#< hopefully going to be my fic tag!

[lululawrence]

You Should Be Here With Me

A 2024 Advent Fic by lululawrence

Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson | 34k | 26 Chapters

The festive period is a traditionally hectic one in the world of Premier League football, and this year is no different. A lot is riding on how Manchester United is able to come through the fixtures in the coming weeks.

Louis and his teammates know all too well the pressure that is on their shoulders. They need to prove, not just to fans of the club but the entire league, that they still have what it takes to be a team worthy of fighting for the top of the table.

Throw in the fact that Louis is all too aware that he's not getting any younger in a profession that demands your peak physical fitness year round and the incredibly fit Harry Styles, who is part of the club's social media team, and this year's festive period might just be the most important one yet.

🎄1 🎄 2 🎄 3 🎄 4 🎄 5 🎄 6 🎄 7 🎄 8 🎄 9 🎄 10 🎄 11 🎄 12 🎄 13 🎄 14 🎄 15 🎄 16 🎄 17 🎄 18 🎄 19 🎄 20 🎄 21 🎄 22 🎄 23 🎄 24 🎄 25 🎄 26 🎄

NOW COMPLETE!

[canonicallygay]

aaah i don’t usually post stuff this horny lmao but it’s a bit from @prince-liest’s 666: Live On Air! series which has been living in my brain since i read it for like the seventh time

anyway @prince-liest your writing is fantastic throws this at u bye!!!! 🫣

[clovariia]

hasbro is killing g5 mlp, which means it's officially my city now...say hello to my new and suspiciously familiar "ocs"

[pixlatedvampire]

You gave those wounds to your god, Enki. Did you think they would heal so easily?

(Uh Oh! Someone gave the priest catholic guilt!)

[lovesickeros]

☆ de fontaine

{☆} characters furina {☆} notes cult au, imposter au, drabble, gender neutral reader {☆} warnings angst, suicidal thoughts, hurt / no comfort {☆} word count 1.4k

This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair. This wasn't fair!

She thought, for one moment, she could put the mask down and breathe – for one moment of daydreaming, she thought she could just be Furina. She thought she would finally get to live the live she should've had in the first place, the life she threw away to play God to an audience who saw her as nothing but a circus animal, dancing to their whims. Furina just wanted to be selfish for one brief and fleeting moment..and it was gone before she could even grasp it in her hand. A comet soaring past far out of her reach.

She can barely keep her hands from violently shaking as she looks down at them – broken and bloody and more a corpse then a person – and she feels so numb she can't even feel the rain pelting against her back. None of this is fair, she wants to scream, why is it always me? But her voice is silent beneath the torrent of rain. She wonders if the ocean would take her if she sank into it's depths – just for a moment, she wonders how it would feel to finally be able to sleep at ease.

Furina is tired.

But Furina is nothing if not useful, isn't she?

So she forces her feet to move, dragging against the stone beneath her heels, and drags their bloodied body into the nearest empty building, letting the rain do the work of washing away the smeared blood following her path. The smell makes her feel sick, the feeling of it sticking to her hands and gloves makes her lightheaded, but she persists. Because Furina is useful, because Furina won't let them die out in the rain, because Furina won't stand by and just let them rot on the streets like some..pest.

Furina wants to go home. She wants to sleep and she isn't she if she wants to wake up, this time. But she keeps going anyway.

Because it's all she's ever done, and the habit sticks.

An Archon she may not be, not anymore, but the expectations of five hundred years still linger like eyes on the inside of her skull. They watch her, pry and prod at her thoughts, mocking laughter and judging eyes following her as she forces herself to dance to the song they weave with glee. Furina never stepped off that stage – she's still there, she thinks, watching the crowd stare at her in disdain as the curtain call looms above her like a guillotine. She still hears Neuvillette deliver her damnation and salvation with a trembling voice, still feels her hair stand on end when electro crackled like the crack of the whip, Clorinde's blade aimed at her like a loaded gun.

She's trapped on that stage and she never left, not really.

She hates it. She thinks she hates them, but it's not their fault. They didn't ask for this, didn't ask for everyone to turn against them, didn't ask for her to save them. Neither did she..yet here they are, she thinks.

She tries to tell herself she's in control this time, though. She can stop performing her part in this horrible, bloody play any time she wants. It makes her feel better, just for a little while, if she convinces herself she's still Furina, painfully human.

And Furina has always been good at lying.

It's the believing that's the hard part.

There isn't time for her to wallow in her own self pity, though. They're still bleeding out onto the dusty, creaky floorboards of some random, broken down house and she's just standing there as the blood stains the wood. She can fix it – she's good at fixing things. She's done nothing but fix things – try to, anyway – for five hundred years. She can fix a little wound, how hard could it be? Her hands are clenched so tight they ache as she kneels down, wincing at the creak of the floorboards beneath her heels– she hesitates just long enough to wonder if she's making a mistake before she peels away just enough of the outer layer of their clothes to see the deep, bloody gash across their chest. She tries not to think about it – it's deep, too deep, and she feels dizzy just looking at it, but she's handled worse, right?

Furina can fix it. That's what she's good at.

She doesn't feel so confident when she tries to wrack her brain for..something. Five hundred years, and a little wound stumps her? No, she had to have learned something, right? She's decidedly not trying to buy time because she's panicking, parsing through hundreds of years of memories like flipping through a book. Furina isn't made for this, not really – she's running on nothing but adrenaline and she's really not sure what she's doing, but she's trying. And just like before, it won't be enough, will it?

She'll fall short again – she'll be too late to fix it before she's alone again.

Furina was an Archon..used to be. What use would she have for that sort of knowledge? Which makes her predicament all the more harrowing and bleak. What was she supposed to do?

Furina had heard it first hand, that vitriol in Neuvillette's voice. She isn't sure she's ever heard him that..angry before. She's not sure he would listen to her if she tried, either. And that scares her more then anything. All of Fontaine was up in arms about this..imposter, yet here she was, staring down at them bleeding out in front of her, and she was trying to save them.

Why? Why is she throwing away her only chance at normalcy for a fraud? Why didn't she just turn them in?

They were dying ��� that should've been a good thing, shouldn't it? So why didn't it feel like it?

"Why you?" Her voice breaks as she speaks in harsh tones, grabbing the front of their shirt in trembling, bloodied hands. "Why now?" She wants to scream, to demand answers they can't give, to claw back the reprieve she was promised after five hundred years of agony..and all she can do is sob into their chest, pleading for an answer that will not come. "Why me?"

