#They’d probably be bitter to some degree

[bucknastysbabe]

The Merger - C.Cole

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5k

Tags: 80’s corporate au, set in King’s Landing, Nyra’s daughter reader, pwp, enemies to lovers, subby Criston, service top Criston, misogyny, oral (f!receiving), pnv!sex, dom/sub dynamics, background rhaenicent, background alicole, desk boinking, man tears, Cristons Big Brown Eyes

A/N: This was an ask I accidentally posted too early so now repost! Thank you to the anon, loved this and hope you like. Inspired by RedRack’s work on Ao3. Idk anything about business

Taglist: @aemonds-holy-milk @arcielee @aemondfairy @elaratyrell @fairysluna @jamespotterismydaddy @lovelykhaleesiii @sammmy7499 @starogeorgina @towriteloveontheirarms @zaldritzosrose

You were Rhaenyra’s eldest child and only daughter, the ‘haughty’ one. You’d grown up lavishly, a byproduct of the rich and powerful where one could pay away most problems. Like your parentage. Like your homosexual father and biological dad who happened to be the bodyguard.

Except someone from the other side paid right back and your dad was ashes. Laenor left not too long afterward. You were your mother’s child anyway— as bitter as it felt.

There was a schism and merger at the same time, two huge media conglomerates coming as one now. Your family had long owned a paper before foraging into radio then television, the Legacy Media Agency. Jaehaerys Targaryen and Alysanne brought one of the first channels on television.

Through tragedy and piss-poor mistakes, your grandfather remarried to one Alicent Hightower. Now he was dead and the position of CEO was swiftly voted in for Rhaenyra. Alicent bristled, coming from a media conglomerate family of her own.

The Hightowers were in the movie and TV Industry, Green Flame Studios. They ran the golden age of film in Westeros, easily adapting and changing however into the current state. Television channels and multiple production companies. They’d even nabbed up a music label out of Lannisport.

Much money and meetings later, there was a heated merger due to a clause drafted up while your grandfather was on his deathbed. CEO and COO would be up for grabs again. Tension was filling the building in King’s Landing. Otto was back along with his sleek-looking son. Rhaenyra was growing stressed. Now Daemon was off securing funds and heads, the woman growing edgier by the day.

On a recent evening she sat down with you, the ever dutiful daughter. Jace was more of the smooth heir, able to gloss over and smile his way into the hearts of others. You took a step back, working on a law degree and willing to do a dirty deed if requested.

You and Mother sipped drinks in her office, gazing out over the sparkling city of King’s Landing. It was a shit hole brought up to some sort of glory in your opinion. Rhaenyra huffed, “The rest of her boys are coming. Aemond’s cutthroat but irrational, Aegon can be puppeted but has a raging coke and alcohol problem. Helaena is out of the picture. That leaves the little one, the freak, and the doggy.”

“So a little boy, Larys, and Criston I take it?”

You took off your blazer, rolling your eyes, “Dear uncles want to strangle us. Aegon and Aemond might tear each other to shreds before that could occur. Otto and Alicent, cracking as she may be, hold them together.”

Rhaenyra grimaced, “She ran the company while father was sick. It’s a good look. I was popping questionable children out, working, but not seen like her. She’s got that yuppie housewife bitch look about her, but she’s no Targaryen. Gods.”

You were pretty sure they fucked or something. Mother always went a little distant and quiet regarding Alicent, even if her words were vitriol.

Throwing expensive heels upon the fine desk of many CEO’s past you asked, “What have you need of me? Dirt, intel? I’m not coming near that whisperer, he’s too smart. Wasn’t Cole promoted to some busy work position? Probably Alicent’s fuck toy. I never liked him, he’s got issues.”

Your mother grinned, laughing, the most you’ve seen in a while. She leaned up to squeeze your ankle. Rhaenyra hummed, “You’re a fine woman. Fine, fine woman. Knows what it takes to win. Keep an eye on Cole. He likes the rich girls anyways, yet all of this has him so stressed he’ll be a bigger prick than usual.”

The blonde waved a hand.

“Do what you need, he’s weak at the end of the day. Probably keeps Ali’s underwear in his drawer. Brute. He was sweet once, I fear his issues and my selfish desires fucked that up worse than it needed to be. He’ll never have it, sad as it may be,” she lamented.

You felt pity for the Marcher. Handsome as could be, powerful energy, good with acquisitions of small companies. It stopped there— most considered him an idiot. You’d have to reluctantly get to know more, considering all of the vile history. But you’d do it for Mother.

Standing up in the dim office you nodded, “I’ll do what I can, we should take everyone out for the beach one day. Good publicity. It’s widely known we are more stable.”

She smiled. Your mother was so beautiful, you were glad to see her in better spirits before they were inevitably dashed.

Soon the Green’s employees began to show. Wylde, Lannister, Strong, Cole. Aemond and Aegon also appeared. The first meeting was miserable. You’d sat back and taken notes, sitting pretty next to Jace and Baela. You noted Alicent was the resident female leading the pack, the pack being dogs that would turn on her.

Aemond was the key one. Likely Aegon would get shoved forward if they kept him in line. Otto barked and waved his hands with Rhaenys, he liked the sidelines. Your eyes flickered to Cole— perfectly coiffed and manicured, his suits tailored sharp and tight to show off his body. He certainly looked like a fuck toy.

His dark eyes raised to meet yours, thick brows furrowing. You scoffed and turned your attention elsewhere, the egotistical fucker aggravated now. You could hear his ringed finger tapping against the wood. Prick.

By the end of the week, Rhaenyra held a tenuous hold on CEO, Alicent had taken COO, and Otto had weaseled in as CFO. This was shite. Mother was outnumbered. Tyland Lannister should have had it, he put aside loyalties for success, and he’d served two sides well.

Life in the offices post vote was interesting, to say the least. You’d often be around, observing and speaking with employees. Today you had worn a little black blouse with a bow and a fitted tweed skirt, tights emphasizing your long legs and patent heels. You had a plan. First you made sure your hair was still presentable and reapplied your lipstick. With a smirk, you sauntered over to his oversized cubicle.

Criston Cole. Up jumped prick. It was obvious he was some sort of release for Alicent, leaving her office adjusting his tie, smoothing back his hair, lips still wet. You had gathered he was wildly misunderstood— a whore and a sexist bully. Yet others spoke of him revering women and kind to most. Some said he was dumb as a box of rocks, others said he was quietly crafty in the right environment.

Confusing. But you could do with a whore.

You leaned against the wall, watching his shoulders and biceps bunch as he looked over the potential acquisitions, likely in tech. He had his walkmans on and fidgeted as he read. You eyed his cubicle, immaculately clean, two photos on the wall. One of him in the military shaking a commander’s hand. The other was of a man holding a young Criston, a beautiful Dornish looking woman laughing next to them.

Mommy issues? Maybe. Seems normal enough.

The maybe-bully turned around and pulled off his headphones, raising a brow as he chuffed. “What are you doing staring at the back of my head like that?” His lips turned into a scowl at the sight of your smirk.

“Merely getting to know my mother’s new workers. My coworkers, somewhat. I’m just here for help.”

He eyed your body, dark orbs traveling upwards. Criston watched you with a tight smile, spreading his muscled thighs as his chair rolled around. You remained stoic, waiting on the inevitable snark or nasty comment.

“So what is mommy’s little princess doing besides flouncing your bows and snooping around?”

Oh. You wanted to kill him. Smack that smarmy look off his face.

“What? That’s what you do. Skip around and flirt with that big chip on your shoulder. It’s almost cute, knowing what you are.”

You ignored him to continue, “I’m overseeing the new employees to our building. I’m in law school. Besides, I don’t need some fucktoy bully with muscles for a brain to snap at me. Watch your godsdamn mouth with me and how you speak on my family.”

You glared him down, watching Criston get flushed and submit easily. There it was, not a hard button to find. A little meanness, a little firm hand, and Criston Cole was putty. You grinned, patting his desk, “Good boy. Perhaps you should keep your mouth shut more, or go get it glued back to the green queen’s cunt.”

He inhaled sharply as you walked away victorious.

You dialed your mother up from the car phone, cackling about the experience. The pair of you schemed, you needed to get under Criston or over him. Whatever it took to figure out more…perhaps you had your own desires. He hadn’t been going to Alicent’s office as much since you slipped up. Albeit was quite known.

The further away from her he was, the better. That’s how you could snag the man. The upcoming gala would be time to strike.

You wore a strapped, glass-beaded black gown to the gala, some bullshit reason to meet around and prove that all was swell, give out idiotic awards and swaths of money. Your curls were piled into an updo, brows thick, and eyes shadowy. Your lips were blood red. Black gloves went to your elbows.

You knew you had to bang Cole tonight. He’d softened some around you since the moment in his cubicle but he was tighter than the damn Iron Bank when it came to anything of information you wanted. He looked handsome in his designer suit, pressed and prim. Hovering behind Alicent, looking like a puppy. You frowned between sips of your champagne. You needed him away from her!

“You’re hot you know,” came a slurred voice.

“Ah. Dearest uncle of mine. Coming to hit on his family. How many flutes I wonder?” You turned to face a grinning Aegon, purple eyes hazy, smelling like Joop! You rolled your eyes and let him jabber on, grinning at Aeg.

“You really must want a piece? You know fucking baseborn isn’t a good look, but your face is so cute,” you teased.

Aegon’s coked-up expression widened into a grin, his hands on your waist as you laughed it off. Jacaerys would pull him off, or Luke. Aegon’s lips grew closer to your neck before being yanked back roughly, one irritated Criston Cole glaring down at Aegon and sending him packing. You waved goodbye.

Criston’s big frame engulfed yours, his more masculine scent aided with some Calvin Klein tickling your nose. Damn this man for being so damnably handsome. He was looking down at you, jaw clenching. You hummed, “Thanks for the save, Cole. Didn’t know you had the knight in shining armor sensibilities.”

He gripped your arm, grunting, “I don’t.”

The taller man led you away, farther and farther towards the bathrooms. You laughed, Criston shooting a glare.

“Where are you taking me?”

He huffed, “Away from here. I have some questions for you.”

“This isn’t going to end up with you strangling me right?”

“Shut up, damn, you talk so godsdamned much!”

You rolled your eyes once again, trying to keep up with his long strides, the man unlocking a door and shoving you inside. You stumbled and cursed, Criston quick to pick you up. He led you over to the desk, picked you up, and put you atop the flat surface.

He stared, jaw clenched, eyes wide as they took you in— calloused hands ran up your pantyhose.

You cocked your head, humming, “I thought you were asking questions.”

Criston closed into space, hands gripping your thighs tighter as he snarled, “I don’t get you. You don’t work for the company, you’re a damn college brat with a chip on your shoulder.” His hands tightened again, fingertips digging into your skin.

“Anyways are we fucking or not?”

Criston looked at a loss for words, nostrils flaring in aggravation. You cooed, hand sliding across his broad shoulders and up to the nape of his neck. Gently playing and pulling at his curls, you leaned closer to his pretty mouth, noses touching.

The man exhaled sharply, voice less sharp as he murmured, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

How funny, you couldn’t either.

Your lips curled up in pleasure, eyes slipping shut as you kissed him softly, a mere press of the lips. Criston tried for more— only for you to pull back and chide, “Slow, we don’t have anywhere to be.” You could tell he was thinking, but Cole acquiesced and matched your pace.

As you lazily smacked lips with him, his hands eased up, rubbing up and down. You slid your tongue between his lips, moaning softly as he eagerly met you, hot and slick. He made a noise deep in his chest when you grabbed a handful of slicked-down dark hair. You pressed up against his firm chest, tongues and lips doing an age-old dance.

Criston sucked on your bottom lip, returning to sup at your mouth, hands roving up higher, your dress rising with the movement. You spread your thighs with a sigh, panting against his insistent mouth. You could feel the kiss grow messy, Criston pulled ever you closer. He flicked his tongue against yours, moaning in desperation.

You distantly wondered if Alicent let him kiss her much. If she let him do anything besides satiate a need. The way he was pressed tight to your frame and groaning like a man deprived from some kisses seemed to affirm that. He pulled back with a wild look, nuzzling and pressing his wet lips to your neck, dark stubble rubbing the thin skin.

You threw your head back for more access, panting and sighing. You pulled at his hair again and spread your legs wider. He gasped when you asked if he was going to eat you out like he did the COO. Criston grumbled, frowning, his hands pulling down your hose.

“Is that all you think I’m good for?”

You studied his downtrodden puppy dog face and felt bad, poor thing had a knack for attaching himself to unavailable women. Your mind railed distantly on what he said about your mother and your siblings.

“Maybe. Looks like you spend more time on your knees than in your cubicle from my time at the office, Criston.”

You pushed at his shoulder, Criston dropping down with a petulant look across his face. He continued to pull your pantyhose down, fingers hooking into your thin underwear along the way. He made a weak nose when you leaned back some, purring, “There we go, take it all off. Gods, you’re pretty down there.”

He moaned again, nosing at your knee, dark eyes peeling from your exposed skin to look up. Criston rasped desperately, “Please, I’m sorry.” Those dark eyes were growing wet. You ripped your gaze away from his face, trailing down his heaving chest to where his flushed cock pushed against his fly.

“Sorry for what?”

Criston whimpered, the sound escaping before he could swallow it down. You smirked, hands running through his dark hair as your legs began to spread. He was staring again, wordless pleading for a taste.

He croaked, “I- ah- apologize for my manner of speech and behavior toward you. I don’t want this to be merely a scheme.”

You murmured, softer than expected at his observation, “You’re a sap, aren’t you? Just want a pretty girl to be all yours hm? You can be mine, I think I’ll let you have me.” You twisted at his hair harder, eliciting another pathetic noise.

“Yeah, that seems nice, you’re going to be mine now. Don’t worry, I’ll let you stick around and hold me afterward Cole. What a waste if I didn’t.”

He choked out, “Please, yes, yes— I’ll be good I swear, I’ll be so good to you.”

You grinned, scooting toward the edge of the desk, soaked cunt right in front of Criston’s teary eyes. You cooed, “I’ll let you have it, Cris, just know who you’re serving now. Me. No one else. No more dallying around with Hightower, you’ll be visiting my office when I pass the bar. Doesn’t that sound sweet, tell me how good I’m letting you have it.”

He got another twist of his hair.

Criston desperately moaned, voice cracking as he gripped your thighs, lips hovering over your pussy. He croaked, “I’m yours, yours, no one but you. No Hightower, no Targaryen— Velaryon.” He sucked a wet breath in, need wracking the man as he began to beg.

“Please- please baby- let me treat you good?”

You nodded, pushing his face toward your cunt. Criston kissed up your thigh, coarse hands moving your legs over his shoulders. His lips were hot and wet, leaving a trail and shiver up your spine. You couldn’t help the throaty moan from your chest when the brunette inhaled with a curse— his molten touch and breath casting across your most sensitive flesh.

“C’mon, c’mon,” you breathed.

Criston wasted no time, delving into your slick folds, mouth immediately kissing and lapping at your soaked entrance. You cried out, thighs jumping and tightening. He groaned in delight, lurid sounds from his overeager eating— that gorgeous nose of his pressed tightly to your bundle of nerves.

“Ngh- Criston, fuck!” You inelegantly carried on, sounding like one of those sultry-eyed whores in the porn movies. The man between your thighs laughed, hands soothing up and down the outside of your propped legs.

There was reverence in Criston’s rumble, his dark eyes as he murmured between messy presses of his lips, “Taste s’fucking good baby.” You arched into his mouth, hand tangled in his hair, pulling him closer to your aching clit.

“Smart boy,” came your hum of pleasure. One of your knees fell to the side, Criston checking again with expressive eyes as he slid the center two of his digits across your pussy. You nodded, throwing your head back in ecstasy as the man mouthed and tongued at your pearl in sloppy movements. He was utterly lost in it, groaning as he sucked and licked, dexterous fingers deep inside.

The quiet room was filled with the most erotic of noises— squelching, whines, shuddery breaths, and his deliciously messy eating. No wonder Alicent kept him around— you deliriously thought. On that note, you cried his name, laying back on the desk to roll into him easier, his pretty face and fingers dragging across your tender spots. The lovely sting of his stubble added a level.

Pleasure laced up and down your spine, building hot in your lower belly. He moved faster as you began to whimper, moans getting pitchy and needy. He held your hip down with his free hand, moaning. You babbled, “F-fuck, gods, gonna come, can’t stop dripping all over you. Such a good toy!”

He gasped, tonguing around where his fingers stretched your hole, lapping up every bit of your essence like a last meal. You began to writhe, breath choppy between moans. Criston fucked you faster with his fingers, you could feel his obsidian eyes watching with feverish heat.

Your belly tightened and spasmed, that wondrous feeling of intense pleasure blooming when the marcher sealed his perfect lips over your clit again to suck. He had to hold you down with one hand splayed across your lower belly, strength evident as you bucked and whined and keened his name.

You shivered, tears of overstimulation pricking as he lapped you clean, sucking his fingers with a slutty little moan. Criston mumbled, “Was that good, princess?” His calloused palm rubbed your trembling stomach, soothing and maddening as you came down from the orgasm.

Eventually gathering your wits, you held out a hand, the ‘businessman’ helping you sit upright. You felt a mess, running a hand over your errant curls, cunt on display, pantyhose ‘round your ankles. Criston looked at you like a goddess, his ever-helpful hands easing your pantyhose up before you stopped him.

His thick brows furrowed in confusion.

You laughed softly, “You’ve done a good job, I don’t see why you don’t get a reward.”

Criston’s hands reflexively tightened, his big chest swelling as he inhaled. You continued in your saccharine tone, “I mean you ate me out like a champ, I’m sure you’re tired of walking off with cum in your underwear or a hard-on from hell. Poor puppy, you look so swollen too.”

Criston outright whimpered, “Hurts.”

You cradled his face, cooing at the furrow in his brow, how those almond eyes were nearly full of tears. Gods, he was perfect, all man but willing to be jerked around by ‘the lesser sex’. So they say. Your eyes shifted to his cock once more, painfully pressing against his fly. Criston made another pitiful noise.

“You wanna come? I’ll let you bend me over this desk. You better fuck me hard, gods know you’re used to getting ridden. You’re just a sweet little fuck toy, hm?”

Criston gasped, eyes closing as a tear slipped. He was shaking with need, mouth hanging open as he babbled, “Yes- m’your fuck toy, but I’ll do it good for you, I’ll make you come, baby, I’ll hold it I swear!”

You smiled, turning to get on your belly, legs planted on the ground now. You could hear him shucking off his blazer, fervent fingers ripping at buttons. While he divested his clothing you teased mercilessly.

“So excited aren’t you? Big man gets to fuck now. You’re welcome. Tell me who you serve now. Tell me who you belong to and I’ll let you fill me up.”

He croaked, voice cracking, “I serve you now, yours, m’gonna make you feel so good, I won’t come, I’ll hold it.”

You turned to eye his heaving chest, the dark hair trailing down to his thick cock. A moan slipped from your lips at his beauty. His pretty prick was so flushed, you’d give him some slack if he did come. Poor thing was already worked and messy tears would be no good.

“C’mon then, I’m ready, take it easy stud,” you said, pulling him by the wrist. That hand gripped your hip, fingers digging in. He was panting while guiding the weepy tip of his cock into your sensitive cunt. The tip pressed up into your folds, stretching you out agonizingly slow.

Criston heaved, easing in further, little grunts and huffs from behind. He gritted out, “Pussy’s fucking perfect, gods.” You closed your eyes, savoring the stretch as Cole eased the tip in, pausing with a tremble. You let him acclimate, the marcher moaning throatily.

“Shh-shit, shit,” he said, both hands on your waist now.

You moaned softly as he went deeper, his prick molten hot and filling you up. It ground against your ridged walls, your cunt gripping the intrusion, more pleasure crawling up your spine. He was whining through his nose, muttering about how good you felt, how tight and wet it was.

You soothed, “I know, take it easy, you wanna fuck me good and hard, you need it, Cris.”

Criston groaned, “Oh- thank y-you, I needed this, s-so godsdamn hard for you baby.”

