#I think I've come far on my writing and such

[hoovesandfloorpaws]

[since everything under a Read More cut gets deleted in case a blog deletes/gets deleted and the WayBackMachine isn’t good with pictures, for Archive Purposes Only, I will add the most important bits of the/rest of the full post and have also checked/updated/added the source links to the best of my abilities]

"From [North] America, they traveled to Australia and New Zealand, then back to the U.S. again. They didn’t have extended time in the U.K. until the end of April (when they were likely writing/recording Take Me Home, as well as rehearsing for their continuing Up All Night tour).

In the gifs above, OT5 are pictured at a Much Music interview from May 2012, unavailable to view [I have added the video link. Btw, at 16:06 there is another very interesting moment where they start talking about Larry Stylinson and Liam says "It's true!"] —the one with the two red tables, where the interviewer asks about boys kissing, and Niall’s wearing a lavender t-shirt and backwards snapback.

Interviewer: “How do you balance [making an album] with how busy you are, and all these concert dates?” Harry shrugs, “You tell us!” Louis says, “We ask ourselves the same question!” Interviewer: “You already have nearly a hundred shows confirmed and almost sold out—for 2013. How do you plan your lives that far in advance?” Harry and Liam laugh, “We don’t!” Louis says, “We wish we did!” [I added the video link]

In Florida during the Up All Night tour in [July] 2012, Niall comments that he spent "30 days at home [in 2011]. So, that's a big difference from 365..." [link to whole interview video]

–––––

Q: Many of these groups get huge but burn out after three or so years.  What’s your plan to make sure that doesn’t happen?

Simon Cowell: “Be sensible and treat them as human beings, genuinely.  That’s the most important thing.  Traditionally, record companies would put out the most possible product in a short period of time, thinking you only have two or three years.  I don’t think that’s necessarily the case now.  If you’re sensible and you don’t burn them out, you don’t have to put a time limit on this anymore.  And they’re so young, these guys.”  

Rolling Stone Q&A with Simon Cowell  (by Andy Greene, April 2012, emphasis mine)

–––––

“I’ve never known a band to announce a second summer tour before a first summer tour is over.  It’s insane – they’re working them like dogs and printing money right now.”  — Andy Greene, May 2012

During This Is Us promo in August 2013, Harry says, "If we could choose the perfect scenario, I would be 'the well-rested one.' "

–––––

Simon Cowell, 2015:  “This is five years, literally non-stop. I’m amazed they’ve done it for so long… I hope [they’ll get back together], but like I said, it’s not going to be because of any pressure from me… like we said in the beginning, this is an opportunity, you won it, and I’ve always had that attitude with them…. Look, even though they’re young, that is a gruelling schedule and after a while I could see they were exhausted, so when they said, “How do you feel about it?”  I said, “Do whatever you want.”  Having a year off is going to be a healthy thing.’

Also during This is Us promo, during one of their multiple press conferences, [in August 2013] a reporter asks, "Did you have a choice to say no to this documentary?" Harry half-shakes his head, and leans in to speak. Niall almost imperceptibly shakes his head, and tightens his mouth.

––––––

Niall, October 2012: I've a re-occurring knee injury from playing football. I've dislocated my knee ten times in the last two years. Operation time for me.

So are you gonna have to go and get an operation done? When?

Niall: (shrugs) Whenever I have time. ...[come up with] a couple years. (Late Late Show, October 2012)

14 months later, January 2014: after performing 123 shows during the Take Me Home tour (only a portion of his responsibilities during that time), 20-year-old Niall had major knee surgery that was 'much larger than anticipated'. He began a new tour with One Direction about three months later, after One Direction’s first extended break since forming as a group.

––––––

From January 2011 – December 2015, One Direction:

• wrote for and recorded 5 albums (91 songs included on the albums)

• performed 327 full concerts as headliners during four tours (on the road for about 110 weeks total)

• were interviewed more than 800 times by various media

• performed at least 97 times on television

• visited at least 37 countries, often more than once

• walked some 33 red carpets

• filmed 18 music videos (at least 36 days’ work)

• filmed well over 100 additional miscellaneous videos

• had at least 29 photo shoots

• shot a feature-film ‘documentary,’ with cameras trailing them for months

• shot concert films for the Up All Night and Where We Are tours

Just one week of heavy promo for the feature-film This is Us in August 2013 included:

approximately 95 junket interviews appearance at the VMAs appearance at America’s Got Talent performance and interview at Today Show press conference in NY Premieres in London and New York; red carpet interviews hours of transatlantic flights

1D’s pace was much more relentless than the glancing summary I’ve given here.

–––––––

During the Four Hangout, Liam comments that there are "...a lot of meetings, there's a lot of meetings in Boybandville." [I added the video link]

(a very young and starry-eyed Zayn, Niall, Liam, Louis, and Harry are pictured above listening to the judges after their week 2 X-Factor performance, 2010) Below, Liam continues, "One thing we didn't realize when we [got in] this band is how many meetings you have." [I added the video link]

––––––

“…the business empire fronted by these cherubic faces now stretches well into the hundreds of millions of pounds, with licensing deals that include everything from lunchboxes to their own fragrances.  Their ambition, or at least their management’s ambition, is seemingly infinite…

During press for Midnight Memories in France, interviewer Cauet asks, "After your films, books, perfume—what's coming up next?" Harry: Space Liam: Our own range of door handles... lampshades... curtains! Louis: Let's do radiators. Harry: Radiators. Louis: Warmth. Zayn: Next music video's on the moon! [I added the video link]

––––––

Harry Magee, Modest!Management: ‘The scale of this band is unprecedented.  None of us involved in the band, from the management, to the agents, to the licensees, to retailers, have ever worked on anything this big before.  There might be huge acts that have been going longer than 25 years but they are not nearly as broad as One Direction, especially when it comes to selling tickets and selling merchandise. …in terms of per-head numbers for merchandise we have broken all the numbers.  We need more stands at the gigs.  More people serving.’ …  (GQ magazine, August 2013, emphasis mine)

(C'Cauet clip continues) Louis: One Direction central heating, I think. Liam: People. Our own range of people! Niall: Coffee tables! Liam: Opening a pet shop! Zayn: On the moon. (C’Cauet sur NRJ, 14 December 2013)

––––––

April 2012, below: it was rumored Simon had given them each 2 million pounds because they were so successful — Niall and Harry said ‘not true.’ In the first gif, Harry says, "He's a bit tight, Simon is." "That's why he's so successful, he's able to keep his money to himself,” Niall laughs.

––––––

1D partial gross revenue 2011-2014 (3 tours, 3 films): more than $500 million   xx  xx  xx  xx

(Here’s an enlightening post re: 1D finances) [updated the link]

––––––

Niall: You know when the Backstreet Boys and New Kids On The Block came back a few months ago?  And all they did were arena tours.  That’s how I’d like to be remembered.

Liam: Yeah, just pop in and do an arena tour every ten years…

Niall: Sell out Wembley.  Smash it hard. Home in time for tea.

Liam: Fingers crossed, eh? (Aug 2013)

In the gif above, OT5 hug in a tight bundle on the day of their X-Factor Judges' House audition, when Louis had an injured foot.

–––––––

One Direction were/are ambitious… but one must consider their ages when they signed their contracts, who truly managed their schedule (’This is what you have to do if you want to succeed’) and the pressure to continue making money. 

Beginning with X-Factor in October 2010, One Direction didn’t get any extended break until 21 Dec 2013 – Feb 2014, about nine weeks.

As students in the UK, they would've received anywhere from 10-22 weeks of vacation a year—not to mention being at home with the love and support of their families and friends.

master list of March 2012 filmed promo [by @youcancallmeathief]

March 2012 timeline [ @bulletprooflarry]

Four Hangout, Nov 2014 

(all gifs by OP, @quietasides)"

One Direction won at the Brit Awards on 21 February 2012.  Harry had just turned 18, Liam and Niall were 18, Zayn was 19, and Louis was 20.

Adding gif captions in italics! Above, the four gifs show some moments from Four Hangout, November 2014. Liam, Louis, and Zayn are pictured sitting on the red couch. Louis says, “I remember that first American promo trip was relentless.” Liam: “Crazy.” Niall: “Nuts.” Louis: “I think it was like three weeks on the trot that we were away [from home].” Liam asks him, “Do you remember when we were doing, like, ten  things at once, as well? Doing interviews and signing and something else…” Louis: “That’s what it was all like. It was all just so, so manic.” Liam: “Crazy.”

Three days after the Brits, they were in Chicago for a radio interview/meet and greet.  They also opened for Big Time Rush that night, and proceeded to play 12 shows over the next two weeks, each in a different city.  During March they also did at least six signings, some smaller performances (such as three songs on the Today Show), and over 60 interviews.

14 March 2012, above: Louis, Harry, and Liam are pictured during one of the nine+ interviews they filmed that day. The interviewer asks, “What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?” Liam replies with a rueful laugh, “Have days off!”

Keep reading

[bokutosbabe]

It Always Leads To You

( bllk boys as situationships )

a/n — girl whose never had a situationship writing about them? what could go wrong? (they progressively get longer lol)

content — some nsfw but not explicit, pining, GN! reader, some characters repeated, all characters are 18 or 18+

synopsis — what kind of situationship the bllk boys would be

⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆ ' and the heart i'm breaking is my own ' ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ the... ' but you're best friends! '

you'd rather spend money on a hotel than stay at home 24/7 for the next week. how could you walk into your house when you knew he'd be there, chatting with you family as if nothing had changed?

maybe you should've pretended you had to work.

that would have saved you the grief of having to see, who was supposed to be, your best friend. how could you face him when the last thing you two talked about was being a couple and that...not going as planned.

well, maybe that wasn't the last thing you two talked about with each other. however, does defiling your families bathroom really count as 'talking'? ( most awkward easter ever afterwards ) you didn't really think so.

whatever, he was a pro-soccer player now, he may not even be at home this christmas. you'd just have to put up with his family, who you'd always loved, and then you could go home and avoid the situation until the next big holiday.

but of course, when you stepped into your childhood home you realized that you'd never get that lucky. there he was, just as handsome as ever, sitting on your families couch.

in your eyes, he looked like he belonged with your family more than you, but you supposed he earned that. he came home every holiday, unlike you who continuously came up with different reasons to stay as far away as possible.

if you left now, maybe no one would know you'd even shown up-

" woah, y/n! it's you! " or...maybe not. " i haven't seen you in forever, what have you been up to? " the voice that plagued your every waking thought crashed its way into your ears.

your best friend ( could you even call him that anymore? were you still his best friend? ) got up from his spot on the couch to come wrap his arms around you in a hug that felt more like home than home did.

" i've missed you, ya know? " he whispered in your ear, hands caressing your back in what felt like much more than what a 'friends' hug would be.

just a week. you could survive and coexist with him for a week. your resolve to never sleep with him set in stone now.

you just wished your resolve wouldn't have crumbled only two days later while your family was downstairs watching christmas movies.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ REO MIKAGE, isagi yoichi, AIKU OLIVER, rensuke kunigami, TOBITO KARASU

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ the ' you cannot date them '

you’re a good person... or at least, you want to believe that. But how can you when your best friend sits in front of you now, talking about their ex?

she’s raving about how much she misses him, how everything fell apart at the worst time, how she’s still holding onto the hope that maybe they can fix things.

you try to smile and nod, pretending that you’re not dying inside. how can you even look her in the eye when he’s blowing up your phone right now? when you know exactly how he feels about you?

“it’s just so messed up, right?” she laughs nervously, like this is all just a bad breakup, nothing that can’t be smoothed over. “i’m not even sure what I’m supposed to do anymore.”

she doesn’t know that you already did something. You already did the one thing that could ruin everything. the one thing that she told you you could never do.

your phone continuously buzzing while she's talking, hoping she wouldn't notice you reach for it to silence it while she takes a sip of her drink.

your phone vibrates again, and you try not to look at it. you’re not sure if you’re worried that she’ll see, or that you’ll see what he’s saying. you’re scared of both.

him <3 ; are we still on for tonight? can’t wait to see you.

that familiar ache forms in your chest, and you can feel the betrayal to your friend, the confusion about your own feelings, but worse—there’s nothing you can do about it. you keep smiling, even though it feels like your heart’s sinking with every word your friend says.

" god, if you don't want to listen to me, just say so. " your friend says coldly. " i would have turned off my phone if it was you crying right now. "

" sorry, it's just my mom...talking about some new present she wants to get my brother. " you apologized. "oh, okay. is your brother a cutie?" you didn't even have a brother, showed how much she knew about you.

“whatever, what should i do?" your friend asks, her eyes bright with hope (or maybe delusion). "do you think I should text him? do you think we could still fix things?”

you want so badly to tell her the truth.

you want to be honest, to say what she needs to hear so that she doesn’t get her hopes up.

you want to tell her that he is already texting you, that maybe you are the reason he won’t talk to her.

but instead, you bite your lip and offer a shrug. "i don't know, honestly. maybe he needs time to figure out what he wants too."

"he doesn't need time. he needs me." she mused, staring at you like your answer was just the stupidest thing she'd heard all day. "no wonder you've never dated anyone, who'd like a ditz like you?"

The whole time, your phone is buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, like a constant reminder of your lie.

you; see you tonight :)

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ OTOYA EITA, ikki niko, RANZE KURONA, reo mikage, RYUSEI SHIDO

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧the... ' you'll never be first '

he's leaving soon, and you feel like you're dying.

you’d known for a long time that ‘casually’ seeing a pro soccer player would only lead to being left alone, especially someone like him—someone whose work always came first, and whose heart was as unreachable as the trophies he collected.

he’d said it more times than you could count: “love doesn’t come before soccer. It never will.” and you’d laughed, maybe even agreed at some point, understanding it was just the way things were.

so why does it feel like you’re drowning now, with him leaving just around the corner.

it doesn’t make sense. you’d known the deal from the start.

still, here you are—sitting in his bed, in the quiet of his room, the familiar hum of the city outside reminding you of how little time you really have left with him.

his suitcase is by the door, already half-packed, his jersey draped over the chair where he’d left it, as if he couldn't get out of here fast enough.

you’re almost sick to your stomach at the thought of him walking out that door in just a few days, never looking back.

you’ve spent enough time with him to know that when he leaves, he doesn’t look back. he doesn't look back at stadiums once he walks out, and he wouldn't look back at you either.

"it’s only a few months," he’d said, trying to make you feel better when the topic of him leaving first got brought up. “i’ll be back before you know it.”

but that’s not the point.

it’s never been the point.

you know he’ll be busy with games, traveling, sponsors,...women, all the things that make him too far to reach.

and yet, here you are, sitting in his bed, heart pounding, overwhelmed with the thought of it all ending. you thought you could handle this.

you thought you could be just another notch in his belt. but the truth is, you’ve been fooling yourself. you care too much. you’ve fallen for him, hard, and the worst part is—he doesn’t even realize it.

or maybe he does. maybe he’s known all along, and you were too scared to admit it.

the sound of his voice pulls you from your thoughts.

"hey, you okay?"

you glance over at him, watching him fiddle with his phone, one hand propped up on the headboard. his eyes meet yours, something in them that almost makes you believe he could stay. maybe, you're enough of a reason for him to stay where he is now.

but he won’t. you know that. his life is bigger than you. bigger than this city, this bed, and every memory you’ve shared together.

you nod, forcing a smile, trying to keep the strange bitterness from slipping into your voice.

"yeah, just thinking."

"don’t think too much." his lips curl up into that calming grin that’s made you feel better on several occasions. how could something that used to calm you make you feel like your heart was in your throat? “you’ll drive yourself crazy.”

it’s easy for him to say that. he’s used to moving on. he’s used to leaving. you? you're used to him being here.

his fingers tap absently against the screen of his phone. you can see the notifications lighting up—his agent, a few teammates, probably his parents, all reminding you of the inevitable: he’s leaving soon.

you want to scream. you want to ask him why he doesn’t care. why it’s so easy for him to slip away from everyone who loves him.

but instead, you pull your knees to your chest and keep your eyes fixed on him, as if the longer you look, you could magically gain telepathy to make him want to stay with you.

"how’s your flight looking?" you ask, hoping his answer would be that he cancelled it.

"all set."

and you can't breathe.

the casualness in his voice is what stings the most. the way he talks about leaving as if it’s just another day at the office, another game to be played.

he doesn’t get how you feel. maybe he can’t. maybe he’s just too busy not feeling anything.

The silence is deafening.

"do you... do you ever wish you could just stay?"

It’s a question you didn’t mean to ask, but it escapes before you can stop it.

You wish you could take it back the second it leaves your lips.

he looks up at you, and for the briefest moment, his eyes soften. for one second, he looks like he is completely and utterly yours.

he sets his phone down, sliding it onto the bedside table, then turns his full attention to you.

"i told you, didn’t i? love doesn’t come before soccer."

The words hit you like a train, but it’s not the truth that hurts—it’s the way he says it, like it’s not up for debate. as if it’s always been this way, and it always will be.

why can't he just try? just try to come home every so often...to you.

you feel like a fool. as if you've put your heart on display for him just to not even glance your way.

you know where you stand, even if it’s tearing you apart.

he doesn’t lie to you, doesn’t promise you things he can’t give, and maybe that's why you fell for him in the first place—he was the first person who didn’t play games with you.

"i’m gonna miss you," you say quietly, knowing that admitting it aloud makes it even worse.

his eyes flicker with something, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. he shifts, pulling his knees up to match yours, as if to say he’s close, but still so far. he rests his head back against the headboard.

and for a moment, you almost forget he’s leaving. you forget about the suitcase by the door. you forget about the plane ticket he has. you forget that in just a few days he wont be yours anymore.

"i’ll miss you too," he says softly.

but that’s it. that’s all he says. it’s not a promise, not a declaration. just another passing remark to fill the silence.

he doesn't mean it. it's more of a kindness thing for him to say it back.

you can feel the weight of everything unsaid.

you realize—he doesn’t know how much you care. He can’t understand you.

he’s never been asked to stay.

you’re not even sure you’d want him to. you can’t ask him to change his life for you. and you couldn't keep up with the lifestyle he lives.

the idea of him walking away—of losing him to something bigger, to something you’ll never be able to keep—feels like it will break you.

so you just lie down on his bed, for the last time, you tell yourself.

'after tonight, he'll be free of me'

after tonight, you'd walk out that door and not look back.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ITOSHI RIN, nagi seishiro, SAE ITOSHI, isagi yoichi, RENSUKE KUNIGAMI

⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆ ' to leave the warmest bed i've ever known ' ⋆.˚✮🎧✮˚.⋆

[ + your faves ! ]

again, i've never experienced this, so i hope the research i've done (looking up different types of situationships) has done it justice!

likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated!

[relia-robot-writes]

I am the Princess in the Tower.

You know, people hear that, and they say, "Oh, that poor Princess, she must be so lonesome up there. Some cruel fate must have befallen her, to be trapped so."

It's true, to a certain extent. I am lonesome. There's no shortage of princes and princesses - I have to wonder where they all come from - who come to try to rescue me from my captivity. None of them ever get particularly close, of course. The Tower is surrounded by a dark and tangled wood, monsters of flesh and stone stalk the grounds, invisible barriers and devious traps block all entry, and even if they got to the base of the Tower, they'd have to figure out how to climb up a sheer, frictionless vertical surface while automatically triggered fireballs rained down upon them... it's pretty well defended, is what I'm trying to say. Every single one of them gets sent packing, cursing the wizard who built the Tower and imprisoned me.

Which is, you know, pretty funny, when you get right down to it.

I mean, it's only natural to assume that, right? Wizards are mysterious, they pop in and out all the time. If one decides to suddenly vanish one day, well, he's probably just off calculating the angles of reality, or whatever, he'll be back. And if a girl appears in his Tower, well, of course he kidnapped a Princess for his own unfathomable wizard purposes.

It hardly matters that there aren't any kingdoms missing a Princess.

I don't correct them, anyway. It's safer for me if nobody knows who I am, or how I've changed. Safety was, after all, why I built the Tower in the first place. You think wizards do this for fun? Out in the middle of nowhere, forced to conjure food and water? Having to walk up and down twenty flights of stairs if I feel like going outside?

