#And sometimes he just gives up entirely and improvises.

[physalian]

How to Make Your Writing Less Stiff Part 3

Crazy how one impulsive post has quickly outshined every other post I have made on this blog. Anyway here’s more to consider. Once again, I am recirculating tried-and-true writing advice that shouldn’t have to compromise your author voice and isn’t always applicable when the narrative demands otherwise.

Part 1

Part 2

1. Eliminating to-be verbs (passive voice)

Am/is/are/was/were are another type of filler that doesn’t add anything to your sentences.

There were fireworks in the sky tonight. /// Fireworks glittered in the sky tonight.

My cat was chirping at the lights on the ceiling. /// My cat chirped at the lights on the ceiling.

She was standing /// She stood

He was running /// He ran

Also applicable in present tense, of which I’ve been stuck writing lately.

There are two fish-net goals on either end of the improvised field. /// Two fish-net goals mark either end of the improvised field.

For once, it’s a cloudless night. /// For once, the stars shine clear.

Sometimes the sentence needs a little finagling to remove the bad verb and sometimes you can let a couple remain if it sounds better with the cadence or syntax. Generally, they’re not necessary and you won’t realize how strange it looks until you go back and delete them (it also helps shave off your word count).

Sometimes the to-be verb is necessary. You're writing in past-tense and must convey that.

He was running out of time does not have the same meaning as He ran out of time, and are not interchangeable. You'd have to change the entire sentence to something probably a lot wordier to escape the 'was'. To-be verbs are not the end of the world.

2. Putting character descriptors in the wrong place

I made a post already about motivated exposition, specifically about character descriptions and the mirror trope, saying character details in the wrong place can look odd and screw with the flow of the paragraph, especially if you throw in too many.

She ties her long, curly, brown tresses up in a messy bun. /// She ties her curls up in a messy brown bun. (bonus alliteration too)

Generally, I see this most often with hair, a terrible rule of threes. Eyes less so, but eyes have their own issue. Eye color gets repeated at an exhausting frequency. Whatever you have in your manuscript, you could probably delete 30-40% of the reminders that the love interest has baby blues and readers would be happy, especially if you use the same metaphor over and over again, like gemstones.

He rolled his bright, emerald eyes. /// He rolled his eyes, a vibrant green in the lamplight.

To me, one reads like you want to get the character description out as fast as possible, so the hand of the author comes in to wave and stop the story to give you the details. Fixing it, my way or another way, stands out less as exposition, which is what character descriptions boil down to—something the audience needs to know to appreciate and/or understand the story.

3. Lacking flow between sentences

Much like sentences that are all about the same length with little variety in syntax, sentences that follow each other like a grocery list or instruction manual instead of a proper narrative are difficult to find gripping.

Jack gets out a stock pot from the cupboard. He fills it with the tap and sets it on the stove. Then, he grabs russet potatoes and butter from the fridge. He leaves the butter out to soften, and sets the pot to boil. He then adds salt to the water.

From the cupboard, Jack drags a hefty stockpot. He fills it with the tap, adds salt to taste, and sets it on the stove.

Russet potatoes or yukon gold? Jack drums his fingers on the fridge door in thought. Russet—that’s what the recipe calls for. He tosses the bag on the counter and the butter beside it to soften.

This is just one version of a possible edit to the first paragraph, not the end-all, be-all perfect reconstruction. It’s not just about having transitions, like ‘then’, it’s about how one sentence flows into the next, and you can accomplish better flow in many different ways.

4. Getting too specific with movement.

I don’t see this super often, but when it happens, it tends to be pretty bad. I think it happens because writers feel the need to overcompensate and over-clarify on what’s happening. Remember: The more specific you get, the more your readers are going to wonder what’s so important about these details. This is fiction, so every detail matters.

A ridiculous example:

Jack walks over to his closet. He kneels down at the shoe rack and tugs his running shoes free. He walks back to his desk chair, sits down, and ties the laces.

Unless tying his shoes is a monumental achievement for this character, all readers would need is:

Jack shoves on his running shoes.

*quick note: Do not add "down" after the following: Kneels, stoops, crouches, squats. The "down" is already implied in the verb.

This also happens with multiple movements in succession.

Beth enters the room and steps on her shoelace, nearly causing her to trip. She kneels and ties her shoes. She stands upright and keeps moving.

Or

Beth walks in and nearly trips over her shoelace. She sighs, reties it, and keeps moving.

Even then, unless Beth is a chronically clumsy character or this near-trip is a side effect of her being late or tired (i.e. meaningful), tripping over a shoelace is kind of boring if it does nothing for her character. Miles Morales’ untied shoelaces are thematically part of his story.

Sometimes, over-describing a character’s movement is meant to show how nervous they are—overthinking everything they’re doing, second-guessing themselves ad nauseam. Or they’re autistic coded and this is how this character normally thinks as deeply methodical. Or, you’re trying to emphasize some mundanity about their life and doing it on purpose.

If you’re not writing something where the extra details service the character or the story at large, consider trimming it.

—

These are *suggestions* and writing is highly subjective. Hope this helps!

[p0orbaby]

Squirrel? Squirrel!

summary: at this point, people just let you do what you want

warnings: nil

a/n: thanks for the request !

word count: 1.1k

-

You don’t remember the exact moment you decided that today was the day to catch a squirrel, but here you are, sprinting across the training grounds like a maniac. The squirrel, to its credit, looks mildly concerned, as if it didn’t sign up for this level of cardio.

Which it didn’t, but that’s none of your business.

“Why are you chasing a squirrel?” Leah shouts, barely managing to keep the exasperation out of her voice. She’s sometimes captain, which means she’s sometimes responsible for keeping things under control, a job made infinitely harder by your presence.

“I’m trying to help him,” you yell back, leaping over a stray football like you’re in some kind of Olympic hurdling event. “He looks lost!”

“Does he? Does he really?” Leah sounds like a woman on the edge, which is fair, because you’ve spent the last week convincing the new physio that the ice baths were secretly filled with pickled onions.

You’re aware that you’re the class clown of the team. If there were a formal title for it, it’d be embroidered on your jersey right under your number. The physio had been an easy target—too earnest, too eager to believe that a teenager could be trusted with serious information. You had explained with a straight face that, at Arsenal, there was a tradition of bathing in vinegar to promote circulation, and you had never seen someone look so horrified in your life. To your credit, you almost felt bad.

But not really.

Beth jogs up alongside you, her face equal parts amused and concerned, which seems to be the default expression of everyone when you’re around. “You know you’re gonna have to explain this one to Kim, right?”

“Kim loves me,” you reply, ducking as the squirrel makes a sharp turn towards the goalposts. “I’m like the daughter she never wanted”

“That’s definitely one way to put it,” Beth says, laughing as she matches your pace, which is not difficult because the squirrel is now dodging the goalposts with all the grace of a drunk toddler. “But seriously, what’s the plan here?”

The plan, if you could call it that, involves cornering the squirrel, giving it a lecture on the importance of proper nutrition (because that acorn it’s gnawing on looks suspiciously expired), and then setting it free like a wildlife warrior.

You don’t tell Beth this, though. You’ve learned that it’s best to keep your more ambitious plans to yourself until the very last minute, preferably right before they inevitably fail spectacularly.

“Improvisation is key,” you say instead, sounding like every PE teacher who’s ever tried to make dodgeball sound like a legitimate sport.

The squirrel skids to a stop by the water cooler, possibly considering hydration as a valid life choice, and you seize the opportunity to lunge at it. You miss by a good three feet, landing on the grass in a sprawl that would be embarrassing if it weren’t so common in your daily life.

From your new vantage point, you notice Lia sitting on the bench, watching the entire scene with the air of someone who has seen too much to be shocked by anything anymore. She’s eating an apple, slowly, methodically, like this is just another Tuesday.

“Need a hand?” she calls out, voice dripping with the kind of dry humor that you both appreciate and aspire to.

“Nah, I’m good,” you reply, dusting yourself off as you get back to your feet. The squirrel is now halfway up a tree, looking smug, which feels like a personal attack. “I’ve got him right where I want him”

“Yeah, sure looks like it,” Leah says, finally catching up to you. She’s slightly out of breath, and you make a mental note to tease her about her fitness levels later, but right now you’ve got bigger fish to fry, or squirrels to catch.

“Maybe we should let the squirrel go,” she suggests, putting a hand on your shoulder in a gesture that could either be comforting or restraining. You’re not entirely sure. “You know, before Jonas comes out and realises his star winger is trying to wrestle woodland creatures”

You consider this for a moment. The squirrel does seem pretty intent on staying in the tree, and you’re not sure how much longer you can keep up this level of enthusiasm. Plus, your last run-in with Jonas had involved a lengthy discussion about the dangers of free-climbing the goalposts after you’d tried to prove a point about your superior upper body strength.

“Fine,” you say with a sigh that’s more dramatic than necessary. “But only because I don’t want to give Kim another heart attack”

“Very noble of you,” Beth says, patting your back like you’ve just made a grand sacrifice.

You start to walk back towards the training pitch, the squirrel now a distant memory as you begin plotting your next escapade. Maybe something involving the team bus and a few dozen helium balloons.

As you’re contemplating the logistics, Leah pulls out her phone, probably to text Kim that the squirrel incident has been safely contained. “You’re a menace, you know that?”

“I prefer ‘misunderstood genius,’” you reply, grinning as you start jogging backwards, a skill you’ve mastered purely for moments like this.

“Sure, and I’m the Queen of England,” Leah retorts, finally cracking a smile.

“Does that make me the royal jester?” you ask, doing a little bow as you reach the training pitch.

“More like the royal pain in my-”

“Language, Leah!” you interrupt, mockingly covering your ears. “There are children present!”

“Yeah, one of them’s standing right in front of me,” Leah shoots back, but she’s laughing now, and you know you’ve won this round.

As the rest of the team regroups, you spot Kim making her way over, her expression a mixture of bemusement and something that might be resignation. You wonder how many more years you’ve shaved off her life expectancy.

“Y/N, do I even want to know?” She asks, though you suspect he already knows the answer.

“Probably not,” you admit cheerfully, shrugging like the whole thing is no big deal. “But I’m open to discussing it over lunch”

Kim sighs deeply, the kind of sigh that says she’s seriously reconsidering her life choices. “Just…try to focus on the actual training today, alright?”

“Absolutely,” you say with a solemn nod, crossing your fingers behind your back where she can’t see them.

As the team heads back to practice, you catch Beth giving you a knowing look. “What?” you ask, feigning innocence.

“I’m just wondering what you’ll come up with next,” she says, shaking her head in amusement.

“Oh, don’t worry,” you reply, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “I’ve got plenty more where that came from”

[megu-meow]

bbycakes - gojo satoru

gojo x small.fem.reader

Summary: Satoru has to constantly look out for the crazy stunts his girlfriend keeps pulling.

Gojo adored how much he towered over you. From the moment he met you, he knew he had to protect you with all his power. It didn't matter to him how strong of a sorcerer you were and how willing and able you were to fight, he always felt the urge to be your knight in shining armor. It was his way of showing how much he cared, given that he had no idea how he should be showing his love and affection towards you in a more conventional way.

He was obsessed with the way his clothes looked huge on you, how his sweatshirts fit you like dresses and how his t-shirts could reach down to your knees. He observed with a wide grin every morning while he was getting ready to leave for work how your shoes were half the size of his, which was both because of your small feet and his inhumanely large ones.

Sometimes he was annoying about your size difference, he made a habit of resting his arm on the top of your head, which made you look like a child in front of your colleagues, the higher-ups, and even the kids you were trying to teach how to be responsible, talented sorcerers. He also scolded you every time you tried to take on a more challenging mission on your own, lecturing you about the danger you were facing. Sometimes he would treat you like a kid because, in his eyes, you were fragile and small like one. He had to remind himself how strong you actually were, sometimes he forgot you were a semi-grade one sorcerer, a very talented one in his opinion, but it was easy for him to forget when you were the love of his life, his main source of happiness that he wanted to cherish and keep safe until the end of his days.

He didn't actually realize how challenging keeping you safe was until you moved in with him. All the furniture in his home was custom-made to comfortably fit the freakishly tall sorcerer, meaning that all the cabinets were too high up for you, you could barely reach the top of the kitchen counter, you didn't ever try to get your favorite book off the shelves knowing you could never get to it. Gojo loved how you had to rely on him to get your favorite mug for your morning coffee, how you begged him to get a step-stool so that you can cook dinner comfortably, or how you asked him every time if he could hand you the book you wanted to read next. However, he was not always around and you had to improvise, just the way you did your entire life, making the tall sorcerer freak out.

The first time it happens he's in the shower and your dinner needed a little bit of extra spice. Unfortunately, you ran out of chilly power and you had to refill the container with more pepper flakes, which were on the top shelf of your kitchen cabinet, one that you cannot reach even with the help of your stool. So you hop on the top of the kitchen counter, rummaging through the sweets and other spices Satoru showed in there.

"...smells amazing, baby, what's..." he walks into the kitchen with a joyful tone and a wide grin, but he freezes at the sight in front of him "what the hell are you doing?" he quickly runs up to you, putting his large hands on your waist, getting you off the counter and embracing you close to his chest, like a teddy bear. Your legs instantly lock around his torso and your arms are secured around his neck to keep your balance.

"I was trying to get the extra chilly powder, we ran out and I had to refill the container."

"No, pretty girl, you were trying to give me a heart attack." he murmurs, walking closer to the cabinet and getting the spice you were looking for.

"Well it's not my fault you put it so high up that I couldn't reach it." you tell him, poking his pretty nose with your finger, making him scoff, but he still gives you the thing you were trying to fetch yourself and he leaves a loving kiss on your forehead. "Thank you, 'toru."

"Next time you need anything, just tell me baby and I'll get it for you, okay?"

"What if you're not around?"

"I'll teleport, it's fine, I just don't want you getting hurt."

"I'm not a baby, Satoru, you know I'm not going to get hurt. I've been doing this my whole life, I'll be fine."

"I know, I just worry. Now let's eat before the amazing food you cooked gets cold, okay my mochi?" he kisses your temple lovingly and he slowly puts you down on your own feet, observing with doe eyes as you move around the kitchen plating the food.

The next time it happens you're in the bathroom. You just finished your shower and the fog is thick, given how hot you like the water as you clean your sore body. Satoru is still out with his students and you notice that the vent stopped working, the foggy air getting unbearable in the confines of your shared bathroom. However, the windows are narrow and up high on the wall to give you privacy and you cannot reach the handle to open them. So you step onto the edge of the bathtub, leaning a bit to the side on your tiptoes. That's when you feel a huff and you're suddenly falling into the soft mattress of your comfy bed. You yelp out in shock, Satoru's hands holding you tightly as he is panting, his face contorted in shock.

"What was that, baby?! You could have slipped, are you crazy?!"

"I was fine, Satoru. When did you even get home?"

"Just a few minutes ago, I was looking for you, then I figured you were in the shower, so I teleported so that I could join you, but found you on a death quest."

You roll your eyes at him, you were in no danger whatsoever, but you know he thrives on the feeling of being your "savior". He starts tickling you and you shriek from the feeling of his long fingers dancing around on your sides. He also makes you promise him that you're not gonna pull another one of your stunts ever again in return for him stopping his "brutal torturing" - as you call it.

"You're gonna be the death of me, babycakes." he murmurs into your neck, leaving wet kisses on the sensitive skin between your collarbone and shoulder.

However, besides all of his efforts to stop you from doing stupid stunts, it happens again. This time is the worst. You were playing baseball with the kids, your way of making training a bit more enjoyable for the teenagers you were taking care of. Inumaki was the one that batted the ball into a tree and it got stuck between the branches quite high up. You were used to climbing into tall spaces and you volunteered to get the ball so that you could resume the friendly game you were in the middle of. Satoru was in his office, doing paperwork. He was bored out of his mind, so he started swirling around in his seat, looking outside the tall window. He spotted you straight away, on the top of the oak tree, trying to reach something a bit too far away from you. His heart skipped a beat in fear and he teleported instantly, popping up under the tree. His sudden appearance startled you and you slipped, falling down in an instant. Luckily, he was able to catch you and you were not harmed. The kids rushed to your side, asking whether you were okay, but there was no answer. You were still in shock, looking at the black cloth covering your boyfriend's eyes. His stance was stiff and despite not being able to see his whole face, you knew he was seething with anger.