Silence is their answer, and it hangs heavy on her trembling shoulders as she cries.

Of course they don't, she thinks bitterly, no one has ever answered her pleas spoken in hushed sobs. Not her other self and certainly not them.

Furina has always been alone. Furina will always be alone.

Because Furina never left that stage, never left that moment when she looked at herself in the mirror and took up a mantle too heavy for her to bear. She always finds her way back eventually. There's no one on the other side anymore – she stands alone on a stage, waiting for an inevitable end she isn't sure will come.

"Please," She pleads through tears and choked sobs, clinging to them like they are all that keeps her from sinking. "Please don't leave me, too." The words burn on her tongue – how pathetic is she that she craves companionship from the bloodied body of the imposter? Perhaps she's truly lost her mind after all these years..perhaps she's finally gone mad. She must have.

But their presence is like the first feeling of gentle warmth upon her skin as the sun crests the horizon, like the gentle lap of tides along her heels, the sway of branches and leaves as the wind blows through them like an instrument all it's own. They are the soothing sound of rain against the window as she watches the dreary skies in fond longing, the first bloom of spring as color blooms upon the landscape like paint had been spilled across the hills and valleys.

They are like the faint spark she carefully nurtures and stokes, so fragile even the smallest wind could blow it out like a candle. She cradles it within her palms, pleads with whoever will listen – prays that someone finally listens, because if not for her, then for them.

She's failed to protect too much already, let too many people with so much trust in her fall between the cracks of her fingers like grains of sand. She won't let them go – she can't.

If nothing else, if she couldn't be saved when she begged for salvation from that five hundred year long agony, even if she never got that chance..

Furina will make sure they do.

[sutherlins]

♡ That's it baby... ♡ ↝ SydCarmy | Rated: E mdni | Complete | Word Count: 7k | [READ HERE]

Summary: Sometimes the world makes Carmy's head a little too loud, too chaotic. Sydney knows just what he needs to mute it all. Inspired by 'you're doing so well', Full cw/tropes list in the top notes on ao3 but the basics are: established relationship, D/s vibes, DomSyd, edging.

♡ Please go show katiethelie all the love on ao3 on the full art piece that inspired this fic - 'you're doing so well' - it's incredible! (and check out all her other amazing pieces while you are over there!)

♡ You should also check out and show some love to @ambeauty's 'my eyes behold you' which was also inspired by Katie's art, 'Just one bite'. Both of which I ADORE.

[i-may-be-an-emu]

hi apparently my latest brainrot is two side characters who barely interact so here you go bon appetite :D

flash + movement warning

audio credit: “I wanna feel calm” by bears in trees

video credit: shoot from the hip (@shootimpro) improvised play #22 - The Milkman

[pearlcaddy]

lockwood & co appreciation week 💀 favorite ship

Locklyle [insp]

[deaddove]

the plum in the iron vase on ao3—

baoxiang/third prince

rated E

iron widow au verse. no iw spoilers

ayu uses his concubine-pilot as a vehicle to have gay sex (don't do this)

baoxiang uses his brother's imminent mortality as a vehicle to have gay sex (this is fine)

[wraithsoutlaws]

TITLE: The Dirt I'm Buried In CHAPTER ONE: Smells Like a Freakshow WORD COUNT: 5,828 PAIRING: Dagger/Dum Dum (AU) CW: Drug use, light violence, mentions of child abuse

THE TRUE STORY OF THE WORST BAND YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF: Punk rock degenerate and blood soaked disaster, Dagger is the frontman of RATTUS RATTUS, a band known more for its failures than anything else, but one in which he'll do anything to hold onto.

Ash teetered at the edge of his smoke. Sometime between his last inhale and the chime of the bass guitar beside him, the taste of the cigarette had gone flat. He spun the inhaler between shaking fingers. Gear pushed past him with the edge of his guitar, and if he spared any muttered words, Dagger didn’t hear them.  He didn’t hear much of anything at all.

The room dissipated as he watched smoke dance to stilted warm-up notes and idle chatter from the bar beyond the curtains of backstage. His leg bounced eagerly, anxiously as he sat. Since when did a show make him nervous? He scratched at his neck like a noose was tightening. The black threading that concealed the scars felt smooth beneath his fingertips, but the hard edges of the reconstructed voicebox pressed out against them. Six months since surgery and it still filled him with dread. The taste of blood never left either. 

He brought the inhaler to his lips and breathed deep and as the chemical kiss sank into his lungs, the world froze around him like the broken frames of an old television set. All his fear seeped away in the space between the pictures. 

Red lights pulsed at the corner of his eyes. He realized they were only half open.

“You good?”

The sound was an echo. He watched Dum Dum’s lips move. The chrome edges of his mouth caught the light like glitter. Dagger couldn’t feel his smile.

“Hey–” It was louder now. Accompanied with a heavy hand on his shoulder that left an electric shock across his skin. He could see the sparks like they were real, dancing through the hazey air. “We’re goin’ on. You fuckin’ good?”

“Nova,” Dagger said. His voice tasted like candy. He took another hit and realized the inhaler was spent, though he hadn’t intended to empty it. He tucked his cigarette between his lips like a lifeline and stood, catching his balance on the wall. The ground felt foreign beneath his feet, like he were stepping over clouds. Or sinking. 

Gear glared at him from the other side of the room. He never hid his discontentment for drugs. Dagger blew him a taunting kiss as he stepped onto the stage in silence.

The bar was small. Not much different from the basements they’d been booking, but the takehome was bigger. Dagger didn’t do it for the eddies either way. He stumbled toward his microphone and took one last drag of his smoke as the others filled their spaces. Gear to his left, and Moe on his right–stick thin beneath her bulky bass. He couldn’t see Dum Dum but he felt the weight of his steps as he found his drums at the back.

A hundred restless eyes bore into him from the crowd, their static energy causing the hair on his neck to stand tall. His heartbeat pounded in his chest, clutching the mic stand to keep himself from floating away. He spared a single glance to Dum Dum and nodded.

Sound exploded all around them. A cacophony of ear-splitting passion as their first song began. Dagger had a hard time keeping track of it, his mind grappling with lights and music and the faceless crowd spinning ahead of him. The broken frames of of the tv set stuttered. Everything was delayed. He came in late, words slurred through the cracking growl of his voice. It sounded wrong. It was wrong. He knew he missed a few and stopped to curse even as the music played on without him.

