#*points gun at me* write

[unicornpopcorn14]

Dazai and his (dis)association with Guns

It's interesting to me how Dazai conically wields no firearms on him, neither in the PM nor in the ADA.

I mean, taking how dangerous both jobs are into consideration, and how he isn't as physically capable as the strongest ability users out there, you'd think he'd at least ensure a safety measure with him at all times.

But every gun he wields in the series is someone else's.

Every. single. one.

Even the handgun he wields in the Azure messanger arc, despite belonging to the agency, he doesn't constantly use:

While in Stormbringer, Dazai uses a tazer gun before meeting Adam and relying on him:

I've had many speculations regarding this pattern (feel free to add onto them), one of them being that Dazai thinks he doesn't even need guns, since strategies are his weapons, his hands alone are his weapons. In a world of crazy abilities, and users completely relying on said abilitis, being a nullifier might be considered the biggest threat, and a pretty sturdy weapon to rely on.

After some thinking, however, I found that while this might be part of the reason, it isn't enough to just disregard firearms as weapons entirely. Dazai's plans/predictions aren't foolproof, and as he'd explained, they are full of uncertanties, contrary to Fyodor's plans.

And Dazai's ability can't be relied on all the time. Having to touch the enemies/maintain proximity in order to activate it is definitely a hindrance. Besides, some enemies can be physically competent without their abilities, some might not even have abilities, but are formidable. Firearms in these situations would be extremely useful, given their range, and a good precaution.

Aside from combat, tw: suicide Let's not forget that a shooting oneself is subjectively the most painless way to die. So if anything, Dazai should be eager to have one on him and even attempt with it. But he doesn't, he never even seems interested in using guns at all in his suicide methods, hence he would have succeeded long ago...

So if it isn't out of unnecessity, then what might be the reason? I mean, having to count on your enemies to have guns in order to use one is rather inconveniet, right? Why can't he just carry the agency's gun or, before that, any of the countless PM's firearms? Well...

Here is what I think: Killing with guns is triggering for Dazai

Let's rewind a little...

15!Dazai is the earliest we see him using a firearm, and one of the few times he does shoot with said firearm, resulting in this fiasco:

He's clearly having a mental breakdown, spiraling, can't stop, and most importantly: can't think straight. This is Dazai's lowest moment in the whole series.

Thing worth mentioning: in the manga/lightnovel, Dazai does stop after shooting the man one time (basically killing him) and pauses, before he continues again and again and agian...

So I believe the triggering factor is either the death/corpse itself, or how the recoil felt.

We can't exactly determine what it might be, since remember, this is before Dazai even joins the Mafia. He's known Mori for mere weeks at this point. Whatever Dazai's going through in this moment has to related to his past prior to the mafia that we have yet to (or might never) see.

You'd get why Dazai, a person whose greatest ability is his mind above all else, would never wish to go through a moment where he can't keep his thoughts in check. Where he'd lose control.

And you know what's crazy? Dazai seems to avoid that outcome since then, as This is the only moment we see him actively kill someone with a gun in the series.

18!Dazai, through his (abusive) teaching moment with Akutagawa, shoots three times in hopes the other finally uses his ability defensively. There is a cause, and a motif, that a gun has to be involved in. And he knows Akutagawa is going to succeed in repelling them, he knows that won't kill him. Which is why wielding a gun is safe along with shooting it.

While in the ADA, in the instances Dazai wields a gun, he doesn't even shoot:

And that checks. Each one of these example were mere empty threats, but now I see that, as much as it's a threat to whoever he's pointing the barrel at, he's also under the mercy of it. Which means that every time he's used a gun since fifteen was a means to scare and not kill, if only to avoid the worst outcome which is losing control.

Dazai's sanity is on the line whenever the trigger is at the tip of his finger...

So why would he carry guns when he never even plans to shoot? When properly putting them to use threatens to send him into a breakdown, to overthrow his entire line of thinking?

One moment out of control might cost him his plans, his objectives, his subordinates, the lives he wishes to protect. And unless there is a motif for the gun (other than of course, killing) using it is a threat looming over him.

[save-the-villainous-cat]

ruthless hero who destroys everyone verbally, doesnt take shit + chatty villain who just grins and loves banter(if its not too much) have a great day!

The hero swallowed.

Although the gun was shaking in their hand, they took in a deep breath and steadied their mind. No time for second thoughts.

This was it. They’d been searching for the villain for weeks now. They’d finally found them and they were not going to let them escape again.

“Oh?” the villain asked. They eyed the hero carefully, as if the hero was the object of their attention instead of the gun. They were sitting on the couch in their lair with all the casualness in the world. “Aren’t you a little too confident for your own good, darling?”

“Aren’t you?”

The villain cocked their head and the grin followed as so often. They stood up slowly and raised their hands but despite their actions of surrender, they were clearly mocking the hero.

“Mhmm. That’s how it is, I see. How spunky you can be…”

Determined, the hero took their handcuffs and threw them into the villain’s direction. Even though the villain seemed to be more confused than intrigued, they caught and inspected them.

“Cuff yourself,” the hero said.

“Gosh, you can be so kinky.”

“And you’ll be bleeding out in a few seconds if you don’t do as I say.” Their grip around the gun tightened. It didn’t matter that the villain had saved them so many times. It didn’t matter that they were occasionally nice.

It didn’t matter because the hero had a job to do.

They had to arrest them.

The villain rolled their eyes.

“All bark, no bite.”

“Would you like to find out? I recall breaking your arm pretty easily,” the hero said. They were aiming at the villain’s shoulder and slowly, very slowly, their anxiousness faded. It was a job like every other.

A villain, just like all the others.

Shooting at them in this moment seemed irrational. They weren’t a threat nor were they extraordinarily provoking them. Of course the hero knew it would be difficult to explain to the team how the villain had surrendered without much of a struggle.

They had to find a solution to that later.

“Mistakes happen in the heat of the moment. I understand you were distracted by my muscles flexing during the fight.” The villain was in a good mood, as so often. But the hero could also sense some sort of uncertainty.