You felt a huff of air and you found yourself in Shoko's office, the young healer barely bothered by your sudden appearance. She must have been used to Satoru showing up at any given moment without warning.

"Can you please check if she's alright, Shoko? She just fell from a tree."

The brunette nodded and as soon as she started examining you Gojo left, slamming the door behind him.

"Gosh, you must have pissed him off really badly. What happened?"

"Well, he keeps babying me every time I crawl up on something so that I can reach shit, last time it happened he made me promise that I wouldn't do it anymore and today I fell off a tree while trying to get a baseball. I don't understand what the big deal is, though, he was there to catch me." you explain and Shoko looks at you unamused.

"What if he wasn't?"

"What?" you ask in confusion.

"What if he wasn't there to catch you?" she asks as she checks your pupils with a light.

"Well...I've been doing this my whole entire life and I've never gotten hurt..."

"You can't bargain like that with Satoru..." she says curtly and you feel slightly offended.

"What's that supposed to mean, Shoko?"

"I'm gonna explain this to you because I know that you are stubborn and you will ruin what you have with that gigantic asshole because of your pride..." she blurts out the words quickly, you have to lean in closer to her so that you can understand what she's saying "Satoru has witnessed a lot of injuries and deaths in his life, that's why he never lets anyone get too close to him, that's why he doesn't get involved with anything or anyone. You will crush him, if anything bad happens to you. You are important to him, I would even say you are his number one priority, if you get hurt he will not forgive himself in this lifetime, because what's it worth being the strongest if you can't protect what you love most?"

It takes a few minutes to process the information you were just given, but as soon as you do a single tear runs down your cheeks and you're up on your feet, running out of the hospital room yelling a "Thank you, Shoko", trying to find your boyfriend. He is sitting in the waiting room, his head buried in his hands, long legs splayed out lazily. You would laugh at his position, that man doesn't know how to sit properly, but you have other worries at the moment. You walk up to him, putting your arms around him, embracing him lightly. It's funny how he is sitting down and nearly the same height as you standing up. He doesn't say a word, even worse, he doesn't reciprocate your embrace.

"I'm so sorry, baby. I know you worry a lot and I shouldn't be pulling stunts like that, knowing it pisses you off. I know I was being reckless, but I promise I will not do it again, I learned from my mistake." you say, leaving kisses on top of his head. You notice how his blindfold is missing, it is hanging from around his neck, his hair messy from running his hands through it too many times in the last 15 minutes.

"You said that already." he mumbles, it is barely audible, but you catch it and your heartbeat speeds up at his dismissive tone.

"What, Satoru?"

"You promised me once that you're not going to pull any of your crazy stunts again, that you would ask for my help." he says and suddenly he pulls back from your embrace, locking his cerulean eyes with yours "How do I know you won't break your promise again?"

His expression is unrecognizable, he's never looked at you like that since you met him. It's somewhat scary and it causes your tears to multiply. You're also flabbergasted by his question, you don't know how to answer it. He's right. You know it, you broke his trust, his reaction is appropriate.

"I'm sorry, Satoru. Please forgive me, I know you don't believe me right now, but I promise I will not do anything dangerous like that again. I love you and I don't want you to worry about me more than you already have to." you sniffle quietly, trying to wipe away the tears running down your cheeks with the sleeve of your sweatshirt, one that Gojo put on you before leaving you with Shoko.

He looks at you, his gaze softening, he always hated when you cried. He wanted to blast everyone and everything away with Hollow Purple that caused you to cry, he never thought he would be the reason one day for your tears. His giant hands lock around your waist, pulling you closer to him in his warm embrace.

"I love you, that's why I need you to be safe at all times." he mumbles.

"I know, baby, I know, I understand now. I will be more careful, I promise, Satoru."

"Okay, I forgive you. BUT..." he says a bit more harshly "You will have to bake me a thousand batches of your rhubarb cookies that I like so much if it happens again."

You laugh at his response, the tension leaving your body as his unbothered, childishly loving persona returns. He kisses your tears away, keeping you close to his chest, his embrace strong and safe.

After that, you never climb another cabinet, the bathtub, or any tree. Every time you need something that you can't quite reach, you call your giant boyfriend to get it for you and he does it with a Cheshire smile, lavishing in the feeling of being helpful and always there for you.

[supernatural-bias]

𝐓𝐰𝐨-𝐁𝐢𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐰𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐀 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐖𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞

↳ notes: tagging @orinscrivellos who motivated me to write this. i really enjoyed doing it

↳ warnings: slight implications of transhobia. nothing directly mentioned

↳ song: a little less conversation—elvis presley

masterlist | commissions | carrd

• Two-Bit thinks you’re super kickass for being out and open about yourself in the way you are. It is the sixties after all, and along with living on the East side of town, you aren’t exactly getting treated the best

• But that doesn’t really matter to you. As long as the gang, and most importantly Two-Bit, likes you, then you couldn’t care less

• So yeah, Two-Bit thinks you’re brave. Probably calls you his ‘fearless knight,’ and treats you poshly for a good laugh sometimes. Or about as posh as he can pretend to get. He’s never been really good at playing a rich character despite his improvisation skills. You suppose it’s the way he was raised, the way all of you were raised, that makes it difficult

• Is loud and proud about you being his partner. Unless you want him keeping it under wraps, Two-Bit will pretty much scream it from the mountain tops about how much he loves his boyfriend. Consequences be damned

• “Golly, Two, you just don’t stop talking about him do you?” Ponyboy ogles at his friend as they make their way down the street, heading to meet you for a night out at the Nightly Double. He was in disbelief that anyone could ever talk so much and for so long, much less about the same thing. Even Soda didn’t use to talk about Sandy this much

• “Nope!” Two-Bit pops his ‘p’ loudly, grinning like a shark as he continues on with his train of thought. Pony just shook his head in a mix of awe and horror, already regretting that he had thought to ask Two-Bit how you had been doing. And that was over ten minutes ago!

• Two-Bit has definitely gotten into fights to ‘defend your honor,’ as he likes to put it—most of the time he can hear people at his school bad mouthing you, which any one of you can handle. You don’t live the greaser life without getting your name dragged through the mud after all—but when they start throwing out those names about you, he’ll start a fight quicker than you could blink

• “Oh glory.” You stare at Two-Bit unblinking one afternoon. Two shiny new black eyes peer back, accompanied by a split lip, and you have to resist the urge to drag a hand down your face in exhaustion.All you had wanted to do is come pick him up from his house, and you were met with this mess

• “What? I’ve been trying on a new look. What do you think baby?“

• “I think you’re stupid.” You don't even have to ask how he got those, you already know. A part of you swells with affection at the thought of him caring about you enough to do that, but the more responsible part of you pushed it down in order to sigh

• “But you love me.” Two-Bit retorts with a gleeful laugh, sounding like he doesn’t have a care in the world. Which he doesn’t. In his eyes, he’s got all he ever needs. A mom that loves him, a sister that adores his jokes, friends that have his back, and a handsome boyfriend. What more could a greaser like him want?

• If you come out and then transition, in that order, Two-Bit and everyone would definitely help you with your new style. They’ve spent their entire lives in boys clothes, so they have plenty of fashion tips, if you can even call them that, and materials to spare

• if you wear a bigger size, or want baggier clothing, Dallas and Two-Bit with go and nab pretty much anything you want from the nearby corner store. If you like tighter fitting clothing, or run a little gangly, you are always welcome to borrow one of Pony or Johnny’s outfits. They’d give them to you in a heartbeat if you asked

• Hair greasing lessons! They’ll teach you how to grease your hair up nice so you’ll look tuff, until eventually you’ve learned to do it all by yourself. Two-Bit always smiles the biggest when you come out of the bathroom with your hair slicked back. He likes to think he’s got the best looking partner this side of the railroad tracks

• It doesn’t matter what kind of body you have or want. Two-Bit will support you all the way. It’s not like you can really afford testosterone or major surgery considering you live in the slums of Tulsa with everyone else, and those services aren’t exactly offered to the public thanks to laws at the time, but if you manage to get our hands on any of that stuff, the gang will support your recovery/shot sessions all the way; bringing you whatever you need in the moment and all that jazz, even if Dallas or Steve gripe about running errands

• “Here’s your stupid bandaids.” Dally threw a small cardboard box onto the foot of the couch you were sitting on with a slight rattle. You look up to thank him, and he just blows out a bit of smoke from his mouth. You had half a mind to ask him for a drag of his cigarette, but knew Darry would kill you if he caught you smoking after administering testosterone. He was already nervous enough about you constantly taking shots, so you didn’t want to worry him anymore

• “No problem.” Dallas’ gaze drifted over to Two-Bit, who was sitting next to you, and he smiled lazily

• “Hey Two? If the two of you are banging, does that make you gay, or straight?”

• Dally walked away from that conversation that day with a bruise on his arm and a big laugh tumbling from his lips

[itsa-me-lily]

This was yet again, not what I was intending to write. I was going to try to do the fic for the spa day hint but I got too caught up in my head on logistics. Remember kids, don't let logic or canon stop you from writing the fiction you want to.

This is a pallet cleanser for me after posting 'It's a Quarter after One'.

Here is the rest of the Simon & Thimble playlist.

Here is the MPS AU masterlist

Warnings;

Nothing really. Just tension.

Movie nights, were supposed to be peaceful. A way to unwind from the day and maybe, possibly, in the realm of, spend some time with a person who's existence didn't drive you crazy. So how this turned into you using Simon like a living barbie doll you weren't sure, but you couldn't complain.

That was a lie, you knew exactly how it turned into you belting Simon's pillows around his waist. You had a fucking point to prove.

Simon had been willing to watch a new documentary from the Smithsonian with you, a piece about historical fashion and the myths that spiral out of it. You hadn't thought that Simon would want to watch it, but he had shrugged when you'd ask and well, gifted horses and mouths and all that.

You had made veggie snacks for the boys, and popcorn for you and Simon, queued up the film and the night was off. For the most part it was alright, some stuff you already knew, others you didn't. Simon was pretty silent the entire time, until they got to the corsetry and the discussion of tight lacing.

Simon wouldn't believe the idea that it was mostly an illusion trick. Said that men were obviously smarter than that. You called bullshit. He called your bullshit bullshit. So belting his pillows to his ass.

And no, you weren't going to think about how thick his waist was, or how solid he felt as you tightened the cord around said waist. And you especially weren't going to look up at him because you were positive he was doing that thing where he was staring down at you with his dark eyes that made you feel like you were being sucked in via your soul and did not make your heart skip. Not thinking about it at all.

Giving the improvised belt a tug, and not thinking about his...everything, you nodded, pleased with how the pillows bulked around his waist. Now just for the final piece. You grabbed a throw blanket from the couch, wrapping it around the front of your husband.

(How dare that man be a fucking brick wall of muscles. Seriously what the fuck.)

Once you were ready you grabbed your phone, snapping a photo and disregarding the unimpressed look on Simon's face, already talking over his silence to prove your point.

"Look your shoulders are already broad enough," (Not thinking about it) "So we just had to balance out the width of your hips. Now instead of looking like a Dorito, it's like an hourglass, and your brain gets tricked into thinking your waist tinier."

You're zooming in to show him what you meant when there's a knock on your door, making the both of you freeze to stare at each other. You weren't expecting anyone, and given how tight his shoulders drew in, neither was Simon.

It was tense as you waited to see what would happen. And it only got tenser as there was another knock, whoever was at the door insistent.

"Oi LT, ye in for the pub? Never answered me earlier."

Oh. It was Johnny. At the door. To see if Simon wanted to go out. Because Simon hadn't clarified with him earlier? You almost felt like your strings got cut as you relaxed, looking at the door as you answered for Simon before the Scot could start knocking again, or break down your door.

"Just a second Johnny."

You looked back at Simon and felt your breath catch. He was so...intense sometimes. For a moment all there was, was you and him, the TV lighting half his face and showcasing the curve of his brow that lead to the bridge of his nose, the rest of his face hidden by his surgical mask.

"We should get the door."

"He can wait."

Simon's voice couldn't possibly be that deep most of the time. You'd have noticed it before right?

You had to swallow, your mouth turning dry as you tried to think of something to say.

Thankfully a certain impatient Scot saved the day by knocking yet again, though sounding uncertain this time.

"Are ye alright in there? Am I interrupting-"

"We're fine MacTavish."

You had to make a break for the door then, or else you were all going to be stuck in some loop of talking through a door or not talking while the oxygen apparently left the room. You made an effort to try to ignore whatever Simon was doing behind you as you made the few steps to the door to open it, unaware of the flush that was painting your cheeks.

"Sorry about that, come in."

Oh. Kyle was with him too. You waved over Johnny's shoulder giving the young man a happy greeting, but both of them were too busy staring over your shoulder into your living room. You hadn't really give Simon time to unpillow his ass...oops.

"I was trying to show Simon how proportions with creating visual illusions..."

"Ye look thinner Lt."

You shot Simon an 'I told you so' look, which you were pretty sure he did not appreciate. Instead of trying to get himself out of his pillows he just crossed his arms over his chest, leveling his sergeants with a look.

"Not going out tonight."

"I don't think you have a matching handbag there Ghost."

You couldn't help but grin at Kyle's joke, though you tried to bite your lower lip to hide it. You had done this to the poor man after all. Neither Kyle nor Johnny gave the same consideration as they snickered. Simon didn't seemed impressed with any of you though as he came over, thankfully not tripping over his improvised skirt. With a curt good night he just shut the door in the boys face, though it didn't shut out their laughter as they walked away.

You two didn't say anything as you listened to the laughs fade into the evening. Once it was clear that your guests had left you looked up at Simon, noticing how the tips of his ears looked just a little redder.

"You could have gone out with them if you wanted. I wouldn't have minded."

Simon didn't seem to hear you at first, instead turning to head back to the couch, the blanket making a soft swish noise against the floor. When you didn't follow him he simply turned to sit on the couch, making it clear that there was space next to him on the couch.

"You proved your point. Now get over here so we can finish this."

Edit;

Simon does not care about if tight lacing was a common practice or not. He simply argued to a) argue with you and b) because a part of him was a 'little' hopeful that you'd pull a corset out of somewhere to model or something. Play stupid games get stupid prizes.

Edit edit;

Soap bribes reader to send him the photo of pretty princess Ghost and he hoards it for just in case black mail.

[ariseur]

OKAY SO I SAW YOURE ALSO A LATINA AND , WANT REQUESTS; IVE ALWAYS HAD THIS THOUGT, what if Satoru and Suguru were BOTH dating a foreign reader (Mexican if you wanna be specific) idk I just though it’d be kinda funny when they remember the reader has an entirely culture than them!!

((btw that “BOTH” was about a poly relationship with satosugu, which you obv don’t have to do!!))

FOREIGN LOVE - SATORU GOJO

ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི₊ ⊹ notes - decided to change up my formatting a little bit, just experimenting lol. but!! unfortunately i don’t write for suguru ( yet, i’m still trying to get a better sense on his personality n his character since i’m almost done w/ s2!! ) and i dont write polyamorous pieces!! so i just decided to write about gojo for now 🫶

ᡣ𐭩ྀིྀི₊ ⊹ warnings - intended lowercase, mentions of japanese culture that i’m not educated on so lmk if there’s more common stuff i could mention instead, lmk if i missed any warnings!!

✧˖° SATORU GOJO dating a foreign reader would actually be a pretty cool dynamic to experience — anon i like your way of thinking about how gojo ( and geto ) would sometimes forget how their foreigner significant reader has an entirely culture from them because .. they probably would lol

✧˖° if you’re not that well versed in japanese / asian culture and traditions, i feel like he would just like casually bring up certain things or events that go on in japan like obon or setsubun or maybe you’re unsure of certain common etiquette, so he’s confused when you’re like “???”

✧˖° but!! if you’re interested in learning stuff about japanese culture then he’ll be like “you’ve come to the right person” and i can just imagine GOJO making that one tiktok emoji face— like the [proud] one lol. he’d love to tell you all about it though, he thinks you wanting to learn more about his culture is just another sign that you love him, and he wants to know more about you too!! he’s willing to sit with you for hours on end and ask you questions about what you do for your culture.