He almost had it figured when he pulled the mic free and lost his balance, narrowly catching himself on the nearest ledge. Only when he hit the stage hard did he realize it was Gear’s guitar. He dragged him down alongside him, spitting and cursing. The music stalled, fractured like a car crash. 

Gear shoved him sideways, knocking him with a knee, and on instinct born of streetfights and bar brawls, Dagger sent his knuckles flying into his face without question. Blood spurted up like a busted fountain. Gear yelped and slammed into him again with a fist and Dagger fell backwards, the world slipping out from under him. Lights and faces and stars circled around him. The world rushed past in a blur of fading color. He tried, in vain, to hold onto it, but he was floating far away. 

Somebody screamed at him. He couldn’t make out the voices. He wanted to shake the dizziness from his head but the moment he tried to stand, he doubled over and retched instead. A beer bottle crashed beside him, thrown from the side of the room. Dagger wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and pulled himself up despite his body’s protest. Light burned into his eyes and blinded him.

“Which one of you fuckin’—”

He took one step forward and crashed off the edge of the stage.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

He woke to the scratch of a pen. Short, curved strokes along his arm. He didn’t open his eyes yet, he didn’t need to. It wasn’t unusual for Moe to vandalize whichever fresh surface became available if she didn’t have her bass in hand to keep busy, and it wouldn’t be the last time he came to after a bender with a dozen fresh cocks crudely drawn inbetween his tattoos.

He didn’t move. The cracked leather cushion beneath him was cool and sticky and he knew it belonged to the sofa backstage, though he had no recollection of how he got there. Last he remembered was concrete and the burn of acid in his throat. The taste was still there, alongside a knot in his skull that drummed with pain. The monotone blur of voices from the bar came through the thin plaster walls like white noise. There was no music.

But there were words.

“—Bullshit!” Gear’s anger came in a burst. He sounded like a mewling cat and Dagger realized he had broken his nose. It took most of his restraint not to laugh. He kept his eye closed because he wanted to listen, and if Moe noticed the curve at the corner of his lips, she didn’t mention it. “Fucking skezzhead can’t even get through a single song anymore, let alone a set!”

Footsteps circled around the couch where he lied. Heavy-set, dragging like dead weight over the floor. He recognized them instantly.

“Calm the fuck down,” Dum Dum told him, the rasp of irritation apparent in each word.

Gear snorted, or tried to through clotting blood. “When you gonna stop defending him? Don’t you have a spine under all that fucking chrome?”

Dagger almost cracked an eye open at the passing silence until the unmistakable crash of metal into flesh broke through it. Moe’s pen froze as her attention was finally drawn elsewhere in the room. Whatever it was ended fast. He heard Gear grunt as his back hit against the brick wall of the club. Dum Dum gave him a warning shot.

“And when are you gonna get through a show without bitching?”

“Next time he fucking plays one! The gonk’s fried and you know it. He can’t take a piss without you holding him up.”

Dagger’s muscles tensed. Moe resumed her drawing as if she didn’t notice. 

“You’re just mad ‘cause he broke your nose,” she added.

He could hear the smile in her voice.

“I’m mad because my rent’s past due and this asshole’s having a nap.” He shuffled across the room and threw something down. A moment later his guitar case shut with a click. 

Dum Dum’s laugh sounded like a hammer over rusty nails. Short. Metallic. Violent.  “It’s all about the scratch with you.”

“No,” Gear said, his tone surprisingly steady. “It’s about self-respect. And if you got any left, you’ll ditch him too.”

His footsteps faded into the noise of the club. Dum Dum didn’t bother going after him. A minute later, Moe moved her pen to Dagger’s face and he finally swatted her hand away.

Dum Dum walked over to the sofa and stood over him, red optics glaring down, fading into a hellish blur as he finally opened his eyes. He had a hard time differentiating between each lens, or making out the rigid line of his frown beneath them. He blinked to clear his vision but it didn’t help.

“Gear’s out.” His voice was flat. It took Dagger a long time to learn how to read him. He still wasn’t sure he always got it right, but now it was unmistakable. He could feel the heat of his anger beneath his skin.

“Yeah, well…” He paused, surprised at the harshness of his own throat. Bile burned at the back of his tongue. He pushed himself onto his elbows and the sudden movement made the room spin. He wanted to puke again. He lit a cigarette to stifle the urge. “Fuck him.”

Dum Dum stood motionless above him. He didn’t like how long the silence stretched, or the look he felt behind the indiscernible veil of red that masked his face. Moe turned around and began packing up her bass, instinctively keeping her own distance from whatever was happening between the two of them. 

“What’s eatin’ you?” Dagger asked after another pull but Dum Dum didn’t respond. It seemed obvious, but he wondered if he’d say it. Instead, a cool metal hand stretched out and grasped Dagger’s hair, turning his head left and right, and if he didn’t feel like he might hurl any second Dagger would’ve shoved him off. But Dum Dum leaned down and only then did his vision finally focus and the details came into view. There was a softness in his expression, against the steel alloy etched along his lips. It wasn’t anger. It was something else.

“You look like shit.” A finger swiped over the side of his forehead and it’s the first time Dagger realized he had been bleeding. A drying, itching stain stung against his skin, but there was something pleasant in the dull ache now. “Could bring you by HeavenMed–”

Dagger pulled back and shoved him away. “Don’t think so. Your boys ain’t getting my guts that easy.” He had mostly avoided Maelstrom despite the drummer’s allegiance to the gang, and he intended to keep it that way. Even after the incident–after tearing his vocal chords to shreds–when he needed the help most, he refused the proffered hand. He knew the chromed up ‘borgs wouldn’t stop at the voicebox. 

“Whatever. What do I care if you flatline?” Dum Dum shrugged, a stiff movement. He wasn’t very good at pretending. “Least get some fresh air.” He looked over his shoulder where Moe was packing her things, then gestured toward the back door. Dagger knew he wanted him to follow, and after a moment, he did, despite the unwillingness of his legs to carry him. He nearly stumbled over the concrete, catching himself on the edge of the door before it shut behind them. The back lot was nearly empty, but the city beyond surged with life. Distant music echoed on the wind of passing traffic. The sky glittered in neon light. There weren’t any stars in Night City. He always found the name ironic. 

There wasn’t any night either.