Wizards build towers when they are scared shitless.

See, I cast this divination spell when I was an apprentice, and I fucked it up. It constantly shows me visions of my own doom...

Not buying it?

Well, there was this devil, see, and I tricked him into thinking I'd signed my soul away, so now he stalks me forever, seeking vengeance through the very shadows themselves...

No good?

Well, I was cursed as a wee babe, and now all the world is my enemy, from the mightiest warrior to the softest blade of grass, and each one thirsts for my blood!

...I would have died to that one, like, immediately, huh.

Okay. Fine. I'm just... a coward. I built my Tower as far away from everything and everyone that could possibly do me harm as I could. I studied magic because it felt like the best way to avoid any and all hard work, conflict, and danger. I held off on telling anyone anything about who I truly was or what I wanted until I felt I could be absolutely safe.

And still, with "rescuers" at my door just waiting for my hand, I can't bear to look at them. The idea of one even getting close enough to attempt to climb the Tower (it's happened more than once) is terrifying. I could ask them to stop, but who would believe me? "Yes, I, the Princess in the Tower, am totes fine, please go away forever thanks, I am not an evil wizard." That'd go over well.

There's another princess that just made her way through the Woods and slayed one of my constructs. She'll be at the Tower base soon. She's got really pretty hair

I wish

I hope that you

Please don't

I'm writing this down here, and then I'm gonna go hide. If you're reading this,

The blue-armored princess flipped the paper over to the other side. It was blank. Her hair smoldered from the fireball she'd almost dodged, and she drummed her fingers on the hilt of her blade as she reread the first side. Aside from the paper, the room - and, indeed, the entire interior of the Tower - seemed completely empty.

[shadowwolfmemes]

My blog is NOT a safe place for proshippers!!!

Hopefully, I won't have to repeat myself after this. If you're a proshipper/darkshipper and you come across my blog, make a graceful U-turn and simply GO FUCK YOURSELF!

I don't give a rat's rotting ass if you don't support pro-contact, I still cannot confide in people like you. Here's another thing that I don't understand about y'all. How are you going to call yourself 'anti-harassment' or complain that antis "harass" you, but then go around and interact with antis all willy-nilly to try to persuade them that they're in the wrong?

And no, most antis don't go out of their way to harass you. They mostly block the people they dislike so that the proshippers don't get the chance to interact. The ones that do interact with the people they dislike are just wasting their own time. I suggest that you don't waste your time with them either.

I hate proshippers, but I don't waste my time trying to convince y'all that what you're doing is wrong. That one time I had to interact is when I asked one of my followers if they're a proshipper or not (they were, so I blocked them). Call me a "bad person" for doing that if you like, I will stand by with what I did and I'm not actually sorry for blocking them. :)

Here are some examples of the most popular dogshit excuses they use to try to make themselves look as innocent as possible.

Excuse #1: "They're not real, so why does it bother you?"

It doesn't matter that the characters are fictional, it's still disgusting that people like you glorify illegal material like incest, pedophilia, abuser x victim, child porn, etc.

Excuse #2: "Fiction doesn't affect reality. It can't hurt you."

While it's true to some certain extent, the way it's used in this argument makes it worse. Again, it doesn't give you the excuse to worship pedophilia and other problematic ships that shouldn't be normalized. Fiction or not, some things shouldn't be shared at all.

Excuse #3: "This is just my coping mechanism."

I'm sorry, but this is one of thee most shittiest excuses I've ever heard in my life! In fact, the term 'excuse' is too kind for this. What's another word to describe this bullshit? Glorifying problematic ships is not a healthy way of coping. Why? Because you're manipulating your brain into thinking that whatever traumatic experience you went through should be romanticized. No normal person would do that to themselves and justify it.

Excuse #4: "If you don't like it, just block them."

I do. Like I previously said, I don't waste my time on these people. I want them to stay as far away from me as possible as much as I stay away from them. However, fantasies the proshippers have shouldn't be shared as a normal factor. It's okay to write about dark topics, what's NOT okay is romanticizing/normalizing it.

Before I close this off, I want to say that all of this applies to radqueers, too. Y'all are not slick, you're just as bad as proshippers!

Does this post offend you, proshippers? If it does, good! Y'all are NOT welcomed in my blog whatsoever and I will do anything in my power to make sure you don't get an opportunity to interact with me.

I'll say it one more damn time;

MY BLOG IS NOT A SAFE PLACE FOR PROSHIPPERS AND IT NEVER WILL. ANY PROSHIPPER/RADQUEER THAT INTERACTS WILL BE BLOCKED ON THE DOT.

GO CRY ME A RIVER, MOTHERFUCKERS! BOO-FUCKING-HOO! (This is directed towards the proshippers and radqueers).

[caxycreations]

I feel like you guys are missing the point.

He's a 900+ year old Time Lord. He's living as much as he possibly can, and he feels like it's nowhere near enough, and far too much, all at the same time.

This SAME MAN, same face and all, is the person who said "Sometimes I think a Time Lord lives too long"

He's the man who, literally in his NEXT regeneration, spends a third of his series depressed because he can't find an ounce of joy in the universe himself and NEEDS humans to show around so he can catch a hint of it through them.

The Doctor even states that humans "look like giants" to him, specifically BECAUSE of the fact that they live so much in such a short time.

This isn't a show about an awesome, nigh-immortal time-traveling alien.

It's a show about the pains and soul-crushing responsibilities that come with time travel and immortality.

And, of course, you're all forgetting the glaring fact of this episode, entirely separate from the quotes you're so eagerly judging:

THE MAN THE DOCTOR IS TALKING TO HAS TO EAT PEOPLE TO STAY YOUNG.

He literally KILLS PEOPLE to survive. The Doctor, talking him out of eternal life, is not just doing so because "long life bad", he's doing so because "eating people to live forever is an awful way to be" as well.

You're also disregarding his point entirely in favor of giving bad-faith analysis of the show.

His point is that whether you have 10 years or 20, how you spend that time is what matters, not the amount of time you have to spend.

He has eternity, and it's not worth it. He knows it isn't, and he's trying to stop anyone else from making that mistake. He's living for so long, and has lived so much, but it just isn't worth it anymore.

Lucy Lacemaker, from Satellite City (or, more officially, The August Few: Amygdala, though she never says this in there) puts it very well:

"Billions of years we've been about. And life's not worth much once the rest is gone. You get bored of the wind and the birds and the sound of laughter and the smell of pine. Life is like a piece of paper. And the writing is our lives. Our stories. When you only have 90 years, the ink turns to gold. So valuable are the words, the days you live. Cause soon, the story will end. But what if you have a never-ending page? A bottomless inkwell? The more you write, the less it all means. That's our curse. We live so long that it's not even life anymore. We're not living forever, we're dying forever."

@another-normal-anomaly said that if they kicked ass for 80 years, got saved, and kicked ass another 80, that's twice as much as they would have done. But that's still only 160 years, and it reinforces the Doctor's point; it's not the time that matters, it's the person, because others may spend that 160 years doing nothing, and some may spend that 160 years doing everything.

But they would still only have 160 years. Not forever. What the Doctor is warning against is eternity. Eternity is pointless.

@dagny-hashtaggart said the show is hypocritical in it's transhumanist stance for featuring an "awesome, nigh-immortal, time-traveling alien", but that just tells me they've either never watched the show or they have and 100% missed the point of the character of the Doctor.

Because the Doctor is not happy with his long life. He's not content or pleased about it. He's miserable. The only worth he finds in it is giving other, shorter-lived life forms the pleasure of seeing things they never could otherwise, and protecting the lives of those more fragile than him because he, at his core, has two values above all others:

If it kills me, I can put an end to this opera of my life, and I can finally rest

If it doesn't kill me, it means I've stopped it and other, more meaningful lives will be spared.

The Doctor is not some happy, positive character. He's a victim of a tragedy, and that tragedy is, quite painfully obviously, the fact he lives so long. His lifespan, his regeneration, is a curse to him, not a blessing. The fact you can call the show hypocritical for that tells me you've never seen it, or you've never understood it.

@argumate made a crude joke about a man with a big dick, named after having a big dick, saying that life wasn't about having a big dick.

Well, fun fact. If your dick were, say, 14 inches, as a human (which is a real condition that has happened), you would have heart problems every time you got erect, be entirely unable to enjoy penetrative sex (aside from the heart problems, you'd be unable to get more than a small fraction of your length in without hurting them), and if you ever tried to get a little more out of it, you'd seriously injure your partner.

Not only that, but you'd have social problems as well. Try hiding the outline when your flaccid length still reaches down past your knee. You'd be a laughing stock early on, and if you had frequent erections (say during puberty, post-growth spurt, pre-calming of the hormones), you'd be unable to hide it no matter how hard you tried.

It would cause more issues than that, too, believe me. And yet you're saying if a man who suffered from all of these problems told you "it's not all fun and games, having a big dick", you'd mock him for not loving the "gift" he's been "blessed" with?

All of you missed the point of the show, the character, and even the point of the scene you're remarking on.

I expected better comprehension on this site.

[ladysomething]

The amount of lestappen content we've gotten lately is amazing!

I've reread wygig like 4 times now I love it so much

Any chance of another snippet before Wednesday????

are you ... not sick of wygig? I did not realise it had that level of re-readability. but I'm delighted that it does!!

probably no more snippets .... I think ...

oh actually!!!

I started dicking around with a random concept after seeing @hotmandrivefast's recent fan art of lestappen kissing during Max's stream, so you can have everything I've written from that so far.

ridiculous vibes as is becoming my brand when I'm not writing wygig lol.

The problem, Charles thinks, is that he and Max have been together too long. 

A secondary, equally alarming problem, is that Charles has also clearly let Max have too much sex with him. The novelty has worn off. 

He’s boring. 

And how exactly has Charles come to these conclusions? 

Because he is laid out on the bed of their hotel room, shirtless, and Max is just . . . ignoring him. For his games. 

His computer is propped up on the bed, and he’s sitting on the floor, frantically poking at his controller and shouting in dismay. 

Charles frowns at him. 

Maybe he needs to break up with Max, just for like five minutes, so that Max appreciates him more. It’s slightly drastic, maybe, but there is literally nothing wrong with the way Charles looks. Actually, he gets endless compliments on his body and face. 

He is so fuckable. 

He’s so fuckable it’s like a selling point. 

So why is staring at his loser boyfriend, pointedly not being fucked right now? 

It’s atrocious. It’s terrible. It’s a state of affairs that Charles finds, frankly, unacceptable. 

He gets up on his knees, crawling over to kneel behind Max’s computer, and then pokes his lip out into a pout. 

Max, like, barely glances up at him, gaze lingering on his bare chest for only a few seconds instead of the usual ten, and then he looks back down to his game, groaning loudly. 

“Yeah, I know,” he grunts into his microphone. “Sorry—got distracted for a second. Yeah, I know.” 

Charles frowns, which quickly turns into a pout again. He taps the top of Max’s laptop pointedly, and mouths, “Max.” 

Max flicks his eyes up to him again, then says, “Guys, once second.” 

He lifts his hands to the headset, presses whatever buttons he needs to press, then pushes the mic away from his mouth. 

“Everything okay?” he asks, not anywhere near concernedly enough for Charles. 

Charles blinks, thrown off by Max not immediately devouring him. 

“I want to cum,” he announces, deciding that a no nonsense approach will work best. 

Max stares at him, clearly perplexed, and then says, “Okay?” 

Charles huffs. There is something seriously wrong here. Maybe he should revisit the idea of breaking up with Max for a few minutes. 

“So?” Charles asks pointedly. 

“So . . . what? You don’t need my permission.” 

Max is an idiot. No, maybe Charles is an idiot, for falling in love with an idiot. 

He retreats to the bathroom to lick his wounds and stroke his humbled ego, but he doesn’t cum. 

He has way more pride than that. 

The next problem Charles encounters is that now he’s come to see the original problem, he sees it everywhere. 

He texts Max to ask him on a date on Wednesday, and Max says he’s busy, sends a love heart emoji, and then an hour later Charles gets a notification saying that a Redline stream has started. So what if he always streams on a Wednesday? Surely one time he could skip it. 

He surprises Max by coming around, bringing Max’s favourite take out for lunch and a brand new toy for the cats to keep them distracted while they have sex, but Max says he can’t hang out that day because he’s in the middle of a stream. So what if the stream is for charity? Charles is still banished to the lounge to eat and play with the cats alone. 

He shows up for their breakfast date, ready to burn the eggs and bake a doughy croissant, but Max answers the door with an apologetic look saying that he’s got to spend a few hours in the sim. And so what if the RB20 sucks and he’s trying to hold onto his Championship lead? 

Charles has needs, goddammit. Vigorous needs that involve him regularly drooling into a pillow and being fucked so good he can’t see, or fucking Max until he cries and begs to be allowed to cum. He doesn’t really care which way it goes, as long as someone’s dick is up someone’s ass. 

And they have a healthy sex life. They have a great sex life, based on the way their friends judge them for being unable to keep their hands off each other, or the times they’ve been walked in on, or the way Max had to put a firm ban on sex during race weekends when Charles had been uncomfortable in the car one too many times. 

He just wants more. He wants so much more, all the time, he wants to sleep with Max’s dick inside him and he wants to have dinner while Max is kneeling and slowly sucking his cock, he wants to have a plug left in his ass so he’s ready for Max at any time and he wants to fill Max with so much cum it leaks out of him. 

He’s ravenous, hungry, a black hole of want, and he knows none of that is reasonable but he wants it anyway. 

Begrudgingly, he settles for sex when they can manage it, but right now they could manage it a whole lot more.

[thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels]

And I will call it home, this curse of ours (despite, despite, despite)

Day 7 of The Long Halloween - event masterlist here

pairing: tim drake x reader (gender neutral)

length: 8.2k

genre: horror, fluff kinda, hurt/comfort

warnings: vampire timmy, werewolf reader, reader gets shot and it's pretty bloody, lots of blood talk actually but in a vampire way, fade to black rooftop smut scene idk guys

a/n: pls god I hope everyone likes this one I fell asleep with my face on my desk writing it. but it's the classic !! I had to finish the event with the classic. ask me abt the jason todd cameo that I couldn't find a place to fit in

"Oh, god, not this again." You're walking down one of the endless streets of Gotham, your hood up and your shoulders hunched, when you hear someone sigh and groan while the person she's with goes on and on.

"No, I'm serious. There's something wrong with those Waynes -"

"You're just jealous because they're rich and they run the city. Come on -"

"No, I mean it," he insists, stopping to stand on the sidewalk and frown at his friend. You stop abruptly, too, nearly bumping into them from behind before you make a sharp turn to veer around them to keep walking. Thankfully, they don't pay you any real mind. "They're vampires - I know it. If you would just listen to me -"

"When are you going to stop believing in those ghost stories? They're not real," the woman is insisting, but you've trailed too far away by that point to hear the rest of her sentence.

The Waynes.

The biggest vampire coven on the coast. The only vampire coven left in Gotham.

And yes, they run the city, you think dryly as you continue to weave through winding, narrow streets and look up at the sliver of moon that just barely shines through the damp, foggy night. Yes, you think, they're unbeatable - and they've got the nasty, self-righteous responsibility of keeping this city in check.

A bat flies somewhere overhead and you flinch before huffing and shaking your head. Stupid, you think as you drag your feet. Stupid to move to a place that drove out your kind centuries ago. Stupid to come here knowing that it would carve a bloody target onto your back. Stupid to think that you could just keep your head down and stay hidden and let the rest of the world pass you by.

"That's impossible," Damian says indignantly, sniffing as he crosses his arms. His eyes glow in the dull glint of the Cave and a swarm of bats fly overhead.

"It's not," Dick huffs, frowning down at his brother. "People have been talking about it, I'm telling you."

"There are no werewolves in Gotham, Grayson," Damian snaps, stomping away. "Father's made sure of that." Dick looks to Bruce as Damian disappears in the shadows of the Cave, swept up by the darkness and the crushing echo, and Bruce just sighs thoughtfully. 

"It's a war that we won centuries ago, Dick," Bruce says in a smooth, deep rumble. "The wolves were driven out of my city a very long time ago."

"I know," Dick snaps. "That's why it's - Don't you think it's strange? What people have been saying? Wolf prints in the forests by the manor, rumours of people seeing some kind of creature in the city at night, it's -"

"I'm not saying I don't believe you, Dick," Bruce says placatingly as he holds up his hand. "I'm only saying… if this is true… if wolves are back in Gotham, that means war is back on our doorstep. We need to tread carefully, that's all."

"Might be fun," Tim chirps, silently slipping into the conversation between the two of him, his fangs glinting as he grins. "I've always wanted to really see one."

"Don't be reckless, Tim," Dick groans. "They're dangerous. Don't go out and get yourself -"

"If there really is a wolf out there," Bruce continues, ploughing over Dick and Tim's squabble, "it'll do us no good to have people grow suspicious. This needs to be dealt with quietly. Those of us in the shadows… must remain in the shadows. You know this."

"Yea," Tim snaps his fingers and turns to Dick. "How's that, uh, situation with the gargoyle doing, hm? You dealt with that one yet?"

"I'm working on it," Dick snaps, crossing his arms and letting his fangs glint through the darkness. 

"This coven is stronger than we ever have been before," Bruce continues, ignoring the feud in front of him. "There's no reason for this to get out of hand. However… we'd be fools to think this thing has really come here alone, and killing it quickly will only bring the rest of the pack. Tim," Bruce spins to face him and Tim straightens under the attention. "Find the creature - track it, find out what it's doing here."

"What - me?" Tim splutters. Bruce merely turns and begins to walk further into the Cave, leaving the two of them in shadow and the echo of his words.

"Of course," he says without looking back. "You wanted to see one up close, after all. Just watch its teeth."

Werewolves, fortunately, have a smell incredibly distinct from humans, so it doesn't take long for Tim to pick you out from the crowd. He's trailing after you as you wander down one of the many twisted streets of the city, keeping you in his sights as you move quickly with your head ducked low. 

You're nervous, he realizes quickly - because he can hear it, the frantic beating of your heart and the blood pumping through you. Tim finds himself running his tongue over one of his fangs and tipping his head back for just a moment, letting himself take his eyes off of you for just a second. But then he refocuses and you're suddenly…

You're gone, disappeared from in front of him. Tim freezes, staring at the spot where you'd been before glancing around. Night rose hours ago and, at this ungodly hour, the streets are deserted. It had just been the two of you out here and now, he thinks as he listens to the sudden silence - now it's just him. 

The silence stretches on. A street lamp somewhere flickers and a bat flies overhead.

The vicious, rumbling snarl that he hears from behind him isn't enough warning before the force of a wolf slamming him to the ground knocks the wind out of him. Even with his heightened reflexes, he wasn't fast enough to dodge before the two of you are tumbling across the empty road with snapping jaws and clawing hands. 

You roll, the both of you, through the yellow, pooled light of a street lamp and into one of the dripping, dirty alleys of the city, and that's where Tim finally rights himself. He smooths his hands through his tousled hair as he hisses at you, baring his fangs as the creature in front of him snarls and snaps dripping, yellowed teeth back at him. 

But you don't lunge again - not yet, at least. You circle him, keeping your pale, moonlit eyes focused on him as you growl and shake your fur out from the ordeal.

"You're the wolf," Tim blurts out, and you pause, faltering at the obviousness of it all. Tim crouches in front of you, cocking his head to the side with a curiosity that outweighs any fear that he should feel in this situation, and the action makes you stop completely and square yourself with him. 

"I've always wanted to really see one of you," he murmurs, staring at you with sharp, red eyes. "Can you do that whenever you want? I'd always thought it was just… on the full moon." Tim reaches for you then, like he's entranced by whatever morbid curiosity he's wrapped up in, and the sight of it all makes your hackles rise as you bare your teeth.

It's when you finally lunge at him, aiming for his outstretched hand, that Tim snaps back to the present moment and jerks back, up and onto the safety of a fire escape and away from you. He leans over the railing and watches you circle him from below for just a moment before he tips his head back and stares at the blotchy, darkened sky. 

"I think," he says slowly, beginning to tip his head back down, "that there's a lot more I'd like to learn about you before this is through." But by the time his eyes are trained on the ground again, you're… gone, disappeared into the blackened night again and leaving him alone. 

