#I STARTED THIS HUNT IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND TWELVE

[lathrine]

9,400 eggs and 167 species in the GPX plus shelter, and none of them are my fucking chinglings

[ashoss]

Child of Venus (or alternatively a legacy) Tim Drake. 

First really quickly going to run down some very basic history quickly. 

Roman Venus comes from the Greek Aphrodite, who comes from the Western Semitic goddess Astarte, who is known by the ancient Mesopotamian as Ishtar and earlier Ianna. 

This is an extreme overview of thousands of years of history, but it conveys my point. I want to explore all of these aspects quickly before I get into my thoughts on how this connects. (Also, like an extreme basic rundown of things that people might not know)

Ianna - is the goddess of love and war (along with several other fields) but is also heavily associated with divine law and political power. An interesting fact is that she was actually a three-form goddess. She went from a fairly localised deity to one of the most venerated deities across Mesopomeia. When the Assyrians took over, she became the highest deity, even above their national ones. She was so popular and essential that she is alluded to in Hebrew text. She didn’t experience a proper decline until the period between the 1st century CE and the sixth century CE when Christianity became widespread. She was in more myths than any other Sumerian deity.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inanna 

Astarte - is the goddess of these associated combinations: war, royal power, healing, and hunting (and several others). The travels, trade, and colonisation of the people would end with her being worshipped and an accepted deity in many places, from Egypt to the Iberian peninsula. She is considered to be the equivalent of Isis in some schools of thought. Her worship would land in Cyprus, where she could have merged with a local goddess and would slowly go to mainland Greece during the late Mycenean era or the following post-Broze age collapse. In the Greek classical period, she was occasionally equated with Aphrodite through (what a great many Polythetsic cultures did) the practice of synchronising deities.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astarte

Aphrodite - is the goddess of love, beauty, and passion (along with the others everyone knows). She is one of the twelve Olympians and is one of the most widely celebrated and worshipped deities in the Hellenic world. Some of her other epithets were Eleemon (the merciful) and Enoplios (armed). She was called Tymborychos (gravedigger) along with the previously discussed Areia (the warlike) in one of her darker, more violent natures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphrodite_Areia

Venus - is the goddess of desire, prosperity, and victory. She is the ancestor of the Roman people through her son, and Julius Ceaser claimed to have been her ancestor. A couple of the epithets I want to highlight for a moment are Fleix (lucky), Genetrix (the mother), Physica Pompeiana (Pompeii’s protective goddess), Verticordia (charger of hearts), and Victrix (victorious) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_(mythology)

Okay, now let's move on to my thoughts because this consumed my brain so much that I needed to grab my computer and write it down. 

The Thoughts! 

I’ll start with the child of Venus and then do the legacy version. 

Janet and Venus. Imagine if, on one of the important archaeology trips, Janet comes across something important to Venus. It could be anything, whether it be the start of new ruins of a worship spot or a statue. Venus appreciates Janet's respect towards the findings and wants to know more about Janet. (There is also the fact that there is an extreme difference between the number of men and women in archaeology, especially field archaeology.) The two of them share a conversation where Janet shows interest in the history of Venus, and Venus herself drops the idea that the history behind Venus and the goddesses that precede her is also enjoyable. It was a test. Janet takes this information, wanting to have another conversation with the woman and learns as much as possible. Realising that she can do more field research, she sets it up. Venus appreciates this, and he wonders whether Tim is just the kid of Janet and Venus or if he has a three-parent setup. Tim exists. 

Did Venus more or less give Janet a quest? Yes. Does Janet regret it? No. It is a very cute and tragic set-up because to be favoured by the gods is to be doomed by them. You could change up their death a bit, too. To match the tragedy vibe. 

Tim grows up learning all about his parent's work. It may not have been his favourite, but he listened and learned. Tim, sent to boarding schools and in the comics, always saw school as a necessity but something secondary—Tim, who was often separate from his parents. What if when Dick Grayson’s parents died (Monster attack?), his parents realised just how dangerous the world is, and they sent him to different boarding schools to try and keep him safe. It could also explain some of Jack’s attitude. Knowing that Tim isn’t truely his. Knowing the reality that fate could hand his son. Explain why he often sits back to parenting, knowing that his son could die in tragedy young, but also why he clings sometimes. Why will he hammer down on parenting when he realises that he can’t protect his kid and his kid could die? 

Now onto Tim. Tim loves his city so much. Tim goes back to Gotham even when his whole family moves. Tim would do anything for Gotham. That is Passion and Love. That is dedication. Tim, who becomes Robin. Who must go through a much longer trail and training before becoming Robin properly? He who trained under Shiva, who Shiva sees potential for. He who chooses an unconventional weapon. One that does not quickly kill but requires skill and ability to use. (He is fighting a war in Gotham but also loves Gotham. He hurts and helps. He causes pain, and he saves. He brings himself to ruin to help his loved ones in his beloved city and make something better for the world he lives in.) 

Tim finds himself victorious most of the time but sometimes has to rely a bit on luck. He is Robin, a protector of Gotham. Tim, by the way of being Robin, is trying to create a better Gotham. Tim is the one who created the Batfamily as we know it. He often gets people to work together that do not work together very well. 

He is also well-travelled because he is Robin and a hero in general. He has been on multiple teams and has worked alone, and despite seeing what the world (the universe) has to offer, he is still from Gotham and will belong to Gotham. 

But tragedy follows him, and he ends up in front of the graves of his loved ones more often than not. His parents, his friends, and those he feels he has failed. Even with the best of intentions, people still die and leave, and generally, being Robin creates a tragedy. 

Tim being the first Roman in the family could be very alienating and make him feel like he has to prove himself, but also the idea that he would have to work harder to prove he can fight and be here, and people still underestimate him? Venus may have been significant, but people have inherent biases. No one would assume a child of Venus would be a skilled warrior despite the history of war. However, the opposite is how people would think he only got this far because of how important of a goddess his mother is. That he didn’t have to put in the hard work because he wasn’t expected to. 

