#Clois Prompt 5

[whump-tr0pes]

Honor Bound 6 - 31 (Headache/Migraine) - @badthingshappenbingo

Red X for posted, white X for requested! Send in your requests! If you don’t see a prompt here that you already requested, please send it again!

~

This is a series. Start here, continued from here.

This is a sequel to Honor Bound, Honor Bound 2, Honor Bound 3, Honor Bound 4, Honor Bound 5, and the prequel Vera.

AO3

Masterlist

Contents: sick fic, past captivity, unsure of reality, past forced confession, past offscreen murder of a child, self-hatred, past hallucinations, past murder, fear of taking pills, so much angst

~

The cloying sensation of pain reached Gavin through heavy waves of nausea and exhaustion. He squeezed his eyes shut and winced as the pain sharpened to a hot, pulsing point behind his left eye. A chill shuddered over his shoulders, down his spine, back up into the tight muscles of his neck. His own clammy fingers pressed against his forehead in a feeble attempt to relieve the pain.

There was no relief, down here in the basement.

He was a little warm, at least, under the three blankets he had earned with his confessions. They hadn’t been wild and desperate, like the confessions pried out of him by the drugs or the razor-sharp edge of Schiester’s knife. Each one had been deliberate. He had known the bargain he was making with each one.

“My coming back was my fault. Not theirs. I… I sh-should have died. It wasn’t their fault.”

“I… I shot Gray. In the chest. Back when I was… when I was still fighting them. I shot them in the chest and left them to die.”

“Wh-when I was sixteen, my mother offered me a child… I see it was a test, I see that now, but at the time I just saw a plaything that I knew I should – that I knew how to hurt. I… I killed her. Quickly. I—”

Schiester had backhanded him across the mouth before he could finish the sentence.

Each confession had been worth it. Each one had come with a beating that had left Gavin screaming in pain, but each was worth it. He had confessed his crimes to someone who would punish him for them, and properly, not with easy forgiveness. And what was more – each confession earned him a blanket that held off the cold. Still, despite the blankets over him, he shivered with cold sweat.

He didn’t try to raise his head or look around. He simply lay still, frozen in place with the pain, trying and failing to cease to exist. Terror was a steady thrum alongside his heartbeat, as he knew at any moment his tormentor would return and use this agony against him. There was nothing he could do to stop that now. He could no sooner stop the pain than he could stop the sluggish beat of his own heart, matching the dull thud within his own head. Each breath whooshed softly into his nose, huffed softly out of his mouth. His body was a heap of mechanical processes that carried on, even as his every reason for living had abandoned him here. His life was simply a serious of moments extended by the sadistic whims of the man still keeping him alive. Schiester made his commands, and his body obeyed. Nothing would stop the pain. There was no such thing as relief in this basement. There was no ice, no rizatriptan, no mercy.

Isaac had stopped looking—

“Gavin.”

Gavin cried out and flung himself upright. Isaac stood at the side of the bed, one hand outstretched and almost touching him. Gavin quaked with each panting breath as his arms shook under him and finally collapsed. Pain seared behind his eyes as he stared up at Isaac, who was starting to blur with tears.

“Are you alright?” Isaac murmured.

“You… g-got me out,” Gavin croaked. His mouth was so dry. His left eye felt like it was starting to melt out of his head.

Isaac sat carefully on the side of the bed, hand still outstretched. His fingers gently brushed through Gavin’s hair – Gavin realized then that it was soaked with sweat. “Yes,” Isaac said heavily. “I… I got you out, Gavin. Bad dream? Or…?”

“Migraine,” Gavin said, and pressed his face against the pillow. “Isaac, I—” He shoved a hand against his own mouth and dry heaved.

“Gray brought your rizatriptan,” Isaac said, rising again. Gavin groaned as the bed jostled. “Let me go get you some.”

“A-and water,” Gavin said weakly. “Please.”

“Sure,” Isaac said as he left the room.

Gavin trembled and clutched at the pillow beneath his head. As much as it pained him, he forced himself to look around, to take in the sight of the room – the peeling paint on the walls, the curtains lit by the sun slanting into the windows, the warmth of the light, the size of the room. It looked nothing like the cold, dark basement that had been his prison for what had felt like months. It felt nothing like the cramped, cruel cell where he had been kept. When Isaac entered the room again with a glass of water and a pill pinched between his fingers, the tears in Gavin’s eyes spilled over.

“N-not fucking going back,” he rasped. He dropped his head and muffled a sob against his pillow as Isaac sat beside him once more.

“No way,” Isaac said, every word sounding strained. He held the pill to Gavin’s lips, and Gavin took it, willingly.

Schiester could have drugged me this way.

The thought was a brick in Gavin’s stomach. He could have put it in my food. He didn’t have to fucking… inject it. But… An entirely different thought crossed his mind that brought a chill to his heart. This could all still be a hallucination. This could just be how he’s keeping me drugged.

As Isaac tipped the glass of water to Gavin’s lips, Gavin hesitated. Isaac froze with the glass still held out. “You alright?” Isaac rasped.

Gavin trembled as he raised his gaze to Isaac. Isaac’s eyes were brown, not blue. And he hadn’t hurt Gavin at all. Not yet. But Schiester could be playing the long game. After all, he’d been playing the long game by letting Gavin think he had escaped to the north safely back in May. This could all just be another fucking joke to him, like faking the hanging after he murdered Lucy and Topher.

Isaac swallowed hard. “Gavin?” he said softly. “Is… What—”

Gavin raised a shaking hand and dug the pill out of his mouth. It was already beginning to disintegrate and leave a gritty residue on his tongue. He stared at it between his fingers, then looked back to Isaac again.

Isaac’s eyebrows pulled together. “Gavin, what are you—”

“What happens to me if I don’t take this?” Gavin breathed. Light pulsed on the left side of his vision.

Isaac’s eyes widened. “What happens…? Nothing, Gavin, nothing happens to you. Except maybe your migraine doesn’t get much better. I don’t…” He reached out to gently stroke Gavin’s cheek.

Gavin flinched at the contact. Isaac jerked his hand back like Gavin had bitten him.

“Gavin,” Isaac said, realization crossing his face. “No. This isn’t… come on, Gavin, this is—”

“Prove it, then.” The words barely made a sound as they passed Gavin’s lips. He reached over to the nightstand and rolled his fingers together until the sticky pill dropped onto the wood. He nearly threw up then, just from the effort of holding himself up with his head pounding so ferociously. Shaking, he returned his gaze to Isaac – or the specter that could be wearing Isaac’s form. He braced for the collapse of the illusion: the sneer of contempt, the flash of violence in Isaac’s eyes, the snap of his fingers as he ordered the guards who must be currently outside of Gavin’s vision to step into the cell with him and hold him down and hurt him—

Instead, a horrible, guilty brokenness crawled across Isaac’s face. The lines around his eyes deepened, and a terrible sadness tugged at his mouth. He held his hands out, at his sides, empty and harmless. His eyes swam with helpless tears.

“I… w-won’t make you take anything you don’t want to, Gavin,” he said weakly. “I was just trying to help.”

Gavin’s throat tightened, and he could feel nothing but heat and pain. He squeezed his eyes shut and grasped at the relief of the momentary darkness. Then, he blinked his eyes open and reached for Isaac. Isaac’s shoulders fell, and he let Gavin take his hand.

“P-please,” Gavin whispered. “Please, I just…” He sobbed weakly and whimpered when that only ratcheted up the pain in his head.

“Here,” Isaac said, tears falling down his own cheeks. He guided Gavin to lay down again and stretched out beside him. “No… no pills. Just… I can just be with you. And hold you. Would that be… would that… help?”

“Yeah,” Gavin croaked, his throat still tight. He could barely see out of his left eye, and every heartbeat was agony. Still, Isaac was here. Isaac had his hands on him, and was pulling him close, and was holding him. He buried his face in Isaac’s chest and let out another broken sob.

Even as he shivered and twisted in Isaac’s arms from the pain, his heartrate slowed. The Isaac holding him was solid and real, even nothing else in the world was.

Something prickled in the back of Gavin’s mind. He swallowed hard, swallowed back the terror and pain that quivered beneath his skin; the Isaac holding him was real, because Daniel Schiester would never, ever have allowed Gavin Uriah to say no to him. The pill lay on the nightstand beside the bed still, beside the untouched water glass.

Continued here

@womping-grounds ​, @free-2bmee ​, @quirkykayleetam ​, @walkingchemicalfire ​, @inpainandsuffering ​, @redwingedwhump ​, @burtlederp ​, @castielamigos-whump-side-blog ​ , @whatwhumpcomments ​, @whumpywhumper ​, @stxck-fxck ​, @whumps-the-word ​, @justplainwhump ​, @finder-of-rings ​, @inky-whump ​, @orchidscript ​, @inkyinsanity ​, @this-mightaswell-happen ​, @newandfiguringitout ​, @whumpkitty ​, @pretty-face-breaker ​, @pebbledriscoll ​, @im-just-here-for-the-whump ​, @endless-whump ​, @grizzlie70 ​, @oops-its-whump ​, @kixngiggles​, @1phoenixfeather ​ , @butwhatifyouwrite ​, @carnagecardinal , @whumpifi , @squishablesunbeam

[nixie-deangel]

Author love!!!! What are the 5 favourite fics you’ve ever written and why?

💚💙💜💚💙💜 Nonnie, know I am laying the gentlest of kisses upon your forehead and hugging you tightly.

Honestly though Nonnie, I enjoyed writing all of these for a variety of reasons. Each piece I've written holds a special place to me. Also please know Nonnie I cried when I got thise because i've been feeling a little blah about my writing but I went back and reread these and remembered why I loved them while I was trying to figure out which of my works i would add to this because damn it was HARD narrowing it down to five once I started rereading my stuff. So you know what people you should take the time every now and again to reread your own stuff!

In no particular order, here are my favorites I've written:

You Make Me Bold, You Make Me Strong: DCEU, Clois, NSFW.

Perhaps, she thinks, maybe she’ll get him to come once more for her. Though, she muses as she tilts her head, watches the way he pants, the way he’s gripping the sheets — doing his level best not to tear or damage them — she could probably squeeze two more out of him. Before calling it a night and letting him rest. Yes, she decides and shifts, widening her knees, getting herself more balanced, she’ll get two more out of him before letting him float without flying. 

Why: Because Clark absolutely DESERVES to be railed by his petite wife and her collection of stap-ons! Like, come on! He's a good boy! He deserves to be rawed and turned into a crying, whiney, blubbering, over stimulated mess.

Didn't Know I Was Lost: Star Wars, Obikin, Modern AU.

No, no, he thinks and shakes his head before pinching himself harshly on his cheek. “Ouch,” he muttered to himself, opening his eyes as he ignored the sting. Swallowing, around the lump once again forming in his throat, he simply stares. Because Obi-wan was still there. Still wrapped up in a perfectly tailored suit and his long beige coat, sitting with no bag in front of his front door. Or both Obi-wan and Anakin both try to make a grand gesture, but only one of them succeeds at it. Also feelings are discussed.

Why: This was honestly a delight to write, despite the angsty bits of it. It kind of just poured out of me and was like my hands were possessed as the story just flowed onto the doc. Was also beyond fun to play around and pack in so much emotion to the only one bed prompt.

The Malfunction: The Flash, Coldflash, Modern/Model AU.

Because of course Iris had mentioned at the last family dinner that she had been asked to cover one of the hottest stories in Central. Barry just wishes he’d bothered to actually ask her which one because standing not ten feet from him is Leonard Snart, Barry’s ultimate celebrity crush and a personal hero of his. *AU where Len is a model and he meets awkward Barry, a tech at a photo shoot.

Why: I wrote this when I was dealing with some feelings about my body issues and this is what came out as a result of me just deciding to not give a fuck about other's opinions and being comfortable with myself! I specifically wrote it as coldflash though, because of Wentworth Miller, who's own statements about people commenting about his body, also helped me with mine.

I'll Be Your Guard Heart: TGM, Hangster, Shifter AU.

Jake only loses control when it comes to Bradley Bradshaw and he was okay with that.

Why: Because I needed Jake to be an absolutely petty, feral, over protective, possessive bitch that's hidden under a veneer of cocky asshole! Really though, it was fun to write. Fun to come up with. And it's been fun expanding upon! (because I am planning to add more to this universe eventually!) Plus it is my favorite thing I've written so far this year.

Uncovering the Meaning: The Flash, Coldflash, Soulmate AU.

“It doesn’t matter, Leo. The little freak wouldn’t love you anyway. No one could love you, boy!” Lewis taunted cruelly. Len felt himself flinch from the memory of his father’s voice from the nightmare that’d woken him up. He brought his left hand to rub at the deep scar on the left side of his chest, but after a moment, he simply laid his palm flat against it.

Why: This was the first thing I'd written in years that was longer than 2k, so it holds a special place in my heart. Plus I met my bestie @asexual-fandom-queen through writing this!

[illmetkismet]

Day 1: 'Ruined Orgasm/Phone Sex'

"I’d like to try something a little different, if you'll indulge me," Luis purrs on the other end of the line, his voice rumbling and curling in around Leon as though Luis is breathing it out like his cigarette smoke. Just like the smoke, it's a little bit cloying, a little bit grating, and very, very heady. The extra bit of rumble Luis puts into it reverberates up Leon's spine, makes his skin tingle, makes him breathe a little shallower.

Leon's hand doesn't stop working his cock as he presses his cheek against the creaky old motel room phone receiver, turns into it like a touch, and asks, "Oh yeah? What do you have in mind?"

----

hey did i actually write something for #serennedyweek2024???? woooow! please enjoy leon being sexually tormented. i know i do!

[itsoneofthemuses]

tagged by the one and only, the inimitable @rememberthismomentx

1. How many works do you have on Ao3?

62

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count?

225 819

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Generally only one at a time, but I've technically published fic in five fandoms: The Rookie, Community, Supernatural, Archer, and Thor.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

if you smile at me again i may do something stupid (The Rookie)

don't wanna stop just because people walking by are watching us (The Rookie)

let me go under your skin, let me find the demons that drive those heavenly limbs (The Rookie)

you be screamin' now they banging on our door (The Rookie)

i've got time, i've got love (The Rookie)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I do! As much as I can! You could probably rope me into a whole ass conversation because I don't know how to end the call and response.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

The as of yet publicly unpublished "random angst prompt" which will breach containment eventually, after I clean it up.

As for published fics, angst is not my forte, so I don't do it often, and it's rarely actually that angsty... But maybe a tie between we drank a toast to innocence (The Rookie) or between the drinks and subtle things, the holes in my apologies (The Rookie)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Uh... Hmm. 95% of my fics have happy endings so it's hard for me to judge. Maybe my recent one, she's just a girl and she's on fire (The Rookie)?

