#“fear an old man in a profession when men die young”

[gawrkin]

(Source: Elegy of Uther Pendragon, from Book of Taliesin)

[....]

(Source: Tavola Ritonda)

(Source: Wikipedia - Knights of the Round Table, Brunor)

Uther Pendragon and his boys > Arthur and the gang

[avelera]

Hob Gadling - the absolute maddest of immortal lads

One of the things I love most about Hob Gadling as a character (and as a result, do my best to capture in fic) is how unique his reactions are to immortality and to Dream, and how he so often does the opposite of what one would expect from the genre of "humans granted immortality" but also what the average person and most of the audience expects that they would do with immortality, lending well to the concept that Hob is, genuinely, unhinged and a truly supernatural creature in his own right, which is often lost when the character we see him most often juxtaposed against is Dream, who is even more odd and unhinged if in very different ways

(I've decided to be systematic about this and go through meeting by meeting so strap in, folks it got long, as usual!)

1389 - First of all, Hob simply bragging at all that he doesn't plan to die. OG hipster right there, loving life before it was cool. But also, ok, loving life after being born less than a decade after the Black Plague ended. And in the midst of a great many Black Plague aftershocks! The latter half of the 1300s was a truly abysmal time to be alive, with huge social upheaval, war, plagues, "two bloody Popes fightin'" and in the midst of all this is Hob motherfuckin' Gadling, cheerfully announcing that death is for suckers and he doesn't intend to ever do it.

The man is a soldier! You'd think he'd be more accepting and philosophical about his inevitable death given the time he lives in, the profession he has chosen, the fact that most young men his age were wiped out at age 9 by the second wave of the Black Death, and just, in general, doing all of this while having the misfortune to live in England at the time.

And then when Dream comes up to him, like a complete weirdo, and challenges him on this, Hob is actually pretty nice to him! He gives him a side eye but he also goes along with the question, tells him to ignore his friend's jibes, and cheerfully accepts the wager! I cannot express to you how many turns in the road there are between what a normal person would do and what Hob Gadling does in that moment.

1489 - This one bugs me because the most unexpected thing Hob does is seemingly regress in maturity despite now being 100+ years old.

Now, I'm a huge fan of the theory that he's conning Dream right now and putting on the innocent chucklehead routine to put Dream off from kidnapping him to Faerie Land in exchange for his immortality. HOWEVER, since that's just a headcanon, let's take Hob as he is on the page!

Hob has a job. A Freaking Job. He used to be a bandit and a soldier, things that kind of make sense to do as an immortal (like The Old Guard) when you can't die! You could theoretically make BANK there just by taking dangerous jobs. But Hob doesn't?? He gets a normal-ass job, though in that day's equivalent of getting a job at Microsoft or Apple before they became big, Caxton is like one of the first modern startups in essence, a new technology that made TONS of money once it was imported, and Hob was on the ground floor. Still. HE GOT A JOB as an IMMORTAL. He doesn't seem to have this immortality thing figured out yet? And he doesn't ask Dream hardly any questions about it either! You'd think he'd be frothing at the mouth to better understand wtf happened to him, but once Dream clarifies that he's not the Devil and Hob's soul isn't in danger, that's it! No further questions, your honor! WHAT??

Also, just when you WOULD expect him to beg for death (that IS the genre savvy thing to do, Dream's not wrong!) he DOESN'T. He's more in awe than ever, he seems to be experiencing a second childhood over the fact. He's just vibing and living life. That's so, so unusual in this genre.

Hob also hasn't done any of the savvy things an immortal might do after 100 years! He doesn't actually seem all that angsty about why is he immortal, beyond a bit of fear he might need to pay the piper (Dream) now for this gift. Most vampires in an Anne Rice novel would have gone through about 20 stages of grief after they dealt with the first 100 years of everyone they know and love dying but Hob seems to not only be unbothered but actively gearing up for the next century. It's so bizarre. IT'S SO BIZARRE and I love it because I LOVE characters who DON'T do what you'd expect!

1589 - Hob has a family. HOB HAS A FAMILY. Who in their right MIND would start a family, knowing you'd have to bury your spouse and your children? HOB MOTHERFUCKING GADLING that's who! It's incomprehensible! He does it anyway! It's why I headcanon that he planned to support and nurture his family throughout time, like it was all very deliberate to found a dynasty, but it need not be! Knowing him, he just saw a pretty girl and married her! He didn't even CONSIDER his own wife and children getting angry and jealous with him for having immortality he can't share with them? He didn't even CONSIDER the heartbreak?? WHAT?! Who knows! He just did!

Now, this Hob HAS begun to do SOME of the things one would expect of an immortal - like build up generational wealth, BUT he has a KNIGHTHOOD. What immortal in their right MIND would draw that sort of attention to themselves?? HOB, THAT'S WHO. What are you ON, man, that's INSANE! No wonder he got drowned as a witch the man had ZERO CAUTION AT ALL.

1689 - the man is destitute. HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN IF YOU'RE AN IMMORTAL? This is AS puzzling as anything else. Theoretically, Hob could just take a dangerous job with a high fatality rate for quick cash and rebuild his fortune pretty quickly, but he DOESN'T. What went wrong? The possibilities are tantalizing and painfully human that maybe he did do that and failed anyway, or hit even WORSE strings of truly abysmal bad luck.

But somehow, at 300 YEARS OLD it's not until 1789 that we hear Hob has begun socking money away for a rainy day! How does it TAKE YOU that long, sir?? How is that NOT something you figure out in your first century? I've seen a lot of fan writers ascribe a certain amount of immortal savvy to Hob but it's REALLY not there on the page! The guy is NOT genre savvy about immortality AT ALL he doesn't do ANY of the things one would expect, it's absolutely WILD that he falls this low after 300 years after completely failing to, theoretically, CONSIDER this possibility! And then, AND THEN, the guy STILL wants to live. I mean, this one hardly needs saying, that's nuts after what he went through, it's on the page that he's NUTS for this. But the guy is literally in the gutter dreaming of the stars, he is unstoppable I love him so fucking much what a force of nature.

1789 - OK, we've already mentioned that it took until 1789 for Hob to start saving money for a rainy day but let's talk about the fact HE'S NOT ACTUALLY CAREFUL ABOUT BEING CAPTURED?? Again, least genre savvy immortal EVER. You can't die so you'd THINK that being captured or imprisoned or god forbid, thrown down a mine shaft would be the SCARIEST possible fates when you don't have death as an escape, but the guy doesn't even blink at the thought of getting captured by an occultist like Johanna Constantine, dude's totally unbothered! DREAM has to tell him after 400 YEARS that maybe he should be worried about this? THE GUY GOT DROWNED AS A WITCH, picked himself up, dusted himself off, got into some crimes against humanity, and MOVED ON apparently without learning a single goddamn lesson he hasn't had since 1389 which is how to kick ass and look good doing it BUT HE'S NOT EVEN A PROFESSIONAL FIGHTER AS A CAREER, he's just a gentleman of means!

He just... lives a normal human life and seems to expect weird things like being kidnapped by occultists to not happen so long as he stays within those boundaries and you know what? IT SEEMS TO HAVE WORKED! Because to be fair, how many of us outside the bounds of fiction would ever expect the wild stuff like kidnapping to really happen? It's statistically quite vanishingly rare! And that's been all Hob has needed, presumably, to not need to stress since the damn witch trials about his immortality! So yeah, I read fic where Hob is like this very savvy immortal but by 400 YEARS he's BARELY learned to have a savings account under a different name and he STILL doesn't seem too bothered by the possibility of getting hurt or captured! Like, AT ALL?! Absolutely class act right here, top lad, unbelievable, no notes. HOW do you SURVIVE like this as an anomaly, Hob?

1889 - By now, it SEEMS like Hob has bought a clue. He's pretty understated, he's made some amends, SEEMS to have resolved to be less of a shithead, and he's got this immortality thing figured out. It only took him 500 FUCKING YEARS. But again, Hob ISN'T fabulously wealthy as far as we can tell. He's not a megalomaniac and he STILL seems to be vibin' as just a dude doing Just A Dude things like HAVING A JOB and if we borrow from Hob's Leviathan a bit, he's STILL just jumping between industries, just living life down at the normal human level. He hasn't detached from humanity, he lives in the day to day on a level that's just INCONCEIVABLE for a being that's 500 years old.

1989 - Ok, moving on a bit from Hob being an immortal, because getting excited about technology like his brick phone is absolutely so charming I want to squish his cheeks, but he's hardly the only immortal to get excited about that. What I want to talk about is how HOB FORGIVES DREAM for 1889. Because, look, Dream is a prick there. Hob could have been more diplomatic but Dream could have waited for the apology and he didn't.

I have seen SO MANY TAKES where Hob would be MAD after 1889 and RIGHTFULLY SO. But he's NOT. He's not! There are so many fics where he has lingering hurt over it but that's just NOT what the character does! He blames himself! Guy did pretty much nothing wrong except maybe choose his words poorly, but he's blaming HIMSELF for making Dream uncomfortable. Absolute legend. Saints have nothing on this man, that is saint-like behavior. I'd be furious. Hob just misses his friend and BLAMES HIMSELF that Dream isn't there. Not an a single, microscopic trace of anger in sight.

2022 - And then, AND THEN, when he has EVERY REASON to flip out when Dream shows up, finally, after 133 YEARS, after Hob has APPARENTLY stuck around the area just in case, WAITING for him, what does this fucking legend say? "You're late."

THAT'S IT! He's not mad, he totally has a right to be! He doesn't jump out of his chair in shock, that would be a totally expected reaction to! He glances up! He acts like Dream is 5 minutes late instead of over a century WHAT IS THAT?? WHAT IS THAT?! HOW?!! They just settle back with a pint after that like it's nothing. That's not what I would do. I don't think that's what almost any human would do after a shock like that. I still can't wrap my head around it.

So anyway, Hob Gadling, absolutely FASCINATING character from the perspective of just not doing a single fucking thing you'd expect an immortal Just A Dude to do. Goddamn legend right there. Worth remembering for those like me who are obsessed enough to write this guy in fic. He is just so... opposite of everything you'd expect and that is so fucking sexy of him wow

[shads-shipposts]

Oh Allan. Your headaches are just beginning. But hey! At least Shadow isn't out to throw your ass in jail. Then again, perhaps the slammer would be preferable to the storm heading your way. 

I really enjoyed writing the exchange between Allan and Steven, but then again I always love writing Allan as a clever bastard. Him and Sakharine butting heads was also fun, as even if Sakharine is technically in charge... Allan isn't exactly at his mercy. The movie watered Allan down and had him often act scared or nervous around Sakharine but I really do feel like Allan (given his background and skillset) would be a bit harder to scare. He's probably in his forties, and there is a saying about fearing older men in a profession where men die young. 40s ain't "old", but he's no spring chicken. You don't survive in the drug-running business by being easily shaken. But even Al has lines he won't cross.

As always, be sure to leave a comment/vote if you enjoyed! 

Content Warning: Mention of sexual assault (it is only named as a concept)

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~Earlier~

What…

The actual fuck was that?

Had he just stumbled across an Alphian?

Who the hell else could shoot lightning from their hands?

Allan groaned, a hand gingerly gripping his chest as he sat somewhat bewildered on the sidewalk.

Sure, he’d suffered confusion when the bolt struck the ship he sailed with his first time at sea, where he had the misfortune of working on the deck chipping paint under the captain’s cruel threats of retaliation if he didn’t comply. Getting zapped with that much electricity tended to rattle you a bit, and even now Allan’s hands sometimes shook when the chronic nerve issues flared up.

But that was just general confusion.

This was concentrated on one single question; was that man, Trevor, an Alphian?

He’d easily bulldozed his way out of the circle after throwing Shadow to safety, knocking both Jesse Hatfeild and Tim Jones over with rather unnerving strength.

Strike one; Alphians were stronger pound for pound than a human.

He’d jumped three stories onto concrete without injury to help Shadow, or Allan assumed he did to get to street level so quickly.

Strike Two; Alphians were far more durable than a human and could take a little more wear and tear on the body.

Perhaps the most damning evidence of course was the small ball of electricity he’d thrown at Allan.

Strike Three; Alphians could wield a certain range of elements.

Ice, like Scarlett.

Lightning, like Trevor.

There were others, too; fire, darkness, earth, air, water.

If Trevor was an Alphian… then Shadow had a high likelihood of being one too.

Alphians rarely traveled alone, with those that could be found alone not to be approached under any circumstance as their confidence warned of immense power. Power no human could really hope to counter on their own without some form of magical aid.

Either Allan had two Alphians on his hands, or a very powerful Alphian who held no qualms about nearly sending Allan into cardiac arrest.

“Are you tryin’ to fuckin’ kill him?!”

Why the hell would Shadow, who they were “supposedly” strangers to, be concerned about his wellbeing? Especially when Allan just wrestled her to the sidewalk after slamming her into a wall?

Sent by Scarlett.

That was the only logical explanation for Shadow coming around the Karaboudjan. Only reason for her to not run screaming the moment Neil got too close.

Allan had certainly been shocked to see Shadow smack the man in the face, even if she claimed it was reflex. At least one theory, that of her having martial arts training, had been put to rest after that incident and her self-defense from the alley.

But…

No, she couldn’t have been sent by Scarlett. Tom’s question of her name shocked her, while Allan’s question about Scarlett floored her.

She knew Scarlett, and somehow knew of the crew at least enough to not be totally scared out of her wits when cornered, but didn’t know Scarlett and the crew were acquainted.

Perhaps if Allan explained the crew’s history with Scarlett, Shadow would calm down and offer answers about the Alphian. Even a last known location would be something.

Anything would be something.

He’d be damned if he let this source of information slip through his fingers.

“Al!”

Tom, coughing and wiping his eyes, knelt beside Allan.

“What happened? Where’d Shadow go?”

Allan, not quite able to get his tongue to form words yet, pointed down the street in the direction Trevor carried Shadow.

“She got away?!”

Allan glared at him and motioned towards himself before taking his cap off and pointing at where some of his hair still stood on end.

Tom’s watery eyes traveled there then back to Allan.

“What?”

Idiot…

“Al… Phian,” Allan managed.

Tom gasped, only to break into a coughing fit again. “Shadow’s an Alphian?”

“Another!?” Harry Hobbs hacked, waving the evaporating smoke away as he and Neil stumbled out of the alley followed by Nick Sullivan, Ollie Kuznetsov, and Wilfried Allard.

“Another what?” Nick coughed.

“Alphian!”

“Voice… down!” Allan snapped. “Not… the kid. Kid’s mate.”

“One who threw Shadow?” Ollie asked, fairing somewhat better than the rest of them as he’d luckily been wearing part of his mother’s scarf and was able to block some of the smoke out.

“Aye.”

“Help… me up,” Allan grunted at Tom, and after getting to his feet he turned to the others. “Get back to… to the ship. I’ll handle the… brawl.”

Work, damn it, he angrily scolded his tongue.

He’d never be able to get this taken care of if he couldn’t even tell his inside man what he wanted done.

“What about Shadow?” Tom asked. “Al, we can’t lose ‘er! Not if she knows about Scarlett.”

“Who?” Nick asked.

“Not now,” Ollie scolded the newest crewmate before turning to Allan. “We will handle docks. Go handle mess with police.”

“But I want to-hey!” Nick yelped as Ollie grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him down the street.

Tom tugged Allan’s arm. “Al, you gotta go after-”

“I can’t do shit from prison,” Allan interrupted, finally able to speak somewhat steadily again. “Soon as I handle… this.” He cursed as he had to take a breath. “We’ll go find ‘er.”

“What if she yaps?” Harry demanded.

“She won’t.”

Allan looked at Neil. “What makes you so certain?” he asked, even though he oddly agreed with the Australian.

Neil shrugged, wiping his nose as he gestured at the alley. “She took it so bloody easy on us. Soft style.”

“Tell that to my wrist,” Harry mumbled, twisting it back and forth.

“She didn’t break it. Didn’t slam me into the cobblestone. Didn’t break Tom’s ribs. Didn’t shoot Allan.” Neil shook his head. “Not sure why she’s soft on us, but she is. She won’t yap.”

Allan found himself agreeing with Neil’s logic, but still knew they couldn’t risk it. He’d have to make sure any reports she made, or anyone else made for that matter, were tossed.

“Go back,” Allan ordered. “Soon as I get this done, we’ll track ‘er down. She couldn’t ‘ave gone far.”

“What about ‘er sketchbook bag?” Neil offered. “May have an address on it.”

Allan nodded. “Good thinkin’,” he said, then turned to Tom. “Tell the boys, those that remember at least, we have a lead. But make it clear if anyone encounters Shadow, do not harm ‘er. Seems she can take a little roughness, I don’t she’ll play fair if things get taken too far.”

“Really think she could do damage, boss?” Harry asked.

“I certainly don’t think any of us want to find out the hard way,” Allan scoffed. “Tom, handle the boys.”

“On it.”

Leaving the group, Allan headed down the street for the police station.

“Dreams?”

“Yeah, dreams. I’m in one now.”

“You think this is a dream?”

“I mean, yeah. How else can I be here?”

“And tell us. Where exactly is here?”

“The docks where my favorite ship is.”

“Your favorite ship?”

“Aye.”

“And what is this ship called?”

“The Caroline.”

“I thought you based the Caroline off the Karaboudjan?”

“Can you not?!”

Dreams, huh? Shadow really thought she was dreaming? Sure, lying was a possibility, but he’d seen her lie.

Zero eye contact.

A nervous smile that showed too many teeth.

Slight reddening of the cheeks.

A shift of the stance.

When she’d mentioned dreams, there’d been only nonchalance and assurance. Direct eye contact, no smile, no flush of color.

She… honestly believed it was a dream.

Could she be right?

Why would she think that?

What did that have to do with Scarlett?

Questions questions questions.

So many damn questions.

He’d wished for months for clarity on Scarlett, or at the very least a lead. Now that he had one, confusion rooted itself even deeper.

Focus. Shelve it, got a job to do.

Keeping the cops off their tails was more important right now, as much as he hated to admit it.

He wanted to hunt Shadow down himself and question them, but he couldn’t very well do that from prison.

To his relief, the cop he was looking for stood at the front desk; Steven, a crooked but reliable cop that was loyal to Allan.

He could make any… unflattering reports vanish into smoke. Highly valuable in Allan’s less than legal line of work. There were some things he wouldn’t stomach, but those things Allan didn’t deal in anyways.

Steven knew how to be discreet, subtle, and ask careful questions that wouldn’t raise the suspicions of his fellow officers. But Allan always was good at reading between the lines, and Steven’s somewhat cryptic language was never any issue for him.

“Mornin’, Allan,” he greeted, gesturing for Allan to follow him into his office. “What can I do ya for?”

“Is there something I should be ready to sweep under the rug?”

“Mornin’, Steven,” Allan said pleasantly. “Slow mornin’?”

“I don’t know, have you had any reports so far?”

“Mostly,” Steven said, leaning on his desk. “Did have a report of a scuffle at the docks.”

“There was a fight, and yes it’s been officially documented already.”

Shit, the kid had been here then.

“Who brought it in?” Allan asked, leaving the door open behind him to avoid suspicion.

“Describe them.”

“Guy dressed to the nines came in carryin’ on about damn dockworkers. Mid-seventies, rather short, brown hair that started a bit far back.”

“Fancy old guy filed the complaints.”

Wait, that didn’t sound like the kid at all.

“Typical suits,” Allan commented. “Always findin’ a reason to complain about men who actually know what hard work is. What’d he whine about?”

“I need more information.”

“Just the usual, gripin’ about dockworkers gettin’ into scraps and spillin’ out into the streets. Don’t think one o’ the brawlers was a man, though.” He shrugged. “Though it wasn’t easy to tell when she walked by.”

“There was a young woman involved, but she was dressed more masculine.”

“Oh?”

“More details.”

“Don’t think I’ll forget ‘er any time soon, though. Aside from the American accent, purple hair is a pretty unique thing.”

“Did you see anyone like that?”

“Don’t see that everyday,” Allan said slowly. “Very memorable.”

“I did in fact see that and she was in fact the person I’m here about.”

“No kidding. But whatever she got involved with, it wasn’t big enough of a deal to come to us. Left just now actually, heading for the market.”

“She seemed ready to keep it to herself as she headed for the marketplace. You just missed her.”

“She didn’t stop in?”

“Did she file a complaint at all?”

“I went out to talk to ‘er, but she said not to worry about it. Said she ran into old friends of hers and mutual asskickin’ is just, and I quote, how she shows affection.”

“No, and even downplayed what happened. She doesn’t have any plans to make a fuss.”

So not only had Shadow not gone to the police but she also brushed off the concerns and even called Allan and his men “old friends”. Not to mention she was unbothered enough to joke about the whole thing. Most people would have immediately run crying to the cops, especially when they had a clear look at faces and even knew the names.

Not Shadow.

Very peculiar.

What’s your game, Shadow? What are you up to?

“Did you see the… reunion?” Steven asked, the look on his face making it clear he didn’t quite know what to make of Shadow.

“Were you involved in the fight?”

“Think I was a part of it,” Allan muttered, glancing at the door.

“Yes, I fought her directly.”

Steven nodded. “The sailor the suit described with the purple haired kid sounded like Neil. Said he nearly wrecked his car to avoid ‘em when they rolled into the street.”

“I thought so.”

“Yeah, the kid tackled ‘im when playin’ ‘round with Ollie and Nick.”

“She was runnin’ from the pair and ran right into ‘im.”

“Well, happy you boys have a…friend.” Steven raised a brow as he said the last word.

“Is this something I need to watch for?”

“Me too. She’s a trouble maker, that one. Keep an eye out, if she gets into again let me know. I’ll straighten ‘er out.”

“She’s meddling, but no need to deal with her. I can handle it. Just keep it quiet.”

“Don’t be too hard on ‘er,” Steven said. “Seems like a good kid, be a shame to see that spirit crushed.”

“Don’t hurt her, she’s not a threat to your operations.”

“She’s tough, she’ll be fine.”

“I have no such plans. Think I like her spirit anyways.”

After bidding Steven farewell, Allan stopped just outside and leaned on the wall to gather his thoughts on the oddity that was this Shadow, and what the next course of action should be.

The kid certainly had his respect for being willing to fight even when outnumbered, and being able to banter even with odds stacked against her.

Self assurance, another tell for a more extensive background in martial arts.

But also wise enough to know that running from a fight was usually the best option. Only those who had never been in a fight actively sought one out. Allan only let the brawl happen because he could tell Shadow wasn’t acting like a desperate animal backed into a corner who would go scorched earth to escape.

She’d had at least a year or two of training, as the control she exhibited wasn’t something you found in newer trainees. As you advanced, you had a better grasp of how much power to use in different situations. Shadow had mostly parried and redirected their attacks, only striking when forced. Even then, while her kick had certainly hurt and knocked both Harry and Allan himself off their feet, Allan knew she’d pulled it. Not to mention the location of the strike was in the more yielding part of the body rather than the less malleable knee or manhood.

As Ollie had said, dedicated enough to fight but not desperate enough to maim.

For one reason or another, Shadow knew enough about them to trust they wouldn’t truly harm her or take advantage of her. Not enough to simply roll over and show her belly, but enough that she’d allow for roughhousing and sparring without going full bore

Let’s see how far that trust goes.

It was one thing in public. But if they showed up near where she lived, that would be another thing.

Unless he could catch her in the marketplace.

A joke could put her more at ease, letting her know that he harbored no ill will. Unlike many occasions, where he used such a tactic to bring people’s guards down so he could get close enough to take them out, it would be a genuine assurance.

The kid had guts, and even if they were to be complete adversaries Allan could still appreciate a fighting spirit and a sharp wit.

It took all the fun out of things if his opponent couldn’t spar with words as well as fists.

But his possible reunion with Shadow was ruined when he recognized a familiar car, the tires a bit too shiny and paint a bit too crisp, pull up beside him.

Not now!

Predictably, the back door opened and a familiar head poked out. “Get in.”

“Yes, boss?” Allan asked through gritted teeth, unable to fully hide his anger as he ducked inside and Nestor drove them back towards the docks.

