#If I don't wake up in a time loop I'm actually going to be more disappointed than if I do

[idledreams4]

I improved my morning alarm

[b4ddprincess]

i wasted almost a year, i don't want y'all to waste more time too! — my void state journey so far

when you see, "the void state is as easy as breathing!" trust me when i tell you. it is.

last year, i was reading a bunch of void state explanations from different bloggers with different beliefs and it made me confused on whose to believe. sum were talking based on beliefs and theories, while others were talking based on facts. i never wanted to believe the facts, cuz it seemed so difficult to grasp an understanding of how it can be so... anxiously easy.

i definitely used to put the void state on a pedestal, thinking that it was an escape out of my old life into a new one, but it actually isn't. the first time i read about the induction of the void state was actually the basic way of inducing pure consciousness. i played a subliminal, tried it for the first time, got intense "pre-void symptoms" and bailed cuz i was suffocating under my blanket. i tried to induce pure consciousness again, but got no symptoms, focused on my body a lot, got impatient and bailed again. i tried waking up in the void state, and i woke up in the void state once last year, and i assumed it was the last time i cld ever wake up in the void state, even if affirming for days after was in vain.

i was just tht typa person.

i didn't mind doing a method over and over even if it was in vain. really, i was just wasting time.

i created a blog and began writing "void epiphanies" which, to me after thinking about it, were a bunch of misinformation, and many people believed them! i saw the term "pure consciousness", and never acknowledged its meaning. i always thought it was just another name for the void state, but the void state is another name for pure consciousness. not acknowledging it, definitely costed me 10 months.

i tried a bunch of different methods: affirming, states, psych-k, alpha state, silva method, dmt frequency, robotic affirming, affirmation tapes, subliminals, hypnosis, self-hypnosis.... all of this while viewing the void state as a magical escape plan.

i thought entering the void state meant tht my soul was leaving my body. i thought i was entering an empty dimension. yes. i did thought those thoughts. not realising tht i was just wasting my time.

seeing all those void state success stories with people "entering the void state by falling asleep listening to dmt waves" or "i robotically-affirmed for 2 days and i woke up in the void state!".... and all i was doing was overconsuming the wrong information and trying to think of a cheat code to "enter the magical escapee dimension." i was wasting time. i had the instructions i needed without a reasoning last year, and i managed to only use common sense this year, after going back to the same "method" i was running away from.

i wasted so many months running away from the traditional way of inducing pure consciousness, just to end up becoming the person encouraging it. i'm not saying not to do other methods, but with the mindset i had, i definitely wasn't able to induce the void state with other methods unless i detached. i did alpha state meditation many times, and i did induced pure consciousness many times in july and early august with it, but i still felt the need to change, cuz i was procrastinatin here and there, and i was fed up with waking up as pure consciousness and forgetting to affirm.

should i have persisted? well yea 😭

but i also don't regret knowing the truth about pure consciousness, and how easyyyy it is to induce. and i will keep advocating the traditional way more than any other method!

when i unintentionally induced the void state about 10 times inna row in june, tht was when it all clicked for me, but i still ran away from the traditional method after trying to induce pure consciousness. i played hfg's vid in the bg, focused on my body a lot, got impatient, then decided to just sleep with the vid looped in the bg.

it was only last week when i decided tht i was fed up. i decided to relax my body, take slow deep breaths, focus on the darkness behind my eyelids, affirm/daydream and then i induced the void state. i placed my awareness on my body and tapped out. but it was also at tht moment, when i realised the amount of time i'd wasted. i've took note of wht i shouldn't do, and ever since then i've been inducing the void state effortlessly. the only thing for me rn is to sustain it, to then affirm for my dream life, but at least i'm not struggling anymore

so guys! PLEASEEEE read my posts 😐

[formulawolff]

the (not so subtle) art of a crush - t.w.

pairing: female driver!reader x toto wolff

word count: 777

warnings: toto being down bad, some teasing, sexual innuendos, one-sided yearning, yadayadayada

a/n: this was a request made by an anon (i believe!) this is also sort of a spin-off of fanboy behavior, which i absolutely adored writing. i think yearning (and well.. down bad) toto is my favorite toto to write! i hope y'all enjoy! <3

"and tell me," the driver's accent is crisp as he licks his lips, "why do you need help creating an instagram account again?"

"nothing major," a figure shrugs, fiddling with a loose thread in his wrinkled white polo, "i just want to stay in the loop. that's all."

"toto," a new voice chimes in, "you have never once mentioned wanting an instagram, or any social media really, until now. what is going on?"

"nothing major," toto wolff exhales, rolling his eyes, "you all have it, so why can't i?"

"because you're ancient?" lewis hamilton scoffs, arching a brow, "you're probably going to need a step-by-step tutorial on how to navigate the platform."

"i think i can figure that one out myself you know," toto hisses, jaw clenching as his drivers stare blankly, "if five year-olds can do it, i can do it."

"let me see your phone," george russell extends an arm, waving his fingers, "i'll get your account set up."

"i-i," the team principal stammers, heat billowing into his cheeks, "i-i don't know if i necessarily need help with that."

"are you blushing?" lewis purses his lips, a devious smirk forming as the dots connect, "mate, do you have something in there that you don't want us to see?"

only approximately one hundred and two screenshots of a certain williams driver. three or four videos. all of which were screen recordings from various interviews.

his cherished clips. ones he watched every night before he drifted off.

all of which were not tucked away into the hidden folder of his camera roll.

speaking of which, he may have to figure out how to do that. with three kids, an ex-wife, and two nosy drivers, his phone was an easy target. he probably needed to set up a passcode as well.

the lengths he was going to over a crush. a fucking crush.

well, was it a really a crush?

or more like an infatuation?

that was a question for another time. he had two drivers in his office at the moment, circling around him like vultures, eager to pick him apart.

"nothing of your interest," toto retorts, in a vain attempt to maintain his composure, "nothing, really."

"got someone's nudes in there?" lewis coos, tilting his head, "or even worse, a sex tape?"

"lewis," george brings a hand to his temple, "what on earth is wrong with you?"

"what, mate?" lewis throws his hands in the air, "i'm just giving him shit."

"shit he clearly does not want," george mutters, "toto, if you need help setting up an account, just facetime me. don't try to text me. it's much easier to explain over a call than written directions."

"or he can just go on wikihow," lewis offers, "they have guides on just about everything."

oh, really?

did they have a guide on how to navigate the unbearable weight of yearning for a woman thirty years your junior? a woman on a rival team? a crush so bad that it was beginning to snake its way into every aspect of your life? consume your every waking thought?

a crush so intense that you had already spoken to members of the williams crew?

his next target was james, whom he was planning on meeting and speaking with after the next press conference. that was in about a week's time, at third grand prix of the season.

fuck, this was embarrassing, really.

but he wanted more.

actually, he needed more.

he craved it.

he needed to gather all of the possible information and intel as he could. her likes and dislikes. her favorite foods and the ones that were so vile they made her throw up. what kept her up at night. what music she preferred to listen to on race day. what drinks she indulged in. what animals she loved. what made her so unbelievably pissed off she couldn't think straight.

he wanted to catch a glimpse inside of her mind.

all of the things that could possibly buzz around inside of that beautiful head.

really, he just wanted to learn what she was composed of.

her childhood memories, the ones she spoke of with that sweet fondness in her voice. the delicate aspects of her life that she cherished, beaming from ear to ear. the things she feared. how she expressed her love. the people she adored.

everything.

he wanted to know it all.

and following her instagram account, along with her various other socials would prove to be the first step in accessing that plethora of information.

at least it was a step in the right direction.

even if his drivers were giving him hell for it.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ taglist ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

@noooway555 @s-awturn @thatgirlthatreadswattpad @lokideservesahug @fore45fore @eattothebeatt @statuewoman @sarah10r-blog @lavenderandlace @racecardilfs @bblouifford @irishmanwhore @jhobi18 @roseandtulips @simply-the-best23

[pillowspace]

Do you have any info on the ISAT Audience of Vaugarde AU you'd be willing to share? (Only if you wanna!!) :o

I'm really curious about it, I have SO many questions

During the loops, Loop would only ever see the faintest signs of a presence, but nothing that'd confirm one. They always thought it was just a bad memory springing up, like a faint scent or the faintest whisper of a familiar voice. The Audience watched everything. Sometimes, some would follow behind Siffrin into the House, while someone else would remain with Loop at the Favor Tree. Loop was rarely ever left alone. I imagine that, whenever some would follow Siffrin, they saw things they would have rather not, but there's not much to do but chat amongst themselves and spectate. It does give perspective to what Loop may have gone through though, so it's not like they wouldn't Understand Loop by the time the loops were broken.

I have nothing to say about this, I just want to note that I need to draw the bad touch event someday with Loop and Isabeau just STARING from the tree like [Live Loop Reaction] and [Live Isabeau Reaction], it's really funny to me.

Nobody was really too sure what to call Loop during the loops, constantly hesitantly switching between names. Eventually Mirabelle suggested they just stick to Loop if they can't ask, so they did. But I'd like to imagine that, once before that, Loop had caught a close familiar whisper of "Siffrin" and felt... unwell.

AFTER 2hats but BEFORE Loop reappears in the world is what this first drawing is. It's Loop's "in this moment, you are loved," but it's so hazy that it might as well have been a dream for them. Think of it like how at the start of In Stars and Time, the star is shown being eaten, and Siffrin wakes up.

Loop's still in Vauguarde, but they have NO idea where they are when they wake up. Their head is human, but not the rest of their body. Their hair is long and tangled and greasy, as if their hair had always been growing just out of sight. Some sort of barrier has been broken between Loop and the Audience, so as the days pass, the voices slowly grow clearer, and Loop starts slowly... seeing things.

Loop needs somewhere to stay, so an older woman lets them stay at her house. Let's call herrrr... Smithing One?? This is only a temporary arrangement.

If I draw Loop with really messy greasy hair and little to no clothing, that's the stage in which Loop is deeply afraid of any sign of the Audience's company. Example from a previous drawing:

If I draw Loop with hair slightly better taken care of and in a headband holding the overgrown middle piece back, Loop's now tense and nervous around the Audience but won't panic anymore, and will often communicate back. (Note: don't interpret this as Loop not liking them! Loop loves them very deeply and suffered a lot of grief, there's just a lot of feelings of fear and reopened wounds clashing.) I think maybe partway through this stage, Loop leaves Smithing One's house to go travel. Example from a previous drawing:

There is a stage I haven't drawn yet where Loop is entirely happy with the Audience and a lot more healed. I'm guessing Loop will have a high ponytail, and some hair accessory holding back the middle piece or something like that. I would like to draw that at some point.

After learning that Loop can't handle being called Siffrin and is only settling for the mild discomfort "Loop" brings, Odile will start calling them Little Crow, as per chipper-smol's reply:

I'm out of things to mention honestly, feel free to ask whatever you want

OH yeah. By the way, I do want Loop and Siffrin to reunite at some point, I'm just not sure how yet... The thing is, the Audience isn't actually ghosts. They're LIKE ghosts, but they're not dead. As I've said, Loop's first wish to stay with their friends simply merged with their second wish for help, so the Audience is more so just oddly disconnected from reality. Maybe after a lot of time has passed, the Audience is so tangible that anyone can see them, even if they have a little bit of an off air to them (and maybe they still can vanish at will). So... surprise! Siffrin's party would eventually realize that they ALSO have alternate versions of themselves walking around. Ohhh wait, wouldn't it be fun if one accidentally met their clone in a public place before ever even being aware of Loop's supposed "audience"? And Siffrin never wanted to talk about Loop's business to his family, so they never even found out what Loop was at all? Something in me tells me that it'd be most fun for it to be the Mirabelles to spot each other first

...............okay, now I'm out of things to mention

[jaynovz]

In discussions about the finale of Black Sails, one of the things I often see is folks hard-focusing on Flint's fate, in an either-or binary fashion, usually presented as "Which do you believe-- that Silver killed him? or sent him to the plantation?"

Now, for posterity's sake, gonna mention a few things-- first off, that's simply not thinking broadly enough. There are farrrr more than two options here and I've come up with my share of the reallyyyyy bad ones for sure. Whatever your mind chooses, none of those are happy endings anyway, there are bittersweet, bad, and worse endings all the way down. (They are paused, they are in a time loop, and also all endings and no endings are happening simultaneously)

But also, the more cogent point is that, it doesn't actually matter what happened *to Flint* The story is... not actually about him at that point. We have transitioned from Flint as protag to Silver as protag, setting up for (the fanfiction that Black Sails has ended up making of, ugh, king shit) Treasure Island.

And so, I just, don't find it to be of particular interest exploring what we think Flint is actually doing or if he's alive for real. What is EXTREMELY interesting to explore though is how Silver's speech at the end to Madi is sort of giving Thomas back to Flint as a pacifier/comfort object, but how... Silver is giving Flint that thing in his own mind as his own type of pacifier/comfort object.

That's the REALLY chewy bit. What actually happens to Flint is not the purpose of that scene for me, of Silver's recounting of events to Madi. It's more about... projection. It's about how Silver is dealing with whatever happened to Flint/whatever he did.

And I just feel like it's missing the point to focus so hard on if Flint is alive or not.

He is the ghost of the story regardless, that's what's important. He's going to haunt the narrative for the rest of everyone's lives. No one has been untouched or unscarred by coming into contact with Captain Flint; he has a forever legacy. I'm not the first to call him this, but he's Schrödinger's Flint and he's staying that way.

But this?

"No. I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it. There is a place near Savannah... where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. He resisted... at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer... he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well... whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it... so unexpected. I choose to believe it... because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all... but one who existed beforehand... waking from a long... and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight... and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes... letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him."

This is the speech of a man who is self-soothing, who is spinning himself a tale, who is projecting, who is coping.

and THAT is just, way chewier, innit?

[whatsaninterestingplacethisis]

Lovers

Imagine

Mat Barzal x Latina!reader

Synop: y/n locks eyes with a stranger one night and it leads to uncertain 'relationship' between the two; a one night stand leads to too many nights.

a/n: no smut but very suggestive, y/n is emotionaly unavaliable 😪, in a way i replace the smut with humor bc i think im funny 😔 angst + fluff, black cat reader x sunshine Matt in a sense ? Im indifferent w this work >:/

cw: mentions of drinking, cussing, suggestiveness

+

That stupid little red dress. The one you kept pulling down as it hiked up every step you took. That's what the oversized black leather jacket was for; to save the hassle but it didn't do much besides keeping you warm.

That same little red dress is on your bedroom floor, alongside with your black boots and his jeans with the belt still looped in them.

You locked eyes with him that same night in that crowded bar. You would never take him home but they way your makeup held that night and how the dress fitted you, it gave you confidence to do so.

It was difficult to fall asleep right after, the adrenaline had warm your body, too hot to sleep. But after some cooling down and examining his sharp facial features, you fell into a slumber.

+

With a well rested sleep, especially after that night, you woke up early. Fortunately so, you had plans with some friends late morning. You showered and thought of how to remove the man in your bed.

After getting dressed and putting your dress in the hamper, you picked up his discarded clothes from last night and messily folded them and chucked them at his bare back.

"Wakey wakey, no bakey." you sarcastically said in a loud enough voice to wake the nameless stranger. You were sure he had told you his name but had forgotten.

The nameless stranger stirred and moaned as he flipped over under the sheets. He rubbed his eyes trying to focus on your dressed self at the foot of the bed. You could see a smirk creep on his face as he realized what happened last night.

"Get dressed." you demand in a softer voice this time. You made your way to your side of the bed and started to make the bed, prompting him to actually move and get dressed.

"Jeez, no good morning or-" he finally sat up and started to put on his boxers,

"No. I have plans and can't have a stranger in my house." You walked around to start to make his side of your bed.

He stood up towering over you, "you did last night." he said with another smirk of his, his chest was bare and he messed with his belt buckle.

"Not alone in my house." you tilted up to look at him, moving him out of the way with your hips, folding the sheets back over.

You grabbed his shirt and pushed him with it towards the front door,

"I would like to see you again." he said as he quickly slid his shirt over his head,

You laughed, "I'm sure you would, bye bye." you closed and locked the door after him and continued to get ready.

+

The next weeknight you were relaxing after work, eating dinner on the couch watching some tv. As soon as you placed your bowl down, you heard soft knocks at your door.

You looked through the peephole and your eyes widened as you saw the same face of the guy who was in your sheets a few days ago.

You opened the door ajar, "What the hell are you doing here?" your eyebrows furrowed together.

"I wasn't joking when I said I wouldn't mind seeing you again." He stood with his hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt.

"Maybe you don't understand the concept of a one night stand but it usually happens only one night."

He laughed at your explanation, "I know what we did. I'm just saying if you don't mind, we can hang out again."

"I don't want to be in a relationship or even date for that matter." you opened the door more as to where the conversation was going.

"Neither do I." he stated to your surprise.

"Are you implying to be fuck buddies?" you whispered the term as you two were having the conversation in a public hallway.

He struggled to hold back a laugh, "In a few words, yes."

"Okay." you relaxed against the door,

"Okay?" he questioned not understanding your answer,

"Yeah, sure." you agreed to the relation.

"Cool, we should share numbers then." he pulled out his phone and passed it to you. The new contact page had your name typed out in the right box.

"You remember my name?" you looked up at him after typing your number in.

"Yeah, what you don't remember mine?" he joked expecting a laugh but you still couldn't remember his name. He saw the slight worry in your eyes and smiled,

"It's Mat." you passed his phone back and he saved the contact,

"Sorry," you said sheepishly.

"No worries." he said as if he had been embarrassed too. But he kept standing there.

"Do you want to- tonight?" you asked indifferent of his intentions when coming over to your place.

"I mean I wasn't expecting it on my drive over here but I'm down..." he leaned forward onto the doorway.

With his face inches way from yours, you leaned forward, caressing his loose hair strands,

"I'm not. I'm on my period, so goodnight Mat." you pulled away from the tension and slightly pushed his chest away.

“Wait. We could still hang, watch a movie or something.” he tried to negotiate but failed,

"Yeah, no. Text me in a week and I should be free, goodnight." you quickly closed the door before he could speak anymore.

+

Mat had given you a full week to meet up again and it was awkward at first on your behalf. The first night with him after the bar really only happened with the help of alcohol but to plan accordingly sober was very different.

He called you, not texted, and gave you the option to see him at his place or yours. You told him yours to lessen the anxiety.

It was silly you thought. Panicking over sleeping with a guy who had already seen you naked. It was probably the fact that he wanted to see you again in that state that made you overthink so much.

But at the end of the night he came, he also came to your place.

And it became a system. He called to see you. You texted to see him. It went on for months of pure sex. Nothing else as you pledged the second time you saw him. But there were moments were he broke his pledge. Moments where he was becoming more of a friend than a fuck buddy.

I.

When he had time the mornings after he was generous to cook you breakfast,

"Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey" he mocked you from the first morning. He brought you a plate of a simple but nutritional breakfast and a glass of orange juice to his bed.

You groaned to be woken up but loved the smell of food in the morning, "Is this all for me?" you asked half asleep, reaching for the fork but he pulled the plate away,

"No, actually it's just for me. Your plate is in the kitchen." he deadpanned. Still half asleep you slowly blinked at what he said.

"I'm just kidding," he passed you the fork, "Just a joke because of your lack of hospitality from the first night." you noted he wasn't going to let that go for a while.

"I said I was sorry but that night was different from what we have now." you said before taking a bite of your food.

"I know. It's just fun teasing you." he said softly as he watched you eating his food.

This was from the first weeks. You had kept some walls up because from your standpoint it was all and only sex. But something about Mat forced you to open with him. With a smooth transition, the two of you became friends with benefits from fuck buddies.

II.

Mat found it easy to let your walls down by making you laugh but in other words he teased you, so he laughed at you but it all good and fun when you teased him back.

From the very beginning Mat favored talking over the phone rather than text. For your relationship, texting seemed easier and more practical because you didn't mind him just sending 'are you free?' and that be a sign that he wanted to come over. But no, for him he always wanted to have a long conversation about whatever and end the call with, "okay I'll be on my way soon."

And you always obliged, when you texted first he wouldn't text back but immediately call. So one night you decided to ignore his calls and just text him. You knew it would annoy him so even better for a small joke to play.

y/n

hey are you free after practice?

mat

Missed call

y/n

i can't talk right now

mat

Missed call

y/n

so are you free or not?

mat

Missed call

y/n

i guess not

mat

Why are you not answering my calls??

y/n

I just told you.

mat

Incoming call

After you laughed at your own entertainment you finally answered his call, contradicting what you had said.

"I thought you couldn't talk right now." he said through a grin, knowing you were lying.

"I didn't want to talk but you always want to." you admitted

"That's because I like hearing your voice. Although I can hear the sas in your texts just as fine."

"So are you free or not?" you had to get to business before he asked you more questions-

"How was your day?" he asked like always.

You rolled your eyes, "It was fine. Are you free?"

"Mine was pretty good too. Practice went great actually, thanks for asking." he said very sarcastically.

"Mat.'

"Yes?" he said too cheerful

"Are you free?"

"Like right now? Or in a couple of hours. I'm still kind of sweaty. Unless you like that type of stuff-"

Without hesitation you ended the call. Not that you were mad, just a bit annoyed but you knew it would make Mat desperate leaving him high and dry.

mat

Missed call

You kept declining his incoming calls and didn't bother to text because if he did want to see you tonight he would eventually text.

mat

I'll be there in an hour

y/n

:)

+

III.

A different morning you felt him twirling your hair in his hands,

"What are you doing?" you muttered into his cold sheets

"Trying to braid your hair." he whispered back, fully focused on trying to figure out a pattern.

"Don't. You'll just knot it even more." He didn't give up until a minute later because he was in fact knotting your hair.

You turned around after you felt his hands drop,

"Can you teach me?" he asked

"Youtube it." you whispered with your eyes closed

"I'll learn quicker from you." you felt his hands lightly touch your cheek making you lock eyes with him.

You quickly maneuvered to pull him in by the back of his neck. He smirked awaiting for a kiss, but you pulled his shaggy hair causing him to squeal,

"Ow?! that hurt." his eyes turned sad with his pouted lips,

"I just wanted to see how long your hair is. Not long enough to braid." you massaged the back of his head to soothe the pain.

You sat up straight and pulled your hair forward to slowly teach him a three strand braid. After a what felt like forever he kind of got it.

IV.

Overtime Mat broke your walls completely and you enjoyed every second talking and being with him but there were moments that brought you back to reality. The reality of what the relationship was.

It was Valentines day and you hadn't thought anything major about it. Mat would be busy that night like he mentioned before so you would spend it alone.

If he was free he would spend the night like always but you thought it would be weird to buy him something because you're only friends as you reminded yourself many times. You didn't expect anything from him either.

But he took you by surprise by showing up at your door with a huge bouquet of roses and your favorite chocolate.

"What are those?" you asked baffled from your door

"Rosses and chocolate obviously." he said with a smile

"I thought you said you were busy tonight." you still couldn't believe he actually got you something.

"I lied. I wanted to surprise you."

"Well I'm surprised!" you finally moved to let him in, taking the abnormally large bouquet of flowers to place them on your table,

"I didn't get you anything." you admitted waiting to see his disappointment,

"That's fine. I assumed you expected nothing but I still wanted to get you something. Being with you tonight is enough." he walked towards you and kissed you. It was a different kind of kiss than all the ones you shared before. This one felt genuine and not of lust. It was slow and as he deepened the kiss he was careful to not be so rough.

You felt your heart twang and your stomach fill with anxiety like from the very first nights. Even though you reciprocated with every motion in your body, you pushed him away. You stared up at him questioning everything that had happened to lead up to this moment,

"I'll make it up to you," you tried to change your train of thought.

"How?" he had that smirk on his face again

"Don't act dumb." you began to push him towards your bedroom,

"Wait, what about your chocolate?" as if he cared about the damn chocoalte.

"We can eat it after."

You had to change the scenery quickly to avoid those thoughts. You tried to excuse his behavior as him being nice but you knew too well it was more than that.

"Here's your chocolate, my sweets," he bowed to you in your bed. He had never used an endearing nickname before but you let it slide like all the other things.

"Thanks," he climbed back into your bed taking a piece for himself,

"So I was thinking," he said while chewing,

"Oh that's not good." you joked,

"Ha ha" he sarcastically laughed, "You should come to one of my games. I can get you a good view and maybe you'll like it."

You swiftly gasped almost choking on your chocolate, "Me at your game?"

"That is what I said, yes." he cleaned some chocolate off your lips with his thumb, catching you off guard.

"Okay, sounds fun I guess." you said with very clear uncertainty.

"Doesn't sound like fun,” he laughed at your nerves but reassured you, "I want you to see me play in person, it's only one game. And if you don't like it or we lose miserably I'll make it up to you."

"How will you make it up to me?" you smirked to yourself,

"Don't act dumb." he whispered into your ear, kissing your cheek and neck making you squirm.

Moments like these, filled with bliss made you forget all your worries. But the hours before the actual game, your nerves sank back in.

You dressed accordingly and sat in the stands trying to follow the game. Seeing Mat distinguished by his number felt surreal almost. It was a side of Mat you didn’t indulge in often or at all.

He talked about hockey every now and then but it was very brief. To see him skate as fast as he could was shocking. To see him get slammed into the boards was more than shocking but concerning.

You were alone in your seat. Trying to follow the quick pace game. Looking around at the fans with his jersey number. You felt like an outsider even though the player himself had invited you to be there.

When the game ended and the Islanders had won you weren’t bored. You were glad you saw Mat play in person and see the team win. Mat gave you instructions where to meet him after the game.

After some wrong turns and almost giving up trying to find the locker room, you found a sweaty Matt walking in the halls,

“Hey you made it!” he jogged up to you for a quick hug and a quick kiss. Another action of Matt that surprised you. The two of you never kissed in public.

“I want you to meet some of my teammates.” His body radiated of excitement and giddiness.

“Sure,” you agreed with fake excitement. You were definitely not expecting such socialization with Matt’s close friends.

He introduced you to his teammates as a ‘good friend’ with an arm wrapped around you the whole time. The whole situation was nauseating. His teammates were kind but the whole thing was very confusing; as to what this introduction was or what you and Matt were.

You were able to end the introductions early when you told Matt you didn’t feel good, which wasn’t that far off from the truth,

“Are you okay to drive home?” he asked

“Yeah I’m just have a bad headache.”

“Okay I’ll see you tonight then?” Matt had planned to be with you after the game but you felt it would be better to have some time alone,

“Actually I think I’ll go asleep alone tonight. I’m just worn out.” you tried your best to lie and it barely worked.

“Okay I’ll call tomorrow.” You hum in agreement before almost running out of that arena.

On the drive home you felt your heart beat faster than you ever felt before. Things were getting too real you said to yourself in the car.

You and Matt had promised since the very beginning that this wouldn’t be anything more. But that promise had long been broken. You knew things had to slow down or stop completely, but only one of those options were possible.

+

You thought it would be best to see him at his place rather than your own. So you called him,

“Y/n calling me? It can’t be.” He joked

“Mat can I see you later tonight?” You asked in all seriousness ignoring his joke,

“You know you can y/n.”

“Great I’ll see you later.” You kept the call short, ignoring his calls right after.

When he opened his door for you, he cradled your face and smothered you with kisses. Something he sometimes did when he was in a happy mood.

You hated yourself for what you were about to do,

“Matt we need to talk,” you pushed him away only to see him lean in again, “What? Is it about the game? I thought I had pretty good night. What did you think?”

You despised how your eyes started to tear up but you kept a straight voice,

“We need to end this.”

“What?” He laughed as if he didn’t hear you correctly.

“Whatever this is. Things are getting too personal. They have been for weeks now and I should’ve been more persistent but I am now.”

“What are you talking about?” His hands dropped from your arms to his sides,

“Whatever this was is over.”

“This is over? Just like that?” He scoffed starting to become agitated, he didn’t understand where this was coming from,

“Yeah how else would you end a fuck buddy relationship?” You retaliated in attitude and nerves.

“But this isn’t a fuck buddy relationship! Not when I’m love with you!”

Mat never failed to surprise you but you should have seen this coming.

“You don’t mean that.” you unconsciously replied.

“The fuck I don’t!” His frustration was making things difficult so you had lied next,

“There’s someone else.” You tried to hold eye contact to make things believable but Mat knew better,

“Who?”

“You don’t know him.”

“So you see commitment in this ‘guy’ but not with me? The man you’ve been fucking with the past months.”

“That’s all it was Mat, it was just sex.”

“Thats bullshit! You’re telling me that you don’t feel anything more for me than just a fuck buddy?” His eyes looked dark with sadness and tears welling up,

“I told you from the beginning that I wanted nothing more. You promised too.” You lowered your voice to lessen the awful tension.

“Well I guess I broke that promise.” He stood there waiting for you say something but you didn’t know what else to say. So he broke the silence,

“Y/n, I’m in love with you.” his voice wavered,

“Mat.”

“I love you and you’re scared of being with me fully but I can wait because I don’t believe there is another guy.”

“Mat stop.”

“I’ve been in love with you probably since the very beginning and I’ll still love you for a long time.” He rambled trying to reach for your touch but you had to conclude things.

“Mat, I don’t love you.” You said harshly to get your point across.

You moved his arms from reaching yours, “There is another guy and I need to keep my options open while I’m young. You should too.”

“I’m sorry.” You whispered leaving his apartment.

+

It had been weeks when you broke his heart. He didn’t give up even after that horrible fight. He continued to call and text. He even showed up to your place but kept silent.

You tried to not cry for him or the ended relationship. It wasn’t fair or right but it had to be done. That’s at least what you told yourself every night before going to asleep.

Mat would find someone better and move on. It would be like nothing ever happened between you two. Just lost in history.

He eventually stop calling and showing up at your door. It was the first steps to finally moving on you told yourself.

“Who’s ‘M’?” Your friend had pulled you from your thoughts.

“Huh?” You were making dinner for your guest as it was rare to have her over.

“This.” She showed you the polaroid. It was the polaroid Mat had toke of you one of your mornings.

~~~

“Stop snooping.” You watched him walking around your room, observing your shelves and tables.

“I’m not snooping. Just looking.” He grabbed the white polaroid you had gotten as a gift from your shelve.

“Now you’re touching.” You said from the comfort of your bed,

“Say cheese.” He climbed over you to take a picture,

“It’s too early for a photoshoot.” You held your hands up blocking the lens,

“C’mon just one photo,” be begged trying to move your hands,

“I don’t feel pretty.” You pulled your comforter above your face,

He leaned down to slowly pull down the comforter, “You always look pretty,” he whispered as he softly kissed you.

Catching you off guard he took a quick shot of you smiling. He wrote the date and his initial in sharpie after snooping in your desk.

~~~

“He’s just some guy.” You say nonchalantly avoiding the possible topic.

“Did he take this picture?” Of course she asks,

“Yeah he did.” You replied,

“This isn’t the same guy from that bar right?” You didn’t tell her much about Mat. Just that you were seeing someone very casually.

“He is actually, or was.” You tried to focus on the chopped vegetables rather than the sad eyes Mat looked at you with.

“What do you mean was?” She persisted and you gave in explaining everything.

“Hold up. This guy obviously cares about you, even told you that he loves you and you turned him down?”

“This is why I didn’t tell you everything.”

“Because you don’t want to hear the truth that this guy loves you. Love. The things everybody wants. And you just give it up like that.”

“He wasn’t supposed to fall in love with me!”

“Why the hell not!? He had every reason to. Do you love him?” You hated how she asked the most difficult yet important questions.

“I don’t know.” You said half heartedly.

“You don’t know.” Her eyes pierced yours as you kept lying to yourself and others over and over again.

“It would never work me and him! He has a busy schedule and-“ you start the excuses,

“Oh but not busy enough to fuck each other!”

“Y/n be real. Let’s put the lies and excuses away. Why can’t you let yourself be happy for once while you have the chance?”

“You don’t understand. I broke his heart. I saw it in his face when I told him I didn’t love him. I don’t deserve to see him again or to ask for another chance.“

“Well I think everyone deserves a second chance. And if he truly loves you, he can understand your point of view.”

She forced you to see him again. You still couldn’t see why you should let yourself be happy even after breaking his heart. But you were on your way to his place with the same pit of anxiety in your stomach.

You didn’t call or text before to see if he was home. You didn’t want him to decline your request before seeing him in person, so you knocked on his door.

The moment he opened the door your heart ached. His face was visibly sad and his eyes red. You wanted to run away again but you couldn’t feel anything but pity and guilt.

“Can I come in?”

“Sure” His voice was deep and raspy. His face lacked emotion except when he saw you, he didn’t think he would see you again.

The silence of the apartment was deafening and uncomfortable, but you took a seat on his couch, signaling him to do the same.

“Mat, I am so sorry for the things that I said and did throughout everything. I didn’t mean any of it.”

You paused to collect your shaky breath and thoughts,

“You’re right. I am scared to be with you fully because you’re the most important and life changing thing that has happened to me and it terrifies me. From the beginning I only wanted something simple with no strings attached but then everything started to become so real without us even discussing it! I can’t blame you for treating me like how any girl dreams to be treated, I just wish we had slowed down and talked about things first and then maybe I wouldn’t have lied about there being someone else. Because there isn’t, I mean how could there be when you’ve been always by my side? What im trying to say is that if somehow you don’t hate me, hopefully we can start again?”

You could hear your pulse banging in your ears when he didn’t say anything. He just looked at you indifferently but still with those red eyes.

“You’re right too. I was in the wrong to continue things like we were official and not talk about it. I should I have said something earlier before I asked you to meet the guys. Maybe before Valentine’s Day too, that was probably a surprise.” He laughs at his lighthearted joke to soothe the tension, making you laugh too with tears falling down your face.

“You brought me a bouquet the size of a tire, so I was a little bit surprised.”

Both you laughed at how ridiculously huge those flowers were but of how sweet the gesture was. Mat broke the sweet silence with a question that had been left unanswered,

“Y/n, do you love me?”

You sympathized for him, the look of sincerity and incandescent love he had for you. You nod your head with a tearful smile.

He breaked into glossy eyed smile as he reached over to embrace and kiss you. A replica, but somehow better, kiss of the Valentine’s Day one. A slow but passionate kiss of pure adoration and love. He pulled away after what felt enough for now,

“I have to hear you say it though,” he states

“Say what?” You licked your lips eyeing his before meeting his eyes,

He slightly cocked his head to the side, “Don’t act dumb.”

“I love you, Mathew Barzal.”

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - The unexpected rise of cooking crush & seme bjs

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

Jan 2024 Wk 3

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Sign (Sat YT) ep 9 of 12 - I love this show so damn much. This may be my KinnPorsche. It’s just so endlessly entertaining in a perfectly unhinged way. I love that they looped Tharn’s dad back into the murder investigations.

You know kinksters have invented necklaces that can’t come off… right? Just saying.

Meanwhile, would it still be BL if our seme didn’t wake up from drowning and instantly go chase snake?

No. No it would not. 

Remember the one hard and fast rule of BL? When a seme gives a BJ it’s penance. Phaya is apologizing to Tharn for leaving him behind.

Heh. Hard and fast. I kill me. 

Pit Babe (Fri iQIYI) ep 10 of 14 - How is this absurd creature managing to rise in the ranks? Pavel turned in some stellar grief and ALANJEFF have my whole heart. I make Ikea puns in the... Trash watch happening here.

Cooking Crush (Sun YT) ep 7 of 12 - The make-out montage was absolutely charming and very much American rom com style - interesting (and rare) to see in a BL (not to mention from OffGun. How far we have come since Puppy Honey?)

Meanwhile, another wonderful grandma in a BL!

Next week we do an actual harken back to Puppy Honey, so obviously I’m now enjoying this whole show way more than before. I think it helped that I watched it earlier in the week, when it wasn’t competing with any other BLs. 

Last Twilight (Fri YT) ep 11 of 12 - Not gonna lie, I knew from you all that this was gonna be a rough ep. But I very clearly remember the penultimate Bad Buddy ep so I now have slightly more trust than others in GMMTV on this matter. 

That said, this was a crap episode.

You can’t set Mork’s truth and character motivation reveal up like that and then have his lover choose to dismiss him in a way that diminishes not just both character's growth AND all of Mork's actions towards Day, but also our faith in every other character. It was a shitty narrative thing to do to us, and it was a shitty thing to do to Mork. And that doesn’t even take into account the forgiveness allotted by the story to Day’s unrepentant excuse for a mother.  The doom should have been handled differently. The mom shoudl have leaned in even more evil and actively lied to split them apart.

I don't know if they can redeem this misstep in the final episode. But I'm interested to see them try. That said, this plot seem to be true to the book. 

For Him (Thurs iQIYI) ep 8 of 12 - A major trigger has landed. But also it’s clear who’s fault that incident was... and it’s not Him’s. So Blue's so-called-friend really is unhinged. This episode was a little bit more engaging than last week, but it’s only because stuff actually happened. I’m still not sure I enjoyed it. 

Twins the series (Fri GaGa) ep 12fin - Despite the fact that I’ve been annoyed by the show the last couple of episodes, I’m still sad for it to end. It was a good reveal and First had the right response. Also a very sports way to end it. Sprite is a v clingy bf. 

In brief?

A messy very Thai pulp sports romance that actually managed to involve sports in an identical twins trading-places plot. Basically Not Me meets HIStory 2 Crossing the Line (although vastly inferior to either) with an endearing main character and a good lead pair (poor things), both soapy and earnest without too much camp. It tried so hard but the plot, side couples, and extraneous characters let us down. Passable if not great. 7/10 

Time the series (Thai Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - Eh. Whatever. 

My Universe (Sun iQIYI) ep 22 of 24 - skipped this installment

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

Although I Love You and You AKA Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka (Japan Gaga) ep 2 of 10 - Funny how quickly he retracted that confession and everyone called him out for doing it too soon (including me from a narrative beats perspective). It was a cute screw up - I see what your meta-arse is doing there, Japan. Also our Tokyo-boy’s serious reserved earnestness is extra adorable in the surrounded by Osaka enthusiasm context. His accidental flirting is that much more heart wrenching for our poor baby seme.  And they ended this ep with honorific negotiations!! Be still my heart. I’m really adoring this show.

Your hyung romance super fan is back in the game! 

Meanwhile the Osaka accent is beyond adorable. 

Sahara-sensei to Toki-kun (Japan Fri Gaga) ep 6 of 8 - Japan what are you doing? I do love the not-sorta-ex from the past. 

VIP Only (Taiwan Fri Gaga) ep 10fin - I loved all the young people in the hawker center supporting the campaign against the terrible mother. They make a good domestically sappy couple. But that is Taiwan's specialty.

In brief?

A sweet if aimless story about a writer and a chef finding love via noodles, fake dating, and family challenges. If it had a tighter script and a shorter run, more like a KBL this might’ve been quite special. But it didn’t and it lost me too many times. 6/10

I don’t like to be disappointed by Taiwan. 

It's done: I Need to Catch up

What Did You Eat Yesterday Season 2 AKA Kinou Nani Tabeta? Season 2 (Japan Gaga) 10 eps - will binge when I have any spare time. 2024 is crazy busy for me so far.

The Servant and the Young Master - from Vietnam so I assume it's on YouTube. I never even noticed. Anyone?

Began Beginning (Myanmar YouTube) - Is TRUST Entertainment bringing us the first ever Burmeses BL? I don't know if it's really the first, but @heretherebedork vouched for it, so I will give it a watch through.

It's Airing But...

[INTERNATIONAL] Cherry Magic (Sat YouTube) ep 3 of 12 - yeah Japan put the smack down on our boys. Sadness. You can use a VPN if you like. Read all about it here.

Beside You (Thai YouTube) - a 3 sp short that's supposed to have started but I can't find it.

Ossans Love Season 2 (Japan Gaga) - 5 years later, will anything have changed? This is Japan so… probubly not. I won't be watching this. I disliked Season one and actively hated the follow ups. No thank you.

Playboyy (Thurs Gaga) 14 eps - Dear Playboyy, it's not you, it’s me… I hate you. You’re about as deep (and as palatable) as a shot glass of cum. While I'm sure you’re someone’s kink, you're my weakest link. Goodbye. I DNFed this at ep 5. Frankly I'm impressed with myself for getting that far.

The Whisperer (Sun ????) 10 eps - Ends next week. Thai horror BL that ALSO involves cheating (what joy is mine). I don't think even the perfect single dimple can motivate me to watch. Word is... it's terrible.

7 Days Before Valentine (Weds WeTV) 10 eps - Giving me Luminous Solution vibes. I'm waiting to binge if safe.

Dead Friend Forever (Thai Sat iQIYI) - horror, meh, tell me if it's worth my time?

In Case You Missed it

All my year-end round ups:

TOP 10 BL Trends of 2023

Top 10 BL Secondary Pairs of 2023

2023 BLs Best Trope Execution Awards! TOP 10

All the BLs Announced for 2023 that didn't happen

BL 2023's Best:

Back Hugs Thailand & Elsewhere

Cute Bits of Domesticity

Boys Feeding Boys

BOOP!

Best Cuddles

Heads in Laps

Touching Head Touches

Thailand Put His Head on Your Shoulder

Put Your Head on My Shoulder (not Thailand)

BEST KISSES (not Thailand)

BEST KISSES FROM THAILAND

Next Week Looks Like This

1/23 Happy Ending is a new high school set Strongberry 20 min short staring the actor who played Milk on Choco Milk Shake, so... YES PLEASE. I'm not sure where it will air but we all have our fingers crossed for Gaga or YT. Or both.

1/24 Love For Love's Sake (Korea Gaga & iQIYI)- based on the Manhwa ‘Love Supremacy Zone’ by Hwacha. A young man is dropped into a game based off a novel he loves. His mission is to make another player, YeoWoon happy. But then the game starts unfolding completely different from the novel.

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

Viva la BL grandma superiority! (Cooking Crush)

Cooking Crush casually givign us some lovely lesbians (as indeed did The Sign). GL makes for a lovely acessory BL, carry on.

Now GMMTV, give us the REVERSE.

I love this dork SO MUCH. (Pit Babe)

I love that Cherry Magic is doing this scene over. One of my favs from the original.

Yai is BEST BOY. MVP and most likely the winner for 2024's Namgoong award.

(Last week)

[ooihcnoiwlerh]

Happy Sunday, my Darlings! I have a new Feyd-Rautha/Reader chapter up! (18+ Only)

Tags for this chapter: arranged marriage; dubious consent; breeding kink; overstimulation; blood kink; period sex; pain kink; oral sex (m+ and f+ receiving); vaginal sex; Feyd-Rautha who is his own walking content warning; problematic smut; slow emotional burn; Feyd-Rautha having the most insane recovery period; discussions of pregnancy; implied/referenced past abuse; implied/referenced self-harm

Tags and notes for this story overall and full chapter below the cut. Please let me know if you would like to be tagged when I update!

CW for the entire fic: arranged marriage; forced marriage; forced pregnancy; dubious consent; implied/referenced child abuse; implied/referenced sexual abuse; implied/referenced incest; sadomasochism; pain kink; rough sex; problematic smut; vaginal sex; vaginal fingering; oral sex; blood kink; breeding kink; orgasm denial; eventual switching

Just as a note: this fic was going to be a lot shorter and completely plotless but that was 40k words ago and there's no end in sight, so I'm going to make some minor edits and rewrites to earlier chapters, but this story will end up factoring into the greater plot of the story.

Chapter Five: Playin' with Fire Burns a Little Bit

He keeps his word.  It’s still somewhat dark outside when you wake to a hard cock against your backside and an arm wrapped around you, and you remember where you are and what happened.

Your ass doesn’t sting as much as it did last night; the more pressing matter is that Feyd-Rautha’s cock is slotted against the small of your back, just over the slope of your backside, and his arm that’s been looped around your ribcage is moving.  His palm presses against your stomach.  You give a soft grunt as you shift in his grasp and he raises himself up on his opposite elbow to get a good look at your face and your now-opened eyes.

“You’re awake,” he notes, voice even rougher first thing in the morning, and with that information decides to slide his hand from your ribcage to your crotch.  

“You really meant it when you said first thing ,” you say, still drowsy, voice still laced with sleep.

“I have a busy schedule,” he says, rubbing down and sliding his fingertips along your slit before giving a quiet hmm as if to say, ‘ Not quite wet enough yet.  Unfortunate .’  So he keeps circling your bud, nuzzling against your neck and jaw as you start to warm up, your breaths getting shorter.

When he wrings your first gasp out of you, he brings his fingertips back to your slit and gets the affirmation he wants that he’s getting you wet, enough that he can commence with his actual plans for you. In any case, you’re wide awake now.

You remind yourself that this isn’t the most depraved thing you’ve heard of on Geidi Prime.  You don’t have to remind yourself that even as off-putting a concept it is, it felt great last night.

He turns you on your back and wastes no further time bringing his head between your legs.  He takes just a moment to smell the blood between your thighs before he’s alternating between licking over you, wriggling his tongue inside of you, and suckling at your bud.

This time your hands are free to explore, to press against the back of his neck and scratch along his shoulders and biceps, to cup your own breasts to add to the stimulation until he covers them with his own.

He’s good at this , you realize, head falling back against the covers, hips arching up, and you have no frame of reference, no comparison for this, so it’s just a feeling.  You’re pretty sure he likes this, likes the way you taste perhaps in part because of the blood coming out of you, and you’re willing to set aside how morbid that is if he keeps this up.  You pant and moan, unconsciously grinding against his mouth and he lets you, lets you grip the back of his head as your breath comes in harsh and your entire body flushes hot.  You couldn’t form a coherent sentence if your life depended on it.

Your whimpers turn into a warning, one that he ignores as he keeps going, pulling back only to spit on his thumb and bring it to your bud as he presses his tongue back inside of you.  He doesn’t let up, either, when you shake and come, trembling against his mouth.  If anything it spurs him on, giving you too much. 

You wish he had hair so you could tug on it to pull him away and give you a moment to cool down.  You’ve never just kept on going after coming and it’s too much, it’s too intense.  And that, apparently, is the idea because he keeps your hips pulled to him, his face still buried in between your legs.  You groan, frustrated, knocking your head back against your pillow as your hips clench and you give another spasm.

He rocks his hips against the bed, devolving into grunts and moans against your sensitive skin, like this might be what sends him over the edge, too.  Not that you realize it yet but he actually could.  If he chose to, he could let the friction between his cock and the sheets below him get him there.  But that would be a waste of his seed that he’s bent on spilling inside of you.

So after a minute he pulls away so he can sit up and flip you onto your stomach, pulls you up by your hips, and takes a moment to look at the remnants of the damage he did last night.  It must be still sufficiently red and look as tender as it feels because he wastes no time squeezing the cheeks of your ass, probably smirking at your responding pained whine.

He chose this position on purpose, you realize.  You’re still sore from last night, and you’ll feel the sting of his hips slapping against your ass, especially at the punishing pace he often sets.  Your mouth falls open in a silent scream as he quickly, wordlessly, assures you this morning’s no different.

When he makes a ponytail out of your hair and tugs, spurred on by the noises you’re making, you wonder about the collars in the armoire.  Are those because women on Geidi Prime don’t have hair to pull? Or will he use those collars on you, too?

He starts talking; a little unusual for him, since he doesn’t normally talk while he’s inside of you, but the words spill out of his chest in his gravely timbre. You just have no idea what he’s saying, it’s all guttural Harkonnen battle language that you haven’t learned yet.

You barely manage to hold your upper body upright, and you’re sure that’s mostly because of Feyd-Rautha’s grip on your hair.  He stops talking altogether and his speech devolves back into grunts and growls with each snap of his hips that almost drown out your moans and whimpers.

And then it’s done, he comes, one hand clutching your hip and the other still buried in your hair.  For a few moments he stays there, still holding you onto him as he begins to soften, then he moves his hand from your hair to your stomach, coaxing you up until your back aligns with his chest.  He breathes in, shifting his hand upwards until it curls loosely around your neck, which you turn in alarm to try and face him.  Your blood is quickly drying, tacky and dark, on his mouth as he tilts his head and presses those blood-stained lips to yours.  He only gives your neck the lightest of squeezes, a reminder of what he’s capable of but not a real threat, before moving his hand to your breast, palming it roughly.  He keeps at it, kissing and fondling every exposed part of you he can reach until he gets hard again and you gasp at the feel of it, him filling out and stiffening inside of you once more.

Is this…normal?  It can’t be, right?  You’d probably have heard about it if it was.

He’s not a normal man , you have to remind yourself.

He took you in this position a couple of nights ago, when he had you brace your hands against the headboard as he fucked you, but right now the headboard’s too far away and so you rely on him holding you onto him, one of your hands reaching behind you to grab his hip as the other rubs down against your bud, your cries high and reedy as your fingers brush so close to where he’s pistoning in and out of you.  His grunts and growls against your ear grow ragged; you half-expect him to snap his jaws and sink his teeth into your neck for the animalistic way he fucks you, like being inside of you makes him an even baser and more primitive creature.  It makes you rub harder, feeling helpless to do anything else.

He lets you come this time.

For a full minute afterwards, he holds you to him, his breath going from panting back to normal, his pulse slowing back down, before he wordlessly tilts your hips forward and coaxes you on to your front before pulling out of you.  You shut your eyes for a moment, hearing the telltale sounds of him padding over to the bathroom and take a moment to readjust yourself, shifting to lie on your side, waiting for him to come out.

When he does, his face and cock have been cleaned off and he heads for the dresser, and you’re about to get up to use the bathroom for yourself when he starts talking.

“I’ll grab you again in three hours for breakfast,” he says as he reaches into his drawers for clothes to train in.  “When you didn’t show up yesterday my uncle was concerned that I may have been too much for you and wanted to verify that you’re still in one piece.”

“Was he really?” you ask.  The best opinion the Baron seems to have of you is one of polite indifference; an adequate broodmare for the Harkonnen line.

“Harkonnen men can get overzealous,” he says.  “He wants to make sure that I’m taking care of my new bride.”

That’s one way to put it , you think, shifting again to sit on the edge of the bed.  It’s an effort, and even though the sheets are soft you can’t help but wince at the feeling of them against your well-used backside.

“Fine.  I might get an hour or two of sleep before then.”  You could certainly use it; your husband has certainly proved his stamina and energy in bed.  

He glances over at you as he reaches for a training shirt.  “I’m going to have a door installed connecting your quarters to mine.  It’ll make it easier for us to meet at night,” he says, as if it wasn’t already easy.  “Save us the trouble of having to get dressed before and afterwards.”

You could almost laugh.  It would figure that’s his reasoning.

“Alright, I’ll be up in just a second.”

You’re a little surprised he’s not openly smug about how he wears you out.  You’d almost expect him to joke about how hard it is to keep up with him, but he must realize he doesn’t have to.  The way your legs shake a little as you walk over to your discarded clothing, the way you wince as you bend over to pick them up, speak for themselves.  He does watch you, though, the rest of his clothes momentarily forgotten, as if trying to commit the sight of you to memory before you leave.

**********

You manage to get another hour’s sleep in which you quickly realize that sleeping on your back is out of the question for now.

Idrisa comes in shortly after you wake up to bring you water and coffee and prepare a bath for you.  You’re so grateful for it that you could cry, hissing as the water hits your backside.  

Idrisa peers in, concerned.  “Everything alright, Na-Baroness?” she asks.  

You look over at her.  “Would you be so kind as to get me a glass of water and one of those menstrual pain tablets?” you ask.

**********

You finish getting ready just in time for the Na-Baron to greet you in what you’ve gathered is his typical politician��s attire; black, clearly high-end and well-tailored material to show off his form.  Too formal to train in but fitted for ease of movement.  He has a holster on his thigh that holds a knife in its scabbard.

He gives you his arm for you to take; it’s almost whiplash how he oscillates between fucking you like a beast and having you on his arm like a courtly gentleman, but you accept and stroll down the hall together in silence for a moment.

He looks ahead as he says, “It’s going to be uncomfortable for you to sit down for a couple of days.”

“I figured that out earlier, but thank you,” you say.  

“He’s going to notice and he’s going to bait you.  Don’t acknowledge it.  Getting flustered will just add fuel to the fire,” he adds.

“ You like seeing my discomfort,” you tell him.

His jaw tightens.  He opens his mouth enough to run his tongue–strangely pink despite everything else being black–over his teeth before he clicks his tongue against them.  “I like it for my own amusement, not his,” he says.  

You reach the Dining Hall, with a spread being set out.  It’s already too much food for three people, but with the Baron it’s unlikely that it’ll go to waste.

You stop and curtsy as Feyd-Rautha pulls your chair out for you.

“Good morning, Baron,” you say, face downcast, waiting for him to give you a nod before you sit down.

Feyd wasn’t lying, sitting in a chair’s even worse than sitting on a bed.  You try not to shift around to get more comfortable; you just know that they’re going to notice. 

“I suppose you’re still adjusting to Geidi Prime and married life?” the Baron asks you.   You know he really means, Still adjusting to getting railed by my nephew, eh?  Can’t say I’m surprised; I’ve heard that he’s hung like a donkey.  

“Yes, Baron.  It is getting easier, though.  Everyone’s been accommodating,” you tell him as you take a sip of juice and avoid looking directly at him.  He can probably sense your dislike despite your best efforts to be polite and deferential.  He probably doesn’t care.  He probably likes that you have to simper and fawn over how gracious he is when you wish you never had to speak to him.

“The relaxation chambers are still at your disposal, if you’ve changed your mind,” he says.

“Thank you, Baron, that’s an excellent idea.”  And it is, much as you hate to admit it.  All that worries you is the idea of anyone but you, Feyd, and Idrisa knowing that there’s no way that you’re pregnant yet.  You’ll have to investigate first and see how bad the risk is of exposure.  If word got back to the Baron…you’re certain he would be less thrilled than his nephew.

Conversation quickly turns to Arrakis. Since regaining it from the house of Atreides Rabban apparently has been struggling to overpower Fremen rebels.  You’re a little taken aback that they’d be willing to discuss this in front of you and realize that it’s because you have no one to talk to about this anyways.  The Atreides have been all but exterminated, not that you really knew any of them in the first place.  Even Father was shocked to see how swiftly they met their end when it happened.

The Fremen, it turns out, are another story.  It’s not a surprise that they can match the Harkonnens in brutality; they’re the only ones who inhabit a planet just as hostile and unforgiving as Geidi Prime and they’ve found ways to adapt to Arrakis that the Harkonnens haven’t needed to before.

“We’re going to need to train our men harder,” Feyd-Rautha says.  “We’ve allowed ourselves to get complacent when we can’t afford to.  The Sardaukar army helped us win back Arrakis; we need to hold ourselves to their standards.  Until then, Rabban needs to stop trying to ply his ego with direct combat and use aerial strikes instead.”

The Baron looks up from his food and sits back for a moment, considering his nephew’s words with a small smile.  See, this is why you’re my successor and not him, he seems to think, even when their conversation leads elsewhere.  It’s the look of a man who’s playing a game he has yet to reveal, and it sticks with you for the remainder of breakfast.

What else does he have planned for his nephew?

******

Feyd-Rautha walks with you out of the Dining Hall, still playing the courtly married man, taking your hand on his arm as you pass slaves and soldiers alike who lower their heads in deference.  It’s going to take some getting used to.  He apparently has a meeting to attend, though, as he escorts you back to your quarters.

“I’ll see you this evening,” he says, with no need for innuendo.

And so it continues for a few days.  At night he takes you into his own bedchambers, tastes you until you nearly weep from the overstimulation, fucks you until you’re sore and shaking, sleeps with you, and wakes you up early the next morning to do it all again before he leaves to train.  You save your energy during the day by staying more sedentary than you’re used to, remaining in the library or your quarters and listening to recorded lessons of basic Harkonnen words and phrases.  Your pronunciation when you try to mimic the guttural tones is laughable, but you put in an effort.  You’ll save the relaxation chambers for when you start training.

The fourth night, before he buries his face between your legs, he has you do the same to him; has you kneel as he sits on the edge of the bed and pushes his cock into the confines of your mouth.

“ You’ll learn to take everything, ” he tells you, one hand buried in your hair as he pushes you down farther than you’ve managed before, until tears spill out of the corners of your eyes and the noises your mouth makes around him sound utterly obscene.  He lets you brace your hands on his legs and it’s between then and when he pulls you off of him to bring you up into bed that you notice something.  The scars on his inner thigh have an uneven mirror; there are scars on his other thigh, as well, along an invisible inseam, but they don’t match.  Those other scars look shorter and like they run deeper.  It’s yet another question you’re sure you won’t get to ask anytime soon.  Before he devours you, though, he cups your chin in his hand and looks over your tear-stained cheeks and lips puffy from sucking his cock with unrestrained lust.  

“What is it about me like this, husband?” you ask, after it’s done and he’s come inside of you.  You’re both naked, sprawled, and spent in his bed.  The blood’s been lighter and lighter and soon you imagine these visits will go back to just the evenings.  “Do you only like tasting women when we’re like this?”

He looks over at you and draws one arm behind his head.  “Not only then,” he says.  “But I like enjoying something other men are too weak to even attempt.”

You wait for him to continue his explanation, but he doesn’t.  You’ve been continuously worn out and sore since your wedding night, but there’s something pleasant in your ache. Perhaps it’s just your body getting used to being thoroughly debauched on a regular basis for the first time in your life, but there’s also a part of you that’s starting to enjoy it.   

“It’s time,” he adds.  “To start training you.  It can’t last long so it will have to be comprehensive.”  

“I already have training,” you tell him.

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” he says.  “Tomorrow morning.”

You consider this.  “Fine.  Do I sleep here tonight or in my room?”

He gives it a moment’s thought.  “Yours.”

You’ve been sleeping with him the past four nights; you suppose it had to end eventually.  You’re surprised at how easy it was to fall asleep next to him even with the early mornings.

“Now?” you ask, trying to keep the conversation as business-like as possible.  It’s just easier that way; to shut off any impression that you want intimacy from him that he simply can’t provide.  You’re pretty sure it’s impossible for him.

He looks over at you, considering.  “In a few minutes,” he decides.  “I’m not sure if I want to go again tonight or not.”

As it turns out, he doesn’t, but that doesn’t stop him from glancing over at you a few times, his eyes-half-lidded as his gaze goes up and down the length of your body.  When you meet his gaze he looks back at you as if to say, What?  Am I not allowed to look at my own wife?

He finally tells you what hour he wants you up.  “Get a good night’s rest,” he adds.  “You’ll need it.”

He sits up to watch you as you rise from bed, padding naked over to his dresser.  He stares unapologetically at your form as you get dressed and leave for your quarters.  Construction for the door connecting your bathroom to his is almost complete, and soon you won’t need to leave your quarters to meet him in his.

********

Idrisa wakes you up early.

“My apologies, my Lady, but the Na-Baron wants you to meet him in the Training Halls before breakfast,” she says, holding a pair of flat boots and a couple of other garments in her arms.  “He has this for you to wear,” she adds, setting the boots on the floor and everything else on the dresser.  “Your coffee is on the desk.  He’s given you half an hour to get ready and wants you to bring your dagger.”

You blink, trying to take in what she’s saying before rubbing the heel of your palm against your eyelid.  Right.  The training.

“Would you like any assistance, or would you like me to wait by the door?”

“I’m fine, thanks,” you say, wondering for a moment if Feyd-Rautha was preparing you to get up this early for the past few days knowing that you’d be training with him.

Probably not.  I think he just wanted to fuck in the mornings too .

You sip your coffee before plaiting your hair and taking a look at the clothes your new husband wants you to wear.

It's a practical training outfit; you're pretty sure that Geidi Prime doesn't make training clothes for women, and that he had this commissioned for you given that it fits better, especially in the hips, than you expected.  Women on Geidi Prime don’t serve in combat, much like your own planet and if there’s any formal training for women you haven’t heard about it yet.

You manage to make it to the Training Halls in time but still not feeling fully awake.

Feyd-Rautha senses you from the moment you enter, even at the farthest end of the room.  It occurs to you that you haven’t seen him in something as innocuous as training gear yet; simple trousers and boots, a fitted but breathable black shirt that stretches across his chest and shoulders, a holster strapped to his thigh.  If it weren’t for his bearing he could almost blend into his surroundings.

“Good morning, Na-Baron,” you tell him with a polite incline of your head, figuring that his most formal title would be best to address him in front of the very men he’s meant to lead.  You imagine that you make an unusual match for him as it is given how unambiguously foreign you are.

“Good, you’re here,” he says.  His tone is casual, light; in front of his men, you may as well be an acquaintance.  “We have a lot to cover, but today my main agenda today is to see your skill level as it is now.  When we first met you said you were out of practice.  How long has it been since you’ve sparred?”

You try to think.  “It’s been about eight months since I’ve done anything,” you admit.  

“And when did you start?” he asks.

“Age fifteen,” you tell him.

“And how often would you train?” he asks.

“About an hour, two or three times a week,” you tell him.

He looks both unsurprised and unimpressed with this new information.  Instead he takes a small, black device from the waistband of his pants and holds it up.  “Have you used one of these before?”  You immediately recognize it as a shield activator.

“I have, Na-Baron,” you tell him.  “During fighting lessons.”        

“Good.  You’ll be using one for all of our sessions, just in case.” He hands it over to you to clip onto your own waistband before he signals to another man who’s slight of build and several inches shorter than him.  The man strides over to you and lowers his head in deference.

“Na-Baroness,” he says.

“This is Korvo,” Feyd-Rautha says.  “He’ll make a suitable opponent,” he says, looking you both over as if to confirm that the two of you are in a similar enough weight class.  “Which are you more familiar with?  Knife or dagger?”

“I would say the dagger,” you tell him.  

“Then I’ll start you off with the knife,” he says.  “Start with mid-range fighting and work from there.”

“Alright,” you say, looking over at Korvo, who finally raises his head to look you in the eye.  They’re dark brown; there’s a scar along where one of his eyebrows would be.  His expression is entirely neutral; if he has a single opinion about you, you’d have no idea.  It’s been a week since the wedding and you still don’t know how any of Harkonnen's subjects feel about you.

Feyd-Rautha pulls a knife from one of many lining the walls and hands it over.

“Thank you,” you say softly, taking the handle.  He releases it immediately, watching you adjust it in your hand.

“How’s the grip?” he prompts.

“Fine, thank you,” you tell him, glancing over at him before he steps back to a safe distance, and turning your attention back to your opponent as you turn on your shields and settle into position.  Korvo does the same, staying still until you both hear Feyd-Rautha’s voice give the simple command, “ Go. ”

You circle each other, and you try to remember your footwork, trying not to cross one leg in front of the other, keeping your stance guarded.

Korvo waits, letting you get nervous as you keep expecting him to make the first move.  He makes no offense until you finally think, Oh, get on with it, and lunge first.

For a minute Korvo seems to let you get reacquainted with the practice; one of you strikes, the other blocks, still circling each other.  You remember to play to your strengths, which you’ve been told is your form and your flexibility.

So far so good, you think as you block a blow to your shoulder.  Then he sweeps his leg, nearly tripping you, and you realize that you haven’t been paying enough attention to his footwork, too preoccupied with his upper body.  You startle and recover, regaining your balance just in time for him to swipe, and he’s closer than you realized.  When did he get this close?

Too fast! you think, gasping as you try to lean back, as Korvo’s knife swipes just under your breasts, your ribcage protected only by your shield that reverberates with the resistance so hard that your teeth chatter.

“One,” Feyd-Rautha says.  He sounds like he’s moving to get a better view as you and Korvo progress.  You try to tune him out, inhaling sharply, before finding an opening at your opponent’s left side and lunging.

You’re proud of yourself for about two seconds in which your knife meets Korvo’s shield, even as the humming of it reverberates in your bones.  Korvo counters with a knock of his forearm against yours with a force that knocks you off balance again before you realize that he’d been holding back.  There’s a mechanical coldness in his eyes as he moves.  You can only counter and have no time to lunge or attack, just trying to keep up with the barrage of swipes as he gains on you, forcing you back, before he lunges.

You stumble and trip, falling flat on your ass and in the blink of an eye Korvo’s on top of you, his blade at your heart, and you scream.

Were it not for your shield you’d be dead , you think as you stare, panting and wide-eyed up at the man who’s far more lethal than his appearance would suggest.

He immediately withdraws the knife.  “Na-Baroness,” he says, tone apologetic, as he offers you a hand to guide you up.  You’re just glad you fell on the flesh of your backside and not your tailbone.  You hadn’t realized it was happening, too caught up in your work with Korvo, but people are watching you.

Of course people are watching; you’re new, you’re unfamiliar, and you’re the future Baroness.  You sense their gazes on you but you ignore the embarrassed flush and turn to look over at Feyd-Rautha.  It’s been a while since you’ve practiced this, and longer still since you felt so out of your depth.  

He considers you, head tilted, arms crossed, as he looks between you and Korvo.  Finally he speaks, stepping in closer to you both.  “Alright, you have some decent baseline form and technique but you still need to reacquaint yourself, especially with speed and footwork.  Korvo will continue to train you.

“Speaking of which,” he turns and immediately punches the man hard in the stomach and as the man drops, raises a knee to spike him in the jaw.  You recoil at the sickening crunch.

“For scaring my wife,” he explains to the man now crumpled on the floor.

“ Was that necessary? ” you demand, voice cracking.

“He’ll be fine,” Feyd says.  “We have Healers for anything broken, and I can help you with the rest of our session today.  I’ll test out your skills with that cute little letter-opener you keep hidden in your boot.”  He grabs another shield activator from a nearby table and clips it on.  

Out of the corner of your eye you notice Korvo slowly getting up and spitting a small wad of blood onto the floor before shuffling to his feet.  An attendant quickly comes to his aid and escorts him from the Halls.  You look down, not wanting to see whatever Feyd-Rautha may have done to his mouth or jaw.

“Now I’m going to want to get an idea of where you stand with the dagger,” Feyd-Rautha says, getting your attention again, holding out his hand for you to hand over the knife, which, once he has back, he hands over to another attendant to set amongst the others.

“Let’s see it,” he says when he turns, nodding at your boot.

You haven’t pulled it out of its holster since your last lesson eight months ago.  You’ve been carrying it around with you more as a good-luck charm rather than a weapon since then.  You pull up your pant-leg to unclip it and draw it out.  It’s a very pretty blade, if you do say so yourself.  The handle was made with a woman’s sensibilities in mind.  Feyd-Rautha waits for you to unclip it from its holster and tilts his head when he sees it.

“Ornamental,” he says.

“Still functional,” you tell him as you hand it over and watch him twirl it in his hand and examine the blade.  It was designed specifically for you, so it’s almost baffling how deftly his larger fingers twirl it with such ease.  He looks at it as if it shares deeply guarded secrets about you before looking back at you.

"The dagger's close range," he says, as if you didn't already know.  “What were you taught about evasion and disarming techniques?” 

“In the event of an ambush, don't rely on brute strength, don't hesitate, and don't bother trying to fight honorably.  It’s not a duel; they're not looking for a fair fight, either.”

“Good.  Let’s start with disarming techniques,” he says.  “In case you’re caught unarmed or unable to reach your weapon.”

The first exercise is easier; it’s one of the first things you’ve ever learned, the way to grab his wrist and pinch the flesh of his palm.  This is familiar, and you ease back into the confidence you’d had earlier.  After a few goes of it, Feyd-Rautha watching your form, decides to move on–you have no doubt that he’ll come back to this, go faster, go meaner.  This all seems to be a diagnostic, something he can use to gauge your potential.

“Alright, you get the concept,” he says.  “Let’s move on to disarming an opponent who’s behind you.”

Fine .  You assume nothing will phase you quite as much as sparring with Korvo earlier as you get back into a neutral stance, waiting for the tell-tale signs of moving feet, but instead you feel the long, chiseled lines of your husband’s chest and stomach against your back, his free arm wrapped around your ribcage, and your own dagger at your neck.  Or rather, you feel the hum of both of your shields vibrate at the contact.

Oh.   This kind of close range .  You inhale sharply.  You don’t need to see Feyd-Rautha’s face to see the unrestrained delight in his eyes.

“Nervous?” he asks.

Exposed .  Your pulse quickens.  He hasn’t done anything, he’s fully dressed.  His hand is on your ribcage, not your breasts or between your legs, but you feel like the two of you shouldn’t be doing this with other people around.  They have their own training to get through, of course, but they’re noticing.  Even as they keep their heads down and try not to stare, they’re paying attention.  They’re probably wondering how you take the Na-Baron's cock inside of you each night. 

The vibration of his shield merging with yours doesn’t help.

You take a breath and twist in his arms before he tightens his hold.

“Sloppy work,” he says.

You would argue in your defense that your previous instructors for this weren’t men who’ve been inside of you or licked your pussy until you screamed from the nerve-shattering pleasure of it.  It’s more distracting this way.

He starts the position again, his front against your back as he presses the dagger just up against your shield, the hum of it so close to your throat it gives off an almost-purring sound.

Do you like being pressed up against me? you want to ask.

He answers before you get the chance.  “I changed my mind.  I’ll instruct your close range fighting personally.” 

You could laugh, but instead you simply reach behind you, grabbing his crotch and twisting hard–with the shield it won’t hurt him in the slightest, but you were told it was one of the most effective ways to disarm a male opponent.

He snorts and presses the tip of your dagger further against your neck.  “Should’ve known you’d go there, pet,” he murmurs in your ear.  “It’s not always a reliable technique.”

He’s aroused.  You can feel the outline of his cock straining against his trousers as it presses against you.

“Try again,” he says.

*********

Two hours later you’re worn out and beset with what you’re sure will become bruises.  So, all in all a very typical two hours with your groom.

You part ways so you can each shower, change, and reconvene for breakfast.

“Unless you’re actually sick or he’s elsewhere, my uncle wants you to attend breakfast and dinner with him as a sign of respect,” Feyd-Rautha tells you.  “But you’re free to do as you wish and go where you like during the day.”

That freedom would sound more appealing if you enjoyed going outside, but you still get short of breath easily every time you go out under that black sun, so that means more research, more time listening to language recordings, and more time re-learning everything you forgot plus everything you hadn’t realized you didn’t learn about self-defense.

But today you end up re-reading from books you brought from your old home and writing letters to each of your family members.  You write to them about learning basic battle language, about how your husband has recently taken the liberty of teaching you what he knows about self-defense to build on what you’ve already learned.  You ask them about the weather, about your friends, about how their lives have changed since you last saw them.  It feels far longer than a week.  You ask about the stars, about the natural light displays.  Your planet has a beautiful night sky.  You have to keep reminding yourself that you’ll see it again one day, even if it’s not as soon as you’d like.

Feyd-Rautha’s as polite and restrained towards you at dinner as he always is in his uncle’s presence.  During your meals together he seems detached, almost indifferent to you when you’re pretty sure he’s not.  He doesn’t show an ounce of warmth but always pulls your chair out for you and waits until you’re seated to sit down himself. 

You find that you prefer it; you don’t want the Baron to get so much of a glimpse of the carnality of your marriage and the way his nephew takes you apart with enthusiasm that’s almost frightening.  

The only indication that Feyd gives of his interest in you is when you’re both leaving the Dining Hall and he stops to mutter in your ear, “Tonight I’ll come to your chambers instead.”

You think about how he’d gotten hard during practice.  When you’re getting ready for the night’s rendezvous you wonder if he took care of it himself in the bathroom later that morning or if he decided to hold off until he could unleash his pent-up lust on you.

You get your answer when you’re in only your robe.

“Your husband, the Na-Baron,” Idrisa says, eyes downcast, as she opens the door for him.  He’s barefoot, in just a pair of trousers he quickly undoes, and it’s clear both that he’s already hard and that he’s wearing nothing underneath.  Your eyes widen.  

Idrisa’s still in the room! you want to snap at him.  She doesn’t want to see you like this!

Instead you watch as he steps out of his trousers and hands them off to Idrisa without a word or a look back at her.  She inclines her head, accepts the garment, and turns to neatly fold it and place it on top of the dresser.

“Thank you, Idrisa, you are relieved,” you tell her, and she inclines her head and leaves after a soft, ‘ Thank you, Na-Baroness .’  You drop your robe, standing beside the bed as he comes closer.  You look at each other for a moment.  He raises his browline at your wide eyes.

“Is this another test?” you ask finally.

“Just something new,” he says.  He glances towards the bed and back at you.  Go on, get in , he seems to say.

You keep your eyes on him as you slide into bed, sitting up with your hands braced behind you as you wait for him to follow, unsure what position he’ll want you in.

As it turns out, you’re exactly where he wants you.  You feel the dip of the mattress as he gets in, planting one knee in between your legs, then the other, before descending upon you.  He leans in and you lean back, letting your head hit the pillows as he braces himself above you and latches his mouth to your neck, nipping and sucking what you’re sure will be little pink and red marks that his men will notice tomorrow when you train.

“I’ve been waiting to do this for hours,” he says.  “I was nearly about to fuck you in the Training Halls during our session.”

“There were other people there,” you tell him.

“I could’ve told them to leave,” he says, in a tone that suggests he wouldn’t have cared either way.  “Next time I might.  And then I’ll pull down your pants and claim you on the floor.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to give you a rebuttal before he kisses you fiercely and you can’t help but respond in kind, as spent as you feel.  

You cry out, back arching at the first full thrust of him inside of you, and he smiles.

Oh yeah , he seems to think.  I’d make sure everyone can hear the noises I draw out of you .  He braces one arm beside your head, holds your hip with his free hand as he normally does at first when he’s taking you in this position.  He watches your face, your breasts and the movement of them as he rocks into you, his mouth open as he slides his hand from his hip to the small of your back.  And then he sits up on his haunches, taking you with him.  You gasp, a high-pitched moan spilling out of you at the change of angles.  You scramble to get your knees under you in time as he continues thrusting upwards, one arm around your back and his other hand still clutching your hip.

“Ah!” you manage, sliding down onto him.  It’s the most leverage you’ve gotten with him, making you gasp and whine as you hold onto him; it’s the most he’s really let you move and it comes instinctively.  He lets you take over the rhythm that he started as you roll your hips on top of him and clutch at his back.  

In a sense it feels almost like you’re the one fucking him, him rocking up to meet your movements and his hands on your hips encouraging you.  The heat grows faster this way, with the angle and the friction and the way he eases up and follows your pace, his harsh breath against your ear as you keep thinking about how you want to kiss him but your gasps and moans against the open air are too much for you to collect yourself enough for that.  The desperate noises that he pulls out of you, that you pull out of yourself, spill from you without thought, louder than his own grunts and growls.  You just keep moving, faster and harder, your nipples stiff and your entire body flushed as your body chases after your release.

I’m close.  I’m so close , you want to tell him if only you could speak.  Instead you find a spot at the juncture of his neck and shoulder and lean down to bite down as you keep grinding down on him.  That’s the moment that does it for him, and you gasp, rocking down onto him one last time as he comes within you.  Your hips jerk and stutter as you feel him painting your insides and remove your mouth from his neck with a sloppy lick and try to find your bearings.  You’re still on top of him, he’s still inside of you, you’re both panting and you wonder if he feels as close to delirious as you do.  You’re still hot, still pulsing, and give a closed-mouth whine as you squirm on top of him.  C’mon, please , you want to tell him.  I was almost there .

He presses his forehead against yours, panting against your mouth, before with a snarl he grabs your hips to hold you still and brings his thumb down to where you’re joined.  It takes only a few passes, especially when he brings his mouth just under your ear.

You come around him, shutting your eyes around the intensity and digging your nails into his shoulders; you’re starting to grow them longer for this very purpose.

He holds onto you, his forehead resting against your shoulder.  He stays inside of you as he wraps one arm around your back, uses his free hand to clutch your hip as you readjust for the second time and he lowers you back down on the bed. 

You assume that once you hit the mattress again that he’ll pull out and pull away but he doesn’t; he pulls his hand out from under you but otherwise stays where he is, buried inside of you and draping over you to rest his head against your sweat-damp collarbone.  It’s like he’s sinking into you, laying on you, still inside of you even as he’s going soft.  It feels oddly nice.  Like he’s finding a home within you.  As if the two of you are actually coupled by choice rather than mandate.  Even the weight of him on top of you feels somehow reassuring.

You absently stroke his back and wonder what he’d look like with hair.  What color would it be?  What texture?  He has long eyelashes, but there’s little else to go off of.

“Is my hair going to fall out?” you wonder aloud after a moment.  It’s a reasonable question to have; none of your body hair has grown in again, not even a hint of stubble.  

Feyd-Rautha pauses and raises himself up on one forearm to look at you properly, perhaps trying to figure out if there’s an implied insult in your question.  

“I just wonder how all of that works here,” you tell him. 

“You can’t lose something that never grows in the first place,” he says.  “People born on Geidi Prime never grow any as long as they’re living here.”

You frown as you run your fingertips along the back of his head.  “But you weren’t born on Geidi Prime, either.  I looked it up; you were born on Lankiveil.” 

“When I came here I was ordered to have everything shaved off,” he says.  “None of it ever grew back.”

You consider this, enjoying the tenderness he’s letting you show him for now.  “Is that why you have eyelashes?” you ask, brushing your thumb along his cheekbone.  There’s the faint memory of freckles on his cheeks; it makes you wonder what his pigment would be on a planet with a proper sun.

“Yes.  He didn’t think removing them was necessary,” he says, not needing to specify who ‘he’ is, and his tone is clear: I don’t want to talk about my uncle while I’m still inside of you .

Fair enough.  He sinks back down, content to forget the entire conversation, and you drop it, but because this is the first time since you’ve met that you truly feel comfortable with him, you keep talking.

“What was it like on Lankiveil?” you ask him.

He gives an irritated huff.  “Why,” he says.

“Just curious,” you say.  “The climate sounds a lot like my planet.  I grew up surrounded by water, too.”

He sighs, his chest expanding.  “Then there’s not much to tell you, now is there,” he says again, voice flat.  After a moment, “Even if you were blind and deaf you could smell that you were on an ocean planet just from the salty air.  It was cold, damp, dark.”

“ Hmmm .”  There are so many questions you want to ask.  Did you like it, though? What did you like about it?  Have you ever missed it?  Were you happy back then?  Did you love the family you’ve lost?  Have you ever tried going back?  You won’t ask them, not anytime soon and potentially not ever.  “It’s not a smell you ever think you’ll miss,” you say instead, both hands absently stroking his back and shoulders in no particular pattern.

“Didn’t say I missed it,” Feyd says immediately.

“I do, though.”   You already miss the sounds of the ocean crashing against the rocks and stormy sunsets over the rolling tide.  Geidi Prime has nothing.  It’s a wasteland devoid of life, devoid of seasons.  You try not to think about that, and instead the new information Feyd-Rautha’s given you.

Your children will be hairless .  You’d implicitly assumed, but it paints a more vivid picture of what to expect.

“You miss home already?” he asks.

Of course I do.  Geidi Prime's atmosphere is overwhelming and you're far away from your family.  Idrisa’s the only friend you've made and she's obligated to spend time with you.  Of course I'd rather be home than here.

But you're not about to tell him that right now, not while you’re the closest thing to content that you’ve felt since you landed.  “It’s just what I’m familiar with,” you tell him.  “I’ve never lived anywhere else.”

He finally slides out of you as he raises his head again, and you can’t place his expression, but you’re struck with a thought as you bring one hand to his face.

I really want to kiss you right now.

You almost do, and maybe he can see it in your face.  You’re not sure how you’re looking at him but he blinks, looking at first your eyes and then your lips, and before you can lean up he gets up, slides out of bed, and pads over to your bathroom.  You turn to your side to watch him go, to see his shoulders taper down to a narrow waist, the slope of his ass, and those long legs and how even when soft his cock hangs between them.  Tomorrow construction will be complete and your quarters will be connected to his.

Given his abrupt departure to the bathroom, when he returns you expect him to pull on his trousers and leave, but instead he slides back into bed alongside you without a word.

He settles for a moment, turning to face you.  He seems thoughtful for a moment.

“Even with the protections you have, it would reflect poorly on me and the Fortress if we had you training while you’re showing, if you’re not pregnant already,” he says.

“I’m no Bene Gesserit,” you tell him.  “I can’t tell if I’m pregnant yet, can’t control or predict the sex of the baby–”

“I wouldn’t want a Bene Gesserit wife,” he says.  “I can barely tolerate them as is.  That’s not the point.  We train you as well as we can for the limited time you have.

“But while we're talking about the Bene Gesserit, they will be visiting in three weeks for my birthday.  They'll be able to sniff out right away if you're pregnant or not.”

“Given the rate that we’ve been going, that won’t be an issue,” you tell him.

He looks down at your stomach, as if picturing how soon it’s going to swell with his progeny.  “Training to be a warrior starts early,” he says.  “I was seven when I began and that was later than normal, so I had to work harder than the others to make up for lost time.

“This is not an easy planet to grow up on, so the training is necessary.  Especially with Arrakis.  We’ve been in conflict for decades and it’s only gotten more severe.”

“Spice production isn’t your only means of industry,” you tell him.  What Geidi Prime lacks in vegetation it makes up for in fuel and minerals that get heavily mined.

“Maybe not, but it’s our most lucrative, and until we find a different planet with as much spice as Arrakis, we won’t end our occupation there.  In any case, we need to remind the Fremen of our might.  I want to build my troops to be the most powerful in the universe.  That’s what our children are meant to inherit.  That’s what I want to lead and for our son to take over after I’m gone.”

After I’m gone .  

 Within ten minutes he takes you again, against your headboard as he holds you up, hands under your ass and your legs wrapped around his hips.  He mounts you like you’re an animal he killed for sport and hung up on his wall as he murmurs something in Harkonnen battle language against your neck and all you can make out are my woman and something about his semen.  He controls the pace this time, fucking you up the length of the headboard as you hold onto him, moaning and panting.

Afterwards you lay side by side, and you look over at him as he starts to doze off, one arm across his ribcage, the other behind his head, one leg bent at the side.  His lashes flutter closed.  He looks peaceful.  He'd be blond, you realize.  His lashes are fair so his hair would be some shade of blond.  Or rather, he was blond, once.

Perhaps he’d be too beautiful with hair and a normal mouth, you think.  Maybe the strange appearance is another layer of armor.  The teeth certainly are; he must dye them with some kind of charcoal.  

“What,” he says again, his tone annoyed even as he doesn’t open his eyes.

“Nothing,” you say simply, and turn away.  When you’ve slept together it’s been with his chest against your back.  Neither of you have discussed it, but you both seem to prefer it.

As you drift off you picture a version of him with more pigmentation; sun-kissed skin sprinkled with more freckles; wavy blond hair and tawny eyebrows, a white-toothed smile.  A version of him almost too pretty to look at, in a life he was never going to have.

**********

You wake up as the early morning trickles in a sickly gray from the window.

Feyd’s turned away from you at some point during the night and it registers as odd, not having the already-familiar sensation of the warmth of his body against your back and his cock nestled against you.  You blink, turning around, and seeing that his back is turned towards you.  For some reason his scars look worse in the morning light.  Your pink little scratches and bite-marks will fade soon and be replaced by others; the lash-marks will probably never go away.

You reach out, fingertips skimming his back.  The unmarred skin is so soft, stretched over the sinewy muscle, that the raised skin of his scars feels like a road map of what he’s quick to endure.  You wonder about the scars along his inner thighs, if he’d let you touch them.  You think about how you’d like to, how you’d like to explore more of his body as you trail your fingertips along the deepest and ugliest of his lesions.

No sooner do you think that then you can sense Feyd waking and turning to face you in an instant.  It takes you by shock, barely able to comprehend what’s happening, as he grabs your wrist in a vice.

His pale eyes look silver; his nostrils flare, his jaw clenched.  For a moment it’s like he doesn’t see you.

You want to pull back but he holds onto your wrist–for a moment you worry that he’ll squeeze tighter and shatter the delicate bones.  The two of you stare, caught in silence.  Then he blinks and seems to take in the fear and confusion in your eyes, and whatever he saw wasn’t you, not with the recognition sinking in.  He releases your wrist, looks away, and rolls in the opposite direction of you.

“What are you–?” you start, stunned.  You feel utter whiplash from the difference a few seconds could make, unsure exactly what you did.

He gets up without a word.  He doesn’t look back at you as he pulls on his trousers. 

“What did I do?” you ask him.

He pauses, starts to look back, and turns his head back to the door and leaves.  You stare after the door once he’s shut it behind him, wondering what happened.

You don’t go back to sleep.  You lay in bed for the hours it takes for light to more prominently trickle in.

Not that he said it out loud, but you think you just got confirmation for how he got those scars.

Tags: @richardslady121 @blazeflays @wo-ming-bai

[olivianyx]

WAKE UP CALL CUS Y'ALLS THICK ASS SKULLS NEED IT

⚠️ tough love rant, I prob won't be nice to y'all atp, swearing ⚠️

Y'all better stop asking others to manifest for you. Like wtf? You're the fucking creator. Tf are you asking to create it for the creator?? You're God. Just stop whining and complaining. Omfg just stop. Who said you can't manifest? Who said you can't have all the things you desire?? Nobody but you. Like aren't you stupid asshole just tired of that shitty life you're living?? How long are you gonna fucking live this life? It doesn't even benefit you, and you dumbass just keep complaining and thinking about the same old story again and again, and are repeating the same shit again in the 3d 🤦‍♀️ but still would go on complaining and complaining. Who's the ultimate power in here? YOU.

If you don't keep your thoughts in check and change your reality, who else will? You think a prince Charming or Flynn rider or Marilyn Monroe or mulan will walk into your life and change your entire destiny?? Gross. You're the one in charge and you should work on your mind set. You are the ultimate problem. And with this mindset you're never going anywhere but stay in the same loop until fAtE decides what's gonna happen to you. BULLSHIT. You only gotta work on your mindset alone. Like you don't have to climb the goddamn mount Everest or run 40 miles or do 1000 pushups a day to change yourself. Tf, you only just need to ignore unwanted thoughts and feed in thoughts which is favourable and live in the end, keep yourself fulfilled, that's it. No more bullshit.

Is it that hard?? Like just switching a thought with something favourable is hard? Bitch don't gimme that shit anymore. Trust yourself and move on. You are the only problem here. You don't focus on improving yourself and tell others to manifest or affirm for you. Like tf??? Why tf would you give free will to someone else that's not you? Why do you trust that person so much that you don't trust yourself? Nobody's gonna come with you till the end. Everybody and everything is a chapter and it'll keep moving forward, and you'll still be left behind still figuring out what went wrong.

STOP. JUST. STOP. STOP WITH THAT AND DECIDE THAT YOUR DESIRES ARE HERE AND EVERYTHING IS GOING ON IN YOUR FAVOUR.

Even if you're doing everything and nothing is working out, you haven't fulfilled yourself internally and just forcing the 3d to change. Wtf? You know the 3d obeys the 4d, then why are you inducing disgusting thoughts in the 4d and expect something like a miracle to happen in the 3d?? Make it make sense. You dumb dip shit, I'm gonna slap you in your dreams. I mean you're really dumb. Like just think whatever you want is already yours and it is. Cus the 3d should obey. Like whatever tf you want to happen is possible. Everything is possible. You ugly ass bitch just stop with that complaining and just go do whatever you want to change your thoughts.

Just fucking decide that whatever you want is already yours. It doesn't matter at all. The past doesn't matter at all. What you did 10 years ago doesn't matter. What you did 5 months ago doesn't matter. What you did 4 minutes ago doesn't matter. Only now exists. No past, no future. Just the present moment and that motherfucking concept called time doesn't fucking exist so stop stressing about that shit. Just decide. Bitch just decide that you just have what you want and the past doesn't matter. Just fucking be as if you already have it, don't stress about it. Suppose you have your phone with you, do you affirm for it everyday that it's yours? Or visualize? Hell no. Your phone is just yours. How do feel about it? Actually you'd feel nothing, you just KNOW it's yours. The same concept here you absolute idiot.

If you forgot to do sats, or you didn't affirm or if you wavered 3 minutes ago, or you had negative thoughts, like bitch those things don't matter as long as you come back to the track. It doesn't matter. Stop fucking stressing about methods or affirming. You already have it. Get that shit into your skull. I don't care what you do, I want y'all to start it today, start now. Just decide that's it. You're so dumb that you don't even make mental efforts that lead you to experiencing miracles dumbass. You're like really really dumb that I'm done. Like gimme a break.

JUST FUCKING DECIDE LIKE RN THAT YOU HAVE WHAT YOU WANT, AND WHATEVER YOU'RE STRESSING ABOUT DOESN'T MATTER.

YOU ALREADY HAVE YOUR DESIRES BITCH.

Like why would you assume that nothing is changing?? There's always movement and you dumbass don't notice it. Even if you see that there's no movement, that's because you idiot assumed there wasn't any. You gotta take matters in your own hand you dip shit. Don't fucking get triggered by the 3d cus it's just your older thoughts and nothing else. Your new thoughts that you focus on should also be reflected in the 3d like instantly. There's no time in between, like really fuck that shit. The minute you affirm, it's already manifested in the 4d bitch. You don't gotta stress at all you dumb ass. The 4d is the ultimate reality. You just gotta be fulfilled here. How? By LIVING AS IF YOU ALREADY HAVE IT OR LIVING IN THE END. The 3d will catch up as you remain fulfilled in the 4d, like almost instantly. Is this a harder concept to understand?? For example, you wear a green dress and look in the mirror, you see the reflection wearing green dress too. Cus it's a fucking mirror and it shows you what you wear. Suddenly you wanna wear a purple dress, and you change your dress and look in the mirror and the mirror shows you purple dress cus you're wearing it. THE SAME FUCKING CONCEPT HERE. THE GREEN DRESS IS THE 4D AND THE MIRROR IS THE 3D. YOU CHANGE THE 4D (DRESS) FIRST IN ORDER TO SEE DRESS YOU'RE WEARING IN THE MIRROR (3D). HOWEVER, YOU GOTTA CHANGE THE DRESS TO SEE THE CHANGE IN THE REFLECTION. What y'all do is, go fucking break or beg the mirror to show you that you're wearing a purple dress when infact you're still wearing the green one 🙄🤦‍♀️ and complain that it's not showing what you want. Like which planet are exactly from?? Like tf is wrong with your dumbass brain?? Make it make sense. Change the dress and go see the changed reflection of the dress.

Just fucking stop with that bullshit and go fucking have whatever you want. You're God. Like what validation do you fucking need?? You're the validation. Your validation is enough. If your desires don't manifest instantly or like in less than a day, then you aren't fulfilling yourself internally. You aren't fulfilled yet. Cus it's impossible for the delay. Time doesn't exist. There's no fucking delay. It should be instant. Like just fulfill yourself, do whatever you think works. Don't go so something someone posted on the internet and complain about not getting results dumbass. You already have it all. You're the main character, so stop behaving like a stray dog.

Peace out <3

[blueishspace]

Looped Sun 3

Loop #68

Scott: So this is really happening huh... ?

Grian: Yeah, we don't know much about it either so maybe we can learn together?

Scott: That would be...nice.

Loop #69

Scott: Well, loop 69.

Scar: Yes!

Scott: I expected it to be more special or something.

Scar: Why?

Scott: Eh, it doesn't matter.

Scar: I don't get it. What's wrong with 69- oh ohhhhhh.

Loop #73

Grian had been having a blast this loop, somehow having Scott in the loops meant being able to start in Empires and it was great. The Grian Empire was back and bigger then ever!

Scar was having an awful time this loop...ok, that was an exageration it was actually prett fun but nobody at warned him about the paper work! He's dyslexic how is he supposed to do this much writing quickly!??

Scott was doing good....Grian and Scar being here made him hopeful they would be able to get rid of Xonorth thus time around...

Loop #77

Grian: So everyone is a goat-creeper hybrid this time around?

Scott: I don't get it.

Grian: It's because...Docm77...and loop 77.

Scar: Wait is that why!?!

Grian: ... What did you think?

Loop #80

Grian should have expected a royalty variant eventually but do nobles really have to wear these kinds of clothes!? It's so stiffy!

...

At least Scar seemed to be having fun being a prince.

Loop #82

Grian woke up at the start of the newest loop to see Scott drowning himself with wine.

Grian: Scott? Had a... bad loop?

Scott: Woke up in Xonorth place *hic* spent the entire time unable to control myself because of Exors *hic* co-corruption.

Grian: ... I'll get you some water, can't have getting an hungover.

Scott: ... T-thanks.

Loop #89

Grian had just been elected mayor of the season 7 shopping district was ready to keep his promises...plus some additional stuff.

Scar: Oh, since you won does that mean I get to be mother spore?

Grian: Nah, still me.

Scar: But the shopping district is already-

Grian: Who said it will ve just the shopping district?

Scar: ... Don't you dare cover the entire server! I'll be.... Father...grass? I'll come up with a name later!

Loop #92

Grian: This is possibly the best possible outcome.

Grian and Scar watch as Stress is elected mayor of the shopping district.

Scar: Still, I wanted to have more fun with it!

Loop #94

Grian: How???

Grian stares in open mouthed shock as Technoblade is elected mayor of the shopping district.

Grian: HOW!??!?

Technoblade: Eh?

Grian: You don't even live here!

Loop #95

Grian: Finally! Mumbo won!

Scar: That was harder then I tought.

Grian: Now I'm going to rest for a straight loop.

Scar: Who knew convincing people to vote for Mumbo would be so hard? Oh well.

Loop #97

Grian took one look at Herobrine himself being made mayor and promptly left the server for the rest of the loop.

Loop #99

Scott: You know, the two of you have been here for almost 100 loops.

Scar: Yeah! ...why?

Scott: That's what? Almost 300 years? Give or take?

Grian: ... Oh gods we have been here for almost 300 years.

Scar: Welp, never guessed I would make it to my 330's... sorry...

Loop #100

Grian: Look a shooting star!

Scar: Did you make a wish?

Grian: Did you?

Scar: Aha! Not telling!

Loop #102

Scott started the loop waking up in a bed of golden flowers, faint light coming a hole above him.

Scott: Huh...

He made his way towards a purple door preparing for the way ahead.

A floating golden star? Scott doesn't think anyone will mind if he touches it.

Grian: The shadow of the ruins looms above, filling you with determination.

Scott: Grian!? How long were you here? Where are you.

Grian: Since the loop started, and It's hard to explain, I think I'm a ghost.

Scott: I hate that flower.

Grian: You spared him?

Scott: It's the principle.

Loop #107

When Scar arrived Scott was laying on fresh grass.

Scar: Scott! You're in this loop too?

Scott: Sure thing.

Scott looked up towards Scar inclining his head.

Scott: Something wrong?

Scar: No! No. Just, there is no Grian in this loop.

Scott: There is.

Scar's eyes widened in surprise.

Scar: No there isn't! I checked everywhere!

Scott: Have you looked up?

Scar: Huh?

Scar confused looked up to the sky and there he saw, instead of the sun in the sky was a glowing very unhappy Grian.

Scar: Grian!?! How did you get there!?

Grian: This time around the sky is a dome... And I'm stuck here.

Scott: Considering everything I'm surprised it took that long for this to happen.

Loop #109

Grian: This is what people call karma.

Grian was trying very hard not to laugh but this was just so funny.

Scott the literal star wasn't very enthused but stars can't talk.

Loop #114

Scar: Grian you good?

Grian: Huh? ...yeah... just a bad loop.

Grian looked like he was just hit by a car, which was impressive since the loop had just started a few minutes ago.

Scar: What happened?

Grian: It was one of those "what if 3rd Life wasn't a game but instead was serious?" variants which would be fine but there was like extra gore and Dogwarts experimented on people...

Scar: Oh... I...do you need something to drink or eat?

Grian: Just stay here...please?

Scar: Yeah! I can do that! I'm very good at staying here!

Grian: ... Thanks.

Loop #118

Scar had to admit, camp halfblood was so much fun and getting to be a child of Demeter was even better! He could grow plants now, Grian said some powers would stick across loops and he really wanted to see if these would. Still, without the others it was a little lonely.

He wasn't alone! I took a while but after they discovered camp Jupiter he finally found Scott!

Scott: Yeah, I'm a child of Venus. Surprised I wasn't made a son of Arcus considering Empires season 2.

Scar: Arcus?

Scott: Right, roman Iris.

Scar: Ooooh.

It was the time, Scar and Scott had hidden and were spying as Medea began to summon Helios. Scar was panicking and Scott was desperately trying to stop the summoning from taking place and then... She managed to do it and Helios was- wait.

Scar: Grian!?!

Loop #119

Scar: Wait wait, if I still have the plant thing do you-?

Grian: ... Yeah

Scar: Can I see? Please?

Grian sighed before exploding with light.

Loop #122

Grian: Supeheroes?

Scar: I know right! Isn't it great!?

Scar and Grian were on top of a skyscraper, scanning the city for crimes.

Scar: And I actually get to be Hot Guy! For real this time!

Grian smiled at Scar's antics before looking back at It's own outfit.

Grian: I just feel like this whole "Cute Guy" outfit is a bit tacky.

Scar: Nah, you look amazing G!

Grian blushed and looked away.

Grian: Thank you Scar.

Loop #123

Scar: Wooho! Another superhero loop? So cool!

Grian: And I get to be poultry man this time, villains prepared to get egged!

Scar: ...pegged?

Grian: No no no no no, Egged, like egg, very very different.

Loop #125

Hotguy was alone this time, he had given up searching for Grian months ago when he saw him... her?

Scar: Grian? What's going on?

Ariana Griande: What? After being a hero 3 times in a row I got bored. So, decided to bring the people happyness in a new way!

Scar: Oh! I'm not supposed to be here am I?

Ariana Griande: Oh yeah, the media is going to have a field day, superhero hotguy seen with superstar singer Ariana? We'll be on so many covers.

Scar: Oh I'll leave then-

Ariana Griande: I didn't say that, Scar?

Scar: Yes?

Ariana Griande: Will you dance with me?

Prev Next First

[varpusvaras]

The doctors had told him that things would get easier after the first trimester.

Fox had believed them. He had kind of had to, to preserve his own sanity. He had to believe that at some point, he would stop throwing up, sweating and shivering and being so damn tired that he'd fall asleep just about anywhere.

It had, in fact, been true. Of course he still occasionally felt a little sick when he smelled something unsavory, but it was only occasionally. He didn't wake up to being hot and cold in tandem so much anymore either. He was tired, still, but only to a degree that he had to sit down a couple of times a day, and maybe take a nap. Otherwise, he had been feeling pretty good during the start of the second trimester.

But then, a new challenge had crept up on him.

It had started small, so small that he had barely even felt anything at first. When he had noticed it for the first time, he had actually been happy about it.

What a fool he had been.

It had only gotten more frequent from then on, and most importantly, stronger. So much stronger.

So much stronger, in fact, that he had looped back around being tired, since every time he tried to sleep or even rest for a moment, it would start again.

It was happening again now, as he lay in their cooled bedroom, the lights dimmed and the blinds shut to escape the summer heat. He would've loved to take a nap, but he was yet again realising that sleep would not be happening.

There was a light knock on the door, and Breha peeked in.

"You're still awake?" She asked. She kept her voice quiet, in case Fox was somehow sleeping.

"Yes", Fox answered. "I don't think I will be getting any sleep."

Breha made her way to the bed, and sat on the edge of it next to Fox. Her fingers very quickly found their way into his hair, pushing it back from his face.

"Try to at least close your eyes", she said. "It's better than nothing."

"I know, I know, I'm trying-" There it was again, cutting his words into a breathless gasp.

Breha sighed softly, continuing to pet his hair.

"Is it that bad?" She asked.

Fox pressed his hand against his abdomen, and poked at it slightly. It was still, for the most part, hard muscle he had spent so long acquiring during his training, and had took even more time and effort to keep during serving. He hadn't even needed new clothes, yet, apart from a pair of dress pants he had very much liked and sorely missed now.

Fox had no idea how there was a whole baby in there, somewhere, but there was no mistake of it, not since-

Fox hissed slightly when there was a blow straight into his ribs.

"Yes", he said. "I'm going to send Bail a very pointed message. Those are definitely his elongated legs kicking my insides around the clock."

Breha barked out a laugh, that she quickly tried to cover up behind her hand.

Fox turned to glare at her.

"You think this is funny?" He asked. "You think it's funny that our husband's giant long-legged offspring is trying to break my bones?"

"No, no, of course not", Breha hurried to say, but she was definitely still grinning behind her hand, and-

-and maybe Fox was tired enough, because the longer he laid there and watched her laugh about it, the funnier it suddenly got in his mind as well.

"How dare you", he said, trying his hardest to keep himself from breaking out into laughter as well. "How dare you make me laugh when I'm miserable."

Breha could no longer hold it in. She broke down into loud, bright laughter, and Fox could only hold his own in for a few more seconds, before he eventually followed her suit.

[familyvideostevie]

living high until that fatal day

a/n: i never do this. literally, never. when i'm not here i'm writing stuff that's not x reader for ao3 and this is a fic i posted over there. it's a time loop story about joel and ellie. @bageldaddy told me i had to post it here. without her this fic would not exist. thank you so much, bea. so, here we go. if you read it, thank you. let me know what you think. joel miller & ellie williams gen fic. 7.5k words warnings: Time Loop, Fluff and Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, kind of???, it resolves, Suicide, only in one of the loops!, Canon-Typical Violence, joel gets stuck and has to figure it out, Father-Daughter Relationship, thoughts about sacrifice and love, POV Joel, mostly, this one is kind of intense folks, major character death tag is cause well the loop ends one way or another, gonna diverge at the end, but it ends well!!! i promise, also this is pretty firmly game but hbo folks should be okay!

summary: joel finds himself stuck in a time loop of that day in salt lake city.

Joel lies to her. 

He's got dried blood under his fingernails and his shoulder aches from the kick of the rifle and he's so, so tired. 

But he lies to her. 

If he was a smarter man he'd have thought of something better. Told her that the hospital got raided or they had a FEDRA mole, how the whole thing was a sham from the start. He doesn't know if she was awake for any of it. If the last thing she remembers is him reaching for her and failing to save her. If she remembers what it feels like to drown. 

It's hard to look at her in the mirror but he manages. Just keep driving, hands tight on the wheel. Don't white knuckle, don't spook her. She's in the car. She's safe. He did it. 

"We found the Fireflies," he says. She doesn't look at him. "Turns out there's a...a whole lot more like you, Ellie. People that're immune. It's dozens, actually." 

There's a strange pull in his gut, a pull that he's felt a few times before in the moments before everything went south. When the soldier pointed his gun by the river, when Tess looked at him on her last day, when he fell off the ledge in Colorado. But he ignores it. 

"Ain't done a damn bit of good, either. They've actually st--" Ellie closes her eyes, takes a deep breath. She doesn't look at him. "They've stopped looking for a cure. I'm takin' us home. I'm sorry."

She turns her back to him and the pull becomes a burn, becomes a black hole under his ribcage taking everything with him. He blinks once, twice, wonders if he got shot and didn't notice, if he cracked a rib and it punctured his lung, if --

The road in front of him disappears. 

He can't see a damn thing -- not like the lights went out, like there is nothing to see. There is nothing in front of him at all.

Then, Joel wakes up yesterday. 

___ 

He jolts awake with a strangled yell. Ellie kneels over him, the rifle he taught her to hold slung over her shoulder. It's just past dawn based on the color of the sky and how he can make out most of her face, her withdrawing hand and her unimpressed but slightly concerned frown. 

"You were talking again," Ellie says. "Nightmares?" 

Joel tears his eyes from her and thunks his head back down on his crumpled up jacket. The trees stretch high above him and he tries to get it together so he doesn't spook her. 

They’re camped within sight of the highway. Salt Lake City has been looming for days now and Joel doesn't want to take any chances. The ring-road is almost clear, dotted here and there with cars and a fair amount of supplies, enough that Joel suspects people haven't been here for some time. If this is another Colorado State situation, he's going to have to put Ellie in a car and take them back to Jackson before she does something stupid.

She's fine. Well, no, not quite. Things aren't the same and they never will be but he can tell she's doing her best and he won't ask more than that. Their pace has slowed this week and he's having a hard time figuring out if she's sliding back into some sort of post-Colorado haze or if she's nervous about actually arriving in Salt Lake. 

God knows he's nervous as hell.

But every day she'll walk as far as he tells her to and won't complain. He knows she wants to get there. They have to get there and it has to work -- because he doesn't know what they're going to do otherwise. 

She asked him a question. Nightmares. Joel sits up and drags his hand down his face.

"Somethin' like that."

Ellie shrugs and starts to clean up their camp now that he's awake. He still hates letting her take watch, but she needs to feel in control of things, so they split it most nights. She hums a little bit as she works and he has hopes that today might be a good day.

But that dream... It comes back in flashes: the giraffes, the tunnel. Ellie hanging from the side of the bus because she jumped to save him, her small frame sinking slowly, just out of reach. The crack of her ribs underneath his hands. The hospital. The Fireflies.

Joel gets up, rolls his shoulder at a phantom pain and looks down at his hands. Crusted with dirt and nothing more. 

Jesus Christ. He's losing it. 

They set off. 

The blue hospital sign seems to shine in the spring sun all too soon.

"This is where we get off. Let's go, kiddo."

Joel talks even though he knows she's not listening. He talks to take his mind off of the echo that sits at the base of his neck with every step. Has he told her he'll teach her guitar before? He's been thinking it for months. 

Ellie trails behind him, kicking rocks and half-heartedly searching cars when he asks her to. She heads for a faded blue sedan but he stops her. 

"Blue one won't open, don't bother." 

The look she gives him makes him think about what he just said. "How do you know that?"

He blinks. How does he know that? Before he can explain it, Ellie shrugs and keeps walking. 

The disinterest is new and it doesn't sit well with him. She's been through a lot, more than any kid deserves, and they're almost there. He figures it's worse today because of that. 

"I dreamt about flying the other night."

Joel's stomach twists. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Go on, tell me about it."

She tells him about her dream, about how it felt to fly and then fall, and he is dizzy with deja vu. 

"I've never been on a plane." Ellie looks at him like he can tell her what it means. Like he has any damn answers at all. "Isn't that weird?"

Joel hums and swallows the lump in his throat. The bus terminal. Ellie, drowning. Firefly after Firefly in his path. His hands flex around a gun that isn't there. 

"Well, you know. Dreams are weird." It tastes like a lie in his mouth but he can't figure out why. 

It gets worse when they find the bus station, when she runs off in search of something that's got her smiling. Her small hand reaches for the giraffe, her eyes bright, but Joel feels like he's watching it through a fog. He knows what she's going to say before she says it. 

"So fucking cool."

Joel has seen a lot of weird shit in his life but whatever is happening here is leagues above the rest. It bumps up against something in his brain, like the answer is just out of reach but he can't fucking get there. Always a step behind when it counts. 

Ellie hands him a picture of his dead daughter and something in him comes dangerously close to snapping. Instead of gratitude or sorrow or anything that would make sense, he's terrified. 

He's fucking terrified because this happened. Which means he knows what comes next. 

But there's no time to worry about it. They pick their way through the tunnel, through the runners and the clickers and the fucking bloaters. The pressure on his neck gets heavier, gets almost unbearable. He's strung tighter than he's been in years, like the walls are closing in on him and there's a timer he can't see. 

When they get to the rapids, he waits for Ellie to get to the other side of the bus until he jumps on it but it dislodges. The dam in his head breaks and he yells, screams at her to run, to leave him, but she jumps on the bus anyway. 

She drowns.

Joel doesn't doubt that the Fireflies are coming -- he hears them --  but he doesn't take his eyes off of her, doesn't stop the chest compressions until he's knocked out.

The rest of it is a blur, his sense of reality already warped by his need to get to the operating room. To save her. 

Joel picks them off one by one, floor by floor, hardly taking note of how familiar it all feels. He doesn't even give the surgeon a chance to speak before he's dead, a bullet between the eyes. He knows they'll make it to the elevator. He kills Marlene. He drives them away.

He lies. 

He wakes up yesterday again.

___

It takes a few days before Joel purposely deviates from what he's thinking of as the script. His head feels like it weighs a thousand pounds when he wakes in the clearing, Ellie's eyes on him.

He thinks about it as they pack up camp. Can he get them out of here? Would that be allowed? The rules of this aren't clear to him but he figures it can't hurt to try. They could turn around right now and make it back to Jackson in a week or so. 

He watches Ellie carefully arrange her things in her bag, watches her stop to admire a butterfly in the branches above. He watches her and tries to see her alive and not pale on an operating table. 

"Ellie," he says. "I got a bad feelin' about this."

She loves to tell him he's overreacting but today she crosses her arms and sits back on her heels. "What do you mean?"

Her scream as she falls into the water. Her ribs cracking beneath his hands. The piercing alarm in the hospital, her body warm but limp in his arms.

"What if we waited?" She frowns but he keeps going. "Went back to Jackson, rested up. Took a break. Come back in a few months with a bit of a crew. Tommy'll give us some guys, hell, I bet he'll come with if you want --"

"No," Ellie says sharply. There's an edge to her voice he hasn't heard in a long time. "Joel, shut up."

"Ellie --"

She stands abruptly, takes a few steps back. "I said no."  The look on her face tells Joel he's already lost. "Are you -- are you fucking kidding me? You want to go back? Now?"

He sighs. "Just to rest up. We don't know what we're walking into --"

Ellie throws her hands around in disbelief. Her eyes look wet. Christ, he's made her cry again. He promised himself he wouldn't do that. 

"We don't know if they'll still be there."

"We don't know if they are there."

"And we won't find out if we fucking run away like cowards!"

Joel stands. "I don't want another Colorado State situation, Ellie --" Her face shutters. Mistake. 

"Don't bring up Colorado," she growls. "You don't know what that was like." 

Damn right he doesn't. He knows by now what happened but he'll never know how hard it was for her to survive when he was busy dying on that mattress. But he has to try something or they'll just end up here again tomorrow. Yesterday. Whatever. 

The idea of her suffering makes his hackles rise, makes his blood run cold

. 

"Can I finish a god damned sentence?" he snaps. Ellie is undeterred and snaps back.

"Not if it's going to be about leaving. We-- I -- we're not fucking leaving. Not after everything. We can't."

Joel sighs and drags a hand down his face. This girl. He's trying to save her and she can't see it. There's no way to make her see it and it's his fault. She should know by now that he'd do anything, anything, for her. He lost that battle a long time ago, probably longer ago than he'd like to admit. 

"I know," he tells her. "Just...if you want to give it all up, to go back, we can. We don't have to go through with this."

Ellie's eyes are blazing and her tone is disappointed. It cuts deep. "Yes we do. I thought you'd understand that, Joel."

He follows her this time as she stalks down the highway towards the hospital. No mention of six strings, no dreams about planes. They catch the giraffes but she doesn't stick around to watch them for as long. It's a different kind of loss to be without her smile, her laughter. Joel wishes he'd never opened his god damned mouth. 

"I'm sorry," he says. "For earlier." Ellie pauses on the stairs and half turns to look up at him. "I know it's important to you."

She sighs. "I know you mean well." Joel closes his eyes. He knows what comes next. "But there's no halfway with this. Once we're done, we'll go wherever you want, okay?"

He plays his part for the rest of the day, just to get it over with. 

___

Next time, Joel waits until they're watching the giraffes to try something different. 

"So," he says. "This everything you were hoping for?"

Ellie gives him her half-smile. "It's got its ups and downs, but...you can't deny that view, though."

He seizes his chance. "Wanna go down there?" 

She perks up. "Really? Do you think they'll let us get close?"

"They might. Let's try." 

They manage to backtrack a little bit and end up on the field. It smells like a zoo but Ellie is thrilled to be so close so they post up on the roof of a rusty FEDRA Jeep. Two of the giraffes end up eating out of the tree right above them. Ellie holds her breath. 

"They just...don't care, do they?" she whispers. "How long do you think they've been here?"

She leans into his side and cranes her neck to watch one of them use its tongue. 

"Don't know," he says. "Big ones could've been from before. But the tiny one s'probably younger than you."

"So cool," she says again. "They're from a zoo, right? I wonder if anything else lives in the city."

They've been sitting here long enough that the sun has started to set. Joel allows himself to hope. 

"Might be. What do you say we spend the night here and look on the way to the hospital tomorrow? Daylight'll do us better."

Ellie chews on his suggestion. "I guess," she says. "Are we safe here?"

"Should be." Joel has no idea, frankly. He sure as hell wants them to wake up here in the morning. He wants to make good on this idea, wants to show her something else that'll make her smile. He wants this to be a bizarre, unexplainable day that he'll forget about with time.

"I'll keep watch."

They set up camp crowded against the fence so Joel can see the whole field. The giraffes leave them alone and Ellie falls asleep quickly after they eat.

In the quiet open air the dread in his gut returns full-force and he knows he's wrong. Again.

A branch cracks and he whirls around, rifle in hand to find three men pointing their guns at him through the wire. They might be wearing Firefly jackets but he can't tell. He doesn't care. Joel dares to look at Ellie for a second and sees she's still asleep. 

It's a mistake.

One of them follows his gaze and his eyes widen.

"Holy shit," he whispers. "She looks like who Marlene said --"

"Shut up," the second one hisses. "On the ground, old man."

"How are you gonna get around that fence, hotshot?" he says. "Ellie. Ellie, wake up."

She blinks a few times and sees his stance. scrambling to her feet with her knife in hand.

"Holy shit. What the fuck?"

"Get behind me."

One of the soldiers points his gun at her. 

"Don't move."

It's chaos after that. The guys shout at each other. 

"Don't point it at her! Don't you remember the fucking briefing?"

"You hadn't even joined when we got here, you don't know. We've been looking for her for months --"

"If you shoot her we're all dead --"

Joel locks eyes with Ellie.

"When I say run, you run. Okay?" 

The fear in her eyes turns to determination. Brave girl, he thinks. I'm sorry. He waits for the idiot pointing at her to look away and takes a deep breath. What's one more day?

"Run!"

Joel doesn't check to see if she obeys before firing through the fence. The rifle is incredibly powerful at such a short range and where there was once a head there's only mist. Joel clears the chamber as fast as he can and gets the second one in the shoulder but he's not fast enough for a third and before he realizes it he's on his back in the grass. 

The Firefly's assault rifle litters Joel's chest with bullets but he doesn't feel it until he tries to take a breath and nothing comes. It's like he's underwater.

At least he didn't make her cry this time.

__

Joel isn't much of a believer in anything but he decides fairly quickly that he's in Hell or something close. God knows he deserves it. 

His sins are countless, his ledger dripping with red just like his hands. They will never be clean. What he can't figure out is how he got here. Did he die somewhere in St. Mary's? Is the real world somewhere else beyond his reach, now? If he died then what happened to Ellie?

He tries to make tallies in the bark of a tree on the edge of camp but they disappear every time he wakes up. He makes do with his own slowly unspooling brain. Two, five, ten.

Ellie is much the same every time but somewhere around day twenty she asks him about it. "How do you know where everything is?"

They're in the bus depot before the tunnel. He's taking them quickly around the tents, putting off Ellie handing him a photo of his dead daughter. It's muscle memory at this point. A pair of pliers here, some rags there. A half-empty but uncracked bottle of hooch behind that blood-stained bed, some bullets under that overturned partition. 

"Just payin' attention."

"I pay attention!"

Joel uses the excuse to grin at her. It's hard sometimes to remember that she has no idea what's coming, that he can and should be good to her every chance he gets. The violence has already started to blur together in his mind. Killing everyone in the hospital is by far the easiest part of this fucking loop. These parts are harder. 

"Didn't say you don't."

"I feel like that was a double negative."

She's still energized from the giraffes and he knows she's working up the courage to talk about Sarah, but right now he wants to spend time with her. He spots the Firefly medal tangled in the shattered floodlight and points it out. 

"Ellie," he says. She's at his side in seconds, looking up at him with eyes brighter than he's seen in weeks. "Wanna get that down?"

She gives him her classic why are you like this look. "Are you going to be weird and pick it up?"

Joel shrugs and leans on the rotting tank nearby. "Just want to check your aim."

"My aim is really fucking good and you know it!" Even so, she picks up a brick from her feet and palms it, eyeing the silver circle before winding her arm back and hurling the brick towards it. 

She misses. Maybe three hundred miles and a trail of dead bodies ago she'd have stormed off, embarrassed and pissed. But she just makes a face at the still-swinging medal and then looks at him. "How did I miss that?"

He pushes off the tank and scoops up a glass bottle. "Sun s'probably in your eyes." Joel stands next to her and eyes the target, trying to compensate in his mind for her height. "Stand here." Ellie moves over in front of him and he hovers his arm over her. "Can I?"

She nods. Joel presses the bottle into her hand and she takes it as he maneuvers her with a hand on her elbow until she's got the trajectory he thinks will work. 

"Now?" she asks. "Feels pretty fucking similar to what I was doing."

"Just trust me. Throw a little lighter than last time. And higher."

Ellie sighs, but once he steps back she does as he says and nails the medal hard enough that it drops to the ground. She whoops and turns around, hands high in the air and a wide smile on her face. Joel tries to breathe through how easily she puts her faith in him. 

"Fuck yeah! Did you see that?" She holds both hands out for a high five and he obliges. 

"Sure did. Nice job, kiddo."

When Ellie hands him the picture of Sarah, he pulls her in for a hug. He half expects her to shove him off but instead she allows it, twisting her hands in his shirt as he cups the back of her head. 

"Thank you," Joel says quietly, thickly. 

Later, when he finds her on the operating table, he presses his lips to her forehead for an extra moment before picking her up and heading for the elevator. 

__

He messes with the order of things a little bit. Tries to make their morning last longer, tries to stay watching the giraffes for an hour or so. 

Sometimes it works. 

Sometimes it doesn't. 

Watching Ellie drown over and over fucks with his head more than the hospital does because he can't stop it. At least while he's leaving behind corpse after corpse he knows that she's asleep upstairs, waiting for him. In the tunnel, he knows that the only way out is through, but she has to fucking drown first. 

He gets sloppy. 

He forgets about the runners in the side rooms when he ducks in to avoid a clicker and takes a step too close. Ellie is behind him as always and he shoves her back blindly as three runners slam him against the metal railing of the stairs before he can reach for his gun. He's too surprised to feel anything, but their breath smells like rotting meat and something worse, something that makes his eyes water. 

Joel searches the room for her and finds her -- pale-faced and terrified, already reaching for her knife. He tries to say her name but it comes out as a scream when one of the runners goes for his shoulder, jagged teeth ripping through his shirt in an instant. 

"Ellie -- run, Ellie -- GO --" He begs her to leave him but his voice stops working as his throat is ripped out. The last thing he sees is her horrified face as she raises her pistol.

And then he wakes up yesterday. 

___

It occurs to him on day 30 -- if he's keeping track accurately -- that he's got one of the smartest people he knows at his disposal. Kid's got an encyclopedic knowledge of space as well as science fiction stories. He asks her while they're still on the highway, stalling though he can see the blue H sign from here.

"Y'ever read stuff about time?" No reply. "Ellie?" She's staring at that deer again. "Ellie."

"What?" 

"You read any stories about time back in school?"

"Uh, sure," she says. She tugs her sleeves over her hands and catches up to him, eyes on the ground. "Why?"

"Saw a weird movie 'bout it once. Somethin' reminded me of it this mornin'. Guy gets stuck in a...shit, what did they call it?" Joel peeks inside an RV and smells rot so he leaves it be. "He lives the same day over and over."

"A time loop!" Ellie sounds more excited about this than anything they've talked about for days. "Those are so fucking cool. Scary, though. I feel like I'd go crazy."

Joel drags a hand down his face. "Yeah," he says. "How do you think you get outta one?"

"Well, how did the guy in the movie do it?"

"He stopped bein' an asshole," he says. Ellie laughs. 

"Well, we know that's not possible for you. Guess you're fucked."

"Guess so," he mutters. 

The H sign is close enough that she'll see it any minute. He wishes for the hundredth time that they could just stay out here all day, just talking. If he had a guitar he'd play for her. If he had a fucking car he'd put her in it and turn around, even though it wouldn't do any good. They'd just end up right back here because he can't fucking figure out how to get out of this. 

"I think you just have to change, right?" Ellie says. She's looking at the photo of an airplane on the bus. This time she doesn't tell him about her dream. Is he losing pieces of her, already? "I guess it doesn't have to be about yourself. Maybe something you do, or something you say. It's the universe telling you to make a different choice, right?"

That's the fucking thing. The choice isn't an option. It's not even a choice. 

The one thing he hasn't tried and will not try is leaving the hospital when Marlene tells him to. He'd rather die a thousand times, rather live this shit show over and over for the rest of eternity than let them cut her brain out. They will not touch her while there is still breath in his body. 

He'd do it all over again. He will.

__

Joel tries a hundred things and they don't work. 

After his conversation with Ellie he decides to really fuck with the day. Doesn't matter, right? So long as she's not put in any extra danger he considers it. He begs her to walk away, get on his knees and pleads with her throughout the day. Doesn't work. She just gets pissed at him like that first time and he doesn't push it because he can't bear to see her cry. He lengthens their morning in the clearing, fakes sick or says the rifle is jammed and needs cleaning. That goes south, too, when a pack of runners wanders through the woods and straight into them. They make it to the highway and have to miss the giraffes because they're running. 

One time Joel spends all day zig-zagging them around the city to avoid the tunnel. The Fireflies find them much the same way except they shoot him on sight and grab Ellie right out of his arms as he bleeds out on the cracked asphalt, her screams echoing in his ears. 

Another time, he ties them together in the tunnel with some fraying rope and they both drown. 

Killing Marlene early gets him a bullet in the head and not killing her at all gets him back where he started, no change. 

Joel even begs the doctor to run more tests first, to try blood, to try anything, but it takes too long and the alarm sounds and he's cornered in the operating room before he can grab Ellie and go. 

Nothing fucking works. 

But what is there left to change?

__

His mind starts to fray. He loses count of the loops and it becomes hard to detach himself from the slaughter. Not even the good moments -- Ellie's laughter, the awe in her face when she sees the giraffes, her jokes and her muted but still sharp sarcasm -- keep him afloat. He's lost, adrift in a sea of blood and bullets and it starts to eat away any humanity that was left in him. 

The blood of hundreds, thousands maybe, is on his hands and he feels nothing.

Once and only once does he get there too late. Everything else goes like it always does but maybe he took too long on the first floor, maybe he took too long picking the guys one by one instead of using the assault rifle, maybe maybe maybe. 

When Joel gets to the pediatric ward he knows something is different -- he can hear a buzzing sound, something loud and unnatural. The stale air is thick with something metallic, tinged with death. The buzzing stops and he finds his feet glued to the floor outside the operating room. Voices on the other side of it, murmuring and the clink of metal on a tray. Joel's hand shakes when he reaches for the knob because he knows whatever he finds on the other side is going to kill him. 

But he opens it because he has to. The doctor is at the sink this time, the nurses nowhere to be found. Ellie's body is covered in a sheet, blood seeping through the fabric. Joel looks away. He just stands there, his heartbeat loud in his ears as the world ends. 

The first time his daughter died, Joel thought he could will it not to be so. He held her as long as he could, whispered her name with her blood drying on his hands until Tommy begged him to get moving. 

This time, he knows it's true and he knows there's only one ending. 

He raises his gun at the doctor who is now leaning on the edge of the sink. The door swings open and the nurses return, eyes wide and vibrating with the energy of a job well done. He swings over to them and kills them both with quick headshots. The doctor has barely turned around when he's dead, too.

Joel breathes, ears ringing. He manages one step closer to the operating table but his knees buckle and he goes down hard on the cool tile. His vision is blurry. Is he crying?

"I'm sorry," he says. "I'm so fucking sorry, baby." He angles himself so he won't get any blood on her and then presses the barrel of his gun to his temple and pulls the trigger. 

__

If Joel was on the edge of losing his mind before, now he's laser focused. He doesn't pull any more shit. He settles back into the loop, savoring Ellie's laughter with the giraffe and gunning down every sorry motherfucker in his way at the hospital. He will not get there late ever again. 

So when Marlene says something different the next time around and he almost misses it.

Ellie is dead weight in his arms but she's warm and he can see the rise and fall of her chest. The hospital was messier than usual because he rushed this time, cutting down the Fireflies like it was his last stand. There's blood in his hair and crusted under his fingernails and his shirt is beyond ruined. 

"Are you going to tell her what happened here?" Marlene presses her hand into her side, blood leaking from around her crimson palm. "Are you going to tell her what you did?"

He lies to her.

Every time.

It's never occurred to him to try something else. Even though he's changed almost everything about this damn day except that. 

Because Joel knows what happens if he tells the truth. He knows what that will cost him.

And he doesn't know if he'll survive it.

He's afraid. Joel doesn't want to lose her and if that makes him selfish then so be it. He wants to take her back to Jackson and give her a bedroom of her own and as many stupid comics as she wants and three meals a day for the rest of her long, peaceful life. He wants her to grow up and grow old. 

He'd kill a thousand more Fireflies to make it happen.

He'd damn the whole world. 

Because he loves her and it fucking hurts. 

This girl and her puns and her comics and her god damned bravery and her bleeding heart. He doesn't want to lose her. 

But is this, whatever this endless hell is, is it fair to her? 

If it's breakable, if he has the ability to get them to tomorrow, to get them to Jackson, to get them home, shouldn't he? If he loves her shouldn't he give her a life even if he's not in it?

Joel gently arranges Ellie in the backseat and shoots Marlene in the head. 

__

For a few seconds Ellie thinks she's in the car on the way into Pittsburgh. The hum of the old engine, the rocking motion of the truck. But -- wait. She's lying down. The car smells...musty. And she's cold like she's wearing a dress and --

"What the hell am I wearing?"

She flutters her eyes open. Different truck. Backseat. Is she in a...hospital gown? What the fuck? Where is she?

"Just take it easy," Joel says. Okay, so she's with Joel. Something in her chest settles. She must be safe. "Drugs are still wearin' off."

Drugs? Ellie pushes back into her memory and tries to find something, anything that'll give her a clue as to what's going on here. They were in the bus tunnel. The water was rushing, Joel jumped on the bus and it started moving and she...fell into the water? 

It's a blur after that. More of a blank, really. Did they get to the hospital? Did they find the Fireflies? Based on her weird fucking outfit it sure seems like it.

"What happened?"

Joel's eyes flick up in the rearview mirror to look at her. "Let's get you into some clothes, first. Then we'll take a break and I'll tell you everythin'."

He sounds tired. More tired than he's ever sounded, frankly, but she can't imagine why. And he can't seem to stop looking at her like she's going to disappear. Like he hasn't seen her in ages. 

"Okay," she says slowly. "Where the hell are we going to get those?" 

"Your bag is on the floor by your feet." Joel veers off the highway down an exit ramp and Ellie sits up. Her head feels light for a second and then really heavy so she braces her hands on the seat in front of her and takes a few deep breaths. "You okay, kiddo?"

"Yeah. Fucking...drugs, I guess. What'd they do that for?"

"They ran some tests. We'll talk about it."

Normally she'd push him but something feels off. Ellie tries to get a good look at his face but she can't, not from this angle, and not with her head fucking pounding like it is. She's missing so much time. It makes her skin crawl, makes her heart race. Joel is here, she tells herself. He wouldn't let anything bad happen to her. 

He parks them at the edge of a cemetery and gets out of the car to stand guard while she changes out of the gown. Her last pair of jeans, apparently, and a grey t-shirt with a few holes in the collar. She wishes she had a sweatshirt or something to wrap around herself, to pull over her hands and feel covered. But beggars can't be choosers. At least someone put her shoes in her backpack. 

Joel doesn't turn around when she opens the door but she sees him stiffen. 

"I'm done." He looks back at her and she finally sees his face. "Jesus Christ, Joel, what happened to you?"

It's not just the blood. Sure, he's got dried streaks of it on his neck and in his hair. Ellie glances at his hands and sees it crusted under his fingernails, too. But he looks wrecked. Older, somehow. He looks like something terrible happened, the way she remembers his face when he fell from the balcony in Colorado, when he found her in the burning restaurant. But somehow it's worse. 

He's looking at her like he can't believe she's real. 

"Alright." Joel lowers the rifle and ignores her question, clearly. "Didn't see anythin'. Should be fine to sit here for a bit."

"Are you going to tell me what the fuck happened?"

He moves like he's going to drag a hand down his face but thinks better of it. "Yeah," he says. "I am." 

Ellie swings her legs so they're hanging out the door. Joel leans the rifle against the truck and crosses his arms. "You're making me kind of nervous, man."

"Just...promise me you'll hear me out to the end."

Yeah, something is going on. She doesn't like it. 

"Uh, sure."

"What do you remember?" 

Good fucking question. "The tunnel. The bus and -- water. I fell in, right?"

Joel nods, clears his throat. "Jumpin' on the bus was dumb. Don't do that again." 

She snorts. "Yeah, okay. Point taken. But I was afraid you were going to drown!"

"You did." He delivers the news in a flat tone she doesn't like. She drowned?

"Are you serious?"

"I got us out of the water and tried to get you breathin' again." Ellie realizes her chest is sore. She imagines Joel doing compressions like they showered her in school, imagines his panicked face, his hoarse voice calling her name. Fuck.

"Did it work?"

"No," he says. "Fireflies found us first and knocked me out." 

"That doesn't make sense." She frowns. "They knocked you out?"

Joel shrugs. "Just tellin' you what happened."

This isn't how she imagined it would go. She never told Joel, but for weeks she's been thinking about waltzing up to the hospital and telling them who she is. She pictured Joel telling her jokes while she got her blood drawn, pictured him staring down nurses and doctors while they made the cure. She figured it would take a few days, maybe a week, and then they'd be on their way back to Jackson. She had hoped Marlene might be there, too. She has so many questions about her mom. 

"What did they do with me?"

Joel looks troubled. "I...don't exactly know. It was a while before I saw you again."

It makes her skin crawl. He must be able to tell because he keeps talking. "I'm sure they just ran some tests while you were out. They brought you back, made sure you were breathin' okay."

"Tests?"

"I'm gettin' there." She feels like he's having a hard time looking at her. Something close to but not quiet dread sits heavy in her stomach. What happened?

"Joel..."

"I woke up inside the hospital. Marlene was there. Told me they didn't know it was us, that they'd been waiting." He pauses, drags a hand down his face. "You didn't wake up or nothin'? You sure?"

Ellie shakes her head. She doesn't remember anything after the tunnel. 

"Well, she told me they could do it. They had a doctor who could make the cure."

The air rushes out of Ellie all at once. "Are you fucking serious?"

"And then she said..." Joel chews on his words and looks away from her. He looks angry. 

"What did she say?"

"Makin' a vaccine...would've killed you."

The bottom drops out of Ellie's world. It's like a hundred doors in her brain open at once. 

It would have killed her? Are they sure? Did they do enough tests? Were they going to? Why didn't they wake her up? Were they going to ask her? How did they get out?

She swallows them all and manages just one in a broken whisper. "What did you do?"

Joel looks right at her. "I stopped them."

If Ellie wasn’t already sitting down she thinks her legs would give out. She knows that Joel meant what he said to her in Silver Lake. Knows that he'd do anything for her.

But this?

"What do you mean?" He shakes his head. "Joel. What do you mean, you stopped them?"

His shoulders slump. "They told me to leave and I refused. And I made sure no one can follow us to try again."

Static builds in her ears. She can read between the lines. She speaks Joel now. He killed them all, that much is clear to her. He killed them all, Marlene, too, probably, because she was supposed to die to save the world. Hot tears sting her nose and gather at the corner of her eyes. 

"But I -- but we -- I was supposed to...I'm the cure!"

"You're a person. You're a kid. Don't matter what's in your brain, you ain't dyin' for --"

Ellie pushes out of the truck and to her feet. Joel steps back to give her room but she knows he probably wants to touch her, to reassure her. The anger fills her, makes her face hot and her heart race. 

"Who said you get to make that choice? If they said I had to die maybe I should have? Then it would mean something --"

"Your immunity ain't the thing that matters most. You are. So I picked you," Joel yells.

She's really crying now, huge heaving sobs that make it hard to talk, make it hard to convey how angry she is. "Well, you picked wrong, asshole."

"I ain't gonna apologize for it. I'd do it all over again, the exact same way. Every time." Joel's expression is as serious as it gets. He used to look this way all the time. No nonsense, no room for argument. 

She tries to find the words anyway but they don't come.

"Now, you've got some options here," he says. "I think the best one is for us to go back to Jackson. I know Tommy'll take you in, and --

She laughs, or tries to. 

It sounds like something bitter and awful to her own ears. First he tells her she was supposed to die today and now he wants to leave her?

"Are you fucking serious, Joel? You want to leave me again?" 

Joel's brows pinch together. He looks pained. Good. It feels like her chest is caving in, like her lungs aren't working right anymore. This must be what it felt like to drown in the bus terminal, to sink slowly, to fade away entirely. She read once that drowning was supposed to be peaceful. This hurts. 

"I want you to be safe," he says. "Jackson is the best place for that. I don't have to be there if you don't want me there --"

"I didn't fucking say that!" she yells. "I -- Jesus, give me a fucking second, okay?"

He stands by the door as she paces back and forth, tugging her hands through her hair. 

She was supposed to die. But she didn't. There's no cure. And it sure fucking sounds like Joel didn't leave any option to try again. 

He traded saving the world for her. 

It's too much.

"What do you want, Ellie?" Joel sounds like he's been awake for days. Like he's in pain, like he's being hollowed out. He sounds like how she feels. 

She digs the heels of her hands into her eyes. 

"I want none of this to have happened! I want us to go back to this morning and I want us to not have gone into the bus tunnel and I want you to have asked for tests first, I want them to try something else. I want Marlene to tell me why they didn't wake me up. I want to do it again but differently, I want things to be different, I --"

Her words break off into a sob. "Ellie..." She opens her eyes and finds him reaching for her. His shirt is stained with dried blood but she steps into his hold and his arm wraps around her. 

"I don't know what to do, now," she whispers.

Joel exhales a shaky breath. "I know you wish things were different. I wish things were different. But they ain't."

They stand there, his hand dragging up and down her back. She listens to his heartbeat and remembers those nights in the basement when she thought it would stop any minute. 

"Fuck," she whispers, then pulls away. He lets her go. "Fuck, Joel."

He sighs. "Yeah, kiddo. Fuck."

He told her the truth and that means something. It hurts, it hurts so bad, and it doesn't absolve him of anything, but that matters. 

"I'm so angry with you," she says. "I don't know how to forgive you for...for...saving me." 

It sounds stupid as she says it but Joel nods solemnly. 

"That's alright." 

"But I..." She wants to get this part right. "Let's go back. To Jackson. We'll figure it out there. But you...you have to swear to tell me the truth. Just like this. We have to be honest with each other."

Joel meets her gaze without blinking. "I swear."

Ellie takes a deep breath. The anger, the horror, the disbelief at what he's done settle a little bit. She has no clue what comes next, but this is a start. 

"Okay."

__

Joel wakes up. 

His back hurts and his shoulder aches. It's dark, darker than it should be, darker than it's been for hundreds of days.

Ellie is asleep in the backseat of the truck. 

It's tomorrow. 

thank you for reading. let me know what you thought!

[freuleinanna]

wake up honey dropping a doctor who theory here. bear with me, i'm not just crying over 14 and donna, i think it actually holds!!

so, bi-generation. okay. 15 popping out in his therapized glory. so basically, i don't think he just pushed all trauma to 14 and moved on. 15 is actually post-14. meaning, he has lived that life at the same time as he continued living his own life.

remember 13 looked into Time and got split into three? yeah, that. she was in three places simultaneously. her consciousness was, at least. what can't 14, what that recent knowledge, subconsciously do the same? he's just experienced that, and he's still running on regeneration jiuce. worth mentioning, the dude (gender neutral) had a piss with Time his whole life. looking into Vortex, diving into Time itself... the doctor is not disintegrating per se, but can, as proven, survive being split. why not let one part of him live longer?

so he does. he finds home in donna and her family. he's doing whatever the hell. squinting over sci fi books, getting whupped for accidentally buying non-vegan milk for rose ("you said the orange cartbox with stripes!!!" "A STRIPE! WITH A STRIPE! CAN'T TIME LORDS COUNT, YOU DUMBO?!").

having the most difficult heart-to-hearts with his best friend, finally telling her about his companions, the master, the flux. crying, grieving, healing.

looking up at a spaceship torpedoing into the ground and saying "that's a future me problem", dealing cards to donna because it's poker night. and donna is a bit surprised, how easily he let that go, and he just smiles, and holds her hand, and kisses her knuckles gently. and it's alright. "there'll be time for that," he says.

and then they both grow old. and 14 ages. and i don't know if donna dies first or not, it's unimportant. maybe the night she dies it happens. 14 grieves, and cries some more, and says goodbyes. he calls his favorite niece, and when all is said and done, he's ready.

only he isn't about to die, because his essence has to reunite. this part of him has been away for a very long time, and it was the happiest time ever, but he has to be restored. just like 13 had to collect shards of herself back into one, so does 14.

the very particles of his being are reuniting, and it feels like spreading, or travelling, and his silly poetic mind is pleased with the sensation... only to feel regeneration coming full tide, and suddenly he's back on the roof, looking at himself.

"no way!" "will somebody tell me what the hell is going on?!"

but the thing is, he didn't get split at that moment like we think. he got back together. bi-generation. two regenerations happened at the same time, looped one into another. 14 regenerated twice.

and now, now he watches himself exhausted and broken, and he can let himself go. he can sincerely say that it's going to be alright, because he knows it is. donna is right there. she'll take him home.

and he can continue on his way.

[kierongillen]

i have to know - as a disco elysium fan who didnt do disco, what would you say is essential disco listening for me?

I'm hugely behind on the asks, but I have to answer this one, because I'm going to answer a connected but completely different question, and then maybe then loop back to you. I'm just looking for an excuse to ramble, and do the writer equivalent of a warm-up sketch (i.e. waste time).

My apologies.

If you wake up and decide that you want to get into a whole genre of music, there's basically two tactics.

(There's also the "Why would anyone care to get into something they don't care about", which is one of the few things I have a "There's two sorts of people..." response to - those who when presented by something unknown either think "why should I know about that?" or "why don't I know about that?" I'm the latter, and it's served me well.)

The first tactic is simple.

Jump on a genre with Best Of in the title and follow your pleasure response. Here's a Spotify one. What interests you? What excited you? What makes you laugh? Probably explore more of that. If not, indulge widely, and see what sticks. At a glance, Disco playlists seem to have the problem of most playlists, in that strictly not everything on it is disco per se. For example, Dancing Queen strictly speaking isn't a disco song - but it's a song about disco, in every way. But if anything has found its way on a playlist, it's found its way on for a reason.

In your case, you're interested in what Disco resonates with Disco Elysium. Which I've bought for C, but not played, but I'm aware of in a "if I was still a games journalist, this is clearly one I would write a lot about." I spent years writing about Planescape Torment, and I know a spiritual successor when I see one.

This makes me think the area you want is basically the classier end - the big bleak emotions, the chilliness, the control, lonely on a dancefloor, lonely everywhere, oh-so-much cocaine, and - to steal Paul Lester's line - glass mountains on fire.

Which leads back to the second way of getting into a genre of music - which is to hit a major artist, and hit them hard.

When asked about "how shall I get into a band" my advice is actually the opposite of what I'm about to give. If you just want to get into a band, get Best Of, see what tracks you like, then go to the albums they're from. But if you're trying to get into a whole genre of music, that's a more serious endeavour, and may reward the opposite approach.

Basically pick a key album from a key band, and get into it, and grow from there. Read about the band - you don't need much, but a little helps. Learn how to listen to what their tracks do. And then you use that band as the single point of knowledge you have to orientate yourself to everything else you listen afterwarads.

There's a huge danger to this - basically, no-one is more ignorant than someone with a little knowledge. You have to be aware that you are the person who knows a bit about Boss Baby, and using that to get into things other than Boss Baby.

The strength is that it's a more holistic, lived in knowledge than just skimming the surface. You understand the music better as an artifact of their times, made by people, responding to their specific situation - which adds different flavours to your appreciation of it. Sure, your own response and how it finds a place in your life is always the thing which over-rules anything else - but the more you can listen for, the more you can hear, the more you can get from a work of art.

Anyway - I'm telling you to go and listen to Risque by Chic.

Chic are basically fucking awesome. If you don't know Disco at all, the opening Good Times chilly ironic take on American late-seventies culture is a great and (I suspect) Disco Elysium relevant intro. You'll know it as a sample, if nothing else, and the eight minutes version that opens Risque is a great way to think about it as both music for dancing (it is endless) and music for listening (it is boundless).

I got Risque as Paul Lester went to bat for it so hard in the Unknown Pleasures book the Maker stuck on the cover in 1995 (it was covering 20 albums that had fell out of the critical conversation, and it absolutely changed the dirction of my listening in the period). Here's Lester writing about Risque more recently for a taste, as the original piece doesn't appear to be online. I just read it in my copy, and it's a burst of love, describing it Disco as music about love - never sex, only love, and mainly love that is denied. That seems solid, at least for the best of chic.

Risque is the Chic album that Lloyd from Phonogram would have been listening to, certainly. I know I did.

(Plus At Last I Am Free from C'est Chic, obv)

There's a lot of Chic to listen to - their own work, especially in the period, and all their productions. Their work with Sister Sledge is of particular import - Lost In Music was one of the working title for Phonogram, and you can see and hear why. They're also the Disco band whose influence is perhaps most obvious in other bands. Everyone liked Chic. No Chic, no Orange Juice, no Orange Juice, no Smiths, etc.

Sister Sledge was the first live band I was at. My mum went to see them when she was eight and a half months pregnant. The temptration to say I'd have heard Lost in Music then and sold is tempting, but ahistorical - it's well before their work with Chic.

Anyway - get into Chic. It'll make your life better - and when your life isn't better, it's a superior context to lose yourself.

However, to go back to your question, as a Disco Elysium fan, I'm not sure it's actually THIS Disco you're looking for.

How about Disco Inferno?

Not Disco at all, but most like itself than anything else, which sounds like what I understand about Disco Elysium. right?

(DI Goes Pop is the starting place)

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

A Balancing Act

There were so many wonderful prompts that I couldn't fit them all in here! Thank you so much to everyone who submitted one :)

Read on Ao3

Warnings: bruised ego, panic attacks, touch starvation

Pairings: none

Word Count: 6556

It starts, as do most things, in the Imagination.

Deep beneath the surface of the world, buried in layers of implication and mystery, lies a set of scales. Perfectly balanced? No, never, but always in a state of equilibrium. It operates on a set of rules far older than the theories of physics that govern the Waking World—that is, what most would refer to as Reality, outside the bounds of the Mindscape—for science is an intersection of math and literature and magic is a science based on a math most esoteric. Its golden rule is simply thus: whatever gives must be pulled, and whatever pulls must be given.

The scales must always hang. The scales must always be.

In the middle of the night, when no one will notice, Remus turns on his convincing loop of his own sleep noises—grunts, sloshing, the occasional rustle of bed covers—and sinks into Roman's room. Roman is awake, sitting on the edge of his bed, tying and untying the same knot in a length of rope as he stares into nothingness.

"Sorry," he mumbles as soon as Remus comes to sit next to him, "I'm…trying. I just can't seem to get anything…more."

"It's okay, Roro, I'm not mad or anything. I honestly thought it was kinda cool."

Roman huffs a laugh, only mostly filled with humor. "I figured you would. I mean, it's way more of a you idea, isn't it? Having the entire tower suddenly become as flexible as rubber and threaten to kill everyone inside?"

"I'm not gonna try and summon Janny at this point of the night, I'm definitely stealing it for my next video game dungeon idea."

"I'm glad at least one of us is getting some use out of it."

The humor dissipates quickly as Roman's fingers keep working unsteadily at the knot. Remus reaches over and rests his head on his shoulder, enjoying the warmth of Roman's breath ghosting over his temple as he wraps his arm around Roman's waist. "Are you doing okay otherwise?"

Another sigh. "I don't know, Remus. I don't—I haven't had the energy to know how I'm doing which I think is answer in and of itself, and every time I try to actually do something about it, the Imagination knows that I'm not—that I can't—"

Remus gives him a squeeze when his breathing starts to pick up a little. Roman winces and he sits up right away. "Are you bruised again?"

A suspiciously long pause. "It's nothing, Re—"

"Bullshit." Remus storms to the bathroom and returns with the first aid kit, tossing it on the bed. "Lemme see, Ro-bro, I'm not letting you get away with being bruised to hell and not letting anyone take care of you."

"Re," Roman almost whines, but he sets the rope aside and starts fiddling with the hem of his pajama shirt. "I'm—it's really fine, it's not even that bad this time."

"I'll be the judge of what's 'that bad,' thank you very much. You're not allowed to evaluate your own injuries after you hid broken ribs from me for almost a week."

"I was sort of proud of that, actually. Hey!" He yelps as Remus tugs on his hair. "Not the hair!"

"So lemme look at you. Come on."

"You're so demanding." But off comes the shirt and Remus has to begrudgingly admit that it's not actually that bad this time. A light smattering of yellow and a dusting of blue along Roman's side, probably just enough to make him wince if someone presses down on the right wrong spot. "See? It's fine. It'll probably fade by morning."

"You can't blame me for being suspicious, though."

"No," and Roman's voice gets all soft and gentle for a moment, "I don't. Thank you, Re. I…"

"No need to get too sappy, Roro, the night's still young."

"Yeah, maybe by your standards."

"I always go by my standards, because my standards are right," Remus remarks as he goes to return the first aid kit at a more reasonable pace, "how you should be treated better, how the others should know about some of this stuff—"

"No."

"But Ro—"

"No, Remus," Roman says, voice suddenly cold. He puts his shirt back on and hunches his shoulders. "We both know that them knowing isn't going to be a good idea."

"They care about you, Ro—"

"Evidently not!"

"But they don't know about it!"

"Yeah, because I've tried opening up to them in the past and all it's gotten me are insults, badly veiled pity, and the promise that it will be used against me at the first time it's convenient for them! I'm not going to give them an even more detailed guide of 'Press Here to Hurt the Prince!'"

Remus is quiet for a long moment and Roman sighs.

"You're thinking of how to make that into some sort of weird carnival game for your horror country fair, aren't you?"

"Only slightly—"

"I knew it."

"—but I'm also worried because you're my brother, Roman," Remus says quietly, coming over to sit next to Roman again, taking his hands and giving them a squeeze, "and I don't like seeing you hurting."

"But you know I'm right."

"…but I have a feeling that your instincts may be accurate."

Roman's brow quirks in amusement. "You've been spending more time with Logan, then?"

"Yeah. We, uh, we have an experiments lab in the mad scientist part of that big old spooky mansion you and I made when we were younger and it's…it's really fun, Ro, you should come hang out with us."

Roman chuckles, smoothing his thumb over Remus's scarred knuckles. "I don't think me and experiments would be very fun for all of us, but I'll happily partake in quests to gather the more obscure resources you might require. I'm sure you could convince Logan to take a small break for such an excursion in the future?"

"Ooh, a quest with an actual party! That might be fun. We'll have to think about that more tomorrow after we get some rest," he says pointedly when Roman looks eager enough to keep going now, only to chuckle at Roman's disappointed face, "hey, you're telling me—I'm being the reasonable one here and I'm exhausted already."

"Restoring balance to the universe, then." Roman leans forward to rest his forehead against Remus's. "Thanks for coming to check in on me."

"Hey, you're my brother. The entire world could be turned upside down and back to front and that'd still be true."

"Is that your way of saying you're always gonna be there for me?"

"Just like I know you will. And yes, before you ask, I'm enjoying imagining the others being surprised we're like this too."

"Just checking."

Remus ruffles Roman's hair. "Get some sleep, okay, Roro?"

"You too."

***

Roman wakes up cold.

Well, no. That's not quite right. He wakes up in agony that he can only bear to keep to himself because he's too cold to have the energy to move.

The first thing he registers is the pain. Deep, bone-weary agonizing pain that feels like he's been locked in a suit of armor that is being tightened, slowly, half-turn by half-turn of a screw. A noise threatens to escape his lips before he presses them tightly together, managing to roll onto his back.

He's on his side—or he was on his side. There's a soft rustle and a weight that indicates a covering of some kind. Blankets. He's in a bed. A bed he doesn't recognize in his state of delirium. The pain becomes enough of a dull roar that he can move his head, looking around at a blurred and darkened room. The barest sliver of light comes from a window just off to the side, behind his head, exposing the dark red of the covers slathered across his body. It stretches away into the darkness as though it were an ocean of blood, a tug of renewed pain reinforcing that as his neck cries out for release. Already exhausted, he lets his head flop back down onto the pillow—pillow, right, that's what it is.

He closes his eyes. It isn't often that he has nightmares as visceral and violent as this. To his—shame? Relief? He doesn't know anymore—it's been so long that he doesn't quite remember what he's supposed to do about it.

Behind his eyes flash aftershocks of his own screams of pain, his own bitten whimpers and whines as pain explodes along his body. He flinches away from the memories on instinct and the blood-red covers jostle with him. He remembers the darkness, the too-bright light, the pain, the waiting, and the voice.

The voice, taking observations and notes in a clinical, detached tone, ready to aim the next caustic remark to paint black and blue and purple across his fragile skin.

He knows it's probably a bad thing, to have nightmares about his fellow Sides. He knows it's probably not healthy, indicative of much larger problems between them—and for Thomas. He knows the best thing to do is probably to talk about them with the Sides in question so they can move forward together.

But bruises ache in a way that not many other injuries are capable of, and Roman has always, always been so, so sensitive.

He sees one last terrifying glimpse of Logan's face, a twisted curiosity pinned to him as though he were a bug to be displayed, and turns the idea away. He won't give it any sort of excuse to come true.

***

"No, no, no, we're not going over this again."

"On the contrary," Logan sighs as Virgil groans, slumping against the railing, "it seems that is exactly what we're going to do."

Janus rolls his eyes and examines the tops of his gloves, brushing away imaginary specks of dirt. "I don't understand what the hold-up is here, Patton, it's not as though we don't have endless possibilities for what we can watch for movie night."

"I'm just saying we can do better than getting them illegally! Thomas has access to streaming services, we can just ask one of his friends for their password—"

"Password sharing?" Janus mock gasps, holding his hand over his mouth. "Patton, didn't you know that's also illegal? The streaming services don't want you to do that! They want you to have your own account!"

"But that doesn't make any sense!"

"That's his point, Pop Star."

"But by all means, Patton," Janus continues, adopting a sickly-sweet tone that quickly morphs into one of disdain the longer he keeps speaking, "if you'd prefer to get the movies legally like a good little servant of this capitalist hellscape and contribute to the erasing of public ownership of storytelling by allowing corporations to scam us by 'selling' us copies of media that we can never actually permanently have, then by all means, let's keep looking."

There's a pause. Then Patton snorts. Soon everyone's laughing at the sheer ridiculousness—and accuracy—of Janus's little monologue. He holds his hands up. "Alright, you've convinced me."

"Thank you." Janus preens a little. "I always did think there was more validity in such arguments once you add just a little bit of flavor."

"Okay, if that's what you call a little bit of flavor, I'm never coming over for dinner again."

"Why, Virgil—"

"Nope." Virgil holds up a finger. "'Cause, see, I always thought it was weird that we went through spices so quickly over there when the ones in this kitchen have lasted for months—"

"I'm not sure Remus is entirely free of blame in this case," Logan remarks wryly, "in any case, thank you, Janus and Patton, for coming to an agreement. Now that it's all settled, shall we proceed with movie night as planned?"

"Works for me!"

"Yeah, I'm all set now."

Janus simply waves his hand in an 'of course' gesture. Logan glances around. "Alright, then—and Roman? You're all settled?"

He sees Patton and Janus visibly jerk, as though they'd forgotten he was there. He smiles a little weakly from his corner. "Yeah. I'm all good."

"Okay, I'm gonna admit something I really didn't think was possible," Virgil mumbles, fiddling with his hoodie strings, "but I genuinely forgot Princey was here and was just about to ask L what he was talking about."

"Gosh, I think I did too! I'm so sorry, kiddo, I didn't mean to!"

"It's okay."

"You better watch out, Princey," Virgil laughs, "pretty sure J's gunning for your spot as Thomas's theater kid Side with monologues like that."

Roman forces himself to laugh with everyone else—well, almost everyone. Remus shoots him a concerned look that he only nods back to, I'm fine, it's okay, as a bruise blooms warmly along the underside of his ribs. Thankfully, his little exhale disguises himself as part of the laugh as Janus starts preening again. Still, the words linger over his skin as they settle in for movie night, wriggling their way up from his stomach to the tip of his tongue.

During a loud part of the movie, he turns to whisper to Janus. "Hey."

"Hey," Janus whispers back, "you doing okay? You need us to turn it down?"

"What? No, far be it from me to keep you from enjoying something. I was just—I was just thinking. I have a proposition for you."

"Oh?"

"Did you, um, do you have any interest in learning how to fence?"

Janus fully turns to look at him, surprise painted in the many colors from the screen. "Really?"

"Yeah, I think you'd—"

"You know how to fence?"

A smaller bruise, colored mostly by the surprise, but a bruise nonetheless as Roman makes himself hold the smile. "Yeah, I know how to fence. I think you'd enjoy it."

"Yeah, yes, Roman, I think I'd like that very much." Janus blinks, surprise settling into something more akin to excitement. "I'm—well, I'm grateful you've finally noticed me as someone worth spending time with."

It's a tease, it must be, and yet the bruises ache no less at the implications. "What can I say, I need to make sure Thomas's theater kid Side knows everything."

Janus takes it as a joke. He usually does when it comes to things like this, which is why Roman knows he can get away with it right now. While Janus is distracted, high on the energy of winning the argument and the general daze that comes from being invested in a good movie with friends. Where he doesn't have time to realize that this isn't a lie, it's the truth, and if he uncovers that then this has a lot smaller chance of this actually working.

But Janus doesn't notice. And Roman can breathe a sigh of relief when no more bruises blossom across his aching chest.

***

The scales tip further and further to one side. The Imagination responds, growing wilder and crueler as the woods thicken and the rivers deepen. The skies grow darker, the wind colder. In the center of an old castle ruin, a garden that has lain untouched for years begins to wither. A single rose petal flutters to the ground.

***

He's grateful for the excuse of training Janus how to fence. That way, he has a reason to wince and smile sheepishly when the bruises covering him reassert themselves. Then again, as with most things that work in Roman's favor, it's a double-edged sword. Wow, Janus must be improving quite a bit, then! He's getting good enough to put you on your ass already, Princey? It's a good thing you've found a sparring partner that challenges you, then. Can't wait to fight, Snakey!

And then new bruises will spring up and the cycle will begin anew.

Janus is, in all honesty, quite an excellent sparring partner. His movements are fluid, graceful, no doubt in part due to his snake-like traits, and he internalizes the key lesson Roman teaches him on their very first day. It doesn't matter how quickly you get somewhere so long as you arrive at the right time. Slow is steady. Steady is smooth. Smooth is fast.

"I'm curious," Janus asks once day while they're taking a break, sipping from a water bottle and eyeing Roman over the top, "why fencing?"

"What, am I not fulfilling all the stereotypes as you wished?"

"Most knights don't fence, not all swordplays are alike." Roman waggles his eyebrows and Janus rolls his eyes, smacking his shoulder. "That's not what I meant. You grow more like Remus everyday."

He's grateful that his entire body is covered when a light smattering of purple decorates the insides of both of his arms. "I like fencing. It's all about timing."

"You mentioned."

"I don't know, I think—you know, like with most stories. It's all about getting the pacing right. You can't rush into the narrative, you can't force the plot, it has to sort of…happen on its own. Your job as the storyteller is to make sure the pace is right so the story has the most impact."

Janus's eyebrows raise higher and higher the longer Roman keeps talking. "Careful, there, you're getting dangerously close to being insightful."

"Hey! I'm a storyteller, shouldn't I know my own craft?"

"I suppose so."

"You suppose—what is that supposed to mean? Oh, shut up," he grumbles when Janus makes a smug expression, "I'm not falling for that again."

"I believe you already did, dear prince."

"Don't call me that."

"Whatever His Highness commands."

Roman rolls his eyes and turns around to hide the flicker of genuine hurt behind putting his water bottle down. "Come on, then. If you've got enough energy to bully me with words you can do it on the mats."

"You'll make me think you like being pushed around."

"Believe me," Roman says darkly, "you have no idea what a glutton for punishment I'm turning into."

***

"Hey, Remus?"

Remus pokes his head out from the massive gorgon corpse he's butchering, draped in all sorts of gore with a manic grin on his face. Virgil mumbles a quiet sure, why not as Logan adjusts his glasses. "Friends!"

"Hello, Remus," Logan greets, "we were wondering if we could have a moment of your time."

"Sure. Gimme just a sec to finish up with this thing and I'll be right with you."

"Is there, uh, somewhere we can wait that's less…entrail-y?"

"Go over the hill to the back, that's where the big shed is. I'll be in there in just a moment." There's the whirring of some sort of machinery that no one quite has the patience—or stomach—to name as a spray of something wet and squelchy-sounding hits the ground on the other side of the carcass. Virgil and Logan glance at each other before making a strategic and somewhat hasty retreat to the shed.

True to his word, Remus shows up a few minutes later, wiping the remains of something off of his hands with a rag he tosses into a wash barrel on the porch before coming inside.

"My two favorite Left Brain Boys, how can I help you today?"

"We've come about Roman."

Remus sobers immediately. He runs a hand through his hair and pulls a stool closer, sitting down and immediately tapping his fingers against his thighs. "What is it about him?"

"He's been bad," Virgil blurts out, hands bunched in his hoodie pockets, "like…really bad. Worse than normal bad."

"I got that much."

"He's been distant during brainstorming," Logan says quietly, "and I'm not sure—I do not know enough about it to understand what I can do to help."

"He won't talk to me about anything that isn't meeting or food related anymore. I can't even get him to complain about stupid plot twists that don't make any sense."

"He's stopped writing in his notebooks, at least where the rest of us can see."

"He's not even singing as much anymore, Remus, it's bad."

"I know." Remus's quiet admission startles them into silence. He's still tapping out a frantic rhythm, eyes darting from beaker to chart to specimen as the silence grows fuzzier and fuzzier. The wind whistles through the holes in the shutters. "Believe me, I know."

"My apologies," Logan says after a moment, "we didn't consider—at least I didn't consider that you would know Roman better than we would."

"No, no, I didn't—fuck, shit, sorry, Remus."

"You guys don't have to apologize to me. Ro's—Ro's not having a good time right now, yeah. And I'm…not helping."

"What do you mean, you're not helping? You're always there for Princey."

"Yeah, but not—okay, shit, look, I'm actually—I need to check with Roman before having this conversation."

"What? Why? Is there something wrong that we shouldn't know about?"

"It's just—to explain why—you know what? No. We're gonna do the short version of this conversation where you guys ask me questions and I tell you what I can. I'll talk to Roman later."

"We don't mean any harm," Logan starts to say, but Remus waves him off.

"I know. It's not about that. It's about me making sure I don't fuck up Ro's boundaries."

"I get that." Virgil shuffles a bit on his stool. "So can we—can we ask you stuff now?"

"Go ahead."

"Princey's been off ever since the wedding. Is—is that accurate to say?"

"Yeah."

"And it seems like it's not—like, it sort of seems like it's getting better, but it's not, not really. He's still been really down and upset and it's—it's getting really hard to like, talk to him about things. I'm just—is there something else we don't know about Roman that's making this harder?"

"Yes."

"Are you…gonna tell us what it is?"

"No."

"Okay, I guess that's fair."

"Would I be correct to say," Logan asks, "that Roman's struggles are related both to the wedding and to additional factors?"

"Yeah."

"Would it be accurate to say there is something unique about Roman that makes this situation significantly worse?"

The corner of Remus's mouth twitches. "No."

"Amended question: is there something unique about both yours and Roman's relationship to the Imagination, the Mindscape, and Thomas himself that makes this situation significantly worse?"

"Where the fuck are we, in court again?"

"Do you see why Janny didn't want Logan to be part of it if he was gonna win?"

"Answer the question, please, Remus."

"Yeah, Lolo. You're right. And we're not in a court room, which means I'm not bound by any of those stupid fucking rules and I will tell you that you're walking a dangerous line over there."

"Forgive me. I'm not trying to pry into Roman's business—okay, I'm not just trying to pry," he amends hastily when Remus glares at him, "I want to help. But I need to understand in order to help."

Remus sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I know you guys want to help. But Ro…fuck, okay, this is the only piece of info you're getting from me about this that isn't gonna be just an instruction on what to do, but Roman…Roman really isn't good about letting people help him."

"Why?"

"He lets you help him."

"I'm his brother. I'm exempt and can make him let me take care of him."

Logan looks like he wants to argue for another second before he makes himself take a deep breath and adjust his glasses. "Thank you for telling us, Remus. How…how can we help?"

***

"It's getting worse." Patton confides in a whisper as Janus leans into his side. "I don't know what to do."

"There's not much we can do if Roman doesn't let us."

The irony of this conversation is not lost on either of them, not when the expression Roman wore when they glimpsed him all but fleeing back to his room is still in the forefront of their minds. They'd tried everything Remus had suggested, all of it: letting Roman have a say in what they watched for movie night, what they had for dinner, what they talked about when they all hung out in the living room just for the sake of it. They'd tried asking about his projects, expressing enthusiasm for things they didn't love for themselves but they loved because Roman loved them, even just asking Roman if he was okay, if he needed anything.

And Roman just kept falling further and further away from them.

"I don't know what to do," Patton confesses, prompting Janus to reach up and card a hand through his hair, "Roman's so quiet now, he's so small, he's not—Roman's not supposed to be small."

"He isn't," Janus agrees, "he's supposed to be our larger-than-life prince. I don't…I don't know how to fix this."

"If I'd known that it was going to be this bad, that the wedding would cause something like this to happen—"

"Don't play the 'what if' game, Patton, it never ends well. It's not—" Janus sighs— "believe me, as someone who's spent too long wallowing in the guilt of how badly my actions have hurt others when I truly didn't intend them to, it's not worth it."

"But I don't know what else to do! Roman's hurting, Janus, and I don't know how to fix it! I'm supposed to know how to fix it, we all have to take care of each other, and Roman's not—he's not letting us!"

"I know," Janus whispers, pulling him closer, "I know."

"What do we do?"

"The only thing we can do is keep trying and hope that Roman realizes how badly we want to see him alright again."

So they do. They try, and they try quite desperately to make sure Roman knows how much he is loved and how they care for his happiness. Roman, their wonderful vibrant prince who is greyer than any can remember him being. Roman, their songbird who hasn't sung a single note in weeks. Roman, who once could light up a room simply by appearing within it who has relegated himself to silent corners where their eyes long to skip over him. They don't know what to do. Roman is fading right in front of their eyes and nothing they do seems to have any effect on it whatsoever.

Remus is getting worse. He's more frantic, more hyper, more exaggerated. His ideas grow more and more frenetic, his experiments wilder and less restrained. The Imagination grows dangerous and chaotic as rules break and remake themselves over and over. The doors are soon locked and barred lest something try and escape and only the brothers can safely enter its depths without fear of getting lost in the storm. Remus tries to keep himself contained there, just because there is so much energy brimming within him that it would be catastrophic should it leak into the Mindscape proper, but Roman…

They're losing Roman.

Desperation makes fools of us all.

They have a meeting. They ask Roman what's going on. They try to be gentle. They try to tell Roman how much they care. They try to show that it's all coming from a place of love.

And Roman, their precious, lovely, wonderful, incredible Roman, collapses into a heap of tears.

***

The break comes. It's horrifying, tragic, and so very beautiful. The scales are upended, one side swinging wildly towards the heavens as the other shatters free from one of the links holding it aloft. The Imagination screams.

***

"Please—please—just tell me what you want, I can't do this anymore, I can't—I can't—" Roman's hands tangle in his hair and pull— "don't do this to me, I'll never—I can't—don't fucking do this!"

"Ro, Ro, you gotta calm down—"

Roman flinches away from Remus's touch, even as the others back up to give the brothers more space. His sobs run his breathing ragged, each inhale more pained than the last as they echo around and around the room. Remus swallows and reaches out again, carefully prying Roman's white-knuckled grip free.

"Ro-bro, it's me. It's just me. You know I'll never hurt you, right?"

"I don't understand, Re—"

"Shh, shh, hang on, breathe first. Don't try and speak, it's gonna be okay."

Sobs choke themselves free from Roman's lips as Remus coaxes him forward, wrapping his arms tightly around his waist and pulling him nearly into his lap. He sets Roman's head in the crook of his neck and keeps murmuring reassurances, stroking his hands up and down his brother's spine.

"Remus—"

"I'm right here, Roro. Don't you fall away from me, not again."

"I can't do this—"

"You can. You have to, Ro, I can't—I can't hold all of this by myself, you know I can't. Come on, just breathe with me, okay? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere and neither are you. You're gonna stay right here, with me, and we're both just gonna breathe and let this even itself out." For indeed, Remus is trembling too from the force it's taking to restrain his nails from digging into Roman's back. Even now, there is too much energy thrumming inside him, two vessels forced together and it's not sustainable, none of this is. "I'm right here, Ro, you gotta let me be here for you."

"It hurts, Remus," comes the whisper against his neck, "it hurts so much and I don't know how to make it stop."

"I know, Roro, I know."

"I can't do this anymore. It's too—I can't. I just can't."

"You need to let us help you, Ro. I know, I know," he says, quickly hushing Roman when he cries out in pain again, "I know, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"I can't!"

"I won't let them hurt you, not again. I promise." He tightens his grip. "Just—just hold on for me, okay?"

"I'm so scared, Re. I'm so scared."

"I know. Me too."

The two of them stay like that for a long, long time. Long enough for the room to grow cold as the sun goes down, long enough for them to start to shiver from having expended so much energy just to stay in each other's arms.

"Here," Logan says softly, so softly so as not to startle them, "I have a blanket for you."

"Thanks, Lolo."

"Of course."

Roman eyes him warily as he approaches, blanket held out unfolded between the two of them like a peace offering. Logan offers him the gentlest of smiles and drapes it over them. He retreats to a safe distance where the rest of them are, still watching, still waiting.

"You stayed," he croaks, throat weary from overuse.

"Of course we did, kiddo," Patton murmurs, "we were so worried."

"We wanna make sure everything's okay, Princey," Virgil agrees, slumping down a little to make himself seem like a smaller target, "that's all."

Janus, scales glimmering from his bare hands, wordlessly holds up another blanket.

It takes another long pause for Roman to nod, but he does nod, and perhaps that makes all the difference.

***

"Come in, please," Logan says, smiling when Roman shyly knocks on his door. He steps aside so Roman can shuffle through. "Sit wherever you'd like."

"Even on your bed?"

"Even on my bed."

Roman looks at it, clearly tempted, before he decides to only partially push his look and sit on the floor, his back against the bed. Logan just chuckles and comes to sit next to him, getting comfortable before holding out his hand.

"It's not a trick," he says when Roman just looks at it, "will you let me hold your hand?"

"Why?"

"I'd like to." When that just gets him another look, he lets out a small sigh. "I'm…concerned that in my failure to realize how much you were struggling, I've cultivated a relationship between the two of us that is a great deal more adversarial than it needs to be. I'd like to amend that by offering you comfort, both emotional and physical. So…I'd like to hold your hand."

"…oh."

"But if that's something you're not comfortable with yet, I understand."

"N-no, I didn't—I didn't mean—" Roman splutters for another second before he puts his hand in Logan's—well, he more lets it flop in his direction like Logan might take it back if he lets it go for too long.

"Thank you, Roman." He covers it with his other one and pulls it into his lap to cradle it gently, raising an eyebrow at Roman's noise of surprise. "What?"

"I, um…didn't know that's what you meant."

"Is this alright?"

"U-um…yeah. Yeah, it's…it's okay."

"I'm glad." His thumb strokes soothingly over Roman's still-trembling knuckles. "Can I ask you something?"

"Aside from that?"

"Yes."

"Sure."

"Are you…is it possible that you're touch-starved, Roman? Shh, shh, easy," he soothes when Roman tenses immediately, "my apologies, I didn't mean to frighten you."

"I—um—I don't—"

"No tricks, Roman, I promise. I'm only asking because I want to help. Here: is it easier to just nod or shake your head?" Roman nods. "Alright. Can…are you?"

He nods again, his mouth twisting up to hold back a sob. Logan quickly squeezes his hand, still stroking over his knuckles.

"Thank you for telling me, though I am sorry to hear it. If…if it's alright with you—and please know you can say no or shake your head and I won't bring it up again—may I help?"

He likes to think that the work they've put in to making it easier to spend time together without it feeling like a fight or an interrogation is what makes Roman nod. He's unable to keep the grateful smile from spreading across his features, nor the way he scoots a little bit closer so their sides press together.

"Thank you."

They sit together like that for a long while. Long enough for Logan to start running his fingers up and down Roman's arm, long enough for him to squeeze his hand when Roman's grip shivers and shudders, long enough for Roman's head to drop onto his shoulder, breathing heavily.

"That's it," he whispers, turning his head so his nose brushes Roman's hair, "you're doing so well. It's alright. Is this still okay?"

Roman nods.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he can't help himself from asking, "I would've helped, I would've done this earlier."

"…I was scared."

It's not a surprise to hear, not truly, but Logan can't stop the slight pang of hurt. Quickly, he moves past it; Roman has been so terrified of asking for help for so long, he will not give him the opportunity to be further hurt by this. Instead, he carefully lifts Roman's hand to his lips and presses the smallest kiss to his knuckle.

"What were you scared of, little one?"

Patton had always warned him about asking questions, said at some point he might learn something he wished he hadn't. This…is not one of those times, as he does not regret learning about Roman's terrifying nightmares, but he does…ache.

"If ever you need to be reassured that something like that will never happen," he manages, voice slightly hoarse with Roman's confession, "please, little one, let me know."

"I don't think it'll happen anymore."

"Perhaps not logically, but fear is rarely logical." Roman shifts, caught out, but Logan doesn't give him time to murmur an apology. "It's alright, I understand, and my promise stands."

"You mean it?"

"Of course I do, Roman."

***

"Go on," Roman whispers when Janus, Patton, and Virgil don't say anything for too long after he's explained himself, "just get it over with."

"May I hug you?"

His head snaps up. Janus is looking at him with that foreign soft expression again and he—he can't have heard that right.

"May I hug you," Janus asks again, holding out his arms, "please?"

"I—um—sure?"

Janus stands and hurries—hurries?—over to wrap Roman up in his arms, pressing a kiss to his temple and Roman is confused but Janus is warm and solid and there are more hands than he expected and he's—he's going to cry again, isn't he?

"You're gonna overwhelm him, J."

"Too late for that, I think," as Patton and Virgil come closer too, "oh, kiddo…I'm so sorry we didn't know about this sooner."

"I know that was on purpose, Princey, but…" He runs a hand through his hair. "Shit, I didn't—I didn't know we were—that you—fuck, I didn't know we'd fucked up that badly, I guess."

Roman glances at Patton, who looks so upset that he doesn't even call Virgil out on his language. "I didn't know how," he manages, just as Patton reaches up to brush a tear from his cheek.

"You shouldn't have had to go so far for us to notice, and that's on us."

"But I should've said something—"

"But you didn't to try to keep yourself safe," Janus interrupts, his own voice thick with tears.

"…yeah."

"Will you tell us, now?" Patton wraps an arm around the part of Roman's waist he can still reach. "If we do something that hurts you?"

"Don't feel like you have to promise something if you don't think you can," Virgil adds when Roman looks even more terrified at the thought, "just…know you can tell us, okay?"

"Okay."

"There's no replacing you, Roman," Janus says, leaving no room for argument, "not at all."

"Not even with your monologues?"

"Not even with my monologues."

"Can we hug you too, kiddo? Please?" Patton has to keep himself from beaming when Roman nods, quickly ducking over to wrap his arms around both him and Janus properly. "Oh, kiddo, I'm so sorry."

"Move over, Princey," Virgil teases gently when Roman tries to lean against the wall, "I'm the one who gets to cuddle you, not the wall. Hey, hey, shh, it's okay—c'mon, let's all be a puddle on the floor, okay?"

"I like floor puddle plan."

"Me too."

Roman is crying too hard to say he agrees, but he thinks the boneless way he slumps into the embrace is as good as anything else.

***

"Hey, Remus?" Roman whispers in the middle of the night as the rest of the Sides slumber around him, curled up on the massive mattress with fluffy blankets and soft pillows.

"Yeah?"

"You were right."

And because Remus is a good brother who loves Roman so very, very much, he doesn't even hold it over his head. He just smiles, leans over to bonk their foreheads together, and tells his brother to go the fuck to sleep.

***

A new chain holds the scales together, forged in longing and heartbreak and strife, borne of an old magic far more ephemeral than whimsy and fantasy. Tendrils of roses curl up the sides of a golden dish, affixing it to links of courage and loyalty. The Imagination heaves a sigh of relief. The sweet smell of petrichor wafts over the exhausted landscape.

The scales stand balanced once more.

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[the-californicationist]

I don't know if your like closed on the requests so sorry if it's closed I don't know!!

Anyways my birthday is tmrw (the 9th of February-im turning 21!!) And I want to know if you can make me like a birthday smut story on like soap ghost and price (maybe Konig if you want!) Different POVs on what they would get me- please!!! -🐼

Not closed! Just fighting the world's worst writer's block T_T

But! I'd love to celebrate your birthday! Here's what I think the boys would get you (NSFW/MDNI18+):

Ghost is definitely getting you food. He's taking you to all your favorites spots for breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. He stops for snacks, gets you practically stuffed to the gills so you're nice and sleepy from being so full.

"Wanna lay down for a bit of a rest, sweet girl? Had a long day, didn't ya?"

You nod, curling up with him on his big sofa. He covers you up with a blanket and you drift off to sleep. Only... when you wake up later, you feel... hands...

"Si... ?" You call out to him, opening your eyes slowly.

When you look up, he's staring right at you. You've been stripped down to your bra and panties, and he's using his fingers to lightly play at the elastic edge of your lace bottoms, tickling you ever so gently.

"Are you still full, baby? 'Cause I'm ready to feed you something else."

Price is more traditional. He gets you a nice card, two dozen roses, and a pretty necklace. A choker. You don't notice at first, but it's not just a choker after all; it's a collar. The little gold bell tinkles as he loops it around your neck, and he fastens it just tight enough to let you feel it, but not too much.

Later, when you're on your knees, thanking him for his gift, he uses it to pull you down just a little further, inch by inch, training you how to swallow his cock deeper into your mouth.

The collar tightens then, pushed from the inside as his girth stretches down your tongue and into your throat.

"Poor little pet," he purrs darkly down at you, "Did you forget about your birthday spankings? You're getting better at your training, so I'll take care of that arse for you, don't you worry."

Soap buys you skydiving lessons. It's your first time, but he's a certified instructor. So, he gets to be strapped behind you. As you board the plane, he fastens you to him, claiming he needs to go ahead and get you into position - just in case.

You are sitting on his lap, positioned between his knees, feeling his cock as it grows along your lower back, hardening to an impossible length.

He unzips your flight suit just enough to play with your soft nipples, pinching them to make you squirm against him, using your writhing body to rub his cock.

"Tha's it, hen," he teases you, "Gotta work out all that nervous energy, hm?"

He can't get to your soaking core through the one-piece suit, but he palms your pussy on the outside, pressing the fabric into your clit, rubbing you until you're practically humping his dick through your clothes.

"Fuck, lass. You're gonna make me come if you cannae sit still. Be a good girl for me until we jump."

The jump is exhilarating, and you actually feel like you're gliding back down to earth. You had no idea the parachute would be so quiet and relaxing compared to the loud plane.

Now that you're safely floating, he unzips your flight suit a little further and frees your breasts, letting them out into the open air. He told you that you couldn't take your hands off of the parachute straps, so all you can do is surrender to his desires.

As he plays with your hardening nipples, licking his fingers to make them slippery wet, you can feel him humping his cock against your ass, getting himself off on you. He's pressing his hand so hard between your legs, he's practically fingering your panties into you, dragging your body backwards with each thrust to pleasure himself.

"Fuckin' hell, lass. Such a good girl for me. Tha's it, hold those straps tight. I'm so close. So bloody close."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hope this was what you wanted for your birthday!! <3 <3