Dum Dum kept his back to him, gesturing to the empty lane where they had parked when they arrived. 

“Gear took the van.”

“So you’ll give me a ride home.”

Dum Dum turned to look at him. “You hit your head too hard. We still have five cases stashed in the back.”

His fingers curled at his sides. Five cases.

Five shipments of hot gear stolen off Arasaka freights at the shipyard and illegally modified by juiced up tech heads, waiting for delivery up North. A couple thousand worth of eddies sitting in a van owned by a bitch. He knew now why Dum Dum led him outside. They never told Moe about their side biz. Never told Gear either, or Maelstrom. It was a secret they shared alone. 

He threw down his cigarette. Embers scattered over the concrete and burned out like the missing stars from the sky.

“Let’s go get it,” Dagger said, trying to keep himself steady.

“Look like a gust of wind will knock you down. We’ll pick it up tomorrow, after you get some rest.”

“Thought you didn’t care if I flatline,” he said. “We’ll pick it up tonight.”

“Dag–” Dum Dum stepped toward him.

The concern was starting to make him sick. He backed away.

“What? You agree with Gear?” It wasn’t so much a question. It came from the depths of his throat, stinging with acid and hate. “I’m some worthless skezzhead? Need you to hold my fucking hand?”

Dum Dum’s expression twisted. There it was, that anger he had first anticipated. It was a welcome sight from the pity. His voice came out like a rumble of static.

“Is that what I fucking said?”

“Well you didn’t tell him he was wrong.” He pulled out another cigarette. His fingers were starting to shake. Was it the anger, the drugs, or the nausea? It didn’t matter. Something was crawling beneath his skin, burrowing down to the marrow. 

“You’re bent,” Dum Dum said. His eyes fell on him heavy. “Get some fucking sleep.”

His thumb slipped off his lighter and it fell onto the street along with the cigarette. Dagger cursed beneath his breath and when he leaned down to pick them up, the world spun backwards on its axis. His balance went with it, sending him sideways before he could find it again. This time, Dum Dum braced his fall, heavy chrome fingers tightening on his arm to steady him. It was enough to keep him upright but it only lasted a moment. He shoved Dum Dum back, barely recovering his footing and only saving himself on the brick wall of the bar. 

His eyes rose beneath the black veil of his hair, fixing on Dum Dum with a narrow glare. He was met with the same look as before–that soft thing. He was suddenly grateful for the blank state of those red lenses. He couldn’t bear to see that look in flesh. 

The door flew open and his gaze snapped sideways. Moe shuffled out, carrying her bass on her back. She hardly paid them any attention as a pink Archer screeched to a stop at the curb. A purple haired woman waved from behind the wheel. Moe had a laundry list of Mox girls in rotation. Dagger didn’t recognize this one, but he had no doubt he’d see her again eventually. If the band lasted that long anyway. 

As Moe slid into the passenger’s seat he asked for a ride to his apartment. The driver regarded him with a raised brow and agreed on Moe’s insistence. He laid down in the back and tried to ignore the ache in his chest, but the feeling persisted all the way home. 

He was nearly asleep when the car pulled up. He half expected to find a fresh array of genitals drawn in between the old ones, but Moe was transfixed in conversation with other woman. He rarely heard her talk so much. When he got to his door he saw the two of them swapping spit behind the windshield, idling in the parking lot for another minute. He didn’t linger to see what else they wanted to do. 

His apartment was nestled between the empty rooms of an old motel in Northside. The last tenant, a netrunner, had it paid up for another year before their brain was fried by Netwatch. It was small, almost claustrophobic but Dagger didn’t need much for himself, and nobody complained about the volume of his music. He didn’t mind it. Dum Dum’s megabuilding was only a few minutes up the road and that made things easy, too. He wondered if he was home yet, and then he tried not to wonder about it at all.

Cockroach heard the door open and came running from his space on the bed. Dagger held his hand out for the rat and scooped him up quick.

“‘Lo friend.” He brought him close and smiled, letting the animal sniff at him in greeting. He was Dagger’s oldest friend and the face of the band. Even it’s namesake–Rattus Rattus. He’d always had a respect for the rodent. It’s authenticity. It’s honesty. It knew who it was and lived without shame even as the world stepped over it. And one day, he knew–and the rat knew, too–when the world crumbled and the rich fell, it would still be here. And it would feast on its bones. “I hope your night was better than mine.”

“Well, it couldn’t be worse by the look of it.” 

The voice came from the next room, filling the apartment with a boom.

Dagger’s hand snapped down to the switchblade in his pocket. He set Cockroach back onto the bed and let the knife swing open with warning.

The man who sauntered out wore a stiff black suit. Pinstripes made it look nicer than it was. His hair was thinning, and greased back with pomade that left a smell of teakwood all around them. Dagger’s lip curled at the sight of him. He recognized the man, but he kept his knife out nonetheless.

“That how you greet an associate?” Lazlo asked, feigning offense at the blade. He nodded down at Cockroach with a sudden look of disgust that mirrored Dagger’s. “You should take that thing back to the sewer.”

Dagger’s smile was sharper than his knife.

 “Ain’t that funny? He said the same about you.”

Lazlo laughed, but the sound lingered like a flat note and there wasn’t any humor in it. He reached into his breast pocket as if he were waiting for the opportunity all along, and slid out his phone. The not-quite-amusement was still present in his voice when he spoke.

“Hell of a show tonight,” he said.

The video was already primed by the time he turned his screen around so Dagger could see it. He recognized the sight immediately–it was the bar from the show, and he was on stage, viewed from the eyes of someone standing at the back of the room. The video shook and blurred as the sound started, clawing its way from the cheap speakers unapologetically. There were only a few notes before he watched himself stumble and collapse onto Gear. He might have laughed at the sight of the broken nose but his jaw was clenched tight. He tasted the vomit again as he retched on screen. Someone in the crowd yelled. He hadn’t heard them the first time but it was unmistakable from the phone. 

“Fuckin’ loser.” Their voice carried disappointment, matched with a chorus of similar jeers all around them.

Dagger’s teeth ached from the pressure. He saw the bottle hurled toward him much clearer than he had beneath the bright lights. His fingers stiffened around the knife bearing witness to himself–blood covered and puke stained and fucking pathetic–falling gracelessly off the stage. The crowd grew restless and before the video cut to black he could see Dum Dum pick him up.

