#I think there’s plenty of room for me in that bunk he has

[wildsaltair]

[buckysegan]

We've been waiting for you, John Egan

summary: there's more waiting for john when he gets back from stalag luft iii. john egan x she. word count: 2.1K a/n: something in me felt a little feral tonight and this was needed. a little curvy fmc mention but nothing too much. i just love john egan and would give him all my babies i guess??? again we're rolling with some historical inaccuracies. a continuation from here

it had been five hundred and fifty one days. that was how long it had been since she had seen major john egan. that long since she had slept a whole nights sleep without worrying. that long since she'd known what i was like to be really settled. she tried not to think about it, how much time had passed and how hope seemed to get a little bit worse with each passing day. but it was so hard when she had such obvious proof of just how much john was missing whilst he was away.

she hadn't even realised at first, what the signs were. she had been so consumed in work with more pilots to care for in the hospital than ever before she had barely noticed that she was tired. the nausea was just a sure sign of how much she was missing john. she was confident of it. despite her not eating, the swell of her already generous hips was inconsequential compared to the rest of her worries so she barely paid attention to any of it.

it was douglass, sweet douglass that made the first joke about how if he didn't know better with how often he'd seen her run away to throw up he'd assumed she was pregnant. after that it hadn't taken long for the room to fall silent and for everyone to slowly do some of their own math. the other nurses has scooped her up, rushed her away to the infirmary and sat with her as she did her own calculations on what had happened. three months since she had last bled. dear god.

she should have been sent home. everyone around her knew that was likely when her bump started to show under her uniform and she was ready too, to be sent home and discharged, but the hundredth had always been an unruly bunch and it was almost as if no one could bare to send her away just in case. what would egan do if he got back and they weren't here? no one asked her, who the father might have been, everyone knew without anyone having to utter the words, hardin pulled plenty of strings to keep her around for his boys.

weeks of knowing, turned into months and each of the men around her stepped up in place of their friend. blakely rubbed at her shoulders when she looked a little tired. crosby was around day or night to fetch anything she might have needed. rosie tossed out baby names for girls and boys alike, offering sincere ones and ones that he knew would make her laugh. jack left the traded jacket for her on her bed and no one said a damn thing when she wore it around base. each of them did their best but when she laid on her bunk at night, hands cradling her bump it didn't take away the longing for her major.

those quiet times were when she let herself imagine what it would be like if all of this was happening at different times. how much larger johns rough hands would look splayed across her stretched stomach. just how good he would be at building things ready for the baby and preparing for their impending arrival. the soft spoken words that would have been offered in encouragement through her doubt.

it was two hundred and eighty two days since she had seen john, when the screams of a baby boy filled out a hospital wing and cheers of the hundred went up at the sound. a new soul welcomed into the world and surrounded with so much love despite the fact his dad was stuck somewhere out there.

jokes were passed around at the spirit of baby egan and the hope that he offered for the men. every time the men went up, there he was in the tower reminding them what they were all fighting to come back for. what good in the world still made it all worth while. as cheesy as she had always found it, she knew that the saying it took a village to raise a child had never been truer than it was here in thorpe abbotts.

gale cried when he saw them for the first time. the woman he knew his best friend had been fighting for and the bundle of brown curls in her arms. guilt flooding him that john had allowed him to escape when he had this to return home too. a family. a pair of matching blue and a smile that warmed his heart waiting for him to make it back. he told her as much, that he was sorry and it should have been bucky that made it home and she was quick to remind him that, john egan, wouldn't be the man either of them loved if he had ever left buck behind.

the days seemed to be longer now gale had made it home and she was still waiting on her bucky. each laugh her son offered and mile stone he hit causing a contradiction of emotions in her. joy that she got to witness it all and devastation john was missing it all.

it had been five hundred and fifty one days. that's how long she had been counting when blakely flew into the hospital, douglass and crosby on his tail. "john's home." the two words alone were enough to make her knees buckle as she looked back at the trio, who were all seemingly holding their breaths as they waited for her to respond. she would have cried, with joy, with relief, with the overwhelming sense of emotion that flooded through her. she was going to cry, she was sure of it but right now she needed to see john and she needed to make some introductions. with gale still away on relief mission, everyone knew who john would be asking for first.

bucky could feel something was wrong the second he landed. people had been happy to see him for sure, but there was a buzz around the boys. they were all looking at each other, over him, like they were all sharing a secret he couldn't be privy to right now. it was driving him crazy and that was saying something.

"buck alright?" he found himself asking because if anyone liked to tiptoe around him, it was usually around his best friend but everyone seemed to jovial for that to be the case. even kenny was here with that god damn stupid grin on his face that the rest of them seemed to be wearing. what was he missing?

"yea bucks fine, he's flying today but nothing to worry about, just dropping supplies, we just thought there might be someone else you wanted to see." blakely offered with a nod of his head, and john was sure his face was a continued picture of confusion as he watched the men part like some sort of celebrity was on base but his frown quickly vanished as he saw her. the last time he had seen her this clearly she had kissed him goodbye before they had dragged themselves away from each other.

"we've been waiting for you, john egan." god her voice was even sweeter then he remembered but it was the we in her statement that drew his attention to the small bundle in her arms. a baby. a boy by the looks of it and he felt his stomach drop. she had moved on, of course she had. without him around he wasn't surprised that someone else had scooped her up. he moved to look at each of his men, trying to find which one looked guilty but he was met with more excitement, a little confusion even, what were they surprised he was heart broken she hadn't waited for him.

"you going to stand there all day or are you going to come meet him?" she asked, voice soft as she raised a hand to him and bucky moved towards her without much of a thought because no one seemed ready to stop him and his fingers linked with hers as soon as they were in reach. "you had a baby." john smiled down at her softly, eyes full of wonder as he looked at the small version of herself that she had created.

" i sure did." she nodded with a smile the men hadn't seen in months, the one reserved just for bucky. "i'd like you to meet thomas gale egan." time stood still for a moment then, john was sure of it as he looked between her and the baby she was holding, his blue eyes taking in each feature of the infant before him. their eyes matched he realised after a moment, the dark curls on his head were the wrong shade to be hers, they were his. she was holding his son. "baby...you had my baby?" he asked, as if he needed some sort of further confirmation of what his eyes at told him.

"mhumm, i told you, we've been waiting for you, do you want to hold him?" she offered, her face a mirror of the men around them, all smiles and joy and as john took tommy in his hands with such care she stopped trying to fight the tears that had been ready to spill since she'd heard he was home. with tears rolling down his own cheeks john took in the baby that watched him with what he hoped was quiet wonder, he had a whole baby boy that he had never known about and he was perfect. "thomas gale egan, it sure is good to meet you." reaching a spare arm around her bucky pulled his girl close to his side, unable to move his gaze from his son.

"alright any of you clowns going to tell me what else i missed whilst i was gone?"

he had been sure that he would sleep for hours when he returned to base. that his body would crash and that he would need time to recover but he had never felt more wired than he did as he stretched out in bed. it had taken john far to long to shake the rest of the boys, listening to stories of how each of them had helped his girl at some point. stories of all tommy's firsts since he had been born, the photos they'd managed to get all offered to john so he could piece together the time he had missed.

he'd stepped away from them only to check on gale when he had landed who had offered him the biggest grin and wondered if he had met his name sake yet, john still unable to believe she had named their boy so well.

nothing about his should have surprised him though, she was perfect, she had been before he had gone and now as he watched her tucked into his side sleeping softly like her own body could finally rest. tommy was spread across his chest, warm skin to skin, sound sleep on him with his little mouth wide opened as he showed no sign of being anything other that utterly content as he slept on his dad, one of john's hand spread across his tiny back taking up the whole space but to afraid to let him or his mom go as if either of them might vanish on him.

feeling her stir a little in his arms john pulled his gaze from tommy for a second to meet sleepy eyes, his chest flooding with more love for her than he had ever thought possible when he'd had to leave her a life time ago now. "you struggling to sleep?" she asked, her voice thick with sleep as she checked on tommy for a second before her eyes met john's once more. "i'm scared i'm still in that camp and neither of you are real." his confession was quiet as he offered it and with a soft hum, she pushed gently, pressing her lips to his. "sleep daddy, we will both be here in the morning."

"i just want to watch him a little longer." john offered quietly, tucking her back into his arm so she could sleep once more. if he never slept again it wouldn't be a shock to him. how he was ever meant to stop looking at this? well bucky just didn't know. "thanks for waiting for me, baby." he offered, to her sleeping form, lips pressing a kiss to the top of her own curls. he'd been waiting for them too, he'd just not known how to dare dream of it, till they were here in his arms.

[steddieas-shegoes]

uh oh, feelings

for @corrodedcoffinfest popup event 'it's complicated'

rated e, 18+, minors dni | 4,512 words | cw: open ending, steve/gareth sex | tags: established steddie, NOT cheating they're all super cool and fine with this, eddie watches, virgin gareth, first time, bottom steve, top gareth, blowjob, anal fingering, anal sex, left open on purpose because i'm insane and might continue it

also on ao3

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“Dude. You’re making me sad.”

Gareth groans. “I don’t care. I feel pitiful.”

“That’s ‘cause you are,” Eddie pushes his shoulder. It’s playful, but there’s a hint of actual annoyance in it and Gareth doesn’t want that. “There’s, like, a whole crowd of women out there who would fuck you if you asked.”

“I don’t want the whole crowd of women. I want one woman, maybe two.”

“You’re not going from zero to two. So knock down your expectations a little,” Eddie starts. “Also, just throwing this out as an option: plenty of men would be interested in you, too.”

“Yeah? Like who?” Gareth scoffs.

It’s not that he hasn’t thought about it. He has. Plenty of times. More often than he’d ever admit to anyone, especially Eddie.

“I dunno. Steve?”

Gareth blinks once, twice.

“Steve who?” He only knows one Steve and that Steve is very taken by the man hounding him about his virginity right now.

Eddie throws the pillow he’s holding at Gareth. “My boyfriend, Steve! ‘Steve who?’ Fuck, dude, how many Steves do you know?”

“I dunno! Sorry for not assuming you want me to sleep with the love of your life I guess!”

“Everyone wants to sleep with Steve,” Eddie shrugs as if he’s cool with everyone wanting to sleep with Steve.

“Not everyone,” Gareth insists, but he’s not actually sure. Steve is the hottest guy they know. “I don’t think.”

“But you do.”

Gareth stays silent. This feels like a trap. He doesn’t think Eddie would get pissed or anything if he admits it, but he doesn’t want Steve to find out.

“It’s okay if you do. Steve would totally fuck you.”

Gareth’s mouth drops open. “He would not.”

“He would,” Eddie nods. He’s smirking like he’s teasing, but Gareth thinks he’s actually being very serious right now. “Ask him.”

“I’m not gonna ask your boyfriend if he’d fuck me!”

“Don’t ask him outright!” Eddie throws his arms up. “Jesus, no wonder you’re a virgin. Flirt with him, see if he flirts back.”

“Is this some kinda fucked up friendship test?” Gareth stands and starts pacing. Steve will be on the bus any minute and there’s no way he should hear any of this conversation. He’ll cut off Gareth’s balls for even suggesting he cheat on Eddie. He’ll hang them out the tour bus window while Gareth dies on the floor and post an ad for a drummer at their next stop. “Or are you testing Steve? I’m not gonna be a part of that, man. Steve loves you and I’m not getting in the way-“

“Dude. It’s not a test. Get it out of your system and then maybe you can focus on something other than your miserable state of existence,” Eddie walks to his bunk and Gareth is reminded immediately that they’re all sleeping on the bus tonight. Eddie’s plan isn’t gonna work.

“It can’t be tonight,” Gareth is surprised at his own words, shocked that he’s apparently entertaining the idea of fucking Steve. Getting fucked by Steve? “Is Steve a top or bottom?”

Eddie laughs loud enough to make Gareth flinch.