It was in the movement of their fingers that traced the handcuffs. In their restless eyes that went over the hero again and again. If they wanted to admit it or not, the hero had surprised them.

And that was something the villain absolutely despised. Surprises. Not being in control. Not knowing what happens next.

“I can assure you it was intentional. Your muscles aren’t that special.”

“Ouch.” The villain contorted their face as if they were truly hurt. The mockery should’ve made it easier. But it didn’t.

The hero turned off the gun’s safety.

“Handcuffs. Now.”

“Fine.” The villain cuffed themselves, one wrist after the other. Once they were finished, they stretched their arms out and presented themselves. “Am I not the sweetest present?”

“The most annoying, definitely. Sit down.” The villain did as the hero commanded and leaned back, pushing their hips forward. Lounging like that was definitely not what the hero wanted them to do.

They’d been chasing the villain for weeks and they were determined to put them behind bars. Whatever had happened in the past, it was gone now. The hero had let go of it and could only pray the villain had done that too.

“We’ll wait here until my team arrives.”

“I suppose that’s enough time for me to escape. You know you love our little hide-and-seek game.” Their smile was genuine and sweet. The hero didn’t know what to make of that.

“No, this is it. It’s over. I can’t let you go.”

“But you will. You’re still so soft for me.”

“You’re really not as important to me as you think.” Then why are you hesitating?

“You’re not as cold as you think,” the villain said. “Not when it comes to me.”

They jiggled with the handcuffs. The hero could hear their own pulse.

“Just tell your team it was a good fight and I escaped, hm? Just like last time,” the villain suggested. Sweat was running down the hero’s back. Their fingers were ice cold.

“I cannot do that.”

“You’ve done it before, darling,” the villain said. “As long as I can walk, I can still escape. You know I’m skilled enough to do that.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I enjoy my time with you,” the villain said. They looked at the ground. “…and I still have feelings for you.”

The hero felt sick in their stomach.

“I wish you hadn’t said that.” Suddenly, the hero lowered their gun and pulled the trigger. They couldn’t let them escape again. They couldn’t put their own feelings before their responsibilities. As soon as they pulled the trigger, they regretted it.

Their heavy heart sank fast.

They hoped one day they could forget the villain’s reaction when the bullet entered their knee. That stare of utter fear and betrayal. That scream and those tears of pain.

But that would haunt them forever.

[saintbleeding]

[ID: Digital art of Lady Mowbray from The Magnus Protocol. She is a tall older white woman with grey hair, wearing an old-fashioned hunting suit with jodhpurs and tall boots, and wielding a double-barrelled rifle. She is shown from an extreme low angle, smirking with satisfaction, one boot on the side of her human victim. They are shown from the back, a wound in their head and bruises visible on the skin of their lower back. Behind Lady Mowbray is visible a red and yellow sunset above a clearing in a greenish-black wood. End ID.]

ohhhhh she’s despicable i love her

[cannibalhellhound]

Wings AU character bits

Hi this is me trying to get a grip on writing again and getting the characters while also adding the wing bits.

Ice Harpy Eagle

Likes having long nails (harpy eagles have fuckin huge talons), keeps them shaped and neatly painted if he's in the mood when on leave

Likes to keep his nest cool and clean (comfy but practical)

Tall nesting! He always claims the top bunk! 

His childhood bedroom had one of those tall beds with a desk under them because he kept piling stuff up to sleep atop of them and it could fit multiple people 

Sad because Navy bunk beds are small :(

Strong as fuck (he's smaller than Sli but can bench press almost as much) (harpy eagles grab animals as big as them like sloths and carry them) (can carry others while flying if needed just not for lengthy flights)

Very keen eyesight so sunglasses for light sensitivity (maybe reading glasses for near sight focus? I like him with glasses)

Very good hearing (don't shit talk near him he'll definitely hear it)

Hair moves very slightly, similar to feathers (kinda like their facial disk and feather crest) 

*Baby feathers are almost all white with some light gray. They molt usually once a year (sometimes twice) and it takes 5 years to get the adult coloring 

Ice's stayed in a middle coloring and he got insecure. His mom suggested matching his hair and that's how the frosted tips came to exist :D

He's a provider by nature but his little sisters have made him very nurturing and affectionate too (Slider knows this firsthand and thinks it's hilarious how fussy Ice can get)(the others learn with time but first baby goose)

Leaves feathers around the house (perfectly placed thank you very much)

Slider Bearded Vulture

Lämmergeier means “Lamb vulture” (wrong because they don't prey on sheep but shhhhh).  Slider calls Maverick “Little lamb” as a joke because he loves annoying him and wants to eat him up

CAN ACTUALLY EAT BONES!!! (Bone soup is a thing!) Will chew on them till it's painful to watch and will take anyone's bones off their plates to pick the marrow off them

The bone dropping shows a lot in him just throwing stuff. He does it. A LOT.

He also likes to have a tennis ball around to fidget dropping it and catching it when it bounces

Has an actual nest bed. The mattress is on the harder side but it has a shit ton of blankets and pillows (to the point you can't feel the mattress)

There are old feathers around the nest tucked in between pillows (don't tell Ice!!) ⁠(⁠ ⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠-⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠ ⁠)

Very involved into the life of the ones he loves (helpful, affectionate, etc) (this includes parenting looks at baby goose)

His feathers only dye red when visiting his family or on vacation with family because they frequent iron rich waters (his mom loves her red feathers and looking at her baby look like her makes her teary eyed)

Maverick Peregrine Falcon

Very lightweight!!!