At least the car had forward and backwards facing seats so he didn’t have to sit next to Sakharine.

Blue eyes the color of ice narrowed, and a cane prodded his leg. “Mind your tongue.”

I’d like very much to cut yours out and force feed it to you, but we don’t always get what we want.

While Allan had a sneaking suspicion Nestor would just mind his business and look the other way, as he never seemed overly pleased with Sakharine’s melodramatic ramblings, killing the aristocrat would just leave Allan back at square one with his other boss.

The moment I no longer need you for money, you’re fishfood.

“I need you to bring some of your men to Marlinspike by three pm today. There is another player in this game who knows about our search, and will possibly need to be dealt with before she makes herself too much of a nuisance.”

Great. Wonderful. Fan-fucking-tastic.

Now he’d be derailed from the search for Shadow even more-

“Did you say she?” Allan exclaimed.

Sakharine scoffed. “Do not flatter yourself. She is not for your crew.”

Anger sparked in Allan’s chest and he leaned forward. “With all due respect, boss,” he warned, voice low. “I have made it known I will not tolerate any rape of any kind. I don’t care what schemes you have, that is out of the question. Am I clear?”

“You are in no position to make demands or set the rules.”

Allan didn’t flinch, glare sharpening. “Am. I. Clear?”

Sakharine held his gaze, but eventually he awkwardly cleared his throat and averted his eyes. “She does not know what she meddles in. She can simply be held on the ship, unharmed, should she not prove useful.”

Allan leaned back in the seat, arms draped over the back of the cushion. A deep thrill of satisfaction ran through him at Sakharine’s caged and shifty body language, the man fiddling with the head of his cane.

All talk, no bite.

“This woman,” Allan drawled, his control of the situation helping calm his anger and clear his head. “Describe her.”

If it is who I think it is…

“Young, American, and absolutely filthy. Covered in mud and dirt, masquerading in men’s clothes, with the most atrocious hair.”

“Purple?”

Sakharine looked at him sharply. “You know this woman?”

Not sure.

“I do. Name’s Shadow, she was at the docks.”

“Doing what?” Sakharine demanded.

Giving me a migraine.

“Lookin’ at the ship. Even made some sketches in her notebook of it, but not of us. She’s harmless.”

At least as far as our operations go. She can pack a punch, though.

“And you believe her lies?”

“Tom looked through it and showed me, it’s just ship sketches.”

“You put your faith in him?”

Allan said nothing, eyes narrowed in warning.

Sakharine cleared his throat and scoffed again, waving his hand dismissively. “This woman clearly thinks she’s smarter than me. Thinks I wouldn’t find out about her escapades? Thinks she can outwit me?”

She probably could. You wouldn’t last two seconds against her, because when she insults she goes for the throat. They’re creative, too, so good luck beating her.

“Well, she will learn to keep her nose out of affairs that do not concern her,” Sakharine continued. “One way or another, she will learn.”

Problem was, even if the larger hunt for the treasure didn’t concern Shadow, the crew did. Allan didn’t know how the hell she knew about them, or how she knew about Scarlett, but even if she was surprised by Allan knowing Scarlett’s name…

The way she knew the crew and knew Scarlett were connected.

Allan just had to figure out how.

Could… she be Scarlett?

Some… reincarnation?

Spotty memory loss would explain how she knew of the crew and of Scarlett, but didn’t know how the crew knew Scarlett.

Or maybe Scarlett had just mentioned them?

No, then Shadow wouldn’t have been shocked Allan knew Scarlett’s name.

Reincarnation was looking likely, outlandish as it was.

Would also explain why both this new American and Scarlett both used the name “Shadow”.

“Three pm, then?” Allan said as they arrived at the docks.

Sakharine nodded. “Do not be late,” he ordered as Allan exited the car. “I will not tolerate failure.”

“Yeah yeah,” Allan mumbled under his breath after closing the door.

Tom immediately joined him. “Found Shadow’s bag, full of pencils and another sketchbook of ship details, but there’s no address,” he reported, crestfallen. “Any luck?”

“Guess who I just missed at the station?”

Tom paled. “Shadow?”

Allan nodded. “Get this, she would have walked right by if Steven hadn’t stopped her.”

Tom’s expression shifted from worry to confusion. “She… wasn’t goin’ to report the fight?”

“No, the kid even said we were old friends. Also joked that ‘mutual asskickin’’ is how she shows affection.”

“Did you find ‘er afterwards?”

“No, boss stopped me.”

“Damn!” Tom spat, kicking a nearby crate.

Allan rested a hand on his shoulder, pulling him back before he could punch another crate. “To tell us to meet at Marlinspike. Because there’s apparently someone who knows about the end of the rainbow.”

Tom turned to him, puzzled. “Who?”

“An American. With purple hair.”

Tom gasped. “You’re shittin’ me.”

Allan shook his head. “Boss thinks he’s got ‘er tricked, but I think she’s playin’ him.”

“Don’t think she knows he’s with us, do ya?”

“She willingly agreed to go to Marlinspike without any sort of fight, as far as I know. So I’d bet on ‘er knowin’ we’ll be there.”

“Why the fuck would she come then?” Tom asked. “Said it ‘erself, goin’ alone with strangers is how she ends up missin’.”

“Guess she’s as curious about us as we are about her.”

“Al, she’s gotta know somethin’ ‘bout Scarlett. She has to!” Tom stressed. “We can’t let the boss hurt ‘er or drive ‘er off.”

“That’s the last thing on my mind. Shadow wants to get involved?” Allan looked towards town. “Wants to learn about us? About ships? Let’s get ‘er aboard. Grab Neil, and Harry. Shadow’s fought ‘em before and played nice, so odds are she’ll play nice again.”

Tom nodded eagerly and raced off to grab the pair, leaving Allan to stare towards town again.

“Think this is a game?”

“Play ball, bitch.”

At the moment, a sort of unspoken agreement existed between them and Shadow. It didn’t matter if things got rough, true animosity was kept at bay so long as neither side went too far. For Allan and his men, they would pull their punches and focus on subduing Shadow rather than outright breaking something. In return, Shadow didn’t use the staples of self-defense; strikes to the knees, nose, or manhood.

The moment either party crossed the line, all bets were off and things would turn very nasty very quick.

Allan didn’t want it to come to that.

If this kid had a connection to Scarlett, and knew what happened to her and maybe even why the crew’s memory was damaged regarding Scarlett, he couldn’t risk permanently alienating her.

Shadow knew something, and something was better than nothing. There were just too many things linking up for it to be mere coincidence. Too many odd circumstances for this to be ignored.

This was one hell of a mystery, and Allan was determined to get to the bottom of it.

No matter what. 

[specialagent836]

"You've got shit instincts for a battler. How the fuck're you still alive?"

Hands run over a very tired face. The superficial wounds from the deadly experience had healed, but the fatigue would still linger for days to come. But, the world still moved on, and he had promises to keep. People still needed help. One of them was standing with disbelief in his survival.

"I'm not as shit as you think, but you're right. I would be very dead if not for the people around me."

Dead more than once.

"There are many things in this world that don't make any sense when they are explained. You know this to be true. You asked for my help with the unexplainable in Hoenn. Let's just say I remember what happened when I left this dimension this time."

May was highly capable of conceptualizing what had happened to him and how his body was changed from death. However, they were hardly allies. He wanted to trust her, but that would take time. Time and effort on his part to prove to her his usefulness. For now, she could think he was shit at survival. Didn't mean anything. Not when the saying goes, fear an old man in a profession where men die young. And he was becoming an old man whether he liked it or not.

[thelordstears]

Dovir, despite his calm and sagely demeanor, expresses his anger in the most violent, heart wrenchingly sorrowful way possible. He'll express his disdain towards violence, but will assure you that he's fully capable of killing you in every way known to man. To put it simply, when he's angry, you'd best get out of his way.

#He's gonna hurt you #Fear an old man in a profession where men die young #Don't underestimate the friendly sage

Tav Question

How does your Tav express their anger?

[happylittledrabbles]

choke me!

Rating: 18+

DO NOT READ IF UNDER 18, NO MINORS!!!

Fandom: Attack on Titan

Pairing: Reiner Braun x Eren Yeager

—

"It's been four years, Reiner."

Reiner never thought he'd see Eren again. And yet there he was, sitting in front of him. The two exchange some heated words until Eren has had enough and lunges at Reiner, pinning him against the wall by the throat.

Except, instead of a cry or a shout, Reiner's reaction is a lot more...unexpected.

"Did you just...moan?"

Choking kink fic, basically.

AO3

—

“It’s been four years, Reiner.”

The last person Reiner Braun expected to see tonight was Eren fucking Yeager. He knew he’d see Eren again eventually, he just figured it’d be when Eren was killing him or he was killing the damned menace.

He didn’t think the reunion would be so soon.

They had warned that if Eren were to attack Marley at any time, it’d be tonight. But he had had so much fun at the fair with the kids that he hadn’t fully registered that Eren Yeager still existed. All he could think about was how happy he was to finally be out of that hell that was called Paradis and away from seeing the devils he had grown to love die at the hands of his own people. And he thought he had finally escaped it, except now, the biggest threat among both of their worlds was sitting right in front of him.

“H-how…” No thoughts in his head. There was nothing. Eren’s expression was so calm, it was mocking in comparison to the panic running amok in the blond’s chest.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking in these four years, Reiner Braun.” His name sounded like pure acid on Eren’s tongue. Even if Eren kept his tone measured, Reiner’s name still came out like two spears that pierced him directly in the heart.

“A lot of thinking about how you betrayed us. About how you killed Marco. About how you were my role model. A big brother, really.”

Nausea swirled in his stomach like a hot pit of lava, and he couldn’t help but step back and bump into Falco, who was also petrified; the two of them stilled like perfect marble statues. Reiner had tried hard to forget he ever interacted with Eren, nevermind considered him a friend. There were many times when they were alone together that he almost professed that he was the Armored Titan because he felt so close to him. He felt pride whenever he watched Eren succeed, even though he should have been actively distancing himself from him in preparation for the big operation. When he was supposed to not feel anything at all after breaking through Wall Maria and effectively killing everybody Eren knew, he locked himself in a room and cried and screamed for hours until Bertholdt came in and had to pry his hands from the table and hug him until his other personality took over, and he felt nothing again.

Oh, how he wished his other personality took over now. Then he wouldn’t be able to feel the crippling fear resonating throughout his entire body. Then he wouldn’t be able to feel the pure dread cross his face as Eren grew his missing leg back and stood up, instinctively hugging his arms behind him to make sure Falco was protected.

“I won’t hurt him,” Eren said, his visible eye dropping to the young boy staring at him with stormy blue eyes, wide with terror. He snickered. “Maybe he’ll get caught in the fallout. But, I won’t hurt him now, if that’s what you’re wondering. In fact...” He gestured with his hand for Falco to leave, giving him a chilling smile that he meant to be reassuring. “Go ahead and leave, kiddo. This shouldn’t take long. I just need to talk to my old pal Reiner here.”

“Don’t talk to him,” Reiner whispered shakily, but eventually let Falco go and pushed him forward. “Go. Run as far away as you can. I’ll handle this.” If anything happened, he wanted Falco as far away from the site of disaster as possible.

He turned back to Eren and noticed he was several inches taller than when he last saw him. It made sense; he was a grown adult man now, but it was still a shock. He was so used to peering down at Eren and resting his arm on top of his head, ruffling his hair, tipping his chin back to make eye contact with him. But now, if he slouched even a bit, he’d be shorter.

“How cute. You used to be protective over me like that,” Eren said with a bitter laugh, beginning to step forward when Reiner stepped back and nearly tripped over a chair in response. “What, are you scared of me? Ha. I remember when—”

“Stop!” Reiner cried, slapping his hands over his ears and shaking his head emphatically. “I don’t want to hear it! I don’t—”

“Don’t want to hear what, Reiner? How we used to be friends? How I looked up to you? How we shared so many good times together?” He picked up the chair he was sitting in and smashed it to the ground, the wood strewn across the ground like puzzle pieces. Reiner flinched at the echo of the crackling wood, his hands balling into fists at his sides. Eren blew the splinters off his palms and clapped them together to get rid of the rest of the debris as he walked leisurely around the room with his freshly grown leg, circling Reiner like a hawk to its prey.

“Did you feel anything when you killed Marco? Did you feel anything when I told you my mom was eaten? Knowing it was all your goddamn fault?!” Eren roared, his eye a ball of flaming green fire.

“I—”

“No, you didn’t feel anything. Because if you felt anything, you wouldn’t have tried so hard to get close to me.” Eren unraveled the bandages around his face to reveal his other eye, somehow making the fury blazing in his stare even more potent. He let the bandages drop to the ground, the fabric twisting and turning gently as they fell into a pile. Reiner blinked slowly, so slowly it would have seemed he fell asleep for a moment. He stepped forward, about to reach out to Eren when his breath hitched in his throat, his lungs refusing to expand as he was yet again face-to-face with the boy—man—he had ruined the life of and had grown close to, all at the same time.

He took a deep breath once his lungs began to function again, closing his eyes to block out Eren’s intense glare.

“I was always your friend, Eren,” he clarified, taking the chance to raise his arm up and reach out to the other man in hopes of understanding, of doing something to prevent whatever he was about to do. He flinched at the sound of applause outside, a horrifying reminder of the sheer number of people outside that Eren could so easily massacre in the span of a minute if he transformed. If only he could teleport and tell Willy to get everybody the hell out of there. But alas, he was confined to this basement with nobody other than the embodiment of the Attack Titan.

“Please believe me,” he pleaded, a hopeful yet terrified smile pulling at the corner of his lips as he watched Eren’s expression soften. “I’ve always liked you.”

But Eren’s expression wasn’t softening. It was merely morphing into one of mockery, disdain sharpening in his glare and piercing his chest like a lion’s claws ripping into its prey. He never felt weaker than at that moment.

“Don’t,” he huffed, taking a deep breath before shrieking, “ patronize me! ”

He descended upon Reiner with superhuman speed, gripping his outstretched wrist and pinning it against the wall along with the rest of his body, raising his forearm up and pressing it against Reiner’s neck. He expected Reiner to scream, grunt, curse, or exhale sharply, but the last thing he expected to hear was—

“ Ah-nn!”

It was almost comical how stiff the two men went at the sound, their eyes widening at the same time as they simply stared at each other. In awe, fright, surprise, or a mixture of all three. Reiner couldn’t gather what Eren was thinking from his unreadable expression, but all he knew was that his face was bright red, his heart was racing, and his body was being far too receptive to the heavy weight on his windpipe.

And all Eren knew was that he quickly found out that he liked this just as much as Reiner so obviously did as well.

“Did you just...moan?” Eren whispered, his eyebrow quirking in intrigue. He moved his forearm forward, pressing more of his body weight into Reiner, eliciting yet another sound of pleasure from the other’s thin lips.

“N-no— mmn!” The feeling of his windpipe and the sides of his neck being pressed in together was a feeling that left Reiner’s knees weak, his eyelids growing heavy as endorphins danced around his brain, leaving him in a state of swoon.

As Reiner struggled to stay standing, all Eren could do was stare in pure shock at the scene before him. Never had he seen Reiner come undone so quickly and so easily before, not even when he came across Bertholdt fucking him brilliantly in the outhouse during training. He looked, frankly, bored, as if he was putting on a scene for the other. Perhaps it really was a good thing the beanpole died. Now, Eren could play around with that expression of pure ecstasy without worrying that a seven-foot-tall bag of bones would try and slap him with those gangly limbs.

“Interesting…” Eren trailed off, his tongue wetting his lips as he dropped his forearm, allowing Reiner to gasp for breath and cough. The blond’s hand snaked up to his own throat, making sure it was okay, although its trail was hesitant, bewildered. Was this discovery also new to Reiner himself?

“So...this is new to you, too?” he dared to ask, his hand twitching to replace Reiner’s and uncover that never-before-seen expression on the other’s face once again.

Reiner scoffed and swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing at the resistance his throat gave. “Shut up.”

“I mean, no wonder you always looked so bored when Bertholdt was fucking you,” Eren continued with a shrug as he looked around the room. He smirked, his eyes drifting to Reiner’s, mischief glinting conspicuously in both of them. “You needed something else to get you off.”

Reiner’s confusion was palpable, his agape mouth transforming into a sneer once he realized what Eren was talking about. His face had already been red, but now it was a deep scarlet as his mind ran back and quickly figured out that the shadow outside the window of the outhouse had, indeed, been Eren Yeager. How long had the little bastard been there? He was...busy during that time, so he lost track of the shadow outside once they changed positions. Had Eren...been watching them? Not merely passing by and getting surprised by the sight?

“I said shut the fuck up,” Reiner growled, pushing himself off the wall to leave. However, Eren’s hand clamped down on his throat, pushing him back in the wall and causing his head to thump off the concrete. “Shit!” He tried to gasp, but the force pressing against the sides of his throat was even stronger than before, with more purpose, causing his gasp to morph into a squeal.

“Did I say you could leave?” Eren murmured, leaning forward so that his lips tickled the shell of the other’s ear. He licked a trail on the outside of Reiner’s ear, causing the other to release another strained gasp and squirm under the weight of his hand. Perhaps this awakened something in him, too, because his body was reacting just like Reiner’s was. He couldn’t stop his hand no matter how much he tried; the expression and small whimpers the blond was making underneath him were like pure opium.

“Eren! Ere— oh,” Reiner cried, his clawing at Eren’s hand halting once the brunet’s lips fell to the junction of his jaw and neck, sucking feverishly at the soft skin that wasn’t taken up by his tense fingers. Once he came to after the sensation roiled him up, he exclaimed, “W-what are you doing? Eren, stop—”

“Stop?” Eren chuckled, his other hand dropping to Reiner’s crotch, which was painfully swollen and twitched as his knuckles brushed against it, drawing out a delicious moan from the throat underneath his hold. “And let you leave like this? How rude would that be of me, especially since I was the cause of this?” He paused, a pensive look replacing his devious one. “I mean, if you really want me to, I’ll stop.”

He stepped back, releasing Reiner’s throat and holding his hands up in the air. He tried to suppress the devilish grin that threatened to come out, keeping his face neutral. “I stopped.”

But it was nearly impossible to suppress the grin any longer as he watched Reiner’s expression morph from pure pleasure to confusion to, finally, loss. His trembling hands came up to reconvey the place where Eren’s hand was, an angry red bruise beginning to bloom at the sides of his neck as if trying to see if the hand was truly gone. His eyes dropped to his own crotch, wincing at the sight of it as well as, probably, the pain his constrictive pants were giving him.

“I…” Reiner was both at a loss for words. His eyes searched the room until they fell upon Eren again, a sort of pleading in them. He wanted Eren to read his mind so that he didn’t have to embarrass himself by begging do it again, please come here and choke me and fuck me— but all Eren did was stand there, which was somehow more infuriating than listening to him whisper humiliating things into his ear.

“...come here,” he mumbled, rubbing his forearm nervously. He didn’t dare make eye contact, staring down at the floor as if it’d kill him to look up and meet Eren’s undoubtedly jeering eyes.

“What? I couldn’t hear you?” Eren cupped his hand behind his ear and leaned forward, causing Reiner to suck on his teeth and ball his hands into fists at his sides.

“You’ve always been a little shit, haven’t you?” Reiner grumbled, his arm shooting out and gripping Eren’s wrist, bringing it up and guiding the other’s hand around his throat. “I said—”

“Ah-ah,” Eren interrupted, shaking his head. His hand stayed limp around Reiner’s throat, his other hand sitting comfortably in the pocket of his trousers. “You have to prove to me how much you want it.” He tipped his chin up, gazing at Reiner underneath heavy eyelids, shifting his weight onto one foot.

“Beg.”

“Wha-wha—” Reiner spluttered, his eyes wide and his grip on Eren’s wrist getting tighter and tighter. “What?” As much as he was surprised, his body very much was not. It took in the simple word like an aphrodisiac, his shoulders and cheeks getting even redder and his crotch getting even more painful.

“You heard what I said,” Eren taunted, licking his lips as he closed the gap between them, halting right before his lips. “Beg. Or else I’ll leave you like a bitch in heat.”

When had Eren grown so domineering? He had always had a certain gusto about him, some confidence that propelled him forward, even if it made him look like a loser. He didn’t give up during the ODM training even when it was clearly rigged against him. He made the broken thing work. It was pure rage that was fueling him, but...when had lust taken over? When had the fury in his eyes melted into hot ardor? Had he...always felt that way about Reiner?

“Eren…” he trailed off, trying to muster up the courage to actually beg. God, this was humiliating. How the hell did they even get here? What were they doing? But he couldn’t let Eren leave and kill all those people. And he certainly couldn’t fight in this condition. As much as it was dehumanizing, Eren was right. It felt as if he was in heat, his entire body boiling and in need of an electric touch.

“Choke me, please.”

“Yawn. Do better.”

“C-choke me, hard.” Reiner’s eyes rolled partly up as he felt the pressure of Eren’s hand growing around his neck, unable to restrain his outburst: “Harder! Please, choke me—touch me...ugh…”

The pressure had returned, and the physical incapability of speaking due to his constricted windpipe replaced his emotional incapability due to his dignity. But what dignity did he have now? All he could do now was completely let go.

“Fuck, yes! E-Eren, I—” He gasped when the pressure finally returned to its previous state, giving his body its much-needed dose of aggression. “I want you to f...f-fuck me.”

Eren chuckled, deep and dark, and before the other knew it, they were smashing lips, a violent exchange of saliva and pleasure.

“I thought you’d never ask,” he murmured against Reiner’s lips, both of them panting after the impromptu makeout session. He smirked as he slipped his other hand out of his pocket and trailed it down Reiner’s chest, stopping at his pecs and giving them a generous squeeze, earning him a grunt from the blond. “To be honest, I thought you’d come just from me choking you. Kind of pathetic, don’t you think?”

Reiner’s eyes were tightly squeezed shut, biting his bottom lip to prevent any more embarrassing sounds from slipping out.

“S-shut up.” But that couldn’t have been less convincing. The affinity for choking was new, but the chest fondling was old news. The training camp had been torture for him since there were way too many instances of people accidentally brushing against his pecs or nipples, almost causing him to rupture a blood vessel from trying to suppress a squeak.

But Eren was taking full advantage of having it right in front of him, diving his face into them and massaging them with his free hand with a voracious speed as if they’d disappear.

“These have grown a lot, haven’t they?” Eren jeered, pulling back his choking hand to strip Reiner of the top half of his clothing to be even closer to those soft pecs. The second the fabric had been removed, his choking hand returned and he dove right back in, leaving a trail of hickeys on the cleavage made by his pecs.

“Eren! E—a-ah—”

“I’d say they’re almost D cups, I think,” he continued, his voice muffled from the masses of muscle. He pulled back slightly, eyeing them for a moment before opening his mouth and clamping his teeth around the perfectly pink and perky nipple, leaving deep marks in the velvety areola.

“AH! What the—ow!” Reiner’s eyelids shot open, looking to see what the hell Eren was doing down there. All he saw was him grinning proudly, his hand coming up to stroke the bitemarks and not-so-accidentally passing over the nipple, giving it a gentle squeeze and flick. “Eren, the fuck?”

“Get down on your knees,” Eren commanded, and Reiner found himself on autopilot at the conviction in the other’s voice, his knees wobbling before dropping to the floor in compliance. He kept his eyes on Eren’s knees, his previous bashfulness returning; how could he make eye contact like this? He knew what was going to happen next: the horrendous blush on his face and chest made it quite clear.

Meanwhile, Eren was taking his time enjoying the view under him. He bit his bottom lip, letting out another chuckle as he shook his head. “You know, Reiner, I always looked up to you. I never thought I’d see you like this. So...submissive.” He tipped Reiner’s chin up gently with his finger to get the other to meet his eyes. “You never let me get the upper hand in training. You were the one making me drop to my knees.” He frowned. “But now you’re looking up to me. Funny how that works, huh? It only took the murder of an entire village of people and my mom to get you like this.”