“You’ll find out soon.”

~~~

Soon is two days later, when they finally have a two day break so they can stay in a hotel. None of them stray far, always choosing to be in adjoining rooms and getting room service instead of trying to go out. It’s just easier; no worrying about being seen by fans or trying to book enough security for them to stay safe.

Goodie and Jeff are in the hot tub downstairs, probably trying to pick up chicks, so naturally Gareth is sitting in Eddie and Steve’s bed while they finish their dinner. He’s not worried about being a third wheel, especially not since Eddie told him that Steve would fuck him. He’s still not sure he would.

“Steve, you’ve taken most of Hawkins’ virginity, right?”

Eddie rolls his eyes, huffs a ‘smooth’ under his breath. Steve doesn’t even flinch. He finishes chewing, swallows, and sits back in the rolling chair he insisted on staying in while he ate.

“I wouldn’t say most. A good chunk,” Steve smirks. “Why? Trying to take someone’s virginity?”

“Yeah. Mine.”

Gareth slaps his hand over his own mouth. He feels absurd. He feels like he might puke. He thinks his heart is trying to escape his body via his throat or maybe his ass. He’s unsure if gravity is involved at all, actually.

“You’re a virgin?” Steve chokes on nothing. “Eddie, you didn’t tell me he’s a virgin.”

“I didn’t know you needed to know this about my best friend,” Eddie laughs, ignores the way Gareth is watching them with wide eyes.

“I can’t believe I couldn’t tell,” Steve is shaking his head, looking more disappointed with himself by the second. Gareth isn’t sure what to make of it. He thinks he’s supposed to feel ashamed, but he doesn’t. Not yet. “I can spot them from a mile away.”

Eddie snorts, but doesn’t comment. He’s stuffing his face with his dinner, and Steve’s eyes are focusing on Gareth in a way he isn’t familiar with from anyone, let alone…Steve.

“Uh…how exactly do you know from looking at someone?” Gareth dares to ask.

“Oh, it’s easy. I can’t tell you, but you might figure it out soon,” Steve answers, shoving another bite into his mouth and then standing up.

“How will I figure it out?”

“Because you won’t be a virgin anymore.”

“O…kay?”

There’s no way it’s this easy, right? There’s no way Steve is offering to fuck him and there’s no way Eddie’s just okay with it.

“Eddie, what’s your color on this?” Steve asks.

Eddie looks between them for a moment. “Green,” Eddie smirks. “But I’m watching.”

“Watching what?” Gareth knows what. He can’t believe it’s happening, but he knows.

“You cool with fucking me? Or do you prefer me fucking you? I’m good either way.”

Straight to business it seems. Gareth is chubbing up a little already. What the fuck is going on?

“Yeah, uh.” Gareth swallows around his nerves. He performs in front of thousands of people every night. He can fuck Steve Harrington. “Yeah, I can fuck you. That’s good. Cool.”

Steve raises a brow, looks to Eddie, then back to Gareth. “Is it because he’s gonna watch?”

Gareth shakes his head. He’s fine with that part. Honestly, it might help keep him from throwing up if Eddie’s there. Eddie’s seen him in every state of undress, and every emotion, and he trusts him more than anyone else.

“Is it because it’s me?” Steve steps closer. Gareth’s asshole tightens. It happens when he’s nervous, okay? It’s like fight or flight, except no matter what he chooses, nothing’s getting in his asshole or out of it.

“I mean, it’s not not because it’s you. I’d be nervous about anyone. I guess it’s just…like you do realize that you’re with Eddie, right?”

Eddie and Steve both laugh and it makes Gareth feel dumb.

“Yeah, I do. I love him a hell of a lot,” Steve finally says. “And he loves me a lot. And we both love you and want you to stop moping.”

“You’re not in love with me though?” Gareth has to clarify. He loves Eddie, and he loves Steve, but not like that.

“No, dude,” Eddie exclaims. “Neither of us wanna make you a third. You just need to get over this thing in your head that losing your virginity is the end all be all of your life or something. I can’t stand the face you make anymore. Steve’s sick of me complaining. We love you in the way where if we have to see that face anymore, we’ll bury your body on the interstate so.”

“Right. Okay.” Gareth nods because that makes sense. It’s hard to figure out how this is gonna work later on, after he’s seen Steve like this, after Eddie’s seen him like this. “So, we’re doing this.”

Steve doesn’t answer with words. He gets close enough to pull Gareth into him, kisses the corner of his mouth as a test.

It’s a little weird, but that’s because he was under the impression they wouldn’t kiss. He assumed this was a get in, get out situation. Get the job done and move on. He didn’t expect it to be soft.

“C’mon,” Steve whispers as he pulls back, smiling encouragingly at him. He takes his hand and leads him to the bed. “You know how to get me ready?”

Gareth nods. He’s messed around with himself plenty of times to know what to do, what feels good, what’s too much. He doesn’t know what Steve likes, but he can figure it out as he goes.

Steve takes his shirt off. Eddie groans.

“You look so good,” he groans. “I wanna touch you, too.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Not now. Let Gare have this, baby.”

“He can…he can touch you. If you want,” Gareth says. “I dunno if I want him to touch me, though.”

Eddie’s hand goes to his chest dramatically. “No? My nimble fingers aren’t good enough? Fine!” He smirks. “I’m good just watching. This is for you. I get to touch him all the time.”

Steve is slipping his pants off quietly, letting them have this moment.

“Normally, I’d make you take my clothes off, but I think you know how to do that,” Steve teases. “Unless you’re unfamiliar with this model of jeans.”

“Levi’s?” Gareth takes his own shirt off. “Half my closet is thrifted Levi’s, dude.”

And then they’re both standing in just their underwear. Gareth’s in boxers that he doesn’t remember washing in his last round of laundry, and Steve’s standing there in the tightest gray underwear Gareth’s ever seen, already half-hard.

His dick is huge. Like, way bigger than Gareth’s, maybe also Eddie’s. He’d need to see them both at once to compare, but-

“We’re gonna use colors, even though it’s not a scene, okay? Just so you’re comfortable. Red is stop, yellow is pause, green is good. Use them anytime. If Eddie sees something I miss, he’ll ask you randomly, okay?” Steve pulls his underwear off.

He’s just…naked. Comfortably standing in front of Gareth with his dick out and leaning to the left, getting harder the more Gareth watches him. Who knew Steve was into being watched?

Gareth drops his boxers and he is fully hard. Achingly so. His dick pulses when Steve’s eyes drop down to get a look. Steve’s lips curl up into a smile.

He walks up to him, drops to his knees, and gets his hand around the base. Gareth’s breath catches.

Steve licks a stripe up his dick, sucking the head into his mouth before he takes him all the way down.

“Jesus,” Gareth moans. He’s got pretty good stamina when it’s just him. His dick is sensitive, but he knows how to edge himself. He kinda likes doing it on nights when they’ve got a hotel. He can shove his face into the pillow and get himself close four, five, six times before he shakes apart. He doesn’t know if he can hold back with his dick leaking down Steve’s throat. “Do you not have a gag reflex? Fuck.”

Steve smiles around him somehow, and Eddie is trying hard not to make noise, but Gareth can hear him huffing a laugh against his hand.

Steve pops off for a moment, looks up at him with a grin. “You can touch me.”

Right. His hands immediately go to Steve’s hair, threading through the locks and pulling him in again. He’s under no impression that he’s in control here. He’s just gonna try to keep both hands on the steering wheel while Steve hits the gas pedal.

His fingers tighten when Steve’s tongue swirls around his tip. Steve moans. The vibrations are enough to make Gareth’s legs feel weak.

“Shit. Bed, bed, bed,” he’s saying as he tugs Steve off of him and to his feet. He crushes his lips to Steve’s, any lingering doubt in his mind that this was gonna ruin their friendship long gone. He’s gonna fuck Steve and make him feel good, and Steve’s gonna return the favor, and then he’s gonna keep annoying Steve for the rest of time.

He could throw Steve on the bed, but Steve’s faster. He pushes Gareth down on his back, straddles his hips, and pushes his hands above his head.

Shit, that’s hot.

“How am I gonna get you ready if you have my hands way up there?” Gareth is nothing if not a little shit.

But Steve is also a little shit.

“You’ll figure it out,” Steve’s ass is brushing against his dick and he’s trying not to think about how it will feel inside him. But the more he thinks about not thinking about it, the more he realizes he’s gonna be inside Steve very soon. His restraint is flying out the window and up the street.

He feels Eddie’s eyes on them, but he’s decidedly not thinking about what he might be doing. If it were him in Eddie’s shoes, he’d be jacking it relentlessly.

Gareth is pretty strong. Like, he plays drums every day. Got used to lugging equipment around before they had people who did that for them. Started lifting weights occasionally when no one was watching. He likes being strong, he likes the way his muscles ripple when he’s beating the hell out of his snares and cymbals, angry but beaming from ear to ear.

He likes the way Steve moans when he throws him off of him, switching their positions in less than two seconds.

He doesn’t feel the need to say anything. Steve’s blushing, a pretty pink color across his face and neck, and his lips are swollen from sucking his dick and biting his own lips. Seeing Steve like this is life-changing.

It’s not a falling in love moment, but it’s a moment where he can see why Eddie did.

There’s always a certain charm floating around Steve, and it shifts now, while he’s under Gareth. It’s brighter, damn near blinding. Steve’s glittering gold, intensely blazing as Gareth’s hands run down his chest and sides. He adjusts so he’s sitting between Steve’s legs, pushing them back.

He hears Eddie groan from a few feet away. He’s ignoring it.

“You guys have lube?” Gareth asks.

Eddie throws a bottle on the bed.

“Thanks.”

Stupid of him to assume they went anywhere without some. They fucked like rabbits. He’s pretty sure if Steve could get pregnant, he would have had at least two accidental babies by now.

Gareth stares at the bottle in his hand.

“Still green?” Steve asks quietly.

“Yeah, sorry.” Gareth opens the bottle and uses entirely too much. It’s a different brand than he uses, and he’s nervous, and he can feel two sets of eyes watching his every breath and it’s- “Yellow.”

Steve sits up and takes the bottle from him. He hears Eddie step closer for a moment, as if he’s gonna try to fix it even though he isn’t technically involved in any of this.

“What’s going on?” Steve asks, soft, careful. Unlike any way he ever talks to Gareth.

He kinda hates it. He likes when Steve’s a bitchy know-it-all to him. He likes when Steve gets frustrated at the way he pretends to be dumber than he is about band stuff.

“I just need a minute, I think,” Gareth admits. “This is a lot.”

“Okay,” Steve waves Eddie off and places both hands on Gareth’s face. It’s intimate. It blocks the outside world from view. It feels like it’s just them right now. “It won’t hurt my feelings if you wanna stop. It’s not me, it’s you.”

Gareth snorts. There’s the bitchy Steve he’s always loved.

“I don’t wanna stop. I just realized I’m fucking my best friend’s boyfriend while he watches and it’s taking me a second to wrap my head around that being a normal thing,” Gareth explains. He’s ignoring the way Steve’s dick is rubbing against his. He said yellow, so they have to stay paused until he’s mentally good to go. He knows that much.

“Should Eddie not watch?” Steve asks. As if Eddie would allow Gareth to fuck Steve without being there.

“No, that’s-” Gareth sighs. “I don’t care if he watches. It’s just a lot.”

“Yeah. You’re doing good, though.”

The praise sinks deep into his skin, courses through his veins. He isn’t able to hold back a whine. Holy shit, where did that even come from?

Steve looks thrilled.

“Oh. Well, this is interesting,” Steve says around a smile. “Didn’t think it would go like this.”

“Like what?”

Gareth feels unmoored. Something’s shifted. The entire room feels darker, heavier.

“Stevie, be nice,” Eddie says from a chair. Gareth didn’t even know there was a chair in the corner.

“I am being nice,” Steve doesn’t look away from Gareth. “This is just shocking information and I’m taking it in. Learning. Growing.”

“What information?”

“We won’t do anything with it tonight. But we’ll talk about it after. You gotta stay safe if you decide to try anything with someone and I won’t let someone hurt you.”

“Try what?”

“Later,” Steve pats his cheek and lays back again. “Whenever you’re ready, I’m right here. Take your time, honey.”

The name feels like honey, dripping between them and making them sticky. Gareth wants to lick the word from Steve’s mouth.

Gareth watches as Steve puts his hand on his own dick, lazily stroking to keep himself hard. He can’t look away. A bead of precum falls, drips down his length until his thumb swipes it up, rubs it into his skin.

He licks his lips.

His fingers ghost over Steve’s hole.

“Good?” Steve asks, breathless.

“Green,” Gareth answers as he slides a lubed-up finger into him.

He’s tight, but there’s really no resistance. Steve’s relaxed. Gareth’s relaxed.

Steve rocks back into his touch, eyes glassy as he silently begs for more. It’s easy to read him when he’s like this, wanting more, being greedy in ways no one else ever sees. Steve’s a giver, the least selfish person of all of them, but not now. Now he wants.

Now Gareth is gonna give.

He’s three fingers deep when he manages to find Steve’s prostate. It’s easier on himself, he realizes. He’s spent years figuring out what makes himself tick. He has to watch every rise of Steve’s chest, every twitch of his brow, every bite of his lip. This is finding what makes someone– Steve– feel good, and doing it so they find pleasure.

Gareth sees why they fuck like rabbits.

Steve’s back arches off the bed as he flicks his fingers just right, rubs until he’s sure Steve’s gonna squirm right off the bed. Eddie’s barely even a thought in his mind right now, but he can feel his gaze. He’s making sure Steve’s taken care of, and he’s making sure Gareth doesn’t need to back out. He’s taking care of them in the only way he knows how.

He wants to hand over the reins. Steve’s taking what he’s giving, but he wants him to take more.

He doesn’t know how to verbalize that without sounding desperate.

But something switches between them and Steve seems to just know.

He’s an intuitive guy.

Steve sits up, waits for Gareth to remove his fingers. He pushes Gareth back on the bed, so his head is resting at where the sheets have gathered at the foot.

He straddles him again, throws his hands up above his head again, smirks again.

“Condom?” Steve asks.

Gareth knows from his mom, from health class, from Eddie, from Steve he should say yes. If this were a stranger, he’d say yes.

But this is Steve, who insists on everyone getting tested every three months like clockwork, who has only slept with Eddie for the last six years, who would never even ask if he was at all concerned about their safety. He’s letting Gareth make the call on something that’s normally important. It’s not a test, it’s just Steve letting him have control.

“Can we do it without?” Gareth’s voice is barely more than a whisper. He’s shy. Why the fuck does he feel shy?

Steve nods, soft smile taking over.

“But never do it without with anyone else unless you’re in a committed relationship and both clean,” Eddie says from the chair, ever the mother hen.

“Yes, dad,” Gareth rolls his eyes.

“Don’t call me dad while you’re fucking my boyfriend,” Eddie says.

“I’m not fucking him yet,” Gareth’s words end in a whine as Steve slides down on his dick. He’s so fucking tight, Jesus Christ on the fucking cross. “Holy shit. Is it this tight all the time?”

Steve breathes out, halfway laughs, halfway trying to not whimper.

“Eddie usually does four fingers first,” Steve says. It doesn’t even feel weird to hear him talk about what Eddie normally does.

“Should I have done four?”

“No, honey. Three is good,” Steve leans down to kiss him.

Gareth’s stomach flutters.

He’s inside Steve. His dick is in Steve’s ass.

Steve lifts his body up, falls back down. He holds onto Gareth’s chest, thumbs at his nipples, finds a rhythm.

He knows Steve is athletic, has always been that way and probably always will be that way. He’s got endurance that no one can match, probably not even Eddie. He’s stronger than Gareth by a mile, and it shows when his thigh muscles tighten and relax as he rides Gareth into the mattress.

His pace picks up. Gareth’s hands hold onto his hips, but he’s not really doing anything. He’s just along for the ride.

What a ride it’s been.

“Fuck, yes, there,” Steve gasps suddenly. His legs start shaking. Eddie makes the most high-pitched whine Gareth’s ever heard. It’s a lot all at once and his brain is dumbed down to processing how good he feels and nothing else. “Fuck me, honey. Harder.”

It’s ridiculous how easily he goes along with Steve’s demands now. Normally, he fights him on everything just to be annoying.

But Steve wants him to go harder and he wants what Steve wants.

His grip tightens against Gareth’s hips and he plants his feet against the bed for leverage. If Steve’s wants to get fucked harder, then Steve’s gonna get fucked harder.

“Shit, yes, feels so good,” Steve pants.

Gareth doesn’t know if he’s always like this or if he’s playing it up a little to make him feel more confident for whoever he fucks next. Either way, Steve’s making this a hell of a fun time.

“Is it good for you, honey?” Steve asks.

How he remembers to ask is beyond him. Gareth can’t do anything but nod and moan. He feels sweat beading along his forehead and neck. He doesn’t do this much work unless he’s on stage.

“Tell me how good it is.”

Gareth whimpers. He didn’t even realize he could make that noise.

“So good. So tight, Steve, shit,” Gareth is moving faster now, and he’s really not sure how it could feel good for Steve at this point, but Steve’s eyes roll back in his head and he comes all over them.

He’s impossibly tighter through his orgasm and it brings Gareth to his own peak. He’s shaking through it, not even sure what he’s saying. His hips stutter and stop and he’s filling Steve up with his cum. It’s already dripping back down his own dick, making a mess on the hotel bed.

Steve is brushing his hair out of his face, kissing his jaw, whispering about how good he did. It’s helping and also making it harder to keep this from getting complicated.

No one warned him about the attachment. He figured it would be fine, he could get off with Steve and then they could pretend it didn’t happen or joke about it. He’s crashing from a high he’s never experienced and he’s realizing how stupid he was to think he could ever look at Steve the same.

“Shit, Eddie, come here,” he hears Steve say, but he doesn’t really feel anything anymore. He knows he’s not inside Steve anymore, which kinda sucks. He likes the warmth, might already be a little addicted to it. “It’s okay, Gare. We’ve got you.”

Strong arms wrap around him, familiar in the way they don’t hesitate to pull him close. Eddie’s always been a cuddler, and he’s always known how to hold Gareth when his head’s too loud. Right now his head is silent, but his arms provide the same comfort.

A warm washcloth is on him and he blinks his eyes open to see Steve cleaning him up. Eddie’s behind him, holding him against his chest. He’s fully dressed and Gareth is not.

But he just fucked his boyfriend in front of him, so he guesses this is probably fine.

Eddie’s humming something. He doesn’t recognize it, but he’s still feeling a little out of it.

“Hey, honey,” Steve is next to him now, his hand on his chest. “You with us yet?”

“Mmm,” is all he can reply with.

“It’s alright. Take your time.”

A few minutes pass. He feels less like he’s having a crisis about feelings for Steve and more like he just got fucked within an inch of his life.

It’s a good change.

“Hey,” he says.

Eddie’s arms tighten around him. Steve smiles.

“Hey, bud,” Steve says, and it makes Gareth laugh.

“What happened to honey?” He jokes. But he did kinda like it. More than he probably should.

Steve gently smacks his chest. “I was making you feel special, jackass.”

Gareth sighs. “I know. I did.”

Steve has his underwear back on, but nothing else. Gareth can feel his thigh brushing against his. He’s a hairy son of a bitch.

“Was it good?” Steve asks.

“It was great. Thank you for doing that for me,” Gareth hates how his voice sounds now, a little broken, scared.

“You don’t have to thank me, Gare,” Steve says, careful and calm. “I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t want to.”

“It’s true. Steve’s a stubborn bitch,” Eddie butts in. “Can’t get him to do anything he doesn’t wanna do.”

Gareth giggles, ducking his head down. He still feels a little delirious, maybe a little too sleepy for this conversation.

“You wanna stay with us tonight?” Eddie continues.

“Can I?”

“‘Course you can, bud. Need me to get you anything?”

Gareth shakes his head. He just needs sleep. Maybe in the morning, once he’s separated from this a little, he’ll have some coffee and a bagel and he’ll get over this feeling in his chest that’s trying to override the adrenaline of finally having sex.

He doesn’t know what to make of it right now.

But one thing his mom always says is to sleep on hard feelings. If it’s important, it’ll be there in the morning, and it might make more sense.

He sure hopes so.

[stansthemans]

Back at it again with the next round of teen fem stan. This one got away from me yall so settle in bc we’re at over 6k. Slight warning for Caryn and Filbrick’s A+ parenting, but its all mostly just implied

“Sweet Moses, Sixer, was that your spine?” Stan’s attention has barely been clinging to her home ec project—because honestly, she has no intentions of being a pretty little housewife and it’s not like Ford is going to care about table settings when they’re finally off having their adventures on the high seas—but she thinks even if she had been engrossed, the sound of Ford’s spine cracking as he stretched would have jolted her with the same intensity as a gunshot next to her ear.

Ford huffs a bit of a laugh. “I suppose I’ve been working for a while now,” he says, returning to his slumped posture over his desk.

Stan frowns and scoots off her bunk. She stands over him with her hands on her hips. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s always worth a shot. “So, what, you just immediately slump back down,” she asks. “Get up and take a break. You’re gonna develop scoliosis.”

“Poor posture is not the cause of scoliosis,” Ford says. “And I’m busy.”

“You’d say that even if someone handed you a multiplication table,” Stan says. She still has to think about it, but Ford has been able to spout all those things off without a hitch since they were about five.

Ford rolls his eyes. “Those are for babies,” he says. “This is actual work.” Stan looks at the paper and can’t make a lick of sense about it, but she does recognize the notebook as one of his pet projects. Something about motion and the senior science fair next year.

“Actual work that’s gonna give you a crooked spine,” Stan says.

“Again, not how that works,” Ford says. He shifts his shoulders, and something cracks again. Stan is already making a face at him when he looks up at her with a frown. “That was simply ill timed.”

“Uh huh,” Stan says.

Their bedroom door, which has been slightly cracked, is suddenly thrown open, and Stan both whirls to face the threat and steps away from Ford. The immediate spike of danger warning danger drops at the sight of their mother standing in the door frame, her purse slung over her shoulder.

“Kids, we’re about to head out,” she says. Her sister is having one of her biannual crisis that requires Caryn to drive upstate to manage. Their father doesn’t trust her to go that far in the car alone, so he’s dragged along with her. Stan has been looking forward to this. Three days without their parents in the house. Three days where she can breathe freely.

As expected, the twins step forward for their mother to kiss on the cheeks. Ford also gets an affectionate pat, but when Caryn takes Stan’s face in her hands, there is a slight harshness. “Stanley, the fridge has plenty of food. Do not make junk for your brother. You cook him a good meal. He’s too skinny.”

“Ma,” Ford groans, but he’s ignored.

“You hear me,” Caryn says.

“Yes, Ma,” Stan intones.

Caryn’s eyes are sharp as they dart over to her things scattered on the bunk. “Stanford, bubbe, you make sure she actually does that homework. And do not let her skip school.”

“Ma, she wouldn’t,” Ford says, and everyone in the room knows that that is a lie. If it wouldn’t get her in trouble—trouble that Stan can in no way afford—she absolutely would bug it off.