✧˖° if you’re new to japan and you’re unfamiliar with certain places around town and stuff, i think one of the best things that GOJO likes to show you is the food around town. i dunno about you guys but i literally love takoyaki and yakitori and that’s not even relevant to the headcanon i just felt like sharing that for no reason it’s so good to me. but of courseeee!! we can’t forget about kikufuku, a small daifuku with mochi and we all know how SATORU recommends the edamame or cream flavor, so lord forbid you don’t like it — he’ll be so dramatic 😭

✧˖° howeveerrrrr—!! since anon mentioned about shedding light on reader possibly being a latina or mexican, let’s talk about a hispanic!reader with GOJO, yeah??

✧˖° i love the idea that he can’t handle spice, and i dont even know where it came from and i feel like he probably could handle somewhat spicy foods? but i just love envisioning GOJO freaking out over like a tiny lil poblano chilé or something like that. i’m sure he’d love the food but i feel like he’d be so confused watching you make foods from your culture. like, tres leches??? why are you just soaking cake in milk???

✧˖° i’d say SATORU is a somewhat good dancer .. when it comes to certain songs 😭.. he’s not the worst when there’s some spanish music in the back but he will def try to improvise and will make both of you trip. i think he’d like dancing norteñas but i can just see him doing all these unnecessary dips in the middle of the song because he’s just seen it somewhere. he might even give you a kiss when he dips down a little lower, usually towards the end of the song. and when you call him out on it, he’s just like, “what? i can’t give my baby a kiss?” like the bastard he is ugh i need him rn

✧˖° don’t even get me started on him speaking spanish. he swears he’s suddenly this suavé latin genius once he surprises you with a few words. i think he’d be like that with any language though honestly except i’m pretty sure he knows a little bit of english since someone said he traveled abroad?? but with certain languages, he’ll definitely butcher them a lot lol. in the end, you praise him for trying and that alone results in him giving himself a pat on the back.

✧˖° i dunno about you guys in hispanic households, but growing up the way to shush someone or like a baby or something would be like “ya”. it could also be used in like “ya callaté” which is like “shut up already,”? i’m not sure if there’s a direct translation in english but i think like the closest thing to it in english is kinda like, “enough”, in that context?? so im just imagining you saying it to a dog barking or a baby crying and he’s just confused all “wdym ya ya, are they a horse??”

✧˖° i think you and him would really bond when learning about each other’s cultures, though. it’s a learning experience for the both of you and you unlock a new topic in which you guys can both learn about. you can count on your tour guide, SATORU GOJO—!

𐙚 join my taglist here !!

𐙚 requests are open — june thirteenth, 2024

[perfectlyoongi]

JEALOUS!JIN who just smiles when you introduce him to a new friend. another friend. another person you share stories with. another person with whom you share laughter and promises. another friend to you, but another splinter in Jin’s heart. you didn’t need to introduced your friend in person, you could just mention their name or show a photo of when you hung out. it didn’t matter how. what mattered was that the smile on their faces and the sparkle in their eyes was enough to leave Jin feeling empty, feeling helpless, feeling not important. “he seems like an incredible person. how did you meet him? oh, at that party i couldn’t go to? well, glad i didn’t go then, right?”

JEALOUS!JIN who screams inside every time you share an interest of the two of you with others. you and Jin played mario kart together every saturday night — why did you spend wednesday afternoon playing with someone else? you and Jin would improvise cake recipes when one of you was feeling sad — why did you share the recipe he came up with last week? you and Jin created your own world a long time ago — why did you also need to share it with others? wasn’t Jin enough? “i thought that café on the way out of town was our own place. no, no. no problem. they can come with us one of these days, i don’t mind.”

JEALOUS!JIN who moves away from you when he sees you with others. why continue in that improvised circle listening to you constantly talking to that one? why stay by your side, if you had already turned your back slightly? why stay there? seeing you cherish people who weren’t him? you were happy, of course you were. you loved giving some of your happiness to make others happy. you were beaming, of course you were. you shone with all the stars in the universe whenever there was an opportunity to create a new bond. so why would Jin dye your colors with his darkness? “i need to go to the bathroom, i’ll be right back. don’t wait for me, you can go ahead. they are waiting for you. i’ll be fine, i won’t be long.”

JEALOUS!JIN who imagines himself by your side at parties. but that didn’t stop Jin from admiring you. leaning in a corner, away from people and confusion, Jin saw you winning over an entire audience. whether you do it on purpose or you don’t even realize you do it, the truth is that your nature, so pure, so beautiful, so distinct, was enough to captivate anyone. and it was a dream to be in your presence, an ambition few achieved. Jin could only see himself by your side, smiling at your words, giving you all the laughs, being himself and being enough.

JEALOUS!JIN who sends you random messages so you don’t forget him. Jin’s messages weren’t always direct: sometimes, he would remind you of your appointment that you couldn’t miss; other times, he’d just tell you another dad joke that left you pondering if you really wanted a friendship with him; other times, he would send you reminders, small words that tried to express the universe that existed within him in two mere lines. “you found a side of me that i didn’t know existed. and you took care of it and made it grow up to love you. and i love you.”

JEALOUS!JIN who asks you what he means to you. and when those reminders stopped producing reassurance, when Jin’s words just floated gently on the sea of your love with no chance of sinking into your devotion, Jin spoke. it was too painful to continue living that way, totally impossible to walk in limbo between wanting and suffering. and when he lost his balance, when he caught a glimpse of suffering, Jin knew he didn’t want to live it. and that’s why he told you. “i think i’m jealous of you. i don’t know how to explain it but i feel like my presence becomes insignificant when there are more people with us. i’m not saying you do it on purpose. nor that you have to stop having friends because of me. i just wanted to tell you how i feel. because when i say i love you, i really love you.”

JEALOUS!JIN who actually smiles when you kiss his cheek. you didn’t need to say anything to calm Jin’s heart. all you had to do was smile — smile wider than you smiled with others. all you had to do was look at him—brighter eyes than you had with the others. all you had to do was get closer to Jin’s face, gently brush your nose against his and give him a small, shy, heartfelt kiss on his cheek — the only kiss you’ve given anyone.

[hawkinsmafia]

𝔾𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕥𝕙 𝔼𝕞𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟: 𝔽𝕝𝕦𝕗𝕗 𝔸𝕝𝕡𝕙𝕒𝕓𝕖𝕥

day 25 : Gareth

featuring Gareth Emerson x reader (no assumed gender)

rating: teen

cw: mention of Gareth and reader having sex (not described), allusion to Gareth giving oral (not described), brief mention of the existence of violent homophobia (not described)

wc: 2k

an: it’s my boyyyy! i’ve been waiting for Gareth Day since the start of @corrodedcoffinfest!

𝔸𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕧𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕖𝕤 :: How does Gareth spend free time with his partner?

⟢ Gareth is one of those guys who remains an overgrown teenager for most of his life, and his favorite shit to do with you is play video games, skateboard, and make out on the couch like he brought you home from a date and found your parents aren’t home.

𝔹𝕖𝕒𝕦𝕥𝕪 :: What does Gareth admire about his partner?

⟢ With Gareth, it’s all about attitude. You know how to have fun, how to turn a boring Tuesday afternoon into a good time, and you don’t put up with anyone’s shit (including his). A strong personality is a major turn-on for him.

ℂ𝕠𝕞𝕗𝕠𝕣𝕥 :: How does Gareth help his partner when they’re struggling?

⟢ He’s got two approaches depending on your mood: either he tries to provide distraction, or he cuddles the shit out of you. When you want to take your mind off your troubles, prepare to get red shelled off Rainbow Road, bitch. (Okay, fine, he might let you win.) If it’s consoling you need, Gareth is a grade-A cuddler of the full-body variety. If you like the feeling of being pressed down by a heavy weight, he’s on top of you, smothering you down into the cushions; if you prefer being held, he pulls you on top of him and lashes his arms around you, tucking your head beneath his chin.

𝔻𝕒𝕥𝕖 :: What is Gareth’s first date with his partner like?

⟢ He invites you to come watch Corroded Coffin play—yes, he’s absolutely showing off for you the entire show, twirling his drumsticks (and only losing his grip on them maybe 30% of the time!), improvising fills on the lead-outs…. (Eugene is delighted by the rhythm section garnering more attention than usual, but Jeff keeps shooting Gareth dirty looks for showboating and Eddie snaps at him to stick to what they rehearsed.) Afterward he’ll take you backstage, introduce you to the guys, and ask if you wanna go grab a bite somewhere.

𝔼𝕢𝕦𝕒𝕝 :: Is Gareth more dominant or submissive in his relationship?

⟢ Gareth has a loud, abrasive personality in public, but in personal spaces, he is the subbiest sub who ever subbed. His aggressive attitude was a survival skill when he was growing up, fending off two bossy little sisters and trying to hold his ground against the bullying jocks, and it evolved into a stage persona that serves him and the band dynamic very well. But when it’s just the two of you, what Gareth wants most is to curl up in your lap while you play with his hair and call him your good boy.

𝔽𝕚𝕘𝕙𝕥 :: What is it like when Gareth and his partner argue?

⟢ Oh god. Gareth can get a little… dramatic. Lots of passion in that boy, and sometimes a little raincloud can blow up into a whole monsoon. If you’re the type to respond in kind, arguments can become screaming matches quickly if no one intervenes. The good news is that they blow over just as fast as they blow up, and it’s not long before the two of you are making up (and hearing his bandmates grumble ‘get a room, jesus’). But that’s another alphabet….

𝔾𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕥𝕦𝕕𝕖 :: Does Gareth acknowledge how much his partner does for him?

⟢ I won’t lie, he’s not the best about it. It’s not out of malice or anything, but he can fall into a bit of a routine, where all your gestures and contributions become rote standard, and he gets so used to them being there that they become just part of the scenery, so to speak. However, if you were to confront him about it and express your frustrations, he would be so quick to apologize and try to make it up to you, taking you out and reminding you (and himself) how important you are to him.

ℍ𝕠𝕟𝕖𝕤𝕥𝕪 :: Does Gareth keep secrets from his partner or does he share everything?

⟢ Out of all the CC boys, Gareth can be the most secretive. He doesn’t lie to you, but he might not volunteer the entire truth either. He might try to hide a hangover from you, or not tell you how much he had to drink last weekend, or say that Eugene’s birthday boys’ night was great and just not mention the stripper to you.

𝕀𝕟𝕤𝕡𝕚𝕣𝕒𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟 :: Has Gareth’s partner inspired him to grow or change in any way?

⟢ Like with Jeff, it’s not a specific change that can be pinpointed, but it’s definitely there. Being with you leads to a maturity he didn’t have before you, and more conscientiousness of other people and their feelings. (The first time he goes to grab a drink from the kitchen and comes back with one for Eugene too without being asked, the guys think he’s coming down with something.)

𝕁𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕠𝕦𝕤𝕪 :: How does Gareth handle jealousy in his relationship?

⟢ Not well. Going back up to Fight, he tends to blow up over it. If you’re the one feeling jealous toward him and his interactions, he’ll tell you flat-out that you’re being ridiculous—but when it’s him jealous of you, that’s a legitimate emotion. But these are some of the quickest arguments to blow over, usually ending with one of you pinned to the nearest flat surface, joined at the mouth.

𝕂𝕚𝕤𝕤 :: Is Gareth a good kisser?

⟢ Yeah, he is. Before Jeff’s braces come off and Eddie gets trained in what his partner likes, Gareth is probably the best kisser in the band. He’s pretty damn good with his mouth in general. Kissing, talking, singing… other alphabetical shenanigans….

𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 ℂ𝕠𝕟𝕗𝕖𝕤𝕤𝕚𝕠𝕟 :: How does Gareth confess his love to his partner?

⟢ Look, I know this is a fluff alphabet, but the first time Gareth drops the L-bomb is during the act, when he’s so caught up in feeling and sensation that his speech filter is just fully switched off and he’s got a stream-of-consciousness babble happening. He doesn’t even realize he’s said it until you either return it in the moment or bring it up afterward. He freezes for a moment, but slowly realizes that… yeah. Yeah, he meant it.

𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕣𝕚𝕒𝕘𝕖 :: Would Gareth want to marry his partner?

⟢ Gareth is indifferent to the idea of marriage. If it’s something you want, sure. If you’re not bothered about it, he’s fine living in sin. (His mother will bring it up every single time you see her, though. She wants grandbabies, dammit!) If marriage is your thing, be prepared to be the one in charge of basically all the planning, though; Gareth would be perfectly fine with a Chapel o’ Love elopement.

ℕ𝕚𝕔𝕜𝕟𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕤 :: What does Gareth call his partner?

⟢ Babe and baby are his go-to pet names, and a diminutive of your actual name. He could also hit you with a pretty boy/girl if it suits you.

𝕆𝕟 ℂ𝕝𝕠𝕦𝕕 ℕ𝕚𝕟𝕖 :: What is Gareth like when he’s in love?

⟢ Distracted as fuck. He is fully checked out of conversations, he’s losing his place in the music during rehearsals, Jeff manages to beat his ass at Mortal Kombat II… all because the only thing he can think about is you.

ℙ𝔻𝔸 :: Does Gareth openly share affection with his partner, or is he more private?

⟢ Gareth will happily stick his tongue down your throat any time, anywhere. He’s not at all shy about PDA, and if you don’t mind it, sometimes he’ll even push things a hair past decent just to repulse Jeff and Eugene (but Eddie couldn’t care less). The only exception to this is if the two of you don’t pass as a straight couple during the decades when homophobic violence runs rampant and goes unpunished; if you’re a noticeably queer couple, Gareth does know how to read the room and will behave himself to keep you both safe.

ℚ𝕦𝕚𝕣𝕜 :: What’s a random action Gareth performs for his partner?

⟢ Gareth is a bit of a resource hoarder. It’s another survival skill he developed from growing up with two little sisters who had a knack for getting their way. He used to have to swipe his favorite snacks from the pantry and hide them before his sisters got to them, or stow his new crayons in his sock drawer so Claire and Lily wouldn’t find them and wear them down to nubs. Stemming from this, your favorite things become part of his hoarding as well, nabbing your favorite chocolates from the communal variety bag before Eddie can inhale them while he’s stoned, hiding your preferred drink brand at the very back of the fridge behind the spoiled milk that no one’s touched in three months….

ℝ𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕖 :: How romantic is Gareth?

⟢ Okay, so, here’s the thing. Gareth’s got that ‘overgrown teenager’ thing going on, and I can see why you might assume he’s not much for the overt displays of love. But Gareth loves you. And when it comes to showing you that, he pulls out all the stops. Don’t forget, he’s a dramatic motherfucker too, which means his grand gestures can get big. Buying out the restaurant so your anniversary dinner is completely private and free of interruptions by autograph seekers? Done. Romantic ‘vacation’ to the penthouse suite of the highest rated hotel in six counties? Oh yeah. Hell, fucking flash mob?? Wouldn’t put it past him!

𝕊𝕦𝕡����𝕠𝕣𝕥 :: How does Gareth help his partner achieve their goals?

⟢ He helps you by helping you. If you’re trying to get your degree, he will help you study, either by drilling you with test questions or making sure you have a quiet place to work alone with minimal distractions. If you’re angling for a promotion at work, hell yeah he can get your boss’s kids that exclusive CC merch, and hey, how about floor tickets with backstage passes too? Are you trying to get started in the music industry? He’ll invite CC’s production manager over for a Super Smash Bros tournament and jumpstart your network.

𝕋𝕙𝕣𝕚𝕝𝕝 :: Does Gareth like to experiment and try new things, or does he prefer familiarity?

⟢ Oh this boy is down to try anything, in any facet. New restaurants, new foods (bonus points if he can make Jeff gag), new set lists, new tour destinations, new bedroom activities…. Gareth wants to experience it all.

𝕌𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕚𝕟𝕘 :: How well does Gareth know his partner?

⟢ Like the back of his hand. Gareth doesn’t do anything by half measures, and he’s practically obsessed with you. There’s not a single subject anyone could bring up that he can’t relate back to a fact or trivium about you.

𝕍𝕒𝕝𝕦𝕖 :: How important is Gareth’s relationship to him?

⟢ Damn important. He loves you, he loves showing you off, he loves how you fit in with his bandmates and their partners. You make him happy.

