depressed which means Lucien will feel the effects of that. Elain again not having the chance to have a POV on how she's feeling about the loss of her father, being made, Graysen's rejection, Az's rejection, how Nesta and Az believe she shouldn't be allowed to do anything dangerous. If a Gwynriel book takes 6-9 months, that means nearly three years will have passed from when Elain will have been forced into the Cauldron, given powers from the Cauldron that she still hasn't fully explored and hasn't been given help on training, a confirmed mating bond that remains unaccepted and unrejected, and we will have never had a single person actually ask her how she feels about any of that outside of Feyre's "you couldn't say a single word to him?"

I will be happy for Gwynriels but how can I personally be super excited when that means my two favorite characters will once again suffer for another 6-9 months without having the same support system in place that Az and Gwyn already do?

Gwyn and Az might not have romance yet but they are respected and loved by their friends and we've witnessed that on page. Meaningful moments, moments where their found family have gotten personal with them and asked them to get personal in response (though Az is kind of terrible in that area, we've seen Cassian and Rhys at least try).

Lucien has "friends" in Vassa and Jurian but we've never actually seen that connection, we're just told it's there so we have to assume it is.

And when he tried to open up to Feyre, she made fun of him.

Elain has "friends" with the wraiths but again, we're just told about it rather than witnessing moments that make us actually feel it. And yes, her sisters love her but they don't try to connect with her (Feyre only thinks of her as a pleasant companion).

And the IC, while friendly enough with Lucien, don't necessarily embrace him with any kind of true respect. There's always this underlying current of "can we trust him?", "what can he do for us?" And of course we know Az has issues with him.

The need to prove that both Elain and Lucien belong somewhere other than where they currently is starting to feel a tiny bit overdone to the point that it's a bit cruel, and while that to me would be a perfect time to end their suffering, I can only imagine what another book of that would look like.

[epickiya722]

In a No Power AU do you agree that Sukuna and Yuuji can have the best love/hate relationship as siblings with their single parent Kenjaku? Or who do you think can be a better older sibling for Yuuji, is it Sukuna or Choso? Why?

From that meme, from all JJK characters, I think in an AU, Yuuji will ne the best father, right....

Oooh, you know what, I like both concepts!

First one is definitely chaotic. Kenjaku is a single parent that annoys both Sukuna and Yuji, who are also annoyed by each other's presence. Meanwhile, Kenjaku is just all forever doting and maybe a little overbearing.

Second one, I can see both big brothers getting on Yuji's nerves, but Choso would be the brother he has a better relationship with. He only gets on Yuji's nerves when he's being a bit overbearing, but he means well so Yuji doesn't hate him for it. (Which I can understand as I am a big sister, the eldest, too.) However, Sukuna would be that sibling that will eat Yuji's food and then purposely up the empty container back in the fridge. Or wear his clothes and never return them.

And then smile right in Yuji's face when he's yelling at him.

However, let someone else try something and Sukuna will "Hey, only I can bother him, you shall now be annihilated".

***

That last part just made me realize that out of the four faves I have that also happen to be protagonists (Izuku, Tanjiro, Reki and Yuji), Yuji hasn't really been around kids way younger than him.

That's funny actually. Izuku, Tanjiro and Reki are big brothers or big brother figures and then there's Yuji is has big brothers. 😆

Anyways!!

Hmm... he probably would be! I don't know how long Jin had been in his life (since he only has faint memories of him), but I imagine that it was at least a good relationship given that Jin did care for him, just as Wasuke cared for Jin and Yuji. Yuji would probably be the same way!

Even if that wasn't the case, Yuji has such a good heart. But given the current situation and the unpredictable future, I doubt he would want to bring kids into the world, let alone have that thought right now.

[alfietalksaboutcomics]

So Let's Talk About X-Men #30 And Talon

Obviously spoilers ahead.

I've become somewhat a strongly opinionated person on the character of Talon. I've always defended the character because I thought she had potential to grow into more of her own character separate from the traditional Laura Kinney. However I've been a little disappointed as of late as to how little development and spotlight she has actually gotten. So considering all of this I was pretty excited for her and Synch to get some focus in X-Men #30, they have been largely on the periphery for the Fall Of X which is slightly annoying seeing as it is the perfect opportunity to give them a spotlight as the leaders of the X-Men.

So with the issue out I have some conflicted thoughts on it. For those who haven't read it let me recap the relevant events of the issue. Synch and Talon go on a mission to steal a device from the High Evolutionary, ultimately Talon dies during the mission but Synch is able to pull her into his mind by syncing with the powers of Jean Grey. So now Talon is a part of Synch.

On the one hand I think this is a potentially pretty regressive step for the character. A frequent accusation leveled at the character of Talon by many detractors is that she exists solely as a extension of the character of Synch that exists only to be a object in his story. I have disagreed with that in the past and thought people should give her time to grow more into her own character. However now Talon is literally a extension of Synch, a part of him and not quite her own person. So that I think depending on where the story goes could honestly be a pretty bad place to bring the character of Talon.

On the other hand I want to give some grace and not prejudge the narrative before this storyline is finished, it can always be pretty tricky making judgments on a single issue when you don't have the rest of the storyline in front of you.

All that being said this isn't really beating the "Talon exists only as a character to further Synch's story" allegations. I've given the story quite a bit of time but it hasn't dedicated the time needed to flesh out her character.

So yeah I feel conflicted about this issue, I did feel a emotional gut punch at the reveal but time will only tell if it was a gross way to handle the character or not.

[kafukaselect-blog]

No, Power Hasn't Been Forgotten

I saw someone on twitter the other day say that Fujimoto had forgotten about Power, they genuinely tried to argue that he has dropped the Blood Devil storyline in Part 2. Obviously I know that most chainsaw man fans aren’t this dense, but the post did get me thinking about the fact that some people aren't really aware of how the Blood Devil storyline is being setup in Part 2, which is crazy because Power has been referenced in every single arc of Part 2 so far.

In the Justice Devil arc, Denji's literal first scene is him saving a cat that is clearly modelled after Power's blood devil form (Not to mention the fact that cats are a motif strongly associated with Power). The idea of Denji ignoring a choice put in front of him to instead save a cat (Power) is definitely some sort of symbolic foreshadowing for future events, though it's too soon to predict exactly how.

In the Endless Aquarium arc, Denji refers directly to Power, clearly showing that he still thinks about her, and In the Falling Devil arc, we literally see Power, manifesting in Denji's flashback. I know it's easy to sort of disregard this as a wink-wink nudge-nudge bit of fanservice to bring back memories of Part 1, but that sort of thing is honestly pretty uncommon with Fujimoto.

Every instance of a side character returning to Part 2 from Part 1 has been preceded by basically no direct references to the character ahead of time. Both Quanxi and Katana Man appear out of nowhere, and Kishibe – who given recent events is almost certainly making a comeback – has similarly received no direct mentions or even allusions yet.

I think the fact that Fujimoto is setting up Power / The Blood Devil so early clearly shows that she is going to be an important part of the narrative.

And finally, in the current arc, when Denji is talking to Pochita in the toilet, Meowy enters and then the scene ends. Meowy is clearly symbolically representing Power here (Meowy has only ever been relevant to the plot in their relation to Power), and is being presented as a clear counterpoint to Denji's assertion that he no longer needs to fight. Not only are there consistent references to Power, but this one – even more obviously than "Save the Cat" – positions her as a crucial narrative piece of Denji's dilemma going forward.

I hope this hasn't all been a bit too obvious, it's definitely possible that most fans have noticed this already, but honestly I just want everyone to be on the same page regarding Power's involvement in Part 2. Not only will the Blood Devil be a major plot point in Part 2 in the future, she already is one now.

[problemswithbooks]

More Dain Stuff

So I'm still thinking about Dain and more so, who he might end the story with.

Now, I'm 98.9% sure Violet will stick with Xaden. Not saying it couldn't be interesting if, after the whole Venin thing and their already rocky relationship they broke up, but at the same time that's not how romance novels are written. The story might have dragons, but it is primarily a romance book. Xaden has always been the main focus of Violet and they got together in the first book--just like other fantasy/romance books; think Edward/Bella or Alina/Mal. Plus, most of her audience really like them together; not having them as end game would be alienating her readers.

So Dain's not ending up with Violet. To be honest he could end the story single if he survives, but I'd be a little surprised. Many authors even outside the romance genre have a habit of pairing up their characters at the end. It would be nice if the series didn't go that route, especially if it didn't have a time-skipped epilogue, but I'm expecting at least the main side characters to get paired up to some extent since it is a romance book.

That leaves the question of who he could be paired up with. It's hard to say at this point because he hasn't had many interactions with anyone besides Violet. The few times other characters mention him, most don't really like him. They're are Violet's friends or Marked, so they already have a poor opinion of him or hate him for Liam's death.

I'm not saying that Yarros couldn't have those characters change their opinion of Dain in later books (I really hope they do) and then pair him off with one of them. The issue is that I think most of Violet's close group have been given hints already to who they'll end up with. Sawyer is crushing on Jesinia, Imogen on Garrick. Rhiannon is with Tara, who will hopefully get better established as a character in later books. Though brief Sloane and Cam have some flirtation and in a lot of ways it would make a lot of sense to have them end up together, particularity if Cam becomes King. It would fully show the Marked ones are apart of the kingdom again and fully trusted.

Now, Ridoc is a possibility, but only if Dain is established as bi (which isn't impossible). The biggest hurdle there is that Ridoc is the exact opposite of Dain in a lot of ways. He's the goofball, while Dain is portrayed as a strict. Ridoc doesn't like him. It's really doubtful they'd get along. That could change as the series goes on; Ridoc could show a more serious side, while Dain could lighten up. Violet said he used to smile and laugh a lot, be less of a rule follower. Maybe Ridoc could bring that back out. I think it could be pretty cute and honesty it'd be cool if Yarros put an end to a love triangle by pairing up the spare with another guy.

One possibility though that I really find interesting and I could see is Cat.

First of all she also needs paired up as that failed third wheel of a love triangle with Xaden. There is a man in her Gryphon Flier group that likes her, so that might be who she gets put with in the end, but if that does happen I hope he gets a bit more screen time given how important Cat has been at least during Iron Flame.

Second, their powers complement each other. Dain can see memories (pretty much read minds to an extent) while Cat can manipulate emotions as long as they're present. I could easily see these two using teamwork to get stuff done. Cat could get someone upset enough that they lower their shields so Dain can read them, or Dain could read someones memories and give Cat the best ammunition to get them into the state of mind she needs to manipulate their emotions. Physical fights wouldn't change much but in intelligence work they could be really good as a team.

Third, I want a Flier/Rider romance and Cat's the most prominent Gyphon Flier we have as of Iron Flame. She's third in line for the throne which is interesting and could mean she ends up as Queen. Giving her a dragon Rider partner could be a good way of showing that even once the Venin are gone Navarre and Poromeil are still allies. Also would be interesting to see how a relationship like that was seen by the dragons.

Fourth, it'd be a bit funny. Cat is Xaden's ex, while Dain was Violet's first crush and childhood friend. I doubt Xaden would care much, since he never cared about Cat, but I think Violet would have many conflicting feelings about it which would be fun to see her stress over. By the end of Iron Flame she seems to have grown to respect Cat and Cat respects her in return, but I it wasn't that long ago she hated her. Meanwhile, although she was furious at Dain, he was her best friend for fifteen years.

It'd just be funny to see Violet struggling with that sort of roller coaster of emotions and perhaps catching herself thinking similar things Dain said to her about Xaden. I mean I could see her first thought being Cat is getting close to Dain to mess with her, since she can't get to Xaden anymore. Having her catch herself and realize she's making snap judgments could lead to some interesting conversations with both Dain and Cat or even Xaden talking to her more about his past with Cat. Just cool character interactions all around!

Fifth, character development. Dain is seen as Mr. By the Book, and although there probably isn't some rule against Flier/Rider relationships (because they've never worked together before) it could still be seen as wrong. They might be working together but they were enemies for hundreds of years. Dain picking Cat despite it being seen as against the spirit of the Codex continues his growth as getting over his issue of putting rules before people he cares about.

Meanwhile Cat, although tackling her anti-Dragon Rider hate and working with Violet has another flaw the one that was probably the biggest reason her and Xaden broke up. She wanted a crown. Now, I actually don't think this is a terrible thing for her to want given what we know of her and her situation. Poromeil has been essentially left to die by Navarre for hundreds of years. Frankly it makes sense Cat would want political power so she could use it to form an alliance with a Kingdom that might be strong enough to save her home.

Still the story makes it appear to be a flaw--that she wanted a crown over love. So, in that sense picking Dain, someone who isn't a prince or king, and has very little sway with anyone with power (Xaden hates him, and he deserted the army so he doesn't have any allies on that front either--dude is not getting a good job no mater whose in charge) shows she'll pick over over a crown. Even if afterwards she still gets the throne of Poromeil for whatever reason, it'd still prove she picked Dain over power.

So, that's my essay on possible end ships for Dain. I sort of still think he'll die--I'm always prepared for a character I like to die. But if he does live and get paired up I'd say it'd be Cat, with Ridoc as a runner up.

[arrieebooks]

Precious Weapon (4)

Pairing : Lloyd Hansen x F!OC (Elle) x Sierra Six.

Summary : Six discusses with her about Lloyd. Her very first mission. She disobeys Lloyd's orders and they get into a fight that leads into something else.

Warnings : Lloyd being a rough trainer. Explosions. Injury. Cursing. Mentions of detailed murder. Gore. So much angst. Fighting. Really rough smut. Pain kink. Oral smut. Fingering. Blood kink. Dirty talk. Pure filth at the end. Vague voyeurism. Fluff and comfort.

Word Count : 16.8k words.

Author's note : heyy! I was writing this while also editing chapter 3 during my vacation so that's why I'm posting this part in less than two weeks of the previous chapter. I personally liked this chapter, mostly because there was smut in it and I like writing smut, somehow. Anyhow, I hoped you enjoyed this chapter as much as I did while writing it!

***

Elle absolutely hates Lloyd's guts with everything in her. 

She wants to kill him so badly if she could. 

He is the worst trainer ever for her.

He's rough. Harsh. Inconsiderate. Always yelling at her. Tiring her out all day. Making her wounded all the time even though it's usually her fault because she was clumsy and he knows she heals in less than seconds but still, he could've at least been a little bit fragile of her. 

It's been one full week of training. Thankfully. 

She's so fucking tired. She hasn't had a second to even rest the whole week. They train all day and only take breaks during breakfast, lunch and dinner. That's it. After that, they train again and again until it's late and it's time for bed. 

Even Six is tired of watching them train all day from the gym's bench. Lloyd doesn't seem to even be tired. He could do that all day and he did. He only let Six train her for one day. He trained her even better than Lloyd since his training was different from him but he's way softer with her. That's the problem. 

He mostly trains her to fight a lot without her powers. She has enhanced strength but didn't know how to use it at all so he taught her. He made her punch a lot of solid objects and she bled a lot. He taught her a little martial arts but he doubts that she needs any of that when she could punch someone and they'd immediately pass out from how strong her punch is. 

He likes that she's strong. That her body could withstand any pain. He doesn't have to hold back with her, not a single bit because he knows she can take it. He can do whatever he wants with her. In which he succeeded. 