The next time that Tim comes after you, he feels like he's learned. Dick had chastised him properly when he'd told his brother about his first wolf encounter. He'd reprimanded Tim for not realizing that werewolves are just as supernatural as the vamps - they're fast and deadly and a lot harder to catch than humans.

So, this time around, Tim feels that he's learned. He's trailing you from the rooftops, sticking to vampire domain and staying in the skies as he watches you wander down below, weaving through streets and alleyways. 

But he finds himself… confused again. Because you're acting the way that you did on that first night - sharp and skittish and nervous, looking over your shoulder and keeping a hastened pace. 

But it can't be because of him, Tim thinks. So what…what are you so afraid of? 

Tim glances down to secure his footing for just a moment, but it's long enough for you to have disappeared a second time.

"Fuck," he spits, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "Oh my god, Dick's gonna kill me -"

"You're sloppy." A voice makes him whirl around and it's you standing there, your breath heaving with the effort of climbing up onto the roof. Your hands are clenched at your sides and your feet are braced like you're ready for a fight, but Tim just cocks his head to the side and stares at you.

"How'd you do that without me noticing?" he asks. You grit your teeth,

"You're not the first vamp I've hunted. Doubt you'll be the last," you snap, but Tim just hums and nods and turns fully to face you. 

"I'm not sloppy." He says it slowly, like he's unsure of the insult. You smile menacingly and something that feels a bit too much like fear crawls up Tim's spine. 

"The Waynes have ruled unchallenged for too long," you continue. "You don't know how to hunt anymore. You're sloppy, careless - can't even corner a lone werewolf properly."

"Ah," Tim responds, his voice hardening. "So it's true. You are here for a fight."

"No," you shake your head. "It's just an observation. I'm here," you say clearly, stepping towards him and quirking a brow when he takes a step back, "to tell you to stay away from me. Leave me alone."

"And leave you to come after us? Yea, no chance," Tim scoffs and you just glare at him.

"I don't have anything to do with your family and I don't want anything to do with your family," you snap. "I'm just trying to get away from all that."

"…What?"

"There's no war in Gotham City anymore. That's…that's what everyone says," you say quietly, your voice tapering off. "I just…I'm just trying to get away from it. I just wanted to find somewhere where no one would follow me."

When you dart off the roof, then, heading to the edge and kicking your legs over the side to drop down into the abyss below, Tim finds himself too bewildered to stop you. Your words turn over and over in his mind and he finds that he can't quite grasp why someone would come here willingly. He can't quite understand why someone would flee to a place as cursed as this. 

The game of cat and mouse that the two of you begin to play is a bit too much for Tim to want it to end, and he finds himself slinking off, away from the Cave and his prying family more and more often just to chase you down. 

He's shocked, startled into frozen silence when he finds you one night hidden in the corner of a deep, dark alleyway. You're plastered against the rough brick wall, unmoving and holding your breath, and when you lock eyes with Tim he sees how wild you look - like an animal caught in a snare. 

"What -" Tim begins, but you press a finger over your lips to shush him silently and you look at him desperately, your eyes wide and heart hammering against your ribcage. He slinks into the shadows next to you, keeping himself hidden as he watches you with furrowed brows and concern clouding his eyes. But he listens, nonetheless, straining to hear any sort of sound beyond the typical ruckus of the city.

He does hear something when he really listens, and it's enough to make Tim freeze, a cold sort of terror seeping into him. He can hear it, the bickering conversation of a group of men - and they're talking about you. They're asking where you went, following the trail of your footsteps and the sound of your howls. And Tim can hear it, the sound of a silver bullet clinking in the barrel of a gun. He can hear the grating clank of a wooden stake pressed into someone's palms.

Hunters.

There are werewolf hunters in Gotham… and they're here for you.

Tim stares at you, at the way your eyes squeeze shut in panic and you gasp in a shuddering breath. He stares and something burns in him. 

There have been no hunters in Gotham for centuries. The Waynes have been too powerful for too long for anyone to try to go up against them, especially humans with pitchforks and burning torches. 

But now… one lone werewolf is enough to bring all of that crashing down. One small person is enough to drag that fear back into their lives, even if it was against your own will. 

Tim grabs you by the collar of your shirt, tugging you toward a fire escape. When you resist, when you dig your heels in and shake your head, he hisses and bares his fangs. 

"Would you rather I hand you over to them?" he snaps. "It's me or them. Choose." There's a sort of betrayal that flashes through your eyes, then, but you knock his hand off of your collar and begin climbing up to the roof, anyway, trusting him to follow after you. 

The night sky, when you make it to the top, is as shrouded and dark as ever, the moon large and looming past the fog that bears down onto you. You stand with your back to Tim, your fists clenched as you take deep breaths and stare out toward the narrow, twisted city. 

"You've endangered us all," Tim spits, and your fists clench tighter.

"I'm sure you can handle it."

"No, that's not the point," he snaps as he reaches for you, grabbing you by the shoulder to make you spin and face him. "Why are they after you?"

"Because I'm a werewolf," you say dully. Tim grabs onto the collar of your shirt again and shakes you just a bit.

"Don't be stupid. You have to tell me what's going on or - or… just - please. Tell me," he trails off at the end, keeping you close to him with his fingers bunched into the fabric of your shirt. You put your hands on top of his, your warm palms meeting his ice-cold skin, and when Tim glances down he startles. 

He'd never seen you in just a t-shirt before, he realizes, and he sees it now - long, jagged scars on your arms. He knows what they're from - he recognizes them from what he's learned. They're scars from werewolf fights, deep gouges from claws and teeth marring your skin. 

"How," he falters. "What - you…"

"You're not supposed to leave your pack," you respond quietly, letting your hands rest atop his as he keeps his grip on your shirt tight. "It's… it's a crime, in a way. You're not supposed to run away."

"Why did you…" Tim looks up at you desperately, something akin to anguish flashing through his cold, red eyes, and a frown tugs on your lips as you try to understand why he's so upset by it all. "What…what happened? You have to tell me what happened."

"Well, I -" you shift on your feet. "I left, Tim. I - there's a war going on out there. My kind and - and yours - we're slaughtering each other. I… I left. I ran away from it. I ran away." Tim lets go of you, then, stumbling back and running his hands through his hair while you continue. "The… the rest of the world isn't like Gotham, Tim. Not all of us have the protection that you do."

"Why Gotham?" he asks abruptly, snapping his head back up to stare at you. "Why come here? You're not safe here."

"I'm not safe anywhere," you point out, but then you sigh and walk to the edge of the roof to sit with your feet swinging over the edge. The frigid winds of autumn are beginning to waft through the city, but the blood that pumps through you keeps you burning always and Tim, as he sits next to you slowly, finds himself unaffected by the cold against his frozen skin.

"There was a time," you continue to explain, "before the bats took over Gotham, when it was still lawless and… and wild. There was a time when my kind was still welcome here. It was… it was centuries, I know, but… I don't - I don't know. In a way, I guess, it's… it's just like coming home." You laugh then, a bit hysterically, at the trap of it all. Through generations and generations, the city has tugged you and pulled you harder and harder and harder until you couldn't help but stumble here. You couldn't help but try to begin to build a home here. 

"I…" Tim begins slowly, like the words are being tugged from him against his will. "I know what it's like to be… lonely. I - I know what it's like to feel like you don't belong somewhere."

"Is that so?" you sigh, tipping your head back as a patch of clouds part and the light of the moon shines down onto you. 

"I do," he insists rather earnestly. "I… I felt like that. When - when I was human." That makes you pause, makes you tip your head back down, abandoning the light of the moon to look at him, instead.

"You're not… upset about being bitten, then?"

"No, I -" Tim laughs. "I wanted it. I begged Bruce for it."

"Who would ever want such a thing?" you murmur, but there's no real accusation in your voice as you watch him. Tim just shrugs, clenching his hands in his lap.

"It's like I said, I… I was lonely. I didn't - I wasn't anybody or anything. I - I just… I just wanted to belong somewhere. That's all."

"Ah," is all you say in response, tipping your head back again to face the sky. But you're just a moment too late, this time, and the clouds have already swarmed to cover the moon again, leaving the two of you in heavy, damp darkness once more. 

Tim, meanwhile, stares down toward the ground, letting his eyes trace over the maze of streets that form the city that he's grown to love. It sort of burns when he remembers it, what it was like to be alone and lost and desperate for a soft place to land - desperate for a place to call home. 

"I don't get you," he says suddenly, his voice heavy as it cuts through the night.

"Hm?"

"You gave that up. You had that and you gave it up."

"Tim, I -" you sigh. "No… it wasn't like that. It wasn't that simple."

"Then explain it to me," Tim says quickly, as he turns to face you, propping a leg up on the ledge of the roof so that his knee presses against your hip and you can feel the coolness of his skin seeping into you through your clothes. "Make me understand."

"Why?"

"Because, I -" Tim trails off, staring at you like he's just realized the truth, himself. "Because, I… I want to understand you. I want to know you."

"I… did have those things," you sigh, reeling from Tim's confession and bulldozing on so as to not think about it. "I had a pack and a family and a… a purpose, I suppose. And I did - I gave that up. But it's not…it's not our war, Tim. It's not mine."

"Of course it is," he says immediately, but you sigh and place a hand on his knee, your thumb brushing against his inner thigh.

"No, listen. We are puppets, Tim, fighting a war that doesn't belong to us. Do you know how it started? Do you know why we're sworn against each other?"

"Well…" Tim says slowly. "No, but… I - I just don't remember. But I'm sure it's… I'm sure…"

"You don't even know why you're fighting anymore, do you?" you say gently, and Tim feels a bit like all of the air has been punched out of him. "What do you really believe in? What do you really want to do with those teeth of yours?"

"Well, I don't," Tim begins, and the panic that he feels makes a defensive sort of venom drip from his fangs and pool in his mouth. "I don't want to live like you, shivering alone in an alleyway in a city that you don't belong in while you're - you're hunted like an animal."

"I am an animal, Tim," you smile gently, and a guilt begins to eat at him while his head spins. "We both are."

But he finds that he's not listening to you very well now, too busy spiralling and reeling and feeling the world tip around him as your words ring through his mind over and over and over. 

Because you're right, he thinks. You're right because he's sitting here on a rooftop with you, his sworn enemy, and you're warm and kind and looking at him like you care about him. Your shoulder's brushing against his and the warmth of your palm is seeping into his thigh and all that he can think about is how lovely you look under the pale light of the moon.

"Maybe you have a point, though," you laugh, and it's a humourless, hollow sort of thing. "What's the point, really, if… if you're alone?" He wants to scream at you when you say that, wants to grab you by the collar and shake you and say that he gets it now, just a little bit. Because what's the point, really, of living, if you're living someone else's life?

But you're just sighing and closing your eyes and tipping your head back again and Tim finds that he can't speak. He finds that the words get caught in his throat on the way up. 

"Curled up in a corner of the world and left with nothing other than survival," you murmur, your eyes still firmly shut. "God, what a life. What a… a lie. What a way to pretend."

"You're not pretending," Tim blurts out, and his hand shoots out to wrap around your wrist and hold onto you, anchoring your palm to his thigh. "You're not because - because this is living, right? This is - you're doing it, aren't… aren't you? Isn't it - isn't this what it means to be alive?"

"Alive?" you say quietly, having opened your eyes to stare at him and watch his outburst unfold. "Do you… remember what it was like to be alive?" 

Tim lets go of you like you've burned him when you say that. He winces, curling into himself as he feels like he's collapsing under the weight of it all. He can feel his own cold, pale skin and the press of his fangs poking against his bottom lip. He can hear the sound of your heart beating, the rush of your blood through your veins. He can… he can remember - almost, what it was like to have his own beating heart.

"I'm… sorry," you say quietly, looking away from him and making an effort to tug your hand away. "I shouldn't have… I don't mean it like that. I'm sorry." Tim watches as your hand leaves his thigh, as the warmth of your palm melts away and the cold sets in. Looking out toward the endless, looming city, Tim wonders if it was ever really worth it - being alive here.

"Well, maybe…" he begins slowly, choosing his words carefully. "Maybe neither of us are really living. Maybe we - I don't know, maybe you always want what you don't have… or - or something."

"I guess," you laugh, and it's a hollow, lifeless sort of thing. "I guess I… I don't know, it's…" You pause, chewing on your lips as you weigh your words. Tim watches, letting his eyes flick over your lips.

"Lonely?" he offers quietly. You turn to look at him again, shifting so that your sides press together a bit more.

"I'm… I'm not lonely right now," you say quietly, your voice so soft that he's sure he would've missed it in another life where he hadn't turned into this thing. "Are… are you? Lonely, I mean. Right now?" Tim looks at you carefully, weighing your words in his soul as he listens to the unsteady beat of your heart and feels the warmth rolling off of you in waves and splashing onto him.

"…No," he admits, and it feels like a confession of sin, like an unholy action… to find love in an enemy and peace in the middle of a war. "No, I… I'm not - I don't feel lonely right now."

"It doesn't really make sense, does it?" you muse quietly, and as you lean back onto your palms, he finds himself missing your warmth desperately. When he chases after it, following your movement with his own and leaning over you, you let him, a lazy sort of grin slipping across your face. 

"What doesn't?" he murmurs in response, although the more he leans into you, the more his mind hazes over and he finds it difficult to listen to reason.

"This," you offer. "This… feud. This war. Are we not just… the same? Are we not creatures of the night, both of us?"

"Creatures, sure," Tim says easily in response as he flashes his fangs at you. You just roll your eyes in response and he listens for the scared uptick of your heartbeat that just… never comes. It's a steady, even beat and he feels it drawing him in and in and in until he's leaning so close to you that your noses are almost touching.

"There are real enemies down there," you murmur, but your voice has grown sombre and your heartbeat has jumped in a way that makes him snarl, all fangs and flashing eyes. You reach to tangle a hand into the hair at the nape of his neck and press your forehead against his. "Those hunters… they never stop, you know. They never slow, they never give up. They'll circle endlessly until they find me."

"I won't let them get to you," Tim says in a rush, his words jumbling together in his haste to promise himself to you. You smile ruefully, like you can't quite believe it and you're too tired to try.

"Why?" you challenge.

"Because you're mine."

"Your… enemy? Right…? Right, Tim?" 

"Yes," Tim says haltingly, leaning closer to you. Your lips brush against his and a shiver wracks through him.

"I don't think so," you whisper. "I don't think there's any need for us to fight each other. I don't think there's any need for us to fight this…"

That's all it takes, really, to have him lunging for you. Tim's lips are ice cold against yours and the grip that he has on your hips is firm, anchoring you to him. It's only when you reach to tangle both of your hands into his hair that he moves, cushioning the back of your head with his hand as you fall backwards until your back is pressed against the rooftop and he's pressed against you.

"Are you… sure?" he asks tentatively, breaking the kiss to skim his lips down the column of your throat and let his fangs scrape against your skin. "Are you sure you want this? You  - you want me?"

"Well, who else?" you quip. "Would you rather I let someone else do this to me?" That's enough to get another snarl from him before his lips are back on yours, taking and taking and taking.

"My love," Tim's voice wakes you slowly, his hand shaking your shoulder gently as you blink your eyes open.

"Hm?"

"The sun will be up soon… I have to go," he says, a bit sullenly. You huff and move to sit, rolling your shoulders out from the hard rooftop as he watches you. There are loving bruises from his lips and fangs littering your neck and collarbones and Tim smiles when he sees them, reaching forward to brush a thumb over some of them and delighting in your shiver.

"You should get out of here," you murmur, your voice thick with sleep still as you lean into his touch.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"You…" Tim pauses, frowning at you as he glances around the rooftop. "Those hunters are still out there. You need to be careful. You need - you need to be protected."

"I can protect myself, Timmy," you assure him gently, standing and stretching out your back and shoulders. "I've been doing it for a long time."

"But you don't -" Tim shoots to his feet to look you in the eye while he speaks. "You don't have to - not anymore. I'll… I want to - I just want to look out for you."

"Look out for yourself first," you quip gently, eyeing the light just beginning to crest over the horizon. "You need to get inside. And besides…"

"What?" Tim cocks his head to the side. You shoot him a sympathetic look.

"I'm not sure it's me you should be worried about. What do you think he'll do? Bruce, I mean. What - do you think he'll be happy about this? About you spending the night with something like me?"

"He…" Tim falters. "He doesn't know. Of course, he doesn't know. I wouldn't - I wouldn't do that to you."

"I…" you sigh, stepping forward to press a kiss to the corner of Tim's frown. "I didn't mean it like that. I just need - I want you to be careful. You'll get yourself into trouble if he finds out."

"He won't," Tim assures confidently. "He… he won't."

Tim thinks, as the sun sets once again and he slinks out of the Cave, that he's probably a coward. He considers it as he makes his way out into the crisp, cool air of the night and chases after you - he thinks back to all of the lies that he's begun to tell Bruce.

Your words ring through his head over and over, claims that you have to stand on your own two feet and carve your own soul swarming around him as he thinks of how small he's gotten under the shadow of someone else's war.

He thinks that he has to talk to you about it, has to fall to his knees and ask for guidance, ask for a direction to throw himself into. He thinks -

He smells blood. He sees blood, splattered across the pale concrete of the sidewalk and dripping from a nearby street lamp. He smells it, sweet and thick and heady and… it's yours. He knows it, can taste it in the air. It's your blood… and there's lots of it. 

It's a bit of a mad scramble, then, to chase after you. Tim’s senses, usually sharpened to perfection and designed to hunt, become fuzzy as waves of nauseating panic roll over him. He stumbles a bit, tumbling into an alleyway as he follows the scent and the sight of your blood smeared over the cracked, winding roads of this cursed, darkened city. He stumbles and he lurches and then… and then he comes face to face with you.

A great wolf, snarling and snapping and curled into the corner of a shady alleyway, pressed against the rough, brick wall as a silver bullet sits embedded in your shoulder. Tim sort of… freezes at the sight, at the blood oozing from the open wound and the way the smell of it hits the air, his tongue pricking and his fangs pressing against his lip. 

"My -" he lurches toward you. "My love, I - holy shit." He falls to his knees before you, the jaws of a wolf snarling and exposed above his head as he stares at the bullet and the silver poison that seeps into you from it. He can hear it, the scattered, frantic beat of your heart - he can hear the wheezing of your lungs and the slowing of the blood pumping through you.

You're dying, and all he can do is fall to his knees in front of you like a prayer. All he can do is curl into himself and grip onto his hair like he's going mad.

"Aw, Timmy," your voice is quiet and shaky and Tim's head snaps up to look at you, now curled on the hard, cold ground in your human form, a pool of your own blood seeping into you. "You look awful."

"Speak for yourself," he snaps weakly, but he reaches for you all the same, dragging your trembling form into his arms as you sway and your eyes blink sluggishly. You wonder, somewhere distant and unimportant, if you're here because you really trust him enough to save you, or if you just… have no choice. 

You wonder it as you see him pull his hand away from your shoulder to stare at the blood on it, at your blood, and when his pupils dilate and his tongue swipes over his bottom lip, you think that this must be a cruel, cruel way to die. Not by the hand of a hunter, but by the hand of your partner. Not by the hand of hate, but… but by the hand of love.

"I'm going to save you," Tim says, though, and the force that rings through you as his words knock the little bit of air that you have left from your chest. He grips your face with a bloody hand, forcing you to look at him and shaking you slightly when you try to let your eyes flutter closed. "I'm going to save you."

"I'm not sure you can, Timmy," you murmur, your voice heavy.

"Hey, no," he taps against your cheek to keep you awake. "You need to stay with me. You need to tell me - I need to know. Who did this? Who did this to you?"

"This isn't really the moment for vengeance, don't you think?" you offer in lieu of an answer. Tim groans and hunches over you, the smell and the sight and the near taste of your blood making his mind spin and his body sway with dizziness. 

He gets a bit too close, he realizes, when his fangs are suddenly scraping against the exposed skin of your throat. It's intoxicating, he finds, the feel of it all. But -

But then he feels it, the weakening flutter of your pulse under his tongue, and it's enough to make his head spin for an entirely different reason. 