He's beauty, he's grace, he'll dive down and kick you in the face (literally, peregrine falcons kill prey by punching them with their closed talons when dividing)

Very keen reflexes (both at ground and on air), will grab anything you throw at him even if distracted

Very! Good! At courting!!!! (Looking at the beginning bar scene)

Small but comfy nest. Very soft and also bunk bed! is perfect

Has a favorite blanket that he will ALWAYS take everywhere, even on deployment 

Cracking his head fuckin open more than once as a kid because he's a menace and small and tried to dive from places he climbed (not his best idea)

crying because he's so small he can't carry goose after the accident and can just grab at him until they get rescued

Now this would be for trans! Mav

To everyone's surprise Mav is as big as he can get (Female birds of prey are bigger than males= bigger wingspan, human height is genetic so for avians is a bit mixed)

Wings don't allow binding (for obvious reasons) but kinesiology tape exists! 

He already used KTape before joining the navy and top surgery so he's used to just strutting around shirtless (we stan a short confident king! It's honestly so freeing to tape and be shirtless I might just leave him pre surgery for next fanart pieces)

Goose Emden Goose

Literally a Mother Goose™

Has learned to deal with Maverick and not only does he not get surprised by his antics, he can predict them and is already prepared for them (aka get ready to scoop tiny ass Mav if he gets in trouble or hurts himself)

The good part is that it has made him baby proof. He can deal with a child he's been dealing with Mav!

Terrified. Absolutely terrified. Because his beautiful baby gosling is as much a little shit as his wife and best friend. If his wings weren't already white they'd for sure be by now ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ

I need to think more about Mav and Goose but that involves looking for Peregrine Falcon and Geese facts

Edit to take out the divider because I don't like it

[yeyinde]

This might sound so cringe and cliche, but I wanna be of help in some way-

how about price faking injuries to see a specific nurse he has a crush on but won’t admit.

Cringe and cliche are quite on brand for me, tbh.

It starts as a concussion, a stiffness in his neck. A pinch in his shoulder. 

Then it changes shape, shifting, evolving, into something more. A tenuous dance held together by silken threads. He tugs on the ends sometimes, just to watch little pieces of you begin to unravel. Raw skin, untouched and new bared to his curious eyes. 

You’ve thrown him off-kilter, left him feeling strange. All asunder. 

He shouldn’t be too surprised by the way you unmoor him so easily. Your eyes swallow the atmosphere around him, eating through gravity. Weightless, he’s left to drift in the aether until you snatch him from the air, leaving him wing-clipped, and kept cupped in the soft swells of your palm. 

It’s greed, he thinks. That awful little thing that makes him keep coming back for more.

The helicopter crash did a number of things on him—mild concussion, a fractured rib, sprained wrist; it seemed to have flipped his insides all askew for a moment when he plunged to the earth before somehow righting themselves when he'd landed—but in retrospect, hindsight, whatever, it could have been a lot worst. 

A fact Gaz seemed to have picked up on quicker than he had when they'd met in the medical bay together, holding their broken bodies with trembling hands. 

(Or maybe threaded together by a statuette of Nefertem laced in the fibres of their hearts.)

"What's this now," Gaz asked when he limped in, knee smarting without the surge of adrenaline keeping him upright. Mirth rolling through his teeth, ge offered Price a fractured grin that very likely might have been a grimace. "Two for two? Might be a sign, cap…"

"A sign for what?"

Gaz shrugged, pressing tender fingers against the gash on his forehead. "Stay the fuck out of helicopters. Take the bloody bus instead."

There's a retort in the back of his throat, but it's swallowed when you walk in, hands gripping a medical bag between blanching knuckles. He's closest to the door, and you turn to him with an air of pensive uncertainty that nudges the spot inside of him that preens under authority. That likes law, order, and the simplicity of life. A natural-born leader. He plays the part, of commander and captain, and dips his head toward Gaz, a silent motion meant to convey him first. 

The always in that is ironclad, he thinks. Brassbound. Even if he was bleeding out on the pavement. His men, his boys, first. 

Except, he catches Gaz doing the same thing toward him. A stalemate, then. 

You're new, he notes; ears still wet, face still green. He braces himself to step in, to lay down the authority you need before you flounder, unsure what to do, but instead of being met with uncertainty, he finds himself breathing in your ire. 

"Well, heroes," you snip, brow pinching together in displeasure. "One of you has to go first, don't you? So while I put my stuff on the table, I expect you to have figured it out amongst yourself, yeah?"

And it's—

It's something. 

A strand of static in the air. Direct current to his heart. It thuds in a strange murmuration, off rhythm, off balance. But it makes sense. You'd thrown him so wildly off kilter. 

He clears his throat of the soot that congeals the back, and nods once. Sharp and jerky. 

"Right, yeah…" 

Price turns to Gaz, brows pinched in the middle. A messy bow. 

It isn't like him to be so askew, but you turned everything upside down before he could familiarise himself with the world in its right state. He's adrift for a moment. Floundering, he notes, tasting something sweet behind his teeth. 

Gaz meets his eyes somewhere in the fog, the furrow in his brow asking the questions he won't voice aloud—you alright, cap?—but he isn't sure what he's meant to say. Everything feels like it was knocked loose inside of him, left to roll off shelves and clatter to the floor. Disorganised chaos. Awash. Lost in tangled webs. He isn't used to this. To feeling so useless, so askew. 

He later finds it just the concussion warping the edges of his mind, turning his thoughts into a slurry. That the mild part was an oversight, one that was immediately corrected by you—firm fingers holding his chin still, nails scratching against his beard as you peered into his eyes with a clinical air of detachment that shouldn't have made his heart beat as loud as it was. 

You smell of summer rain. The musk of water on a hot pavement. He breathes it in until it's clogging the back of his throat, so thick he can almost taste it. So heavy, so heady, his head swims. Ozone. Charred wood. War tucked in a bottle.

The soft fingers against his pulse was a shock, made potent by the little curl of your brow when you counted the beats per minute and found they were much too fast. He isn't embarrassed. Doesn't think he has it in him anymore to feel that way, but there's a sense of frustration in the back of his mind as you move around him, commandeering him with an ease that leaves him feeling a little breathless. 

"You're concussed," you say at last, lips pitching downward as you read his charts, the scrawl left behind by the nurse who'd seen him earlier. The one who promptly sent him to you. "And it isn't mild."