With her powers, it's way easier. She's used it her whole life so she knows it well and all the spells she made are in her head already — she doesn't need a stupid spell book. Her reflexes are good, too. She can even catch a bullet or a knife or any weapon thrown at her with her powers. Or with her bare hands if she's lucky enough to catch them in time. 

Today, she can finally relax. Even just for a second. Because today's her first mission. She's a little nervous. Lloyd and Six have given her little hints on what CIA missions would be like. But they left out all the bad and important details, of course.

She's just waiting for Lloyd to tell her about her mission now. He's been on the first floor of the penthouse for hours now, talking to Denny and handling everything. 

Six is right beside her, as always. They're chilling on the couch of the living room, letting the TV on as it plays a movie that she's currently focused on. But he's not.

He's focused on her, only. As always. He'll never get tired of watching her. 

This whole week, they barely touched each other. Only a few kisses here and there but she's been sleeping in her own room because Lloyd has been watching them like a hawk. He even stays up late until she falls asleep in her own room.

He's doing it on purpose so they don't even try to fuck. At all. He didn't say anything about it in particular but he just kept saying that she can't have any "distractions" and they both fully knew what that meant. Six knew it better than she did. 

She just thinks that it's because he cares so much for the mission and for his weapon and that he can't let her get even a tiny bit distracted. 

But Six knows the real reason why — Lloyd wants her too. But he can't let himself have her so he doesn't want anyone else to have her, even Six, the only man he's ever tolerated enough to not kill him. He respects him, too.

"This movie is boring." Elle remarks, glancing at him with a small pout on her lips. Her head is leaned on his shoulder as his hand is around her shoulder. They're comfy and getting cozy now. 

Six chuckles. "You said you wanted to watch it." He reminds her.

She shakes her head. "Not really. I just wanted a distraction from the anxious anticipation of Lloyd's big announcement for my mission. It's been hours."

"He'll be out soon." he assures her.

"That's what you said an hour ago." she reminds him.

He sighs. "I know. I'm sorry. If we go downstairs right now, he'll just yell at us again." 

She breaks into a soft giggle. "Yeah, that seems to be what he does these days. Especially to me. I think he's too tense. He needs to relax." 

Six furrows his eyebrows. "How?" 

Elle shrugs, her fingers toying with his thick fingers. "I don't know. Maybe he needs someone for himself. Someone to lick his wounds and help him calm down. Someone patient enough, of course. But not like a girlfriend, I know he doesn't do that." she says. 

He hums teasingly, moving his mouth closer to her ears. "Sounds like someone I know well." 

She chuckles, feeling ticklish. "Absolutely not. He hates me." 

Six frowns. "No, he doesn't. He's just pretending to." he says, flatly.

Elle lifts her eyebrows in surprise. "Really? But why?" she asks. 

"It's easier that way for him." he slowly says, "You know, because he doesn't want to jeopardize the mission if he gets distracted by…you." 

She scoffs. "You mean, by fucking me?"

"Yeah." 

She grimaces in disbelief. "No. No, that's not—he wants to fuck me? I mean I remembered our night at the bar but that ended already. I thought that he only wanted me that night. Not until now. Because he doesn't do long term shit. He told me." 

"You don't feel the same?" 

"No. I don't feel attracted to him anymore since that night." 

Six straightens up, looking behind him to check the foyer before his eyes meet hers again. He gives her a small thoughtful look that's barely there as his fingers gently brush her hair away from her face and he sighs. "Do you remember last week, when we had to all stay in your house for one night?" he suddenly asks, really quietly.

Elle nods, curious to where he's going with this as she creases her eyebrows. "Yeah. Hard to miss. Why?" she asks.

He exhales softly. "Well, he told me that he walked in on you showering that night and he saw you naked, just your back but, he said that you opened your bathroom door wide. I don't know, it feels like you knew he was going to be there, you know? Because of your hearing. And I'm fine with it—"

Six accusing her? That's new. Certainly not very him. Truth be told, he didn't even want to say anything earlier. Lloyd told him this in a brief and casual conversation last week. He wasn't planning to confront her about it. But he's curious. He wants to know if she's attracted to him that way just the same way he does for her. 

She retreats from him, widening her eyes. "Woah, what the shit! He saw me naked? And didn't say anything?" She raises her voice, filling the empty penthouse.

Six remains calm despite her lashing out. "He didn't want to make it weirder." he simply says.

"I thought you had walked in that time. That's why I kept the door open wide when I heard footsteps approaching." Elle explains to him in a harsh tone. 

Six slowly nods. "Alright, then. Look, he didn't indicate that you did it on purpose. I was the one who assumed that you…well, we haven't really discussed it, right? How it would be with us and him."

She shrugs. "What's there to discuss? He's okay with us." she assumes. 

He scoffs, shaking his head gently. "I mean, is he? You know that he's been trying to keep us apart this whole week, Elle." he reminds her.

"What, you think he doesn't want us to fuck just because he wants to fuck me too?" she scoffs at her own words, "Come on, that's ridiculous. He doesn't want to fuck me, Six. At least not anymore. And that's good. For me. Because I bet he's rough and selfish in bed." 

Six chuckles through his nose. "Not to sound like an asshole but didn't you say you liked it rough better?" he mumbles.

Elle looks at him, shocked but intrigued and possibly a little turned on that he remembered her words and is using it against her. "Oh, yeah, definitely. Just not him." she says, smirking as she slowly crawls onto his lap. 

He leans his head with a hand behind it as his other hand wraps around her waist. "You'd never know if you've never tried." 

She frowns. "You want me to try fucking him?" she accuses and her voice slips out in a different accent. 

Six shakes his head. "No, I mean, try giving him a chance. Just like you said earlier, he could use someone to help him relax." he gently says.

"I don't want to. It's not my job. Just get a nice hooker or something. We'll pay her." She proposes an idea. 

He laughs quietly. "You're serious? Elle, no. He'd hate it. He told me that he didn't want to fuck any hookers in this city. He was a bit paranoid if they're clean enough, you know." 

She snorts. "Okay, fine. Not a hooker then. Well, look, as much as I love helping people, he's not going to want me to do it. I mean, maybe he does want me, like you said but knowing Lloyd, he's probably just going to deny, deny and deny."

"Wait, what about your best friend? Amelia? She seems just as nice as you." he asks.

No. Lloyd wouldn't like her. She's too much of a saint for him. She's not really like Elle, actually. They're very different if anyone had bothered to look close enough. Sure, they both share the same love for science and their style is almost similar but they have a lot of differences that they never really talk about. Elle doesn't mind doing something a little bad to do good. Amelia doesn't. And there's the other fact where Elle fuck whoever she wants because she can but Amelia doesn't want to do that. 

Elle immediately shakes her head. "No, no. Fuck no. Lloyd isn't her type. And neither is she for him. Also, she hates white guys. She knows their only motive for local girls. To fuck them and then leave." 

Six nods. "Right. That's called a one-night stand. And I'm usually grateful that they leave first so it's not going to be awkward."

She giggles out loud. "Yeap. Yes. I agree. That's so true." 

His eyes focus on hers and her little facial features all lighting up as she begins to smile at him. She likes this. It's been a while since they had a moment just for themselves and their little jokes and their loose laughters. His lips slowly tug into a small smile watching her happy like this.

He sighs, his hands moving to cup her face. "Sorry about earlier. I didn't mean to accuse you like that. Wasn't my intention." he apologizes softly.

Elle's face relaxes and sighs too. "It's okay," she softens her voice, "Hey, if you do want to share or try to, at least, I'm fine with it. Because to be honest, it did cross my mind a few times last week, what it would be like to have him again. But it was just a quick flash of thought." 

Six's face even looks shocked as he tries to contain himself. He's not used to showing emotions. But he forgot who he's with right now. She's someone he trusts. 

His fingers play with her hair as his other hand touches her cheeks and she leans on his palm. "What'd you think of?" he asks softly, it almost comes out as a whisper. 

She hums, thinking on it and as the thought comes back to her mind, she shifts her body on his lap. "Like, how it would feel like to have his fingers in me again or you know, if I had you both, at the same time—but it's stupid, really. I'm with you already. It's wrong to think like that. And what if he doesn't actually want me that way? It'd be embarrassing to assume so."

"It's not stupid. It's reasonable to have fantasies. I think it's… hot. That you want us both. And, he told me has a hard-on for you. Does that help?" Six slowly asks in a soothing voice for her.

Elle giggles again, scrunching her nose a little. "Yeah, but that doesn't really mean he wants me. Because that could just be a natural reaction from the body. Science is weird, trust me. I'm the living embodiment of it." she says.

Six snorts. "It's not a natural reaction anymore if it happens too often, Elle." he tells her. 

She lifts her eyebrows in surprise and widens her eyes. "Holy fuck, really? How often?" she exclaims.

He shrugs a little. "Once a day, maybe?" 

She widens her eyes even bigger. "What? No way. How? I never even wore anything revealing except for gym clothes." 

Six shakes his head. "You didn't have to. You exist. That's it. And that's his problem, he's making you his own problem because you're making him hard every single day without you even doing it intentionally. He's close to losing his mind, honestly." he admits.

Elle sighs, taking in the information all at once. She can't even believe that she didn't notice it since she's usually sensitive to other people's emotions — on what they feel everytime they're with her and she can feel it because of her powers. That's how she can communicate with Six without talking sometimes, because she's always feeling what he's feeling. She's in his mind and so is he. She chooses who to feel and she chooses him.

And that's when she realized something. She only ever felt what Six felt. Not what Lloyd felt. She never cared enough to do so. She convinced herself that he's too much for her, that if she felt what he felt then she'd get overwhelmed. 

It might be true. Lloyd has a lot of repressed and unsolved bad memories and trauma from his past that he chose to keep hidden so he could go on with his life and his job. But that just made him…worse. It made him angry all the time. He throws tantrums, blames everyone, hurts and kills anyone he looks down on and does whatever he wants whenever he wants without thinking of the consequences ahead (most of the time). 

She might've judged him wrongly. But there's more to him than she knows, than he's allowed her or anyone to know. She can see the real him with her mind, she just isn't sure if she wants to or not because what if the real him isn't so bad and she begins to…like him? That's something she certainly can't afford to do.

"Elle? Hey, are you okay? You're quiet. If there's something wrong, tell me." Six snaps her out of her thoughts and as usual, he noticed that her mind was elsewhere. He always notices. 

She hums, quietly shaking her head as her lips curve into a small smile for him. "No, there's nothing wrong. I was just thinking about things. I mean, are you going to be okay with…sharing?" 

His lips stretch into a light smile as he chuckles through his nose. "Of course, I'm okay with it. I suggested it. And even if I didn't, it's what you want and I will do whatever you want." he tells her, no—he swears to her. He'd do anything for her, more than he should.

"Sounds romantic. You know, you haven't even taken me on a date yet." Elle teases him with a smile, but it's not like there was any time for them to even go out. She was mostly busy and he doesn't go outside without her. 

Six's lips grow into a wider smile that he's never shown anyone else as he comes up to get his face closer to hers and plants a soft kiss on her cheek before his cheek touches her while his mouth is near her ear. "After the mission. You pick the place. Then maybe, if you're still up for it, we could talk to Lloyd about all this." he whispers in her ears in a hoarse voice and gentle tone.

She nods, her smile turning into a small smirk. "Hmm, great plan. And I think we should—" 

Her voice gets cut off by the loud sound of the elevator opening and she doesn't even bother to get off Six's lap as Lloyd walks out of the elevator mindlessly, without even looking at them while he steps into the living room.

He looks tense. Because he is. 

Elle smiles up at him. "Lloyd. We've been waiting for you." she says with excitement as he stops to stand in front of her and behind Six, frowning with confusion and frustration while his eyes examine their position.

Lloyd cocks his head to the side, still frowning. "Get off his lap. Your first mission is here." he orders her.

She rolls her eyes. "I actually like this position very much." she retorts.

"Don't make me get you off myself." he warns her.

"Oh, please. You won't even be able to. I'm stronger than you." Elle taunts him as he rolls his eyes in annoyance.

Six sighs. Sometimes he wishes that they'd fuck each other just to finally stop arguing every single second of the day because it seems to him that the only reason that they fight is because they haven't fucked yet. 

"Guys, come on. Lloyd, what is it?" Six asks, his head turning to him.

Lloyd looks at him, avoiding her gaze. "Her first mission, today. With you. It's simple. Extract data and destroy. That's it." he declares.

She frowns. "What's the data?" she asks, slowly getting off Six's lap and Lloyd finally glances down at her, his eyes boring into hers. He's slightly relieved that she got off his lap because he was…distracted by the view. 

"CIA data," he replies shortly. 

"What kind of data?" she repeats.

"The one that could put all of us in very deep shit. A corporate American building here has data about all of us in Jakarta. They've been spying on us this whole time, everytime we got out of the penthouse. They even have pictures of you and us in your house." Lloyd explains. 

Elle widens her eyes, immediately rising up from the couch. "What? How? Why would they even want it?" she starts to panic.

He sighs, tired of having to explain everything to her. "Because we're CIA. That's it. They'll usually sell the information to people who would actually do something about it." 

She hums confusedly. "Do I kill the person…?" she asks, unsurely. 

She doesn't want to kill anyone if it's not a life or death situation. If it's just for a mission and that person isn't even dangerous to the people or to the city, then she won't do it. She's not ready to just kill and kill aimlessly without even caring who she's killing. She's not an assassin. Even though, deep down inside her, she knows that someday she's going to have to forget who she is and just do the damn job, however brutal it is. 

Lloyd shakes his head. "Unfortunately, no. He's useless. Just a fucking idiot behind a desk. Well, idiots, technically." he replies.

Six simply nods, knowing that these kinds of things happen all the time whenever a CIA agent stays in one country for more than a week. He's had a lot of experience with it and always has had to fix it himself. It's an easy mission if there's no collateral damage or a certain obstacle. 

"When do we go?" he asks him.

"Wheels up at 6pm. It'll close soon at that time. Less workers, less obstacles. Just get in there, pretend to work there. We'll give you their office card with fake names." Lloyd tells them as she nods.

Elle's eyes dart to Six, who is calm and unfazed. Not even a single spike in his heartbeat. It doesn't bother her that he's always so calm, but sometimes she wishes that he'd let himself feel normal feelings once in a while. She knows that it's not exactly his choice, he was trained to be that way. But he still has free will, technically. He just needs to be reminded of that sometimes. 

Six gets up from the couch, "I'm going to start prepping." he simply says, looking into her eyes for approval.

She subtly nods before he plants a soft kiss on her temple and starts walking past her and Lloyd.

"It's chaotic down there. Good luck." Lloyd tells him as a warning. 

Six's lips form a thin line, nodding at him as he walks towards the elevator. 

Lloyd's eyes dart to hers and his gaze darkens. "Hey. You remember your training, right? Or should we do a quick training right now?" he asks her in a serious tone. 

She shakes her head. "No, absolutely not. I need to preserve my powers, anyway."

He frowns. "Oh. Was I too rough with you?" he asks in a serious tone.

Elle gulps. "Uh, yes." she truthfully answers.

Lloyd frowns deeper. "But you could take it." he coldly says as he steps closer to her, "You're strong. You could withstand anything, right?" 