"I'm going to save you," Tim repeats, and this time he's pulling you further into his arms as he stands, holding you securely against him. "I … I can't do this on my own, but - I'm… I know someone who can. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, right? I - I promised you, didn't I?"

"Sure," you say sleepily, your words a bit jumbled together as you cling to him. "But who really expects it, hm? A creature like you or me to keep a promise? Who really believes there's a life for things like us?"

"I do," he responds quickly, holding you closer. There's an earnest tilt to his voice that you've never heard before and you wonder, somewhere far, far away, if it's the first time that he's heard that from his own voice, as well. "I - I believe it," he continues. "I believe in a life for my- for you. I… I do. I believe in a life for myself."

"Well, isn't that nice," you murmur, and you mean it as much as you can right now. "I hope you get that, Timmy. I… I really do."

"We'll get it," he pleads with you, and there's a pain in him that feels new to you both. There's a love and a loss that feels so human, so alive that it's sort of… foreign. It's almost out of place coming from a dead thing like him. 

It's sound that first greets you when the beginnings of consciousness begin to stir inside you. It's the sound of water dripping from stalactites, of a waterfall crashing somewhere and a rushing river flowing against rocks. It's the sound of bats chirping and squeaking as a thousand wings flutter and flap somewhere high up. It's the endless echo of it all spinning and spinning and spinning and -

And it's Tim, sitting next to you and picking at his nails nervously.

You can smell him, of course, with that animal nose of yours. Just like you can smell… the cave that you're in, wet and damp and dark, reeking of vampire. Vampires beyond just your nervous, stressed-out lover.

The realization makes you shoot fully awake as you rip your eyes open, struggling to sit up right away and wincing at the searing pain that rips through your shoulder. Tim makes a panicked, strangled sort of noise and reaches for you, shushing you gently and trying to coax you back into a relaxed, lying position.

"Tim," you say earnestly, and there's a panic in you - a fear in you that feels as if it's about to crawl up from your throat. "Tim, I'm -"

"It's ok," he says soothingly, smoothing a hand over your hair as he pulls you into his chest, trying desperately to get you to relax as agony blooms from your bullet wound. "Shh, shh, it's alright. You're safe, I promise."

"I'm in a vampire cave, Timmy, I can't - I'm - it's not -"

"It's ok," he says again, firmly this time as he clamps you against his chest, forcing you to stop your struggling and squirming. If you weren't so hurt, if your head wasn't spinning and your eyes weren't blurring, you'd be able to fight back. Especially now, when the full moon hangs overhead, miles above this endless, blackened, twisting cave that you find yourself lost in. 

"Timmy," you all but whine, tired and trembling and curling into him as he holds you, shushing you and smoothing a hand over your hair and pressing kisses to the crown of your head.

"It's ok," he repeats. "It's alright. You're… you're safe here, I promise. Nothing's going to hurt you in here."

"You can't know that," you say quietly, pushing against him just a bit. He sighs and readjusts himself so that he can look down to you.

"I  - I said I would save you, didn't I? I said I'd bring you to someone who could save you," Tim says earnestly, tightening his grip on you. You freeze at his words, staring up at him with wide eyes as the pieces of your ill-fated night come back to you in burning, painful flashes.

"Who… Tim. Tim, who - what happened? Who…"

"It was…" Tim shifts, looking away from you pointedly as he twists his fingers with yours nervously. "Bruce. It was Bruce."

"It was… Tim -" You laugh a bit hysterically, the sound echoing around the endless, looming cave. "Tim - no, it's… No. he didn't."

"He did," Tim insists. "He did. He… I don't know. I don't know why."

"Is he… is he here?" You shrink a bit as you say it, pressing against Tim's chest as he frowns and wraps his arms around you a bit tighter.

"No," he assures, shushing you again gently. "He's out - they all are."

"For what?"

"Well, see, there's a bit of a pest problem in Gotham," Tim drawls, a hint of mirth in his voice that makes you narrow your eyes. "Werewolf hunters. Nasty things, I'm sure you know. The rest of the family is just… doing a bit of clean up."

"You're -" You squirm out of Tim's grip just enough to sit up and he takes the opportunity to drag you into his lap, your legs wrapping around his waist as you smooth a hand over the hair on the nape of his neck. "Your family is out… to go after werewolf hunters?"

"Yes," Tim says plainly. You give him a withering sort of look. 

"Bruce Wayne, King of the Vampires, saved the life of a werewolf and now he's out, running around under the full moon and tearing apart hunters?" you say dryly.

"Yes," Tim repeats. "It's his city, after all. It's his job."

"It's not," you say quickly, frowning as you tilt your head back to look at Tim, at his red eyes and pale, cold skin. "This is… this is something else. Timmy, you've - you've got to tell me what happened."

"Well - it's," Tim shifts where he sits, looking away a bit bashfully in a way that makes you follow his gaze with your own and narrow your eyes suspiciously. "I don't think he's ever seen me like that before," he continues quietly, a trembling sort of quality making his voice waver. "I've never… I've never begged him for something like that. I don't - I don't think I've ever cared enough about anything to beg like that. It - I don't know, I think maybe it scared him."

"It didn't scare you?" you say gently. The smile that Tim gives you is pained and frail.

"It terrified me so much that I swear to god my heart started to beat again for the first time," he whispers, curling against you so that he can press his face to your neck and feel your pulse against his tongue. 

"Oh, my love," you offer gently, curling your fingers in his hair as you pull him closer. He laughs a bit wetly and pulls away from you just enough to look down at you again, smoothing his hands over your hips to pull you closer on his lap.

"But, you know, I…" Tim pauses as he cocks his head to the side and you watch as the thoughts roll through his mind. "I think, maybe, he… I don't know - maybe Bruce wanted me to, just a bit."

"What… what do you mean?" you ask, cautiously.

"Well, I - I don't think I'm a very good liar. I don't think there's much that really happens in this city that Bruce doesn't know about." Tim shrugs. You straighten as you stare at him.

"So you're saying he - what, he knew? The whole time?"

"I don't - I don't really know. I'll probably never know for sure. Bruce doesn't -" He cuts himself off with an echoing sort of laugh. "He doesn't really share. But - I don't know… I feel like I saw something in him when I showed up with you. I feel like he was almost… proud." Tim shifts in his seat and looks out to the endless darkness of the cave. "I feel like he was proud of me, maybe, for going out and starting to lie. For… I - I don't know, maybe he was proud when I went out and started to become something beyond a shadow of this place."

"Tim, I'm -" you start, your heart flipping in your chest at his confession, at the earnest waver in his voice. 

"It's lucky, you know," he barrels on, like he can't stop all of it now that it's started, like he's split open his chest and cracked open his ribs and can't keep his unbeating heart contained anymore. "Bruce said that it's lucky, I mean. Because it's the full moon. It's - he said that if it was a different time in the cycle, if you hadn't been as strong, you wouldn't have…" He trails off, then, holding you tighter to his chest as he makes a choked, painful sort of sound somewhere in the back of his throat.

"But, I… I didn't" you offer gently, letting him hold you against him as tightly as he needs. "I didn't leave you. I wouldn't - I won't." Tim laughs a bit frantically, burying his face into your neck.

"What an odd thing," he murmurs, his voice muffled, "to belong in such a place."

"Yes," you agree, "but what a place to belong. What a place to call home."

"I don't think you should be here," you quip without looking back, and you hear a sigh in response before Tim breaks out into a jog to catch up to you where you're strolling down one of the endless, darkened sidewalks of Gotham. "It's too late - early. You don't have much time until the sun comes up."

"Was I close this time?" he asks rather sullenly. You pretend to think about it for a moment.

"I only caught you, hm… three blocks ago? Not bad," you shrug. He groans and reaches to tug you to him, holding you against his chest so that he can bury his face into your neck and nip at the delicate skin there with his fangs.

"I don't think you should be out right now," he murmurs gently and you sigh, patting him on the head.

"The new moon happens every month, Timmy," you placate softly. "I'll be ok."

"You're not at your strongest right now," he says in defence and you can't help but shrink a bit under his piercing, red gaze when he pulls his head back up to stare down at you. You don't look well, you know, the effects of being so far from the full moon wearing on you as the dark circles under your eyes grow and your hands tremble.

"It's only temporary," you offer soothingly, pulling him against you to let him wrap an arm around your shoulder as you continue walking down the cracked sidewalk. "It will pass. It always does." And it's true, you think as you step one foot in front of the other. It will pass, it will pass, it will pass. It always does. 

And it's made easier, of course, by the sturdy weight by your side and the arm that holds you so steady. It's made easier, somehow, by the fluttering of a bat's wings overhead and the looming, watchful gaze of a Vampire King. 

"Temporary," Tim huffs, grumbling under his breath. You reach for his hand so that you can tangle your warm fingers with his cold ones and press kisses to his knuckles.

"But you're here, right? Hm? What could possibly happen to me?" you ask teasingly.

"Nothing," Tim answers seriously, and you smile gently as you squeeze his fingers with your own. "Nothing. I'm here - always."

"Well, isn't that nice," you say, and you mean it. How nice, you think, to have something constant- something permanent, even as the world shifts and changes around you. How safe to have something so sturdy to fall back on. 

"I don't mind it, really," you continue as you tip your head back and look up at the empty, blackened sky. "It's just a part of it, you know. It comes… and it goes."

"Like… like all things, I suppose," Tim admits a bit stiffly. You offer him a loving smile.

"Like most things," you correct. "Not… not you. Not us."

"Never us," he responds quickly, his arm around you tightening as a cold breeze blows through and you shiver slightly. "Never us. I - I… I love you. And that's - I mean… that's as constant as anything can be."

And how odd, you think as you stop abruptly so that you can pull him in by his collar and kiss him, to find safety in the arms of a vampire. How strange to have the heart of your enemy pressed against yours and to feel it come back to life just so that it can beat in time with yours. 

How right it all feels… despite, despite, despite.

Because it's one thing, you suppose, to trust him when you're at your strongest. But it's another thing entirely, you think, to trust him at your weakest, to place your glittering heart into his undead hands and watch him hold it with tender care. 

How interesting, you think, to build a home in this of all things. But it is home, you consider as he presses his cold lips against yours and holds you ever so gently against a darkened alley wall. And the home that you build is found where you least expect it sometimes.

Home is the open blue sky and the full moon hanging in it. Home is deciding where you belong and carving a space for yourself into the night. Home is the crisp, cold air of a cursed, tangled city that never sleeps and never really dies.

[darkmatilda]

╰┈➤ the pumpkin reaper

epilogue

previous parts:

1 2 3

in which you and reid are visiting your brother in hospital after he tried to commit a suicide

tw: mention of a suicide attempt

contents: spender reidxfem!bau!reader, it's an epilogue, please check the previous parts if you missed them!

words: 3.1k

You couldn’t believe those words came out of your mouth, but they did. And what’s more, they were sincere.

It was late in the evening when you were heading back to the office in Quantico. No case ever ended with just catching the unsub – after that came the long hours of report writing and paperwork. After everything you’d been through, the team almost forbade you from taking on that task. Instead, they insisted that you go straight home and get some proper rest.

You rolled your eyes and nodded, like a child whose mother insists they zip up their jacket. Hotch was nowhere to be seen, Morgan was listening to music with his eyes closed, Emily and JJ were absorbed in their conversation, and Rossi… well, Rossi was doing whatever it is Rossi does. So, you reached for the case files and tucked yourself away in a quiet corner of the jet. You wanted to go over everything again, even though you knew that as soon as you saw Logan's photo, all the unpleasant memories would come rushing back with relentless force.

 But before you could open the folder to the first page, someone simply took it from your hands. You looked up to see none other than Reid—blue shirt, sleeves rolled halfway up, a look of perpetual sleeplessness, his usual worry, and… joy. Small, but noticeable.

You, too, were almost disturbingly happy. Escaping death filled you with a mood akin to the high after smoking two joints back-to-back. Of course, it would only last for a brief moment; by tomorrow, you’d likely be tossing and turning in bed, plagued by nightmares. A familiar pattern.

"I don’t even want to see you trying to work right now," Spencer said, taking a seat next to you and placing the folder beside him, just out of your reach. Or at least far enough that you’d have to put in some serious effort to grab it—and your sore ribs had no intention of letting you do that.

"Then what do you suggest I do?" you asked, rolling your eyes. "I don't want to sleep."

"Kafka on the Shore?" he suggested.

"I've already read it. By the way, what was the deal with the soldiers and the hut in the woods at the very end?"

"Well, that's an element that leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation."

"Thanks for the explanation, that told me a lot," you chuckled. You pulled your knees to your chest, trying to get more comfortable in your spot, but the movement triggered a wave of pain. You hissed.

“They should have kept you in the hospital for at least one night,” Reid said, suddenly straightening up. “Do you need anything? There might be some ice around… or I could just leave, and you could lie down…”

“No. You’re staying,” you decided firmly. He raised an eyebrow at your abrupt response. You quickly followed up with an explanation. “Well, I’ve finished reading my book, and you took my files. So now you’re responsible for my potential boredom. It’s your duty to entertain me.”

“Yeah” he agreed with a smirk “It’s my duty” 

"So, how do you plan to do that? Are you going to dance? Sing? Juggle?"

"I can't dance or sing, and I don't have anything to juggle. Is it enough if we just talk? Or is that too common of an entertainment for you?"

You pretended to think for a moment.

"Fine, I guess."

"Then what are you planning to do when you get back?"

"Visit Jeremy."

"Oh, right, sorry…”

"Come on," you interrupted, waving your hand. A moment of silence followed as you hesitated before speaking again. However, you remembered that you had decided to stop staying silent about your worries and problems, at least in his presence. "It's just... it really stresses me out. I don't know how I should talk to him, I'm afraid I'll panic when I see him..."

Spencer cleared his throat before answering. 

“That... can really be tough,” he said, not bothering to lie or reassure you that everything would go perfectly. “But hey, remember that he’s probably looking forward to seeing his big sister. Even if you start talking about something you think is silly, he’ll be happy just to have you there.”

He made you smile, though the corners of your eyes began to gently dampen. You wiped them discreetly, not wanting to burst into tears on the jet.

"I hope you're right. And I hope he doesn't hate me for not being there for him..."

You stopped, feeling him take your hand. You realized you had been clenching it into a fist for quite some time.

"I don't know Jeremy, so I can only guess how he'll react. But I'm sure of one thing—he definitely doesn't hate you."

For a long time, you simply stared at your hand in his warm grip. Your fingers relaxed, releasing the tension that had been between them, becoming limp yet yearning for the touch.

"Spencer," you said suddenly, taking a deep breath. "I don't know if I can ask you this... but... you've been there for me this whole time and... okay, I’ll understand if you say no, but... would you maybe... want to visit him with me? I don't know if I can do it alone."

You waited for his response, your heart beating faster with each passing moment. Maybe it was too much? Maybe you shouldn’t be asking him for something like this; maybe it crossed the line of your acquaintance? Just a year ago... no, even a week ago, you never would have imagined you’d be begging anyone for something like this. You would have forced yourself to do it alone, ignoring your fear.

He simply smiled.

"Of course, you can ask me to do that. And I'm glad I'll be able to accompany you."

*

The sound of quickly pressed keys echoed as you gave the hospital receptionist your brother’s last name.

The stark whiteness of the place and the blinding, intense light felt like a scene straight out of a horror movie. The thought of seeing Jeremy soon made you tremble. You had so many questions for him, including why he even tried to take his own life, but you knew you couldn’t ask them just yet. He didn’t need an interrogation to satisfy your curiosity; he needed support.

You were so overwhelmed at the thought of seeing him that you shifted impatiently from foot to foot. You felt stressed but also excited. After all, he was your little brother, and you missed him. Standing beside you, Reid smiled slightly, noticing your behavior. If you were hurting him by squeezing his hand as tightly as you could, he didn’t let it show.

"Who are you to the patient?" the receptionist asked.

"His sister."

"And you?" she turned to Spencer.

"A frie—" he began, probably intending to say friend.

"Fiancé," you interrupted, quickly offering a word that began with the same letter. You worried that if the woman found out he wasn’t connected to you or Jeremy, she might ask him to stay in the waiting room. You didn’t expect him to go into Jeremy's room with you, but you wanted the reassurance that he’d be right outside, not on the other side of the hospital.

Reid pierw spojrzał na ciebie jak na wariatkę. Próbowałaś mu niemo przekazać, aby włączył się do twojej desperackiego przedstawienia. Na szczęście, niesamowicie szybko zrozumiał o co chodzi. 

“Zgadza się, narzeczonym. Basically, mężem. Bierzemy ślub…jutro” zaimprowizował, kiwając głową z takim zaangażowaniem, jakby sam wierzył w te wyjaśnienia. “Cóż, w zasadzie to nie jutro, a za dwa dni, ponieważ jutro niedziela, a my jesteśmy katolikami. W naszej religii zniechęca się do zawierania związków małżeńskich w ten dzień, ponieważ jest to dzień Mszy Świętej…”

Reid first looked at you like you were crazy. You tried to silently signal him to join in on your desperate act. Luckily, he caught on incredibly fast.

"That's right, fiancé. Basically, husband. We're getting married... tomorrow," he improvised, nodding with such conviction that he almost seemed to believe it himself. "Well, actually, not tomorrow, but the day after, because tomorrow is Sunday, and we’re Catholic. In our religion, 

“Darling,” you gritted through your teeth, seeing the receptionist’s confused expression.

“In any case, I’m very close to the patient,” he emphasized.

If he said anything more, you would’ve nudged him with your elbow.

“Well… in that case… the patient is in room number fourteen. It’s that way…” She pointed in the right direction. You thanked her with an overly wide smile. “And… congratulations.”

“God bless you,” Reid said as he waved goodbye.

You quickly turned around, so she wouldn’t see your burst of laughter. As soon as you were out of the receptionist's sight, you hit him on the back so hard that a woman with a cast on her arm almost dropped her coffee. He laughed, and you awkwardly tried to hide how much the whole situation amused you as well.

“If I had let you say one more word, she wouldn’t have let either of us in,” you complained. “She would’ve thought we were freaks. Religious freaks. Or maybe point us to the psychiatric ward.”

“Hey, I’m not the best actor. You should know that,”

“I didn’t know. I’ll remember for next time, though I’m not sure if there will ever be another situation where you’ll need to pretend to be my husband.”

"Fiancé," he corrected. "You decided that yourself."

"Basically a husband. You decided that yourself."

You didn’t say anything more, only grabbed the edge of his coat sleeve to slow his pace. You were standing outside room 14, right in front of the door. You didn’t even peek inside; you weren’t ready to see Jeremy just yet.

“I need one more minute,” you whispered.

“Take all the time you need,” he replied gently.

 The playful mood that had accompanied you both was gone. Not knowing what to do with your hands, you stood on tiptoe and began adjusting his poorly tied scarf. 

“Sorry,” you muttered under your breath. “It’s been bothering me since I saw you.”

"I'll wait for you here, okay?" he asked quietly. Because you were so close to him, he barely had to raise his voice at all. "Jeremy doesn’t know me, I don’t want to just show up unannounced..."

“Are you coming in or what?”

You turned around, startled, to see none other than Jeremy. Lying on the hospital bed, poking at a container of chocolate pudding with a spoon, and most importantly, awake. 

At first, you were surprised, but soon emotion took control of your body, and you ran to him as if he were about to disappear.

"Oh my God, I can finally see you..." His shirt, which you hugged tightly, muffled your words.

"The pudding spilled on your jacket."

"I don't care."

He chuckled into your hair, holding you tighter. You stayed like that for a moment, desperately holding back tears. If even one had surfaced, you would’ve fallen apart like a child.

ou pulled away after a long time, immediately noticing that his eyes were also filled with tears. However, he quickly wiped them away with his hand. Still, he was a sixteen-year-old boy, and crying in front of his sister felt like public humiliation for him, a shame that would last forever. You tried to do everything you could to avoid looking at his wrists. Both hands were wrapped in bandages, and from the conversation with your father, you learned that they had put in a lot of stitches. You focused on looking at his face—young, similar to yours, with the same blue eyes.

"Are parents visiting you?"

He shrugged.