With that, and a list of things he ought to do (non-negotiable), you send him on his way. Gaz, too. Fixed up with gauze and made shiny and new. 

Soap asks why he's so quiet later when they meet for a debriefing later on (one that he knows is definitely on the list of things you told him not to do), and has to stop the rip current from spilling past his lips. 

"He's concussed," Gaz supplied, narrowed eyes clipping the side of his face when it lands; a physical blow. "Doc said he needed rest. But good luck telling him that."

"Don't need rest," he grumbles. There's a blossom of pain in his temple. A little sapling that flourishes under the waning sunlight. "'M fine."

They don't believe him, but the debriefing is too short to push him to lay down, and he spends the next hour pretending he's not seeing shadows in his periphery. That the words on the pages don't bleed together. 

(That the scent of Petrichor doesn't glue to the back of his throat.)

When the hurt in his head dims, he finds his thoughts drifting back to you. Meek and unassuming. A wolf in sheep's clothing. It lingers long after the meeting has ended and he's ushered to the barracks for rest. Home tomorrow, Gaz promises on the tail end of yawn. Gonna sleep for a whole year, I think. 

Aye, gonna head home in the morning, Soap murmurs, but his eyes don't stray from the corner where Ghost leans, chin dipped low to his chest. 

(Price wouldn't put it past him to be asleep already.)

They tell him to get some sleep, dressing the worry in their voice as a friendly admonishment, and he takes it as it is. 

But rest doesn't come. 

He's curious about you. The little hellion that managed to snatch him clean from the air, and cup him in the palm of your too-small hands. 

(He wants to feel it again.)

It begins as idle curiosity.

Price is a large man full of bulk and grit. The snarls in his throat command authority, respect. He isn't used to feeling so wing clipped, sidelined, and he blames that on why he seeks you out. 

A pinch in his shoulder. His chest feels swollen around the broken rib. His knee hurts. There's an ache in his throat. A throb in his kidneys. 

Each time is met with the same stern expression, firm hands. You commandeer him around the room, dragging out the ailments with ease that always seems to leave him off-kilter and breathless. 

He realises what it is the fourth time he comes to your office, exacerbating some mild pain. 

You take up space. All of it. Any crevasse, or corner is immediately filled by you. You have this presence about you that is so at odds with the meek façade you carried on your countenance like an ill-fitting mask when he'd first laid eyes on you. 

You're an enigma, a paradox. A riddle begging to be solved. He wants to take you into his hands and pull you apart until your insides are bared to him, true and real, and known. 

He's met people like you in his lifetime. Leaders in roles that don't fit them. He thinks you belong in worn pages of history, tucked behind a desk as you commandeer the world around you with firm hands and a gnarled smile instead of standing before him, musing softly at whatever ailments he throws your way. 

Despite his plethora of issues, you tackle them all with an air of severity and seriousness that he finds kinship in, touching softly at the twined mass that writhes before him. The cuts in your gaze are made from the same shorn razor as his, and he wants to see what's behind that ill-fitting mask. 

He wants to see you slip. 

But you don't. 

Tongue between teeth, clenched so hard that blood blooms and swells in the tip, you keep everything locked tight to your chest, and usher him out with pantomime remedies to heal his farcical hurts. 

Price isn't sure why he keeps going—curiosity, maybe. An attraction that cracks like lightning striking through his chest. A gale of turbulence that leaves him seaswept and standing on shaking knees. He doesn’t know what to do with the kinetic energy that buzzes in his veins, begging to be free, and so he tests. Pulls and tugs at the seams that keep you spooled tightly together just to see that fissure that once split across your face, leaking fury and fire into the air until it ripped through his nerves, an electrical fire, and set him alight from the inside out. 

(He finds he likes the way it hurts.)

As much as he tugs, he finds he likes it when you pull back. 

"Should be careful," you coo, and the syrupy sweetness of your voice sparks against some dormant part of his mind. "You seem to have a lot of bad luck when it comes to ailments."

He shrugs. "Just unlucky."

"Or you're being cursed." 

"Oh, yeah?" He hums. "Could be." 

You offer a flimsy smile, but it’s enough to soothe the ruffle through his plumage. 

"What's your name?" He asks, fingers plucking at the gossamer that sits between you, unsettled by the quiver in his chest. 

The smile you flash at him is all teeth. "Sekhmet."

Laswell doesn't ask why when he requests your records, but he senses the confusion in her voice when she calls. 

"All of them?" 

He grunts in response. 

"I vetted them personally, John… but," there's a shuffle in the background. Boxes sliding on linoleum. She's overseeing the tearing up of Shepherd's office, and this minute request suddenly turns his stomach sour. "Fine. If that's what you want."

"It's just—"

He isn't quite sure what to say. He was weakened and flummoxed by the world around him. You turned the tipping axis on its head, leaving him feeling asunder. 

"Heard they were quite rough with you," she teases, an olive branch. An excuse. "Bossing around the boss. Is this what it's about?"

He scoffs, then, and only feels an inkling of pain. "No, Laswell. And I wasn't bossed around."

"Manhandled?"

It gives him pause. That feeling from before swells in his chest. Soft hands against his talons, clipping his wings. 

"No," he mutters, but the airiness of his voice gives him away. 

Laswell, in a feat of mercy, just hums. "They're good, John. Good for this team."

Good for you, she doesn't say. John thinks she doesn't have to. He hears it, anyway. 

There are cracks inside of him, ones made from the chipped clay that once concealed an unslaked black hole. 

You fill space, he thinks. 

He isn’t surprised to find you fill the gaps inside of him, too. 

He goes again, but this time it’s real. A bullet grazed his shin, deep enough to warrant stitches, and finds you waiting for him with that clipboard pinched between your hands. 

The look on your face gives him pause. It’s pulled taut, coiled like a defensive viper, but where he expects the same clinical efficiency and detached airs, he instead is met with a palpable sense of uncertainty—too much, he thinks, like the first time you walked into the room, unsure and wobbling on unsteady feet. 