“Caryn,” their father yells from the living room.

“Calm down,” she yells back. “Two minutes won’t change the traffic.” She levels them with one more look, one more silent warning about each of their expectations, and then she’s gone.

The door clicks shut behind their parents, and even with the very clear undertones of that encounter, Stan’s chest already feels lighter. It’s better when Ford reaches out and wraps his hand around hers. “You don’t have to cook for me,” he says.

Stan smiles up at him, very glad that he’s there. “What, you gonna try it,” she asks. “We’re dead if we burn the house down.”

Ford grimaces. “There was not a fire,” he says. “Not a real one.”

“Facts are facts, Stanford,” she teases. “Old lady Fitzgerald called the fire department.”

Ford blushes as he scoffs. It’s very cute. “That hardly counts. She’s always been an over-dramatic busybody.”

Stan laughs and squeezes his hand. “I don’t actually mind it,” she says. Stan’s hackles raise every time someone yaps at her about being a sweet little housewife, but this is the one part of it she doesn’t mind. Everyone’s got to eat, after all, and there’s a lot about cooking that she honestly finds soothing, especially when she’s just doing it for her and her brother.

Stan goes out into the kitchen and takes stock of what they have. There’s a slab of chuck that isn’t too big, so she pulls that out along with potatoes and carrots. She’s done this plenty of times, so it’s hardly fifteen minutes later that everything is in the oven. Stan heads back into their room. “If you’re good with a later dinner, I’ve got a roast going.”

Ford is back at the desk. “That’s perfect,” he says. “Yours always turns out very well.” If that little compliment maybe puts an extra spring in her step as she walks back to her bunk, well, so be it. Stan has always soaked up compliments from her brother.

They continue to each work in a comfortable silence. Stan is quick to abandon her homework, shifting her attention between other things. Comics, doodling on an art pad that Ford lets her borrow sometimes, filing her nails down, flipping through magazines. Every once in a while she hops up to check in on the roast. She takes stock of the other groceries and plans out the rest of their dinners.

She’ll need to do a bit of rearranging some things, maybe even make one quick trip to the store. Her mother prefers to cook large meals, things that they can’t possibly all eat in one sitting or even two. Caryn’s busiest call hours are in the evenings and nights, times when she should be wrapping up cooking, serving her family, and seeing that things get cleaned up. It’s not really feasible to do that every night, so she’s a leftovers type of person.

Stan doesn’t like that. She’d rather have to prep and cook and clean every time because that means something fresh. And yeah, so what, Ford always smiles up at her and thanks her for whatever she’s made, no matter how complicated or simple.

When she finally pulls the roast out of the oven, Stan congratulates herself. It looks perfect, and there should be just enough for their two portions tonight and a quick lunch tomorrow. She spoons everything up into bowls and puts the pot in the sink to soak and deal with later.

“Room service,” Stan calls as she breezes into their room with the bowls balanced on her palms. She has napkins between them and her hands, but the heat is already seeping through quickly, so she deposits Ford’s down on the desk with maybe a bit too loud of thump.

Ford blinks owlishly at the bowl and then her as she settles onto the stool by the desk. “Already,” he asks, pulling back his sleeve to take a look at his watch.

“It’s been three hours, Poindexter,” Stan says, jabbing her fork in his direction. “Three hours closer to your scoliosis onset.”

Ford rolls his eyes but doesn’t bother correcting her this time. He hooks a finger onto the rim of the bowl and pulls it closer. He looks in and takes a deep breath. “This smells amazing, Stanley, thank you.”

Yeah, she preens. So what. “Oh, wait, I forgot about drinks,” Stan says, leaping back up.

Ford starts to turn. “I can go get—“

“No, I’ve got it,” Stan hollers back, already to the door. She knows that their old man has beers in the fridge, and for just a second she toys with grabbing a few just to mess with Ford, but she decides against it quickly. It feels like something Filbrick would just sense that she touched, and she in no way wants to deal with the fallout from that. Besides, nothing wrong with a nice, cold glass of milk.

“Your cow juice, sir,” Stan says as she presents the glass to Ford with a mockery of a fancy waiter’s bow.

Ford snorts in that way he does when he’s laughing but doesn’t want to. “You say the weirdest things,” he says, taking the glass. He inclines his head towards her bowl. “Did you actually get enough for yourself? Mine has a lot more.”

“Yeah, there’s a point to that,” Stan says. “Protein—“ She points at the bowl. “—meet bones.” She points at his scrawny arm. Ford levels her with a look, but Stan just grins at him. “Come on, Sixer. Can’t hurt you. Pa’s still making you take the boxing lessons, so you might as well do a little extra to reap the benefits.”

“That aside,” Ford says stuffily. “Do you have enough?”

“More than Ma would let me eat,” Stan says. “But, hey, I’m already reaping the benefits.” She lifts her arms up and flexes, knowing exactly the reaction she’s going to get.

Ford’s eyes lock onto her biceps sharply. They both take the boxing lessons, but Stan is so much more serious about it. There are multiple reasons, but really, she does love it. She loves the anticipation, sizing up her opponents. She loves the sweating and buzz of adrenaline, the feeling of her fists landing a solid punch, even a solid punch landing on her. She loves that it’s a place she can actually focus, that she’s good at it, that all of her other inadequacies can melt away when she steps into the ring, that at least in there it doesn’t matter that she’s too loud, too brash, too unladylike.

She really likes that it makes her body look a certain way and that Ford likes it. He’s never said anything, but Stan catches him staring at her arms and shoulders a lot with a hungry look in his eyes. Everyone else makes snide comments, but Ford likes how she looks. And if Ford likes it, well, that’s all that Stan needs.

Stan flexes once more and wags her eyebrows. Ford’s cheeks go pink and he clears his throat, sliding his hands around his bowl tightly. Stan laughs and lowers her arms to take her bowl too. “Ok,” she says, done teasing. “Bone appetite.”

“Sweet Moses,” Ford mutters, clearly done with her. Stan laughs and stabs a good chunk of meat with her fork.

Eating dinner just the two of them is nice. The house being empty besides them is nice. They can just sit there and talk and goof around and not have to worry about either of their parents walking into the room and bringing with them waves of tension. They can move through the house when they’re done, Stan going to the kitchen to clean and Ford making the rounds downstairs to ensure everything is locked up, without tiptoeing and keeping their eyes down.

One day it’s going to always be like this. Just the two of them. Free and happy. The smell of salty sea air all around them and the floor rocking under them with the the pull of the waves.

When Stan walks back into their room, Ford is standing before his desk, looking ready to get right back into his work. But he’s stretching first, using one hand to lock onto the opposite wrist behind his back and arching. There’s a notable wince as something cracks.

“OK, that’s enough,” Stan says.

Ford drops his hands. “Stanley—“

She throws up a finger, jabbing it in the direction of his chest. “Don’t you Stanley me,” she says. “You’ve been hunched over all that nerd junk for hours. Call it quits for the night.”

“I really only have just a bit more,” Ford tries, inching his way back to his seat. Stan tries to intercept him, but he drops down into it too quickly and then grins up at her. He knows as well as she does that yes, she can definitely take him in a wrestling match, but if he decides to go boneless—which based on that grin, Stan knows is his play—she isn’t going to have much luck moving him. He’s a scrawny nerd, but he’s still decently heavy and is still growing. She teases him about being skin and bones, but Stan can tell. Ford is going to be broad like their dad and Shermie when he’s done growing.

“You’re ridiculous,” she chides over him, and Ford just laughs.

“You can’t have the monopoly,” he says. He picks up his pencil and starts back at his notebook. Then he startles a bit when Stan drops her hands over his shoulders. They really are bigger than she gives him credit for. He has a shirt on, but she knows there’s some muscle definition there too. She moves one hand, just enough that she can drag her thumb over the skin right above his collar. “Stanley.”

“How about a deal,” she asks. “You can keep being a nerd, but I’m gonna give you a back rub. Really, it’s best of both worlds for you.”

“It’s distracting,” Ford says. “If you’d just let me finish working—“

Stan digs her fingers into Ford’s neck to cut him off. It works. He lets out this sound, something close to a moan, and it makes Stan’s stomach swoop. But she also winces at the tightness of the muscles. “Cripes, Poindexter,” she says, kneading lightly over a knot in his neck, her other hand squeezing his traps. “I don’t care what you say about scoliosis. This shit can’t be good for you.”

Ford hangs his head, breathing a little bit harder through his nose as she continues to move her hands. “Possibly,” he says. “But you don’t have to do this.”

Stan scratches lightly at the hair on the back of his neck. “Does it feel nice,” she asks.

“Yes,” he says, almost like he doesn’t want to admit it.

Stan leans down, dropping a kiss to the top of his head. “You always help me when I’m aching,” she says. “Let me help you for once.”

Ford reaches back and grabs one of her hands. He turns his head and kisses her palm. “You say that like you’ve never helped me before.”

“You just fight me more on it now,” Stan says, careful to keep any hurt from her voice. That’s not the point of this, even if it does eat at her every time that Ford insists he can take care of himself, that he doesn’t need his little sister to swoop in and shield him from anything.

Ford doesn’t say anything to that, but he also doesn’t stop her when she brings her hand back to his shoulders and kneads her thumbs into the tension knotting just under the skin. Stan moves her hands slowly over him, working carefully with the knots. She’s had a few nasty ones in her day. She knows how they can hurt when they’re getting worked out. Ford hisses at the pressure, and she whispers, “Sorry. I know.”

“It’s ok,” Ford says.

“Do you want me to leave it,” she asks. He shakes his head. Stan kisses the back of his head again and applies more pressure. Ford tenses, grunting a little until suddenly he relaxes. “Better,” Stan asks, and he nods. “Good.”

Stan moves her hands up and down Ford’s back, dipping under the collar of his shirt when she’s up near his neck. His skin is warm, and when she’s touching him like that, his breath picks up more. Stan’s does too. Her chest feels tight, in a very good and specific way. It feels like a risk, like something very, very huge that could go very, very bad, but Stan tries. “It—“ She clears her throat. Her voice is usually a little too deep and raspy, but that was something else. “It might be better without this.”

She tugs just a bit at the sleeve of Ford’s shirt, and for a moment, they both are very still. Then, Ford nods, and Stan slides her hands down his sides, down to where his shirt is tucked into his pants. She digs her fingers into the material and pulls it out, pulls it up. Ford lifts his arms. As it goes over his head, it knocks his glasses aside and ruffles his hair. Stan takes a moment to right them first before she returns her hands to his body.

It’s immediately different. If this was innocent at first—and Stan doesn’t really know that it was—it doesn’t feel that way now. Ford’s skin isn’t just warm, it’s hot and softer than it should be even with the hair that is definitely growing in thicker and thicker. Stan drags her hands over his back, along the sides of his spine, tracing the muscles under his skin. She watches—feels—as his back expands with every deep breath.

Stan definitely can’t call it innocent anymore when she curls her hands over his shoulders, over towards his chest. Ford sits back, leaning against her as she trails her fingers over his pecs, stopping just short of his stomach. She moves her hands back up, scratching her nails lightly over his skin, through his chest hair. Stan’s hands go back up his neck, into his hair, then back down again.

Ford is breathing hard, and so is she because from her vantage point she can see very clearly that the crotch of his pants is much, much tighter than it should be. Ford is hard. All from just her hands. Just on his torso.

“I could help with that too,” Stan whispers, and Ford is very nearly trembling under her. Of course, she’s no better staring down at the way his pants are straining against his erection.

“You don’t have to,” Ford says, his head pillowed against her chest.

“What if I want to,” she asks.

Ford growls. He actually growls, and it sends a jolt down Stan’s spine. His hands go for his belt, and Stan hurries around the chair, crouching down in front of him, between his splayed legs. She reaches up to help him tug everything out of the way. When his hard dick springs free, for a moment, they both just stare at it.

Stan has never seen an erect cock before. Sure, she’s seen some things. She’s shared a room with her brother for their entire lives, and yeah, lately, they’ve been getting into things with each other, but not like this. All of their humping has been with clothes on. Yeah, Ford has touched her, slipped his hands into her panties, but they’ve always stayed on. And before today, she hasn’t been brave enough to return the favor.

Looking at him now, hard and pink and leaking at the top, what in the hell has she been waiting for?

“Stan,” Ford starts to say and then hisses when Stan reaches out and wraps her fingers around him. It’s softer than Stan expected, heavier. And hot. Ford runs hot in general, but his cock is on fire. Stan strokes lightly, watching as the bead of pre-cum grows until it’s heavy enough for gravity to pull it down, trailing along the underside of Ford’s cock head.

Stan keeps her grip loose. Guys are sensitive down there, right? She doesn’t want to squeeze him too tight and hurt him. Unless, maybe it’s too loose? “Is this ok,” she asks, surprised by her own breathlessness.

“Yeah,” Ford pants, his fists clenched hard enough that his knuckles are a stark white.

“Should I—“ Stan doesn’t really know what to do here, and she feels a bit ridiculous. Ford always seems to know when he touches her. He just does it, and it lights up every single nerve in her body in the best of ways.

“Here,” he offers, wrapping his hand around hers. He guides her, adjusting her grip a little tighter, moving just a little faster. “There—that’s—God, Stanley.”

Stan clings to the loose material of Ford’s pants bunched up over his thigh. She doesn’t know what to stare at. The way Ford’s eyes are locked onto her, his lids heavy but gaze still sharply focused. The pink flush spreading over his cheeks. His teeth digging into his bottom lip. The way his chest heaves with the force of his breathing, his stomach clenching. Or his cock. The color, the way the skin moves up over the head. The vein on the underside. The way her fingers can’t quite fully wrap around it. Stan has nothing to compare it to but does Ford have a big dick?

The tip of Ford’s cock leaks the longer she strokes him, and it’s hypnotic, fully entrancing. It makes Stan’s mouth water even as her throat feels dry. She doesn’t really think. She just leans forward, her tongue out to taste it.

“Fuck,” Ford shouts. His hands grab at her, one clinging to her arm, the other gripping her hair.

For a moment, they are both still. Ford stares down at her with wild eyes, his pupils blown so wide his eyes are almost entirely black. And Stan, well, she’s had her hair pulled before in a way that has been very, very bad, but this—Ford staring down at her like this, his hand in her hair like this—

Stan closes her lips over Ford’s cock, and the noise he makes—a groan from deep in his chest—shakes Stan down to her core. Her stomach twists, molten hot arousal pooling between her legs. She lowers her head, taking more of him into her mouth, and Ford gasps. “Stanley, oh fuck!”

Stan bobs her head, dragging her lips up and down the shaft of Ford’s cock, her tongue pressed flat to the underside. Ford’s hand slides through her hair, over her cheeks, brushing against where her lips stretch around him. “Stanley, God, this is—you feel so good.” She tries to take more of him, and Ford’s hips buck up. Stan chokes a bit, and quickly, Ford stills himself. “I’m sorry,” he gasps. “Sorry, I—“

But Stan does it again because even though he was nearly to her throat, that felt good. That felt really good. Ford’s hands are both in her hair now, clinging, not too tight, just the right amount. “Stan, Stanley, I’m—I’m gonna—“

Stan moans, her entire body on fire. Yes, she wants that desperately. She wants him to come in her mouth. She wants to make Ford feel good, wants to feel him come, wants to taste it.

Stan hollows her cheeks, actually sucking hard, and Ford comes with a shout. Stan watches his face, absolutely awed at how beautiful he looks, cheeks flushed a deep red, sweat beading on his brow, eyes finally slipping closed in pleasure. She keeps her lips closed around him, using her hand to gently stroke him through it as spurts of his semen coat the inside of her mouth. Stan wouldn’t exactly call it a good taste, but it’s Ford, and she made him feel like that.

Ford collapses back into the chair, his chest heaving as if he’s just sprinted a mile. Slowly, Stan pulls herself off him, swallowing as she goes. Ford stares down at her like she’s just done something amazing. Maybe she has.

She wonders if she should stand up, move away, but Stan just stays seated there between Ford’s legs. She drops her head down to rest on his thigh, and they just stare at each other, both trying to catch their breaths.

Stan just sucked Ford’s cock.

She should maybe be freaking out about that a little. A lot. Because he’s her twin brother. And this—this is well outside of the boundaries of what happens when she’s on her period. Hell, it’s well outside of the light groping and stolen kisses that have become increasingly frequent over the past few months. She should be freaking out a whole lot about this.

But.

One of Ford’s hands is slowly dragging through her hair, almost petting her. His other is at her cheek, thumb tracing light circles. And he’s looking down at her like she’s something precious. He’s looking at her like she’s something that could be adored.

It should be wrong. Anyone else would say that this is wrong, but Stan feels so perfectly right. This is where she’s meant to be. This is what she’s meant to be doing. The entire reason she exists is to love Ford. If Ford knows that she loves him, then she has done everything she needs to do in life. Nothing else matters.

Stan smiles at him, and Ford smiles back. Everything is all right. Everything is perfect. They are supposed to be like this. They were made to be like this.

“Are you ok,” Ford asks, and he sounds wrecked. The heat in Stan’s stomach flares again. She did that. She made him sound like that, and this was only the first time. God, what could she do with some practice? The thought makes her incredibly aware of how much slickness has pooled between her legs, and Ford hasn’t even touched her.

Stan nods. She is more than ok. She runs her tongue along her bottom lip, and she can still taste Ford there. His eyes zero in on it, his thumb trailing along after her tongue. Her hand, the one that had been locked in a death grip on his pants, slides up his leg. She wants to touch his skin again, feel that warmth against her.

“You’re hard again,” Stan says lowly, pointing out the very increasingly obvious.

“Well,” Ford says, his hand still stroking through her hair, “I’m sixteen, and a very pretty girl is lying with her face in very close proximity to my crotch.”

It’s dumb that that’s the thing that makes her blush, not when her brother came down her throat, but that’s just kind of how it works with her feelings about Ford.

Ford touches where the blush is staining her cheeks. “You don’t have to do anything else. Stanley, that was—that was amazing.”

She doesn’t have to. He always says that, always gives her the out. But she wants to.

Stan makes a decision. She pulls off her shirt and bra. Then, as she stands up, she pushes down her shorts and panties. Ford stares up at her with wide eyes, his pupils blown. “God,” he breathes, and he reaches for her. His hand slides between her legs, as he’s done before, but this time she’s naked, bare before him, and he can see it. “God, Stanley, you’re so wet. Just from blowing me?”

“Yeah,” she pants, grabbing onto his shoulders. “It was good, Sixer. It was so—I want more.”

Two fingers push inside her, and Stan’s legs are starting to shake. Ford’s thumb slowly circles over her clit. “You want to suck me off again?”

Stan shakes her head. “No—I mean, yes, yeah, I do want to, but—“ She moves, and Ford’s hand leaves her as she climbs onto his lap. He stares up at her with wide eyes as she positions herself over his cock. “This, Ford,” Stan says, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I want you inside me.”

Ford’s big hands splay wide over her hips, and he pushes just so slightly. Permission. Stan slowly sinks down. They both hiss when the tip of his cock presses against her pussy. By the time the head is inside, they’re both panting, eyes locked onto each other. She moves almost torturously slow, overwhelmed by the sensation of him filling her up. When she makes it that last little bit, when she is seated firmly in his lap, some kind of guttural noise claws its way out of her throat.

“Stanley,” Ford gasps, hands all over her, kissing her. “Stanley, are you—God—are you ok? Are you hurt?”

“No,” Stan says, although it’s difficult to talk when it feels like the air has been punched from her lungs. “No, I—Ford, it’s so deep.”

Ford cups her face. “You feel so good, Stanley, God. So tight. You’re ok?”

“I’m ok,” she answers. “I’m—oh my God, Sixer, please—“

He kisses her again, harder this time. Hungry. “Bounce,” he growls against her lips, one hand sliding down to squeeze at her breast, the other settling back on her hip. “Bounce for me.”

Stan holds onto Ford’s shoulders for leverage as she raises a bit up on her knees and then drops. She moans as it punches the air from her lungs all over again, and Ford curses. “Again. Do it again. Faster.”

Stan does as she’s told. She bounces herself on Ford’s dick, and it feels like it’s rearranging her guts in the best way. When her thighs start to burn, she stays seated, rocking instead, and that feels just as amazing. Ford’s mouth is on her jaw, her neck, closing over her nipples, and all she can do is cling to him, hands tight in his hair. They’re both making noises that sound crazy, but Stan couldn’t stop even if she wanted to.

She can feel her orgasm starting to crest, everything in her clenching up. “Ford, Ford, I’m close—I’m—“

Ford’s hands loop under her thighs, and he stands up so fast that it makes Stan dizzy. She clings to him, and suddenly in another swoop of motion, her back hits the hard surface of his desk. Ford kisses her, something that manages to be bruisingly passionate and intimately delicate. “Stanley,” he says against her lips.

“I love you.” It bursts out of her. She loves him. Of course she loves him. He’s her twin brother. He’s the center of her world and has been for their entire lives—her mother has complained to plenty of people that Stan was a loud and fussy baby, that no toy or food or rocking or anything but Stanford could ever settle her cries—but this kind of love. A different kind. They aren’t supposed to feel this, but she does, and it’s completely consuming.

Ford’s forehead drops over hers, and he intertwines their fingers—six surrounding five—and for a moment they just lie like that, staring at each other and connected in so many ways.

“I love you too, Stanley,” Ford says, and he starts to roll his hips. Stan groans, her legs circling his waist. “I love you so much, my sweet girl.” Every word is punctuated by a thrust that gets harder and sharper than the last, and Stan’s eyes roll back. “You’re mine. You’re mine. Stanley, tell me.”

“I am,” she moans, and it’s so true. “Yours. Only yours. I don’t—I never want anyone else. Just you.”

Ford takes his hands from hers, and Stan has no time to complain because he grabs her hips and starts to pound into her like their lives depend on it. In seconds, she’s screaming through an orgasm, and Ford just keeps going in a brutal pace, thrusting deep inside her, filling her up so much that Stan can feel it in her throat. She clings to the edge of the desk that’s shaking under their weight.