"Father, surprisingly, more often. Mother drops by irregularly and talks about strange things. Apparently, our neighbor's dog has worms, and it really pisses her off. My mother, not the neighbor. Though, probably the neighbor too..."

You didn't know why you started crying.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry..." you mumbled, your words slurring. “I should have gotten here earlier, and I didn’t. I regret so much that I didn’t, I’m sorry. I should have been here the moment you woke up.”

He didn’t say anything, letting you lament. Finally, you wiped away the last tear, then apologized to him about eighteen more times. You sat together in silence for a moment, busying yourself with wiping the dirty jacket. He wasn’t joking about the pudding.

“How are you feeling?”

He shrugged.

“Tolerable, I guess. By the way, who was that guy who came in with you?”

You turned toward the entrance, but Spencer was nowhere to be seen. He must have sat on one of the chairs outside the room, and knowing him, he’d probably started reading some medical brochure.

“A friend,” you replied briefly. “I hope it doesn’t bother you that I brought him... It’s just…”

You didn’t know how to explain that you couldn’t have made it here without support.

“He works for the FBI too?” he asked, suddenly curious. “Would he tell me more about the job than you do?”

You crossed your arms over your chest, pretending to be dead serious.

“I won’t let him tell my little brother any graphic details.”

“I’m not a kid!”

“To me, you are, and always will be.”

He looked like he was holding back from sticking his tongue out at you.

“Call him,” he asked. “I’d love to meet your friend. Is he a friend, or a friend?”

“Jeremy, you’re ridiculous…”

But you fulfilled his request. Spencer stared at you with wide eyes when you told him that your brother wanted to see him. As he entered the room, he almost tripped over... probably his own feet, since there was nothing else to trip on. And that’s how the rest of the visit went, the three of you together. Jeremy alternated between complaining about the hospital food and bombarding Reid with questions about absolutely everything related to being a profiler. He had always been fascinated by it, but after everything that had happened to you, you couldn’t, with a clear conscience, recommend that job to him. Spencer had been explaining everything in detail to him, and for the next hour, you almost felt like an intruder in their private conversation, which amused you instead of offending you.

Spencer left a moment before you, giving you a chance to say goodbye to your brother privately. When you finally released him from your embrace, promising you'd come back tomorrow, the same nurse who had spoken with you at the reception entered the room. She was checking Jeremy’s condition as you headed for the exit.

“Wait,” she suddenly said. “I think your husband left his scarf.”

She held up the purple scarf, indeed Reid's. You were about to thank her and take it when you noticed Jeremy’s mouth hanging open, and with horror, you realized what she'd said.

"Forgive me, dear sister, but what the fuck?”

*

“So, he’s convinced that we had a secret, spontaneous wedding that you didn’t tell him about?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

In reality, Jeremy had probably realized immediately that there was a misunderstanding, but he just couldn’t pass up the chance to tease you. He would likely bring it up again for the rest of your life. You were also worried that you'd get an angry phone call from your mother asking why you didn’t mention your “wedding,” but overall, you were content with how the meeting went.

You both walked together in an unknown direction, neither of you sure when you should part ways or if you even wanted to. You didn’t want to, but you had no idea about him. The weather was much better than in the town where you had spent the last few days. The fewer trees meant that autumn wasn’t as pronounced. It was only present in the chilly, gusty wind.

"If you don't have any plans, how about going out to eat?" you suggested.

"Sure." Reid agreed immediately, and the corner of your mouth twitched at the speed of his response. "What are you in the mood for?"

"Well, anything. There's a good restaurant on the corner of this street... Oh, God, I just remembered, I owe someone dinner as a thank you."

"Dinner? As a thank you?" he repeated with a strange look on his face. Before he could say anything else, he caught himself and snorted. "Interesting. Just curious, is it someone I know?"

"Oh, you know him." You continued with a barely suppressed smile. "Do you remember James Rivas? The forest ranger?"

Reid literally stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.

"Dinner? With him?"

"That's right. Well, he saved my life, so I guess I owe him that."

You were shocked when you learned how your team knew where to find you after you were kidnapped. The bunker Osborne took you to was unknown to the local authorities, hidden deep in the forest, far from any paths. When the rumor spread through the town about who was responsible for the murders and that an FBI agent had been kidnapped, the forest ranger showed up at the police station. He revealed that he knew the place where you might have been held because, as a child, he used to go there with friends, including Logan Osborne.

But of course, you had no intention of taking him to dinner. You just wanted to laugh at Reid's reaction.

"You're absolutely not owed anything by him!" he blurted out with emotion, a hint of anger in his voice. "If he'd only remembered that he knew about the existence of some bunker, you wouldn't have been kidnapped in the first place. You wouldn't have had to go through that hell, and I wouldn't have been losing my mind the whole time, not knowing what happened to you. Plus, have you forgotten what an awful person he is? He's arrogant, self-absorbed, and full of self-admiration—do you really want to have dinner with someone like that...are you laughing?"

He furrowed his brow, completely confused by your reaction.

“God, Reid, I was just joking! I’d rather die than spend another hour with that jerk. Especially voluntarily,” you explained, laughing between words. Something in his remark made you smirk. “Were you really losing your mind when I was kidnapped? “

“You’re impossible," he snorted. “Where’s that restaurant?”

“Wait, don’t change the topic and answer my question”

He simply looked at you, tilting his head to the side.

 “Isn’t it obvious?”

taglist: @miriamnox @xx-spooky-little-vampire-xx @nightfullofparadox

thank you everyone for reading <3

[zepskies]

@lamentationsofalonelypotato

Omg yay!! I'm so excited to dive into your thoughts on Part 2. As you saw, it's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster. 😅

Alright it is devastating right off the bat and I know, I know I should be worried about her and I am. I am SO worried, but my mind completely went somewhere else when Dean PICKED HER UP. The man is so strong and I am just...

LOL girl I don't blame you for being distracted. The mental image of Dean manhandling in Protective Mode does things to me too. 🤣

I was prepared for this coming but dang... "I hope you've learned your damn lesson" is a line that breaks my heart more than I should. It cuts to the quick for me, because to me it's worse than just saying "I told you not to do something." It's not heartless, but it's enough of a rendition of it that it just makes you go "oh wow."

I love this observation. That's exactly what I felt inherently when I was writing that line. It felt more powerful to me than "I told you so" or the like. It has the feeling of that, but with more of an edge, even though you know he cares about her.

I was literally screaming. It's like he wants her to kill him. I know that Dean loves her so much but oh my goodness it's about to get so real for him. Man is about to be torn to shreds.

LMAO I remember someone saw the preview of Part 2 and commented, "the quiet, but devastating anger he'd be reckoned with if he said that to me." And I was like, YEP, that's exactly it. Mans playing with his life. 😅😅😅

You just wanna go:

Even though she's upset, Dean is still her best friend and the man she loves and even though he's the one that made her feel this way, she still wants to be comforted by his presence. I always think that, this particular thing is so bittersweet to read about in relationships. Or at least that's how I took this bit 😅.

That's precisely how I intended it! Now looking back, I feel like I should have had her leave him by himself in his room to sleep in another room. But at the time I was writing, I was thinking that for her in particular, despite this being the biggest fight they've had so far in their relationship, he's still the one that makes her feel safe after a bad hunt. 💙

Side note: I am happy that the reader didn't have to tell the woman about her son. That would have broken me to read that especially after the reader promised that they would find her son in part one.

Oh my God, yeah. I considered having her be the one to face her "mistake" and talk to the mother, but I felt that having Sam take that on would be better, even as it added to the reader's guilt (and it would keep the story moving).

Oh my word. I love you friend, but WHY!? Dang it, this pricked at my heart. It's so good, so heart wrenching. I feel so bad for him, but it really just reinforces why he "lost it" with the reader earlier. Goodness the trope of the reader getting yelled at by someone who loves them about putting themselves in danger really is just such a good one for Dean and you do it so well.

Lmaooo I knowww, I'm sorry! All the angsty feels in this one. 😭 Now you see the full weight of why Dean popped off the way he did. He just feels things so deeply, it comes out sometimes in anger, when at the root of it all, it's fear.

Thank you though for that compliment! I think this is the only time I've written that Dean trope. Because I honestly think it's overused, but I tried to do it in a way that made sense for the ultimate growth of their relationship and who Dean is.

His apology is really just pricking at my heart. It's so good, so forthcoming so honest. And the thought that he was "better off alone" is so on brand for him. I know that we've talked about that before, but it really does fit him, and I love how you weave it into this fic.

Aww thank you! 😭😭 Weirdly enough, that was one of my favorite parts to write? Maybe I just like the heartfelt hurt/comfort breaking into fluff moments. The "better off alone" thing I thought was implied throughout the later seasons of the show after Dean lets go of Lisa and Ben, so I wanted to explore that deeper here, even though it hurt my heart to write it. 💙

She's crying... I'm crying. It's really just tears all around and such a good moment. Also the him saying "You don't have to cry for that"... YES SHE DOES.

Everyone's crying!! 😭 YES ABSOLUTELY SHE DOES -- and she's a verified crier. I see a lot of fics where the reader is tough as nails, "doesn't cry very often," but I wanted to create a reader character who is a badass, but still has a soft heart. (Latinas also can be very emotional, but not to say we're adhering to stereotypes around here LOL. 🤣🤣)

This is just overall a really wonderful vulnerable moment that you've captured that feels real for both the reader and Dean. Especially when she talks about "working with my heart, not my head." I think that if it were me, I would also be "working with my heart." I don't think that I'd be able to take myself emotionally out of the situation that they're in all the time because they're hunters.

Thank you so much!! 🙏🏽🥹🥹 Yeah same, and it's definitely a contrast with Dean, who obviously cares about helping people and takes way too much responsibility on his shoulders, but he's been doing this so long and seen so much that he's learned to compartmentalize a bit more.

Hoping for some FORESHADOWING 🙏🏻👀

Oh girl yesss! If you make it to the last two stories in the series, remember this moment. 😏💜

Also the salsa lesson is just so cute. And the way you took a really emotional moment to a cute salsa dance to a steamy session to a giggly awkward moment is great. The transitions make it seamless. And the song choices were perfect! When the reader was describing what the song meant I was like, "oh yeah, that's him right there. There's the man officer." lmao 🤣

Ahaha thank you so much!! I LOVE me some salsa music, and it was a fun challenge to try and transition between these scenes. From one writer to another, I always appreciate those "technical" observations. 💓💓💓

Oh big YEP!! "Devorame Otra Ves" was the first song I thought of when the salsa idea came. Dean, in fact, is that guy. 🤣🤣

I was again so emotional reading this, because oh my word, poor Dean just reliving the moments where the reader almost died.

Sorry for jerking the angsty chain again there! 🤣 Poor guy, he went through an ordeal just as much as she did.

And also the final scene 👀🌶️ I should have known from the gif at the beginning tbh lol.

LMAO Oh yeah, the gif was a dead giveaway for what was coming later on. 😏 And thank you for shouting out the “What, now you’re shy?” line! It's a special kind of intimate, I thought, for her to be kind of embarrassed about what she's just done, but Dean like, "uh-uh, you're not getting away that easily." 😂😂

Also I love you for using a Chicago Fire gif!! loll Was a big fan of that show back in the day.

Not to mention that the sex was also giggly towards the end and I really just love that. And the love confessions KNOCKED ME OUT.

Awww thank you! I love me some fun giggly romantic smut. 😂

Fun fact on her confession! When she says I love you twice, she's actually saying it in two different ways:

I love you, you’d said. I love you ("te amo," you're my love) and I love you ("te quiero," you're my family), more than you can believe and understand.

Oh I'm riding a train of emotions, and all of this was so good. Especially Sam walking in on them. I was laughing so hard at Dean's reaction:

Lol but seriously, I really appreciate that, thank you!! This story was definitely an emotional rollercoaster. I'm so glad you enjoyed it though!! 💕 ...And Sam's little mishap LOL. Dean has very little shame -- something he's going to prove later on again in the series. 😂

It's all wonderful my friend! And I can't wait to read another fic from this universe! 😊

Thank you SO very much!! Honestly you don't know how happy it makes me that you're enjoying this series so far -- and spoiling me with such lovely and thoughtful feedback. 🥰💕💕

Devour Me - Part 2

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Plus-Sized/Latina!Reader 

Summary: When you and Dean start to press each other’s buttons, both of your tempers ignite. To make up for it, you give him an impromptu salsa dancing lesson…one he didn’t exactly ask for. (18+)

AN: Here's Part 2! **Read Devour Me: Part 1

Song Inspo: “Yo No Se Mañana” by Luis Enrique. But really it’s “Ven Devórame Otra Ves” by Lalo Rodriguez. (You’ll see why.) 🤭

Word Count: 5,400

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only! Blood, character death and violence, smutty smut, angst, Dominican slang, and tons of sexy fluff.

☕ Midnight Espresso Masterlist

Part 2: "Telenovela Style"

Your resulting scream of agony is as unforgiving as the ground when your knees buckle, hitting the hard cement.

Andy grips you with the strength of a monster. 

Then he holds you down as he drinks your blood. 

No matter how you struggle and whimper, you can’t push him off, and you’re getting weaker by the second.

Until Andy is ripped away from your neck, and is taken care of the way all vampires must be. He doesn’t even feel the blade coming. 

When you’re able to look up, Dean stands above you with thinly veiled fury. He doesn’t have time to consider what he’s just done. 

He bends to gather you up into his arms, all the while trying to stamp down the panic clenching his heart. He calls your name, but you can only make weak sounds as your bleary eyes meet his. 

“Dean,” you manage. The ragged wound in your neck is bleeding profusely down your chest and shoulder, seeping into your shirt. He takes your hand and clamps it hard against your neck, even though it makes you whimper.

“Gotta stop the bleeding,” he says, apologetic but firm. “Keep pressing.”

In your stupor of pain, you don’t realize that your screech woke the entire nest. Dean has to lock up his worry; he looks up and finds his brother and Cas already fighting a hoard of angry vampires. 

Dean carries you over to them and lays you down against the wall with the other humans. He keeps a protective line in front of you, but he decapitates a vampire before she can sink her fangs into Sam next.

The two of them work together, and with Castiel’s smiting power behind them, the angel and the two men are able to clear the rest of the nest. 

By the end, only you and two of the women being held captive are still alive. The third girl’s heart just finally gave out. Sam takes the survivors to the nearest hospital. 

Meanwhile, Castiel approaches where you sit up against the inside of the barn, barely awake, while Dean kneels with you, holding you to his chest. He meet’s Cas’s blue-eyed request with a nod. So Cas stretches out a hand and touches two fingers to your forehead. 

You’re healed in an instant. Dean marvels, like he always does when Cas displays his power. Dean is able to breathe a little easier, the vice grip on his heart easing as he touches your neck.

The tan skin is once again smooth, if still stained with blood. You blink back into wakeful consciousness. 

He shifts so he can see your face. “You okay?” 

You meet his eyes but can only nod. His jaw is still tight and tense, and you can’t blame him. 

You know you’ve messed up. Big time. You nearly got everyone killed, including yourself…and now, you have to tell a mother that her son is dead. 

Dean helps you up, holding you by your arms and waist until you’re steady on your feet. You have a hard time meeting his eyes, but when open your mouth to apologize, he beats you to it. 

“I hope you’ve learned your damn lesson,” he says. 

Your gaze snaps up to his. “Excuse me?”

Dean’s hands go to his hips as his brows raise at you. 

“Next time, when I tell you to hang back, I mean that shit. Hang the hell back,” he all but growls. 

You tilt your head at him as your irritation begins to spark. Meanwhile, Castiel is the one who backs up as he glances between you and Dean uncertainly.

“I made a mistake, but that doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do,” you shoot back. “I was a hunter long before I met you.” 

“Yeah, well, color me surprised that you’ve made it this long,” he snaps. 

Your temper flares hotter. “You know, you’re not so goddamn perfect either.” 

“Never said I was,” Dean says. “But when my gut tells me something ain’t right, I need you to fucking listen. Otherwise, we get a day like today.”

His words are edged with grit by the end of his little rant, and you don’t appreciate it. Your lips purse in anger.

“I don’t care what that legendary gut tells you,” you sass back. “I’m not a little girl, and you’re not my damn father!”

Dean raises incredulous brows at the way you’re shouting at him. He crosses his arms. 

“What’s this, some kind of Latina temper?” he asks snidely. 

You truly become incensed at that. 

“Oh, you want to take it there?” you ask, as your eyes narrow. “Que sin vergüenza tú eres. Sigue jodiendo conmigo, coño. Entonces tú vas a ver quien soy yo.”

Dean won’t admit it, but in that moment, he’s a bit intimidated by the quiet threat in your voice. Still, his fuse is lit, and he’s way beyond curbing his internal filter.

“Oh, I’m sorry, does this telenovela-style tongue lashing come with subtitles?” he snarks. 

You let out an incredulous breath. Your eyes begin to sting.

“You’re such an asshole!” you shout back. There, understand that?

You turn away from him before your frustrated tears can fall, but you stop short once you notice Castiel dragging out the bodies of the dead…including Andy. Your throat constricts, and you begin to stalk out of the barn. 

Dean calls your name in frustration. 

“What?” you hiss. 

The only thing that makes him hesitate is seeing the state of you when you turn back around. His anger crumbles, and maybe something in him breaks when he sees your tears. They’ve welled up in your eyes, and a few of them carve a path down your cheeks. 

You’re still covered in your own blood, and he hates it. He hates it more than anything. 

Later, you see the state of yourself when Sam returns with the Impala. In the reflection on the backseat window, you see the blood dried down your neck, staining nearly half of your shirt.

You see the black rings of your mascara and eyeliner around your eyes. You look a mess, and you try to wipe underneath your eyes. It’s a fruitless effort.

After you all finish burning the bodies, Dean starts the long drive home. You insist on stopping to tell Rachel Campbell about her son, but Sam says he already took care of it when he drove into town. 

You frown, but you no longer have the energy to be angry. You further withdraw into yourself, and your lower lip trembles as you look out the window. Through the rearview mirror, Dean sees more tears slipping down your face.

What Sam told him (but he won’t tell you), is what one of the survivors said. One of the mated pairs had taken Andy…to “adopt” a son of their own. 

That night is quiet and tense in Dean’s room. You have to wash your hair all over again, and scrub the blood and grime from your body until only your skin remains. But you don’t have the energy to do more than braid your wet hair afterwards and pull on your lucky Journey shirt, which is still full of holes. 

Dean knows that it’s bad when you need the “dreamcatcher,” as he’s called it in his head. You’ve never had a nightmare while wearing that shirt, or so you claimed a while back. 

You wear it over some long pajama pants instead of your usual shorts, or better yet, nothing at all. But he can see what kind of mood you’re in. Things are unsettled as you both get ready for bed in silence. 

He notes the way you turn to face the other side in bed, maybe to avoid him. Though if you really wanted to do that, you could’ve gone to your old room.

So in more ways than one, Dean takes some solace in the fact that you’re still next to him. And he decides to give you some time and space. 

He goes to bed and tries in vain to sleep.

In the morning, Dean’s woken by the familiar smell of coffee…and the less familiar sound of loud salsa music. 

What the fuck?

After he brushes his teeth, he puts on his robe and slippers and heads down to the kitchen, where he finds you in a seemingly better mood. You’re mopping the floor, of all things. You’re out of your pajamas, instead wearing a loose shirt that falls off your shoulder and some spandex shorts. 

“Yo no se mañana…yo no se mañana. Si estaremos juntos, si se acaba el mundo,” you sing softly along with the music as you dance from the kitchen to the living room. Your phone is connected to a Bluetooth speaker on the coffee table. 

Dean starts to smile, crossing his arms as he leans against the doorway to watch you.

At an instrumental break with a run of conga drums and trumpets, you pause in your mopping to do a little twirl as you dance, with a soulful roll of hips and a flair of salsa steps. It makes Dean’s smile kick up into a smirk.

He walks in on purposefully light feet until he’s sidled up behind you in the living room.

“Nice moves, Shakira,” he quips. 

It startles a shriek of surprise out of you as you whirl around. Dean’s smile hikes up into a grin, but it soon fades when he remembers the way your scream rang through his ears last night. The way his heart dropped into his stomach, and his head swiveled at the sound. And he saw you go down hard. 