His heart thunders under your prying gaze. “Need some stitches,” he says, if only to fill in the terse silence that settles over the room, hushed and aggrieved. 

“Right,” you echo, eyes dropping to the blood that runs in streaking rivulets down his leg. 

And you say nothing else after, working quietly as you knit skin back together and sponge the drying blood from the wry thatch of curls that blanket his shin. 

Price takes in the paleness of your lip, pinched tight against your clenched teeth. The deep ravine that cuts a line between your brows, heavy with shadows and flooded in some strange amalgamation of anger—potent enough that he can catch the embers in the air on his tongue—and this uncharacteristic sense of disquiet that makes your shoulders tense, your hands slacken. The firm, sure touch is gone—replaced, instead, with clouded unease—and you no longer commandeer him around the room, catch him from the air and manoeuvre him to your fanciful whims. You nudge, now. Soft utterances; requests. 

You don’t move space to fit yourself between the brackets. You linger in the periphery. 

He isn’t accustomed to this, and the hesitancy in your brow needles behind his ribs, pinching and pushing until he’s left feeling that same, strange sense of weightlessness as before. But where you led him around by the tip of his ears, he finds himself unmoored. 

(He likes the loss of control, but only when it’s tethered to your hand.)

His wound is patched up, skin knitted together with silken black lines that cut a neat crisscross through his tumid skin. There is no reason to linger, despite the weight on his tongue urging him to speak. 

But you strike first, catching him at the door. 

"Is there a problem?" You ask, words stripped bare, and masticated between clenched teeth. Reluctance is a heavy weight on your brow when he turns to you, as if you don't want to ask, but are compelled to. Forced to. 

It's the first time he's felt any sense of control around you. He stretches his wings. 

"Problem?" He echoes, and tucks his hands beneath his arms. Steadying his stance. Preparing for the fight. 

You mimic his pose, but grab the knobs of your elbows between tense fingers instead. There's fire in your eyes. The room fills with smoke. 

"You asked for my papers."

The meagre file tucked away in his cabinet spoke of your accomplishments in the same detached, clinical distance as one of the many façades you adopt. It listed your education, your former employment, and your accolades in Times New Roman, all standard affairs. Impressive, of course, but he found it all to be quite lacklustre. 

It didn't mention the firmness of your fingers when you take his pulse or commandeer him to your liking. It said nothing about the paralysing weight in your gaze, vipers tucked in the corners of your eyes when he meets your stolid authority with his own fiery wrath. 

(Or the softness of your cheeks when you try to hide a smile. The admonishing pinches made in jest when he says something that distracts you from your task.)

"I did."

"Okay," you breathe heavily through your nose. "Why?"

"Is there any reason why I shouldn't?" 

"You just—" another breath. He has the peculiar urge to syphon the next directly from your lungs, to taste your air on his tongue. "You come here, week after week, with some—illness, and just—"

"Just what?"

"If you have a problem," you say at length, eyes flashing. "You could have come to me? One on one. I would have—"

"A problem?" He singles the word out, tossing it back at your teeth. “I don’t have a problem.”

You laugh, but it's scathing. "Are you undermining me? Is this—hazing?"

“Hazing? No,” he shakes his head, chasing the tail end of your derision. “Consider this vetting.”

And there it is—that fissure. Heat pops from the lavascape, spilling down the split of your lips. 

“Right.” You snip, shaking your head. “Well, I hope I met your expectations, Price.”

He huffs, then. The noise is a broken facsimile of a laugh forced through crooked teeth. “Of course you do.” The pinch in your brow wobbles. “Wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, love.”

He rents the air with his admission, splits the seams of this tenuous dance you make each week he shows up, speaking of some phantom pain ripped the pages of the textbooks that sit, worn and well-loved, on the shelves behind your desk. 

You say nothing when he leaves. 

(Or when he rests a piece of himself on the doorframe—a glossy feather from his primary remiges just for you.)

He doesn’t go for the next three weeks, but it isn’t cowardice that drags him away from this oddly shaped choreography. He’s caught in a storm halfway across the world with sand in his hair, and the curve of your confusion nudged between the fibrils of his chest. 

In the softness of night, he wonders what you've done with his clipped feather. 

Price meets you at the beginning, but this time, he stands in the medical bay with firm knees, and a clear head. Searching, seeking. 

The thread vibrates, and he finds you with your back to him, doling out gentle, firm, commands to the medical staff congregated around you. Clinging to your breathy orders with the same listless uncertainty that makes his chest swell with the urge to lead whenever it's rested on his shoulders. 

He isn't sure if you can feel the reverberations through the thread, the leftover sutures from when you weaved a needle over the cut on his forearm, and accidentally sewed a piece of yourself into his skin, or if it's just the heavy weight of his gaze burning brands into your back that draws your attention. 

(It certainly garners enough from the staff around you, their flighty eyes flickering from the mountain of a man seething at your back, to you—feigning obliviousness as he strips you bare beneath his glacial gaze, cutting a path to your membrane where he knows he'll find the piece of himself that you snipped off months ago.)

When you finally turn, you give a peculiar look over your shoulder, eyes clouded over, gaze inward. He watches you for a moment, taking in the curve of your cheek, the slope of your nose. Foreign, of course; but familiar under the cloak of darkness and the hail of gunfire. 

The fire still burns in your unreachable depths, but the embers are smouldering. He feels the heat even from this distance, but when you return from whatever thoughts were racing through your head, he finds the look that fixes itself there to be strange. Pensive. 

A quiet contemplation as you take in the length of his shoulders, the width of his chest. 

His heart hammers against the cages of his sore ribs, leaping to the base of his throat where it pulses like a raw wound. 

The whole of his body smarts like a massive contusion—muscles bending at odd angles, bones brittle—but he knows in an instant that he won't mention it to you. He'll tuck the hurt aside. Let it moulder. Let it rot. 

This thing between you—crafted from the design of his heart—has been pulled and pinched, flexed and stretched too taut. It's ready to snap. To break. 