𝕎𝕚𝕝𝕕 ℂ𝕒𝕣𝕕 :: A random fluffy headcanon.

⟢ Ever since he was a kid, an expression of Gareth’s love has been in the gifting of tiny trinkets, like a courting magpie. While he definitely gives bigger, more typical gifts as well, damn near every time you see him, he gifts you a tiny little object. They’re nothing special or fancy, it might be a neat rock, or a pretty leaf, or a perfect acorn, or a wheatback penny, or a simple piece of origami.

𝕏𝕆𝕏𝕆 :: Does Gareth like to be affectionate with his partner?

⟢ Oh my god, yes. Gareth lives for affection. He would be snuggling on top of you 24/7 if it were at all feasible.

𝕐𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕟𝕚𝕟𝕘 :: How does Gareth cope when he’s missing his partner?

⟢ Oh he’s a sulky bitch. When you’re apart, he gets crabby and cranky so much more easily. If you couldn’t join CC on tour, the other guys try to make sure Gareth gets a break in the schedule every day to call home and talk to you, if only to stop him becoming unbearable to work with.

ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝 :: To what lengths would Gareth go for his relationship?

⟢ He might walk off a tour to see you instead, or at least cancel a show or two. He’d argue to bring you along on the tour bus with the rest of the band, and if the guys don’t go for that, then they can go on without him, he’ll get his own transportation—with you—to each city, thanks very much.

[plumadot]

Hello! Your D&D AU captivated me thouroughly I am frotting at the mouth!

And so, I have a question(s)! What is Scar's preferred method of inflicting bardic inspiration? Little song? Flirting? Perhaps showing his glorious scitties?

And, if it was not asked already, what is the favourite spell of the magical people ofbthe crew?

Love you!

awwww thank youuuu :D :D :D

scar usually throws out a little improvised song or a quick wink during combat <3 his "songs of rest" when out of combat are mostly fantastical stories and tall tales he tells around the campfire :] no matter the complaints his party members may give him, his words are extremely healing to them

jimmy often defaults to aoe spells, big waves of magical energy that can wipe away the entire battlefield, like ice storm or chain lightning for example. it's almost like the magical energy just NEEDS to get out, like it just happens that way and he can barely control it

scott mostly uses various divine smites against his enemies. he likes to duel up close, or when there's multiple enemies he'll hopefully be a distraction in order to shield his teammates from any attacks, especially jimmy

grian hides and shoots. his eldritch blasts knock back, displace and stagger enemies, and his quick reflexes confuse them. sometimes even his own party members have no idea where the heck he went, which may cause issues

scar keeps the battlefield controlled by charming and confusing the enemies, and buffing his allies. he may seem carefree and airheaded, but he keeps a close eye on his teammates and even jumps in as a healer when needed

gfkjdgkjfg this is really long already and i have a lot of thinking to do when it comes to the characters not in my "starting" crew i suppose but i hope you enjoy this answer anyway :'D

[pinnedmother]

What do you think Godwyn was like when he was with soul? And how do you think his corpse would react to a old lover arriving?

(Btw do you do anons? If so I would like to be the 🪲 anon…)

Thank you for your request! ♡ (I had to google what emoji anons are, but I think I get it now. And of course, as you wish!)

Better days of Godwyn.

Godwyn is affable, benevolent and optimistic, one to have a smile on his face no matter the circumstance. He’s quite easygoing, a trait amplified thousandfold by the sheer coldness of everyone around him. That’s why he can come off as unserious and overly blithe, but don’t be mistaken, the man can be incredibly collected and even frightening when the time calls for it. However, in peaceful surroundings he chooses to be a golden retriever type.

He really is “golden”, his hands sure are. Godwyn’s good at everything he tries. Shooting? The arrow hits the bull's-eye and he wasn’t even looking its way. Jousting? He can drop a hundred of combatants in a row without either of them coming close to touching him or his mount. Musical instruments? He’s a natural, coming up with improvised masterpieces. With everything being so easy, Godwyn enjoys a good challenge like nothing else. However, what is a challenge to him is something deemed impossible by others.

In spite of his mother’s forbiddance, Godwyn secretly attended the underground of Leyndell to spend quality time with his younger brothers. It’s so dangerous, and outrageous, and absolutely unspeakable for the perfect golden prince, a pinnacle of the Order, to be knee-deep in the wretched filth of the shunning grounds… Because of that, he felt a need to hide his identity, pretending to be a stranger, a kind Samaritan. He would teach little omen twins literacy, etiquette, history; tell stories, share news and explain the inner workings of the world. Despite doing all this, he still carried a great deal of guilt for not being able to do anything more. For not going against the Golden Order’s dogmas and not accepting his brothers openly, choosing not to risk his reputation instead. He can bend some rules sometimes, sure, but not these.

When the empyrean twins were born, he was all over them, assisting and encouraging every step of their way. He could finally truly be present for his siblings.

When it comes to love, Godwyn has so much of it to give that he pretty much is polyamorous. The ideal relationship scenario for him is having many partners at once, each of whom he loves unconditionally, and no person gets jealous of one another. He would still enjoy a regular two-people relationship and be quite faithful, but a man can dream…

I’m just saying, but if there was a brothel in Leyndell he’d be a common visitor when single.

If he has his sights on somebody, he will take them by storm. With Godwyn it’s always the most flamboyant of courtships, a show for all to see. He’s so confident that he acts as if you’re already his, even if you barely know each other. It can be a tad overbearing and yet you can’t help but fall for the charm. As a side note, considering his love for challenges, playing hard to get would lure him in even more.

He wouldn't like to shower you in gifts however, unless prompted. The thought of "buying" your love sickens him.

No matter how sour or blue you’re feeling, Godwyn always manages to lighten your mood. His jokes are the funniest, his laughter is the most contagious, and his smile is warmer and gentler than the light of the Erdtree itself.

Now, with his soul gone...

After finding out that your lover is not entirely lost, a tiny sliver of hope flickered within you. But it soon got extinguished entirely once you've realized that his body doesn't show any signs of recognition no matter what you do. For all intents and purposes, Godwyn’s corpse seems to be just that – a corpse.

Seeing him like this, gargantuan, lifeless, morphed into an unrecognizable, horrid creature… What a terrible, disgraceful fate. It breaks your heart a second time.

And yet, whenever you’re in danger, the roots of death grow forth seemingly out of nowhere and blindly attack whoever threatens you.

Surely it is but a mere coincidence. Right?

[starlostlix]

Moriarty the Patriot - Sherlock, William, uncertainty and control:

(aka me writing a lot about something i find a bit interesting)

I think what I find most interesting about Sherlock and Liam as a duo (platonic or romantic idrc in this context) is how Liam's ways of controlling Sherlock in his plans differs from the ways he controls others. Whilst people like Bonde and Moran are allowed to improvise as long as his goal is achieved, Liam lets Sherlock choose between a limited amount of ways where he still doesn't completely understand the goal behind the situation. Liam seems to think that it's not completely possible to actually control Sherlock the way others are and has to change his approach. In fact, Sherlock as a person opens Liam up to the idea that not everything can or needs to be controlled or certain.

The first meeting with Sherlock is pure chance. Liam had no knowledge of Sherlock's existence until they bumped into each other on the Noahtic. They randomly strike up conversation by the pure coincidence of being in the same place at the same time. Liam in his letter states that this was entertaining enough for him to forget about his plan (something which is usually a constant in his mind), even considering abandoning it to continue mystery solving with Sherlock as they got to know each other more. All this from a chance encounter, something which Liam doesn't usually have room for in his plans. It opens him up to things, in this case a person, out of his control for the first time in the series as far as we can tell - and he enjoys it.

This leads to the addition of Sherlock into the Moriarty Plan, an unexpected but helpful asset in exposing the misdeeds of the nobility to the people. Liam sometimes describes Sherlock as the main character of the performance, which is significant in terms of their dynamic. With Liam as the director, Sherlock's narrative is technically under his control - so Sherlock is consistently put in situations where he has the power to act in a limited number of ways as per this narrative. This frustrates Sherlock greatly, as he seems to value being in control of the mysteries but now the mystery has control over him. He also knows he's being toyed by someone with more control of the events he's in. However, the control Liam has isn't absolute. Liam gives Sherlock many times to have the answer to the mystery handed to him, which Sherlock denies due to his mentality of wanting to solve the mystery himself. To me this shows that Sherlock is the one that has the choice over continuing the chase (and therefore the entire act) at all. If he'd accepted the answer from Hope or Alder, Liam's entire plotting would have to be rewritten. Sherlock overestimates the control Liam has over him, and Liam knows that he cannot control what Sherlock does completely (but can put restrictions on his options).

This dynamic is especially seen in The Riot at New Scotland Yard, where Sherlock specifically acknowledges that the way he acts could disrupt the Lord of Crime's plans, and is frustrated about his lack of control here. But the fact that Sherlock technically had the power to possibly disrupt Liam's plans at all in Scotland Yard shows that Sherlock has an element of free will in his situations.

In The Two Criminals (im going anime only from here since i haven't got all the way through the manga yet) is the next time we see something that Liam did not control for - Sherlock's act of murdering Milverton. Sherlock may have murdered Milverton to save Watson's marriage, but it seems to be also in part to prove to Liam that he cannot be completely controlled. This is when it occurs to Liam that, in his mind, Sherlock is definitely going to kill him and he plans for just that.

Liam's letter to Sherlock is a goodbye at its core. He plans to have Sherlock at his side in his final moments and thinks that despite their friendship Sherlock will stand by. But by now Liam feels that his control is fading - not only over his people, but his sins. The only thing he requests in that letter (which are the only things he wants to control for) are Sherlock helping others, and Sherlock being by his side to, in essence, pull the trigger and let him accept death.

Sherlock however has shown that Liam cannot control him before and does so again. On the bridge he perhaps does the thing that Liam expects the least - Sherlock tries to help him. In fact Liam is so appalled by the idea that he as the Lord of Crime is worth saving that he tries to regain control of the situation by starting a half-simulated fight. I say half-simulated since the fight is simulated by Liam to say that Sherlock defeated him after the event, but also is full of real tensions between the two. Sherlock is fighting for Liam to stay, Liam is fighting for Sherlock to give up on him and let him die (what he planned for almost his entire life).

Then, dangling above the river Thames, Sherlock pulls out the biggest surprise for Liam - Sherlock came to help because he's his friend. It's funny how Liam is accounted for all the people of London projecting their rage at him, but not for the fact that there may be one or two people that would want to spend time with him. He couldn't have planned for the genuine connection he and Sherlock had gained. He couldn't account for perhaps the most integral thing - a person that actually cares for him outside of his usual circle and wants him to have a happy life, despite everything he's done.

It isn't until he's falling that Liam realised Sherlock is truly an agent of chaos in his otherwise meticulous plan. He watched Sherlock jump to catch him, he views him strangely enough as a symbol of peace. Sometimes, chaos and unpredictablility can bring peace, something that had never accounted for can bring good.

By the time he wakes up in New York, Liam is in a state of uncertainty. No plans, no goals, his life is a 'blank'. It is Sherlock who convinces him that this uncertainty can be a good thing. He can 'paint that canvas however he likes' even if it takes some time. He can struggle to find his way, because the way him finds will still be right for him eventually. Uncertainty and a lack of control can create new opportunities and a new outlook on life. And Sherlock will be there to support him. No matter what he decides to do.

Sherlock represents the uncertainty of life for Liam and the good it can bring. He shows him that he doesn't need to plan everything, a lack of control can be a good thing, and that sometimes the best things can come from chance and uncertainty. They, as a duo, are an product of this uncertainty and lack of control.

(anyways can people tell that i kind of write essays/powerpoints on things i like for fun? this was going to be like one paragraph or two at first but then more details to explore came up. feel free to correct me if i've missed/misinterpreted anything in my writing! I'm still new to MTP - i watched the anime for the first time like 2 weeks ago and have read the first 9 manga volumes too, plus a few of the new york/time skip chapters - but this series has really taken over my life recently and that's not a bad thing)

[lena-hills]

New fic is up! Short fluffy hurt/comfort, because Kanan deserves getting some comfort too!

On Ao3 at A Touch of Home

Star Wars: Rebels, Kanan/Hera

Rated G, 2k words.

Summary: When Kanan tries to shrug off a crate to the head, Hera realizes her stubborn crew member needs a little extra care and tenderness.

“Stop struggling and let me touch you!”

Not words Hera would have pictured herself saying to Kanan before today, but the ridiculous man had the instincts of a feral tooka cat when injured.

“You don't have to worry about me, I’m fine,” her clearly wrong crewmate insisted. “It’s just a couple scratches. I’ll jump in the shower and kriff!” Kanan shouted with a jump as his hand grazed the apparently tender wound in an attempt to straighten his hair.

At Hera’s sternly raised eye towards the dark red mess now on his fingertips, he finally deflated and dropped onto the faded acceleration couch with a defeated sigh.

The crate he’d been lifting had been a practically ancient storage container, the structural integrity finally giving way to gravity as the brittle plasteel shattered over Kanan’s head and rained down to the floor.

“I know it stings going on, but I can use the numbing spray if you're worried?” Hera offered as she sanitized her hands and began pulling supplies out from the med kit.

“Nah, I’m fine. Nothing I haven't dealt with before.”

She scooted closer beside him and reached out to angle his head towards the light for a better view. Combing back some of the hairs that had come loose from his usual nerftail, her eyes were drawn to a dark shadow deeper into his hairline. It wasn't a piece of plasteel, but a jagged, raised scar. “I can see that,” she said, running a quick finger over the line to check that no shards had found their way into the still faintly puckered line of skin. “I might not be a medic, but I promise I’m better than whoever treated this one.”

A wry chuckle from Kanan made his head wriggle in her hands. “Yeah, whiskey and dura-tape aren't the best choices for medical supplies. But you work with what you've got.”

At her look of concern he added, “Street kids don't get bacta patches. I learned to improvise.” The casual shrug that accompanied the words was too overdone to be natural, a move clearly crafted to soothe away her worries over him. “It's fine. I'm just more used to patching myself up when something like this happens.”

A bleak picture formed in her mind as she worked to remove the scattered slivers - the sweet young boy she'd sometimes catch glimpses of in Kanan’s eyes in quiet moments, suddenly abandoned and forced to survive entirely alone. He always jumped to do whatever job she needed, quick to volunteer for washing dishes or scrambling under the engine for repairs. She’d assumed he just liked to stay busy, but the tension in his shoulders and words at her insistence to help him for once were hinting towards something different.

“There,” she said, carefully laying the small bacta patch over the now-cleaned wound. “That should stop the bleeding, and the worst of the shards are out.”

Kanan quickly sat up. “Thanks. I’ll go start cleaning up the mess in the cargo bay.”

“No you will not,” Hera ordered, grabbing his sleeve and tugging him back down. “I said the worst of it. Those little pieces are sharp and get everywhere, I still need to check nothing else is buried in that fur of yours.”

That got her a small smile at least.

“On humans it's called hair.”

Hera shook her head. “I’ve seen you shirtless, it's definitely fur. Long fur and short fur maybe, but fur.”

“You shouldn't have to worry about me,” he tried next, not pulling further away but not settling back into the couch either. “I can take care of myself, I swear.”

“Just because you can doesn't mean you have to. We look out for each other now.” She released his sleeve but let her hand slip down to catch his, trying to give back a measure of the support and care he was always so eager to give to her. “And I’m the one who took on questionable cargo. If there had been something sharper or dangerous inside-”

Kanan interrupted her worried rant with a soft, “Hey.” The solid hand she held gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Being here with you is the longest I’ve gone without getting into a bar brawl in years. I was overdue for a mild stabbing or black eye, keeps me on my toes.”

Of course he would try to turn this around to make her smile when he was the one who was injured.

But not today. It was Kanan’s turn to be taken care of for once. He wasn't alone anymore, she just needed to make him see it.

“I need to check the rest of your hairy-fur for more pieces so you don't bleed on my ship,” she said firmly, guiding him to lean back against her as she knelt beside him on the couch. The look he gave over his broad shoulder was still somewhat wary, but he followed her lead.