I also took a few steps past sappy in you're one of the few things that i'm sure of (The Rookie) and Life Lessons in Absurdist Storytelling (Community)

8. Do you get hate on fics?

All my good luck must get used up here, because I really don't.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do write smut! And I guess it's mostly the cishet kind because those have mostly been my ships (special place in my heart for Troy/Abed).

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've dabbled, on occasion, but it's not really my go-to. I have an unfinished Supernatural/Community crossover and that's about it.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Don't think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? 

Not that I'm aware of.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I've riffed back and forth in comments and on discord or email, but no, never a properly co-authored fic.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

Oh gosh, well, I'm still here with chenford but Jeff/Annie will always have my heart even if I'm not involved in the fandom anymore.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The only WIP is the aforementioned Supernatural/Community crossover and, like, sorry... It's probably never happening. I do have a jucy lay-turned-chenford fic that has been under construction since 2021-ish.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I like to think I'm funnyish and can get some decent banter going. Not totally sure what my writing strengths are... Entertaining myself, most probably.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Ha, well, this I could write an essay on. Occasionally my worst impulses run away with me and I try to be really poetic and it just comes off cloying, I think? Or incoherent, maybe.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I can passably write some French and I might occasionally, if the situation calls for it, use google translate (Community was initially centred around a study group for Spanish, for instance) but I typically stick to English as it's the language I know best and the one, usually, that my characters know best too.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Ha, I don't know if I want to admit this... But X-Men (the comics, not the movie, my fics predated the movies 😅)

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Ooh, I'm terrible at picking favourites, but I enjoyed both of my vampire slayer AUs: 'cause i know you and you know me (The Rookie) and Special Topics in Demonology (A): Vampire Basics (Community).

And, fine, fine, not popular in a shipping community obviously, but as the founding member of the Let Lucy Get Laid Brigade, I wrote a few fics featuring Lucy with other partners for #30daysoflovingforlucy and cast various Canadians, and it was just fun. All five fics are part of my series but baby it's okay if i am still the best you had

Obviously, anyone who would like to participate should (would love to see gif makers like @detectivechen or @relentlessescapism answer these kinds of questions...), but for the purposes of spreading the joy far and wide (no pressure), @dollsome-does-tumblr, @write-or-wrong88, @doomedship, @jakelovesamy, @universallongings, @farfarawaygirl

[ihaveatheoryonthat]

Whumptober* Day 5: Hyperthermia (& bonus Hypothermia)

(*Task failed successfully. This became straight-up fluff.)

Today’s prompt tied in nicely with a point I alluded to, but didn’t really explore in my first stab at @blaiddraws Fulcrum AU-- just, it’s more focused on body heat and less fever. I think narrowing things down to that specific theme helped a lot; it doesn’t cover as much ground as the original did, but it’s finished.

---

Emmet had decided that, when their time finally rolled back around, this was precisely where they could be met: a random hole in the side of Mt. Coronet.

Maybe ‘random’ wasn’t entirely fair-- it had clearly been used as a den for some time, and boasted more furnishing than your standard mountainside hole-- but it didn’t matter. If the Hisuian tales of someone ‘neither man nor Pokemon’ inspired visitors, they would be hard pressed to find the right entryway out of the many tunnels that littered the territory.

That wasn’t the point, anyway. The point was that Emmet intended to stay sprawled here for the next few centuries, and Ingo didn’t seem compelled to alter that course; there was a low, content rumble of thunder beneath him, and Emmet took that as an all clear.

He hadn’t appreciated just how much the world could change, independent of human truths or ideals, until stepping foot into the bitter cold of Hisui. It had been a miserable slog from the Alabaster Icelands, and that was speaking as a fire type; he didn’t want to imagine what the trip might have been like without an internal pilot light to burn away the worst of it.

The less said of traversing it with a proper type vulnerability, the better. If he could pretend he was just huddling near to save his twin the sleepy discomfort of a Nimbasan winter, wonderful-- it meant he didn’t have to dwell on the earnestness of Ingo’s “You’re so warm,” like the concept had never even occurred to him. It meant he didn’t need to consider a reality where his other half had known only the freezing cold, unaware that he was supposed to have a counterbalance to protect him from it.

He let out a disgruntled huff of breath and rested his chin atop his brother’s head, ignoring the minor tilt as Ingo shot him a sideways look; the darker dragon settled back down within the moment, either unwilling or unable to raise a complaint, and, frankly, Emmet didn’t care which one it was. All that mattered right now was getting him warmed up, and there was nobody better suited to the task than Reshiram himself.

---

It wasn’t saying much, but in all his years, Ingo hadn’t realized that it was possible to be so warm.

Hisui ran cold, but that wasn’t to say it was without its more temperate locations. The Coastlands had Firespit Island, and the Mirelands were… bearable; in areas lacking snow’s ambient chill, it was possible to bask in the sun and not feel the cloying grasp of an inescapable winter.

For quite some time, he’d thought it was just him. While humans like Irida and Gaeric had an immunity to the tundra that left their peers in awe, as a whole, they didn’t seem to suffer the perpetual frostbite that Ingo did. Pokemon, too, were able to weather it with little difficulty, their type depending.

The closest he’d ever come to seeing eye to eye in this regard had been with the Garchomp Akari trained-- and even he hadn’t known what Ingo was talking about. Yes, it agreed, the cold was terrible and the fact that its kind nested in such harsh climes was ridiculous-- but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be remedied by nestling into a den or sprawling next to a fire.

There hadn’t been any point in arguing-- never mind that Ingo spent the greater portions of the winter holed up with Sneasler and her clowder. He could concede that it was orders better than being stranded in the snow, but it wasn’t…

He didn’t know what it wasn’t. Enough? It should have been. Sneasler was under no obligation to allow him so close to her young-- not when he was a complete unknown. It wasn’t right? Who was he to make such a bold claim? For the Sneasel and their mother, it was perfect-- if he had a problem with it, that was his burden to bear.

It wasn’t ideal, he supposed-- not his, at least.

Maybe something in him had frozen, back before he’d woken up, and all of Hisui’s scant warmth combined wasn’t enough to thaw him out. He’d all but resigned himself to lifetime of it, and could admit that he was… dumbstruck to find an alternate station.

Firespit Island burned, too intense to stay put and let the outermost edges of his permafrost melt, leaving them to build right back up as soon as he stepped away. For a moment, The Other’s touch had felt just the same, but it wasn’t. Though Ingo had nothing in living memory to compare the sensation to, he knew it was familiar. Right. Ideal.

And, more to the point, it was enough. The frost had spent too long building to thaw with a single touch, but in that moment the glacier inside of him had calved, bringing to light information that had been since buried in ice.

That was his Other! Emmet--? Reshiram? Both? His twin! His other half!

In short order, the intense heat mellowed enough for Ingo to realize that it hadn’t ever been so hot as to burn-- only to warm. It was simply that he, himself, had been too cold to feel even mildly tepid and not flinch away from the perceived threat.

He wasn’t really cognizant of how and when they’d gotten to his den, but when he tuned back into reality, he was at home with his brother draped over his back, radiating more heat than was practical. Something deep in the build up of ice resonated with that observation-- it was normal, he thought. Emmet always ran warm, even when they presented as humans; the real challenge was keeping him from getting excited and subconsciously turning any given room into a sauna.

A moment later, Ingo caught up to himself and the… odd implications of that thought. Humans? He would tuck it away for later, when he had the wherewithal to do more than rumble his contentment while his twin grumbled about keeping him pinned for the next several centuries.

While he couldn’t live up to the threat in full, Emmet certainly did his best to prove the point. Once he deigned to get to his feet, there was a noticeable chill in the air. Ingo had never known this cave to be particularly drafty-- it was why he’d chosen it in the first place-- leaving him to wonder if the breeze had always been there and he just hadn’t noticed.

But his twin didn’t have time for his philosophizing, it seemed, and yanked him upright without a word; as soon as they were eye to eye, he pressed their heads together and hummed. The warmth in the form before Ingo was still there, but muted-- not because he’d grown complacent, but because he could still feel it radiating through his plating, back towards its source.

If he could acclimate-- however poorly-- to the cold, could he then reacclimate to this? He wanted to. Sinnoh above he wanted to.

“Acceptable. For now.” Emmet decided, and pulled away to poke his nose out of the den. Ingo wasn’t entirely sure what he expected to find there, considering they’d spent the daylight hours in a monochrome huddle, but didn’t stop him.

The chill was still present, but his face felt warm and flushed, at complete odds with it-- like the cold air was settling on his scales and evaporating on contact. Good riddance, he couldn’t help but think. All these years of building up snow, and he wouldn’t stand for another moment of it.

Somewhere in him, the glacier still lingered, but its days were numbered. With time, it would slowly melt into nothing.

...maybe Emmet was right.

A few centuries curled into ball of opposites sounded pretty good.

[autumnslance]

Fic Stats Breakdown

Rules: give us the links to your fic with the most hits, second most kudos, third most comments, fourth most bookmarks, fifth most words, and finally the fic with the least words.

Stats page my beloved. When I feel uncertain about myself, going there to see how much I’ve written, and how much it’s been interacted with, is always enlightening.

Also where you’ll see the accurate count of Bookmarks; you still can’t see info on private Bookmarks, but you get the actual number of them.

Tagged by @rinzukodas if you want to do it, by all means!

1. Most Hits: Unexpected. It's the one with the most updates, so makes sense.

She made it halfway across the room to the large man when she stopped and frowned. ’Was Thancred flirting with me?’ She always had such a hard time telling, and he seemed to have a mischievous reputation and way with women–especially if those visions were true and not some strange aetheric fever dreams. Aeryn shook her head. Thancred was a gregarious man, objectively handsome–the open cut of the oasis style shirt and jacket he wore tonight flattered his athletic form–and they’d fought alongside one another a few times now. He had been looking out for her, naught more, his perceptive skills noting her discomfort.

2. Second Most Kudos: Unexpected again! Cuz that and Downtime compete for my most read and popular fics. I should update Downtime.

3. Third Most Comments: Downtime! I tend to reply often, so my comment counts are high, but Unexpected is #1, while Bearing Sins of the Past is #2 for comment threads.

“I believe the Exarch wished Urianger’s aid with some arcane matter,” Alphinaud said, as he joined his sister. “They are like to be occupied for several bells. Why don’t you join us?” He said. “We were going to explore the Crystarium’s new nightlife, before retiring to our quarters--and knowing Alisaie, continuing to stay up half the night.” “Me? You’re the one wanting to gab endlessly as you write every stray thought into your journal,” Alisaie countered. Minfilia looked between them, bewildered for a moment--then she smiled, realizing the honest affection beneath the banter. She nodded. “I...think I would like that.”

4. Fourth Most Bookmarks: Rogue’s Prelude. An earlier longfic (37.2k words) of my headcanon of Thancred meeting Louisoix, Papalymo, and Yda as a youth in Limsa Lominsa.

The docks were busy; the tide had come in recently and had brought a number of ships with it, divesting cargo and people into the city. Thancred enjoyed the sights, sounds, and even some of the smells as he wove between fishermen stalls and merchant carts, seeking unfamiliar faces. He didn’t even look as he brushed past a few Thavnairian traders, listening to their sing-song language as he cloyed a purse from one animated fellow, arguing with the bosun of the ship they had just left. He should really pay more attention to his surroundings when in a foreign city. As should the older elezen man Thancred noted, leaning on a staff while a pretty blonde hyur woman consulted a map. Her elder listened to her with patience--or perhaps he was simply half-asleep in the sun and heat. Thancred ambled toward the pair, falling in behind sailors moving crates from the pier onto their ship, now that their passengers had disembarked. As he moved past his mark, he deftly nicked the contents from the old man’s belt pouch-- --and found himself skidding a few fulms down the dock, a brief flash of light and a sound like a small, localized clap of thunder ringing Thancred’s ears and causing stars to burst before his eyes. A few people nearby were startled; he thought he maybe heard someone laugh.

5. Fifth Most Words: Bearing Sins of the Past. A 25.1k longfic that unexpectedly came out of various FFXIV Write prompts about my WoL Aeryn's backstory; her bio-father's involvement in the Dragonsong War, and the Dragoon that hid that knowledge for twenty years to keep her safe--and bury his own guilt.

X’rhun narrowed his eyes. “I agreed to the secret for your damnable Ishgardian politics,” he said. “But it’s just us out here. Are you truly protecting Aeryn—or yourself?” Alberic turned, and X’rhun braced himself, as he was certain the dragoon was about to strike him. Instead, Alberic remained in a state of tension, staring without seeing at some middle distant point. “You ever carry something so long it’s become woven into you?” he asked quietly.

6. Least Words: Savior, the very first thing I posted to Ao3. 262 words, 2nd person POV about the aftermath of the Final Steps of Faith. There are technically shorter works, but they tend to go into my prompt or specific topic-chaptered fics.

You couldn’t save them. They had sacrificed themselves, to ensure you lived, to ensure this moment. They had come, once again, to your side. To end the war. To protect the city. To save a friend.

[svgurl410]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ❤

Thanks for asking! I have a tough time picking fics I like that I wrote but I will give it a shot. :D

In no particular order: 1. it was always you (mcu, thor/sif, teen, 4943w) - a thor/sif soulmate fic. i was nervous since i hadn't written this ship and their voices were intimidating but i was happy with how it turned out.

2. meeting in the middle (superman returns, clark/richard pre-slash, teen, 1445w) - another new fandom/ship i wrote for yuletide and it was fun to think about it/give a shot

3. you drive me crazy (but its all right) (smalville, clark/lois, teen, 2408w) - a clois s4 fic where studying turns into something more. i enjoyed writing them in the early seasons and it was easy to just keep going

4. you feel like home (mcu, sam/bucky, teen, 2843w) - in which bucky starts wearing cap gear to drive sam nuts. the prompt was the recip's and it was another one i liked writing

5. let's give them something to talk about (how about love) (smallville, clark/oliver, teen, 10604w) - a clark/oliver fake dating fic. i love the theme and was happy to have an excuse to write it for them.

[unlividoxwrites]

Short story:

The Girl and the Fox by @unlividoxwrites

Prompt — Autumn

My 4 things: A fox, an ominous trail, a cape-like scarf, and a lone black umbrella under a tree

My 5 words: deciduous, russet, susurrus, reap and brisk

Have you ever noticed an animal acting more human than it should from the corner of your eye? That moment where you think you’ve just caught a glimpse of two birds having a lovers tiff? Or where it really does seem as if there's about to be a cat-fight over some undeserving tom?