I have many more thoughts, but they generally vibe without a coherent statement. If I find words for them, I’ll send another annon. 

~~~

The Legacy idea

One of the Drakes is a child of Venus who is doing archaeology because it is part of the quest their mother sent them on. They are constantly travelling because staying in one place could have put their son in even more danger. If you still wanted Tim to be tied to Athena, you could have the other parent be a child or a legacy of Athena. 

Annon AK

(btw if you guys are interested in aphrodite lore, i really enjoyed Overly Sarcastic Production’s video on her! theyve also done one on Dionysus, Hermes and Hades/Persephone - plus a ton of other myths and classics :))

Honestly i am so in love with aphrodite/venus child tim (no pun intended). while yes athena fits him in terms of intellect and wit- tim is more so defined by his love- for his friends, family, gotham itself. (and thank you @pooky-chan for telling me abt aphrodite tim, i feel like his love is such an underused part of his character.)

i think actually going into janet and jack's relationship with venus is super interesting! i hadn't really thought about how their birth/godly parent would effect any of their family dynamic at all.

tbh everything youve said is really great! i definitely couldn't have gone in that much detail for his background. thank you for sharing :D

[spacemonkeysalsa]

Appetites

(Angst and fluff and smut)

It's been five years since the Vampire Ascendant Astarion helped save Baldur's Gate. He has everything he ever wanted, and he's miserable.

Isolde is nobody, and has nothing. When given the option to become a vampire spawn, her response gives Astarion a moment of pause; “No. Thank you. I think I’ll just die.”

Read Chapter One on Ao3

Read Chapter Two on Ao3

Read Chapter Three on Ao3

Read Chapter Four on Ao3

Read Chapter Five on Ao3

Read Chapter Six on Ao3

Read Chapter Seven on Ao3

Read Chapter Eight on Ao3

Read Chapter Nine on Ao3

Read Chapter Ten on Ao3

Read Chapter Eleven on Ao3

Read Chapter Twelve on Ao3

Read Chapter Thirteen on Ao3

Read Chapter Fourteen on Ao3

Read Chapter Fifteen on Ao3

Read Chapter Sixteen on Ao3

Read Chapter Seventeen on Ao3

or read Chapter Seventeen below the cut

Alice was correct in that Aurelia was awake, and had even ventured out of her chambers. It was initially Astarion’s hope that maybe she’d gone hunting and finally done something to slake the hunger that must be an unmanageable beast in her stomach by now. But he knew she wouldn’t, and he quickly traced the scent of burning that tieflings sometimes left in the air to the ballroom, then to the passageway that led into the attic.

He found her kneeling, with her back to him just out of a shaft of moonlight, and he wondered if she’d been there when it was still sunlight, and if she had watched it change from something dangerous to her, to something harmless, and still hadn’t moved.

The clothing she wore was similar to the simple garb that Alice had found for Isolde, and the same size, though it fit Aurelia better. His tiefling sister looked bizarre to him like this, wearing a casual tunic and leggings, her hair in a loose braid at the back of her neck. He realized he’d never seen her wear anything that hadn’t been picked out for her… their old master took pleasure in dressing her up, a little doll, so she looked like a cowering imitation of him with devil’s horns.

The fabric was thin and her bright red skin and raised scars were not entirely obscured through her clothing. Her scars were angry when he’d seen them before. Like they were healing all over again. He felt the pain in his own and knew they must be the same. Awakened again, red, and swollen. Ugly. But, healing, hopefully.The marks were nearly identical, save a few Infernal phrases, if Isolde’s comments were accurate, which he strongly suspected they were.

She flicked her tail around to touch the moonlight coming through the ruined ceiling. “So many of the gods hate us,” Aurelia’s voice dripped, “a victim once told me that the moon doesn’t have its own light, it just reflects a little bit of the sun onto the night. Do you think it’s Selûne who shields us from Lathander wrath? Do you think she could forgive us?”

No. Astarion didn’t think any of that, but to say so right now wouldn’t cheer her up, or himself. “Tomorrow morning, if you like, you could try partaking in just a little of my blood. See if I can extend my protection to you and allow you to stand in the sun. It works for my spawn. No idea if that’s a requirement. We can find out together, if you’re willing to experiment.”

If she was cheered by this thought, she didn’t show it with anything more than a slight twitch of her tail. Slowly, she scooted around without standing up, so that she could tilt her horned head back and look up at him.

“I don’t blame you,” Aurelia’s eyes still blazed, not unlike a spawns’, but she wasn’t enthralled any longer, so he imagined it was all the fire of the hells. “I can’t say that I would have done the same thing in your place, because I wouldn’t have. Not if you gave me a thousand years. But, only because I’d be too afraid.”

He waited a moment to see if she wanted to say anything else about it, but when she remained silent, he took that to mean it was his turn. This was as good a place as any to start, and he almost felt comfortable as he admitted, “I think that’s why I brought you back. I think. I’m still working it out. I have a habit of… acting without thinking.”

“Really?” Aurelia asked flatly.

“Without thinking enough,” he amended. “Certainly, without taking note of what I was thinking, to examine later with…. objectivity.”

“We haven’t had to do a lot of thinking,” Aurelia noted, “or—it was better when we didn’t bother. Easier.”

“So much easier,” Astarion agreed with a heavy sigh, one of the most painful things he’d had to admit to himself over the last five years was that some part of him did miss how uncomplicated it was to never have to make decisions. Small part. “But, when I brought you back—well, first of all, you are not my favorite. But, I do like you. And you’re the least likely to immediately attack me.”

“That’s definitely true.” Aurelia reached a hand across her chest and massaged her opposite shoulder, as far down her back as she could, face twinged with discomfort. “But why bother with any of us? You were rid of us. Don’t pretend like that wasn’t a relief.”

“Oh, it was a huge relief,” Astarion didn’t even consider trying to deny it, because he thought Aurelia would understand. “I didn’t relish it, but once you were all gone… I would never have to think about any of you again. I’d had so much experience just moving on after guilt and loss, and I thought for once it could be for my own good. Really. Murdering my past was magnificent. And it was what I wanted. At the time. What I still want—well,” that was where he hit a chasm, the part he couldn’t quite work out yet. As much as he wanted to let the past die, Shadowheart’s little visit had forced him to reconcile that there was a difference between not allowing the past to dictate the future, and obliterating it completely. Maybe, somewhere deep down, a part of him had already been working that out. “I can’t change what I became. What two hundred years of torment made and unmade me. And, I don’t even want to,” was that true? Did he like what he’d become? He accepted it. “But, as my glorious, profane ascension rolls forward and eternity faces me, I find that…” there was no dignified way to put this, and so he didn’t want to say it. Couldn’t say it. Found his mouth physically shut for him by some unseen and unknowable force. He suspected Shar wasn’t helping the situation. 

At least he was here. At least he was talking. At least it hurt. Pain was better than nothing. Than what Shar wanted.

Aurelia’s red pinpoint eyes were stuck in the middle distance, her mouth fixed into a frown. It was the expression of someone who was thinking of themselves, and barely listening. Probably for the best. In spite of his mental rehearsals, Astarion wasn’t sure he was really saying what he meant, and certainly wasn’t doing so to any desired effect beyond wounding himself to let Shar’s influence bleed out. 

He could only hope Aurelia would be satisfied enough with what he offered that they could both move on.

The tiefling sighed in a way that conveyed the purest fear and uncertainty. “You gave me one of the nice rooms,” she gestured down through the rotted attic and back towards the well maintained part of the palace proper.

“Our old quarters have been converted to storage,” Astarion shrugged, “you can’t burn down a single room in a home without damaging the structure as a whole.”

“This place feels very empty. Do you not have spawn of your own now?”

He should have anticipated that question, but he hadn’t. “Just one.”

Aurelia frowned at that, “you said it’s been five years? Will you make more?”

“I don’t know,” he didn’t know so many things, and that was why he didn’t really want to have this conversation. But, it needed to happen. He’d brought her here, for a purpose, even if he was still working out what that was. A vampire spawn who didn’t have to obey him. Why was that such an appealing idea? It shouldn’t have been. “Probably not.”

“It felt like five years,” Aurelia admitted. “I thought I’d lose track of time in the hells, but I never did.”

“You were in the hells, then?” he tried to sound surprised, but his tone wasn’t convincing. Of course. He’d known that.

“You sent us all to the nine hells, yes,” Aurelia wasn’t going to let him get away with passivity.

“I think perhaps you might just blame me a little, dear sister.”

“A touch,” Aurelia sighed. “It wasn’t worse than before, at least. There was pain, and fear and tedium. But, the hunger was gone.” It would be back now, “no more need to go out and gather victims, or play false. I never saw the master. You would never bring him back, would you?”

Gods above, what a question. It sent Astarion’s mind reeling. Why would she ever even think of such a thing? “To kill him a second time? That would be satisfying.” He sometimes boiled at the knowledge that he hadn’t been able to kill his master up close, with his own hands—it felt like he’d cheated himself out of something he desperately needed. He let the anger caress his heart.

Aurelia gave him a look, and then he realized his slight to her. To all of them. “His death was the only satisfying one that day,” he didn’t have to try to sound sincere. “As much as I did want to… get rid of all of it. I’m not—” but he was a monster, so he couldn’t bring himself to say something just because he wanted it to be true. “If there had been another way, I would have taken it.”

Her fiery eyes undulated like embers, and he watched her breathe out a little emotion. “Did you mean it, when you said I could use that scroll on anyone I like?”

“Why ever not?” Astarion had no idea what else to do with it. Practicality dictated that he should just keep it somewhere safe until it was needed, but the practical answer was also the boring one.

“I need to think about it,” she stood up. “Perhaps I’ll sleep on it, before I make my choice. I’m a bit run down.”

Astarion walked her back to her rooms, considering the amount of sleep that she’d gotten, versus the amount of sleep she probably needed to even begin to recover from several years in hell—maybe more than either of them realized, as time didn’t quite work the same way between the planes. Aurelia may not have had a close brush with Shar’s mantle, but she probably needed to purge a little emotion all the same. The weight of the hells couldn’t possibly be preferable. She didn’t look like she’d gotten much out of their conversation though. She just looked tired.

“Goodnight,” he bid her.

“I’ll be up a while yet,” she said, in spite of her exhaustion. “We aren’t done,” Aurelia warned him.

“No, we aren’t.” Astarion agreed.

That had been a shot of pain and shame that he didn’t enjoy, but at least they had gotten through it. It was a conversation they needed to start, after all. 

And, it had given him the reprieve from Shar’s influence that he would need in order to talk to someone else who was weighed down by the Lady of Loss.

Astarion decided that the plan wasn’t to stop Isolde from leaving, necessarily, though he hoped he could convince her to stay longer. Something about utter emptiness put her ignorance of their shared history between them into perspective. Yes, indeed, it was horrible that he had probably murdered and gorged himself on the blood of several of her loved ones. But, gods, was he ever just perfectly equipped to move past it for both of their sakes? She could stay. It wouldn’t even be that much longer, probably.

But, if she did go, that was still fine. The more important goal was to simply ensure that she wasn’t in despair, and ready to throw herself to Shadowheart’s acolytes.

Under no circumstances could he let anything slip about how he might've massacred her family. Surely, that would play right into Shar’s hands. Yes. What a very practical reason not to tell her the one thing that would shame him the most. So convenient.

He found her crying, which seemed a bad start.

“Oh,” she started, turning away.

He hadn’t knocked. He should have knocked. She only needed a few seconds to fully compose herself. He could have given her that before barging in on her.

Isolde sat at the little vanity in the corner of the room, a few items spread out as though she was trying to decide what to take and what to leave there. He was pleased to see that some of them were small valuables she’d clearly found around the palace. He’d hoped she would steal from him, and she seemed to have rather good taste without being too greedy. Charming combination.

When she didn’t protest his intrusion, he shut the door, and took a seat on the edge of the bed.

Sure enough, Shar’s miasma clung to her, thick and heady. He still had it too, but it was subtle after his frank talk with Aurelia. 

They were lucky. Astarion had heard of other Chosen of Shar for whom the influence of the Lady of Loss was not so easily shaken. Their very presence oppressed so completely with that sense of endless nothing, that it was difficult to speak, and impossible to carry on a coherent conversation. 

Still, Astarion did feel a lingering sense of numbness. In contrast, Isolde was mired in absence. Even as she tried to look at him, she kept slipping, sending her mind away to a void rather than endure him.

He had to bring her back, and he knew just how to start. Astarion tried very hard to only apologize when he was actually sorry, and so it didn’t happen all that often. “Isolde, I’m sorry.”

Though she had managed to wipe her tears away and school her face into a placid smile upon his intrusion, and though she seemed very calm at first, these words cracked through her instantly. Her breath hitched, and for a moment she looked fearful and hurt, but mostly there was a dawning confusion, something she clearly had to force a little as she added in a shaking voice, “you’ve done me no wrong, my lord.”

“I’ve upset you.”

“I’m not upset,” Isolde smiled broadly, it was convincing. That emptiness probably did have her convinced that she was alright, until he looked at her eyes. It would have been so easy to let her get away with it—or, to let her let him get away with it.

“I meant to upset you,” he pressed and she opened her mouth to protest, but then closed it a moment later, regarding him like she didn’t entirely understand what she was seeing. “I gladly allowed myself to be distracted by other—admittedly important—matters, so that I could avoid you, in hopes that you would simply leave and I would never have to explain myself.”

Isolde’s expression hardened just a touch, it suited her better than he would have imagined; a ruddy glimmer of anger. “I’m taking too long,” she concluded, tone choked. “You want me to hurry—”

“That is not what I’m doing,” Astarion could see how she got there, but had to fight to keep the gravel out of his voice. “I don’t—I know it’s what you should do, but it isn’t what I want.”

Her shoulders fell and she contemplated her hands, suddenly guarded and he thought he knew why. “I won’t turn you. I may not create any other spawn, ever again.”

Isolde interrupted her own shocked reaction by asking quickly, “Alice? Is she—”

“Oh, Alice is fine,” Astarion rolled his eyes. “She manages the hunger better than a vampire twenty times her age and seems excited to spend eternity reading every book ever written. But—I’m done. You made me realize something the other day, when you asked about those scars, and I… I can’t go on pretending it’s a gift, any longer. My predecessor—I tried to romanticize it. It’s just a way to fucking cope.”

At the sudden rush of pity in her eyes, he had to look away. 

“I shouldn’t have pried,” Isolde murmured.

“But you did, and I thought about things I have tried to avoid thinking about for some time. None of that—none of this is your fault. You deserve better.”

She did seem moved by this, but not in the way he’d expected. She had one full lip pinched between her teeth, and took a long moment to skewer him with an examining look. Fearful.

“What?”

Quietly she said, “You sound angry.”

“That’s just because I’m furious. But, it’s nothing to do with anyone who still has a beating heart. Just old wounds. Scar tissue.” This was the explaining himself part that he had been so eager to avoid. It wasn’t so bad, actually. He didn’t like her feeling sorry for him, but as long as he was measured about the moments he actually looked into her sensuous black eyes, he could weather it. And it was certainly better than letting her be lured to the House of Grief in a futile search for comfort.

“There were seven of us. I was the second. And bound to each of us, a thousand souls. All of us were meant to be consumed in the ritual, but I fought, and I traded places with him.” His chest felt split open as it was, he couldn't say his name. He held out his hands, “so, this is what I purchased for seven thousand seven doomed souls.” Seven thousand and eight, perhaps. “Sunlight, a reflection, the appetites and arousals of mortal flesh intact… I don’t hunger like I used to. All the advantages of a true vampire without having to become one.”

“Purchased from who?” Isolde did have a knack for asking the question right at the heart of the matter.

“Archdevil Mephistopheles,” Astarion waited for her reaction, not entirely sure why, but he didn't expect her to be horrified, though that would have been a rational response.

She did look grave, but not surprised. “Gods, Astarion,” she shook her head.

“I am not arrogant enough to believe that immortality can ever be truly indefinite. Someone like me has one of two logical conclusions. I either find a way to light a divine spark and ascend further, to true godhood, or I die. Eventually. Probably ignominiously, probably violently—I’m sure I will make the whole thing very dramatic, as I know what awaits me.” He shrugged, “I have never been ambitious. Mephistopheles’ maw is all I have to look forward to, once I am done enjoying this plane to its fullest extent.”

Isolde was still shaking her head, but her brow was twisted in concern, not lowered in skepticism. “I’m so sorry.”

“Those scars aren't just a reminder of two centuries of torment. Of what I have lost. They are also a reminder that my soul, imbued with the power and the suffering of seven thousand and seven others, is almost certainly something Mephistopheles was always intent on consuming himself.”

Isolde’s eyes were wet again, but he couldn't tear himself away this time. He watched her as her breathing grew shallow and she processed what he was saying.

“Well. Perhaps, seven thousand and six,” he grimaced. “That's the other thing I should mention, in case you do decide to stay a while longer. And I hope you will.” He cleared his throat, “so—as I recently came into possession of scrolls of true resurrection, you might recall—I brought one of my spawn siblings back from the dead. One of seven.”

Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it was apparent from her baffled, wide-eyed expression that this was far from it. “Naturally.” She blinked.

Astarion fought off a twinge of a smile at the corner of his mouth. A sure sign that Shar’s oppression was lifting. “I don't know what it means. I can’t predict how it might change things. I think I am only just beginning to understand why I did it.”

Isolde’s already raised eyebrows lifted even closer to her hairline. “And?”

“Also, maybe something to do with you. Tangentially.” Astarion frowned, “the night we met, I said that one appeal of spawn is that they have to do as I say. The other appeal, that I didn't want to speak about, is company.” Simple, sad, and still a little difficult to admit. “Immortal life is a long time, if you're lucky. And, although the sense of superiority can get you through a lot—I rather wonder if it wouldn't…” he mulled his choice of words over for a few moments, “help, to not be the only one having to get through it.” 

“Your sibling understands, better than anyone,” Isolde’s tone was still grave, “but… aren't they horribly angry with you?”

“Probably,” Astarion shrugged. “I believe she’s as filled with rage as she can possibly be. But, dearest sister has a very high tolerance for abuse. That rage doesn't manifest itself in the kind of spectacular violence that say…. I would visit on her, if she gave me away to the devil.”

“But you brought her back. She came back.”

“Think that counts for something?” Astarion wondered quietly, more to himself. He knew Aurelia too well to suspect she would return purely for revenge, but he would never make the mistake of thinking she would be grateful.

“The other scroll?”

“A welcome back present for Aurelia,” He'd done that on reflex, but it felt more right than ever.

“Does she go straight back to Mephistopheles when she dies?”

“I imagine so, yes.” But it wasn't certain. How could it be? Even having gone through with the ritual, Astarion still didn't entirely understand all the nuances.

Isolde seemed to run out of questions. Her gaze was fixed on him, and for a moment he wondered if she finally saw him for a monster. But, no, she wasn't recoiling. She wasn't even judging him. 

She did look quite at a loss for words though.

Fair enough.

“Please, stay. You are welcome here.” Astarion knew there wouldn’t be much more he could offer her. He didn’t know if these earnest feelings would be enough to overcome the emptiness that Shar force fed them both. But, he didn’t have anything more. “If you do decide to leave, promise me that you will stay far away from the House of Grief. They are veritable carrion.”

Isolde’s overwhelmed expression softened as he spoke. She took a moment before she responded. “Well. I am rather curious to meet your sister.”

[vid-writes]

Godslayer Chronicles Ch. 1

This story will not contain any romance or sex but it does contain violence so reader discretion is advised!

Killing gods is not easy to manage, but when the gods have returned and are hunting humans for sport, someone has to fight back. In a world where magic didn't exist and the only gods to speak of were those mentioned in the old texts that formed religions the day Earth shook and the sky turned red everyone panicked. Then when the worldwide earthquakes continued and a rift ripped open in the sky the world caught on fire. Literally. Emalia had been twelve the day the old gods, new gods, and creatures so indescribable they might as well be gods poured through the glowing blue rift that bisected the blood-red sky. Now at nineteen years old, she sat by a dwindling campfire in the destroyed and barren town of Minneapolis surrounded by five of the other god-hunting mercenaries she had met since she started this job four years ago.

"Come on Em, it's just a kiss," Anton huffed. He was one of three guys in their little rag-tag group. His slick black hair and pale blue eyes might have done other women in but Emalia wasn't other women.

"I've told you I don't know how many times now I'm not into that stuff. My only interest is—," Emalia started and was interrupted by Petra, the red-headed green-eyed woman in their group, finishing the sentence with her.

"Slaying gods and taking trophies."

"Well how do you know you don't like kissing if you've never kissed anyone before," Anton hounded as the bottle of tequila left his pale hands and entered Petra's.

"I have kissed people. I've kissed three guys and seven women. I've touched body parts and had mine touched. It's not something that interests me," Emalia groused as Petra passed her the tequila.

The brown-skinned, curly-haired, brown-eyed twins Jalinda and Chaylen were on watch for any of the many monsters the gods had roaming the planet looking out for humans while they lounged in any of the palaces they had claimed or made.

"The good old scientific method," chuckled Micha. His grey eyes and long golden blond braid were one of the three guys Emalia had ever kissed. His lips had been as soft as her childhood pillow but nothing happened inside of her body or mind to make her think it meant anything. When she had repeated the experiment with the others the same nothingness had prevailed.

"Can't argue with that," Anton sighed as he fished out a cigarette from the antique silver case he kept them in. Emalia couldn't stand the smell and made sure her tent and place at the fire were always upwind from him.

"Well my joints are aching from sitting in this cheap plastic chair from that Walmart we managed to find some loot in last week so I'm going to bed," Emalia announced to no one in particular. As she walked to her tent she heard everyone mutter their replies before she dipped into the warmly lit tent with a floor covered in any rug she had personally looted since joining the group of mercenaries.

Her head hit the old lumpy pillow that her mom used to sleep with every night, the only thing Emalia had left of any of her family members, and sleep tugged her under before she could blow out her oil lamp.

The smell of sulfur woke Emalia before the three sharp warning whistles resounded through her camp. Normally humans wouldn't be able to smell the sulfur of a demon until it was on top of them but since the sky opened up a few thousand people had been blessed by the One God with stronger senses. Though it was limited to one sense per individual.

Pushing aside the flap to her tent Emalia snatched up her bandolier of blades and her three guns. Jalinda was the only other person in their group that had a heightened sense. Her was her vestibular sense, she could always feel where every human, demon, creature of The Hunt, and anything else that was alive. As long as they were within a two-mile radius of Jalinda.

"What is it this time?" Micha grumbled as he emerged from his tent a few feet in front of Emalia's. His usual sniper rifle was grasped in calloused and tanned hands.

"Smells like demons," Emalia replied. Anton and Petra were already around the base of the tree the twins kept watch in. When Micha and Emalia arrived they were greeted by a low and feral growl alongside a laugh that sounded like glass dragging across concrete. Just as Emalia pulled out one of her knives that she anointed with Holy Water each morning a Hellhound leaped out from the shadows in front of them.

"Oh great I've always wanted a dog," Petra snarled as she flipped her anointed knives in her hands. Jalinda giggled from her place in the tree which was a good eight feet higher than her brother.

"Trust me that's one nasty mutt," Chaylen chuffed as he trained his sawed-off shotgun at the shadows behind the Hellhound, probably aiming for its master.

"Lucky for you flesh bags my 'dog' here has been looking for some new chew toys," a voice lilted from the shadows. The voice contradicted the laugh this demon had let out earlier.

"Lucky for us we are well versed in killing off scum like you and your dog here," Petra hissed and flicked one of her knives at the Hellhound. Acting on instinct, which went against the creature's very creation, the Hellhound darted forward at a diagonal. It avoided the anointed knife and closed the gap between itself and Petra in five more strides of its powerful four legs. Petra jumped over the head of the Hellhound, which was level with her chest,  just in time so that it couldn't stop or turn around before crashing gracelessly into a tree. As it was shaking the blow from its barely there brain a loud bang split the air and everyone hit the deck. Buckshot anointed by Holy Water blasted through the Hellhound. It let out a fierce bark before exploding into a cloud of red dust.

"Oh for crying out loud," the demon huffed as it finally stepped out of the shadows. This one was more humanoid than the last demon Emalia and her group had encountered. That one was also capable of speech but it sounded like rocks in a tumbler anytime it did. This one had thin purple skin, long gangly limbs, wore tattered clothes stolen from some random store, had red horns curling out of its bald head, and deep black pupil-less eyes.

"I guess it's your turn now," Chaylen said with a smirk as he pumped his shotgun to empty the spent shells and reload it. He aimed it right at the demon's head and the demon didn't even flinch.

"He probably won't go down that easily," Micha called up to Chaylen. At that moment the demon lunged. It was a blur of purple before it had Micha pinned to the tree trunk with six-inch long claws pressed to his neck.

"You're sure right about that," the demon snarled as it wrenched Micha's sniper rifle away and tossed it behind them. Emalia moved to pick up the weapon but the demon's voice cut her off, "If you move again he dies. If any one of you fires a gun or throws a knife he dies. Everyone needs to set their weapons down if you want him to live."

"Don't do it," Micha whimpered as the demon pressed its claws into his throat just enough that one of them punctured his skin. A tiny red river flowed down  Micha's neck. "He will kill me anyway, just kill him. If I die then I die," he continued in a strained voice.

There was a soft thwomp noise and then two differently distinct screams. There was an arrow sticking out of the demon's neck and blood running in a thick wide river down Micha's neck. Three more arrows pierced the demon's neck before it turned into a pile of black dust. Emalia rushed over to Micha and immediately pressed her hands to his throat.

"Please tell me he missed all of the important arteries," Petra whispered as she dropped to her knees next to Micha and scooped up his hand. Micha let out a soft wince and then nodded.

"Just barely," Emalia managed around the lump in her throat.  "You really shouldn't have taken that shot until it was more distracted," she added as Jalinda dropped out of the tree alongside Chaylen.

"You're right I'm sorry," Jalinda apologized as she pulled off her jacket and handed it to Emalia. Emalia pressed it to the wound on Micha's throat and held it down firmly. "Don't die on us," Jalinda said as she knelt next to Micha's head.

"I'll try my best," Micha whispered and then winced again.

"Stop talking for now," Emalia instructed as the blood slowly stopped spreading across Jalinda's jacket. Anton, who had run back to base camp once the demon was dust, returned with the first aid kit in his hands.

"We have three more bags of O-Negative, after that we are out," Anton said as he handed over the first aid kit. Emalia took it with one hand and with the other gingerly pulled the jacket away from Micha's throat. There was a dried blood-covered long and wide gash across his throat but luckily it was just enough to not be fatal.

"He's going to need some sedatives," Emalia started as she fished out the antiseptic, "he's going to need stitches." Anton nodded before sprinting back to camp to get the sedatives from the bag of medicines.

Emalia never would have imagined herself in these situations before the sky split open. She had helped friends patch wounds from playing too rough before the world ended but nothing like this. And since Micha was a sniper he had the steadiest hands, unfortunately, he couldn't sew his own throat closed. So it would be up to Emalia because none of the others had any medical experience of any kind. Micha returned with the vial of sedative, a needle, and a bottle of tequila.

"Figured you'd probably like to take a shot before sewing our friend's throat closed," Anton smiled sheepishly as he offered it to Emalia first. She took it wordlessly and took a small sip from it. After handing the tequila back to Anton she took the sedative and the needle. Once there was enough to knock Micha out for a couple of hours she looked around at her friends. Everyone was watching her and holding Micha's hand or soothing him in some way.

"Once you're awake we will have to move base camp right away," Emalia explained to Micha as she used the antiseptic to clean his arm. "So I'm going to need Anton and Chaylen to break down camp while Petra and Jalinda make up a cot for you. We can put it in the second wagon and some of us will have to carry more stuff on our bikes," she finished as she gave Micha the sedative and waited for it to take effect.

"Don't take too long and watch your back," Chaylen said as he and the rest of the group departed.