Lazlo returned the phone to its proper place and patted down the wrinkles in his stupid suit. Dagger wanted to carve the smile off his face, but he bit back on his snarl, hoping to betray the shame that threatened to rip him in half. 

“Well,” he started with forced casualty. “That’s punk rock for you.”

“Well,” Lazlo repeated with a mocking cadence, poorly imitating the southern drawl that tinged Dagger’s words. “Punk rock don’t pay the bills, does it?”

He brought a hand up to his throat, scratching at the stubble that he hadn’t shaved. A pointed gesture. His beady eyes followed down to Dagger’s neck, to the thick lines that insulated his surgically reconstructed larynx and the artificial cartilage that kept everything in tact. As if on command, Dagger could feel his throat tighten, itch, burn beneath those black eyes. He spun the knife in his hands, considering. Lazlo didn’t bother looking down, but his nose pointed toward the blade.

“I would advise against violence. It would only complicate your situation.”

“My situation?” 

“You aren’t the first little rat to be guided by a wedge of cheddar. God knows you won’t be the last. This city is full of them, and they all think they can cheat the maze. But they can’t see past the wall ahead of them. You understand what I’m saying, Anson Wade?”

He felt himself flinch at the name. He wasn’t used to hearing it anymore. The knife stopped moving but he didn’t realize he had stilled.

Lazlo stepped sideways, pretending to examine the meager home decor around them. A few crooked posters with knives poking from the walls like a giant corkboard. Overflowing ashtrays. His mother’s vintage paperback bible tucked halfway beneath a pile of dirty clothes–he picked it up, ran his fingers over the spine. Dagger’s whole body tensed. 

Lazlo continued unperturbed. 

“See, the rat lacks the foresight to know he’s being watched; that his whole little world is just a cage, carefully constructed by those who’s deft hands control the maze–people who can add a wall as simply as they can knock one down.” He cracked the bible open, but he didn’t peer down at the pages. His gaze fixed on Dagger, the smile beneath which looked carved by wax. “How’s the farm, by the way? How’s your mother?”

The question tore the air from his lungs. 

The bible slammed shut and Lazlo threw it aside. He wasn’t interested in the answer, and in fact, he probably knew it better than Dagger did. The non-threat settled between them heavy, but the man wasn’t done. His face dropped, twisted, the mask of politeness discarded as quickly and as easily as the bible on the floor. He hulked forward before Dagger could blink, eyebrows knitted in rage.

“Don’t forget who this belongs to–” His hand clasped tight around the seams of Dagger’s throat, choking the rest of his breath away. He clawed at the meaty wrist holding him in place, but a gold watch kept him from drawing blood. He wanted to use the knife. He wanted to drive it into his skull. He wanted to skin him into ribbons. But he couldn’t. “Get me my fucking money or I’ll rip that voice back out.”

As soon as the words left his mouth he pushed Dagger back and released him, immediately smoothing down his suit and straightening his jacket across his shoulders. He cleared his throat, and the mask reappeared as if it had never left. He smiled, self-assured.

“Hell, the music scene would probably thank me.”

Dagger choked out a cough, grasping at his reconstructed throat. It felt too tight, like something had shifted, snapped. His chest heaved, panic flooding through him the same way it had the first time he felt blood fill his throat, his vocal chords torn, voice gravel. His knees nearly buckled, but he managed to find the edge of the sofa before he crashed. Cockroach scurried over to him, narrowly avoiding Lazlo’s shoes as he made his way out the door.

“Your next payment is due in a week,” he said plainly. Dagger almost didn’t hear him over the sound of his own ragged cough. “I trust it won’t be late again.”

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he took a full breath, but Lazlo was long gone. He leaned back on the sofa, gently kneading the black lines on his neck. He wasn’t certain something hadn’t broken, but when he opened his mouth he could still speak. 

“Fuckin’ asshole.”

Cockroach forced himself beneath his hand and Dagger scratched his head in kind. He was grateful for the distraction, for the company. For the eyes that regarded him without judgment. His heartbeat began to slow as he lit a cigarette. The smoke burned on the way down. Smoke, vapor, rage. It eroded him from the inside out. He was lost when he learned of his condition. The vocal hemorrhage was only the start. He pushed through it for too long, until the damage festered in his throat and something inside of him finally gave up.

Even his own voice had had enough of him.

Lazlo was a last resort. A self-proclaimed pawnbroker out of Watson. He wanted the surgery fast, without the scratch to pay for it. 

A rat in a maze.

The walls towered over him now. 

Cockroach flattened himself on his chest. 

“They don't understand,” Dagger told him. And they didn't–nobody did. Not Gear. Not Lazlo. Dum Dum…He ran his hand over the rat's fur. He found him in an empty lab in the Badlands. He was almost naked then, skinny and covered in scabs. A mess just to look at, and alone. But in spite of that, he had freed himself of his cage. And when Dagger picked him up he saw a man in a lab coat lying on the floor, deft hands stiff at his sides and his face chewed clean from his skull.

There was a way out. He just had to find it.

Cockroach squeaked in contentment. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

He parked two blocks down and walked the rest of the way. He was familiar with Arroyo, but had a hard time distinguishing the streets from each other. The neighborhood was far from the meat and glamor of the city and it’s beige monotony reminded him more of his days riding roughshod through desert hills with the nomads than suffocating beneath the neon skies of Night City, but the sameness always confused him. Identical houses, cars, broken windows. If he squinted he could see the promise of suburban life, but it looked more like a postcard that fell into the mud, boot prints marring the image. 

If he was honest, it felt a little bit like home. 

He turned a corner and saw the van parked down the road, bathed beneath the orange glow of a streetlight. Gear’s house was dark. They used to play in the garage. He didn’t know where they’d set up now, but he wasn’t about to let Gear take any more from him. 

The van was a glorified junker. It barely ran, coughed smoke like tar, and bore a paint job of the band’s signature iconography: the black rat. But it was one of Gear’s more important contributions–big enough to lug their kit and still house the cases for delivery.

Dagger approached slowly, keeping his eyes trained on the house. After a moment he lifted the hood and ripped a choice wire out from the side with well practiced fingers. He learned when he was young which ones to pull and which ones not to touch. When he jimmied the door open the alarm didn’t sound and he slid into the back without hesitation. The second floor he’d built six months earlier creaked almost imperceptibly beneath his weight. He was certain that Gear was oblivious to it, but he wanted to check just in case. He kicked a pile of garbage out of the way and pulled up the stained carpet to reveal a layer of sheet metal. It didn’t match the rusted body of the van, but it sat perfectly in its place. Beneath it he found the guns. Their armored cases untouched, and much more adequate security than their surroundings. 