Eren teasing him about his choking kink was humiliating. Being on his knees to somebody he saw as a little brother, about to commit even more sinful acts, was humiliating. But being constantly reminded of all the atrocities he committed against his friends was pure torture. It was putting quite a damper on his mood, but he couldn’t exactly tell Eren to stop talking about it because he’d only jeer him more. The only way he could think to get Eren to shut up was…

He dove forward, opening his mouth and wrapping his lips around the bulge in Eren’s trousers, his hand coming up to further massage it. His trousers smelled of grass and disinfectant, but the distraction was clearly working, seeing as Eren’s agape mouth stopped forming words and only allowed a shuddering breath to pass through.

“You’re eager, eh? Alright, I’ll give you what you want.” With one swift motion, he unbuckled his belt and was about to let it drop to the floor, but his eyes flashed with intrigue as they switched between Reiner’s neck and the leather. “On second thought…”

He wrapped it around Reiner’s neck, and before the blond could say anything, he zipped the belt until it was pressed tightly against the pallid skin underneath, already causing it to pinken from irritation. He poked a new hole into the leather, sliding it through and returning his hands to unbutton his trousers.

“You look like a dog,” Eren scoffed. Once his trousers were unbuttoned, he pushed them down only slightly; he didn’t expect this to take too long, seeing as how undone Reiner already was. He gripped the other’s jaw tightly in his hand, maneuvering the chiseled face to look up at him. “Bark for me.”

Reiner, who was still processing the belt around his neck, spluttered about and furiously shook his head, trying to get it out of Eren’s grip. “Hell no! I’m not a damn dog.”

“Hm. Shame.” Eren’s grip on him lessened, only for it to return full force when he transferred it from his muscled jaw to his short hair, the locks sticking straight up in between his fingers. “Then put your mouth to good use.”

Reiner was going to object, but the warmth radiating from in front of him made him drop his eyes to be faced with what looked like an iron rod underneath the linen fabric of Eren’s drawers. He gulped at the sight; if this didn’t fit in his mouth, how the hell was this going to go inside of him? He would have cursed himself for thinking that far ahead, but the act was inevitable—Eren was going to fuck his brains out.

He took a deep breath and leaned forward, pressing a hesitant kiss to the tip wetting the fabric with precum practically sticking up out of the top. He had caught flashes of Eren naked whenever they came across a hot spring or all the boys bathed together, and what was in front of him hardly compared to what he had seen back then. Eren truly had grown in more ways than one.

He shakily lifted a hand and moved the fabric out of the way, allowing Eren’s cock to spring up proudly, almost as if he was mocking Reiner and his need for it. He licked his lips and leaned forward, licking from the base to the tip with a flat tongue, practically drooling over it with the amount of need swirling in his chest.

“F...uck,” Eren groaned, tipping his chin up as his grip on Reiner’s hair tightened. “Got a lot of practice with Bertholdt, I see.”

Just at the mention of Bertholdt, Reiner sped up his stroking and licking, yet again hoping this method would get Eren to shut up and to produce more of those sounds of pleasure. Sure, he seemed to be dominant in this dynamic, but Reiner was the one who held the most power as of now. He could leave Eren blue-balled and walk away, or Eren could do the same to him. They were caught in a lustful dance of power, and neither wanted to walk away, as sinful as it was.

“Wait, you’re going too— shit!” The grip on his hair was growing painful, and it only grew tighter when he opened his mouth wide and engulfed Eren’s cock up to the middle, using his tongue all the while to lap up his drool and his hand to stroke the places his mouth couldn’t reach. He very much successfully got Eren to shut the fuck up, and he smiled to himself as he graciously lent his throat as a substitute for yelling at him to be quiet.

“What a fucking slut,” Eren chuckled, brushing the few long locks of hair that flopped into Reiner’s eyes, tipping his chin up slightly to meet his eyes. “Look at me while you do it.”

Pervert, Reiner thought, but he wasn’t all that different himself, for he looked up at lightning speed and locked eyes with the commandeering man above him, feeling precum and saliva running down his beard. That’ll be a bitch to clean.

“Good.” Just that word was enough to send chills down his spine, his eyelids fluttering with pleasure as he reached his hand that wasn’t busy stroking down between his legs, trying to soothe the throbbing pain spreading in his groin. But he was interrupted by Eren groaning and his grip on his hair turning into stone.

“Since you wanna go so fast,” he murmured, cocking his head curiously before pulling Reiner all the way down his cock, the other’s nose nestling in the happy trail leading down his stomach.

GURK!

“It’s satisfying to see you choking on me,” he laughed, tossing his head back to let out a moan as he could feel Reiner’s throat tightening and moving around him, the softness of the back of his mouth leaving him breathless. “I’ll fuck you in a second, but in the meantime…”

He gave an experimental thrust, slow and shallow, leading to more gurgling and choking noises from the man below him, drool beginning to build up in the corners of his mouth and dribble down his chin. Reiner’s hands flung out to grip Eren’s thighs, trying to process the fact that he was being facefucked.

“Mmgh—nngf!” He tried desperately to slurp up as much drool as he could, but it was beginning to pour now, down his chin and onto the floor, gathering into a pool near his knees. His eyes were watering, the tears accumulating in the corners of his eyes.

“F-fuck yeah,” Eren growled. Now equipped with more confidence, he pulled out of Reiner’s mouth partly—giving the other a short sense of relief—before snapping his hips forward, lodging himself deep down in his throat. A horrid gagging sound released itself from his throat, squeezing between his cheeks and Eren’s cock. His stomach dry-heaved, but he had hardly any time to recuperate before Eren launched back into thrusting himself over and over into his mouth.

“Hah— fuck, this is good,” he groaned, a smirk ever-present on his lips. He could feel Reiner’s throat straining against the belt as it expanded, which only provided even more tightness. However, his smirk disappeared once he felt a familiar warmth building up in his stomach, signaling he was almost at his end. He lowered his head from the thrown-back position it had been in before, and he almost finished on the spot when he saw the lewdness on Reiner’s face. The blond was beet red, his cheeks looking as if he had been slapped over and over—which he had somewhat been, with Eren’s stomach—his mouth berry red and stretched to accommodate the cock he was sucking so deliciously, gobs of spit running down his chin, and tears trailing down those highlighter-red cheeks. God, he looked gorgeous.

“Well,” he mumbled, pulling out of Reiner’s mouth and allowing him a moment to breathe and cough out all the phlegm and irritation gathered up in his throat. He only added more spit to the pool in front of him, falling onto hands and knees as he spat out the last of the spit and precum that accumulated in his throat.

Eren let out an exasperated breath, rolling his eyes as he buried his hand in Reiner’s hair again and roughly tugged him up to his feet, the other whining and complaining the entire way. He faced the blond for only a second before turning him around to face the wall and shoved him against it, his chest pressed against the cold stone. While his hand was busy holding Reiner’s wrists together behind his back, the other trailed down to grip his ass, giving it a firm squeeze before slipping it underneath the waistband of his trousers.

“Your mouth pussy was fantastic, but I want to use the real one,” he explained, his lips leaving the tip of Reiner’s ears bright red as he stroked the soft skin underneath his hand and cupped the mounds of well-built muscle. “What a bubble butt. Heh, you really worked hard on this. If your muscles are this tight, I can’t imagine your asshole.”

“Mm!” Reiner whimpered, his shoulders hiking up to his ears to protect them from the assault of Eren’s hot breath and humiliating words. He tried to break free from Eren’s grip on his wrists, to no avail. Both his wrists and his neck were restricted, and although it was uncomfortable, it only made the throbbing ache in his pants even more painful. How he developed this kink, he had no idea—all he knew was that he wanted relief, now. “Eren...Eren, please. Fuck me. Ple—guh— ”

“Shut up for a second,” Eren commanded as he forced two fingers into Reiner’s already heavily lubricated mouth, sopping up the spit dripping from the roof of his mouth and tongue. He shuddered at the feeling of Reiner’s soft tongue wrapping around his fingers, amazed that such a thing was on his cock only a few moments ago and even more amazed that he didn’t come on the spot. He used his thumb to push Reiner’s pants down to his ankles, marveling at the view of his back muscles rippling under his pale skin, fighting against the restraining grip on his wrists, followed by the elegant slope into the two golden apples for an ass.

“Goddamn,” he breathed, lowering his head and opening his mouth to deliver a deep bite to the virgin skin at the nape of Reiner’s neck, sinking his canines into the flesh in an almost animalistic motion, causing Reiner to jolt from underneath him.

“Eren, stop with the biting!” Reiner pleaded, but he couldn’t help the whispery moan that passed through his lips at the thought of being marked.

“Sorry not sorry,” Eren replied with a snicker, resorting to leaving hickeys to further mark his presence on Reiner’s body, proudly screaming I was here and fucked him beautifully. “You clean back here?”

The mere insinuation that he wasn’t made Reiner want to turn around and snap Eren’s neck right then and there, especially considering he very much doubted Eren was. He grunted, the awkwardness of that question causing nausea to boil in his stomach.

“I...bathed for the festival earlier today,” he explained haltingly, his blush radioactive at this point. But when Eren didn’t move right away, he sighed and opened his legs slightly, wrestling one wrist free and trailing it down to his asscheek, spreading it open as a very clear invitation. “Hurry up.”

Eren’s eyes widened, and a heated smile filled out his face at the sight of Reiner coming completely undone and practically begging to get fucked. Before the spit on his fingers could dry, he spread Reiner’s cheeks with his other fingers and plunged his index and middle fingers inside, earning a squeal from the blond.

“S-slow! Slower!”

A confused look crossed Eren’s face, but he shrugged and continued to scissor Reiner open, curling his fingers against the soft walls to try and find that one spot that drove men crazy. He found out about that quickly while at the hospital, a male nurse being particularly caring and spreading his legs open to cure a patient.

“I thought you’d be looser than this,” he replied, genuinely baffled at how tightly Reiner’s grip around his fingers was. How the hell was he supposed to fit inside? They said the bottom being tight is more pleasurable, but he imagined it’d downright hurt his dick.

“You jackass, I haven’t done it in a-a wh... while,” Reiner stuttered, a grunt sneaking in between his words as he tried to accustom himself to the feeling. He was arching his back as much as possible, but he quickly discovered it could arch much more when a sudden wave of pleasure crashed over him and a lustful cry made his mouth drop.

“Found it,” Eren sang, a proud grin spreading across his lips.

“Hng-! ” was all that came out of Reiner, followed by heavy breathing and small whimpers as he tried to regulate his breathing, but it was difficult when Eren ruthlessly continued abusing that spot now that he knew its location. “Eren...it feels...a-ah…”

“My fingers are magic, I know,” he replied with a shit-eating grin, and although Reiner’s back was to him, he could feel the bratty expression he was making.

“Oh, shut up, you idiot,” Reiner groaned, about to insult the other once more before another wave of pure pleasure corrupted him and returned him to his panting, sweating state.

After a few more moments of scissoring and dirty talk, Eren pulled out his fingers, much to Reiner’s dismay, and gripped himself as he stepped closer and lined himself up with Reiner’s entrance.

“Alright, get ready,” he joked, bracing the wall with one hand and snaking the other around Reiner’s neck once more, pulling his head back so that he could see the look of shock in his eyes as he slowly pushed the tip inside.

“Ngh!” Tears were gathering at the corners of Reiner’s eyes again as he attempted, again and again, to relax and breathe the pain away, but it didn’t help that Eren was so well-endowed. “Just...slow—go slowly.”

Eren pulled out at a snail’s pace, looking down to see where they connected before pushing back in, earning a low groan from both the men. “I don’t even have to try. You’re so tight, I can’t fucking move. Feels like my dick is going to be pulled off.”

Reiner rolled his eyes, about to say something until a sigh interrupted him as Eren continued to pull out and push inside, staying at the same pace. “I can’t control that. I hope your dick gets pulled off. Maybe then you wouldn’t be a murderous basta— hngh!”

A slap echoed in the small room from Eren giving one solid thrust, the roughness of it seen from the reddening of Reiner’s ass. He chuckled at the other’s reaction and tightened his grip on his neck, the belt making it a lot easier to yank him back and force him to meet his eyes. “Watch your words, Braun. Or else,” he gave another rapid thrust, causing the fat on Reiner’s ass to ripple from the force, “that will happen.”

“O-okay, okay, I’m d-done!” Reiner cried, his arm reaching back to grip Eren’s shirt for leverage while the other clung to the wall for dear life. “I promise, I’ll s...nngh...stop.”

“That’s what I thought,” Eren taunted, licking a trail up Reiner’s cheek, picking up the salty tears spilling from his eyes along the way. “You think I can move now without losing my dick?”

Reiner didn’t answer. All he did was lower his head as much as he could with Eren’s grip on it, preparing himself to lose the small ounce of dignity he still had left. He arched his back and pushed back onto Eren’s cock, gasping at the feeling of it spreading him apart and leaving him so perfectly full. He swirled his hips, trying to find that spot Eren so easily discovered, all the while pulling out and swirling his hips as he pushed back. It was quite the ab workout, causing sweat to build up on his hairline and building a thin sheen on his skin.

This was heaven on Earth. The view was spectacular, but what was more spectacular was watching Reiner act like a complete slut, as if Eren’s cock was the only thing that could bring him relief and pleasure. He was really willing to give up all his dignity just to use it to pleasure himself, and Eren couldn’t have been more willing of a participant.

“I guess that’s the answer to my question,” he breathed, a moan causing him to throw his head back. He dropped both his hands to Reiner’s hips, riding alongside their gyrating motions. “Yeah...that’s nice. Keep moving like that.”

“Eren,” Reiner warned, looking over his shoulder now that his neck was freed. “Eren, move, goddamn it.”

Eren cocked his head. “Is that how you ask for it?”

“Oh, for fuck’s—Eren, please, fuck me. Ruin me, do what you want, just please fuck m— ”

“That’s all I needed to hear.” It only took half a second for Eren to comply with Reiner's wishes, snapping his hips forward and sending Reiner careening toward the wall, his face pressed up against the stone just like his chest was. He’d definitely have scrapes on his face as it bounced up and down with each merciless thrust that practically sent him up the wall.

“ Ahn—ugh! Fuck, fuck, yes! Feels good, f-feels so—hnngh! ” The dry slapping noises eventually turned into wet, squelching sounds that would have made Reiner cringe, but he could barely hear them in the fugue state he was in. Eren was right: he felt like a dog in heat, his mind on nothing else but getting pounded until he was filled.

“Faster! God, faster! Ngh, harder!”

Reiner’s moans leaked, and as much as he wanted to stop, he didn’t have the energy since all of it was going into not finishing right then and there. It was just what he needed, except…

He tilted his head back, which was difficult with how roughly Eren was slamming into him, but he eventually caught Eren’s eye and smiled. “Choke me, Eren. Choke me until I can’t breathe.”

Eren smiled back, his grin malicious. “You got it, sweetheart.”

He took that command to heart because instead of one hand this time around, he used both hands, wrapping them around Reiner’s neck and using that for leverage instead of his hips. It was honestly a nicer angle to better fuck Reiner into oblivion, and he used it to his full advantage.

Smack, smack, smack, smack…

“ Guh— ugh, fu-uck,” Reiner groaned, practically gargling his own words with how he could barely breathe. Meanwhile, Eren was struggling with holding back his own moans with how velvety soft Reiner’s walls were, hugging him like the most comfortable sweater in the world. How did he go this long without taking advantage of the hole that had been around him all this time?

“I never thought you’d be this easy of a lay,” Eren remarked, graduating one hand’s place from Reiner’s neck to his hair, pulling it and pushing his face into the concrete. “Who knew you’d open up to me this easily? If I knew, I would’ve fought Bertholdt for access to your ass.”

The fog of lust clouding Reiner’s brain long enough for him to understand and process Eren’s comments, and, even though it was nearly impossible to speak anything other than moans and whines and emote anything other than pleasure, he still attempted to reach backward and scratch Eren’s hip, leaving three bright marks on the tanned skin.

“After this is over, I’m going to kill you,” Reiner managed to say when Eren stopped shortly to readjust his angle. He was very grateful for that split second of clarity because once Eren started up, instead of brushing against that spot, he was directly nailing it over and over with perfect precision.

“ OH— oh, my God, I-I’m—too much, too much, I’m so— ah, hah... c-close—!” Reiner was incoherent at this point, finally reaching the “brains fucked out” stage of this brutal hookup. He could no longer think. All he could do was moan, pant, and cry out each time his spot was abused.

“ Hah—I’m gonna come soon, t-too,” Eren breathed, having his own difficulties with speech. He tried to act as cool and collected for as long as possible, but now, it was nearly impossible, with each thrust drawing out the warm feeling in his stomach more and more. It also didn’t help that Reiner kept tightening around him with each thrust, giving him all the components to finish. He just needed one thing.

“Where do you want it?” Eren whispered, dropping his head to take advantage of the last few moments to leave more hickeys all along Reiner’s neck and collarbones.

Reiner was beyond redemption at this point, evidenced by the fact that he all but screamed out, “Inside! Please, inside, come inside, I n-need it, I need you, please, I—”

His orgasm was sudden and unexpected, but Eren hit his spot at the perfect angle and speed, causing it to rip through his body. He was left speechless, going rigid as his vision spotted before going completely white, finally receiving the release he had been chasing over the past half hour. He heard somebody wailing, and when his consciousness returned to him, he realized he was the one making that awful noise, his vocal cords frying themselves with the unadulterated ecstasy running through his system.

Eren didn’t take much longer to follow, giving a few more slams—rougher than all the ones preceding them—before coming undone deep inside Reiner, groaning at the feeling of warmth coating Reiner’s walls and making his insides even hotter than they already were. But he wasn’t done. In his state of bliss, he managed to pull out of Reiner—earning a pitiful whimper from the other—and turn him around to push down on his shoulders so that he was on his knees again.

“Fuck, fuck—fuck! ” Eren couldn’t help the countless exclamations of pleasure that racked his body as he stroked himself furiously in front of Reiner’s face. The last of his come splashed on Reiner’s face, coating his cheeks and the bridge of his nose in the milky white substance. Yet again, he wasn’t done. He smeared the tip across Reiner’s lips, painting them with the same glossy color. And with that, he was done, stepping back to admire his handiwork. He grinned, satisfied with the result.

He had completely ruined Reiner Braun. His hair was tangled and sticking out in all different places. His eyes were red from crying. His face was completely coated in sticky, hot semen. He could barely open his lips without it stringing between them. Tears stained his splotched cheeks, and dried saliva ran down the entirety of his chin and throat. His chest was red as well, full of bite marks and hickeys. His neck was a completely different story—it was probably rubbed raw and full of scratches and finger indentations, all of which were hidden under the belt. And then…

“Turn around for me and bend over,” Eren said, his last demand of the night.

He had evidently turned Reiner into an obedient subordinate because without a single complaint or hesitation, the blond nodded submissively and turned around, revealing his back that was full of scratches and the deep bite mark at the nape of his neck. To think, he’d probably be targeting that nape in a couple of minutes once again, except it’d be for the kill. He wondered if, when he’d rip Reiner from the nape of his Titan’s neck and admire his dead body, the bite mark on his neck would still be there.

Reiner bent over, lifting his ass in the air and dropping his chest and face to the floor, a look of pure embarrassment on his soiled face.

“Beautiful,” Eren whispered to himself as he watched his come pour out of Reiner’s hole, running down his leg and dripping onto the ground. “Satisfied?”

Reiner, from his docile place on the floor, nodded his head, his hair flowing back and forth on the ground. “Y-yes...thank you…”

He then collapsed to the floor, his hips no longer able to sustain his own weight. His legs were trembling, never having experienced such a savage fucking before. It had always been loving, sweet, slow. But he quickly found that he had been severely deprived of something he so desperately needed. He’d probably get brain damage from all the choking he was going to do in the future, but that didn’t matter. He already planned on dying soon, anyway.

“I’m going...to kill you...after this,” Reiner continued, severely out of breath.

Eren walked over silently, squatting down and brushing the hair out of Reiner’s sweaty and dirtied face. “I’d like to see you try. You can barely walk.”

He laughed and pat Reiner on the rear, standing back up and walking over to the exit as he fixed his trousers and buttoned them.

“But thanks for the good fuck. I needed that. Honestly, if I hadn’t made everybody from Paradis come rescue me today, I’d save this battle for another day. I’m feeling very…” He lifted up his hands, looking at his nails and running his fingers through his hair. “...relaxed right now.”

Reiner was half-asleep, but he was conscious enough to have heard Eren’s words loud and clear. He snapped his head up and turned to stare at Eren to see if what he heard was the truth, but all he was met with was Eren adjusting his shirt and tightening his hair into a bun.

“P-Paradis?”

“Yeah. Heh.” Eren looked over his shoulder and winked. “I’ll catch you out there, then. If you manage to survive, come to Paradis. I’ll give you a very special welcome.”

And with that, Eren Yeager exited the room heavy with the smell of sex and quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Reiner Braun was left alone—used and besmirched with a fucked-out mind—to mull over what just happened and what will happen in only a handful of minutes.

Eren fucking Yeager.

[darkherolovercroissant]

A Tragic Bestseller

Masterlist

Through the harsh blizzards and cold snow. Passing through valleys as they go.

Escaping black water was hard, not just because of the gunfire and tough climates, but because of those they lost. Young Jenny and Davey, Mac and Sean who were left behind.

Adjusting to life in the cold, thinking no trouble would follow them, they set up camp. An old mining town that was abandoned like the money that sat in black water. Freezing temperatures, but an escape from those who would be hunting.

A man hunt for one of their own, followed by hunting with another. Trying to keep what’s left of their family together, the plan to move onwards was what was next.

While others wanted to go back out west into open country, the plan to head down the mountains into grass and opportunities was where they were heading.

A gang on misfits and cowboys navigates forward. Misfortune and grief await the destination they move towards.

A new camp set not far from Valentine, the cold was behind them and the gang was able to breathe.

From going into town with uncle and the girls to passing through with Hosea on the way for a hunting trip. The plans they would have would cause big issues for the camp.

As a fishing trip ended when the hunters showed up, warning of their fate, the hero rides away to be be told not to worry as it was all part of their plan.

From Colter then heading down to Beaver Hollow. They move ahead unaware of the issues that follow.

It was no surprise when they left Colter that they needed to find opportunity, but leaving Horseshoe and outside of Rhodes was just because they got sloppy. It seems as though, trouble was always around the corner and they could never get away fast enough before they were caught.

Being moved to Shady Belle and finding jobs in Saint Denis was going well before another lost their head and let anger speak for them. A bank heist after a trolly car station bust. Killing a popular figure of the city.

Using a ship to escape a town on lockdown and then loosing all they gained, to a storm and the bottom of the ocean. They were trapped on an island where they were not welcomed as friends, but as enemies.

It’s in this part of their story that we see the leader fall from grace and become the monster they tried to flee from.

When they helped the slaves escape and fled themselves, they touched back up on the land they fled from to find their family. It’s there when the heroes health get more concerning as they coughed badly.

After another battle against their hunters, the need to move again was left to two men who would do anything for the gang.

After you went to go get your brother from prison, you’ve been scolded like a child for endangering the gang with foolish actions. Not even listening to them when they talked about his fear of dying.

It’s when you realize that you were alone, after everything happening in the camp, from a traitor to tension rising, you see the family has abandoned each other.

Grief, getting sick and just needing to rest. In a profession where you die young, seeing another sunrise is always the best.

Never getting over Hosea and Lenny or even Sean, but adding Molly to the list of the gang members that have died. Had he still been here, Hosea would’ve let Dutch have it for everything that’s happened to the gang.

No secret that Arthur was dying, he should be resting and trying to stay out of trouble, but how can you when trouble surrounds you. Innocent people still were in the camp and it was his mission to get them out.

Every day that you woke up, you lived a day longer than the hunters wanted you to and that was enough to keep going.

Refusing to rest because others needed help, Arthur would step in. Paying the price for it as his health continues to drop. Running into the widow who’s husband you helped kill, was enough to know that no matter what happens, others will always refuse to believe you change.

You’ll loose your family as the story is told. You’ll see it’s always the young, rarely the old.