Well it was a moment like that which caught a young university student off guard one brisk Autumn morning. Elle had decidedly gone out to read in the invigorating chill of autumn, her coffee cup cooling half-forgotten beside her. She’d been idly reading her book—Leah on the Offbeat the, so-far awesome, bi-conic sequel to Becky Albertalli’s Simon Vs the Homosapian’s Agenda—when a shuffling caught her peripheral vision. Amongst the scattered fire-crackle leaves, on the far edge of the park, well away from the beaten path, an enchanting fox was seemingly searching through the underbrush before it abruptly came to a halt. Striking sapphire-blue eyes peaked from under the fox’s russet coat, and locked with Elle’s. For that moment the breath was stolen from her—it seemed as if everything else around her had frozen. Black whiskers peppered the animal’s face, giving it an almost boy-ish charm, as it struck back into motion, beckoning the girl with a paw before giving a mischievous smirk.

For a girl who’d marvelled in tales of far-off kingdoms and lands of wonder, she, with no question or hesitation, felt compelled to follow the fox immediately. Her coffee grew cold and bitter as she left it behind, along with her wits and a lone black umbrella that would sit forever more beneath the warm and welcoming branches of an ancient tree.

It took only a few minutes for her to catch up with her little amber friend, as it happened, he’d waited for her. His tale flickered as she appeared through the opening in the treeline he’d come through just minutes prior. Once she was close enough, he sent her a wink which jarringly and oppressively seemed to calm her nerves. She tugged her cape-like scarf tighter around her shoulders, shivering violently as the temperature seemed to drop—the chill in the breeze was heightened by the susurrus of the forest's foliage.

Deciduous trees seemed stuck in various time stages as the omniscient creature led her deeper and deeper along the ominously winding dirt path he’d lured her to, one which seemed never-ending and stuck in a stage of time in and of itself. A fog had long since descended in the far distance, yet no matter how long she seemed to follow the fox, the malignant mist never seemed to get any closer, nor clear in the slightest—it stayed just in view, yet out of reach.

After what could’ve been an age, or merely half an hour, whether it was the exertion from walking or the cloying feeling of the forest surrounding her, Elle seemed suddenly reaped of all her energy. Her once vibrant blonde hair lay in a faded halo around the crown of her head as she lay back amongst the snow-laden ground. The fox, a bright red warning sign burrowed into her side as she sunk further into the earth. Her hazel eyes had dulled to an unpolished mahogany, her skin more translucent than the snow around her.

She wasn’t to know the fox was leading her to her uncertain demise. That such a creature fed on the will of young minds, feasted on creativity and mocked all optimism. But a word to the wise—if a fox beckons you to follow it down an undetermined path, assume it has ulterior motives.

[lady-wallace]

Losing All Control: Whumptober Day 23 (JJBA)

@whumptober

This one is a long one, so if you want to read the whole thing, you’ll have to go to one of the links below. This one can also be considered a halloween fic because we have mad scientists and body horror.

Also another Bucci Gang La Squadra team up, so that’s the third one this year XD

Prompt: “At the End of Their Rope” (tied to a table, ‘hold them down’)

Fandom: JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5

Character(s): Bucciarati, Risotto, Melone, Fugo

~~~~~~~

Read on Ao3

Read on FF.net

Masterpost

~~~~~~~

Bucciarati stared out at the docks, the light night breeze stirring his hair. So far, no indication of anything odd.

The others were a little further down looking through the stacks of containers. This was the site of a rash of recent disappearances; too many to be normal. Bruno had begun to suspect a trafficking ring, but there was still something about the whole situation that seemed off. Especially when you added in the strangely mangled corpse that had been pulled out of the river two days ago. It was all very odd and Bruno was determined to get to the bottom of it.

The sound of a footstep caught his ear nearby and he glanced over his shoulder, instantly on the alert. His team would have announced their presence.

He summoned Sticky Fingers to be at the ready and stepped around the corner.

Only to run into a tall figure dressed in black who was just as surprised and wary to see him there as Bruno was.

"Nero," Bruno said, cautiously eyeing the leader of the hitmen.

"Bucciarati," the other man replied, staring back. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Bruno said firmly. "Tell me, did you recruit a new member recently?"

Risotto huffed out a snort. "You're asking if that corpse was ours and you'd be wrong. The strange deaths and disappearances have caught our eye too, especially since a lot of them were members of Passione; Stand users—I'm sure you're aware."

Bruno nodded in confirmation. "So, you're investigating too?" he asked cautiously.

Risotto pressed his lips together. "I don't like the idea of unknown attackers in the city. I take care of my team too."

Bucciarati inclined his head understandingly. "I know. So perhaps we should team up?"

"It will make the search go more quickly," Risotto admitted.

Bruno pulled out his phone. "I'll call my team to make sure they don't assume you're hostile."

Risotto grunted, but suddenly held up his hand before Bruno could dial Giorno's number. "Wait."

"What is it?"

"I thought I heard—"

There was the rattle of a metal can and Bruno spotted an object rolling across the ground toward them.

"Sticky Fingers!" he shouted, but before his Stand could create a pocket for the can to roll into, it exploded in a cloud of cloying smoke.

Bruno gagged and could hear Risotto coughing as well. His eyes were watering, but the smoke was so thick that he couldn't breathe. Sticky Fingers was also unreachable.

Bruno collapsed to his knees, feeling like he was suffocating. The last thing he saw before he passed out was a shadowy figure walking through the smoke.

XXX

Bruno woke groggily, throat raw, eyes swollen. He vaguely remembered the smoke, and was instantly on the alert, unsure as to what exactly had happened but knowing it wasn't good.

As he tried to move, he found he was not able to. That he was, in fact, strapped to some sort of metal table.

He tugged at the restraints, but they were tight and there was something that was inhibiting him from using Sticky Fingers.

A groan from nearby alerted him to another presence and Bruno glanced over to see Risotto also strapped to a table beside him. The hitman's eyes blinked open, tensing instantly as he tugged at the restraints, hands clenching into fists.

"It's no good," Bruno croaked as Risotto turned his head to look at him. "Whatever that was has inhibited my Stand."

Risotto stared up at the ceiling as Bruno looked around the dimly lit room. It seemed to be some sort of laboratory, but for what purpose he shuddered to guess.

A door opened to one side of the room and a figure walked in, putting them both on the alert. "Ah you're awake. Good."

"Who the hell are you?" Risotto demanded. "You do know who we are, right?"

The figured stepped into the light, revealing a thin, almost gaunt, middle-aged man with long hair tied back, and yellow tinted glasses perched on his nose. He shoved his hands into the pockets of the lab coat he was wearing.

"Of course. Risotto Nero, and Bruno Bucciarati. Two of the most powerful Stand users in Passione. You'll be perfect subjects for my experiments."

Experiments? Was that why this man was kidnapping Stand users? To try and experiment on them? What on earth could he possibly be trying to achieve with that?

"But I suppose it's rude of me not to have introduced myself," the man continued, placing a hand on his chest with a flourish. "Doctor Stefano Ortica. I thank you for furthering my research."

"I fail to see where we agreed to further anything," Bruno grunted, again tugging on his restraints.

Ortica gave him a predatory look. "All scientific advancements need a little unethical push, Bucciarati. Nothing would have ever been discovered without people like me."

"What exactly is it that you're doing here?" Risotto demanded.

"Evolution," Ortica said grandly. "The next evolution of Stand Users, to be exact. I heard rumors about that arrow, what it could do. But since the Don seems unwilling to share that power, then it's up to the rest of us to come up with a way to make Stands that can combat the naturally overpowered ones."

Bruno frowned. "And how do you think you're going to do that exactly?"

"The power of science, my dear Capo," Ortica said with a dark glee. "Which you will be experiencing for yourself very soon."

He stepped over between the two tables, glancing between his captives. "Who wants to volunteer for the first try?"

They glowered up at him.

"No? I promise you that I have already worked out all the kinks. It's perfectly safe." He sighed at their continued defiance. "Very well, make me play the villain, I suppose. You'll understand once you see what my potion is actually capable of." He raised a hand. "Bad Medicine!"

A Stand materialized behind him, thin, wasplike features. One of its hands was formed like a needle that dripped a glistening drop of some unnamed fluid.

"Administer the serum."

Bruno could only watch as the Stand spun to face him. A second later, the needle was jabbed into his neck, releasing the serum into his body.

The rush of it made him woozy at first, and then the first wave of pain hit.

Bruno couldn't help the sharp cry that escaped his throat. It felt like his body was on fire, liquid flames burning through his bloodstream.

"Let's see how this reacts when applied to more powerful Stand users," Ortica said.

Bruno was barely aware of him releasing the straps that held him to the table. The pain was only increasing.

He rolled off the table and collapsed on the ground with a scream of agony. It felt like his body was literally being torn apart.

He was vaguely aware of Risotto also experiencing a similar agony, crawling across the floor as if to find an exit.

Bruno's vision blurred, back arching as he felt something tear out of him. His suitcoat ripped and he looked down at his hands. He could only see Sticky Fingers's hands in place of his own. What did that mean?

The creak of a door opening caught his attention and his head snapped up. He could distinguish little in this state, but he saw several figures stumbling into the room, glowing with Stand aura.