He breathed a sigh of relief. 

On his way back to the front seat, he glanced up at the house from the windshield. It wasn’t all bad with Gear, but Dagger wouldn’t miss him. A sellout posing punk, walls lined with Kerry Eurodyne. More concerned with how many eddies a song is worth than what it means to sing it. 

Dagger’s throat burned as he lit a cigarette.

It all comes back to scratch.

If there was a point there, he didn’t dwell on it. 

Gear was a dick, that’s what mattered. In the flickering street light his eyes scanned over the artwork that Moe had left on his arms and he smiled. Without another thought, he rummaged through the discarded trash in the back until he found a half empty can of spray paint. He jumped out of the van and crept onto the steps of the house. His optics illuminated the night as he drew the paint longways over the door, across a front window, and back around again until the lines connected. 

A cock to rival all others.

Dagger smiled, appreciating his work with the smug arrogance of a toddler before retreating.

The van started with a backfire but he didn’t stick around long enough to know if Gear heard it as he sped down the street back toward Northside. 

He should’ve gone home. 

By the time he realized he missed the turn to his apartment he was already standing outside of Dum Dum’s door. The megabuilding moved around him like a living beast, loud and feral. His head still hurt, and he knocked impatiently.

Dum Dum didn’t look entirely surprised to see him when he opened the door, but he didn’t much look happy either. Dagger pushed past him all the same.

“Wanna smoke?” he asked in what he hoped would be seen as an apology. To anyone else it might’ve missed its target, but Dum Dum knew him better than that, and when offered one from his pack, he took it with a nod. Dagger fell back into a threadbare chair and swung a leg over the armrest. “Got the van back.”

“That was quick.”

“And I didn’t need you to hold my hand neither.”

“I didn’t say–”

“I know. I’m fucking with you.”

Dum Dum groaned and lit his cigarette. “The guns?”

“They’re in the back.” Dagger leaned his head back, painfully aware of all the shifting pieces within his neck. His gaze followed Dum Dum as he sat on a busted coffee table in front of him. His apartment was bigger than Dagger’s but not by much. Not enough to keep their knees from lightly touching as they sat across from one another. They had spent many nights here, like this, writing songs and smoking. It was here where they made the band. And here where Dagger told him wordlessly with a bleeding throat that it might have to end.

“We can run ‘em tomorrow,” Dum Dum said. “I got a few days free from biz.”

Dagger nodded. Smoke painted the room in a blueish haze. His eyes felt heavy and in the brief moment he let them close he could see the video from the bar in his mind again. He forced it away quickly and focused on Dum Dum’s optics, watching the color bleed into the room.

“You know the first time I ever went to a show?” 

Dum Dum hunched forward, inviting the answer. Dagger let the memory replace the one behind his eyes as he recalled it. 

“I was thirteen years old. Snuck off the farm with a passing caravan that took me far as the city. I weaseled my way into a bar and caught some no nothing band I never heard of before. The sound was shit but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that my whole body hurt from a black eye and a broken rib ‘cause my daddy caught me smoking his cigarettes the night before. Didn’t matter I lost my boot in the pit or that I hadn’t eat for a day and a half. It was the first time in my life I wanted something to last forever.” He fumbled with a fresh cigarette, rifling through his pockets in search of a light. Dum Dum came closer and lit his smoke with the end of his cigarette. The smell of burnt wires lingered when he moved away. “I got clocked for a minor and the cops took me home. Got another shiner after that. I looked like a goddam raccoon, but it was worth it. My god, it was worth it.”

Dum Dum laughed through smoke. “You remember the band?”

“Nah. Never seen ‘em again either, but it’s the feeling that mattered.”

The feeling that stayed with him for the rest of his life, even now, nestled so deep in his chest he could no longer detach it from himself. If he ever made someone feel the way he did back then, maybe the bitter taste in his throat wouldn’t burn so strong. His fingers met his neck again, cigarette burning idly. 

“Y’know, ever since this–” he tapped the threading along his skin and paused. “I thought it was over. The band. The music. It hasn’t felt the same since. If my last show was the one tonight I couldn’t live with myself but maybe Gear’s right.”

He felt suddenly raw. Dum Dum was quiet for too long. He expected the same look of pity he had gotten before. Expected to hate it. To feel the sick rise up like fire in his chest. 

Dum Dum took one more pull from his cigarette then snuffed it out on the scarred surface of the coffee table.

“Fuck that,” he said with the same rush of a gunshot. “And fuck Gear.”

Dagger straightened in his chair from the unexpected ferocity. Whatever fire that spread through him wasn’t born of anger or shame. It was different. It was kinder.

“First time I saw you on stage was that night at Totentanz, remember? You were fronting for–what were they called? Corroded Cannibal or whatever the fuck.”

“Corroded Corpse,” Dagger corrected. There were plenty of bands before this one. None of them stuck around. The show at Totentanz had been their last. 

“Yeah, yeah. My head was splitting. Had Brick on my ass and a new recruit turning psycho. Gang split halfway down the middle. Then you came in. You blew the amps early and the mic kept cutting out. Couldn’t understand a word you were saying. Hell, they almost chased you outta the club but you climbed up the rafters and finished the set on the skywalk. It should’ve been shit, but it’s like you said…” He stood and towered over Dagger as the smoke cleared between them and a smile spread over his lips. “It didn’t matter. I was hooked.”

The words came down on him like a salve. Heavy in their simplicity.

He thought back to that day when he was thirteen. Young and rabid and lost. To that music he didn’t remember but which etched itself onto his soul. A song that led him forward, through ghost towns and Night City. To the bands that didn’t last and the one that finally did.

To here. Blood covered and puke stained and fucking pathetic.

Warm beneath red spotlights.

And he smiled.

[charleslelurk]

Maxiel and shotgunning or Nortrell and somnophilia 🥺 or both if u feel so inclined but i will be happy with whatever you offer me <3

I went with Maxiel + shotgunning

From here

"Come here," Daniel says to Max as he leans back on the sofa, balcony door open not ten feet away to let the breeze in and the smell of pot out. 