“I’m close, sweetheart,” Ford says, his fingers digging deep enough into her hips to bruise. God, she hopes she bruises. “God, I’m—“

Stan squeezes her legs tighter around Ford, pulling him closer, trying to pull him completely inside. “Stay,” Stan begs. “Stay, please.”

Whatever control Ford was clinging to before is lost. His hips sputter out of his set rhythm, thrusting himself as deep into Stan as he can with a wild abandon. “Stanley, Stanley,” he breathes hot across Stan’s neck as he spills inside her, hot and wet. His lips find Stan’s, and Stan tightens her insides, giving Ford everything she can. She swallows down the moans Ford lets out as he thrusts shallowly through the orgasm. Then he collapses on top of her.

It’s a very long moment that they just lie there, panting harshly, sweaty skin sticking together. Stan’s hands are trembling as she drags them through Ford’s hair.

“Stanley,” Ford finally breaks the silence, his voice raspy. “Are you ok?”

“I don’t think I have bones anymore,” she says. “I mean, except the one.”

Ford’s laugh is little more than a shaky huff. “Uncouth,” he says, pressing a kiss over the still rapidly beating pulse point in her neck. He pushes himself up onto his forearms, looking down at her. His glasses are a bit foggy, and his hair is curling more than usual across his forehead. “I’m serious. Are you ok? You aren’t—I didn’t hurt you?”

Stan wipes the sweat from his face. “You couldn’t,” she says. Not strictly true. Ford has the power to hurt her more than anyone else ever could, but he’s her brother and he loves her. He never would.

Ford nods. “Good. Good. Ok. I’m—I’m going to—get out of you now.” Stan snorts at the awkwardness, and Ford laughs too. “Don’t say it,” Ford warns, and Stan just grins.

Ford rubs his palms over her thighs, and she remembers that she’s still clinging to him. She unlocks her ankles and slides her legs back down. Ford pulls himself from her, and Stan groans. “Stanley,” Ford asks in alarm.

“It’s ok,” she says. “It’s ok. Just—you really went to town, Poindexter.”

His brows furrow. “You said I didn’t hurt you.”

“You didn’t,” Stan says, pushing herself up on still shaking arms to pull him to her. They wrap their arms around each other, Ford’s hands splayed wide over her back, and one of hers carding through his hair again. “I promise you didn’t. I thought it was supposed to. You know, people say that it does the first time. But it didn’t. I’m ok. Maybe gonna be a little sore, but I’m ok.”

“Promise,” he asks. “You’ll tell me if I ever—“

“Promise, Sixer,” she says.

Ford kisses her neck, then both her cheeks, then a sweet press of his lips to hers. He steps back from between her legs, hands finding hers and ready to help her down off the desk and then he freezes. Stan follows the line of his gaze, and she’s treated to the same sight. His cum dripping out of her into a puddle on the desk.

“Holy shit,” she says, opening her legs just a little wider to get a better look.

Ford is back immediately, his fingers coming to her pussy and sliding through the mess. Stan clings to him, moaning again at the sensation. She’s just short of being too overstimulated for this, but Ford’s touches are gentle. “This is—Sweet Moses, Stanley,” he says lowly. Two fingers slide into her, curling, and the noises it makes. Stan whimpers.

“God, I want to do this to you again. Want to do this to you every day,” he says. She wants that too. She wants him to fuck her and never stop.

“But we can’t,” Ford says, and Stan nearly sobs. What? No. That’s not something she wants to hear, especially not when he’s actively finger fucking his cum back into her pussy, his thumb pressing hard onto her clit. “We just—we have to be careful, Stanley. You can’t get pregnant.” His other hand stretches wide across her stomach. “Not yet.”

And Stan comes harder than she ever has in her life, so hard that her vision blacks out, so hard that she’s crying, so hard that she slumps completely boneless and Ford has to catch her before she falls off the desk.

“Stan! Stanley,” he frets, and Stan fumbles, desperately trying to find his face because she needs to kiss him, needs to breathe in his air, or she’ll suffocate.

They kiss for a long time, desperation slowly giving way to tiny little pecks. Ford has fallen back into the chair, taking Stan with him and settling her in his lap. They’re both trembling just a bit. They stare at each other, foreheads pressed together. Ford’s fingers caress her cheek. “Stanley,” he asks, his breath whispering over her lips. “Are you ok?”

She has never been better in her life. She has been fucked so well, so perfectly, and now she’s curled up in Ford’s arms, and he loves her. Instead of saying that, she nods and yawns.

Ford laughs lowly, and Stan snuggles into where the sound vibrates from his chest. He checks his watch and makes an alarmed sound. “It’s late. We have school tomorrow,” he says.

“Poindexter, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Stan whines.

“It’s Friday,” Ford says. “It’s not that bad.”

“Don’t pretend to be stupid,” Stan says. “There’s only room for one of us to be a dummy here.”

“Stop,” Ford says. “You are not dumb. You just need to—“ He stops short. For a brief moment, he just looks at her. Then he shakes his head and presses a kiss to her forehead. “You’re not dumb,” he says again, and leaves it at that. “But the fact that we have school tomorrow doesn’t change. I did say I would insure that you go.”

Stan pouts at him, but she knows it isn’t going to work. “There’s definitely better things we could be doing,” she tries.

“Oh, we will,” Ford says. “If you’re amenable to it, I plan to fuck you as often as possible while we have the house to ourselves.”

The matter-of-fact tone, the use of the word amenable, those two things should not be so hot, but it’s Ford, and it sends a jolt down Stan’s spine, and all she can do is nod and says, “Yeah, I’m down with that.”

Ford kisses her again, and they climb into the bottom bunk. They are both definitely disgusting—Stan in particular with the mess drying between her legs—but they can shower in the morning, and Stan honestly enjoys it, enjoys the evidence of what they mean to each other. Ford folds Stan up in his arms, curving their bodies to fit together under the mass of blankets. Their fingers slot together—six around five, as always—one set resting over Stan’s heart, the other her stomach.

Even as exhaustion washes over her, Stan replays Ford’s words in her mind. Not yet. It’s absolutely crazy. Crazy and possibly dangerous, but at the same time, it’s right. For them, there isn’t any other option. Ford isn’t just Stan’s past or present. He’s her future. He’s everything she’s ever known, everything she’s ever wanted, and she doesn’t need to see the rest of the world to know that that will never change. His heart is beating in her chest right alongside hers. He’s everything.

“Stanford,” Stan mumbles, so close to sleep.

“Hmm,” he hums back, nearly there himself, but she needs to let him know.

Stan presses their joined hands more firmly against her stomach. “One day,” she says.

Ford’s breath hitches, and then he pulls her impossibly closer. His lips press a tired but still searing kiss behind he ear. “One day,” he promises. Stan’s eyes close, and she falls into the best sleep of her life, one that someday soon will be the only sleep she knows.

[buckyfall]

Ghoul rooms in the Den are surprisingly generous.

About a little bit smaller than a normal bedroom, they each have a single window, a tiled flooring with a carpet over it(although ghouls will sometimes put their own carpeting over the tiles), and whatever other possessions they want.

I like to think they all have aspects of said element in the room, but there’s usually only one room for each element. Because of this, though, some ghouls have had to either share or go sleep in the living room. Most packs have a strong bond with each other and wouldn’t mind sharing or piling up together. Some packs, like how Chain found he dislikes Omega, simply do not get along.

An Earth ghoul’s bedroom might have grass or other plants in pots and plenty of rocks around in a sort of mini forest surrounding their bed, closet, drumkits and sticks, and whatever other possessions they have. I imagine dirt isn’t allowed in the earth room— that shit’s already hard enough to clean in real life.. some earth ghouls might not even like the texture of dirt and would rather walk around on an actual carpet. They tend to prefer dimmer lighting in their bedroom.

Well, the water room would have very small(like bath tub sized yet somewhat deepish) oval and circular pools around the edges of the room filled with natural water from the lake behind the ministry. The water ghouls enjoy simply lounging in their freshwater pools. I like to headcanon there’s no such thing as freshwater and seawater subspecies. They’re all water ghouls— they just prefer one or the other. Buuut the clergy was cheap when it came to caring for their ghouls, aside from Terzo who seemed to like ghouls(ahem Omega) more than his brothers did, until Copia became Frater Imperator, so they didn’t even bother trying to get a ghoul who prefers saltwater— like Lake, despite his name— some saltwater for the pools. I imagine he would put in more effort for future ghouls.

Fire ghoul rooms have pools similar to the water room, but they’re usually filled with straight-up scalding hot water. Well, it might be normal water for someone half-water and half-fire like how Dewdrop is.

Anyways.. ghouls like them prefer hotter temperatures. They might keep their thermostat on normal, but they have several things in their room that give off heat like electric blankets and those plushies you can heat up in a microwave. I bet you Dew has a few of those, some of which might’ve even been gifts from Ifrit(from before he met his current pack) or his packmates. They’ve even been given small fireplaces in their rooms, which often leads to entire packs piling up on each other in the winter time because the bedrooms of the dens are smaller than the living room, and ghouls just naturally feel more comfortable in smaller spaces.

These next headcanons quite literally ignore physics or whatever but the thought makes me happy so I’m just gonna ignore science and let myself have fun.

Air ghoul rooms are usually positioned near Quintessence ghoul rooms. I like to imagine that they have a skylight window and that some air ghouls like to create small clouds to just have floating around. Honestly, they can probably straight up grab and play with clouds; they probably like to lounge around on them and might prefer having a bunk or some way to keep their beds high in the air. They usually have sky blue wall paint to mimic the sky, although some ghouls have chosen to repaint their walls to a different colour they might prefer.

Quintessence ghoul rooms have a skylight just like the air ghouls do. Just like how it gives them a perfect view of the daytime, it gives quintessence ghouls a perfect view of the night sky. Their wall paint is black, but some ghouls— like Phantom when they moved in with Aether— have chosen to repaint the room to better fit their tastes. They might have little stardust balls or pockets floating around simply because they like having the cosmos nearby.

Multi-ghouls kind of just go wherever they want. If they’ll let them, then they’ll bunk with one of their loved ones. Swiss in general likes sticking around Dewdrop especially and usually drags Aurora around with him. Sometimes, Sunshine will prefer to share with Cumulus and Cirrus— which proves a little difficult considering their bed isn’t really big enough for three full-grown ghoulettes.

Some ghouls simply do not live in packs. These ghouls have their own rooms elsewhere in the abbey and it’s usually up to them to decorate and edit the room however they want for comfort.

I might write about some ghouls and what their bedrooms look/looked like sometime later, but for now I just wanted to get these thoughts out there. It’s always fun to be imaginative, and I love hearing what others think in their own headcanons.

[atsadi-shenanigans]

Valentine's Day Special

I did it! I got it finished! As a thank you to everyone who has given kudos and comments, and because Valentine's Day is coming up, here's a smuterific one-shot featuring: pegging, butt stuff, Astarion having feelings, Eleanor has dom tendencies she didn't know about, and Astarion getting nice things!

Rated a very, very E for smut.

Roses are red, violets are blue, blah blah I’d like to fuck you.

Or: Astarion bought a toy. Eleanor wants to give him a night he won’t forget.

“Legs up,” he says. “Pull your knees up. Better leverage.” You do. He leans back, bracing his hands on your knees. Moving himself so you hit his sweet spot ruthlessly. Another peek at you, pleasure painted over every line of his body. “Fuck me, Eleanor.”

The inn is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. Two stories, shutters closed against the torrent, lantern light turning puddles and muddy streets golden.

You’re going to cry. Not that anyone will be able to tell in this storm. Poor Karlach has been hidden in a cloud of steam since the downpour began.

“Gods, I’m not taking another step unless it’s towards the front door of that inn,” Astarion says, voice pitched firmly into bitchy. “I am not slogging through one more minute of this filth.”

Filth being the inches-deep trough of mud the road has turned into. Y’all are coated up to the knees.

“A warm bed and a warmer bath would be nice,” Wyll says. And if Mr. Of-the-Frontiers “I’m used to sleeping on rocks” is saying that, you know everyone is thinking it.

“Fuck,” you say. Eloquent as ever. “We got gold, right?”

“Plenty,” Gale says. His hair keeps sliding over his face in rivulets of water. He looks like a sad, wet cat.

“Hope they got rooms.”

They have, in fact, got a packed-ass seating area, a handful of alcove bunks in a common area upstairs, and a single, small room with a modest bed (other travelers had the same idea when the storm hit).

Y’all’ve had a helluva day. Chasing down leads to some sort of bullshit or another. Half of y’all ain’t even here (Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Halsin, and y’all’s new friends had split off to go hunt down something else).

Which meant when y’all triggered a bunch of undead critters in the shitpile of some tomb, y’all had to do a lot more work to clean up. Astarion took the brunt of it after the two of you (again) got separated from the others.

He stands there, hair plastered to his skull, not an ounce of pink in his complexion (and looking grayer than usual). That’s when the idea comes to you.

“Y’all mind if me and Astarion take the room?” you say.

Ain’t no way to be subtle about it. They all know what you two are about. Especially since that goddamn newspaper came out (it wasn’t neither of y’all’s fault the fucking graveyard grounds keeper was a nosy sunuvabitch who both took his job way too seriously, and took off sprinting to the Faerun equivalent of a tabloid newspaper after catching a glimpse of you.) (You’d finished by then, which was probably the only reason Astarion hadn’t run him down and shut him up.)

They’ve known you two were a couple for a long while. They’d assumed you two had been physical for longer than you actually had been.

“Really?” Karlach says, still steaming. “After all this?”

Astarion says nothing, though his eyebrows quirk in mild interest. The bags under his eyes are more prominent, the color almost bruise purple. His eyes are duller. He looks more corpserific than he has in a while.

You started it, he seems to say. So you finish it.

“I just wanna take a bath and lay in bed, and all my clothes gotta dry,” you say. “We both’ve seen each other naked.”

Clever mischief glints in Wyll’s eye. He’s the most solid out of all of you’uns. The one with the most rigorous sense of morality. Usually plays the straight-laced folk hero.

But the man’s damned charming, and his genial good will hides a wicked sense of humor.

“All the bunks have privacy screens,” he says. “We’ll all be drying out our belongings.”

Gale says nothing. Just stares into the middle distance as he hikes up a section of robe to wring about a liter of water out.

Wyll makes a show out of checking out the common room and y’all’s fellow travelers. “In fact, I see other couples doing just that.”

“I’m not saying we’re gonna fuck, but if we do, you really wanna sleep right next to that?”

Wyll snorts and waves a hand, smiling. “On second thought, I think I’ll pass.”

Karlach pulls a face. “In public?”

“Y’all said they got privacy screens. And you didn’t have no problem walking around tits out during that heatwave.”

“Which beds did we get?” Gale cuts in. He used up even his much-improved magic capacity trying to get you and Astarion out of that fucking trap sinkhole. He can’t even do his presto-tation cleaning spell to dry himself off.

So you end up taking the key and heading upstairs, Astarion trailing after you.

Bath water is something you gotta pay for, in Faerun. The tub’s in the room, and you’re free to haul up however many buckets from the well outside yourself. But that’s a lot of buckets to drag up a flight of stairs, and the inn keep don’t let customers heat it up over the fire themselves.

So a good hour after you and Astarion settle in, you finally got a bath drawn and steaming.

“You go first,” you say.

Astarion sits on the bed in nothing but his drawers, wrapped in a blanket. He don’t get hypothermia—undead and all—but he does get real achy in the cold.

He gives you a small, tired smile, and lets the blanket (and his drawers) slide down.

You still ain’t super used to seeing a cock all bare. Not more than what your occasional forays into porn showed—so mostly just the part not currently buried in somebody. It hangs more forward than you thought it would. Also smaller than you thought it’d be (again, porn and both unrealistic standards, and flaccid ones are smaller).

You make yourself look away. But not before Astarion—ever alert and enough of a bastard to make that your problem—notices.

“See something you like, sweetheart?” Where once that line would have been pure, silken debauchery, his voice is calmer when he’s alone with you, now. Still carries a flirty lilt (he always does with everyone), but with less performance woven through it.

“Just curious,” you say. “And I like watching you—not creepily, I mean. Anyway, if you want a bath and then the bed—for sleeping only—I’m down for that.”

“Mmm,” he says. Steps into the water and hisses. He eases himself down slow. Finally sits and all but melts against the wedge of the wooden tub, eyes closed and head tilted back. “Yet you requested this little love nest for us. And that cunning mind of yours always has at least three ideas fluttering around.

Said with a wiggle of his fingers around his temple.

He’s got a long neck. Stretched out like that, his adam’s apple stands out. As do his bite scars.

“We really can just sleep,” you say.

Now he cracks one, red eye open. Tilts his head to better peer over at you. Swirls his hand in the water as he waits for an answer.

He’s being patient with you. Says you’re patient with him, but you can count on three fingers all the people you ever actually wanted to bed, and none of them ever got that far. It’s not an ordeal for you to wait. You don’t have any expectations for him in that department (which you suspect had been a huge relief for him, and one of the reasons y’all’ve worked out).

He does so much for you. He’s helped you work through hangups you didn’t even know you had. He’s saved your ass more times than you can count, directly and not.

“If you wanted,” you start slow. “And you can say no at any point. But, if you wanted, I thought we could take a night and I could learn, um. We could learn what you like better. Just you. Or, well, me focusing on you.”

His idle finger twirling stops. He stills, both eyes open now and fixed on you. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Doesn’t even breathe.

Then his lips part. His words stutter and he frowns. Then, “You want to give me pleasure.”

Every word slow and enunciated. Not…trepidation, exactly. And not quite disbelieving. He trusts you, he’d said. He’s just verifying for the sake of both’ve you.

“I’m curious,” you repeat, so deliberate and nonchalant it’s borderline teasing.

“Pleasure me how?” Astarion says. Once again, flicking at the bathwater.

Aaand the rest on AO3 so tumblr doesn't slap me.

[snapdragonling]

in pursuit of evidence

ardeth/edmund, 6.9k words, avira campaign for context: Ardeth's state-assigned keeper has just kissed him. Ed never gave any indication that he felt anything but grudging tolerance towards Ardeth.

Ed leaves him shell-shocked on the doorstep. Ardeth has to go and sit down after that, thinking of nothing so much as the warmth of Ed’s lips, for the brief moment he had them.

It seems like a betrayal to think of Ed in that way; a complete breach of trust, undermining years of stalwart protection and companionship, threatening the comfortable dynamic they’d settled into. Ardeth shies away from it for the same reason he’d swiftly quashed whatever schoolboy infatuation he’d harboured in the first few weeks of their partnership: it just wasn’t professional, and doomed never to amount to anything, given that Ed was…Ed.

But — Ed had kissed him. No amount of turning the scenario over in his mind could change the fact that Ed had kissed him.

The real question was why had Ed kissed him?

Ardeth doesn’t sleep very well that night, staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes until the first hints of dawn were peeking through the curtains. There were too many variables, is the problem: Ed had been drinking; they’d finally found safety after weeks in the wilderness; it had been some time since Ed’s last shore leave and therefore theoretically some time since he’d last— since he’d kissed someone. Ardeth can’t possibly create control experiments for each of those factors. Any data he gathered would be inherently flawed.

Dressing is a rote action. He gets through it on muscle memory, buttoning up his tattered uniform, his thoughts a thousand miles away. Something like grim determination fills him as he fastens his one surviving cufflink.

They were in a land of exceptions, of wild magic that defied attempts to explain or control it. He could sit and mourn the scientific method or he could get into the spirit of things, roll up his sleeves and do his best to wrangle some kind of information from the situation at hand.

The situation at hand being Ed. Who would have made a brick wall look transparent.

Well. Let it never be said he couldn’t rise to the occasion.

i.

Question: Why did Ed kiss me?

Hypothesis: ???

Method:

—

It was their final night in the village, and they’d gathered in the tavern once again to say farewell. It was a more muted affair than the previous celebration, but still raucous enough that Ardeth had sequestered himself (and Ed by association) near the back of the room.

This was a familiar tableau: just the two of them alone at a tavern table, watching the rowdiness from a comfortable distance. 

Although…in Suraeha, two had occasionally turned to three. People back home knew better than to proposition a warden on duty, but more than once someone had approached Ardeth from across the bar, and more than once he’d ended the night in a tavern room or bunk that was not his own.

Ed was always nearby, of course, and Ardeth was always quick to take his leave afterwards; never wanting to keep Ed from his own bed for too long.

The point being, Ed knew plenty about Ardeth’s inclinations, purely by merit of always being there for the first act — but it wasn’t a two way street.

There were stretches of time, entire weeks of warden shore leave, that Ed had all to himself. Ardeth had no idea what Ed did during his time off; whether he spent it with anyone in particular, whether he was freer with his affection outside of work — and in the weeks since they’d been stuck in Zirinid he certainly hadn’t noticed Ed engaging with anyone like that. And he would have noticed. Because they were always together.

So: more data needed.

He’d been chattering idly all night, doing a good job of pretending that not only were there no elephants in the room, but that even if there had been he wouldn’t have noticed. Ed, for his part, had been characteristically silent, offering only the occasional hum or grunt of agreement between sips of his turquoise ale.

Ardeth waits for a lull in the one-sided conversation before he clears his throat. “You know,” he says casually, “it’ll probably be a while until we find another bastion of civilisation like this, and the people here are so friendly. If any of us were so inclined, it would probably be a good place to- uh. Well. Has anyone, you know, caught your eye?”

He hazards a sideways glance at Ed. Ed had paused with his tankard halfway to his mouth, expression completely blank.