You gripped the edge of the desk as Criston was deep, his trim hips against your ass as he carried on. He leaned forward a bit, breathing through the intense stimulation. You didn’t mind, his bitten-off whimpers were cute. He was a sweetie under all his bluff.

You told him so, earning another agonized moan.

Soon Cris’ cock wasn’t throbbing and his breath had evened out. You turned to get a look, pulling him in for a quick kiss, his dark lips swollen. Criston murmured, “I think I’m ready. I can take you good and hard like you want princess, if you’ll let me, I’ll be good, s’good.”

You whispered against his lips, “Have at it stud. About time someone put that strength to good use. But you better have me soaking your cock before you think about busting.” He nodded, eyes adoring when you playfully nipped his lip, reaching back to smack a lean flank.

You couldn’t help the noise pushed out of you when he pulled out to the tip, adjusting your hips so he could slam back in at the right angle. The pair of you practically howled in unison, the primal affair on. Criston fucked like a man deprived, quick, and strong thrust.

You cried out as his hips cracked against your ass, his heavy sac hitting your clit. Criston groaned and cursed, pausing occasionally on a good deep thrust just to get ahold of himself once more. Your nails dug into the hard surface of the desk, mouth hanging wide open.

“Yeah- yeah, baby, good boy- ohgods!” You cried out when he pulled you upright against his body, fingers thumbing and pinching your nipples. He slurred nonsense, wet kisses as he lost himself, only focused on fucking you into oblivion.

Sweat began to bead across your body, turning to gooseflesh from the stimulation. His fingertips swirling and softly tugging at your nipples sent a bolt of white-hot arousal down to your clit. You knew you were getting wetter for him. Hells, you’d started crying out in ecstasy, bucking back into him like a wild animal.

Criston growled, “I’m yours, let me be yours, I’ll do this every night if you see fit.”

How he was suddenly composed pissed you off. But you were too out of sorts to do anything but moan and roll back onto his fat cock that was wrecking you. Giving a little whine of acquiescence, you nodded. He was yours now, he was going to be your big scary guard dog that adores his lady.

You heaved at the thought, belly tightening up, nipples budding so hard it hurt. Criston began to slowly push you back onto the desk, his heated body following, enveloping you in his warmth and scent. Criston grinned against your neck, pressing kisses as he slipped a hand down to form a vee with his fingers, rubbing at your flushed clit.

You wouldn’t admit this later but you squealed. You squealed and thrashed and came so hard your vision blacked out. Ecstasy consumed every part of your body. You gushed on Criston, pussy pulling and pulsing around him. When you could see again— he was the perfect wreck.

The brunette was waiting for permission. He was desperately begging, voice pitched enough to make it crack. You could hear the warble of a sob building up. Yet the man still sloppily rutted into your cunt, discordant and choppy. He cried softly, “Pleasepleaseplease let me come, please, oh it hurts, I did good yeah? Hurts- nghhh- mhh- gonna pop baby please.”

“Fill me up,” you slurred.

Criston came with a silent scream, shaking all over as he shoved deep and emptied— hot seed overflowing your cunt. He whined and whined as his swollen balls emptied, enough to make your spent body shiver.

The moment of bliss became subdued, his shaky hand reached for a tissue, pulling out, both of you hissing as he caught the excess, getting another few tissues to clean both of you up. Criston quietly pressed a kiss to the nape of your neck, pulling your underwear and hose up.

You turned to help the debauched man get himself clothed and back together. He was quiet, lips quirked a little, smile not quite reaching his eyes. As you buttoned his shirt up and started in on his tie, you looked up.

“I do mean it, I don’t mind this, I think you’re not so bad under your yuppie dick persona you like to put on,” you teased gently, straightening the tie. Criston frowned a bit, exhaling, “I seem to get grief in return every time. But…but I like your sweetness that shines when you’re not preening for your mother.”

He gave a grin this time, a real one that made his eyes crinkle, a glimmer of warmth.

You kissed him again, humming, “Well- since you’re my sweet boy now, maybe Mother and Ali can finally hook up.”

That was the first real laugh you’d heard from the man. He pulled you in close, chuckling, “Perhaps we’re doing everyone a favor if so. We’ll figure out the hoops as they come. Probably will be upsetting our bosses.”

[moutainrusing]

And IF (only if) you would be willing to write one more for me I request a trick 🎃 as well.

Lily/Sirius (romantic or platonic) Prompt: St Mungos

Happy writing! ✨️

With a shaky hand, Sirius lifted the potion to his lips, the one which would give him him. “Tastes bitter,” he rasped to Lily while she watched with the typical concern of a Healer. ‘How does the potion make you feel? Side effects? Is it working how it should?’

Lily looked at all her patients that way. Sirius wasn’t special. Lily cared about everyone to this incredible degree, giving them all her utmost best, and that was why Sirius cared about her the most.

Lily gave him an amused smile, rolled her eyes, “Want me to put sugar in it?”

“Yes, actually,” Sirius croaked, wincing when his voice cracked. It didn’t sound like his voice, even though it was his. His voice used to be lighter, and he couldn’t feel it in the way he swallowed, but now, his voice had deepened, rumbling in his throat, and he had his Adam’s apple, which he could feel bobbing up and down. Up, down. Even though his body was becoming the body it was always meant to be, he still felt down. A man could have a high-pitched voice and still be a man. He used to have a high-pitched voice, and he was always a man.

Plus, the cracks felt like shards of glass piercing into the cold, stiff silence of the wards at St. Mungos. Hospitals were pallid, sickly places, grey-scale monotony, bright, white lights, and Sirius felt like a lab experiment. He probably was, because all his data would be collected to aid future transmen; he probably was, because people stuck needles into him just to see the effect on his body; he probably was, because no one cared about him as an individual. In fact, he was definitely some monstrous disease which should be purged from the world of clean, he was wasting resources by being here, a waste, a pain, inhumane. The Healers simply cared about everyone, believing that they had some duty to make the lives of all people healthier, happier, longer.

He wondered what they’d do to him if he admitted he was a monster. He wondered if anyone would ever see him as a man.

“You’re all done,” Lily beamed, taking the vial from Sirius. “Now, get some rest, I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah,” Sirius nodded agreeably. He hoped it was agreeable. “Thanks,” he added. Sirius could never do nearly enough to thank Lily for all she did. He struggled to say thank you, but for Lily, he wanted to say it again and again, paint it on the sky above her head, he wanted to split open his chest and show her how he was composed solely out of gratitude for her. Sirius wanted to do so much for her, and it would never be enough.

Their days in Hogwarts, when Sirius would break down every time he got his period, and Lily would hold him, never questioning the issue. She’d buy what he needed even though he had the money to do it and she didn’t, because Sirius didn’t want to look after a body he didn’t like, but Lily wanted to look after any body Sirius had. She looked after Sirius.

But no one could look after him forever. Lily liked men, proper men, not whatever Sirius was. He was a man, he was and he was but he wasn’t a person, he was a monster and he was strange, contaminated with something that made him wrong.

Lily watched him for a second. She frowned, eyes lingering over every feature of his face, and Sirius wanted to curl into himself. He knew he looked weird. All the changes. “Do you want me to stay?” she asked softly.

Sirius swallowed, “Don’t you have to get back to James?” A proper man. James embodied everything Lily wanted, and Sirius was so similar to James, yet there was one major difference. Lily chose James because he was a proper man.

Lily shook her head, casually shrugging, “Always bros before hoes, right?” She grinned at Sirius, and Sirius forced a laugh. It was kinda funny that James was her hoe. But Sirius would always be just her friend. It was nice of her to value friendship, but down the line, as the responsibility for her relationship grew, that would change.

Sirius would be nothing to Lily. He smiled, “No, he’ll miss you too much.” I’ll miss you more.

Lily laughed, “He needs to learn to survive a couple hours without me.”

And I need to learn to survive an entire lifetime without you.

“Go, Lils, I’ll just be sleeping. Have a fun night, that’s an order,” Sirius pointed with a stern finger. That still shook a little.

Lily wrapped a hand around it and pushed it down gently, “As you wish, Sirius. I’ll be wishing you were there, though.”

No, you won’t.

Sirius rolled his eyes, “Focus on your man, Lily.”

“But you know you’re the real man of my life,” Lily clutched her chest exaggeratedly, and that hurt.

Sirius fell silent. Lily’s hand was still in his, and he pushed it away. “Do you… do you think anyone would ever… want to love me?”

Lily grabbed his hand again, passion taking over her expression. “Of course!” she cried vehemently. “I love you!”

“You know what I mean,” Sirius sighed, fiddling with Lily’s fingers. “In that way.”

“Yes,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You’re perfect, Sirius Black.”

Sirius closed his eyes. He didn’t know how to respond. Well, he did. If I’m perfect, then why aren’t I perfect for you?

[purgatory-is-life]

Mechtober day three/prompt 3-found family

again, posted on my ao3 as well

Burning Love - Reality666Rift999 - The Mechanisms (Band) [Archive of Our Own]

@mechtober-2024

tws, non graphic violence, just mentioned really, incredibly vague mentions of carmilla's experiments, mentioned manipulation, implied past emotional manipulation, probably more? let me know what i should add

Ashes grew up angry and cold and hungry. They grew up alone, only fending for themself and only needing to worry about themself.

Even with the Sevens, it was everyone for themselves. Sure, they could rely more on people other than themself, sure Smooth Mickey and the Lucky Sevens would offer a shoulder to lean on when jobs got tough or someone got hurt, but it was always conditional. Love was a resource with not enough to spare, and so it was used as a bargaining chip. And they never let themself fall into the trap of believing those who offered it unconditionally. They didn’t even fall to the trap of falling for those offering it up conditionally. At least, that’s what they told themself.

And then Mickey betrayed them.

Mickey set them alight, framing them for something they never did.

Mickey took them out of the world the same way they came in–bitter, burning bright and destructive.

And the hurt, the fear, the sadness, the grief–well, they couldn’t handle those feelings. It meant acknowledging that they fell into the same trap they swore they’d never fall for again.

So they took that hurt and pain and betrayal into anger. Anger at everything, at the world, at themself, at Smooth Mickey. If the afterlife was real, which they sincerely doubted, they’d wait till Mickey appeared there with them and make sure their revenge was long and sweet and destructive. They’ll leave nothing but ash in their wake, as they did once before. Before the orphanage. Before the Sevens. Mickey will know why you never cross Ashes O’Reilly.

But they didn’t believe in the afterlife. So they couldn’t really take the vengeance they desired on those that wronged them. They’ll at least go out how they lived, burning bright and destructive and angry.

But then, as they were choking on that smoke and as the skin burnt and blistered, someone came and offered up an out like a tired, goth angel or something. But no, she was a tired goth, sure, but she was no angel. Still, she offered what they wanted most to them on a silver platter–a chance to get back at the world that let them burn alone and afraid and angry. A chance to let them be the one to burn the world around them back. A chance at vengeance.

She offered them immortality.

They don’t really remember much of the process. But afterward they could breathe so much better than they’d ever had before. And they couldn’t die, they had all the time in the world to burn.

They’d always loved the sight of fire and the smell of smoke. Malone made such a pretty bonfire.

They could see it for miles even as they flew away with the new crew that they’d joined. The Mechanisms, and the tired goth Dr. Carmilla.

The Doc offered them a hand and a promise of love and family. They didn’t believe her, of course. No one was just going to give away something as precious as love to some scrappy orphan who just burned their entire world to ash. But they let her believe that they believed her. But they had learned their lesson, and they’d closed off their heart to any and all love around them. They wouldn’t let themselves be hurt or betrayed again.

Especially as the Doc’s love twisted into something dangerous. Something a bit more painful.

This time, they didn’t experience that same degree of hurt, of pain, that happened when Mickey killed them, because they expected it. They expected that the love she offered was something finite and costly. No longer was Ashes going to let themself be caught off guard when someone pulled their offered love away violently. They kept their heart closed, and nothing could hurt them.

So when Jonny (they all know it was him, even if he denied it vehemently) sent the Doc out the airlock, they didn’t say anything. They didn’t mourn the love that was once presented to them, didn’t mourn the giver of their immortality. Ashes O’Reilly didn’t mourn people, their heart was cold and cut off from those around them. Because that’s what kept them safe their entire life.

And so they kept their heart closed, and kept their head down as they did their work. They had lots of duties as the Quartermaster, and it kept them busy. As Quartermaster, it was their job to take care of the crew and the ship, to keep everything running smoothly and efficiently, to keep their food stores full and the other miscellaneous supplies stocked and up to code. Because of those reasons, they spent a lot of time around the crew for various reasons.

Ivy was always good at keeping track of time passing, despite how… confusing time was on the Aurora, making her helpful in telling when something was expired and how expired it was. Brian always helped them know how much they might need to get for the long flights through space, the long stretches of time between planets and places where they can pick up supplies. The Toy Soldier was… there, but it was always helpful and did anything asked of it. Nastya kept Aurora up and running, keeping her healthy and happy. And if there was something wrong with Aurora’s engines, or with something else that might cause delays or issues (like that time all of the cooling mechanics in the ship broke and everything in the main fridge spoiled within a week), Nastya was the one to go to. Though normally she would just appear from wherever she was inside the ship or Aurora’s vents.

Jonny, for all his melodrama and show-boating, normally actually had a decent eye for planning and had a decent eye for spots where they could have fun and refuel or restock, whatever it was that needed to get done. Tim never really did much in a way like Ivy or Brian, but he kept the armory clean and stocked and asked if they could get more ammunition or guns or knives or what have you when they started getting old and worn or were just mysteriously going missing. He kept the armory well cared for, and he was fun. He had that same pension for fires and smoke as they did, though with more of a knack for the explosive kind of fires than their usual method of burning everything down.

The crew was not a kind one. They didn’t mince words, they cut straight to the point, and they killed and maimed each other constantly. It was honestly refreshing. There was no false promise of kindness or love. The cards were all always–mostly–on the table. Everyone kept to themselves, they had no obligations to each other, they were connected through their immortality and everything that happened with Carmilla, plus their general love of violence and mayhem. But there weren't any requirements to pretend to be a family or anything more than what they were. Ashes appreciated having connections without the strings that usually came with them, without having to pretend to care or use “love” as a poker chip to get what they wanted. People listened to Ashes, and when they didn’t, they could just shoot first and get what they wanted second.

They kept their walls high, and none of the other members of the Aurora ever made any real efforts to breach them. They liked that about this mismatched crew.

Of course, they wouldn’t say they cared for them. That was dangerous. Love was something that people had only ever used against them. Only ever used to load their dice. And if Ashes ever cared for something, that was something someone could use against them. And they always played with cards close to their chest and all the dice weighed in their favor.

Just because they found themself getting softer with the crew, handling falling outs more carefully and with hand-picked words, or forcing everyone to take better care of themselves didn’t mean they loved the crew. It didn’t mean anything. Besides, for every careful word, there were twice as many gunshots and frustrated stabbings and burned belongings. They were a violent, nasty crew, killing and maiming whoever they pleased even amongst each other.

And when two new members came onto Aurora, they were subject to the same treatment from them and from the other Mechanisms. Endless violence, uncaring for gun safety and stray bullets and knives and explosions.

And as they grew accustomed to the crew and the others grew accustomed to them, they found their places among them. Marius was the ship’s ‘doctor’, and he took that very seriously. To the point that he often tried to psychoanalyze inanimate objects that Aurora had no control over as they were inanimate objects. Ashes wasn’t entirely certain when he realized Aurora even was her own person, and he still hasn’t realized that she actively fucks with him to get him on tirades directed towards objects that could not respond nor had any sentience. It was kind of hilarious, in Ashes’s opinion.

Raphaella was the one that everyone was wary of. With her science, and the pain that everyone else still felt from the Doctor, and the betrayal the others felt about how her love changed, Raphaella did not find an easy spot within the crew. But she ended up, for the first century or so at least, keeping to herself and earning their trust, proving her worth and slowly gaining the respect of the Mechs. She didn’t immediately jump into being just her usual mad scientist self–after seeing how poorly most of the other Mechs (notably Jonny and Brian) reacted to her brand of chaos and Science. And her efforts to keep her Science toned down until everyone was comfortable were very much appreciated.

And the crew of the starship Aurora, as it was now, was a comforting rock. A comforting place to return to, not that Ashes would say that. When things were too much or a trip planet-side ended up going worse than expected, they were always there to brace each other up. Ashes wouldn’t say that they loved the crew, because that was dangerous and risky and love could be used against them. But they could show it, sometimes.

In ways that worked for the Mechanisms.

They hardly even noticed how their walls came down around the others, didn’t know exactly when violence and shared chaos became just as much of a way to show their care as softness and a comforting hug on a bad day. How they interacted with the crew depended on the day and the crewmate, on what seemed to be the best way to approach a situation. Because Ashes was the Quartermaster, and it was their job to take care of the Mechanisms and keep everything running smoothly.

If that meant letting their walls down, at least a bit, for their crew, then that meant letting themself care and admit that they loved their crew. If that meant meeting the crew at their level, then that meant helping in whatever way helping looked like that day. Sometimes it meant violence, sometimes it meant arson, sometimes it meant movie nights and sweet treats, sometimes it meant quiet cuddles and soft reassurance.

And sometimes it meant letting the crew take care of them, on their bad days. Sometimes it meant being vulnerable themself and relying on the others to take care of things when they couldn’t. Believing in them to get things done, trusting them to take care of them and to not break and leave them again. And it wasn’t always easy, trust didn’t come easily to Ashes O’Reilly, they’d been burned too many times. But their crew did what they could to help, did what they could to help them when they needed it. Their crew let them do whatever they needed to, whether that was rest or help or just be there. They all showed they cared in their own way.

Ashes couldn’t ask for a better crew.

Ashes couldn’t ask for a better family.

[cosmicjoke]

New York, New York 1980

The jumbotron overlooking Times Square reads 11:48 PM and minus three degrees, Dec. 14th, 1980. Ugly, orange glow of numbers hazing through the mist, don’t mean anything on their own. Feels like minus twenty with the humidity. Snow’s started coming down heavy, and the streets have gone empty and silent. His breath fogs the air in front of his face and it’s knives down his throat when he breathes in.

Ash thinks he might die tonight.

He’s on his own.

Billy and the others took off a couple hours ago, he don’t know where to. Didn’t tell him and he didn’t ask. Probably to find shelter. Deadly out here, tonight. Deadly. Lotta’ people weren’t gonna’ make it to sun-up.

He swallows, sniffs hard. Snot keeps dribbling outta’ his right nostril, running down to his lip, freezing there in a thickening crust. He wants to wipe it away, but that would mean unwrapping his arms from around himself, and he thinks he might just go then and there if he does.

Eyes hurt, burn with tears as he glares up at that big, stupid screen, flashing through the dark and fog.

He needs to find some place too. Needs to find somewhere. All them shelters booked up, though. Every space taken. Coulda’ got there, maybe, if he hadn’t been workin’ the streets so late. But he needed money. Needed it bad. Hadn’t eaten in days. Would starve to death, soon. That’d be worse than freezing to death, he figures. Freezing to death, he figures, you just go numb, and then you get real warm, and you just give up and then you’re dead. Starvin’ to deaths worse.

Though maybe he should rethink that, considering how much this hurts.

Needs to find somewhere.

More than seven hours to sun-up, and it’s only going to get colder.

//

Subway car stinks like piss and vomit, the overhead fluorescents flickering in and out, an annoying, loud buzz emanating from the fixtures. But it’s heated, at least, and empty. Quiet. Better than being up top in the snow and air.

Ash keeps his arms wrapped tight around his torso. The denim of his jacket is worn through and wet from slipping earlier in the snow slicked street, the worn-out soles of his sneakers not made for any sort of traction. He can’t take it off. Even if it’s warmer here, he doubts he’ll manage to pass the entire night riding the subway. He hopes for a few hours, at least. If he’s lucky.

But Ash ain’t never been lucky.

He gets maybe half an hour of rest, another hour of going from stop to stop, before the car fills up with the ruckus of laughing voices, whooping and hollering.

Ash opens his eyes. It’s a group of gang bangers. Buncha’ hooligans.

He feels his body go tense at the sight, pressing his back against the hard plastic of his seat.