He waits for that moment, bracing himself for the inevitability of the recoil clapping him against the chest, but it doesn't happen. 

You give a small dip of your chin. 

Then, you're gone. 

You've been moulding him between form hands since the beginning, moving him around however you please. 

So, it just feels natural when he follows. 

This time it's his chest. 

You go through the same dance, steps known. Ingrained in muscle memory. Your hands are firm, authoritative as you lead him on this little chase, pushing and pulling, tugging on the threads that keep him sewn up and whole. 

But an incipient path is born. A new routine. The hand on his cheek, as you read his temperature, lingers, thumb brushing over the dividing line that separates skin from wry curls. 

The touch is familiar. You’re no strange to feeling around the phantom aches and pains he presents to you, but this is an electric shock that rattles through his nerves. The trail your thumb leaves behind as it strokes idly at his skin prickles and burns. Goosebumps rise, creating cresting hills and peaks along his topography. You map it all with nimble fingers, firm and sure. 

You take the thermometer out of his mouth after a moment, not even pretending to read the results (thirty-seven degrees, always), and it’s tossed back on the tray quickly before your hand returns to his skin, drawn there by that same innate pull he feels in his iron bones. The warmth of your palm threatens to suffuse his skin, mated together in ferromagnetism. 

His chin rests, plinthed in your palms, and there’s a sudden swell, a rush, that gorges on his heart. The façades fall, clattering to the ground. The broken pieces lay in remains by his feet. 

Price doesn’t spare them a glance. 

Can’t, maybe, because in azimuth he finds that solidary feather he plucked for you resting between your teeth. 

Wonderment. Awe. He feels the surge of something ripping through his body—a paroxysm—but he can’t look away from the shapes of your bare face; the imperfect asymmetry, the wrought iron lines, the convulsing atoms. It’s mesmerising. 

And maybe it’s an electrical phenomenon—no let go—but he doesn’t spare it a single thought, even as the current burrows deeper into his chest, igniting his tissue until red-hot, blistering, charred. Even then, even with the scent of smouldering, necrotising flesh brimming cloyingly into his scenes, the absolute apathy he feels for himself at that moment is a testament to the unshakeable draw, that primal magnetism that glues him to you; met in perfect equilibrium in the middle.

It’s you who moves, who splints the poles until they fall apart when you let your hand drop.

But you’re not finished. The tips of your fingers move, a long peregrination down the twisting, sloping topography of his visage; snaking down his temple, the dip of his nose, the rough bushel of curls, the soft pout of his lips, the ulotrichous hair along his cheek and jaw, the long decline of his check, the ridged of his collarbones, the swell of his chest. It’s there where it lingers, fingers spreading like webs along the birdcage of his thundering heart. 

Price watches you, rapturous and nearly choking himself on the avarice that spills from his heaving lungs. 

You rest the flat of your palm there for a beat; lost in perambulation. Feasting on the thud of his heart. 

He thinks you’ve had your fill. Quenched yourself. 

But when you look up from the slight tremor of your hand, pulsing in time with his hurried beats, the look in your eyes is distinctly unslaked. 

(—and he can’t stop the rumble from spilling out of his chest at the sight.)

Price isn’t sure how long you stay like that. Minutes, seconds, hours. Aeons might have passed since you let your mask slip. Since he plucked at threads keeping it upright. But he shakes back into cognisance when you pull away, cutting through space and time, and filling the gaps once more with the heavy weight of your presence. 

“You’ll be fine,” you say over your shoulder, reaching for your clipboard. “A little rest is all you need, captain.”

There’s an insurmountable number of things he can say, but you press on his throat, and he swallows them down, nodding at your back instead. 

The cloven strands fall around him, broken with distance. There’s an urge in his bones to sew back into his skin, to press them like drying flowers into the folds of his heart where they’ll say, nurtured on his blood and suffused into his being. He rests his laurels on it for a moment, feels the weight of his want, his desire, and compares it to the fraying wisps dragging along the linoleum. 

But he doesn’t reach for them. 

He is wing clipped and flightless. You hold the only feather that gives him lift between the monoliths of your teeth. 

A fine place to keep it, he thinks and turns around, ready to leave on unsteady feet, but—

"Seven," you say, firm and sure. No nonsense. But when he turns, he catches the pallor of your knuckles gripped tight around the clipboard. You hold it to your chest like a shield. The vipers in your eyes quiet their hissing, tongues lashing out to scent the air. "There's this place in Manchester that makes the best Beef Suya."

You're not asking him. 

(But you don't really have to, do you?)

His lips pull up. He catches the drifting threads in his bare palm. "Manchester, mm?"

"I hope you like a little bit of spice."

"I can handle the heat." 

You swallow thickly, and he thinks the action on anyone else might be easily mistaken for nerves, but the livewire that pulls taut between you thrums with a heavy sense of anticipation. 

"I hope so, John," he startles at the mention of his name. It makes your lips curl back, and he shouldn't find it so mesmerising when can't tell if it's a smile or a sneer. "Otherwise I'd be quite disappointed." 

His chin dips to his chest. It renders his voice to little more than smoke and ash, but you shudder from across the room at the growl. 

"Wouldn't want that, now, would we?" 

It isn't breathless when you speak, but he licks his lips and tastes the pulsing excitement that sparks in the air. It curls in his lungs. Saltwater on burning coals. 

"Don't be late." 

It's a promise, he thinks; a warning, too. A threat. "Wouldn't dream of it, love."

He turns away from you, shielding the growing smile from your searching gaze, but your voice stops him short at the door, fingers curled around the frame.

“And Price?”

“Yes, love?” He calls, featherlight in a way he hasn’t felt since he was eighteen and free. Ready to soar, to fly.

"You know," you say, brows knotting together. Despite the severity of your expression, there's a note of playfulness between your teeth. "If you wanted to see me, you could have just asked." 

After dinner, they fucked so nasty that Qadesh could be heard gagging across the aether.