Once Micha was asleep Emalia donned some gloves and cleaned his wound. Once clean she threaded the surgical needle they had managed to find in a ransacked hospital along with surgical-grade thread. After another small sip of the tequila and a big sniff to check the air, Emalia started to sew up Micha's throat. When the clouds covered the moon she dug out a headlamp and kept going. Each stitch was more difficult than the last due to the jagged edges of the wound. Twice she stopped to puke and take another sip of tequila. Once his throat was fully sewn back together she doused the wound in antiseptic again and then put a healthy patch of gauze over it.

Aware that the sedatives would wear off soon she packed up the first aid kit and made her way back to base camp. It was nearly fully broken down and packed away in their bigger wagon. The smaller one now had a pallet of blankets and pillows in the back of it. She tossed the medical bag in there and then fished out the pain meds. Once she had them she attached the smaller wagon to her bike and rode over to Micha. Jalinda was waiting there and guarding him.

"Are you sure you want to pull his wagon?" she asked Emalia as she fished out another syringe for the pain meds.

"Yeah I'll just need your help getting him in there and then I've got it," Emalia replied.

Once she had given Micha the pain meds she and Jalinda hauled him into the wagon. It wasn't a cold night but there was no telling what a demon-inflicted wound would do to him so she covered him up with a blanket. She turned to check on the progress of base camp breakdown only to find the group already waiting nearby on the road.

Anton and Chaylen's bikes were attached to the bigger wagon and Petra had pulled Jalinda's up the hill with her. All three of the girls had five bags each on their bikes but before Emalia could protest the unfairness Jalinda took hers and put them on her bike and Petra's.

"You're pulling Micha so it's only fair," Jalinda said nonchalantly as they started down the road. Emalia just smiled as she tried not to look back at Micha too often. She wasn't suddenly gaining feelings for him or anything but none of them had ever been this badly injured. Then again they hadn't encountered any other demons before the four-legged one capable of speech.

"I think we should bike until dawn before we set up base camp. We should also try to take as few breaks as possible," Chaylen called from the back of the group where he and Anton pulled the wagon of supplies and tents.

"We can eat on the go and stop for bathroom breaks but we should limit those to three at most," Petra concurred with Chaylen.

"Sounds like a solid plan," Emalia said.

"Good with me," Jalinda agreed.

"As long as someone brings snacks to Chaylen and me then I'm also good," Anton chimed in. Because of course, he was thinking about food. "And if you ever need to switch off with anyone please tell us, Emalia," he added.

"I can handle it," was Emalia's only response. She was tired of everyone doubting her abilities because she was the smallest and youngest in the group.

[azzydoesstuff]

english if it had the grammar rules & syntax of spanish

first couple of paragraphs of the wikipedia page for "dog". side notes are written in small, purple italic text in parenthesis (like this):

The dog (Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris, depénding of if self it consíder a species or a súbspecies ofthe wolf), called dog doméstic or can,​ and in some locations colóquially called mutt,​ tuso,​ choco, betwéén others; is a mámmal carnívorous of the fámily of thes canids, that cónstitutes a species ofthe genus Canis.​ In the 2013 (pronounced two thousand thirteen, NOT twenty thirteen), the population world éstimated of dogs was betwéén sévenhundred millions and nínehundred éíghty and seven millions.​

Its size (or stature), its form and its fur is very divérse and varies accórding the breed. Possesses a héáring and a smell véry devéloped, and this last is its main organ sénsory. Its longévity áverage is of ten to thirtéén years,​ depénding of the breed. Togéther tothe cat doméstic, is one of thes ánimals of cómpany more pópulars ofthe world.

The dog doméstic comes of a group ancéstral common that dates of makes apróximately thírty thóúsand years, and from then self has spread to alls parts ofthe world.​ Thes firsts remains fóssilizeds of dogs burrieds togéther with beings humans self found in Ísrael, and date of make a-s (this is a plural form of the determiner "a", like in "a house", NOT the preposition "as") twelve thóúsand years.​ From then, thes dogs and thes humans have evolved jóíntly, that much in thes cultures áfricans and eurasians, like in thes that pópulated América and self maintained without cóntact with those untíl the céntury XV.​ Thes dogs share the envíronment, thes habits and the style of life humans, like thes diets riches in céreals and starch. The nóúrishment inádequate, thísway like the use of antibiotics, are the cause ofthe devélopment of manys íllnesses inflámatories and immunológicals. A-s (plural form of "a" again) fóúrhundreds íllnesses ofthe dog have a equívalent human, and standout (there's no regular verb for this in english, so pretend it's not a phrasal verb) espécially the íllness of Álzheimer and others disorders neurológicals, thísway like várious types of cáncer, íllnesses áútoimmunes and íllnesses cardiovásculars.​

Have a grand relation with thes humans, and betwéén suches relations self include serve like ánimals of cómpany, ánimals of guard, dogs of work, dogs of hunt, greyhounds of race, dogs guide, dogs shepherds or dogs cáttleherders.

rules applied to the text

first of all, i individually translated each word and left them in the order that they appear, so the sentence structure remains the same

use of certain words like prepositions stays the same, even if in english those prepositions are never used for that

determiners and adjectives of plural nouns are pluralized too (the -> thes, a -> a-s, red -> reds, blue -> blues, and such) (i could've applied word-gender-specific determiners and adjectived too, but since english doesn't have an existing equivalent for this, i didn't)

the determiner "a" doesn't becomes "an" when the following word starts with a vowel. same goes for any other determiners or words that do the same

while spanish does have regular passives (the house was sold -> la casa fue vendida), it also has "reflected passives", where the action isn't done by anything in particular, all that matters is that the action is being done to the subject of the sentence. its like when in english you say "they" without someone in particular in mind. for example, "they're looking for the fugitive" ("they" isn't a specific person, it's just generalizing) becomes "se busca el fugitivo". in these sentences, we use the word "se" which is like a weird preposition/pronoun/modal verb thing whose closest translation would be "itself", however "se" is used in reflected passives no matter who the subject is. even if the subject is me or you, it's still "se", albeit with another pronoun added that is for a specific person (se me busca, se te busca). therefore, i just used "self" instead of "itself". also because "self" doesn't really have a translation so i guess it kinda fits.

"of the" and "to the" are fused together into one word, becoming "ofthe" and "tothe". but only when the noun is male. we're going by spanish rules for the gender of a word even if you can't tell in english

since "this way" in spanish is "así", a single world, i decided to fuse "this way" too, becoming "thisway"

centuries are written in roman numerals

numbers have their words fused if they're one word in spanish ("four hundred" is "cuatrocientos" in spanish so it becomes "fourhundred")

numbers also have an "and" put between their words if it is this way in spanish ("thirty three" is "treinta y tres" in spanish so it becomes "thirty and three")

the subject of a sentence can just. be omitted. completely. if you feel like it. it's just implied by the verb tense. except theres no person-specific verb tenses (apart from third person singular but shush) in english. so like. fuck you i guess

each and every word has been checked and given tildes based on spanish accentuation rules. it might be a little unreliable, since english words's syllable separation is kinda blurry and the accentuated syllable for certain words is kind of uncertain. if you don't know spanish accentuation rules, here's a short summary:

a. the rules depend on what syllable is "accentuated", or in other words, pronounced at the highest pitch. (this is a little bit funky in english) b. if that syllable is the last syllable of the world, it is considered "acute" and has a tilde if the word ends in "n", "s" or a vowel. e.g. "camión". camion -> ca-mion -> ends with "n" -> camión c. if that syllable is the second-to-last syllable of the word, it is considered "flat" and has a tilde if the word doesn't end in "n", "s" or a vowel. e.g. "árbol". arbol -> ar-bol -> doesn't end in "n", "s" or a vowel -> árbol d. if that syllable is the third-to-last syllable of the word, it is considered "esdrújula" (no translation) and always has a tilde. e.g. "número". numero -> nu-me-ro -> third-to-last syllable -> número e. if that syllable is anything before that, it is considered "over-esdrújula" and also always has a tilde. e.g. "trágicamente". tragicamente -> tra-gi-ca-men-te -> fifth-to-last syllable -> trágicamente

words that should have a tilde on a syllable with double vowels have tildes on both vowels of the syllable because they make only one sound together, even though a word should never, ever have two tildes.

[breath-of-eternity]

Another Interlude

The western continent had been abandoned for approximately two thousand seven hundred and sixty eight years. There had likely been people left behind after the last exodus, having missed the ships or stubbornly refused to abandon their home, but Ereshkigal doubted they lasted long with the dragons scorching the land when even the Knights struggled when killing one. A person with no magic and no weaponry would make a meal and nothing more.

The dark of night blanketed the land, which had been stripped of trees and burned of vegetation—the dragons got into the habit four hundred years ago, once they realized those hunting them concealed themselves in the foliage. The Knights were about five miles off, just beyond the horizon of where the last clutch of dragons waited to make their final stand. Dragons could sense magic, an innate divination not dissimilar to the one Ereshkigal had bound her power to, and once they started ambushing the Knights, she had to figure out a method of masking their presence. It meant they couldn’t use divination to track the dragons unless they were a long way off. Not that finding ten ton beasts via other means was all that difficult.

Imatar stopped. In the dark of night, no one could make out their movements, and Agni conjured a glow the Knights could see by without signaling their presence to the dragons.

“I’m suppressing our sound as much as possible,” Imatar said through sign language, “but we’re getting close enough that they’ll start picking up our footsteps no matter how quiet we are.”

“Do we attack now or wait for dawn?” Agni asked, his hands whipping around the golden flame.

“They can see better in the dark than we can,” Melusine said. “We don’t want them escaping. After five hundred years, we’re almost done.”

The last word was a particularly empathic gesture.

“Four hundred eighty two years,” Ereshkigal said. “And one hundred and twelve days.”

“I miss being stuck meditating,” Imatar said.

Melusine sucked air in through her teeth, barely audible. “I don’t.”

“Battle plan?” Agni asked.

“Forget that. We come up with amazing strategies and it takes five seconds for them to ruin it all. Just make sure none escape. Imagine if it was a pregnant female.”

[miss-choco-chips]

There's a boy in the girls' bathroom.

When Diamond's mother requested a meeting, the Principal expected just about anything. This would be the sixth of the year so far, and the last two were about her concerns for the kind of books kids were reading (they hadn't yet started with literature at that point, so he didn't really understand what got her so worried) and how he should name her President of the PTA since her cookies where 'the most organic ones'. He was still puzzling over that one.

So when mother and daughter entered his office, he put on his best smile and got ready for half an hour of incoherency. As he was opening his mouth to greet her-

"There's a boy in the girls' bathroom", she cut him off, not bothering with pleasantries. "He's been using it for weeks now! And no one does a thing!"

Still, he knew from the last time that if he went ahead and addressed her concerns first, she'd get mad that he didn't greet her, and start yipping about politeness, and how he was giving such a bad example to all students, including her precious daughter.

"Mrs Stacy, it's great to see you. I hope you didn't wait too long in the reception this time."

Karen Stacy motioned for her daughter to take a seat in one of the chairs by the desk, taking to other to herself, frown still firmly in place as she glared at him. Diamond sat down, glittery gel nails making a tap tap tap against her phone screen as she typed with abandon. He'd tell her to put it away, but remembered meeting number three, and how Karen had screeched at him that he was violating her precious angel's constitutional right to have her phone on her (?),so he decided to choose his battles and focused on the matter at hand.

"Hello, yes, good morning. What are you going to do about the boy?" She pressed on, undeterred.

Had Karen been born in Greece during ancient times, the invasion of Troy would have ended on half a day. The woman had such a one track mind, it reminded him of hunting hounds.

"What boy?" It'd be so much easier to just get a name out of her, promise to look into it and then punish the other kid with less troublesome parents.

Karen stopped for a second. Then looked at her daughter.

"Matt", Diamond offered, not taking her eyes off her phone. Who was she even texting? She was twelve, and all her friends were (supposedly) in class right now.

"Matt", Karen repeated with finality, as if expecting him to order the execution of the boy on the spot.

"... Which Matt?" He insisted, because the school had like seven Matts among their thousand something alumni, how the hell was he supposed to know?

Karen looked at him like he was dumb for needing that clarification, but Diamond shrugged and answered.

"Matt Kingsley. He's in my year", she further specified, slowly. Her tap tap tap didn't stop.

He thought it over for a moment, slightly confused.

"There's no Matt Kingsley in your class", he wonders, careful to not outright question Diamond with her angry dragon of a mother in the room. Then, like a bucket of ice water, came the revelation. "But there's a Nataly Kingsley. She cut her hair a few weeks ago, right? Is that the issue here, Diamond?"

Diamond sighed, long and deep, like she was so over this. Karen's glare sharpened, like a hunting knife.

"No, the issue is that Matt shouldn't be using the girls' bathroom. And he says he can't use the boys' cause the faculty doesn't let him. One of the teachers said it'd make the boys uncomfortable, but me and the girls asked everyone and literally no one gives a shit-"

"Language", he automatically chided.

"Don't interrupt my baby", Karen immediately jumped in.

Diamond kept going, like neither of them had uttered a word. She just grimaced a bit, as if the message she was in the process of typing was a difficult one.

"-So we asked again and the teachers said nothing could be done cause you didn't want any parent to complain about Matt using the bathroom he SHOULD be using. And I thought, 'they are scared of angry parents? Bet, I'll give you angry parents'. And here we are. We -the girls, boys and basically everyone in my year, really- want Matt to use the proper bathroom."

He was getting a headache, fuck.

"Diamond... Her name is Nataly. And she has to use the girls' room. It's the rules. I understand maybe her new... Fashion choice might make you girls uncomfortable, but I promise it's a phase, you just have to hang in there and wait it out -"

"She said the boy's name is Matt", Karen spit out. She looks sideways to her daughter, a little concerned. "Does he make you feel unsafe, baby? Gives off creepy vibes or something?"

Diamond shakes her head. It somehow doesn't make her dislodge her eyes from the screen.

"Matt's cool. You know him- his mom is the one who brought the oatmeal cookies you liked to the bake sale last year. She's a single mom who works double shifts at the hospital, so that's why Matt doesn't ask her to come complain. He just does his business and leaves. But he's a boy. He doesn't want to use our restroom. We don't want him to use our restroom- what if I have a crush on him someday? How am I gonna tell my besties, if there's the chance that he might walk in while we are on the bathroom and hear? Last week Millie had a pimple, and she wanted to hide it before any boy noticed, but Matt was in the bathroom; she had to swear him to secrecy."

The Principal sighs.

"Nataly -"

"Are you deaf? She's talking about Matt, and honestly, I'm appalled you've allowed a boy into the girls' bathroom when they clearly don't want him there, and then say it's for their own comfort."

Behind her phone, he could have sworn he saw Diamond smile. Good, at least someone found the situation funny.

"There is no Matt, Mrs Stacy. Diamond is talking about a girl on her class, who's been insistent on being referred to as a boy lately. As you can imagine, we can't just allow a girl to use the boys' bathroom just because she decided she was one of them one morning."

"Matt's been using that name for months now", Diamond's voice, while still confident and even, had an undercut of steel, so much like her mother it was grating.

"But she-"

"Listen here, Mr Principal", Karen interjected again. "I don't really care what name he went by before. He's using a boy's name now?"

"Y-yes."

"Does he LOOK like a boy?"

"I mean... A little."

"Does he call HIMSELF a boy?"

"...yes."

"Then he's a damn boy. And my daughter doesn't want him in her bathroom. End of story."

"But-!"

Karen's phone pinged. She glanced at it.

"It's my hairdresser, dear", she informed Diamond. "A spot cleared on her schedule, so I can go in earlier. I have to go." Then, back to him. "We are done here. If Diamond comes back and tells me you didn't let this boy use the correct bathroom again, I will call your manager."

"The Board, mom."

"That. Whatever. Did I make myself clear? Good. Bye, baby angel! I'll see you at home."

"But- if the other parents complain-?"

But Karen had already left, in as much of a whirlwind as she had dragged in with her when she arrived.

Diamond stood up, too, stretching a little.

"Don't think about other people- who's scarier and more annoying for you, them or my mom? And if anyone complains, not that I think they will, just give them my mom's number. She'll take care of it. Last time someone complained about what I wore to dance class, she made them cry. And if any bully tries to make it Matt's issue, I'LL make them cry."

The Principal blinked. Could it be...?

"You knew what you were doing, bringing your mother here, didn't you? Does she know the 'boy' she's defending is actually just a girl? A girl you like?"

For the first time since she got into his office, Diamond put her phone away and looked him straight into his eyes.

"Matt. Is. A. Boy. Stop fucking up his pronouns. But to answer your question, my mom dislikes everyone equally, and what do you think will be easier for her to swallow? That her daughter likes a girl, or that she's in love with a boy who was just born in the wrong body?"

And with the most scheming, twisted smile he'd seen in his whole career, she excused herself to go back to class.

Utterly defeated and more than a little impressed, he turned on his computer to redact a mass email about Nataly- no, Matt Kingsley being allowed to use to boy's bathroom.

"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me", he muttered under his breath.

[mega-city-dismal-blog]

MEMORY_002

The Memory Farm. Today was my twelfth anniversary here.

           I watched the spotlight of the departing ship scan the town as it hovered away over an empty ocean.

Headed Home to Mars.

           The square, clay buildings and brightly lit ruined skyscrapers were the shining evidence that people still lived here. Rolling ash choked the walls and barricades outside. I liked staying inside the walls. When I was a younger man, card hunting for this long-term contract made sense.

But nothing of it remains after twelve years. The company I worked for no longer exists, for instance; the byproduct of two centuries of war crimes tribunals finally wrapping up.

The contract got handed over to someone else, and then someone else again. Then the NTO picked it up, and that was it.

The people still living in this hellhole and their ungrateful descendants on Mars had no physical record of why and how the planet became a bio-toxic mess two centuries ago. Everyone has a pretty good idea--something-something megacorporations, something-something androids--but no one’s story is concrete evidence. The kids are taught hearsay and old war stories.

And to clarify, Earth is doing…Fine. It’s fine, I guess. Nothing fucking grows and the sky is either gray or black but we’re still kicking, fuckin’ ay.

People live and play, go to school, get jobs, fall in love, get drunk and scream and hit each other all the same. The clouds just rain poison sometimes and the once cramped, disgusting, sprawling mega-cities of old have largely crumbled in on themselves, leaving behind patches of life.

And in my Ancestors’ trash is an interplanetary ticket off the heap. At least out of this box next to the tech dump.

Oh but of course, my job and what little resources I was first given were administered by a hellishly bureaucratic central council on another planet. I didn’t even know that the Dinosaur Committee was still around, but there they were, administering refugees.

Little red stars on the hats and everything. Can’t make that shit up. The contract was of severe cultural significance, according to a newly appointed handler I only spoke with once.

I stayed on. I still believed in the NTO then. That was six years ago, with no luck finding anything significant since. But hey, they still raise my ration card limits every year without question, so either I’m still worth something to them or they’ve decided this is my retirement plan, either way the lights are still on. It only makes me feel worse, though, like I really owe them and everyone else something.

           Maybe two months ago I caught myself going nuts in my own physical archives in the back of the shop; rampaging through my glass neurocard cabinets like a chip fiend, hunting for that little sliver of data that held the next piece of my puzzle.

           A Neuro-Digital nightmare, I had tens of thousands of hours of peoples’ memories, and barely an idea of what happened. I’ve cross-referenced and debunked every corporate lie and it doesn’t mean very much because half of these greaseball megacorps don’t even exist as some kind of liquidating trust anymore, let alone a single soul that was ever employed by them. Of course the ones that left Earth in shambles had no archival backup of what happened.

Of course! Me being the naive little prick that I was at the time, I thought I would scorch a cauterizing path to knowledge in the wounds of sacred Mama Terra. I thought I’d be the one to bring back the record of just how we ended up here like this, to educate the rest of the inheritors of what appears to be some tacky ring of Hell.

           So we started really getting out into the Ruined Earth, out into these steel corpse Mega-Cities. And everything just blew up in our faces. Expeditions started disappearing, the myths became true tales of horror beyond the walls. Thompson-Jaeger’s original expedition of two hundred thinned out to three people, with one of us ending up a living casualty.

           This poisoned land and its last city, a watchful dot upon the planet, devoid of heroes. Here I was cleaning out the childhood house. You have to stay cynical, in a twisted way it makes me still care about this place despite it being long gone before I was born.

“They owe us a planet, cousin. Don’t ever forget that.”

Someone I knew once said that to me. Bastard’s still on Mars, what does he know?

           Live in the trash or live in a tunnel on Mars. Get high underground, under a retina-melting cold white light, or get high and watch the tuner ships race around in low orbit. Watch the corporate shipbreakers make fireworks cutting up tethered orbital habitats, abandoned by the same companies a century before. The same people are now pitching the between-planet stations as the next hottest real estate. It’ll fizzle out, with a trail of body bags following, like always. You tell yourself you’ll get used to the smell here, just wear your mask every day, with options like those.

[audikatia]

Another year, another 110 books read! I don’t love organizing books by genre because I feel like so many of the books I read are a mix of fantasy/horror/queer romance/mystery/etc, but I like to see how it all falls into place. I had started 2022 with the goal of reading more poetry but otherwise had no specific goal except to read whatever I wanted. There were some disappointments, some books I have been meaning to read forever, some new favorites, and some comfortable rereads of old favorites. Overall, a good year!

List of books read + my ratings under the cut

Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Males of the Gay World, 1890-1940 by George Chauncey ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner ⭐️⭐️⭐️

No Voyage and Other Poems by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The River Styx, Ohio by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

All’s Well by Mona Awad ⭐️⭐️⭐️

You’ll be the Death of Me by Karen M. McManus ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Twelve Moons by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones ⭐️⭐️

American Primitive by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dream Work by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

House of Light by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New and Selected Poems: Volume One by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

White Pine by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

West Wind by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Leaf and the Cloud by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What Do We Know? by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Owls and Other Fantasies by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Long Life by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Conventionally Yours by Annabeth Albert ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dune by Frank Herbert ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Blue Iris by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

New and Selected Poems: Volume Two by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thirst by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Red Bird by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Out of Character by Annabeth Albert ⭐️⭐️

The Truro Bear and Other Adventures by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Evidence by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell ⭐️⭐️

The Woman They Could Not Silence by Kate Moore ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Charm Offensive by Alison Cochrun ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Swan by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dog Songs by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Blue Horses by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Felicity by Mary Oliver ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Woman Beyond the Attic: The V.C. Andrews Story by Andrew Neiderman ⭐️⭐️⭐️

So It Goes by Isis Molina ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Slippery Creatures by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Sugared Game by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Subtle Blood by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

To Trust Man on His Oath by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

How Goes the World by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Band Sinister by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Gentle Art of Fortune Hunting by K.J. Charles ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mary Magdalene Revealed by Meggan Watterson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Le Petomane 1857-1945 by Jean Nohain and F. Caradee ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Any Way the Wind Blows by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️��️⭐️⭐️

The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell ⭐️⭐️

Magdalene: Poems by Marie Howe ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Love, Hate, & Clickbait by Liz Bowery ⭐️⭐️⭐️

All Eyes on Us by Kit Frick ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Song That Moves the Sun by Anna Bright ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Secret Wisdom of Nature by Peter Wohllben ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley ⭐️⭐️

Hell Followed with Us by Andrew Joseph White ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Lock Every Door by Riley Sager ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Every Other Weekend by Abigail Johnson ⭐️⭐️⭐️

You Only Die Twice by Brynn Kelly ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Snakehead by Patrick Radden Keefe ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cultish by Amanda Montell ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Opal by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Mister Impossible by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Feeling of Falling in Love by Mason Deaver ⭐️⭐️

Nothing More to Tell by Karen M. McManus ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Heroine with 1001 Faces by Maria Tatar ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Just Like Home by Sarah Gailey ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Dracula by Bram Stoker ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Husband Material by Alexis Hall ⭐️⭐️⭐️

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli ⭐️⭐️

Here’s to Us by Becky Albertalli ⭐️⭐️

JELL-O Girls: A Family History by Allie Rowbottom ⭐️⭐️

My Policeman by Bethan Roberts ⭐️⭐️

Love in the Time of Serial Killers by Alicia Thompson ⭐️⭐️

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth ⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Wicker King by K. Antrum ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Cremains of the Day by Misty Simon ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Icebreaker by A. L. Graziadei ⭐️⭐️

Skin Deep by Sung J. Woo ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Raven King by Nora Sakavic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The King’s Men by Nora Sakavic ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng ⭐️⭐️⭐️

[softersinned-arc]

@balldwin / plotted starter.

Two messengers arrive in Venice with the news, and by the time Astoria has finished packing the few things she'll take with her, Freyja is waiting at her door, her jaw tight and her eyes hard. They have orbited around one another these past several years, sharing news and the occasional meal when they are in the city together, and Astoria is never more grateful for the company than she is that day. She takes Freyja's trembling hand in hers and she squeezes, and the first thing she says, before I'm so sorry for your loss and What do you need? is "I'll travel with you as far as Sept-Tours. I need to get to Paris."

Freyja doesn't argue it—no doubt Philippe's letters to them both imparted much of the same information. Godfrey is dead, he had written, killed in battle defending France. And then, the part of the letter that had mattered the most: Baldwin is in Paris, serving in Louis' court in his brother's stead. She had started packing at that, only returning to read the rest of the letter once she'd finished.

She will travel as far as Sept-Tours. She writes a letter that she asks Freyja to deliver to Philippe and Ysabeau expressing her sympathies when they first stop to feed, and she doesn't have to explain her silences, or why she'll ignore what she should do in favor of what she must. Philippe will forgive her for her bad manners, because Philippe expects nothing less, and he only told her where to find Baldwin because he knows that this is all that will matter to her.

Twelve years without him and the thought of reaching him in less than a month's time leaves her winded. Twelve years confined to letters, and she has memorized each one he's sent her, has lingered over each letter of his name like the devout at worship. The years they have spent apart have not been without value—she knows now that there is no language equipped to express what she feels for him, and that to be without him is a constant agony, an emptiness in her chest where her heart and lungs should be, where he should be.

Seven days after they leave Venice it occurs to her that she is leaving her revenge, a century in the making, behind her, and she dismisses the thought as quickly as it occurred. Let Elyssa have another hundred, another thousand, years if it means that Astoria doesn't need to spend another needless day without him. She resents every hour they spend at rest, every second they spend doing anything but riding closer to Sept-Tours, to Philippe.