Shit.

This wasn’t good.

He had to get off before they spotted him. They’d take his money, if he couldn’t. They’d rob him. Maybe worse.

He tries not to be noticed as he stands and makes his way for the exit. He doesn’t get far, though, one of the punks calling out to him.

Ash stops, tries not to cringe away as the group comes toward him, blocking off his escape.

“Well, what do we got here?” One of ‘em starts. Big, tall guy. Gotta’ be seventeen, eighteen. There’s six of ‘em. All about the same. No way past. Ash knows he ain’t got a chance. “What’re you doin’ out so late, all on your own, little boy?” He grins down at Ash, ugly, crooked teeth, greasy hair hanging down around his red face. “You all alone, little boy?”

Ash can feel his heart hitting hard inside his chest, his own breath loud inside his ears. His mind races, tryin’ to come up with something, anything to get him out of this.

“… I… I’m meetin’ my brother.” He croaks after a long moment, the lie heavy and bitter on his tongue. He thinks of Griff and knows he probably won’t ever see him again. “I’m meetin’ him at this stop.”

“That right, little boy?” The punk grins wider. “You meetin’ your brother? ‘Cause we didn’t see no one out there.”

“H-he’s comin’… he’ll be here.” Ash stammers, voice thin and shaking. “I need… I need to get off.”

“Yeah… I don’t think so.”

The blade seems to come outta’ nowhere, just suddenly there in the punks hand, flashing in Ash’s eyes.

“Whatch’u got, boy?”

Ash steps back, his hands automatically reaching for his pockets. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“Give it, you little shit!”

“I… I don’t got…”

The words are hardly out of his mouth before he’s being grabbed by the collar of his jacket and shoved back against the wall of the car, the knife suddenly at his throat, sharp edge of it digging painfully into the soft skin.

“Check his pockets.”

Ash knows better than to struggle. There wasn’t nothin’ he could do.

They find his money. They take it. A whole nights worth of work. Eighty-three bucks.

Ash thinks he should be thankful they don’t take his jacket and shoes too, though he guesses those wouldn’t be worth nothin’ to ‘em.

“Thanks, kiddo!” The punk tells him. “Now, didn’t you say this was your stop?”

They throw him out of the car, onto the platform, just as the doors are closing. He can hear their laughter behind him, and a moment later, the train is gone.

The concrete beneath him is freezing against his naked palms and the worn-through holes at the knees of his jeans.

For a long time, Ash just sits there like that.

He can hear it up top, on the street, the wind whistling down through the exit and into the tunnel, carrying the cold with it. He starts to shake, an already painful sting bleeding through the thin layers of his clothing.

When he finally pushes himself up, his palms are scrapped bloody from the impact. He bites his lip, hard, willing back the tears threatening in his eyes.

Wasn’t no use crying.

He glances around for a clock. Finds one. It’s a quarter past one in the morning. If he gets back on the train, he could get mugged again, but this time he won’t have no money. Doesn’t know what would happen, then, so he thinks he better not. Nowhere to stay, then, to keep out of the cold. He’s fucked, he thinks.

He meanders around the station for a while. Tries one of the public bathrooms. It’s damp and dark, the wind from up top seeping in through the swinging door, turning the space colder than out on the platform. He can’t stay here, he knows.

Doesn’t know where to go.

Finally he makes his way back up to the street.

It’s like walking into a wall of knives, the cold cuts so sharp and deep. Ash folds his arms around himself, sticks his hands under his armpits, tries burying his face against his shoulder, but nothing really helps, lungs burning with frigid air. He’s got to get out of this. Some place. Any place.

He’s come up onto 57th, near Central Park South. The park seems like an even worse idea than the subway, but he doesn’t know where else to go.

There’s some dive bars still open, but not for long. And anyway, Ash knows he wouldn’t be allowed to stay. He’s eleven fuckin’ years old. They’d throw him out, most like. ‘Cept maybe… maybe someone’d feel sorry enough for him to let him stay.

… Maybe he should go back to Club Cod and ask for his room.

The thought forces bile up into his throat. For an instant, Ash thinks he really might be sick. Not that it would really matter. Didn’t have no food in his stomach, no how.

He only gags a little, though, wiping at his mouth. He can’t stop shaking, the tips of his fingers and toes numb and pained, his nose aching viciously, won’t stop running.

He wanders into the park, knowing it’s a stupid move, but Billy and the others sometimes came here, when they couldn’t get into a shelter, and Ash hopes maybe he’ll find ‘em.

He makes his way toward the spot they’d usually be, but he knows soon enough they ain’t there.

The park is empty and silent and black well beyond his vision, the glow of the lamps lining the walking paths obscured and vague through the dense fog.

Ash licks his lips, a sick worry dropping down into his guts.

Nobody was out here tonight.

Nobody was dumb enough. Not even the stalkers and pervs and muggers.

Guesses it was just him then. Just him who was dumb and desperate enough.

He makes his way back to the street. He starts to cry. It’s pathetic, but he can’t help it.

He’s gonna’ die if he can’t find somewhere warm.

He stumbles along for a couple more blocks before he can’t make it any farther, huddling beneath a storefront awning.

There’s a bar across the street, open, by the looks of it, but nobody’s hanging around out front.

It’s his only option, now, and so he takes it, hurrying to the other side. Even if he only gets a few minutes of warmth, it’s better than nothin’.

Walking in, he gets blasted by a wall of heat. The relief is almost enough to make him start crying again, and he finds himself suddenly sapped of energy, sagging against the wall closest to the entrance, limbs stiff and frigid.

It takes him too long to really notice his surroundings, and when he finally does, he feels his stomach turn.

It’s a strip joint.

There’s a stage in the room’s center, chintzy lighting effects illuminating it in regulated patterns of blue and white flashes, the rest of the space shadowy by comparison, hazy and dreamlike, a thick malaise of cigarette and cigar smoke filling the air. Music pumps through the overhead speakers, monotonous and irritating in its predictability, the stench of liquor everywhere. There’s only a couple of patrons sitting around the stage. Overweight pigs who can barely pretend at being interested in the woman prancing around more than half-naked in front of them.

Ash stares up at her, and feels himself start with recognition.

He knows her.

One of the girls that works the streets out there with him. She calls herself Betty Boop, but her real name’s Beatrix. Not that he would say anything. Ash ain’t his real name, either. Griff called him Ash. Papa’s the one that added Lynx to the end ‘a that, ‘cause he said that’s what Ash reminded him of. A lynx.

He didn’t know she worked as a stripper too, but it makes sense, for nights like this, when workin’ the streets wasn’t really an option. Ash would do it too, ‘cept nobody would hire him for that kinda’ work. Not if they were runnin’ a ‘legitimate’ business, anyway. Places like Club Cod, though, he was naked more often than not. Only he didn’t get paid for it. He didn’t get nothin’ for his hard work, there, ‘cept the privilege of not dying.

He was lucky they let him out at all. Was lucky, he guesses, that Papa had taken him out of being a regular there. He only had to work when there was a special client needed takin’ care of.

He shakes his head, his throat tight. He doesn’t want to think on that. Doesn’t want to think of that place.

Nobody’s noticed him yet. He hopes he can keep it that way for a while. He doesn’t want to go back out there, into the cold.

So he stays where he is, and waits, and eventually, Beatrix comes off the stage, disappearing into the back. None ‘a the pigs even gave her any cash, fuckin’ bastards. Ash thinks, if he had any left, he’d give her a few dollars at least.

It’s maybe another five minutes, and still nobody’s spotted him, when he sees Beatrix again, comin’ out of the back, dressed in regular clothes and heading for the exit, right where he’s standing.

Ash feels frozen, then, not knowing what to do. She’s gonna’ see him, and he doesn’t know what will happen if she does. Doesn’t think he wants her to.

But he can’t move, and he sees the moment she recognizes him, her eyes going wide.

“Hey… Ash?”

Ash just stares up at her, not knowing what to say, his voice at once lodged in his throat.

“Honey… what are you doin’ here?” Beatrix looks around, worried, it seems like, that someone will spot him.

Ash looks away finally, shrugging weakly.

“… Just stumbled in, I guess.” He mutters. “Didn’t know you worked here.”

Beatrix looks back at him, mouth twisted into a frown. She’s got that look again. The one that Ash knows means she’s feelin’ sorry for him. The one he knows means she’s worried about him. He wishes she wouldn’t bother. Wasn’t like he was worth it.

“Oh, honey, ain’t you got no place to stay tonight?”

Ash keeps his eyes away, shaking his head.

“… Missed out on the shelters.” He mutters again, folding his arms around himself tighter.

“… You can’t stay here, hon. You’re too young. They’ll have to throw you out, soon as they notice you here.”

“… Yeah. I know.”

“Were you workin’? Out in this weather?”

Ash nods, feels his throat close up.

“Oh, sweetie…”

“I’m alright. I’m fine. I’ll leave soon. You don’t gotta’ worry. If you’re scared they’ll think you let me in or…”

“Ash, I don’t care about that. Look… I can’t let you go back out there, knowin’ you’ve got no place. You’ll freeze to death.”

“I’m alright.” Ash insists again.

“Nah uh. Ash… listen… why don’t you come with me for the night? I’ve got an apartment. My man’s gone for the week, out of town. You should be okay to come by and crash there.”

For a moment, there’s a thrill of dread through Ash’s guts. The thought of being locked in an apartment with one of them pimps. The ones that were always tryin’ to snag him. He couldn’t think of a worse situation to find himself in. It hardly registers to him an instant later that Beatrix said her man was gone for the week. But what if she was wrong? He knew how the pimps treated their women. Like they were property. Like they belonged to ‘em. Like how Papa treated him.

What if her man came home while he was there?

Ash guesses she must see the worry on his face, ‘cause she comes up to him then, reaches out and takes his hand.

“He won’t be back tonight, honey. I promise. You’ll be okay.”

Ash hesitates.

He knows he can’t really afford to turn her down. He knows he’s lucky, that he would have the chance at all for a warm place to stay tonight, when he’d been sure less than twenty minutes ago that he could die if he spent much longer out in the streets.

And so he shoves down the uncertainty and fear threatening to choke him, and nods weakly.

“… Thank you.” He whispers, and Beatrix just smiles, squeezing his hand.

“Come on. Let’s get you someplace less disgusting than this, huh?”

Ash snorts a laugh.

“S���not so bad.” He says. “Not compared to some places.”

He doesn’t elaborate on that, though. Wouldn’t be no point. Doesn’t wanna’ ruin Beatrix’s night any more than he already has.

“If you say so, sweetheart.” Beatrix smiles, still holding his hand. “You didn’t… I mean… when I was up there?”

Ash shrugs, looking away.

“I seen a lotta’ stuff. It’s alright.”

“Oh, Jeez, Ash, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“I’m alright.” He repeats.

What the hell was he gonna’ tell her? Seeing a naked woman wasn’t anything new. Women had raped him. Clients at Club Cod.

Beatrix doesn’t say anything else after that, and he doesn’t either, just follows her out of the club and to her car, parked across the street.

It feels even colder than it did before, but Ash guesses that could just be ‘cause he got a little warmth. Whatever it is, he’s just happy when they get inside her car. He reaches out, pressing his frozen fingers against the vents blowing hot air.

He stares out the window as she pulls out, watching the falling snow as it comes down harder than before, beginning to whip past in a dizzying, blinding wash of white. It’s quiet. Now that he’s out of the cold, almost peaceful, and he can feel the exhaustion starting to weigh down on him.

He feels relief when they finally make it to her apartment, and he follows close behind as they make their way up the stares of the tenement complex.

“That damn elevator’s always out.” Beatrix mutters as they trudge their way up. “We’re almost there, hon.”

“… It’s alright.” Ash tells her, even though, by the time they make it to her floor, his lungs are burning a little, his legs weak and shaky beneath him. He tries to hide it, but he don’t think he does a very good job with the way Beatrix keeps eyein’ him.

“Here we are. I know it’s not much, but it’s clean and warm.”

Ash looks around and thinks about tellin’ her that, to him, it’s like a fuckin’ luxury hotel room compared to some ‘a the places he’s had to stay before. But he only shakes his head and tells her it’s great, and he means it.

“Bathroom’s right down that hall and to the left.” She points. “If ya want to get cleaned up, there’s fresh towels in there. I don’t really have any clothes that’ll fit you though, darling. I’m sorry.”

Ash shakes his head.

“S’alright.” He says. “Can… can I take a shower?”

“Of course. Take all the time you need.”

Ash thanks her again before making his way down the hall.

He knows if her man was here, he’d never feel comfortable enough for this. But it’s just Beatrix, and he knows she understands. Knows she goes through the same hell each night he does.

He’s still cold from the outside, and it’s almost painful when he steps under the warm spray of water, the tips of his fingers and toes burning. It’s only a few seconds before it turns pleasant, though, and Ash sags in relief against the stall, the lids of his eyes drooping closed.

He’s so tired. He just wants to go to sleep.

Sometimes… sometimes he thinks… he’d like to fall asleep and never wake up.

He shoves the thought out of his mind as he steps from the shower, drying himself off and dressing quickly. He’s happy at least to be out of his wet jacket and shoes, keeping his feet bare as he makes his way out of the bathroom and back down the hall to the living room.

He stops at the threshold, uncertain as he spots Beatrix moving around the small kitchen space, heating up what looks like TV dinners in a microwave.

“Oh, Ash!” She at last notices him standing there. She smiles at him. “Was the shower alright?”

Ash nods, finally moving forward.

“That’s good.” She keeps smiling. “I don’t know if you’re hungry, darling, but I heated up some tv dinners, if you want to eat. It’s nothing special, but…” she shrugs, holding the plastic trays up for him to see.

Ash feels his stomach squeeze and cramp, letting out a loud growl as the smell of the food hits him, his face warming in embarrassment.

He hasn’t really eaten in two days.

“I guess that’s a yes, then?” Beatrix laughs. “Come here, you can eat at the table. I’ve got some orange juice too, if you like?”

Ash swallows, hesitating a moment before moving to the small, fold out table near the kitchen, pulling out one of the vinyl backed chairs.

“O-okay.” He agrees. “Thanks… th-thanks…”

“Of course, sweetie.” Beatrix smiles again, placing one of the dinners in front of him, along with a fork. Ash watches her as she takes out a glass from one of the cabinets then, and a pitcher of juice from the fridge. He suddenly feels parched, swallowing dryly, his throat clicking. He thanks her again as she hands him the glass.

“So,” she starts, sitting across from him. “you doin’ okay, Ash? How come you didn’t have no place to stay?”

Ash digs at his food, keeping his eyes fixed down. He shrugs.

“What about renting a room?”

“… Got robbed.” Ash mumbles, still looking away.

“Oh, baby… I’m sorry. Are you alright? I guess that’s a stupid question. Of course you aren’t.”

Ash shakes his head, beginning to eat.

“I’m alright.”

For a long moment, Beatrix doesn’t say anything, and Ash is happy to concentrate on his food. He hopes she’ll drop it.

“I can give you some cash, if…”

Ash immediately shakes his head no.

“No, I’m alright. I don’t need your money.”

“But…”

“Besides, your man’ll be mad if you’re short, won’t he?”

The room goes quiet then, and finally Ash looks up at her, sees her mouth pulled into a tight frown.

“… I’m sorry.” He hurries to apologize. “I shouldn’t ‘a just assumed…”

“No,” Beatrix shakes her head. “it’s alright. You’re right. It’s not really my money to just… give away.”

Ash feels shitty, then. Feels like a jerk.

“It should be.” He blurts. “You’re the one doin’ all the work for it.”

Beatrix laughs at that.

“You’re sweet.” She smiles, reaching out, ruffling his hair.

“No I ain’t…” Ash ducks away, turning his face aside. “I ain’t sweet.”

“You are. You’re a good kid.” She insists. “It’s not right, you livin’ this life.”

Ash scowls, dropping his fork.

“It’s my life.” He spits.

Beatrix pulls her hand back, frowning, her face confused.

Ash thinks of Dad. Thinks of what he told him. ‘Make sure you get paid’, he’d said.

Like it was natural.

Like it was natural for what happened to have happened.

Like it was what was meant for him.

Papa told him so too. Papa told him he was made for this. Told him he was perfect for it.

He can’t explain all that to Beatrix, though. Can’t make her understand.

This was his life. It was the only life he was ever gonna’ have. Only life he was ever meant to have.

He wasn’t sweet.

He was a filthy whore, was what he was.

He belonged on the street. He belonged in this life.

His eyes burn. He wipes clumsily at them with the back of his hand.

“I’m tired.” He mutters. “Can I go to sleep?”

“Yeah, of course. Of course, Ash.” Beatrix tells him. “Here, I’ve… I’ve got a futon. Lemme’ just set it up for you.”

Ash feels bad. He shouldn’t ‘a snapped at her like that. Wasn’t her fault. She was just tryin’ to be nice. Just bein’ kind. She didn’t know him. Didn’t know what he was. Where he came from. He feels like shit.

He watches as she folds the bed out from the ratty looking couch, sets it up with a blanket and pillow.

“There you go, hon.” She smiles at him again. “Hope it’s not too uncomfortable.”

“… Thank you.” Ash whispers. Can’t look at her now. Feels like such an asshole. “I’m sorry. I’m just causin’ you trouble.”

“No you ain’t, Ash. It’s alright. Come on. Get some sleep. Don’t worry about anything.”

Ash don’t argue. He can barely keep his eyes open. By the time he gets to lyin’ down and Beatrix has turned the lights out, it’s barely a few minutes before he’s lost to the world, pulled down deep into black dreams.

//

“I’ll pay you back the next time I see you.” Ash promises come daylight. Beatrix tries to tell him he doesn’t have to, but Ash has learned it’s best not to owe anyone any favors, if he can help it. So he keeps insisting until she accepts, and then he’s gone, back out onto the streets.

He takes the subway back to 42nd. Billy’s there, loitering around in front of the peep shows. Ash makes his way toward him.

“Hey, there you are, man!” Billy greets. He slings his arm around Ash’s shoulders, pulling him in against his side and rubbing his knuckles against his scalp. Ash tries pulling away, but Billy doesn’t let him. “I thought you might’ve bought it last night, kid. Man, it was cold.”

“It’s still cold.” Ash grumbles, annoyed.

Billy laughs.

“So, where’d you end up?” He asks, finally letting Ash go, pulling out a pack of cigs. He knocks one loose and holds it out.

“Thanks.” Ash takes it. He waits for Billy to light him up before answering. “I ran into Betty Boop and she let me crash at her place.”

“Damn, lucky.” Billy laughs again.

“What about you and the guys?” Ash asks, takin’ a drag, letting the smoke seep out slow through his nose.

“Me and Zach made it into a shelter. Dunno’ ‘bout the others.” Billy tells him, takin’ his own drag.

Ash feels somethin’ sick slither through his guts at that. He hopes no one died.

“I wish it was summer.” Ash says.

“You say that now,” Billy answers. “but you’ll be just as miserable when it’s fuckin’ 90 with humidity.”

Ash frowns, takes another drag off his cig.

“Yeah, but at least I won’t have to worry ‘bout freezin’ to death at night.”

“True that.” Billy grins at him.

They stand there for a little while then, not sayin’ nothin’, and Ash hopes it’ll stay that way, but of course it doesn’t.

“So you stayed out workin’ last night. You crazy, man. I hope you at least made bank.”

Ash swallows, stares down at the cigarette between his fingers, flicks the ash from it. He shrugs.

“How much you make? You couldn’t afford a room?”

Ash brings the cigarette to his lips, sucks on it hard. The smoke burns down his throat.

He remembers the first time he smoked a cigarette. Billy’d given it to him. He’d felt like he was going to cough up one of his own lungs. He’d never tasted anything so disgusting. Like breathing in tar and fire. He guesses that’s what it was, really. Guesses you could get used to anything, after a while.

“I got robbed.” He admits finally, his face warming at it.

Billy scoffs like he knew he would.

“The fuck, man. How? You ridin’ the sub again? I told you not to do that shit.”

“I didn’t have no place...” Ash starts.