For some reason that sent an unmitigated rage crashing over Bruno and he was on his feet in an instant, rushing toward them. He barely registered the screams. All he could think of was how much he wanted blood.

~~~~

Read the rest from the links above!

[tomionesmutfest2024]

Reader Bingo Board 1: Right Column Bingo

For context, there were three full Bingo boards, then all three versions condensed to be 4x4 and finally all three versions condensed to be 3x3. Here is one way to score bingo on the first board.

Foot Fetish

(Wow, I could not find anything on this, but here is a story that mentions feet 4(!) times - it might not feel like a lot but I was scraping the bottom of the barrel here.)

Fortune In Spades by LittleMulattoKitten

Summary:

Hermione was supposed to be married or otherwise "contained" as a concubine by her twentieth birthday, like the rest of the female muggleborns and halfbloods in Britain. She was not supposed to teach herself magic in secret and hope that one muggleborn peasant was insignificant enough to go unnoticed. She never expected to end up escorted up to the castle to the King's study. Nor did she expect him to decide her fate personally. King Tom never expected to find his favorite kind of woman —clever, strongwilled, and powerful— in a muggleborn scullery maid who'd somehow mastered wandless casting without a tutor. Law-breaker or not, she didn't belong in the dungeons. She belonged at his feet. She belonged in his bed. She belonged to him. He just had to show her. Written for Weestarmeggie's Tomione Smut Fest 2018.

2. Tied Up

The Last Time by WildKitsune

Summary:

Tom and Hermione keep finding reasons to hook up even though they are broken up, and they both know they will never be right for each other. Each time it happens, they always swear it will be the last time. Prompt by weestarmeggie17 “Tomione have split up but keep ending up in bed together because they can't help themselves”

3. Swallowing

Sunlit Garden by januarywren

Summary:

“I want a hero: an uncommon want,” Tom murmured, his index finger tracing beneath the finely printed words. Lord Byron’s work was a favorite of his, and his wife’s, “when every year and month sends forth a new one, till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, the age discovers he is not the true one – “ His wife curled in his arms, warm and sated with his spend dripping from her thighs. She made for a decadent sight; her chignon askew and her cheeks flushed pink, while Tom held her closer to him. She was the only one he desired close, the only one he had never considered pushing away. Nor did he desire the afternoons they spent at the manor to end when they made love freely throughout every wing of the manor and every sunny place outside. The garden was well tended, while the apple orchard stretched throughout countless acres, ensuring they would never be caught en dishabille unless they wished it. It was their private paradise, or their ‘Eden,’ as they called it. One that others would never know of... For the Tomione 2020 Fic Gift Exchange! 🔥💖

4. Anal

Teaching Miss Granger by Anonymous

Summary:

Hermione never foresaw herself breaking the rules, let alone one. It all changed in her sixth year when a new professor challenged her. Reading from books had its limits, he told her. Professor Riddle dared her to step out of her comfort zone. What was the point if she never put her knowledge to use? Magic had a purpose. She needed to find hers. Her sixth year passed by quickly as she learned more than she ever could. But reading books was still one of her favourite hobbies. Nothing could ever replace it until she discovers another passion.

5. Violence at Foreplay

A Soul's Epilogue by TheSoulweaver

Summary:

Years and years of war would exhaust a soul, straining it and wringing it dry with no escape except death. However, Death had a different plan for Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age. Her soul was transferred to a girl who was supposed to be dead. A handsome dark wizard had made sure of that. Or so he thought. *** "I vow to dismantle you, Tom," she whispered against his skin, her hands wandering from his chest to his shoulders in barely perceptible caresses. Sensually, she licked over his flesh. "I will slowly unravel you, and then I will mould you anew." Before he could respond, she sank her teeth into his throat, just enough to cause a sting. His hips bucked into hers, rubbing deliciously over her bare pussy. "And if that fails," she whispered, "I'll end you myself."

[chrisbitchtree]

April Prompt Challenge Day 9 - Goat

Full list of prompts here

***

One of the first things that Billy ever notices about Steve is his scent. It’s not like other boys and the cloying scent of cheap cologne that follows them around like they’re trying to cover for forgetting use deodorant. Which they probably are. Billy’s a teenage boy. He knows they stink. He’s had more than one emergency coverup situation himself. But not Steve. He smells soft and slightly sweet, with almost a hint of something nutty. Billy’s obsessed with it.

He takes any opportunity he can to get up close and personal with Steve, whether in basketball, or by picking him as a lab partner. Billy tries to keep his outright sniffing to a minimum, but sometimes the urge gets the better of him, and he has to lean in and get a whiff to tuck away so he can have it fresh in his mind for later, when he’s alone.

He tries hard to find out what the smell is, making it a habit to sniff any new soap, deodorant or body wash he comes across, but his quest has so far been fruitless. It’s going to remain a mystery, he supposes.

***

His obsession with the smell goes into overdrive once he starts dating Steve. Whether they’re cuddled up on the couch watching late night TV, out for a hike in the woods surrounding Hawkins, or just out for a drive, Billy is constantly surrounded by Steve and his wonderful scent. Billy had never really thought abut it before, but his brain just about melted the first time he gave Steve head, from a combination of finally seeing Steve’s monster dick up close and personal, and the heady smell that hits him when he opens Steve’s jeans, a mixture of ball sweat and that same clean, nutty scent. He was drooling, and not just from trying to take Steve’s entire length in his mouth.

Finally, one night, while they were watching a movie, Steve’s head leaning on Billy’s shoulder, Billy took a big whiff of his scent. Even with now unlimited access, he couldn’t help trying to drink his fill. He could hear Steve laughing softly as he turned his head. “Did you just sniff me, baby?” Billy could hear his cheeks heating up. “No, you’re crazy, pretty boy. Watch the movie.” Steve wouldn’t let it go though. “No, you definitely just sniffed me. Do I smell?” He lifted his armpit, getting a whiff for himself.

Billy shook his head, mumbling. “You just smell nice.” Steve smiled at him. “What did you say? I can’t hear you when you mumble, babe.” Billy tried his best not to mumble, but it was hard. He was mortified. “I just like the way you smell. It’s been driving me crazy for like a year. What is it? Is it your soap? Do you just smell like milk and almonds all the time? Is that natural?”

Steve laughed, then stood up, walking out of the room. He returned a couple minutes later with a little box, which he handed to Billy. Billy looked down at it. Almond goat milk soap. Oh. It looked fancy, the writing in gold cursive. “Here you go,” Steve said. “Now you can smell like milk and almonds too! You don’t need to sniff me anymore. Not that I mind! Sniff away!”

He raised his armpit, and if Billy was a stronger person, he would have tried to resist, to preserve a little bit of his dignity. But he was weak, so he lowered his head to take a good long whiff. It didn’t take long before the soap was forgotten on the coffee table as they made good use of the last hour they had together before Billy had to return home for dinner. He didn’t realize until he was home that he’d forgotten the soap.

***

The next week, Billy was out with Steve while the other boy ran some errands. Coincidentally, the goat milk soap was on the list of purchases to be made. They entered a fancy little beauty boutique, and when they got to the shelf, Billy couldn’t believe how casually Steve grabbed ten bars of the soap when each bar was $5 each. And he’d just handed one to Billy like it was nothing. He was happy now that he’d left it behind. He couldn’t have taken something that was so expensive for so little. He knew from experience that the soap his family used was less than $5 for a ten pack.

They left the store and Steve handed him one of the bars of soap from the bag and tried to hand it to Billy. “Here you go since you forgot yours at my house that time. I don’t want to deprive you of my scent, baby.” There was no way Billy could take it now that he knew the price. “No, it’s ok. I don’t need that. Plenty of soap at my house.” Steve frowned. “But I thought you liked the smell?”

Billy didn’t know what to say. He knew he should just take it, but it was too much. “No, it’s too expensive. You keep it.” Steve gave him a knowing look. It wasn’t the first time that Billy had gotten awkward about Steve spending money on him. He knew the other boy had plenty of it, but growing up just above the poverty line, it was hard for him to watch people throw their money around.

Steve sighed. “Billy, I like buying you nice things. You deserve nice things. You’re stuck with me forever, so you might as well get used to it.” Fuck, Billy was going to cry. He pulled Steve into a hug, trying to hide his tears in the other boy’s shoulder. God, Steve was too good to him.

***

Steve drove him home, parking around the corner, as per usual. In leu of a kiss, lest the neighbours see and report anything to Neil, Steve squeezed his hand. “Bye, babe. I love you.” Billy smiled softly in return. “Love you too, pretty boy.” That evening, when he went to take out his textbook to start his homework, of course, there nestled amongst the contents of his bag was the soap. He took it out and got a big whiff of goat milk and almond and most of all, Steve.

[ellsbclls]

oh !!! uhm, 🥺💓💗😳😐 wow this'll be ??? confusing ??? but ofc peter or tom and reader <33 (you're so amazing omg - that peter blurb was just astounding !!!)

this... got a little sad in the middle, but is pretty cute nonetheless. thank you for making my heart go splat on the pavement over this

WARNINGS: mentions of blood, injuries, burns, and hospitals.

send me the last 5 emojis you used and 2 characters and I’ll try to write a very short shit-story inspired by those (something like a few sentences long or just a short conversation)

"Oh, my poor baby." You cooed, dotingly sweeping damp, chestnut tendrils from his forehead. He hummed lowly in response, chasing your hand as it retreated from the sweat-slick expanse.

Christine had called you no second sooner than it happened — a small mishap in the midst of production sent Tom grappling for his harness during a particularly intricate stunt. Panic seized your every thought from that point forward, his reassurances from that very morning bouncing off your skull like a cruel schoolyard taunt, reminding you that "I’m Spider-Man!" and "This is child's play compared to Far From Home!"

Child's play your ass.

He would never understand how fortune favored, constantly dangling him over the edge before reeling him back to safety, and each incident made him more careless. Sloppier. It aggravated you, how he could wager his safety with such ease, summoning not only irritation but an evergrowing chasm of love, prone to love him more with each of his little details you discover.

Seeing as the tabloids had yet to sink their talons into the prospective headline, you suspected nothing more than a couple of cuts and bruises.

You were not prepared for the gash that decorated the plane of his left shoulder blade, an angry, crimson smile marring what was once smooth, sun-kissed skin. The engraving mapped out his accident in vivid detail, so it wasn't hard to imagine the depth of his fall.

Flittering across the slope of his shoulder, you made light work of his soiled gauze, digits carefully peeling the tape from his skin. At least the set nurse had sorted most of the damage, leaving you with nothing more than routine clean up every 8 hours or so.

The two of you were remarkably close for people with wildly opposite career paths — Tom and his routine injuries was the golden string of fate that tethered you together.

“You know,” his tone wreaked of impending bullshit, failing to shock you once it was uttered. “This still isn’t as bad as Far From Home.”

Linoleum tile that trailed up the burn unit’s spacious halls, fluorescent lights bouncing off their ivory reflections with a blinding vengeance, and an odor so sterile that it splashed against your chest like acid reflux — the memory curdled each time you revisited it, somehow smudging the line between reality and delusion with each passing day.

You remember how sleep ambushed you in the wee hours of that night, but not before you tested the limits of your imagination, rifling through a curated supercut of the worst possible outcomes imaginable. For hours. You were so tired that the doctor had to prod you awake with the back of his pencil, and even amidst your drowsy daze, your breath still hitched at the mention of pyrotechnics, and how fortunate your boyfriend was to be on the more forgiving end of the flames.

You remembered the dismal glint in his eyes each time he looked down at the length of his arms, glistening with topical creams and singed with fat, gnarled stripes. You swear that it sneaks up once in a while, when he thinks you’re not looking, projecting the memory of his damaged limbs after years of successful recovery.

Somehow, you weren’t able to recall the memory as endearingly as him, and you coughed up a dry laugh in response.

But he was right.

You wouldn’t dare imagine how much worse this could have been. So you don’t — opting to channel all of your concern into the hesitant swipes of alcohol you pressed against his injury, recoiling with each pained hiss that followed. “I know. I know, my love. I’m almost done.” You winced at the way the pad returned heavier with each pass, saturated with more and more crimson residue. “I’ve got a lot of surface area to work with.”

“Are you gonna kiss it better, when it's all cleaned up?” He teased, glancing over his shoulder to gauge your reaction.

“You couldn’t pay me to kiss this, Tom.” Scrunching your nose at the very thought, you scrapped the alcohol wipe in lieu of the medicated cream, something thick and wreaking of menthol that his nurse promised would help.

“Wow,” he sucked his teeth, letting sarcasm drip from his playful quip. “I guess I failed to realize you don’t love me anymore.”

"You're something else," You managed between laughs. Despite your overwhelming compassion, temptation hissed just below your ear, with a cloying proposal that only required the back of your hand and his vulnerable gash. Somewhere between the wicked thought and the action itself, your hand shifted to the spot beside it, swatting his shoulder with a high pitched shriek from his lips. Your laughter only intensified, digits curling around his bicep to keep yourself from doubling over. "Don't move an inch, I'm just gonna grab some more gauze."

Rising to your feet, you playfully bump your hip against his side and set your sights on the bag of first-aid supplies unfurled on your kitchen counter, but you're brought to a sudden halt as his fingers curl around the curve of your wrist, pulling you back into his lap.

In search of his caramel hues, your incredulous gaze is hampered by his own, reverent stare. There's something warm in those honey-dipped hues, kindling with embers of an emotion you can't quite put your finger on, but inviting nonetheless. His hand reaches up to cradle the side of your face, thumb climbing the high planes of your cheek, and with an unwavering timbre he confesses, "Thank you... for taking care of me."

"It's no biggie," You somehow manage to choke out, lungs seized in a stronghold only his affections could enact. It was miraculous that you could even form coherent thoughts, let alone sentences. "I'll take care of you as long as you let me."

Your words coax a love-lorn simper from the corner of his lip, canine's digging into the swell of his lower lip. "It's definitely a biggie, Y/N." his voice lilts at your own words, enamored by your modesty. "No one's ever made me feel as good as you do, and I just want you to know that I appreciate it. From the bottom of my heart."

The mere mention of it prompts you to trace the fabric right above his beating appendage, finding solace in the way it thumps against your palm. His heart, yours to lay claim, as simply as yours belongs to him. You attempt to shy away from the very thought by nuzzling into his palm. "Well, then, it appears that a raise is in order. What, for all my hard work?" You try to lighten the air with an attempt at humor, one you tack onto by tapping your finger against your unoccupied cheek, silently requesting a kiss.

Though, he's three steps ahead of you — sandwiching your face between two sturdy palms, he pulls you up to press a lingering kiss to yours. It's indulgent, and warm, and heavy with a floodgate of love and gratitude that he couldn't possibly put into words. He was an actor, after all, not an author.

You lose yourself in the dizzying trist, encircling your own fingers around his forearms, until you remembered your goal prior. It was nearly impossible, tearing yourself away, but admittedly for the greater good. "Let me finish patching you up. Then I'll kiss it better."

[icypantherwrites]

New Fic: Fog (6.4k words total)

Summary: The locals had said the fog was dangerous. They said only those fire-touched and carrying the sacred flame could traverse it. They said that Keith and Lance could do so to rescue the child lost in its cold haze, slowly being killed with only his worst fears for company.

But they hadn’t told them about the conditions. That the fog would only let the number who had traversed inwards with the flame out. And so a total of three went in.

Only two returned.

And for someone like Lance, whose worst fear is being alone and abandoned… it’s not going to end well.

Timeline notes: early season two

Warning notes: none

xxx

“Keith! W-wait!”

Lance plunged into the swirling fog where he thought Keith had gone, peering into the gloom and looking for any flash of red armor.

Just fog.

Gray and white and endless.

“Keith!”

His voice hit a higher note than he meant it to and despite the panic starting to claw at his insides Lance felt his cheeks heat at how pathetic that sounded.

“Hurry up, Lance!”

Keith’s voice sounded ahead, somewhere.

And he sounded impatient.