Hera slowly worked her fingers through the soft strands, peering close for any remaining slivers of plasteel while also trying to mimic the soothing touches Kanan had given her when she was sick. Lifting the long hairs as she worked, she realized they had something of a mind of their own, not unlike lekku. “It only wants to go straight back? Why doesn't it stay where I put it?” she asked, watching the chunks of hair move and twist as she attempted to part and section.

“It's what it's used to,” he explained. “If you always have it one way, that's how it’s going to try to stay.”

“Maybe it's good to try something different once in a while,” Hera said gently. She wondered if he understood her meaning as her fingers cautiously combed through the surprisingly long lengths, soft as synthsilk as they drifted over her skin and smelling faintly of her fruit-scented soap she'd offered to share. “It looks nice down.”

“Thanks.” The word was quiet, but the slight softening of the tension where his hand lay over his knee made Hera smile.

Mostly certain her patient was now cleared of potential danger, she began to slowly draw her fingernails over his scalp in a gentle massage. What had seemed a solid color of rich brown when tied back now reflected the light with a beautiful mix of honey golds and deep reds as she stroked his head. The visuals were so distracting she nearly missed the warning signs of a serious medical complication.

“Kanan, do you have any allergies? Like, to bacta or something?” she asked, trying not to sound panicked. The med kit had basic antihistamines, but the sudden flush of hives down both of his forearms was rapidly becoming terrifying.

“No, why?”

At her horrified pointing to his bumpy skin, Kanan merely waved her off with, “It's just goosebumps,” as if that was a helpful explanation.

“Where did you catch a disease from a goose?”

The laugh he gave was warm and far more relaxed than Hera considered appropriate for the situation. “Not a disease,” he explained. “It's a thing human skin does to our hair, see?” He took her hand and ran her finger slowly over his skin, letting her feel the little tiny hairs sticking up on the bumps. “Perfectly normal. Happens when we get cold and stuff.

Hera bent down to examine more closely. “Should I get you a blanket or turn up the heat? Do humans need a warmer temperature when injured?”

Kanan flushed slightly and looked down. “No, it, uh,” he stammered. “What you were doing, it just felt nice.”

“Oh.”

It seemed her plan was working better than she'd thought.

Not that Hera was finished yet.

“Sit tight a moment,” she said, giving his shoulder a quick squeeze as she got up from the couch. “I need to grab something.”

The confusion on his face when she returned a few minutes later was absolutely worth the effort. “You can cook?” he asked, looking mystified but touched at the two steaming mugs of soup gripped in her hand as she placed them on the table.

“My secret recipe; spicy instant noodles with an egg dropped in,” she declared, pulling two spoons from her pocket and putting them in each mug with a flourish. “More expensive than ration packs, definitely less healthy, but perfect for when you're sick.”

“I had a crate land on my head,” he said, his lips curling up in a soft smile that made her chest tighten. “That's not sick.”

Hera bent forward to gently place the cold-pack she had grabbed from the food-saver on the dark bruise slowly growing at the corner of his hairline. “Close enough.”

“Thanks, for all of this,” Kanan murmured in his rich, warm voice just as Chopper rolled in to join them.

The mammal is still alive? her droid beeped, sending his optical sensors examining Kanan’s proximity to her with clear displeasure. This unit can rectify that!

“C1-10P,” she reprimanded, “we do not speak like that to family.”

Since when does the monkey count as family? Chopper warbled with dismay.

“Since I said so,” Hera said firmly. “This is Kanan’s home too. Be nice.”

The sounds her astromech made as he spun away were about as far from nice as mechanically possible, but they didn't seem to upset Kanan.

“Family?” he asked, the word a whisper as he stared at her with hope and wonder in his gentle eyes.

“Yes,” she said with a firm nod. Whatever happened to them, wherever her mission against the Empire led, she could at least make sure Kanan learned he deserved to be cared for too. “Family.”

While the Ghost would always be home, Hera did miss the automated dishwasher from their house on Lothal. Especially when her usual ship’s ‘dishwasher’ was out of commission.

Kanan lay curled up on one half of the acceleration couch with Jacen on the other, both wrapped in blankets and passed out again. Twi’leks were fortunately immune to Corellian flu, but it seemed human-Twi’lek hybrids were not, with both father and son running the usual gamut of aches, mild fevers, and exhaustion.

Despite all of that, somehow Kanan still was alert enough to hear the clinking of their mugs from supper being placed in the drying rack.

“I’ll get dishes,” he mumbled groggily, one hand stretched out to try to find the table as a guide.

“You will stay right where you are, mister,” Hera said in the tone that, even while feverish, her husband should recognize meant no arguing. “General’s orders.”

Making her way back from the kitchen, she was pleased to note that he still had sense enough to listen. Two furry heads, one rich browns with faint streaks of silver that caught the light and one bright green, lay quietly on the faded orange cushions.

When Hera slipped back into her seat between them, both quickly snuggled up against her, Jacen’s head pressed into her leg while Kanan instinctively shifted up into his favorite spot in her lap. Her hands fell into comfortable old patterns, tenderly running through her boys’ soft hair with quiet, soothing pets. Jacen merely made a soft, sleepy hmmm sound at the touches and curled deeper into his blanket, while his father’s head turned back and forth and pressed into her hand like Sabine’s Loth-cath when it demanded scritches, all while making a low, contented groan.

What a difference fifteen years together could make.

“Wake me up if you need anything,” Kanan said, words slightly muffled against her thigh.

Well, perhaps not entirely different.

“You're the sick one, love, Try the other way around,” she said with a gentle laugh.

His hands abandoned the blanket, one stretching over her lap to lay on Jacen’s shoulder while the other wrapped possessively around her knee. “I have everything I could ever need, right here.”

Hera resumed the slow tracing of her fingernails over his scalp in the way that always made him relax for her. “I know, love. Me too.”

[slashers-and-rats]

bath time, billy.

billy lenz x gn!reader | as sfw as billy can get |

a/n: this is just bathtime with plot. that’s it. it’s cute fluff stuff.

billy didn’t remember the last time he had properly cleaned himself.

you had asked one day, as you yourself stepped out of the shower and into your bedroom. this had been some time after he had been discovered, but not long enough that he had settled into the routine you’d build. he didn’t even have his own room at this point. you had given him temporary comforts, rest assured. you bought new blankets for his mattress while you worked on getting a room for him ready. you had gone to the thrift store, buying clothes that he could rip and tear into while you slowly persuaded him away from his old, ratty sweater. you were improvising as you went along at this point. who could blame you? you move into a new, suspiciously cheap home in the middle of nowhere canada, and find yourself stuck with a pathetic, manic man living in your attic, who becomes something of a pet the second he receives any actual attention. this wasn’t something that had a set response you could pull out of your back pocket.

but you were trying. billy could see that. he was surprised by your kindness. when he had seeped his way through the floorboards and into your life, he had assumed he’d be back at the hospital within the week. maybe even the day. but no. you adjusted, you accepted, you compromised. he had been so awestruck, so amazed, he didn’t know what to do with himself. suddenly, instead of living for just his own selfish needs, he felt the need to not burden this other person who knew of his existence. now when he called, it was to request things that he knew you’d give him. it changed how he spoke, how he hissed and wheezed through the phone. still dirty, but more realistic to what you could provide. now when he thrashed upstairs, feeling anguish and insanity clawing his brain open, he was hyper aware that just underneath him laid you. your presence, your life, your body and soul… sometimes as he scratched over his chest, hacking up spit and curses, his limbs twitching with every syllable he threw up into the dusty room, he imagined he could reach down through the ceiling and grab you. he imagined his arms stretching through the wood, snatching you up in his claws, and yanking you up into his maw. he was a monster; hungry and starving for your flesh. but he restrained himself, ever aware of how much he could affect you, and how quickly he could ruin such a good set up.

he took care of himself the best he could, trying to live in tandem with you rather than reliant on you. he scrounged up his own food when he could, sharing with claude sometimes, and he cleaned up anything he messed with during his outings into the main house. he cleaned himself, the best he could. sometimes he reached out the attic window and caught snow in his hands, waiting until it melted to wipe over his face and whatever else had gotten dirty. when it rained, he waited until night, and would push his whole head out the window, feeling the water run down his hair and over his face. he’d wash his clothes in the rain as well, and hang it up in his room while he wrapped himself up in the blankets you had given him. he knew there were better ways of doing it all, but he didn’t want to ask for help. he was a man.

you quickly deconstructed this entire worldview. part of that process was the current moment. you sat on your bed, patting your head dry with a towel, already cozy in your pyjamas. you repeated your question yet again, “billy? when was the last time you properly cleaned up?”

billy really didn’t know. he sat there, mulling over the answer, eyes squinting in thought, before shrugging heavy. what counted as properly getting cleaned up? last time it had rained heavily was last week, and he had scrubbed his head as hard as he could, almost until it bled. if you were talking about a shower, he’d be thinking back too far to remember.

you frowned at him, eyebrows furrowing, then let your gaze soften. you couldn’t expect much more from him, could you?

you stood, padding over to the door and gesturing for billy to follow. “c’mon! you’re getting a bath, mister.” you smiled, a shining beacon of comfort in this oddly nerve wracking situation. you didn’t seem at all anxious, but billy was. this was something new. he didn’t like new. he didn’t like much. you, on the other hand; he liked everything about you.

he stared at you, unmoving from his place near your bed. you had seen him naked a few times, sure, but this was different. more intimate, he felt. you were going to be bathing him, like a maid would bathe a king. it felt too holy a ceremony for someone like billy. he was dirty, filled with grout and muck. his mouth alone was a swamp of obscene threats and vile depravity. but, you looked so determined.

he hesitated, but stepped in line behind you, and followed you out of the room and into the hall. he mumbled some things under his breath, beginning to bite at his fingertips out of anxiety. he watched you so closely as you gathered up some soft towels fresh from the dryer, and grabbed some pyjamas out of the clean basket nearby. he trailed close as you led him into the bathroom, placing everything down on a shelf near the counter. you then plucked a new toothbrush, some soaps, some bath bombs, and other bath essentials out of the bathroom cabinets and off the shelves.

billy was still staring when you finished gathering what you needed. “you get out of your clothes, alright? just stick them in the hamper. I’m gonna get the water running. do you think you’d like a hot bath? or something just warm?”

his eyes darted from you, to the hamper, and back to you. “h-hot… i want hot,” he replied, before returning to chewing on his nails. you nodded, turning around and crouching next to the tub, doing as you said you would. as you began running the water, he began to get undressed. he tugged his sweater over his head, then ran his fingertips down his stomach and to his jeans. why was he so nervous? this would be so easy if he was doing this because you were about to please him, but for some reason, knowing all you wanted to do was care for him made him anxious. what if he couldn’t be cared for? what if he did something that ruined this nice thing? what if he was all dirt, and you accidentally washed him down the drain as well?

he shook the thoughts from his head, sliding his jeans and underwear down his legs and stepping out of both. he gathered up the clothes and pushed them into the hamper, lingering for a moment when he touched the clothes you had been wearing that day. he wanted to reach in and bunch the fabric up in his hands. he wanted to push his face into it, breathing in your scent deep, and surrounding his senses with you. your humming pulled him away from these thoughts, and he straightened up.

the room was beginning to grow warm, and smelled of citrus. he wanted to bite at the bubbles in the water. maybe they’d taste good? the thought made his stomach grumble loud, and he mimicked the noise in a garbled way. it made you laugh, which made him smile too.

“guess i know what we’re doing next,” you joked, sitting up a little from your position bent over the tub. “i put the soap in already, as you can see. but, i left some bath bombs by the sink so you could pick one you liked. just grab one and bring it over!”

he nodded, turning to the options presented to him. he scanned over the weird, powdery balls, and grabbed one that smelled like oranges. he rolled it around in his hands as he padded over to the bath, looking down at you. you sat there on your knees right in front of him, his waist right at your eye level, and yet he couldn’t dare speak. usually he’d be so cocky, spewing obscenities at you and letting drool land on your face, but he couldn’t. he bit his tongue. the way you looked up at him, not a dirty thought in your mind. it made him choke up. it’s like you were worshipping him, serving him. his eyes couldn’t focus on you. if they did, he’d be stumbling into a pit of undesirable fantasies.

you reached your hand up, gesturing for him to give you something, and he handed you the bath bomb. “i’ll unwrap it and you can drop it in,” you explained, and peeled the plastic off of the ball. you handed it back, and he dropped it in the water, watching it fizz and colour the liquid around it a bright orange. “okay, get in.”

he nodded, but stayed standing there for a moment. it wasn’t until you gave him a comforting pat on the thigh that he lifted his leg and placed it tentatively in the water. for a moment it burned, and he yelped, but it soon became… nice. it reminded him of you. that gave him all the encouragement he needed, and chasing that familiar feeling, he quickly scrambled into the water and submerged himself to the neck. he breathed out hot, wheezing in a low tone. you reached out a little, worried for a moment, until the long breath turned into a moan. he dipped his head back against the edge of the tub, smiling wide and getting comfortable in the water.

“so, you like it?” you asked, and he nodded immediately. it felt so good. it really did feel like you. it enveloped his entire body, and warmed his cold bones; it smelled so pretty and tickled his nose. it made him feel light and smooth. he was squirming in the water, barely able to sit still with how much enjoyment he was getting. you smiled along with him, glad to see him relaxing, and used this distracted moment to gather up some soapy water on a scrubber.

“gimme your arm,” you instructed, and he lifted the limb closest to you. you began your work. you scrubbed over every inch of skin you could reach, making sure to get every surface smooth and shining.

you started with his arms, scrubbing the dirt and grime from his hands as well. you even pulled out your little nail kit. you got under his finger nails, cutting them down and filing them so he would be inclined not to bite. he had twitched a lot when you did this, finding the feeling very odd. after you had let go, and told him to look at how nice his hands looked, he had been so perplexed. he kept running his fingertips over the edges of his nails, muttering about how he had been declawed.

you moved to his chest then. he leaned more into this, his back arching so he could push into your touch. your sponge ran over his front, and your hands lingered at where the patches of chest hair grew into ivy along his torso. you scrubbed at the hair, making sure it felt smooth under your touch, before moving on. billy was delighted. he felt like he was getting all the attention in the world. he didn’t even complain when you yanked his arms up and scrubbed hard under them, though it did make him shriek a little. it was a new feeling, and he found it tickled his sides when you washed there. it made him snicker and giggle, and he flapped his limbs like wings, and snapped at your hands playfully. you splashed him with water, making him yelp yet again, before you continued on.

you made him turn around after. you worked over his shoulder blades, and it made him shudder. he played with his hands under the water, once again pushing into your touch. you replied by pressing your free hand against his shoulder, holding him in place while you worked on washing the dirt away. all the while, he continued to make sounds of content, sighing and whispering inaudible praises. he couldn’t help it. he loved every second of this. you were taking such good care of him. he felt cherished. he felt like something that was worth being taken care of, and that was very new to him.

you moved down to his legs. he gasped when your scrubber found it’s way to his inner thighs. it made you glance up at him, and he looked away quick, covering his mouth as he muttered out dirty things. billy tried to shut himself up, tried to stop himself from ruining this moment, but you knew he couldn’t help it. you chose to ignore him, for his sake. you continued on, allowing him to spill forth with nasty comments, while you ran your sponge up and down his waist and hips. you stopped at his crotch, finally handing him the reins and asking him if he could clean it himself. he nodded quick, and you turned away.

“I’m just gonna go grab the shampoo. you shouldn’t take that long,” you explained, and stood to do as you said. you went to the shelf near the bathtub as he cleaned himself off, and when you returned he was finished, front and back.

“b-billy’s all clean,” he cooed out, sounding almost proud of himself. “clean billy, squeaky clean. w-warm too, so warm. as warm as your fucking c-cu-“

you cut him off with a hand to his mouth. it wasn’t forceful. it was a soft gesture, something to stop him from doing what he feared most. making this moment anything but wholesome. most things he saw turned dirty and vile, being corrupted by his own mind, but this. for some reason, this felt clean, ironically enough.

billy gazed up at you as you grabbed the shower head from its place, pulling it down and turning the warm water on. “I’m gonna wet your head now,” you stated, and ran the soft stream over his face. he sighed deep, closing his eyes and letting the warmth run over him. you tapped his shoulder as you moved the shower head away from his hair.