She slowly nods her head, gulping again as she could feel the tension between them getting thick. Her eyes glare up at him and she has to force herself to keep up the eye contact since he's looking at her too intensely. "Yeah. I could. But as you said hundreds of times, I'm only human. I can still get tired." 

"But you have a different stamina than a normal human being—" he states before taking a sharp breath and she could tell that he's annoyed. "Don't fuck with me, Elle. You are strong. You took every punch, every kick, every bullet and every stab like a fucking champ. Now, do you remember what I trained you or do you need some reminder?" Lloyd softens his voice but it's still laced with anger, he's just trying to contain himself.

Elle huffs. "Don't talk to me like that. It's fucking weird. And yes, I do remember. No, I do not need any reminder from you. Now if you'd excuse me, I'm going to…prep for the mission as well. Whatever that means." she says, walking past him. 

He scoffs. She ignores him and walks to the elevator to go to Six. He's her comfort. She doesn't want to handle Lloyd right now. She needs to just focus on the mission. 

***

The mission is simple and easy, Six said. So she believes him. As always. 

She'll believe him, no matter what. Even if what he's saying is a lie or not. Because she trusts him blindly. That's what she does when she cares about someone deeply — she'd do anything for them. She'd even go head first into danger for them. 

"Elle, do you copy?" She hears Lloyd's formal voice through her earpiece as she and Six walk towards the building. 

It's not a big building. It's medium. It only has three floors and their data is on the top floor. They're both wearing professional work clothes. Six is wearing a suit. Elle is wearing a matching blouse and blazer.

She presses her comms and turns it on. "Yes. It's me. I'm here." she responds.

Lloyd leans back on his chair in front of the big monitors, tracking quite literally everything but mostly surveillance cameras that show the outside of the building, the street they're in and inside the building as well. He can see everything from here. Even them. 

"You're supposed to say, "this is Elle, copy", didn't Six tell you this? It's standard protocol." he protests. 

She rolls her eyes. "You know who I am already. I'm not talking to another CIA agent, am I?" she retorts. 

Lloyd huffs. "Can you not? This is a serious mission. Don't talk back right now." 

"I'll be taking this mission seriously when you stop complaining about every single thing I'm doing." Elle says.

"I was correcting you. That's what usually happens when someone makes a fucking mistake." he retorts back.

Six clears his throat as he stops in front of the entrance or the building. "Guys. We're here." he announces.

She nods, standing beside him. "Alright. Now what?" she asks.

"Tell them you forgot something upstairs and that you're new. After that, get to the top floor no matter what." Lloyd tells them through their comms. 

"Alright. I'm hanging up." Elle tells him, her fingers touching the comms on her ear.

"No, you don't hang up on—" Lloyd's voice gets cut off as she turns off her comms but Six still keeps it on. 

"Hey, Six, tell her that she's not supposed to turn off comms during missions." he says through Six's comms.

He looks at her and she shakes her head. "I need to focus." she whispers before walking ahead towards the entrance of the building as he follows her from behind, as usual.

"She needs to focus, Lloyd." Six mutters under his breath as he slightly looks down and he could hear Lloyd grunt in response. 

As they're approaching the entrance, a few security guards open the door for them without any questions asked. 

Once they're in, Six walks beside her and their eyes immediately examine the inside of the building. It's almost an empty lobby with only one receptionist behind the desk and a few people exiting the elevator.

"Keep your head low, Elle. These people can't suspect us right now." Six whispers into her ear as they walk towards one of the elevators. 

She nods subtly while waiting for all of the people to finish walking out of it and when it's all empty, they enter the elevator together and he immediately presses the close button along with the level of the floor they're going to. 

Elle turns her comms on again. "We're almost in. What are we looking for again?" she asks, just to confirm.

Lloyd sighs through their comms. "It's supposed to be a hard drive. That's usually how important data is kept but we could be wrong. It could be anywhere. Look for it and then destroy it, no matter what, okay? Do you understand me, Elle? This is your first mission, anything could go wrong." he tells her.

She rolls her eyes. "Nothing is going to go wrong because it's an easy mission. And yes, I do understand what I have to do." 

"Great. Because if something goes wrong, Denny would want you out of this mission and this country. He'd send you the states, drag you there if he has to and then you'd work for the agency, where you can't do whatever the fuck you want." he warns her.

She gulps, her eyes glancing at Six's eyes and he slowly nods, assuring her that that wouldn't happen, that this mission would be easy like he said earlier. So she trusts him and she goes back to being calm and composed again. 

She clears her throat. "Yeah, okay. I can do this, Lloyd. I understand your orders." 

"Good. That's more like it. I prefer it better when you're obeying me." Lloyd admits. 

She breaks into a soft chuckle. "Yeah. Makes things easier when I don't put up a fight with you, right?" 

He nods to himself. "Exactly." he agrees.

The elevator dings and her eyes are immediately fixed on it as it slowly opens while she lunges forward to it. 

"We're here." Elle announces to him. 

"Okay, talk me into whatever you'll be doing. The cameras won't be working once you get to the storage room. Use the card to get in there." Lloyd orders them.

"Mhm. Got it." she replies quickly before getting out of the elevator with Six behind her. 

***

This office is like a maze for her. And she hates mazes. 

They've been walking around the top floor of this office for almost more than twenty minutes. They had to check every single room to make sure there aren't anyone here anymore and that the data isn't stored anywhere there. 

But after double checking everything, they could finally go to the storage room and destroy the data and get out of here. 

They have a date to go to after this. 

Six always lets her walk in front of him so he could steer clear of her surroundings because the most dangerous threats always come from behind as he's learned that from his own experience. 

As they're walking to the only storage room right in the corner from a narrowed and small hallway, she moves to walk beside him instead and he immediately looks behind them.

"Hey, so I was thinking…we could just stay at the penthouse for our date? I could decorate the living room and order in and then we could watch your favorite movie, whatever it is." Elle suggests with an amused smile on her lips.

Six stops walking because they've arrived in front of the door. He looks at her, regarding with a confused but acceptable look. "Oh. If that's what you want, I'm fine with it. I don't have a favorite movie, though." 

She chuckles. "We'll find you one."

"We?" he asks. 

She nods. "Yeah. Well, if you don't mind, we could do it with Lloyd? So we could talk about the…thing. I just think it'll be way easier. Plus, it's a busy night in Jakarta right now. It'll be impossible to find an empty table in a nice and quiet restaurant."

"Alright, then. We'll do that." he steps closer to her, taking both of her hands in his softly, "Whatever you want, we'll do it. You're the boss." 

She laughs and scrunches her nose, shaking her head. "No, I'm not."

He tries to hide a smile coming off of his lips. "Yes, you are. You're in charge. And even later if we're with Lloyd, you'll be calling the shots when we're together."

Elle scoffs. "Yeah, as if he would ever listen to my orders. He only ever wants to listen to his own orders."

Six quietly snorts. "We'll talk about it later. We got some data to destroy." he tells her.

She smiles up at him. "Yeah, let's just get this over with." 

He steps forward to the door and scans his card against the card reader until it makes an accepting beeping sound as he opens the door wide enough for her to come inside too. 

She steps inside first and then him while he closes the door behind them.

Their eyes wander around the large and spacious room that's stacked with tall racks filled with tons of data of whatever they keep in here. It'd take a lot of time to find their specific wanted data. 

She sighs, turning on her comms. "We're in. But the storage room is really…big. There's way too much data in here. If we go in looking for it, it's going to take hours and maybe until the office closes and locks us in here." 

Lloyd exhales. "Are you fucking kidding me? Right, then, we'll just…wait, hold on a second. I'm communicating with Denny as well on the other comms." he tells her as Six just stands quietly, waiting for his next orders as usual. 

She hums softly in response before looking at him. He seems so calm while she's not. She really doesn't want to spend her entire night here just trying to look for this stupid data for the CIA. She knows this is just the first mission but she was expecting something…heroic. That would mean something to her. Or to anyone, really. Now, it just feels like she's a little  pawn doing the agency's bidding whenever they want her to. 

Six already knows he's their pawn. Ever since they recruited him from prison, he knew. But this was his only way out of jail for the rest of his life, that's why he took it. 

Lloyd clears his throat after a few seconds. "Okay, I've got direct orders from Denny. Elle, blow up the whole floor. Don't leave anything left. You've been cleared for collateral, too. Go loud, he said." 

She swallows thickly. "Oh. The whole floor? A-are you sure? I mean, shouldn't we just like, I don't know—"

He cuts her off. "You have no other choice, Elle. There aren't any. Just do it. Get it over with. Then you could come back here and do whatever you want." he harshly tells her. 

She huffs, her eyes immediately searching for Six's eyes and she's trying to ask for his guidance so he could tell her what to do, the right thing to do. 

Six nods gently at her. "He's right. Do it." He simply says as if he's a machine designed for the CIA and not a human. He switched to it earlier once they entered this room. He needed to be professional and compartmentalize again for work. 

She frowns at him. He's different and she knows it. She never thought that he'd ever change like this. He's…cold and indifferent and it scares her a little bit since she's not used to changes. She knows it's because he's working now that's why he's changing but seeing him like this makes her question him, if it's going to be like this every mission. Because then, who could she depend on when he's uncaring like this even towards her? 

Elle takes a sharp inhale, blinking as she bites her bottom lip anxiously. "Okay, fine. I'll do it." she finally says and she could hear Lloyd's sigh of relief. 

"Good. Let me know when you're done." Lloyd shortly tells her and she hums in response, walking away from the room with Six following her from behind without a word.

They exit the room and he closes the door shut. He lets himself look at her for a brief moment. He can sense that she's disappointed in his change but he can't do anything about it. It's his job. This is how he is every time he's on missions. He can't just change how he is. He'd be fucked and so will the missions. 

"You could've given me a heads-up, you know. If you were going to be so different like this. I deserve a warning." Elle snaps, not even looking back at him as she's fueled with anger and fear. 

She's just scared. Terrified. She thought that she could depend on him on all these missions so she doesn't feel like she's doing it alone because she hates being alone and it scares her. A lot.

Six doesn't even blink or anything. He just continues on walking calmly. In truth, he doesn't know what to say. He doesn't have the right words for her to comfort her or tell her he's sorry. Because he's not. He can't feel that guilt he's supposed to feel. He's just a little upset that it upsets her. He doesn't like seeing her upset, that's it. He wasn't trained to apologize for how he is. He is what he is and he can never change it, no matter what.

"Let's just blow up this building and leave. We could talk about that later." he coldly says. 

She sighs, stopping in front of the boss's office and this is where she's supposed to blow up this whole floor because it's the center of it. But instead of readying her powers, she turns around to him with a scowl on her face. 

"No. We're going to talk about this now," her voice slightly cracks, "Why are you acting so different? I've never seen you like this before. I mean, why? You could even barely look at me." Elle confronts him as she points a finger at him. 

He's looking away from her, trying really hard to stay calm and uncompromised despite her demanding answers from him. "Elle. Just stop. Let's not do this now." Six shortly says.

"Yeah, I agree, guys. You could fight more back in the penthouse. Maybe even in the bedroom, but I could care less about that right now. So, can you just hurry it up and blow up the fucking building?" Lloyd interjects through both of their comms. 

Of course they forgot to turn it off and he's been listening to their conversation this whole time. 

She frowns again and blinks as she clears her throat. "Fine, I was just about to, anyway. Jeez." Elle scoffs before walking ahead of Six and standing in front of him to protect him from the explosion later on. She's creating the fire so it won't affect her at all. 

She raises her hand and slowly inhales her breath, focusing on this building but suddenly her focus drifts. She hears a distinct sound. A really muffled one. But it's there. She focuses on the sound and tries to listen closely to it as she closes her eyes to focus better.

"Mommy? Daddy? Where are you?" She hears a little girl's voice from afar. But she's still on this floor. She's here. They must've missed a spot earlier when they were checking all the offices here.

Elle immediately opens her eyes and widens it. "A child. There's a child here. We need to find her first and get her far away from here." she tells Six and Lloyd.

"No. Absolutely not. We don't have time for that. Elle, you've already been cleared for collateral. So just do your damn job." Lloyd orders.

Like he would ever give a shit about a child. He doesn't even care about anyone that doesn't concern him.

She shakes her head, turning to Six. "I'm not killing a child! I'm not doing it. I didn't sign up for this shit." she raises her voice at him as panic is laced in her tone.

Six hushes her softly, his hand slowly reaching out to her arm before slowly turning off his comms in his ears. "Elle, be quiet. We'll solve this. Together." he whispers.

She sighs in relief as she nods, turning off her comms as well. 

"You want to help? Are you sure?" Elle asks him for reassurance.

Six nods, his facial expressions immediately changing and turning into more relaxed and more of himself now. He's had missions like this before where he has to postpone it for a while just because he sees a child or a civilian around. He does kill people for a living but only the bad ones, the ones who deserve to die and are hurting innocents along the way so there was no point in them living anyway. He's always thought of it like that. He has a complicated moral compass but at least he still has it. Most assassins don't. 

"I am. I'm not going to let a kid die either. So, let's find her first and then get her out of here, okay?" he says to her softly with both of his hands holding her arms.

Elle nods, her lips slowly curving into a small smile. She could tell that something in him switched him back to himself again after hearing that there's a child here and she knows that he doesn't like collateral damage when on missions. He tries his best to always make sure that there's no collateral at all. But sometimes, there will always be, no matter how hard he tries.

Except for this. This is an easy and quiet mission so rescuing the kid shouldn't be hard. But he knows that Lloyd is going to give him and her a really long lecture about disobeying orders, especially from the chief. They're both screwed later but if it means they get to save a child's life, then so be it. 

Besides, Six knows that Lloyd will excuse them just this once and not tell Denny anything about this. It's her first mission and all that. That and the fact that he has a soft spot for her, deep inside. Six sees it. Especially after last week when she got hurt, he could see how he was actually worried but he was trying to hide it as much as he could even though Six could see concern written all over his face since he's good at reading people. 

"I think I hear her footsteps. Let's follow it." she tells him before she takes his hand and guides him to where she hears the little girl's sound. 

***

Lloyd is so fucking pissed right now that he can't even put it into words.

Six turned off his comms. Elle did, too. 

And he hasn't heard anything from the agents nearby the building about any explosions yet, that means they haven't done their job. 

He knows what this is about. She told him that there was a child earlier but he told her that she was clear for collateral. It's not like it was up to him. Lloyd doesn't call the shots. Denny does. And he's the one who doesn't give a damn if a child dies or not. He just thinks it's collateral damage and it happens all the time.

It's true, collateral does happen all the time. But it's not like this is a critical mission. This is just a simple one. It should've been allowed to just save one single child and keep her out of danger. But apparently the CIA's data is much more valuable for him than a child's life.

Sometimes Lloyd wishes that he isn't his friend. But it's too late to undo that. He's already roped into all this shit long ago and he knows there's no going back. 

"Sir, what do you want us to do now?" One of the IT support asks him while he's still sitting on his huge chair in front of all the monitors.

"I don't fucking know! It's been mintues that they've been radio silent and instead of asking me what should you do, maybe try accessing the fucking security cameras on the top floor?" Lloyd snaps.

He nods. "Right. On it, sir." 

He rolls his eyes before downing a glass of his whiskey and placing the now empty glass on a small table beside him. He should've come with them earlier. It won't go sideways like this if he's with them right now.