To Paris.

To him.

Philippe is waiting for them when they reach Saint-Lucien, Alain at his side and a fresh horse waiting. Freyja dismounts at once and closes the distance between herself and her father and she holds onto him as tightly as she can, and Astoria averts her eyes in deference to their grief. She remembers the sharp, hollow pain of losing her sister mere months after meeting her; she cannot imagine what it is to lose someone one loves so much after centuries.

Because he is here, and she must, she swallows her impatience and she offers her condolences in person, asks after Ysabeau and Johanna and even Matthew, apologizes that she must leave so soon. For a moment she thinks Philippe's face softens, and he simply looks to Alain and instructs him to deliver her safely to my son.

They make the rest of the journey largely in silence. They stop a day's ride from Paris to rest and feed, Alain vanishing for just over an hour while she hunts, and Astoria's hands shake as she tries to soothe the anguish that rises in her as she counts the hours, the minutes, until she sees him again.

Twelve years she has been without him, growing accustomed to the physical torment of their separation, and it is the final day that is the worst. She fixates on what to say to him; what is there to say at all? I'm sorry, of course, and I missed you, and she loses sense of language somewhere after that. How can she explain to him that he has driven her to madness? That to be without him is to be incomplete? That she has spent the last four thousand days looking for him, wishing for him, aching for him?

I love you isn't enough. I have loved you since the moment you protected me from Hubbard's demands for my blood. I have loved you every day of the ninety-six years since is missing something. I will love you to madness, to distraction, until there is nothing left of me is too little.

I can hardly sleep without you. I wake and I cannot breathe for wanting you and I feel your absence like a wound. There is no pleasure in anything when you are so far from me. I am yours, irrevocably and infinitely.

As long as I live, I will remain with you. I have been without you too long. I cannot bear it.

She brushes her hair until it shines, the mess of her curls softened into gentle waves, and she braids it carefully behind her. She ignores her fine Venetian dresses for simpler peasants' clothes, so that she might move quickly and easily and get to him sooner. Alain looks surprised, but he says nothing, and there is no room for vanity or insecurity around her need to be with him again.

Soon, she tells her hollowed-out heart. Soon, she tells the space between them, as if he might somehow hear her.

His scent reaches her first, carried on a gust of wind, the intoxicating perfume of saddle leather and woodfire, and it leaves her dizzy and half mad with need. It takes her only moments to comb her hair free of the braid.

She sees him soon after, the breadth of his shoulders and the power of his stance, and she is driven now by instinct and instinct alone, and the maddening desperation of her need. She urges the horse to a run, until she's close enough to see his face. The agony she has carried with her for more than a decade flares white hot at the sight of him, lit lovingly by the sun, devastating and beautiful and here and hers.

After that, there is no hesitation, no time for thought, no time for anything. Astoria dismounts and she closes the distance between them from one breath to the next.

Her arms wind around him and she buries her face in his neck and she fits against him as though they are the broken pieces of a whole. The emptiness in her chest fills and for the first time in twelve years she feels her lungs fill when she breathes him in, and her heart beats in her chest without causing her pain, and the trembling in her hands ceases. She holds him tightly enough that it would cause a warmblood pain. She holds him long enough that she forgets they are not alone, though her chaperone keeps a distance and grants them what privacy he can.

Words are insufficient, and yet in her eagerness to say something to him they all die on her tongue. All she can do is hold him tighter.

I love you. I love you. I'll never leave you again. Promise not to let me go.

[phoenixyfriend]

Re; Ahsoka and Quinlan being the same age, now I'm picturing Ahsoka, Quinlan, and Rex eventually ending up in a weird sorta thruple where Quinlan comes in and out of the relationship but the door is kinda always open for him? And Rex spends a lot of mornings eyeing the tangle of orange and brown skin on the other side of the bed like he has no idea how he ended up here but he's (mostly) okay with that tbh

Context: Commander Buir in chronological order

YES okay so this is wild to me that people are invested in this but like half the time-travel fics with Ahsoka in the same age-group as Quinlan have me wondering if I should ship them. Let me just. Ho shit.

So, okay, I've explored a lot of possible dynamics but there's something really engaging about how Quinlan, trained as a Shadow before the Sith came back, could react to a War Padawan. Ahsoka isn't really infiltration material yet, she's very much a frontline fighter, but she's got a lot more experience with a kind of consistent dark atmosphere that most Jedi don't. They get exposed to plenty of dark stuff, sure, but not the kind of all-encompassing "this is my life for the last two years" thing that is usually reserved for the long-term field agents like Shadows and Watchmen.

The War Padawans, for all that they were supposed to be just normal Jedi Padawans, were living in the kind of consistently negative environment that's normally experienced by those Knighted Sentinels.

So Ahsoka, while still generally pretty young in these AUs, is a very odd kind of person to be around, because she's spunky and vivacious and snippy and affectionate and snarky and knows how to break every bone in your body from harrowing experience as the only thing standing between death and thousands of brothers.

And Quinlan, I imagine, really likes that about her. She gets it, and she's still an energetic and loving and trying to do her best to be a good person despite everything. He gravitates towards her and she... well, she's not blind. She can tell he's interested. And she's not upset about that.

ANYWAY, ONTO REX

So, Rex is... technically twelve. He hasn't exactly got a whole lot of experience with romance. He is also, up until the point of time-travel, legal property of the Senate and the Jedi Order, which means that Ahsoka, or at least her community, owns him. He was indoctrinated to serve her and that community. She also outranks him, for all that she usually lets him take the lead in the field due to experience. He's older than her physically and maturity-wise, but she's also had a grow-up-faster-than-you-should adolescence, and she has superpowers.

What I'm saying is, the power dynamic is fucked up.

(Unironically I spent hours last night realizing that it balances out a lot more than C*dywan does, which I'm censoring because by god do I not want discourse on this post. I like both ships, and don't want to argue about what's the most problematic. It's Star Wars. The only unproblematic ships are Bail/Breha and Owen/Beru.)

Here's the thing, though, because the main thing people seem to argue here is the age/maturity difference as a problem area:

The age difference in actual time is four years, which is smaller than the two main ships of the franchise (Han/Leia and Padme/Anakin, to be clear). The age difference in maturity is ??? We'll say that the clones started aging normally after they hit twenty, so the age difference in maturity is six years... which is still normal for SW ships.

(This is why I don't have any issues with the ship in a post-O66 context, once they've had a few years to move past the traumas and whatnot. The age stuff all evens out with time, they're a good team, and neither was grooming the other. It's not objectively any more problematic than most SW ships at that point, and I'm okay with that. They deserve to be happy if they want.)

But they get yanked away from all that structure of who owns what, who reports where, who has which rank, who's legally a person in the eyes of the Republic when they end up on Dagobah. Once they've registered when they are, the only remaining complications are:

He grew up in a cultlike environment and was indoctrinated to serve her (but has been replacing that indoctrination with genuine respect and affection for her as a person because they've worked together for two years).

She has superpowers (contextually not a big problem: we see several Force-Sensitive/Non-Sensitive ships that don't consider those powers a complicating element)

He's several years younger than her (canonically less of an issue than it could be: Cut got married and has kids) and has next to no experience with what a normal romance looks like except for hanging out on the edges of whatever the fuck his General has going on with the Senator

She's several years less mature than he is (...something of an issue)

So a lot of this is mostly okay. She feels weird about the fact that she's got more knowledge of romance and all that it entails. He feels weird about the fact that, despite her being older, he looks at her and sees someone that's still a little young, not quite a shiny. Except she is older than him, and he's seen her behead four people in a single move, and they've saved each other's lives more times than either of them can count anymore. He respects her, and the fact that she's babyfaced doesn't change the fact that, in terms of who they are as people and warriors, they're on a level playing field.

She still looks at him and mourns his lost childhood, and he still looks at her and takes a moment to see past the too-big eyes and adolescent proportions.

But they really, really care about each other, and maybe part of them is starting to recognize that there's a bit of a crush before they time-travel, but neither one wants to make a move. There's a lot of baggage on both sides, a lot of "but they're a child" and "but they're (literally vs functionally) below me in the chain of command, I can't take advantage of that" and all that fun stuff. It's the kind of situation where two people circle each other for ages without making a move, because actually making that move is terrifying on account of not knowing whether the other party knows they can say no, on top of the usual "what if it ruins our friendship?" thing.

What happens on Dagobah, though... is very tropey. They're sort of stranded until Ahsoka can fix the ship, and that takes time. The area is also very heavy with the Force, dense and heady with the energy it carries, and it's... actually really not great for Ahsoka. She keeps feeling like she's back on Mortis, and has nightmares from the trigger there, but also keeps hallucinating because she wasn't ready for the thickness of the energy (like Yoda) or still new enough to the Force that she couldn't feel how dense it all was (like Luke). She can't work on the engines as constantly as she'd like to get them out of there, and while Rex is a competent mechanic, he's not as skilled with it as the girl who jumped headfirst into lessons with Anakin.

Rex spends a lot of time holding Ahsoka and wiping her brow with a wet cloth while she's feverish and out of it. Yes we're going full Florence Nightingale romance here, let me have my fun.

They get the communications relay working earlier than the engine, find out the year is wrong, panic a bit. All is well. (It's not, but they're holding it together for now.)

Ahsoka keeps working on the engine when she's lucid. Rex keeps hunting up game and edible plants for them while she does. They cuddle at night, because it's not cold but it is empty of the people they care about, and they kind of want that reassurance of someone they trust and love at their back.

(Morai visits.)

(Daughter shows up in the nightmares, tells Ahsoka that age will not come for her beloved until the time is natural for it. The phrasing is dumb but she does manage to convey that the accelerated aging is no longer an issue, if it even was after they hit adulthood. Ahsoka is relieved.)

And, you know, emotions happen. She takes his hand while they're leaning up against each other. He kisses her forehead while she's having a bad spell. They cook together and tell jokes to keep sane and spar. They hug each other through nightmares and panic attacks. There is much blushing. There is much cuddling.

Once, they kiss.

They break apart, flushing and stammering and being very awkward about the whole thing, and make excuses to leave and panic about the fact that they!! Kissed!!!!!

A couple hours later they find each other again, and have a long and complicated discussion about why they like each other (war makes bedfellows, there's trust and affection and all that fun stuff) and why they're hesitant (age stuff, maturity stuff, prior indoctrination), and make the decision to take it slow. They cuddle, and kiss, and blush a lot because both of them are basically just dumb teens having their first real relationship.

They eventually leave the planet, make it to Coruscant, etc. It takes a bit for anyone except Obi-Wan to realize that something's changed between them. Most people didn't know them before, and Anakin's observation skills are currently at a very low ebb. But they sit together and hold hands, and flirt when they spar, and once or twice people find them kissing (both standard and Keldabe) in a corner while holding hands and then just smiling at each other like loons.

They end up rooming together because nobody has the heart to separate them after hearing about all the war stuff. Like yes attachment's bad, but these two do seem to understand loss of loved ones and recognize that they could lose each other at any time and death is natural and they won't lose their entire shit about it, and if even General Kenobi is anxious as hell about being separated from the people he fought side-by-side with for two years, then maybe it's just... really normal for those two to want each other's company, and everyone can just turn a blind eye to the romance happening.

They share a bed, but they only ever sleep in it. Like, there's some goodnight kisses and cuddles, but everything is very G-rated until they've had time to settle into being true equals instead of just the "well, I guess the power dynamics balance out? Maybe?" of before.

And just... yeah. Rex does not believe that he's in this good of a position whenever he has the time to think about it. He's got a girlfriend! A really pretty, smart, strong, skilled one! Who thinks he's a cool dude! How the fuck did a clone like him manage that? He wasn't even legally a person a year ago, how did he end up in bed with one of the most amazing people he's ever met? He spends multiple nights just staring at her while he tries to fall asleep, asking himself how he got here and just like... marveling at her. She's worth marveling at. He's in love and she's amazing and he has no idea how to handle it at all.

...yeah no I have a lot of feelings now.

[heniareth]

!!!!!!!! ASK??? INTERVIEWING THE BELOVEDS?????? Oh! OH!!!!!! QUESTIONS FOR THE BELOVEDS! QUESTIONS FOR THE BELOVEDS UNTIL I COLLAPSE (if the Lord lets me see it that will be approximately One Thousand Years)

For Astala (MY BELOVED!!!) if I may: 8. What do you think had the biggest impact on you growing up? 17. What makes you laugh? and 25. (freebie) Do you have a favourite celebration? And for Ilanlas (ALSO MY BELOVED!!!) I'd like to request: 5. What's your favourite thing to do in your free time? 18. What's the best way to cheer you up? and 21. Describe your ideal partner Naturally, only answer what you feel like, if anything. I send my best wishes for a gorgeous day and about twelve crates of ripe plums (do you and Ilanlas like plums? I can supply other goodies as needed)

<3 <3 <3

"Plant! Hey there!" Astala grins and waves at you. "Come on over, have a seat."

Ilanlas greets you with a nod. "It is good to see you. We heard you had ques-"

"Oh look! Plums!" Astala hauls up a whole crate (without crouching down) and throws you a delighted grin. "You are the best, Plant!"

"Like I said," Ilanlas starts again, "we heard you had questions. Seeing that Tabris is currently occupied-"

"I'm showing Plant's very generous gift the attention it deserves," Astala says, tosses one plum over to Ilanlas and offers you one too.

"I am sure you are," Ilanlas says. "Nevertheless, I think I will start answering."

"Sounds good." Astala bites with gusto into her plum. "Maker's Breath, where did you get these? They're delicious!"

"Anyways," Ilanlas says, "the questions."

5. What's your favorite thing to do in your free time?

"Ah, yes. Free time. It is a very... how do I explain this?"

Ilanlas falls silent for a second and thinks.

"There is never nothing to do in a clan. Work has no set start or end save for that you set yourself. In a way, work is life."

From where she's sitting, the second plum in her hand, Astala wrinkles her nose. "That sounds like terrible drudgery."

Ilanlas shrugs. "Not for me."

"Of course not, you like your job." Astala takes another bite of her plum, then lowers her hand and looks off into the distance. "Huh."

"My point is that I have not really had to worry about free time," Ilanlas continues. "When I was out on the hunt, I had to focus, of course; other than that I was free to do whatever, whenever, wherever... So long as things got done, of course. I suppose that is what you mean by ‘free time’, right?"

"You sound like you’ve never had real free time," Astala says and laughs. "Don't you have that in the clans?"

"Maybe we do not," Ilanlas shoots back. "We Dalish have no ‘bound' time since we are not bound to anybody. Why would we have need for ‘free’ time?"

"Okay, okay, I get it." Astala lifts her hands in surrender. "Free time is another city thing. But, just so you can answer Plant’s question, what do you do when there’s no work to be done? Say everyone’s asleep. What do you do just because you like doing it?"

Ilanlas thinks for a second, then hesitantly pulls a small wooden figure out of his pouch. It’s clearly a stick, although it has been carved into shape, with four legs, a head and two stumps on its head that look like horns. It is painted bright red.

"I like to carve," Ilanlas says and sets the figurine down on the ground in front of him. "It is... fun. Not as fun as fooling around with my friends, but they are not here." He waves his hand through the air as if to brush the matter aside. "Let us move on, shall we?"

18. What is the best way to cheer you up?

"Set me a challenge." Ilanlas straightens up with an eager glint in his eye. "When I beat it, I will feel much better."

"When you beat it?" Astala snickers. "Now that’s highly mighty."

Ilanlas turns his nose up at her. "Go back to eating plums."

"I could challenge you to a plum eating contest if you want," Astala says as she selects her next target.

"No thank you. I know my odds." Ilanlas very deliberately turns so that he’s only looking at you. "Back to your question, Plant; a challenge will do the trick. It takes my mind off of whatever has been bothering me. I do, however, not appreciate it when people try to distract me immediately. I need some time. But I am sure you have already noticed that. You are an observant one."

He takes a deep breath. "Ar suledin nadas. Let us move on to the last question."

21. Describe your ideal partner 

"Fenedhis lasa, I have to ask: is this necessary?" Ilanlas pinches the bridge of his nose.

Astala adds the core of the fourth plum to the growing pile and leans forward. "I'm very sure Plant would be okay with you not answering."

"No, I will answer," Ilanlas says grimly.

"You literally don’t have to."

"No, no, I must." He looks up to the sky and sighs heavily. “Well... Let me preface this by saying that I have never given this topic much thought. Very few people have caught my attention in... that way." His ears grow slightly redder as he adds. "Those who have, however, have left behind an intense impression. Tamlen was not one of those people, by the way. He w- is my best friend, as much as others might have assumed otherwise."

He stares at the dirt at his feet for a while. "If I ever were to pick somebody to bond with, I would look for a person who was patient and level-headed, but who would also know how to have fun. Ashalle always said we should all look for somebody who would compliment us. Most of the Creators come in pairs: Elgar'nan and Mythal, Dirthamen and Falon'din, Ghilan'nain and Andruil, June and Sylaise. Only the Dread Wolf walks alone, and he is accursed. I suppose that means that I would do well to search for somebody similar to Mythal. Justice and Vengeance are not so different as to reject each other, but not so alike that they feed each others' flames to the point of destruction."

"You don't sound very happy with that last bit," Astala interrupts. She has a half-eaten plum in her hand (the fifth) and is observing Ilanlas with a thoughtful expression on her face.

"I have never been very good at settling down," Ilanlas says and shrugs. "Nor at satisfying expectations. Right now, I do not care about these things. I am bound to the Grey Wardens. That is my place."

"Well..." Astala finishes the rest of her plum and adds the core to her pile. She seems to want to say something more, but in the end, she shrugs. "You know that better than I do, for sure. So, is it my turn?"

Ilanlas gestures for her to take the stage and finally takes a bite out of the plum Astala had given him at the start of the conversation.

8. What do you think had the biggest impact on you growing up?

"Hm." Astala cleans her hand on the grass as her gaze becomes distant. It lingers on the horizon for a while until it snaps back to you, as if she is pulling herself back into the present moment. "I could tell you about the day my mother disappeared, because that's absolutely what had the biggest impact on me. I don't feel like opening that can of worms today, however, and you've already heard the story. So." She leans forward and grabs another plum out of the crate, throws it into the air and catches it in her other hand. "How about I tell you the story behind my love for plums?"

"The winter after my mother disappeared was very rough, the roughest one I remember. There was a cough going around the Alienage and killing people. My father got sick and Shianni as well, and Soris and I cared for them until they got better. Once they did, I got sick."

Astala is once again looking somewhere into the far-off distance. The plum, round and dark and ripe to bursting, is still sitting in her hand.

"I don't remember much, except that everything hurt and I was hot and cold at the same time. But because my father had been sick before me, he had been unable to work. I'd spent what money we had and then some on food and a little bit of medicine, and now that I was sick there was... well, we didn't have food."

She flashes you a quick look and shrugs. "I survived, as you can see, and I'm okay. I don't know how my father managed to provide for us between the grief and the remants of the cough. He still has it, sometimes. But I remember bitterly crying because I was so hungry and everything hurt. When he tried to comfort me, his arms were way too thin. He asked me: if there was one kind of food I would wish for right now, what would it be? I wanted to say plum tarts, but those seemed so out of reach that I settled for plums." She laughs quietly to herself. "Plums in winter, am I right?"

"Anyways, the next day my father came home from work--he worked for Bann Rodolf at the time--and he was a nervous wreck. Constantly looking over his shoulder. So he sits down next to me and unfolds his handkerchief and inside it are five plums. Five whole plums in the middle of winter! He told me later that bann Rodolf had had them imported from somewhere, that they had been terribly expensive and that he'd just... taken them. This was the only time that I know of that my father stole something."

She takes a bite out of her plum and chews slowly.

"A couple of days after that was Satinalia and the bann allowed him to take home some of the leftovers from the feast they'd had at his estate. We got meat and everything and things got better from that point on. But it all started with those five plums that my father stole for me." She grins. "It's a nicer story than that of my mother, isn't it?"

17. What makes you laugh?

"There are lots of things that make me laugh-"

"Now that is true," Ilanlas mutters into his plum.

"It is! -so I’m... not really sure what to single out here," Astala continues. "I mean, I like really bad puns. The worse, the better. Rascal is very silly sometimes and makes me laugh a lot as well, especially when he's doing things like jump around trying to catch a butterfly. He makes the dumbest faces." She chuckles briefly. "And Leliana and Zevran put on a show at camp a few nights ago, some kind of extremely dramatic Orlesian play. I think it was supposed to be a tragedy, but they played it for laughs and they did really well. My stomach hurt from how much I was laughing!"

"To be fair, Tabris, you find everything Zevran says funny," Ilanlas says.

Astala frowns at him. "I don’t! I don’t laugh when we’re talking about murder."

"But you laugh about everything else."

"Well." Astala crosses her arms. "He is a very funny guy."

Ilanlas smiles a knowing smile. "Of course, that must be it."

"It is," Astala insists. She looks positively flustered by now and turns to you with an almost pleading look. "Next question?"

25. Do you have a favorite celebration?

"Okay, no, but this is not an easy question. Here’s the thing." Astala straightens her posture and lifts her hands to illustrate her point. "On one hand, First Day is the best. It’s a sorely needed bright light in the middle of the dark winter, there’s chicken and the rest of the food is also amazing, the ceremony is beautiful and when it’s possible we even get visits or travel to other cities to visit family. Not that I have ever traveled anywhere, I don’t know any of my mother’s folks. But on the other hand, it’s freezing cold during that time and Summerday exists. And Summerday is the most cheerful day of the year: it’s warm, we dance until the stars themselves set, there's lots of booze, lots of games... It’s amazing. Around that time we also celebrate most weddings. So, between those two..."

She thinks to herself for a while, then nods. "Between those two, I think I’d have to pick Summerday, as much as I love First Day. Nothing beats a celebration in summer."

"Keeper Marethari would find that very telling," Ilanlas says.

"How so?"

He shrugs. "Something about the prevalence of the outer world over the dreamt and hoped for world. I cannot replicate it, I am not the Keeper."

"Hm." Astala absentmindedly wipes her hands off on her trousers. "Valendrian wouldn't say much, to be honest, except maybe that Summerday is also a day of community and family and whatnot."

She nods quietly to herself, then turns abruptly to Ilanlas. "Hey, did I talk too much during your questions? I have the feeling I was interrupting you a lot more than you were interrupting me, so sorry about that. I just noticed now."

"I did not mind," Ilanlas says and shrugs. "I do not talk much."

Astala tilts her head at him. "Maybe you would talk more if I talked less? Maybe I'm talking over you?"

"No. I think I talked more than I would normally because you prod me with questions," Ilanlas answers. He starts turning his carved deer this way and that, observing it intently. "Don't let it get to your head, Tabris. The fact that you helped me during this interview-"

"I helped you? Aw, thank you for letting me know." Astala has a big grin on her face. "If you go on like that you'll turn into a big softie by the time we've dealt with the Archdemon."

Ilanlas throws her such a shocked look that Astala breaks out into loud laughter. Ilanlas stares at her for a few seconds before he shakes his head and turns back to you.

"Will you stay for dinner? I should be heading back to camp to start preparing the meat, anyways."

"Oh, please stay! It'll be so much fun. We can put some plums into the fire too!" Astala says, jumps up, and lifts the nearest crate of plums onto her shoulders.

Ilanlas shakes his head. "Not everything good must contain plums, Tabris. Let meat be meat."

"No, no, trust me," Astala says. "I have a hunch. Just you see, it's gonna be amazing."

"As you say," Ilanlas sighs. "I will save you one piece of meat to experiment with."

He turns to you and nods towards the distant glow of the campfire, from where the faint noises of chatter and of a barking dog travel over to you on the evening breeze.

"Ready when you are, lethallan."

---

TRANSLATIONS

Ar suledin nadas: Now I must suffer.

Fenedhis lasa: A common curse (exact meaning unknown).

---

(Did I write a self-insert story here? Maybe so. I hope you enjoyed it ^^)

[featherfur]

Meng Yao should have been around when Jiang Cheng was running around with his head cut off trying to make disciples out of rogues and convince everyone to get started on the war. I just think he’d see this, probably manic, idiot who needs help and is 100% willing to be bossed around and who really doesn’t care about Meng Yao station in life because he’s just fucking desperate and wants to die but can’t because Yanli and just go “actually I’m interested”. Because Jiang Cheng would riot if he knew Meng Yao wanted to go back to his dad, and well Jiang Cheng is very pathetic when he thinks he’s being left behind (“You’re leaving me for the Jin just like Shijie? Tears and loud words for you! Tears and loud words dor a thousand years!”)

And Meng Yao would have a spot in Lotus Pier where he is VERY clearly wanted, he probably doesn’t become sworn brothers with anyone (or LXC and NMJ realize that no one needs to give the Jin any more influence and become sworn brothers with Jiang Cheng) unless it’s Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian (unfortunately WWX will still probably be killed or hunted at the very least but atleast Qin Su is alive? Maybe having MY around will help calm JC into the fact that LWJ wants to bang his brother and help him so JC can convince WWX to let LWJ atleast play for him, then maybe WWX can accidentally let slip about him already destroying one half and LWJ can help destroy the other half… Dunno if the Wen Remnants survive either sorry, honestly I don’t know if anyone can stop JGS in the long run)

So there’s two ways this goes: (under read more I have Thoughts)

Meng Yao DOES go to the Jin Sect still because JC gets wanting your Dad’s Approval even when he’s a dick AND he protects Yanli who immediately adopted him when JC showed up to the war with him. Without being stuck between a Rock and a Hard place (sorry NMJ not everyone is a annoyingly stubborn with their morals as you and MY is being hurt :( leave him alone :(( ) MY is able to continue being pressured without breaking and even though JGS keeps trying to get him to manipulate JC, MY won’t and won’t manipulate NMJ either and every time he goes to Lotus Pier to ‘look into’ the Jiang Sect he actually just spends the week being plied with children and listening to Jiang Cheng explain the fashion industry Again and talk about silks vs cashmeres vs wool so he just gets a vacay and is more prepared to stand up against his dad.

Also JC and Yanli catch on pretty quick to Madam Jin abusing MY because they were there after Madam Yu would hurt WWX and they know the signs of trying to hide the pain and Yanli suddenly starts Show Up whenever Madam Jin tries anything because that is her Didi now and she will protect him and if anyone ELSE tries to mess with him she will rip them apart like when Jin Zixun tries to bother WWX.

JGS does eventually manage to frame something on WWX but MY intervenes immediately by telling JC the truth and without the ‘did my kinda insane PTSD ridden brother so this?” Panic thoughts JC gets his people and is waiting for the force of Jin and smaller sects, with his two sworn brothers on either side. Because yeah NMJ absolutely hates the Wen but can he really ignore LXC and JC? Plus NHS on the side? He’s only there to protect WWX, anyone else can get fucked and even then he’s only protecting WWX because JC asked him too because NMJ thinks WWX sucks for choosing the wens because he’s very much of the one track ‘the wens suck’ mind. MY pretends he has no idea what’s going on but he does summon Jin Zixuan on ‘accident’ who shows up, annoyed he had to leave his kid, and is like “are we really going to accuse Nie Mingjue, known Wen hater, of protecting Wei Wuxian and lying about his innocence? Because his sword is the same size as my body and I’d rather Not”

(okay he’s more polite and subtle but that’s the gist) somehow Jin Guangshan dies, I’m voting Yanli poisoned him because I think Meng Yao is 100% willing at this point to simply take the abuse because Jiang Cheng and Lan Xichen aren’t essentially telling him to murder his father and that he’s stupid for not holding harder to his morals (sorry NMJ,,, you just,, I love you but MY is hurting and he’s not as stabby as you) NMJ is still very much crankily telling him his dad sucks whenever they meet but Jiang Cheng gets all sparkly whenever MY is around because MY will say he’s Doing Good, so there’s only so much room before JC start just biting anyone who even looks at MY wrong. (NMJ says he’s proud of JC once and JC just starts crying and NMJ UnderstandsTM why MY won’t leave him alone)