“I mean-” Ardeth takes a nervous sip of his own ale. “If anyone were feeling in need of some company, this would be a good place to find—”

“This about the kiss?” Ed asks.

Ardeth chokes on his drink. Immediately Ed’s hand is at his back, slapping him firmly between the shoulder blades until the sputtering has stopped and he can somewhat breathe again, though his face remains flushed from professional chagrin. He’d only just begun his observational experiment and it was already floundering.

“You know it doesn’t have to mean anything,” Ed continues. “If you don’t want it to.”

“What?” Ardeth wheezes.

“If I made you uncomfortable—”

“No!” he yelps, and puts a hand on Ed’s arm for good measure. “I’m comfortable! Perfectly comfortable, the very picture of comfort. No complaints here! I’m just making conversation.”

Ed looks at him for a long, long moment, eyes flicking down to Ardeth’s hand before meeting his gaze again. Whatever he finds must suffice, because he shakes his head slightly and tosses back the rest of his drink. 

“None of the people here interest me,” he says, and returns to his silent survey of the tavern.

Ardeth abandons his experiment for the remainder of the evening, occupied entirely with turning that statement over and over in his head, examining it from every possible angle. None of the people here. None of the people here. None of the people here interest Ed.

In lieu of any conclusive truth he at least had more data, and an understanding that he would have to be more subtle going forward.

ii.

Question: Why did Ed kiss me?

Hypothesis: Likely not for want of diversion, or from licentiousness, so at least there’s that.

Method:

—

The party had split to search for the buried temple that the locals had told them about. The undergrowth around the ruin was abominably thick. If wildfire wasn’t such a concern in this drier biome Ardeth would have burned it all to ash after the first few minutes, but he settles for picking his way dutifully along the path Ed was carving for them, keeping up a steady stream of commentary about the half-buried stones around them.

“It must be some kind of ward, although I don’t recognise these sigils. An archaic local dialect, certainly. I wonder if I could reactivate them with raw magic or if I’d need to speak the runes aloud? Probably best to leave it alone, as much as that pains me. For all we know the ward could repel us as well as anything—”

He bumps abruptly into Ed’s back, almost toppling backwards from the force of it. Before he can so much as ask what’s happening Ed has turned and hauled him into the undergrowth, stowing him neatly behind the gnarled trunk of the nearest tree and crouching over him, axe readied.

Ardeth is both smart and startled enough to keep his mouth shut. He hears it eventually: the crackle of dry leaves beneath heavy footfalls, something large moving through the brush. There’s a strange whistling sound, like laboured breathing through an ill-formed nose. Ardeth shrinks a little further against the tree.

The sounds move closer— close enough that Ed raises his axe and Ardeth reaches for his stopwatch— and then drift away, back through the scrub, whistling and stamping into the distance. 

A taut minute passes before Ed slowly lowers his axe. Ardeth interprets that as permission to speak, albeit in a forced whisper.

“Did you see what it was?” he hisses, straining to get a glimpse over Ed’s shoulder. “Another elemental? Something undead from the temple? Or a…uh…”

He notices abruptly how close Ed is, one hand still pressing him to the tree trunk to keep him in place. The effort of cutting a path through the dense brush had left a sheen of sweat on Ed’s brow and down the tanned column of his throat, gathering in the divets of his collarbone where his shirt hung open, its top two buttons acquiescing to the heat. Ardeth finds his attention fixed on the gleaming swathe of skin there, trying and failing to remember what he’d been saying. You were this close when he kissed you, his brain supplies, rather unhelpfully. Maybe he’ll do it again.

“Bird,” says Ed.

Ardeth blinks, heart stuttering, dragging his eyes up to Ed’s face. “What?”

“Big bird. Looked dangerous.”

He stands, lifting Ardeth easily to his feet, and pushes out onto the path again. Ardeth almost trips over an errant root in his haste to follow. “Good thing you were keeping an eye out!” he says, only a little shrill, casting around for a topic of conversation. “I would’ve walked right into it, and wouldn’t that have been a disaster? You’re really good at that, you know, keeping an eye out. I know you said it’s—” He falters briefly. “The other night, ah, you said it’s not your job to do that anymore, but I really appreciate it. I think— we’ve been a good team all these years, right?”

Ed was back to chopping at the undergrowth, axe rising and falling in a steady rhythm, cutting through scraggly saplings and the spindly vines that ran between them like netting. Ardeth is expecting an agreeable hum at most.

“I said more than that,” Ed corrects instead.

Ardeth’s stomach jolts. His hand rises automatically to his mouth, remembering the brief press of Ed’s lips against his, and how gently Ed had cradled his face. He laughs nervously. “Right, how could I forget! Well, I suppose that’s one way of saying something, although a degree of meaning is liable to get, ah, lost in translation, and—”

“Not talking about the kiss.”

“You’re— what?” Ardeth stops walking.

Ahead of him, Ed glances over his shoulder. “You remember the rest of that conversation? The part about how I'll be here anyway, even if it’s not my job?”

“Oh,” says Ardeth.

He feels suddenly, wretchedly ashamed. Ed was always so frugal with his words, so judicious about when and where he chose to speak. Ardeth usually treasured every tiny moment of openness, every brief reassurance, every quiet ‘good night’ — but he’d been so thrown off-course by the kiss that he’d forgotten an admission as important as that. 

It was hardly as if he’d never been kissed before. He had no excuse for being so stupefied, even if— even if Ed kissing him had felt a little like the world shifting on its axis, like his life had suddenly been split into two parts, the before and the after, marked by that doorstep.

“I remember now,” he says faintly. “Thank you, Ed. I— thanks.”

Ed gestures wordlessly for him to keep walking. Ardeth walks.

—

They find what they’re looking for at last: an ornate, crumbling archway and immense stairs leading down into the earth, the gaping maw of its passageway wide enough that not even the creeping undergrowth could conceal it. Ed calls for a halt while Ardeth sends word to the others, settling onto a piece of fallen masonry with his axe beside him.

“Lost in translation?” Ed echoes, once Ardeth has finished tracing his runes in the air.

It takes a moment for Ardeth to realise what he’s referencing. “Oh!” he says, forcing a laugh. “Don’t mind that, I was talking about- it doesn't matter actually—”

“You don’t know why I did it?”

Ardeth trails off. Ed’s expression was perfectly blank and entirely unhelpful. He may as well try to take his cues from the masonry. “I…have some working theories,” he admits, only a little defensive.

A flicker of something passes over Ed’s face. Ardeth wishes more than anything he could decipher it. “You know you could just ask me,” his warden says. “If you wanted to.”

Ardeth blinks at him owlishly. Adjusts his glasses. “Right, yes, I- I suppose I could. But I’m in the middle of an experiment, actually. Um.”

One of Ed’s brows quirks upwards by the barest increment, which by Ed standards was as good as shouting in surprise. “Am I the experiment?”

“Well— in a sense.” Ardeth is aware of the sudden, rising heat in his cheeks. This situation was very quickly running away from him. “One could say you’re an aspect of it, certainly, though there’s- there’s many variables I’m examining right now, so…it’s very involved, is what I’m getting at, and I wouldn’t want to- to undermine the process, you understand.”

“Right,” says Ed.

Ardeth is momentarily worried he’ll press the topic further, but of course there was no need to fret. Ed rarely pressed any topic, ever. It was highly out of character that he’d broached this subject to begin with. The conversation ends there, and Ardeth is free to fidget with his frayed sleeves and ramble about the local architecture until the others emerge from the trees.

iii.

Question: Why did Ed kiss me?

Hypothesis: I don’t know! And now I’m too embarrassed to ask! Maybe it was a test? Am I being tested? Am I failing?

Method:

—

Weeks pass like this. They say goodbye to the others. Ardeth makes no more progress.

It was a novelty, feeling this tongue-tied around Ed. He was candid by nature, and with Ed even more so. There was hardly a truth about himself he hadn’t shared with his warden. Ardeth wasn’t sure what to do with this sudden apprehension. It was getting in the way of his research — and more importantly, casting a strange, unfamiliar awkwardness over his interactions with Ed. 

Ardeth felt it more strongly now that it was just the two of them setting out for the next town. He couldn’t bear it. He missed talking to Ed without second-guessing everything he said.

Ardeth worries idly at his lower lip, staring at the poor excuse for an experiment scrawled in his journal. Weeks of observation and attempted engagement and he’d gotten nowhere. 

Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way, then. Talking clearly wasn’t working. If he needed more data maybe he ought to just— maybe he should—

The thought comes to him like dawn breaking over the horizon, a new valley of potential suddenly illuminated by rosy light. Maybe he’d understand it better if he experienced it again. Maybe there’d be some kind of clarity in a repeat performance.

“You alright?”

Ardeth startles out of his thoughts. Ed sat across the fire from him, tending to a tear in his tunic. “You weren’t talking,” he adds, in response to Ardeth’s quizzical look.

“Oh!” says Ardeth. “I was just thinking. About nature.”

Not a lie, technically, though the nature in question was more personal than environmental. He watches Ed return to his task and lets out a quiet breath. How exactly was he going to convince Ed to kiss him without outright asking him to do so? 

Would he have to stage something? Entice Ed in some way? The thought was both alarming and completely illicit. He half expected an Imperial investigator to emerge from the treeline, ready to indict him.

The thought of carrying on like this, in this strange shadow of their normal dynamic, was even more frightening.

The problem was he had no idea how to even begin enticing Ed. That kind of social artifice was not his forte. He’d read plenty of it in books, certainly; devouring tawdry romance novels by candlelight in the comfort of his hammock whenever he had a few coins to spare at the markets, an embarrassing but perfectly permissible indulgence. Surely there was something he could draw upon there?

He casts his mind back, trying to remember the details of the last book he’d read. Much of it had been highly improbable and painfully contrived, in the way of all good and silly romance novels — but who was he to judge, considering how improbable and contrived his own plans were. Regardless, it was a good starting point.

He takes a deep breath. Straightens his back.

“Ed,” he says, as casually as he can. “Don’t you think I ought to learn more about martial combat?”

Across the fire, Ed raises his head again. Blinks. “You wanna learn how to fight?”

“Well maybe not fight, exactly. Just enough to defend myself in close quarters— in the unlikely event that you’re not there to do it yourself,” he adds hastily, as Ed’s brow furrows. “Just a precaution!”

There’s a long pause as Ed considers it. He sets his tunic aside. “That’s fair. Come on.”

Ardeth has all of a minute to celebrate his victory, trotting along happily behind Ed as they move to a space a little further from their tent. Ed brings his sword, still in its sheath. Ardeth brings the dagger he was issued on his first assignment, still yet to see any real combat. It’s an unfamiliar weight in his hand as he squares up across from Ed.

The warden raises his sword. “I’m going to attack you,” he says. “What do you do?”

Ardeth’s eager smile falters. “Oh. Um.” He glances down at the dagger in his hand; raises it belatedly. “I…defend myself?”

Ed moves, faster than Ardeth can track. He yelps and drops the dagger, hands flying automatically to cover his head.

There’s a sigh. Ardeth cracks open one eye to find Ed watching him, sword still held mid-swing.

“First step is keeping hold of this.” Ed retrieves the dagger from the grass and presses it into Ardeth’s hand. Ardeth does a valiant job of not looking down at the point of contact.

“Right, yes. Probably a good idea.”

Ed’s face is as inscrutable as usual. “Chances are you’ll be smaller and weaker than anything that’s attacking you, so don’t fight them head on. Just focus on deflecting and fall back to wherever I am. Dagger’s no good for a frontal assault anyway. You’ll get your arm torn off, or they’ll duck inside your guard.”

Ardeth stares up at him with wide eyes. It’s perhaps the most words Ed has ever said in one go. He also hasn’t released Ardeth’s hand, and his skin is very warm. “R-right,” Ardeth stammers. “Deflecting. I understand the principle.”

“Try again.”

They try again. Ed swings the sheathed sword slower this time, giving Ardeth enough breathing room to get the dagger out in front of him. It still goes flying from his hand.

“Oh dear,” he sighs. “I’m not very good at this.”

Ed fetches the dagger once more. Ardeth reaches out for it, only for his warden to step right past him. He squeaks as Ed’s arms are suddenly around him, manoeuvring his own limbs like a puppet, correcting his stance and his grip.

“Deflect,” says Ed. “Redirect the strength of the swing elsewhere. Use the momentum of the enemy’s attack but shift it slightly to the side.”

Ardeth is sweating. It feels nice inside the circle of Ed’s arms, practically one step away from a hug. Ed had never hugged him. Carried him bodily out of battle, sure. Bore the brunt of a near-lethal fall by wrapping himself around Ardeth, certainly. But never hugged him. That wasn’t something wardens did with their mages. 

But if Ed wasn’t technically his warden anymore, and Ardeth wasn’t technically Ed’s mage, what did that make them?

“You’re thinking too loud,” Ed murmurs, right beside his ear. Ardeth shivers involuntarily, eyes fluttering closed of their own accord, leaning back into Ed’s arms and—

What did he think he was doing, exactly? 

Ardeth’s better judgement catches up to him abruptly — nevermind that this was the position he’d wanted to be in when he started this ridiculous training farce. 

He squirms his way out of Ed’s space and takes a stumbling step across the clearing. “You know what!” he says shakily. “I think— I think this was a mistake. I mean, what are the chances you’re not going to be around to protect me? And what are the chances a little bit of training will be the difference between life and death? Thank you though, this was still enlightening, um, I’ll probably just head to bed now, feeling a little tired after all that exertion, so—”

Ed steps forward wordlessly and closes one hand around Ardeth’s wrist. Belatedly he realises that he’d been waving the dagger around.

The apology that springs automatically to his lips dies just as quickly. Ed was watching him with a heaviness to his gaze that Ardeth only remembers seeing…well, only once before, really — plus all the times he’d replayed the scene in his head since then, lying awake and confused and wanting in his bedroll, within arm’s reach of Ed.

He remains frozen in place as Ed takes another step forward, closing the scant inches between them until they stood toe to toe.

“Ardeth,” says Ed.

“Mm?” he manages, not quite brave enough to chance speech.

Ed's face is so close that Ardeth can see the flecks of gold in his amber eyes, and the pale sliver of an old scar fading into his hairline. “You know if you want something,” he says softly, “you can just ask.”

Ardeth’s mouth is dry enough that he has to wet his lips before daring to talk. He could swear he sees Ed’s gaze flick downwards. “I…” Somewhere in the back of his head he can picture underlined passages in a protocol handbook, Romantic relationships are strictly prohibited, Respect your warden first and foremost, Any infractions will be met with disciplinary action and immediate reassignment. It was as if a huge chasm had opened up beneath him, with what has been on one side and what could be on the other. “Ed,” he says, little more than a breathless exhale, leaning up without really meaning to. “I’m— I want—”

There’s a sound from the treeline. Ardeth springs backwards.

“Goodnight!” he blurts, and all but runs for the tent.

iv.

Question: Why did Ed kiss me?

Hypothesis: If I could go back to how things used to be, would I even want to? Would it be worth losing whatever this strange closeness is?

Method:

—

By the time they realise the cheerful horned man at the crossroads had lied to them, it’s too late to turn back.

The blizzard sets in as if emboldened by the setting sun, howling so violently Ardeth thinks he could make out words if he tried. There’s nothing natural about how quickly they lose the rest of the Zirinid caravan they’d been travelling with, either. Wild magic at work.

“We should’ve tied ourselves together!” he cries, stumbling through the snow after Ed. All his concentration lay in keeping his footing and keeping his warden. He knew they could find the others once the storm passed. It was surviving the storm that posed the greatest threat to them all right now.

He’d cast Light on his stopwatch, holding it before him like a lantern. It hardly illuminated anything, its cheery glow muffled by a screen of whirling snowflakes. Still, any time they stumbled into a solid object he could hold it out and ascertain that yes, this was just another naked tree, or another boulder, or something else that offered them no shelter whatsoever. Ardeth had well and truly lost sensation in his hands. Not even the coldest nights on the airship had felt this cold.

It’s as he’s bemoaning the state of his extremities that he feels something shift underfoot. Ardeth pauses; takes an experimental step forward; can’t hear the quiet crack that follows, but certainly feels it.

“Ed!” he shouts. “I think we’ve gone in a circle, this feels like—”

The ice gives way like paper beneath him. Ardeth plunges into the dark.

He’d already been short of breath from the slog through the snow and the effort of making himself heard above the blizzard. He loses what remains of his breath immediately, the freezing water punching all the air from his lungs. He gets an involuntary mouthful of water and is instantly panicking, thrashing about wildly, his hands finding only emptiness. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see anything except the endless dark on all sides, vanishing below him and dragging him under. His warm winter coat was as good as an anchor now.

It’s not a conscious thing, reaching out to touch Ed’s thoughts with his magic, only instinct born from years of partnership. Ed, he howls. Please, Ed, help, help.

Something brushes against his hand. Ardeth’s mind conjures up images of what might lurk beneath the frozen lake. He takes another huge, panicked breath of water, feels a pain like nothing he’s ever experienced flood his burning lungs, and is dragged suddenly upwards.

Ardeth doesn’t remember the next few minutes very well, conscious only of the water he was heaving up, and his own blood like ice in his veins. He realises eventually that he’s lying on his side, Ed’s broad hands keeping him from toppling into the snow.

“Watch out,” he croaks, with his first full breath. “We’re on the lake.”

Ed scoops him up without preamble. Ardeth had lost his glasses; he can’t make out the warden’s face, only the blurry shape of Ed above him as he sets off quickly in some unknown direction. He doesn’t bother asking where they might be headed. The wind blew right through him as if he were a shattered window, shards of glass plunged into his chest, freezing each breath before it even formed.

He doesn’t know how much time passes. One moment he’s adrift in the blizzard, borne aloft like another speck of snow. The next, he’s deposited gracelessly on a cold, uneven surface, blinking frozen tears from his eyes. Ed was speaking to him. He struggles to resolve the words past all the cotton wool that had taken up residence in his head.

“—rdeth. Ardeth. Clothes off, c’mon.”

Right, of course. Standard protocol for hypothermia. He reaches half-heartedly for his coat, the sodden fabric frozen almost solid by the wind. It was difficult to muster the energy or desire to move.

There’s another pair of hands on him within moments, Ed helping him remove his waterlogged clothes with brusque efficiency. Ardeth is distantly grateful for his current stupor. Under other circumstances he’s sure he would have melted away from embarrassment. Of all the people to be doing this, of course it had to be Ed; Ed, who had sent him into such a spiral of confusion. But— who else would it be but Ed?

Something heavy and soft settles over him. Ed’s coat, he realises, as the warden tucks it tightly around his shoulders and under his feet. The warmth of it feels dizzying, a foreign sensation against his frozen skin. It smells like Ed. Ardeth turns his face into the fur collar and closes his eyes.

“No,” says Ed, and grabs him by the chin. “Stay awake. I need to make a fire. Stay awake for me.”

Ardeth struggles to do as he’s told. His eyelids feel like two immense stone doors, reluctant to be dragged open again.

There’s a harried-sounding exhale from above him. The hand under his chin tilts his face up a little further.

Sudden heat against his mouth. Just like— just like when—

Ardeth forces his eyes open. Ed was kissing him — and then abruptly not kissing him — sitting back on his heels and fixing Ardeth with a severe look. “Stay awake for me,” he says again, and clambers to his feet.

That’s not fair, Ardeth wants to wail. I couldn’t even enjoy it. I wasn’t even trying!

His mouth won’t cooperate. Instead he stares after Ed as he disappears into the darkness, realising at last where they’d taken shelter: a crevice the caravan had dismissed earlier in the afternoon, too small to accommodate all of them. It was hardly large enough to accommodate two of them — and Ed had to bend almost double to fit through the entrance. Outside, the wind still howled like some great beast ravaging the valley with its icy teeth. Hypnotic patterns appeared and disappeared in the narrow sliver of whirling snow he could see from his vantage point, calling him to sleep.

Ed reappears just as Ardeth is losing his fight with consciousness again, his arms full of small branches and deadwood that he arranges into a pile just inside the mouth of the cave.

“Need your magic,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “Doubt they’ll catch.”

He holds something out. Ardeth squints at it for a long moment before recognising the shape of his stopwatch, back to its regular bronze now that the Light cantrip had faded. Relief cuts briefly through the numbness. “Th-thought I’d dropped it,” he stammers, reaching for it with a shaking hand. “Then we would’ve b-been in— real trouble.”

Ed kindly doesn’t mention any of the current trouble they were in, just leans back so Ardeth can summon clumsy flames around the pile of sticks. Not his best work, but it burns away the frost and leaves charred wood in its wake, ready for Ed to feed it more fuel as it dries.

The smoke would be a problem in this narrow space. The fuel wouldn’t last the night. If the wind changed direction they’d lose the fire completely. These were thoughts that left Ardeth’s head as quickly as they arrived, drifting off into the haze of his cold-addled mind. He watches dully as Ed works, teeth chattering so hard he thought he might crack something, throat aching from the lungfuls of ice water.

Time blurs again. He doesn’t even notice Ed moving until suddenly he’s being repositioned, directed gently onto his side and against something warm, a comfortable weight settling over his shoulders. There’s the familiar wool and canvas smell of a bedroll, and the familiar steel and soap smell of Ed.

Ardeth might blush if he had the warmth or the sense to spare. Instead, the blessed heat makes him want to weep. He presses his face into Ed’s chest and tries to imagine they were anywhere other than the cold, damp floor of a frozen cave.

An arm settles around his back. “Talk to me,” Ed says, breath stirring his hair.

His tongue feels heavy from exhaustion, his thoughts flimsy and faraway — but Ardeth always wants to talk to Ed. “You—” His voice comes out as a papery rasp. He clears his throat with some difficulty. “You k-kissed me again.”

“Mm.”

So he hadn’t imagined it. “Do you have any f-further plans of that nature?”

“Depends.”

“Depends?” Ardeth echoes, a little more forlorn than he’d intended.

Ed hums another confirmation. Ardeth feels it reverberate through his chest. “Depends on if you want me to.”