It has always been said, when you’re an outlaw, you’ll never die old. You’ll die young, Sean and Lenny found out what that meant, but to loose an old voice of reason like Hosea was another thing. That man had stories and learned many things, but learnt it all at a terrible price. Now with him gone, the ones that were left would be under one command and it wasn’t a good one.

Soon everyone will scatter and it’ll be down to two. It hurts to know the truth, but no one trusts you.

As tensions rise like the sun, family betrays family. You’ll hear them talk about who the rat is, familiar names would come up. It’s the ones who seemed to have figured out that they’re on their own from now on. John, Arthur even Abigail comes up and the trust starts to disappear as fast as allegations come up.

When others escape and the hero returns to confront the camp. With news of who the real rat is, the member they said died, rejoins the camp. The two sons of Dutch stood across from him as they say it’s over.

As another party joins the standoff, the group that sided with Dutch fled as John and Arthur shot their way to only be forced into a cave to escape.

As the two sons flee, the chase becomes intense. The plan falls apart just like the gangs common sense.

The truth had been spilt, but no one rushed to soak it up. They let it pool around them and refused to believe it. The rat was more charming than they had believed and in turn, an innocent woman had died, followed by many more to come.

When the boys had fled, rushing through the caves and catching up with their horses, thinking back on how loyalty never actually mattered to those who claimed it did.

The lights were on, but no one was home…

Managing to escape, the small victory comes to an end. Saying goodbye to not just a brother, but a best friend.

Climbing the hill as gunfire and traitors followed, one grows too tired to push on and instead sends his brother onwards as the other stays behind.

Two orphans that became sons and brothers under the eyes of Dutch Van Der Linde, now two grown men who fled from those who were once family.

The horses discarded at the base of the hill, waiting for their friends in the meadows in the sky, one would be joined shortly, the other would have to wait just a bit longer.

Final goodbyes and the other was off, while the one stays true to his word and holds them off. A brief interaction and more than words fly as the hero falls, but not before confronting his father figure one last time.

Holding them off, so the other gets away safely. You’ll continue to fight those who challenge bravely.

Watching the sun rise with heavy eyes. Knowing that others are safe, he peacefully dies.

The new century would then soon start. Old alliances would also restart.

It was weird being back from where you fled, but you had no choice to return. Still feels strange to be free in many ways, seeing what you missed out on from back in the days.

John had done all he could, finding old friends in Uncle, Sadie and even Charles too. Hearing how he went back to bury Arthur and Grimshaw, it warmed his heart to hear that Arthur had been buried by a friend.

Keeping in touch with Sadie, bounties helped paid off the land and expenses for the house he built for his family.

When the time came, Sadie would come back with a lead.

A new world with new chances and at last. Comes an opportunity to avenge the past.

Storming up the mountain after begging from a worried woman, who rather not loose everything again.

The chance to find a man who caused more pain than others could imagine, being greeted by the slimy bastard himself, but also someone else you’d never expect.

The chance to join them was something you’d never consider, after all there was more important people waiting for you back home.

Being blindsided by an old leader, you finish the job and take the money and head home to live the life you wanted. Unaware of officials the looked down on you from the hill.

A Tragic Bestseller sitting on a collectors shelf. However a miracle for many, as no one would be here if it wasn’t for Arthur himself.

[cryhardanddanceharder]

TOG immortals x Of Monster and Men songs

Album 1: My head is an animal

1. Dirty Paws: I feel this song gives so many Andy's vibes. Fetus Andy, before being immortal. There's something mystical and old in this song, just like Andy. She became the best fighter of her tribe, she quyckly overcome her older sisters and her mom started to see her as a threat. "The dragonfly it ran away, but it came back with a story to say". Andy ran away after being killed by her own people, but she came back to regain her place and show everyone she is still alive. "She ran down the forest". Mood! Very aesthetic of Andy. "The bees had declared a war". Of course, her mother wouldn't give her tribe to her without a fight. "But she and her furry friends took down the queen bee and her men, and that's how the story goes, the story of the beast with those four dirty paws". Andy won, but she probably felt like a beast for going against her own mother and her people. There's heartbreak in the betrayal, on having her first death done by her mother's orders.

2. King and Lionheart: this is a Joe and Nicky song. "Taking over this town, they should worry. But these problems aside I think I taught you well, that we won't run" Okay, this is them in the cruzades era. Listen, that's them just after they finally fall in love. "We're here to stay" They were in different sides of a war, but once they realised they are immortal and once they fall in love they decide to stay there, still fighting for their people. "We're still the same" Yes, they are immortal and in love, but they are still their own person. Joe is muslim and Nicky is catholic. "Howling ghosts they reappear, in mountains that are stacked with fear, but you're a king and I'm a lionheart" the ghosts are their religions and their stories with them, it's a topic that is always going to reappear between them because is part of who they are. But still, they love each other. "And as the world comes to an end I'll be here to hold your hand" just them and their pure love prevailing.

3. Numb bears: this is a Joe song. I feel this song is about when he left his home to go to the crusades. "Can't remember when it was dark or the sun coming up. Far across the ocean alone, while numb bears at home". The joerney is long and he can't keep the tracks of the days, and once he is in Jerusalen to keep track of the time it becomes worst. "Said I could never get there" His family probably believe that it didn't make sense to go fight a war long away from their home, believe that he wouldn't get there. They think Joe is only a merchant, just like everyone in his family. He is not a soldier. But Joe gets to Jerusalen and fight a war he believed in. "While numb bears at home said I could never get there, but I'm already there. Already there" this could be also a metaphor about the muslims. Catholics thought they would never get to Jerusalen and fight the war. But they did. And in some way they were already there, before the war, because it was their land first.

4. Sloom: this is a Nile song. I feel it could be about her relationship with her father. "The books that I keep by my bags are full of your stories" She keeps her father's books/diaries, those who he wrote while he was in the navy. She takes them with her when she decides to enlist herself. "A little dream of mine, a little nightmare of yours", She knows that her dream about following his steps would be a nightmare to him. He wouldn't want her to be a soldier, he would want her to choose any other profession where she could be safe, but not the one he did. "To be asked to take this plunge, to forgive and forget, and be the better man", This is about forgiving his father from for dying. She feels the responsability to be better than him. Her mind tells her: forgive him, but don't die, don't abandon your mom and brother like he did. "And I'll meet your eyes for the very first time, for the very last" Still Nile thinks she probably is going to die like him, in action. And when that happens, she will see him again. "So love me mother, and love me father, and love my brother as well" Nile loves her family so much, and just want to be loved in return by them, despite their choices and mistakes.

5. Little talks: this is a Booker song. This is about him and her wife. How the truth about his immortality changed their relationship. "And some days I can't even dress myself" "It's killing me to see you this way". How Booker saw her grow old, but he didin't, he stayed the same. "There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back" She stopped talking to him about the things that matters, because she started to see him like a different person. Part of herself resented him for his immortality. "Well, tell her that I miss our little talks", Booker missed her. They were still together, but they were not. They couldn't talk anymore like they used to. Something in their trust broke, because for her wife his immortality changed him. "Soon it will all be over, and buried with our past" She will die, and he will not :( "We used to play outside when we were young and full of life and full of love" They were happily in love once, before he was immortal, before he went to war. "You're gone, gone, gone away, I watched you disappear. All that's left is a ghost of you" Booker was with her until she died :( "I'll see you when I fall asleep", that's the only way that he gets to keep her, in his memories and his dreams.

6. From Finner: this could be Andy/Lykon/Quỳnh song, but also a Andy/Quỳnh/Joe/Nicky song. There is something chill about this song. I feel like is them, just relaxing and being themselves. "And we are far from home, but we're so happy. Far from home, all alone, but we're so happy" They are all far from their homes, they had leave them behind. They are all alone, because there is no one else like them. But somewhere along the way, their concept of home changed. They are happy to be far from what is it supposed to be their home. The whole world is their home now, as long they have each other. They are the safe place to always come back to. Home is not where they came from, is where they are. Family is not only their blood ancestors, they are their own family because they love each other. "Keep your heads held high".

7. Six weeks: this is a Quỳnh song. Is about how she handled immortality at the beginning. "We fall to the ground" and "We crawl on the ground" are perfect quotes to express how she was feeling. She felt like everything she did was a effort and no matter how hard she tried she felt down again. "Alone, I fight these animals. Alone, until I get home" Quỳnh feels alone and she feels like she has to fight against all the pain immortality brings on her. The animals are her dark thoughst, her anxiety, her grief, her mental health. And Quỳnh wans to go home, but her home as she has known it doesn't exist anymore, nor the poeple she had loved. "A wolf, wolf and I, We share the same cold meal. I float on, float on down. We ride, we ride, we ride, we ride it all out" The wolf meaning her worst moment, when she finally gives up and put herself in the middle of a dessert. She rather be there, in the middle of nowhere, alone, dying constantly... that having to keep dealing with the pain of living an immortal life sorrounded by mortal people. "Coming back, I'm coming back. She follows me into the woods, takes me home" Andy follows her into the woods dessert, founds her and takes her back to the world. Now Quỳnh knows she is not alone, there are more immortal people after all.

8. Love Love Love: this is an andromaquynh sad song. Is about Andy and her guilt. "Well, maybe I'm a crook for stealing your heart away. And maybe I'm a crook for not caring for it" This is Andy's pain when she thinks about Quỳnh in the bottom of the ocean, waiting to be recued by her. She feels guilty for had given Quỳnh the hope that she could be capable to save her from anything. "'Cause you love, love, love, when you know I can't love you" Andy feels like Quỳnh stills love her, but she can't, she can't love her the way she wants because Quỳnh is not there, she can't because she is the one who left her in her prision and stopped looking for her, because Quỳnh deserves to be loved by someone who wouldn't give up. Andy wishes she couldn't love her cause it hurts too much. "So I think it's best we both forget before we dwell on it, the way you held me so tight, all through the night" Andy wishes she could forget Quỳnh and Quỳnh could forget her, because maybe, if they both forget about how much they love each other, being apart wouldn't hurt so much. Andy hopes the few minutes that Quỳnh gets to have alive under the ocean she doesn't remember her, because if she does and everytime she wakes comes alive realises that Andy still didn't save her, that would be too heartbreaking.

9. Your Bones: this is a Lykon song. Is about how Andy and Quỳnh said goodbye to him. "In the spring we made a boat, out of feathers, out of bones" They made a boat and put Lykon's body on it. "We set fire to our homes". They set the boat on fire. Home, they are each others home. And Lykon was like a home to them. I feel that ritual could be something old or folk. Maybe Lykon's people used to that as a way to grief the people who died in battles. "Hold on to what we are, hold on to your heart" This is the first time that Andy and Quỳnh lost someone as them, an immortal. They weren't supposed to die. So they hurt and they rage. But at the end of the they, they have to hold on to each other to move on and keep living. "Said goodbye to you my friend, as the fire spread. All that's left are your bones, that will soon sink like stones" The only way to move on is to say goodbye to him. This is so sad :( But they hold on, they keep him in their hearts.

10. Lake House: this a song about Andy and her boys. Is about their safehouses they have around the world and what it means for them when they are together in one of them, reunited for a job, but still feeling like a family. "I miss the comfort of this house" They miss the safehouses and their time together when they are apart. They miss each other, because when they are together they are happy. "Can you chase the fire away?" This is part of how their relationship is, they help each other to chase the "fire" away. Fire meaning the things that hurts and haunts them, the things that holds them back and don't let them live in peace. Fire meaning the disasters of the world. No matter how much fire there is and how bad it gets, they keep fighting against it, they keep fighting to make things better. "In the fall, we sleep all day" The fall meaning the missions and sleep the breakes they take from them. They need to take care of themselves too, so sometimes they stop doing missions and take time to heal. Like at de beggining of the movie, they were on a break. But fall ends at some point, and they have to go back to do things. They give each other time to heal, but then they are back doing what they do. They have to remind each other that doing things is part of being okay too.

11. Yellow Light: this is an andromaquynh song. "I'm looking for a place to start and everything feels so different now" This is when Quỳnh is finally out of the ocean. When she goes back to the world, everything is different. 500 years is a long time and everything is new to her. "Just grab a hold of my hand, I will lead you through this wonderland" This is what Andy offers when they are reunited. She still loves Quỳnh, so she will hold on to her and never let her go again. Andy will guide her in her descovery of this new world if she lets her. "But sharks are swimmin' in the sea, just follow my yellow light and ignore all those big warning signs" They are in love, but there still obstacles in the way. There's pain and trauma to deal with. There's Andy's mortality and Quỳnh's ptsd. "The earth is shaking and I see a light, the light is blinding my eyes, as the soft walls eat us alive" I'm gonna take this is as a kind of a happy ending. Even thought there's pain, trauma, anxiety, fights and dark thoughts; there's still light, there's still hope. That's their love. They gave into their love once again. They let their soft walls love eats them. Bye darkness and hatred, hello forgiveness and bright yellow light of love that blinds them.

BT. Mountain Sound: this is a happy song about Andy, Lykon and Quỳnh adventures together. "I heard them calling in the distance, so I packed my things and ran far away from all the trouble I had caused with my two hands" Yes, they are a chaotic trio. I imagine them causing troubles along the way and having to go away before things can get worse. Quỳnh did you just stole the wife of the Sir X of this village? Andy did you just killed that man because you didn't like the way he tame the horses? Lykon did you steal that honey from the market? "Hold your horses now, we sleep until the sun goes down. Through the woods we ran, deep into the mountain sound" Horses!! Andy loves horses aksjdalksd. That's how they travel, horses with them all the time please, Andy needs them to be happy. Lykon likes walking better and Quỳnh is secretly a little jealous of the horses because Andy gives them too much attention. "And as I looked around, I began to notice that we were nothing like the rest" Of course they are not like the rest, they are immortal! They found each other and they are their own little family, traveling around the world together.

BT. Slow and Steady: this is an angsty Andy song. "I am all alone" Yes, she was alone for like 3000 or 4000 years. That's so long!! So much loneliness and pain! :( I think most of the fandom forget this and don't realise how much she must have suffer in her alone time "I spend my night dancing with my own shadow", I can totally imagine Andy dancing alone, in the middle of nowhere, lot of times. "I'm letting go, but I've never felt better, passing by all the monsters in my head" She had to learn to let go and move on so many times, she had lost so many people that she loved along the way. Her mental health is constantly a challenge. Her anxiety, her depression, her fears about time concepts and love. She feels alone and misunderstood. No one knows that she will keep living and outrunning generation after generation, and she will keep testifying how societies destroy themselves and others. "And I move slow and steady, but I feel like a waterfall. I move slow and steady, past the ones that I used to know. And I'm never ready, 'cause I know, I know, I know that time won't let me show what I want to show" I feel these are the best words to describe her and they hit so deep in the worst way. Andy is old and tired, in every sense you can be tired: emotionally, physically, mentally... but she just keeps living.

[xo-cuteplosion-xo]

The Ending of The Everlasting Sun.

Soukoku angst: will have 2 parts, one is Chuuya pov another is Dazai pov (Dazai is part 1 aka this piece. I'll start chuuya's tomorrow)

I’ll do a version for Dazai after (not pov but version so Chuuya can have the dose of Dazai’s pain T_T).

Warnings: Death, gore, violence, angst with just more angst. (idk if i consider dazai ooc but towards the end is mostly how i feel the situation would happen, so kinda ooc)

TBH, I don't know why I wrote this but hey I love feeding peeps and myself angst so, here you go.

The Ending of The Everlasting Sun. | A Soukoku Angst one-shot |

words: 4264

Dazai’s pov- (it swaps between third and first. I know my writing style is weird af)

The sun, a forever gleaming light in life. They say even in death, the sun won’t fade from your view. For light, something that brings reason to a life so pitched in black is everlasting. There is a place that resides within a person the sun that will never leave. Like the memories that one left behind shall forever hold. Memories will not fade, even as the deceased are placed within mounds of dirt, their body left to neatly decompose.

They say it is natural to feel your heart so heavy. To feel so pained when death washes over. Death can change a human, they say, death is rebirth, something shall always come from it. In some ways, Dazai knew the truth of such words. For he’s experienced the death of his light. At least he had thought the brunette, who’d stuck by his suicidal tendencies, his cruel ways, he thought that man had been the light. He had changed, he’d moved on into the light of this world. His heart may still be shadowed in the darkness the mafia left. The memories of those he left may never leave, but he was in the light. He was the light for another now. Still, dark himself, he’d help lead his news pupil to the light. He repeated this so often, yet why, why did his mind travel back to those days, the days when he was alongside that small ginger boy? The boy with anger issues could be heard a mile away, was he important? Why must he feel as if he left behind something important when he’d listened to a friend's dying wish? Surely he was better off now? He felt better, life wasn’t as black or as unlit as it had once been. So why? Why was it always that ginger that popped into his head on those restless nights? He worried so much if he was okay. If he was out there using that uncontrollable side without him. Ever since he left, he’d worried that ginger would do something as stupid as that. So maybe, just maybe, this world had blessed him with two lights. A light to change, that light had left him to save him. Then the second light, the light that showed him he could love and be loved. This world could take both lights to make such a realization, and eventually, this world, so cruel and dark would. Not by fate, but by the hand of an enemy who sought out Dazai’s weakness.

I stood beneath pelting rain, my mind held within it one thought, where was he? Never had the small boy I'd fallen for in my early teens missed a chance to torment me as I had tormented him. Never had he let the phone, to which we still held each other's numbers unblocked, reach the full number of rings before the voicemail kicked in. I had never felt this before. Nor had I the courage to admit such a thing. For feelings were only a danger to men like myself. I am undoubtedly cruel. Even now, in my early twenties, I stand beneath the rain alone. The mistakes of my past hanging over me for somebody to eventually discover. The past profession I had tried to hide and had hidden well for many years was creeping to my heels. The man whom I'd sought help from was gone, his final words my reason to be in the light. If neither side means anything, he told me to help the defenseless, to help the orphans. That is what I did. I left behind the ginger-haired boy whom, I now say with hesitance, I loved. It is a fine point that I was able to decline such things until after I left the mafia, for otherwise, I may have tried to do good whilst in the mafia, so I could stay with my final light within my life. Many have shed their light on me. The orphan I took in has shocked me many times, reading me in a way I thought only Oda, my extinguished light, could. He knew I was mourning that past friend when he found me at his grave. He continues to shock me to this day, the only one who can occasionally see past the mask I've worn since I was 14, since Mori found me. Kunikida has taught me responsibility and morals. There is still a bottle of things I shall never change. Some people can’t change. My mind prevents me from collecting such information about being human. My ability says it all, does it not? It is a perfect description of myself. The intelligence I share with Dostoevsky is merely one of the many things that keep me behind the wall of change. I may do things for another reason, but I am still a shadow over the people around me. I curse them all, I have brought heavy burdens onto the agency, I harm all of those around me. Love is a feeling I'm incapable of. At least, I can not recognize true love, only conclude that is what this pain is. It is a pain like no other, it is not physical, but no sense of being can push away the tangent throb of every beat. It is my mind, and the way I was brought up so young, that initially warped me beyond repair. That is why I am here, running in the rain despite my coworkers protesting to stop me.

Dazai understood the trap he was headed for, but he knew the trap would result in a fatality either way. If it was his death that waited for him, then he was alright with that. If it was painless, and he died a quick death before his mouth could run to say final bidding words to Chuuya, then he’d die. If this taunt was to break him, if he were to be late, he would drop to his knees and beg his old friend, who lay watching over him, to be forgiven for his actions tonight. If some awful being really did oversee this world, let it give Dazai one moment of peace. Let him have one good light stay until he is gone. He couldn’t do it again, the pain of holding a bloodied body within his arms, it would be hell. He knew not of true mourning, the pain of losing the one, who in a storybook, could be considered a soulmate. He knew it, others knew it, so many people knew the way he stared at Chuuya was not a friendly matter. There was lust within his soft chocolate hues, a hidden cave behind closed doors. Secret thoughts hidden in his mind. The things he wished he could have done before he left, the way he wanted to fix things, to regain what he had lost by leaving the mafia.

With every soft patter, Dazai flew between streets and yards. With every step, he grew closer and closer. With every new step, he felt his heart sink. For the area around was brittle and frail. The ground was crushed and indented. Some buildings lay in tattered pieces. Holes the size of beds lay stretched in the buildings and grass. The worst began to form in his head as his legs picked up into a pace he thought he could never take into. His lungs burned with the inhaled drips of water that turned to flames within his lungs. He pushed past the pain, the burn, the tired flail of limbs. His legs grew numb, but he refused to stop until his arms were flying open doors to a building that looked so horribly damaged.

As if I were the show that night, I could remember the lights. My lungs felt like fire, and my legs were ready to buckle beneath my frail body. I had not eaten a proper meal for weeks, my pockets empty from money spent to cover the scars I had littered my body with. The night is a haze within my mind. An unwilling nightmare I wish to set aside and to never look at again. A night I wish could be rewritten. It was a night that even I had thought the same way as Destoveski. My mind was no longer set right, that side of me to which was feared, had ripped from its confines and torn through to confine me to my own mind. I had truly wanted to tear a sheet from the book spoken about so much in this little town of Yokohama. If it meant my lights could come back and this world could change, then I would, I would do it without a blink. I’d make myself the villain to free my light. I would do it for the right reasons. Yet, I could never ruin the lights of others. There would be too many sacrifices to do such a thing at that moment. To this day, I curse myself for thinking like that man, thinking about such things would make me like him. Dostoevsky was no man I wanted to be.

The light pulsed for a moment before illuminating the room in a sharp glow of white. Dazai stood blinded before the room came into focus, the empty space warm in comparison to the pelting rain. For a moment, the world had paused, allowing his mind to make a sharp halt and think. Though his thoughts were not something he wished to hear. The thoughts inside his head screamed an equal verse to the night he’d lost Oda. He had no more time to pause, as soon as he’d adjusted to the blaring lights, he was scanning the room, finding the spots of blood, the corpses littered on the ground. Then, he was running against his will again. The next thing he knew, he was diving forward too quickly brush against the ginger, who’d consumed his thoughts since they reunited all that time ago.

The first thoughts I had when I felt the cloth of his jacket, the same one I had sown hat-rack into when we were 15, were thoughts of panic. I was always the type of man who wore a mask, but that mask only masked my depression. I yearned for death, I lived to be human, and that feeling you have right as you fall victim to death may be my only chance at life. My co-workers were never worried about me. At first, I had shocked them. I remember the way Kunikida halted with his trust, how on my first job he watched me with a hawk's eye. Never once did I not feel the burning gaze of his judgment. I never blamed him, I was a man with an erased past. There was nothing to tell whether I was good or evil. The day I entered the agency, I would have said I was that darker gray that wisps on the side of black. Today, I would tell you I wanted to be the light, to be good, but I am far from it. It shall always be my nature to look up into another and dive within their soul. My hands are skilled in ways of torture. I could shoot down an enemy with my eyes closed. These pieces of me still exist, even though I had locked them to the confine of my mind, a faraway nightmare that haunted me. The faces of the victims who plead because they had family, haunt me. It’s not remorse I feel, it’s a haunting reminder that I shall never see that friend again. When I die, I shall not meet him in the afterlife, if there is one at all. I like to believe that one can look up and think there is such a place. These thoughts, wishes, all suddenly reappeared the moment his body fell to the floor. Yet, even coated in his own blood, his breathing so unsteady I feared he was only a few breaths from death, he remained beautiful. How could I, a genius strategist with an inhumane IQ, let this happen? Why had I not called him, this ginger, ocean-eyed slug? Chuuya, he’d always be those names to me. I still wonder why we call each other such things, but it makes us both feel alive. With him, I could act like a child, as I never had a true chance to be a child. Even now, if I could muster up the courage as I write, I'd twist the narrative so it looked as if I did not care. If I did that, I would dishonor the words we had shared that night.

Dazai rushed over the pavement to grab hold of Chuuya. His hands sliding over the boy's body to pull him over his lap. His eyes are a sea of worry and panic. One of his hands grabbed the boy’s wrist lightly, his pulse was so slow, his eyes were already slowly dropping, but Dazai stayed confident. “Hey Chibi, you’re an idiot.”