Max comes across the room with a smile wrinkling his face, eyes flickering expectantly between Daniel and the lit joint in his hand. 

Daniel likes to smoke, likes how it gets him out of his own head. And sometimes he smokes before sex so he can really enjoy it, can just act without his usual inhibitions, without too many thoughts and just do what he wants. Max being high–smiling and giggling and rosy–is just a plus.  

When Max steps closer, Daniel spreads his legs for Max to stand between them but Max nudges his knees closed with his own and instead climbs onto Daniel's lap, knees bracketing his hips as Max folds his thick legs under himself. Daniel's hand not holding the joint automatically finds Max's thigh, runs up and down it as he brings the joint to his own lips. 

Max watches Daniel take the hit, his hands on Daniel's chest, feeling as his lungs expand and hold in the smoke. His eyes are on Daniel's lips, watching the way they pucker on the joint, how they move as he takes the hit. Daniel watches Max watch him, then hooks a hand around Max's neck and pulls him down. They chastily lock lips for a moment before Daniel opens his own mouth against Max's and breathes the smoke into his. 

Max takes it greedily, happy for Daniel's seconds. He pulls back to expel it from his lungs into the air above them and Daniel puffs the last of the hit out of his own nose, burning along the way, as he swoops in to leave wet kisses on Max's neck. 

"Daniel," Max murmurs. Daniel feels one of his hands come up to knot his fingers into the curls at the back of Daniel's head. 

"Another, baby?" Daniel asks against Max's skin. 

He feels Max's muscles move, chin going up and down, and Daniel pulls back to bring the joint in his hand back to his lips. Max's hand slides around to cup Daniel's jaw as he takes a second hit. 

Max brings their mouths together this time, eager, and using his hand on Daniel's face to direct him. It's much more of a kiss this time than passing the smoke, Max pushing his tongue into Daniel's mouth before pulling away. Daniel smiles lazily up at Max as he watches Max breath the smoke out again. When he turns to the side to stub out the joint in the small crystal ashtray on the side table, he doesn't see Max folding down to press his face into the space below Daniel's ear until he feels Max's hot, smokey breath on the sensitive skin. 

"Maxy."

He only responds by nosing at the spot, making Daniel shiver and quickly move his hands to Max's hips. Without more prompting, Max rolls his hips down to press his cock against Daniel's, both of them half hard in their gym shorts. Inhibitions on their way out the door, Daniel bucks up into Max with a small groan, chasing the hint of friction as the high settles in. 

"Need you," Daniel murmurs, turning his head to catch Max's lips against his own before the second word is even out of his mouth. 

"I love when you say that, Daniel," Max murmurs against his lips.

[prince-liest]

On Alastor calling Vox “lover”, i thought it was the complete reverse - that he said it with only malicious intent in the wire play fic (to satisfy his own itch to hurt vox), and in the latest one it’s just “i’m being sarcastic” (but i don’t feel well and i need a stepping stone at this very moment tho i’ll never admit it) but i guess i misunderstood? tho i suppose this only shows how well u write alastor’s character because he is not easy to decipher

Alastor is a character that lies a lot, both to himself about his feelings and to others, and his narration is pretty unreliable! I do try to insert, like, the hints, context, and behaviors that point to what his true feelings actually are, but a lot of it is through implication and so there's a lot of room for different interpretation in how I write him!

That said, you're not the first person to think he was being genuinely malicious and nothing but in the wireplay fic, so... death of the author and all that, but if you are interested in my take on how it was originally intended:

Alastor is so incredibly fucking fond of Vox in that scene in S6E66, Now Rerunning: The Hentai Episode! He says some absolutely heinous shit, but his tone is fond, and warm, and condescending, and it is very, very obvious to him that Vox enjoys being humiliated and at Alastor's whims. He compliments Vox's distress, he makes a little winking joke about the "rut" comment because they both know that was Alastor just the other day, and he unequivocally denies any implication that he's rejecting Vox's love.

He's a total narcissist on a power trip, and Vox being so into his little menacing routine that he drops the I think I'm in love with you is basically heroin to Alastor's ego. But he's also just been growing increasingly fond of Vox over the course of their relationship - there's a reason that the very next installment is one where Alastor is in fact really fucking upset to have been ghosted, even though a lot of the cause of that ghosting is that neither of them are open communicators that do things like properly check in a la, "Hey, we just did a really undernegotiated scene where I mocked your very sincere emotions, where are we on that?" because they've been flying by the seat of their pants and expect mutual understanding where there isn't necessarily enough of it and getting away with it. Until that point, at least.

So he says "lover" because he's making fun of Vox, yes, but he's making fun of Vox because he enjoys and is genuinely fond of Vox when he's pathetic and obsessive, and also because he knows that Vox enjoys it, too. Safe, sane, and consensual? No. But not genuinely malicious in intent, either!

He doesn't want to hurt Vox for the sadistic hell of it (to quote Alastor himself: "If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already!"), he wants to hurt Vox because the fact that Vox is so in love that he will let him (and ask for more) is acutely and inordinately pleasing to Alastor. A lot of his dialogue echoes that: he tells Vox to ask for it, then tells him to beg, then makes fun of him for not asking Alastor to stop.

And afterward: Well, he's not very good at actually being reassuring, but he makes a few genuine efforts at it, to the extent that his own ego will allow him to. If he didn't actually give a shit, he very much would have dumped Vox on the floor after having his fun and just left. But he cares enough to make sure Vox is at least remotely alright, and he's even fond enough to suffer through some skin-to-skin until his squick meter taps him out.

In contrast, in Network 0666: No Signal, Alastor is once again mocking Vox for claiming to love him - but he's doing it while struggling his way through a panic attack that has sent him spiraling under the assumption that Vox's alleged "love" is just possessiveness that led him to try to leash Alastor to his own power. He says "lover" and immediately follows it by describing the ways in which he thinks Vox is a traitor who is bastardizing the very word. He's not, at that moment, even using it as a weapon against Vox - why would it hurt Vox, after all, if he doesn't really love Alastor - but rather as a way of mocking himself for actually falling for the ruse. He doesn't genuinely break out of it until he reaches to touch the chain again and finds that it's been gone since Vox reached out to help him.

Anyway, I hope that helped or at least was an interesting read! Alastor is a very unreliable narrator and it makes him a great deal of fun.