Billy cuffs him against the back of the head, and Ash stumbles forward a step, the blow leaving a dull throb through his skull. He doesn’t say nothin’. He was used to Billy hittin’ him now.

“How much you lose, man?”

Ash hesitates.

“… Eighty-three bucks.” He finally says.

He cringes, expecting another hit, but Billy just sighs, shakin’ his head.

“Dumbass. You ain’t never gonna’ make it out here.”

“I’ve made it three years already.” Ash sneers up at him.

“Yeah, ‘cause ‘a me.” Billy sneers back. “You little dweeb. You need a fuckin’ gun.

“… Can’t afford a gun.” Ash looks away, miserable.

“Look at you. You can’t weigh more’n sixty pounds soakin’ wet. You need a gun.”

“I said I can’t afford no gun. Lemme’ alone, Billy.”

“I could lend you the cash.”

“No.” Ash shakes his head.

“Why the hell not?”

“I don’t wanna’ owe no favors. Lemme’ alone.”

Billy tsks.

“You’re so fuckin’ suspicious Ash. The hell’s wrong with you? I’m offerin’ to help.”

“No you ain’t, Billy. You’re an opportunist. You’ll hold it over me ‘till I pay you back somehow.”

Ash sees Billy’s hand come up, but he ain’t fast enough to get outta’ the way. An instant later he’s on the ground, the taste of blood on his tongue, his lip pulsating in pain.

“What kinda’ kid talks like that?” Billy frowns down at him, shakin’ out his hand. “How old is you, Ash? Eleven? You’re the weirdest fuckin’ kid I ever met.”

Ash wipes at his bloody lip, stares at the bright red against his fingers.

He doesn’t say anything as he pushes himself to his feet, dusting the snow off his pants.

He dropped his cigarette. Great.

Billy keeps eyein’ him, and Ash wonders if he’ll hit him again.

He sniffs, wiping at his nose.

“Just leave me alone Billy.” He mutters. “I don’t wanna’ kill no one.”

“Why? You already did, didn’t ya?”

Ash’s eyes sting and he turns his face away.

“… I shouldn’t ‘a told you that.” He whispers to himself, but Billy hears him anyway.

“Yeah, well, you did, Ash. Whatch’u think? You can be better than the rest ‘a us?”

Ash wraps his arms around himself, vision blurring.

“… I ain’t better than no one.” He whispers again.

“Damn straight, you isn’t. You wanna’ make it out here, Ash, you gonna’ have to let go ‘a that soft touch you got.”

“Fuck you, Billy.” Ash spits, but Billy only laughs.

“You wanna’ busted nose to go with that lip?”

Ash doesn’t say nothin’.

He thinks of Griff. Thinks of how his brother used to hold him at night when he got scared ‘a the dark, or whatever. Thinks of how his brother was so kind.

He misses him so much.

“Pff, whatever, kid. I’m outta’ here. See ya around, I guess.”

Ash doesn’t watch him go. Wasn’t no point.

Guesses he better get to hookin’, if he wanted to eat. If he wanted some place to stay tonight.

He wipes at his nose, and doesn’t think about much at all as he trudges his way down the street to stand in his usual spot.

Link to my a03: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wbss21/works

[blowflyfag]

WWE SMACKDOWN MAGAZINE: SEPTEMBER 2005

MNM

“WE’RE GOING TO BE BIGGER THAN ELVIS”

By Keith Elliot Greenberg

You might say that MNM is rewriting history one snapshots at a time. Each time one of the paparazzi snaps their picture, it helps their star shine just a little bit brighter. In fact, they enjoy having their picture taken so much that they named their fishing move the Snapshot. And similarly, every time they nail the move, it brings them one step closer to becoming one of the greatest tag teams of all time.

With each victory, the trio becomes more and more resentful of those who apparently dismissed MNM as a fad that would soon fade. In the August issue of Smackdown! Magazine, Nitro said, “We're going to be bigger than Elvis, bigger than the Beatles.”

When you make statements as pompous as that, it’s understood that many will root against you. But MNM expected contempt from opponents, as well as the fans they’d derided as “too weird, too fat, too stupid, too scared, or too damn normal.” Now the trio believes their harshest detractors are the same journalists and paparazzi profiting from covering the electrifying new tag team.

“I have plenty of admirers in high places who’ve told me what these weasel journalists utter behind our backs,” Melina says. “I heard that some even started a pool over whether we’d be on a losing streak by the time the August issue of SmackDown! On sale–and guess who’s on the cover?” 

To a degree, Melina’s self-righteousness is reasonable. After all, many observers initially tagged MNM as the team more famous for its look than anything else. Even before their first match on SmackDown!, MNM was trailed by photographers more intrigued by the threesomes' unique appearance than its achievements.

When Nitro & Mercury captured the WWE Tag Team Championship in their very first match, the popular consensus was that the gold would slip through their fingers right away. They were too arrogant, too shallow and too inexperienced to remain at the top of the tag team ranks. Somehow, MNM proved all their critics wrong. And, now, when the paparazzi appear, there’s a legitimate reason why the pictures are in such great demand. 

In April, the team came out of nowhere and captured the titles from Eddie Guerrero & Rey Mysterio–two proud Latino stars not accustomed to getting bested by untested talent. Although tensions had been simmering between Guerrero & Mysterio already, the loss sent their relationship into a tailspin. The two were soon bitter enemies, and when they reconciled for one night to challenge for MNM’s championship, the result was disastrous.

In the aftermath, Mysterio was plagued by troubling doubts, while Guerrero appeared to be possessed by demons. Meanwhile, MNM’s light only burned brighter. 

“That’s what we do,” Melina says, “We take the icons you people have chosen to worship, and we reduce them to nothing. We’re competitors, baby. And when you compete, some people lose and some people win.” “We happen to choose the latter.”

That was made abundantly clear when MNM tangled with Heidenreich and his new “friend,” Road Warrior Animal. The cocky young tag team held their ground against Animal–at one time one-half of perhaps the greatest tag team ever-refusing to be intimidated by his legendary status.

“The Road Warriors, The Midnight Express, The British Bulldogs, The Dudley Boyz, all those tag teams everyone talks about as being so great,” Melina says. “Yeah, they were probably all right in their day, but that’s the past. This is now. MNM is the tag team of the present, and of the future. Deal with it.” For Melina, that aggressive spirit extends outside the realm of tag team combat. Repelled by the notion that her fellow WWE Divas are paragons of beauty, Melina has used both violent language and sadistic behavior to diminish their status.

In one memorable confrontation with Michelle McCool, Melina actually asked her boys to remain backstage. Melina then tore into the athletic blonde with an aptitude that matched the newcomer’s managerial abilities. In the end, Melina survived a dropkick and a spear. But as her opponents straddled the ropes, punching downward, Melina shook off the bows, snatched Michelle, and defeated her with a powerbomb. 

Even among MNM’s enemies, there were immediate comparison to other females who established themselves in WWE as managers, but ultimately transcended the role.

Today, for instance, few recall that Trish Stratus actually entered WWE as the manager of T&A–the hulking duo of Albert (later A-Train) and Test. Like Melina, Trish drew fans with her good looks, but she had greater ambitions. After she struck out on her own, she dominated the Women’s Division.

Parallels have also been made to Sunny, the stunning cover girl who shepherded several teams to tag team gold in the mid-1990s. In the process, she gained a reputation as a woman who pretty much attained anything she desired. 

Others theorize that Melina’s career may most closely resemble that of Sensational Sherri. At different stages, Sherri managed Shawn Michaels, Randy Savage and Ric Flair, and also held the Women’s Championship.

Yet, those who focus on Melina fall into the trap MNM hopes to set–diverting opponents away from the strengths and weaknesses of Nitro & Mercury.

Mercury all but admitted this recently when he told a reporter, “While our opponents are busy thinking about Melina, talking about Melina, and, yes, fantasizing about Melina, Johnny and I can pretty much step into that ring and do whatever we want to them.”

Because of their early success, Nitro &N Mercury’s potential is sometimes compared with the records of other WWE newcomers who swiftly rocket to the top of their profession. But such comparisons mean little to them.

“We hear people comparing us to guys from back in the day like Kerry Von Erich, because he burst on the scene and won the Intercontinental title right away,” Mercury says. “But those people just don’t get it. Bon Erich already established himself years before when he beat Ric Flair for the NWA title. Unlike the ‘Texas Tornado,’ we walked into WWE cold. We came out of nowhere and shocked all the so-called experts.”

“I mean, sure there were Superstars like Kurt Angle and Brock Lesnar who came here and won titles right off the bat, but even those guys didn’t do what we did,” Nitro says. “Angle was an Olympic gold medalist; Lesnar was an NCAA Champion. WWE fans had no idea who we were that first night, when we debuted in Madison Square Garden. But we changed all that by winning the WWE Tag team titles that same night. Now, everyone knows who we are.” Perhaps it’s more appropriate to measure MNM next to Carlito, who won the U.S. Championship in his first SmackDown! match, or Christian, who earned the Light Heavyweight title in his WWE debut. Both came out of nowhere and very quickly grabbed the spotlight. And in both their cases, they have remained among WWE’s elite ever since.

“To all those people who say we got lucky, I have news for you,” Nitro says. “We were lucky the day we were born. Not everyone is blessed with the attributes we were given. And that’s too bad. But nobody says that life is fair. It’s not really our fault if we’re perfect in an imperfect world.”

It’s an attitude MNM carries on the red carpet and , as the results have shown, into the ring as well.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls AU WRH, LQR, and LN go on a nighthunting adventure! It be really cool to see WRH get in a situation in said adventure where he has to rely on LQR’s cultivation/LQR in general because he got KOed. (Not killed thou plz ;-;)

The Greed Is The Unraveling - Chapter 1 - ao3

“Don’t cough blood on me,” Lan Qiren said, voice as prim and proper as it had ever been.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Wen Ruohan replied, teeth clenched and brow furrowed as he fought off the pain. Blood leaked out from the corner of his mouth despite his words. “I suppose the stain of red on white is terribly hard to get out.”

His tone was bitter, angry, and he was probably making some sort of very clever metaphorical point, given the Lan sect’s white robes and Wen sect’s emblem of red and white.

But –

“Actually, blood dries brown,” Lan Qiren corrected him, unable to stop himself, and tried to let the incredulous look Wen Ruohan shot him slide off his back. He was moderately used to people reacting that way by now. “Also, Lan sect robes are embroidered with a number of arrays designed to promote cleanliness, so it wouldn’t actually stain…”

“Lan Qiren.”

The words were spat out through gritted teeth, the tone of voice strongly suggesting that Lan Qiren shut up.

Lan Qiren obediently shut up.

They continued to make their way through the forest. Wen Ruohan was leaning heavily on Lan Qiren’s shoulder, one foot dragging behind, the arm not looped over Lan Qiren’s shoulders wrapped around his midsection – he was very badly injured, although Lan Qiren could not say to what degree. They had not had time to stop for any medical care but the most immediate. If Wen Ruohan were concerned about the state of Lan Qiren’s robes, it had already become a lost cause long ago.

“All right,” Wen Ruohan said after a long while of tense, seething silence. “Tell me.”

Lan Qiren looked at him sidelong, wondering if the loss of blood had led to hallucinations. They had not been having an ongoing conversation.

“You told me not to cough blood on you,” Wen Ruohan clarified. “But not because you want to preserve your pretty white robes. If that’s not the reason, then what is?”

“Oh,” Lan Qiren said. “I just meant…”

“Well?”

“Well, it’s not healthy, is it? With as much blood as you’ve lost, you need to keep as much of it on the inside as possible.”

Wen Ruohan went silent again, although now the tenor of the silence was a little more in the astonished and somewhat disbelieving vein.

Lan Qiren was used to that, too.

After another long pause, Wen Ruohan finally spoke again. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” Lan Qiren said.

“Nineteen,” Wen Ruohan echoed. “I suppose that explains it.”

Lan Qiren wasn’t sure he understood what, exactly, was meant to be explained.

“I think we can stop now,” Wen Ruohan added, sounding lofty and condescending as if they’d only continued this far for Lan Qiren’s benefit – as if he weren’t the one who was leaning more and more heavily on Lan Qiren, as if his pace hadn’t been the one that had been getting slower and slower. “I think we’ve lost them.”

“We’re also in the middle of nowhere,” Lan Qiren objected. “We should at least make it to the foothills and find a cave. What if it rains?”

“It will rain. I’ve already summoned the clouds – we need to hide our footprints.”

“All the more reason to find shelter, then.”

Wen Ruohan looked frustrated. “Build one, then.”

“I don’t know how,” Lan Qiren said honestly, and Wen Ruohan looked even more annoyed. “I’m a young master of a Great Sect. No one ever taught me how to build shelters from branches. A cave is a better bet.”

“Do you want me to admit it?” Wen Ruohan spat, and Lan Qiren startled at the venom in his tone. “Fine, have it your way. I can’t make it any further!”

“Oh,” Lan Qiren said, and felt relieved. He’d been hoping Wen Ruohan would bend his foolish pride and agree to receive assistance for the last half-shichen at least. “That’s fine. I’m still all right.”

Now that they were agreed, he pulled Wen Ruohan off his shoulder and hoisted him up on his back in a single motion, a technique he’d mostly gotten used to with his cousins back in the Lan sect – Lan Yueheng’s early experiments with alchemy had often left him dizzy, and Lan Qiren had grown used to returning him to his quarters while carting him on his back.

Wen Ruohan was a bit more cumbersome, but not by much. Lan Qiren was able to pick up the pace considerably.

“What are you…are you carrying me?” Wen Ruohan asked belatedly. “On your back? Like a child?”

A moment’s pause.

“Are we going faster now?”

Lan Qiren stayed quiet.

Wen Ruohan struggled with himself for a while, then finally burst out with – “Then why didn’t you suggest it earlier?!”

“I didn’t want to offend you,” Lan Qiren said, relieved that they had gotten through the awkwardness of a social interaction without anyone being mortally insulted. “It seemed like something you’d object to. Strenuously, even. I’m glad we’ve gotten over that.”

“…have we.”

Lan Qiren craned his neck backwards for a moment, unsure of what Wen Ruohan seemed to be hinting at, but the other man unhelpfully pressed his lips together and refused to say anything the entire rest of their journey to the foothills, even when Lan Qiren needed to spend some time investigating until he found a suitable cave without any existing inhabitant that might try to bite their heads off. It was late and had started raining by then; they were both utterly drenched by the time they managed to find a safe place.

Lan Qiren wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep.

Naturally, that was when Wen Ruohan decided to speak up again.

“Why did you assist me?”

At first, Lan Qiren did not understand. “I thought we covered that,” he said, puzzled. “You couldn’t walk, and I could –”

“Not with walking.” Wen Ruohan’s voice was as cold as ice, and sharp as a whip. “If you had stood aside and done nothing, I would be dead even now. I expected to be dead. I am not. I would know why.”

Lan Qiren hadn’t been expecting that.

“Our sects are not allies,” Wen Ruohan continued, implacable and unmoved. “Nor do we have a personal relationship – I don’t think we’ve even exchanged more than five words before today. You are nineteen, the second young master of the Lan sect, soon to be its heir once your father retires from public life and your brother ascends to the position of Sect Leader Lan, and I am Sect Leader Wen, with everything that name connotes. We may not be so far apart as night and day, but one could certainly make a compelling argument for dawn and dusk. Why did you help me?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Lan Qiren asked in return, helpless. He didn’t know what to say. “I mean, those people, they were trying to kill you!”

“I am well aware of that. What I want to know is why you chose not to let them succeed.”

Lan Qiren faltered, remembering the solemn faces of those strangers that had come in with such force: a black-clothed young man with eyes that crackled red with demonic power, with a Lan sect disciple beside him, tall and straight-backed with classic Lan features, clearly one of Lan Qiren’s kinsmen and yet not anyone he recognized; the young man in black had called him only Lan Zhan, a given name, and that could have belonged to any number of people. They had seemed terribly determined, acting with resolution and absolutely no hesitation.

Their attack had taken Wen Ruohan completely by surprise. It was not wrong to say that if Lan Qiren hadn’t acted when he did, as he did, Wen Ruohan would indeed be dead at this very moment. Never mind helping the strangers, as they’d oddly seemed almost to expect when he’d risen to his feet, but even if he’d simply refrained from acting, that would have been enough. But he hadn’t done that.

Instead, he’d…

“I couldn’t let them kill you,” Lan Qiren said. “You haven’t done anything – well, no, that’s not right, you’ve done rather a lot that might call for it, actually. And one can’t say that you’ve avoided evil paths, or behaved righteously in a consistent manner, I mean, just that Fire Palace of yours alone is fairly damning and all of that’s putting aside any political considerations there might be for…what was I saying?”

“You were talking yourself into explaining why it wouldn’t have been so bad for me to be killed, I believe,” Wen Ruohan said dryly, but the icy feeling from earlier was fading. “Quite effectively.”

Lan Qiren shook his head to clear his thoughts. “The rules say Love all beings.”

“They also say Stay away from evil men.”

“Uphold the value of justice.”

“Who’s to say that justice wasn’t on their side?”

Lan Qiren didn’t know what to say to that.

“I just couldn’t,” he finally said, lacking anything cleverer to say. “It seemed wrong.”

His brother hadn’t lifted a finger in Wen Ruohan’s defense, and neither had his father. Lao Nie probably would have if he’d been there, but he’d been called away by something extremely urgent related to his sect, something involving one of the sect disciples and a fierce corpse (or possibly two?), though there hadn’t been many details. But Lao Nie did have a personal connection with Wen Ruohan, which Lan Qiren certainly did not, and everyone said that the Nie sect was likely to establish a formal alliance with the Wen one of these days. One could argue that the Lan sect, as an ally of the Nie, might have an obligation to the ally of their ally, but that was a tenuous enough link, and to balance it out there was that strangely familiar-yet-not Lan sect disciple among the attackers, with just as strong a call to Lan Qiren’s loyalty if you looked at it objetively…

But Wen Ruohan had truly done nothing to any of those attackers, as far as Lan Qiren knew, and the idea of simply sitting there and doing nothing – of letting the other man just die, when he could do something to prevent it – was simply unthinkable.

“I don’t know why I helped you,” Lan Qiren finally admitted. “I just…did.”

“Do not act impulsively,” Wen Ruohan quoted at him, and Lan Qiren winced. “Well, whatever may have motivated you, I am in your debt, and I will surely find a way to repay it, with interest.”

That sounded oddly like a threat.

“I don’t need anything –”

“Oh no,” Wen Ruohan said. “I insist.”

The ice had faded out of his tone entirely by this point, and he sounded rather smug, if anything, which was ridiculous. They were both completely bedraggled, each one drenched through and through, Wen Ruohan injured and Lan Qiren tired and neither of them expecting any support or backup; they weren’t in any position to be smug about anything. If it weren’t for the fire Lan Qiren had built to warm them and the drying arrays in his robes, which he only knew how to activate after having spent years in his childhood hiding away in small dark spaces to avoid talking to anyone and ending up in the laundry listening to the washerwomen chatter, they would probably be too cold to even have this conversation – their teeth would have been chattering too much. As it was, Lan Qiren still had to remove his outer robe and wrap it around them both. It was an uncomfortable sort of intimacy, though strangely less unpleasant than most times he’d had to make physical contact with another person.

“I didn’t get to my current position through sitting around and waiting for people to attack me,” Wen Ruohan added, his eyes lit up with a fire that Lan Qiren had never seen in him before; if anything, Wen Ruohan usually tended to give off the impression of being thoroughly indolent and even lugubrious in everything he did. The unexpected infusion of vigor made him seem a full century younger, as if he were the one who was nineteen and Lan Qiren the old man. “They will regret their actions, each and every one of them.”

Lan Qiren had the sinking feeling that Wen Ruohan wasn’t just referring to the strangers, but to the others that had been there at the discussion conference. The ones who’d done nothing to help.

Like his father and brother.

“But there must be balance in all things. Just as I lift my hand in vengeance against those that turned against me, I also never fail to reward those that chose to back me, returning favor with favor in turn –”

Lan Qiren was suddenly aware of how close together they were pressed, Wen Ruohan’s form a shocking line of heat running right up and down his side from his shoulder to his hip to his knee. Huddled as they were under his outer layer, with only Lan Qiren’s wet inner layers left to him, it felt almost as if they were wearing nothing at all.