Yes, he wants to say. Kiss me now, please. The words get caught in his throat, lodged somewhere behind a great deal of fear. “I— what I w-want isn’t— I can’t…” He feels that pit beneath him again, a yawning chasm of uncertainty; the wonderful and terrible potential. 

It’s gonna be okay, Ed had told him. Even without the Empire. The thought makes him feel ill. His entire body aches. He can’t grapple with it now.

He burrows closer to Ed. Surely there was nothing wrong with enjoying this warmth while he had it. “Can you ask me again later?” he mumbles.

A quiet sound of agreement.

There’s no more conversation after that. The blissful heat of the bedroll is as enticing as the inertia of hypothermia. Ardeth drifts towards unconsciousness, lulled by the steady motion of Ed’s breathing.

It’s hard to be sure as he finally sinks into sleep, but he thinks he feels Ed readjust the arm around his shoulders, and the comforting pressure of a hand moving up and down his spine, very slowly, even through the heavy fabric of his borrowed coat.

—

In the morning Ed politely turns his back as Ardeth slips into his mostly-dry clothes, as if the previous night had never happened and he still had a modicum of dignity left. He says nothing about their misadventure either when they stumble into the rest of the frost-bitten caravan, who ask how they fared through the night.

Ed pulls something from his pack as they hit the trail again. Ardeth is still trying to resolve the shape of the object through narrowed, bleary eyes when Ed sets the spare pair of glasses on his nose, tucking Ardeth’s bedraggled hair behind one ear as he does so.

“What would I do without you?” Ardeth asks, and hopes he never finds out.

v.

Question: Why did Ed kiss me?

Hypothesis: Maybe I don’t need to know. Maybe we can just keep living like this forever. I wouldn’t mind it, really. As long as I get to stay with Ed.

Method:

—

The fight turns bad between one heartbeat and the next.

Ardeth had only taken his eyes off the troll for a second, casting around for somewhere to fall back to that wasn’t completely obstructed by debris. He looks back just in time to see the creature’s massive club catch Ed square in the chest, sending him flying across the battlefield.

He hits one of the bridge supports with a horrible crack, slumping to the ground in a cloud of dust and splintered wood. He doesn’t move after that.

Ardeth’s entire world shrinks to a handful of seconds.

All thought of retreat vanishes. Before he quite knows what he’s doing Ardeth is reaching deep into the well of his magic, finding a thread so bright and hot he hadn’t known he possessed it. It flares brighter at his command, igniting like phosphorus. He throws both hands out with a howl.

The bridge troll roars in response — and then roars again, louder, as fire engulfs its enormous body. It staggers towards Ardeth, reaching blindly for a few futile moments, then drops its club and tries to smack out the flames with its huge, meaty hands.

In the time it takes the fire to reduce the troll completely to ash, Ardeth is across the bridge and crouched over Ed, struggling to roll him onto his back.

“Come on,” he says. “Ed, come on. Get up. Get up!”

Ed doesn’t so much as groan. His eyes were closed, the side of his face crusted with blood and dust where he’d slammed into the wooden support. His head lolls to the side as Ardeth shakes him.

“Ed,” he whispers. “Please.”

It occurs to him that he ought to check for a pulse. He almost laughs. What an absurd thing to think of, that he should check for Ed’s pulse — Ed who had for all intents and purposes appeared consistently indestructible, as constant as the stars and just as reliable. It seemed almost an insult that he should check for Ed’s pulse, like Ed would open his eyes and fix him with an even flatter frown than usual, unimpressed that Ardeth would doubt his ability to survive whatever this place threw at him.

He does it anyway, pressing shaky fingers to Ed’s throat. Ardeth’s next breath hitches around a sob.

He’s not sure how long he sits there, in the end — Ed’s head in his lap, tears streaming unchecked, trying to breathe past the shattered pieces of his heart and the grief lodged in his throat. He sits there like a puppet cut loose from its strings, or a ship without sails; truly alone for the first time in years. He sits there long enough for the sun to sink low on the horizon, painting the sky a deep, bruised purple.

He barely notices the fireflies emerging until he’s surrounded by tiny pinpricks of blue, casting a strange glow over the bridge. Ed’s skin looks even more grey in the half-light. Ardeth reaches out dazedly to brush the warden’s bloodied hair back from his forehead — the first time he’s moved in hours.

“Blimey, that’s a nasty bit of work, huh?”

Ardeth is too exhausted to feel alarm. He turns his head slowly to see the squat figure of a green-skinned woman leaning against one of the bridge supports. She couldn’t have been more than two feet tall, and her hair was long enough that it trailed after her on the ground like a royal robe, adorned with an impressive collection of twigs and flowers.

“Yes,” Ardeth says, his voice little more than a painful rasp.

The strange woman pushes off from the post and wanders closer, stopping at Ardeth’s shoulder and frowning critically down at Ed’s still form. Her eyes gleam like a cat’s in the dark. “Well, he probably didn’t feel anything, so I guess that’s good.”

“Yes,” says Ardeth, because he supposes that’s true.

“Agreeable little fellow, aren’t you?” She turns her frown onto Ardeth. “Let me ask you one more thing, then. You love him?”

Ardeth glances down at Ed; feels fresh tears well in his eyes and spill down his cheeks, dripping onto the warden’s brow. “Yes,” he whispers.

The woman sighs. “Well, alright. You should probably kiss him then. No guarantees, but you’re sitting right on a ley line, and that’s a powerful magical intention you’ve got right there.”

The words wash over Ardeth like water over sand. He has to run them back several times before they make any sense, and even then he only understands about half of it. “What?” he says faintly.

“Ley lines, you know.” She raises her brows pointedly, as if that explained everything. “What did you think the troll was guarding? It’s worth a try is all I’m saying. But hey, you do you. I’m gonna head out now, give you some privacy. Good luck with it all anyhow.”

Ardeth blinks at her in confusion; blinks down at Ed. 

When he looks up to ask any number of clarifying questions he finds the bridge completely empty except for him, his warden and the fireflies.

It seems likely that he’d hallucinated the whole thing, a side effect of shock, exhaustion or desperation. But then again — what exactly did he have to lose?

It’s a struggle to move after so long frozen in place, but he lowers Ed gently back onto the ground, cushioning his head with one hand. Ardeth could almost imagine he was sleeping. That was a nice thought.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers raggedly. “I wish I was braver before.”

He leans down. Ed’s lips are cold against his. Ardeth swallows the urge to sob.

There’s a sound like leaves rustling in the wind, though it emanates from all around him. Ardeth leans back far enough to see a ripple pass through the fireflies. He watches with wide eyes as they begin to spiral in formation, a whirling vortex of light that shoots up into the sky, brighter than the stars that had emerged overhead.

He’s too startled even to yelp when the lights abruptly converge and plummet back towards the ground, hitting the middle of Ed’s chest and breaking over him like a wave. The light feels like static everywhere it splashes against Ardeth. It’s so bright his eyes smart with tears of pain as well as sorrow.

And then— as quickly as it had begun, the light disappears. Ardeth blinks furiously against the burning afterimage seared into his eyelids.

He’s still blinking when he hears a sharp intake of breath.

Ardeth looks down as if in a dream. Ed was stirring on the ground, eyes squinting against the last violet vestiges of dusk. When his gaze settles on Ardeth’s stricken expression his face loses some of its haziness.

“You alright?” Ed rasps, brow furrowing even further.

Ardeth stares down at him in disbelief. Ed was still pale and covered in blood, but he was most definitely breathing, and most definitely alive. As Ardeth watches numbly Ed reaches up with one hand to touch his shoulder.

“You alright?” he asks again. “What happened?”

There’s nothing much Ardeth can do at that point except burst into tears, the kind of full-body sobs he hasn’t experienced since he was a child, slumping forward so he can bury his face in Ed’s shoulder and weep. There’s arms around his back almost immediately, albeit heavy with an air of confusion that Ardeth can sense even in his current state.

“You were dead,” he sobs. “You were d-dead for hours and then there was a strange little woman and she told me to kiss you because we’re on a- a ley line, I think- and I did and then all the fireflies went into your chest and they brought you back and I love you, I love you, I was so scared, please never do that again.”

Absolute silence from beneath him. If Ardeth couldn’t feel Ed breathing he’d be concerned that he’d died again.

Then the arms around him tighten. One of Ed’s hands skims up Ardeth’s spine to settle against the back of his head, tangling in his hair. “What was that last part?” “Please never do that again?” Ardeth offers tearfully.

“Before that.”

“I love you?”

Silence again. Ardeth sniffles and leans back to look at Ed through his foggy glasses. It makes Ed’s expression even more inscrutable than usual. “I meant it,” he says miserably. “I do. I hope- I hope it’s okay that I—”

Ed pulls him down wordlessly into a kiss. His lips are still a little cold. They fix that pretty quickly.

[skeedelvee]

Carry On Countdown Day 27 - Intertwined

For this year's COC I've decided to put together daily fic rec lists! Let me know if you find any new favorite reads from these <3

For todays prompt I've gone with fics that involve cuddling, hugging, or waking up intertwined

mon cœur qui bat by @facewithoutheart

Rated T, 3,848 words

All Simon wants is a safe place to sleep. His magic has other ideas. The fic where Simon’s made of fluff but Baz is the real softie.

Sixty Seconds by @artsyunderstudy

Rated T, 2,807 words

Penny told Simon that if you hug someone for sixty seconds it'll make them happier. When Simon finds Baz crying in the Mage's office he can't help but offer.

Bergamot by @basic-banshee

Rated G, 1,008 words

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” he says, reaching a hand out to brush through my curls absentmindedly before resuming his typing. “When did you get here?” I mutter, shifting myself so I can press a kiss to the cool thigh next to my head. I don’t think he brought pyjamas, because he’s just in his pants and a jumper, which is not even close to his usual sleepwear.

Bunk Beds by Cynosure_phases

Rated T, 2,959 words

Over the past week and a half, I’ve witnessed three splinters impale Snow, had my head hit sitting up more than five times, and noticed Snow’s pissing pattern in correlation to what he has with dinner. Tonight, though, I decided to slip out early to feed. And maybe I shouldn’t, because now I’m facing a dilemma. Snow. In my bed. - Simon messed up and spelled the beds together into a bunk bed, and now they’re stuck in a childlike loop of these beds. That is, until Simon passes out on bottom bunk accidentally and doesn’t want to move for Baz.

Erasing the Line (a Crossing the Line remix fic) by Tbazzsnow

Rated T, 12,032 words

One bed. Two boys. Three nights. An errant spell removes Baz's bed from their shared room. SImon and Baz must figure out how to deal with the situation and with each other. A remix of Crossing the Line by f-ing-ruthless-baz.

Room for The Two of Us by Cynosure_phases

Rated M, 13,882 words

And Snow, brilliant supernova Snow, just leans to me as he smiles. “See,” he whispers even quieter. He prods his finger into my cheek and sends me spiraling. I’m smiling. Smiling. “This Baz doesn’t kill me for sayin’ jack shit.” “’M not gonna kill you, Snow,” I mumble, my hands finding themselves on his knees. Thighs. They slid down to his thighs, and now he’s pinker in the cheeks than before, but laughing. He’s laughing so much. I want to implode. - The bathtub of their shared bathroom is quite large; it’s deep enough to comfortably fit two people, and if you shift just right around the spout, you can sit face to face with relative comfort. The boys find something special in there, making it seemingly the only place where they can stand each other.

Night After Night by Sobriquette

Rated T, 21,823 words

It's not something I ever thought I'd be doing, crawling into bed with Baz in the wake of my nightmares. They're not just nightmares anymore though, are they? Because the Humdrum can summon me. It could summon me at any moment. That’s why this makes sense. Baz is a brilliant magician and just brilliant in general. If we ended up whisked away in the middle of the night Baz would get us out of there (or himself at least). And if not? Well, if The Humdrum killed Baz that would solve some of my problems. So, I suppose it has to be Baz. It has to be Baz because it doesn’t really matter if he dies.

✨Gratuitous self rec✨

A Life in Naps and Cuddles by me! @skeedelvee

Rated M, 1,947 words

Moments of Simon and Baz cuddling or napping together, told through a collection of vignettes

If you have any recs that fit the prompt that I've missed, feel free to leave them in the comments! There's plenty of gaps in my reading so there's a good chance I may not have read it

Also I've had a hard time finding if some people are here on Tumblr, so if you know someone who hasn't been tagged, feel free to leave that in the comments as well <3

@carryon-countdown

[aetherflowers]

In the Embers - Chapter 1

Hey, look! It's baby's first published fanfic!

This is Elona's story with a bit of an origin-ish chapter to start with. Completely pre-DAO for now.

It has baby Cullen! It has Wynne! It has mages and templars!

it doesn't have Alistair yet I'm so sorry

If you read it, thank you! I'll try to get an actually interesting another chapter out soon. 💕💕

Normally the sound of sabatons on stone would give her pause, but Elona had been anticipating it ever since she left the First Enchanter’s office earlier that day. After her Harrowing she had been officially assigned to a clinic in Highever - her family’s doing - but then the king had called for armies in Ostagar. Armies needed healers. A cushy job in Highever could wait.

“You signed up to go to Ostagar?” 

Cullen still held the parchment in his hands, the one she had signed earlier alongside her mentor. His brows were knitted in concern, his mouth drawn into a frown. The scruff around his mouth he’d begun to grow months ago - to look older, she guessed - was finally fully grown and neatly trimmed. With his blonde curls swept back he was handsome; the mages left in Kinloch were in trouble.

“I did,” she confirmed, sweeping her dark hair over her shoulder. “Did you think it was a mistake?”

“I–” His jaw worked as he took a deep breath. “I hoped…”

“Sorry to disappoint.” Her lips curled into a gentle smile and she crossed her arms as she leaned against the bookshelf in her tiny room. “It isn’t a mistake.”

“Is that wise? You’ve only just passed your Harrowing.”

“I appreciate your concern, Cullen, but they need healers and I’m going.” Once she made up her mind on something, she rarely changed it. “My only hesitation was missing Neria’s Harrowing.”

They had promised one another that the first face they would see after would be each other’s. When Elona had finally woke in the apprentice dorms the morning after hers, Neria had been sitting on the end of her bunk, her snow white hair neatly braided and blue eyes glancing eagerly from a thick tome to her and back. It had been grounding to see a friendly face, especially because she had so few of them in the Circle. Of course Neria had plenty of other friends, unlike herself; Elona had Neria and Cullen, a few of the Senior Enchanters like Wynne, but she’d had trouble connecting with others. 

“Then you haven’t told her?” There was a glimmer of hope in his hazel eyes.

“You think you can team up and stop me?” She lifted a brow at him in question. “I think she’d have signed on to join if she could.”

When he came to the same conclusion he sighed. She crossed the few feet between them to lay a hand on his arm, the vambrace warm and solid beneath her fingers. It was just for a moment, and then she retreated.

“I’m just a healer, Cullen,” she insisted. “I’ll be fine.”

The parchment in his hands rustled as he turned it over and over, and his hesitation to leave indicated he wanted to say more on the matter. Conversations with him were never long, though. He valued decorum and while she considered him a friend, she was also still a mage. Unlike some in the Order, Cullen took his duty seriously, despite how their friendship tested the boundaries of his oaths.

“May the Maker keep you, Elona,” he said at last, his voice soft and sad.

“Thank you for everything, Cullen,” she responded in kind. “Kinloch is lucky to have you.”

Before he left she held out one final book for him. Shared books were the foundation of their friendship, pieces of themselves shared between the pages. The one she proffered was one of the books she had brought with her to the Circle years before, a story based around Andraste’s mabari. Her mother’s handwriting still graced the inside of the cover. 

“For our little pup,” it read. “May you always be as brave.”

Beneath Elona had added something for him.

“Your loyalty and friendship has seen me through many dark nights. May the light of the Maker shine on you always.”

Read more here!

[kandisheek]

FIC REC WEEK 35 - HUMOR

AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: kellifer_fic

kellifer_fic wrote some of my favorite fics in this fandom, period. Their voices for the Avengers are all immaculate, and their way of writing dialogue is nothing short of incredible. It's even funnier than Marvel canon sometimes, and that's a feat that not many can pull off. I adore their fics, and if I could rec every single thing they've ever written here, I would. But alas, I'll restrain myself to some of my favorites.

Here's some of their work that I think you should check out:

jealousy is all the fun you think they had

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: G Words: 3,887 Tags: Jealousy, Bucky Recovering, Fighting & Making Up

Summary: Is it socially acceptable to be jealous of your boyfriend's ex-dead best friend?

Reasons why I love it: This fic is equal parts hilarious and a glorious trainwreck of Tony self-sabotaging himself, which is very on brand for him. I love how nonchalant Bucky is about the whole thing, he truly is the best bro. And JARVIS is just the best, full stop. I adore this one, and if you haven't read it yet, you absolutely should!

Therapeutic Guidelines

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 8,357 Tags: Action Figures, UST, Team as Family

Summary: "Are you suggesting I get a bunch of bunk beds in here and squeeze us all into one room?" Tony scoffs and the woman just looks at him. "No, wait-"

Reasons why I love it: Doctor Barrow's role in this fic is actually kind of genius. I love the plot twist and everything leading up to it. There are so many funny moments, I can't even say which one is my favorite, but I especially enjoyed the team bonding. This fic is wonderful, and you should definitely read it!

99 problems (and the dice ain't one)

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 10,784 Tags: Living Together, DnD, Resolved Sexual Tension

Summary: Tony's life is almost perfect. He lives in a converted warehouse full of friends (and one frenemy), has a job that leaves him plenty of time to think about other things and a regular Friday night campaign. If his best friend, Steve Rogers, hadn't moved away to New York and left him behind, then perfection would've been achieved. Tony can roll with the punches though and he's almost all the way over that little bump in the road (shut up Bruce, he totally is) when Steve moves back, looking taller and broader and more confident than ever and Tony's left with a converted warehouse full of friends (and one frenemy), a job that leaves him plenty of time to think about other things, a regular Friday night campaign and the uncomfortable realization that maybe he's in love with his best friend and has been since he was sixteen.

Reasons why I love it: Oh my god, they're all such nerds, I love them! Tony the grumpy hermit is adorable, and I love how ass-backwards Steve and Tony are when it comes to their feelings. Plus, the team as family vibes in this are phenomenal. Definitely check this one out, it's fantastic!

even the cake was in tiers

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: NR Words: 5,500 Tags: Accidental Marriage, Magic, Team Bonding

Summary: I'm pretty sure I'm married to Steve Rogers.

Reasons why I love it: Just the title of this fucking sent me. The Tony sass is on another level in this one, and I'm enjoying every second of it. I love how Tony has a whole Ebenezer Scrooge moment about his life choices, and the ending is super cute. This fic is wonderful, and I hope you go and check it out for yourself!

one hundred percent skill, fifty percent luck

Pairing: Steve/Tony Rating: T Words: 7,418 Tags: Poker, Pining, Kidnapping

Summary: Where there is a poker game, a v-card and general misunderstandings.

Reasons why I love it: I love how everyone on the team clearly understands what's happening, except for Tony. All of the poker night scenes are amazing, and I'm super impressed at how well this fic is balanced between humor and drama. I love it, and I bet you will too, so I hope you'll give this one a shot for yourself, if you haven't already!

[666writingcafe]

Virtue and Sin

Simeon

"What happened earlier?"

Given the situation that happened in the kitchen earlier, I thought it best for MC and me to share a room in the sleeping car so that I could have a proper conversation with them about it. I know that means having Luke continue to be exposed to Mammon and risk having another episode, but I don't know if I'll have another opportunity to be alone with MC, and there are some things they need to know.

"What you witnessed was greed's energy bouncing off Mammon and Luke," I answer. "The more they wanted to go on that trip, the stronger that energy became."

"And the more dangerous."

"Exactly."

"But why would Luke experience greed?" There's the million dollar question. Thankfully, MC seems smart enough to understand the answer.

"An angel's power is connected to one of the seven virtues. Obviously, we're supposed to practice all of them, but the strength of the individual connections differs from person to person. Less experienced angels tend to think that virtue and sin are complete opposites, but in reality they're merely two sides of the same coin."

"Kind of like yin and yang. Good and bad are intertwined; you can't have one without the other. And since Luke's very charitable and kind, he's more likely to experience greed and envy than some of the other angels."

"Correct." MC's following along quite nicely.

"Does the electricity happen to everyone that experiences a sin around a demon?" I shake my head.

"It's a phenomenon that only occurs between angels and demons. The effects are more internal for humans. Any signs of that electricity will be in the eyes, and even then it's so subtle that those that don't know what to look for will dismiss it as a mere trick of the light."

"I see." MC pauses to stretch their arms. "What would have happened to Luke if you didn't step in?" I sigh.

"An angel's tolerance for sin is like a rubber band; it can stretch pretty far, but eventually it will snap. Luke was moments away from throwing a temper tantrum, and those tend to be more violent than a human's."

"That makes sense. I mean, you might say that the flood that Noah experienced was the result of God throwing a hissy fit."

"How so?" I'm genuinely interested in MC's response, but I'm also testing them a bit with my question.

"Well, if something I poured my heart into creating didn't work the way I intended it to, I'd be pretty upset. Not just at the creation, but at myself. The possibility that I wasn't as good as I thought I was would hurt my pride, and I'd end up lashing out at my creation, potentially destroying it in the process."

Bingo.

"That certainly is an interesting take, MC." As much as I'd like to tell them that their reasoning is sound and that it partially explains how Lucifer turned out the way he did, I have a feeling that I'd get my ass chewed out for agreeing with the idea that God is capable of sinning. That kinda defeats the whole "He's perfect" thing.

"Do you think Luke's going to be okay bunking with Mammon?" I shrug.