But Yanli has to be the one to kill him because MY wouldn’t because he’s a filial son and probably hasn’t lost his hope he will be Loved, Jin Zixuan wouldn’t because he’s like the only one in the entire show not down with murder, Madam Jin is not about to give up the power and money that comes from being the wife of Jin Guangshan even if JZX would take care of her because Yanli clearly is willing to rip everyone apart who fucks with her family and unlike Jiang Cheng is willing to change the status quo, and if JGS dies on a hunt they’ll blame WWX so Yanli just poisons him slowly and he dies from ‘illness’. JZX takes power, Meng Yao is told he’s amazing twelve times a day because JZX can do busy work and argue against anyone but he cannot have a small talk conversation to save his life. Life continues peacefully, Jiang Cheng keeps kidnapping JZX’s advisor because he misses him. Meng Yao knows how to control literally every single great sect but he’s busy chasing down his nephews and helping Jiang Cheng avoid marriage offers to do anything.

Once Jin Guangshan died, LXC and MY both swooped in to have the Wen Remnants moved somewhere else to ‘civilize’ them (using LXC’s own words here) and WWX is very much caught between Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji arguing over who he’s going home with and he’s honestly never felt more Loved TM. WWX spends six months to break the rest of the tiger rally under the grumpy/watchful eye of NMJ who still isn’t happy anyone from the Wen’s is still alive but he’s weak to puppy eyes and also when he’s being strong armed by his sworn brothers, MY, and NHS (though he still keeps an eye on the actual cultivators, he’s pretty much forgotten the rest of the Wen Remnants exist he just cares about the ones who know how to use a sword). Wangxian happens, idk how I’m voting for a wild Jingyi another orphan decides that he wants to meet the Purple Angry Man and body slams into WWX’s legs trying to get to the Purple man and LWJ catches him and it’s a full on romantic moment of staring into each other’s eyes while Jiang Cheng makes disgusted noises and Meng Yao pats his hand and just tells him to accept it.

Or Meng Yao stays in Lotus Pier because Jiang Cheng has problems and Meng Yao loves a messy loudmouth aggressive bitch with a secret heart of gold. Also Jiang Cheng is the exact kind of Demi-aroace dummy to not realize Meng Yao has a crush on LXC and keeps sending him over to Cloud Recesses to help with trade or something and MY gets to hang out with his crush constantly.

MY is Jiang Cheng’s personal advisor since WWX is currently refusing to process his trauma and staying in a very traumatic place. MY does try to help but WWX doesn’t trust him and probably only half trusts him around JC, BUT MY is very good with kids and helps work with JC on how to slip WWX supplies while negotiating directly with Nie and Lan without Jin glaring over him this time, and Jin Zixuan is more than happy to help when he can because again he’s just like the only one with modern morals and wants Lotus Pier to be strong since if all the sects fall then well the fucking demons/ghosts they hunt will eat them. So WWX is slowly atleast not ready to kill him, Meng Yao finds out WWX already destroyed half the Tiger Tally and tries to get him to let NMJ and LXC help him destroy it further (because that ties the three sects closer and so WWX won’t just stab someone if someone isn’t happy about the Wen’s existing)

Yanli poisons Jin Guangshan again because I think that’s the best way for him to go, Meng Yao does grieve but also that lasts for three minutes before Jiang Cheng shows up with some children he found in Yunmeng and Meng Yao needs to explain to him again that just because the kid latches on doesn’t mean you can take them home. But with JGS out of the way it’s a lot easier to strong arm NMJ into letting the Lan take the remnants (JC and NMJ still aren’t happy about it but NMJ can’t fight the three other sects and JC is getting his brother back and he’ll take the Wen living if that means WWX is too) and WWX returns to Lotus Pier. The truth of the golden core comes out probably via WWX having a flashback or panic attack or something (or that one theory of Yanli knowing,,,) words happen, WWX storms off to find LWJ.

Meng Yao wonders why he likes messy cry babies but still helps out Jiang Cheng because they’re technically brother in laws and also because he really does care about him. Wangxian happens and now Jiang Cheng is really pissed but WWX also said he wasn’t going to just up and leave so they’re on a rotating system but honestly everyone’s just waiting for them to move permanently to Lotus Pier because Lan Wangji has this giant hole in his heart for kids who love Wei Wuxian and Lotus Pier is filled with kids who are Jiang and therefore are insane ans love WWX.

Personally I think this one is the least likely but it sounds very nice right?

[hauntedfalcon]

fic prompt: in the future (couple hundred years or more) Nile and Quynh (lets presume that she rejoins the team in the next movie) go to find a new immortal

"Did you dream of it, when Andy came to find me?"

Quỳnh, in the midst of the lander's pre-flight checklist, cracks a smile. "We will not be shooting anyone in the head today," she says.

"No we won't," Nile sighs. They have time to be gentle to the new one, in delivering them to this life. Things aren't quiet by any means, which is why Joe and Nicky and Booker are staying with the ship. But no one is actively hunting them down for the moment.

And Nile and Quỳnh are not Andy. They both have plenty to grieve, but they don't carry it alone out of some misplaced responsibility to protect the others.

"When she found me," Quỳnh starts. She's quiet for the countdown to uncoupling, then she tries again as the lander detaches. "When we found Yusuf and Nicolò, we had dreamed of them for years. It was like coming home. There was so much they had already accepted and worked through together. I'm sure they struggled more than I saw, but they made it look easy."

"And when she found you?" Nile says, because long ago, Quỳnh made Nile promise that she would help her face these things.

Quỳnh is silent until gravity takes hold of the lander. "I did not make anything easy for her."

Nile laughs aloud.

There are more people scattered across the solar system than there are left on Earth now, but the new one didn't die on a colony or a station. Maybe it's Earth itself that grants them this gift. Maybe their feet must be planted on the soil or the sand in order to rise again.

From the flashes in their dreams and some cross-referencing with their Terran contact, they determined that the new one is in the NT Underground. Their first death was excruciating, crushed under stone in a collapsed tunnel. And then they got right back up and kept fighting. Every time she dreams, Nile feels their fear, their confusion, their loneliness, and the force of their will.

She checks their trajectory on the screen, then cranes her neck to look out the tiny window. "It's so weird to be back here. There's more ocean than I remember."

"Yes," Quỳnh says in a faraway voice.

They put down outside Alice Springs and start making their inquiries. The locals don't warm to outsiders, and there is no one more outside than the two of them--but Quỳnh has a way of winning the trust of dangerous and frightened people.

That evening they are escorted through limestone chambers to a dim and smokey room, where a figure is surrounded by... well, the first word that comes to Nile's mind, based on body language alone, is disciples. All the other people here are oriented toward the new one, waiting for whatever they'll say next.

A freedom fighter who can't die would look an awful lot like a savior.

But whoever they were before, they were not a leader, and they haven’t had the time Nile has to grow into the role. They shrink from the deference their associates show them now. "Can you give us the room?" they ask with an attempt at authority. The others slip away quietly.

When it's just the three of them, Nile sits on the edge of a supply crate and says, "My name is Nile. This is Quỳnh. How should we call you?"

"Gotjan, for now." Their chin stays jutted, lips tight. Gotjan is plump, and richly brown as the earth, with a head of loose curls faded by sun at the ends. Maybe a handful of years older than Nile was at her first death.

"Pronouns?" Quỳnh prompts.

"She. You?"

"Same," Nile says.

"Whatever works," Quỳnh says.

For an instant it looks like Gotjan might smile, but she steels herself again. "Why have you come here?"

"To meet you," Nile says as Quỳnh takes a handheld cutter from her bag. "The dreams are how we find each other."

The cutter sparks. Quỳnh sears a line across her palm without a whimper, and holds it up as it heals.

Gotjan's eyes go wide. "Who's we?" she breathes.

"You, me, Quỳnh, and those three men you've been dreaming of, back on our ship. They're waiting for you to join us."

"Six," Gotjan says. "There are six of us?" She lets out an incredulous laugh. "Do you know what we could accomplish with six of us?"

Nile hears that we for what it is: the Underground. She knows perfectly well what six of them can accomplish.

Gently she says, "We aren't running missions on Earth, for the time being. It got a little too hot for us." They need to wait out a few overhauls of physical media, until all the records of what they did in Vancouver forty years ago pass out of memory. "But there are a lot of ways to help a cause."

"From space?" Gotjan takes a step back. "No. I'm not leaving. I lost everything--those bastards took everything from me, and I finally have a chance to do something about it."

This is something Nile expected from the conviction she felt in the dreams, though it's novel to her. When Nile was new, she had only begun to realize how much she didn't believe in what she had fought for.

She says, "Have you ever killed anyone?"

Gotjan swallows. Yeah, that's what Nile thought.

"We're not here to force you to do anything," she soothes. "If you want us to go without you, we will, and Joe and Nicky and Booker will keep dreaming of you. We'll know if you're in trouble and we'll always come back. But before you make that decision, you need to think about whether staying will do the Underground any good. If you're captured, they can kill you and kill you, and your mind will crack eventually, and that's when they'll get secrets out of you that will lead to the deaths of people you love."

She can see from the shadow that passes across Gotjan's eyes and the way she slants her face away from them that she is thinking about it.

But before Gotjan can answer, Quỳnh says, "No."

Nile gives her a vexed look, which she ignores. She always picks the most inconvenient fucking times to go off script.

"No," Quỳnh says again, "we won't leave you behind. None of us should ever be alone. If you stay, we will stay and fight beside you to whatever end. If you run from us, we will follow. You can hate us for it, but we won't be moved."

Her voice is a thread reaching back thousands of years. It raises the hairs on Nile's arms. Gotjan stares at her with a fire in her eyes. It isn't gentle, but maybe in this moment, in her solitude, it's what she needs to hear.

Quỳnh says, "You don't yet know the depth of what you have gained. Come with us and we will show you."

Nile waits for the cavern to stop ringing from Quỳnh's fervor. Then she clears her throat. "We also have an ungodly amount of money to fund the Underground in your absence."

All the way up out of the gravity well, Gotjan has questions. They do their best to answer them.

Nile watches her face when the lander pivots to reattach to the ship, and Earth is visible once more through the window. There is an ache in Gotjan's dark eyes. It's the barest she's allowed herself to be in their presence.

"I never planned to leave," she whispers. "I know the work is better up here, but... that's our land."

"That is a connection you will always have," Quỳnh promises her.

A freedom fighter who can't die and who leaves to live in the sky will, in another century or so, look an awful lot like a folk hero.

"How long are you staying off Earth?"

Nile says, "Two, maybe three more generations."

"Generations," Gotjan echoes. "What are you, twenty?"

The Freeman babyface strikes again. "I'm four hundred and twelve," Nile says lightly. "Next Thursday."

"The fuck," Gotjan says, turning to stare at her. "When do you stop keeping track?"

"About five centuries ago," Quỳnh supplies.

Gotjan lifts her head to look at Quỳnh, but she doesn't ask the logical next question. Not yet, anyway.

The Andromache's docking clamps embrace the lander. Nile leads the way through her beloved corridors, moving slower than usual so Gotjan can get used to the magnetic boots.

Nile hears them while she's still outside the galley, cursing in Italian and French, with a frantic he didn't mean it for spice.

She stops at the door and glances at Quỳnh, on the other side of Gotjan. The oldest, and the newest. Quỳnh gives her a tiny, prized smile.

"Gentlemen," Nile says as the door slides open, and a trio of anything but gentlemen straighten up from a pantomime brawl as dinner bubbles in the cooker. Some things never change.

And some things do. Nile says, "This is Gotjan."

[zmediaoutlet]

in support of Texas relief,@whiskeycherrypie donated $25, and requested Sam/Dean, very late seasons, switching. Thank you for donating!

to get your own personalized fic, please see this post. (no longer taking prompts)

(read on AO3)

The second hunt, after, is when things start to feel real again.

First job was the shapeshifter and even after just a few weeks of post-almost-apocalypse vacation they were rusty, as much as they ever got rusty. Sam broke his damn finger, which Dean made fun of him for, and Dean limped around on a half-busted shin that Sam can just stop smirking about, any time now, but they felt—like what? Hard to pin down. Like they were stepping out into a strange world. Like they'd fire a gun and didn't know if it'd recoil the same way it always would, because the world was different. New. At least, Dean kept feeling that way, and he thinks he's known Sam long enough to guess Sam was feeling about the same. Every part of that job was—feeling for a step down in the dark, and then being surprised when it was there. Sam flicking through the local paper checking obits, cautious when he pointed out a possible connection, like he hadn't done the same thing a hundred, thousand, times before. Dean going through the trunk and pulling out their supplies and holding a fistful of silver bullets in his hand and thinking—is this it? Sam, getting the motel room after, when they'd been to the Urgent Care to check out Dean's stupid shin that it turns out, okay, wasn't broken after all, and the woman at the counter asking what kind of room, and Sam hesitating, and glancing back at where Dean was propped up in the office doorway.

But it was right, in the end. They did right. They saved most of a day and killed the bad thing and it turned out that after everything they were still the same guys they always were. After the world ended it was supposed to be maybe something else, but, shit, the world didn't quite end after all, and it turned out… Sam gave his stupid shin a few more days to rest up and kept his finger splinted and then after a week there was Sam, laptop open on the table when Dean came in for breakfast, and he said, "Hey, you want to work?" with every expectation that Dean would, and that—that was new, kind of, in the way that Sam wasn't trying to distract himself or Dean, and it wasn't to patch up some broken thing that couldn't be fixed, and it wasn't because they owed anything to anyone. It was because it turned out that after all this was who they were, and Dean looked at Sam over the island while he whipped up some eggs semi-capably (although he never used enough salt) and Sam glanced over his shoulder when the toaster popped and saw Dean looking, and raised his eyebrows like—what?—like this wasn't just the best hope of Dean's life being realized, finally, right here in a hole in the ground at eight in the morning, on the wrong side of forty. "What's the job?" was all Dean said, then, and then—that was it. That was that.

Second hunt's a success, too. Vetalas, in Wyoming. Dean hates Wyoming. Not for the people or the scenery or the weather, even, though the weather can be a bitch, but because you can't get anywhere with a damn mountain leaping up into the middle of the highway and having to drive three hours the wrong direction to get to where you're going. Sam has heard this argument, and rolls his eyes mostly, but this time, this second hunt, he laughs, and stretches out in the passenger seat with the window rolled down and his elbow hanging out, and it's summer and he's stripped out of his jacket and has his sleeves rolled up and he just looks—good. Dean recites his lines: "Lander to Pinedale should be, what, forty minutes, but no, we gotta drive a hundred miles out of the way to get around this stupid—" and Sam sighs and says his line, which is, "Don’t you like driving?" and Dean says, "Don't get facts in the way here, man, that is not the issue—" and it's… the same ruts, the same life, but Sam's face is all folded up in glad creases, his dimple carved in so deep it looks like it's going to set up residence there full-time, and Dean eases off the gas a little, stretches out the drive, even if it's around the same damn mountain they've circled three times, looking for the same damn vetalas. They find them, of course, and they kill them, and they find three men drained of life in the cellar at their cabin but there are two more that Sam and Dean save, and on the drive back to Kansas through the night Sam's not in that same sunshine mood but he's not anything but content, either. Dean had—he'd hoped, in some shriveled part of himself that hadn't really had much luck with hoping—and maybe the last few years he'd gotten some proof, that what he'd wanted was what Sam wanted, too—but to have the proof, right here, it's—he doesn't pray, really, but he says inside his head very clearly thank you, to whatever might be listening. It's all he's got. He hopes it's enough.

They stop for a booze restock, for stuff to make dinner, and back at the bunker Dean's slow, watching Sam unpack his half of the car. His finger's still splinted but it can probably come off, soon. He gets his backpack on his shoulder and his duffle over his arm and the twelve pack in the good hand, and glances at Dean, and says, "What?"

"Nothing," Dean says. Sam's eyes narrow in that tiny tiny way where he smooths it out so fast he must think Dean won't notice, but Dean's honest, here, and he smiles without meaning to, and Sam frowns at him but smiles back, confused. Dean claps him on the shoulder and Sam shakes his head, says, "Dude, what?" and Dean says, "Nothing, you deaf? C'mon, let's get the beer in the fridge before it gets any warmer," and Sam shakes his head again and says, "You're the weirdest person I know," and Dean looks over his shoulder and says, "Takes one, Sammy," and he's just—sure. Sure, all through his body, from gut to his heart to his stupid brain, always lurching, looking for the exits. What a thing.

Spaghetti and meatballs, for dinner. The sauce is from a jar but Dean takes his time with the meat. Half pork, half beef, the spices he likes, a bunch of garlic. Sam practically inhales it and gets sauce on his chin and Dean grins at him until Sam colors and says, "Shut up," and swipes it off with the heel of his hand, and then shrugs and licks his palm. They're on season two of Game of Thrones and they watch an episode, and Dean wants Joffrey to die and asks Sam to tell him it'll happen soon, and Sam just smiles and says, "Dude, I'm not giving you spoilers after how long I had to wait to read the books. Hold your horses." Dean mutters, "I'll hold your horses," and Sam raises his eyebrows, but Dean just waves a hand instead of getting into the bickering match they could.

They get fresh beers and Dean says, "Hey, let's—" and so they head upstairs to ground level, and Sam brought two spare bottles each, and they go around to the back side of the big abandoned power plant where there's an ugly concrete bench they hung out on, sometimes. Especially before, when the bunker was fuller than it is now. A place to be quiet, to breathe. To watch the moonrise, as they're doing now, and drink in quiet companionship, their knees touching because they both tend to sprawl, and they've never, ever minded each other's warmth. Even when they were pissed at each other, or when it hurt.

Dean holds his beer in both hands, leaning his head back against the stone wall. Sam's quiet at his side. A three-quarter moon, so it's bright enough to lay white-silver on the planes of Sam's face. His nose, a gleam of that goofy ski-slope swoop. His brow. A light shine on his hair, and brighter on the silver that's started to come out in it. Dean's always been a little entertained by that—Sam's four years and a handful of months younger than him, and it's Sam who's been going grey faster—but he never said anything about it because—well, it's just something, that's all. Sammy, with grey hair. He's so damn lucky to see it he can't really pull Sam's pigtails about it.

Everything else, though: fair game.

"Never have I ever?" Dean says, after who knows how long sitting in silence. They're on their second beers, anyway.

Sam huffs. "You're kidding," he says. He tips his head on his shoulder, looking sidelong at Dean in the dark. "Anyway, wouldn't you just get… trashed, at that game? You've done everything, right?"

"Very much underselling your weird kinky shit, brother mine," Dean says. Sam's eyebrows jump and Dean's stomach rushes hot, in a way he didn't expect, even if he's been halfway thinking, all day, about how they were going to get here. "Try this: never have I ever… ate out a chick during shark week."

Sam half-scoffs, weak. Dean raises his eyebrows back, and Sam says, "Seriously?"

Dean spreads a hand, expansive, and Sam says, quiet, "This is so stupid," but then, because Dean knows his brother very well indeed, Sam takes a drink, and Dean says "Ha!" out loud and shoves Sam's shoulder, and then says, after a second's thinking, "Dude, seriously?"

"It's just blood," he says, and it's not exactly defensive but there's a shard of it buried somewhere in there. Dean laughs, half-surprised and half-not. "Not like we don't deal with it every day. You should broaden your horizons."

"Oh, my horizons are plenty broad," Dean says. It's bubbling in his chest, now, ready to come out. This is stupid—"This is stupid," Sam says, out loud—and teenage, and dumb, but he feels… "Come on, your turn," he says, and Sam lets out this long exasperated sigh, but even in the moonlight Dean can see that he's smiling, and Sam says: "Okay, fine: never have I ever had a threesome."

Dean sits up straighter. "What, seriously?" he says, derailed, and Sam shrugs, and of course Dean has to take a drink because Sam knows that Dean—and then it's on, really.

Dancing on the edge. The things they know about each other, the things they might could guess. Dean kills his last beer on never have I ever had sex in a movie theater, and he tells Sam after that that he needs to live more, and Sam smiles at him kind of bitchy and then says, "Hang on, stay here," and Sam gets up and half-jogs away, disappears down the recessed hidden driveway that leads to the garage, and Dean sets his bottle down among the empties and rubs his palms over his thighs, letting the warm denim scratch him up, taking a deep breath. It feels too big to say. Even if he's sure. It's too big to even be true, if it's…

Sam comes back, quick, like he ran the whole way. He has two more beers and the bottle of bourbon they bought today tucked under his arm. "Okay, sucker," he says, handing Dean an open bottle and plumping back down on the bench. Their thighs are solid together. He clinks his bottle with Dean, setting the bourbon down at their feet. "Never have I ever…" He licks his lips, shine in the dark. "Slept with a demon."

Dean blinks. He takes a breath. "I don’t think that's how you're supposed to play," he says, and Sam bites his lips between his teeth and shrugs. Maybe he's a little tipsier than he seems, even if they're only three beers down. Sam takes a drink, quick, but his eyes are focused on Dean's face, the moon a little behind his shoulder, and Dean bites the inside of his cheek but drinks, too, and Sam lets out this quick short breath that—Dean doesn't know, what that means. He feels caught at something.

"Did you—" Sam starts, and cuts off. Quiet, for a second. Dean's cheeks feel hot. "I didn't mean… I meant on Earth, not in…" Awkward. The air goes out of Dean, realizing that Sam's trying to give him an out.

"Me too," he says, voice weird in this way he could be embarrassed by but—he isn't, and Sam's face turns away, and even with full moonlight Dean can't tell what that expression is.

He puts his beer down. "Never have I ever slept with a vampire," he says.

Sam's chin ducks down. Dean licks his lips and folds his hands between his knees. Sam puts his beer down, too, and braces on the edge of bench. There's barely enough room between them for his hand to fit; his knuckle presses against Dean's thigh and Dean licks his lips.

"Never have I…" Sam shakes his head, huffs. He looks up, out at the empty farmland spilling out from the back of the plant. His eyes shine, open, though Dean doesn't know what he's looking at. "I've never slept with a guy. On Earth, I haven't."

Dean bites the wet off his bottom lip, dragging, and then ducks down and gets the bourbon instead. Twist of the cap and a glug goes down—christ, hot. He coughs. "I hate the cask strength shit," he says, and Sam says, "Wuss," thin, and Dean could bicker back but it's here. Here. All this stuff he didn't know Sam was thinking about—things Dean kept secret, and things he didn't—and he didn't mean to dredge it all up at once but maybe it's better. Like this, in the dark. The night warm, smelling like grass and the weeds growing up among the fallow field, and Sam's knuckles still pressed up right there, where if Dean put his hand down he'd cover them.

"Do you remember that time in, uh," Dean starts. Swerving around the mountain, the long way through the dark. Sam's head turns towards his, a little. "Montana, I guess it was. Somewhere. You were… seventeen. That July. You got so wasted."

"Whose fault was that?" Sam says. Dean grins, makes sure it's wide and wicked, and Sam glances up at him and huffs again, more of a laugh this time than whatever the last one was. "That was when we invented beer bowling."

"Yeah, and you sucked," Dean says, and Sam shakes his head and leans back against the plant wall, tipping his head back to look at the stars. They did play, ten-pin with glass shattering because the only ball they had was a half-rounded rock. Then they sat out with Sam tipsy and Dean getting that way himself, only twenty-one and not quite as sure of what he was doing as he is now, and they just… talked. He can't even remember about what. They just sat and they were together and it was about the happiest Dean was that whole year. Like if he could just have that, forever, things would be okay. That was… god, twenty years ago.

"One more round," Dean says, now. Sam's eyes close. Dean leans the bottle on Sam's thigh so he can feel it. "Never have I ever kissed you."

Sam's eyes pop wide when Dean picks up the bottle, and takes a drink. He sits up straighter. Dean lets the burn of the swallow go all the way to his stomach, a bonfire there, and watches Sam's face as the thoughts flicker across it, limned in moonlight. Sam opens his mouth, and closes it, and he's not mad just like Dean knew he wouldn't be mad but it's still enough of a relief that Dean tips the bottle his way, says, "Technically, you did too, so—"

Sam takes it out of his hand but doesn't drink. "No, we didn't. When?"

Dean wipes his mouth, dragging his hand over his chin, and down. Sam's watching him. "After the second trial," he says, finally. Sam frowns. "Your fever was pretty bad. You kept talking about…" He shakes his head. All sorts of things Dean doesn't like remembering. About worth, and right, and being clean. Nonsense, as far as Dean was concerned, though he didn't know how to say it that way, then. With how it was. Instead he leans back against the wall and says, because it's true, and he can say it now: "I just wanted to… I guess, to prove something. How I didn't think of what you were saying the same way you did. How I didn't believe all that crap you were saying about yourself. It was bad and I didn't want you to believe it, either, and I didn't really know how else to… You didn't remember, though, so I guess it didn't do the trick. To be honest, thought I was a better kisser."

Sam doesn't smile. It was a pretty weak attempt. He stares at Dean, and Dean lifts a shoulder.

How it was, then. In the hotel, where Metatron was staying. When he found Sam on the floor and about had a heart attack. Sam's skin burning and ice-cold by turns. His body this huge out of control thing, being taken over by something Dean didn't understand. He woke up while Dean was trying to drag him to the bath, but he wasn't really conscious, hardly making sense. Babbling, half-frantic, trying to make Dean understand—how it was okay, how it was fine if he burned, if somehow the trials scoured the marrow out of his bones, because it was just right after all he'd done and all he hadn't, and it was a use for him, when he hadn't been worth anything in so long. Dean had told him no, over and over, and no again, and he'd slapped Sam at some point to get him to shut up, to try to shock him out of the awful monologue, but Sam didn't even register it, clinging to Dean's shirt while the tub filled, the sack of ice Dean had brought bobbing to the surface. It can mean something, Sam had said, nodding, tears in his eyes, trying to smile, and Dean wanted to throw a chair through the window but he grabbed Sam's face instead and he said it does and Sam shook his head, confused, and Dean leaned in against him, ready to cry too, and instead he…

"I thought," Sam starts, and immediately stops. His hands twist around the bourbon bottle. "I dreamed that."

Dean thinks of a joke to make, something about Snow White, but he keeps his mouth shut. He remembers it, clearly. Sam's mouth, hot and dry against his own. His hands clenched in Dean's shirt, and on the side of his neck. Weak and strong at once. If Sam dreamed it, what does he remember?

Sam looks down at the bottle for almost a minute, Dean counting it away with beats of his heart. A breeze picks up, light and warm. A cricket, somewhere, chirping and then going quiet. It could feel bad but it doesn't. It could be terrifying, but it's just—Sam, and him. Like always. Like it will be, always. He knows that, now. No matter what.

Sam smiles, eventually, for no reason Dean can tell. He wipes his thumb over the rim of the bottle and then takes a drink, two long swallows that are loud as they go down, and then he takes the bottle away from his mouth and puts his hand on Dean's jaw and leans in and kisses him. Brief, hot. Not dry. His mouth tastes like bourbon. It tastes just like Dean's.

Sam leans back. Dean takes a deep breath. Sam looks at him, very close, and Dean puts his hand on the side of Sam's neck, his fingers sliding into Sam's hair, and Sam's lips quirk and he nods and Dean leans in and kisses him, again, slower, pressing in soft with his lip plush against Sam's, tipping to make it good, and his jaw's cupped in both big mitts and Sam opens for him and it's…

He pulls away eventually. He must have been breathing, during, but he hardly sees how. Sam kisses the corner of his mouth, weirdly sweet, and his hands drag down to Dean's chest before he pushes back, blinking. "You better remember that one," Dean says, and Sam smiles briefly, but shakes his head, not letting them off the hook.

"I didn't…" What goes there? Dean could guess but he doesn't want to. Sam's thoughtful now, but his hand's on Dean's forearm, because Dean's hand is—oh, still locked there on the side of Sam's neck, holding on. Sam's still, doesn't seem to mind, and Dean lets his thumb brush over Sam's stubble. Familiar. The world new, and not-new.

Sam squeezes his arm. "Did you start the stupid game just to say that line?" Dean shrugs. Sam rolls his eyes, and detaches Dean's hand from his neck, and stands, but pulls Dean up at the same time, and this time when he kisses Dean it's—full, real, Sam holding him close and Dean lifting his face up for it and Sam getting an arm around his shoulders and Dean pressing his mouth open, just a little, licking Sam's top lip and getting a slow, deep inhale where Sam's close enough that he can feel it.

"Sammy," Dean says, and maybe there's more to say. More that should be said, if this is what—but Sam shakes his head, and says, "Come on," and scoops up the bourbon and his empty beers, and so Dean scoops his up, too, and follows Sam around the plant and down the stairs to the bunker and to the kitchen, where they drop the bottles in a rattle of glass into the recycle bin Sam insisted they get, and then Sam looks at him in the light, his hair a little rucked-up at the back from where Dean was messing with it and his mouth a little pink and his expression just… considering, open, honest, and Dean looks back, not trying to hide a thing. How can he? It's Sam.