[honestlyvan]

Looking at this tweet:

and thinking about how I actually did this to Prime Wheeljack on my second viewing, deciding that he has to deal with fuckoff arm and wrist pain like I do

except he fucking did it to himself, because of course he did -- all of his integrated weaponry is custom, with his engineering background meant to primarily support hand tools, his initial loadout was configured for near-recoilless weaponry like Bumblebee and Smokescreen, but running around doing commando blackops shit (in his mind) necessitated larger firepower and there were no medics around to finger-wag him out of doing whatever upgrades he wanted so now all of his weaponry is a grade or two stronger than his structural components should on paper be able to handle.

As a result his whole upper body has a ton of microfractures from magnetic shear and recoil -- nothing that his self-repair can't handle, but just like with humans, supportive member damage doesn't heal back up to be stronger without very specific kind of physical therapy to accompany it. As a result Wheeljack has actually gained mass and lost a lot of the flexibility and aerodynamic and balance qualities of racer frames, and is maintaining his ability to do trick driving largely through just. Doing it, lmao, and not thinking about his worsening health.

[foursaints]

do you have any rosekiller fics that embody the saintsvision because i really cannot keep scrolling on ao3 disappointedly for the rest of my life

they simply don’t exist anon it’s just you and me…..

[sad-emo-dip-dye]

*holds hands out* let’s all read 55 Minutes

[blueskittlesart]

Not a request, but after the past few posts I wanted to let you know that I saw the Detective Conan 4D / live action show at USJ last week and that was my first official introduction to the series. Seriously considering going down this rabbit hole now.

go forth and enjoy batshit insane detective stories. ignore the fact that theres 1125 chapters this is a normal manga that will definitely end someday

[rainbow-string-tied-me-to-you]

Episode 7 boat boys moments that killed and ressurected me:

"I'm just gonna interview the part of me that is apparently obsessed with Etho"

"Always talking about me, Etho, so obsessed. (E: I can't help it.)"

"You know what I realized, Joel? (J: What's up?) You must really like camels because they got the looong necks. (J: Oh for goodness sake, You're so obsessed with neck kisses, it's actually a bit disgusting, Etho. Like begging for them, come here *kiss noises*) "

"Every time you say my name, Etho, I appear. It's like magic. "

"It's 'cause you're obsessed... with me. (E: and yet you arrive every time as well)

"That Etho, constantly fliriting with me, so obsessed"

[illarian-rambling]

I kinda want to see how far I can get into Faalgun's POV without explaining that he's a little dragon man

[reiverreturns]

hey hi hello the writing juice still eludes me but this very specific and niche bobnix thought has been rattling in my brain for months so here's a needs-a-spit-and-polish first draft

[grimdot]

listening to her sleep is a privilege I thank god every day for.

[fisherrprince]

beating my writers block back with a fork again, this time everyone goes to sleep

Ch’ari Tia returns to Ala Ghiri and immediately makes a beeline to the hammocks. 

He swears, every time something Happens, which happens a lot, something Happening, and he doesn’t get time enough to take an uninterrupted catnap afterwards, a cherub dies. Ala Ghiri has kindly set up rows of woven hammocks to cater to the influx of people, some of which are already taken by bandaged or exhausted rebels. Ch’ari finds an empty one next to a wall, and collapses into its sun-warmed embrace, letting the tense conversation wash over him. 

He is simply not going to think about it until his head is clearer. That’s been his solution for many things, and it’s worked well enough so far. Every time he is forced to make a split-second decision it comes out more violently and stupidly than he means it to, but every time he is allowed to think he ends up with something resembling an intelligent response. It is why he doesn’t speak much in conversations of politics or conflict — better to leave the talking to someone who can think rationally in the heat of the moment, not someone whose first instinct is to pull his tongue at the tyrant. 

Naps are a wonderful cure for overthinking and stress and all those associated emotions. It is late in the afternoon now, such that a beautiful gold light warms the stones and colored fabrics of Ala Ghiri, which means it is the perfect time of day to have one. 

Speaking of overthinking. Ch’ari squints open one eye at the sound of his friends, who he made sure were inside and talking with General Raubahn (who is yalms in that direction, he could have sworn), who are not talking with the General. Instead, Lyse is talking to the General, and Alphinaud and Alisaie seem to be busy talking with the injured, taking notes in Alphinaud’s small sketchbook. 

Ch’ari frowns. That is not what that’s for, someone should have given Alphinaud a proper notebook or something, not let him use his charcoal paper for war notes. That, and they should both be resting, after the disaster that was the tower — Ch’ari had never seen them so shaken, which is not something he wants to extend however possible. Both of their backs are straight, however, going about some errand with business-like airs. One would think them unaffected. 

Except, notably, for the fact that they have not let go of each others’ hands since then. 

Alisaie glares at anyone who looks at them for too long, as if daring them to say anything about it. She is not doing the talking, she keeps one hand on her brother’s and one hand on her rapier. Alphinaud, greatly inconvenienced by the fact that he has one hand for notetaking, seems content to walk in front and half-pull her around behind him, as if he were the one who initiated, not her. Shielding her from any such comments, in his own way. Though, Ch’ari notes, his is the tighter grip, and he refuses to even let go to adjust his pen. 

His eye tracks them all the way through ten hammocks, and in that time he thinks, and he decides that if they will not do as they’re told and rest (which he thought Raubahn would tell them to do, and he suspects he did, they’re just not listening) he will simply have to make them. 

Alphinaud’s ears perk when he sees Ch’ari lounging in the next hammock, and he trots up at a respectful distance to greet him. “Taking a well-deserved rest for once?” He asks. Alisaie regards how his limbs are all sprawled in different directions, and conceals a snort with her unchanging expression. 

“Yes sir,” Ch’ari drawls. “I think my muscles may well have fallen off if I didn’t stop moving right this second.”

“You have done the most busywork out of anyone. How are you faring? Do you need anything?”

“Well enough. Is that what your little notes are for? Askin’ everyone if they need anything?”