"He has to learn how to control his greed and envy, and he can't do that if he doesn't know what he's up against. 'Know thy enemy', as they say." I sigh. "I hate to think of the brothers that way, especially since we were once family, but they are the Avatars of Sin for a reason. It'd be foolish of me to not take that into account."

MC appears deep in thought. I can tell that they have more to say, but for some reason they're hesitating. Are they afraid that I'll end our conversation if they keep talking?

Michael and the other seraphim would tell me that I should. A human has no business knowing this much. I know a few angels that still hold humanity in contempt for what Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden, and that's ancient history at this point.

However, I want to know exactly what MC's thinking. I find their intellect to be one of the most attractive things about them. Not that they're bad to look at--because they're not--but there are plenty of pretty people that don't have any complex thoughts in their head. It makes for rather boring conversations. At least I don't have to worry about that with MC.

"Hey, Simeon?" I hum in acknowledgement. "You don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but I was wondering what sin you're most susceptible to experiencing."

Oh. We're going there.

If it were anyone else, I would change the subject. Knowing an angel's weaknesses is powerful, and people have used that against us too many times for me to count.

But I don't think MC would do that. They've behaved too honorably.

I take a deep breath to ease my nerves.

"Wrath."

[ocstabler]

5x16

Benson & Stabler are caled in when a kid is found eating from someone's garbage. When talking to the kid, they find out that his mother has strict views about what her kids can eat.

They pay a visit to her home and while initially not willing to help, they are allowed to view the home. The mother has a strict diet for her kids but has plenty of food for them and she also home schools them. Although they're not happy to allow her son back into her care, they have nothing they can do. Elliot gives the boy his card and tells him to call him if he needs him.

While at home with Dickie & Kathy having some very wholesome family time, Elliot gets a call from the kid. Kathy encourages him to go and Elliot leaves, only to discover the boy dead from a gunshot wound to the head and his mum and older brother missing.

Elliot blames himself and Olivia is quick to reassure him that he isn't the one who sent the boy back home.

They find out the mother has another, older son, that she abused and tracking him down, he helps his brother to realise their mother is a liar.

An all around interesting episode.

It's nice to see the Stabler family more solid as things have been a bit rocky with them the last time we've seen any of them on the show or spoken about in any detail. I love that Kathy is fully supportive of Elliot going to work despite him having to miss time with his family for it. I would say that the focus between him and Kathy and if they are happily married or she's resentful of his job are a little skewed now and again. We're not that far from their seperation really and she seems happy & supportive. Of course, we're only seeing a tiny shot of that life and they are with their son here, which means they're probably less likely to be showing any of their unhappiness. It slightly stresses me out they're playing the game on the bed though and it looks like the pieces are about to fall on the floor. Also this bedroom confuses me a little. It's clearly a boys room, so I would think it would just be Dickies room, but there's a bunk bed and a single bed in the room. Maybe they have a lot of sleepovers? Lizzie could be sharing with him still. They're still pre-teen so it's not weird that they'd be sharing now, as I think they're about 10, but then haven't got long left before they;re really too old to share.

Thye story itself is sad. The mother is really unlikeable and the kids fate is sad. I'd have likes a little more bond from the two brothers at the end. A supportive arm on the shoulder would have been something. They seem to really be working at having semi-happy endings this series. Maybe they had complaints or something about the endings of their shows because these nearly all seem to have a somewhat happy ending recently.

[noxexistant]

ai-less whumptober; day twenty-nine

@ailesswhumptober 29 — ownership, branding, “Everybody will know that you’re mine.” ↳ the refuge word count; 1.4k

cw; grooming, abuse, unhealthy relationships, referenced self-harm

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

"Why," Snyder asks calmly, "Do you do this to yourself, Morris?"

Morris can't think to do much else but shrug weakly.

Snyder is cleaning his wrist. Cradling it with one gentle hand, fingertips and palms soft like a wealthy man who's never worked, thumb rubbing gently back and forth as if to soothe Morris from the sting of the alcohol-soaked cloth.

He'd slipped a knife from the dining table earlier. Brought it back to the bunk room hidden in his shirt.

"Morris," Snyder says. "Answer me. Properly."

It's a fight to not shrug again.

"I jus'," Morris whispers. "Needed it."

Really, he can't think of any other way to express it. It's an itch under his skin, something desperate and clawing, something he's always felt. Soothed away, sometimes, by being hurt by other people — maybe that's what had started it, the consistency of his father's violence so he now feels empty without it. So, in the absence of that, he has to take matters into his own hands. Corrall Oscar or anyone into a fight, or punch a wall until his knuckles split, or throw himself into things until the ache brings him back to himself.

Or find something sharp.

Snyder's thumb brushes over a cut, pressing, and Morris hisses.

"Look at me," Snyder says. "And speak to me properly."

"'M'sorry, Sir."

Morris doesn't want to. He wants to sink into the floor. Wants to take the knife from Snyder's desk and finish the job. But he raises his chin and looks at Snyder, and Snyder rewards him with the barest hint of a smile, eyes crinkling at the edges, something soft in them.

"Good boy."

He places the cloth aside, and picks up the roll of bandages. Clean and brand new, soft. Morris' gaze dips to his long fingers again as he unwinds the beginning of the roll, and then begins to wind it around Morris' wrist with effortless efficiency, wrapping it securely. Tight like being held.

"It is such a waste, you know," Snyder says. "For you to spoil yourself."

"…Already got plenty of scars."

"You do. But how pointless to add more — meaningless ones."

Morris can't help but breathe a laugh, wrist shaking slightly in Snyder's hold, enough to make the tender skin hurt again as it's pressed into Snyder's fingers.

"The other ones got meanings?" he mocks.

"Mine do."

And, oh, what a word that is. Mine.

Do the scars that Snyder left on Morris' skin still belong to Snyder? Do those parts of Morris belong to him, claimed — the expanse of his back, his upper arms, the height of his cheek—

"They mean that you are mine." Snyder slices the end of the bandage with a pair of shining silver scissors, the sharp ringing of two polished blades meeting in a decisive snip. "You, Morris. Every part of you."

He looks at Morris then, from under his brows as he slides a shining safety pin through the ends of the bandage, pinning his work securely in place.

"Is that why you hurt yourself, Morris?" he asks, an eyebrow raised. "Doubt?"

Perhaps that's one way to put it. Not once in his life has Morris ever been secure, held securely like something wanted. Something had. He'd been oft ignored by his parents, sometimes outright hated — an expense, a waste, a beacon of the devil — and then been left by both. Ma had abandoned him in death, left him behind though he would have gone with her, and then Da had abandoned him in kind. Driven Morris and Oscar to the Refuge in their wagon and then left them here.

Oscar's the latest to go. The one person Morris had been sure would be at his side forever, always has been, but even his brother had broken. Hadn't wanted him in the end.

Morris doesn't notice he's crying until Snyder's thumb brushes a tear from his cheek.

"Oh, Morris," he breathes. Leans in close, and Morris can smell the fine cologne on the silk of his suit. Slate blue, today, with a tie to match his eyes. It's his usual cologne, musky and woody, vanilla and amber. "You know, I've had an idea. One that I feel may help you now. Do good for us both, perhaps."

He draws away then, and Morris' stomach sinks. A sudden emptiness in his chest, a desperate wanting, the keen absence of warm hands on his skin. But Snyder only glances over his shoulder and smiles at him.

His eyes don't look so soft anymore.

He walks to the lit fireplace at the side of the office, and pulls on a glove as he goes — thick leather, dark. Morris doesn't understand.

"You've seen, I trust, your brother's branding?"

Oh.

Morris has. Hadn't understood it at first, what appeared to be a indistinguishable shape seared into his brother's skin in blisters and scorched flesh, but, as it healed, he was able to pick the letters out, shaped from bent metal.

A.B.S.

Alexander Benjamin Snyder.

He'd been so jealous it made him sick.

For weeks, he'd wondered why his brother was important enough to be marked with Snyder's name and he wasn't. If that meant that Snyder liked Oscar more than him, held him to higher value. Morris had tortured himself — and perhaps hasn't stopped since.

Perhaps had let it slip into his mind again today, as he'd drawn a blade against his skin. Thinking, for a moment, about carving Snyder's intials in himself. If he wasn't worth enough for Snyder to do it for him.

"Oh, Morris," Snyder says. "Don't pout. There's a good reason I made you wait. You don't trust me?"

"I do," Morris says immediately. "Sir." He means it.

He looks up, and Snyder is smiling again.

"So remove your shirt. And lean over my desk."

Morris does. Not for the first time. And perhaps he should know better by now, should at least have some sense to be afraid, but he isn't. There's something alight in his chest, something burning in his eyes, but he can only wait. Hands clasped before him on the leather surface of the desk, some imitation of prayer as his gaze catches the ornate cross on the wall facing him. The small statue of Saint Michael on Snyder's desk, the pile of gilded prayer cards, the ornate rosary—

He feels pressure on the back of his hip, something being pressed there.

And then, a second later, the burning.

He screams before he's processed the pain. It spills out helplessly, a sudden broken wail as the air is forced immediately from his lungs, and his eyes spill over with tears even as he desperately scrunches them closed. It's as if someone has stood on his chest, preventing him from drawing even the smallest of inhales, and his skin lights up with the burn of — something more than roaring flame. Something like hellfire, fire and brimstone, and he swears he can smell it. Sulfur in the air, God's wrath.

He wails again, the sound caterwauling into another scream as the pain keeps growing. He can feel his skin burning through, the layers of it being carved away with a thousand knives, agony that spreads to numb his fingers and make his head swim.

He's going to be sick. He's going to die.

He wakes up some time later, on his front on Snyder's sofa. Not on the bare leather, but on blankets, rich and warm and soft. He feels feverish, skin wet with sweat. The pain is making him dizzy.

Snyder is stroking his hair. Sat beside the sofa in a chair he'd pulled over, a book balanced against his thigh, held open with his wrist. In his hand, dangling over the top edge, he's holding something, twirling it absently in his fingers.

Morris lets out a weak breath of a noise. Snyder's gaze moves to him, leisurely, and he smiles.

"Now everybody will know that you're mine."

He holds the item in his hand up, showing it off with pride, and Morris struggles to focus his bleary eyes on it.

It's a monogram. It's beautiful and elegant, winding letters carved meticulously into the blackened end of what looks like a large metal stamp. Like a livestock brand, but more refined.

What had been pressed to his back, Morris realises.

ABS.

"I've applied salve and covered it for now," Snyder tells him. "Can't have you getting an infection. I'll ensure it heals well. And then we can admire it." He leans closer, and Morris is washed once again in the warm smell of his cologne. "And you'll never forget, will you? Who you belong to, Morris."

Morris smiles at him, hazy. And then lets his eyes slide closed again, soothed by Snyder's hand in his hair.

Soothed by finally being wanted. Being had.

[pixeldistractions]

After that conversation, Jordan just felt defeated all around. He decided to call it a day at the adventure park and retreat to his humble home on wheels to finish a few modifications. He was building bunks in the back bedroom for the kids.

He texted his boys independently of Colette. He wanted them to know that they could come any time, that they were not forgotten. He was naive, maybe, to think that Colette would work with him on this. He hoped they might have been allowed to visit for a weekend by now.

These climbing classes ran through November. That was another six weeks on top of the six he’d already been away, and that wasn’t soon enough for nine-year-olds. He felt like he was doing so much wrong. But what was the alternative?

A phone call broke his work. It wasn’t Maria. It wasn’t Colette, either. It was Milo.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“I wanted to tell you before Mom does. I got a detention.”

“Oh, okay. Do you want to tell me about it?”

“It’s just because my homework, and—”

“Hang up,” Colette demanded, storming into the room.

“He doesn’t have to hang up,” Jordan said, but she couldn’t hear him, and Milo couldn’t hear, either. She’d already swiped the phone. And then she hung up.

Colette regretted letting the boys have phones. It didn’t seem a choice these days—all the kids had them—but she didn’t feel wrong for regulating their usage on her own terms.

“Go downstairs and start that homework,” she ordered. “I want to see progress when I come down.”

Jordan redialed, and the call went straight to voicemail. She must have turned the phone off. All Jordan could do was sit there in the dust and fume.

He didn’t think she’d be so obstinate. And maybe that made him a fool, because of course Colette intended to be as obstinate as possible. She seemed determined to fight every possible thing there was to fight, and he knew she wasn’t always this unreasonable. She allowed him to take the boys backpacking in Canada last summer. But now she won’t let them come out to Nevada for a weekend? Because she was mad and she could.

He was pretty sure he had some rights, but he’d need a lawyer to find out what those rights were. And lawyers cost money, which he was quickly running out of.

Colette took her time walking across the short hallway to her own bedroom. She sat on her bed and called Jordan back.

“He got a detention, you know. He isn’t doing his homework anymore. It’s weeks behind. Seems like he thinks his father is okay with ditching his responsibilities, so that’s what he’ll do, too.”

“Give his phone back. Let him call me.”

“It’s too late,” Colette said. “It’s a school night and he doesn’t have his homework done.”

“So he needs his homework done to talk to his dad?”

“You’re not here, you don’t make the rules. Stop undermining me.”

“Stop making this so difficult,” Jordan said.

“I’m making this difficult?! You fucking left! You left us—them, you left them.”

“It’s not like that,” Jordan said. “I’ll have them any time. I’d have them now, this weekend, whenever. They get a break for Thanksgiving, and they get another long weekend at the end of the month. Sierra Nova has a direct connection from Chicago. I’ll buy the tickets.”

“Damn right, you will.”

“Okay, fine, then let them come out.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Colette said. “Get an apartment. Get a lawyer. Get custody. Then, when all that’s done, you can pay for the train tickets and you can have them.”

“It’s up to you, you know,” Jordan said, his teeth gritted. “It’s entirely your fault they’re not out here. We could cooperate. Plenty of people co-parent and cooperate without making it a huge war. Or you can just have it your way like you always do.”

Yes, actually, she did intend to have it her way. Should she feel sorry about that?

“I’m going on a date, by the way,” Colette said, with a smug grin. “He’s a doctor. An emergency trauma surgeon. He sounds very successful.”

“Is it important for me to know that he’s a doctor, or are you just being as mean as possible?”

“If you feel bad about him being a doctor, then that’s your problem.”

She hung up on him, unwilling to let him have the last word.

— from “boxes and squares #4.1: first fall apart” (3/5)

a little story note: because this is a fringe lifestyle that I’m a little obsessed with, lol! Legally, in the USA, it’s 100% fine to house your kids in a camper, even full-time. When public schools get involved, it’s a little more complicated, which is why most nomadic families choose to homeschool their kids. On principle though, Colette is just being a stinker. I’m not a lawyer, of course, but from my handy-dandy internet research, the way it works with custody is that two parents can cooperate and decide whatever they want for their kids if they agree with each other. And plenty of parents do that all the time without lawyers and courts. Maybe Jordan was a little naive to hope that he and Colette might be one of those ex-couples who can have a civilized conversation and compromise. 😬

Next ->

[the-fiction-witch]

Visiting

Media - Orbit Ever After Character - Nigel Couple - Nigel X Reader Reader - Alena / Lani Rating - 18 + nudity / stripping / undressing / eating out Word Count - 1887

Nigel sat inside his new hovel, his first time off on his own away from his family. Already he felt a little strange in the silence, perhaps even a little lonely. He perked up a little as he heard the sound of the airlock, for a moment his blood ran cold, and he was confused as to why the airlock was going off while he floated in deep space. He got up and headed over to the door, taking precautions in case something unexpected came from the airlock.

Suddenly the airlock opened to a very common sight, Alena. Nigel's girlfriend. Long distance of course and the two had only ever video chatted and texted. She stood in her boots, and her skintight black jumpsuit with her hair in a intricate braid.

She blew a bubble with her gum popping it with her teeth before she spoke, “Hey Nigel,”

Nigel stood there for a few moments taking in the unexpected sight of her before finally speaking, "A-Alena..what... What are you doing here?"

"I got bored. Technically I'm meant to start my home leave company doesn't like anyone staying off the planet for more than six months at a time. But I didn't really wanna hang out in boring old earth so... I figured I'd come to visit with my favourite boy" she cooed stepping closer and playfully tickling under his chin

"I'm your favourite boy? I don't know if I should be happy or mildly insulted" A shiver went down Nigel's spine

"you be whatever you wanna be, so can you point me in the direction of the accommodation on this cute little hovel of yours?"

a slight smirk formed on his face, "Of course I can. Should I show you the way?"

"lead the way" she smiled tossing her backpack over her shoulder

Nigel's smile faded for a second and transformed into something more mischievous. He walked past her, making sure to brush his hand against her leg and walked down the hall

Alena followed him down the hall often blowing bubbles with her gum till they reached a small room, she tossed her bag down on the small bed built into the wall and began digging around for stuff

Nigel found it hard to focus as she was literally standing in front of him bent over in the skintight jumpsuit... That jumpsuit was his mortal enemy and he has done... Unspeakable things on call to get it off her, his mind often flicking to the memories of what he knew was under it. Nigel found himself just staring at her. His eyes drifted down the length of her body. That damned jumpsuit. He tried to look away, to do anything that didn't involve the thoughts of tearing that jumpsuit off her and pinning her against the wall..but it was hard when she was right there, bent over like that almost as if she was beckoning him to

"So..how long are you planning on staying for?" he asked. The question came out a bit strained

"a week or two until they say I can go back to the station" She shrugged as she unpacked "Why? Want me of your big boy hovel that badly?"

"Of course not. It's just..interesting to get an unexpected surprise like this" he took another few steps forward. Stopping right behind her. He had to control himself. If he didn't, he was going to give in to the urges, "I can think of…quite a few things you could do to pass the time"

"I'm sure I could help you out with things, plenty to do." She chucked "but I admit I'm surprised"

"You're surprised?" Nigel closed the distance between them, standing so close behind her.

"mhm I'm surprised you didn't want me bunking with you?"

a low chuckle escaped his lips at that. He leaned in even closer, his lips just barely touching her ear as he spoke "Oh I'm sure you know by now that I would love you bunking with me.” Nigel's hands gripped her hips, his breath warm on her ear as he pulled her body closer to his. Pressing a kiss just behind her ear,

she chuckled "Well that didn't take long" she smiled purposely rubbing her hips on his "I can't say I'm surprised you gave in so quickly"

He let out a soft growl at the feeling of her hip rubbing against him. That was a move that definitely wasn't playing fair and he knew it. His arms wrapped around her waist as he began to press light kisses down her neck "Like you didn't want me to..'give in'" he replied, biting down on her ear lightly

"Maybe I did. Just thought you might have at least lasted long enough for me to unpack before you started begging for my jumpsuit off"

"Who says I'm begging?" he teased. A smirk on his lips "I can think of a few ways I could take it off you without asking"

"we both know you always beg" she smirked playing with his hair and rubbing harder

he let out another low growl, his hands gripping her hips tightly. Feeling her body rub against him was driving him crazy. But the words she said only made the feeling worse and he bit down on her neck "You're playing a dangerous game, Lani" he said huskily against her skin

"am I?" She smirked "Like you haven't been begging for me to show up randomly so you could actually get your hands on me."

Nigel let out a huff of breath, his face still pressed into her neck. "You're being a tease" he murmured, nipping at the side of her neck

she giggled a little and held his hands moving them up to let him hold her breasts "you believe me now that these aren't a filter?"

His hands instantly squeezed at her breasts. His lips immediately moving to kiss the side of her neck in response. "Oh I know those aren't a filter" he said against her skin, his hands still gripping and squeezing her chest "..but they're so much worse than I imagined. In the best way possible"

she chuckled a little moving to rub a little harder "oohh you really have even Egar to see me haven't you?" She stroked his hair as she felt him clearly getting hard behind her

Nigel let out a low growl, his hips shifting against her to try and find some friction. His face was still nuzzling her neck, the feeling of her hips rubbing against him driving him crazy "You have no idea..." he whispered against her, one of his hands shifting to grip her hip, forcing her against him even harder, His lips found her jawline, his lips moving slowly up to her ear, where he bit down on the shell. He pulled her hips back against him, hard, his other hand still groping her chest, feeling the flesh through the material of her jumpsuit and trying to hold himself together as best he could. "Damn it Lani..it's not fair you showing up like this.. wearing that..and just..teasing me..." He shifted his hips against her again. Trying to get any friction that he could to relieve the feeling of his trousers growing uncomfortably tight. His hand on her hip shifted, tugging at the ziper of her jumpsuit. Trying to unzip it as his tongue traced lightly along the outside of her ear

she laughed "If you wanted me out of my jumpsuit that badly you only had to ask"

He pulled his face from her neck at that, hands still gripping at her hips and turning her around so she was facing him in one fluid movement. He looked at her for a few seconds, his blue eyes darkened with a mix of lust and need "I don't just want you out of that jumpsuit. I need you out of it. Now"

she smirked and pulled her gum from her mouth and tossing it out before she grabbed his neck and swiftly pulled him Into a deep passionate kiss that of course tasted of cherry given her gum