And now, he just has to wait. The thing he hates the most. But as of right now, it's the only thing he can do. 

He needs to wait for them until she blows up the building and comes back to the penthouse so he could have a talk with her. 

***

"Small creature? Are you there? I'm friendly!" Elle softly tells the child who's hiding behind a chair in one of the offices here. 

They finally found her after searching for a few minutes but Elle told Six that they have to approach her gently since she's scared and alone. 

Slowly, the little girl comes out of her hiding spot and runs to Elle. She's about four or five years old. She almost looks like her. Maybe she's a mixed kid as well. They even have the same hair. Curly and a little brunette.

The girl looks up at Elle while hugging a pink teddy bear tight against her arms. "Do you know where my mommy and daddy are?" she asks.

Elle nods, looking down at her as she smiles. "Yeap. They're right downstairs. Let's go there now." 

Her tiny hands hold Elle's as she looks at Six and quickly hides beside her. "Who is this scary man?" she softly asks. 

The tattoos must've startled her. It does scare some people usually. Or the broad and tall figure of his, as well. 

She chuckles, glancing over at Six as she kneels down to reach her level. "Okay, this is my friend. He's very nice. In fact, he's going to give you some candy if you come with him to go downstairs." she tells the kid, convincingly.

The girl immediately smiles and nods. "Okay!" she exclaims before walking to Six and putting her small hands into his large ones but he's too focused on looking at her, admiring her on how good she is with kids and she can get along with any of them so easily. 

It is a little sad that she could never have her own. 

Elle looks at him, her lips tugging into a small smile before planting a soft kiss on his cheek and leaning closer to his ear. "Bring her down to the lobby and then meet me at the car after I'm done with it, okay?" she whispers in his ears as she rests her palm on his cheek.

Six nods. "Got it. Good luck." he whispers back to her ears and she backs away from him, looking down at the girl and smiling widely at her.

"Be good, okay?" Elle tells her as she quickly nods her small tiny head and pulls his hand to go forward while she chuckles at the kid's action and so does Six. 

He turns around to go in the right direction and the little one just follows him. He steals one last glance to look at Elle for a second before his hand gets pulled again to walk faster.

He's not very good with children, the only close interaction he's ever had with a child is probably with Fitzroy's niece, back in Hong Kong but that was two years ago and he's never seen her again. So this is new for him, especially after seeing Elle being so good with a child and getting along with them easily. He knows that she wants that kind of future where there's children in it but he also knows about her condition that doesn't allow her to have them. She told him last week and he hasn't forgotten about it ever since.

He feels bad for her because she'd make a really good mom. He just knows she would.

Six leads the little girl towards the elevator and presses a button to go downstairs as it immediately opens because this office is nearly empty. He lets her go in first with him following her from behind while the elevator closes behind them once they're fully inside. 

Once Elle hears the elevator closes from afar, she immediately turns on her comms again to communicate with Lloyd again. She just hopes he isn't that mad. 

Elle clears her throat, "Hey. So I'm about to blow up the building and was wondering where to escape? Because I was thinking about jumping off the building but that would take too much energy so if I—"

Lloyd cuts her off. "What the hell have you been doing this whole fucking time? And where's Six?" he asks her, yelling in her ears as she grimaces at the impact of his voice.

"Relax, jeez. I'm literally just about to do it now. And he's downstairs, dropping off the child safely." she responds.

He rolls his eyes. "You dragged him into your mess. Denny has been asking me countless times on why the building hasn't blown up yet. I had to tell him that there's been an interference with our comms. Six has never been known to fail a mission and if he failed this easy one just because of you—"

She frowns. "I haven't failed this mission. I am about to do it, I just postponed it a few seconds." she defends.

Lloyd scoffs. "A few seconds? It's been more than ten minutes. You were supposed to follow your orders immediately. You weren't supposed to postpone it." He scolds her.

She rolls her eyes, sighing. "Fine. You can lecture me about it all you want once we're back home but now, I gotta know where to escape." 

He exhales deeply, his fingers brushing his stache as he looks over at the blueprint map of the office she's in from one of the huge monitors in front of him. "There's an exit back door to your right that leads to some alley. You'll be safe there." Lloyd finally says. 

Elle hums in response, raising her hand again and inhales a sharp breath as she feels all the energy inside the building before chanting a quick spell of her own and it blows up immediately, blasting everything inside as she runs through all the fire as quickly as she could even though everything is dark for her but she's trying to use her heightened senses.

Her hand finally reaches a door handle and quickly opens it as she throws herself inside of it. She coughs a little from the damage and turns on her comms again, if it's working. "Lloyd? Six?" She tries but there's no answer. The signal died the moment the explosion started. She should've known that but this is her first time ever doing this.

She stands up from where she was and looks at everything but it's all dark again. She knows that there are stairs here but she can't see anything. She can't just run down these stairs for four floors blindly. She does have heightened senses but it's literally pitch black and she can't hear anything because of the explosion. 

She lets her hands touch the wall beside her and she immediately gets an idea. It might be a bad one, but it's the only good one to get out of here now.

She clenches her fist and starts hitting the wall with her bare hands as hard as she can and it crumbles with one try. She gasps at that, she's never seen how really strong she could be. 

She punches the wall again until it finally breaks even bigger and it's big enough for her to fit into it. She looks at it and it's pretty high from here to the ground but it's her only choice right now. She knows she'll survive the fall but she's never done this before and she's a little…scared — she's actually scared of heights, it has been like that since she was little. 

"Come on, just do it." Elle mutters to herself, trying to encourage herself to just jump off this fucking building and stop being scared. This is what it takes to be working for the CIA. She knows it. Now she does, at least. 

She closes her eyes shut and takes her feet off of the ledge and just jumps her whole body down. 

She could hear outside now. The cars, the motorcycles, the people. She knows where she'll land now, that alley which Lloyd told her to go to. She just hopes she won't land on someone's car or on someone. She focuses on all the sounds she's hearing 

She can hear everything as her body falls onto the ground, hard. 

She groans, finally opening her eyes and squinting it as she tries to get up but everything hurts now. Her whole body hurts. She's laying down flat on the ground without being able to move at all. She doesn't understand what's happening. She thought she was invincible to everything. Maybe her body isn't used to being thrown to the ground yet. This is all new for her and her body.

"Elle? Are you okay? Can you hear me?" Six's voice appears from behind her and her eyes look up at him, upside down. 

"I didn't know that you'd be here, I thought that…fuck, it hurts." She winces at the pain and he immediately squats down, carrying her in his arms, bridal-style. She leans her head on his chest and breathes deeply. He's carrying her like she's practically nothing. 

"What happened?" he asks her, softly as his eyes look down on hers.

"I miscalculated. I thought that I could just go downstairs after the blast but I blasted too much and it was all dark. I should've just blown it up from here, with my mind. Would've been way easier." Elle explains to him, weakly. 

"Okay. Let's just go back and you'll feel better there. The car's right here." Six tells her, gesturing his head towards the car beside them, the same one that took them here earlier. There's a local driver in it and he was paid to be quiet and not ask questions. 

She nods slowly as he brings them to the car and he gently places her in it as delicately as possible before he gets in the car as well.

***

Lloyd has been eyeing the elevator as it finally opens and Six and Elle walk out of it but she's… hurt. 

They're on the first floor of the penthouse because they knew that he'd still be here. All the field agents and IT support are all in here too, staring at them. 

She has her arm around his shoulder for support and he's got his arm wrapped around her waist as she leans all of her weight against him. 

Lloyd rushes to them immediately and frowns. "What happened? You look like hell." he asks.

Elle sighs. "I made a mistake. I calculated wrong. The blast that I created was too big for me to escape in time. So I had to jump out of the building." she tells him as her eyes dart to his and he's a little worried but he's still angry. Very angry. 

He exhales, trying to contain his anger because he can't just yell at her when she's all hurt, it's like kicking a wounded puppy and even he still has a little bit of empathy left in him. "Jesus. Alright, bring her upstairs to the living room. I'm calling a doctor from the nearest hospital here. You just stay there and don't fucking move." he tells them, walking to the elevator. 

"Okay." she softly says and he almost feels bad for what he's about to say to her after all this but he needs to say what he needs to say. She needs to hear it or she'll never learn, like ever. 

Six and her follow him from behind and they all enter the elevator again as Lloyd presses the up button.

He glances at her from the side and he wishes he could say something now but he knows that he should just keep his mouth shut for now. 

He examines her body closer and it's all dirty and dusty from the explosion but he doesn't see any blood on her or any injury. He's a little bit relieved so at least he doesn't need to spend his time worrying about her just like last week when she was shot and almost kidnapped by some idiots — he handled those idiots already, by himself, but he hasn't told Six or her yet.

The elevator dings and it opens by itself as Lloyd lets her step out of it first with Six still helping her walk. 

She sighs in relief as she steps her foot on the penthouse's floor. She's happy to be back home and safe. 

***

Elle lies down on the couch with a woman doctor sitting beside her, checking all her vitals while she applies an IV on her. 

Lloyd and Six are standing in front of her, both crossing their arms against their chest as they observe her. They've been like this ever since the doctor arrived. 

In truth, they're both equally worried for her well being. They don't like seeing her hurt or vulnerable like this. She's supposed to be strong and powerful and invincible. If she keeps getting hurt like this, then they'd have to worry more about her than about the missions. They always thought that they didn't have to worry about her like this because they always thought that she could take it.

But again, she's still human. She can still get hurt anytime, no matter what. 

"How is she, doctor?" Lloyd asks, concernedly. 

The doctor focuses on her file. "Well, her vitals are completely fine, surprisingly. She just needs a little fluid. Maybe some painkillers for the pain, too. She said she was experiencing some pain but I don't see where it's from. There are no injuries or any wounds. You said she fell, earlier? From where?" She asks back, looking at him.

Elle gulps, looking at Lloyd for help. She doesn't usually lie to doctors. She always tells the truth because she thinks that they'll figure out the truth anyway and it's just impossible to lie to them. 

Lloyd steps forward to the doctor. "Doctor, I'm paying you ten times more than your usual fees so I'd say that's enough for you to not ask questions about anything and just do your job." he tells her. 

The doctor slowly nods, turning to her. "Right. Well, I'm going to give you some painkillers, is that okay?" she asks her.

Elle shakes her head. "No, I'm good. I mean, I'll be fine. I don't think that…I need those pills. I–I can heal naturally, right? Yeah. I don't need those. I'll feel better in a minute." she tells the doctor as she faintly smiles.

She can't get her hands on those pills again. Not again. She'd rather suffer pain than getting addicted to those fucking pills again. Plus, she promised Six. She knows that once she has them again, she won't stop. 

"Okay, then. I'll leave you to rest. Take the IV off when it's finished and contact me if you still feel any pain." The doctor tells her, standing up from the couch as she gets her stuff. 

She nods. "Thank you, doctor." she says politely, giving her a weak smile.

Lloyd walks to her. "Let me escort you out, doctor." he formally says as they both walk out of the living room towards the elevator.

Elle softly groans, leaning her head back onto the couch as she looks over to Six who's still standing still there. "Come here, please," she whispers weakly to him in a pleading tone. 

He immediately walks over to her and sits beside her. "How are you feeling?" he asks her, his hand reaching out to her arm as his eyes search for her and their eyes finally meet. 

She relaxes and smiles up at him. "Better now." she murmurs softly.

"Do you want to take a bath? I can help you with that, if you want." Six offers her as his hand slowly brushes the side of her face while his thumb strokes her cheek. 

Elle pouts a little, scrunching her nose as she shakes her head. "No, I'll just have a shower. I need to try to move my muscles so I can heal quicker. I think my body was just in shock when I fell from that building earlier. It's not used to being thrown that high." she tells him.

"Okay, then. I need to go downstairs to do a little debrief with Denny, as usual."

"Is he going to ask anything about me?"

He frowns. "No, nothing like that. Just a lot of questions after questions and then I'd have to make a quick summary about what the mission was like. But he won't ask anything about you or ask anything to you. It's your first time." Six assures her. 

She sighs in relief. "Great. Okay. That's good. Um, I do need help getting up, though." Elle admits as she gives him an innocent smile.

He chuckles quietly as he nods. "Come here, let me help you," he says softly, holding both of her hands before lifting her upper body up and she sits up from the couch.

They both look into each other's eyes and realize that they're so close, their faces are almost touching and their lips are an inch apart from each other. This has been the closest they've been after this whole week of not touching each other. It's not that they didn't want to because they did, they really did. They have so much desire for each other. It's a lot. And it's undeniable, no matter how hard they try to hide it. 

She swallows thickly. "Hey, so, I know we haven't really slept together this past week because of training but now that that's over, can I sleep in your room tonight?" she asks him.

Six tucks her hair under her ear and nods. "Of course." he softly says as his lips slowly tug into a small smile. 

She smiles again. "Okay. See you in bed then." Elle says, getting excited for tonight and she completely forgot that she was in pain. It's really that easy to distract her. 

They both say nothing as they retreat from each other and he helps her to stand up from the couch, walking her to her room as well. 

***

Finally, she is cleaned up, well rested and fully healed.

She's showered, changed into clean clothes and she's already feeling better due to the IV. 

And now she's extremely starving while looking for food in the fridge that desperately needs to be stocked again. 

She's the only one who does the grocery shopping around here. If she just misses even a day of not doing it, the boys are going to complain to her because of the lack of food. It's not even her job but it has become part of her life now. 

After a few minutes of searching for some food that's quick to eat and doesn't require to be cooked, she takes them with her to the kitchen island as she proceeds to eat her food there. 

She's got strawberry and mango yogurt, some pasta leftovers from domino's, a bowl of watermelon, a bag of cold chips and some leftover pastry from the local coffee shop downstairs. And she's drinking a liter of water. She needs to keep being hydrated so her body stays healthy and healed. 

They order a lot of take outs for most nights and Lloyd usually orders too much of it and it ends up being another leftover in the fridge.

Right now, as she’s eating, she’s too lazy to listen in on everyone downstairs and way too focused on her food. She knows Six is still downstairs doing some stupid debrief that is only wasting his time to rest and clean up. She doesn’t know where Lloyd is though. Probably still downstairs as well, accompanying Six, as usual. Those two have quickly become besties now, always telling each other literally everything.

She wonders how they ever got along, though. Because she knows that they didn’t meet each other up until this mission, only heard stories of each other from other people in the agency. And when they had to do this mission together, they didn’t exactly like each other since they both never had any partners in their line of work. They’ve always worked alone. They weren’t used to partners or even friends.

But this mission has really brought them along and well, her as well. They both have only one thing in common, they both want her and are willing to do for her and her safety.

“Mmm. So good.” She mutters to herself, mouth full with the food as she enjoys it before she has to handle Lloyd. She knows what’s coming. He was just waiting for her to heal and clean up to finally lash his anger out on her.

Ugh. What a headache.

She just wants to lay down and sleep forever. She’s a little tired, she’ll admit. She did just blow up a whole building and jump from the tall building and is still alive until now. She used a lot of her energy. But thanks to food and IV, she’s not that tired anymore.

But thinking of Lloyd about to yell at her face again, she just lost her appetite as she looks down at all her food that’s almost half finished already. She might not have super speed, but she sure does eat really fast. And that way, she gets full way easier.