The frail form of the boy beneath him cracked a small smile. “You’re the idiot you- his body racked itself with a spurt of coughs, his lips dripping crimson to join the stains on his perfectly pale skin.- d-damn mackerel.”

Dazai dropped the boy's wrist with a chuckle, pressing his hand to the boy's lips. “Yeah, I know Chibi, I know. - The ginger's eyes began to flutter shut.- No Chibi, your eyes have to stay open. Look, I've got people coming to fix you up. So just try to keep yourself awake.” Dazai’s hand moved to cup the other's cheek. “You’ll be okay.”

Chuuya’s breath staggered a wheeze interrupting the shallow breaths he’d been going through. “I’m dying, aren't I?”

Dazai shook his head, feeling his chest sting with the familiar pain of grief. As if somebody took a microscope over the feeling, it continued to grow. By now, he was sure the pain exceeded the total amount of grief he’d gone through with Oda’s passing. “No Chibi, you’re not… you're not dying.” He paused in that sentence looking down at Chuuya, who laughed dryly.

“So fucking optimistic.” They sat in silence, and Chuuya's eyes fixed on Dazai. Though it was unnoticed by Dazai, his clouded tired eyes were on his lips. He was taking into memory the parts of wishes he’d never get. Every passing second, Chuuya felt his eyes threaten to drip shut. He was trying to listen to Dazai, but his eyes were bricks; sleep a melody that sang to him. With the fear of never waking up again, Chuuya lifted his hand from his side to reach Dazai’s cheek, his blood leaving a mark. “Hey, Dazai.” His voice lacked anything but sincerity.

“No Chuuya. No, you’re okay! Just a few more minutes and Yosano will be here! Fuck, just stop moving, keep your eyes open, keep breathing because you’re alright.” Chuuya had never seen Dazai act like this before. So as Dazai’s hand warmly wrapped around his, his head pressing into the cold touch of Chuuya’s, words were spoken.

“Dazai, I. Never. H-hated… you. I. lov-” before those words could finish, his body was shaking. Tears were forming, he was still conscious and very much alive, but his entire system of organs and cells were rejecting him. The use of corruption had been at its limit long before Dazai had touched him. Before his ability had been canceled out, he was beyond death. The way he coughed his hands, flailing out to grab Dazai’s shirt and press their bodies together, made even Dazai emotional. Dazai managed to still the boy's movements. His eyes half-open as he tried to hold onto whatever string was left. “Lo-” this time he was cut off by Dazai’s hand. His head shaking, hearing Chuuya speak would make this far too real.

He wasn’t ready to let him go. For the first time, he wanted to be far from death, far from the pain and suffering of humankind. So as Chuuya smiled and looked to the ceiling, his hand continued to stroke Dazai’s cheek. A reminder he was still alive.

That moment ended all too quickly when Chuuya took a final staggered breath and looked to Dazai. “Loved you.” He finished his sentence before his eyes dropped shut. His hand slipped into a limp state within Dazai’s hold.

It took the brunette no time to jump to compressions. He continuously screamed. A voice that had never once mourned, or shed a tear, now sat in a contorted expression between agony and doubt. His mind was static, for the first time nothing clear could form within his head. He shrieked out for Chuuya. Open your eyes, he had chanted and begged before he no longer had the strength to continue. He simply fell on top of Chuuya, his ear to his chest praying to hear a soft thud. Three minutes passed before his body, devoid of any, and everything was yanked away. Had he been shown a mirror, one would not have recognized Dazai. His clothes were bloodied, his hair disheveled and wet from the rain he’d run in only a handful of minutes ago.

Dazai sat numbly as his co-workers looked around trying to find if there was any danger left. When the scene was clear and Yosano made the final statement, the world truly crumbled. Still, despite having started CPR and rescue breaths, despite having felt the cooling touch of his skin, Dazai had held onto the hope that Yosano would fix this. He watched as she put on a work face. Her heels clicked across the ground as she walked over to Dazai with a doctor's approach, not a friend's approach. She bent before Dazai and began to speak. “Dazai, I need you to focus your eyes on me, alright?” Dazai could read her mind like an open book. His mind, in his numb state, had returned to his 17-year-old self. Devoid of any real feeling, bent on causing pain and suffering. He tilted his head like that child-self would in this situation. For once, he genuinely felt human. “I understand you were close to Nakahara-san. You were also here at the scene. It’s with much regret-” before she could finish, Dazai’s eyes grew cold and clouded, his lips a snarl as he shoved her.

“He’s okay! Chuuya is okay, he’ll wake up! He always does, even when I have to change things in a second advance because I fucked up. He's okay! We’re soukoku, double black. We can’t be put down. We’re partners, we need each other." even Yosano froze at the sudden outburst. The way Dazai cried without realizing the tears were falling. The way he tried to look happy as if he hadn’t watched Chuuya die within his arms. “Right… he’s okay right?” Dazai hardly knew what he was saying, his head foggy, his mind trying to stay collected.

If one could compare him to anything, one would say that moment he'd looked like a child, no older than fourteen, who’d watched a death before their eyes. Yosano collected herself before shaking her head. She decided to take the approach she’d have with a child instead of an adult. For in this moment, Dazai was experiencing what one could call his first-ever truly emotional loss. This was the first time his mind was catching up with him. “Dazai, Chuuya cared very much for you. You know that right?”

Dazai seemed to calm slightly at the thought as he focused on Yosano. “Yeah, he loved me… he said he loved me.” Suddenly, the situation became worse than she’d thought.

“Mhm, and you loved him too?” Dazai took his time to slowly nod before gulping and shrinking down.

“And now… he’s not coming home. No more loud, annoying comments. No more nights at the bar…” Dazai’s voice choked before the sounds of more footsteps followed in.

A high-pitched female voice screamed in a shrieking roar. “Where is he!” Dazai knew that voice. Kouyo, his Ane-san. At least, at one point she’d been his Ane-san. But his eyes stopped looking at Yosano and instead took a glimpse at Chuuya, whose corpse still lay there.

Once more, Dazai’s emotions took control, and he placed his hands over his eyes and shut himself away. Yosano swore under her breath and stood up. “Which one is he?” Yosano stood up rather angrily. She disliked her conversations being so rudely interrupted, even if it were somebody she had a small connection with.

“Chuuya…” the red-haired female stormed over before spotting Dazai first. His body cradled in like a child. A position she’d never seen him in. Her heart could only lurch to the worst. Hesitantly, she looked off to the side and saw it. The bloodied corpse. She spent no more time looking, she couldn’t.

She shoved Yosano away from Dazai, a boy she had once helped to look after and almost raise. Though she resented the boy for abandoning his role as an executive, she knew how much the pair had been connected. So she’d be a mother or older sister for a bit. Something Dazai had never seemed to have. “Dazai, it’s Kouyo, can you look at me? I just wanna make sure you’re alright.”

Dazai peeked from his arms, sniffing in his delirious state as he lunged towards her. Not in a hostile way, but an embrace. Something he never thought he’d need. He felt so human, so alive, but at the same time, he felt so dead inside. He felt as if his life had been torn and replaced within seconds. This feeling he couldn’t place a name on. “I was too late… I couldn’t, and now he’s and I… it’s all my-'' Kouyo was quick to shut him down, muffling her own sobs as she rocked Dazai in her arms.

“Hush child, these things happen. The fault is never that you could not make it in time. The fault lies within the bastard who did this. He always took extremes to protect you, Dazai. So hush now, let yourself grieve.” There was a slight pause as the agency starred in shock. This woman, who most of them knew as a vengeful woman with no remorse, sat cradling a grown man from an opposing organization as if he were her child, no more like an older sister cradling a younger brother. “Dazai, I won’t criticize your reaction, I've seen it many times in the mafia. Little children who witness death at such a young age think they are immune to it. They find another blame or they say they are monsters. You were 14 when Mori took you in. You never had somebody to teach you to grieve. You never needed to, not until now. So listen to me child, you’re going to let it all out, the years of pain and suffering, the years of grief for lost friends, even I have cried in my life. Nobody is immune to pain, some of us just think we are.” As Kouyo spoke, she noted Dazai’s breathing reached a slowing point. He was fast asleep before she finished her words. Her touch was gentle as she brushed a lock of his hair behind his ears.

Next, she walked over to Chuuya and hung her head, murmuring words of mourning. She walked off quickly, but came back moments later with his hat. “He’d want somebody to have it.” Yosano stood beside Kouyo, who choked back her own tears.

“I think it should go to Dazai. He always mocked his hats, even though he loved seeing Chuuya in them. They really were meant for each other. It’s unfortunate such a great pair ended up… in a life like this. Perhaps they will be reborn in an era where they are nothing but students who fall in love. I like to think there is always a second chance for lives that end too short.”

With a nod, they both looked to Dazai, who looked at peace sleeping on the ground.

~

When I woke up that day after, I could hardly remember anything. I had lost myself completely to the side that was human. I truly did try to live on, but it was difficult. No matter where I looked, I could see his laugh, I hated it. The pain that constantly wrapped around me. Hence, why I sit here with a pen. I never took myself to write my thoughts down. Oda had once ruminated about being a reader, he died before he ever could. I miss them both. I say that, but when I look down at the tear-stained paper, so many of them were for Chuuya. A love I never got to kiss or truly love. Today, I will not wake up. I no longer care about things like making my death overly complex and comfortable. I shall go to sleep with Chuuya’s hat at my side. I shall die with him at my side. That is how it should have been. Chuuya should have lived that night. I shall never know what sparked him to use corruption without me there. All I know is the worst person in the world, Destovesky, who now lay in a ditch from my own pistol, threatened the ginger to such an extent he felt the need to use it. In a way, I have solved several problems with one action. I killed the criminal, and I'm killing the single person whose blood runs more mafia black than any other.

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[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Ida Lupino (4 February 1918 – 3 August 1995) was an English-American actress, singer, director, and producer. She is widely regarded as the most prominent female filmmaker working in the 1950s during the Hollywood studio system. With her independent production company, she co-wrote and co-produced several social-message films and became the first woman to direct a film noir with The Hitch-Hiker in 1953. Among her other directed films the best known are Not Wanted about unwed pregnancy (she took over for a sick director and refused directorial credit), Never Fear (1949) loosely based upon her own experiences battling paralyzing polio, Outrage (1950) one of the first films about rape, The Bigamist (1953) (which was named in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die) and The Trouble with Angels (1966).

Throughout her 48-year career, she made acting appearances in 59 films and directed eight others, working primarily in the United States, where she became a citizen in 1948. As an actress her best known films are The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) with Basil Rathbone, They Drive by Night (1940) with George Raft and Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra (1941) with Bogart, The Sea Wolf (1941) with Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield, Ladies in Retirement (1941) with Louis Hayward, Moontide (1942) with Jean Gabin, The Hard Way (1943), Deep Valley (1947) with Dane Clark, Road House (1948) with Cornel Wilde and Richard Widmark, While the City Sleeps (1956) with Dana Andrews and Vincent Price. and Junior Bonner (1972) with Steve McQueen.

She also directed more than 100 episodes of television productions in a variety of genres including westerns, supernatural tales, situation comedies, murder mysteries, and gangster stories. She was the only woman to direct an episode of the original The Twilight Zone series ("The Masks"), as well as the only director to have starred in an episode of the show ("The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine").

Lupino was born in Herne Hill, London, to actress Connie O'Shea (also known as Connie Emerald) and music hall comedian Stanley Lupino, a member of the theatrical Lupino family, which included Lupino Lane, a song-and-dance man. Her father, a top name in musical comedy in the UK and a member of a centuries-old theatrical dynasty dating back to Renaissance Italy, encouraged her to perform at an early age. He built a backyard theatre for Lupino and her sister Rita (1920–2016), who also became an actress and dancer. Lupino wrote her first play at age seven and toured with a travelling theatre company as a child. By the age of ten, Lupino had memorised the leading female roles in each of Shakespeare's plays. After her intense childhood training for stage plays, Ida's uncle Lupino Lane assisted her in moving towards film acting by getting her work as a background actress at British International Studios.

She wanted to be a writer, but in order to please her father, Lupino enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She excelled in a number of "bad girl" film roles, often playing prostitutes. Lupino did not enjoy being an actress and felt uncomfortable with many of the early roles she was given. She felt that she was pushed into the profession due to her family history.

Lupino worked as both a stage and screen actress. She first took to the stage in 1934 as the lead in The Pursuit of Happiness at the Paramount Studio Theatre.[10] Lupino made her first film appearance in The Love Race (1931) and the following year, aged 14, she worked under director Allan Dwan in Her First Affaire, in a role for which her mother had previously tested.[11] She played leading roles in five British films in 1933 at Warner Bros.' Teddington studios and for Julius Hagen at Twickenham, including The Ghost Camera with John Mills and I Lived with You with Ivor Novello.

Dubbed "the English Jean Harlow", she was discovered by Paramount in the 1933 film Money for Speed, playing a good girl/bad girl dual role. Lupino claimed the talent scouts saw her play only the sweet girl in the film and not the part of the prostitute, so she was asked to try out for the lead role in Alice in Wonderland (1933). When she arrived in Hollywood, the Paramount producers did not know what to make of their sultry potential leading lady, but she did get a five-year contract.

Lupino starred in over a dozen films in the mid-1930s, working with Columbia in a two-film deal, one of which, The Light That Failed (1939), was a role she acquired after running into the director's office unannounced, demanding an audition. After this breakthrough performance as a spiteful cockney model who torments Ronald Colman, she began to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. As a result, her parts improved during the 1940s, and she jokingly referred to herself as "the poor man's Bette Davis", taking the roles that Davis refused.

Mark Hellinger, associate producer at Warner Bros., was impressed by Lupino's performance in The Light That Failed, and hired her for the femme-fatale role in the Raoul Walsh-directed They Drive by Night (1940), opposite stars George Raft, Ann Sheridan and Humphrey Bogart. The film did well and the critical consensus was that Lupino stole the movie, particularly in her unhinged courtroom scene. Warner Bros. offered her a contract which she negotiated to include some freelance rights. She worked with Walsh and Bogart again in High Sierra (1941), where she impressed critic Bosley Crowther in her role as an "adoring moll".

Her performance in The Hard Way (1943) won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. She starred in Pillow to Post (1945), which was her only comedic leading role. After the drama Deep Valley (1947) finished shooting, neither Warner Bros. nor Lupino moved to renew her contract and she left the studio in 1947. Although in demand throughout the 1940s, she arguably never became a major star although she often had top billing in her pictures, above actors such as Humphrey Bogart, and was repeatedly critically lauded for her realistic, direct acting style.

She often incurred the ire of studio boss Jack Warner by objecting to her casting, refusing poorly written roles that she felt were beneath her dignity as an actress, and making script revisions deemed unacceptable by the studio. As a result, she spent a great deal of her time at Warner Bros. suspended. In 1942, she rejected an offer to star with Ronald Reagan in Kings Row, and was immediately put on suspension at the studio. Eventually, a tentative rapprochement was brokered, but her relationship with the studio remained strained. In 1947, Lupino left Warner Brothers and appeared for 20th Century Fox as a nightclub singer in the film noir Road House, performing her musical numbers in the film. She starred in On Dangerous Ground in 1951, and may have taken on some of the directing tasks of the film while director Nicholas Ray was ill.

While on suspension, Lupino had ample time to observe filming and editing processes, and she became interested in directing. She described how bored she was on set while "someone else seemed to be doing all the interesting work".

She and her husband Collier Young formed an independent company, The Filmakers, to produce, direct, and write low-budget, issue-oriented films. Her first directing job came unexpectedly in 1949 when director Elmer Clifton suffered a mild heart attack and was unable to finish Not Wanted, a film Lupino co-produced and co-wrote. Lupino stepped in to finish the film without taking directorial credit out of respect for Clifton. Although the film's subject of out-of-wedlock pregnancy was controversial, it received a vast amount of publicity, and she was invited to discuss the film with Eleanor Roosevelt on a national radio program.

Never Fear (1949), a film about polio (which she had personally experienced replete with paralysis at age 16), was her first director's credit. After producing four more films about social issues, including Outrage (1950), a film about rape (while this word is never used in the movie), Lupino directed her first hard-paced, all-male-cast film, The Hitch-Hiker (1953), making her the first woman to direct a film noir. The Filmakers went on to produce 12 feature films, six of which Lupino directed or co-directed, five of which she wrote or co-wrote, three of which she acted in, and one of which she co-produced.

Lupino once called herself a "bulldozer" to secure financing for her production company, but she referred to herself as "mother" while on set. On set, the back of her director's chair was labeled "Mother of Us All".[3] Her studio emphasized her femininity, often at the urging of Lupino herself. She credited her refusal to renew her contract with Warner Bros. under the pretenses of domesticity, claiming "I had decided that nothing lay ahead of me but the life of the neurotic star with no family and no home." She made a point to seem nonthreatening in a male-dominated environment, stating, "That's where being a man makes a great deal of difference. I don't suppose the men particularly care about leaving their wives and children. During the vacation period, the wife can always fly over and be with him. It's difficult for a wife to say to her husband, come sit on the set and watch."

Although directing became Lupino's passion, the drive for money kept her on camera, so she could acquire the funds to make her own productions. She became a wily low-budget filmmaker, reusing sets from other studio productions and talking her physician into appearing as a doctor in the delivery scene of Not Wanted. She used what is now called product placement, placing Coke, Cadillac, and other brands in her films, such as The Bigamist. She shot in public places to avoid set-rental costs and planned scenes in pre-production to avoid technical mistakes and retakes. She joked that if she had been the "poor man's Bette Davis" as an actress, she had now become the "poor man's Don Siegel" as a director.

The Filmakers production company closed shop in 1955, and Lupino turned almost immediately to television, directing episodes of more than thirty US TV series from 1956 through 1968. She also helmed a feature film in 1965 for the Catholic schoolgirl comedy The Trouble With Angels, starring Hayley Mills and Rosalind Russell; this was Lupino's last theatrical film as a director. She continued acting as well, going on to a successful television career throughout the 1960s and '70s.

Lupino's career as a director continued through 1968. Her directing efforts during these years were almost exclusively for television productions such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Thriller, The Twilight Zone, Have Gun – Will Travel, Honey West, The Donna Reed Show, Gilligan's Island, 77 Sunset Strip, The Rifleman, The Virginian, Sam Benedict, The Untouchables, Hong Kong, The Fugitive, and Bewitched.

After the demise of The Filmakers, Lupino continued working as an actress until the end of the 1970s, mainly in television. Lupino appeared in 19 episodes of Four Star Playhouse from 1952 to 1956, an endeavor involving partners Charles Boyer, Dick Powell and David Niven. From January 1957 to September 1958, Lupino starred with her then-husband Howard Duff in the sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve, in which the duo played husband-and-wife film stars named Howard Adams and Eve Drake, living in Beverly Hills, California.[22] Duff and Lupino also co-starred as themselves in 1959 in one of the 13 one-hour installments of The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour and an episode of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show in 1960. Lupino guest-starred in numerous television shows, including The Ford Television Theatre (1954), Bonanza (1959), Burke's Law (1963–64), The Virginian (1963–65), Batman (1968), The Mod Squad (1969), Family Affair (1969–70), The Wild, Wild West (1969), Nanny and the Professor (1971), Columbo: Short Fuse (1972), Columbo: Swan Song (1974) in which she plays Johnny Cash's character's zealous wife, Barnaby Jones (1974), The Streets of San Francisco, Ellery Queen (1975), Police Woman (1975), and Charlie's Angels (1977). Her final acting appearance was in the 1979 film My Boys Are Good Boys.

Lupino has two distinctions with The Twilight Zone series, as the only woman to have directed an episode ("The Masks") and the only person to have worked as both actor for one episode ("The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine"), and director for another.

Lupino's Filmakers movies deal with unconventional and controversial subject matter that studio producers would not touch, including out-of-wedlock pregnancy, bigamy, and rape. She described her independent work as "films that had social significance and yet were entertainment ... base on true stories, things the public could understand because they had happened or been of news value." She focused on women's issues for many of her films and she liked strong characters, "[Not] women who have masculine qualities about them, but [a role] that has intestinal fortitude, some guts to it."

In the film The Bigamist, the two women characters represent the career woman and the homemaker. The title character is married to a woman (Joan Fontaine) who, unable to have children, has devoted her energy to her career. While on one of many business trips, he meets a waitress (Lupino) with whom he has a child, and then marries her.[25] Marsha Orgeron, in her book Hollywood Ambitions, describes these characters as "struggling to figure out their place in environments that mirror the social constraints that Lupino faced".[13] However, Donati, in his biography of Lupino, said "The solutions to the character's problems within the films were often conventional, even conservative, more reinforcing the 1950s' ideology than undercutting it."

Ahead of her time within the studio system, Lupino was intent on creating films that were rooted in reality. On Never Fear, Lupino said, "People are tired of having the wool pulled over their eyes. They pay out good money for their theatre tickets and they want something in return. They want realism. And you can't be realistic with the same glamorous mugs on the screen all the time."

Lupino's films are critical of many traditional social institutions, which reflect her contempt for the patriarchal structure that existed in Hollywood. Lupino rejected the commodification of female stars and as an actress, she resisted becoming an object of desire. She said in 1949, "Hollywood careers are perishable commodities", and sought to avoid such a fate for herself.

Ida Lupino was diagnosed with polio in 1934. The New York Times reported that the outbreak of polio within the Hollywood community was due to contaminated swimming pools. The disease severely affected her ability to work, and her contract with Paramount fell apart shortly after her diagnosis. Lupino recovered and eventually directed, produced, and wrote many films, including a film loosely based upon her travails with polio titled Never Fear in 1949, the first film that she was credited for directing (she had earlier stepped in for an ill director on Not Wanted and refused directorial credit out of respect for her colleague). Her experience with the disease gave Lupino the courage to focus on her intellectual abilities over simply her physical appearance. In an interview with Hollywood, Lupino said, "I realized that my life and my courage and my hopes did not lie in my body. If that body was paralyzed, my brain could still work industriously...If I weren't able to act, I would be able to write. Even if I weren't able to use a pencil or typewriter, I could dictate."[31] Film magazines from the 1930s and 1940s, such as The Hollywood Reporter and Motion Picture Daily, frequently published updates on her condition. Lupino worked for various non-profit organizations to help raise funds for polio research.

Lupino's interests outside the entertainment industry included writing short stories and children's books, and composing music. Her composition "Aladdin's Suite" was performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1937. She composed this piece while on bedrest due to polio in 1935.

She became an American citizen in June 1948 and a staunch Democrat who supported the presidency of John F. Kennedy. Lupino was Catholic.

Lupino died from a stroke while undergoing treatment for colon cancer in Los Angeles on 3 August 1995, at the age of 77. Her memoirs, Ida Lupino: Beyond the Camera, were edited after her death and published by Mary Ann Anderson.

Lupino learned filmmaking from everyone she observed on set, including William Ziegler, the cameraman for Not Wanted. When in preproduction on Never Fear, she conferred with Michael Gordon on directorial technique, organization, and plotting. Cinematographer Archie Stout said of Ms. Lupino, "Ida has more knowledge of camera angles and lenses than any director I've ever worked with, with the exception of Victor Fleming. She knows how a woman looks on the screen and what light that woman should have, probably better than I do." Lupino also worked with editor Stanford Tischler, who said of her, "She wasn't the kind of director who would shoot something, then hope any flaws could be fixed in the cutting room. The acting was always there, to her credit."

Author Ally Acker compares Lupino to pioneering silent-film director Lois Weber for their focus on controversial, socially relevant topics. With their ambiguous endings, Lupino's films never offered simple solutions for her troubled characters, and Acker finds parallels to her storytelling style in the work of the modern European "New Wave" directors, such as Margarethe von Trotta.