Lance swallowed and tried to pick up the pace, even as every step felt like he was trying to wad through molasses, the fog cloying and thick and Lance tried not to shudder as it felt far, far too much like walls trying to close in and while the fog was white it was somehow still dark.

Lance’s steps faltered as he realized he had no idea where he was going now.

“Keith!”

‘Keith Keith Keith!’ echoed back at him.

Nothing else did.

Lance pivoted in a circle, heart in his throat and pulse roaring in his ears.

Where had Keith gone?

He, he hadn’t left him here, had he?

“Keith!”

‘Keith Keith Keith!’

“If you don’t hurry I’m leaving without you.”

Somehow, even without shouting, Keith sounded like he was right next to Lance and he whirled in that direction.

No one.

Just fog.

Lance went that way anyway.

Ten steps later he still didn't see Keith.

Dios, where was he?

Where was the exit?

It had to be close, right?

Nothing appeared.

Lance’s eyes stung with tears and he squeezed them shut.

He didn’t want to shout for Keith again as he knew, he knew, the other boy would yell at him.

And, and he was right to because Lance shouldn’t be this pathetic and weak and yet…

Yet he was.

And more than that…

He was scared.

“Keith! Pl-please! Wait!”

Please wait.

Please don’t leave him here.

The locals said the fog was dangerous.

Deadly.

He’d die if he stayed here.

Even knowing that though when the council of elders had picked him to accompany Keith in pursuit of the chief’s young son who had fallen prey to the fog’s pull, he hadn’t hesitated.

A kid was in trouble and needed help?

Done.

Keith had been made the leader of their mission, entrusted with the village’s sacred flame that was the only way back out of the fog, as the elders said they sensed fire in him and given that he was the Red Paladin and his Lion was associated with fire that made sense. Only those who had that element apparently could handle the flame and normally that would be the chief, the only one in the village apparently blessed with that ability, but she wasn’t available.

She was in a trance, the other elders whispered, connecting with her son to try to protect his mind from the dangers of the fog as if it overpowered him…

The only thing they’d be retrieving was a body.

It had given Lance very deja vu vibes to the whole “same and warm” bit from the garden dragon thing barely a few weeks ago and he’d tried not to shiver at the sudden cold making its way down his spine.

The council had reached out into the universe on their last hope and prayer, and they said it was a sign that not only had Voltron heard their message but that someone fire-touched like Keith had been among them. And, their gazes had fallen on Lance and something about the intensity of their bright purple stares had made him shiver, someone like Lance.

Because apparently, somehow, he was fire-touched too.

Not as much as Keith they said, and Lance didn’t understand that entirely as he was Blue’s Paladin and she was most definitely water and ice, but who was he to tell them they were wrong when he wasn’t entirely sure how that was determined to begin with.

And more than that…

They had exchanged glances that Lance wasn’t entirely sure what they meant except they were a cross between hopeful and sad and some looked almost scared, before they’d told him that he was the key to bringing the child back.

If he didn’t venture into the fog too then the child would be lost forever.

Shiro had expressed his worry on that, noting that they’d just said only a few chosen individuals could actually go into the fog — hence why none of the council or other villagers had done so as they weren’t this apparent fire-touched— and that while Voltron was here to help he didn’t think this was entirely safe and—

And he’d go, Lance had interrupted and Keith had nodded next to him, agreeing, and only cemented as the chief’s wife let out a low sob, hands covering her mouth and her relief almost painful.

He had to.

A kid was in trouble and apparently only he and Keith could save him and that’s what Paladins of Voltron did, right? Save and protect? It didn’t matter if he was only a little bit of this so called fire-touched; a little bit was more than none and that was enough.

So he’d go.

He’d be fine.

And he had been.

READ THE REST OF THE FANFIC HERE

This fanfiction is my May Patreon Fic of the Month, which is a Patreon exclusive fanfic that supporters get to help choose by voting on a prompt/trope and a character that I then write a 5,000 word fanfiction of. If you would like to read this fanfic, as well as hundreds of thousands of words of other additional bonus content and support an author, you’ll want to subscribe to my Patreon. Subscriptions start at just $5/month; less than a fancy cup of coffee! Subscribe here today!

[lillotte17]

Storm Chasers

Oh lord, this was a prompt from...4-5 YEARS ago??? I have no idea where the ask is anymore, but I believe it was “The sound of thunder.”

~

Solas awoke to the rumbling of distant thunder and the discovery that the bedroll beside him had been vacated. After an instant of blind groggy panic, he sensed the familiar magic of the Inquisitor’s mark coming from somewhere nearby. A heavy sigh of relief mixed with mild exasperation slid from him as he sat up and began rummaging around for his clothes.

The air in the Frostback Basin was cool and cloying, with a weighty dampness that seemed to seep into his very bones. Between the layers of thick furs and the warmth of his lover’s arms, Solas had been perfectly comfortable sleeping in just his breeches, but he certainly was not about to stroll around the camp that way.

After a few moments of fruitless searching, he heaved a defeated groan. Aili must have walked off with his sweater. Again.

He pulled on a lighter linen tunic from is pack instead, wrapping one of the still-warm blankets from their bed about his shoulders before he exited the tent, completely barefoot and hoping she had not wandered too far.

Even in the dead of night, the forest was a marvel. Pockets of strange colors turned into something ghostly when illuminated by cool glow of the veilfire torches set around the camp and along the twisting pathways on the forest floor. A weak drizzle of rainfall fractured their light into an ethereal haze, deepening the long black shadows of the massive trees until they looked like holes in the skin of the world. It was all at once beautiful and haunting.

Solas pulled the blanket up over his head to serve as a makeshift hood as he searched their treetop campsite for any signs of Aili. He shivered slightly as the rain began to soak through his clothing, causing the cream-colored linen to stick to his skin. He vaguely hoped that Aili had at least had the good sense to pull on more than his sweater before wandering outside in this weather.

The sound of quiet humming came drifting to him through the gentle hiss of falling water like the memory of a dream.

Sure enough, Aili was sitting out on one of the larger tree limbs, the ones big enough to pass for pathways in their own right, clad in nothing but his sweater and a worn pair of leggings, her bare feet swinging back and forth in time with her song. Her damp hair hung about her shoulders in loose ringlets, the moonlight igniting it into a gleaming halo around her face, edging her features in silver. Her eyes burned with a fire of their own, two violet coals that found him in the darkness long before he had made a noise that a human could have heard.

“Ma sa’lath,” she greeted him quietly.

“Vhenan,” he replied in kind as he made his way out onto the branch. He sat down beside her in the unpleasantly wet moss that had grown over the wood, wrapping one arm around her shoulders to share the relative shelter of the blanket. “What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

“Humming,” she said evasively, her eyes flitting away from him to look back out into the trees. He regarded her silently, a sharply arched brow paired with a thin suspicious frown informing her that he was by no means satisfied with her answer.

“I was just thinking, Solas, honestly,” she amended with a tired-sounding sigh.

“And these thoughts could not be processed adequately someplace warm and dry?” He queried.

“It’s just rain,” she huffed at him, rolling her eyes. “It isn’t as though I’m going to melt if I get a bit wet. Besides, I needed the fresh air.”

There was another rumble of thunder, louder than the last, and the rain was decidedly heavier than when he had left their tent.

“It will be storming soon enough,” he said, getting to his feet and offering her a hand to do the same.

 “Do you think it might have been something like this?” She asked softly, still staring out at the forest, ignoring his outstretched hand. “The Dales? …Halamshiral?”

Solas blinked at her in mild astonishment before taking a moment to consider, gazing out into the woods once more. He saw the distant flickering lights of other Inquisition campsites in the trees as well as along the riverbank and fires from other smaller camps which likely belonged to groups of wandering Avaar. The crumbling ruins of elves and humans alike, molded into new purpose. The towering trees standing watch like gigantic sentinels. The tenuous state of the Veil and the lingering sense of older magics.

“Perhaps,” Solas said gently, sensing her melancholy, “I imagine that many of the Dalish settlements strongly resembled human villages from the areas of Thedas their inhabitants originated from. The more Elvhen elements likely did not appear until much later.”

“See that in the Fade, did you?” Aili asked with a wry smile, an unmistakable touch of bitterness coloring her tone.

“I apologize if my knowledge offends you, Inquisitor,” he replied with an unexpected edge of his own, and perhaps a not so subtle trace of hurt.

“I’m sorry,” Aili said hastily, reaching out for his hand and bringing it to her cheek, nuzzling it in apology. She heaved a defeated sigh. “You come by all this information so effortlessly, and me and my people just seem to be perpetually fumbling in the dark, grasping at straws and trying to weave them into a tapestry of where we came from. …but there are still so many holes. Ameridan was one of ours, and we didn’t even know. It wasn’t just the humans who erased him, we forgot. How could that happen?”

“Seeking knowledge in the Fade is hardly effortless,” Solas reminded her, trailing his fingers along her cheek. “And, considering the violent end the Orlesians wrought upon the Elvhen kingdom, it is not wholly surprising that they would spurn someone who had once been close with the Emperor whose son destroyed their homeland.”

“But he was a hero!” Aili protested ardently. “An elf and a mage! And before I joined the Inquisition, I’d never even heard his name. It isn’t right.”

“Such is the way of history, Vhenan,” he said heavily.

“And…the same thing will happen to me?”

Solas took a moment to study her face, her noticeably elven features, the exotic shade of her eyes, the vallaslin swirling across her brow and chin. He thought of Ameridan, and Shartan, their forgotten stories and hacked-off ears. And that wasn’t even that long ago, by his standards. He thought of Elvhenan, their words and stories and traditions. All gone. All lost. His people were little more than ghosts, the pale memories of a dream. If he wanted a reminder that the steady march of time changed people’s perceptions, he need only look into a mirror. It was unlikely that history would be any kinder to her than it had been to him.

“It is…a distinct possibility,” he admitted heavily.  

Aili's expression soured further.

"I don't care about renown," she muttered, "I don't care about getting invited to fancy parties, or offered expensive gifts as signs of friendship from people I've never even met. I don't care about nobles and games and political power. I don't care about any of that. I never did."

She pulled in a deep shaky breath.

"But…if this is something I have to do… If the 'Inquisitor' is who I have to be, then I want to be seen as what I am. I want people to remember where I came from. I know it would be naïve to think they'd get everything right, but to know my home and my race…" she gave him a worried glance, "Is that really too impossible to hope for?"

"It is rare enough for someone who knows us to see us as we truly are," Solas replied apologetically, "Facts become stories. Lines blur, words change with each retelling, shifting things into whatever the listeners need to hear. It is the way real people with flaws and failings are honed into heroes. And villains. Many people who have met you will speak of you as you are, but there are plenty of those who already do not approve of the idea that Andraste's chosen might be an elf. A Dalish elf, of all things. The Chantry has always told them that your people are despised by Maker, after all."

"He's not too crazy about mages either," Aili grumbled, "I have been reminded several times by numerous people that I am basically unpalatable on every possible front."

"Not to me," Solas told her with a faint smile, "I am sorry to be incapable of offering much in the way of comfort on this particular topic, however. I do not wish to lie to you."

"I wouldn't ask you to," Aili sighed, though her melancholy seemed to have abated somewhat. She shook her head slightly, as if to shake away the remnants of her solemnity, scattering raindrops in the process, and finally rose to her feet.

She took both of his hands in hers, smiling up at him with a distinct playfulness.

"So, if I am to be the new Ameridan, does that make you my Telana?" she wondered, "She was an elvhen Dreamer, just as you are. You must admit, there are an astounding amount of parallels. What strange fortunes the Creators weave for us all." 

 "A morbid thought indeed, considering their fates," Solas hummed. "I certainly hope we fare better than they did."

"It wouldn't take much," Aili noted dryly. "Although, I admit, I have a hard time picturing you allowing yourself to bleed out just so you could try and find me in the Fade. You are far too practical."

She gave his fingers a squeeze. Teasing.

"Oh?" Solas returned lightly, "I think you might be surprised. You are much harder to do without than you imagine."

“Sweet talker,” Aili grinned, stepping into his arms and shivering a little from the cool dampness of their clothing. “But regardless of how similar we might seem to the former Inquisitor and his paramour, we already have a decided advantage over them.”

“Is that so?” Solas asked softly, smiling down at her in turn.

“It is,” she insisted, going up on her tiptoes to plant a light kiss on his chin, “Because I have already decided that our story is going to have a happy ending.”

A few heartbeats of silence passed between them; with nothing to be heard but the hiss of rain and the sound of approaching thunder. It would be storming in earnest in a few minutes. The night painted strange shadows across her lover’s face, and Aili began to feel the faintest prickle of doubt low in her gut.

“Solas?”

“Forgive me,” he answered a moment later, shaking his head slightly as though to rid himself of his thoughts, “I fear my mind slips too easily toward melancholy. Thinking only on the ways something precious might be lost robs us of the pleasures of the present. It does no good to dwell on such things.”

“It’s alright,” Aili said, reaching up to softly touch his cheek, “With a hole in the sky and some crazy darkspawn Magister on the loose, I can see why you might be having problems being optimistic about the future.”

“I am afraid that I am not an overly optimistic person, even if the current factors were removed from the equation,” he admitted ruefully. He allowed himself to lean into her touch, closing his eyes briefly and letting out a long breath. “I suppose that is something else I should work on. I would like…to look towards the days ahead and see the same kinds of possibilities that you do.”

“Well, wanting those possibilities is the first step, don’t you think?” she asked, a smile returning to her face, “If this were the Fade, we could simply will such a future into existence.”

"Unfortunately, such blatant displays of power tend to attract the attention of demons," Solas replied with a faint smirk. 

 Aili heaved an exaggerated sigh, but her eyes were bright with amusement.

"You know, I am beginning to think that Bull might have a fair point about them," her smile twitched up into a smirk, "They always seem to ruin the best dreams."

"Not all of them," he answered in kind, his face dipping perilously close to her own, "Once, not so long ago, I dreamt of Haven as it had been before Corypheus and his army came. The sky was bright and clear, and the snow was crisp and cool against my skin. I met a spirit who was seeking knowledge, and the truth of their purpose and the earnestness of their resolve shone with such a fierce intensity that for one moment I thought it might have blinded me. I dared not look away, however, for such spirits are rare indeed, and I feared that if I averted my gaze, even for an instant, I might turn back and find that it had gone."

He kissed her then, deep and soft and warm. Not as desperate or hurried as he had during the dream of Haven, but still somehow just as hungry. Wrapping her up in his arms and pulling her close until even the raindrops had a hard time finding the space to fall between them.

 When he finally pulled back enough to let her breathe, Aili was rosy-cheeked and slightly rumpled. Her eyes shone up at him out of the darkness like a pair of gemstones, her smile wide and knowing. Any trace of worry momentarily banished by the sheer force of her affections.

"Am I really so much like a spirit?" she wondered jokingly, "Or have you just been getting romantic tips from Varric again? Should I see if Cole can teach me his trick of disappearing from people's minds? I can think of a few situations where that would be incredibly useful. Most of them involve dodging Orlesian nobles and their inane gossip."

Solas snorted.

"If I was in need of romantic guidance, I am afraid Master Tethras would not be anywhere near my first choice of solicitor," he informed her with a low chuckle, "As for the other questions, I do believe that you share more similarities with Cole than you might suspect. They are…not easy to explain in simple terms, however. But bright and shining as you are, your own concept of yourself is attached to your physical form, so I fear you would have a difficult time disappearing from view."

"That sounds an awful lot like a challenge to me," she laughed, leaning back into him, mischievous intent written clearly into her expression.

"Hardly," Solas huffed with a particular mix of exasperated fondness that Aili always seemed to inspire. His arms tightened on her after a moment, a touch of seriousness seeping back into his voice. "Besides which, I would greatly prefer that you did not disappear from view."