Lan Qiren had actually been intending on suggesting that they both strip down the rest of the way in order to put their inner robes near the fire to dry, thinking no more of it than he would have if it had been Lan Yueheng beside him, but suddenly he felt his face and ears go red for no reason at all.

Maybe it had something to do with the way Wen Ruohan’s voice had suddenly dropped low, deep and meaningful and right in Lan Qiren’s ear.

He swallowed.

“Don’t waste your time with that,” he said, reaching for sternness and coming up short – he was only nineteen, in the end, and only a disfavored second young master; he was not yet accustomed to being authoritative. “You’re not in any condition for either favor or vengeance at the moment. Let me see where you’ve been hurt. You probably need new bandages.”

“We don’t have any left,” Wen Ruohan said. He was watching Lan Qiren’s face with a strange sort of intensity. “We’ll have to make do with something else…would you let me have your forehead ribbon?”

Lan Qiren flinched automatically at the thought. According to custom, only parents, children, and spouses could touch someone’s forehead ribbon. Technically the rules only prohibited using another’s ribbon without authorization, which could be granted, but to actually grant such a thing was tantamount to a declaration of intent. The mere idea made him go hot with embarrassment.

On the other hand, human life took precedence, always.

“…all right,” he said. “If you need it.”

Wen Ruohan smiled as if Lan Qiren had said something very important.

“Favor with favor,” he murmured, seemingly speaking to himself. “Measure to measure. I’ll have to find something fit to equal the favor you have given me – and that will be very difficult indeed.”

“I already told you, you really don’t have to –”

Wen Ruohan raised his hand and pressed two fingers to Lan Qiren’s lips, silencing him as effectively as any Lan sect spell ever had.

“As I said,” he said, his eyes dancing in the firelight of the dark night. “I insist.”

[bastardfae]

killed just now and disposed of, huh? despite himself, arnon scoffed in bitter amusement. so they got outta this easy enough, but he didn’t? the halfling was ready to interject but as tiernan continued, the words died in his throat. whilst he’d made no real attempt to prove his innocence to an undeniable degree, arnon still failed to see how he could truly be considered as a conspirator in any of this. he hadn’t imagined his inability to burn his father’s letters to result in an outcome like this and it was only now that he realised the severity and importance of abbán’s insistence that he do so. it took a moment for tiernan’s words to properly register, the halfling’s brow furrowing into a sharp frown as he tried to make sense of it all. “this better be some kind of sick joke,” he mumbled after a beat of silence, cutting his stare away from tiernan to try and ground his attention on something, anything, other than the councilman. death was the preferable option over perpetual servitude, least of all to someone like him. there had to be some kind of way out of this, some loophole, something. all the others that had been put on trial before him had faced the threat of execution and had come damn close to it, but this wasn’t an outcome arnon had known to exist. 

he winced involuntarily as tiernan’s grip registered, his gaze flickering back to meet the ghoul’s to scowl at him to the best of his ability despite the rising panic blossoming within him. it was a wasted effort, but arnon didn’t hesitate to attempt to shove tiernan’s hand away, squirming in his grasp to try and wriggle out of it. if the cell had felt small before, it felt positively microscopic now and all arnon wanted was to go home. he didn’t want to be here, didn’t want anything to do with any of the bastards above, nor the one before him. nothing about this was right. “lemme talk to kaden about this. i’m not going anywhere with you until then.” it was probably way out of kaden’s jurisdiction but that didn’t stop the need for a familiar face to be there for him through this feeling like any less of a necessity. the brief exchange they’d shared earlier had helped to reassure him slightly, but arnon needed him now more than ever. there had to be something he could do, surely? “can’t you just kill me instead? wouldn’t that be easier? i’ll do it myself if i have to.”

During the trial, Tiernan had briefly wondered whether or not he was actually going to win, so he was relieved when the guilty verdict came in. What had put a twist on the events of the day was the actual killer -- or perhaps one of them -- had broken into the courtroom and was immediately taken down. It had put a slight kink in Tiernan's accusation, but the guilty verdict still stood. The Council weren't taking any risks, and it was clear that Arnon was someone with a short fuse and a rather large negative opinion when it came to the Council members. He still could have been part of whatever plan was brewing; Tiernan very much doubted the perpetrator had acted completely alone.

The Irishman made his way to Arnon's holding cell, pleased that his alternative punishment hadn't been objected to. The guards opened the door and Tiernan stepped inside, standing over the halfling who had pressed himself as far back as he could, clearly not wanting to be anywhere near anyone. "Oh, the person who took a shot at me is dead. Killed just now and disposed of, but we aren't convinced you weren't involved somehow. So, we've decided that you will belong to me. There are some formalities to put in place before I can outright claim you, but you will be a slave and I will be renting you on a permanent basis until I can claim you," Tiernan explained with a smile. "And we're going to have so much fun together," he added, bending down to take firm hold of Arnon's jaw, tilting his head up towards him. "You ready to see your new home?"

[twilight-orchid]

How The Demon Brothers React After Fighting With Their SO

tw: some angst with resolution at the end, mentions of past arguments, insecurity.

Lucifer:

This man is petty as hell.

He doesn’t do the silent treatment, but he acts like you aren’t dating.

If you need to work on something together, you’re a co-worker.

At RAD you’re a classmate.

Around the house you’re just a housemate.

His poker face is immaculate and it will not crack when you’re around.

If someone didn’t know what was happening, they’d probably think you two barely knew each other.

However, you won’t notice, but as soon as you look the other way his eyes are on you.

He’s used to arguing with his brothers and is no stranger to explosive fights that end with he and the other person not being on speaking terms.

But you’re different.

He tries to go on with business as usual, but he can’t think about anything other than how much he misses you.

Yet, he lets it continue because he just can’t put his pride aside and apologize.

If you decide to sleep in your old room it’ll both hurt his feelings and royally piss him off.

He thinks you’re being childish and will be pretty rude about it, but that’s because internally his blood just ran cold.

It adds a degree of seriousness to the argument that he’s uncomfortable with.

Yes he’s mad, but he can’t lose you.

If you still sleep in his bed, he makes sure to scoot over to the very edge so he doesn’t cuddle you in his sleep.

In fact, the first night after the argument he’d probably put a pillow between you just to really punctuate the fact that he’s still upset.

I’d say it could go 4 days to a week tops without you making up.

After a point though, he just can’t function until the issue is resolved. He can’t sleep, he’s falling behind on his work, and he’s just generally not doing well.

You get called to his office one night and find him at his desk surrounded by piles of paper, disheveled and exhausted.

“MC, come sit down. I’d like to talk this through. Please.”

Mammon:

He’s so dramatic.

You dare defy him? The Great Mammon can’t believe this tiny fragile human would have the audacity.

The theatrics are just a front though.

His ‘The Great Mammon’ act is a mask for his insecurity, one he hasn’t had to use with you in awhile.

Even as the words leave his mouth he regrets them.

He’s going to be very uncomfortable with everything until the argument is resolved, but most of all himself.

He’s learned not to take his brothers too seriously when they toss insults his way, but words have a way of morphing to belief over time.

Internally he is going to be super hard on himself. 

Regardless of if the fight was his fault or not, he’s going to kick himself constantly for making yet another mistake.

He’s over the argument pretty fast. The anger quickly melts into anxiety.

Are you going to leave him? Do you hate him? Did he hurt your feelings? 

That being said, he doesn’t know if you’re still mad and he doesn’t know how to ask. 

As a defense mechanism, he defaults to how he treated you when you first arrived in the devildom.

Calls you human, disregards you, stuff like that.

If you decide to sleep in another room, before midnight expect him to be knocking on the door.

“Oi, MC. You awake? I just - I can’t - *sigh* Can we talk about this?”

If you sleep in his bed, he makes a point of sleeping with his back to you.

Less because he’s actually mad and more because he doesn’t want his image of you as he drifts to sleep to be a look of anger.

Though as soon as he passes out he’ll roll over and tuck you into his arms on instinct.

I’d say any after effects of an argument with Mammon would be resolved in a day, maybe two tops.

Leviathan:

Arguing activates his trolling the forums mode.

Goes back to calling you a normie and contradicts everything you say.

He’s less mad about the argument and more using the bitterness to cope with how upset he is.

He feels like a break up is less of an if and more of a when.

Why would someone as amazing as you settle for weird otaku like him?

Honestly doesn’t understand why you’re with him in the first place, so when there’s a serious argument he assumes its over.

Tbh don’t know how you and Levi would sleep together being that I doubt two could fit in a tub, but any deviation to your routine sends him into a panic.

It’s his reality check that the situation is serious and he needs to fix it NOW.

He’d have trouble apologizing in person. He can’t think of what to say, he stumbles over his words, and he feels like he’s on the verge of a panic attack.

Instead, expect a long ass text message.

He says how sorry he is, how much he misses and loves you, and legit begs you to forgive him.

If you sleep with him like normal, he’ll probably try to make up after laying there for awhile. His mind is going a million miles an hour and there’s no way he can sleep.

Still really has trouble verbalizing how he feels, so give the poor boy a break and take over the conversation.

He hasn’t had a serious relationship before and he doesn’t know what he should do to make it better.

So the after effects will last however long it takes him to read several mangas, watch some anime, and play a few games to see how the characters get over arguments in the story.

Satan:

Satan makes sure not to fight with you over minor issues.

He’s worked tirelessly to tame his wrath and he refuses to feed into it over a minor issue.

Thus, if you fight with Satan it’s a major argument and it’s explosive.

The aftermath isn’t much better.

He doesn’t want to risk blowing up again, so he’s frighteningly calm.

He’s an absolute master of the silent treatment.

He won’t say a word to you until he’s certain he’s calmed down enough.

For the first few days he’ll straight up leave a room if you enter.

For a good while the only way you can expect to communicate with him is through his body language and the expression in his eyes.

Satan’s biggest fear is losing control and lashing out at you. 

He couldn’t live with himself if he hurt you and he can’t stand the thought of you being afraid of him. 

He’s a whirlwind of emotions, so he isolates himself until he can figure out how to deal with it.

Not just from you, but from everyone else too. 

Satan will not share a bed with you for at least the first night.

If he got worked up enough to actually fight, it’s gonna take him time to simmer down.

And he’d rather not risk doing or saying something he regrets in the meantime.

Once he’s ready, he’ll approach you when he’s completely calmed down and has thoroughly analyzed the situation.

He’s considered both of your sides, tried to pinpoint what caused the disagreement to turn into a fight, and made a plan of action to prevent it from happening again.

“MC? I’ve been thinking quite a bit about what happened. Would you please talk it through with me?”

He won’t apologize for the argument if he feels like he was right, but he will apologize for letting the disagreement escalate into a fight.

Satan could go weeks without making up if necessary, but he tries to resolve it within a couple of days.

Asmodeus:

Wants to give you the silent treatment, but is physically incapable.

He can’t stand to have you ignore him.

He’s the type to go back to normal then suddenly remembers you guys had a fight.

“Wait, no! I’m not talking to you! I’m mad at you!”

His biggest downfall is that he’s so stubborn.

If he thinks he was right, he will die on that hill.

There are arguments with his brothers that happened a thousand years ago and he could still tell you exactly why he was right.

But with you, he realizes that doesn’t matter too him nearly as much as it usually does.

If it means going back to normal, he’ll forget who’s right or wrong.

If you sleep in another room, he’s beyond offended.

“What?! Well fine! I don’t want you in my bed anyway!”

Laying in bed alone is a different story though.

He can’t sleep. All he can think about is you. Your face when you sleep next to him, your smell, the feeling of his arms around you.

He 100% cries.

Finally goes and knocks on your door with wet, glossy eyes.

“MC? Can we talk about this? I can’t get my beauty sleep and my tears are wiping off all of my skin care lotion!”

Will throw himself into your arms before you can answer.

If you sleep next to him still, he rolls over and watches you sleep.

It puts him at peace and he decides seeing your sweet, resting face every morning is worth more to him than the argument.

He’ll initiate the conversation the next morning.

I think Asmo could make it a few days if it was a really serious argument, but he will not function well until you make up.

Beelzebub:

Wants to make up immediately.

He doesn’t like to argue, even less so with you.

Whether he was right or wrong, he blames himself. He’ll take all the blame in the world if it makes you happy.

He’ll go make you your favorite food and bring it to you.

If he thinks you don’t want to talk to him, he’ll leave it outside your door and text you to let you know it’s there.

He’s honestly devastated if you decide to sleep in another room.

You guys migrate to your old room when you want privacy from Belphie, but you almost never sleep separately.

Seeing you grab your pillows and march out of the room nearly stops his heart.

He goes completely numb and silent as he just stares at the space you had just occupied.

Like Levi, he thinks this means the relationship is over and he genuinely does not know what to do with himself.

He can’t even bring himself to eat, he just wants to lie there, lost and trying to grapple with his emotions. 

He’s another one who will absolutely cry, but unlike Asmo he will make sure no one knows it.

If you still sleep in his bed, he’s very nervous about it.

He doesn’t know if it’s okay to touch you, what he can or can’t say, stuff like that.

He just lays there stiff as a board not even able to close his eyes.

Honestly the fight would probably have to be resolved before bed. His anxiety just can’t take it.

I don’t think he’d initiate the apology. Not because he doesn’t want to make up but because his confidence is rock bottom in these situations.

He catastophizes and honestly thinks you hate him.

If you don’t initiate the apology soon, Belphie will. He can feel what his twin won’t say, and he knows Beel won’t approach you about it for fear of making it worse.

Belphie will lock you two in a room if that’s what it takes for you to make up.

Belphegor:

The embodiment of if looks could kill.

He won’t talk to you, won’t look at you, basically pretends you aren’t there.

If he must interact with you he’ll roll his eyes and sigh the whole time.

Tries to sleep through any interaction so he doesn’t have to deal with it.

He feels almost betrayed by the fight.

He thought the relationship was stronger than to have such a huge divide, so he’s really insecure about it.

After the first day, the anger has melted away to guilt.

He ‘s not guilty that you fought, but he is guilty about how he treated you after.

Guilt and self-blame have become unwelcome friends at this point. Guilt over Lilith, over his plans to destroy the human world, everything.

But more than anything else, the guilt for the fact that he attacked you weighs on him every day.

He moved past it quickly after, essentially pretending he hadn’t killed you, but that’s because he just couldn’t confront what he’d done. 

He feels like the luckiest demon alive that you forgave him, let alone  opened you heart enough to love him, and now it’s all in tatters.

Another thing to regret.

If you decide to sleep separately, it’ll hit him like a bag of bricks.

“You - what? Where are you going?” 

It’ll take him a second to process what you were doing, but then he’ll roll over and let you leave.

“Fine. Don’t let the door hit you.”

No one will see him for awhile. 

Belphie sleeps all the time anyway, but he just can’t make himself get out of bed.

If you don’t approach him to apologize, Beel will tell you that he’s been nauseous and randomly emotional which must mean his twin is coping very badly. 

Will beg you to go make Belphie happy again. 

If you sleep in his bed still, the argument will be resolved by morning.

He can’t keep himself from embracing you in his sleep, and it’s hard to say you’re mad at someone when you wake up in their loving arms.

It’s hard to pinpoint how long it could last with Belphie. If you don’t apologize first, he won’t let himself be conscious long enough to approach you.

This is both my first hc post as well as my first obey me post so I’m sorry if le boys are ooc. I just got this idea and couldn’t stop thinking about it so here we are.  Especially Belphie, he was hard to me for some reason. Let me know if you guys agree or disagree and if you want to send a request or ask, my box is open! 

[thememerman]

Can we just,.,.accept that both Crosshair and Hunter had their reasons for doing what they did?? And honestly neither of them really did anything wrong??

Hunter left Crosshair because he tried to kill them. He didn’t understand anything about the chip, he really thought Crosshair had just lost his mind. And as soon as he learned about it and how to fix it, we immediately jumped to episode 8 where Crosshair tried to incinerate them with a jet engine. He tried to communicate that the chip was affecting him, and Crosshair didn’t care. Hunter couldn’t even get himself or Omega out of that situation unharmed. He had no way to snag Crosshair from his squadron of stormtroopers out for murder. After Bracca, Hunter was focused on getting Omega back because she’s just a kid; she isn’t with the empire, she hasn’t been chasing them down and almost killing them. From Hunter’s POV, the possibility of getting Crosshair to come with them willingly or even at all is looking bleak and even though he knows it’s not Crosshair’s fault, he’s been so overwhelmed with trying to keep the people relying on him safe and right now he doesn’t think Crosshair is relying on him. And honestly, how were they even supposed to know where Crosshair was half the time? He wasn’t on Kamino 24/7 and the Batch isn’t exactly swimming in imperial informants. But that aside, of course he was thinking about Crosshair; Hunter is loyal to a fault and you can just see the emotional pain that flashes across his face whenever Crosshair is mentioned because that’s his little brother and he couldn’t save him and he feels like he failed. Hunter never was and I don’t think ever can be indifferent when it comes to the people he loves. Whether you like it or not, Hunter was trying his best to keep everyone safe and stop running suicide missions because the galaxy was changing and he was trying to change too. He did nothing wrong.

Now Crosshair.

To all of you calling him a Nazi and saying that the animators and writers intentionally lightened his skin just to make a racist show of dominance, stop it. He was referring to their genetic enhancements being superior. That’s it. He’s always hated regs because let’s be fair the regs were never exactly good to him either (AFTERMATH). Now let’s just take a look at how the chip works shall we!! We know from Rex and Wrecker that clones know what they’re doing while under control of the chip and they’re powerless to stop themselves. So we know in Aftermath that the chip was strengthened to an insane degree, and Crosshair could still see himself taking head shots on his brothers and trying to murder them and he couldn’t stop no matter how badly he wanted to. He was powerless. And then the Batch left; at this point he probably understands that his brothers had to go. They’d regroup. They’d know this wasn’t his fault and they’d come back.

Months pass. Crosshair doesn’t know about the solemn looks the Batch exchange when he’s mentioned. Crosshair doesn’t know that they can barely get food for themselves. Crosshair doesn’t know that Wrecker has flat out said he misses him. Crosshair doesn’t know how Tech said “it doesn’t appear he’ll be needing it” with a twinge of sadness in his voice while giving Omega his comm. Crosshair doesn’t know how much Hunter hates himself for leaving and that Hunter was always planning on going back to him someday because someday he’d have the perfect plan and he could save everyone this time. How could Crosshair know?

More time passes. Crosshair probably still has his chip on but he’s still in there, watching himself become more and more important to the Empire. No rescue attempts. Not one. How awful does he have to feel?? They went to get Echo out of Skako with no backup and they didn’t even know Echo and they can’t go back for him? And here’s the Empire, giving him power and some semblance of control. Things are changing fast and now he has nobody but himself to adjust with, and besides, he’s always had an egotistical side so maybe being a commander and putting the regs in their place isn’t so bad to him after all. He’s alone. He adapts or he dies, that’s the job and that’s all he has now.

Onto Bracca!! If Crosshair is telling the truth about getting his chip out, I firmly believe it had to have been after the events of Reunion. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise; “if I wanted you dead, you would be” sweetheart giving the order to have them incinerated and starting to walk away really seems like you wanted them dead and then going from ordering Omega to be executed to telling Hunter that if he cares about her he should let her go and be safe away from them??? You can’t tell me that Bracca!Crosshair wouldn’t have dragged Omega back into the training room and killed her right there just to keep them from choosing her over him. So let’s just assume for now that Crosshair wasn’t lied to and his chip is out (I’m still holding onto a scrap of hope to the contrary because A. there’s no scar B. HE’S STILL HOLDING HIS HEAD and C. my boy isn’t making any SENSE he just killed off a bunch of Imperial stormtroopers to convince the Batch to join his Empire that he cares so much about??) it had to have happened after Bracca I said what I said idc. If the chip is out, I’m sure his head is still an absolute foggy mess because lord only knows what cranking those chips up to full strength several times will do to you, but suddenly he’s realizing that he’s still angry with them. He’s still hurt. He’s still very much alone. Maybe they never cared about him at all.