“can you hold this while i put the shampoo in?” you asked. he nodded, grabbing it and holding it to his chest while you poured soap on your hand. you then ran it over his hair, before beginning to properly scrub at his scalp. the scratching felt nice. it made him begin mewling, drooling over his front as he got lost in the satisfying feeling. your nails dug lightly into his skull. he felt like if he moved suddenly, your hands would clip through his flesh and mould with his brain. he wouldn’t mind. you’d be attached forever, he thought.

you scrubbed away for a bit, before having him rinse out his own hair. you repeated this cycle, just for good measure, before putting the conditioner in. once this was rinsed out as well, you sat back on your heels.

“okay, all that’s left is to brush your teeth.” you patted your hands down against your thighs, before standing up and snatching something off the counter. you squeezed toothpaste onto the brush, got it wet under the faucet, before sitting back down. “open wide,” you instructed, tapping billy’s jaw with your finger.

he did as told, opening up his mouth and presenting his teeth. you began brushing, using your thumb to keep his chin down while you cleaned. he took this time to stare at you. you were so focused, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies. you didn’t care he was drooling all over your hand, his tongue occasionally darting over to lick at your digits. you just continued to service him. when you began brushing at his tongue, he gagged. he hacked and sputtered, and you pulled away, huffing.

“yeah, the tongue is always hard.” you gave a sympathetic look, before patting him gently on the cheek. “don’t worry, we’re all done. just spit it out, we’re gonna drain the bath now anyways.” you reached into the water and pulled the plug out of the bottom of the tub. billy watched, and when your arm was out of the water, he spit out the remaining froth in his mouth. he licked over his teeth. they felt so smooth, and his gums tasted like peppermint. he sucked in his lips, tasting it all, while you stood and walked over to the bathroom counter.

“stand up while i grab your towel,” you ordered, and gathered up the item in your hand. billy stood to his full height then, dripping like a dog. he shook himself out like one too, whipping his hair around with a cackle. you couldn’t help but giggle along with him. you proceeded to wrap him in his towel, giving him a separate, smaller one for just his hair. he followed you out of the bathroom and back to the bedroom, passing him his clothes after. he dried himself off quick, pulling on the pyjamas.

“come here, let me brush your hair.” you sat down on your bed, patting the spot in front of you. he trotted over like a lap dog, sitting down in front of you. you made him lean his head back a bit, pulling a brush through his matted hair. he liked the way it stung his scalp, and he forced himself to swallow the moans that dared erupt from his throat. it was so hard to keep it all inside. with every pull of the bristles, he felt a shock through his nerves. when you finally finished, and used the towel to dry out his hair, he relaxed significantly. he hummed, leaning his head back into your touch.

“do you feel clean?” you asked, and he nodded.

“clean billy. squeaky clean,” he sung, making a squeaking sound. it made him giggle. “smells like you too,” he added, raising his arm to his nose and inhaling deeply. “smells like a dessert. you’re a dessert… my sweet treat…” he rasped out, voice deep and rough.

you rested the towel down on his neck, and sighed. for a moment, he just leaned back against you, feeling comfortable and safe. he almost felt normal, like this. he felt like a blank slate, somehow. like he had just been baptized. but the moment was cut short by his stomach roaring again. he laughed, mimicking the noise, and you chuckled along.

“let’s go get you something to eat, big guy.”

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

The Arcana HCs: M6 when the child they have with you is an exact carbon copy of them

To clarify: said children are, by natural or magical processes, the biological child of MC and their beloved; and the child's assigned sex at birth is the same as the love interest in question. Apparently all your traits are recessive.

Julian

There are two drama kings in the house now, and only one stage. That may or may not be a good thing

Baby proofing the house for this level of clumsiness is impossible

Child has the same thirst for knowledge and insatiable curiosity, with even less maturity (can you blame him? He's a kid!) And it gets him into so much trouble

Julian is teaching him how to be The Best Actor

They put on plays for you in the kitchen and rope you into it

Child has the same tendency to mentally spiral, and teaching him the coping mechanisms he needs for it is helping Julian grow so much

Same tendency to get himself tangled up in ridiculous situations.

The best moment was when he (as a five year old) walked up on stage in the community theater during a play so he could confront the villain up close for treating the heroes so badly

The actors were so charmed they improvised him into the performance

After you put him to bed that night you found Julian crying into his leeches, he was so proud

Child now has a standing invitation to star in any appropriate performance

Portia makes him his little costumes

Mazelinka is always in the front row adding a cutting commentary loud enough for the entire audience to hear (they love it)

The South End has sworn their allegiance to him

Nadia jokingly calls him her little rival

Asra

So many pranks

Asra is determined to be the best parent they never had, and staying present in his son's life is giving him a whole new perspective on his childhood and his parent's experience

It leads to a few rough conversations he was avoiding with them, but yields the best results

Grandma Aisha and Grandpa Salim

Always down to watch your kid when you two need a break, but beware, he'll come back with a plethora of new spells to use

He loves Faust and she loves him. He practiced crawling by following her around the shop

Does not know his limits and does not want to. Asra has to remake the wards on the doors to the shop every few months to be harder to unlock because his son keeps trying to go off on unannounced trips

Regularly steals the big feathered hat and wears it around the shop. It always slips over his eyes

Sees the way Asra fawns over you and follows that example to a T

Sometimes you team up with him to prank Asra

One morning you couldn't get Asra to wake up for breakfast so you gave the kid some markers and let him play Picasso all over his dad's chest and face

Asra noticed the two of you giggling all morning but couldn't figure out why until he caught themself in the mirror just before lunch

So proud of their son's artistic talent he refused to wash it off

Wore the most chest exposing shirt he had to show it off

Muriel was so confused when you three went to visit him that afternoon

He remembers meeting Asra at that age by the docks, and begins teaching the child how to paint on animal carvings

Child likes to practice on Faust with watercolors now. She feels fabulous.

Nadia

Raising an independent child who is convinced she knows best and needs no help is Difficult

Nadia is much quicker to lose her patience with her than you are

They both rant to you about how difficult the other is

Have fun being the peacemaker

It's actually not that bad, Nadia knows exactly what her daughter feels like and goes out of the way to help her feel empowered and unique

It's important to her that her daughter has a good upbringing, but she also wants her to have the freedom to pursue her desires

So competitive when you three go horseback riding it's not even funny

This little girl has so many doting Aunties she's at risk of getting spoiled rotten

Natiqa teaches her the art of negotiation very early on and this little girl is so precocious she picks it up right away

Next time Nadia is entertaining visiting dignitaries she crashes the reception and start negotiating a trade deal

The visitors are impressed, slightly intimidated, and completely caught off guard

Nadia takes full advantage of that and the two of them work together to seal the deal

You begin having terrifying visions of what would happen once she grows up and the two of them share a common goal, or worse, a common enemy

Portia is the worst enabler and fills her in with all the palace gossip she desires for her to use as she sees fit

Muriel

You didn't know a baby could be this quiet

You start to worry a bit with how little he talks, until one day a butterfly lands on his chubby little fist and he's so excited to tell you all about it that he almost forgets to breathe

Basically he doesn't speak unless he feels like it, or until you find something he likes and then oh boy he's so happy to open up and chatter about it

Like Muriel, he's big for his age, but unlike Muriel, he grows up out in the woods where he doesn't have any reason to worry about it

Muriel can't stop marveling over him

He wakes up every morning and finds so much joy in giving his son a childhood full of life and wonder and peace

Realizing how much he would do for his son gives him appreciation for what his parents tried to do for him

Innana is fiercely protective

When your son was learning to walk she would stalk beside him just in case he needed her as a landing cushion

It's not uncommon to find the two of them curled up together under a tree taking a post lunch nap

He adores Uncle Asra

Asra stops by pretty regularly, always with something new and interesting for their nephew

But the best days are fishing days

Muriel will get up early with him and they'll trek out to their favorite fishing spot so you can have a day to go into town

The two of them will sit side by side, maybe they share some conversation, maybe they enjoy the quiet together

So excited to show you everything they caught

He definitely inherited his father's love for eel

You'll make a campfire for the catch and feast all evening, until he falls asleep under Muriel's cloak and you carry him inside for the night

One time he was watching some of the chicken's eggs hatch and the babies imprinted on him

Watching him walk around giggling both confused and delighted with a gaggle of chirping yellow puffballs trailing him was one of the best afternoons of your life

It wasn't so great when the sun went down and you told him they weren't allowed to sleep in his bed and he'd have to wait until morning to see them again

Portia

There is so much hair, everywhere

You love them both and you love their beautiful curly red hair but you just pulled a strand out of your tea and you don't know how much more you can take

One of her first words was "Pepi" and she was mimicking the cat before she was speaking full sentences

Portia loves to play tag with her in the garden, chasing her around the vines and diving in for tickle attacks

The baby squeals. The baby giggles. This child is laughter and joy personified

This child has no concept of danger and it makes Nadia so stressed

She hears you call the Countess "Nadia" but she also hears Portia call her "milady" so she just calls her "miladidalia"

The palace is her playground once she's old enough to walk over and all the staff adore her

Knows all the shortcuts and secret tunnels in the palace by the time she's 7

It's not hard to find out where she is though, just follow the giggles

Ilya adores her, it's his precious little sister all over again!

He drops by almost every day with an offering for the princess

The first time she calls him "uncilya" he cries

You trek into town with her and Portia every week to visit Mazelinka

Lots of singing and dancing together

The summer after she turns 6 she tries to stowaway on Mazelinka's ship

She almost succeeds

Cue you and Portia hunting all over Vesuvia in a frenzy

Nadia has all the palace guards out looking too

The guards all know and love her already, they would have rebelled if she hadn't let them

Asra's tracking magic points you in the direction of the docks, where Julian gets one of the vendors to admit to giving her a ride to Mazelinka's ship (he didn't know what she was plotting)

They set sail this morning and now the moon is coming up

Nadia's already summoning the royal yacht when Mazelinka's ship reappears on the horizon

So many kisses and hugs and tears of relief

So much scolding the next morning

Deep down once the panic has subsided Portia is so proud and excited for her little adventurer

From then on you start incorporating important traveling skills into her upbringing (world maps, basic self defense, phrases in the main languages) because you know it's only a matter of time before your little girl takes the world by storm

Lucio

Lucio's trying his best, he really is, and it helps that he understands his son so well, but taking care of kids does not come naturally to him

Especially quiet displays of affection

Thankfully his son is anything but quiet

He loves following Lucio around and piggybacking off of his antics

If he's not mimicking his father he's off with Mercedes and Melchior terrorizing everyone in the vicinity

You understand now why Morga had such a hard time letting Lucio suffer consequences

He is adorable when he is in trouble, and also so scared

You have to learn the balance of letting him understand what he's done and suffer the consequences while letting him know you've got his back

Lucio on the other hand indulges his every whim

The two of them have a shared love of shiny things

He likes to put on his dad's fancy regalia and strut around the palace like a peacock

Most of all, he wants a pretty golden arm like his dad

Has a tantrum when he tries to pull it off of Lucio's shoulder and it doesn't work

It leads to a very helpful conversation about why Lucio has a golden arm, and what wars are, and the importance of valuing human life

Lucio is so impressed with imparting that lesson early that he immediately commissions a golden sleeve/glove for his baby boy as a reward

Now they match \^.^/

[gamebunny-advance]

"Heaven Studio - Vs. 1010 (aka Vs. Squadmates)" [WIP]

(Original RHRE Mix)

Changelog:

- Screwbots

- Freeze Frame

- Bluebirds

- Tangotronic

+ Rhythm Somen

+ Pudding Nail

+ Mannequin Factory

*Please excuse the dead air at the end of the video. I thought I could multitask and record this while doing other things, so I stopped the recording a little late. There's nothing of interest after the fade to black.

So, besides Vs. Tatiana, I think this mix is the one that changed the most from the original incarnation. The original concept was using as many of the robot/military games as possible, but since Heaven Studio lacked most of them in the current build I'm using, I had to improvise.

As a result, this mix is the only one that I've remade that uses original games to make up for the ones that were lost. For those of you unfamiliar with Rhythm Heaven, Rhythm Somen (the bamboo noodle slide one) and Pudding Nail (the pudding and nails one) aren't real Rhythm Heaven games. I added the former since the claws that drop the noodles had those machine/robot sound effects that I was looking for, and Pudding Nail was just close enough to the theme of machinery that I decided to give it a try, and I think it actually works really well. My favorite part of this mix is the Pudding Nail segment which feeds into the queued Shoot-Em-Up segment without the "Ready!" cue.

That said, those of you who are familiar with this build of Heave Studio might have noticed that Freeze Frame was removed despite actually being in this build. Originally, I did have it in there, but it's currently very buggy: when you transition into it from another game, sometimes it'll start with the success sound. For me, it was too distracting to let it stay, so I wound up taking it out entirely. If this project somehow rises from the ashes and gets complete, I would love to re-do this with Freeze Frame.

This is also one of the few mixes where I actually did a *little* visual editing at the end. I like the idea of the game transitioning into Neon J.'s point of view when he takes over the battle. It also adds a layer of difficulty, since the game play is actually fairly simple in this section.

I was debating this with myself, but I think if I do release the playable file, I'll make it literally impossible to perfect it to inflict the suffering I endured at the hands of Perfect Parry Vs. 1010 on the Switch. >:3

[autumnwoodsdreamer]

Unsinkable

Chapter 37: Dearly Beloved

Words: 7231

Author’s Note: Ao3 keeps going down and up and down again, so I’m gonna try get back into the habit of cross posting there and here.

Reblogs and comments always appreciated!

Read on AO3 or below the cut

Din had a knack for fixing things.

It didn’t seem like much more than a quirk at first. Then, gradually, his mechanical aptitude clarified and his buir was quick to give him work that could sculpt his raw talent into honed skill. Sometimes Din wondered if that didn’t factor into his guardian’s decision to purchase the Razor Crest in the first place—it provided no end of opportunities to learn with its dilapidated state to begin with and near constant need of upkeep and repair thereafter.

But starships were not the only things Din was good at maintaining and fixing.

Appliances, furniture, gear, weapons, even clothing and flesh—he was adept at putting things back together, keeping them going, getting more mileage out of them than was advertised. He stored up every scrap of knowledge about different materials, from wood to metal to canvas to skin, learning their strengths and weaknesses. He was no medic, but he could tend a variety of wounds and ailments; he hadn’t apprenticed at the forge, but he had learned to repair most of his armour by himself, especially the fine tech in his helmet. 

These skills came in handy in his line of work. In bounty hunting, self-reliance and improvisation were as vital as his very senses, and many a road could be opened and much could be gained—intel, assets, assistance—through the promise and deliverance of repaired goods.

One of his fellow trainees in the Fighting Corps. once told him he just couldn’t leave things alone.

Until then, Din had never linked his mechanical prowess to some kind of compulsion, but once the link was drawn for him, he couldn’t unsee it. 

Because his peer was not wrong.

He couldn’t handle broken things.

He remembered and suddenly understood the meltdowns he had had as a small child when something as insignificant as a ceramic dish fell and shattered. The only distress his elders experienced in the whole incident was in regards to the sharp-edged shards scattered on the kitchen floor, but child Din was overwhelmed by the fracturing and thus the loss of this thing which, simple though it was, he regarded as a constant, reliable feature.

As he grew and more things broke, things far more important than dinner plates, he learned to accept that decay and breakage was just a part of life. Clothing frayed and even flesh eventually wore out—not everything could be repaired, replenished or restored.

Entropy was one of the most rigid, unyielding, unavoidable constants of the universe.

It was a law Din had no choice but to accept

That didn’t mean he made his peace with it.

He resisted in ways people didn’t always see.

He held onto the Razor Crest for decades, highlighting its vintage as an asset, which it was, but every day the pre-Empire model’s cons outweighed the pros. The powerlines kept leaking, he couldn’t use the internal heating system much for fear it would overload the batteries, and he was acutely aware his travel time was slowing as the hyperdrive incrementally gave up the ghost. But it was the last tangible tie to his buir, it was the only home he had any true claim on, it was his, so he fixed it over and over again and held on.

He kept his training armour for decades, partly because he understood the tribe’s supply of beskar was limited, partly because he couldn’t stomach the thought of changing it, of wearing anything else. He was the armour; to change it was tantamount to reconstructing and altering his entire visage and identity.