Then the rest of it tumbles through his mind—what he had to do afterwards in order to save you. How he’d did it without really thinking, his panic and determination blocking out almost everything else when he’d grabbed the kid. The monster, he forcibly reminds himself. 

“You trying to give me a heart attack?” you ask with a hand on your heart. 

Dean forces himself to smile a little. “Sorry. But might I remind you, not everyone here’s an early bird.”

You give him a wry look.

“You’re the only one around here who sleeps past 10 a.m. Cas dipped out a while ago, and Sam’s on a run.” 

But you graciously grab your phone to lower the music to a more bearable level. Dean doesn’t yet know this about you, but this—listening to music, dancing, cleaning—it’s all your way of coping…and releasing as much of your pain, terror, and regret from yesterday as possible. 

You then look up at him more guarded. The two of you exchanged a lot of unsavory words last night. In fact, it may just be the worst fight you two have ever had in almost three years of knowing one another.  

Dean senses the shift in you, and his amusement fades. He just can't let things stay like this. He won't.

He hazards drawing closer and touching your arm.

“Look…I’m sorry for snapping at you yesterday. I know I was being a dick,” he says. “You’ve just gotta understand something.”

You wait for him to continue with furrowed brows, sensing that whatever he’s about to say is hard for him. 

“There’s a reason I don’t do this. The uh, relationship thing,” Dean continues, clearing his throat. His thumb swipes along your arm. “It’s not just this job. It’s my fucked up life. I tried to warn you before—” 

“Dean,” you say with a sigh, but he raises his hand. 

“Please, just…let me say it,” he says. “You know the spiel. But things can change on a dime. Even on a damn milk run, like a dusty nest of vamps.”

You know that. You know you could’ve died yesterday, and he doesn’t need to remind you of that fact. Before you can start to get petulant again though, Dean continues. His jaw is working, like this next part is more difficult for him to admit.

“Trust me when I say, us being together is dangerous, for both of us,” he says. “For a while I, uh…I started to think Sam and I were better off alone.”

That casts you into dismay. Because you know Dean isn’t lying. He’s really contemplated spending the rest of his life devoid of love, so he won’t have to lose it. 

Dangerous, for both of us.

You realize then what Dean’s really saying. He’s afraid…afraid to lose you. You see it in his furrowed brows, the downturn of his lips, and whatever pain he’s trying to hide in the depths of his eyes. 

And just like that, the water works start. You can’t quite keep your tears at bay as you hold onto his shirt. He lets out a resigned sigh as he holds you by your arms. 

“You don’t have to cry for that,” he says, a bit teasing. 

“Have you met me?” you sniff. But you manage to look up at him with your glassy eyes. “I’m sorry too. God, I’m so sorry, Dean.” 

Your fist clenches in his shirt when you remember Andy, latched onto your neck, and how Dean had to save you. You know he’s remembering it too when his brows furrow, and his gaze falls away. You reach a hand for his cheek.

“I know I fucked up,” you admit. “I was working with my heart, not my head. I just…”

You wanted so badly to help that kid and his mother. You also know that Dean understands; you see it in his eyes. He holds your hand to his cheek and brushes his thumb across the back of your hand.

“I know,” he says. “I really am sorry, baby.” 

The problem is, you didn’t just see your own mother in Rachel. She hadn’t been much older than you. And when you imagine a life beyond hunting, more than anything (no matter how much you shove down the idea), you really do want a family of your own someday. 

It’s just…days like yesterday remind you why that could be a very bad idea. 

More of your tears bubble over, and you head willingly into Dean’s arms. “Me too…”

He holds you tighter than ever. His hands rub down your back, tangle in your hair, and he drops his lips onto your hair. You sniffle, wiping your face dry in his shirt. And for a while, the two of you have peace in the relative quiet. 

Music still plays from the speaker though. And when another salsa song starts to play on your playlist, you start swaying. A smile works its way onto Dean’s face. 

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” he teases.

You smile into his chest. “We should go dancing sometime.”

Dean just laughs. “Oooh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” you reply, batting your lashes up at him. You slip a hand on his shoulder and into one of his hands. He’s forced to hold you as if the two of you were about to start Fred Astair-ing across the living room. 

“Have you ever danced before?” you ask. “Like real dancing.” 

“Not salsa, I’ll tell you that,” he quips. 

“That’s okay. I’ll teach you,” you reply with a coquettish smile. “It’s just a few simple moves.”

Dean gives you a wan look. “You made it look anything but simple.”

You blush at that, but you meet him with a pout of disappointment. You don’t let up, even when Dean frowns. He huffs at you in resistance.

“No,” he insists. You just brush a gentle thumb along his neck, biting your lip in askance.  

But the longer he stares at your beautiful, hopeful eyes, the more cracks form in his resolve. 

Eventually, Dean breaks with a sigh, and a shake of his head. 

“You’re too much, you know that?” he mutters.

It’s then that you know you’ve won.

So with a happy squeal of excitement, you clap your hands and move to stand next to him so you can show him the basic steps of salsa dancing. 

You make him take off his robe and slippers, leaving in his shirt and plaid pajama pants. Then you instruct him for a few minutes, correcting his footing and getting him to move on a beat. You’re pleasantly surprised that he has some rhythm.  

Dean sighs once again. How the hell did we get here? Heat crawls up the back of his neck as embarrassment starts to set in. 

“This is fucking ridiculous,” he grumbles.

“You’re doing good,” you encourage, with a growing smile. “Now come on, feel the beat in threes. One, two, three. One, two, three…”

Once he sort of has the basic steps and turns down, you move to stand in front of him. There you show him how to hold you, how he’ll move forward, and you’ll move back. It takes a little while, but you slowly move through the combinations, then do a little twirl underneath his hand. 

When he pulls you back in without faltering, you give him a beaming smile. “Very good!”

A subtle grin raises his lips at your enthusiasm. He also feels his face heating up at the praise.

But you pause when a certain song filters through the speakers. It’s an old one (and it never fails to make you blush), but you love it.  

“Ooh, yes,” you exclaim with delight, and you turn up the volume.

“What’s this one?” Dean asks.

“Ven Devórame Otra Ves,” you inform him. Not that he knows what that means. You sing along a bit with the first couple of verses while you encourage Dean to lead you in the dance. 

This song is just slow enough for him to attempt it, and the funny thing is, he doesn’t feel all that uncomfortable with the steps now. He’s starting to get a feel for how to move, both with his feet, and with his hands as he guides you by your waist, holding your hand close to his chest. Still, Dean’s also curious about the lyrics you’re singing. 

“What does it mean?” he asks.

You huff in amusement. “You sure you want to know?”

Dean raises a brow. “Well, now I gotta know.” 

You giggle at that, though you correct his steps when he leads with the wrong foot. 

“Okay. It’s about a guy who’s pretty much a player,” you say with a smirk. “His bed has been a revolving door of hot ass, but he keeps thinking about this one woman who used to have him turned inside out…”

Dean’s lips curve at the familiar image you’re conjuring. He manages to turn you under his hand, then pull you back to him in one smooth motion. He looks down at you with a deeper gleam in his eyes. You bite your lip, soothing your hand from his shoulder and down his arm.

As the song’s verses come, you translate for him. And for Dean, your voice in itself is a spell.

“Even in my dreams, he says, I thought I had you devouring me. And I dampened my white sheets remembering you,” you begin. Your words are smooth like black velvet. “In my bed, no one is like you, who draws my body on every corner, without a piece of skin left over.”

Dean is getting hot under the collar as you push away, dragging your fingertips along his back as you turn around him. When you come back into his line of vision, his attention is attracted to the sway of your hips, clad just in those little spandex shorts. He has to clear his throat a bit. 

You eventually return to him with a warm hand against his chest. 

“Ven, devórame otra ves. It means, come devour me again,” you continue, looking up at him from under your lashes, “Come punish me more with your desire. Because I kept my love for you…because my mouth has the taste of your body.” 

You smile at the laser focus of his green-eyed gaze. “Come devour me again.”

You push off with another little spin. When you reach for his hand, Dean yanks you back into him, eliciting a gasp. The move disorients you for a moment, but you giggle and hold onto his arms. Your hands glide up to rest on his shoulders. 

He’s holding you flush against him, and as you shift a thigh between his legs, you unintentionally graze against his hardening length. You look up at him with a smirk.

“You’re a little…stiff,” you say, both flirtatious and teasing. “Let’s loosen you up.”

You shake his shoulders out and try to get him to relax. Dean raises a wry brow, because you know damn well whose fault it is that his body is coiled tight. But you place his hands on your hips as you move back into the dance. 

“Feel what I’m doing there?” you ask. He looks down on you with growing heat.

“If I could do that, we wouldn’t be together,” he rumbles. 

You try to stifle a laugh as he pulls you in close again, just swaying for a bit. Soon enough, you grin knowingly when his hands start to slide lower on your ass. His head bows to yours, ready to meet you with a kiss. 

You stop him with your finger on his lips.

“Question: do you consider yourself more of a tits or ass man?” you ask him. You’re half teasing, but still curious. Dean snorts at the question. 

“More of a connoisseur,” he replies, smirking. 

“Ah.” You nod sagely, and you point between him and yourself. “So this is like a ‘sample the menu’ situation.”

Dean’s smirk deepens. “Sweetheart, you’re a goddamn buffet.”

You splutter laughing…and that’s when he finally pounces. He claims your lips with greedy passion. His hand winds into your hair, gripping tight and ruining what’s left of your loose ponytail. The strands coil around his hand in messy curls while he also gets a healthy grip of your ass through your thin shorts. 

You smile into his lips, even as you acquiesce to him guiding your head to the side, so he can slip his tongue against yours. You grip his arms more for stability while he manhandles you, kneading soft flesh and making pleasant tingles run up your spine. 

After a little while, his mouth burns a hot path away from yours. He noses down your neck, skimming his lips across your skin. It sets your nerve endings on fire and gets you breathing more shallowly in his ear. You cling to the back of his shirt, holding him close. 

Often he’s one to leave love bites of varying degrees, wherever he sees fit. But for a moment he stops at the crook of your neck, just pressing a lingering kiss.

He lets out a deep breath, and you realize he’s probably thinking about where you were bitten. The wound is gone, but it doesn’t change what’s imprinted in both of your minds.  

A softer smile grows on your face. You trail your fingers up into his hair, massaging the back of his neck. 

“I’m okay,” you remind him. Dean hums deep in agreement. You know, however, that he’s still thinking far too much.

So you slide your hands down, slow between the dips and planes of muscle in his back, and rest at his hips. Your thumbs delve under the hem of his shirt and tease the skin there. 

And you start slow, pressing wet, nipping kisses of your own to his neck while you inch his shirt up. You feel his smile on your neck. His grip on your hip flares to life. Still, he lets you tug his shirt up and over his head. Your loose shirt comes next, revealing the same black satin and lace bra you wore the first time he ever got you topless in his arms. 

A fan favorite. Dean grins. He reaches around to go for the clasp, but your firm push on his chest takes him by surprise.

He falls back onto the couch with a grunt, looking up at you then with raised brows. You’ve got a mischievous little smirk on your face that heats his blood and makes his cock twitch.

You take out the rest of your falling ponytail, shaking your hair out wild. Then you let your hands drift down your neck, over your clothed breasts, and finally to your little shorts.

Dean rubs his palms down his thighs and watches. A smirk forms across his lips as you slide the fabric down the curve of your hips. It leaves you in a red thong, familiar to him by the little tear it has on the front. (Again, his fault.)

You climb aboard his strong thighs to straddle his lap, using his shoulders as leverage as you sink down. You make sure to rub yourself teasingly against his clothed erection. He groans in appreciation. His hands fly to your soft, thick thighs and squeeze. 

“Aw, I like this,” Dean says, half on another moan as you grind down a bit harder on him. 

“Yeah?” you tease. You take his face in your hands and capture his lips with your own. Your tongue invades his mouth, and he welcomes you with a deep hum. It’s slow and hot at first, but Dean feels the loss of you when you break from his lips.

Instead, you treat him with the same trail of kisses he gave you, along the curve of his jaw and down his neck. But you don’t stop there.

Your hands move over his chest with purpose, tweaking over each hard nipple while your mouth burns a wet line down and down his sternum. Dean groans at your ministrations, but lets you leave his lap to slide down to the ground, between his thighs. 

“What’re you up to, baby?” he asks, despite having a very good idea of it. He catches the playful, yet determined gleam in your eye. 

You pause, briefly leaning back up to give him a heated kiss. You part from him with a grin. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” you ask. “I’m gonna devour you.”

Dean stares hard at you as goosebumps break out across his forearms. 

Oh, fuck yeah. 

A giggle bubbles in your throat at the expression on his face. But you continue, taking his pants down his legs first, before his boxer briefs. 

Dean’s body tenses in anticipation. You’ve gone down on him before, but somehow it’s different this time. He feels like every single one of his nerve endings stands at attention along with his dick. And you’re taking your sweet time working him up. 

Even when his cock is finally free, you sooth your hands down his legs first, maybe teasing him a bit as you drag your nails down his inner thighs. Dean makes a strained sound, though he tries to hide it by clearing his throat.

Your gaze flicks up to his with a little smile. He’s holding the back of the couch; his fingers are digging into the old cushion in effort to keep still for you. But his eyes stare into yours like a man starving. You know what you’re in for after you have your way with him, but for now, he’s quite literally under your control. 

So you take him in your hands first. Dean groans as you tease him with light touches, soft movements, your thumb slowly circling over the sensitive, weeping head of his cock. It's torturous enough to make him drop his head back against the couch, closing his eyes tight.

And suddenly, he blinks them open again.

“Shit,” he utters, when you finally take him into your mouth. Your tongue is soft and wet, your lips move over him steadily, and your hands caress whatever your mouth can’t take, even teasing his balls. 

You work him over relentlessly, until he can’t help but spill everything he has to give into your waiting mouth. When you suck off and swallow whatever remains, Dean’s heart stutters like syncopated conga drums. 

He shudders and struggles for breath afterwards, watching your every movement—from wiping your mouth to shooting him that satisfied little smirk. 

You press one last kiss to the inside of his thigh before you raise from where you’ve been kneeling on the hard ground. 

Dean manages to lean forward and helps you up by your elbows. But then he pulls you back into his lap and kisses you deeply. He doesn’t let up until you’re panting with him.

“Fuckin’ hell, sweetheart,” he manages to say. His voice is deep and laced with grit. 

He’s still panting heavily. You giggle and press your warming face into his neck. 

“What, now you’re shy?” he remarks. And he has to laugh. “Come back here.”

He brings your face back to him with a hand on your cheek. For a second, he just looks at you. His thumb strokes across your full, thoroughly kissed bottom lip.  

“Say it,” you encourage softly. “Whatever you’re thinking. Right now.”

A smile tugs at his lips. He can’t help but oblige you. 

“You’re too damn much,” he says again, both gruff and fond. Despite how you drive him up the fucking wall sometimes, he doesn't think it'll ever be enough for him, what he has with you.

Because this is something he'd almost given up on. Didn't think he'd get to have it. And it almost scares him, how much he wants you. How much he...

“I love you,” he says. His thumb traces along the familiar curve of your cheek.

It hasn’t been all that long, but he knows. You weaseled your way in without even trying. The least he can do for you is be honest.

Your fingers curl around his wrist, holding his hand in place. You tilt your head at him.

“Oh, yeah?” you ask. 

Dean hesitates, but he nods. “Yeah.”

A smile grows across your face. “Eh, I’m still on the fence.”

At his flat look, you laugh and lean in for a kiss. He allows it, a little petulantly. But you make up for it with sweet affection. Your gentle hands stroke down the column of his neck, down his chest. You then lean back so he can see your face.

“Yo te amo,” you whisper. “Te amo y te quiero, más que tú puedes creer y entender.”

Dean smiles. He doesn’t understand all of it, but he gets the important bits. He hears it in the tone of your voice. He sees it in your eyes. They shine with emotion, but mainly with love. 

Dean kisses your hand. He lets go, just so he can slip his hands around you to finally unhook your bra. He tosses it across the room without bothering to see where it lands.

You do though, and you meet him with a slightly narrowed gaze. 

“Are you making a mess of my clean bunker?” you tease. 

His lips curve as he kisses you again, while his hands each get a generous handful of your breasts. 

“Ah, hello, ladies." He grins. "Miss me?”

You can’t help but laugh. He’s such a dork sometimes.

But you hum when his thumbs brush over hardened nipples, then drag deliberate circles over them, and pinch just hard enough to make you whimper in pleasure. The sensation zips through you, enhancing the flood between your legs. 

“I fucking love that sound,” Dean mutters, and licks a hot path in the valley between your breasts. His lips move against your dewy skin when he says, “Do that for me again.”

When he takes a nipple in his mouth and nips a bit hard, you have to oblige him. Your voice rising high is music to his ears.  

So he goes for your panties next. You help him get them off and return to his lap. With a breathy moan, you revel at the feeling of his fingers probing into your wet heat.  

However, you and Dean have been too engrossed in one another to notice the door of the bunker unlocking, and heavy steps down the spiral staircase. 

It’s Sam who’s back from his run. Unfortunately, he soon has to shield his eyes upon reaching the living room. 

“Damn it, Dean!”

You yelp in surprise, but Dean laughs and holds you close to shield you from view. As a bonus, it presses your breasts against his chest. 

“All right, Sammy. Go to your room,” he chides playfully (but he means it). “The adults are havin’ a moment.”

Sam scoffs. “You’re having a moment on the goddamn couch!”

“Sorry,” you say, though it’s muffled in Dean’s neck. Your face is red hot with embarrassment. 

Sam rolls his eyes heavenward and tries not to see anything else on his way to his room. 

But Dean’s chuckle reverberates through your chest as his hand goes to your cheek. He encourages you to pull back, so he can see your face again. 

When he does, he smirks at the scarlet blush dusting your cheeks and neck. You bite your lower lip, but despite your embarrassment, you’re happy.

Your own words replay in your mind when you lean in for another kiss.

I love you, you’d said. I love you and I love you, more than you can believe and understand. 

AN: Yay! I hope you enjoyed Part 2 of the “Midnight Espresso”-verse! I loved writing this one so much. I know we're just doing fanfic here, but I genuinely put my heart and soul into this one. ❤️

Also, here are a couple of Spanish translations:

(Note: other Spanish-speaking countries may interpret certain words differently.)

[During their fight]: 

“Que sin vergüenza tú eres. Sigue jodiendo conmigo, coño. Entonces tú vas a ver quien soy yo.”

Translation:

“You’re shameless. Keep messing with me, damn it. Then you’re going to see who I am (<- This is Dominican slang. It essentially means fuck around and find out what I'm made of.).”

[Song lyrics: “Yo No Se Mañana” by Luis Enrique]: 

“Yo no se mañana…yo no se mañana. Si estaremos juntos, si se acaba el mundo.”

Translation:

“I don’t know tomorrow. I don’t know tomorrow. If we’ll be together, if the world will end.”

Keep Reading:

Next in this series is "Chico Malo" ("Bad Boy"):

Summary: You catch Dean red-handed—with one of his favorite episodes of Casa Erotica.

▶️ Next Story: Bad Boy (Chico Malo)

Series Masterlist

Dean Winchester Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Series Tag List:

@hobby27 @this-is-me19 @kazsrm67 @letheatheodore @agothwithheavysetmakeup @jacklesdeanvessel @foxyjwls007 @wincastifer @ades106 @emily-winchester @deans-baby-momma @melancholictearz @luvs4dria @nic-kolas @katherineann83

@sleepyqueerenergy @wayward-lost-and-never-found @tipthejar @ajjustice @thewritersaddictions @samanddeaninatrenchcoat @deanwanddamons @antisocialcorrupt @adoringanakin @deanwinchesterswitch @freewastelandstrawberry

@theonlymaninthesky @teehxk @midnightmadwoman @mrshalverson2021 @iprobablyshipit91 @agalliasi @venicesem @waters-2567 @chriszgirl92 @lyarr24 @ladysparkles78 @solariklees @xsophianicolex @deansbbyx @mimaria420

@candy-coated-misery0731 @curlycarley @sarahgracej @bagpussjocken @ultrahviolentart @beskarfilms @skyesthebomb @deans-spinster-witch @tmb510 @iamsapphine @fics-pics-andotherthings-i-like @chernayawidow @vanillawhiskeyflavoredkisses

[nadas-dirthalen]

A Veilguard Achievement Icon Opened My Eyes on 15 Years of Lore... but Was I Right?