Ronnie Scheib, who issued a Kino release of three of Lupino's films, likens Lupino's themes and directorial style to directors Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller, and Robert Aldrich, saying, "Lupino very much belongs to that generation of modernist filmmakers." On whether Lupino should be considered a feminist filmmaker, Scheib states, "I don't think Lupino was concerned with showing strong people, men or women. She often said that she was interested in lost, bewildered people, and I think she was talking about the postwar trauma of people who couldn't go home again."

Author Richard Koszarski noted Lupino's choice to play with gender roles regarding women's film stereotypes during the studio era: "Her films display the obsessions and consistencies of a true auteur... In her films The Bigamist and The Hitch-Hiker, Lupino was able to reduce the male to the same sort of dangerous, irrational force that women represented in most male-directed examples of Hollywood film noir."

Lupino did not openly consider herself a feminist, saying, "I had to do something to fill up my time between contracts. Keeping a feminine approach is vital — men hate bossy females ... Often I pretended to a cameraman to know less than I did. That way I got more cooperation." Village Voice writer Carrie Rickey, though, holds Lupino up as a model of modern feminist filmmaking: "Not only did Lupino take control of production, direction, and screenplay, but [also] each of her movies addresses the brutal repercussions of sexuality, independence and dependence."

By 1972, Lupino said she wished more women were hired as directors and producers in Hollywood, noting that only very powerful actresses or writers had the chance to work in the field. She directed or costarred a number of times with young, fellow British actresses on a similar journey of developing their American film careers like Hayley Mills and Pamela Franklin.

Actress Bea Arthur, best remembered for her work in Maude and The Golden Girls, was motivated to escape her stifling hometown by following in Lupino's footsteps and becoming an actress, saying, "My dream was to become a very small blonde movie star like Ida Lupino and those other women I saw up there on the screen during the Depression."

Lupino has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for contributions to the fields of television and film — located at 1724 Vine Street and 6821 Hollywood Boulevard.

New York Film Critics Circle Award - Best Actress, The Hard Way, 1943

Inaugural Saturn Award - Best Supporting Actress, The Devil's Rain, 1975

A Commemorative Blue Plaque is dedicated to Lupino and her father Stanley Lupino by The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America and the Theatre and Film Guild of Great Britain and America at the house where she was born in Herne Hill, London, 16 February 2016

Composer Carla Bley paid tribute to Lupino with her jazz composition "Ida Lupino" in 1964.

The Hitch-Hiker was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1998 while Outrage was inducted in 2020.

[moskaisley]

migraine pt. 4 | tension

gif cred: @thestarwarsdaily​

rating: mature

word count: 5.7k HOO BOY

warnings: ANGST ANGST ANGST EVERYONE IS ANGY, cursing, descriptions of vomiting and a panic attack, mentions of death, mentions of trafficking 

a/n: I KNO THIS TOOK A LONG TIME .. AND I'VE BEEN STARING AT IT FOR HOURS. THANK U ALL FOR BEING SO SO SO PATIENT AND THANK U TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO LEFT LOVELY COMMENTS ON BOTH TUMBLR N AO3 <3

I really really appreciate you guys. As someone who doesn't consider herself a writer by any means, it's nice to know that people enjoy the stories I tell. I had a LOT of trouble with this, but the rest of the story is planned out so I'm hoping there won't be as long a break in between chapters again! we've got about 3 parts left :)) 

summary:

"Maybe you don’t hate him as much as he thinks.

Maybe you miss him as much as he misses you. Maybe you also long for him in the late hours of the night, replaying moments of your lives together over and over and over in your head. Maybe you didn’t regret taking this job. Maybe, just maybe, you will forgive this broken man and let him in your heart’s home once again."

Wherein wounds are reopened, split, and burned alive.

parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

ao3 link / masterlist

Detective Ira Volskaya was a shady guy. Incidentally, he was also your client. 

He couldn’t have been much older than you were, but years of police work and crime stopping have weathered him into a brooding, suspicious man with greying hairs and droopy, tired eyes. You and Mando ended up far away from the city center of Coruscant, Volskaya insisting that collection took place in an abandoned warehouse. Judging by how secretive this all was and how strict the detective was on his instructions, you figured that this little exchange wasn’t “in line” with Security Force policy. 

As Mando spoke with Volskaya, you helped unload Khan’s slab onto the docking station for his men to take away. Once they had it down the ramp, you walked over to them, catching his attention.

Taking a puff of his cigarra, he narrows his eyes and nods at you, “She wasn’t with you last time.”

“She’s just–” 

Mando’s head darted between the two of you, hesitating. 

“A coworker,” you cut in sharply. 

The detective pursed his lips in suspicion, but left it alone. Instead, he turned to the briefcase at his feet, handing it over to Mando. As he double checked the amount in the case, your eyes caught Ira’s men loading the carbonite slab onto a speeder. Your mind drifts back to something Mando said on the Slipstream.

“he’s wanted for running multiple sex trafficking rings throughout the galaxy…”

You look back at the detective, “What’s going to happen to the rest of Khan’s operation?”

“We’re hoping that his capture will cause a fracture in his little empire. Break up the chain of command and let it die out.”

Volskaya takes another drag and sighs, smoke curling off his lips, “But with the new intel that’s come in, there’s a chance it’ll create a power vacuum. A lot of people wanted him dead. Someone new could easily take his place.”

Your stomach twists as you remember Aayn’vida trembling on the bathroom floor. There are probably still thousands of girls like her, just as scared and helpless. It makes your mouth go sour. 

As if sensing your discomfort, Mando shuts the case abruptly.

“It’s all here. Let’s go.”

You kept repeating to yourself that nothing would satisfy you more than to get off this planet and move on from anything that had to do with Khan Horne. But there was a scathing pull at the back of your mind that tugged with each step closer to the Crest. Your gaze darted between the case in Mando’s hand, the slab on the speeder, and Ira Volskaya’s retreating figure. Furrowing your brows, you rub your fingers on your temple; collecting never felt this complicated. What’s gotten into you? You got your money and the job is done, so why was your brain screaming at you to stop Mando from closing the ramp?

Someone new… a power vacuum. 

“Wait.”

Mando’s gaze turned to you, fingers hovering over his vambrace.

Fumbling over your words, you say something along the lines of stay put and that you’ll be back in a second. Turning back to the warehouse, you jog away from the ship and call,

“Detective!”

He spins on his heel back to you, face twisting in confusion.

Squaring your shoulders and huffing your breath, you say, “Give me a list of everyone who was involved in Khan’s organization.”

He eyes you quizzically, “I thought bounty hunters didn’t ask questions.”

“I’m not asking as a bounty hunter.”

“Then what are you asking as?”

“Someone who can get to them faster than the Security Force can,” You swallow hard, courage pulsing through you, “Someone who can help.”

The detective raises his eyebrows at you, impressed. And then he smiles, throwing his cigarra to the ground and stomping out the ashes beneath his foot. 

--

Din Djarin was not good enough for you. He didn’t deserve you. This much he knew.

So he let you go.

He really thought he did the right thing. It escalated too quickly after the cockpit and he found himself falling hard. What started as relief for sexual tension turned into softer touches, shining smiles, flirtatious jokes that drove him over the edge.  

And then,

“Do you ever think there’s more to this?”

He digs his nose into the crook of your neck, arm slung over your bare waist. Half-asleep, dizzy from your warmth, he relishes in the feeling of your body next to his. 

“More to what?”

You let out a gentle sigh, “This life. Hunting. Living out of a tiny, broken ship hopping from planet to planet.”

“Hey, the Crest isn’t that bad.”

You slap him lightly against his chest, “You know what I mean.” 

“What did you have in mind?”

A cottage. The ocean. Family.

All in the afterglow of a kiss that tasted like peaches. 

Din had a feeling you’ve always wanted more, but this was truly the first time you spoke honestly and truly in length about it. Bounty hunting was rarely ever a sought after profession, and though you were good at your job, he knew it wasn’t something you ever planned on continuing. Twisting a peach pit in your fingers, you admit to him that your life would’ve been completely different without it. You would’ve taken over your father’s orchards and lived in your beautiful family villa, selling fresh fruit to nobles and townspeople alike. Your voice grows wistful as you recount sweet summer days spent chasing your older brother through the fields or weaving baskets with your mother. 

“I wore sundresses, Din.” 

He smiles against the soft skin of your neck and squeezes your thigh gently, “Sounds pretty. You should wear them again.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

“Very much so, yes.”

You let out a giggle, shoving him gently. He only held you tighter. A beat of silence passed between you before Din’s hand moved to interlace with yours, face suddenly contorting with unease. 

“What happened?”

“What always happens.” Your shoulders rise and fall with a heavy sigh, and you grip his fingers tighter. “I was seventeen when Imps occupied our valley. They wanted to clear the farm for military barracks; when my father refused, they burned everything to the ground in the middle of the night. My brother and I escaped with a few other refugees.”

“And your parents?”

“Firing squad.”

“What about our brother?”

He feels your nails dig further into the crevice of his hand.

“He was stupid enough to join the Resistance. I don’t know where he is, but I’ve assumed the worst already.”

His heart twists in remorse at the hurt in your voice. Removing his hands away from yours, he pulls you in closer, stroking your hair with his calloused fingers and pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead. In all your years of partnership, Din had never known the full extent of your past, only that you started young doing hits for spice cartels and eventually ending up in the Guild. Before, when he tried to ask why you started so early, your answer was always brief and bitter.

“There was only so much a girl could do to make money, Mando.” 

The conversation never went further than that. But now, in light of your vulnerability and candor, your questions about the future suddenly made sense. It was never supposed to be this way; your life since adolescence had been solely dictated by fear and the need to survive. When you spoke about it, you sounded exhausted. With the decline of the Empire, how could he blame you for wanting to be more than a war-torn orphan turned ruthless hunter?

The more he thought about it the more it tore him apart. 

Because suddenly he was 11 years old again, watching the carnage of his hometown disappear over the shoulder of a Death Watch soldier. Jarring visions of blood and empty eyes melted in between with hazy memories of happy trips to the market and bedtime stories. It felt like whiplash. The echoes of blaster fire and falling debris were loud enough for him to wake up shaking in a cold sweat. The pounding of his heart sounded a lot like cannon fodder and it was loud enough to give him the headaches you suffered from so often. He was ashamed to say that the only time he really remembered his mother’s face was when she was dead on the ground. But to his horror, in his nightmares, he began to see you instead of her, body lifeless and eyes devoid of any life. Everything he’d been ignoring since his youth, crushed and hidden after swearing the Creed and following the Way of the Mandalore, was suddenly washing over him like ocean waves in a storm. Because, unlike you, this life was so devastatingly simple and comfortable for him. It was almost sacred; he was bound by a near holy doctrine and devoid of emotional attachments. That is, until you came and found home under his skin. He was grieving for you before he even lost you. It was unbearable, filling his lungs and suffocating him until he was gasping for air–

“Are you okay?”  Your drowsy voice whispered beneath him. 

He swallowed hard and pulled you closer, pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead.

“Go back to sleep, sweet girl.”

Any semblance of a normal life was lost on him. Din knew he couldn’t give you peace he didn’t have. He wanted to, though.

He wished he could gift you every star that shone in the sky. 

Fuck 80%. He’d give you galaxies.

And yet, he still pulled a blaster on you and left you alone – too caught up in not facing his own demons. Din didn’t realize how much of a mistake it was to let you go until he was half-dead, bleeding all over your old bunk. A job went terribly wrong that day.  He was ambushed on some godforsaken jungle planet and running on two hours of sleep, dreams plagued with visions of you crying at the foot of the Slipstream. He was so used to having someone cover his blindspots that he made a colossal mistake that nearly cost him his life. No one had his back that day, and was there no one to stitch him up and call him an idiot. 

Existing without you was rougher than he thought it’d be since you’d seeped into every corner of his little life. He couldn’t pass a fruit stand without glancing over for your favorite peaches. When he’d wrangle with tougher bounties, he cursed at how much easier this shit would be if you were there. In the Razor Crest, you’d organized the kitchenette a certain way that Din couldn’t find a pot without tearing it apart, and then he’d wrack his brain to figure out how you organized it so neatly in the first place. He felt a chill when he passed your empty bunk. One day, he found a bottle of your headache medicine in the refresher cabinet. Din kept it. Just in case.

You were everywhere and yet, you weren’t. 

You ran together for so long that others noticed your disappearance. Even Xi’an. 

“Where’s your little puppy, Mando? She lost?”

He said nothing. 

The Twi’lek moved closer, running a hand up his chestplate, “Or did you leave her behind, too?”

“Don’t,” he seethed. The victory in her eyes was disgusting.

Mayfeld’s teasing voice cut in, “Competition, Xi’an?”

“Hardly,” She gave him a vile smirk, “Did she whine like a bitch when it finally happened?” Din was quick to seize her hand away from his body, twisting her forearm near the point of breaking. 

“I said. Don’t.”

She only laughed. He wished you were there to wipe that smirk off her face.

It was then that he decided to come and find you. As it turns out, bounty hunters don’t make great parents. The child had just barely survived again, and Din was getting desperate. He’d already lost track of how many times the baby was put in danger, and though he’d been able to keep him alive all these months, Din was definitely not a parent. 

After picking up the most lucrative, non-Guild job he could get, he flew straight to the one person he could truly trust in the universe.

When he saw you tensely poised at the cantina, ten paces felt like ten parsecs.

The first thing he noticed were the strands of grey peeking through your hair and the dark circles beneath your eyes. You were by no means an old woman, but you weren’t getting any younger either. In the state that he left you in, three years had aged you and your fiery spirit. Your once lively, spitfire demeanor was now cold and tired. 

In the beginning of this little reunion, Din was half convinced that he’d made a terrible mistake trying to make amends. He was desperate to be in your good graces. He needed to apologize. beg you. Grovel at your feet. Atone. Do penance. But you’d seem to shut down every time he tried, denying his pitiful apologies and forgoing any pleasantries. The Mandalorian was lost around you.

And then you got shot. 

At that point, Din was positive you were marching straight out of his ship and jetting away in the Slipstream the second this was all over – not before kicking his ass, of course. All the guilt that had consumed him over the years nearly drew him to insanity as he took your limp body from Aayn’vida’s arms, cursing in Mando’a and imploring you to stay awake. Wiping the tears from your eyes and tending to your wound, his thoughts were hysterical. How could he do this to you? Put you through all this trouble only to get shot? And for what? A chance to –

“Din?”

The name fell so softly from your lips. 

“Din, my head– it hurts so much.”

His mouth goes dry. He lets out a shaky breath, overwhelmed and eyes bleary.

“Sssh, lay down. You’ll be okay, cyar’ika.”

The Mandalorian only ever dreamed about you saying his name again. Upon your reunion, he noticed immediately how unnatural “Mando” sounded in your mouth, even if he’s heard it thousands of times. It stung when you refused to call him anything else. So hearing it whispered in the walls of the Razor Crest again made his heart beat violently in his chest and gave him the smallest sliver of hope.

Maybe you don’t hate him as much as he thinks.

Maybe you miss him as much as he misses you. Maybe you also long for him in the late hours of the night, replaying moments of your lives together over and over and over in your head. Maybe you didn’t regret taking this job. Maybe, just maybe, you will forgive this broken man and let him in your heart’s home once again.

--

“I saw Xi’an again.”

Initiating small talk felt physically painful, but he tried anyway.  After Jaemai, you seemed to be a little more comfortable speaking freely with him. If you were still angry, you kept it hidden well. Besides, it was hard to be upset with a cute baby on board.

“Really?” You responded with casual interest, attention mostly focused on the child in front of you while Din piloted the ship. 

“Yup,” he said, “She… uh...betrayed me and tried to kill the kid.”

“Sounds like her. Where is she now?”

“Prison.”

He doesn’t miss the cheeky grin that spreads across your lips. You softly chuckle and take the baby in your arms, cooing to him, “Good riddance, huh? That scary blue lady is gone for good, yeah?”

The kid gurgles in delight when he’s lifted up. Mando watches you lovingly play with the child, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  He doesn’t remember you being so good with kids, but then again, that was a rare opportunity in itself. The thought of you with kids of your own makes his cheeks flush with warmth.

“Where did you even find him?” You ask, bouncing him up and down in his crib.

“Arvala 7. He was the asset.”

You look at him now, puzzled, “The asset? He’s a child!”

“He’s wanted by Imps.”

“Huh.” You hold the child closer to you now, rocking him in your arms. “And you saved him.”

He hummed in confirmation. A beat of silence passes by. 

Mando notes the way the kid stares at you with warm, loving eyes, “He likes you.”

“Yeah?” You look back to the green baby raising him high in the air. His excited laughter is sweet in your ears and you giggle with him.

“Mando’s probably a mess when it comes to you. Probably forgets to feed you, doesn’t he?”

He rolls his eyes, but he’s heart flutters all the same. 

Lowering the child back into his pod, the child fusses as you try to get him to settle down. You took the silver ball that was laying in his blanket and placed it in his hands to divert his attention. Din faces back towards the console while you sink into the co-pilot’s seat. Your old seat.

From the corner of his eye, he sees you pulling a data pad from your pack on the floor and plugging in a storage drive. You scroll through droves of information silently while Din keeps his gaze trained on the passing lights of hyperspace. But his curiosity only grew, and he was tired of straining his eyes to slyly look at whatever you were reading. 

“What are you looking at?”

Your eyes don’t meet his, instead continuing to scan over the information before you.  “It’s all the people who kept Khan’s ring running.”

“You got this from the detective?”

You nod. 

“Why?”

A long sigh escapes you as you power down the datapad and slip it away.

“I guess you can say I’m retiring.” 

Din’s body is quick to turn to you, “What do you mean?”

“You heard Volskaya, someone is just gonna take his place. There are still plenty of people like Aayn’vida. People who need help.”

Beneath his helm, his face twists in reluctance. He asks, “And you’re gonna do it alone?”

You furrow your brows at him, as if the answer was obvious. “Looks like it.”

Din straightens up in his seat, stomach turning uneasily. The air in the cockpit was suddenly suffocating, and he sensed your growing ire as you pressed your lips together.

“What?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

You roll your eyes.

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Your judgy thing!” 

You point an accusing finger at his form, “The one you do with your face and your shoulders.”

“You can’t even see my face.”

“Mando.”

“Alright! It’s just–” he grits, struggling to find the words, “It seems...dangerous.”

“You say that like it makes a difference,” your voice cuts in, sharp like a blade, “do you not think I’m capable on my own?”

“What? No, I–” 

Kriff, why is it so hard to talk to you? Din lets out a huff, scolding himself to get it together.

“Listen, we both know you’re more than capable of handling yourself. But this? This is big shit. Not some bail-skipper or petty thief. You go after them and they’ll be on you for the rest of your life.”

“What life, Mando?” you snapped, “When I was her age, I could’ve easily been one of those girls. Bounty hunting wasn’t a life, it was survival. This is something that’s important.”

“Y/N, you’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Why does that suddenly matter to you?”

You both wince at the sharpness of your words and you turn away from him, suddenly embarrassed of your own outburst. Harsh silence blankets you both as you keep your gazes trained forward. The tension in the air is heavy and thick. 

Your tight voice cuts through the quiet with a single question.

“Why did you bring me here?”

He feels like he’s gonna be sick. 

“I–”

A giant crash abruptly resounds through the cockpit, causing the three of you to jerk forward. Alarms uproar through the ship as the two of you scramble into position at the console. Your fingers find the buttons easily, pulling up the radar and scanning the area for the threat.

A comm chimes in, “Give us the child, Mandalorian! It’s no use trying to run.”

“It’s a gunship, coming in from behind us,” you quickly inform, “Shit! The shields are weak, we need to get out of here now.” 

He nods in agreement, gripping the controls again and lurching the ship forward and speeding off. Your attackers follow in hot pursuit, blasting your ship again. A hit lands, shaking the Crest violently again, earning a strangled cry from behind you.

“Y/N! The baby!” Din grunts, veering the ship back on course.

“Right!” 

You nearly leap from your seat, securing and shushing the panicked child as you close his pram to keep him from falling amidst the chaos. Coming back to the co-pilot’s seat, you curse as you read through the multiple alarms flashing across the ship’s interface.

“Our shields are down, Mando. We need to end this.”

He curses under his breath, weighing their options. They didn’t have enough fuel for a hyperspace jump, nor the time to make any proper calculations. His gaze darts to the green planet approaching up ahead and bites the inside of his cheek. A crash isn’t ideal, but it solves the issue of being stranded in dead space. Another jolt and crash rock the ship forward. 

“Strap in,” He barks at you, “We’re shooting our way out and going for an emergency landing.” You nod, securing yourself in your seat and preparing yourself for battle.

--

“It isn’t the worst planet to get stuck on.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that we’re stuck.”

The two of you stood at the foot of the Razor Crest which was currently smoking and leaking fuel into the forest floor. Though you’d survived the gunfight above, the ship had taken serious damage. The shield generators were nearly destroyed and the repulsor grilles were shot, making it impossible to fly the Crest without spinning off course. Normally, with the help of a mechanic, the job could be done within a matter of days, but you were both stuck in a thick forest with the next town over being at least a day’s walk. Repairs could take at least a week with the spare parts that were already kept in the ship, and travelling into town could easily make it two, assuming they’d even have what you need. This posed 2 issues:

Every day you stayed idle, the higher the risk of another hunter (or worse, an Imperial) turning up and kidnapping the child.

Din had yet to feel the wrath that had been building up inside you for the past three years. If the hunters didn’t shoot him, you definitely would, and you wouldn’t miss.

He takes his gaze off the ship and observes your surroundings. All things considered, it was a pretty nice place. The forest was lush, rife with tall trees and bright flora. The air was fresh and cool, and the whistles of birds carried through the treetops. He was somewhat grateful; you could have easily been stuck in a scorching desert or some awful jungle. Past the clearing–which had inadvertently been made by the ship crash– there was a lake, crystal clear and stretching for miles. If the circumstances were any different, maybe you would have enjoyed yourselves, stopped and admired the scenery together.

But they weren’t.

The fact of the matter is that there’s something acrid that permeated the air between you. Sometimes, he could catch it in the way you looked at him, how your eyes flared with sharp, visceral rage and piercing through his beskar like a hot blade. He saw it in the cantina at your reunion, and he felt it twist his heart during your last exchange before you landed. 

“Why does it suddenly matter to you?”

Discussing the rift between you wasn’t a conversation he was eager to have. The attack on the Crest only delayed the inevitable, and now, shipwrecked on an unknown planet, he waited anxiously for the years to catch up on him. Your irritation with him didn’t die when you’d landed; it might’ve actually gotten worse. Every furrow of your brows, every curse under your breath only reminded Din of how much you were dying to say, and it only amplified his dread. But being the practical person you were, you remained focused on survival first, setting up camp and laying out a plan for repairs in the morning.  Going into town would have to wait, as you weren’t sure what state the ship would be in after its initial mending. You stayed silent in the hours you both tended to your respective duties and it wasn’t until the late afternoon that he felt your presence once again.

He was in the middle of counting ration packs when you said, “We need firewood. It might be cold tonight.”

Din nodded, but as he watched you begin to walk away into the woods, he couldn’t help but spill the words bubbling in his throat. 

“About what I said earlier. I didn’t mean to offend you,” he stood to his full height, “You’re–you’re right. It’s not my business anymore.”

You didn’t respond to him for a moment; your expression, frozen and unreadable. Your gaze tears away from him to look down at the toes of your shoes, and he hears you let out a dejected, breathy laugh as you shook your head. 

“You know what I don’t get?” You ask, cynicism dripping from your lips, “You never answered my question on the ship.”

Din clenches his fists, nausea suddenly returning to him.

“Khan wasn’t a hard job. You could’ve easily caught him without me, so why? Why did you bring me? Why did you find me?”

“I couldn’t go into the terminal without attracting attention.”

“No, but you could’ve waited for him to move. Tracked him somewhere else,” your tone grows more clipped by the second, “I know you. You’re the best in the parsec and you would’ve found him. I might’ve gotten shot, but there were way harder quarries than him.”

When he still doesn’t answer, you march forward, fuming with indignation.

“For once, can you just tell me the truth?”

Din’s heart was nearly bursting out of his chest, anxiety rippling through him as he confessed.