He stayed in situations like his affiliation with Ran’s Crew well past the point it had grown dangerous, insufficient, and unequal because he couldn’t see over the mountain that was changing circumstances.

He withheld from starting a clan of his own because that was one thing which, if it ever were to break, he knew he would not survive.

Eventually, though, he did get a new ship (because no one could even dream of repairing the pile of ash the Razor Crest was ultimately reduced to).

He donned a new set of armour (because the old set finally buckled in the mudhorn’s relentless assault).

He left Ran’s Crew (because they had all crossed one too many lines with each other, the thin ties keeping them together at last fraying and snapping and violently freeing him).

And he started a clan (haphazardly and clumsily; much of it happened without his realizing and despite his inadequacy, despite his nearly fumbling it over and over again, a family had formed around him).

All his years maintaining old things impressed upon him the value of things in a way he wouldn’t have been able to grasp as a younger, more invincible man. He would take care of his new armour and his new ship better now than if they had been easily received replacements.

All his years dancing around difficult personalities and keeping together a spiderweb of good relations with people whose honour only went as far as their own comfort had equipped him with a fine toolkit of skills such as negotiation, deal-making, discernment, and the wisdom needed to decide when to compromise, how far to concede, and how to make someone think you’re agreeing with them when, really, you’re planning something else entirely.

All his years alone made him appreciate the crew, the friends and the family that he had now.

He had a knack for fixing things.

He couldn’t handle when things broke.

He had a tendency to hold onto things until they were too broken to hold any longer.

A lot of things were broken now.

And he couldn’t fix them…

. . . . .

It felt wrong to call Ezra’s cabin a sickroom but that was what it had become.

A thick medicinal stench hung in the air, burning the nose, coating the throat. It came from necessary things—things that sterilized, things that helped with bleeding and breathing—but still it was obtrusive and overwhelming, consistent inhalation rendering one light-headed and nauseous.

There were no monitors or respirators beeping or clicking, there was just a single IV of saline taped above the bunk: a crude setup for an even cruder substitute for blood volumnizers, antibiotics and bacta.

And there was, of course, the patient, laid out and still on the bed, deeply, unnaturally unconscious.

Din didn’t count the time but a good few hours had passed since he took up his vigil. He hadn’t spent it all alone or all awake—the day and the draining, oppressive atmosphere caught up to him and he found himself slipping his helmet off and resting his head on his arms folded on the edge of the bed, fingers latching onto his brother’s cold hand. 

It was no restorative rest, however.

His mind replayed the day’s events, twisting the endings, dragging him down dead-end roads where the worst happened with such graphic intensity that he believed it.

He believed Bane and Kryze had slaughtered everyone.

That false reality couldn’t have lasted longer than a handful of seconds but dreams had an uncanny way of stretching out into years in just the span of a few, erratic heartbeats.

He woke to sweat on his brow, stutters in his chest, and a hand weakly trying to squeeze his hand in return.

Ezra.

He was awake.

He was alive.

And if he was alive, then that meant everyone else was alive.

(They were. Of course they were; the very fact they were here, in this cabin, on board the Path Finder was proof they were all alive.)

No thought went into it, Din just locked his hands around his brother’s like a child trying to hold onto something everyone kept trying to take away from him.

The running lights and the bunk lamp provided a soft light, sufficient to see Ezra’s heavy eyes struggling to open and stay open. For a long moment, he seemed to drift back asleep but then he blinked and focussed sharply on Din.

He frowned, the expression barely forming. “Are you alright?” he asked, his voice so hoarse and quiet, if it weren’t for the miracle of Kia’s hearing aids, Din wouldn’t have heard a thing.

He gave a nod then shook his head, not to change his answer but to flick the matter aside like an annoying bug that had flown in uninvited.

Whatever he was feeling didn’t matter; Ezra was the one dealing with a grievous injury.

Din didn’t think he’d ever forget the moment Izara emerged from Ezra’s cabin.

He was keeping busy tending to the others, finding and distributing blankets, making sweet-spice tea and helping Ursa put together a meal that could stretch to fill at least some part of almost thirty stomachs. He was well and distracted when he saw Izara making her way towards him.

It was difficult to hear her over the sight of her white armour smeared and stained with so much red—too much red—but from somewhere else, somewhere faraway, he did hear her.

Up until then, Din didn’t know Bane had used a slugthrower—that brutal, antique weapon only a fool would think was any less effective than an energy blaster. 

The unfortunate truth was that it was far more effective.

Standard blaster bolts made clean, precise wounds, typically easy to tend, largely non-fatal. They were more likely to slow an opponent rather than eliminate them; you had to hit something vital in order to kill with a blaster bolt—stun rounds tended to be more efficient. Most bounty hunters modified their blasters to be more deadly but even then they weren’t as bad as slugthrowers. The bullet from a slugthrower could kill even if it didn’t hit heart or brain or any critical veins because the damage it dealt and the blood it drew would so often be too much for a body to recover from.

It was for that very reason they were outlawed all the way back in the days of the Old Republic. Even under the Empire, Stormtroopers and local police forces in the Core and Inner Rim Worlds could only carry standard blasters.

But, of course, just because a thing was illegal didn't mean it didn’t still happen or that it disappeared entirely.

Din could attest to the truth of that.

He had taken a few slugs in his time, the most memorable occasion being the run-in with Vane on Nevarro. Intimately, he knew just how unlike blaster bolts they were.

A slug was bad enough but Ezra had, inadvertently, made it worse by trying to block the shot with his lightsaber. Rather than deflect the bullet, the lazer blade had melted it into burning shrapnel.

In short, the resulting wound was neither clean nor simple.

Izara and Sloan had worked long and hard but they could only offer a grim prognosis.

Grogu, dutifully, had refused to accept it.

He marched into his mentor’s cabin, his father following numbly. 

He had seen Ezra injured before. When they met, he was dehydrated and half-starved, his hair matted and overgrown, his skin discoloured with a sickly pallor. In a way, this was not as bad: he had started this day healthy and strong and well-groomed so he didn’t have that diminished, deprived appearance, but he was pale and still, his chest barely rising and falling, his midsection swathed in thick, bloodied bandages. Pain wrote hard, tight lines on his face, winding his shoulders taut even in sleep, pulling feaverish sweat from his brow and thin, shallow breaths from tired, struggling lungs.

“We can’t do much more for the pain or the blood loss,” Izara had admitted and here now Din could see the truth of it.

Grogu climbed up onto the bunk. His huge eyes took in the sight of his uncle laying there and, when his ears drooped like limp leaves, Din came back into the moment in a snap.

He realized with a sharp pang of guilt that he should’ve protected the child from this or, at the very least, he should’ve had the forethought to prepare the little one for what he might see.

But Grogu was no ordinary child. 

He had lived longer than Din had and that life had exposed him to this before—this and far, far worse.

It was distressing.

But he had the power to do something about it—now more than ever before.

So he grounded himself and set to work.

Din could only watch.

He didn’t have the Force, he couldn’t guide or instruct or even monitor his son. He could only trust that he knew what he was doing, knew how far to reasonably go and when to stop. He had more cause for reassurance now thanks to Ezra’s training, but it was up to Grogu to either ignore or utilize what he had been taught.

Din couldn’t control anything; he could only hope.

Hope Ezra pulled through.

Hope Grogu didn’t go too far.

Hope that he didn’t end up losing them both.

Grogu spent twice as long healing Ezra than he had healing Din’s blaster burn but when he finished, he didn’t collapse. He looked tired and his little frame sagged but his eyes were still present and his skin wasn’t a single shade paler than it should have been.

Din gathered him in his arms and thanked him. It was two-fold—he was grateful for whatever he had done for his brother, and he was grateful he hadn’t gone too far and hurt himself in the process.

Sabine came in then, to see how Ezra was. She stayed and sat with Din by his brother’s bedside for a while.

They didn’t talk.

But her arm wove around his and her head rested on his shoulder and Din knew then that whatever coldness he thought he detected back in the cockpit was just a figment of his imagination.

They were okay.

As okay as they could be, all things considered.

Quietly, she transferred Grogu from his hold to hers. He snuggled into the crook of her arm and she whispered that it was time for bed. 

A small “love you” spilled on Din’s breath as she stood to go.

He couldn’t stand to leave it unsaid.

Things broke so suddenly in this life, and this day had served to remind him that anything he held could be torn away from him in the blink of an eye.

Without a pause between, Sabine gave him a soft “love you, too.”

And then it was just him, parked in a seat set against his brother’s bed, unable to really do anything.

Izara, Sloan and Grogu had expended their talents, training and expertise, the Path Finder was ferrying them all to safety, but the rest of the healing was up to Ezra.

He was awake now, but not better.

His hand was cold and weak, his focus thin and fleeting.

Still, he managed to forge a spear of a look and hurl it at Din.

Without words, he admonished: Don’t blame yourself for this, Dinar (because this was very much the kind of occasion he would pull out his full name).

Din just looked away.

He was not blaming himself—such a thing implied that he had to justify his involvement in events.

But he didn’t have to manually shift perspectives to angle culpability; he was merely accepting reality, and the reality was that this… this was all his fault.

He stayed too long.

He lured the hunter to his home.

He didn’t want to take his hands back but he had to. He stood and fetched Ezra his water bottle, helped him sit up just enough that he could take a drink, made nothing of the sip he coughed up on him, just wiped what he could away, helped settle him down again and then resumed his seat.

Out in the main cabin, they were singing.

A choir of voices—some rumbling and deep, some lilting and light, all accompanied by a modulator’s particular effect—reverberated through the ship, carrying ancient ballads in Mando’a.

The Songs of the Travellers.

Mournful and low, they slowly, gradually picked up in pitch and pace until they assumed a marching rhythm, like a company of lost and weary soldiers finally finding motivation.

Sabine’s voice was with them, as was Grogu’s wordless but no less enthusiastic contribution.

Din listened to it for a while, absently, then let out a long breath: too much weight to be a mere exhalation, not quite enough in it to make it a sigh.

A short, cut-off grunt pulled his attention back to the bed. Ezra was shifting, trying to get comfortable but not succeeding. He tried to bend and draw his legs up, instinctually seeking to ease the strain on his abdomen.

Din half-stood and hovered, unsure how to help.

Ezra gave up and settled with a thin huff. “I don’t know how to put this eloquently,” he said, having to pause and catch his breath in a panting wheeze before delivering the last line in a heated deadpan: “This sucks.”

“Yeah. I know,” Din commiserated. “Rather take a lightsaber to the leg than a slug to the gut any day.”

As if to confirm the location of his wound, Ezra lifted his head and looked down at himself, his face pulling at the sight of the bloodied bandages wrapped around his middle. He looked like he might comment further but rather just flopped back down, letting the air go without moulding it into words. 

“So how’d we go?” he asked after a while, sounding even more worn out—he likely wasn’t far from falling asleep again.

But Din obliged. 

Purposefully speaking low so as not to excite, he caught him up with what had happened while he was unconscious—how he got to the ship, how the tribe left in a caravan of ships, how they had run Cad Bane off. Ezra asked about Omega and Din told him she had gone ahead of them and taken a group in her ship. He told him they were headed for Lothal and Ezra seemed to relax further then, as if just the prospect of returning to their homeworld was a much needed balm.

“And where are you going from there?” he asked, his voice a wispy thing now.

Din stiffened. “What?” he cut out, aiming to make it sound puzzled, like he hadn’t understood the question, but woefully missing the mark.

Ezra raised an eyebrow and fixed Din with a too knowing look in his eyes before letting his expression slacken as he closed his eyes and rested in the bed. 

“You…” Din began but trailed off. He leaned a little closer, opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. Clamping his mouth shut, he moved further back and regarded Ezra with scrutiny. “You knew,” he concluded, eventually, not really so surprised—this just confirmed his suspicions. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because. I know you. You always go where you belong.”

He wanted to ask him what he meant by that, sensing he had some grand, all encompassing view of this mess which Din, caught in the eye of the storm as it were, could not gain.

But Ezra didn’t look like he could string many more words together and it felt cruel to force him to try.

So Din let the matter fade from his attention and stayed at his brother’s bedside while he fell back to a deep, uncomfortable sleep.

. . . . .

Lothal welcomed them in like a mother embracing her tired children.

Dusk was just a few short hours away, arraying the sky and fields in the warmest shades of amethyst and gold the world could provide. They had missed the snow by mere weeks, the thick of winter passing in their absence. However, a chill lingered, laced in the air, woven with the faintly herbal scent of the new grass springing from the awakening earth.

They landed near the mountain range, in a place not very far from where Din had parked the Razor Crest the first time he came with Grogu.

(Fate, irony, coincidence, whatever it was called, he heard the ringing. He came here months ago with the goal of finding a Mandalorian, wildly hoping they might be able to lead him to a covert, and here he and that Mandalorian were now, ushering a covert to safety on this world.)

The cave dwellings were just that: hollowed spaces in the mountainous rock spires, carved by nature, honed by hands. Apparently, there were many, many dwellings identical to these scattered all over the planet; the rebels had used some as outposts during the war but they were now regarded as heritage sites, landmarks to be preserved, history to be cherished. Quite often, local travellers came and stayed in or around them on trips with their families, embedding this piece of their story in their children’s memories.

During the Empire’s reign, before the planetary lockdowns choked trade and travel, smugglers and mercenaries liberally used them as camps and hideouts.

Din knew.

He was one of said mercenaries.

At the time, he hadn’t thought or felt much about these abandoned but convenient campsites; now, knowing it was all a part of him, knowing his ancestors had once walked here, he felt both awed and ashamed.

The Marauder and the Kom’rk had already arrived and released their passengers. Fenn, Omega, Ados and roughly half the covert were at work, directing and organizing, helping get a proper camp set up before night swept in.

They were not alone.

As the Path Finder slowed and banked around, Din spotted Ryder’s blue speeder parked in the field nearby. Two others sat beside it: a yellow one he knew belonged to Hera and a white one he didn’t recognize. Focussing on the landing, he couldn’t scan the burgeoning camp for all his friends but he knew they were about.

They landed, settled the ship, and disembarked with some unavoidable procession—such a large gathering of Mandalorians marching out a ship couldn’t help but be a spectacle.

The sight, the occasion, the emotions—his own and others—poured in and made Din’s heart swell.

It had been years since he saw so many Mandalorians outside in the light of natural sun. The circumstances didn’t fade from his mind for a moment but this was nonetheless the reclamation of a fragment of freedom they hadn’t glimpsed since the Great Purge.

For ones like little Ayisa, it was a novel experience.

Din heard her childish voice hitch with a gasp as her mother carried her down the gangplank and sunlight met her skin for what he strongly suspected was the first time in her young life.

Automatically, her eyes scrunched closed but she fought to blink and see this world—all this wide open air, bright coloured sky and endless land—for herself. 

Her awe was an innocent, unbridled kind, but even her elders who had seen a variety of different worlds and landscapes in their time were struck by the sight, pausing and turning their heads to see it all, clicking off the filters in their helmets and breathing in deep, indulging in the warm, dry air so unlike that of buried sewers and damp underground tunnels.

A short distance away, a set of faces familiar to Din and his party made their way over to greet them.

Ryder and Marida, Hera and Kanan, Jacen, little Depa, and Zeb.

Seeing them and their warm, genuine smiles was like sighting the shore after a long, perilous journey. 

But the conspicuous draws the eye sharply, and there was a stranger standing among them.

Din didn’t recognize the young man in cream robes, but he did recognize the Lothali crest displayed on the medallion hanging from his neck. Ryder wore one, too: it, along with his garb, was used to signify a high station or position of authority.

The young man stepped forward and smiled wide like a host greeting honoured guests. He glanced over the arriving group and spread his arms out as if to embrace them all at once, his manner more friendly than grand.

“Su cuy’gar! Welcome to Lothal!” he declared, his pronunciation of the Mando’a greeting near spot-on—he had had practice. “I am Governor Jai Kell. If there’s anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

Din was about to thank him but another voice—thin and raspy—overtook him.

“Wow. They just be making anyone governor these days—even academy dropouts.”

Kell’s expression shifted to shock but not because of the words, Din discerned. His gaze shot through the outpouring of Mandalorians and latched on Ezra, currently being carried down the gangplank by Pekka. He looked very feeble in the large arms and very pale in the sunlight.