*

In the morning, Dean wakes up slow, alone in his room. He has a shower, taking his time, and wraps up in his robe, and comes into the kitchen to find coffee made but no breakfast, and he pours a cup and thinks about eggs, or maybe waffles if he wants to wrestle that ancient cast-iron waffle pan down from the top of the shelf, and he's thinking mainly about the food but he's also thinking, of course, about Sam, and it's only about five minutes of him standing there with his hip against the kitchen island before the door creaks, distant, and then—Sam, in the doorway, shining with sweat.

Dean's stomach flips, very slightly. It's just Sam, soaked and gross after a run. It's every morning, like the last, except, of course—

Sam hesitates for just a second. His mouth turns up at one corner, a little rueful, and then he comes in and grabs his metal bottle from the fridge, and gulps water. Dean turns to watch him, coffee warm in both hands, and when Sam's done he leans against the fridge, breathing deep, and then says, "I don't know, it feels like it should be weirder," like he's continuing a conversation they were in the middle of without interruption.

"Nothing weird about being hot for my bod," Dean says, calm, and Sam snorts. He looks at Dean sidelong, and then turns and really looks at him. Looks, from Dean's mouth to his slippered feet, and it's not much of a view in the robe but Dean spreads his arms out, anyway, and Sam bites his bottom lip, half-smiling. Dean sets his coffee on the island, runs his thumb along the lipstick-red rim. "You know," he says. "It doesn't ever have to be more than this. Just… how we've got it. It's good, now."

"It is," Sam says, easy. He twists the cap back on to his bottle, sets it on the counter, and folds his arms over his chest, and he's still just looking but Dean feels, now, the difference in it. It's just Sam but it's also… maybe a new part, a Sam that Dean didn't really get before, and the consideration there, the curiosity, the attention, it's… He tilts his head back, looks at Sam right back. Sam smiles.

Last night they did nothing more than kiss. Dean stepped close in the kitchen and tipped his head up and Sam met him, one more time, and it was soft and a little strange and a little new, but it felt right, in a way that's been full in Dean's chest, from the first moment of Sam's hand on his face to—well, it hasn't gone away.

"I was thinking I'd make waffles," Dean says, still buoyed in it. "You want one or two?"

"Two," Sam says, and Dean nods, and Sam gets the pan down—showing off, tall bastard—and then goes off to shower, and Dean mixes up the batter and butters the pan and pours in the mix and watches for when the steam stops, eyes on the cast iron but his thoughts around the corner of two hallways and down a few doors, and when he's got four waffles stacked on two plates and he's wondering if he's gonna need to send in a rescue team, Sam comes back into the kitchen with wet hair and says, "I'm going to run a marathon," and Dean blinks at him, entirely derailed, and says, "What?"

A marathon. Apparently Sam's been thinking about it for a while. His runs, he says, in the morning, are usually five miles, but he's been running a little longer each time, and he's at seven now without much worrying about the extra distance. He wants to go the whole way. See if he can do it, he says.

Dean's busy smearing as much butter as he can feasibly fit into the squares of his waffle, but he gives Sam a look. "If I can, he says," Dean mutters, and maybe it's against usual policy to give Sam full credit but it gets a surprised blink and then Sam looking down at his own syrup-free plate with a soft curve to his mouth, so—worth it. Dean cuts a four-square bite and pauses, watching the melty puddles form on the plate. "So, what. Are you going to enter one of those city things? Am I gonna have to drive along the route with Gatorade and applaud from the sidelines? Are you dressing up as a moose for charity?"

Sam shakes his head. "I can donate to charity on my own time," he says, although to be honest Dean's now taken with the moose idea. Sam sees him thinking about it and rolls his eyes. "No. But—I can figure out a route with my phone. Just around here. Anyway, it can't hurt, for the job."

"Yeah, I'll let you chase down the next werewolf," Dean says, shaking his head. Marathons. His brother.

They finish eating about the same time. Sam sips at his coffee while Dean sucks maple from his thumb. "You want to find a job," Dean says, while Sam's piling their forks and plates together, "or do you want to go for another jog? Gotta get up to twenty-six miles somehow."

"Twenty-six point two," Sam says, standing up with the dishes in hand, and then he leans over and brushes Dean's thumb away from his mouth and kisses him, again, and Dean grips the edge of the table and Sam's shoulder, his mouth pushed open on Sam's tongue, sliding in easy like he's got the run of the place and doesn't expect an ounce of resistance. Fair enough. Dean tips his head back and tastes Sam, syrup-and-coffee, and when Sam pulls back his eyes are half-closed and he licks his lips, and his eyes drop to Dean's mouth.

"Weird?" Dean says.

"Should be," Sam says, quieter, but he stands up, and lets his thumb drag over Dean's jaw before he steps away, to the sink, and he doesn't say anything more when he puts the dishes in and stands there with hands braced on the edge for—ten seconds, twenty, thirty—before he turns the water on.

Dean could say something but there's nothing to say. It's weird. It's not. That it's not is weirder. He gets up, refreshes his coffee with the hot from the pot, says, "I'll look for a job," and goes to the library, and lets Sam think, with his hands in soapy water, and quiet to do it in.

There are odd stories—news of the weird never fails to deliver—but nothing so pressing as to drag them across the country on an urgent mission. Dean doesn't feel the need to fake anything, either, to yank out of the bunker on a long drive of not talking through the night and too-loud music and burying their thoughts into means/motive/monstrous opportunity. He sends some links to Sam's email and goes and finds clothes instead, finally, and figures—well, today's a day off. He changes the Impala's oil, washes her. Goes through the trunk, sitting on a stool dragged over from the garage's weird little office, and makes notes of what they're out of, what needs replaced. More salt. More holy oil. Or—not more holy oil, since they haven't seen hide or nor hair of angel or demon in weeks and weeks and maybe never again, and he sits, then, with the empty flask turning over and over in his hands, looking into the trunk, thinking about—how the world is, now. How there's downtime. How, incredibly, there are marathons to run.

In the library, later, Sam's reading on his laptop. "That thing in Pierre might be something," he says, without preamble, and Dean nods—it could be—but then Sam says, "I sent it to Jody, to see if she and the girls want to take a look."

Dean sets the empty flask on the table. Sam's eyes barely flick to it. "What are we gonna do, then?" he says, and Sam sits back in his chair, laptop lid half-closed. He half-smiles, looking down at nothing, and then he looks up at Dean again.

They sleep together that night. Nothing complicated. Dean's room, and the lamps all off but the one over on the table by the door, so Sam's half-haloed in amber light this time, instead of the white moon. Dean's shirt comes off but Sam's stays on, and they're still in their socks, and Sam leans over Dean on one elbow, touching his chest, curious. It's not romantic, or urgent, but Dean keeps smiling, and Sam finally catches him at it and whispers, "Shut up," and kisses him when he opens his mouth to protest that he wasn't saying anything. While they're necking Dean gets Sam's jeans open, and slides his hand inside, and Sam bites his lip but he's half-hard, and gets harder while Dean learns the shape of him. Sam rocks a warm palm over where Dean's swelling up and Dean rips at his own belt, unzips, and then rolls them over so Sam's on his back, and Sam grips his hips, looking up, his hair loose on the pillow and his face just…

After, Dean wipes his hand on Sam's shirt. "Dick," Sam says, and Dean says, "Hey, it was already a disaster, I just added to the general—" and Sam rolls his eyes and nudges Dean off, and pulls the shirt over his head, tugging it off careful from the back. Dean rolls onto his side, looking. Sam's shoulders, and his back. Muscle and, miraculously, no scars. His skin that same all-over bronze, like he's immune somehow to farmer tan. Sam tosses the shirt in the same vague direction that Dean's went and then looks over his shoulder, finds Dean looking. Half-smiles. He lays back, his head on the pillow, and tucks a hand underneath it, looking up at the ceiling. Dean just keeps looking at Sam.

"It should be weird," Sam says, after a second.

"It's a little weird," Dean says. Sam snorts, one corner of his mouth turning up. "Yeah, I know what you mean."

Sam's head tips, on the pillow. He looks into Dean's eyes, then at his lips. He reaches over and presses his thumb against Dean's bottom lip, and Dean lets Sam dent it, pulling, and then he flicks his tongue against Sam's skin. Faint salt, faint bitter. Sam drags his thumb down, wet trail over Dean's chin, and then settles his hand on Dean's chest.

This. This is weird. Sam looking at him, quiet. Sweat's still drying in the middle of Dean's back and he has the sense of what it feels like to have his brother's hand on his dick full in his head. The body part, though, that—matters, of course it matters, but it feels secondary to Sam just... fully present. That they're both in the same weird, weird boat, and that it could go on like this forever, and it wouldn't change a thing.

"I don't want to wonder about it anymore," Dean says. He gets his hand on Sam's wrist, squeezes. "There's—I don't know, man. There's a bunch of crap we should probably be talking about, freaking about. But it's…"

"Beside the point?" Sam offers, and Dean nods. That's it. Sam nods, too, and closes his eyes, and maybe that makes it easier.

Dean closes his, too, and it's just the amber-colored haze of dark, and the kinda-too-warm of the bed, and his hand sticky and needing to be washed, and vaguely wanting a shower. And he's an adult, and he's fucked before, and so it's also that one article about that disappearance in Winston-Salem that he's been half-thinking about all day, wondering if there's more—and then remembering that they're out of milk—and then, when Sam's thumb drags over his pec, under his nipple, the vague jolt of: Sam, and maybe that should be all that fills his head but Sam suffuses every other thought. Dean can't make any more room in himself than he already has.

"Did that woman in North Carolina disappear at night?" Sam says, after another minute.

Dean's eyes fly open. "Shit," he says, to Sam's frown, and they sit up at the same time, and then—it's them, and the job, and nothing's really, in the end, that different.

*

Sam keeps running. He tracks his step count with an app, figures out mile by mile how far he can push it, how fast he can go. Dean goes into Lebanon by himself one day, hitting the post office and the market and just getting some air, and then he rolls to a stop at the single stop sign and checks his odometer, and then drives—a square, basically, twenty-six miles around the farm-fields both worked and fallow, and he imagines what it would be like to run the whole way. He's run for his life, and he's run for the lives of others, but just to do it for himself—no. He gets Sam, most every way, but this one is gonna stay a mystery, he thinks.

"What took so long?" Sam says, when he gets home.

The milk's still mostly-cold. "Estelle wouldn't stop hitting on me, man," Dean says, hauling in his half of the load, and Sam rolls his eyes, and Dean slots the barely-frozen pizza into the freezer and stocks the eggs into their holder and then, when Sam's done putting the cans onto their spot on the shelf, tugs at Sam's belt-loop and gets Sam surprised and then leans up and kisses him, pressing him against the dry goods, and Sam kisses back good and pleased and open and then, when Dean sets back down on his heels, touches the back of Dean's ear and murmurs, soft, "If I knew angry old ladies got you hot I would have tried something different, last night," and gets Dean laughing, unexpected, tucked into the corner of their kitchen.

They've been slow with each other. Dean has more experience but he didn't realize how much more. Sam's not uncertain, not nervous—incredible, how not-nervous Sam is, and Dean got finger-shaped bruises on his triceps one day when Sam just held him down and kissed and kissed and kissed him, body-confident and knowing, smiling pleased and half-smug when he pulled back and Dean was nearly dazed with wanting him. Little shit. Still: Sam's not a virgin, not by half, but he was being honest when he said he'd never screwed a guy—on Earth, that is, and Dean knows exactly what he meant by that qualification, and it was a very very brief conversation afterward ("It doesn't count," Sam had said, firm and honest there too, and Dean had nodded because, after everything, he trusts Sam to be honest), and they left it at that.

It's Sam who brings up more. Dean's content to follow. It's Sam who gets Dean's jeans open one night, petting at the base of his dick and sliding down to cup his balls, long fingers and big broad palm, and it's good but it's Sam who hmms, and then says, "Mind if I—" and crawls backwards down the bed—Sam's bed, the mattress tipping with Sam's weight—and Sam who bolsters Dean's dick up out of the split of his fly and breathes there, eyes flicking up the length of Dean's body where he's propped on his elbows, briefly dazed. "Go ahead," Dean says, voice coming from somewhere approximately at the center of the earth, and Sam snorts, and fists Dean capably from root to tip, and then leans in and licks, flat and deliberate up the spine of it, a wet warmth that shocks in Dean's thighs and between his shoulders and sparking in his hands, making him fist into the blanket. Sam's eyes are closed, like he's concentrating. Dean tips his knee out wide and touches Sam's cheek, and Sam's mouth tips up at the corners, and he shifts forward and takes the head in his mouth and—oh, that. He doesn't quite know how to get his mouth around it at first but he figures it out quick, and he sucks the tip and licks under the crown and fists the rest and when Dean's close, clenching, Dean says, "Come up here," and Sam opens his eyes after who knows how long and they're black, practically, and he crawls up over Dean's body still jerking and Dean kisses him, licks the taste of himself out, and Sam breathes hot into his mouth and groans when Dean comes, looking down at the spill over his fist, and he says, "Fuck, that's good," rough and true. Dean pants through it for a few selfish seconds before he squirms down to return the favor, and Sam's mostly-hard just from sucking Dean, and he's weirdly a gentleman when Dean goes down on him, hands off and careful until Dean lifts off, gulping, and says, "Like you mean it, dude," and Sam laughs and then grips him and that's how they learn that Sam likes dick just fine, in fact, and that Dean likes even more how much Sam likes it.

Sam runs farther. Dean paces him, one day, when they fell asleep in the same bed and mostly managed to sleep through the night together, except for some moment around three a.m. when Sam kicked too hard and Dean threatened blurrily to murder him or dump him out of the bed, one or the other—and way too early after that, Sam nudged him awake, lacing up his running shoes, said, "Come on," and Dean groaned and pulled the pillow over his head and then, well, he came on.

Seven in the morning, autumn settling over the farms. Cold enough that Sam's breath fogs and Dean rubs his hands together, sitting in the idling car with the window down while Sam stretches his hamstrings. "You look ridiculous," Dean says, just to say something. Sam ignores him, of course. "How far are we going?" he says, instead, and Sam says, "Thirteen," and Dean checks the odometer and says, "Okay, Speedy Gonzalez, you just say—" and Sam says, "Go," and takes off, and Dean rolls his eyes and lets off the brake, and the Impala rolls forward, chasing Sam down the farm road, the sun glinting behind them so the whole damp stretch of gravel sparks silver. Nine miles per hour is the pace Sam asked for and Dean keeps it going, on the far side of the road while Sam lopes along on the left shoulder, and it's boring but not as boring as he thought it would be. He keeps an eye on the speedometer, makes the turns just behind Sam as the roads weave around the cornfields, the soy beans, the farm that's just gone to dead-dry grass that waves in undulating strange patterns in the morning breeze. He goes through Zepp one side one, side two, switches to AC/DC and cranks it during Big Balls so loud that a bird startles up out of the bushes by the road, and Sam laughs, coughs, keeps running. His pace doesn't slow, not by a step.

Sam stops, finally. An hour and a half, and Dean has to piss. He parks, turns off the car, while Sam breathes hard with his hands on his knees. "How was that?" Dean says, and Sam shakes his head, still panting, and Dean can't wait any longer and goes over to the other side of the fence post and communes with the morning.

"Dude," Sam says, vaguely accusatory, but Dean only shrugs, and zips up when he's done. When he turns back around Sam's leaning on the car, sweat slicking his hair back behind his ears, and Dean raises his eyebrows and Sam shrugs. "That was good," he admits, finally. He's drinking the water bottle Dean's had sitting in the passenger seat the whole time. "Too fast to go the full twenty-six, but—yeah. Good."

He looks—content, again. Not smug, not even really glad. He pushes his sleeves up to his elbows, leans back against the car. Looks out over the little pond, the trees around it. Dean smiles, while Sam isn't looking, and then says, "Well, I left my gold medals at home, but if you want you can run back and get it—" and Sam rolls his eyes, and gets into the passenger side, and Dean gets to fake-bitch then about Sam's stinky sweaty ass on the vinyl, and it's a good morning, like they all are, anymore.

On the way home from a hunt—Ajo, Arizona, and vampires, in what Dean insists is the most ironic job they've ever been on—Sam has Dean stop at a drugstore. Two in the afternoon. Dean heads for the booze aisle and gets a six pack, and swings through the specialty candy and gets some pre-Christmas stocking filler, and then he walks around the aisles looking for Sam, and finds him in—

"Condoms?" he says. Sam glances up at him, holding a box, unfazed. Dean feels the black orb eye of the security camera on the back of his neck and feels—surreal. He tips his head. "I mean, not to go all sex-ed, but it's a little late, don't you think?"

Sam snorts. In lieu of responding he turns the box around in his hand and—not condoms. Astroglide. Dean licks the corner of his mouth and watches an old lady go by with her little cart on the far end of the aisle. "Yeah?" he says, and Sam lifts a shoulder, says, "You have a preference?"

Long time since Dean's had to think about it. He hitches the six-pack onto his other hip and comes and stands next to Sam, looking at the options. Fire & ice, spermicidal. Water-based. Sam's radiating heat, enough to feel six inches away, and Dean thinks about Sam thinking about this: driving through the cold desert, both of them tired after a night of chasing down the vamps, planning to crash in Amarillo. A motel, in Amarillo. He feels boring, normal. Shopping, with a bag of red-and-green Kisses in hand, and the wall of intensely pink pads and tampons looming at his back, and his—brother, waiting, while Dean reaches for the silicone-based KY he used to buy, when he used to have to buy it. The packaging's different but he's guessing the product's the same. He puts it in Sam's hand and Sam looks at it with his cheek sucked in on one side, and then Dean says, "You want something with, I don’t know, electrolytes?" and Sam says, "Yeah," and so Dean goes back to the wall of coolers and pulls out two Powerades, and Sam meets him at the cashier with rolled bandages and aspirin to replace what they used up out of the kit during this hunt, and the woman at the counter glances at their faces as she's ringing them up and Dean says, smiling, "Can I get a two-pack of lighters, too, miss?" and she's like seventy if she's a day but the charm offensive still works, and she's over-the-top as she hands them their receipt and tells them to be well, and Sam's giving him a sidelong look as they take the bags out to the car but, shit, Dean's had enough people giving him looks in his life, and Sam gets to but just about no one else does, now.

A motel, in Amarillo. Raining in west Texas like it never does. They get tacos and margaritas at a hole in the wall and it's still early, when they get back to the room, and Sam checks the stitches on Dean's shoulder—still holding—and Sam takes two aspirins to help with all the bruising on his side, and then Dean eats a Kiss from the mess of the Walgreens bag, and then he tosses the box holding the lube onto the closer bed, and he says, "So," and Sam shrugs, and says, again, "You have a preference?"

Shadow of a smile on his face. Dean gives him a look and Sam raises his eyebrows, all innocence, and Dean says, "You're a dumbass," and goes over and pulls Sam in by that godawful orange jacket and kisses him, and then he goes into the bathroom.

He takes his time. Showers, cleaning up. Leans his forearm against the wall and leans his head against his forearm and pushes his fingers inside, on the thin glide of the little complimentary bottle of conditioner, reminding his body that this is—yeah. This is good. He comes out with a towel loose around his waist and finds Sam mostly-stripped, leaning back on the bed with the TV on mute and his hand in his boxers. Dean glances at the screen—ESPN, showing basketball highlights—and says, "Jeez, you got a kink you haven't told me?" while Sam snaps the TV off, and Sam says, flushed, "Not my fault you took forever," and Dean says, frank, "Figured you wouldn't want any Mr. Hanky guest appearances on our first trip on the backroads, but if you'd rather—" and Sam says, "Jesus, Dean," and Dean grins like an asshole, and Sam rolls his eyes, and—

Sam's screwed women like this before, turns out, and knows to go slow. Dean's on his back, his one leg caught over Sam's arm and the other curled around Sam's hip, and he's not sure slow is slow enough. "Fuck," he says, grinding his head back against the pillow, and Sam kisses his jaw, murmurs, "Sorry," and Dean grips his shoulders and says, through a groan, "No, you're not," and Sam smiles against his skin. Dean knew it. Little shit.

Sam lifts up on one elbow, touches Dean's cheek. He drags his hips back, pushes in. Dean breathes shakily out and Sam's expression changes. "Is it—" he says, but thankfully doesn't ask the stupid question. He leans in, tilting Dean's hips to a new angle, and pushes again, and Dean drags a hand down Sam's chest, and Sam's watching his face, he knows, watching everything, learning him, figuring out what he likes, like he has with every new thing they've tried—probably cataloguing it on some insane chart, like he's been doing with the running—but just now, Dean doesn't care. He didn't realize how much he liked this, or how much he could. "God," he says, gripping Sam's hip, "go—" and Sam, thank christ, for once does what he's told.

Sam sucks him, to finish him off. When Dean's spent, Sam spits to the side, and then slides back up, kissing Dean's nipple and then the sweaty angle of his collarbone and his jaw and his cheekbone and the very end of his eyebrow, for some reason. "Freak," Dean sighs, content, and Sam cups his other cheek and says, "Back at you," quiet, and Dean tips his head in towards Sam's and breathes with him. Sam's mouth tastes like dick and it's a combo Dean is extremely fond of, but that's not, anymore, anything new. He reaches down and holds Sam's dick—still slick, because this is indeed the good lube—and half-hard, and sensitive apparently after doing its work, from how Sam hisses, and squeezes his forearm. Dean says, "If anyone gets to complain," and Sam lifts up then, and watches Dean's face while he slides a hand back between Dean's thighs, and presses gently. Dean bites the inside of his lip but lets Sam try it, and after a second Sam—slides a finger inside, where he's busted Dean open, and Dean lets his knee fall wide with the slick sting, and wonders. How much he could take, if Sam asked.

In the morning, Sam goes for a run. Dean stays very firmly in bed. "How'd it go, Romeo?" Dean says, drowsy in bed when Sam finally gets back, and Sam says, "You know that makes you Juliet?" but then, while Dean's frowning and trying to dredge up a comeback, he says, "Sixteen miles, mostly eight miles an hour, and I brought back coffee," and Dean lifts up enough to see the carrier on the table, steaming, and says, "You're forgiven for the Juliet thing."

He has Sam drive. He's feeling—hard to pinpoint, how he's feeling. Still cloudy, over Texas and then over Oklahoma, and Sam's driving a regular level of fast so they're going to get home around maybe dinnertime. He's thinking about steak—they could stop at that butcher in Smith Center—when Sam says, "Hey, let me ask," and Dean grunts, and Sam says, "What's it like?"

No guessing what he means. Dean says, "I mean, my ass is sore," and Sam rolls his eyes, and he's not being a dick about it or anything, and Dean thinks about how to answer. What's it like.

What came before doesn't matter, so much. They already talked about how only Earth counts, and that's true for a bunch of reasons, but on a physical level there's just no comparison. Even on Earth, though, this was different. What came before was mostly something Dean was okay with, either because he wanted it or because he needed it or because he had a job to do, and he's not someone who dwells on shit that could be different, and he doesn't really wish any of that was different. No point in it, and it doesn't bug him. It was always better, though, when he liked the person, and he got that sometimes, and when he got that it was… good, but. Maybe what he and Sam have isn't romance, isn't some big sweeping thing like from a movie—if Sam tried to sweep him off his feet, or vice versa, they'd probably just bicker and then fall over—but. But. What was it like?

He's been quiet too long. "It feels good," he says, honest. Lame, and Sam knows it, from how he glances across the seat. Random section of I-35, while Sam passes a semi. Dean watches the approaching road rather than look at Sam. "I don't know, man. Hard to describe. When you're with someone and you're figuring out what works, what makes the fireworks, that's the same from either side. But it's…"

Quiet, again. In the corner of his eye he can tell Sam looks at him, and he shifts his weight. His ass does hurt. Sam's got absolutely nothing to be embarrassed about, in the jockstrap department. That he can get used to; the weird feeling under his breastbone, this thing he's been carrying all morning, that's going to take a little longer, maybe.

"Jessica used to say she felt like she was taking care of me." Said—casual. Dean stares across the bench seat, can't help it, but Sam's just looking out at the road. One hand at ten, the other at about five thirty, his hair tucked behind his ear. His jaw clenching and then unclenching. "I don't know. I didn't get it—felt the other way around, to me—but I always… wondered, I guess."

Taking care? Maybe that's it. Dean finds he's holding his hand over the weird feeling in his chest and shakes his head. Last night: Sam's head bent next to his, Sam's chest against his, his back drenching sweat against the bed, his body loose-open finally to Sam's dick after so long of the punishing stretch. Sam's hips grinding in against his hard and low, and his arms around Sam's shoulders, and his eyes closed and just—taking, feeling the slick parted jolt and feeling Sam quicken and feeling, deep, in this jolted raw way, how Sam was getting close and Sam was winding tight and how Sam was coming, how he hitched and crushed in and breathed strange and didn't make any other sound but held Dean still and close and tight while he unloaded. With other men Dean was tired or sore or impatient, wanting his turn. Last night, he held Sam's shoulders and felt Sam's face duck in to his throat, and Sam's lips pressing there, and he put his fingers in Sam's hair and twined his leg around Sam's and wanted it to go on and on. Perfect.

"Guess you'll have to try it and find out," Dean says, after way too long.

Sam glances at him again, and pulls into the right lane, and settles in for the long drive. "Guess I will," he says, and he's watching the road, and so maybe doesn't notice the deep breath Dean takes, and lets out slow.

It turns out a marathon is not, in fact, twenty-six point two miles. "Technically," Sam says, while Dean's on his back under the Impala, "it's 26.21875 miles."

Dean rolls out on the bench to give that the incredulous look it deserves. On the stool, Sam shrugs. "Why," Dean says, "on earth, ever, would anyone care."

"It's the rules set by the competition," Sam says, and Dean rolls his eyes and slides back under the car. "It's just the length. Same reason a football field's a hundred yards."

"Isn't it the length of the run that Greek dude did?" Dean says, later, chopping up potatoes for salad. Sam looks surprised, but not as annoyingly surprised as he's looked other times. "Did the length of that change, somehow?"

"Dean," Sam says, patient, "I hate to say it, but I am not in charge of the rules committee for marathons. I'm sorry to disappoint."

During dinner Sam's doing math. 26.21875 isn't that much longer than 26.2. In March he did twenty-five miles in three hours and fifty-five minutes, looping back from the pond and then running way out to town and back again, and he's nearly there. "What's the difference between 385 and 352," he mutters, and Dean doesn't bother even attempting to work it out in his head before Sam says, "Thirty-three yards."

"Doesn't seem worth making a whole-ass rule about," Dean says, but Sam's just ignoring him at this point, probably looking at his dumb running spreadsheet, and that's fine. Thirty-three yards, Dean thinks.

There are weird old surveyor tools in one of the archive rooms. One morning when Sam's back from his run, soaking off the ache in the shower, Dean figures out how the hell to use the damn wheely thing, and he walks it off. He drags his boot in the dirt, right in front of the stairs down to the entrance, and then walks it out: ninety-nine feet, up the driveway, out to the gravel road. Almost exactly the length to the gate. Dean smiles, and walks back from the gate, and then marks ninety-nine feet precisely, with his boot and then with three stones, so he'll know.

Sam's planning for May 1. Dean doesn't ask why; he figures he can guess. They find a job, April 21, and it's a family of ghouls that's gross and shitty and time-consuming to put down, but they manage it on the seventh day, at least, so they don't overshoot the deadline. Sam sleeps in the passenger seat while Dean drives straight through all the way back from Pensacola. When they get back to the bunker it's two in the morning and Dean has to shake him awake, and he blinks in the barely-moonlight, and Dean has to say, "Up and at 'em, Sasquatch," for Sam to rouse, and Sam follows him down the stairs and into the bunker and through the dark halls and then, quiet, straight into Dean's bed, barely kicking off his boots and shrugging off his jacket before he curls over the pillow, sighing into the mattress. Dean stands at the foot of the bed, looking at him. Then he goes upstairs, and does the thing he's been thinking of doing for weeks, and when he finally gets back to bed he strips down to a t-shirt and boxers and slides in right up against Sam's back, and Sam doesn't wake up but he does make this tiny sound in his chest, when Dean's arm goes around him, and Dean sleeps, finally, like the dead.

Thursday's a slow day. Sam's not running again, apparently, until Saturday—he ran pretty flat-out a few times during the hunt, and Dean guesses that's probably training enough. Because he is, in fact, supportive, Dean makes food that Sam actually likes—chicken breast and broccoli and some stupid grain thing that he read was good for slow-release energy, and Sam says, "I didn't know you knew what farro was," which proves that in fact it's Sam who's the dickhead, but then Sam practically inhales all of it, so. Success. They watch Chariots of Fire so Dean can remember the stupid song, and Sam goes and does his weird yoga stretching after that, and then they sit together in the workroom and make silver rounds for a while, since Dean got a load of pawned shitty jewelry in and it's one of those chores that falls down the priority list when bullets are flying, and then when they've packed up the bullet boxes, and there's really nothing else left to do with the day, Sam stands up and stretches with his fingers reaching way up and his body arching, pulling long after the hunched work, and Dean's mouth goes wet, and he says, without much thinking about it, "Hey, Sam," and Sam says yeah without hardly paying attention, and Dean says, "I want to fuck you tonight."