[envyenvys]

Stobin Mandalorian AU part 1

(aka s3 stobin accidentally acquire a magic baby)

[You Are Here] [2] [3] [4]

It’s Robin that first hears the baby crying. She insists it’s coming from the vents on her right side — Steve’s left — but the concussion’s left everything kind of soupy so it takes him a few minutes to pick it out from the ever-present hum of the gate-laser and the rush of blood through his own ears. Once he notices it though, it’s hard to stop.

It’s a sad, lonely sort of crying that makes his heart ache. Robin makes a dubious sort of noise when he mentions this and insists that it’s probably just hungry — which Steve has to admit is likely, none of the Russians they’ve met so far can really be described as ‘nurturing’ — but something in his gut tells him that’s not it.

He doesn’t get the chance to say anything before the Russians come back with the doctor, and then they have a whole new set of problems to worry about.

The mysterious blue goop makes everything a million times soupier and having pliers around his fingernail is not great, but then Dustin and Erica are there and everything’s great again. Super great, even.

“Can you two hurry up?” Dustin hisses, pulling Steve upright when he starts to list to the side.

It’s a little difficult to navigate when your head is soup and your bones are blue and goopy and you’re bleeding from at least three places you weren’t bleeding from this morning, and Steve makes a valiant attempt to tell Dustin this because it’s important information he needs to know. He starts, then stops because he can barely hear himself over the siren and honestly this is just like earlier when he was trying to hear the— oh right.

“Baby,” Steve says, and Robin whips her head around in slow motion to stare at the vent.

“Did you just call me a baby?” Dustin demands, shoving them into the hallway.

“Nooo, no, no,” Steve insists. He takes two steps in the direction Dustin is going, then checks to see where the vent leads. It’s going in the other direction. He turns around. “Baby. The baby. Gotta get the baby.”

“It’s hungry,” Robin says decisively, even though Steve’s almost positive that’s not the problem.

“I don’t know why these two idiots are so focused on it but I did hear a baby,” Erica says, and Dustin groans.

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“I didn’t think I was the only one around here with working ears,” she says scathingly. “Clearly I was wrong.”

Steve and Robin are already halfway down the hall. Robin stops, cocking her head like a bird, and gasps.

“I hear it! This way!”

She books it around a corner, and she might be only going half as fast as she usually does but she’s still a lot faster than Steve. He stumbles after her, clutching at the weird tubes on the wall for support.

“Get back here!” Dustin hisses, tugging at Steve’s arm. “We have to go!”

“Steve!” Robin shouts at the top of her lungs. “I found the baby!”

Steve manages to drag both himself and Dustin around the corner and into a small room with a metal door. Clearly he needs to start making Dustin exercise because he should not be weaker than Steve is when his bones are soup. Dustin should have solid bones — he drinks a lot of milk, and it’s like, scientifically proven that milk makes your bones stronger. It’s that vitamin — or is it a mineral? Ca— Cancer? No, wrong one. Ca-something. Robin would know.

Anyway Dustin has strong bones so obviously it’s a muscle thing that’s the reason why his arms are really weak and Steve should make him play basketball about it.

Robin’s holding a baby.

“Put that down,” Dustin insists, letting go of Steve to gesture at Robin. She pouts and cuddles the baby closer.

It’s such a cute, perfect baby too. Steve stumbles closer so he can look at the perfect baby. It has soft wisps of brown hair and squishy pink cheeks, and when Robin smooths a thumb over those squishy baby cheeks it stops crying and opens its big brown eyes.

“Steve,” Robin says, staring at him with her own wide eyes, “it’s a girl baby.”

“She’s perfect,” Steve whispers, and he wants to hold her so so bad but he can’t even hold himself up right now and the only thing worse than not holding her is dropping her so he has to leave her with Robin even though it kind of makes him want to cry.

He’s always wanted a baby.

“Okay,” he turns back to Dustin, who’s looking very stressed. “Now we can go.”

“What do you mean ‘now we can go’?”

“We have the baby, let’s go!”

“We can’t just steal a baby!”

“Yes we can,” Robin says, and starts walking out the door. “See? We’re stealing her. Easy peasy.”

“But—!”

“Let’s go, nerd!” Erica says, shoving them all out of the room. “Cry about it later, we need to leave!”

Steve stops to grab a few baby things, though there isn’t much. A white blanket, a few cloth diapers, and a thick stack of folders — the last of which aren’t baby things, but he assumes they’ll be important anyway. The stitching on the corner of the blanket reads ‘Два’, the same as the label on her metal crib.

“Aba,” he mutters, following them to the weird red car. “Like the band?”

Well, it’s probably a beautiful name for a baby girl. In Russian.

[Next]

[meirimerens]

this is literally just lore of mine so feel free to ignore i just got angry at having to pull 4 different images That don't even Match everytime i wanted to draw him with the scars so grigri of the future i am talking directly into your ear. do not go scrolling in your folders in search of this it is here. the reference is here. i am talking directly into your ear i am inside of your ear.

[demaparbat-hp]

For the Spirits— Chapter V: There Was Sun

I wish I could dream like I used to dream

I wish I could be all the things that I used to be

When there was sun

—There Was Sun by Nothing But Thieves

.

Zuko was a child when he first met Agni. He couldn’t remember the dream, not really. He woke up with ragged breaths and eyes older than his years on earth. Whenever he tried to drag the memories to the surface all that could be found was a blank space where the night’s visions should be. Zuko knew he had met Agni in the dream because that’s when the whispers started. The next day, a six-year-old Fire Prince burned for the first time.

[perpetuallyfive]

the smell of blood on concrete [9/17]

Arcane, Vampire/Werewolf AU, Caitlyn/Vi

Summary: Werewolf Vi fights in the pits to finance finding her sister and vampire heiress Caitlyn wants to be the one holding the end of the leash.

Chapter Word Count: 7,476

Preview:

If Vi stares at Caitlyn long enough, her pretty features can be compiled into a list, no sentimentality at all. The nose is nice, kind of regal. That little gap between her front teeth, the blunt human ones. The way her hair falls in her face when she’s hunched over her paperwork, in those rare moments when she lets her perfect posture slip. It means nothing, Vi reasons, that she’s already taking note of so many things. That’s survival instincts. That’s a wolf keeping her eyes on the next predator up on the food chain, not to mention her (fucking annoying) employer. It’s all perfectly reasonable, the way Vi’s eyes track the shifts in Caitlyn’s eyebrows, or the way she worries her lower lip.

ao3 link.