“I need help,” he croaks, nearly cringing at the weakness and desperation in his tone, “with him.”

He beckons over to the child, carelessly toddling along the floor. Din watches your expression soften with pity as you watch him play.  

“I don’t...I don’t know what I’m doing,” He continues, “I’m so confused and–and lost. I worry about him all the time. He’s always in danger. I’ve tried to give him a home, somewhere safe. But the Empire won’t stop until they find him.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the only one I trust in this universe.”

Din waits for your answer with bated breath, drinking in every reaction. You looked pained, fingers finding their way to the bridge of your nose, pressing hard and you squeeze your eyes shut. 

“And I’m supposed to trust you in return?”

Once again, he doesn’t respond, fearing that he’d only make the situation worse.

“You know I can’t do this.”

You cross your arms, hugging your body as you turn away from the kid to face him. He feels his heart sink, distress clawing away at him. I need you; I can’t lose you again. I miss you, I miss you, I miss you.

“Could you at least think about it?”

“I can’t,” you say sternly, “I’m sorry about the kid, but I know you can figure something out. I’m not the right person, and you need to find someone else.”

You are. More than right. More than I deserve.

“I don’t know who else I can turn to.”

“Mando, you don’t understand,” your voice turns angry once again, “I can’t live everyday not knowing if you’re gonna stick around or not.”

“Things are different, Y/N. I’m not going to leave.”

“Why? Because you have a baby to take care of, you’re suddenly willing to stick around?  What happens if things get serious? What is keeping you from walking out tomorrow? A few weeks from now? Are you gonna leave me without a ship this time? Shoot me if I don’t cooperate?”

Stop stop stop stop. He raises his voice, not in ire but in desperation, “This isn’t about us, this is about him!”

“It’s always going to be about us!” Din is stunned to silence as your eyes turn glossy and red with tears, “And after everything, I–I can’t trust you.  I mean–kriff– you left me in the worst way possible. You only offered me a job because you knew I wouldn’t have listened to you in the first place, didn’t you?”

His shoulders go rigid, head dipping in shame.

You scoff, sucking in a deep, shaky breath before you go on, “We can’t act like nothing ever happened and just push it aside for the kid; it’s always going to be there. Every time we speak, every time I look at you I–”

You cut yourself off, hesitating to finish your thought. Running your fingers through your hair, you tug at it at it as you let out yet another frustrated huff, “I spent three years of my miserable life trying to figure out what I did wrong. If you can tell me right now what was going through your head that day, then maybe I’ll consider staying. But if you can’t, you need to find someone else.”

The words are there, but get caught in his throat. He’s terrified; speaking them aloud might just rip him in half, but if he doesn’t, he loses you a second time. But they don’t come; they linger and fester and rot on his tongue, and he can only clench his fists harder at his own cowardice.

The way you look at him is soul crushing. 

“I thought so.”

You pick up your pack and sling it over your shoulders, skulking into the woods without another word.

--

You didn’t come back for hours. Night fell across the forest as Din paced outside the Razor Crest, playing out your conversation in his head over and over again until it made him dizzy. His gut was filled with dread as each minute passed by, and he couldn’t figure out if he wanted you to come back at all. It wasn’t until he heard a soft whine from the floating pram that he realized that so much time had passed. Din nearly forgot to feed the child his own hysteria.

“Hey, little womp rat,” he sighed, gently picking him up, “She’s right, huh? I really am a mess.”

The baby’s big glossy eyes stare up at him as if sensing Din’s unease. His tiny hands grab at the thick cloak around his neck, pulling himself upwards and nuzzling his face in between his neck and his pauldron. Is he… comforting me?

Something forms at the base of his throat as he croaks a gentle, “Thanks, kid.”

But this quiet moment of peace is interrupted at the cracking sound of a stick. He stills, listening further as footsteps grow louder and louder. His blaster is out and aimed behind him before he can even think to look. He whips around, clutching the baby closer to him only to see you abruptly dropping the chopped wood in your hands to the floor. The baby begins to cry at the sudden shift in movement.

He relaxes, letting his arm fall to his side but not holstering his blaster. Instead, he gently bounces the child in his other arm in an attempt to soothe him.

“It’s okay. It’s just Y/N,” he says softly. When Din looks back to you, you’re still frozen on the spot. His brows furrow beneath his helmet.

“Y/N? What’s wrong?”

You stutter, “Can you put that fucking thing away, please?”

He looks at the child, and back to you. A flare of irritation ignites in his chest.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Every time you point you point it at me, I expect you to pull the trigger.”

Oh. Shit.

Guilt pierces through his chest. He quickly slips it back into his holster

“I’m sorry I didn’t know it was you,” he apologizes. You’re still unmoving, looking at him as if he’d just burned you.

“Y/N, you know I would never–“

“But you were going to.”

“Not even then.”

As Din begins to walk forward, he notices the way your body shakes violently. His hand gingerly goes to rest against your arm to comfort you, but you tear yourself away from him, wrapping inward as you seethe.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.”

The look in your eyes makes Din’s blood run cold. Your pointed stare was piercing and hot and raw. It seared and flared with white hot wrath. Your breathing was ragged, chest heaving up and gasping for air. There it is.

The visceral rage and contempt you held for him had finally surfaced. It festered and boiled over, consuming you to the point where Din thought you would’ve killed him on the spot. But then, revulsion contorts your face, and you quickly shove past him, leaving him paralyzed in your wake. You disappear behind the Crest, and he hears you dropping to the ground.

He winces at the sound of you heaving the contents of your stomach into the lake. 

Din sets the baby down into his carrier, and quickly rounds the corner of the ship to see you on your hands and knees at the edge of the water. 

He’s speechless. The only words he could manage sounded disgustingly miserable from his vocoder.

“I’m so sorry.”

You sniffle as you drag yourself up from the ground. You don’t turn around to face him. 

“You don’t have to tell me why you left. Even if I deserve an explanation,” you say, voice strained and pathetic.

“Because when this is all over, I don’t ever want to see you again. Keep your money and your jobs. I don’t care if it pays enough for ten lifetimes. If you ever try to find me, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

-

taglist:

@bella-ciaao , @tiffdawg thanx loves <3

[llewey-watts]

Work in progress post:

Detective Watts Best Quotes

Concocting A Killer

Watts: “Ah, so you’re the one who botched it.” Murdoch: “Excuse me?”

Watts: “Well, that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”

Brackenreid: “Listen, Detective Murdoch did nothing wrong. The Crown is just worried that Shanley may claim prejudice if the same detective reinvestigates the case.”

Watts: “Right, right, right. You’re just biased. The coroner’s the one who botched it. Coroners. Odd lot. Far from reliable to say the least. Not to mention the smell.”

Murdoch: “Our coroner has a flawless record. And she also happens to be my wife.”

Watts: “Good God, man. You’re married to the city coroner?”

Murdoch: “Yes.”

Watts: “Oof. Is she pretty? Ah, she’d have to be pretty. I don’t know how else you could tolerate being married to a colleague.”

“The streets of this fine city are my office.”

Crabtree: “Should I read these files?”

Watts: “Absolutely not. The less you know, the more pure you remain. From purity emerges truth. From truth emerges justice. Knowing nothing allows one to see everything.”

“Our mind is where we live our lives. The only home one needs is the human skull.”

Watts: “Oh, no. You interviewed a witness?”

Murdoch: “Oh, no. She called on me.”

Watts: “Your involvement was to cease entirely. Instead, it appears you are continuing to seek a conviction. And based on what? A visual test done 12 years ago by a neophyte coroner?”

Murdoch: “Dr. Ogden is my wife.”

Watts: “Which makes it all the more likely you’re blind to her mistakes. No, it appears this dinner was a poor idea. Good night Detective.”

Watts: “The detective was wrong.”

Ogden: “About what?”

Watts: “You’re not pretty.”

Ogden: “Excuse me?”

Watts: “Look at you. Classic, Romanesque bone structure, excellent physiognomic symmetry. You’re not pretty. You’re beautiful.”

Ogden: “Well, I suppose I’m flattered.”

Watts: “Why? It’s merely an objective assessment. But that necktie **shakes his head**.

“Honestly, Inspector, how does anyone work with this man? He is some kind of renegade to whom rules are a foreign concept.”

“Let’s suppose for a moment that Mr. Shanley is guilty of this current murder. Now, does that make him more or less likely to be guilty of the first? Are you the same man today you were yesterday? Your hair is not the same. You cut and discarded it. Same with your fingernails. Over time, our entire body falls away and is reconstituted. How, then, can you be the same? Oh, but our thinking changes with maturity, with experience. In truth, the continuity of personhood may be nothing more than a delusion. In fact, it makes me question our whole profession..."

“We need to get out of doors detective. The truth is in the air. We must **deep breath** breathe it in.”

“We both know you didn’t do it. — We have to blame someone. The function of the police is to attribute blame on behalf of the community, but the community doesn’t particularly care if we blame the right person. — Why not? Man has been using scapegoats since Leviticus. The sims were placed upon the goat, the goat was banished to the desert, but mo one cared that the goat was innocent.”

“The ignorami at Station One have done it again. I clearly told them to release the man who looks like Karl Marx. They’ve let out some fellow who’s as clean-shaven as bloody Kierkegaard.”

Hades Hath No Fury

“How could I have been so unaware? My sister was in distress, and I suspected nothing. Age is no excuse for inattention. -but, sir, you found her. Your sister’s alive.- Yes. So I’m at peace.”

“Yes. Well life is but a cruel sport for whatever maker you are forced to believe in. -Detective Watts I understand...- Would your sister forsake you for a house of women who have eschewed the world in which you live?-my sister was a nun.-“

���Truth is absolute, unyielding and eternal, Jackson. It is our one constant in a turbulent universe.”

“Your face is *pause* symmetrical, but that hat *shakes his head*”

Merlot Mysteries

Watts: “Wine is proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy.”

Murdoch: “I highly doubt that”

Watts: “Oh, you reject the words of Benjamin Franklin?”

Murdoch: “Even a clever man is capable of a bad idea. no. wine, like any alcohol, is a depressant. It hinders the mind.”

Watts: “Ah, but ‘in wine there is truth.’ -Pliny the Elder.”

Murdoch: “Writers and Philosophers are seldom the best of judges. Especially when it comes to alcohol.

Watts: “Well, no one less than Louis Pasteur called wine, ‘the most helpful and most hygienic of beverages.’ Is it that you don’t enjoy the taste?”

Murdoch: “Ah.”

“Oh. Wait right there. I’m going to show you how wrong you are.”

“‘Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, make the sage frolic, and a serious smile.’”

“In the words of Diogenes, ‘What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.’”

Murdoch: “Spectroscopic analysis.”

Watts: “Ah, yes. Not reliable in my experience. How’s it meant to help us?”

Murdoch: “By comparing the wine in question to the light profile of other varying ages, we’ll be able to discern precisely how old it is.”

Ogden: “The older the wine, presumably, the light the color, thanks to the blanching effect of sunlight.”

Watts: “Mm, but it was kept in a cellar. Depending on conditions, two bottles of the same provenance could be wildly different. There’s absolutely to way to determine —“

Murdoch: “Thank you, Detective. Please.”

Watts: “All right.”

Ogden: “Ready?”

Murdoch: “Yes.”

Ogden: “It’s 4.3.”

**Watts waiting + messing around.**

Ogden: “It’s 5.2. 8.5.”

Watts: “Well?”

Murdoch: “[Sighs] They are all different.”

Watts: “Really?”

Murdoch: “Every grape, every year, every bottle.”

Watts: “Hm, you don’t say.”

Murdoch: “It compares to an 1880 Merlot...a 1902 Tempranillo...and...several others.”

Ogden: “Well, I suppose you told us so, Detective.”

Murdoch: “All right. Call in your expert.”

Watts: “Uh, not my expert. My sommelier.”

The Talking Dead

“No one intends to get murder **scratches his beard** and yet.”

Crabtree: “Sir, are you not concerned that you yourself are marked for death?”

Watts: “Oh, I don’y like it, but the truth is death could come to any one of us any day.”

Crabtree: “Still, no need to hurry it along.”

Watts: “Well, very little of life is under our control. Very little death as well.”

Crabtree: “Watts, have you ever been to Paris?”

Watts: “Ah yes, The City of Light.”

Crabtree: “I thought that was Buffalo?”

Watts: “No, I believe Paris came up with it first. Why do you ask?”

Crabtree: “Nina’s involved with a show that’s preforming there. She wants me to go.”

Watts: “Forever?”

Crabtree: “No, no, just a short while.”

Watts: “Well, the world is only an oyster if you choose to open it.”

Crabtree: “So go to Paris today, for tomorrow I might die?”

Watts: “Precisely.”

Crabtree: “What about you? What would you do with your last day?”

Watts: “Just this. Talk to a friend.”

Crabtree: “Who? Oh me?”

Watts: “And solve a crime.This is what were looking for.”

Crabtree: “Brilliant.”

Watts: “The City of Love with a beautiful woman. You’d be a fool to say no.”

Crabtree: “Thought you said it was the City of Light.”

Watts: “Light. Love. Are they not one and the same?”

Crabtree: “I prefer to love with the lights off, sir. I fear I’m bashful.”

Crabtree à la Carte

“A shame. It looks terrific. I think I’ll go out for lunch. Anyone care to join me? —- This disappoints me. But I soldier on.”

“I’ll work with her. People are not to be defined merely by their words, thoughts, and actions.”

“KRRRKRRRKRRRSHING SHING SHING SHING SHING! a moleta.”

“[speaking Italian] RESPONDA TO ME!”

That man’s look tho.

Watts: “It may once again be safe, but I’m not sure I’ll ever regard meat with the same enthusiasm again.”

Cherry: “Perhaps you should stick to freshly butchered cuts.”

Watts: “I thought the same. Then I read up on the abattoir conditions in the stockyards.”

Cherry: “The Shelleys subscribed to a Pythagorean diet. Da Vinci too.”

Watts: “Pythagorean? You mean vegetarian?”

Cherry: “I do. ‘My body,’ said da Vinci, ‘will not be a tomb to other creatures.’”

Watts: “Yes. Yes, it’s the only way to live, isn’t it? Join me, Miss Cherry. From this day forward, we shall follow the ranks of all moral men in our strict adherence to vegetarianism.”

Cherry: “Uh, I don’t think so. What, are we cows?”

Murdoch Schmurdoch

“Are you being facetious?”

“**To Constable John Brackenreid** Let me guess, you invited a lady to accompany you on an outing and she declined. — I would counsel you to persevere. Ask again. As Lord Nelson wrote, ‘the boldest measures are the safest,’ although I suppose a woman is quite unlike a Danish Fleet. — Yes. Tread softly, Young Brackenreid. Let her know that if her inclination changes, your offer still stands.”

Game of Kings

Ogden: “I see. Well, I don’t much fancy being stared at for the next five months.”

Murdoch: “Julia...”

Ogden: “Inspector, I couldn’t help but notice that you and all of the men were staring at the us both. Is there something you’d like to ask?”

Brackenreid: “Uh, no.”

Ogden: “Constable Crabtree?”

Crabtree: “What? [Chuckles]”

Ogden: “Higgins?”

Higgins: “No, ma’am.”

Ogden: “What about you, Detective Watts? You seem like a curious fellow.”

Watts: “Well, there is one thing.”

Murdoch: “What is that?”

Watts: “When’s the baby coming?”

Crabtree: “Oh!”

Brackenreid: “Bloody hell, Watts! They wanted to keep it a secret.”

Watts: “How could they do that when everyone clearly knows what’s going on here?”

Free Falling

Watts: “One hopes this won’t put too much of a strain on their relationship.”

Crabtree: “How so?”

Watts: “In the face of great loss, emotions can be misdirected. Feelings amplified. I knew a young couple who experienced a similar issue. They never recovered.”

Watts: “The secret to dealing with gruesome remains is to replace natural instinct with logic.”

Constable Brackenreid: “Okay. How?”

Watts: “Consider an ant. Imagine you trod upon one, crushing it, and leaving it’s body mangled beyond recognition. Now, does this disturb you?”

Constable Brackenreid: “Not really.”

Watts: “Exactly. So we simply apply the transitive law. If we are not disturbed by an ant, there is no reason to be disturbed by a beetle. If not by a beetle, then not by a caterpillar. Nor a butterfly, nor a sparrow, nor a fish, nor a rabbit, not a dog...nor a human. What we have here, then, is no more disturbing than the squashed remains of an ant.”

Hart: “What’s this?”

Watts: “A reminder of the inhumanity of man, Miss Hart.”

Hart: “How poetic.”

Watts: “Constable? It seems something’s troubling you.”

Crabtree: “How so?”

Watts: “There’s an expression on your face that suggests you have a thought in your head.”

Crabtree: “Do you remember I asked you about visiting Paris?”

Watts: “No.”

Crabtree: “And then I was away for some time?”

Watts: “No.”

Crabtree: “No. Well, in any case, I did. I went to Paris with Nina.”

Watts: “Mm.”

Crabtree: “And she wants to go again, but for good.”

Watts: “So you’re considering leaving us all behind?”

Crabtree: “I don’t want to. My whole life is here. But I could imagine a life there. I don’t know. If I...If I don’t go, I lose Nina. If I do, I lose everything else that’s dear to me.”

Watts: “One loss doesn’t outweigh the other?”

Crabtree: “The enormity of either seems too great to contemplate.”

Watts: “Oof. Well...I can’t give you any advice. But I can tell you what I know. I know that we spend our whole lives holding on to what we have. We fear loss as much as death itself. But without loss, there is no change. Without change, there is no? Life.”

Crabtree: “Detective. You realize there’s nothing written on the blackboard, right?”

Watts: “Uh, yes, but it provides a frame of reference.”

Crabtree: “Ah.”

Brothers Keepers

“Of course I’m not certain. Memories are fragmentary impressions at best. The mind moves like a flock of starlings. It’s hard to pin down a thought, let alone a memory.”

“Did I have reason? Nigel Baker tortured and killed a man I...A man who was in every way my brother. Someone who deserved my protection. I had ample reason to kill Nigel Baker. But as I have already made clear, I didn’t recognize him. So did I kill him with intention? No. Am I sorry he’s dead? No, I’m not. To be honest, even if given the chance to exact my revenge, I’m not sure I’m capable of it. Obviously, my philosophy rejects that very idea. No one asks to be the way they are, not even boys like Nigel Baker.”

In reference to justice being found:

Watts: “Where is that to be found? I’ve been asking myself that. To be honest, I’m unable to think of much else.

Murdoch: “You seek justice.”

Watts: “I crave it. If I could, I would demand it. I want the man who killed my brothers to feel their pain. To feel my grief at what he did to them. But he’s dead. At the hand of his father. Did he even know why? And now the father will likely hang. Is that justice?

Brackenreid: “Of a sort, I suppose.”

Watts: “Then why don’t I feel better?”

Annabella Cinderella

Constable Brackenreid: “Do you think I’ll get a chance to meet him?”

Crabtree: “Who? The lawyer? What do you want to meet him for?”

Constable Brackenreid: “I-I followed the trial. I felt sorry for her.”

Crabtree: “John, she killed her mother with an ax.”

Constable Brackenreid: “Harriet Rawlins wasn’t her mother. Annabella was a home child.”

Crabtree: “So that makes it alright?”

Constable Brackenreid: “She was beaten and tortured. Her home sister admitted as much.”

Crabtree: “The home sister that Annabella then tried to murder?”

Constable Brackenreid: “Rosemary Rawlins was abusive as well.”

Watts: “That’s what made it such a brilliant defense. The victim was painted as a villain, the villain painted as a victim. Annabella Cinderella.”

Crabtree: “So you’re a fan of the lawyer as well?”

Constable Brackenreid: “He took her case for free.”

Watts: “Oh, nobody’s motives are purely altruistic. It’s all in the service of his political aspirations. He running for mayor, don’t you know?”

Crabtree: “Thank you very much, Detective Watts, for everything. You as well, Mr. Daniels.”

Constable Brackenreid: “And I’m terribly sorry about all of this.”

Watts: “Of course you’re sorry. It doesn’t change anything, so why waste energy in saying it?”

Constable Brackenreid: “Does Detective Murdoch know?”

Watts: “No, he doesn’t. And that’s not the question you should be asking right now.”

Constable Brackenreid: “Sorry, I...”

Watts: “Nope.”

Constable Brackenreid: “W-What is?”

Lawyer: “How do we find her?”

Watts: “Ah. On the train over, I went through the file from the Crown prosecutor. There’s one more person we should protect.”

Lawyer: “Who’s that?”

Watts: “The doctor who filed the death certificate and attended the case.”

Lawyer: “Dr. Beattie was never called to testify.”

Watts: “He provided evidence that helped convict her.”

Lawyer: “Good point. Let’s go.��

Watts: “No. You stay. **waves gun in the air** This is police business. All right.”

Constable Brackenreid: “I’m not saying she’s innocent. I just pointed out that there are other people who may have wanted to kill her mother.”

Watts: “Which, if they did, would ipso facto make her innocent.”

Crabtree: “Did she say she was innocent?”

Constable Brackenreid: “She did, yes.”

Watts: “‘Twas ever thus.”

Constable Brackenreid: **opens the door** “Oh, my God.”

Watts: “Still think she’s so innocent?”

Constable Brackenreid: “This is my fault.”

Crabtree: “It’s jot your fault, John.”

Watts: “Losing the prisoner was your fault. This is merely a consequence. One cannot be accountable for every consequence, because the consequences of every action are infinite.”

Constable Brackenreid: “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

Watts: “Your feelings are irrelevant. It’s simply the truth of it.”

Crabtree: “It does confirm our fears. The girl’s out for bloody revenge.”

[atlantatorchnews]

Dr. King and the KING of Kings

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1 Timothy 6:13-16: “I give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things, and before Christ Jesus, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession; That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.” Revelation 19:16: “And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King Of Kings, And Lord Of Lords.” This message is important to me because I came to faith in Jesus Christ through the efforts of a white, independent Baptist church in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, that for many years did not accept black members, but in the late ‘70s was led to start a black church while I was in the Air Force and stationed at Kessler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi, at the age of nineteen. As I interacted with the leaders and members of that church, and even the pastor of the black church plant, I heard some negative things about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that I had never heard before. Some people tried to discredit him by suggesting that he was not a true minister of the Gospel, and even that he did not have a genuine relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. They viewed him as just a mere social worker, with some even claiming that he was a Communist. Even some of the blacks in that young church did not think too highly of Dr. King. I must admit that I did have concerns and questions about this matter because I was raised in the black Baptist church and the black Pentecostal Holiness church, with my dad being a Baptist preacher and my mother being a Pentecostal preacher, and yet I had never heard a clear presentation of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ on how to be saved until I was nineteen-years-old, and a young man named Michael Lewis, who had gotten saved through this church plant that an all-white independent Baptist church had started, came to my dorm room and showed me what was commonly called the Romans Road to salvation from the book of Romans in the Bible. Up until that point, no one had asked me the question, if I were to die today, where would I go, heaven or hell? Thankfully, the Lord allowed me to keep an independent mind about the matter through all of that, and I came to see Dr. King as God’s man for that particular time in this nation’s history to help deliver both blacks and whites in this country from the ignorance of racism and prejudice. I even learned later that Dr. King tried to get into a white conservative Christian seminary, but he was rejected because of his race. However, based on his words and his life, it seems as though Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did know the King of Kings — the Lord Jesus Christ. Not only that, but the faith, courage, and fortitude that he showed (and that he inspired others to have) as he led the very dangerous Civil Rights movement speaks of a man who knew Jesus Christ as his Savior and had an abiding faith in God.