She hops off the kitchen island stool and begins to throw away all the trash from her food to the garbage can in the kitchen. She walks to the kitchen sink and turns it on with her mind as she lets the water while she washes her hand with the soap.

After she’s done, she dries her hands with the paper towel and just as she was about to walk to the couch to relax and watch some TV, the elevator dings and opens.

Shit. I’m fucked.

Elle sighs as she hears Lloyd’s heavy footsteps coming out of the elevator and stepping in their foyer.

She frowns and sighs loudly. “Look, can we just not do this—” she tries.

He ignores her as he walks into their living room, where she’s standing. “I get it. But we’re all tired, Elle. And you need to learn a fucking lesson.” Lloyd starts.

She snorts. “Please. What am I? A child? What lesson are you trying to teach me here, Lloyd? I understood the orders and I did it. I blew up the fucking building already.” Elle defends herself.

Lloyd scoffs, shaking his head. “But you disobeyed my orders. Don’t you get it? You’re supposed to do as you’re told, no matter what. No questions asked. That’s what we all do.” he lectures her.

“Wow, it’s not like I don’t even have any more free will.” She retorts.

“Well, you asked for this. You wanted this. Don’t fucking complain for something you signed up for.” He harshly says.

She scoffs. “I never signed up to kill an innocent child! What the fuck were you thinking?” Elle raises her voice at him.

Lloyd frowns. “It wasn’t my choice! Did you think that I ever wanted that? It was a clear order. I couldn’t do anything about it.” He raises his voice back at her.

She shakes her head in disbelief. “So you would’ve killed a child anyway?” she says, lowering her voice.

He huffs. “Jesus, Elle. Would you fucking stop? The child’s not dead, right? You saved him or her. But still, you can’t just turn off your comms and ignore me and do whatever the fuck you want. It’s not how this works. You’re lucky that I didn’t tell Denny the truth about you. He’d be pissed. Just like I am with you because following orders is very important. But if he knew, he’d remove you from this mission and drag you to the states and—”

Elle gulps. “Then, why didn’t you?” she weakly asks. She’s scared to ask but she’s curious. He’d snitch on anyone else because he could care less about them but somehow, it’s different with her.

Lloyd lunges forward to her and glares down at her. “I did it for you.” He grits out. He didn’t want to admit that but she asked for it and there’s no point in hiding anything from her anyway, the girl’s a mind reader after all.

She furrows her brows and scoffs gently. “But why? I thought you didn’t care about me or anyone at all.” She asks but it comes out as a whisper because she's still in disbelief.

Lloyd takes another step forward closer to her and now they’re so close to each other as their faces are almost touching. “I do care. For you. I don’t know why but…I just do. You have no idea how much effect you have on me. If you so much as tell me to kill someone right now, I will. I’d do it in a heartbeat. In fact, I have killed for you. Remember those guys who tried to kidnap you and instead shot you and Six last week? I found their bosses and shot them all in the head at their own house, a few days ago. And I didn’t even clean it up. I just left the bodies like that. So they’d know not to mess with us again. Not to hurt you again.” He bluntly confesses.

It’s not like him to just confess what he feels but he’s cornered right now and he has no other choice but to just get it out and finally tell her the truth. She deserves the truth, anyway. Keeping her in the dark forever is just not right and he knows that.

Elle swallows thickly. She is scared but also turned on. She never expected for anyone to do that for her. But she does like it. With all the other guys she’s been with, they were too much of a coward and she’s always wanted them to do more for her. To do anything for her. And she knows it’s fucked up to want him because he killed for her but it’s not like they didn’t deserve it. They were going to kidnap her and sell her as a weapon. But still, he killed for her — not exactly right or justifiable.

“You did that…for me or for Denny? Did he ask you to—” she slowly asks him.

He cuts her off, shaking his head. “No. He didn’t. It was for your safety but…the CIA wouldn’t have sanctioned a mass murder. It was really fucking messy, Elle. There was blood and brain matter all over the place.” Lloyd casually says with a scoff.

Oh.

She gulps again. It’s how he says it so casually while talking about murder. Like he has no remorse or regret and even has a little pride for it, in which he does. He proudly did it for her and he wasn't even planning to tell her but here he is anyway.

She stays quiet, her mind going round and round in circles thinking about why he did all that just for her. She remembered Six’s words about him secretly wanting her but she just thought that meant sexually only and not in a way that he’d do quite literally anything for her. Because this is getting dangerous. He killed someone for her, just like that. She’s scared.

Lloyd sighs softly. “Say something, dammit. Your silence is weirdly scaring me. Are you…scared?” he asks, cautiously.

She looks him in the eyes. “I was just thinking. I mean, why would you do that for me? I didn’t ask for it and yeah, I guess I am a little scared of you. I’ve always been. But…this is different. You killed them for me, just like that. Like their lives didn’t mean shit to you. It does scare me.”

His lips slowly turn into a smirk. “That’s good that you’re scared of me. You should be.” He lowers his voice into a whisper.

She frowns. “Lloyd. You can’t just do that, go out and kill anyone for me. It’s reckless.” She raises her voice a little.

He scoffs. “I can do whatever the fuck I want, sweetheart. Even if I get caught, I have immunity for that because of the agency.” He pauses, staring into her eyes, “You should feel grateful. I don’t just kill for anyone. Well, except for the CIA but, you know, that’s completely different from you. I’m doing it for you because I want to. I need to see you safe and sound. And I don’t fucking know why.” Lloyd admits, truthfully.

Elle sighs softly, looking down to avoid his gaze but his hand lifts her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “What do you want from me?” she softly asks.

Lloyd furrows his brows and cocks his head to the side as he slowly smirks. “Oh, sweetheart. I want everything from you. Anything that I could take from you. Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted you? I’ve wanted you in every way possible. I can’t stop thinking about that night in that dingy, gross bar when I had my fingers in you and when I tasted you…”

She frowns deeper. “Lloyd, if this is one of your sick and twisted games to tease me, you better stop right now.” she warns him.

His smirk turns wider as his hand moves to her lips and his thumb strokes her bottom lips. “I’m not teasing you right now, Elle. But if you want me to…” Lloyd whispers at her face.

She slightly widens her eyes and takes his hand off of her with one try. She shakes her head as she turns around from him and walks further into their living room. “No. We can’t do this. I don’t even know why you want me and care about me so much all of a sudden when you’ve been treating me like shit this whole entire time. I just don’t fucking get it.” Elle snaps, stopping to stand in front of their floor to ceiling window that highlights the whole city of Jakarta as she turns to him.

Lloyd sighs, walking to her. “So you don’t feel the same?” he asks as he stands in front of her, seeing the night view of the city behind her head.

“That’s not what I said. Look, Six and I talked about it and we were about to propose an idea to you about…sharing me. We were about to do it after the mission but—that’s not the point I’m trying to make. It doesn’t matter if I feel the same or not. You killed someone for me, Lloyd. And then you lied about what you feel for me the entire time. That’s…toxic. If we are together, if we do this, then what does that say about us?” she asks, waving her hand between them.

Elle has always been logical with life. What’s wrong is wrong and what’s right is right. She knows killing is wrong but killing for someone else because you care for them, that’s a whole different level of wrong. And yes, it was necessary to kill them for her own safety but he only did that because he cares for her. If he didn’t, they would still be alive. She just doesn’t want to be the reason why someone’s dead. She doesn’t want to be responsible for that because she’s had her own guilt already for actually being responsible for someone’s death and it felt horrible for her. She’ll never forget what she did in that lab.

That doesn’t mean she’s justified her own actions, no. She fully knows that what she did was wrong and she still feels guilty about it but she has a feeling that Lloyd doesn’t feel guilty or thinks it’s wrong which is why it makes this toxic.

Lloyd steps forward to her and stares into her eyes. “I don’t care what it says about us. You want me and I want you. Really badly.”

Elle scoffs at his face. “You’re a sociopath. You won’t feel the same for me anymore after a while. You’ll feel bored and then you’ll forget why you were even obsessed with me in the first place. And if we’re starting it like this, with you killing for me, then I don’t want it. I’m scared. About you and all of this. It’s out of my comfort zone. I can’t do this.” She tells him as her voice slightly cracks.

He knows what he is. A sociopath. A person who doesn’t feel things like any average human being. He’s aware of it. Six and him talk about it a lot. He doesn’t want to be that person who gets bored easily with someone they care about and then just leaves them but in this situation, he can’t leave her because of the mission and all. He’s conscious about it but it doesn’t mean he’s proud of it. He hates it. He hates himself for it. He can’t change who he is but he is trying to be better even if it isn't showing.

At least he can still care about someone and would do anything for them. If he is an actual sociopath, it doesn't mean that there aren't a few people he'd kill for and even die for.

She tries to walk away but he immediately lunges forward to her and cages her in with both of his arms on the window as she’s pressed against it and he presses himself against her body. He leans into her ear, “You can’t run away from us, Elle. It’s too late for that.” Lloyd whispers in her ears.

She scowls. “Let me go.” she hisses as her breath hitches.

He looks back into her eyes. “If you wanted me to, you would’ve already done it yourself. You do want this but you’re trying too hard to avoid it. Stop fucking doing that. I’m right here and it’s only us.” he presses her.

She rolls her eyes before moving her face closer to his, staring down at his lips. “Just shut up. I don’t want to talk anymore,” she breathes out as she smashes her lips against his and kisses him as hard as she could while he deepens the kiss, roughly and she lets out a loud moan against his mouth.

Lloyd cups her face, his teeth harshly biting her bottom lips until it bleeds as she moans again, louder this time. She liked that. She likes it rough and he knows exactly how to fulfill that desire of hers without asking.

“Where do you want it? Right here? On the couch? Or in my bedroom?” he asks against her mouth as his breathing starts to get heavy while her hands move to his hips, getting lower and lower to his crotch.

She whimpers, shaking her head. “Shit. We shouldn’t be doing this. I told Six that we’d do it together—” she whines against his mouth, slowly regretting everything but she can’t say that she’s not enjoying this because she is, she really is. She’s just too ashamed to admit it. It’s her guilty pleasure.

Lloyd cuts her off. “Fuck that. I know him and he’d be okay with this. With us.” He breathes out as he brings down his hand to rest on the side of her neck.

She breathes heavily, “Fine. Fuck me right here, then.” She pants against his mouth as her eyes gesture behind her, to the huge ass window.

His eyes look down to the night view of the whole city through their clear window. Anyone could see them from down there if they fucked right here since their lights are on and the window is huge and wide enough. But it doesn't matter to them right now — nothing does, except for each other and this very moment.

He smirks at her bold response before he pulls away from her lips an inch away. “Kinky. You want to let the whole city know that you’re mine? Is that what you want?” Lloyd whispers.

She nods mindlessly. “Mhm. It is,” she whispers back, her hands moving to the front of his pants before popping open the button easily.

Lloyd grabs her hands and holds them tight between their bodies. “Eager, are we? I haven’t even gotten you ready yet.” He teases her.

She shakes her head. “I don’t need that. I can take it. I can take you.” She insists.

He releases her hands as he grabs a fistful of her hair and grips it tightly as she leans her head against the window, enjoying the pain he’s giving her. It’s not as painful as it should be for her but she can still feel it and for her, it’s more of a pleasure than pain. She’s accepted long ago that she can never feel pain like anyone else so she turned it into something better — she developed a pain kink. It turns her on when he hurts her psychically.

But Lloyd’s the first guy in her life to ever do this to her, he just knew what she wanted without her even asking him to do it and he knows that she could take it. All the other guys were too gentle. She hated it. But not with Six, that’s different. They have something entirely special together and it’s not just about sex for them, not that they’ve ever done it yet.

Lloyd leans into her ear as his free hand moves down from her breast to her stomach until it stops at her cotton shorts and he reaches down to her panties, getting inside as he feels her wet cunt. “I need to taste you, sweetheart — properly taste you. I’ve been dreaming about it ever since we met.” He whispers inside her ears and she gasps softly at the feeling of his hand inside her.

Elle lifts her tank top up and takes it off completely, throwing it onto the floor somewhere. She’s not wearing a bra since she thought that she was going to get ready for bed earlier. So this is the first time Lloyd’s seen her bare tits. Even Six hasn’t seen her fully naked yet.

He lets his eyes wander around her body and takes a second for himself to examine it. Her body is pretty fit since she’s strong and all that. But she doesn’t have abs, just an average flat stomach. She can’t seem to ever gain weight with her condition so her body will look the same all the time, no matter what. She can never grow. His eyes then drift down to her tits. He focuses on them more — her beautiful tits that he’s been fantasizing about it this whole time.

His hand releases her hair and goes down to her breasts, grasping them tightly together as she lets out a soft moan at that. His fingernails digs into her tits until it bleeds and she moans even louder at that. He swipes the blood off of her before her skin heals again and he licks the blood from his fingers while she watches him do that. She’s having a little déjà vu when they were back at that bar and he was licking her cum off of his fingers.

And now she has a blood kink.

“I know that you’ve seen my ass naked. Six told me.” She breathes out. She can barely think right now and this is what comes out of her mouth.

Lloyd’s eyes look up at her. “Really? Well, what can I say? You have an amazing ass and that was a great view…” he comments.

She rolls her eyes, smirking. “Asshole.”

He gets even closer to her face. “But it turns you on anyway. I turn you on, Elle. Remember that.” He retorts as he takes her shorts off, leaving her with only her panties on.

Her smirk turns wider. "And I make you hard every single day, Hansen.” She retorts back as she moves her hands to rest on his chest before she rips his expensive polo shirt off easily with both of her hands, revealing his big and muscular body.

She takes a moment to let her eyes observe his shirtless body. There’s some tattoos on his chest that she certainly wasn’t expecting to see. His six-pact abs are really fucking perfect and she could drool just by the sight of this. She didn’t know that he was so fit under all those ridiculous fancy shirts of his. She forgot that he also had a lot of training and he does missions that requires fighting as well, like Six. She's not exactly surprised, she knew that he was packing underneath, but her hatred for him wanted to make her forget that she finds him sexy.

He’s not even mad that she ruined his $300 polo shirt that he brought from this country, it was way more expensive here because it was imported from the country he used to buy it in, which pissed him off so much . But he just got even more hard. If she was any other girl, he would’ve gotten mad and immediately left her. But she's not any other girl he's been with — she's way more important to him than some stupid shirt that he could buy again and again.

Lloyd scoffs at that, looking down at his ruined shirt before his eyes dart to hers again, his gaze darkens. He holds her neck and grips it harshly as she smirks again. “Guess we both have an addiction for each other, huh?” he whispers.

She nods her head against the window. “Take your pants off, Lloyd. Or else I’ll rip it off too.” She lightly threatens him with that knowing innocent smile of hers.

He shakes his head. "Not yet. I said I wanted to taste you first, right?” He reminds her before covering her mouth with his, kissing her deeper than earlier as his teeth bites into her lower lip again, making it bleed a lot. She moans against his mouth, leaning even closer to him but he pulls away from her, breaking the kiss.

He loves teasing her and he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop. He likes seeing her reaction to it and enjoys it all the time.

She pouts as he predicted and he lets out a soft huff of a laugh. Lloyd slowly gets down on his knees, kneeling in front of her while his eyes stay on her. His fingers toy with the fabric of her panties just to tease her again.