Still, he grinned at his own joke—or, rather, an inside joke, Din surmised as Kell threw his head back and cracked the kind of laugh only old friends could draw out.

“Like you can talk, Dev Morgan,” he retorted, pointedly emphasizing the name (yet another one of his brother’s many aliases, Din assumed). “Who failed the final test again?”

Ezra chuckled and immediately regretted it, his shoulders hunching in sharply, his face twisting in pain.

Just like that, the banter disintegrated and the jovial atmosphere was broken.

Hera handed Depa over to Marida and closed the distance in quick strides, her brow knotted in concern as she brushed Ezra’s hair from his forehead.

“We called the medcentre,” Kanan said, coming and placing a hand on Hera’s shoulder which she took and redirected to Ezra’s shoulder for him. “Chi’s got a bacta tank prepped and waiting for you at the medcentre.”

“This way,” Hera directed Pekka before motioning for him to carry Ezra to her speeder.

Ezra didn’t protest; he didn’t have the strength to.

Din watched but didn’t move as Pekka followed Hera’s guidance and carried Ezra to the yellow speeder. Kanan and Zeb took over from there: Zeb taking the wheel and Kanan sitting with Ezra in the back.

They left, and Din felt like some part of him had been bound in rope and tied to the speeder, tearing out of him as it disappeared in the distance.

Ezra would be okay.

Izara and Sloan had down their best, Grogu had most likely saved his life with whatever amount of healing he had managed to impart, and Din knew firsthand the kind of miracles a bacta tank could work—Ezra could not have a better chance at recovery.

Still, it was hard not to worry, hard not to think of how much worse it could have been and how much worse it could still be…

Feeling like he had stepped outside of himself, Din lapsed into some kind of autopilot.

Ryder and Kell explained what supplies they had managed to procure and gift to the Mandalorian refugees and Hera gave details of how the camp was coming along; though Din heard every word, he retained none of the information. 

The briefing, if that was what it could be called, was swift and everyone returned to work, eager to get as much done before the sun set as possible.

Ursa and Sabine followed Hera to sort something or the other out, Jacen gathered Grogu and Ayisa and herded them to the fields where he was overseeing the play of the rest of the children, keeping them occupied and out of the way so their parents and guardians could work without worry. 

Din was sure he had a job to do as well, but he didn’t know what. The others left and he wound up adrift, a thing torn from his moorings.

He was walking aimlessly around when Marida found him.

“I hope in all your adventuring you haven’t let your cooking skills rust,” she said as she came and took gentle but sure hold of his arm, her accented voice a glint of light in the dark of a storm. 

Without awaiting an answer, she guided him to the cooking area: a sheltered section of the caves equipped with tables and cooking implements and a stone fire pit.

“I should—I should probably…” Din lost what he was trying to say. He nodded to the camp in general, helplessly gesturing, hoping but fearing she wouldn’t understand him.

She cut out a short laugh. “There’s no shortage of strong and willing hands, Dinar,” she told him but then her smile slipped and she covered her mouth as if she had said a bad thing. “I’m sorry. Can I… can I still call you that?” she asked, dropping her voice.

“Of course.” He frowned, struggling to trace her sudden worry. “It’s still my name.”

“Yes, but…” her gaze flicked over him and then darted to the camp, to the gathering of Mandalorians, and he understood.

She wasn’t entirely sure of all the customs of his adopted people and she didn’t want to offend.

“What are we making?” he asked, motioning to the cooking area, redirecting attention, grasping at anything to ignore the knot his insides were becoming.

Thankfully, Marida took the new road with ease. “Flatbread and sweet curry. The curry’s on already; we just need to roll out and fry the flatbread.”

“There’s about a hundred to feed.” He couldn’t help but feel some dismay creep in when he considered the enormity of the task.

“More time for us to catch up,” Marida declared, passing him a dowel.

. . . . .

News of Sabine’s pregnancy had reached Kanan and Hera but it hadn’t leaked any further, their friends discreetly keeping the news for them to share.

After relating the Morak mission and the procurement and subsequent refurbishment of the Path Finder, Din told Marida the news, feeling a twinge of guilt as he did so because he knew he was using it as a diversion to get out of talking about himself.

Nonetheless, her excitement was strong and enlivening, sweeping away any and all negative notions.

She embraced him and then had to go find Sabine and congratulate her herself as well as make sure she wasn’t doing anything too strenuous. 

(Din indulged in a private grin at that—his wife already had their crew and a whole tribe of Mandalorians making sure she didn’t lift anything heavier than a cup of water, now she had yet another maternal figure on her case.)

He watched Marida go and then, for the first time since leaving Kyn-13, he was alone with his own thoughts. They made for poor company, but he had to confront and organize them sometime—when better than while his hands were employed portioning and rolling out equal discs of dough?

Except his mind decided not to think, instead going comfortably quiet and focussing on the task, boxing everything else up—the tribe’s relocation, the target on his back, Ezra’s condition—and shoving it into a corner where he could, for now, forget about them.

He had melted into some strange state of peace when he heard a familiar set of footsteps approaching: the sound of boots scuffing softly but intentionally against the hard packed dirt ground.

He lifted his head, catching a smile when he saw Sabine.

“Tired, cyar’ika?” he asked.

She heaved a sigh. “Tired of hearing: ‘don’t pick that up,’ ‘don’t wear yourself out,’ ‘don’t do this,’ ‘don’t do that.’” She huffed again and shook her head resignedly as she took a seat on a crate. “Apparently, I’m made of porcelain now.”

“They’re just taking care of you,” he said, softly, noting that there were many crates of supplies about that she could have sat upon, yet she chose this one: the one closest to him.

She chuffed and took her helmet off; as she did, he heard little plicks of static from her hair. “It’s a whole tribe of mother hens,” she grumbled but with a note of undeniable affection.

“Have the others arrived?” he asked as he grabbed a handful of dough and began rolling it into a ball between his palms. 

“Paz and his lot came in about an hour ago, and Koska and Riel just reported in, ETA: sometime after sundown.”

He let go of a breath, feeling another length of the wire wrapped around his core unspool.

“That smells so good.” In the corner of his visor, Din caught Sabine’s hand reaching for the mound of dough in the mixing bowl.

“Hey, no.” Gently, he batted her hand away. “That’s not cooked yet; it’s not even rolled out.”

“Oh, come on. Just a little bit? It’s edible.”

“It is edible, but it will make your stomach uncomfortable.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Here.” He twisted around, grabbed a warm, cooked disc of flatbread off the plate, and handed it to her. “You can have that.”

“Acceptable,” she acquiesced, drawing a leg up onto the crate and setting about tearing bits off the flatbread to munch, her eyes still flicking every now and then to the uncooked dough with a desirous gleam.

Cravings, Din thought with an amused smile as he strategically moved the bowl to the other side of him where she couldn’t reach from where she sat. Why the uncooked dough should be more enticing to her than the fried product was beyond him but he was quickly learning not to bother applying logic to these things.

They lapsed into silence for a bit but there was no strain in the air between them, just shared threads of fatigue and worry. There was something like a shield around them here, projected by the cooking fire, lit by the setting sun, infused with the smell of the simmering sweet-curry and the fried flatbread, trimmed with the cooling air and the soft sounds of food prep.

Absently, Din wondered where Marida had gone off to. 

She had left to see Sabine but that was some time ago and Sabine was here now with him. He was just puzzling through that when a building breath broke into his thoughts.

“Omega’s gone to the medcentre,” Sabine told him, her voice dropping a notch.

“Is she alone?”

“AZI’s there. And Hera, Kanan and Zeb are going to take turns keeping vigil. If there’s anything to hear, we’ll hear it.”

Din nodded and swallowed thickly, his throat constricting.

There were two sides to what Sabine told him.

One part was the assurance Ezra would not wake alone or among strangers.

The other part was a kind of warning.

The others—the aruetiise—were leaving. The tribe would have their meal soon and then there would be a meeting and there was much to be addressed.

“Well, this is certainly domestic,” Sabine commented, cleanly steering them to a different track.

“It’s nice,” Din returned, airily, as he continued on, grabbing a handful of dough, rolling it into a ball, flattening it and then rolling it out with the dowel until it was just the right size to fit the pan on the fire. With each turn, he fancied he picked up speed.

Without asking, without awaiting instruction, Sabine came and joined him, silently slipping into his rhythm, becoming a part of it.

For a little while, there was just the work: rolling and frying, the stacks piling steadily higher. 

“I’m lucky I got someone who can cook,” Sabine remarked, randomly.

Din frowned. “You can cook, too. And you cook well; better than me.”

“But I don’t always want to do it alone,” she told him and there was something about her voice, like the shedding of a hard shell, that put him on alert, urging him to listen carefully. “And there’s gonna be times when it’s difficult or I just can’t do it.”

He stilled.

He sensed they weren’t talking about what they were talking about anymore.

Metaphorical was the word for it. Dithering and hesitation worked, too, in a way, though they all ignored the heart of the issue.

He stopped his work and set down his dowel. They had made more than enough, now they were just making sure the last of the dough was used up.

He turned to her, readying himself for a conversation, but she continued working, taking the flatbread to the fire, pointedly keeping her head down.

He just waited.

She always made it clear for him eventually.

“I want to do this with you, Din,” she told him, quietly, little by little her devotion to the task fading until she was just standing there, her hands falling unemployed. She glanced at him but quickly looked away as if burned, eyes screwing shut against emotions he suspected had been brewing for far longer than she let on. “I’ve done enough of my life alone,” she said, her voice low so she could hold it steady. “And I don’t—I don’t want to do this part alone. Okay? I just… I need you. I need you to be there when I can’t put my own socks on anymore. I need you to let me break your hand when I’m in labour and I need you to help me hold my baby because I just know I’m gonna be tired after all that. And—and you have to be there every day after because I can’t do this on my own. I can’t. I’m not as patient as you; I’m gonna mess this up if I don’t have you.”

He reached out, instinct pulling him to draw closer to her, but he froze midway. There was some barrier, a fresh new border he wasn’t allowed to cross freely. It was so strange, like all the space they had inhabited together was suddenly divided and redefined.

He turned back to the food prep but there was just a half a ball of dough left—not enough to make a full flatbread. He rolled it out anyway with as much intention as its predecessors, eking out the task to buy a small moment to collect himself and connect the pieces she was trying to give him.

“You saw the message,” he concluded aloud, setting the dowel down and leaning on the table, his stomach tying into a hard, uncomfortable knot.

In the beat after he spoke, he hoped she might frown and say something like: “What message?” He realized he would still have to explain himself, and that wouldn’t be exactly painless, but at least he would know she had been spared.

But there was no sign of ignorance on her part.

“Not all of it,” she eventually admitted, turning her head and wiping the corners of her eyes with the side of her hand, struggling to take a breath that wouldn’t betray her with a waver or a sniffle. “Chopper said you told him only to play it after you left but you didn’t tell him not to show me just my part.”

Din let his head hang as he sighed, the sound ragged and worn. “I’m gonna kill that droid,” he muttered.

Sabine laughed, and for a moment, he thought maybe she didn’t completely hate him.

He chided himself.

That wasn’t fair.

He knew she didn’t hate him.

If she did, she wouldn’t have come here, strategically orchestrating that it be just the two of them (because Marida would’ve returned unless Sabine asked her for a moment alone with her husband, just the two of them).

If she hated him, she wouldn’t have just poured out her heart, asking him to—

He moved, unthinkingly, and his elbow or something, he didn’t actually track what, bumped the table they had been working on. Things wobbled and rattled but settled without issue.

Except for the one empty plate they had been using to transfer the flatbread to the fire.

It was close to the edge and it had nothing weighting it down. The table jolted and it fell and smashed on the ground, the sound bursting and echoing around the curved stone walls before disappearing into the open night air behind them.

It continued in his ears.

Over and over again, the shattering and scattering of pieces he could never put back together again—not properly, not completely—ricocheted around them.

He stared at the shards at his feet.

He had almost left.

He had almost left her and their children, his family, his clan.

It was to keep her safe, he tried to argue; it was to keep them all safe from Bo-Katan. 

But all the good intentions in the universe couldn’t change the fact that he was still walking out on them.

Sabine began looking for something to sweep up the broken plate and it was reactionary, it was just… the thing people did when plates broke, but the fact that she was just accepting that it was broken and needed to be cleaned up and not in the very least reprimanding him cut him in a way he couldn’t explain.

He was good at fixing things.

He was also good at breaking things.

This was not entropy, nor was it an accident. It was something between a curse and an addiction: he didn’t mean to do it but he couldn’t control it, couldn’t stop.

“Leave it. Please,” he said, his face burning, his mouth drying—the words came out like a strangled plea. He took a step towards her, his boots crunching on the ceramic chips and shards, and caught her hand. “I’ll take care of it,” he assured her.

He couldn’t fix it.

He could only clean it up and make sure no one else got hurt.

For one moment, he hung suspended over a chasm. He held her hand in a way she could slip out of easily, wanting her to come closer but not pulling, not demanding—he never would: forced love was not the kind he had been trained in.

She did take her hand back but it was not to leave, instead, it was so she could wrap her arms around him.

She held on crushingly tight, burying her face in the part of his neck not covered by any armour.

Her words ran through his mind again.

He wanted to confront them. He felt he needed to dismantle those false notions, extinguish the claim that she wasn’t strong enough or good enough to do this on her own. But he caught himself before he could aim and fire a single word.

That looked like the problem but, again, it wasn’t the heart of it. She wasn’t so concerned with her potential inadequacy as she was with the prospect of losing him.

But how could he fix that? 

Platitudes rang hollow and weak; he could say things like it would be alright and everything would be fine and there was nothing to worry about, but he couldn’t ensure such things. He could restate his view of things, underline how much he loathed to leave, but she had heard that already.

So he resorted to the plain, undecorated truth.

“Bo-Katan is not going to stop. I have to sort this out.” 

“I know,” Sabine said, her voice muffled as she spoke mostly into his collar. “I know, just… don’t go alone.”

He moved so he could tuck her head under his chin. “Okay.”

“Promise,” she urged.

He breathed out, closed his eyes, and drew out the strongest words he had ever learned to cement a deal.

“Haat, ijaat, haa’it.”

. . . . .

Notes...

. . . . .

Ezra: Do I even weigh anything to you?

Pekka: Honestly, it’s like holding a bunch of space grapes.

. . . . .

I’m gonna be honest, I meant for this chapter to hold much more plot. I’ve been wanting to pick up the pace a little and get to the action, but at the same time, I don’t want to sacrifice the heart of this story and that is the characters and their arcs and bonds. 

. . . . .

There is very little in the Ahsoka show I can bear to even acknowledge, but Jai Kell being the governor of Lothal is pretty neat, so I’ll keep that.

I do like the idea that after the planet was liberated, Ryder Azadi resumed his role as governor, but it has been over a decade since. Back when I started this story and first brought him in, I was a little on the fence but I felt like he should be retired, I just never gave any thought to who the office would go to and I certainly never thought of Jai Kell.

(And it’s on purpose that I either use his full name or his surname because I went and named Din’s buir Jai all the way back when I hadn’t finished watching Rebels through and didn’t know Jai Kell was gonna come back in the end 😬)

. . . . .

If you’ve watched Rebels, I’m a little bit hoping you catch a parallel here with the end of season 2 where Kanan’s getting ready to go to Malachor and Hera’s struggling with it. It always strikes me that it’s Sabine who clearly notices the problem that draws Kanan’s attention to it. Honestly, it’s one of her most shining moments as a character to me. This is that Sabine, about 13 years later, going through the same thing but from Hera’s position rather than an onlooker.

(And if you have seen the season 2 finale, let me assure you I am not doing *that* okay? Hera basically told Kanan they should go all together but they didn’t and it went bad, so this time, Sabine’s making sure they don’t repeat history)

. . . . .

🎶chapter playlist🎶

On the Other Side — Peter Bradley Adams

The Lighthouse — Written by Wolves

Long Way Home from Here — Matthew Perry Jones

The Last Time I Was Home — The Workday Release

Where We Belong — Thriving Ivory

Save Tonight — Eagle-Eye Cherry

The Last Day on Earth — Kate Miller-Heidke

Cry for Help — Daughtry

Dearly Beloved — Daughtry