“Ah, well, if that’s really what you want,” she grinned, cupping his face to guide him down towards her mouth. She stopped just shy of kissing him, eyes as bright as lodestars cutting through the haze of night and rain. She nearly did look like a spirit.

“I supposed you’d better catch me, then.”

That was all the warning she afforded him before her form flashed with the blue-white glow of magic, and she fade-stepped a few dozen feet away onto another enormous tree limb. Rift magic was not Aili’s area of expertise, and her aim was…less than precise. She wobbled slightly on the branch, and Solas called out to her in wordless distress, hurriedly employing the same technique she had used to chase after her.

He had barely closed his hand around her forearm before she shifted away again, leaving a nothing but a hazy blue outline in her wake and laughing all the while.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Solas!” Aili called back to him.

“Vhenan, it is raining!” Solas complained.

A great boom of thunder and a blinding crackle of lightning chased after the sound of his voice.

“It’s not raining, it’s storming!” Aili corrected him blithely, still popping in and out of view across the canopy of trees surrounding the campsite. “But you can go back inside the tent if you’re not having any fun!”  

“Why are you always doing things like this?” he asked with a sharp exhale of breath, “We both know you are going to catch cold and spend the next three days sneezing on me.”

“You like it!” Aili giggled, fade-stepping close enough to make him lunge for her and slipping away again before he could grab hold. “It keeps you on your toes. It’s good for you.”

“And,” she continued from a far-off tree limb, “If you are really so concerned about me getting sick, maybe you should hurry up and take me someplace warm before the chill sets in.”

Solas sighed again, resigned to the fact that in order for either of them to get back to bed in the near future, he was going to have to play along with her. As usual.

“Then you should ready yourself, Inquisitor,” he said as the magic he deftly pulled from the Fade washed him in its pale blue light. Aili paused her own furtive dance just long enough to grin back at him, brighter than a flash of lightning. And then the game was on.

Her mastery of the spell was less than perfect, but what she lacked in aptitude, she made up for with unbridled enthusiasm. He had more experience, but she was unpredictable, doubling back and pushing the limits of how far the magic would carry her. What had begun with unrepentant teasing on her end, and a prickle of aggravation on his, soon became a buoyant chase rife with genuine merriment that not even Solas could hold himself back from. In this moment, they were light and free and fearless. Their mingled laughter bubbled over the sounds of the storm, bare toes slipping on wet moss and leaves as the two of them weaved through the darkness of the canopy like a pair of fireflies. Skin luminous with magic and the fierce joy of living. The wonder of loving. Dazzling as the lightning torn sky, and twice as fleeting.

It nearly felt like a dream of the days before. When there was no Veil. No Blight. And his name was not quite so synonymous with villainy.

He almost did not want it to end.   

It did, of course, as all things must. Aili’s foot slipped. Solas materialized behind her a half second later, pulling her to his chest before she began to fall in earnest. She spun in his embrace, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him like she was drowning. She was freezing cold and sopping wet, and it was absolutely glorious.

He was less disappointed with this ending than anticipated.

“Vhenan,” he murmured against her lips as Aili seemed to do her level best to pull the very air from his lungs, “I am not opposed to continuing- Mmph! -continuing this, but perhaps we should return to our tent first?”

“Too far,” Aili informed him breathlessly, her thin icy fingers working their way up the back of his linen shirt, making him hiss at the cold, “Much too far.”

Solas chuckled despite himself, doing his best to guide her farther away from the edge of the branch they had landed on and back toward the relative safety of the tree’s trunk. Aili did not make it easy, clinging to him like a lamprey and doing everything in her power to wriggle her way beneath his clothing, even while continuing to kiss him senseless. Their footsteps were awkward and bumbling in the semidarkness, tripping and sliding along in a highly undignified manner, but it was hard to care when it was just the two of them. Both still riding high on the thrill of their pretend hunt, eager to be close and touching. Here, in the shelter of the trees and the cover of night, there was nothing but the sounds of the storm beyond the veil of leaves, the rain singing out like a lover’s sigh, and the thunder mimicking their racing heartbeats.

It felt almost like a shrine; ethereal and divine. It smelled crisp and fresh as water, and newly churned earth. A pair of lovers painted with the sapphire shades of midnight sifting through the leaves. A place of devotion and worship meant solely for them.

 Aili’s skin was still cold, but everything between them was almost unbearably warm. She fell back against the moss-covered wood of the tree’s trunk with a dull thud, tugging him after her. He cupped her face between his hands as he kissed her, soft and desperate. The dripping locks of her hair spilling over his fingers like liquid silver. She laughed into his mouth as he pressed himself flush against her, feeling the firmness of his apparent desire caught between them.

“I see you have finally run out of objections,” she noted, utterly delighted.

“I am certain I could locate a few more, if I tried,” Solas quipped, but his tone was deep and melting, his mouth blazing a warm trail of lingering nips and kisses along the column of her throat. His threat hardly seemed sincere. The sound he made when she unlaced his breeches and reached for him seemed honest enough, however.

“Probably,” she hummed, running her fingers over him with firm practiced movements, “But as the Inquisitor, my schedule is very busy, you know. I’m afraid I currently have my hands full dealing with one of my most trusted advisors, so, unfortunately, your objections will have to wait.”

“Would you prefer it if I submitted them to you in writing, instead?” he wondered, pausing just long enough to suck a dark bruise just below her ear, and tugging her leggings down over her hips.

“Absolutely not,” Aili hissed, scraping her teeth across the place where his collar bones peeked out from beneath the damp fabric of his shirt, “I enjoy the sound of your voice, even when you are complaining. Everything you have to tell me should be done face to face, when possible.”

Her skin was slick with rain, and when he slipped his fingers into her, Solas found that she was already slick there, too. Her grip tightened on him and she gasped, rocking her hips against his hand as he groaned into her hair. Struggling to stay upright.

“And you would have me, even here?” Solas asked softly, his voice thick with want and catching just a bit with an air of wonder.

“Geography hardly has anything to do with it,” Aili snorted, making a brave attempt to somehow keep touching him while also wriggling the rest of the way out of her pants. When she at last got them down to her claves, she raised a knee and Solas obligingly pulled them the rest of the way off over her leg, leaving her free to hitch it up over his hip. He leaned his full weight into her as he continued to thrust into her touch, moving to grip her thigh and hold her to him, keeping her close enough to count the damp lashes around her bright eyes. She hummed in approval, biting at his lower lip, egging him on. “You see me as I truly am, and I have it on good authority that that makes you a precious commodity.”

“Precious, am I?” he said it with a laugh, but there was a softness in his eyes.

“Unique in all the world,” she insisted confidently, “Which means you should be cherished at every available opportunity.”

He crooked his fingers as he moved them inside of her, and she moaned loud enough to echo through the trees, despite the storm around them.

“As should you, my heart,” he told her, his lips pulled up into a self-satisfied grin. 

“Then I suggest we talk less, and cherish more,” Aili rasped out, taking his face in both of her hands and kissing him savagely. Solas met her fervor with equal passion, but not so much that he surrendered his entire mind to it, though it was sorely tempting. One of them had to make sure they did not fall out of the tree, after all.

He grasped her other thigh, lifting her up as she hooked her legs around his waist, her pants still dangling from one ankle. His back was still chilled, exposed to scattered gusts of wind and sprays of rainfall from the leaves above them, but every place their bodies met was nearly burning. Even their breaths mingled together in little visible puffs of warmth that the storm could not subdue.

She moved her hands to his shoulders, digging her fingers into the wet linen with enough force to tear. He rolled his hips against her a few times, trying to find the proper angle to slide home. The sweater she had stolen from him had slipped back down when he had moved his hands away, blocking him from her. Solas nearly let out a curse.

“Ma ghilana,” he breathed against her ear instead, deep and hoarse and close to begging.

Aili seemed past the point of being capable of speech, her head bobbed once in understanding before she turned her face to kiss him again. Her left arm snaked its way about his neck, anchoring, while the other reach down between them, scrabbling at the sodden cloth still sticking to their skin, and doing her best to guide him to the place she wanted him most.

When he felt the silken heat of her against the tip of his cock, Solas paused. He knew Aili did not mind a bit of roughness, but he had his limits. Their position was precarious, and she was not as prepared for him as she could be. He could tell she wanted this, and he would not deny her, but he would not hurt her either, so he took a moment to breathe.

 He entered her in a single smooth slow stroke. Aili gasped into his mouth, gripping him fiercely and attempting to drag him impossibly closer. He kept his cool, though, holding them both as still and steady as possible until he was certain they were not about to slip, and he knew without a doubt that she was ready for more.

He could feel their hearts hammering in tandem, frantic and heady as the chase that had brought them here.

“Move,” Aili demanded after a few moments, rocking herself into him as best she could and biting at his lips again.

Solas moved.

His hips snapped, and his fingers gripped tight enough to bruise. His face dropped to the crook of her neck, and he filled his lungs with the heathery smell of her every time he drew breath. It was grounding, and marvelous, and real. More than any dream he could have conjured.

Aili fought to give as good as she got. Her range of movement was limited, but she pressed herself into him with everything she had. Meeting him at every thrust. She mapped him with her hands, raking her fingernails across his shoulder blades and digging into the muscles of his biceps. She sunk her teeth into the soft meat of his earlobe, and was treated to a low rumbling moan.

It felt as though she had poured liquid fire into his ear. It burned a path from his head straight down to the pit of hist stomach, setting him alight like a spark amidst tinder. He nearly came right then.

“Aili,” he panted, and this time he truly was pleading, although he couldn’t say for what. She clenched around him, and his rhythm stuttered, nearly sending him to his knees. But he would not let it end this way. He would not take his pleasure first.

Solas hefted her higher up the tree, slightly changing the angle of her hips, and the next time he drove into her, he was rewarded with a high breathless keen of ecstasy. Her back bowed, and her head tipped back, mouth moving in a silent litany as she crested the wave of her climax. She slumped into him afterwards, shuddering and boneless, and still trying to kiss him. He was so close to his own end that his magic felt like it was simmering beneath his skin, longing for the same release that he did.

Aili made a soft sound of not-quite discomfort, and he stilled.

“Just a little tender,” she whispered tiredly, guiding his lips back to hers, “Keep going.”

Solas did as he was bidden, keeping the angle she preferred, but slowing his tempo. The storm was finally beginning to recede, and his fervor seemed to ebb with it, turning more towards savoring. She was warm in his arms now, the little hitched breaths and contented sighs slipping past her lips blending perfectly with the gentle hiss of rainfall the surrounded them.  

He pressed another kiss into the curve of her neck. Admiring the strong steady beating of her heart beneath his lips. She called his name softly, and he came undone. It hit him unexpectedly hard, a bright burst of light behind his eyes as his whole body quaked with the force of it. Gasping for air and suddenly almost giddy. The dizzying delight of letting go.

He carefully set her down, and there were a few awkward moments of rearranging stiff and somewhat bruised limbs. She slipped her arms around his waist to keep him close, and he leaned back into her, his nose buried in her hair and his lips resting against her forehead. They stood together in silence for a while, simply enjoying the quite sounds of the nighttime forest and the comfort of a lover’s touch.

“At least…” Aili began quietly, but then paused, as if suddenly unsure. Solas brushed his fingers across her cheek. She leaned into him and sighed, finding her resolve. “I was thinking that… Even if no one else remembers me as I am, at least I would know that you do. You’ve never put me up on some pedestal. You know that I am Dalish, and an elf, and a mage. You know that I try with all my heart to make choices that are fair and benefit as many people as I can, but I make mistakes. Big ones, sometimes. You know that I hate oysters, and I’m always tripping on things, and stealing desserts from the kitchen. You know that I’m silly enough to play tag in the rain at night.”

She peered up at him with open sincerity, her eyes flecked with the stars just beginning to peek through the canopy above them.

“And you know that I love you,” she continued, her fingers reaching up to touch his chin with a soft air of devotion. “You will remember that, won’t you?”

Solas kissed her. Tender and aching, like a fist closing around his speeding heart. He squeezed her hands, pressing his eyes shut against a faint pinprick of tears.

“Forever,” he promised.    

Aili beamed at him.

“Come on, we should probably head back to camp before they send out a search party,” she said, moving past him just enough to begin the process of pulling her leggings back on. “I…think your sweater might be in need of a wash, though.”

Solas laughed.

“Then I supposed we are fortunate that it is raining.”

[infinites-chaser]

2/5/21

NEON

1. Teenage bedroom (late night)

2. Lord

3. Planetarium

4. Basketball court

5. Malevolence

prompts by @nosebleedclub can be found here!

i. it’s cold and dark— the new moon and cloudy skies mean only the artificial glow of streetlights filters in, soft and subdued, through the hazy fabric of his curtains. 1:30, reads the clock. he closes his eyes. opens them when dreams won’t come.

it’s often that teenagers like him are lost, this time of night, it’s often that sleep can’t find him.

ii. he doesn’t believe in god, he never has, not since his father first laid his eyes on him, laid hands on his mother, took away his little brother. when he looks to the whorls of stars glued clumsy and hasty to his bedroom ceiling, when he closes his eyes at night, he does not pray to any lord. he worships her smile. 

iii. there’s a galaxy swirling in the depths of her clear gaze, constellations that could be drawn in the scattering of freckles across her cheeks that only darken come summer. she dimples. stars collide, stars reform. it’s astronomy planetariums and textbooks could never hope to teach, astronomy only poets and lovers know.

(he’s pulled into her orbit, the weight of his heart nothing against her gravity. her force. his heartbeat accelerates. but he doesn’t fall, he flies.)

iv. physics class blurs past him. most of his classes do. but when the teacher’s droning voice turns to talk of the stars above, the way the planets move, he listens. it makes sense, somehow, though little else in school does. he thinks of it often. of laws of motion. of forces and attraction.

an object in motion will stay in motion, the teacher says.

she moves him. his heart’s restless. it stays restless, no matter what he does.

he drums his fingers on his desk in time with his racing heart, doesn’t stop even when the bully in the seat in front twists around to glare. he ignores the boy, lets his eyes instead follow her across the classroom.

basketball helps, keeps his motion focused, lets it flow. he dribbles the ball. thinks about the ball’s bounce, its steady spring back up after every fall. thinks about how she says she liked the other team’s dunk, the way the last player had looked when he’d scored.

he jumps. he shoots. he scores. he makes sure it’s when she’s watching, he’s rewarded with her bright congratulations! and her grin, a small cosmic wonder.

it feels like flying. like defying gravity.

(when she faints during p.e. he’s by her side. she gives him a band-aid, after, cheeks flushed, dimples showing.

for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, he thinks, and puts the bandage on with an answering smile.)

v. there’s his father’s anger, vicious swirling storm of violence that leaves him broken breathless beaten, curled into a corner wishing for gentle winds and the summer stars. his father’s anger and the cold winter that follows, eyes that look past him, that look through him, murmur you failure, you, that put icy fingers of frost deep into even the warmest corners of his heart. there’s the bullies who corner him atop the roof, knives in hand, telling him to jump, telling him his destiny was always to fall.

he survives the bullies. weathers his father. but when it’s her standing in front of him, his fist curled in a boy’s shirt, her starbright eyes dim with horror, it dawns on him. there are some falls that were always meant to happen. there are some orbits he can’t escape from (this one’s a hole opened up in the pit of his stomach, dark and wide, his snarl reflected in her eyes an inescapable force that pulls him apart, pulls him under). this is his event horizon.