He looks up at her. "I want you to let out those pretty sounds as much as you want, okay? Let all of them hear. I don’t care.” Lloyd tells her, softly.

She nods at him. He smirks at that. “Good girl. I like it when you’re obeying me. Not like what you did today.” He retorts.

She huffs. “I don’t want to talk about today.”

“Good. Me neither.” Lloyd agrees with her before his hands touch her inner thighs, “Spread your legs for me, sweetheart.” He whispers against her skin, sending goosebumps on it.

She does what she’s told, spreading her legs slowly and getting wider a little. He takes her panties off and leaves them down on her ankles. He gets his face closer to it as he swipes his tongue across her wet and glistening cunt. She throws her head back, letting out a soft gasp and moan at the same time.

Lloyd looks up at her again, wanting to see her face. “Eyes on me, Elle. You look away and I’ll stop.” He tells her as she looks down at him, her chest breathing heavily.

“Look at you. All wet just for me.” He taunts her, letting his eyes wander down her mess and she’s dripping around her legs and staining the floor, as well. She’s gonna have to clean that up later.

She lets out a breathy moan as his fingers touch her cunt before he inserts two fingers inside of her at once, making her gasp loudly at that. She could take it. He knows she can.

“You can take it,” Lloyd husks, twisting his fingers in her before adding another finger and she hits her head against the window, letting out another loud moan. “That’s it. Take it like a fucking champ,” he echoes his previous words before to her that he said today before the mission.

Ding.

She was too blind in her own pleasure to even bother to hear anything. It's one of the reasons why she likes sex so much and makes it her coping mechanism, because she could get distracted and forget everything, even if it's just for a while.

The familiar sound of the elevator announcing that it’s about to open immediately startles them. The elevator is at the far side of the living room but anyone could see the whole thing from there.

Six casually walks out of it with his eyes looked down, extremely exhausted after that long debrief with Denny in front of a laptop and then some of the field agents engaging in a conversation with him about fighting techniques and suggested weapons that he so wanted to get out of. He finally got out of it and he was ready to come back home, get ready for bed and sleep in with Elle.

He certainly was not expecting the view right in front of him now when his eyes finally look up.

She’s fully naked and Lloyd’s shirtless with his pants button open and he’s going down on her with his fingers still inside her. This is the first time he’s ever seen her naked and he wasn’t expecting it to go like this.

“Shit…” she mutters under her breath as Lloyd turns around to see Six.

Six is speechless. He’s frozen, standing still in the foyer. He’s not mad or disappointed at the both of them. He’s just really surprised. Shocked. Stunned. And maybe even a little bit turned on.

“Hey, you’re back. How was the debrief?” Lloyd casually asks him as he puts her panties back on and grabs her shorts and tank top from the floor. He helps her put her shorts on first before standing up and putting back her tank top on.

Six finally has the courage to take a step forward and proceed to walk into their living room. “Uhm, it was long and tiring.” He responds.

Elle shoots him an apologetic look as he stands beside Lloyd. “Six, I’m so sorry—”

He frowns. “What are you sorry for? I’m not mad, Elle. You know that we were about to tell him, anyway. I just wasn’t expecting you to do it yourself.” Six softly says in a gentle tone.

“I know, I’m sorry. We promised that we were going to do it together and then I just went and did it behind your back.” She apologizes again.

She has a bad habit of apologizing to people over and over again even though most of the time, it’s not her fault. She just always thinks it is hers.

Lloyd frowns. “Stop apologizing, Elle. I told you he’s okay with it and he is. Right?” he looks back at him for confirmation.

Six nods at him. “Yeah, I am. I’m the one who’s sorry for interrupting you because now it’d be awkward to continue.” He confirms.

She lets out a snort. “Yeap. It would be. Well, now that we’re all here…wanna go watch a movie and make it less awkward for all three of us?” Elle suggests.

They both nod at her. Six’s lips slowly form into a small smile. Lloyd gives her a genuine half smile. They’re both slightly a little bit content, somehow.

***

“I don’t like watching movies. It’s a waste of my time.” Lloyd grumbles as they all sit together in one of their couches, cozily in front of the TV.

She’s in the middle of them, leaning her head on Six’s shoulder and resting her legs on Lloyd’s thighs. She has her blanket from home, spread across all of them. The TV is on as she’s holding the remote control, ready to play her top favorite movie.

She giggles, shaking her head. “Well, it’s a shame. Because I’m going to make you watch my favorite movies, anyway.”

Lloyd huffs frustratedly. “Seriously? We could be doing so many other better things right now.” He continues to complain before he turns to her, slipping his hand under their blanket and placing it on her inner thighs, teasing her.

She frowns at him, but not exactly complaining of his hand placement. “Oh, come on! Just watch the damn movie.” She argues.

Six quietly chuckles, leaning his mouth into her ears. “He’s still frustrated that he didn’t get the chance to fuck you,” he softly jokes but he’s not exactly whispering.

Lloyd immediately looks at him, blinking at him offended. “At least I saw her naked first.” He retorts back, even harsher.

She shakes her head. “Stop, both of you.” She says, turning to look at both of them at once, “Look, I know we haven’t really talked about it yet, but I’m positive that this could work. We could work. I mean, there’ll still be a few things we need to work out, obviously, but we could solve all that tomorrow and the other tomorrow because we’re stuck here all together for a few months. So, let’s all just enjoy this movie and not think about other serious stuff for tonight.” Elle states with a tired smile on her lips.

She’s always been positive about everything. It’s her specialty. Even when she’s pessimistic about something, deep down, she still manages to be positive about it. She’s not actually sure that this will work. She’s even scared that it won’t, but she's tugging away that thought for now to not ruin this moment.

Six nods. Lloyd hums in response.

“We do need to set a schedule, though. About sharing…you.” Lloyd suggests.

She chuckles. “Yeah, right. Not gonna happen.”

Six lets out a soft huff of laughter before planting a long kiss on her cheek. She looks into his eyes and she leans onto him, pressing her lips against his without having to say anything, she already knew what he wanted.

Lloyd stares at them, examining closely how they kiss. Six goes really gentle on her and so does she. There’s still passion in their kiss but it’s just very…vanilla for him. When he and Elle kiss, it’s rough and harsh and kinky as the whole world suddenly stops just for them. It’s so different compared to Six and her. But it’s a good thing, she gets to have two choices. Gentle and rough.

He clears his throat, hoping to stop them from eating each other’s faces out but they’re still kissing. She lazily kisses him as he sets a really slow rhythm that she just gladly follows. They’re kissing like two teenagers who just learned how to kiss so it’s extremely slow.

Lloyd frowns, grabbing her face with both of his hands as they forcefully break their kiss. “We’re still gonna watch the movie or—” he gets cut off by Elle kissing his lips roughly, stealing the oxygen right out of his lungs and he lets out a soft moan before she pulls away from him, breaking the kiss.

Six chuckles at that. “I think we should probably watch the movie or else we’ll spend the whole night trying to steal her for a kiss,” he remarks. He’s not wrong.

She laughs softly, nodding her head. “Yep. I agree. Though, I’d still like that very much. I think it’s hot when you both try to compete to have me. We should use that for our future roleplay.” she teases him.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “Roleplay is for weirdos,” he states.

“I know. I was joking. But, I thought that you’d be more into that considering how kinky you are.” Elle assumes. She knows he’s rough just by making out with him twice. She can also sense that he enjoys being rough as much as she does.

Six is quiet, paying close attention to this conversation that he just grew interested in. He usually doesn’t really want to hear what they both say have to each other since most of the time, they always bicker and fight and insult each other. He's just glad that he won't have to hear that shit on a daily basis anymore. If they fuck any sooner, their little fights will reduce eventually.

He snorts, squinting his eyes a little. “You think I’m kinky? Why, because of how rough I am with you?” Lloyd asks her, genuinely.

She nods. “Yeah, exactly. But I like it.”

Lloyd smirks at that. “Oh. Guess I’m not the only kinky one here. What about Six? Is he kinky?” he asks, out of pure curiosity.

She giggles, not knowing how to answer his question. Six looks at him weirdly. “Why are you asking?” he asks back.

Lloyd shrugs. “Curiosity.”

“Uhm, I guess? You know that we haven’t…so I wouldn’t really know.” She responds, clearing her throat to change the topic. “But anyway, I think that I should just sleep in my own room tonight until we figure out some things.” Elle declares to them.

He frowns. “We don’t have any problems.”

She raises her brows. “Of course we do? Lloyd, you commited mass murder for me. That’s a fucking problem. We need to talk about that, seriously. Tomorrow. I’m too tired to talk about it now.”

Six frowns confusedly, turning to him. “Wait, you did what?” he asks him.

Lloyd’s lips form a thin line. “Remember those guys who shot you and Elle and then tried to kidnap her as well? I did a bit of digging and found where they lived, a few days ago. I brought some of the agents with me who wouldn’t tell Denny and then we…got rid of them.” He explains.

Six sighs. “Lloyd. You could’ve told me first.” He protests.

He nods, agreeing with him. “I know. I’ll do that next time.” He casually says.

Elle frowns. “What? No. There won’t be a next time because you can’t be doing that anymore. I’m serious.” She scolds him.

Lloyd silently looks at Six. They both know that she hasn’t gotten used to that yet. Murder. Death. It’s not her world yet. But soon enough, it will be, no matter what and none of them can help her. They feel bad for her, though. She doesn’t even know what she’s getting herself into. They can’t tell her or warn her because that’s kind of the first rule in the agency, is that they don’t tell anyone how bad it actually is.

She’s way too naïve. Even innocent, sometimes. She’s lived in a bubble her whole life and she’s gotten out of it the moment she stepped into that bar and met them. That’s right when she got out of her bubble.

Six nods at her. “You’re right. There are a few things that we still need to talk about.”

She smiles faintly. “I’m sorry, I know that I told you that I’m going to sleep in your room tonight…”

“Then, sleep in his room tonight.” Lloyd interjects.

Six shakes his head at him. “No. It’s okay. I think it’s better that you sleep in your own room.” He softly says, pressing a quick kiss on her cheek.

“Hm. Less temptations, right?” Lloyd teases him.

She rolls her eyes playfully, turning to him. “Yes, Lloyd. Because sex doesn’t solve problems. It just distracts us for a while.” Elle says to him.

She’s an expert when it comes to psychology and sex. It’s been a part of her life until now so she wanted to learn about it and she’s mastered it now. She knows that distractions are never the solution to a couple’s problem. It eventually distracts them too much and they never even get to solve the problem. And most of the time, it’ll become a bigger problem when they have unresolved problems.

She doesn’t want to have problems with Lloyd or Six. She wants this to be right and perfect and good. She’s had too many problems with relationships in the past and never got to have a single happy one. Well, it was mostly because she’s damaged. She has had so many issues and trauma that no guy has ever been capable enough to handle it, to handle her. But she knows that they’re both perfectly capable of handling her.

Lloyd’s lips stretched into a smirk, staring down at her soft lips as he remembered how good she tasted like. Now he’s the tempted one. She’s too fucking addicting for him. “It does solve some problems if you’re satisfied after,” he teases her.

She lifts her brows. “Really? Well, we could try that—” she says as his smirk turns into an almost smile and he leans forward onto her. “Later. When we’ve solved our current problems.” She adds.

Lloyd sighs deeply, throwing his head back in disappointment as he groans. “You’re going to give me blue balls, Elle.” He complains.

Six laughs quietly as she giggles out loud. “Then I’ll heal you! It’s kind of my job for the CIA. If you both get hurt, then I have to heal you guys.” She says, practically.

“I think he’d like that very much seeing as you have to touch the wounded body part in order to heal it.” Six teases him, his lips tugging into an easy smile.

Lloyd looks back at her, his eyes lighting up with excitement. “Really? You know what, I think I do need you to heal me.”

Elle laughs again, shaking her head as she slaps his arm. “No, you don’t! You just need a kiss.” She smiles through her words before leaning onto him, cupping his face as she presses a soft kiss on his lips.

His forehead leans onto hers as he sighs softly. “You’re right.” He murmurs, “You always are, sunshine.” Lloyd whispers at her face before pulling away from her so he doesn’t get more tempted to kiss her again.

Her lips stretch into a warm smile. “I know I am.” She says before quickly planting a kiss on his cheek and pulling away from him to lean closer onto Six.

Six is still quietly smiling at them, allowing himself to enjoy this moment for just this one time. He kisses her temple and puts an arm around her. “Let’s watch that movie, baby.” His voice is soft and quiet inside her ears but she heard it. Even Lloyd heard it in the quietness of their living room.

Baby. He called her baby.

It’s rare for him to call anyone a pet name. It’s not usually his type. He doesn’t do lovey dovey stuff with anyone. He doesn’t even have a love language — but that’s what he thinks, he actually does have one and it's psychical touch. He likes being touched a lot and showing his affection by touching too. But, he’s never been with anyone long enough to be affectionate and loving to them. He’s never had a relationship, just like Lloyd. It’s always just been quick fucks in a dark alley and one night stands in a cheap hotel, for Six. There wasn't anything special in his life before her, before them.

The word hangs between them as her lips curve into a soft smile and she buries her face into his neck, kissing him there. Lloyd gently grabs her legs and places them on top of his thighs again, straightening them so she’s comfortable enough. He pulls the blanket to cover her more because he knows that she’s a little cold. His hand is still on her inner thigh as she rests her hand on top of his.

Elle pulls her face away from Six before leaning her head on his shoulder, comfortably. She presses the play button on the remote control of their TV and it starts playing her most favorite movie as the light in the living room starts to get dimmed automatically.

It’s dark and quiet as the movie begins and she shifts closer to Six, cuddling closer to him than she already is.

They’re all three comfortable with this and they think that they could stay here forever, just being cuddled up and holed up in here.

They’re oddly and weirdly… happy. Which is really rare for them. Happiness is a luxury in this cruel world.

[bonkfan2003]

Warning, some spoilers for TOTK, very slight blood n gore, and mention of suicide.

Rauru X Mary Sue!Reader idea: (Long below cut)

Our reader is your typical Mary Sue in some modern version of Hyrule, friends with the Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf of their time. They learn of Rauru, the first king of Hyrule, get a crush on him, and start to form a plan to go back in time to make him theirs. Zelda and the modern Sheikah make a device to allow the reader to go back in time, but it's a one way trip. They ignore this risk, and do it, getting sent back in time. With them, they bring a pistol, a rifle, and a single grenade (Modern Hyrule has guns n stuff, Ganondorf sells weapons.) Once they reach Hyrule, things don't go as planned. Sure they landed well before Rauru married...or even met Sonia, but them showing up, and blatantly showing honor to Rauru and Hyule has not gone unnoticed by the other races.

Ganondorf's spies tell him of a strange new hylian with strange tools, and is submitting to Rauru. If Ganondorf wishes to strike, then he has to get even stronger than he had originally planned to. The stakes are higher than ever, if he slips up, then his plans will surely go up in smoke. The world will be covered in eternal darkness, and he will be the one to rule it. Luckily the reader is extremely fucking inept at most things. Ganondorf doesn't know why (the reader is a Mary Sue, they got everything they wanted on a silver platter for their entire life, never had to strive or push for anything. No real skills or knowledge in how to properly defend themselves), but it doesn't matter for him.