And don’t get me started on any “if he did any of this willingly he is irredeemable” garbage. How many times did Kallus almost kill the Ghost crew?? I’m sorry, was it not Kallus who ordered the Lasat genocide?? Don’t take this the wrong way, I adore Kallus and his redemption arc was one of the most beautiful things about Rebels but the point is if he can do all of those horrible things for the Empire for years and is still allowed a redemption stemming from realizing everything he thought he was fighting for was a fiction, THEN SO IS CROSSHAIR. With that side note out of the way let’s think about how alone and betrayed Crosshair feels by the Batch and let’s realize that after they left Ryloth, after they left him again, what does he want?? He wants them. He doesn’t want to kill them, he doesn’t want them imprisoned and he doesn’t want to make them pay. He wants to fight side by side with them again, he wants his brothers back. And even though he’s so beyond hope that they still care about him, heck he literally said “don’t make the same mistake twice; don’t make me your enemy” he thinks they were enemies and he still cares about them so freaking much that he went through an entire elaborate scheme to get the whole Batch on Kamino and set up the stormtroopers’ deaths to prove his loyalty that they could have if they just gave him some of their loyalty too. “Loyalty means everything to the clones” is starting to get a really bitter taste innit??

The point of this longwinded rant my friends is to beg y’all to stop being so black and white about these two. They’re both human, they both have made mistakes and have regrets, they’re both trying their best to survive in a galaxy flipped upside down. Things played out how they had to and they’re both victims of the real villain of Star Wars, who has always been Palpatine. The fact that there is so much to unpack with these two characters shows how flipping amazing the writers are!! They’re so layered and complex it’s literally like they’re real!! So please. Stop hating on them so freaking loudly. They’re my boys and they both deserve a warm hug and a nap after the season they’ve had

[sourholland]

hi lovie ! could u write sum fluff about timmy pls? this whole the french dispatch promotion got me obsessed with him again 😭

I Hate Everyone But You || Timothée Chalamet

a/n: a short blurb that i wrote pretty fast :) this request is old but i decided to go with it and try and be creative. plus im still on my french kick soooo <3 also, i recommend listening to i walk this earth all by myself by ekkstacy while reading !!

The taste of cheap wine lingered on your lips, a cool breeze hitting you from your seat on the windowsill. People still walked below you, a glimpse into each of their lives from the seventh floor of your building. It was like looking into an array of tiny little windows.

There was a schoolgirl, she had a leather backpack and lips this beautiful dark shade of red. Then, just after her, came an elderly couple. A man and what you could only assume was his husband from the way he kissed the back of his hand. A tired looking woman came along, she had a baby on her hip and deep purple crescents below her eyes. A little boy skipped right past your window, looking up and shouting a quick and smiley greeting.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle!” He grinned.

“Salut!” You chuckled.

Timothée came through the door a few minutes later, watching you perched up on the window. The blinking of the Eiffel Tower could be seen from your post, a beautiful sunset painting the sky in different hues of orange and red.

He dropped his bag, coming over and sitting across you. One of his legs hung off the sill, swaying in the air. You had both knees tucked underneath your chin, having just lit a cigarette. The air was brisk, still holding a certain degree of warmth, though.

Flicking the ashes into the air, you took a long drag and held it out to him. He took it eagerly, repeating your actions. It was a comfortable silence, both of you knowing you’d have to go home the next morning. Looking back into the quaint apartment, you sighed at the clothes strewn across the room, half-filled bags all over the place.

“Maybe we should just stay here, Timmy,” you breathed. “Grow old.”

Here, you could sit out in the open and smoke a cigarette without having a camera shoved in your face. There were no long stretches where you never saw each other, one of you in another country for work. In the past two weeks, you’d eaten dinner with each other every night. That was impossible back in New York.

“Yeah,” he blew out the bitter smoke. “Yeah, maybe we should.”

He missed you as well. Timothée would leave for Portland at the end of the week and he’d be gone for over two months. A few weekend trips, maybe a day or so together, that was all you’d be granted for awhile. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it most definitely wouldn’t be the last.

You’d both picked these careers, careers that put you in the public eye with hardly any privacy.

“Je ne supporte pas d'être loin de toi,” he murmured, passing back the cigarette.

Sitting back, you searched his eyes for something. Maybe solace, you thought. Or maybe you just wanted to see him. His cheeks were flushed a delicate pink, hair tousled and pushed back. They’d probably cut it for his new role, most of the time they did.

“You love your work, Y/N,” he said lowly. “And you’d miss your family.”

“I won’t be young and pretty forever, sooner or later nobody will want to take photos of me anymore,” you chuckled, meeting his eyes.

“You’re wrong.”

Leaning forward a bit, you pushed the curls out of his face and relished in doing it. There was music playing below you, a young couple dancing in front of the band of people. It was a sweet sight.

It felt selfish, ungrateful even. To envy them, their normalcy. You loved the people who supported you, but you also loved yourself far too much to never admit you wanted to settle at some point. To leave and never look back.

With him.

“Je suis à toi,” he confessed.

“Je t'aime.”

taglist - @moonythemilf @pradastardust @xxxlaura @ivegotthepetertingle @pogueslandia @peterparkerbae @beneskataa @reddir14 @cowboywrites @l0versstyles @golden-hoax @highoffholland

[fullscoreshenanigans]

#Emma being a good actress is such an important part of her character? #I don't want to stretch it too much but like- she's good at hiding her feelings. She does her best not to make the others worry #In the manga she came back as cheerful and energetic as always? #In fact only Ray could notice something was wrong and that's very sweet- those two really share a special bond #Again it's so important to her character... Emma would do anything not to make her family worry #And (renewed manga spoilers please don't read past this if you haven't read the manga) #It's so important for later developments????? #She tricks almost everyone (again Ray excluded) into thinking she was fine with demons eradication #And - you knew where I was going from the start - she managed to lie to everyone about the reward and on the consequences it would have had #Once again not to make them worry?????? #Long story short naaah I don't think that's how Emma would act I didn't like this change ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #I acknowledge hiding your feelings is hard but I also know Emma is extremely good at it nonetheless #It's also something that makes her way less naïve she may seem y'know? It's important to her character!!!

Look at me straight in the eyes and tell me that’s a face of someone who’s ok

[lazyevaluationranch]

On a post about the Blue Haired Girlfriend's quixotic citrus breeding experiments, @voidingintotheshout​ asked:

I mean, if you wanted a hearty citrus relative, why didn’t you just grow Osage Orange? They can grow as far north as Michigan which is surely further north than anyone could reasonably expect to grow a citrus tree. They’re not edible but then hearty orange isn’t either. Osage Orange are so cool and such a interesting historical plant from the Shelterbelt era of American agriculture. Apparently they do smell like citrus.

This is part three of three. Part one. Part two.

Now you've done it! It's time for A Very Brief (But Also Insufficiently Brief) History of Twentieth Century Hardy Citrus Cultivation! Growing citrus trees this far north is kind of nuts, it's true, but I promise you it is not even close to the weirdest things people have done to grow citrus in places where the citrus doesn't think it should grow.

A note: This post will written using the Swingle citrus taxonomy system, including things that are definitely wrong. The citrus taxonomic tree looks like that one box of orphaned computer cords I keep moving with me to new houses "in case I need them" except some sort of adorable five-dimensional kitten has entertained herself with them and some of the resulting knots are not technically possible in our space-time continuum. 

The powers that be gave us citrus because nothing pleases them like seeing a geneticist cry.

1. The Migrant Trees

The Soviet Union wanted lemons for tea, and they wanted to be independent enough not to have to trade with anyone else to get them, which meant they wanted to grow their own citrus. That part of the world is not a great place to grow plants that die when the temperature goes below zero, but at the foundation of the Soviet Union, there were citrus orchards in the warmest part of Georgia, along the Black Sea. Specifically, there was about, uh, one and a half square kilometers of somewhat implausible citrus orchard.

Hang on, it is about to get way less plausible.

This is the great citrus migration: any tree that did well in one spot, they'd try planting its seeds a few kilometres further north, or a few kilometres further east. Prizes were offered for breeding hardier citrus. Slowly the orchards spread, but they were extremely weird orchards.

It's usually a few degrees warmer at ground level than up in the air, and there's way less wind. So as the trees grew, they were bent over and tied along the ground. Some of them had the central trunk run in a straight line along the ground, with branches spreading out from it like the leaves of a fern, like an espaliered tree on its side. Others were starfish shaped, with the central trunk looped down until it ended up next to the base, and the branches sprawling out along the ground from the centre like starfish legs. The citrus trees were no taller than particularly vigorous strawberry plants, but they survived the winters, and you could throw a blanket over them to help them stay warm.

None of that helped if the ground froze solid, so they needed Underground Citrus. You'd dig a ditch, down below the lowest area where the ground froze, and you'd plant flat Starfish Trees or Flat Frond Trees running along the bottom of it, too deep to freeze. In winter, you'd just cover the ditch with boards any time the temperature was expected to go below freezing - citrus would tolerate the lack of light, but not the cold. Mandarins (Citrus reticulata) seemed to do best, so that’s most of what was grown.

It is a nearly unimaginable amount of work to grow citrus this way, along the bottoms of pits and trenches. We are experimentally trying to grow a Soviet-developed mandarin breed of unknown parentage, Shirokolistvennyi, but we will definitely not be putting in that level of effort.

2. The Mixed Up Trees

There are a couple species of citrus that tolerate cold well, but taste awful. A lot of effort has gone into crossbreeding them with more edible citrus. The results are ... mixed.

The Ichang Papeda (Citrus cavaleriei) generally survives temperatures down to -18 degrees C. It is stoic and calm and has mastered emptiness. Unfortunately, it has mastered emptiness too well. The fruit smells like lemons, with maybe a hint of rose, but there's nothing to eat here. It has a rind and seeds. No juice, no flesh.

(Photo by Michael Saalfield)

The Ichang Papeda is the parent or grandparent to several delicious, extremely sour Asian citrus types. Yuzu/yuja smells like grapefruit and clean wet stones from the bottom of a fast-flowing stream. Sudachi smells like grapefruit and leaves with dew on them. (I haven't met kabosu or any other papeda hybrids personally, but they are numerous.)  They're all too sour to eat plain, unless you really need to turn your face inside out for some reason, but make for excellent flavouring. 

(We have a yuzu tree and a sudachi tree and they're surviving, but no fruit yet.)

Trifoliate orange (Poncirus trifoliata) can survive temperatures down to -30 degrees C. This may be partly because, uniquely amoung citrus, they can drop leaves in autumn or winter and regrow them in spring, like a maple tree. They also produce an internal antifreeze. They are angry, twisted, thorny little plants that yell swears when you walk past them. They make a great hedge. The fruit is furry, smells like flowers and pine trees and taste like burnt, bitter plastic. It may or may not be possible to breed the horrible taste completely out of trifoliate oranges without losing cold-hardiness, if it's due to their antifreeze chemicals. Here’s Stabby:

(Photo by Rob Hille)

Even the least terrible trifoliate crossbreeds are bitter enough to qualify as “acquired tastes.” There are recipes for trifoliate marmalade: put a dozen trifoliate oranges, a kilogram of sugar, and a kilogram of pebbles in a pot, cook until it gels, then sieve out the oranges and eat the pebbles. 

We are growing a trifoliate orange / minneola orange hybrid. And, of course, someday our own trifoliate hybrids. The Blue Haired Girlfriend planted 200 trifoliate oranges a couple years ago. There are fewer now, but the survivors have lived through two winters of snow and frost, and they might have somehow gotten more stabby. We're going to breed them, to each other or to less angry fruit, try and make something new and good from them.

I've limited this post to twentieth century hardy citrus breeding, but I have to give a shoutout to somatic hybridization, a decidedly twenty first century technique, where you take a cell from each of two different plants, remove their cell walls, put them next to eachother, and shock them with electricity until they merge into a single cell whose nucleus contains all genes from both plants. Then the new plant is like, "Wow, I guess these are all my genes? It seems like a lot, haha, but it's not like somebody made me from dismembered body parts and electricity, that is not how science works. Anyway I guess it's time to do some plant stuff now."

3. The Mutant Trees

In the 1950s, people started using radiation to randomly scramble the genes of plants. You'd irradiate seeds enough to change the genes somehow, and then you'd have to plant them to see what had happened. Maybe it was people horrified by the atomic bomb desperately wanting to find some life-supporting use for atomic fission, maybe it was government-supported cold war "atom bombs are good actually, look how many we have, USSR" propaganda. Probably both. 

This time period also saw serious plans for Orion, a spaceship with a huge metal plate for a butt, intended to be propelled by exploding atomic bombs under it, which I am not actually making up.

Thousands of people in Europe and the US signed up to receive seeds with random mutations in the mail, plant them, and report back on what they heck they grew into and if it had any useful weirdness. (The gamma radiation used to mutate the seeds did not make them radioactive themselves - the seeds were completely safe.) There were also more formal and carefully controlled university research programs in China, Japan, and the US, where plants where grown in a circular research garden with a coverable radiation source at the centre, so that the farther you got from the centre, the less radiation the plants got. Radiation breeding is less popular than it used to be, but Japan still has a very productive citrus radiation breeding program.

The most popular radiation-bred citrus is the "Rio Red" grapefruit and its offspring, which has a much deeper red than non-mutant red grapefruit.

There aren't many radiation-developed citrus breeds noted for cold-hardiness - with radiation you get whatever you get  - but there are a few, and I want one just because I think they're neat, a monument to that lovely human vision that looks at terrible weapons and somehow sees glossy-leaved trees with bright fruit.

4. The Monster Trees

Citrus are usually grown via grafting. That is, you plant a seed from a fast-growing sturdy breed, you let it grow roots and all that, and then you cut the top off and replace it with a branch from a more delicious breed. The two citruses grow together, and you end up with a tree that's disease and cold resistant in the roots, below the graft, but makes tasty fruit above the graft.

Occasionally, this process goes Wrong. 

The first recorded instance is the tree called Bizarria, discovered in 1640. Someone attempted to graft a sour orange branch onto a citron. But instead of a clean line between sour orange branches and citron roots, the graft was damaged somehow, and the two different species of cells got tangled and mixed through the whole tree. It has branches that produce citron fruit. It has branches that produce sour orange fruit. And it has branches that produce, uh ... these:

(Photo by Labrina)

Most graft chimeras are made accidentally, when the graft site is damaged. Trifoliate orange is often used as rootstock, so there are many reported chimeras involving trifoliate orange and a nicer fruit. The mixed-up cells can be arranged a lot of ways, but it's possible to have the outside layer of the tree be trifoliate orange, and the core of the tree be the other citrus (periclinal chimera). This means you could theoretically get a tree with frostproof trifoliate leaves and branches, but fruit that doesn’t taste like burnt plastic rolled in quinine.

This lucky monstrosity has, in fact, reportedly happened. Twice. There is the Prague Citsuma, discovered in a greenhouse in Prague and suspected to have been created by a Soviet breeding program. And then there is the Hormish, discovered in China and thought to have been made by frostbite messing up the clean lines of the graft. The Blue Haired Girlfriend has managed to track down budwood from the Prague Citsuma - I’m so excited! - so we'll see how the fierce thorny monster tree with a heart of gold, or at least heartwood of gold, does for us.

5. Conclusion

Humans have been trying to grow citrus trees where they don't belong for nearly two thousand years, at least since the Jewish Diaspora and people trying to grow holy etrog trees - trunks gnarled as barnacle stones and the whole tree scented like the best dream you can't remember - in Europe. Maybe longer.

The Blue Haired Girlfriend's citrus-breeding schemes aren't going to singlehandedly transform Canada into a net citrus exporter. But history shows us: it might be possible to have a little gleaming sweetness from the stony ground here, with the ravens and the fir trees and the auroras. A sweetness we made ourselves, that exists nowhere else. 

Or maybe we'll just have a bunch of weird inedible fruit. I don't know, but it's worth finding out, worth weaving together leaf and thorn and stone and the light of our hands as the years unwind. Worth it to have a quixotic project we can expect to spend decades on together, hands and hearts. This is how home is made, sometimes, with a balcony full of angry thorny little trees that shout swears at passerby.

[sinnersandsaints-linwrites]

Hi Lin!! I hope you don’t mind me asking, how well do the ROs deal with MC being away for a long while? (Going on a work trip or something) And how would they react when MC finally returns?

Love your work btw. Keep it up! 💗

Hiii!!

Generally - they would do not well. All of them have issues, and they would all feel worried (if they’re not around MC to protect them, then who else will?)

Riven has severe abandonment issues, they would probably spend majority of the time shifted, because they have little to no human thoughts then. They’d be terrified of history repeating itself — and that if you come back, you will not remember them completely, or have forgotten them to some degree.

Once you return, they are like a dog approaching a porcupine. One step closer and two steps back. They would, however, quickly melt right back into the ‘old Riven’ and nearly cry, asking you to promise to take them next time, or at least keep frequent communication.

Roan went through you going away for college, so they handle it better than most. Does that mean they would not cry into their pillow as the dreadful possibility of you forgetting them and/or distancing yourself haunts them at night? Of course not. They smile less while you’re away, their spark is missing.

When you return, they desperately try to hide that your absence influenced them so greately. They try to change the subject whenever you ask about that, and all the time they look at you like you are their entire world.

To say Khari is angry would be an understatement. They worked alone their entire life, and then you barged in and made them get used to relying on others — get used to your presence and just you. And now you go away for a work trip alone, without your partner? Khari would be even less approachable than usually.

When you return, Khari is colder and more distanced. They would hold a grudge of sorts, for a while. There’d be more snide remarks and heavy silence. “I thought we were partners.” They say, not even hiding the bitterness in their voice.

Morgan handles it possibly the worst out of everyone -- without you being physically there, they fall back into bad habits. Unhealthy amounts of sleep, the same outfit for weeks, a nest of sheets and pillows in random places of their house. They don’t even notice that they went back like this, and throw themself into work to think about you as little as possible, because thinking hurts.

When you return, they have little to no reaction, mostly because they’ve used apathy as a coping mechanism for your absence. They force a smile, greet you, and excuse themself as they go to work.

In a polyamorous relationship with Khari and Morgan, it is a mixture of reactions. Morgan does fall back into bad habits, which stresses Khari and fuels their anger. If possible, they call you more often (asking when are you coming back or if its possible for them to join you, and they relay everything that happens with Morgan) and if not -- Khari would be even more cold and distant, mostly because they’re angry at themself that they weren’t able to care for Morgan enough when you were gone.

Sasha doesn’t handle it well and they do not hide it. If they can contact you, they contact you every single time it’s possible, and every time they say they miss you and ask when you’ll be back. They do consider just crashing your trip (who would stop them, police? they’re a vampire) but eventually decide otherwise, only because they don’t want you to be mad at them.

When you return, they basically glue themself to your side, follow you everywhere, and behave like a puppy with separation anxiety. A week off is mandatory for you, you have a partner to calm down.

Ariel handles it relatively well, considering everything. They are used to relationships where they do not see or hear from their partner for even years -- yet because yours is a relatively new one, they can’t help the dull ache in their chest every time they remember they won’t see you at night, or in the morning.

When you return, they offer you a small nod as a greeting, and politely ask how your trip was -- they are desperate not to show how much they missed you, because they feel like it is ridiculous of them.

Sage pretends to be unfazed by your absence, rarely contacts you on their own. Are they angry, petty and miss you? Maybe, they’ll never admit it. You will never prove to them, that they spent days destroying things when they caught themself hurting and yearning for you. They throw themself into work, to an unhealthy degree.

When you return, they pretend to not care. Just a “oh, you’re back” escapes them, with no emotion behind it. They just act as if you never left, as if they didn’t realise you were gone at all. 