“Oh— yes. Sort of. I thought — we thought it would be prudent to ensure everyone is having their needs attended to, you know. After such an event it’s very likely we’re missing things, equipment, injuries, anything like that.”

“To make sure no one’s hiding anything,” Alisaie says, accusation tinging her voice. Ch’ari ignores her, he’s innocent of all crime. Or, that crime, at least.

And it’s a good way to do virtually nothing while keeping your hands busy, Ch’ari notes. Ala Ghiri’s healers are exceptional, and so are their organization leaders, and whosoever’s needs are not attended to will probably be attended to very soon. 

“Well,” Ch’ari says, “In that case I uppose I would be glad for…” and he trails off nonsense-mumbling, side-eyeing the twins. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Alphinaud asks, stepping closer to hear him. Ch’ari does not often ask for much, preferring to get it himself. Alisaie squints.

“Oh, you know, some… mrghprrhms.” Trails off again. Alphinaud cocks his head and furrows his brows. 

“You… May have to speAUGH!”

As soon as he’s in grabbing range Ch’ari‘s arm snakes out and snags him around the waist, yanking him into the hammock with an ungrateful squawk and sending Alisaie tripping over her feet after him. She manages to remain standing, bent over the hammock with a flabbergasted stare as Alphinaud is wrestled into the empty space at Ch’ari’s side. 

“Ari!” he yelps.

“Get rested, blue boy!” Ch’ari crows. 

“No! I have to — my sketchbook!” Said book and pen has fallen to the ground beneath the hammock, blessedly closed and not bent on some page. Alphinaud grabs his sister’s arm with his now-free other hand, trying to pull himself out, but Ch’ari tightens his grip.

“Ch’ari, release my brother,” Alisaie says. 

Ch’ari aims a look full of evil intent her way. “What’ll you give me for him?”

“Ten Gil.”

“Ten?!” Alphinaud‘s muffled voice cries. 

“Fifteen.”

“Mmm… not sufficient. He is very warm, you see.”

Alisaie’s hand slowly frees itself from her brother’s so she can aim an unimpressed arm-fold his way. It shakes, but only slightly. “Incorrect, I know for a fact his circulation is terrible.”

“Really? How’s yours—“ Ch’ari lunges and just barely manages to grab Alisaie by the middle, even though she saw him coming and tried to dodge out of the way. He yanks her into the hammock as well with a triumphant “Too slow!”, but Alisaie is determined not to go down as easily as Alphinaud. As soon as her back hits the hammock she wriggles sideways at full force, sending the entire hammock swinging wildly. It twists in the middle and Alisaie realizes her Horrible Mistake and clings to it to avoid being unceremoniously dumped on the ground, tail straight out and waving from side to side in an attempt to balance. 

They must look ridiculous, a crumpled bundle of hammock with three puffed out tails sticking out the bottom and flailing arms gripping the sides. Eventually, though, Ch’ari manages to pull a nearly upside-down Alisaie against his other side, the hammock curling over their sides. 

Alisaie’s tail thwacks against the ground, her ears getting red. “Let go of me this instant!” She hisses. 

Ch’ari tries very hard not to laugh at her and almost succeeds by covering it with a large comical yawn. “I don’t think I will, really!” He says. 

“We have things to do,” Alphinaud complains, notably not moving. Alisaie tries to push herself up and out, but the hammock rocks unstably again and she ends up stuck in a crouch lest she be flipped upside down again. 

“Yeah, you have resting to do,” Ch’ari says, his voice losing the silly affect and his ears going flat. “When was the last time you slept?”

“This morning,” Alphinaud says with what is decidedly not a pout. Alisaie slowly looks away and mutters something guiltily. 

“They do not need your help right now. They have it handled,” Ch’ari says firmly, gesturing to the Ala Mhigan healers bustling efficiently to and fro. “If anything, they should be handling you.”

He pulls Alisaie back down, and thankfully she doesn’t resist this time. She still seems uncomfortable with being held, at all, something Ch’ari specifically remembers Alphinaud being unfamiliar with until he did it some five or six times. He’s surprised he’s so reticent to the concept, but he chalks that up to being a Miqo’te thing. 

“I’m afraid I’m too awake to sleep,” Alisaie says, quietly. “If that’s what you intend to make me do.”

“I intend you to sleep by your own merits, be it now or in the very near future. Do not make me sleep spell you,” he threatens. 

“Don’t.”

“It isn’t even night,” Alphinaud mutters.

“Unrelated,” Ch’ari yawns. A real yawn, this time. And he’s not just being stubborn — the twins look like raccoons on their best days, and after today, they look like sad Ishgardian relief painting children. Very dark circles-y, and not much like children and more like strange blob things. That last part is an exaggeration on the part of the twins but not Ishgardian painted artwork. Clearly, sculpture is their area of expertise. 

“I am going to sleep. You can join me if you wish, but you’re staying right here and resting at least until I’ve started snoring, savvy? Then you can keep doing… whatever it is you were doing.”

Alphinaud sighs. “Fine. You fall asleep in an instant anyways.”

“Very well,” Alisaie mutters. “I’ve embarrassed myself enough today, might as well go for gold. At least you chose a hammock out of the crowd.”

“I’d never choose a middle hammock. Too noisy,” Ch’ari says. He pulls both twins closer to his sides. “Five minutes, at most.”

(Twenty minutes later, Lyse sneaks a picture of Ch’ari splayed on his back in a hammock, Alphinaud curled up against his left side and Alisaie with her arms folded and head dropped onto the Miqo’te’s shoulder, all soundly asleep. Alphinaud’s arm is slung over Ch’ari’s chest, his hand held securely by Alisaie’s. Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t capture Ch’ari purring like a ceruleum motor.)

[vaperarmand]

ao3 draft has been completed with links and the little bit of coding i need to do. this is so awesome. now we just need to get somebody in here to actually finish writing the fic

[twpsyn-who]

The Rookie really been trying to make the Nolan/Lucy relationship thing work huh