Sam looks up at him. Dean lifts a shoulder and Sam takes a visible breath, and he says, "Smooth, Dean," but it's not a no.

Dean shaves, while he's waiting. He takes a whore's bath in his sink, and waits in his boxers just like Sam had, that first time, sitting on the little loveseat in his room. Sam comes back in a t-shirt and unzipped jeans and bare feet, his hair barely wet at the ends, and he frowns at first at the empty bed before he sees Dean, sitting, and Dean says, "Took you long enough," and Sam says, "Don't start."

He's not nervous. He lets Dean kiss him slow, though, laying together on the bed, and with Dean's hand in his jeans, and he's hard all the way and wet at the tip and a tight grip locked on Dean's hip before Dean finally slides his jeans down, feels. Damp, and a little soft, and small, and he rolls his hips back against Dean's thumb, making this deep sound in his chest. "How do you want it?" Dean says, and Sam shrugs and then laughs, shaking his head. "However," Sam says, honest, and Dean rolls his eyes and kisses him and then pulls his jeans all the way off while Sam pulls his shirt over his head, and Dean gets him on his knees, then, pulls his hips back, and applies his mouth to Sam's asshole, and that's not entirely new but Sam yelps, flinching, and Dean has to hook an arm around his hips and hold him in place to lick in deep, like he wants to.

"Tell me," Dean says, and Sam groans. He's reaching past Dean's arm, fisting his dick. His balls warm and heavy, and his body—open, yeah, from the shower, from prepping himself, from knowing how—from watching Dean do it, from doing it himself, sliding his fingers in and working the muscle soft and learning how it can be good. Sam's hips push back and Dean breathes out hot, ducks his head down, suckles one of Sam's nuts and then licks back up over the flattened-wet hair and the crinkle of his hole and scrapes his teeth over one asscheek, and Sam's hand reaches back and grips his shoulder and Sam says, deep, "Are you going to fuck me, or what," and Dean slides up, kisses between Sam's shoulderblades, presses his dick swelling up in his boxers against Sam's ass.

It'd be easier if he kept Sam on his knees. He turns him over instead, and Sam's—god, hot for it, his dick huge and curving up to his navel, his chest flushed in that deep way it gets when he's nearly ready to come, his eyes heavy. He props himself up on his elbows and watches Dean lube himself up, and when Dean slots a slick thumb inside Sam—still tight, christ—Sam's eyelids dip but he just pulls his knee higher, and reaches down and feels Dean's dick, fingers slipping over the head. He gathers his balls up out of the way while Dean pushes up between his legs, and he's watching down between them, avid, for the moment it happens. Dean watches Sam's face instead, and on the push inside—Sam's lips part, and his jaw loosens, and his breath stills, and his eyes—Dean pulls back an inch, slides in deeper, and Sam's face tips up and he meets Dean's stare, dragging in air, gripping Dean's thigh, arching. Dean gets a hand on Sam's jaw and holds him there, their noses brushing, and he feels it, the moment Sam's body ripples. How Sam lets him in.

Sam doesn't come from being fucked. Not that Dean expected him to. Dean holds his balls and kisses his jaw, his mouth, lets Sam bite his lips, while Sam jerks his own dick, and when Sam finally spills he groans, his thighs twitching around Dean's hips and his asshole rippling. Dean slides his hand up, following Sam's, squeezing and getting the wet over his own fingers, and finally his dick slides free from Sam's body. Sam says, low and surprised against his ear, ah, and Dean loves him, is all, and always has, and always will, and now is, really, no different.

"So," Dean says, much later. His head on Sam's shoulder, and Sam's fingers in his hair. "What's it like?"

He'd watched Sam clean up. His nose wrinkling as he wiped between his legs. Sam had said, "You like this?" and Dean had said, "The proof is in the pudding," and Sam had stared at him and then said, horrified, "Never talk again." He'd gone and got them both beers as repayment, and now those are gone, and they've cooled off but the bed's still kind of gross and smells like sweat and jizz and, honestly, Dean's about as comfortable as he ever is.

Sam's fingers go still in his hair. "Huh," he says, after a few seconds' thinking.

"Told you," Dean says.

Sam pulls, what little he can pull, at the top of Dean's head where he should really trim it up. "I'll think of something," he says, and Dean says, "Sure you will, Wordsworth," and Sam says, "I don't know why I thought this would make you less annoying," and Dean says, "It's a gift," but he's smiling, tipped in against Sam's side, and he can't see it but he'd bet that Sam is, too, or at least that Sam's got that dimple tucked into his cheek. Sam's hand spreads, cupping the back of Dean's head, and his mouth brushes Dean's temple. Yeah, Dean decides, warm. Dimple. Maybe two.

On Saturday, Sam goes for the run. His route's pretty simple. Looping west away from the bunker and back for thirteen miles; looping east and back for the other thirteen. The point two gets sorted out somewhere in there, as Dean understands it. He offered, a few months back, to pace Sam in the car if he wanted, and Sam looked surprised but then shook his head. "I'll be fine," he said, and Dean knows it's true. Still, he set out water at few-mile intervals—no one's out here, so unless a rabbit stole one of the stashes Sam should get the benefit—and Sam's pace is pretty damn consistent, so Dean knows when he'll hit the various markers, and knows when he'll be home, when it's done.

Sam stretches easily, on the stairs by the entrance. "If you twist your ankle a mile out, call me, but give me time to laugh," Dean says. Sam rolls his eyes, dropping his one foot and pulling up the other. "Do you want me to grab a pistol? Starting gun, or whatever?"

Sam shakes his head, and pulls out his phone. "See you in a few hours," he says, and presses a button, and takes off, and Dean watches him go, down the driveway, to the gate, and then turning and running from the morning sun. Nine a.m. Dean checks his watch, and says, "Okay," to no one, and goes back inside to at least do something with the morning.

An hour and fifty minutes later, Dean's leaning on the gate, drinking a beer, when Sam comes running back up the road. "Woo!" Dean calls, sort of sarcastic and sort of not, and Sam's breathing hard when he comes up but he steals the beer right out of Dean's hand, takes a few deep swallows. "Hey!" Dean says, and Sam shakes his head, burps abruptly, says, "Thanks for the water," and takes off again, and Dean checks his watch—right on time. Maybe faster. He finishes the beer, tasting Sam's salt on the rim, and then goes and sets up his minimal surprise.

He disassembled the bench those weeks back. Too heavy to move any other way. While Sam's completing the second half, Dean moves the pieces out of the side of the plant where he'd moved them, and puts the thing back together. Big concrete supports; concrete slab, that he about gets a hernia hauling back up into place. He's sweating, when it's done, but it's right at the end of the drive, just in front of his three-stone marker.

It's where he's sitting, forty minutes after noon, with a bottle of the whiskey Sam actually likes on the step, and two glasses waiting to be filled, and the sun coming down soft and easy, not yet hot or humid, not like it'll be later this summer. He stretches out his legs, propped on his arms, and watches down the lane while Sam comes around the corner again. Sweaty, tired, but keeping pace, and Dean doesn't mock or call out or say any of the dumbass shit he could say. Sam pulls out his phone, as he's running down, and Dean knows because he paced it exactly how many steps are left, exactly how far Sam has to go. Sam slows, as he's approaching the marker, and when his sneaker hits the stone he presses something on the phone and it beeps and he says, "Done," and takes a huge deep breath, panting.

He tips his head back on his shoulders, eyes closed. Dean watches him. His heaving chest, the sweat darkening his hair to black at the temples. His body.

"You set up a cheering section," Sam says, finally. "I'm touched."

Dimpling. Dean cracks the bottle, pours two glasses. "What can I say," he says, while Sam tips his head back down, tired. "I'm a fan."

"Sure you are," Sam says, tired. He sits down, finally, and takes his glass from Dean. Their shoulders together, and Sam's knee tipped against his. "Whiskey's probably the opposite of what you're supposed to have after a marathon."

"Well, good thing I'm not a stickler for the marathon rules," Dean says, holding his glass up to toast.

"Yeah," Sam says, smiling, "it is," and lets their glasses clink. They drink, quiet, looking out together at the warm day.

[burnedbyshoto]

deception

“Don’t you see what he’s doing to you?! He’s hurt you way more than what’s acceptable in a sparring march! You’re bruised and hurting, and he sure as hell doesn’t seem to care that this is the state he’s left you in.”

— Or in which, Hawks manipulates how you view your boyfriend, Shouto. —

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pairing: todoroki shouto x fem!reader

warnings: fluff, angst, cursing, alcohol consumption, manipulation, 18+, smut, first time sex, body worship, oral (receiving and giving), and praise

word count: 10,223

a/n: this was a commission! it was very fun to write this once I got around to it... life has just been... well you guys know because youre living it too. but I hope you enjoy this!!!!

edit: OMG AND SUPER BIG THANK YOU TO @marilla-eldriana​ FOR HELPING ME

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Being a student at Yuuei was a privilege.

Every year only two hundred and twenty students were admitted from a drawing pool reaching into the thousands. From there, only forty were admitted into the Hero Department, and finally, only three per year were granted the title of the Big Three.

“Watch out!”

You watched as Hawks crashed through the window to your left, and you looked down at him with a wide grin, what an idiot.

“I thought speed was better than power,” you mock watching as the villain the two of you had been hunting for some time now easily flicked the number two hero to the side.

“And that’s why I got you, isn’t it?” he chirped before rolling onto his feet. 

You shrug, the smile on your face telling a different story while you both stared down the villain you had corned. There was no way you were going to let him go, no, this hunt was going to end now.

“I’ll assist you,” Hawks whispered, and your stomach fluttered in anticipation.

There weren’t many times in your internship where Hawks would say that. Working with one of the fastest and swiftest Pro Heroes ever meant that you were always fighting for a spot on the table. The days of Hawks swooping over the city faster than the eye could follow were still there; in fact, most of his sidekicks were probably cleaning up the mess the two of you had left five cities behind you. 

But you were different than them, you guessed.

You were only fifteen years old when Hawks scouted you for an internship, and while you had heard the rumors of what working with the — at the time — number three hero was like, it wasn’t like that. Speed was something you had always lacked. Sure, you were faster than any past Olympian, and any ordinary citizen, but in comparison to your hero peers, you were slow. After a humiliating loss of your first Sports Festival on account of being too slow, it was an almost sweet irony that the fastest Hero took an interest in you.

But it was good. Three years you had worked with him, three years of learning how to keep up with the fastest hero by breaking your body down on multiple occasions. At first, it had been just trying to keep up with his sidekicks who cleaned up after his mess, who were extremely quick as it is. Then after figuring out how to use your power quirk to make yourself faster, something that had been helped with a fight or flight response on your own end, you were able to become faster than most Pros.

But that wasn’t anything in comparison to Hawks still, but when a sixteen-year-old girl saves your life because you overshot your ability to fight, it’s easy to incorporate said sixteen-year-old girl into your regular routine. 

The initial introduction of you into his regular routine was less than ideal, he had simply stated to follow after him and would be gone. But with time, he took to holding onto you while he flew, which meant that you needed to include glasses and ear protectors into your costume. 

With the glass crushing under the weight of your shoes, you crotched the slightest bit, looking over at Hawks with a smirk. Three years of teamwork had lead to moments like these, no need to communicate, and with a raise of an eyebrow, he nodded.

The feeling of his feathers skimming your back shot the anxiety coursing through you, and you ran out of the shattered window, Hawks hot on your heel and the villain coming straight at you.

In the long run, it didn’t mean much that you were physically stronger than Hawks could ever be, but it sure made you smile knowing that you were.

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“And that’s another point for me!” you grin watching as the police took the villain into their car, Hawks stood next to you with a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck.

“What will I do? I have eighty-seven points, and that makes what? Twelve?”

“It’s not my fault you go for slow as shit villains,” you accuse, turning your nose up at him.

“Oh yeah? Should we hunt for the fa—”

“Hawks!”

The two of you froze in your quarrel, turning to a man who was towering over the two of you.

Endeavor.

“Endeavor, hi!” Hawks erupted into a wide grin, his eyes brightening while he looked up at the man he admired. 

Trying to hide your snicker, you tilted your head, and your eyes widened seeing three boys behind him.

“Hey guys!” you wave at your classmates behind Endeavor.

“Y/h/n!” Deku greeted you with a large grin and a bow.

You smiled, even more, seeing the way that Bakugou and Shouto both addressed you in their own ways. 

“How are you guys doing?”

The rather one-sided conversation between you and Deku made you laugh on many instances. It seemed that being the only work-study students had meant that they were always getting their asses beat. Not that you didn’t already know this, it was just humorous hearing it coming from Deku’s mouth.  

“Is Tokoyami-kun not with you guys?” Deku asked, looking around at last for the raven headed student who did, in fact, work with Hawks.

“Not today! A neighboring agency requested his help, so it’s just Hawks and me today!” you nodded your head at the three boys who were quite famous within Japan. 

“Are you okay? We heard about the villain; that’s why we’re here,” Shouto spoke, his eyes curious, and his head tilts.

Your face warms when you smile, nodding gratefully.

“I am,” you clasp your hands together, “Hawks got sent through a building, though.”

“Some fucking number two hero,” Bakugou scoffed, and you snickered not wanting to agree with your stupidly observant boss behind you.

“You guys look less than put together; what happened to you?” you asked, noticing the scruffs and dirt on all of their faces.

“Bakugou and Midoriya got into a fight mid-air, and I happened to be in the fire zone,” Shouto rolled his eyes. At the same time, your friends exploded into offensive and defensive arguments, respectively. “We fell into the middle of some villain fight weirdly enough.”

While you grinned at Shouto, your eyes locked completely, you knew it wouldn’t last.

“Alright, y/h/n, Endeavor says there’s a villain seven blocks ahead, and I think we can beat them there!” Hawks laughs, and you can’t say your goodbyes because his hands lift you into the air. “See you guys there!”

And you were off.

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Your limbs ached slightly when you reentered campus grounds. With your case in your right hand, there was nothing to do except trudge ahead, hoping to get to your dorm quickly. 

“You’re back.”

You blinked and saw Shouto approaching you. He was in a casual outfit, most likely having been here for some time, seeing that it was eight at night. 

“What are you doing out so late?” you ask, pushing down your skirt in hopes to look presentable even with the bandage on your chin.

“I was waiting for you,” Shouto smiles gently, his hand brushing your cheek, observing the injury on your face. “You okay?”

“It was just a scratch, nothing too crazy,” you promise, and you smile under his warm touch.

There isn’t much surprise when his lips come and press against yours, and you hum contently feeling his warm skin moving gently against yours. 

“I’m glad you’re back,” Shouto whispered, finally pulling away from you. You groaned, having not been satisfied with the simple liplock, but opened your eyes to see that he was studying your face again.

“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” you tease, your nose scrunching with your words.

“I have so many already.”

“I know,” you smile, dragging him away, “I’m starving.”

It didn’t take long for you to get a proper dinner. With you being out for your only day off, you were pleased to see that there was a plate of food waiting for you that was left behind by your classmates. So you sat in the dining area of the dorm, eating the food while talking with Shouto.

You told him about the rest of your day, of how the two of you were close to cracking this case of serial cases of disappearing Pro Heroes who would reemerge days later without memory. The two of you had been working on it for a week now and had multiple promising leads. With the end of your career at UA coming in only five days, you were excited about the possibility of cracking this case after your graduation to help give you a good running start as a sidekick on the Hero Charts.

But before you knew it, it was already past eleven, and with classes tomorrow, it was time for you to go your separate ways.

“You don’t want me to spend the night?” he asks while you walk unconvincingly to the door of your floor, your hands grasping his. 

“You know that I do, but I can’t let that happen yet,” you pout, watching as Shouto nods in understanding. “Soon, I swear.”

“I just can’t believe my girlfriend has no self-control that I can’t even sleep in her bed without her wanting to fuck me,” Shouto sighs and while you splutter, telling him how he’s wrong, he places a goodnight kiss onto your forehead and leaves with a kind smile and a small wave.

Stupid son of a bitch.

But he wasn’t wrong.

You had morals and ethics that you had told to Shouto well before things turned serious for the two of you. Sex was something you were always nervous about, not in the sense that it was a bad thing — god forbid you’d ever slut-shame anyone — but more that you wanted it to be special.

It had to be with the right person at the right time.

Shouto was someone you knew was the right person, but as your hormonal feelings for Shouto grew and you realized one late night that you were grinding against his bucking hips, your face hot, his lips and teeth pulling at the sensitive flesh of your neck did you realize that this was so not okay. You had pushed Shouto onto the ground, his eyes dazed and confused while you began to say that you were so not ready for this step of the relationship. But it wasn’t like it was the only time you’ve blue balled your boyfriend… no, you had done it time and time again.

So much so that Shouto practically refused to be in a room alone with you now because it always ended with one of you pinned to the bed and Shouto being launched onto the floor.

With a sigh, you watched Shouto turn around, walking backward with a small wave and a grin when you blew him a kiss and flipped him off. He called you the moment he was back in his room, and although you weren’t letting him stay in your bed with you, you did fall asleep on the line with him, his steady breathing lulling your heavy eyes to sleep.

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Hawks watched while you trudged into his office, your face pulled into a pout, a bandage sitting on your cheek. 

“Morning,” you call out, exhaustion evident on your face.

“What’s up with you?” he smirks, watching you walk to his desk and slumping onto a chair, your eyes closing.

“So tired,” you murmur, your head nestling into your arms, ready to fall asleep. “I didn’t sleep much last night?”

“Why’s that?”

“Stupid boyfriend,” you mumbled.

It had been three days since you had last been in the office, with graduation preparations, Hawks couldn’t call you out as often. But that wasn’t what he was concerned about, no. Hawks froze, replaying your words in his head like a broken record. He didn’t know you had a—

“Boyfriend?”

Those words passing his lips only made you groan louder, your head nodding, “Yeah… I’m dating Endeavor's son Shouto… for about… a year now!”

Hawks' brain went into overdrive.

A year of dating, and this was the first he’s ever heard of it! He had been your mentor, your boss, for three years and never before had you even mentioned a boyfriend before. Hawks lips pressed together, a looming pit of jealousy forming in his stomach. His feathers fluttered, his arms crossing.

Hawks was used to knowing everything, to being able to get what he wanted most, and he was planning on asking you out when you graduated. He had sworn his feelings had been returned; after all, who couldn’t find themselves falling for the young and hot number two hero?

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah! I can have him steal you a pair of Endeavors underwear if you want, I know you’d like that!”

Hawks looks down at your teasing face, his nose scrunching in mock disgust, “Please, I don’t need a baby stealing Endeavors underwear for me. I can get them myself!”

Your smile is warm, and Hawks watches while you pull out your phone, quickly texting something.

“What? Telling your boyfriend you made it safe and sound?”

“Actually… yeah…” you mumble while finishing up your text.

Now Hawks wasn’t evil, he knew that; he also wasn’t used to losing, because that wasn’t him. But there was something odd about the way his stomach twisted and his feathers raised at that confirmation, and the words poured from his mouth without him ever having the chance to stop them.

“Does he make you text him?”

You nod, a grateful smile on your face when you drop your phone. “Isn’t it sweet? I think it’s… why are you making that face?”

“What face?” Hawks fluttered his eyes, mock innocence for the first time not sitting correctly on his face.

“That one, Hawks!” you laughed, throwing your case at him. “The one that looks like when I stole your chicken leftovers.”

Hawks snorted, and he shook his head, deciding to walk out of his office to begin his daily routine; after all, these morning conversations were apart of said routine.

“I don’t know... He knows you’re strong and that you’re here with me, and yet he doesn’t trust that you’ll get here? Or is it in a controlling sense?”

“W-What?”

Hawks turned around and looked at you, your eyebrows scrunched, eyes looking down at your phone.

But when your eyes rose to meet his, Hawks simply smiled, his head shaking.

“Never mind!”

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It didn’t stop there. No Hawks had officially lost his brains with how he was approaching this. Everything out of his mouth concerning your boyfriend was bitter, foul, and implementing lies in your mind. A desperate attempt to get you to feel like Shouto wasn’t good enough that he was manipulating you and Hawks watched while you carefully danced to his tune, your frown deepening with every sweet lie that rolled off his lips.

“I’m hanging out with him and his siblings tonight!” you announced after the day at work was done.

Your smile was bright once more, a day on the field improving your mood. Hawks nodded his head, remembering how the Todoroki siblings were good people, and how you also had siblings.

“His siblings too?”

“Yup!” you nod. “I’ve gotten to know his siblings really well! They’re really great! We go over so often, and I like to believe that I’m close with his family now!”

“Oh, that’s sweet!” Hawks smiles, his head tilting to the side. Faux innocence. “How about your family? Is Todoroki close with your family?”

Your jaw opens, and your head drops, your head guilty shaking no. “It’s a bit harder for that to happen, and he met them once and well… it didn’t go too well.”

Hawks eyes widen, his hand rubbing the back of his head with a heavy sigh, “Ah, I see… don’t you think that’s weird?”

“Um… no, not really?”

“Well, as an outsider, and your friend, Imma have to tell you that it’s weird. It sounds like he doesn't like your family? He’s not trying to control you, is he? Not trying to isolate you from them, right?”

Your teeth dig into your lower lip, and Hawks watches with over bubbling joy at the doubt and realization growing on your face. He was hitting the right nerves.

“I-It’s okay!” you chirp, your feet dragging against the floor while you move to leave. “It's probably not that!”

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“Another movie outing with his friends?”

“We’re watching the newest All Might documentary, it’s not like it's a banger!”

“Todoroki just never seems to care to include your friends or do things with your friends. It seems like he’s trying to keep you confide in his friend group.”

“My friends haven’t… they haven’t said anything?”

“Who would? You’re dating the most powerful son of the number one hero, no one would dare to speak up against him, especially if he told them to stay away from you.”

“That doesn’t sound like Shouto…”

“I mean, Todoroki is jealous of the way that your family loves you, and that’s why you’re always with his family. I don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t keep you from your friends too?”

“Oh…”

“You don’t have to believe me, of course! I’m sure he’s a great kid, after all, he did choose you to be his girlfriend.”

You scoff, shoving Hawks with your shoulder. “Shut up.”

“Nah, you’re amazing, y/n, and you should know it.”

“Mkay, pigeon, egg off.”

“Oof, I’m so scared!”

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Your world spun, and you crashed onto your back with a low groan, jolts of nervous energy coursing through your nerves while you remained pinned to the floor. Hawks stared at you from above, his jacket long since discarded, and his hands grasping your wrists while he straddled you.

“Wow, I don’t think I’ve been able to pin you since you were sixteen!” Hawks laughed, but he immediately took notice in the way you were grimacing.

You didn’t do that often, but you weren’t done yet. Shifting your weight up and over, quickly, you managed to pin Hawks to the ground, his head bouncing against the matted floor with a groan of dismay on his skin. Your nose was brushing against his, his warm breath expelling gently against your face. No! You pulled away suddenly, your heart in your throat at the nearly intimate contact. But it was too much movement on your own end because your body screamed at you.

Your breathing was shallow, a feeble attempt to calm the pulsating pain that traveled through your nerves.

“What is it?”

“I was sparring Shouto last night,” you mutter, feeling Hawks’ fingers immediately searching your skin for injuries. “You know how he sucks at close range combat, but he must’ve been practicing with Bakugou and Deku because he’s never been able to land hits like that…”

With your jacket pooling from your shoulder, Hawks fingers traced over the bruises that colored your skin. Ugly purple, green, and yellow all over. You hissed when he applied pressure to one, and you flinched, getting off of him.

“Are you sure this was sparring and him not beating you?!”

“I would know the difference between sparring and an ass beating,” you groaned, your eyebrow scrunching while he took you in more. “Besides, you should see how he is. I still won!”

“Don’t you see what he’s doing to you?! He’s hurt you way more than what’s acceptable in a sparring march! You’re bruised and hurting, and he sure as hell doesn’t seem to care that this is the state he’s left you in.”

You were silent Hawks words ringing heavy in your ears.

Did Shouto… was this a sign that he wasn’t who you thought he was?

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“Shouto?” you whispered, your knuckles rapping at the door, hopeful he was in his room. “Are you in?”

You heard the sound of footsteps against the floor and watched the door open. There Shouto stood, wearing black sweatpants and a white tank he leaned against the door. Your eyes caught sight of the black bruises against his skin courteous of your sparring last night.

“Y/n?” he expresses with a pleasant surprise. Shouto’s hand reaches for yours, but you flinch away, stopping him in his tracks. “Are you okay?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, your head nodding, “Sorry, long day, and um, I’m still sore from yesterday…”

“Yesterday? Ohh~ what happened yesterday?” You watched with the smallest amount of amusement when Sero revealed himself, his arm thrown around Shouto’s shoulder with a stack of manga in his hands. 

“We spared, why?” Shouto asked with that perfect density that Sero stammered, unable to recover from Shouto’s lack of an appropriate response.

“Boring, anyways, I’ll bring these back soon, I promise!”

You and Shouto bid Sero goodnight, and with a sigh and a roll of his eyes, Shouto looked back down at you.

“Care to come in?”

“I would.”

You sat on Shouto tatami, your knees bent with your arms wrapped around them while he rummaged around.

“Here, I made some healing ointment for the bruises,” Shouto said, placing the white container on your knees while he sat in front of you. “I know that even though you won, my kicks probably hurt like a bitch.”

“The biggest bitch,” you agreed, watching while he unscrewed the ointment and began to delicately place the salve on your skin. It immediately cooled down the warm skin, and you studied his face while he did so. His touch was gentle, almost too soft for someone as battle-ready as himself. But he was on a mission to make you feel better, and for every bruise he covered, he apologized.

Soon enough, every bruise was covered, and you didn’t even realize you were crying until Shouto’s eyes widened when he noticed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Do you not trust me?” you ask, the days worth of anxiety that Hawks had been instilling into you, finally pouring from your lips.

“What?!”

“It’s just… with the texting you where I am, and who I’m with even when you know before I leave! A-And how about my family? I always go with your family, but the one time you met mine, it was disastrous! And then you never w-want to hang out with my friends! And you were so hard on me during sparring last night… Did you want to hurt me?! Why are you trying to isolate me?! Are you trying to control me?! You’re a powerful person Shouto a-and with your dad being the most powerful person I just… are you forcing people away from me?!” Tears poured from your eyes, your sleeves rubbing away the tears on your face, the ointment gathering on the fabric,

Shouto instantly reached out to you, but you shifted away from him, your face burning with embarrassment from your outburst. You wanted Hawks to be wrong, Shouto was good. He was an idiot, but he was a good boyfriend. Please prove him wrong, you thought. Please.

“Is that how you feel?” Shouto asked, his voice quiet but steady. His hand was pressed against the duvet, centimeters from your side. Not touching you, but giving you the ability to reach him when you were ready. “I just… I’ve never done this before, you know that. Y/l/n y/n, you are someone that I am way too lucky to have in my life. I asked what are boyfriend appropriate things to do from my classmates, and I guess I might have been overdoing it myself. I ask for a text because I want to make sure you get places okay. I know you’re powerful and can take on anyone, but it’s because you’re powerful; it makes you a target to villains. I honestly thought you liked my siblings a lot, so I wanted to keep you with them because if they’re your friends, you deserve to see them. I am sorry about your family, but they are assholes, and you know that. 

“But if you want to go visit and hang out with them more — with or without me — I would never stop you! I know I can’t keep blaming myself for being new to all of this a year into our relationship, but I didn’t know it was appropriate to invite your friends to hang out with us when we were with my friends. I thought they wouldn’t want to hang out with us guys. I also know you enjoy your alone time, and you tend to spend alone time with your friends, and I never want to intrude. I am so sorry for making you feel this way.”

“No,” you sniffle, your tears turning from one of sadness to those of guilt. “It’s not your fault.”

“It is,” he whispers, his fingers brushing against yours ever so gently. “It’s my fault you felt like I was isolating you, controlling you. You don’t have to forgive me, but if you’re willing to give me a chance to prove myself that I can change, I’d like that.”