According to the book, 

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years

, by historian Taylor Branch: In 1934, when a guest minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta made a strong pitch for the salvation of young souls, Martin Luther King Jr. watched his sister rise to make the first profession of faith in Christ. Impulsively, as he later confessed, “I decided that I would not let her get ahead of me, so I was the next.” Also in his book, Strength to Love, Dr. King wrote: “Bound by the chains of his own sin and finiteness, man needs a Saviour (Jesus Christ). Man cannot save himself, for man is not the measure of all things and humanity is not God.” We see here that, contrary to what some thought of King, he did not believe that man could get to Heaven by doing good works. He believed that he and everyone needed a Savior — Jesus Christ. He also said, “Only through an inner spiritual transformation do we gain the strength to fight victoriously the evils of the world in a humble and loving spirit.” That sounds like what Jesus Christ called being “born again” when He told Nicodemus in John 3:3 & 7, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.” As a teenager, King wrote these words in a paper called “The Negro and the Constitution”: “We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flaunt the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule.” In a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1967, King said, “I’ve learned that to be a follower of Jesus Christ means taking up the cross. And my Bible tells me that Good Friday comes before Easter. Before the crown we wear, there is the cross that we must bear.” And, in his famous sermon, “A Knock at Midnight”, Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church today is challenged to proclaim God’s Son, Jesus Christ, to be the hope of men in all of their complex personal and social problems.” Dr. King certainly spoke as a man who knew Jesus Christ. His core philosophy of love and nonviolence was rooted in the teachings of the King of Kings, Jesus Christ. Dr. King is dead now, and based on his own words and testimony, we can only say that he is in Heaven with the Lord Jesus Christ having served his generation as a Moses in modern times. It is not enough to honor Dr. King alone because evidently it was the power of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings, in his life that caused Dr. King to lead and help both blacks and whites in this nation overcome the ignorance of racism and prejudice. If you truly want to honor Dr. King during this time of remembrance regarding his life, you need to make the decision to trust Jesus Christ as your personal Savior so that you can do great things in your generation as King did in his, for the Bible says, we ‘can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth us.’ If you want to know Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour, please listen closely, and take the following steps before it is eternally too late: First, accept the fact that you are a sinner, and that you have broken God’s law. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 7:20: “For there is not a just man upon earth that doeth good, and sinneth not.” Romans 3:23: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” Second, accept the fact that there is a penalty for sin. The Bible states in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death…” Third, accept the fact that you are on the road to hell. Jesus Christ said in Matthew 10:28: “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” Also, the Bible states in Revelation 21:8: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” Fourth, accept the fact that you cannot do anything to save yourself! The Bible states in Ephesians 2:8,9: “For by grace are ye saved through faith: and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.” Fifth, accept the fact that God loves you more than you love yourself, and that He wants to save you from hell. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (Jesus Christ, John 3:16). Sixth, with these facts in mind, please repent of your sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and pray and ask Him to come into your heart and save you this very moment. The Bible states in the book of Romans 10:9,13: “That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.” “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Finally, if you are willing to trust Jesus Christ as your Saviour, please pray with me the following prayer: Holy Father God, I realize that I am a sinner and that I have done some bad things in my life. I am sorry for my sins, and I want to turn from my sins. For Jesus Christ sake, please forgive me of my sins. I now believe with all of my heart that Jesus Christ died for me, was buried, and rose again. I want to trust Jesus as my Savior and follow Him as Lord from this day forward. Lord Jesus, please come into my heart and save my soul and change my life today. Amen. If you just trusted Jesus Christ as your Saviour, and you prayed that prayer and meant it from your heart, I declare to you that based upon the Word of God, you are now saved and you are on your way to Heaven. Welcome to the family of God! I want to congratulate you on doing the most important thing in life and that is receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour. For more information to help you grow in your new-found faith in Christ, go to Gospel Light Society.com and read “What To Do After You Enter Through the Door”. Jesus Christ said in John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Believe by faith. Share the faith. And keep the faith! God Bless You!

[thanidiel]

Prompt Four: “Clinch”

CW: Hanging, execution.

An education is a foundation.

And in that, she knew that in spite of the turns’ worth of learnings that she has consumed as much as they seared back, that true knowledge had not been gifted to her yet.

Everything, so far, was thrown about to flit around her mind unanchored. It provided the distinct sense of someone high and mighty tossing about koban or butcher scraps onto the earth, curious to distill men to their natures in one apathetic swoop.

There was no end goal professed, no purpose.

She shaped foreign languages from a deliberate mouth and under a controlled hand without exercise. The sprawl of hundreds of works of calligraphy were never seen again after she had produced them. Recitations were insisted again and again without analysis of the source at all. And when suns came in which they moved from beyond the tranquility of Geigu’s small room, she was made to dance to no narrative, sing to no audience. When she was challenged to recall the exact movements of a stranger from a sennight ago, or to report a muffled conversation that leaked just barely through dozens upon dozens of fulms of hallway, she was nodded to without commentary. Ceremonies were performed with no one to partake, over and over.

All lessons; landing vacantly and without meaning. Given to her to play with or use as she felt she needed.

And then one evening she was touched.

Often, another would manipulate her body. Ceaselessly, endlessly, infinitely. To dress or undress her, pull her to one room or another position, pin gold-encrusted jewels and stone to her form or neatly remove the headache-inducing weights.

She was a doll, afterall.

But in this a clause, that she did not know existed, found itself violated.

Of course, when a law is broken by the unknowing, enlightenment wraps itself against the breast of punishment.

The man was a kitchen-hire, she overheard at some point in all of the flurry and setup.

He had tried to push her against the walls of the corridors in her passing, to touch her hip underneath layers of silk. Dimly as she warded herself, she developed cognisance of the vexations of her Elder Sisters. Their lacking disinterests in even crossing paths with another who was not their own nor patron.

Okimoto had ripped him off of her in the space between instances.

And now they were here.

In the red room.

The bloodlight radiating nothing but its hue, the expanse of the room so barren and chilling that she always expects her breathes to puff out visible in front of her. Like it did in the mountains to the breath of a girl she didn’t know anymore, in the village of yellow dust and thick snows.

It never does.

She does her best to not shiver, to control herself with the exactness demanded of her. No twinge allowed of her muscles, no itch at her lip or the way a pin in her hair pricks at the head underneath. She must be as stony as the Lady Chinatsu, this she knew without instruction. To be stoic from where she sits upon folded knees below the old matron.

Most of all, she must not look at Lady Chinatsu nor possess the urge at any point.

To look was to doubt Judgement.

Instead, she fixes on the details of her partner in crime: his fore nearly one with the black wood below.

He had to be two decades older than her measly sixteen Heavensturns, from what she saw earlier in the bulbous shape of his bones beneath worn skin starting to stretch.

And, evidently, he is possibly as poor as she was when she crossed the Ruby Sea. Like he could not afford the layered attire of even everyday persons, as what he has is of the cheapest dyes, and looks used and tugged to its limits. Like it had passed owners of multiple shapes and sizes before coming to him.

She counts stitches as Chinatsu verdicts and enforces.

Two crimes were perpetuated and both would be resolved tonight, even as the Lady of the Teahouse only shares one aloud.

This man had committed the crime of rudely treating her property, and thus insulting her.

‘Chitora’ as she had named the youth, had committed the crime of not knowing better.

One will provide reparations and the other will amend their individual failure.

“...it will be left to my Daughter to determine the best way you can make up for your rudeness.”

Here is where Xiaohu ‘Chitora’ tunes back to it all, with the new clutch of the familial referral. In its aftermath, a reminder of the force that Chinatsu enjoyed concluding all of her lawmaking with - the pale flare of the raking scar underneath her hair.

It is this particular moment, and all that it inspires, that she feels what is solid and sound underneath her.

This is her lesson.

This is her education.

The subtext, the want, the expectation, the demand, does not escape her. She has been prepared for this. This is the foundation that carries the Heavens that had been shared with her, brought to her by the materialisation of a Black Mist in a golden room. She has her answers now.

Her Mandate is not only to serve, but to rule.

She is to serve Lady Chinatsu, serve Tsukumogami, serve the Black Mist. But she is to rule all those outside of this, and thus naturally below and lesser. To not permit these offenses, to not have needed Chinatsu to control this affair in her stead. 

She is to be cruel. Cruel as to obliterate not only the insult of someone daring to offend, but also end any, and all, future possibilities before they can even be born within the minds of a thousand others.

Something about this causes what she knows to be fear to coil and slither through her belly, as though it wishes to rupture free. Different, from the aching Destiny and desire that had allured, allures, her to Tsukumogami and all of Their machinations.

Perhaps it is because she both knows and doesn’t know at all, what is needed here.

A test, a trial; her lesson.

She is expected to punish.

And so she is silent, and thoughtful, and above all, she does not look back towards the ancient moon looming over her, casting radiance that burns into her spine and shoulders.

She does not doubt Judgement.

But she does doubt herself.

She doubts that someone so young as herself can accurately perform this affair. She doubts that she will be evenhanded enough as much as she doubts she will be harsh enough, soft enough. She doubts she can go through with the minimal result she needed to walk away with.

Her mouth is unmoving. No shift of her lips; no grind of her teeth; no drag of her tongue. Stagnant, and dryer than ever before. Dryer than she thinks it would feel like even if she orders the man thrown out to die in a desert faraway.

Fear whispers to her like a witch’s cant, inserting its imagery into her imagination/prophecy. If she refused, if she was too light, how long? How long until she is thrown away? Would they simply toss her away? Besmirched and tainted, unable to thrive anywhere else than their arms? Or would they end it more quickly than that? If she refused; if she were useless in spite of all of their wants and investment, into what they thought she could become?

In this way, it has all become a matter of survival.

That is the consequence of her failure.

Her silence is too long.

Indecision is also a weakness, unfitting of this new understanding.

So she acts now, with a grandiose sigh. A theatrical gesture that Geigu had passed to her; a way of showing casualness, filling another with the insignificance of their conversation. Lets it open and relax her ribs and her squirming insides, twist along with her tongue and give her words the power of breathlessness.

“If it is in his like to be unable to keep his hands to himself, then he should feel what it is like to be powerless to help himself with them.”

Here is where she intakes the smallest amount of air, to allow the last of her words to flick off of sharp wind - provide the feeling of dismissal, the shutting window.

“I want him hanged.”

The moon raises her hand; approval and assent all at once in the dark shadow cutting the crimson lanternlight.

“Have it be done.”

Unnervingly, everything occurs shortly, smoothly. Like she had asked for something casual and everyday. The gravity of Chinatsu’s aether stealing all ability to scream and protest, as others used abilities beyond her to leap fulms up to the rafters and swing about rope that had to be half her weight in ponze… quiet. Normalised. As though they were all preparing a bowl of noodles from the streetside for her.

She feels so weightless that she might as well be the one destined to swing, if it were not for her concentration, her grounding. The repetitive and cyclical reminder that this is the foundation they had set out for her to learn all along. This is the foundation, and she had not gambled and guessed on this success like it felt. She was chosen for a reason, afterall.

So there is no fear, no need for fear with everything said and done.

There is only the feeling that she is adrift at ocean, holding on the sanctuary of debris beneath her belly, as the minutes tick by. An intimate, intensive, awareness of the wheezing filling the room, his fingers chipping nail and fleshsmears against rope fibers until they do not.

When it all stops, she raises her chin.

The body still sways from the force of a life that had wanted to be.

A detail catches her eye: the clinch of the rope butting snug, almost nuzzling, against the round jut of bone behind a bowed neck.

It is the most well-fitted thing the man has ever worn.

[lawrenceop]

HOMILY for 15th Sun after Pentecost (Dominican rite)

Gal 5:25-26, 6:1-10; Luke 7:11-16

The little Galilean village of Nain would have been forgotten and lost to history were it not for this miracle recorded only in St Luke’s Gospel. The location of Nain is not without significance. It is a short distance from Mount Tabor, within sight of the holy mountain where Our Lord was Transfigured. And this is fitting because it was on Tabor that Jesus revealed his glory to his disciples; it was on Tabor that Peter, James, and John had a glimpse of the resurrection and the heavenly life to come. So, too, through this miracle at Nain, it is as if his resurrection glory, shining forth from Mount Tabor, falls upon the widow’s son, and the dead young man is raised to life. This miracle, therefore points to the Resurrection of Christ through whom all the dead shall be raised to new life.

In the 4th century the bishop Eusebius of Caesarea noted that Nain was near another Biblical place, Endor where king Saul had consulted a witch and had asked her to summon the dead prophet Samuel in a séance so that he could consult him. There, at Endor, through a diabolical deception, the supposed ghost of Samuel is summoned and he speaks disaster for the king and his dynasty. One might say that due to Saul’s betrayal of God by daring to summon spirits and consult witches, God had abandoned Saul’s kingdom, and so it fell to the Philistines. So, the miracle at Nain reminds us that only God, who alone is the source of all life, can raise the dead; only God can give life and shed his glory upon Man. Hence, when Christ comes to the land and performs this miracle at Nain, the people cry out: “God has visited his people!”

Whereas Saul, in desperation at Endor, had looked to counterfeit powers and influences for life and hope of victory, in fact all he gains is death and destruction. For without God, there is only falsehood, failure, and destruction. For this is the destiny of Satan, and the evil spirits, and those who consort with the devil such as witches and mediums and fortune-tellers do. Therefore, at Nain, the Lord calls us to place our hope in him, and not in false gods nor in seductively easy and ‘quick fix’ so-called solutions that lead only to destruction. Instead, with patience and fortitude and with the theological virtue of hope, we profess: “exspécto resurrectiónem mortuórum, et vitam ventúri sǽculi”, ‘I look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come’. As Christians, therefore, we profess our faith in eternal life in Christ and with Christ and through Christ, a heavenly glory that is foreseen on Mount Tabor by the apostles, where Jesus spoke with Moses and Elijah, with those two prophets who are known in Judaism as the “living ones”, the undying ones. The glorious event of the Transfiguration makes clear that they receive their life from God, indeed, from Jesus Christ. So all who look to Christ, and who hear his Word, shall receive the gift of eternal life. All this is prefigured in the miracle at Nain of which we have heard in today’s Gospel.

Now when Jesus raises the only son of the widow of Nain, he does so purely by his Word, with a command: “Young man, I say to you, arise!” For God’s Word is creative and life-giving. As the psalmist says: “By the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made” (Ps 33:6). So just as God creates all things through his Word, so too, by his Word, God brings a new creation into being, a new heavens and a new earth, and he restores all things to new life. Hence the people cried out, God has visited his people. For they recognised, in awe-filled fear, that in Christ, God is present among us. In Christ, God comes and shares our human condition; the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And Christ does this, and works his miracles, so that through these signs and wonders the people can see that God has come to redeem and heal and restore all of creation. For creation had fallen under the influence of the Evil One, creation had been alienated from God, and Man had turned away and worshipped false gods, indeed, Man had tried to set himself up in place of God. But this only leads to death, failure and destruction. Therefore, Christ, moved by compassion at the predicament of Mankind (who is represented by the poor weeping widow of Nain) has come to save Mankind: by the power of his living Word, God comes to raise us first of all from the spiritual death of sin, which has cut us off from God, the source of all life. By his Word, therefore, he raises us to the new life of grace which is our life now, as Christians. And then Christ has come, secondly, to give us new hope in the “life of the world to come”. For as he says in St John’s Gospel: “all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement.” (Jn 5:28f) So, it is by his Word, too, that our bodies and souls will be raised after death to eternal life, hopefully, with Christ in heaven. The miracle at Nain which is accomplished simply by Christ’s Word, therefore, points to both these new realities brought about by the Lord.

I want to focus now just on the life of grace, the raising of our bodies and souls from the spiritual death of sin. How does this happen? St Paul tells us in the epistle that our Christian lives involves dying to our old selves. Our sinful bodily habits and cravings have to die. So, too, our spiritual bad habits of pride, envy, self-conceit and so on. Then, the Holy Spirit, active in us through the grace of the sacraments, will raise us to a new life, to a new way of being and doing and behaving. As St Paul says: “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another… For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Gal 5:25, 6:8)

If we pay attention to the original Greek text of today’s Gospel, it’s interesting to note that when Jesus commands the dead young man, he does not use the passive form, “Be raised”, but rather the active form, “Arise”, or in other translations “Get up”. So, although Christ, being God, is the cause of the miracle, the recipient is not entirely passive but co-operative. For it is likewise in the Christian life of grace, as we know. Although God is the giver of all grace, and the cause and origin and perfecter of our every good act, we must also be open to his grace and, as it were, co-operate with it, allowing God to be active in us and with us and through us. Hence St Augustine said: “God created us without us: but he did not will to save us without us.”

Looking closely again at the miracle recounted in today’s Gospel, notice that, at Christ’s command, the dead man sits up, and then he begins to speak. Before one can speak, one has to draw breath. This action of the dead man, therefore, is an analogy for the life of grace. By the Word of God, we have been raised to new life for it is through the sacraments, principally through Baptism, that the Word of God is at work, and is bringing his new creation to be. As we hear Jesus declare in the book of the Apocalypse: “Behold, I make all things new” (Apoc 21:5).

Through the sacraments, Christ makes new all of creation; through the sacraments, Christ is at work to renew you and me with his grace so that we become a new Man, fully alive and mature in Christ. This comes about by the power of the Holy Spirit active in us. So, just as the young man of Nain has to breath in before he speaks, so we must breath in the Holy Spirit, the divine Breath of God, so that, with the Holy Spirit active within us, with God’s grace working in us, we can speak. Raised by God to new life, therefore, we are not to speak empty words nor words of gossip nor detraction nor words that are destructive and devoid of charity. Rather, we are enabled by the Spirit to praise God in our words and in our actions, so that we shall, indeed, proclaim the Gospel of salvation to those around us in what we say and in what we do. Thus St Paul says to you and to me: “as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Gal 6:10) Therefore, let our lives shine with good works and so give glory to our heavenly Father (cf Mt 5:16), for we draw our life from the Risen Lord: like the young man at Nain, we lift our face towards the light of Tabor, and turn our back on Endor.

[myrskytuuli]

Goldie O’Gilt and Her relationship with Children Over the Years

So the most obvious reaction to this episode was write a ficlet. Obviously. Yes, this is way too angsty and serious, but you know me  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

As a child, there has been a special type of fear that educational pamphlets aimed for little girls had roused in her. The world of print had been populated solely by glowing mothers, surrounded by litters of rosy cheeked children, all advising young girls to stay away from bad literature and suffragette movements. They had unnerved her childish mind, this army of almost identical women in the almost identical living room. She had imagined them preserved inside a great big glass cube, rows and rows of them kept inside the office of the man who printed the pamphlets.

Tell us a story Goldie’mama!

Goldie doesn’t like children. They are small, and easily breakable, and needy. They get everywhere, are always on the way, and trust you unconditionally if you just show them the smallest bit of kindness.

Goldie herself grew out of childhood very quick, and zoomed past her girlhood in one fast flash, taking the mantel of womanhood maybe too early. But that is all ancient history by now and therefore unimportant.

When Goldie is trapped in Pandemonium, the imps jab her with thousands of splinters all over and talk to her about her son.

Goldie doesn’t like it that Scrooge has suddenly decided to dedicate his life to raising two small twins. Della and Donald are suddenly all there is in his life, and Goldie’s flirtations are no longer enough to draw him to leave Duckburg. There are more important things, like the kid’s school plays and taking care of them when they are sick and helping them with their homework. Goldie doesn’t especially like being jealous of ten-year-olds, but she is.

Women who got their education from pamphlets with the mothers in glass-cubes in them might have not known what their own bits looked like, but being part of the profession Goldie had had an entirely different education. She knew all about vinegar-soaked sponges and chemical syringes and douches. She always knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who can get you illegal rubbers. She’s careful with this, if not with anything else in her life.

It’s why she feels so stupid laying down in her room at the Blackjack saloon, missing a certain sourdough and his uncomfortable cabin in the woods. She never does this anymore, not without a sponge and a rubber both, the men who pay themselves to bankruptcy to afford her eager to comply with every restriction that she throws at them. 

But this time she had been too caught up in her own desire to manage any rational thought to filter through her brain. She spends a minute imagining a little duckling with Scrooge’s eyes and her hair.

Then she gets up and goes looking for the stash of syringes and chemicals that the girls keep in the dressing room.

Goldie is subscribed to her granddaughter’s beaktube channel and watches all of her videos religiously. DickieDee94 does not know that she even has a grandmother, and Goldie aspires to keep it that way.

                                   When the green one calls her, she is too surprised to end the call then and there. That turns out to be a mistake, as the child turns out to be amusing enough to keep her interest piqued. Plus, he has a valid point in that it will make Scrooge very annoyed.

Returning back to Klondike after decades is harder than she expected. There is a certain weight in Dawson, the city that made her in so many ways. Gave her taste of the stars, of things that will haunt her forever. Money, power, glory, the L-word.

But the shadows in Klondike are also starker, deeper, and the memories of her at her worst are what makes her drop by the local orphanage and dumb the entire prize of her latest heist into their office. Goldie is under no illusion that you can buy your way out of sins, but there is something about the little girls playing queens and princesses with crowns made of tin-cans that touches even her.

She blames the drugs, as in both the weed she had been on when she joined in the orgy, and as in the ease of birth-control pills in this modern world of wonders. The weed made her forget about condoms and the birth control pills were so small, and easy to use that it was easy to forget whether you had taken one or not.

She is already in the hospital lobby, when she hesitates. She imagines a little girl, with her eyes and eyes of…someone, following in her footsteps. Helping her in her cons. Her teaching the child all her tricks. Travelling with a companion who accepted and understood her completely and perfectly.

She’s not afraid of the procedure, like the doctor suggests when she decides to cancel her appointment. She knows that this is not the traumatic and painful experience that it was before, but the image of the little version of Goldie O’Gilt at her heels is too tempting.

When Goldie is 18, her customer says that he won’t pay her if there is a rubber involved. She is still a child in many ways, and bends, believing that bad things don’t really happen to her. But they do, and her fellow girls take her to a secret doctor. He is barely older than she is, and just as scared. In a way, it is just as much his life on the line as hers. She might die for his mistake, and he might lose everything for her slip of a tongue.

It is as painful as she has heard, but the fear is worse. The knowledge that others have died on this table. Biting the cloth in her mouth, the small room with a mould stain in the ceiling that she keeps staring.

She is feverish for a week afterwards, but that is manageable. After the week she can work again and that is all that matters.

Snakehips’ husband still comes to the Blackjack every evening. Goldie still remembers the excitement in the dancer’s voice when she had told Goldie that she wouldn’t be coming to work anymore, she was getting married. Goldie didn’t believe in marriage, but she tried to be happy for Snakehips.

She wished that Mr. Storkesby had proven her wrong, but he hadn’t. There he was, buying Goldie’s whisky and getting close the percentage girls on Goldie’s dancefloor.

Goldie visited Mrs. Storkesby one night on a whim, in their small cabin at the outskirts of Dawson. She was there, tending to their son and smiling.

“Oh, I don’t mind that he still goes to the saloon. I have this little angel to keep me company!” She smiled down at her baby in a way that Goldie found incomprehensible.

Goldie’s egg hatches a son, which throws her off the loop instantly. It hits her then and there, that it won’t be a small version of her that she has to raise, but a person. Individual, helpless person that she has no idea what to do with.

The green triplet keeps sending her text messages where he wheedles, begs, argues, and whines about how much he wants to be her new apprentice. Goldie tells herself that she is keeping them for comedic value only.

“Well done sweetie! You will make a splendid mother one day.” her mother compliments seven-year-old Goldie when she brings her ailing mother tea to her bed.

The child welfare services take her son from him when Jaden is nine. She can’t exactly blame them, as she was the one who contacted them. Jaden is heartbroken, as he is still too young to realise that it is not normal that his mom leaves him alone for days at end and that he has almost died two times in the last two weeks.

“Give me my aunt back!” The green triplet yells, as brave as a lion, releasing Goldie from the glass-cube that she has been imprisoned in. He is clever, brave and sharp. There is a suggestion of young Scrooge in him, but not enough that Goldie cannot admit that it is mostly her sentimentality talking. He is a child who has been raised by extraordinary good parental figures. He is a child who despite having such great parental figures, has still chosen Goldie as an honorary aunt.  

Goldie slips the photograph of Louie Duck in her wallet, and for the first time ponders about the grey area between full motherhood and full stranger-hood. The avenues that honorary aunt-hood might open. The beautiful muddy ground of extended familial relations. She doesn’t stay of course, but she does think about it all a lot.