PASTEL

1. Teenage bedroom (soft morning)

2. Dwarf rabbit

3. Seaside memory

4. Embrace

5. Peach juice

v. she likes the juice normally. it’s sweet and light and refreshing, a nectar of the gods, bottled in it is a hundred laughs and smiles, the taste of summers gone by. today, the drink sits heavy on her tongue, choking, cloying artificial sugar that makes her stomach turn.

what’s wrong, her friend asks. it tastes like missed opportunities, she thinks but does not say, it tastes like what-could-have-been turned sour, then sugared over again, far too sweet, it tastes like regret. it tastes like a bloodstained letter from a desperate boy left unopened, like a desperate boy left standing in an empty parking lot, his heart in his hands a star, waiting to fall.

she says, it’s nothing, smiles, and tries not to wince when she sips at her straw again. 

iv. they don’t ever hug in their teenage years. they could barely manage the brush of fingers without the hint of a blush. when they meet again, it’s different. gravity, attraction, all the laws of physics bend his path back to her.

he falls back into her orbit like breathing, an inhale, an exhale, and he’s weightless, he’s flying again.

she saves him. he saves her.

when she’s in his arms, he wonders if she sees stars in his eyes, wonders if she thinks there’s a gentle supernova within his every smile. little does he know, she’s wondering the same things, too.

for every action, he nearly remembers, slow and distant, a memory from light-years away, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

iii. once there was an ocean between him and her, waves of years-old misunderstandings come crashing down through time to separate them. tides rise. tides overflow. there is truth to be had on both sides, she thinks, in the flood of feelings that follows. there is a peace to be found when the tide goes out again, an understanding when they stand beside each other, hand-in-hand, back to the storm-swept past, looking to the starlit seashore of their future.

call it what you will. call it love.

ii. she curls against him, her head on his chest, hair fanned out in ripples of starless sky. they’re universe enough, two celestial things settled into comfortable orbit: some nights she circles him, some nights it’s her. his moon. her jupiter. he’s mapped an infinite number of constellations from her dimples down the small of her back and lower. she’s traced comets and meteors across the scars on his torso, discovered nebulas high on his cheekbones, made them burn bright red under her touch.

still, they turn their eyes skyward, to galaxies beyond. a world within their arms, a world without.he points out the constellations, draws out the shape of their mythological namesakes with one outstretched hand. over here, a legendary hunter, he says. there, a lyre.

here, a goddess, he says, and his eyes are on hers. she blushes. in the flush of her cheeks, he imagines new stars are born. (fusion, fission. love as something stronger than a nuclear reaction.)

tell me about the different types of stars, she says instead of a reply. he nods, pulls her closer, recites facts slow and soft he learned for her years ago: dwarfs, giants, all their different colors. she giggles at dwarf; she always does, asks if she’s a dwarf, a dwarf bunny. he laughs, pokes her nose, says, weren’t you listening, that’s not a kind of star—

his voice gentles to silence. she cranes her neck to look up at the stars in his bright eyes, the planets, the worlds.

maybe we’re binary stars, he says at last. you and i.

i. it’s warm and bright— rays of dawn drift light and dreamy through her open window painting long panes of her rumpled blankets the gold of the morning’s sunshine. he murmurs words, soft, loving, unintelligible, against the crown of her head. she smiles an i love you and a good morning into his chest, presses a kiss to his heart, and snuggles closer. his hand finds hers beneath shared sheets. their fingers tangle. they take their waking slow, their hearts beating as one, a secret language, a morse code of lovers, spelling out the words you are found. you are home. 

[meridiansdominoes]

The Dark and the Loyal

Fives and Echo are decanted out of the same vat. The Force chooses them, as it has done thousands of times before. The Jedi don’t notice... but Darth Sidious does.

I wrote a quick thing for Fives Week 2020, for day 5′s prompt “Enemies”! I’d written out several of these scenes a while ago, and I decided to dust them off and edit them up to support @painkiller80‘s celebration! I’m not completely happy with it, but it’ll do I suppose. ummm... it’s a one-shot, so I’ll post it completely here, but it’s also kind of long for tumblr, so find it on ao3 here too: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24564922

This is kind of dark (it’s not very graphic but be forewarned) and there’s a lot of manipulation going on. Just a heads up!

Fives goes to Coruscant and meets with the Chancellor. It’s his last chance to present his evidence about the chips to someone who can actually help. The Jedi don’t believe him. The Kaminoans are in on the whole thing and can’t be trusted. The Chancellor listens carefully, smiles at him once Fives has said his piece (he’s drugged out of his mind, but that isn’t enough to stop him), and says, very gently, “I believe you, trooper.”

And then Palpatine makes Fives disappear. 

Fives wakes up in a cell, completely alone. There are no windows, and the meals that get pushed into his room are erratic and barely nourishing. Time loses all meaning very quickly. He moves around the room in the beginning, paces and prowls around as he waits for something, anything to happen, but as days stretch on (he thinks) Fives finds himself curled up into the far corner of his cell more often than not.

When Palpatine comes to see him it’s almost a relief, if only because he’s finally getting some form of human interaction. Clones are social, tactile, well-adjusted to a lack of privacy. Without the constant presence of his brothers, Fives feels like he’s drowning in his own thoughts. 

Palpatine is not what he seems. Fives can feel that much. It’s a sensation of wrongness so thick that it roils and clings to his insides like black sludge. Fives hadn’t noticed it before. He doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know how to explain it or say why he can feel it with such clarity. He pulls himself to his feet with a weak snarl and braces himself for whatever Palpatine is planning on throwing at him.

Palpatine smiles at him in faint amusement. He reaches out a hand and hooks his fingers into claws. A wave of that horrible wrongness expands to fill the room. Fives shudders. He takes a nervous step back. He feels power hanging in the air, nearly tangible and undoubtedly destructive. It clogs up his throat. Palpatine flexes his fingers—the smallest of movements, but suddenly there’s an awful pressure closing in on Fives’ body that rips away his will and forces him to his knees. 

He pants helplessly but doesn’t struggle once he’s down. He knows how to pick his battles, especially now that he finally understands what he’s dealing with. 

“Sith,” he forces out from between gritted teeth. He tries to ignore the cold terror in his gut at the word. Palpatine smiles, slow and knowing. 

“Very perceptive,” he says. “Do you know why you are here, clone?”

Fives sneers at him. 

“The inhibitor chips are your doing,” he growls. Force save them all. The leader of the Republic is a Sith. Fives can barely breathe. So many lies. So many pointless deaths. The man that he’s sworn his loyalty to is a traitor. When he manages a weak inhale, it feels like he’s sucking ashes into his lungs.    

Palpatine doesn’t confirm or deny the accusation. He scrutinizes Fives for a long moment. Fives tries not to squirm under his gaze, but he can’t help but feel like the Sith’s eyes are piercing him to the very core.

“Curious,” Palpatine finally says. “And utterly foolish, that the Jedi did not notice sooner. Do you know what you are?”

Fives works his jaw and hesitates. 

He’s a clone. He’s a soldier. He’s an ARC trooper. But he doesn’t think any of those answers is what Palpatine is looking for. When he doesn’t answer, Palpatine’s eyes narrow a bit.

Something in Fives’ mind snaps into place.

Suddenly there’s a roaring in his ears and fire in his veins. He cries out. Something rippling and tense and alive sweeps over him. It’s unrefined and rushing and rising and it hurts. His mind buzzes and vibrates with sensations that are completely foreign. It’s too much, a persistent and all-consuming agony. He wants to curl up into a little ball and clutch at his skull, but the best he can do with Palpatine holding him down is close his eyes and wait for it to end. 

The pain settles after a while. Fives pants through gritted teeth and blinks tears from his eyes as the sensations subside—but they don’t leave him completely. He can feel odd little waves thrumming through him still, filling him with warmth instead of fire. He doesn’t understand what that means.  

“You are an anomaly, clone. The Kaminoans did not intend for their projects to be Force-sensitive. Yet here we are.”

No. That’s... impossible. 

Fives feels like the floor has dropped out from underneath him. Suddenly so many things make sense. The strange little tugs in his gut that warn him away from danger. The way can move faster than normal when he needs to, the way how the occasional blaster bolt skims right by him when it should score a hit. The awful cloying dark that left him dizzy on Umbara, that he hadn’t known how to explain to Kix when the medic had asked him what was wrong. 

The realization is accompanied by a fresh wave of fear that claws at his chest. If a Sith is taking such interest in the fact that a simple clone is Force-sensitive, Palpatine must want something from him. 

“I won’t help you,” Fives growls. “I’d rather die!” 

Palpatine’s eyes gleam a sickly yellow. 

“Your brother said the same thing,” he croons. “But he did not last long. And you will not, either.”

Fives feels his heart clench. 

“My brother—?”

Except Palpatine doesn’t answer him. The Sith leaves Fives there, pinned on his knees by the awful pressure of the dark side, and Fives has to focus on his breathing to keep himself from panicking.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Palpatine brings him brothers and tells Fives to kill them. Fives could. He knows how. He hasn’t always had the good fortune to only be fighting against droids. 

Of course he refuses. He won’t kill his brothers. The ones that Palpatine brings in are all Coruscant Guards, nothing but terror and horrified confusion in their eyes from the moment they step into the room. 

Palpatine makes them beg for Fives to kill them. 

Their deaths are slow, and their screams seem to echo around the room long after they’ve gone silent. Palpatine doesn’t force Fives to do anything. He allows Fives to turn away and grit his teeth and struggle to keep his resolve and do his best to block everything out. Fives doesn’t know what kind of game this is, but he won’t stoop so low as to kill a brother. 

Except.

Palpatine brings in a shiny. He’s small and afraid and probably just came to Coruscant directly from Kamino. He shakes like a leaf when Palpatine orders Fives to kill him, eyes wide as saucers. Fives just turns away as always, shoving down the urge to vomit, because he knows what’s coming. 

The shiny screams and begs and writhes and sobs and Force he’s so young. He’s so young and he doesn’t deserve this and Fives knows that Palpatine is going to drag it out for as long as the kid’s body will last. The Sith is only just getting started, and Fives—Fives can’t watch this. Not this time. It’s too much. 

Fives takes a hesitant step forward. Palpatine arches one eyebrow at him, unfazed as always. He gestures patiently towards the shiny on the ground and smiles in sick satisfaction when Fives slowly makes his way to the kid’s side. 

Nothing feels real. He knows what he’s about to do but he feels detached from it somehow, like he isn’t even in his own body. When he reaches out to place his hands on either side of the other clone’s head, he realizes that his hands are shaking. 

He’s an ARC. His hands shouldn’t shake. But they do now. 

The shiny jerks at the contact. There are tears still streaming down his face. His expression is twisted in agony. His chest heaves from the force of his sobs, and he’s still begging under his breath for the pain to stop even though Palpatine isn’t doing anything anymore.

Fives doesn’t want to kill him. He doesn’t want to, he won’t, he won’t—

“Please,” the shiny breathes out desperately. Their gazes lock.

Fives breaks.

He makes it fast. It’s the least he can do.

The body slumps lifelessly to the floor. Fives stares at it numbly and blinks back hot tears of his own. 

“Good,” Palpatine tells him, smug and pleased. 

Suddenly, Fives wants to kill him.  

Something surges beneath his skin, red-hot and boiling and angry. He rises to his feet and clenches his fists as the sensation builds and builds and builds.  

He’s afraid and he’s furious and he hates. He hates Palpatine with every fiber of his being. He grabs at the Force and it comes to him easily, like it belongs in his grasp. It whispers to him, feeds off of his fury, grows and ignites into something that Fives can use.

He spins and throws the power at Palpatine with all the force he can muster. To his own inexperienced mind it feels like a tsunami of anger, an impenetrable wall of energy.

To Palpatine, it’s child’s play. The Sith bats Fives’ attack aside with ease and flings out a hand. Fives goes hurtling across the room. He smashes into the side of his cell with a shout of pain and feels the Force immobilize his limbs once more. He gets dragged to his knees again, right in front of the dead clone. 

The anger in him heaves at the sight, struggling to escape. Palpatine laughs. He clamps down on the energy in Fives’ body and rips it from Fives’ grasp. Fives has only just adjusted to the sensation of the Force flowing through him, and to have it torn away from him so abruptly feels like losing a limb. He slumps. His vision flickers.  

“Very good,” the Sith praises. “Your anger will become your greatest strength.”

And he leaves again, keeps Fives pinned even though he’s long gone. Fives stares at the body in front of him and drowns in guilt and fear and regret.

The power that had surged through him had been dark. Fives doesn’t want that. He’s learned enough about Jedi to know that the Dark Side is evil, that it twists and contorts and confuses. He closes his eyes and vows that he won’t do it again.

Except.

Palpatine brings him another shiny. There are intricate tattoos curling around the kid’s jaw that seem brand new. Fives tries not to wonder what his name is, if his batchmates will miss him, what he likes to do during leave. He knows what the Sith is going to asks. He braces himself, steps forwards, and gets dragged to his knees again with little more than a twitch of Palpatine’s finger. He snarls with frustration—he’s doing what Palpatine wants, if only to spare his brothers from suffering, so why is he being restricted? 

“Kill him,” Palpatine orders, and Fives fights, strains against the Force that holds him in place, but he can’t move. 

The shiny starts to scream. The tattoos across his face jump as he does.

And Fives can’t do anything, can’t help, can’t end it, can’t even turn his head away.

The anger builds up again until he can’t contain it. It bursts out of him like a geyser, hot and sharp. He’d vowed not to use it again, but he has to. Suddenly he can grab the Force again. He gathers it around himself until he has just enough strength to fling out a hand and reach. 

It’s instinctual and desperate. There is no finesse, no control. Fives knows that it wouldn’t do any good to attack Palpatine again, but he can use the Force to put the poor shiny out of his misery. The Force swells around him, dark and angry and skittering around his skin as a life is snuffed out. Fives shudders. He drops to the floor. Palpatine allows the motion

“This is progress,” the Sith says in a low voice as he withdraws from the cell. 

He leaves Fives with the body again. He always does, until the cleaning droids come to take them away. Fives is too tired to lift his head and breathe his apology to the corpse like he usually does.

Progress to a Sith is not a good thing. Fives can feel himself fraying, can feel the warmth of the Force inside him beginning to curdle into something dark and cold. He tries to push it away and succeeds for the moment, but he already knows that he’s fighting a losing battle. 

He curls himself into a ball and resigns himself to wait for Palpatine’s next visit. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There comes a point where Fives can’t keep track of anything anymore—of how many brothers he’s killed, of how many times he’s forced to his knees in front of the Sith, of how many times he willingly kneels just so that the pain will stop. 

He begs sometimes, but Palpatine doesn’t listen. If Fives strikes out at him, he’s easily subdued and punished. It never works, no matter how fast Fives is, no matter if he reaches for his anger. He can’t compete with a true Sith. 

Palpatine never explains the Force, never gives him a long lecture about how it functions like Fives had heard General Skywalker and General Kenobi give to Commander Tano during various points of the war. Instead, he throws Fives into problems headfirst and waits for Fives to figure it out himself. 

Palpatine lets a Gamorrean into his cell. The Gamorrean is starving and half-mad. It takes great pleasure in throwing Fives across the room until Fives has at least three broken ribs and a large gash in his side that drips blood on the floor. 

He’s going to die if he doesn’t do something. The dark nags at him, reminds him that it could help. Fives hesitates, but… he’s going to die. 

 He reaches for the darkness. He doesn’t see any other options. The Force coils around him, fierce and ready, filling him with the strength to get to his feet. 

After a long, steady stream of torture and humiliation and frustration, Fives takes vindictive glee in slamming the Gamorrean into the wall with the Force. Suddenly he has the power to end his own pain for the first time in… he doesn’t even know how long. Somehow, it’s intoxicating. Fives kills the Gamorrean ruthlessly, and mercy doesn’t even cross his mind once. 

When the power drains itself from his body and his mind is finally cleared of the foggy darkness, he realizes what he’s done and vomits up every last bit of the meager meal he’d been given earlier. 

He knows that it isn't right. He knows that, he knows that, but he doesn’t know how else to survive. He rejects the dark and shoves it away the instant his stomach stops trying to kill him. 