The taste of cherry instantly hit his mind when her lips met his. His hands grabbing her hips instantly. Pressing her against him so he was flush against her and deepened the kiss immediately. His tongue slipping into her mouth, tasting the sweetness of the gum as it tangled with hers. He'd missed this. He'd missed her. His hands began to tug at the zip of her jumpsuit again. The need to feel her skin, to feel her body completely against his own was strong and he was losing his self control "I need this off" he insisted, breaking the kiss for a moment to speak "now"

she smirked and nodded "you wanna do it? Or should I do it?"

"I'll do it" he said at last. A smirk on his face, He moved closer to her again, his hands moving to grip the zipper. He slowly began unzipping the suit, his eyes roaming as more and more flesh began to be revealed to him. Even just seeing the suit unzipped enough for her collarbone was driving him slightly insane. As soon as the zipper was down low enough for him to move it past her shoulders, he began Pushing the upper part of the jumpsuit over her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor. His hands and eyes instantly going to her chest, cupping and squeezing the soft flesh through the thin material of her bra

she giggled slightly at his eagerness

He was very distracted. He hadn't realised how much he'd missed the feel of her skin, the feel of her body under his hands. His hands began to wander. His fingertips tracing over the lace of her bra, while the other moved behind her and started to undoing the clasp of her bra His eyes were locked on the flesh under his hands. The black lace falling away from it and revealing her skin to him. He made a low noise in the back of his throat at the sight, his own body feeling like it was on fire. The urge to touch and taste her was overwhelming. He pushed her back against the wall behind her. His hands gripping her hips hard as he pressed himself against her. Her body flush against his own. He was already losing himself to the feeling of her against him again. Pressing hot and open mouthed kisses against the exposed skin of her chest, his tongue lapping at her flesh as he moved lower and lower down her body He dropped to his knees in front of her. His hands moving to the lower half of her body. The lower half of the jumpsuit was pushed past her hips and down to the floor, leaving her in nothing apart from her lace panties and boots. The only clothes that separated that last touch of her skin from his hands The hands on her hips were gripping her flesh hard. His mouth kissing and biting at her stomach as he moved lower. Trailing a path of kisses and bites down her hips and brushing his lips against her panties,

she squealed softly throwing her head back as she plaid with his hair "now your just tormenting me"

He let out a deep laugh, the sound vibrating off her skin as he got lower, nipping at the sensitive skin of her inner thigh "No Lani, I'm only just getting started"

[bigbadbatch]

In My Mind

Chapter Two-Midnight Rain

Captain Rex x f!JediOC

Exposition/Chapter One (mentions of smut)

Word Count: 4.2k

Warnings: Smut, smut, smut. Nipple Play, oral m/receiving. Mentions of hostage/torture/war. Plenty of tension. Let's get this party started.

Listening Rec's - Midnight Rain and So High School by T. Swift

I thought my dreams would get better now that Rex knows about my feelings toward him, but if anything they’re worse.

Much worse.

Nearly every night now I dream of him, of us. My nightmares have all seemed to stop, making more and more room for dreams of Rex. Dream of his lips, and his hands, and the parts of him I've yet to uncover.

It’s time to debrief from our last mission, and it is far too early in the morning for me to be awake after a night full of dreams. “You okay, Keira? You’ve been tired a lot lately.” Ahsoka innocently asks as she drinks a cup of caf and waits for her Master to start the meeting. “I just haven’t been sleeping well.” I admit. At that moment, Skywalker struts in and gives me a look.

“You should be doing your best to get good rest. Don’t let… distractions disrupt the team.”

I glare at him. He had noticed Rex and I spending more time together, and without proof had decided he knew what was going on. Rex and I have been so careful to remain as hidden as we can with our budding affections. A hypocritical judgment had been cast from Anakin onto us, and it irks me. The whole platoon knows of him and Padme, but he thinks Rex and I shouldn’t try to make whatever this is work. 

Things really hadn’t changed much between Rex and I since that night at the bar. Sure, we spent more time together, ate our meals together and tried our best to get put on missions together, but really that was all. We had no labels, no expectations. We hadn’t even kissed again since that night. After opening up to him, and after our kiss that night, we both agreed to let things fall naturally- that our friendship came first, always. 

As if on cue, in walks Rex, yawning.

“Sorry I’m late.” He grumbles. “Didn’t sleep well.”

Anakin clears his throat and eyes me. “I expect the whole team to be well rested for our next few missions. Tomorrow we leave for Onderon to train a set of rebels on how best to defend the planet. Once that’s covered we have to make way to Naboo for a bit of politics and education for our big mission on Chandrila in two weeks. Master Kenobi and I will be making a few decisions on who is best for the Chandrila mission so stay tuned. It’s going to require poise, stealth and focus, which I know we have very little of in all of the 501st.”

The meeting drags on, and as Rex and I keep catching each other’s eyes, I grow more and more ready for this meeting to end, and for us to be together. Rex was joining me for my daily meditation today. He has been asking for awhile to join me, but I’ve always brushed him off. It was already hard enough to focus during meditation without him there, but he seemed so interested, I finally gave in. 

As soon as Anakin finishes up, Rex nods to me and steps out into the hall. I make my way to my bunk, the most secluded and quiet place in the barracks, and clear the floor for our meditation session. I’m sitting cross legged on the floor, beginning my deep breathing practice when Rex knocks on the door. I open it with the Force and see him enter, helmet under his arm, one hand behind his back. I perk up at the sight of that.

“Did you bring me a surprise, Rexy?”

He chuckles and brings out his arm, a brown paper bag in his fist. “Your favorite naroissants from the bakery downtown. Snagged them this morning. I figured meditation might work up our appetites.”

I laugh and hop up, taking the bag from his hand, our fingers brushing and sending electric currents up my arm. “Thank you, you’re too good to me.” I say softly, and he smiles at me. I set the snacks down on my dresser and turn to face him, hands on my hips. “Alright.” I say. “You have to be able to sit down comfortably in a cross legged position for awhile. Can you do that in armor?”

He laughs and sets down his helmet next to our bag of snacks. “Why mesh’la, trying to get me down to my skivvies already?”

I blush and start to stutter when he chimes in. “I’m just messing with you. I’m wearing my blacks, so I’ll be well covered. That okay?”

I nod and turn to let him strip his armor. I resume my seated position and begin to take deep breaths once more. He slips into a seated position across from me. His blacks are basically tight under-armor sweats, clinging to him. I do my best not to stare at the way his broad chest rises and falls with his breath.

“Okay.” I say, clearing my throat. “You sure you want to do this? Meditation can be boring for someone who’s never done it before.”

He smiles gently at me and nods. “I want to know what it’s like for you. I want to know more about you and your Jedi customs that I hear so much about.”

I grin and guide him through the first few steps- how to best position yourself, how to ground yourself, how to breathe. Then, together, we begin.

Our breaths are even, slow. The room is quiet, and seems to breathe with us. Focus. I tell myself. Forget he’s there. Forget his body is so close to yours. Forget the feeling of him close to you, kissing you all those nights ago. I slightly shake my head. This isn’t working.

If I can’t forget about him being in this room, I need to use him as a focus tool. I clear my mind again and this time I reach out with the Force. The world around me is dark behind my closed eyes, but I can see the glimmering outlines of my room with the vibrations of the Force around me. I look inward first.

I appear as a tumultuous storm. Freezing rain and moonlight take up the space my body should in my mind’s eye. It makes sense. I’ve appeared this way since Rankill, since joining the 501st. There’s something calming to me about the chaos of my Force signature.

Then I reach out to Rex. My breath halts.

Springtime on Naboo. The sunshine of Tatooine, bright and brilliant. He is warm and bright and comforting, the Force radiating from within him.

What a pair we make. I bask in his glow, and sigh in my meditative state, relaxing for once. The storm of midnight rain within me slows to a moonlit mist, and for the first time in months, I feel a sense of peace that I haven’t been able to achieve alone. Slowly I open my eyes. Rex sits across from me, and even without the aid of the Force, he still seems to glow for me. 

He is fidgeting, and doing his very best to stay still and focus, but I can tell it’s futile for him. I feel lead by magnetism towards him, and on all fours I crawl across to him and sit in front of him on my knees. “Rex.” I whisper. His eyes fly open. “Do you want to see what I see, when I meditate?” He nods. Sitting in the same position as him, knees touching, I take his hands. We both close our eyes again. This time, when I reach out to the Force, I encompass Rex in my mind’s eye, sharing my sight with him, an old trick my Master used to do when training me. Rex sucks in a breath and trembles. “Woah.” Is all he can manage.

“Don’t forget to breathe.” I whisper, knowing how intense it can be seeing through the Force for the first time. I show him the room, and then turn him to himself.

“That’s you.” I whisper. “In the force. Bright sunlight.” His hands shake in mine.

“I look like that? Does everyone?” He asks.

“No.” I respond. “Everyone looks different, we are all individuals in the Force.”

He squeezes my hands once, twice. “Can I see you, mesh’la?”

I pause, then show him. He has tried so hard recently to be patient with me and udnerstand me and my hesitations about our attraction to one another. The least I can do is show him this side of me, the truest form of me. The silence when I show him is permeating.

My storm picks up, wind and rain and hail against the night. “Wow.” He breathes. I open my eyes and drop his hands, not knowing whether to feel shy or embarrassed. His eyes flutter open and he looks at me in a new way. There’s quiet. Then he whispers, so softly, gazing at me. “You’re so beautiful.” I blush and look down. Then he’s on his knees, closing the distance between us. His hand reaches up to my face and brings my mouth to his. His kiss is soft and gentle at first, a lighter repeat of our tryst at the bar. His hand cups my face and pulls me deeper into the kiss. I'm drunk on the smell of him, and the flutter in my stomach returns with full force. He wraps his other arm around my back, and pulls me into his lap and I impulsively wrap my legs around him.

This is the most intense our connection has ever been, and I’m losing sight of my inhibitions. This is what I’ve been wanting. I was no stranger to quick rounds of lust and achieving what I and my partner for the night needed. My guilt and fear and anxiety are silenced by the memory of his sunshine and warmth. I wrap my arms around his neck, needing to be somehow closer. My arms and legs wrapped around him, he gathers his feet under him and stands, carrying me with him. He walks the few feet to my bed and sets me gently on it.

“Is this okay?” He asks breathless and I nod, kissing him a bit more feverishly in our new environment. I lay back and pull him over me, and he braces himself above me with one arm, the other hand on my ribs as he kisses me deeply. His lips leave mine and make a trail down my jaw to my neck, where his kisses feel like fire beneath my skin, my pulse racing. He brings his lips back to mine and I nip at his bottom lip. I’ve lost all sense of time and space. All there is, is Rex and me. His left hand is under my shirt now, and edging up towards my bra, so painfully slowly. He pulls from me.

“Mesh’la.” he breathes. “How far do you want this to go?”

My mind is too aflame to know where to draw a line. “I’ll let you know, is that okay?” I ask, nervous.

“Ofcourse.” He whispers, kissing me again and saying “Your wish is my command. You call the shots, remember?” 

I nod and pull him back to me. Slowly, eyes on mine the whole time, his hand slips under my bra and cups my breast. He is so warm, and his rough hand sends my sensitive skin prickling under his touch. “So far, so good?” He asks and I nod. I kiss him and I gasp when he ever so lightly pinches my nipple, biting his bottom lip hard in response. I sit up, and I reach for my shirt, crossing it over my head, unhooking my bra, tossing both to the side. It’s funny, I have never been shy- certainly not with any of my flings. But Rex? I’ve never wanted someone to want me in the way I want him to.

He stares at my revelation, eyes dark and hungry. He pulls his own shirt off and pulls me to him, kissing and nibbling at my collarbone. He kisses down my sternum, just between my breasts my nipples hard in the coolness of my room. He lowers his mouth to a breast, his warm breath raising goose bumps on the skin. He flicks his eyes up to me in question, I put a hand to his face in response, thumb brushing his cheekbone reassuringly. His lips are soft as they wrap around my nipple, and he sucks me in lightly. I throw my head back. My other breast is kneaded in the grip of his hand. Then- a banging at the door.

Rex gently bites my nipple in response to the sudden noise, and I clamp my hand over my mouth to avoid moaning out loud. 

“Rex I know you’re in there, you’re needed in the Mess, fight broke out between some troops. Step to it.” Fives yells and bangs on the door again as he leaves. Rex removes himself from my breasts.

“Poor timing, as usual with Fives.” He says, and with both hands on each side of my head pulls me into a deep kiss then stands, putting on his shirt. I stay seated on the bed, as if in shock.

I was not expecting this to happen.

Rex slips his armor back on, and brings me the bag of goodies he had snatched for me. “I told you we might work up an appetite.” He laughs, and leans in to kiss me one last time, long and deep, before putting on his helmet. “I hope to continue this soon, mesh’la.” Then he’s gone.

—

Onderon is humid and hot, the jungle habitat teeming with life and strife. Separatists had taken over the planet, and under Master Skywalker’s command a small team of he, Master Kenobi, Rex, Ahsoka, and myself had been dispatched to teach a group of rebels how to defend themselves and hopefully secure their planet once more. Our goal was to get the rebel band ready enough to take back their capitol city of Iziz. We had already succeeded in our first impromptu battle against a few droids that had ransacked the encampment. The rebels were strong and tough and led by the Gerrera's, which meant luck was on their side. Tomorrow we would strike the city, and take out as many droid depots as we could.

Since the attack on the camp earlier, each of the Jedi has taken a shift to be on guard. I’m on shift, and the humid jungle night has me sweating. I’m alone out here, in the dark, with everyone else trying their best to rest for the day ahead. I peel off my tunic, the breeze hitting the bare skin of my stomach and neck and bringing me some much needed relief. My combat bra clings to me as I fan myself. Ahsoka would be relieving me soon. As if she could hear me, she comes out of her tent yawning, back in her bandeau to beat the heat. I wish her a good night as I go to my tent, eager for a few hours of sleep before a big day. I pause at the entrance to my tent.

Had I not closed this opening when I left?

Drawing my saber, I ignite, the cool blue glow illuminating the outside of the tent.

“Easy!” Whispers Rex harshly. “It’s just me. I was dropping off some water and gear for you. I didn’t think your shift ended so…” he stops short when he sees me.

My legs are long and bare beneath my rolled up combat leggings, and my bra hides only what was necessary. Where my usual first instinct would be to cover up, with Rex I heat up instead.

“Too hot for clothes?” He whispers, smirking.

I'm suddenly struck with a deliciously mean idea. “You tell me.” I say as I push past him and into my tent, disarming my saber. Only the moonlight dimly lights the inside of my tent now, as Rex stands at the entrance, enraptured. Slowly, my back to him, I unhook my bra and slip it off of me. I can sense him stiffen behind me in more ways than one. I ceremoniously roll down my leggings until I’m bare, my backside silhouetted for him in the night. I toss on a light, breathable tunic, and I turn back to face him, his mouth ajar.

“Much cooler now, Captain.” I say and even in the darkness I see his blush. I walk to him and give him a swift kiss on the cheek. “Goodnight.” I whisper in his ear. Before I can close the tent opening he gently grabs my chin and directs me back to him, to his lips, and kisses me hungrily. “G’night” he growls, and closes my tent for me, stomping off.

—-

The rebellion has gone anything but according to plan. Saw Gerrera and I sit locked in a room in the city of Iziz, a droid interrogating and torturing us intermittently. The deposed President is set to be executed later today and I am running out of time to find a way to get us out of here.

As impulsive and violent Saw has proven to be, I am in awe of his ability to withhold under torture. I was trained by the Jedi to be a mental fortress, to find peace in the Force when in pain. Saw seems to feed off of the pain, letting it fuel his anger. We sit in this desolate room, shackled when not in the Electroholder, for two days.

Suddenly, the man who has previously been in charge of keeping us here walks in, a gun to his back.

“Easy now. Unlock the restraints and step to the wall.” A familiar voice calls.

“Rex!” I say as the shackles fall away and I’m running to his arms. One arm holding the blaster, the other holds me tight. He briefly presses his helmet to my temple. “Gave me quite a scare mesh’la. Time to get out of here.” 

Saw charges past, and Rex and I follow into the fray. Ahsoka has just saved the rightful President, and the city is in chaos. I hear chatter in Rex’s comm. “Affirmative General, hostages rescued. Headed to the ship now, gonna need medical when we hit Coruscant.” Only when he mentions medical do I realize just how sore my body is, how tired I am. “Did we do it?” I ask, leaning into him for stability as we make our way to the cruiser.

“Yes, Cyare, we did it. The city is free and it’s time to get you home.”

At that he scoops me up before my legs can collapse, the adrenaline wearing off, and spirits me away to safety.

---

I wake up in my own bed, feeling alive and pain free. The bacta they had given me in medical had cured my lacerations and bruises, and all that was left of my time in Onderan was a sense of relief. I look around my dark room. It must be the middle of the night. I spot a note in my bedside table and reach to open it.

Keira, I tried to wait for you to wake up, but I started to draw attention hanging around your door too much. If you wake up and need me, come get me.

Yours,

Rex

Did I need him? I don’t know. But I definitely wanted him. He had broken me free, and I felt the sight of him bursting into that room, gun drawn, the moment we stood head to head, had done something to me. Perhaps I dreamed in my bacta-induced sleep the type of dreams I had come to relish.

Regardless, I wanted to thank Rex, for his help.

I tiptoe down the corridors of the 501st’s barracks to just outside the Captain’s quarters. I lightly knock and hear a stirring inside, feet hitting the cold floor of the room and striding to the door. It slides open with a soft whoosh. 

When I see what stands before me, my mind is made up. 

Rex stands, shirtless and in only a pair of tight regulation boxers, running a hand through his short hair. “This better be good, brothe….” He falls short when he realizes I’m not a clone here to interrupt his rest, and a blush creeps up his face.

“Mind if I come in?” I ask and he steps to the side, offering the open door to me. The door closes behind me and I turn to face him.

“I didn’t want to wake you but I needed to see you.” I say quietly.

He reaches for me and holds me at arm's length, scanning me. “Everything okay? Are you okay? How are you feeling?” His hands are warm, and I take one in my hands and bring the palm up to my lips, kissing it.

“I’m feeling good.” I bring up his other hand and kiss it’s palm too.

“Really good. I wanted to thank you for your daring rescue.” I reach up and kiss him lightly on the lips. “Will you let me thank you, Rex?” 

He looks me deep in the eyes and sees the intention there.

“Fuck yes.” He murmurs and kisses me, hard.

His hands in my hair, he pushes me lightly against the wall. One hand to the back of his neck and I kiss and nibble the other side of it. I slide my free hand down his chest, past the muscles of his abdomen, until my palm rests on the firm, large bulge in his boxers.

“Oh kriff.” He sighs as I give a small squeeze and bite his bare shoulder. Eye locking, I slide down the wall and his body, coming to my knees before him. 

Maintaining eye contact, I kiss him through the constraint of his boxers, and hook my fingers into the band. Pulling them down, he springs free and I am left breathless in anticipation. Having had prior experience with Fives, I can now confirm that the clones aren’t identical in every way. The blond, trimmed hair trailing from the base of him up his abdomen was new, for one. The length and girth of him, another. Astonished, I fist my hand around him, and look up grinning. He rubs a hand over his face, unsure if he is dreaming.

Flattening my tongue I lick up his shaft, eliciting a gasp.

“Thank you...” I say, then lick up him again, leaving him shuddering.

“For saving…” I trail kisses down his veins.

“Me.”

With this, I take the head of him into my mouth and suck lightly. He moans, and it is a beautiful sound that sends shivers up my spine. “Mesh’la.” He groans, and brings a hand to knot in my hair.

I slowly work my way down him, my throat adjusting to his considerable size. I reach my limit and gag slightly, and look up at him in embarrassment only for his hips to stutter and have him say my name like a prayer. I pull off of him. “You like that, Rex? Like when I gag on your cock?” 

“Maker, yes, Keira.” He breathes, and I take him as deeply as I can again, bottoming out again and still not taking the whole of him. I’m needy- I’ve needed him for so long. He shudders again, and now both of his hands are in my hair.

“Mesh’la, this is much more of a thanks than I deserve, you’re doing so well, taking it so well.” He growls.

At this encouragement my core throbs and my stomach flutters. Using my hand to make up for the bit of him my mouth can’t handle, I start to suck harder, take him faster and as deep as I can, gagging every time I go too far. With every bob of my head I feel him flex and tense. “Baby.” He whispers.

He’s never called me that, and I’m almost caught off guard, but I don’t let my tempo falter. Using my hand and the thick strings of spit connecting me to him, I begin to pump him, as my mouth kisses the place between his shaft and the heavy, hanging part of him that begins to tighten.

“Gonna come, cyarika.” He moans and I look up at him.

“Where do you want to come? I’m all yours.” I ask. “My face? My throat?”

He nods at this, and I take him back into my mouth, quick, deep sucking strokes until I feel that first hot rope of cum, then I take him as far back into my throat as I can, gagging around him, drinking in his release. His breath is ragged and the sound that tears from his throat is guttural. His hands tighten in my hair, but he doesn’t push me down further onto him, knowing I can’t take anymore.

When I feel his body start to relax, I back off of him, and with a healthy dose of eye contact, wipe my lips with the back of my hand. His eyes are glazed, but I swear I can see stars in them as he winds his arms under mine and picks me up off my knees. His lips meet mine, hungrily. “My turn.” He growls. I shake my head and give him a quick peck then lean to whisper in his ear. “This was my thank you for saving me, remember?” I nip at his earlobe and push off of him, heading for the door. 

“Sweet dreams, Rexy.” I call quietly, as I slip out of his room and into the dark corridor, a smile on my face, heart racing. The door closes behind me and I let loose the breath I had been holding and head back to my room for what will surely be a night full of the best/worst kind of dreams.