PART TWO: What Veilguard Did Narratively, and What That Tells Us Going Forward

[ 1 ]

Hello again, friends and travellers. Now that I've beaten Dragon Age: the Veilguard, I wanted to go through all those 30,000 words of predictions that I wrote in the ~11 days leading up to its release. I'd seen an achievement icon that pieced together a lot of Dragon Age lore for me.

But, I hadn't played Veilguard. All I had was the footage from September 19, the achievement list, and anything else BioWare had released.

So... was I right? And if so, how much was I right about?

This is your warning:This post will contain spoilers for the entirety of Dragon Age: the Veilguard, and all Dragon Age content made before Veilguard.

(my davrinmance is going great as i try and collect every codex, thanks for asking!)

Today's Discussion: to Understand Dragon Age, We Must Understand Its Writing.

Before I can go any further on why I think the way that I think, or why I imagine the story might take us in certain directions, it's essential that you all understand where I'm coming from. Veilguard, like any game, is a piece of art. Its bones are built with similar narrative structures to novels (though not identical, and that's important!). To make sense of what's to come, we must examine Veilguard's bones the same way.

I've seen a lot of people wondering why, for instance, the Inquisitor is not Veilguard's protagonist. I've seen people lamenting the fact that there were not on-screen clarifications of popular lore theories. Before this series goes any further, I need to say my piece about why I believe that it was essential that Veilguard was written as it was, and why its writing does in fact help us better predict Dragon Age's path forward moreso than even Inquisition.

That said, today I hope to cover:

What Veilguard Demanded of BioWare's Writing Team, and Why

The Protagonist: Why Rook's Perspective Matters

The 3 Act Structure: Our Lens

The Companions: Paths to Our Answers — and Future Games

What Veilguard Demanded of BioWare's Writing Team, and Why

Let's get this out of the way right away: it has been 10 years since Inquisition. And, like it or not, that means one gigantic thing for BioWare: if they wanted to have any hope of making more Dragon Age, they needed to bring in new players and resuscitate the interest of many old players who did not stay in the fandom the whole time. They didn't—and couldn't—write Veilguard specifically for you or I, people of Tumblr. If they did, it would've pleased us... and then cost them so much money that we'd never get any more Dragon Age.

That doesn't just mean modernizing the game's aesthetics, or providing a glossary in its Codex. It means they would have to balance all of the following (just at a glance):

Managing the learning curve in general. Not even I looked in the glossary as I played. Me, supreme enjoyer of all codices ever. It's just not something most players are ever going to do, as much as it the lore is such a fundamental part of the game in general. That means simplifying terms where possible — elven gods in place of Evanuris, for example — but also trimming down what would have to necessarily reference past games. Only a tiny fraction of the fanbase has played Inquisition in the last 3 years, nevermind this year.

Recontextualizing the lore. That does not mean rebooting it, it means situating all we have learned so far in a framework that fits all we have learned so far. Much of what we learned about the Evanuris seemed, for so long, to be totally separate for the things we knew about the blight and Blights. Veilguard needed to show us how those things relate, and to do so in a fresh context that would allow everyone to develop new understanding.

Pushing us one step past Inquisition's knowledge. Veilguard, after reframing the lore, had to leave us a path for new lore, and increased understanding. I think the devs put it really well when they say that their aim is to give us some answers, but leave us with even more questions. More on that later, and in future posts.

Updating Thedas' ethos. Let's face it. It has been 15 years since Origins came out. The things that were more typical of scifi/fantasy (SFF) then are just not the same now, and would not be perceived by 2024 players in the same way as by those who started Origins in 2009. The world has changed; our cultural understandings are broadening and need to continue broadening. BioWare is doing a good thing by incorporating things like nonbinary identities into Veilguard, and it is good that Veilguard is progressing the world of gaming in that way, especially considering its success. (This is also, I wager, why we choose an Archon out of two choices who want the same thing, rather than leaving that open to a more "evil" option).

Dislodge older fans from their Solas headcanons to get everyone old and new to the same confusion and potential distrust. Hear me out. Everyone who's stayed since Inquisition has beliefs about Solas. Even me, who got here in March of this year, whose fic reads overly soft now because I just didn't know Solas' grander plan until 48 hours before Veilguard came out. Everyone has had headcanons for so long that everyone has had time for their opinions of Solas to cement themselves. In order for Veilguard to work as a story, they had to debunk what everyone thought they knew: both lovers and haters of the famously controversial egg. By breaking down our existing beliefs, the devs open up essential curiosity from the players as to who—and what—Solas really is, which propels us through the narrative and has us absorbing information.

And this curiosity? It is why Veilguard could not have the Inquisitor as its protagonist. To keep us curious as players (and "readers" of the lore), BioWare needed a new protagonist.

Specifically, they needed Rook.

The Protagonist: Why Rook's Perspective Matters

Here's the thing. The protagonist is not just the face of the game. They are our vehicle to understanding that game. The plot follows their wants and responds to their understanding. What they don't know, what they want to know, is what makes up our every objective. Their emotional journey through the game is our emotional journey through the game. Following it, going after the things that matter to our protagonist, is how the entire game (including its lore) takes shape in our minds.

That's why it's essential that they don't know everything—especially after a ten year interim between games.

Veilguard's plot and twists proved that the Inquisitor did not know everything. They, in fact, knew less than half of everything. If we had kept them as the protagonist, all of our knowledge and curiosity would be shaped by the Inquisitor's understanding: a wrong understanding. We could constantly be fighting with what we think the Inquisitor should know, what should be true because we had seen it through the Inquisitor. We would be set up to be at odds with the very events of the game. Rook is a blank slate, barring a few key tonal indicators, and that blank slate allows for us to fit all previous lore into its new, recontextualized shape that I mentioned above. (Again, note that I am not saying rebooted.)

That, and Rook has multiple motivations. The Inquisitor is focused largely on stopping or saving Solas; Rook is charged with figuring everything out as it is happening to them in real time with almost no context or experience, AND stopping or saving Solas. The Inquisitor has existing allies and resources; Rook does not. Rook must build their own campaign from the ground up, and that means the player is building their own experience from the ground up. Their allies, abilities, and home base, yes, but also their knowledge. Discovering things at the same pace as Rook, with a similarly urgent drive to do so, keeps the game from infodumping at us. It keeps the reveals evenly spaced, but also immediately interesting to the player.

And best of all? Rook allows the writers to do what they want to Solas without breaking his dynamic with the endless sea of Inquisitors (or, at least, with way less risk of doing so). We needed to have our theories about him broken down and rebuilt as players; to do that to the Inquisitor would damage an entire sea of headcanons. We'd never get the Solavellan ending we wanted, for instance, if Solas had played mind games with Lavellan for that many months. And if Solas didn't do those things, if he'd been wholly defanged, he would have lost his appeal and importance in the narrative. He wouldn't be the Dread Wolf in the ways that matter to Veilguard.

It's important, then, that Rook has just the slightest bit of backstory. They care about their allies. They are not a potential political force like the Inquisitor. They have many options to be impulsive. Every single Rook has rebelled against authority. Every single one has a stubborn streak. BioWare put all those qualities there on purpose, because Solas uses every single one, in every single Rook, as a tool. That was all essential for his character development in this game! At the same time, they couldn't do that with the Inquisitor as protagonist, because after 10 years, no two Inquisitors are similar enough to predict/script their actions and responses in that way.

Those twists are perhaps the most important tool for forward momentum in the game. The more they keep us guessing, the more we'll play and seek new information, the more we'll learn. Which brings me to...

The 3 Act Structure: Our Lens

Like I said: BioWare couldn't just infodump at us in Veilguard. It wouldn't be interesting to even half the fans that stayed, these ten years. To keep us engaged as players, they had to string the lore through a series of engaging events. Keep the momentum up, so we would not be lazily looking over codices, but chasing new knowledge and understanding. It all had to be emotionally relevant and resonant to keep us caring, because very few people play games they don't care about.

Veilguard, like a lot of written art, follows the three act structure. Though there are a lot of variants on the more precise beats, they all broadly follow the same-ish path.

Hook: The opening image. In Disney movies, this is the song where the character sings about all the things they want in their journey, and what they truly need is only implied. It gives an opening note for the theme by showing what the character lacks, and what they might need to gain before defeating the final villain. In Veilguard, this is our prologue, centered entirely around Varric: the big red herring where we see that Rook is out of their depth, opting to push over a support beam rather than take on the Dread Wolf. Off-screen, it is also the background information about Rook, showing us who they are and what they want before we play.

Inciting Incident: The event that kicks off the main plot. In DA:tV, there's a big collection of these (because every companion needs one; we'll get to that). The first big one is, of course, the failed ritual. The death Rook doesn't see. The Evanuris are freed, but Rook has only half the information.

First Plot Point: "Plot Point" means "big/defining decision" in writer-speak. This is the moment the protagonist decides to go forth on their adventure. In video games, this is more or less determined for you, but you have the option to flavour this moment in Veilguard. You can choose how to tell Solas that you'll do what he wants: either by appeasing him or angering him. You do the same for Neve and Harding afterward, and then again in Arlathan and D'Meta's Crossing. You state that you're doing this, no matter what it takes.

First Pinch Point / "The Setback": "Pinch" means "twist" in writer-speak. It's the first time the narrative is shaken up, and is also usually the first time we see the true scope of the villain. In Veilguard, the first big twist has been called "the Setback" by some of the devs (notably, I heard it at a panel in September). For Veilguard, this is Weisshaupt. We see the true scope of Ghilan'nain's horrors, but we also see the first BIG hints (outside of Varric) that Solas is manipulating us—because he really doesn't seem to hate the Wardens as much as Inquisition enjoyers like myself expected. This event concludes act 1.

"New World" / "Fun and Games": The devs have remarked that they wanted to see the tone of their setback (Weisshaupt) threaded through the rest of the game, and we do: through Davrin and Lucanis' banter, through the reflections on the consequences of Weisshaupt, through every character struggling with their confidence and identity after that point, through the blight getting worse and worse and worse. That's what the New World is: the characters getting used to new circumstances after that first big twist. The Fun and Games are the slow and steady recovery from the twist, warming and solidifying formerly tenuous relationships. This is where we do a lot of companion and faction quests.

Midpoint: In a narrative that ends in a victory (so most games ever), the midpoint is a false victory. We think we've nailed something, only for something else to happen that begins to seed doubt in the protagonist's capability and/or ability to solve the plot. For Veilguard, this is the blighted dragon fight: we think we've got Ghilan'nain, but then Elgar'nan shows up and demonstrates that Rook is in so, so over their head.

Second Pinch Point: The second twist. The villain's identity is crystal-clear, and by now we've definitely interacted with the villain more directly. This is Arlathan, Elgar'nan's mind-trap—and Solas' "rescue" of Rook, showing his duplicity in full. Elgar'nan notably says a line about not falling for Fen'Harel's tricks again, and it foreshadows what we will see of Solas.

Disaster / Crisis: This is the event that triggers the protagonist's downward spiral. Not a twist (necessarily), but a catastrophe. In Veilguard's case, it's both: the Ghilan'nain fight leaves one companion dead-dead and another presumed dead. Then, the twist: Solas using Rook's sharply felt regret to pull his gambit and swap places with them. A series of events that literally had me gasping so frequently I got dizzy. Thanks, BioWare :) Many people say that this event, or something between this event and the "All is Lost" beat, conclude act 2. For games, the pacing is sometimes different, as is the cutoff mark, because otherwise the third act has the potential to be very short.

"All is Lost" / The Dark Night of the Soul: It's exactly as the name suggests: all has been lost. The protagonist doubts themself completely. It seems like nothing more can go wrong, and like nothing might ever go right again. The protagonist is at a loss for how to move forward. In Veilguard? Varric is dead. Davrin/Harding is dead. Bellara/Neve is dead. Rook is literally trapped not only in their regret, but in a reflection of Solas' regret. And to get out, they'll need...

"The Epiphany" / Second Plot Point: "Plot point" means "big/defining decision" in writer-speak, as stated above. Only this one contains more layers than the first. This is where the thematic statement of the piece comes out: the lesson that the protagonist must learn is stated, clearly, for all of us to see. It is the thing that picks them up off the ground, giving them strength to face the climax and the danger it promises. In Veilguard, this is Varric saying to Rook, "Have you learned nothing here?" and reminding both Rook and player that he chose this; Rook's companions chose this; we cannot blame ourselves for the actions of others. We cannot carry grief for other people, or we'll drown in it. Sound like any other character we know?

Climax: The big fight! But also, the big moment where the theme is shown to be the narrative key. In every ending of Veilguard, Rook being Solas' perfect mirror is the key to winning the day against the Dread Wolf. It just depends on what facet of Solas Rook chooses to mirror: the trickster, the nasty combatant, or the person who was haunted by their own failings and lost companions.

Resolution: Narrative threads are tied up, or a promise is made to tie up those loose ends in future installations. Veilguard's credits do both of those things. :)

Why am I telling you all of this? Because the lore must follow that skeleton. Every reveal we get must fit into both the timing and the feeling of those events. It would not fit to suddenly drop everything about the Titans right after Rook gets to the Lighthouse, which is why those enemies you need to kill to get the last memories are level 30-40. It would not fit to uncover everything about the blight's origin before Weisshaupt. If they forced us into that as players, all the casual fans and new players would duck out, feeling overwhelmed.

Even for us older fans, narrative structure shapes significance. You can tell a lot about a codex's overall importance and tone just by understanding where you find it, and when. That's why the Trespasser codices carry so much weight, even the ones about the Evanuris' actions that we don't see on screen at all: they are at the bitter end, and so they carry all the bitterness, longing, and mourning of that ending. Without the context of Trespasser, they mean less.

This is also why Veilguard paces its companion quests this way, not allowing you to complete them until later in the game. Every companion has something to teach us, and BioWare wanted to give each companion's narrative the weight it deserved.

The Companions: Paths to Our Answers — and Future Games

Anyone who's played Inquisition knows that companion quests shape entire facets of the lore in individual games, as well as set us up for the trajectory of the next games. Just look at Solas and Cole: together, they shaped our whole understanding of spirits in Veilguard. They set us up to ask all the right questions about not only spirits being bound as demons (Solas' quest), but about spirits being able to manifest in physical shape (Cole's quest). Together, their narrative conclusions foreshadowed much of the Evanuris' reveals in Veilguard: that they were spirits who could manifest into corporeal shape, and that they had the ability to ask others to manifest—and then bind them.

Again, these quests are paced throughout Inquisition's main plot. You cannot do their before Skyhold, and you cannot do them after the cutoff of (I believe) the Temple of Mythal. Inquisition forces you to see those quests' endings in the exact right spot: sometime around the midpoint (Adamant/WEWH), but before the disaster/dark night (the Temple of Mythal). They do that so you will feel that those things are significant.

Veilguard does the same thing. Every companion has a facet of the lore attached to it, but you cannot follow those threads to their conclusions at the beginning of the game. The game won't let you, because the moments need to be spaced out properly and carry the necessary emotional weight. Not all of their quests promise speculative material for future games in the same way, because some explain the context of the current game (Varric, in DAI, accomplished both with the red lyrium content, for instance; Leliana, meanwhile, dealt with the theme of faith in DAI and did not promise future speculation).

These concepts will all get far more attention in due time, but in short, here's what I think is associated with each companion:

Harding: Titans! But also, angry titans, and the difference between "angry titan" and "source of blight." In the same vein, what the dwarves should do going forward, and where they should place the titans in their culture.

Neve: The soul of Veilguard; her narrative is very current to DA:tV, in my early understanding. But she brings forth a lot of nuance to the themes of regret, and what that regret looks like on a smaller scale (a city, rather than a world). She does a lot of work in showing us that regret is regret, no matter the scale, and that the work we do to do better matters, no matter the scale. Additionally, her personal quest foreshadows Solas' use of blood magic against us being more than we thought by showing off Aelia's puppets, suggesting to us (tonally) that Rook may be Solas' puppet.

Bellara: The Forgotten Ones!! Anaris! Also, the place of ancient elvhenan in the future of Thedas, and what the elves should do/feel going forward.

Lucanis: I think they were going for some Forgotten One/Forbidden One hints, judging by some notes from the Ossuary and some banter between Lucanis and the others. This needs more dissection. Lucanis sort of does both what Bellara and Neve do: the Forgotten Ones, and also the heart of Veilguard's theme, with a lot of found family vibes thrown in.

Davrin: The blight itself, and the future of the blight without any archdemons left to cause capital-B Blights. Thedas' path to healing its nature.

Emmrich: The nature of what spirits are. I need to go screencap more specifics, but I swear this necromancer has referenced the difference between spirit and human soul and has stumbled upon saying that the two might not be so different at least once. Also, the Formless One centers around the Necropolis, and I'm thinking "spirits seeking bodies" and this whole idea of unlife/undeath is going to be explored later.

Taash: Remember how I said BioWare needed an ethos update? I think we see that most predominantly in Taash, whose entire personal quest is an examination of the values and priorities of different cultures, as well as the place of gender and gender ideology in Thedas. We saw this with Dorian and Krem in DA:I, but Taash modernizes that conversation (10 years has changed a lot!) and brings it front-and-center. At the same time, their existence is referencing (potentially) the Scaled Ones, and showing us that the kossith (Qunari) might have far more ties to Evanuris shenaniganry than we thought—and that those shenanigans did not happen on Thedas, but potentially far across the sea. (Neve and Lucanis accomplish this, also, with the Shadow Dragons and Crows, but not to the degree that Taash does).

This is why the companion quests MATTER, and (at least partially) why the game asks you to complete these quests or suffer consequences in the finale.

You know what else happens, upon completion of these companion quests?

You get codices. In Dragon Age, they are the threads that tie the seemingly disconnected pieces of the plot together, and that's on purpose. This time, they automatically unlock upon completing different stages of companion quests—and as far as I can tell right now, days after completing the game for the first time, the ones revealed later DO contain spicier hints about future lore than those revealed earlier.

And between ALL of these things—the demands Veilguard's timing placed on Bioware, the need for Rook as a protagonist, and the structure for every companion's quests—I think BioWare did an amazing, genius job with their narrative. Yes, I have seen some of the art book content, and yes, it would have been so cool to have those things, but... I truly do not think BioWare needed them, as close as I would have held cameos like Cole to my heart.

From a lore perspective? They knocked it out of the gods-damned park with Veilguard. They did an amazing job with each of their quests, and I promise: there is no shortage of juicy lore to be found in Veilguard. Now that I've inflicted an outline of what I know about stories upon you, I promise: all of this serves as context for everything I look forward to saying in future posts.

_____

If you got this far, thank you, as always!

This series is going to take a turn toward what I noticed in Veilguard, how I feel that Veilguard adds to my theories (or perhaps debunks some of them), and where I think the series is going to go from here. But in order to write all that properly and miss as little as possible (even though, in November 2024, with no wiki or transcripts, I am guaranteed to miss things), I need to keep playing the game and keep reading the codices I find.

Stay tuned for the next instalments, though I cannot say how quickly they will come after this. <3

[red-riot-unbreakable-heart]

Shoto's First Kiss Part 7 is IN THE WORKS FRIENDS!!!

Thanks for your patience as always!

Ok y'all I am fully devoted to Shoto's First Kiss Part 7 right now. It is HAPPENING!!!!

This chapter is going to be light on smut, heavy on plot. But fear not!! We are building up for smut in future chapters. You'll see what I mean...

It's going to be part one of The Party scene. You know the one...the Spin The Bottle game that I've been building up to for like 100 pages. It's gonna be hella dramatic and fanservice-y because there will be ships. There will be pairings. There will be SMOOCHES. Who will be smooching!? I can't tell you yet but I think you're gonna love it!

Some hints for the chapter to come:

Shoto is dressed up and hot (not surprising to anyone)

Shinsou is ALSO dressed up and hot (surprising to everyone)

Neito is not really a dick now. We all kinda love him and turns out he's a good friend.