Palpatine comes back. This time he takes great pleasure in tearing Fives’ mind to pieces, shredding into him with sharp edges of Force that send fire rippling through Fives’ skull. Fives tries to call on the Force to defend himself, to put some sort of barrier or buffer against the mental barrage. It doesn’t work. He’s weak and inexperienced and slow. 

Palpatine pulls him apart and puts him back together over and over again until Fives finally figures out how to construct trembling shields around himself, desperate for the agony to end. Palpatine shatters them to pieces anyway before he allows Fives respite. When he leaves Fives’ mind, Fives’ entire body trembles. It feels like there are holes drilled through his brain. He can’t even wrap his hands around the tray that holds his next meal because he’s still shaking too badly. 

He’s long since abandoned any hope of rescue. He’s also submitted himself to the fact that he will never be strong enough to overcome Palpatine. Sooner or later he thinks he won’t have enough of a mind left to do anything at all. 

But Fives has always been stubborn. 

Even through the terrible pain, he clings to a shred of defiance and a sliver of loyalty. Those things have been ingrained in his heart since he could walk, and it’s just enough to keep him from succumbing for now. 

Fives can use the dark, can pull it to him and access that power, but he never lets it stay. He always forces it back down again, and that’s not what Palpatine wants. Every time it’s more and more difficult to get rid of it. The Dark Side clings to him. It doesn’t want to be subdued, and Fives is struggling against it. 

Palpatine knows this. He knows every inch of Fives’ mind by now. Fives has no secrets, no tricks, no ideas that the Sith does not know. 

So naturally Palpatine knows exactly what it takes to get Fives to break.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

At first, Fives thinks that he’s dreaming. The door to his cell opens. Fives rolls and drops to his knees instinctively, because whatever Palpatine has planned for today will only be ten times worse if he doesn’t. 

Someone laughs at him, quiet and fond.

“You don’t need to do that for me,” they say, and Fives’ head snaps up. 

Echo meets his gaze, a small smile playing across his lips. He’s wearing a black tunic, and he looks completely unconcerned by the conditions of Fives’ cell. Fives nearly chokes. 

“E-Echo…?”

Echo approaches him. Fives shrinks back, eyes darting around the room. It’s a trick. It has to be some sort of test. Echo halts, raising his hands non-threateningly. 

“Whoa, hey. I’m not going to attack you.”

“I’m dreaming,” Fives says through chapped and bloody lips. “You’re dead.”

Echo raises an eyebrow and raises a hand, wiggling his fingers at Fives pointedly. A glove covers almost the entire limb. 

“I’m not dead, Fives,” he says. “But I do have a few fake limbs now, if that makes you feel better.”

Fives shakes his head. He isn't convinced. Echo sighs. 

“Feel me, then. You can do that by now, right? Use the Force.”

Fives closes his eyes and turns away from him. He won’t believe this. Echo has been dead for a long time. 

“Alright then,” he hears Echo mutter, and suddenly something taps at his mind, gentle yet insistent. Fives throws his shields up so fast that he sees Echo wince out of the corner of his eyes… and then Fives has to take a moment to process. He turns back to Echo, eyes wide. 

Palpatine is never gentle. 

“Gonna let me in?” Echo asks him, arching an eyebrow. Fives can barely breathe, but when the tapping comes again, Fives lets his shields drop and suddenly he feels. He knows Echo’s thoughts, recognizes the patterns and quirks that he’s understood since Kamino, and that can’t be replicated by anyone else. Their minds twine together. A connection spins into existence.

Fives feels everything. He feels a curl of light amusement from his brother, a flash of pity, a wave of relief. It feels right, it feels good. Echo slides into Fives’ mind like he belongs there. It’s the first time someone has entered Fives’ mind without accompanying pain. Fives relaxes into the sensation.

Echo is not dead. 

He’s real. He’s here. This isn’t a dream. 

Suddenly Fives feels cold terror. 

He yanks his mind away from Echo’s with a cry of alarm. 

“No, no, you can’t be here,” Fives moans. “You can’t be real, please, he’ll make me kill you, you have to leave—!”

Echo laughs again. 

“Oh, that’s right,” he says casually. “I’d nearly forgotten about that part. Don’t worry about it too much, Fives. It’s not a big deal. Besides, he won’t make you kill me. He sent me here.”

Fives recoils. Suspicion sends awful prickles down his spine, because that… that isn’t right. Echo is real, but something else isn’t. 

He reaches for Echo’s mind this time. Echo raises an eyebrow at him but lets Fives dive into his thoughts.

On the surface, Echo’s mind is bright and intelligent, just as Fives had known it would be. Behind Echo’s normal thoughts and familiar attributes, the dark side swells and ebbs like the tide of the sea. Fives narrows his eyes.

“You’re not Echo,” he says sharply. Echo frowns.

“I can reassure you that I am,” he says, coming closer. Fives draws himself up, calling the Force into his grasp and shoving outward. Echo staggers back. Then he grins. 

“That’s pretty good,” he says. “You’re learning faster than I did, I think.”

Fives stiffens. Echo starts to come closer again, and Fives can feel himself crumbling, falling, struggling to remain defiant because it’s Echo. It’s his twin, his brother, his last batchmate, and he’s right in front of him when Fives thought that he was dead. 

When Echo reaches out and pulls Fives close, all of Fives’ defenses topple. He melts into the touch, breath hitching over a sob. Echo makes a soft noise and guides them to the floor. Fives clings to his brother. He knows that something is still horribly wrong but he hasn’t gotten this type of comfort in so long. It’s selfish, but even if this is a trick Fives is still going to take what he can get. 

“Force, Echo.” His voice trembles. He’s shaking. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, curls his fingers into the fabric of Echo’s tunic and reminds himself to breathe. “How are you alive?”

“The Separatists picked me up at the Citadel,” Echo says quietly. “I was missing three limbs and bleeding out, but I fought anyway. They were surprised to learn that I could use the Force. So was I. Then they brought me here.”

Fives presses his face into Echo’s shoulder. His voice comes out muffled by the fabric. “You’re like me, then.”

“Course I am,” Echo replies. “We came out of the same vat, didn’t we? Why would you have something that I don’t?”

Fives doesn’t have an answer to that. He lets himself drift for a while, burrowing himself in the warmth and comfort and contact that he’s been craving. He can’t remember the last time he was able to hug someone. Part of him is worried that if he lets go, Echo will disappear, and Palpatine will take his place. 

The illusion can’t last forever, because Fives can’t forget what he’s already seen. Echo is real, but he is not the same. 

“What did he do to you?” Fives asks in little more than a whisper. He’s afraid of the answer he’ll receive. Echo shrugs. 

“The same thing that he’s doing to you,” he says lightly. “So I understand, Fives. I know that it hurts. I know exactly how you feel right now.”

“If you understand that, then get me out of here,” Fives says weakly. Echo sighs.

“I know, I know,” he soothes. “I wanted to leave, too. But Fives, you need to understand. It makes everything so much better. It hurts now, but when he’s finished you’ll be better. Stronger. You’ll be free. I promise.”

Echo strokes a gentle hand down Fives’ back. Fives’ stomach heaves. His skin crawls, but he can’t bring himself to pull away.

“He broke you,” he whispers in horror. Echo finally shifts, separating them just enough that Echo can look Fives in the eyes without letting go of him completely. 

“No. He fixed me, Fives. Just be patient. You’ll understand soon.” His eyes gleam yellow in the dark. 

Fives needs to let go. He needs to let go, it isn’t right, if he listens to Echo he’ll break and it’ll be the end. He needs to let go. He needs to pull away from this twisted shadow of his brother and continue to fight. 

But he can’t. 

It’s Echo. 

He curls himself further into Echo’s embrace and sobs. Echo holds him tight, offers him comfort, worms his way into Fives’ mind and sends him waves of warmth and reassurance. 

If Fives closes his eyes and ignores everything around him, he can almost forget that Echo isn’t himself. 

“I missed you,” Echo whispers into Fives’ ear. Fives swallows and doesn’t say anything in return. 

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Echo is almost always present, after that. He accompanies Palpatine every time Fives gets a visit. He watches, speaks sometimes, and then stays behind when Palpatine is finished to pull Fives into his arms and hold him as Fives tries to remember who he is. 

He’d hoped that Echo’s presence would make things easier, but it makes things worse. He tells Fives to give in, promises him that things will be better, whispers that he can’t wait until they can be together again. Palpatine lets him speak. All of them know Fives’ weakness. All of them know that he’s breaking, that it’s just a matter of time before Fives loses the battle and lets the dark take him as it has his brother. 

Fives, please,” Echo pleads with him, while Fives struggles to cling to his sanity and ignores the dark inside him that’s begging to be used. “Please, the longer you fight, the longer it will hurt. I want you with me, I don’t want you to get hurt anymore. Fives…” 

Fives can’t look at him. Sweat drips down his brow like a river. His mind is combusting. He convulses on the floor, gritting his teeth so hard that part of him thinks that they might shatter. The dark swirls to life. Fives grabs it, pulls it close and feels a bit of the pain fade minutely. 

“You’re so close,” Echo tells him. “Just let it stay, Fives. It’s not just a tool. You have to make it a part of you.”

Fives snarls.

“No,” he hisses. He lets go of the dark and allows the pain to return. 

Dimly, in the back of his mind, he knows that this is the last time he’ll have the strength to rebel. Echo makes a sound of frustration and hurt.

Palpatine doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ever now, really. Fives is sure that the Sith thinks it’s beneath him. He hadn’t spoken much when it had just been the two of them either, and now Echo does the talking. Palpatine’s presence leaves Fives without warning. The sudden freedom so unexpected that Fives gapes in bewilderment. 

He’d been expecting lightning and agony as a result of his disobedience. It doesn’t come. Palpatine’s eyes flicker over to Echo. Echo doesn’t say anything, but he nods once, and Palpatine leaves with a sweep of his robes. 

Fives hauls himself shakily to his feet, confused. 

“W-what—?” he croaks out. 

“You’re not going to like this at all,” Echo says, and for the first time, Fives hears regret in his brother’s voice. 

“What are you talking about—?”

Echo reaches out and grabs him with the Force. Echo’s never done that before. He’ll enter Fives’ mind, press some of the pain away when he’s allowed to, but he’s never used it to paralyze, or to harm like the Sith does. Fives panics, because for a brief moment he’s afraid that Echo is going to pick up right where Palpatine left off. 

Instead, Echo lifts him, brow furrowed, and pulls Fives with him out of the cell. 

Fives doesn’t know what’s going on. He tries to fight. He batters his will against Echo’s because Echo’s strength can’t compare with Palpatine’s and Fives can actually make him flinch. But Echo still has more experience than Fives does, and he keeps mostly Fives motionless as he walks them through a dim hallway and into another room. 

There’s a chair in the center of the room. Echo eases Fives into it and fastens cuffs around Fives’ arms and legs. Fives pants in apprehension. This doesn’t look good. He doesn’t think it could possibly hurt more than Palpatine can make it, but Echo is grim, and that makes him worry.

“You just… need a little push. That’s all,” Echo says quietly. “It’s okay. I needed it too.”

“The kriff is this?” Fives demands, jerking against the metal restraints. “Let me go!”

“You know I can’t,” Echo reminds him curtly. “This is to help you, Fives. Why is that so hard for you to comprehend?”

“If you really wanted to help me, you would have stopped this a long time ago,” Fives gasps out. Echo huffs and ignores that. 

“This device is experimental. Our Master hopes to use it in the future, to show others like us the true ways of the Force. It will let you see things as I do, I hope.”

Echo pauses for a moment. Fives feels him reaching out towards their Force bond, sending him apologies and peace and reassurance that Fives does not want. He recoils from it, pushes Echo away, and he sees Echo’s eyes go wide with shock. 

“You aren’t my brother,” Fives snarls at him. “My brother is dead.”

For a moment, Fives can see past the dark that swirls in Echo’s eyes. Something shatters. Echo tries to reach for him again, tugging at the bond forcefully. Fives flinches and cuts him off. Echo’s side of the bond lights up with confusion and panic, but Fives won’t let him in. 

A moment later, Echo’s expression hardens, and anger replaces the vulnerability. 

Echo slams his hand down onto the control panel at his side. The machine begins to whir to life. Fives glances down and sees needles drawing closer to his skin on either side of him. He swallows.

“Echo...”

“You could have avoided this, you know. You could have stopped it already. You have the power to end it. All you have to do is stop rejecting it, stop rejecting me,” Echo snarls. His eyes flash yellow again. Fives hates it when they do that. It’s a harsh reminder that his brother is gone, that Echo has been replaced by something that has his face but not his heart.

“You don’t have to be afraid. Not of the chair, not of the Dark Side, not of anything. You have me now,” Echo whispers in his ear. “Aren’t you grateful? I didn’t have anyone to get me through these things. I was all alone.” He bares his teeth in a pale imitation of a smile. “It nearly killed me. You’re lucky, Fives. Lucky that I’m here to help.” 

Electroprods blaze to life. Fives hadn’t even noticed them until now, but they’re inching close alongside the needles. Fives trembles. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t. He’s so tired of pain.

“Echo, don’t. Please. Get me out of here, this isn’t you—!”

Echo’s expression twists into a distorted parody of sympathy. He strokes a hand over Fives hair in a motion that’s supposed to be soothing before taking a step back so that he’s out of range of the chair’s influence. “I’m right here. You just have to endure it, and hate. Everything will be alright after that. Trust me. I’ll be right here, don’t worry.”

Fives twists, shakes, closes his eyes and tries to shut out Echo’s words because it’s wrong, it’s twisted and horrible and he’s so, so afraid. 

“Echo, let me go. Echo, please! Please, please don’t don’t—!”

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When he wakes up, his world is on fire. He moans before he can stop himself and that just makes it worse. It feels like there are shards of glass down his throat. He’s curled in a little ball next to someone, and he doesn’t need to see in order to know who it is. 

“Sleep, Fives,” Echo tells him. Fives is too tired, too hurt, too beaten down to even think about disobeying. He drifts off again, but when he comes to once more the pain hasn’t faded even a bit. 

Echo is speaking in the dark of the cell, breathing something out in quiet rolling syllables that Fives doesn’t understand. The words grate against Fives’ mind. They’re… familiar, somehow, but not to him. The dark in him leaps in recognition. 

“Nwûl tash. Dzwol shâsotkun. Shâsotjontû châtsatul nu tyûk. Tyûkjontû châtsatul nu midwan. Midwanjontû châtsatul nu asha. Ashajontû kotswinot itsu nuyak. Wonoksh qyâsik nun.”

Echo repeats it once, twice, three times. Fives doesn’t try to speak just yet. Even lifting his head sends lightning pain skittering through his body. Echo must sense that he’s awake. He prods at Fives’ mind through the bond, and Fives is too weak to resist this time. Echo hums in satisfaction as their minds curl together. Fives pushes at him weakly, but Echo bats his protests aside. 

“You want to know what it means?” he asks quietly. “It’s what you could have, if you’d let us show you. Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.” He pauses. “Do you want to be free, Fives?”

Fives rumbles out a bitter laugh that vibrates through his bones and makes him ache.

“I am free. You’re the one who isn’t.”

Echo doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment. 

“Maybe I’m not,” he finally admits. “But you’ll join us anyway. If it’s true that I’m not free, you won’t leave me to face servitude alone.”

 Servitude. Ha. 

“I’m loyal to the Republic,” Fives croaks out, but he hasn’t actually thought of the Republic in a long time. Echo laughs at him.

“Maybe you were,” he whispers. “But you’ve always been more loyal to me.” 

He’s right. Fives loves his brother far more than he will ever love the Republic.

Fives is done resisting. He’d known that he was going to give in the moment he’d seen Echo. He’s just been putting it off. He closes his eyes and lets every muscle in his body go slack. The barriers that he’s put up to keep the dark away fade. The dark swells, throbs, billows to life. Fives lets it swallow him whole. 

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Fives understands everything now.

The dark is his friend. The dark belongs with him. It sings contentedly as it thrums between him and his brother, binding them together as they kneel at Palpatine’s feet. When the Sith gestures for them to rise, they do so as one, more in sync than they’ve ever been. Fives shares a victorious glance with Echo as Palpatine’s satisfaction rolls over them.

“You are my prototypes,” he tells them with a slow smile. “The predecessors to my future Inquisitors. Your conversions were successful, and theirs will be, too.”

The Sith presents them with lightsabers. Fives accepts the weapon and licks his lips. The dark curls around him like a blanket. It isn’t cold, not anymore. 

He’s not sure why it had taken him so long to accept it. 

His bond with Echo is alight with energy and power. Fives can practically taste it. He knows that Echo can, too. 

It is better, just like Echo had promised. And Fives doesn’t really care what happens to him anymore, not as long he can stay side by side with his brother.