If anything, it angers him further. This traveler from a strange world has this power, but is as foolish as the damned king. Why is incredible power being wasted on brainless fools who have no ability to use it? He'll stomp out the king, and then this traveler. He just has to be more subtle with how he acts. Back with Rauru and the reader, they'd attempt to befriend Rauru, slowly trying to get even closer to him. They use basic ideas on how to charm the king (compliments, small gifts, etc) and it works! Rauru doesn't know much about the reader yet, and hasn't gotten a proper sit down conversation with the reader (king duties and hunting interrupt them).

The reader gets close to Sonia, and tries to befriend her, but she can see that the reader has nothing behind the eyes. There isn't a personality, there isn't anything but greed. She doesn't hate the reader, she tries to change them for the better, but the reader mistakes this as just close friendship. Sonia doesn't like the reader, she wouldn't consider them friends, she considers them as someone she needs to help. She doesn't still get close to Rauru, and goes to warn him about the readers greed. He takes the warning into account, but same with Ganondorf, he thinks he can watch for the readers greedy attitude just by himself.

There's a timeskip, a year or so, during the events of TOTK. Zelda arrives, and most of the same events occur, the reader is still trying to get Rauru to love them, and Sonia has gotten a bit through to them. Sonia can see that the reader does have some hope inside of them, it's small, very small. During the tea drinking by the lake cutscene (the one with the cup recall thing) Sonia and the reader are the last to sit there, as Rauru and Zelda have gone off to do something else. Sonia has a serious talk with them, fully confronting them with everything she knows about them. The reader protests, tries to leave, but Sonia hammers her points further.

"In all the time you've been here, have you *ever* given anything, without wanting a single thing in return? Done it simply for the joy of the act?"

"...n..."

The reader gets upset, blows Sonia's words off as jealousy, and storms off. The words did effect them though, even though they wish to ignore them. They're fine, nothing bad has happened yet, it's ok. They double down on trying to get Rauru to love them, and slowly getting angrier as to why he hasn't. Rauru, who has been paying attention to how they are acting, tries to comfort them. He does have some affection for them, platonic at the moment, but it's still there. The reader, however, takes this as romantic. They feel like they've done it, the king of Hyrule is theirs, and they think they definitely don't need to change. Everything worked out in the end.

That is until Ganondorf shows up!

Now the reader does know of Ganondorf, and what he did, tricking Sonia, killing her, and stealing the sages stone (I refuse to call them s***** stones) from Sonia. So, on the night it was going to happen, they go out with Sonia. They know if Sonia lives, and Ganondorf dies, Rauru won't die, and everything will be happy! So going with Sonia to save her would only benefit them. During this night though, Ganondorf simply sends one of his phantoms, one of himself, and not of Zelda. He assumes that the reader is simple-minded enough to be fooled by the phantom. They go out on the platform, Ganondorf uses the Zelda clone, which is shot once by the reader, the phantom appears, and the reader begins to gloat, and takes the shot. It's a headshot, and the phantom falls to the floor, and it takes a large amount of effort for Ganondorf to keep it solid while he sneaks behind the reader, and Sonia.

Within a single moment, Sonia is attacked, stabbed in the back, and the reader turns to face Ganondorf, who already has already taken the sages stone from Sonia. They begin to panic, this wasn't going how it was supposed to...why was there two Ganondorf's? They go to aim at Ganondorf, hands shaking, unable to properly aim the weapon. They fire, but they miss, instead of hitting Ganondorf in the chest, they get him in the arm, it isn't enough to stop the demon king though, as he uses the stone, fully becoming the Demon King. Rauru, and Zelda, rush to the platform, but are blocked by Ganondorf.

"To little to late, Rauru. It seems your little friend was unable to save Sonia...and in your attempt to keep me close, it only further led to Sonia's death. You, and your friend are only the ones to blame. Holding such a high power...and wasting it with such stupidity."

The reader goes to fire again, shaking even worse, and is able to line up a shot. The bullet is fired, but Ganondorf was ready for it this time. Using his powers, he's able to pull up Sonia in an instant, using her as a body shield. The bullet strikes her in the gut, before Ganondorf drops her...and holds the bullet in his hands, flicking it over at the reader. Showing that he didn't even need to use Sonia as a shield, he could've stopped the bullet by himself, he just wanted to make the reader suffer even more. The reader drops the gun, and stumbles backwards. Ganondorf steps forwards, and picks up the gun, crushing it in his hands.

Ganondorf goes to finish the reader off, but Rauru, having been ignored by Ganondorf, is able to fire off an attack, forcing the Demon King to stumble, and Zelda is able to use the Purah Pad to warp herself, Rauru, and the reader away, after grabbing them from around Ganondorf. Ganondorf then simply stands there on the platform, reaching for the arm he was shot in. It'd take a while to fully heal it, but that didn't matter. The message was sent. The reader, Zelda, and Rauru end up at a safe place, where the reader has gone into shock. Sonia was dead, they tried to save her...but failed in the end. Rauru is no source of comfort, enraged with himself and Ganondorf. The reader goes to him to try and get comfort, but is shot down.

"Rauru...my love...ple-" says the reader

"...are you attempting to court me? Now, of all times, you try and pull this stunt?" says Rauru, turning to look at the reader with a look of anger and malice.

"B-But you-"

"She was right about you, she warned me you were greedy, and even now, in this moment, you still try to get more from me." he cuts them off.

"Rauru I-"

"No more from you...I have to get things ready, don't follow me." says Rauru, walking away.

The reader is left alone, Zelda goes to help them feel better, but they brush her off as well. They feel angry, and guilty. Anger for what Ganondorf had done, and guilty for what they failed to do. They thought they were in love with Rauru...but from what he said, they clearly aren't. Sonia had told Rauru about the stupid greed thing, she had gone behind them, and stabbed them in the back. It was all her fault, Rauru would've been nicer...in love with them more if she didn't open her fucking mouth. Sonia's words begin to repeat themselves in their head, greedy, greedy, greedy, nothing but greedy. They refuse to think about it, they aren't greedy, they don't need help, no one has ever called them out on shit, why do they need to change now?

This rage builds up over time. Rauru won't speak to them now, and they've all gone to the temple deep underground, Sonia was buried, they didn't attend the burial. They stand above her grave, looking down at it with a bitter, piercing gaze. It was all her fault, underneath this soil lied the body of a traitor, worthless scum they tried to befriend. They hadn't taken time to go through their anger, to cope with this loss. They never had to cope with loss, but someone has. Zelda walks up to them, and simply stands beside them.

"...she told Rauru about that stupid greed thing...fucking ruined everything we had built up..." the reader mutters.

"...have you not realized she was trying to help you?" says Zelda.

"I...don't need help, I'm fine." says the reader, taking a second pause between I and don't, Zelda notices this.

"You...paused. Did you want to say something else?" asks Zelda.

"..."

"It's alright...I know it must be hard with these feelings..." Zelda turns to face the grave. "But it's worse if you don't speak about them."

The reader tries to say something, but doesn't. They turn, and walk away. They try to think things through, their mind a mix of emotions. Denial, anger, sadness, all of it mixing together as they await the final day, when Rauru will go to challenge Ganondorf with the sages...and their quick fall at the hands of the demon king. Falling asleep, they are wrought with nightmares. They awake in the middle of the night, and look over at the rife, and the grenade. The guilt is overwhelming, spreading through the body like a cancer. Grabbing the rife, they think of taking their own life. Rauru would be happy, everyone would be happy. They hated them, they fucked up, and so everyone hates them. They try to aim the gun at themselves...but they just can't do it. It'd hurt...and they don't like pain. They set the rifle down, and look at the grenade instead. They start to get a plan.

It's the day of the final battle, and all the sages have lined up to face Ganondorf. The reader is a no-show, with Rauru still angry at them, and at himself mostly. The battle begins, and it's clear that Ganondorf was far too strong, nothing seemed to work, that is until the reader shows up. They're still conflicted on what they feel, but one feeling is clear. Pure, unadulterated rage at Ganondorf. They look to Rauru, emotions unclear, before turning to Ganondorf. What they do next will decide everything, and their anger is enough to cloud their judgement. With no warning, they charge the Demon King, Rauru, and the other sages, panic themselves.

"What in the name of Hylia are you doing!?" shouts Rauru, as the sages go to attack Ganondorf to keep him away from the reader.

The reader ignores the shouts and pleas as they reach the Demon King, who is still trying to deflect the attacks from the sages, when the reader pulls the grenade they bought out, pulls the pin, and shoves it against Ganondorf's chest. He slams the reader in the chest, cracking multiple ribs, sending them flying backwards. Ganondorf doesn't notice the grenade in time, causing it to go off. The grenade explodes, shredding the Demon King's legs, and sending shrapnel across the room. Dust is cast up into the air, and the sages, who were barely defended by a last second shield by Rauru, watch as the dust settles. Before them lies the Demon King, missing his legs, quickly bleeding out.

The reader isn't in much better shape, barely able to breathe, coughing up blood, and sobbing. They thought the blast would kill them and Ganondorf instantly, so there wouldn't be any pain. It had gone horribly wrong...oh hylia there was so much pain. They cried out for their parents, for someone to help them. Zelda (who had packed a hearty potion or two) gives one to the reader, to help with the pain. Rauru turns, and looks at the reader...and his anger tries to well up, but it's unable to do so. He knows they have done nothing but take and take from him, but he can't just sit here and let them die. He reaches down to them, and holds their hand. The reader, though their tears, looks up at Rauru as their vision fades.

The reader then awakes in a room in Hyrule castle. They're alive, but it's still hard to breathe. They're alive, they still hurt, but they're alive. While they try to get up, the door opens, and Rauru steps into the room. He looks tired, but not angry. He walks up to the reader, and helps them stand up. Stepping back, he sighs, and folds his arms.

"What you did was foolish..arrogant, and nearly got you killed, but it worked. Ganondorf lies dead, and Hyrule is safe once again. I was angry at you before...and I'm sorry. I took out my feelings of Ganondorf and Sonia's death on you...and that is something I cannot undo." says Rauru, as he walks up to the reader, and sets an arm on their shoulder.

"I wish to start over with you...I know of your greed, but the sacrifice you were willing to take for us...no matter what fueled it, was still selfless. You risked your life for ours...and I thank you. There is good in you, I'm sure of it, and I would like to help you find that goodness inside you...we aren't going to be lovers, just friends, but I am willing to help you, as she did."

The reader feels happy, they still had a chance...but they remembered what Sonia said. They had a change of heart, they knew what they must do, but now they have to put it into practice. Maybe they wouldn't fully rid themselves of their greed for weeks, months, or maybe years...but they would put in effort to change. Maybe one day they could be lovers, if they could earn that favor once again.

[ink-flavored]

General 5 and 9; Romantic 2, 8, 11; Gender Identity 4 and 7(or 8); Intersexuality 15 for whichever OC(s) have interesting answers :)

oh boy, thank you! i'll just hit the OC Roulette, get ready for none of these to be the same person

General

5. What did they do to explore their queerness? Have they tried to explore it at all?

Jao (from TGDW) has really not thought about it. She's been busy being a healer for her village, and then literally the queen's father, and then staying on as the queen's right hand. She's been grinding too hard to worry about gay stuff.

However, spending so much time around Xinya and attending all her formal events and helping her dress has. Y'know. Opened her mind to the possibility.

9. Did it take them a long time to figure out which labels they prefer? Are they still searching for the right fit?

Priscilla (from Henry & Priscilla) is very ignorant of labels, because it's the 1930s, so the few labels she's aware of are insults, plus she runs the mob and has to make sure she's a leader respectable (read=powerful) enough to follow. She hasn't spent enough time around other queer people to know what they would call her whole gender situation. For now, she just "feels like a man sometimes" and that's that. She'd like to find a label, but you don't know what you don't know. Part of her is convinced she's the only one like this.

Romantic Orientation

2. Do they enjoy dating or prefer being single?

Asim (from my Unnamed Dream WIP) has never had the luxury of dating. Before he became the Speaker for his village, his parents were thinking about arranging a marriage for them, but they died before it could pan out and Asim ascended to his role as a wiseman/healer/problem solver for everyone in his general radius, and thus taking on any of them as a spouse would look like special treatment.

When they think about it, they might like the idea of being in a relationship or starting a family with someone, but it's not something he needs to be happy.

8. Are they polyamorous? Do they consider it an orientation or a preference?

Justice (of Pride & Justice) would definitely 100% be polyamorous, he loves love, he would be thrilled at the opportunity to have multiple romantic partners, or even to just have different types of relationships that span the gap between platonic and romantic... if Pride didn't have so many fucking problems that would immediately implode any polycule he ever tried to form or join.

For Justice, it's something he can choose. Being poly would be nice, but the way his life currently stands, he's more than happy being monogamous too.

11. How has their romantic orientation shaped their interactions with peers and family?

Yvonne (from my Horny Urban Fantasy Anthology) was so so so shy in her herd, and continued to be so so so shy once she left it. If anything, being biromantic/bisexual just made her more nervous around literally everyone she ever interacted with that she found even a little bit cute. Centaur herds are a mix of family and peer, as not all of them are all related to each other but they all live together as if they were, so she was very close to everyone she knew. This eased her shyness a little bit around people she considered closer to "family" than "romantic prospect." But as soon as she got out into the Big City, and all she had was peers, she's playing Extreme Wallflower at every social gathering.

Gender Identity

4. How do they prefer to present?

Hayden (from Dragon Raising) has long since given up trying to present to what society expects a Black man to present like. He's often on crutches, and when he's not, his MS means he wants to be wearing comfortable clothes that are easy to move in at all times. Adaptive clothes are pretty expensive, so he takes what he can get when it comes to fashion.

On a meta-level, I'd call him.... soft masc? He's not concerned with being macho, but he's not really feminine either.

7. If they’re trans, do they plan on socially transitioning? In which ways? If not, why not?

Pride (of Pride & Justice) has basically socially transitioned in all the ways he wants, and doesn't really bother trying to "pass". He uses the pronouns he likes, he uses the name he likes, he wears—well he wears whatever the fuck he wants, but in a distinctly transgender way.

Intersexuality

15. How does their intersexuality interact with their other identities?

At time of writing, my only intersex OC is a side character from Pride & Justice. One of the members of the book club Justice attends, Chris (it/its), is intersex. I don't have a whole lot about it on my blog rn, I mention it in Justice's powerpoint that I made, and I do plan on making a whole slideshow just for the book club because there's a lot of characters to cover, but for now I will drop the picrew i made for it

Ta-da! With the intersex pin, and in case you can't see that little blue one, it's the Achillean flag.

I am still in the early days of my research about intersex variations and stuff, but I do know that Chris has Late Onset Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (LOCAH). Signs of puberty appeared in childhood, way earlier than every other kid it knew, and a lot of people in its life were not kind. After basically an entire childhood of being called "it" and a "thing", Chris has embraced it instead of giving in to dehumanization. It takes a lot of joy in being immune to categorization, and "my gender is Thing" is their way of reflecting those attempted insults back at the world.

Additionally, it was very hard to connect with other straight peers in its youth, much less get romantic with them, and trying to conform to cis beauty norms made everything worse. It gave up after high school, at first out of futility, but over time learned to embrace its masculine qualities and started curating them on purpose. It had always known it was attracted to men, but in embracing its own masculinity, it found it was able to appreciate the masculine no matter what gender it was attached to. Achillean really was the perfect word for it, and to this day it appreciates the masculine from butches to bears.

Also it has frogs. It has three White's Tree Frogs named Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Gonzo. This has nothing to do with sexuality but it is very important that you know this.

[try out my 74 Question Pride Month ask game]

[loregoddess]

Corentin for the character breakdown post? :)

How I feel about this character MY DUDE MY GUY, love him so much. It was really funny bc I didn't know that the NPC gossip the chapter before the "you can go to Hyzante or Aesfrost" choice was supposed to hint which character you would recruit (Lyla's "strapping young ice mage" or the "recently arrested salt smuggler"), so when he showed up as a playable character on the map I was like ?? bc I for some reason thought he was going to be a minor antagonist, and instead Corentin just straight-up defects to House Wolffort and I'm like, oh okay, nice. He hits a lot of the "ah damn, that's my type" checkboxes so I more or less loved him immediately too.

All the people I ship romantically with this character While I do have some Triangle Strategy ships, I don't ship Corentin with anyone really.

My non-romantic OTP for this character Love the weird friendship he has with Erador, wish we could have seen him interact with the other characters a bit more too. His interactions with Geela would have been interesting (and given that they're both researchers of a fashion, I could see them getting along), and I think Corentin and Narve would have hit it off for the shared love of magic study. Corentin probably develops a friendship with Hossabara too, if only thanks to Erador dragging him out of his studies for a drink from time to time (she also probably figures out when to tell Erador to knock it off, and cuts off Corentin's drinks earlier bc she knows he gets drunk faster). Corentin's entire approach to unmelting ice research is initially to make weapons, so I imagine he has at least a professional friendship with Jens as well. Given that ice is technially a mineral, I think he and Giovanna would hit off a really chaotic "scientific colleague friends" partnership as well.

My unpopular opinion about this character The TriStrat fandom is small, and mostly devoid of petty nonsense, so I have no hot takes regarding Corentin. I did, at one point, see some strategy guide type stuff saying he wasn't very good in battle, but that was early on and very shortly after the game's release, and given that every single playable character can be used very well in battle if you know how their battle mechanics work, I think this was just "game hasn't been out long enough, and the people rushing to write guides aren't good at figuring out how to use every character in such a short time", bc everyone has their own playstyle, so while Corentin was one of my consistent MVPs for almost every map, I could see how people who don't rely on mages in fantasy srpg/trpgs would struggle to figure him out at first. He, Anna, Frederica, and Archibald were like, my most powerful units for my first run though.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. As stated earlier, I would have loved to see more interactions between characters. I understand why, given the style of writing, there aren't more interactions, but still, I think it would have fleshed out a lot of potential characterization, not just for Corentin, but for the entire cast.

[i-have-one-braincell]

As someone who hasn't read the Iron Fist comics, at what age is Danny supposed to return? In the show, they're teenagers around 15/16 so if he got another year then 17/18, right? But we've already established that the show's writing can be iffy so I'm curious to know from the official source.

I think there was a Netflix show about him but I'm not a huge fan of real person productions made on comics/books.

Do you have suggestions on where to start reading about Iron fist and the other heroes? I've heard Batman had gone through different writers with different takes - some that are even contradictive of each other - and I don't like it when that happens. And Spider-man? I've been told that the newest aren't as good as the older issues; something about not staying true to his character.

Oooff don’t watch the live action Iron Fist show. I’m begging you.

In the comics, Danny entered K’un L’un when he was 9 years old and won the Iron Fist when he was 19. He was given the offer to eat a plant that would make him immortal and to continue residing in K’un L’un as their weapon but Danny declined and left the city when the next opening have opened to return to New York for revenge. So he returned to New York at age 19.

From the show, I believe he entered K’un L’un when he was about 5 or 6 and left when he was 16 or so.

I recommend reading the Ultimate Spider-Man comics when starting on reading about Peter. He was very well-written in the comics and was an asshole (my fav gender) and we also got Iron Fist in it too but he’s an adult and a daddy and appeared for about 5 issues or so.

For Danny, I say reading the 2014 Iron Fist: The Living Weapon since it’s a more edgy and angsty take on the character and is pretty badass. 2016 Power Man and Iron Fist is a really wholesome comic series of Danny and Luke getting back together again after stopping Heroes For Hire now that Luke is a family man. Both of them are pretty goofy and quite the opposite of how they’re protrayed in the usm.

For Ava, she appears in the Avengers Academy comics but we don’t much of her and doesn’t appear until in the middle of the comic. She is put more on focus in the Mighty Avengers about her control of the amulet and seeking revenge (and also works with Luke Cage and Danny).

Sam would be in his 2013 Nova comics. He’s given more depth and character in his comics than in the show and is not much of an asshole in the comics😭😭.

I’m not entirely big on comics but those are the comics that I read to understand the characters more when writing my Call You Mine fic. I’m not a big fan of the current Spider-Man comics in the main 616 universe since Peter would be written so badly and kept torturing my man😭😭 (I mean I do too but there’s a limit💀). As you said, there’s many writers who writes a single character and would have very different views on the character of how they’re supposed to behave, they can’t stay consistent which is the biggest flaw in current Spider-Man.

Ps. Surprisingly the usm show have their own comic issues as well that I discovered like 2 years ago💀😭. It gives a bit more personality in the characters and Danny is a bit of a doofus in those comics (a good doofus🤭). Its called the 2015 Ultimate Spider-Man (Infinite Comics) if yall want to check it out.

[headcanonrepository]

The Ravenwatch after Elder Scrolls Online

(warning for some darker themes)

The Three Banners War eventually ends. It doesn't really matter who 'officially' wins - there are no real victors in war.

High King Emeric eventually dies. It's not really important how - if nothing else, time catches up to everyone eventually. But this is a problem for the Ravenwatch - he is their biggest political ally and dies with no heir, leaving a power vacuum. The Covenant dissolves - without his leadership, the Orsimer loose interest in cooperation with men, and the Redguards want little to do with the Bretons now they have no political ties through marriage. There is trade between Redguard and Breton territories, but no active cooperation like sharing of military strength.

High Rock is a political nightmare - every highborn noble making their case for their slice of power, some through might and some through subtle allegiances and leveraging of favors or threats. There is something most nobles agree on - why exactly have they been allowing a whole nest of vampires to exist openly in their lands and play at being nobles themselves? Why should the (un)dead get any say on the lives of the living?

After all, the Ravenwatch is something of an open secret amongst the nobility. Tolerated while Emeric was alive - wouldn't do to openly cross the High King, after all. They could even accept Verandis to a certain degree, even if an Altmer holding Breton lands is something of a sore reminder of the Breton's cultural past. Verandis could play the political game, could charm and flatter where he needed to. Could drop just enough implication of a threat without being actively hostile to make people think twice. But with Verandis tied to the Dark Heart...

The nobles aren't sure which of his 'heirs' (which they'd challenge, given their adoptive status and nature - can you legally inherit a title and lands if you are officially dead?) is more insulting to them. A Khajiit, a Bosmer or another Altmer holding their lands? All three?

Adusa never really has a chance with diplomacy. There are too many racist assumptions before she even opens her mouth, and once she does, the Khajiiti pattern of speech marks her out as other. She isn't a natural diplomat to begin with, much preferring problems she can solve through actions, not words, but she would try, for the sake of their family.

Gwendis would try, too. She can do the noble thing for a bit - Verandis taught her well - even if she would prefer not to. She meets a lot of the same problems - deeply ingrained prejudices and an unwillingness to listen. It's deeply frustrating, and she has a harder time not showing it.

Fennorian has the best shot at resolving anything peacefully. He's seen as more 'legitimate' heir, being also an Altmer, and if the rumors are to be believed, a blood relation of Verandis'. He's also aware of etiquette and society in a way that speaks of his more 'civilised' upbringing. Unfortunately, he just isn't Verandis. He's hyperaware of etiquette because getting it wrong makes him anxious - and with such high stakes, he can't afford a single mistake. But he also hasn't had the practice, the long years of mastering just when to apply pressure and when to employ flattery.

Ultimately, no one had a chance of resolving this without bloodshed for one very simple reason: mortal nobles had no intention of peace with them in the first place.

Some noble gets the bright idea to mobilize an army against them. Well, less an army and more a mob. You see, getting common folk to fight for your latest grab for power is a hard sell - what's in it for them? But start spreading enough rumors about a nest of dangerous vampires up on the hill and people will band together to protect their families.

Every member of the Ravenwatch flees from the castle. No one is willing to fight and break their oaths - they know full well these people are guilty of nothing more than believing what they were told. Besides, the Ravenwatch castle and lands are now a target on their back - they will never be free of the vicious politics of the region if they defend their home. Nobles want any extra crumb of power they can get, and even a barren patch of dirt near the mountains is worth grabbing.

The Ravenwatch go into hiding. Gwendis, Adusa and Fennorian still try to actively hunt down and stop misbehaving vampires - they feel it is their duty. It also helps them keep some level of faith with mortals - most of them are essentially good people and worth helping, even if a small number of them ousted them from their home. Many of the other Ravenwatch members feel as though there's no point to continuing that work. It was different when they had shelter, resources, a safe place to call their own - they were happy to help back then - but now that daily survival is a more pressing concern, they don't feel quite so willing to throw themselves into more danger to protect mortals who treated them so callously. They still uphold their oaths, though whether that's out of loyalty towards the Ravenwatch ideals or fear of being the next hunted down vampire is debatable.

So the Ravenwatch is scattered, in hiding and few in number. But they are still around, still doing what they can from the shadows without any hope of recognition or reward. Over the long years, they helped a newly-turned Count in Skingraad come to terms with his nature and work out a support system that allowed him to conceal himself while still protecting his citizens. They helped a mage gain control of her hunger to the extend that she became a trusted Court Mage who only ever snacks on the contents of Solitude's prison.

They do good in the world. They try their best. And they carve out a life for themselves - a somewhat unpredictable, unstable life, but they have each other to rely on, and when they are weary, they are always welcome to stay a while in Arkathzand. Verandis always wants to know more about the state of the world on the surface and about the state of his family, even as much as it hurts to hear. It hurts more to see them leave after, knowing full well that there is no certainty they will return again, that Tamriel is more dangerous than ever for their kind. That should the worst happen, Verandis would have no way to know. That all he can do is hope and trust his family to come back to him.

[necromancyandtendrils]

Random Muse facts! #1

Random Muse facts!

Flavor text between Licorice cookie and Candy Eye Cookie [and then some]

Licorice Cookie;

Candy Eye Cookie;

What is Licorice Cookie's and Candy Eye Cookie's relationship?

It's platonic and marked as an "unlikely friends" category. They are like Oil and water, but somehow manage to get along. But this might be due to Candy's personality, among other things. She also admires his determination to become stronger with his magic. Candy also has a genuine fascination with Licorice's necromancy powers. He might call himself evil, but she does not see him as such, tho Licorice argues and begs to differ.

2. What is Candy's alignment? Cookies of light or cookies of darkness?

Simple, She chooses to abstain from either side. This is because she adopted the idea that just because you use either light or dark magic, does not mean you are truly good or evil, Candy judges the person cookie on what they use their powers for, not where it comes from. Because in her eyes, even the power of light can be used for evil, just like how dark magic could be used for good.

[ No. 2 is no longer cannon for her due to story development ]

3. What kind of magic does Candy use? Technically, it is dark magic. However, her magic seems to be more eldritch in nature. She tends to hide her dark magic until her Jelly magic comes into play. It might seem like normal magic at first, but something strange about it might make one feel slightly unnerved, especially with those oddly coloured tendrils, and the many eyes that may appear at some point and stare back at you...

4. Is Candy Eye Cookie married?

No, but she did become a single mother, she adopted an abandoned, slightly burnt dough baby while traversing in Beast-Yeast and taking the baby in as her own, but it has been rough for her. This has forced her to leave her home within the caves underneath to get items to properly care for them...

5. How does Licorice feel about Candy?

He's currently unsure. He does come back to see her because of morbid curiosity. There is also the fact that she could be a potential ally of the cookies of Darkness. However, he does find it mildly frustrating that she refuses to choose a side. This usually sparks an argument. Sometimes he wonders why she even tolerates him.

Regardless, he hasn't given up on trying to persuade her to join the cookies of darkness yet.

6. What does Candy think of Licorice?

Kind of silly, and a bit moody.

She is genuinely interested in his magic, she was fascinated with his skills as a necromancer the first time they met. She usually gets dismissive whenever Licorice tries to talk her into joining the Cookies of Darkness, and declines to go meet the others, she is hesitant to see Pomegranate Cookie again, and meet Dark Enchantress Cookie, for it might give the wrong impression that she is joining them. not to mention, that she feels this would be bad for the orphaned dough baby she adopted.

[melsimps]

SPIDERVERSE OC

For @wolfjessedragon 's "Web of What If OC Search".

(And yes, this one is a lil bit wild at times...).

Alright now, from the top.

This is Tobias Tulper.

He's 15. And for the past year and a bit, he's been Denver, Colorado's one and only Spider-By-Proxy. From Earth 311619.

He can shoot very thick webs (akin to rope, sturdier than the usual spider's webbing) and can create web-like portals if he focusses enough. It doesn't let him travel through time or dimension - but, it let's him fight crime easier.

He is also quite fast and agile - though, not as strong as the typical Spiderperson.

His powers come from a necklace he wears, containing an Eldritch being that gives him his powers.

A spider-themed god Called Araven (pronounced "ah rah venn") that can only do good through the use of a human vessel.

A proxy.

Like Tobias.

(Picture of Araven, for reference).

He grew up with a single mother, and a twin brother (important for later...).

Toby is quite eccentric and can get out of hand. Which is why Araven and he butt heads at times.

(...he was also diagnosed with type 2 rapid cycling bipolar disorder after nearly throwing himself out a window, but details, details. It's okay, he's on meds now!).

Toby loves listening to music and hopes to be a radio host one day - he sometimes even listens to late night Bugle FM while he's trying to fight crime.

And one criminal in particular is his Scorpion...

His brother, Cody.

During one of their fights, he got so emotional that he accidentally tore off his brother's arm (not that he knew at the time).

His brother has the amulet of the other insectoid deity - Silbara (pronounced "sil bar ah"), the scorpion god. He made his tail out of metal, and created his own prosthetic arm (which is a lot cooler now, tbh). His tail shoots a highly corrosive acid, given to him by Silbara.

Both boys are quite lanky, and have grown a little bit of facial hair (but Toby's hasn't come in as easily... which is why he wears the mask).

They're also both mamas boys (think: "Suite Life Zack and Cody" for their relationship with their mother).

And a final piece of info:

Their mother had the amulets before both of them. She was adored by both the gods - and had their sons.

But... it came with a price: she had to seal them away, and hide the necklaces she once wore with pride until their heirs rediscovered them on their own.

...at a dig site she was working on.

And Tobias and Codiak have no idea that their fathers are now so close to them. Nor why they feel so connected to these deities.

Anyway, yeah. This is Tobias Tulper, the Spider-By-Proxy of Earth 311619. A mamas boy with a love for chili and a... strained relationship with his brother.