Tokoyami has feelings for someone!?

Mina takes things too far

Toru gets a little krunk for all of TWO MINUTES.

Ojiro has a really slapable ass.

This is all I will reveal for now.

Timeline!?

I don't have a drop date in mind just yet, but I'm thinking within the next 2 weeks (within a fortnight!? lol). I still want to add like 5-10 pages and then edit the hell out of this thing. Right now I'm writing in ridiculous detail and I feel like that might be a little boring for some people so I want to clean it up, add in some jokes, up the drama factor and give our dear Shoto a little more screentime.

As you wait, feel free to check out + re-read the previous chapters (linked below), or any of my latest one shot fics (also linked below). Idk why but I've been writing a lot for Dabi / Touya lately.

XOXO,

RedRiotUnbreakableHeart

Newish Fics from my desk:

Staples. | Dabi/Touya x Reader 🔥🔞

Game On. | Touya x Reader Imagine 🌶

Stress Relief | Katsuki Bakugo x Reader

Izuku Midoriya x Reader | Headcannon: Your First Time Together

Shoto's First Kiss Series:

Part 1: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋

Part 2: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 2

Part 3: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 3

Part 4: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 4

Part 5: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 5

Part 6: Shoto Todoroki x Reader | First Kiss ❄️🔥💋 PART 6

[nisuna]

hi hello long time no see for those interested I've been going through a hard time after getting fired and finding my place at my new job, but because I'm in a better place mentally again I'm back hehe

I'm sorry that my comeback isn't jjk related, as that is my target audience, but I have been playing love and deepspace ever since Sylus joined and I have been hooked ever since 🤧

I was very hesitant about writing this and even considered writing smth ambiguous to suit my theme so far, but ultimately decided to make it character specific. this man really has a chokehold on me, especially his jp voice. anyway, enough yapping hopefully I will be back with some jjk content as well, in any case, hope you still enjoy ^^

Thank you for all of the support even while I was gone<3

×This takes place after the boxing match from the Radiant Brilliance memory; I saw some fan art and couldn't stop thinking about it so here we are >><<

TW: unprotected sex, creampie, finger fucking, making out, kitten sweetie sweetheart, a lot of teasing but also soft, voyeurism, dom-sub dynamics, tit and ass fondling, lord give me strength this man will be the end of me oml; ~1.8k words

♡masterlist♡

-------------------strictly 18+; MDNI-------------------

"Did you just kiss my head?"

"What about it?", he smirked.

"I'd rather you to kiss something else instead."

"All in due time, kitten. Once everyone leaves, no place will be left untouched.", he whispered pulling you into a hug.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

-

It didn't take long for him to fulfil his promise. However you did not expect to be bent into such a compromising position in the process. One thigh in his hand, while your ass was being pushed into his hard crotch.

"Wait, if you lift it up like that I'm gonna fall!", you yelped expecting a fall that never happened.

Laying his large palm flat on your exposed tummy he spoke, "No you wont, I got you."

"I always got you, you can lean on me.", he continued as he bit along your delicate skin, tightening his grip on your thigh and waist in the process.

You were about to melt at the softness and genuity of his voice, a stark contrast to his rough hands holding you in place.

"Still, this position is a bit...", you trailed off.

"A bit what?", he groaned starting to grind his hips into the plush of your ass.

"Embarassing. I feel exposed... and what if someone walks in." you shook.

"You dont have to worry about any of that." , he spoke softly, nuzzling his nose in the crook of your neck.

"Okay...", you gulped. "Slowly, this feels weird."

"Mhm", he set your leg back down for now and continued. "Arch your back a bit more. Yeah thats it, kitten. The ropes are strong enough to hold you."

His hands were sliding all over your body before he finally decided to flip your skirt over your hips, making it bunch up at your waist and exposing your red lace panties, matching his outfit.

"Oho? Did you wear this pair on purpose? Were you expecting something like this to happen? Or maybe you did want me to fuck you in front of everyone hm?"

You felt embarrassed as the cool air hit your exposed flesh and the way his fingers were pulling at the hem of your panties, while admiring your ridiculous proportions in this position. Your waist and ass were accentuated heavenly, making him lick his lips. When he pulled and let the pretty snap back against your hip you gasped as a firm slap of his palm followed making the flesh jiggle. You arched your back impossibly more in anticipation of what's to come. (both of you hopefully)

He continued his teasing ministrations by unbuttoning your blouse and pulling the thin lace of your matching bra down your tits, making them spill over oh so deliciously.

As soon as he grabbed a handful of both of your tits you started to push back against his aching cock. You both groaned, needing more friction.

"Can't wait anymore, kitten? You even filmed my cock earlier, how dirty. Did you want to suck me off in front of everyone right then and there?", his hot breath hit the back of your neck making the hairs stand up as he continued to fondle your tit while leaving hickeys along your neck.

"Ngh stop teasing...give it to me already!", you moaned, pushing your ass against his firm cock impossibly more, as you clung onto the ropes of the ring in front of you.

"How impatient tsk tsk, he clicked and bit down on your shoulder, getting a yelp out of your quivering mouth. Pulling your back flush against his toned chest he continued, "But I'll gladly comply. I can hardly wait myself, a certain someone's got me all riled up."

"Wanna try the position from earlier?", he teased.

You didn't want to admit it, but him flaunting his strength by almost lifting you up with such ease made your cunt drip. So you just coyly shook your yead yes without looking at him, the tips of your ears burning red.

"Atta girl."

In one smooth motion our leg was lifted back up by one of his huge palms. His long fingers starting to leave marks already.

Pushing his shorts down and your panties to the side he wasted no time filling you to the hilt.

The sudden intrusion made you scream. Your voice echoing off of the walls of the empty stadium made you slap your palm over your mouth in a futile attempt to muffle the sound.

"Why are you trying to keep quiet? Afraid someone will hear you? We're all alone, but how would you feel if someone walked in on me claiming you like that, hm?", he teased.

"You'd like that, huh? I can feel you tightening around me, you like being watched."

You groaned in protest shaking your head as he started pulling out and bullying his thick cock back into your gummy walls.

"Noooo!", you whined head tipping forward at the sound your pussy was making.

"Fuck, look at you. I didnt know you could get any wetter", he mumbled licking a thick stripe up your neck and settling on nibbling on the shell of your ear.

You could feel your juices starting to drip down your leg as he continued his mean thrusts. Your head was starting to spin from the impact. All the talking was making you dizzy. You wanted to ground yourself so you spoke.

"I want to kiss you, please."

His hungry eyes settled on you as he grabbed your jaw twisting, yoyr face back so he could devour you with his mouth as well. The kiss was messy and wet, your tiny mewls interrupting it ever so slightly.

When he felt your walls clamping down on him he set down your leg and started to massage your clit the pads of his fingers. "I want you to cum on my cock, sweatheart. You can do that for me right?"

You violently shook your head yes. "Wanna cum~ Please make me cum~"

A few more thrusts and strokes along your clit was all it took for you to let go. All shame was thrown out the window as you moaned to your heart's content without worrying about someone hearing you.

"Good girl. Now, let me fill you up in return."

And filling you up he did. His hips came to a halt, but your greedy cunt wanted more.

He started to whince as you started fucking yourself on his cock, while he continued to abuse your sensitive clit. With the feeling of his thick cum deep inside of you and with the help of his skilled fingers you could feel yourself tipping over the edge for the second time tonight. It didn't take long before your hips came to a halt as you desperately gasped for air. All the while he was kissing along your skin, praising you and trying his best to calm you down.

When he finally pulled out you, you felt weak but his strong arms kept you from falling. His cum was starting do drip down your shaky legs as you shivered from the aftermath.

After a moment of silence he was the first to speak up. "Just so you know, I would never let anyone but me see you like this. Though I'm open to your input on the matter." you could hear the smirk in his tone.

Turning your head in his direction with a frown you spat, "Don't even joke like that ah-" You let your head fall forward as two thick fingers entered you again.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"We can't let anything go to waste. You're dripping all over the mat. So I have to plug you back up." he smiled.

"And whose fault is that??", you whined.

"Mine entirely, of course." he chuckled.

"That's right. Besides, I do not like being watched. Speak for yourself mr. nh-"

"Oho?", he mused beginng to finger fuck his cum back inside of you. "She's telling me a different story though. You were gaping just a moment ago and now you tightened back up already after the mention of being watched. My kitten's lying, but her body is very honest..

"Stop teasing! And I'm not lying." you protested, legs starting to tremble as you tried your best to hold onto the shaky rope in front of you.

"You're not? Look me in the eyes and say that again."

Reluctant to face him he pulled out his fingers and spun you around himself. When he stuffed his fingers back in, you groaned against his chest clawing at the fabric of his top.

You eventually leaned your back against the ropes and pouted, eyes teary.

"Hm?", he lifted his eyebrow expectedly.

"Screw you!", you spat before pulling him into a needy kiss. All the while he pulled his fingers out of you and gripped a handfull of your ass.

"So feisty. In that case, I guess I'll have to screw you open more thoroughly later." he spoke after pulling away and planting a kiss onto your shoulder.

"Later?", you groaned tilting your head to give him more access to your neck.

"Of course", he hummed. "This was just the appetiser. I hope you're ready for the main event. I've got a lot more to show you, sweetie."

"Ditto, I have a reward for your win as well."

"Nothing you do could ever reward me more, than me making you feel good."

"Hmpf, we'll see about that, big boy."

"Do your worst then.", he flashed you a toothy grin.

---

~pt 2 coming soon ^^~

hope you enjoyed! this was my first time writing for him so please lmk your thoughts

MWAH and until next time<3

[brekkie-e]

I want to preface this with me saying that I've not gotten particularly far in to Lucanis's quests so more information could come to light that changes my opinion.

Regarding the santization of the Crows and whether we are supposed to think they're "good" now:

Atleast at the moment, I am finding it very interesting to play out. I don't believe it. I'm not buying it. But genuinely, why would Lucanis- the grandson and presumed heir of the First Talon who has pride in his family and heritage have anything BUT a misguided sense of heroism about them? In the Wigmaker Job, he ruminates on how he was beaten during his training by Caterina. We know he was abused. The difference is he grew up and internalized it into part of his pride for his work and family. A necessary step in becoming the Crow he was meant to be.

He calls what the Crows do "recruiting." He gives no mention of that being buying slaves.

I can't help but feel all of this reflects much more about Lucanis than it does about the Crows. To me this shows he's a bit of a nepo baby. That he was born with as much of a silver spoon as a Crow gets. That he was raised to be unquestioningly loyal to his house and kind of brainwashed into thinking they're better than they are.

But we don't only see this in Lucanis. Who are the other Crows we are interacting with? Talons. All the NPC's I've spoken to so far have been Talons. They wouldn't have risen through the ranks the way they did if they didn't truly believe in the Crows as an organization and find a sense of worth in being one. None of these NPC's are going to be anything but disparaging of a character like Zevran's perspective on what the Crows are. In their eyes, if he didn't like it he just wasn't built for it.

Which is... why the Crows suck.

Lucanis to me is interesting because he’s kind of showing that you can be decent because you have the privilege of being ignorant.

If I get further in and something changes this perspective- I will update the post and apologize 🤣. At the moment, my feelings about a few other lore things are not very positive, so this could just be me being overly optimistic in the writing.

[thegayhimbo]

I know this is coming a bit late, but since all of this was posted mere hours after Trump won the election in my country, I really wasn't in the mood at the time for making theories. I'm still technically in a funk, but I'm getting this done now to keep on top of things because I am really far behind in my reviews and speculations for Stranger Things.

1.) I am 80% convinced that the "Wheeler" who will vanish is Holly since the tidbits they've released indicate she's going to have a major role in season 5 and some kind of connection with Vecna. The book Alice in Wonderland will probably play a role in how they craft Holly's story since a reference was made to it on the Duffer Brother's Instagram post:

There's also how Holly's clothes in one of the BTS photos looks eerily similar to Alice's blue dress from the Disney movie:

Makes me question which Wonderland character Vecna is supposed to represent: The Mad Hatter? The Cheshire Cat? The Caterpillar? Maybe a male version of The Red Queen/Queen of Hearts?

2.) I speculated a while back that the book A Wrinkle in Time would be influential in the writing for season 5, especially with one of the titles being "Escape from Camazotz." While I have doubts now that Mike will be the one who disappears (as I originally suspected, though I could be eating my words later if I turned out to be right on that call), I do think there will be some kind of journey to a Camazotz-like location in the Upside Down to rescue one of the main characters (one of the spoilers from earlier this year implies that Mike, Will, and Holly may share the same story, so it could be that Mike ventures with Will to rescue Holly from Vecna) and that the Duffer Brothers are intentionally drawing parallels between the Hive Mind in the Upside Down and the one in A Wrinkle in Time that IT (the main antagonist of the book) uses to control the planet of Camazotz.

Plus, the Duffer Brothers posted this on their Instagram a while back during the production of season 5:

3.) The title "The Bridge" is likely referring to the bridge between the Hawkins and the Upside Down, and I suspect that episode will be about said bridge being damaged in a way that needs to be fixed in order to stop the UD's threat. However, since there have already been several references to children's books, I think there might be a third that this title is referring to: Bridge to Terabithia.

I remember reading this book in elementary school, and I know the story deals with two friends who create an imaginary world called Terabithia that can be accessed by crossing a river, and they go to this world as a means of dealing with their own struggles in the real world. Since one of the themes of the books is about building the bridge (both metaphorically and literally) between the two worlds to create stability in the main character's life, maybe that's what will happen with the Upside Down and Hawkins: Instead of the complete destruction of either Hawkins or the Upside Down, an equilibrium is established between both worlds (with effort from the main characters) where the Upside Down no longer poses a threat but can co-exist with Hawkins in a peaceful and stable way.

4.) "The Rightside Up" is pretty self-explanatory as a title. The question isn't whether the main characters fix things, but HOW they do it and what the cost will be.

5.) Every BTS photo I've seen gives the impression that the Military, and likely the residents of Hawkins who've taken up Jason's crusade from Season 4, will be antagonists to the main characters just like Vecna and the Mind Flayer. I also have no doubt Colonel Sullivan will have spent the last year and a half hunting for El while also trying to contain the threat of the Upside Down. What I want to know is why the main characters are still in Hawkins after all this time? We see photos of Mike, Lucas, Dustin, and Will going to Hawkins High School, but I thought the idea at the end of S4 is that the Upside Down was leaking into Hawkins, which would make it a hotspot for toxic air, decay, and monsters popping out of the ground. Did the military quarantine the whole town and the residents can't leave Hawkins because they are infected? Or did they only seal off certain parts where Vecna's gate opened, and the town simply rebuilt around it and tried to get back to their lives?

[yoonia]

Hello^^

This is your annual (monthly) psa from little old me.

I'm sorry for being MIA. I had a ton of fun with my birthday bash event on October and I love that I ended up writing a couple of new pieces at the end aside from giving you guys some lovely moodboards to enjoy, which was a blast.

Unfortunately, on the final days of October, I started getting an allergy reaction from some of my meds, which led to me getting a weird skin infection appearing on my right arm and with a terrible inflammation on my upper arm. I also experienced a symptom similar to carpal tunnel syndrome which I got from hours of designing and drawing for work during the day and playing with canva and photoshop and writing on my computer at night, so I had to take a long break as soon as I finished my event and November came around.

To top it all, I think I'm a bit burnt out. I've been releasing a ton of things since August, and my mind (and I guess, my body) is asking for a break. I've been taking some time off from the internet and Tumblr because of this and have been focusing on recovering (bc your girl has bills to pay and I can't draw anything with this arm *sobs*).

I'm still recovering right now, with my arm still sore and hurting, but I'm slowly getting back to writing and creating some stuff again as I'm doing NaNoWriMo independently (without the site). Here's where we are at so far:

— Nefarious, that was planned to be released at the end of October, is about halfway done. I'm currently focusing on this one to release as soon as I'm done with it (because this won't be the last instalment from In Motion and I want to get the other out on December). Thanks to my break, I was able to open the draft with fresh eyes and...hated at least most of the things I wrote last month lol. so I'm in the middle of rewriting this and I can say that I'm making better progress with this so far.

— Carousel is still on rewriting process, with its weekly update continuing on Wattpad starting this month.

— The Bedroom Hymns is also on progress. I can only write for an hour or two each day due to my condition, so progress has been slow, but we're getting somewhere. I think I can release the new chapter right after Nefarious is released.

— Ever A Never After is continuing. Again, it's a slow progress, and I might release it sooner on Wattpad as small chapters if it comes down to it.

— I have a surprise project to release soon. I'm not sure when it's coming, but I'll be announcing it when I'm ready :)

That's all for now. Thank you for your patience and for making things fun for me back in October that you've given my a lot of motivation to write some new fics. I have a couple of messages waiting for me in my inbox which I'll be answering as soon as I'm available (again).

Be back soon! Take care, lovelies <333

xoxo, Dia

[starstruckbyacomet]

@whineandcheese24 I also haven't read the interviews. I have to select the articles carefully, because I want to avoid giving clicks to Buddie writers as much as I can.

Assuming that this break up is final, there are 2 speculations that I've read so far:

Lou is moving to the new spin-off, which is good for him. But someone mentioned that in one of the interviews, Lou was asked whether he would come back or not. He said it depended on his schedule / availability. This is not the answer he would give if he is moving to the spin-off. He could simply said yes, of course. And in the interview he also said he was sad about how Tommy's storyline ended. This is also not something he would say if he is moving to the spin-off.

They want to be the next Grey's Anatomy (currently in Season 21). They might think it was too early for Buck to settle in a relationship, which is bullshit. In Grey Anatomy, Meredith Grey was married to Derek Shepherd for +/- 5 years before he died. And the writers still managed to make interesting storylines for the couple during the period.

Whatever the reason, there is no excuse for this shitty writing. Knowing that Season 6 was filmed before Season 5 made it feels really cruel. By making Tommy such a lovable character that we cared so much, It seems like Tim Minear want the break up to have maximum emotional impact. This whole mess feels like Tim's way to say, "Surprise! You didn't see it coming, did you? Look how clever I am!" And it royally pissed me off.

Maybe Tim thinks that the drama will attach us more to the show. Instead. It makes us traumatized. A good writing should make the audience asks, "What next?". Instead, this shit show made us asked, "What's the point of watching?".

I'm not rewarding the person who toyed with my emotions, just to prove that he was smarter than me. I quit watching, unless they bring Tommy back. They did Lou and his character dirty, and there is no other way to fix it.

what I truly don't understand about this episode is what did they gain from doing this? they took a huge risk with bucktommy and were rewarded with not only a large portion of the fandom getting interested and involved with the ship, but also the GA being more invested in this ship than any of buck's other relationships (from what I could tell). Tommy was the perfect character to fill the requirements of being easily integrateable to both the plot and the prexisting firefam dynamic, and what little characterization he had in season 2 was prime angsty backstory. Oliver, Lou, and even Kenny talked about how excited they were to be working with this storyline and these characters, and we all know how much Tim loves Lou and Tommy. The show was not only accepted for its representation, but lauded for how much care they put into this story and how much it meant to queer men, bisexuals, and just queer people in general. They took all this potential, and completely turned it on it's head, and for what? a gotcha moment?

In isolation, the writing could make sense. This would create tension in the relationship that they can then overcome. It would be a great way for tommy to learn how to love and be in a long term relationship (which it seems he hasn't been) and deconstruct the stereotype that bisexual people, and any newly awakened queer person doesn't know themselves well enough to know what love feels like. But then the interviews make it sound final? I haven't read the interviews because I just watched the episode a few hours ago and I've been busy since (plus I stopped reading interviews after all the interesting plot points from last season finale got dropped), but from what y'all are saying the interviews make it sound like this is the end. Not only that, but Oliver, the guy who said he didn't want to fall into stereotypes like "newly awakened man falls in love with his best friend" way back in April/May, is apparently saying offensive things about Buck needing to explore?

I just genuinely have no idea what there is to gain with this. They completely lucked themselves into an amazing love interest, and even if they found another love interest with the same benefits, hell even if they do get bucktommy back together (here's to hoping) no one is going to trust them again.

congratulations 911, you done fucked up