#still incredibly fucking funny

[abominandus]

incredibly shitty comic brought to you by this tweet and a joke my partner came up with

[dapper-lil-arts]

Darlings. is it gay when the phantom you created as a manifestation of your dreadfull loneliness takes the form of one of your closest friends.

Fanart of this pretty good horror rarijack fanfic, "The haunting of carroussel boutique" personaly i am surprised the writer didnt take the chance to point out how fucking funny this is. Me n kim started laughing about it during stream and i just had to draw this

[aroaceleovaldez]

Nico and Percy's dynamic through the series is eternally funny to me, because it's just. like.

Percy's having a constant mental struggle between his fatal flaw of loyalty with a promise he made to Bianca to protect Nico, versus his Big 3 kid desire to maim other Big 3 kids / Poseidon descendant urge to totally maim Nico specifically. He hates Nico so so much. He thinks Nico's annoying and weird at best, and creepy/sketchy when he's older. The only positive thoughts Percy has towards Nico are "He's Bianca's brother and Bianca was my friend and I owe her/He's Hazel's brother and Hazel is my friend and would kill me if I was mean to him," "He's a powerful asset and useful ally (if questionable)," and "He's kinda pathetic and I feel maybe a little bad about it." Percy has multiple occasions throughout the series where he strongly considers - and on one occasionally actually goes through with - throttling Nico.

Meanwhile, Nico is following around Percy like a lost puppy. He explicitly can never bring himself to even dislike anything about Percy no matter how hard he tries. He has a whole bit in BoO where he's mentally going "UGH he's so stupid BUT IT'S ENDEARING HOW DARE HE." He's totally smitten. He's making deals with his dad for Percy. He's making convoluted plans to help Percy stand a chance against Kronos. During the entirety of BoTL it's like he's playing tsundere - "I'm helping NOT PERCY SPECIFICALLY with this quest! Me helping Percy would be SILLY because I DEFINITELY HATE HIM." Then he proceeds to show up to Percy's birthday party to basically ask him on a weird date and spend the entire next book scrambling around trying to help him or protect him or impress him. And Percy could not give less of a shit.

Just. That dynamic is so funny to me. Percy is the founder of the Nico Protection Club in that he's the one they're all protecting Nico from and meanwhile Nico is throwing himself at Percy to the point where the literal god of gay love calls him out on it.

[very-poorly-drawn-tgcf]

Episode 1: Back to Heaven now, by accident

Bonus under the cut! (Warning tgcf spoilers but then again Why Are You Here If You Haven't Finished TGCF Yet Off With Ye)

[yesokayiknow]

What if Ruby’s the master?

option a: the master's pretending to be a maybe human named ruby bc they nearly got to be a companion with o but ended up found out (literally bc of their own dramatics but whatever) and now they're just seeing how far they can take it lmao. every time they start to get worried that the doctor might be getting uninterested they press a button on their perception filtered portable weather manipulation device(tm) and make appropriately confused noises at the sudden snow while mentally high fiving themselves over having made such a op oc. also the thought of the doctor falling for their companions no matter who they are fills the master with indescribable rage so they made ruby a platonic friend except now they have to watch the doctor flirt with a whole fucking pantheon of gods(?) and they wish they were dead. no they still won't tell the doctor anything bc fuck you that's why. there are zero problems with this situation at all and it will never end badly 👍

option b: fobwatch. the master wakes up and is like hey. hey doctor stop crying for a second. Am I A Fucking Teenager

[xxplastic-cubexx]

so like do you think they made the plastic wheelchair ALONGSIDE the plastic prison as a Just In Case situation, only after they realized charles was going to be a frequent visitor, or both as in because they knew charles was going to be the only person visiting him during planning they decided to make him a chair ahead of time

[triglycercule]

sleep deprived dust can't recognize what's dream and what's real when he goes in and out of consciousness so i think dust is allowed to be incredibly reckless when he's awake but thinks he's in a dream. he will kill whoever passes by him (or attempt to. for him it's an instict to shoot bones anyways.) he will drink 4 bottles of alcohol just because he thinks its just a lucid dream. have incredibly loud conversations with phantom paps because he's asleep so nobody will hear him talk. or just have loud ass breakdowns because again he thinks he's asleep!!! nobody's gonna know what he gets up to in his dreams. and until someone (probably phantom paps) tells him that he's not asleep and this is reality he won't realize until he's done something really reckless

horror is seconds away from exploding dust's skull open with his magic while dust is trying to strangle him and FINALLY phantom paps tells him he's awake and dust snaps out of it. killer is walking around the house with bones sticking out of him like pins on a sewing pattern (casually too. another day in the life for him) and he just asks dust what that was about. dust just gets off of horror and shrugs his shoulders with an idk. and then walks away. this is the 6th time its happened this month

[wis-art]

Women, so pretty, so shaped, i am so lesbian,,,

[groenendaze]

snow wizard here ❄️ to ask you a riddle you will never know the answer to

[bitternace]

WHY ARE YOU SO EVIL!!! /POS. ATTACKING YOU.

Xemnas and Xigbar for 37 if that number hasn't been done? If it has, how about 74?

no puedo pedirle lo eterno a un simple mortal // ay, todo lo que he hecho por ti.

[ID: a mostly black and white drawing with a purple overlay of xigbar and xemnas shown from the hip up on the left side of the image. the background is black and has some diagonal lines with a bit of transparency on the right side. the shadows are harsh, with only a bit of light falling on their faces.

they stand before each other turned to the audience. xigbar, holds the handle and the middle of No Name before him, head tilted down as he looks to the audience. xemnas stands a full head taller behind xigbar, his left hand held some distance below the bladed tip of No Name, his left eye is covered by his fringe.

xemnas visible eye is painted ochre with a white pupil, while xigbar's eye is white and gold. The eyes on no name's handle and the gazing eye on the blade are a vibrant cyan. the caption reads the spanish lyrics "i can't ask a simple mortal for a forever" and "oh, everything i've done for you." /End ID.]

close-up under keep reading.

[necrotic-nephilim]

i recently remembered DickTim Week 2024 is happening very soon and i looked at the prompts again to see if i could get anything out for it and. the Hades & Persephone AU prompt for day 1 has got me really thinking so here's a vague concept i plan to write.

i've been pretty burnt out on modern Hades & Persephone retellings because of how they always seem to fall into the same generic "innocent wide-eyed girl runs from her evil mean mother into the arms of a dark mysterious man because actually she went willingly and chose to marry him" which has gotten repetitive for my tastes. (for clarity i don't care if this retelling is your cup of tea personally, so long as you're not actively trying to rewrite the original myth and claim untrue things about it, if this is your favorite flavor i sincerely hope you enjoy the buffet i just have little interest in it since it feels overdone for me and exhausted of it's supposed commentary atp)

but? but. biblically accurate Hades & Persephone AU has me all kinds of interested. because wait listen so hear me out right. Hades!Dick and Persephone!Tim, obviously. i feel it'd be more loosely inspired by with themes and imagery (though playing with death and nature powers could be interesting, i haven't decided) rather than explicitly making them gods and all. but. something dark and fucked up where Dick and Bruce are especially estranged. maybe to do with Jason's return, maybe to do with them just clashing and having their usual explosive arguments. and Bruce knows the peace needs to be kept, if he and Dick are at odds then everyone starts to pick sides and things just fracture so he needs a peace offering.

and the peace offering is Tim.

Bruce (the stand-in for Zeus) offers up Tim. agrees to have Tim move to Bludhaven and be Dick's... whatever Dick wants him to be. knowing that with the implication comes the likelihood of Dick grooming Tim. and Tim has no real say and is hesitant to put up a real fight. he doesn't want this, he knows what this is going to imply Dick will do to him, but he also knows if he says no things have the possibility to just... fall apart. so he's the unwilling bride, dragged off to the metaphorical underworld (Bludhaven) with Dick, away from his family, his friends, the life he built.

and on the flip side, i think weirdly enough, your best pick for the Demeter stand-in is *Jason*. just, hear me out on that. not necessarily on the side of it being motherly, but on Jason being just estranged enough from the Batfamily to be the one willing to call it out for being bad and wrong and raising bloody hell to get Tim back. maybe it's because Jason wants Tim for himself, maybe it's truly out of a concern for Tim to have autonomy, i'm toying with the idea of it primarily being Tim's POV and him genuinely not knowing which of these is true. (and the truth possibly ends up being a complicated middle ground) and because i like Helena, i think you can use her as the Hekate stand in, the one who strikes a tentative alliance with Jason and tries to go find Tim and bring him back. Tim stuck with Dick, getting groomed and hyperaware of it, possibly even getting fucked the whole time as well, knowing he can't go back without causing massive issues for Dick and Bruce because well, Bruce did promise him to Dick. so he has to adjust his whole life, try to figure out being a vigilante in this new city with Dick breathing down his neck the whole time.

and then much like the ending of the myth, a sort of compromise is struck that's a shaky deal for everyone involved. Tim is put on an essential timeshare, going back and forth between Gotham, where he has friends and family and a support system, then getting dragged right back to Bludhaven with Dick in this brutal cycle that he slowly gets used to and stockholm'd into even liking it. Dick isn't so bad, once he gets used to the quirks of their unbalanced 'relationship'. the sex is even something he can adjust to as well. not quite a happy ending but one that sits in this realistic grey area that becomes Tim's life.

i will write this, eventually, but i don't know if i'll get to it before DickTim Week ends so by posting the idea i'm essentially putting it out into the world so the peer pressure holds me accountable. i just. really like the potential of making Hades/Persephone AUs as fucked up as they can be simply by adhering to the source material and making it a raw story of being stolen away and forced to like this new home you didn't ask for.

also a less fleshed-out aspect of this idea i have ties into Persephone becoming the Queen of the Underworld when she's taken and how the transition from Kore to Persephone could be reflected in Tim. how he makes the best of the worst situation and becomes something far more dangerous and dark when he's in Bludhaven, possibly takes on a new vigilante name/identity and leans into the worst quirks of his personality he tries to tamper because there's no point in not going full tilt Obsessively Weird if he has no choice anyway and it being one small way he takes back his autonomy, and that inevitably making Dick *more* into him, because he gets to see Tim finally just. let loose.

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

Vox and Velvette are capable of having exactly 1(one) functioning relationship(platonic, romantic, business, what have you) and its with eachother

[jichanxo]

obligatory cat yagami post

[crmsndragonwngss]

I feel the need to stress that I’m not still losing my mind over my lil kpop boy wearing a Mayhem patch in the year of our lord 2022 for gatekeepy reasons. As a general rule, I automatically assume that if someone is wearing merch then they have engaged with the media that merch is from in some way. And even if they haven’t and they’re only wearing it for the aesthetic, that’s cool too I don’t give a shit. If it had just been the Beherit patch I would’ve probably been a little floored and screamed about it some, then probably woulda thought y’know it’s possible he actually listens to them and moved on with my life. But Mayhem???

There is no fucking way anyone involved in that outfit choice had any idea what that patch was because, if they did, they would not have put it on him and he wouldn’t have worn it. Like… Mayhem is probably one of the most infamous black metal bands in history, but you’ve probably never heard of them unless you’re into metal or were alive and cognizant in the early 90s. In saying that, I think everyone’s heard of Those Norwegian Black Metal Bands That Burned Churches. Yeah… one of those was Mayhem. There’s also, y’know, murder and shit involved in that story, and like suicide that was probably coerced so… yeah no idk just a hunch but I don’t think anyone knew what the fuck they were doing in that shoot and I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop thinking about it

[batsplat]

Pecco and Pedro are probably the people who more than anyone else want to beat Marc. Pecco because he is forced to do it for a matter of survival, his bet next year is to be able to win against Marc with the same bike. Pedro wants to win the first world championship with Marc in MotoGP, even better if he wins it against him, because of course that’s what he wants. I MotoGP your teammate is your first enemy, as surreal as it is, it would be more likely to see Pecco and Pedro helping each other (which would be unlikely anyway because they aren’t the type of people who do that) than one of them helping their teammate , especially if it's Marc. If anything Marc and Pecco have to be intelligent enough to at least not take each other out Portimao style, because in that case there will be someone behind them ready to bite

so I'm going to jump in right away by saying, I know this ask acknowledges it's unlikely but, yeah, pedro and pecco will not be helping each other in any meaningful sense - because they are both serious challengers to each other and they know it. sometimes, riders can be known to help non-team members in fairly small low-key ways (see in this post valentino accusing marc of deliberately towing ducati riders to get them ahead of his actual rivals in brno 2014). for both pecco and pedro, marc is definitely the bigger focus, but they are both perfectly aware of the danger the other poses, and will not be inclined to treat each other as anything other than an active threat

that being said! of course pecco has already nicely demonstrated this season that he does approach his marc fights differently than he does those with other riders (which is broadly the correct and smart thing to do, even if the specifics can be critiqued). portimao even gave us the direct comparison between pecco/pedro and pecco/marc! part of it, yes, will just be an element of self-preservation - marc is now back to being a major roadblock for winning any future championships, and he'll be in pecco's house so will of course require... extra attention. apart from that, it absolutely would be the most meaningful way pecco could win a championship, by beating the famous marc marquez on equal machinery... nobody has done that before, and it would instantly dispel any remaining doubts about pecco's ability and cement his legacy as one of the greats of the sport. he wants to beat marc so badly because marc is one of the two riders he's always been chasing... and marc's absence has left all the young pretenders in this odd place where they've taken the crown but don't quite believe it's theirs yet. (just to say this again, I personally don't share the view that marc's absence diminishes those titles in any way, but it is of course interesting when the riders themselves have these insecurities.) there was that interview from early-ish last year where pecco talked about some of his personal limitations and how he views his own status in the sport:

fascinating, isn't it? of course, I'm sure a second title will have helped to some extent in making him feel a little more entitled to that status in the sport - but this is not the kind of thing valentino or casey or jorge or marc ever would have said. there's a self-consciousness to pecco, an awareness of his uncertain, shaky journey to the top of the sport, how he's fully cognisant of how different he is to those names... which can be a problem at times - delusion is an athlete's life blood, and while the level headed insight pecco expresses here is arguably admirable, it is not necessarily helpful for him as a champion. on the other hand, sometimes lacking a little in the delusion department can be a good thing if it allows you to deliberately improve yourself, pushed on by the knowledge that you still have a long way to go... pecco's biggest self-inflicted wounds have tended to come when he's at his most comfortable - you can theorise about why this happens, but maybe that striver mindset is exactly what he needs to keep him going. it's still quite the admission to describe his 2022 season as more incomplete than either valentino or marc's title runs. (mind you, it's arguably even less complete a season than some of their misses - of course with valentino you have the obvious ones, but did you know that marc scored an average of 13.44 points in 2015 vs pecco's average of 13.25 in 2022? obvious caveat that in 2015 there were considerably fewer competitive bikes and barely any capable of regularly challenging for race wins.) the need to prove himself is always there with pecco... it keeps peaking through with him, and it absolutely peaks through in his approach to marc. yes, yes, acosta is the future, jorge martin has been his title rival more recently... but of course, beating marc would be special. do you think pecco ever dreamed that of it? do you think he really believed that he could before he was already premier class champion? with most champions, you would say it's likely. with pecco, I'm not quite so sure

as for pedro, yeah, obviously, that's just the cycle continuing lol. deeply curious what those two regularly competing at the sharp end of races looks like. pedro has kinda kept his distance, isn't that much of a marc fan himself... when he talks inspirations he tends to bring up schwantz, stoner, pedrosa, and of course rossi

schwantz is far from an unusual pick amongst riders, though as the years pass perhaps gradually more so - it certainly reveals an appreciation for the history of the sport. as do the other choices, in a way... let's not forget that acosta was eight years old when casey retired. of course back in the day casey and dani themselves got plenty of criticism for how 'boring' they were - that's just how these things go! nobody's ever nostalgic for the present etc etc

pedro did also talk last year about how the public wants celebrations and rivalries, critiquing how friendly riders are nowadays and saying people want battles like jorge/dani, valentino/marc, and so on (full clip here)

heartwarming: global number of people who still care about the valentino/sete rivalry is now confirmed at 2 (two)

obviously, you can't just go out and manufacture feuds because you're feeling like it, and pedro's had a pretty quiet rookie season in that sense. but once he feels like he's settled in and can challenge the infamous marc marquez in an actual title fight? on the basis of this rhetoric, you'd at least hope he's not going to be too shy in taking on the challenge. of course he too wants to beat marc more than anyone else... again, it's a question of legacy, how pedro clearly situates himself within the same lineage as both valentino and marc - even if personally he aspires to be more of a successor to the former than the latter. always better to take the crown for yourself, right? this is a kid who's clearly into the history of the sport and is already determined to make himself a big part of that story... weaving himself into that narrative by taking on a legend of the past, taking on the task of disposing with that legend himself. plus, given pedro is so aware of that history - he knows that what people remember are the rivalries. he wants some of that for himself! it'll be interesting to see how proactive he'll be in making that happen, certainly seems like an enterprising young lad

anyhow, yes, plenty of potential for both of those dynamics. and yes, they do very much want to beat marc - but if we're talking about who wants to beat him the most, jorge martin probably deserves a mention right around now. does have to be said that something dumb like the portimao thing is costing pecco and marc this year. it's kind of gone under given the sheer bucketloads of points all the title contenders are throwing away, but pecco would be eight not eighteen points behind in the standings if he had settled for sixth in portimao, and for marc it would be twenty four rather than thirty five points if he'd backed out of the move and had another go on the next lap. relatively unlikely to make a difference at the end of the season... though for mr title decider pecco bagnaia, it sure might be! I did joke about making the pecco/marc portimao thing tradition, but generally speaking two top riders crashing each other out isn't that common a thing, and it's pretty..? rare? that it's the same two riders on multiple occasions? I'm drawing a bit of a blank here, to be honest... then again, title contenders do seem to crash rather more than they used to (admittedly they also have a lot of opportunities now) - so maybe this is going to become a more regular occurrence. but what is more likely to happen is that when you have two competitive riders on the same bike, they do run the risk of taking turns stealing points from each other at the circuits where their bike is at its best. I think pecco and marc can probably minimise this given what a good all-round bike the ducati is across a range of different circuits, and also given that as individual riders they do at least seem to be reasonably distinct in what their strongest and weakest tracks are. all in all, I kind of doubt they'll cost each other like that next year... though admittedly if portimao is anything to go by I may be tempting fate

[lost-in-fandoms]

Logan and Max have another talk, or 'does kissing count as free therapy?' Part 2 of whatever this was. I couldn't fall asleep last night because of how hard I kept thinking about these two. I blame @girlsdads for giving me the brainrot in the first place.

cw: the tiniest bit of implied sexual content

It's another bad race. Fucking 16th, only ahead of the two Saubers, and of the Haas and Alpine that had crashed each other out. There was no reason why his pit stop had to be 4.3 seconds, when Alex's had been 2.7, no reason why he had been fucked over by not one but two undercuts because of shitty strategy, no reason why Alex's side of the garage had to be celebrating 8th place while his was sullen and quiet.

Logan fears he's going to throw up when he steps in and James claps him on the shoulder, saying sorry, next time, as if Logan doesn't know his contract is on the line. Fucking. Next time?!

Logan feels like he's trying to swim with his hands tied behind his back, desperately trying to make it to shore. Nobody cares he's drowning.

He can barely look up during the debrief, feels like he's choking the whole time on the words nobody is saying. As soon as he's free, he escapes, fumbling for his phone as usual. Only this time, he doesn't call his mom.

Are you free?

Max has his motorhome this weekend, and Logan doesn't wait for an answer before heading over. If he doesn't answer, he'll just take a walk.

Yes come over

He's knocking on Max's door before he can rethink it, before all these feelings catch up on him and he decides he's going to break down alone instead. When Max opens his door, Logan immediately regrets it. He's wearing a black t-shirt, hair styled, looking ready to go out. Of course he's heading out, he has a win to celebrate. Unlike Logan. Who should have just gone home.

He opens his mouth, ready to apologize and turn around, when Max's hand closes on his shoulder, his mouth downturned with what would be worry, if it wasn't absurd for Max Verstappen to be worried about him.

"Come in," Max says, doesn't leave space for arguments when he pulls Logan inside, closing the door behind him.

For a long moment they just look at each other, as Logan's waves lap at his neck. He doesn't know why he's here anymore.

"Are you okay?" Max's hand is still on his shoulder. Logan feels like he'll keel over if he takes it back.

"I might be out of a seat."

It's not an answer to Max's question, it's not even what Logan meant to say, it's not something he should be telling to the competition, but really. Logan is barely Max's competition at all, and who wouldn't know that after this season's disaster? Nobody is counting on him to race next year.

He waits for Max to say something, even if it's just empty platitudes, but the other just squeezes his shoulder and nods, and suddenly it's much harder to hold back his tears.

"I just..." he breathes in, willing his voice to not crack, "I don't know what I am doing wrong."

It comes out more desperate than he meant it to, but he's just so tired and upset, and nobody is seeing him drown. Why is nobody paying attention?

"You have a shit car, get bad strategy calls, and have a teammate with years more of experience. You are not the one doing it wrong."

Max says it so matter of fact, as if he's the one driving the shit car, the one with the better teammate, the one having to fight through the back of the field with no success, and suddenly Logan is angry. He shrugs Max's hand away, fists clenching. What does Max know about being the second driver in a bad team? How dares he say he knows Logan's hunger?

"Fuck off," he spits, wrapping his arms around himself to hide the way his hands are trembling. He shouldn't have come.

"You have potential, you are not doing it wrong," Max says again, stubborn and bull-headed as always, jaw set and eyes clear. Logan's anger spikes again. Max Verstappen, the prodigy child, talking to him about wasted potential? This must be a joke. He scoffs, ready to turn around and leave, but Max grabs him again, gets a hold on his elbow and keeps him where he is.

"Why are you angry?" he asks. And yeah, this must be a joke, for sure. Why is Logan angry? Why is he angry?!

"You don't get to..." he starts, but Max interrupts him, squeezing his elbow.

"No. Why are you angry?"

"The team..."

Max takes a step closer, narrowing his eyes.

"Not the team, I do not care about the team. Why are you angry?"

As if there was a right answer to the question that Logan isn't getting! It's his own anger! And Max doesn't care about the team? Of course he doesn't, it's not his team fucking up! Why can't Logan be angry about the team?!

"Alex gets..."

"No. Why are you angry?" Max interrupts again, steadfast in a way that grates on Logan's nerves.

They're too close now, and for a second Logan entertains the idea of punching three times world Champion Max Verstappen. Anger burns in his chest, and suddenly, without knowing who closed the gap, they're kissing. It's not a nice kiss, all teeth and spit, and it almost feels the same as the punch he hasn't thrown, until Max moves his hand from his elbow to his waist, the other one coming up to cup the back of his neck, turning his head slightly. Gentling him.

His anger is back in his lungs, but it's no longer anger, it's back to salt water, and Logan is drowning again. He breaks the kiss, gasping, but Max doesn't let him go.

Logan doesn't remember the last time someone held him like this, like being here matters.

"Why are you angry?" Max asks again, breath soft against Logan's bitten lips. He smells vaguely like minty toothpaste.

"Because..." he hesitates, but at this point he might as feel say fuck it, and give it all. All his fleshy insides in Max's hands, bleeding on the floor between them. "Because I could do better, but I can't do it like this."

This time Max nods. "You could do better."

And Logan knows his parents and friends have said it before, have kept saying it for years. Knows his time in Formula 2 speaks for itself. But it's different, to have Max say it like that, so surely. It's a different kind of validation, and a different kind of heartbreak, because they both know his time to prove it is running out. It's hard to breathe again.

"It is good to be angry. It makes you want to take it," Max says, maybe mistaking the way his breathing has gone funny. But Logan doesn't feel angry anymore. He's tired, and scared, and lonely. He drops his head on Max's shoulder, who moves to card his fingers in his hair, bearing his weight with ease. Logan wishes anything would come easy to him instead.

"I don't know how to be angry," Logan confesses. He doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to disappoint Max, but he disappoints better than he lies anyway. What's one more person.

"That is of course still okay," Max says, instead of some sort of rebuke Logan is expecting. For a second, he thinks about the stories of Max's childhood, of angry men and steel hands. Max's fingers are gentle in his hair.

"What do you want right now?"

It's too big of a question. Logan wants his seat to be safe, he wants to end in the points, he wants a good car, he wants to not feel so distant from everyone else, he wants to go home. He wants someone to tell him it will be alright and mean it.

He shakes his head, forehead dragging against Max's t-shirt. Disappointing again.

Max holds his hair a little tighter, uses the grip to pull Logan up, to make him open his eyes.

"What do you need?"

And it's the same, but it is different, and Logan needs...he needs...

"You can take it. What you need." Max sounds so sure of it, Logan can almost believe it. Maybe Logan doesn't know how to take, doesn't know how to fix it, but here, now, he at least knows what he needs.

"I need to be better," he says, words bleeding out from his split-open chest. "I need to be good."

They both know what Logan means, because the thing with Max is, that it's always about racing, even when it isn't, and it is also always both at the same time.

Max nods, letting go of his hair, and Logan pushes him around, back against the door. Gentle, because he needs to be, but firm, because he wants this.

He eases himself to his knees, and feels Max's hand cup his cheek. His raspy voice isn't disappointed, or pitying, or even sad when he speaks, only fond. A little proud.

"Good boy."