There wasn’t stopping the way that you threw yourself into his arms, your tears soaking his neck, and he pressed gentle after gentle kiss against your temple until you were no longer crying.

For the first time in your relationship, you spent the night, and against what you had previously thought, the two of you did nothing more than embrace in a wet lip-lock.

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Graduation finally came around, and to say the least, you were excited.

Finally, you were now a Pro Hero — well, really a sidekick, but that didn’t matter! The entire day you spent it on campus, watching the graduation ceremony take place with your classmates at your side. Tears were shed, photos were taken, and the end of your high school career came to a close. 

Due to your accomplishment, something that wasn’t at all doubted in the first place, Hawks had thrown Tokoyami and you a large party in celebration. You were, after all, the first students to have gone through his agency for all three years of high school, and he deemed that celebratory worthy. 

With such an occasion and countless years ahead of you to be on your top tier game, it was to no surprise that you were letting loose at this party. And yes, by letting loose, you meant being drunk.

Me: shoutoooo baby i loe you oh so much

Shouto: I love you too, make sure you get water to drink and don’t have an empty stomach.

Me: i had dinnerr with you remeber !!!! no empty stomach here!!!!!

Me: im sorry for crying that night that was so dumb of me to being insecure about

Shouto: you should still be eating more if you’re planning on drinking more. And it’s okay, it’s equally my fault as it is yours.

You stared at the text, your vision slightly blurry while you imagined just what you would do with Shouto soon. You bit your lip with a grin, but with a sudden loss of balance, you stumbled back into someone.

“Oops, sorry!” you yelled louder than you expected, turning around to greet whoever you had run into. You saw a familiar face with a bird head standing there with his arms outreached to balance your stumbling form. “Tokoyami-kun! I didn’t know you were still here!!! I would’ve taken a shot with you! Oh my god, I LOVE your jacket! Where did you get it!”

Tokoyami smiled, his head nodding, “I happened to have it lying around, although I can’t remember where I cross paths with it, to begin with. And I couldn’t forsake you by leaving before you were ready. It’ll be pleasant to have you around all the time with Hawks starting in a few days.”

You nodded your head, your hands stretching out in an attempt to respond animatedly, but yelped when you slapped someone instead.

“OH, NO! Did I hurt you?! I’m so sorry!” you exclaim, turning to the second person you had hit in a matter of minutes.

It was Hawks.

“It seems she is quite inebriated,” Tokoyami pointed out, and you nodded in agreement. 

“I am!”

Hawks chuckled, his head shaking, “Imma take her back to my place then, she’s a disaster in the making if we let her stay here.”

There wasn’t room for debate because you were suddenly in his arms and waving goodbye to Tokoyami, your sense of judgment gone.

“Take me hoooomeeee,” you sang into Hawks's ear when he soared into the night sky, and much to your amusement, Hawks continued your song.

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Shouto sat in the common room, his eyes shifting to check his phone every so often. He knew you were drunk, that had been very clear the moment you called him only twenty times pretending to not be you while slurring your sentences. Nothing was stopping the uneasy feeling in his chest after you had explained yourself and your feelings that one night, he had put together that Hawks liked you. But without definite proof, he didn’t want to claim such things.

And while he had no doubts about your ability to protect and defend yourself, there was no saying if that was true if you weren’t sober. Hell, he’s fought you sleepy once, and there was a significant difference between you being alert and you being exhausted. 

Regardless, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he heard something back from you, and with his classmates currently celebrating the end of the year by playing video games, he was there alongside them.

“I’ve returned,” Tokoyami called from the entrance, and Shouto turned around to see the bird head man walking to approach the gathering of the few remaining classmates in front of the common room's TV. He said his greetings before coming to rest by Shouto’s side. “The party was a bit too loud, but I think you would have enjoyed entertaining it.”

“It’s your guys night,” Shouto shrugged his shoulders, “I didn’t need to be there when it was her work friends. How is she doing?”

“Ah, well you see,” Tokoyami nodded his head, his fingers raking through his black hair, “She was quite drunk, so Hawks-san took her back to his place to sober up, most likely spend the night at his place — Todoroki?!”

Shouto had no idea why bitter fire raged in his chest; all he knew is that for the first time ever while he slipped on his shoes and his jacket, he pulled up a contact he didn’t expect he would be using so casually.

“Shouto?!”

“Do you know where Hawks lives, Endeavor?”

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

“Are you feeling better?” Hawks asks you, taking the bottle of water from your hands.

The low sparks of the alcohol that had once been coursing through your body had simmered into slow pulses. You knew you weren’t one hundred percent sober, but you were sober enough to realize that you should have asked Hawks to take you to the dorms instead. 

“If you’re asking if I’m no longer sloppy… you’re in luck,” you sigh, a tired grin spreading on your face while you reach for your phone. You frown, seeing that it was dead, but it didn’t matter much; you would get home without it being alive anyways. “Thanks for sobering me up; I think you could have done it back at the party, though.”

Hawks snorted, his head tilting up, his head in thought. “I definitely could have done that, but I didn’t want you taking shots in secret while trying to sober you up.”

“I’m sure you could handle me just fine.”

“The last thing I can remember is that you are physically stronger than me and if you’re drunk… well, I was scared you’d kill me by accident.”

“Haha,” you laugh sarcastically, your eyes rolling in your amusement. 

Silence overtook you both, and your gaze fell to your hands. You wanted to ask him why he was so insistent on Shouto being toxic, and how he did a 180 the second you told him about how the two of you talked things through.

“Did you want me and Shouto to break up?” you ask quietly, unsure of what you wanted him to answer. “I keep thinking of everything, and that’s the only thing that makes sense to me and all the controlling business…”

Hawks stared at you, his eyes void of all emotion, and yet you felt like he was more open to you than he had even been before. His mouth moved to answer, but there was a knock at his door.

With a heavy sigh, Hawks rose to his feet, “I don’t think I should answer your question.”

So there you sat, his once comfortable couch feeling stiff and hard.

“Y/l/n?” Shouto’s voice rang through the apartment, and your eyes widened. You got up off the couch, your head pounding just slightly while you clamored to the front door. There you saw Shouto staring down at Hawks, how funny it was that your eighteen-year-old boyfriend was taller than a twenty-seven years old Pro Hero.

“Tokoyami told me you were here, and I wouldn’t want to bother a busy hero with taking care of my girlfriend when I can do that myself,” Shouto spoke, his eyes narrowing down onto Hawks as the words my girlfriend let his tongue. But it also sent a shiver down your spine, a coursing ember that had been ignored this night, reigniting it once more. 

You were ready, you realized when his blue and grey eyes found yours. 

“Thanks for tonight, Hawks,” you wheeze, grabbing your shoes at the door and quickly pulling them on. “I’ll see you in the office in two days!”

With nothing more to say, you grabbed Shouto by his wrist and pulled him away.

⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆⋄⋆⊹⋄⋆

The campus was quiet when you arrived, the day of excitement having long since simmered down as the clocks read two in the morning. This would be your last night in your dorm, most of your classmates had chosen to move out today as well, but with no one to help you out while you were at the party, you decided to stay one more night. But with the way your blood was pumping, and how you could feel the jealousy coursing through Shouto’s veins, you wanted to get back to your room as quickly as possible.

Entering the dorm building that was made for your class, you felt Shouto pulling his hand from yours, obviously ready to begin his goodnight routine.

Shouto’s hands grasped your cheeks, fingers hot against your cold skin, and his eyes staring down at you. Millions of emotions coursed through his gaze, but you were focused on the one that spoke of his love for you. His lips pressed down against yours, and you met him in full earnest. His lips pulling against yours, sending fire through your body, sensations that sparked only the familiar excitement you had always denied in the past. You could practically taste his unspoken anger and jealousy on his tongue, and it only made you crave more from him.

You were ready.

“Goodnight,” Shouto whispers against your lips softly, and you laugh. Your hands move up to cup his cheeks, and he pulls you in closer, his hands firmly placed onto your lower back. “I’ll come to your room in the morning to help you pack up.”

“Stay the night,” you say softly, your teeth tugging at your lower lip that was warm from his efforts. “I’m ready.”

Shouto’s eyes widened, his eyebrow lifting slightly, “You want to fuck?”

“Don’t say it like that!” you groan, pinching his cheeks in your embarrassment. But his eyes were bright, and the next thing you knew, you were being lifted into the air, and your legs found their place around his waist. “You sap!”

“Prude.”

“Say that one again, I’m finally going to let you smash, whor—”

He shut you up with a kiss.

It’s a slow kiss, one that warmed you up effortlessly, intimate contact pressing between the two of you, but nervous energy chipping through you fully. Your head tilts to the side, the kiss deepening, and your arms pulling him in closer. The two of you pull away slowly, both of your eyes slowly opening to look at each other in a whole new light and a fire under your skin, and something is silent between the two of you. Growing silently, steadily, and coming crashing down all at once.

“I love you…” Shouto murmurs, and that’s all it takes. The movements are desperate now, his steps quick and steady while your mouth clashes against his. Deep, ardent, fulfilling. You can’t help the nervously aggressive make out, tongues pushing against each out, drawing out noises you weren’t quite used to hearing. Low groans and pants you had known, but never in this context, and you were addicted. But Shouto must be thinking the same thing, for when you finally make it to your dorm room’s door, his mouth trails from your mouth. Sloppy and burning hot kisses trail down your cheek, to your jaw, before pressing searingly against your neck, and you mewl at the feel of his warm lips on your neck. Your eyes fluttering closed when his lips left hot and wet kisses on your sensitive skin.

Your lips met again, and this time you wrapped your arms slowly around his neck, and you pull him impossibly closer. His hands are moving vehemently up and down your back, making you shiver and arch against his traveling fingers. But when his nails glide delicately against an exposed piece of skin on you back, you gasped into his mouth, and the door opened loudly against his need to get to your bed.

A soft giggle leaves your lips when darkness falls against your closed eyes, and your hips shift in your state of need. Only that you weren’t expecting to feel him tremble under your actions or the pleasurable hiss that passed to your lips. your eyes opening to see Shouto’s eyes still closed despite the fact he was walking with you. 

“I love you so much,” you whisper into his ear when you pull away from the kiss. Your fingers raking through his hair, your teeth nibbling onto his earlobe, his throaty groan a sign of victory. “Thank you for being wonderful.”

Shouto’s lips are back on yours, greedily seeking more contact, and you don’t hold back as you kiss him back with equal fervor. You feel the mattress of your bed hit your back as you continue to kiss him, sitting up so you could crawl back to let Shouto onto the bed with you. You smile once again as Shouto’s hand rests on the bed frame behind you, while the other one rests on the small of your back, keeping your torsos pressed together.

Your hands are fisted into Shouto’s hair, the small tugs from your hand blazing his own blood, making him press his growing length against your thighs, and his tongue grazes your bottom lip. You moan softly, your head tilting up, and you open up your mouth so that your tongues meet halfway. You start moving to unbutton your graduation outfit, and Shouto hastily pulls away, and your eyes open, his mouth is stained with your the leftovers of your makeup, and he looks concerned. 

“Are you sure, y/n?” Shouto asks, his hands stroking your side. His gaze is intense, unmoving, and challenging. “If you’re not ready for this, I won’t be hurt.”

You stared at him, a soft smile coming to your lips as you sit up, making Shouto sit on his haunches while you move to your knees, “I always knew I wanted my first time to be with you, I just wanted the moment to be perfect… and this is perfect to me,” you confess to Shouto, and you watch his eyes soften when you press a soft kiss to his lips.

Pulling away, you stripped of your clothes and dropped it on the floor next to the bed, your breath hitching as Shouto stares at your now only lingerie-clad body, and you blush. 

“Shit, you’re beautiful,” Shouto murmurs like a man who had seen something divine for the first time ever.

Your heart roars in your chest, your blood pulsating through your sensitive body while he leans in close. His mouth presses against the swell of your breasts, trailing down to the valley between your mounds. Your body quivers in your overwhelming emotions and sensations. Shouto presses you back onto the mattress, his calloused hands pressing right below your breasts, heating emitting in large waves from both hands, making your mind spin in needy desperation.

“Are you okay?” Shouto murmurs, his lips feeling the gentle movements of your body.

“I am,” you breathe, your eyes shut tightly. You wanted to feel his lips and forget everything else in the world. This was a night of passion, and you’d be damned if your anticipation was going to stop you. “Don’t stop.”

A low chuckle vibrated against his throat, sending gentle waves through you, and you moaned the second his fingers pressed against your breasts. Shouto’s hands worked your breasts tentatively, his eyes studying your flushed face while he kneaded the tender flesh.

“F-Fuck,” you moaned when his finger brushed against your erect and clothed nipple, your hips quivering underneath him.

“Did that feel good?” Shouto hums, and when you confirm his thoughts, coldness hits your chest. Your eyes open to see that he’s discarded your bra and that his lips are millimeters from your breasts. “Do you want me to do more to you?”

The words are curious, but you don’t miss the glint in his eye, but he’s long since knocked the air from your lungs.

“I need to hear your words, princess,” Shouto smiles softly, his warm breath fanning against your erect nipples that cried for attention. “What do you say?”

“P-Please…” you breathe, your body squirming in your denied attention.

“Perfect.”

The feeling of his hot and wet mouth encasing your nipple sent you impossibly over the moon, your body arching off the bed, a lament cry heavy on your mouth while his tongue circled and flicked your nipple. His eyes were on you, you could feel his stare burning into your body, but you couldn’t even see, your eyes closed in your throbbing pleasure.

More, you wanted more.

His finger pinched your free nipple, pulling and rolling the pert skin between his fingers, your wanton cries only fueling him further. Liquid heat coursed through your veins, your pleasurable sensations overwhelming you, and your hips began to hump against his clothed thigh. The friction of his jeans against your barely clothed cunt sending you well beyond the confinements of pleasure.

“You’re perfect,” he whispers. “I love you,” he confesses. “You’re gorgeous,” he repeats.

Tender and sweet words fill your ears while he switches where his mouth and hands are. The kneading of your breasts, the manipulation of your nipples, and the way his thigh pressed against your throbbing cunt was sending you over.

Your breathing was unsteady, puffs escaping your lips in an overwhelming and failed attempt to calm yourself down. Shouto was on a mission, however, and his mouth removed from your cool breast with a soft pop, your breasts shining with the coats of saliva, and you shivered.

Shout hummed while he lips pressed the sensitive underside of your breasts, and continued downward, gentle after gentle kiss down your torso, until he made contact with your trembling inner thigh. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks, his fingers toying with the band of your panties. You can barely hear him over the roar of your heart, but you know what he says, and you nod. He smiles kindly, placing one final kiss to your thigh before pulling off your panties. 

Instinctively, your legs try to close, nerves firing away, but Shouto keeps your legs wide open, and his mouth lowers towards your dripping cunt. His tongue takes a languid and slow lick. His tongue slipping between your slit and you arch off the mattress. Your eyes fluttering in their battle to stay open, the addicting sensation of his hot tongue against your equally hot core burning you.

Your legs tremble as he thrusts his tongue within your clenching wet walls, swirling in circles and pushing further in. His fingers thrust into you at an amble speed, aiding to your pleasure sent descent on the mattress. On one lick, one godly irresistibly mind-numbing lick, your thighs come crashing against his head. Shouto’s free hand moves to grip onto your trembling legs. His tongue coaxing your orgasm closer to the edge by speaking a language you knew nothing of.

“S-Shouto!” you curse, your hips rolling desperately against his mouth. Your hips were stammering against his compelling tongue.

Your eyes struggle to remain locked on his eyes, your body twitching with the building pleasure. The electricity igniting in your flesh and bloodstream. You can hear the sounds of your squelching pussy against his moving fingers, and your jaw drops. You’re under his absolute control, and you’re no longer able to hold back anymore, your orgasm is right on edge, but you stop him.

“Wait!” you push him off of you, your chest heaving, and the wet arousal pouring from your cunt was slick against his mouth, and confusion evident on his face. “I don’t want to… I want to cum on your cock.”

“Okay,” Shouto pants with amusement, and you watched when his fingers — which were coated in your essence — slipped into his mouth, sucking it clean. The image of that sent electrifying pleasure through you, and your mouth watered at the thought of sucking him off. “What is it?”

“Get up,” you command, your hands moving to remove the belt around his waist, and he was quick to stand on your bed, and you were on your knees. Your knees buck under your weight, and you help Shouto remove his pants. You watch in an almost lusting virgin horror when his cock springs out from under his underwear. The hard cock slaps against his lower stomach, and you take in the way that his cock is thick, with bulging veins, and precum leaking from his head.

There was no going back, it seemed.

Steeling yourself over, you wait for his feet to be free, and the moment he’s out of his jeans, your hands immediately encompass his length. His girth wide enough you struggled to hold it with one hand. You marveled at the way the skin was unearthly warm and impossibly hard in your grip. This is what was going to be buried in your cunt in moments time?

“Y-Y/n…” Shouto stutters as your hand fists up and down his length in initial unknowing movement. Your eyes snapping up to meet his lust covered ones.

“Now,” you sigh as your thumb rolls over the pre-cum that slips from the tip of his head. “You can’t make fun of me if I’m bad, okay?”

Shouto licks his lips, his eyebrow quirking. “I don’t think that’s possible from you, princess.”

You smile softly, but there’s a strong sense of hope when you notice the tremble in his legs, “We’ll see!”

Licking your lips, your mouth opens, and you let the head of his cock press pass your lips. The dark pink head is hot in your mouth, and your tongue presses against the flat of his head, swirling your tongue around, testing his reaction. By the fluttering of his eyes, and the way that his hands seem to fight whether they should latch onto your hair, you reckon it’s okay. 

So, you push on ahead, moving further down his impressive cock. His girth so full you had to open wider than you were used to. You gasp as you push him further down your throat. Your eyes flashing up to see Shouto struggling to keep his head down and eyes on you. 

Good god, you pray you were wet enough to take him in without lube.

Your mouth sinks down as far as you can go while not choking yourself. Your fingers trailing up and down his toned thighs as you move your head up and down his length. You’re now in a smooth rhythm, bobbing up and down on his cock with enough vigor to make Shouto praise your name.

Your movements signal to Shouto that he can move as well. Shouto groans, and his hips move forward. You relax against his rocking hips, you’re focused on your breathing as his cock moves up and down your throat. Deeper and deeper, you feel his cock move within you. His hand pressing against the back of your neck, and you gag softly against his length.

Your eyes look back up to see Shouto’s eyes closed. Moans and pants spilling out with every thrust, and your cheeks hollow out. Creating a vacuum sensation against his length.

“Oh shit!” Shouto snaps. His hands tangling within your locks as he struggles to not overwhelm you. “You’re amazing, of course, you would be good at this,” he gasps as his cock only goes further down your throat.

You struggle to breathe with his thrusting. His snapping hips overwhelming you with their speed and depth. He’s distracted while he fucks your throat, but you’re even more desperate to keep up. Uncaring about the burning sensation erupting through your airway as he continues at his strength and speed. Your tongue swirls around his thrusting cock. Trailing against his veins as his hips stutter, and your teeth dragging against the sensitive skin.

You moan against his length. The action allowing you to gain more air and sending a loud moan from Shouto’s mouth as his pace increases.

His hips abuse your throat, and you’re delighted in the fact that you’re keeping up. The soft gags that occasionally slip from your mouth, stirring him on. He’s sinful yet heavenly in your mouth, and you want him in your dripping cunt. Your thighs shaking with the mere thought of him having his way with you.

He pulls his length away from your mouth. Your saliva stringing between your mouth and his still erect cock. You cough as you try taking in the air again, the lack of oxygen had been ignored as your pleasure was so high.

“N-Not yet,” Shouto staggers, and you nod in agreement, watching him sink back to the bed.

“Take it off,” you mutter tugging at the hem of Shouto’s t-shirt, and he moves to take it off.

With your teeth tearing into your lower lip, you watch him remove the dark shirt. Shouto’s body had to be a sin while you stared at the rippling muscles on his body, something you had never truly appreciated before. They moved with his body, the faint scars littering his body for you to kiss and count later. 

Tone and lithe. He was beautiful.

Shouto’s lips are back on yours as you kiss deeply, your head tilted to the side as his fingers gently grasp your chin. A shaky moan leaves your mouth at the taste of yourself on his lips and tongue, and Shouto moves his body so that you’re now on your back. The tips of your aroused nipples brush up against Shouto’s naked chest, and both of your release a throaty gasp as you pull him closer to you.

Your bodies were overshot with denied pleasure, and the mountaining need for more was finally being addressed.

Your leg hooks lazily around Shouto’s waist, and a sigh leaves your lips as Shouto gently grasps the back of your leg, running steady, consistent strokes from the end of your thigh to your ass.

A fire is building up in your gut as your hands work their way down to the buttons and zipper of his pants. His hands gripping your waist, and you could feel Shouto’s arousal pressing against your stomach, hot and throbbing with need. You pulled away from Shouto and giggled as he attempted to follow you with closed eyes as you had to brush your hair out of your face, suddenly feeling hot.

“Y/n…” Shouto just about whined, and you smiled softly at him, finding it endearing and the slightest bit hot when he used that tone. 

His hands were on your breasts, slowly stimulating your aroused nipples as he slowly massaged them, making sure to brush your nipple with his thumb every so often, and your head tossed back as you bite down hard on your lower lip. He once again kissed you ever so lovingly, and you felt him pulling away to line his cock with your entrance. You watch with hooded eyes as Shouto presses the head into you, teasing the both of you to extreme lengths, and you wantonly sighed. 

You rest on your elbows, a smile on your face as Shouto moves his messy hair out of his eyes. As you stare at his slightly sweaty face covered by strands of different colored hair, your heart just about bursts.

“Make love to me, Shouto,” you say aloud as Shouto stares at you, his cock removing from your entrance and carted against your clit.

“I plan on it,” he smiles, and he grabs your ankle, pulling you closer to him, and you shriek with laughter until his lips engulf your sounds. “Are you ready?” Shouto asks once more, teasing your entrance with the tip of his dick.

“Whenever you are,” you whisper into his neck, preparing for the initial pain.

You let out a cry of pleasure and pain as he slowly enters you, and you pant heavily, trying to contain your tears as he manages to push all the way in. Your eyes clench as you bit your lip, your head buried into his neck.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you cry as he stretches you out. Shouto is panting too at the feeling of your tight walls clenching against him, they’re unable to relax against his cock. It’s not until the head of his cock hits the wall of your cervix does he stop, and even then he’s not entirely in you.

Your breathing is harsh, and you feel like you’re sweating as you look down at the now joined body. The feeling of him entirely in you makes your head spin, the pressure in your lower belly could be from just Shouto within you or from your slowly growing orgasm, you had no idea.

“Are you o-okay?” Shouto stutters very clearly still adjusting to having his cock in you.

“Yeah, just… trying not to die,” you manage to croak out, and eventually, you collapse onto the bed, looking up at Shouto, who seems to be concentrating hard.

“You’re just super t-tight,” Shouto gasps as you wrap a leg around his waist.

It’s a good move, but it’s too quick as a sharp pleasure pained fire shoots through you as you slam your forehead against his shoulder.

“Too fast,” you snap in regret you try to calm your head. This was too much for you, you felt like every nerve was firing all at once on your inner wall, and no orgasm had reached you yet.

“It’s okay… breathe...”

It takes a few moments, but sure enough, you manage to raise your leg to his waist, and both of you moan at the new level of penetration and the way it made your walls clench around him. “Move,” you command, and Shouto falls onto his forearms as he nods.

Shouto moves his hips back, and slowly almost painfully slow, returns them to the original position, and even with the smallest movement, a lewd moan escapes your lips. Shouto continues going in and out, his hips slowly moving while you start to meet him with every thrust.

Whispers of encouragement escape both your lips as his slow thrusting continues.

Shouto picks up your legs so that they’re both wrapped around his waist, and he comes to lean over you. At the new angle, your head is thrown backward, and you let out a string of soft curses. “Shit, that feels so good,” you cry out in encouragement as you bit down on your lip harshly.

Your lips are soon sought after by Shouto’s as sheen layers of sweat cover both your bodies as the consistent moving of both your hips never falters.

“You’re so fucking tight, shit, you feel so good,” Shouto grunts, his hips picking up in speed as he drills into you faster, the sound of your meeting sweaty bodies echoing in your room.

Soon you can hear the sounds of your bed hitting the wall, and a cry escapes your lips as Shouto’s finger grazes your clit.

“Say my name…” Shouto grunts as he presses harder on your clit, and you can feel the coil within you getting tighter, but at the moment, all you can give is wordless cries. “Say it, y/n.”

“S-Shouto!” you scream out as you shake with an overwhelming need to climax, but Shouto’s finger leaves your clit and goes to keep your hands above your head.

“Are you enjoying this?” Shouto teases as he slams into you at full force again, your cunt tightening sinfully against his length, electricity coursing through your veins while you cry his name. “You’re so good, shit.”

“Oh my god, yes, Shouto!” your voice splutters, and his hands leave your wrist to gently pinch your nipple and clit. You go speechless, and your mind spins as he pulls one of your legs onto his shoulder, and all you can do is let your jaw drop as the new position lets you see stars.

You couldn’t take the feeling of how his body moved entirely within you, the strength and power behind his every move were almost too natural as if this was an everyday thing. You let out noises similar to a purr, grinding your cunt against his conquesting cock and laughing breathlessly at his low groan.

“You like this, princess?” Shouto nips at your throat, his thrusts making you shriek out his name as he buries you further into the bed, your nails digging into his flesh at the back of his neck. You nod rapidly, your eyes closed, your mouth open, your pants tumbling from your mouth. He wasn’t going too fast, just fast enough to have wet smacks echoing through the room, but every thrust seemed to have his cock being pulled out of you nearly completely. He pulled out entirely so he would have the ability to drill back into your wet cunt. The noises of your connecting wet sex left loud echo with your squelching pussy around his hot cock.

The muscles on his back seemed to flare dramatically, your screams turning silent due to your approval of this.

“I needa cum,” you shriek, the fire in your face as bright and hot as the one between your legs. His sweaty forehead pressed against yours, and his lips recapture yours.

Your mind goes blank when a mighty crash goes through you. But Shouto must not have felt the spastic vice-like clamping of your inner walls as he continues pistoling his hips into you, hitting your cervix, and pushing it further up with every slam. You cry against his mouth, your hands shoving at his shoulders as the feeling of your orgasm was too strong to deny, and he slips out of you.

“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he moans, his mouth connecting with your breast, and once again slams into you.

Your scream is silent, your eyes rolling to the back of your head, your fingers digging into his neck, and your toes curl. His hips are driving, persistent, and have a goal in mind. You can barely keep up with him, your long overstimulated body wanting to collapse at the seams, but he doesn’t stop.

The bed creaks loudly under you, headboard crashing into the wall, over and over again.

“Cum, baby,” you beg, your hips wildly thrashing against his. “Cum..”

That’s all it takes, and a hot and heavy load shoots through you, and Shouto collapses onto you at the same time the bed falls. Neither one of you reacts as gravity shifts you both slightly downwards, but your mind is too full of Shouto to care. His body twitching while his cock remains hard within you, the feeling of his cum swimming in your cunt, making your head spin with euphoria.

Drowsiness hits you quickly, and Shouto’s body heat is quickly putting you to sleep.

He pulls out of you gently, and the feeling of his cock no longer in you makes you whimper, your nose burying into his neck as he flips the two of you over so that you’re laying on his chest. His hands send warm and cooling waves through your body, helping soothe the aches in your tired body.

“That was…” you mumble, your mind unable to think straight.

“Something?”

You snort, your head nodding.

“Yeah… something…”

“I love you, y/n,” Shouto whispers against your temple, and you sigh, contentness and warmth flooding your aching body.

“I love you, too.”