In a polyamorous relationship with Ariel and Sage, it is vastly different. Ariel shoots down Sage’s attempts at petty behavior and their destructive spirals, and Rennis keeps Ariel grounded and forces them to confront their feelings. Overall, they do well, and greet you with honest smiles. (Sage does, however, whisper to you “if you leave us unsupervised again, I might set this town on fire” when Ariel is out of the hearing distance. Are they joking? You might never know.)

thank you for the ask! <333

[cdroloisms]

uhhhh ,, , hi ??

i feel bad bc i havent been here in. LITERALLY forever lmao - hope you guys r all doing good!! ive been working on some stuff but it’s been pretty slow going, and school is also A Thing, so i definitely havent been writing as much as i’d like. 

as an apology, have this? really self-indulgent feel-good syndicate + c!dream centric oneshot bc i felt like writing this so u know. why not. 

tws: implied torture, abuse, self-harm, disordered eating, starvation mentions, prison arc themes - overall everything’s just blink-and-you’ll-miss-it mentions, not too much angst here for once! c!sam and c!quackity critical, sorry guys but we r still in the prison arc and they still r on their “fuck human rights” arcs. 

Dream leaves.

 It’s a surprise - or maybe it isn’t one, Niki isn’t quite sure. She’d never grown to quite trust the man, she knows, and she can’t really tell if the bitter twist of emotion that swells up her chest when Phil comes to her city with the news is betrayal or resignation - what can she say. She’s gotten more than her fair share of broken promises. They don’t exactly faze her anymore. 

 None of them seem all that surprised, save Techno, who entirely fails to hide the worry that flickers over his face when he calls the Syndicate meeting to officially inform them of what’s going on. She shares quick, careful glances with the other members when his back is turned - despite how many times he’s been burned, Techno still seems so adamant at holding onto every thread, trusting all too easily those who would use and leave him behind without a second glance. He can handle himself, she knows. Still, that’s not going to stop her from slapping Dream upside the head for being yet another worthless person to betray her friend’s forgiving nature. 

 Nothing much changes in the next few weeks. Niki has to admit, it’s strange without Dream around - he’d not been an ally, much less a friend before dipping completely, but he had been some sort of constant - and Niki is self aware enough to know that she misses him, a little, the same sort of way you might miss an old routine once it’s gone, if only for the familiarity. She still visits Techno and Phil with various baked goods, knowing that Phil would have his hands full just keeping Techno from running himself ragged - makes sure to check on Ranboo, whose nerves have inevitably returned with Dream’s disappearance. To be honest, she doesn’t worry as much as he does - ally or not, she’s spent enough time with the Dream that had left prison to expect that he won’t exactly be able to get himself very far should he come for the four of them, and doesn’t particularly care about he might pull with the rest of the server - if things get bad, she’s sure Phil and Techno will have it handled. She asks Phil, once, what happened, and he shrugs. 

 “I don’t know, mate,” he heaves a chest to the side, pulling out a stack of stone blocks that Niki gladly holds for him. “One day we woke up and he was just- gone. Everything. Was like he wasn’t ever there at all.” 

 Niki hums. “Why’d you think he’d do something like that?” 

 “If I could understand half of why Dream does what he does, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now, would we?” He smiles at her from behind a crate. “Shall we bring these things upstairs and start on dinner?” 

 Niki laughs, knowing that the conversation about Dream is over. “Of course, Phil.” 

Dinner is a welcome distraction; all of them have gotten better at cooking in recent months, between her baking and the veritable library of recipes Phil knows that she’s never even heard of, but Phil is still the only one she really trusts to hold his own behind the stove - Ranboo is still a little too nervous around water, and fire, and much of everything, and though Techno can be a perfectly capable cook, he’s been distracted as of late. She has a strong feeling that left to his own devices, he’d just grab a stack of steak and disappear for another few weeks, searching the server for information. 

 Honestly, she’s a little thrown off by his behavior - he’d not done anything like this with Tommy, if she remembers right, and had hardly seemed affected by Wilbur’s betrayal on the Sixteenth at all (then again, she was a little too lost in her own head to notice if he was.) She tosses her head over to ask Phil, who’s leaning over a few carrots he’s slicing to throw into the stew he’s making, and the man pauses, frowns. 

 “From what I know,” he starts, words slow, careful, “they’d spent three months in there together, and the conditions weren’t exactly- stellar. According to what Techno said, I’d assumed they had come to some sort of understanding.” He goes back to the carrots, expression dipping into shadow and out of sight. “Guess I was wrong.” 

 Niki hums. She can see it, sort of - spending months together with someone, no matter how insufferable, probably would end with some degree of attachment - she thinks back to plotting through sleepless nights with Jack, anger and grief leaving them simmering, crabs in the same pot of boiling water, remembers looking into his dead-eyed gaze and seeing her own stare back - and feels a brief pang of guilt. Besides, Techno is Techno. She’d never met someone so willing to forgive, understand, reach out despite everything that’s happened - for Dream to take advantage of that feels almost too obvious. Of course he would - what were they all thinking?

 “He’s Dream,” she says as if that explains everything, flipping open the oven door and feeling a wave of heat blast her face. Phil hums lowly, understanding. “I hope Techno will be alright.” 

 “He’s tough,” Phil cracks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, “And he has us on his side. He’ll get through.” 

 Niki opens her mouth to reply, only to be interrupted by the front door slamming open. Outside their quaint little cottage, the wind howls - it sounds like the beginning of a blizzard out there, flurries painting the world in a thick blanket of white. In the door, Techno strides into the entrance with loud, decisive movements, shutting the door loud enough to make the walls shake. Inadvertently, Niki finds her eyes drawn to the small pile of snow that he’s tracked into the house - Techno’s usually so careful to kick it all off on the porch, never liked it much when there was a pile of melting ice and snow dampening the floorboards and soaking into his shoes. He huffs harshly, stripping off a snow-dusted scarf from his face - a long, multicolored abomination that had been the product of her attempting to teach Ranboo how to knit. Phil has reached his side, hands splayed over his upper arms, eyes soft in the corners from concern. 

 “Techno, mate-” his tone is chiding but his movements gentle as he brushes snow off of Techno’s signature cloak, “you’ve gotten snow everywhere. What were you doing, dueling a blizzard?” 

 Techno shakes his head, not meeting Phil’s banter as usual, fur sticking up from the snow melted into it. His voice is gruff and holds little humor - unconsciously, Niki feels her shoulders tense. 

 “Phil, call a Syndicate meeting.”

 ---

 Phil, per usual, is unrelenting, so it’s not until a quick dinner and some hurried messages to their final member later that the Syndicate is gathered in their meeting room, Techno pacing the length of the room as they wait in their respective seats. He looks less frazzled than he did when he first entered the house, in part due to Phil’s sitting him down to eat and picking through his fur to smooth it out of its windblown spikes and tangles - Techno had grumbled at him to stop preening him, but looked a lot more relaxed by the time they were all finished with their food. Still, his ear flicks periodically, twitching toward ssome sound that Niki can’t hear, movements tighter and jerkier than she is used to. He’d always been a little flightier after the prison, but not quite like this - everything here feels like that but dialed up to eleven. Inexplicably, it reminds her of Dream. 

 “Techno?” Phil gestures towards his seat, prompting, and he settles into it with an obliging huff. 

 “Y’know, Phil, the code names are kinda pointless if we never use ‘em,” he says, words carrying no real heat - he looks back at the rest of them, lips thinning into a line. “Anyway. I called this meeting because I found a couple leads on Dream.” 

 “O-oh,” Ranboo stutters, tail lashing behind him. 

 “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to, mate,” Phil reminds him gently, a sentiment that Niki affirms with a determined nod. 

 “There’ve been some reports- rumors, really,” Techno says, calling their attention again, and they all turn towards him, “of increased activity around the prison again. The Warden spending more time on its grounds, movement seen around the walls and around the portal- so I decided to go check it out for myself.” 

 Niki frowns, and watches as Phil does the same beside her - Techno had seemed to avoid the prison if he could help it, save for when he went on the initial mission to break Dream out. It was no secret to them that he didn’t exactly like the place. 

 “We could’ve helped if you asked,” Phil reminds him, and Techno shakes his head. 

 “I know, Phil. It’s just- that place is bad news. I’d rather keep you guys away from there if I can-” his hand goes to his head with a poorly hidden wince. “Sorry, Chat’s a little- worked up, at the minute.” 

 “Sorry, we’ll stop interrupting you,” Niki says, cutting off Phil before he says anything else. “So you went to the prison?” 

 Techno takes a second to gather his thoughts, mumbling quietly in the way that usually means he’s telling off Chat. “Right- I decided to stake out the portal. The rumors were right- Sam has been hanging around there, entered and left the prison four times yesterday. And today-” he hesitates, expression visibly darkening. “This morning, about an hour after the Warden arrived, Quackity came to the prison and went through the portal. He left the grounds about six hours later.” 

 “Quackity?” Niki frowns, eyes flicking over to how Phil has stilled in his seat. “What is Quackity doing at the prison?” 

 Phil ignores her question, reaching towards Techno, something indiscernible in his gaze. “Mate…”

 “He smelled of blood when he left,” Techno says, words sharp, and Niki feels her heart skip a beat. “Warden left about half an hour after, and I came back here.” 

 Ranboo clears his throat, sounding tentative. “Okay,” he drums his hand on the table when they turn towards him, eyebrows drawn, “but what, exactly, does this have to do with, uh, Dream?” 

 Techno and Phil trade glances, one of their bouts of unspoken conversation that Niki’s grown extremely used to. They seem strangely hesitant, she notes internally, Phil looking towards Techno with a question written clearly in the planes of his face. Techno sighs, a long puff of air through his lips as he closes his eyes and turns his face towards the table. 

 “You know how Dream was- injured,” he starts slowly, looking back up at them. Niki shifts uncomfortably - of course she noticed, it was impossible not to - if not the bandages that peeked under his sleeves and the cuffs of his pants, then how skinny he’d been, all skin and bones curled up uncomfortably in a pile at the corner of Techno’s couch. She’d not know the extent, by any means, and had always assumed that they’d been self-inflicted - she’d been in a bad enough place on her own before to know how your head can make you want to hurt, sometimes, how eating food can feel like choking on sawdust and the world could feel so much smaller when focused into delicate pricks of pain. Phil’s eyes are trained on Techno - on his face, then on the pinkish raised skin of a still-healing scar along his forearm, and she feels understanding settle like a rock in her gut. 

 “The Warden had apparently been lettin’ Quackity into the cell to torture Dream for the revive book,” Techno trails off, eyes narrowed and seemingly fixed on a random point of the opposite wall. “By the time I go there, it’d been goin’ on for months.”

 “But wait,” Ranboo’s tail moves even more erratically behind him, “You mean you think he’s back- there? How?” 

 “He has to be back in the prison,” Techno points out. “I can’t imagine anyone besides him that the two of them are goin’ to just start torturin’- Sam had been iffy about the whole thing when Quackity started in on me. It has to be Dream in there again.” 

 “But how did he get in there, then?” Ranboo asks, visibly confused. “Last time it took the entire server to lock him up!”

 “There were no signs of a struggle,” Niki points out, matter of fact. “I believe you, Techno, but I don’t really know how they managed to drag him back so easily. I can’t imagine he was jumping at the chance to go back in there.” 

 Techno shakes his head with an uneasy sigh. 

 “I have a feelin’ of what might’ve happened,” he says quietly. “And I really hope that I’m wrong and he’s less of an idiot than I think he is.” 

 ---

 They set out to investigate - and maybe attack - the next day, Techno and Phil taking on the bulk of preparations as Ranboo stays behind. He’d been understandably uneasy about the whole mission, so they’d left him back by the Syndicate room to set off their pearls in case anything went wrong. (“By the end of the day,” Techno had said, giving Phil a look with the corner of his lip quirked upwards, “don’t be like Phil here and think I meant the end of the month, alright?”) They’d all be supplied with armor and weapons, thanks to Phil, but she’d been handed the bulk of their potions, arranged neatly in her inventory by type in case they’d be needed. She lingers in the back of the room as Phil and Techno chat amiably over the sound of making last minute repairs on their armor, listens to Techno’s ceaseless reminders for Phil to be careful, watches as they make sure that their stasis chambers are properly prepared should they need them.

 (She watches as Phil nudges Techno’s shoulder when he lingers behind a certain chair, empty as long as she’s been part of the Syndicate, the fountain behind it bubbling quietly without a pearl inside. Techno sighs, expression strange. 

 “Should’ve set him up with one,” he says, quiet, and Phil pats him on the back. 

 “You couldn’t have known, mate. We wanted to wait a little before telling him about the Syndicate, remember?” 

 Techno hums, noncommittal. “Still.”)

 They Nether travel to the site of Techno’s lookout, which ends up being a little shambling thing with dirt walls dug into a small hill looking towards the prison portal, having hardly enough space to fit the three of them. Phil looks at it with no small amount of apprehension, and Techno shrugs lightly, wearing an expression that makes Phil turn to him with a look that makes Niki break into giggles. Techno crosses his arms- “in my defense-” and Phil looks up at the dirt ceiling with a long-suffering sigh. 

 “You couldn’t have made this a little roomier, mate?” Phil asks, voice dry as kindling, and Techno raises his hands by his head. 

 “Hey hey, it’s discreet, it gets the job done, it’s perfectly structurally sound-” the sound of the leftmost wall crumbling, along with the cloud of dust that puffs from it and fills their tiny space, undermines the tail end of his statement and leaves him sputtering, Niki falling into another fit of quiet giggles. Underneath it all, Phil sighs again, raising his wings behind him. 

 “...these are going to take so long to clean out.” 

 To his credit, Techno looks sheepish. “Sorry, Phil.”

 They sober up quickly; Techno turns around to the opposite side of the hill, where he’s hidden some peepholes inside the dirt - Niki settles herself by one, leaning forwards to put her eye to it and catch a glimpse of the prison looming over the water. It’s been repaired since the breakout, she notes, the gaping hole in the roof completely gone and replaced with obsidian, as intimidating and undamaged as it had been before, if not more so. Phil makes a considering sound from behind her.

 “Same plan as last time?” He asks, and Techno shakes his head. 

 “They’ve probably reinforced it, and Dream’s blueprints won’t include anything new the Warden’s added. I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved Dream to a different location completely. We don’t want to draw too much attention, either, we were cutting it pretty close during the breakout.” He narrows his eyes. “I was thinking we’d try something a little stealthier, this time. “ 

 He gestures at Niki, who blinks back at him with wide eyes. 

 “You got a couple of invis potions for us?”

 She distributes the potions among them all, one regular and two splash potions of invisibility each, and Techno points towards the prison once she’s done. 

 “The most important thing is to get through the portal,” he says with a grim expression. “Worst comes to worst, once we’re inside we can always blast our way through - but gettin’ through that portal is our first priority.” 

 Phil narrows his eyes at him. “The portal is locked, though. We’ll need to follow someone else inside- and I’m pretty sure Sam uses pearls, so he’s out.” 

 Techno nods. “Which is why I’m bankin’ on the prison gettin’ another visitor today. We’ll just have to wait.” 

 Niki swallows. “Do you mean-”

 “Quackity?” Techno turns away, not quite meeting her eyes. “I’m not totally sure, but he’s not exactly the type to just give up on his goals. He’s pretty predictable- an empire needs an emperor, always needs something new to rule- you know the type,” he says, tipping his head towards Phil. “He’ll be mad at Dream for disappearin’ on him and won’t miss the opportunity to prove he has the upper hand again. I’m not sure that he’s going to come today-”

 “-but you wouldn’t really be surprised, either,” Phil finishes for him, eyes steely with cold determination. “I trust your judgement, mate. Just stay safe- from what I’ve heard, Quackity has been...erratic.” 

 “When is he not,” Techno huffs a short laugh, shaking his head. “I’ll be fine, Phil. Just be careful, both of you. Don’t get too close. And if things get messy- which is what we’re tryin’ to avoid, by the way- then don’t do anything too risky. Our priority is gettin’ in and out alive.” 

 “We can handle ourselves, Techno,” Niki reminds him with a small smile. “And Ranboo is there in case anything goes wrong.” 

 “Alright, then. Here’s the plan.” 

 ---

 It takes quite a long time for Quackity to arrive, long minutes that Niki spends fidgeting in the corner of the room, brushing her hands over seams of the netherite plates that Phil had shoved into her hands, back at the Syndicate room. The set is inexplicably light - not weightless, by any means, as it is still netherite, but not nearly as bulky as any set of netherite armor she’s owned or seen in the past. The runes are precise, lines thin and exact, written with graceful strokes of lapis. 

 “Phil’s the best metalworker I’ve ever met,” Techno tells her with a small grin, catching her in the middle of tracing what she can make out as an Unbreaking rune along the metal strapped to her forearm. “But then again, he’s had the time to practice.” 

 “Are you calling me old again?” Phil huffs, and Techno flashes a smile her direction before looking at Phil with a slight grin. 

 “Well, Chat is,” he says, lips twitching when Phil glares back. 

 “You can’t just blame Chat every time you insult me, you little shit,” Phil groans, and Techno only grins wider. 

 “Phil, my ad revenue,” he complains, a dramatic lilt to his voice that has Niki stifling a snort, and Phil’s glare only grows deadlier. 

 “You’ll have more than your ad revenue to worry about if you keep this up,” he mumbles, going back to keep watch at one of the peepholes and stilling as he does. “Shit- Techno, Quackity’s here.” 

 Techno straightens up, hindered slightly by the low ceiling of their room. “Alright- we all know the plan, right?” 

 Niki nods in the affirmative, pulling out a splash invis and letting it settle in her hand, the glass cool beneath her fingertips. She reaches into her inventory and lets her armor fade into it, takes a deep breath and watches as the two across from her do the same. She doesn’t wear armor often, but so close to the prison, feeling mining fatigue settling deep into her bones - she’s never missed the security it offers more. Techno keeps watch, waiting- drops his arm in a signal. Now. 

 Niki throws the potion at their feet, flinching back at the sound of shattering glass and feeling its effects seep into her skin. When she opens her eyes, she can’t see anything but the inside of the room that they’d holed themselves in and the faintest of wisps rising from where their feet must be, curling around the grass. 

 (Please let this work, she begs to no one in particular as they walk towards the prison. And if you can hear me- please keep us all safe.)

 She hardly breathes as they follow Quackity across the path, holding someone’s hand in her own - Phil’s, by the feel of it - careful to muffle her footsteps in the grass and stand still whenever Quackity’s eyes come a little too close. Thankfully for them, he seems focused, hardly stopping or looking around at all as he walks towards the prison’s portal, movements stiff as he walks forward. He punches the button on the wall particularly harshly, and Sam’s voice comes crackling through a speaker a second later. 

 “I’m here for my visit,” Quackity says, punctuating the sentence with a snort of laughter that doesn’t sound particularly sincere. Niki hasn’t seen him in a long while, not after everything that happened in Pogtopia, and she feels a chill worm down her spine - this man looks nothing like the one that had laughed and danced and sung at her birthday party what feels like an eternity ago. What happened? 

 Sam sighs, the sound turning into a sharp burst of static through the speakers. “Hello Quackity,” he says, voice deep and tired. “Please step into the portal after I tell you to and then wait on the other side.” 

 “I know the drill, Sam,” Quackity rolls his eyes. “Just because the bastard was gone for a few weeks doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten how this damn place works.” 

 “Just going through protocol, Quackity,” Sam replies, and something about this response has Quackity exploding into a brief fit of laughter, the sound grating against Niki’s ears. She feels her grip tighten on Phil’s hand, air caught in her throat. 

 “Protocol- ha. Whatever you wanna tell yourself, pal.” Quackity smiles, cold and cruel, and Niki tries not to think about how she’d seen that same grin on Wilbur, eyes sparkling from the light of the lanterns hung from the bridges and walls of their ravine, remember how she’d looked into them and realized her old friend wasn’t there, anymore. Quackity disappears into the portal, and after a second, the hand around her own pulls her inside of it too.

 On the other side, Quackity taps his foot impatiently, crossing his arms and waiting- Sam’s voice comes through the speakers again, words clipped. 

 “Go through the portal,” he says, and Quackity does- once again, they wait for a second for his body to disappear, then go within it themselves, pressed close enough together within its frame for Niki to feel the warmth of a wing wrap around her shoulders for a quick second before they’re out of the hot, stifling air of the Nether and into a large, neatly made lobby of blackstone and quartz. They duck into a corner, watching as Quackity moves towards the front counter, the Warden waiting there with his arms crossed over his chest. He looks- tired. His movements are slow, footsteps loud against the floor, shoulders tense and back hunched. He walks around the counter, sword strapped to his belt, and Niki feels her breath hitch at the sight of dried blood still stuck to the blade in patches and splatters.

 “He ready?” Quackity asks, holding his hands out - Niki catches a flash of metal as Sam drops something into them, watches as Quackity raises what ends up being a pair of shears, dangerous-looking and gleaming with enchants, to the light. 

 “Yes,” Sam says, side-eyeing Quackity with a small glare. “You know, it’s supposed to be your job to clean those things off when you’re done with them.”

 “I told you, busy day back in Las Nevadas yesterday,” Quackity waves a hand- “I’ll do it, alright? Don’t get all pissy now. What happened to being partners?” 

 “You said we’d be done with this months ago, Quackity,” Sam sighs, and Niki feels a light tug on her arm as Quackity and Sam begin to walk towards the wall to the right of them, breathes in slow and deep as she follows Techno and Phil towards the others. The wall yawns open with the hiss of redstone firing and pistons pulling blocks upwards, opening into a dark hallway that feels like entering the maw of some sort of giant, insatiable beast. They step inside as one, and the door shuts behind them. 

 “We’ll be done soon enough,” Quackity says, and Niki feels hairs rising on the back of her neck. “Trust me.” 

 They stalk forwards through a labyrinth of blackstone, Niki brushing the palms of her hand against her clothes when it goes clammy from adrenaline. Halfway through, she pauses to tip back a second potion of invisibility, careful to keep her movements slow and steady as not to make a sound - the liquid is silvery, cool and light on her tongue, and she lets the effects wash over her with her breath caught in her lungs before moving forward. The tunnels are simpler than she’d expected, bearing little obstacles or checkpoints - Quackity makes a wry comment a second after (“Guard tunnels today, huh? Appreciate the hustle, pal-”) that confirms her suspicions. Despite the potion particles still whirling around their bodies and the sounds of their footsteps, too loud in her own ears, they manage to make it forwards without much trouble, entering a large room with a doorway filled completely with a curtain of lava. 

 “Set your spawn,” Sam says, still stoic, and Quackity rolls his eyes again before doing as told. Niki keeps looking back at the lava flowing past the wall, its heat filling the room and making her already slick palms even worse, and Sam moves to the side to flick a lever, eyes trained on the lava slowly bubbling in front of him. 

 “Give me your tools?” Quackity asks, and Sam sighs before doing so - Niki watches as he hands over a netherite axe, then potions, then a few raw potatoes that Quackity accepts and puts into his inventory. Sam raises an eyebrow once he’s done, hand tight around the handle of his trident. 

 “You bring your own sword, today?” He asks, seeming irritated, and Quackity shrugs. 

 “Sorry pal, I need to make a new one. Guess I’m borrowing yours again.” 

 Sam sighs again, louder, and hands over his sword as well, watching as Quackity swings it a few times experimentally. The blade skims a little too close to her on one swing and she can’t quite help the squeak that escapes her lips as she throws herself out of the way, feels her heart hammer in her ears as she backs up against the wall. Please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that please don’t hear that-

 “Quackity, wait.” Sam raises a hand, ear twitching as he looks over in her direction with narrowed eyes. “I think I heard something.”

 Oh fuck.

 “Well, guess show’s up then,” Techno drawls, and both of them whirl towards his voice, giving Niki enough time to pull her armor back on, scrambling to get her sword and shield in her hands as Phil does the same besides her. Pieces of armor appear where Techno is standing, then a bucket of milk- oh, why must her friends be so dramatic- and Techno’s standing there, smiling sharply, with Orphan Obliterator held loosely at his side. “Let’s get this done, then.” 

 As one, Techno and Phil blur into action - Techno moves forward to catch the prongs of Sam’s trident on his blade as Phil parries Quackity’s blows with his own sword- they move fluidly, easily covering each other’s backs as the room devolves into chaos. Niki remembers their guidance as she flits in and out of the fight, scoring quick hits to keep the Warden and Quackity off balance while remaining out of range from their weapons, and it’s not long before both of them have fallen with a spray of items and experience orbs scattered all over the floor. 

 Techno moves over to block off the exposed face of the bed with a block, looking over at the two of them with an uncharacteristically severe expression. “They’ll be back soon- we have to move fast. Niki, you have those fire res, right?” 

 She nods as she reaches into her inventory, finding the potion’s orange-pink glow and smashing it at their feet. They dive into the lava together, Niki scrambling to keep up, her arms struggling to move through the thick lava, loses sight of both until she flails into something directly in front of her and hands are pulling her up out of the lava. 

 “There you go, mate,” Phil smiles down at her as hauls herself to her feet, making a face at the feeling of the lava clinging to her clothes. “Yeah, swimming through lava isn’t exactly fun. You good?” She flashes him a thumbs up, and he laughs- “Niki, you’re still invisible.” She flushes pink- right.

 A few sips of milk later, she gives him a proper thumbs up, and he laughs, loud and bright. She looks past him to where Techno’s crouched over something- someone, she realizes with a start, in the corner. Dream’s back in prison clothes, ragged and ill-fitting, and he’s curled up with his back towards the front of the cell, shaking enough to be obvious even from where she’s standing. Techno speaks lowly, voice barely more than a deep rumble in the air, almost inaudible.

 “You there, Dream?” 

 She watches as Dream turns his head, looking up with wide, bleary eyes. His hair flops in front of his face, and something within her itches to brush it out of the way. “T-Techno?”

 “Yeah nerd, who else?” Techno smiles, and Dream seems to blink awake, drawing himself up with a shuddery breath. 

 “Techno- it’s a trap- what are you doing here?” he hisses, and Techno gives him a look, deadpan.

 “Yeah, yeah, it’s a trap- come on, Dream, we’ve been over this by now, bro. You have to know that their traps aren’t goin’ to do anything to me by now,” Techno rolls his eyes, reaching forward to steady his hands on Dream’s shoulders when the other man sputters and struggles to breathe. “Easy, now. Geez, you wanted to prove me wrong about being homeless bad enough that you came back here? We could’ve just made you a house, you know. You didn’t have to go this far.” 

 “I- they were gonna kill you,” Dream breathes, face twisted up uncomfortably, and his eyes flick past Techno’s face to where Phil and Niki are standing at the opposite wall of the cell. “All of you- they said-”

 “And that’s what I thought you’d say,” Techno groans. “Come on, you idiot, I thought you were smarter than this-” 

 “They were right there, Techno!” Dream fires back, eyes alight. “You- they were right there, what were you thinking, they could’ve-!”

 “And my best friend is a necromancer, remember?” Techno shakes his head. “Come on, Dream- Sam and Quackity? You know we can handle them in a fight, especially when you can just revive us if anything goes wrong. You don’t have to do this whole self-sacrifice thing, bro- there’s only so many times I can break into the same prison, y’know.” 

 “You’re so stupid,” Dream huffs, but he leans in anyway, head just barely settling against Techno’s shoulder. “I- I can’t believe. You’re so dumb.” 

 “Hey, don’t be sayin’ that to the guy that’s breakin’ you out of prison,” Techno laughs, slinging Dream over his shoulder with an easy motion and laughing harder when it makes him yelp. “That’s just bein’ ungrateful. You’re making Chat sad, man, and when they’re sad they don’t subscribe-” 

 “I regret this entirely,” Dream says, voice muffled against Techno’s shirt, tone completely flat. “Put me down- you idiot- I’m staying here. You’re worse than Quackity.” 

 “Rude. Now you’ve really made Chat mad. I demand an apology-” 

 “Boys, boys.” Niki can’t help giggling, watching the way their gazes snap towards her, rolling her eyes as she moves forward with a few potions held loosely in her hand. “Dream, do you want a health pot?” 

 Dream seems to deliberate for a second, before nodding at her, expression slightly strained. “...sure.” 

 “You two can finish your argument after we’ve broken out of the biggest maximum security prison on the server,” Phil drawls from behind her, arms crossed at his chest. “Come on, now, before Sam gets back.” 

 “Isn’t this the only maximum security prison on the server?” Techno asks aloud, an amused expression on his face - one that only gets worse when Phil glares at him with one ice-blue eye. 

 “Shut-” he sighs, shaking his head. “You two are chaotic little shits, you know that?”

 “Don’t compare me to him, Phil,” Techno complains, Dream mirroring his words with muffled protests of his own, and Phil breathes another drawn-out, long-suffering sigh as he rubs at the bridge of his nose. 

 “Niki, give us some fire res please?” 

 She finds the potion bottle between giggles, throwing it to the ground as she tries to choke down the laughter rapidly bubbling up her throat. “Of course, Phil.” 

 She looks back at Techno and Dream before jumping into the lava, the two of them once again lost in some sort of argument, Dream draped over Techno’s shoulder. He’s breathing easier now, she notes, and Techno looks looser too - a little less tense, leaning back with a perpetual quirk to the corner of his lip as they fire insults back and forth. This is familiar, she recognizes with a soft twist in her chest, the same way that Phil and Techno can finish each other’s sentences and look at each other with laughing eyes sharing the same memories of the past, the same way Ranboo watches Techno’s every step as he adjusts his stance and lifts his sword and Techno laughs and calls him a main character in turn, the same way she and Phil will settle together on the porch over cups of tea and sit at each other’s sides for hours. The rhythm between them is one well-established, the road well-worn - she imagines them, huddled in this dingy cell for months together, and breathes in slow and deep. 

 “Come on,” she smiles, making sure to keep it on her face when Dream meets her eyes with wide, startled ones of his own. Dream still isn’t an ally, and isn’t a friend. 

 But - she watches as he smiles back, something inexplicably warm in her chest - maybe, one day, he could be.

[labeeboheme]

my spencer reid headcanons

(when a happy one matches a sad one, they’ll be matching colours)

also tw - vague mention of suicide, drug addiction, disordered eating mention (never anything graphic)

happy/cute

- Garcia and the rest of the team would leave little sticky notes around his desk and normally they’d just make him smile but when he was having a rough day they’d literally make him tear up with happiness

- he’s obscenely good at present giving, because he simultaneously remembers everything that people say they like and also has his ridiculous knowledge of what exists out there

- one week (it coincided with him being clean for 5 years, he never made the connection) he walked into the briefing room and every member of the team was dressed exactly as him. he kept trying to bring it up and everybody pretended they had no idea what he was on about. it became their BAU group chat icon for years.

- one of the best days of his life was when garcia took him dog walking with her, he got to just wander around with 6 dogs all day

- jack grows to adore him just as much as henry does. spencer hangs around a lot because him and hotch are usually the ones without anyone to hang out with at the weekend, and he takes jack to the museum with henry and michael all the time. jack ends up being a lot more like spencer than he imagined (which both terrifies and delights hotch)

- Spencer has never actually attended a graduation, despite having graduated from various degrees like 10+ times. when the BAU (Alex probably) finds out, they all force him into a gown and rock up to cheer him

- they liked to play trivia games where it was spencer vs the rest of the team, but someone (i’m thinking emily) picks up that it makes him feel left out. they then take turns being on spencer’s team. one month, the non-spencer team beats them and the joy it gives them makes him smile for a week

- garcia learns how to make mocktails and without fail, will make a huge jug for him anytime the rest are drinking alcohol but make sure they’re fun flavours so he gets just as much excitement as everyone else

- after Diana is moved to Virginia, the team become really close to her. JJ takes the boys to hang out with her because she’s always loved children (and Diana sometimes thinks Henry is a young Spencer, which makes JJ worry about how Spencer will react but he’s just sitting here grinning with tears in his eyes because he’s finally getting to see his mom be the mom he knew she could be)

- the BAU love his glasses, and there’s a competition to get a photo of him with them on, but he’s very good at avoiding cameras. After one case in a hotel they even try to hide his contact solution to force him to wear them (amateurs - he definitely keeps a spare box in his coat). There eventually is a single photo of them wearing them, but all members of the BAU fail. Spencer is babysitting Henry, who is distraught about having to wear glasses to school. Spencer gives up trying to comfort him and just takes his contact lenses out and switches them for glasses. Henry is super shocked but so happy that he matches his favourite person, so Spencer takes a photo of the two of them so that Henry can put it next to his bed

- he gets a cat after prison, it’s a tabby cat that is the light of his life, and the cat is just heavy enough that when Spencer gets it to sit on his lap that cat can be used a grounding pressure

—————————————————

angsty/sad

- developed disordered eating habits that started from him always being super underweight as a child bc he couldn’t afford food and then when he got to college he started to eat properly and put on actually healthy weight but he was so adverse to change that it freaked him out

- one of the roughest days at the BAU, after all the obvious terrible times, was when Morgan and Hotch was just having a casual conversation about how they’d helped Strauss with her addiction and it just broke him. he ended up hiding under Garcia’s desk and he’d only speak to her and Emily (as the only people I think ever actually helped him) and was non verbal, once they finally got him out into the office he refused to speak to either of them and was just stimming with garcia comforting him (once he started talking again he whispered why he was so upset to emily, and she joined him in his glaring at them every time he looked at them. morgan and hotch never really worked it out and eventually reid just gave up on being upset because he knew it couldn’t change what happened)

- spencer has never walked across the stage at graduation, but that doesn’t mean he never went to a graduation. his first degree his mom promised she’d come, but ended up not leaving the house. he stood to the side of the stage in his gown trying not to cry before just going back home and having the diploma mailed to him

- he relapsed in prison. he considered his sobriety over after the events in Mexico, and so just briefly gave up when one of the inmates offered him some. as soon as Garcia came to visit him, he broke down and never did it again. he never told Morgan and so he still got a text every year on the day he first got clean, which he thought he’d absolutely hate but ended up finding comfort in because even if the “happy 12 years sobriety, kid” should have been “happy 2 years sobriety, kid”, it reminded him that he’d done it before and could do it again

- after maeve died and they came round to help him clean his apartment, he was really proud of himself for being able to put her book on the shelf and feel like he’s moving on. and then the next day he was getting ready to go to work properly for the first time and he was just getting more and more terrified and anxious and then started to spiral because the longer he panicked the later he was. and it reminded him of how scared maeve had been to come outside to meet him at the restaurant but she’d done it anyway, and he put the book in his bag and found it a lot easier to leave the house after that

- Spencer is so goddamn bitter about them not helping him get clean, and he mentions it whenever he can. In a angry-but-never-let-himself-be-angry way, he takes some justification in seeing the team squirm with guilt. one day he’s listing symptoms of withdrawal for a case, and just starts to go like “another symptom is intense muscle pain, which for me was definitely the worst” or “yeah nausea is real bad, not that you’d know I guess” like he’s exhausted and pissed off and just gives up any pretence of subtlety

- when Diana dies, the whole team rally around Reid more than he could imagine. They all organise the funeral basically for him, and Garcia constantly cooks for him, and at least one person sleeps on his sofa each night in case he needs them. By week two he’s doing okay, and he quickly realises they’re doing it for themselves more than him, because they’re so desperate to let him know how loved he is. It’s still one of the worst weeks of his life, but it’s bearable and that’s purely down to him never having to feel lonely

- there’s a reason he knew exactly what to do when he walked in on Nathan Harris, and that’s because he’s done it with his mom, except that time he was 12 and his dad had just left and he just sat there covered in blood waiting for the ambulance, and whilst promising the paramedics that his dad was on his way home so that social services wouldn’t turn up, he read countless books on medical treatment so that next time he wouldn’t be so hopeless

- I respectfully disagree with the line where he’s like “this is my first meeting” at the Beltway clean cops, I’m convinced he would drive two hours to a meeting miles away so he could truly be anonymous and sit curled up in a chair and cry in meetings without even the slightest chance of seeing someone he knew

[mostly-mundane-atla]

i realize you probably dont care about the upcoming netflix adaptation but the cast pretty much got confirmed and people are talking about it again so, whats your take? are you lookin forward to it or dont care for it?

Usually I wouldn't care about this, and I have said before to please not involve me in discourse i haven't already talked about, but I was going to make this post anyway so

*cracks knuckles*

Alright children, it's come to my attention that some people don't know their etiquette regarding Indigenous peoples and are making themselves look a fool.

First: you are not entitled to anyone's family history under any circumstances, save perhaps them paying you to do a family tree.

There is an aspect of this specific to Native people. I don't know how it works for Native folks in Canada but in the United States, when you are born Native your parents do some paperwork and the Beaureu of Indian Affairs gives you a Certificate of Indian Blood, stating exactly how Native you can be proven to be based on how Native your parents can be proven to be. The Certificate of Indian Blood is often called a pedigree with bitter irony because in essence, that's what it is. We come with papers like fancy show dogs, just instead of it qualifying our "breed" it's qualifying our right to be enrolled in tribal membership.

I keep my pedigree with all my other important documents, like tax information, birth certificate, social security card, that sort of thing. I inherited a total blood degree of 1/4 Eskimo from my mom and thus qualify for tribal membership. Past a certain point, I wouldn't be considered "Native Enough" based on blood alone and i'd have to get a special dispensation to be legally recognized as an Indigenous descendant. It doesn't matter what my tribe or nation's traditional customs regarding kinship and identity were, by United States law, I could be declared "Not Native Enough" no matter my connection to my culture, no matter how accepted I was by my Native family. Kinda fucked up, isn't it?

Oh, and the Beaureu of Indian Affairs is part of the US government. They ran the schools where kids got beat for not speaking English. We have to tell them we are members of this marginalized group that seems to keep demanding safe drinking water and the right to not be kicked out of our homes at the expense of oil companies if we want access to healthcare and scholarships we may not otherwise have access to because of our "unique situation" (systemic disadvantage). This marginalized group that faces police brutality and wrongful arrests for peacefully protesting our right to live in the few places we have been allowed to live. So if the US government decides Native people are a problem, they have a registry of us. Kinda fucked up, don't you think?

So with that all in mind, do you see how uncouth and just plain nasty it is to demand proof of someone being "Native Enough" or "The Right Kind of Native"? If some freak tries to dig up this info and he's more mixed than some have deemed acceptable (so 1/4 or less) or god forbid doesn't even have his papers or tribal membership for any reason (justified paranoia, clerical error, any degree of negligence on the parents' part) he gets to look forward to being treated even more like a pretendian than the fans have already seen fit to treat him as. How fun.

Every day I wake up I am made to remember that I'll never look "Native Enough" to a huge swath of people who may not have even talked to one of us face-to-face. And it's only a matter of time before one of them sends me a message, written to sound like they're crawling on their belly because they have nothing but respect for "Real Natives" but if they saw me in the regalia my older cousin in Nome made for me so I could graduate high school in regalia, they'd throw a fit. If they saw me after I eventually get my tavlaģun, all pale skinned and blue-eyed, they'd treat me as a study in cultural appropriation, as if i'm not trying to learn whatever variation of my ancestral tongue I can get my hands on.

I can totally understand why he or anyone else might have thought it was better not to specify. Like my first reaction (and this isn't necessarily correct nor something i'm proud of, just the first thing that came to my mind) to seeing Katara was cast as that Mohawk girl from Anne with an E was "they couldn't even get a real eskimo?" I'm guessing others felt similarly. If he didn't wanna deal with that, I can't blame him.

If you think he doesn't look brown enough to convincingly play someone native to the tundra, i recommend the following: go on youtube, look up "inupiaq" and watch at least five of the videos that come up to see how varied we are.

Don't watch this live action adaptation if you don't want to, but if you refuse on the grounds of "the actor's not native enough :/" and go on to ignore actual Native media, that's some performative shit if I've ever seen it. Seriously, how many of the people complaining have watched Smoke Signals? Dance Me Outside? On the Ice? How many were hyped over Reservation Dogs (first two episodes are on Hulu as I'm writing this post)?

Anyway, I'm tired. I'm probably not gonna watch the live action series, but that has nothing to do with Sokka's actor not being "brown enough" to be seen as one of the red and brown. I'll finish off this post with a 1491s video so everyone can get a taste of Native media and maybe elevate it more than discourse over who gets to play a Fantasy Eskimo who was originally written and played by white guys with no Actual Eskimo input: