#This fucker does NOT know how to express genuine feelings and even less to a man

[arttlars]

At this point idk what I'm doing anymore

[k7l4d4]

Okay, this is gonna involve me unpacking a LOT of personal shit, so here goes...

I haven't seen my mom since I was five, because she was deeply mentally ill, and has no ability to take care of herself, so she gave me up to her grandparents. My grandparents tried really damn hard to raise me right, but when we moved when I was five, and my grandmother died later that year... things started going down hill.

I'm gonna state straight-up that my grandfather had depression following my grandmother's passing, and even in spite of that, he did TRY to raise me right. Too bad he was kind of an asshole. No, scratch that, he was a HUGE asshole, with a tight-fisted controlling streak wide enough you could swim the length of Lake Superior easily in it.

Ever since I was five, I haven't bee... good at handling my emotions. I fired back and forth between extremes easily, and I didn't know how to handle things going a way I didn't understand. This meant I got in trouble in school a lot when I was little. My grandpa's response to me getting in trouble? Yelling at me. FOR A FUCKING HOUR.

I was made to feel ashamed of having emotions, that nothing I did was right. Now, sometimes, I screwed up by genuine accident. Did this matter? Oh HELL NO. See, when I was young, I had a habit of pulling people into hugs around the shoulder and neck, otherwise known as putting people into Headlocks. I DID NOT KNOW WHAT A HEADLOCK WAS AT THE TIME. And yet, I got in trouble, and you want to know what my grandfather did? He said there was no way I couldn't have known what a headlock was without explaining HOW, and punished me by dragging me to the bathroom and forcing liquid soap into my mouth as a punishment. I wasn't even seven at the time, and I'll never forget the feeling of that slimy crap being scrubbed into my tongue until I burst into tears and tried to hack it up when it slipped down the back of my throat.

When I got into Middle School, and got something resembling muscles, my grandpa dragged me into his garage to "help" him work on his truck and stuff. Something something "giving me valuable life skills," which wouldn't be so bad if I weren't the embodiment of being an indoors kid who would rather curl up around a book and only interact with nature through a window. And yet, I was expected to stand still, holding bits and pieces of metal in place, wrench nuts and bolts, and more or less be his chore monkey. I never fucking retained ANY of the skills he taught me, because he was a lousy fucking teacher who expected someone to "just get it" after showing someone once. Oh, and HEAVEN FORBID you do a task he assigns you in a way that doesn't fit HOW HE PERSONALLY DOES IT to a "t." So there I was spending the next four years of my life being forced to act as an assistant to a grumpy old man's machine shop projects that he was in no shape to be doing, and frequently yelled at to the point of crying on more than one occasion because he couldn't somehow fucking grasp THAT I WAS NOT STRONG ENOUGH TO KEEP A PIECE OF METAL LIFTED FOR MORE THAN A FUCKING MINUTE AT A TIME!!!!

Oh... the yelling. I glossed over it, I guess. The yelling was kinda the staple of my grandpa being pissed off. He never hit me, but given all the times he's left my ears ringing, I'd say it's a fair trade, wouldn't you? Because here's the thing about my grandfather; the fucker wouldn't take responsibility for a fire he set if you found him holding a box of matches and a tank of gasoline.

I wasn't allowed to get angry with my grandpa. If we ever had a fight, it was my fault. If something went wrong, I was the one who had screwed up. If I tried to confront him on when he's being an insensitive piece of crap, he goes "I don't want to hear it" and walked away. To him, an argument only exists if HE is the one engaging it, if HE is the one in control; I wasn't allowed to have an opinion to express if he couldn't dictate the flow of a conversation. If I brought up one of his screw ups, he would say "it didn't happen," and treated me like I was either making something up or dreaming, to the point I honestly doubted if I remembered right, because he was so utterly certain he couldn't be the one at fault. The standout incident in my memory is the time he had a fit of road rage because he thought someone was tailgating him; his response? Hit the brakes and let them get close, and CHUCKLE about it before speeding back up, because WHO CARES THAT HE HAD TWO OTHER PEOPLE IN THE CAR AND THAT THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN HURT, HUH!? I was scared out of my fucking MIND, all because he had to get pissy and throw a fit in the middle of the fucking road!!! But whenever I fucking bring it up, he tries to change how it happened, or pretend that "he was just stopping for the stoplight" THE FUCK HE WAS!!

I have been infatilized by this man... for YEARS. If he had me do something on my own, he would come over and double-check it, nitpick at it until he found SOMETHING to complain about, and then would undo it and redo it himself. It was humiliating. A project that he had dragged me out of the house for, and after all the effort I put in... he just did it himself anyway. I felt like I was five again, like a little kid who couldn't be trusted at the big kid's table. It was so humiliating, and the only thing that kept me from crying at times was that there was nobody around to see him treat me like this, like I was a little kid instead of nearly a grown man.

When I was in Middle School, we were told to think about what we wanted to do with our lives. At the time, I wanted to be a video game developer. My grandpa's response to hearing about that? Complain and browbeat me into changing it because "every kid want's to do that." Literally NONE of my classmates at the time wanted to be that. Then again, my grandpa has never once hid the fact about what he considers "real work," and programming sure as hell ain't it. He made me ashamed of what I wanted to do with my life, until I lost all motivation to keep going.

I can't even count the number of times me and him fought and I started crying because of how small and alone he made me, and his only response was to "quit my fucking bawling." Because real men don't cry! Real men suck it up, buttercup, and keep it all buried inside, because that's how you get thing's DONE, you see. He shamed me for having emotions, for not conforming to the impossible standards he set for me.

My grandfather was also a bit of a prude; to him, it didn't fucking matter that I was a hormonal teenager going through puberty, I had to adhere to HIS standards of what constituted proper behavior. Always. He made me hate my body, yelled at me for self-exploration, and treated me like I was a disgusting THING he had to put up with having in his house whenever my self-control slipped.

Then there's the fat shaming. Which is really fucking rich, given that the man has a gut big enough you could fit a basketball in it, but what can you do? "Do as I say, not as I do," fucking hypocrite. It... it would be ONE thing if he just yelled at me to exercise more. But no. He doesn't do that. He needles me. He hems and haws. He asks "how's that jogging going?" He makes comments about me exercising more, or commenting on how much I'm eating, even when he's packing away two or three plates.

This has been my entire life. A never-ending slog through pushing my way past my grandpa's emotional abuse, and trying to keep one foot in front of the other, desperately looking for a way out. I don't hate him entirely. But I will NEVER forgive him for how he treated me.

I love Chloe as a character, because I see myself at my lowest in her. When I see her questioning why Audrey doesn't love her, I'm reminded of the times I asked myself what I did wrong while my grandpa refused to answer instead of just repeatedly yelling at me. When she confesses how useless she feels, it's like I'm looking at myself slogging through high school, asking myself what the fuck am I doing with my life. Every last scrap of desire for validation, for approval, for wanting people close but shoving them at arm's length... it's like looking at a mirror composed of my worst moments. When I see her, I see every little moment of failing to live up to impossible expectations without even being aware of the criteria that I've had to endure, and can see that she's endured in how Audrey demeans her. To me, the writers insisting she's "irredeemable" disgusts me; it's a mockery of everything I've been through, of saying that every time I couldn't be what my grandfather wanted me to be, every time I screwed up at school or got into a fight with a teacher because I was so overwhelmed that all I could do was lash out and hoped that everything would be better... that I was just this evil little monster who wasn't grateful for being taken in by someone who didn't HAVE TO. As if being given the absolute bare minimum of human decency is some kind of justification for being insulted, belittled, and screamed at until I was left curled up, ears covered, hoping that the scary things in life would leave me alone, because "sitting there and taking it" was the only thing my Grandfather would let me do when he was angry. I'm not just angry with how the show treats Chloe, how it uplifts Andre while ignoring his failures as a parent and just ignoring every way that Audrey's impossible expectations and abusive behavior have shaped Chloe as a person... I'm hurt. I felt betrayed. Like this character who I sympathize with, EMPATHIZE with, so strongly, was told "no, you are not ever allowed to grow," and being the only one held accountable for all the shitty things surrounding her... it was like a knife to the heart. I can't speak for anyone else... but when Thomas decided that turning an abused teenage girl into a demonized monster over the abusive father of the male protagonist and the rich brat who routinely hurts people just because he can... I lost any ability to respect him.

One question regarding my upcoming review

I'm making good progress on my review of the Season 5 finale, but there's one aspect about it that I want some more information on.

Much like with my "Qilin" review, where I asked my followers for their perspectives on police brutality and racial profiling, I was wondering if there were any followers of this blog who would be willing to share their experience with child abuse or neglectful parents.

Because the season finale will have a scene that will make me look back on earlier episodes with scenes of child abuse in regards to Adrien, Kagami, Chloe, and Felix, I want to get an idea of what ways the show missed the mark when it came to depicting the subject.

This is far from mandatory, but if anyone is able to share their experiences, I would greatly appreciate it, and I will be sure to credit you in the review proper.

[thefanficmonster]

Just Another One

Sequel to: ‘A Little Bit Of Honesty’

Corpse Husband x Actress!Reader (Female)

Warnings: Angst, Heartbreak, Mention of bad past relationships, Swearing

Genre: Angst, Romance, RPF (Real Person Fic)

Summary: They keep proving each other right in the most wrong ways possible. They each want to be guarded even if that means the other will be hurt. Maybe that’s what they want - to hurt one another because they’ve already hurt each other once before.

Requested by the lovely readers who enjoyed the previous fic ‘A Little Bit Of Honesty’. Sorry for the large time gap between the posting of the two fics but I still hope you guys will take the time to read it and if so I hope you enjoy it! Love you all with all my heart, Vy ❤

When you go out of your way to avoid leaving the house your options of entertainment are severely limited and you can’t blame anyone or anything but yourself for it. Today, I wouldn’t have gone out of my apartment even if I was one of those people who frequent the outdoors seeing as how the sky is trying to flood the Earth with all this nonstop rain. It does set a mood for a perfect night in but when you spend all your nights in doing the same thing over and over again, the atmosphere is practically meaningless. And so I ‘ve decided to resort to channel surfing as though I’ll find something interesting on TV that I haven’t yet seen on one of my social media timelines.

I pass several cooking channels on my journey, making a mental note of their individual numbers in case I don’t stumble across anything capable of better distracting me from my boredom and loneliness that’s slowly starting to creep in. I pass by a few movie channels showing teenage romcoms as if to celebrate the start of summer so you can imagine how quickly I moved on from those. Then come the celebrity channels which can often get a laugh out of me because of how pathetic and unbelievably ridiculous they are. And so, I stick around one where there’s a broadcast on a movie showing that’s happening tonight in LA. Oddly enough, despite my anxiety, going to a movie showing has always been on my list of things I’d want to do. This can be considered living vicariously or rubbing salt into the wound that I’ll probably never go because my anxiety and fear of being recognized is too severe. Either way I stick around to watch it.

And man do I regret it now looking at several different angels of a couple of actors entering the venue where they are to be photographed and asked questions by the mob of paparazzi that’s gathered due to the massive event. That in and of itself doesn’t sound - and really isn’t - so bad. However, it’s important to note that the actress in this duo is Y/N. Y/N L/N. My Y/N....shit, sorry, I mean my FRIEND Y/N, her arm linked with whatever-the-fuck-his-name-is who is holding an umbrella above the both of them, shielding them from the downpour of rain that is also taking place in LA apparently.

“The two were seen entering the venue earlier this evening, looking particularly cozy in each other’s presence if I do say so myself. The rain probably worked nicely in their favor.“ The first reporter says, her teasing tone of voice sending chills of anger down my spine as I glare at the screen, hands balled in fists, jaw clenched - all my body’s instinctive reactions to what is being shown to me. I know I technically have no right to behave or feel this way, in fact I should be fucking happy for Y/N and her successful career and the progress in her love life. But damn it how can I?! I was so damn close to kissing this girl! I was so fucking close to falling in another trap, tripping and landing in the embrace of another liar and user, another girl who switches partners more often than shoes. How could I’ve been so reckless to get so close to her even platonically? How did we become close enough for me to 1) show her my face; 2) start inviting her over to my apartment regularly; and how didn’t I notice the kind of messed up person she was all that time.

She was all sweet and flirting and shit a week or so ago and now she’s doing the exact same thing with him! The cameras are capturing them perfectly: every laugh, every exchange of a knowing look or nod, ever smack to his arm when he tells a joke. But what bothers me most is the many times he’s wrapped his arm around her to pull her closer. Not just for pictures, but just because the fucker felt like it! And Y/N doesn’t seem to mind it at all. 

“They have been the talk of the town recently, so while they could just be adding fuel to the fire, they could also have been caught by the flame and ‘caught feelings’ as they say. Regardless these two are a view we’d like to see more often.“ The other reporter says and that’s the final straw.

In one swift motion I turn the TV off and throw the remote across the room. It hits the wall and falls to the ground in several pieces, broken by the force of the impact. Just like I am broken by the force of the impact of these news. I don’t know which is worse: the fact that I fell for her and almost let her know it; the fact that she’s just another member of the club I don’t want anywhere near my life; or the fact that I can’t believe it.

Yeah that’s right - one foolish part of me refuses to believe that’s she’d do such a thing. I think that’s the same part which is still in awe of her so you can bet I ignore that part the majority of the time.

She is just another one. Not the one. Having been hurt before doesn’t mean she won’t hurt me or anyone else she’s gonna be with. Hurt people hurt people.

And damn has she hurt me, probably without knowing a damn thing. How selfish can you be, Y/N? How selfish can you really get? And how much am I going to allow you to hurt me?

                                                             *  *  *

“Thank you so much, Andrew. I would’ve died on the spot of anxiety if I was on my own.“ I say to my best friend who is currently sitting next to me on a park bench, in a tux, eating a cheeseburger. I too am still in my gown and am also gorging on a cheeseburger of my own.

“Don’t mention it. Us anxious people need to stick together.“ He bumps his shoulder against mine, stealing a small genuine smile from me, “Plus I couldn’t not come with you. You know how much I like a good rumor.“

I scoff, “Of course you do, but then again there was no need to add to what the media has already made a whole-ass ship out of.” I roll my eyes and take another bite. My appetite hasn’t been in its best condition so I’m only eating this under Andrew’s orders. I have no idea how people can ship us romantically, he’s the definition of an older - and very bossy - brother to me. I wish I could tell each and every single one of those girls who hate me because I’ve ‘stolen their man’ that I’d most likely be their sister in law rather than man snatcher, seeing as how my relationship with Andrew is so sibling-like.

That’s because we’re too alike, no one gets that. People play the ‘opposites attract’ car more often than I consider rational. But  then again when they see a couple like Andrew and I - who are basically the same person in different bodies - they suddenly think we’re super compatible. Trust me, we’re not. And everyone who’s been on set with us will tell you the same.

“What can I say...“ he shrugs, smirking at me, “I like the fun. I bet Becca doesn’t though.“

I can’t help but huff. Andrew is the only one I’ve ever openly expressed my frustrations with Rebecca to. He was super helpful on the subject, seeing as how he can relate - many partners of his have tried to use him, some of which even succeeded. He’s more than qualified to school me on the topic but it turned more into sharing bad experiences. One of which was that instance back at Corpse’s apartment.

“And neither does Corpse I suppose.“ As though he’s read my mind, he pokes the hurt spot, pouring salt in the wound causing me to visibly cringe as though the pain was physical - because it was, I felt it in my chest and in my gut, a sharp stab of guilt and regret. 

Why did I let it come to that? Why did I let us get so close? How did I not think of the consequences?

“I don’t care if he does or doesn’t.“ My hand automatically reaches for the pocket of the jeans I’m not even wearing in search of a cigarette. Not that I’d be able to light one even if I had them on me - Andrew would smack it out of my hand before I could even take a single puff.

He has the audacity to laugh, “You’re such a bad liar, Y/N.”

That’s all he needs to say really - that’s enough to make me feel seen and understood. Though that’s not always a good thing. I often times wish he couldn’t read me so well. Better said: I wish I didn’t let myself be so readable, you know. I’m just glad he’s the one who sees me because if it were anyone else they’d use this vulnerability of mine against me. I’m well aware that it’s a weakness, a really inconvenient one, but damn it I can’t get rid of it. I feel like I’ll be less human if I lose it. Everyone’s allowed to be vulnerable, some just are lucky enough to choose who they’ll be vulnerable around. I’m lucky enough to to have a choice, not so lucky in the people I choose to trust. Guess that’s not a luck thing, it’s just my inability to decipher whether a person is worth all the pain and torture of coming clean to them or not. So far many people have burnt me but two stick out in particular - Becca and Corpse. Corpse especially, which is the odd thing considering he hasn’t even wronged me in any way. At least not yet.

“Your phone’s vibrating.“ Andrew says, pulling me out of my overflowing head when he hands me my phone which I handed to him because of my dress’ lack of pockets.

“Thanks.“ I mutter through a sigh as I take it from him, checking the notification I’ve gotten.

My stomach drops: it’s a message from Corpse.

“Hey I saw you are in LA but we have a stream tomorrow, will you still be participating?“

Before I can reply, he sends me another message.

“I know you’re probably very busy but we get the most viewership on the streams when you’re in them so....“

I’ve probably been staring at my phone screen for longer than I thought since Andrew felt the need to make sure I was still breathing: “Hey, you ok? You look terribly pale.” I can barely hear him let alone reply. I can’t hear my own thoughts to know what to reply to him. “Y/N, you’re scaring me.”

I’m scaring myself too, Andrew. I’m scared too. I’m scared of how broken my picker has become. I almost kissed this guy! I almost entrusted all my thoughts, hopes, wishes and goals to him! What the fuck was I thinking?! Well, at least I know what he was thinking about - viewership. Likes, subs, views, publicity. The more eyes on the stream the better for him and everyone else. I genuinely want to applaud him, no one has been so direct about using me before. I was in a relationship with Becca for almost a year before I accidentally found out what she had been doing the whole time. No one’s ever smacked me in the face with this much honesty. It’s bittersweet really.

I want to laugh, I want to cry, slap myself across the face, slap him...I want to do so much, but all I can do now is sit in silence and think of how I could be so stupid.

He’s just another one, how did I not see that? How do I never see it until it’s too late? Why is one part of me still screaming: ‘He didn’t mean it like that!’

AND WHY THE FUCK DO I WANT TO BELIEVE IT?

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[fanmoose12]

a little something for @bruciesnat :) i know i've promised it like a lifetime ago, sorry for the delay! oh, and i decided to combine it with a prompt i also received a long while ago <3

Mike doesn't know why he's doing this. Doesn't understand how he agreed to it, can't comprehend why Erwin would make him do it. Mike doesn't know what he had done to deserve this- this punishment.

He's- he's a good man. An honest one. He serves to ensure the future of humanity, he risks his life to give others a better one.

He's good at it too, he's excellent at fighting and slashing and scouting. He was the best one at it, before- before the annoying midget came.

The same annoying midget, who is insanely strong and easily irritated. The same annoying midget, who has a crush on their adorable Hange. Hange, who Mike has to seduce to test Erwin's theory that Levi, insanely strong, easily irritated Levi, truly has a crush on their Hange.

Mike swallows heavily as he sits next to Hange, just a little too close as Erwin instructed. He smells that it won't end well.

He cringes, as he puts his arm around her shoulders.

Mike likes Hange, a lot actually. Sometimes he feels like they're siblings that were torn apart by some bigger entity. So yeah, he likes Hange. But definitely not like that.

But, oh well, anything for the cause, right?

"Hey, Hans," he murmurs, adopting his most seducting tone. He hopes that his smile is charming enough to captivate their dear scientist. "Are you free tonight? I have two tickets to the theater perfomance," he leans in closer, lowering his voice to what could probably (Mike is an eternal optimist!) be called an enticing whisper. "They're showing the creation of the the Walls tonight."

Somewhere on his periphery, Mike can see a swift dark shadow that oozes the smell of detergent. That shadow, it grows closer, its aura becoming more menacing.

Mike can only hope that if Levi attempts to kill him, Erwin would intervene.

Although... knowing Erwin, he'd just write Mike's death off as a necessary sacrifice.

He takes his hand off Hange. The shadow retreats a few steps back.

"Sorry, Mike," Hange shrugs with a small, apologizing smile. "I showed that play to Levi a few weeks ago. I had my fill of religious propaganda for now. But if you're looking for someone to accompany you," she winks and turns around. Mike's heart sinks. "Levi really liked going to the theatre! He'll be happy to tag along, right, Levi?"

Mike meets Levi's eyes, and sees nothing but desire for murder inside.

Mike quickly scrambles to his feet. "You know, I'll just ask Gelgar to go with me. I'm sure he doesn't have anything better to do."

And they can get wasted afterwards. Mike really needs that after this conversation.

Just as he retreats, Levi takes his place, sitting down next to Hange, also just a little too close.

The mission had failed spectacularly, but, Mike consoles himself, at least he learned that Hange and Levi went to theatre together. And sometimes intel is more important than the victory, right?

Ah, if only Erwin would share his opinion on that.

***

Erwin's second attempt is even worse than the first one, but, at least, this time it doesn't directly involve Mike. Still, he's an unwilling spectator to it, and, just as the last time, he doesn't like where all of this is going.

He already feels bad for the poor guy Erwin hired to hit on Hange during the annual military ball. Where did Erwin get the money - did he take them from the Corps' funds or his own allowance, Mike doesn't know, and, frankly, he isn't sure which option is more disturbing.

At least, the actor is handsome, Mike doesn't know if Hange would like him, he doesn't know if she has a type, and if she does, he hopes it's not annoying midgets, but the guy is handsome, there is no denying that.

Hange has cleaned up fairly well too, the white suit looks excellent on her, bringing out all of her best assets, demonstrating her wide hips and lean, long legs. The hair, gathered in a neat bun, shows her long, gorgeous neck, and the light make-up make her even more gorgeous than usual.

When she and Erwin walked through the front door - him in his blue suit and Hange in her white, symbolising their Wings of Freedom, everyone had their breath taken away.

Even Mike was a little shocked to see Hange dressed up like this, and Levi, who stood right next to him, was completely blown away, staring at Hange with wide-eyed, lovestruck look.

Thanks to Levi's ridiculous expression, Mike now understands why Erwin goes to such length to bring their resident weirdos together. It is delightful to watch Levi behave like that, and Mike longs to see more of this side of him.

Soon after Hange and Erwin make their grand entrance, their guy makes the first move.

He approaches Hange, his eyes bright and smile so charming it makes Mike envious that Hange is at the receiving end of it. He kisses her hand, whispers something in her ear.

"He praises her recent experiment. I thought it was a good place to start," Erwin explains quietly to him.

"Ah," Mike nods. So Erwin thought every detail through? Not surprising at all. "Think this would have an effect on Levi?"

"It already does," Erwin says, pointing to a furious cloud of black hair and suit that is approaching them at a rapid speed.

"Has four-eyes lost all shame?" Levi practically growls, his eyes throwing flames. "Is she seriously flirting with a fucker from the MP?"

"He's not a soldier," Mike answers, reciting a legend Erwin created. "He's actually a wealthy merchant from the South. Heard he sells apples to the King himself."

"And since when Hange is interested in someone like him," Levi crosses hands on his chest, his glare turning even darker, as Erwin's actor takes Hange by the hand and leads her to the dance floor.

"You know, you can ask Hange to a dance," Erwin advices with a pleased smile. "Then she won't be able to flirt with others."

Levi scoffs. "I would rather fight a horde of titans than dance with stinky four-eyes."

Maria, Rose and Sina, Mike thinks. They're worse than children.

"Hange has taken a bath before coming here," he tells Levi.

Levi rolls his eyes. "And now she looks even more awful than usual."

Mike shares a look with Erwin. Does Levi prefer usual Hange, when she doesn't bath for days and her eyes water from the lack of sleep? It almost sounds cute.

"This is the last time I'm attending this shitty ball," Levi swears to Erwin. "Even wine here is shitty."

He marches away immediately after that, heading to the table with wine. Mike can barely stop his laughter, as he watches Levi take a glass of wine, drink a few large gulps of it, and then wince, his mouth moving as he probably murmurs violent curses. He doesn't take his eyes off Hange and her dance partner, and relaxes only when the song ends.

Both Mike and Erwin watch intently as the actor kisses Hange's hand once again. Hange blushes, and Mike almost coos. Levi grabs another glass of wine.

When the actor starts leading Hange away, in the direction of the balcony, Levi starts moving too. He intercepts them just at the edge of the ballroom.

Mike knows he should have expected something like that, knows that Levi doesn't exactly possess the best of manners, but pouring wine over someone? Over his own colleague and friend? Mike certainly didn't expect that.

He's delighted to see what happens next, though.

What happens is that Hange's gorgeous white suit is ruined and Levi wraps his hand around her wrist and drags her to the bathroom. He sports a unusually pleased expression and Hange is laughing herself silly.

Not a bad ending to this endeavor, Mike thinks.

"Another disaster," Erwin sighs.

***

Third time is a charm, or so Mike hopes.

This time Erwin decides to take matter in his hands, and that another sign that this plan will succeed.

The plan is simple, yet, hopefully, effective. Erwin is to whisk Hange away to some remote location, create a scene that would look like a moment between lovers, and Mike is to call Levi there and make sure he witnesses it all.

Erwin is a brave man, Mike thinks, as his Commander explains the plan to him. He would never dare to do something like that to humanity's strongest. To awaken his jealous streak... Mike is glad he's not in Erwin's place.

One sunny afternoon, the plan is set in motion. Erwin takes Hange, and Mike goes to find Levi.

He finds him fairly quickly, in the middle of cleaning Hange's room. Man, he could at least try to make his crush be less discreet. But that's beside the point now, because Levi is cleaning Hange's room and not watching Erwin and Hange. Mike confidently strides up to him.

"Levi! I've just been looking for you."

"What do you need?" he asks boringly. "And have you seen four-eyes? I can't find her all day."

Erwin prepared some legend, a reason why Mike needs Levi, but in the heat of the moment, Mike can't remember a single word. So he just yells "Come with me!" and hope that Levi follows.

Thankfully, he does.

Mike leads him to the stables, where Erwin is already at it. His palm is on the wall, next to Hange's head, and from Mike's point of view, it certainly looks like they're in the middle of... something naughty.

Next to him, Levi tenses, and Mike can practically hear his teeth grinding.

Mike prepares for something very ugly, but then...

"I- I didn't know that Erwin and four-eyes-" oh, fuck, it sounds like Levi is genuinely sad, like he's heartbroken or something. Mike feels a strange desire to hug the little guy and pat his head. But then he remembers that he and Erwin are the reason for Levi's distress right now, and... remorse starts kicking in.

"Levi, listen, it's not-"

"Levi!"

As always, Hange is the one to save the day.

She breaks free from Erwin and sprints to Levi, a wide smile on her face. "You won't believe what Erwin had just told me! He gave me permission to go in the town's library and bring back all the books I want! I'm in dire need of your muscles, humanity's strongest, you'll go with me, right?"

Levi still seems grouchy, but under Hange's sunny grin, his angry facade crumbles. "I don't know if Commander will allow it..."

He doesn't even try to hide his bitterness and irration. Mike disguises his chuckle as a coughing fit.

"Erwin!" Hange turns to him, eyes pleading. "Can Levi go with me?"

"Sure," Erwin nods. "Take all the time you need."

Hange yells in triumph, loud enough to make Mike wince. She grabs Levi by the hand and drags him away. Erwin watches them with a wistful smile.

"I don't think we should get involved in their relationships," Mike says, as he approaches Erwin. He stands close to his Commander, their shoulders pressing against each other. "We should let them figure it out themselves."

"Agreed," Erwin says. "I'm sure they'll manage well enough even without us."

Mike watches Hange wrap her arm around Levi, and is inclined to agree. They will certainly manage without them both.

Or, at least, Hange is able to manage.

And that should be enough.

[tigerdrop]

so. this is my attempt at posting a 20k-word-long g/t frenrey RP that kogo and i were doing at the start of this year. its not finished and im not sure when were gonna pick it back up, since we are currently working on co-op game theory instead of a filthy RP that takes place like 100k words down the line of co-op game theory. but ive been sitting on it long enough so here u go

i never really planned on posting this anywhere so its really self-indulgent and not as polished as our usual stuff but look. this is a ludicrous amount of erotica im dropping here. cut me a lil slack

anyway, here it is: Gordon Gets A Xen Bath

Gordon tries to keep moving, but eventually his pace slows to a stop, his legs growing heavier and heavier until he can't bring himself to lift them.

"Okay. Okay," he pants, bending over and bracing his hands on his knees. "I can't fucking do this anymore, man! I'm tapped out! We've been walking all day - or, well, I have, I don't know about you. We can't... can't all be alien god fuckers, floating around or whatever." He pauses to catch his breath. Every muscle in his body aches from the strain of hopping around Xen in the HEV suit. Sure, gravity doesn't have quite as strong a hold here as it did back on Earth, and that makes all that metal easier to lug around, but it seems like time doesn't work the same way, either. Gordon can't tell how long it's been. Feels like days.

Smells like it, too, now that he's got a moment to breathe. He's covered in dirt and slime and congealed alien blood and God know what else.  In short, he needs a fucking break. And Gordon aggressively takes one right then and there, dropping to his feet. What's the rush, anyway? "Like we're ever gonna find out way out of this fucking place," he mutters.

> Benrey watches as Gordon collapses, a pile of metal and smells. Odors. Sweat and dirt and tangled hair. His head tilts to the side but his expression remains flat as he lifts his head and gazes out into the vastness of Xen, before turning back to Gordon and furrowing his brow. They hadn't even gotten far, not really, so it doesn't really make sense that he'd just crumple like this.

> He sniffs, shuffling in a circle on his feet as Gordon bitches behind him--something about never escaping Xen, as if Benrey hadn't traveled from one end to the other to find him in the first place--and chews his lip in deep concentration, trying to think of literally anything that would maybe make the guy stop. Stop with the, uh, whining and whinging and "blah blah, we're not all alien god fuckers" or whatever.

> (Though, well, technically, Gordon was an alien god fucker anymore. Their time back with the space maggots and the gun bugs and that skinny doppelganger had seen them in a couple of situations where Gordon happily fucked an "alien god.")

> But. Wait. No. Mind wandering. Wandering to fun places, places more fun than being lost in Xen (though he's not lost; they'll find their way out eventually), but not anywhere useful. And, for once, he has to think along those boring terms. Being, you know, reliable or whatever.

> What matters is making Gordon go. The hamster wheel in his head turns and turns until the rodent is slung clear off and, with a slow blink, Benrey accepts defeat. Ideas are not his forte when he's actually trying to be helpful. He turns to his human, he tilts his head in the other direction, and he waits for his human to look up at him. Then, he speaks without even waiting for eye contact.

> "So, uh... what can best friend Benrey do to... make you. I dunno. Less dumb?"

> Nailed it. Benrey is getting good at this "empathy" thing.

Gordon drags his gaze up from the ground to Benrey, and immediately scrunches his eyebrows up. "Wow, that was almost nice of you," he says, a touch of genuine surprise in his voice. It doesn't outweigh the disdain, though. "You know what? Just don't do anything. The best thing you can do right now is to stand right there and do absolutely nothing... and let me just... catch my breath."

He hopes against hope that, for once, Benrey will do what he says. Despite all the evidence that suggests otherwise. His internal monologue turns a bit haggard. Well, it's not like there's anything he could do about it, anyway. Even if he was fit as a fiddle, if Benrey wanted to fuck off and get lost, there was no stopping him.

He can't hold Benrey's stare for long, though. It's-- it's always harder to look him right in the eye like this. Something about the size of him makes it uncomfortable, like he's staring right through Gordon. So he darts his eyes away, scanning his surroundings. The perils of an alien landscape: all the little islands and chunks of earth start to look the same after awhile. Rocks and strange, angry plants and pools of mysterious fluids. He's seen it all. There's a number of all these things and more around him, but the one thing he finds himself wishing for is something to eat. You can't trust anything out here.

"I just want a burger, man," Gordon groans. "Sick of jumping around like I'm playing some kind of platformer. You know, they never tell you how exhausting this shit is! My heart's-- my heart's racing-- like, adrenaline? Hate fucking jumping over these big-ass pits, I'm tellin' you."

Or, failing that, like, a nap. Or a bath. He vocalizes both of these things before burying his head in his hands. Maybe he could get one of those microsleeps going. If he can just calm the fuck down, anyway.

> Food? Nap? Bath?

> Benrey's mouth curls into a jagged smile. Of course Gordon would just need some of that weird, seemingly pointless human stuff. You would think after two grand adventures of dragging this sad sack around and listening to him complain every two meters, he'd have picked up on the human necessities. Things like 'burger" and "bed time" and "smelling like preferred smells, and not the natural smells that are apparently 'bad.'"

> A huge sigh heaves out of Benrey and he watches in amusement as it makes Gordon's hair puff out of his face. Small little tiny man, curled up on a chunk of rock, not able to embiggen and make things easier. It's sad and pathetic, almost as sad and pathetic as Gordon looks, but Benrey knows he's capable of being a good enough guy for the both of them. A real bro. A best friend.

> Because he knows Xen inside and out for some reason. And he's observant. He's seen things and can do the mental math necessary to figure out how to problem solve, sort of. He's spent enough time floating around Xen to figure out what those sparkly puddles do, and he's seen enough of those people back in the Wrong World eat the not-Lamarrs (or, at least the Vorti-bros did, which were close enough).

> And, well, Gordon could literally sleep anywhere. There was dirt for days, lots of rocks to align the spine. Fun nap places. Good for Gordon.

> With a burst of pride and dagger-toothed grin, Benrey propped his elbow on the island where Gordon was whining and held out his hand, palm up and flat, extended as an open invitation.

> "Oh. Uh. That it? That's, uh... that's a cool I can do. Big cool for you."

He stares, eyes narrowed in confusion. "What? What do you mean, that's a-- What are you doing?"

> "I'm doing a cool," Benrey responds. Though his voice is still fairly flat, there is a bite to it, hidden almost completely under his monotone. As if to emphasize the point, he lifts his hand and slaps it back down into the earth once more in a way he thought was light. Judging from the way the ground shook and the island rocked, perhaps not as light as he'd imagined.

> "Gonna, uh... help. Or somethin'. You gettin' on or you gonna be a babyman about it?"

Gordon yelps as the ground shakes around him, even though he's (relatively) safe on the ground. "Jesus, Benrey! Watch it!"

What the hell is he doing? His eyes dart between Benrey's hand and face as the gears struggle to turn. It's been a long fucking day, all right, and Benrey's... Benrey-isms are hard enough to understand at the best of times. This is supposed to help, somehow. So, scratch the burger. And the nap, too, probably. So, does that mean he wants to--

No. That's stupid. He's stupid for thinking it. Gordon steadfastly ignores the way his ears prickle and shakes his head, like a dog ridding itself of water.

"Please tell me you're gonna just carry me the rest of the way," Gordon sighs. It's a visible effort for him to get back to his feet. "Hey, actually, why didn't you just do that from the get-go? You're not even breaking a sweat!"

He complains, sure, but it doesn't stop him from dizzily shuffling forward and stepping on. Better late than never. He'll have plenty of time to chew Benrey out for this once he's out of this alien hellscape and back in his own goddamn bed.

> Benrey blinks.

> Oh. Yeah. He probably could have carried Gordon, huh? The thought never really occurred to him at first because, well, why would it? Was he a bad guy--a bad friend--for believing that his bestest buddy was a capable man? Color him insensitive for actually expecting things of Gordon, but he'd just watched the guy win Space Invaders in real life.

> After that, traipsing through Xen should have been a walk in the park.

> Best not to point that out, though. Gordon may take offense and, for once in his life, he isn't out to make him mad. He's trying to be good, trying to carry that camaraderie they built from Shit World Without Sony Products back to Good World With Heavenly Sword. Highlighting Gordon's stupid human failings would only work to reset the karma he'd worked so hard to build up in their social link. Or, you know, however humans fucking worked.

> Instead, he lets Gordon crawl onto his hand and then turns away, wracking his mind for the last place he saw a good puddle. After all, it made sense to start with a bath, right? Eating while gross would make Gordon complain, and sleeping while gross wouldn't be much better. Drifting past island after island, his head swivels to see if maybe there are some good candidates going forward.

> And there's... really not. Testicle stalks. Pointy rocks. Less pointy rocks. Tit-on-stilts that is aggressively spitting little Lamarrs over the edge of a rock chunk that looks like Swiss cheese. Benrey isn't sure what it's hoping to accomplish, but it's sure as fuck not accomplishing it.

> Then, he sees it, in the distance: A glittering pool of blue that sparks like electricity and glitters like cheap body mist. A strange smell, not unlike Sweet Voice, wafts from its direction. It's certainly one of the Good Smells Humans Like. Gordon will love it.

> Wordlessly, he glides toward it. Gordon's smart. He'll know what he's getting at.

Benrey's not saying anything, which is mildly concerning, but he is looking around like he knows what he's looking for. And when Benrey fucks off, Gordon in tow - held in a grip that's a little looser than he likes - Gordon lets his brain wind down for the first time in... a long while. Flying around Xen like this is nervewracking, yeah, but in a way he's more equipped to handle. Benrey's chest at his back helps. It's solid as a wall and deceptively warm, and if he keeps himself pressed flat against it, he can almost forget about these bottomless pits they're flying over.

He lets Benrey go like that for an indeterminable amount of time. (He may have dozed off a little.) But Gordon comes back to himself once Benrey's velocity changes. Gets a bit more pointed. Eventually, Gordon puzzles out that he's heading for one island in particular, one with a shimmering pool on its surface. Not exactly what the endgame was.

Wait. Gordon's brain chugs. He was looking for... some kind of water? Oh, Christ.

"Wait, were you being serious about the bath thing?" he asks as they approach. "I-- I wasn't being that serious about it! Getting out of here kind of seems like the more important thing!"

> "Huh?"

> The word falls off of Benrey's lips despite the fact he actually heard everything Gordon said. He heard him and even registered him, but he just didn't get him. After all, he's fairly certain that Gordon wants a bath considering it was one of the big things that spewed out of his mouth when he was being all needlessly fussy before, so why isn't he just saying it? Owning up to it?

> Was it because it was a detour? Slowing them down? Or was it just Gordon being whatever-the-hell-Gordon-was?

> Yeah, that had to be it. Gordon just doesn't want to get side-tracked. That's fair, he supposes. Or, at the very least, he assumes that's what a human would consider fair, considering how obsessed with "time" and "schedules" and "fast" they all were.

> "Real quick dip," Benrey promises, hoping to put Gordon's mind at ease; it was a far cry from what he typically did, so he could only hope it landed properly, that he was saying the right things and had the right inflections. "Real fast. Get'cha all nice. Wet. Uh. Soaps and hygiene. You know."

"Oh my God, man, it's gonna be a whole fuckin' production!" Gordon agonizes as Benrey brings them to that strange, glittering watering hole. "Saving the world's kinda time-sensitive, you know? And it's always such a hassle getting in and out of this thing! And-- Okay, hold on, you actually want to-- Okay. Fine. Look, I'm just saying, this is weird even for you, Benrey!"

Soaps. Hygiene. You know. Letting his best frenemy peel him out of his suit so he can scrub him clean, like normal people do. A shiver runs down the back of Gordon's neck. There's gotta be some kind of catch, but honestly, he's having a hard enough time keeping up with events as they're written. If there's some kind of malicious subtext to this whole thing, well, that's not his problem. He's got more important things to worry about, like convincing Benrey that it would be a little more prudent to just keep forging on rather than waste valuable time on a bath.

...Unfortunately, he's close enough to smell whatever it is that wafts off the surface in waves, and it makes Gordon's resolve waver. It's a clean smell, warm and vaguely fruity, with an undercurrent of salinity. Like a shower that's just been used, almost. God, he'd really like that, wouldn't he.

> The words don't really have weight to them anymore. If Benrey had a nickel for every time Gordon called him "weird" or told him he was endangering the world by taking detours, he'd have enough nickels to melt them down and make a big-ass nickel. And, judging from the way even Gordon's mouth wasn't running anymore, it didn't seem like Gordon had put any weight into his own words, either.

> Which was good. Real good. It meant Benrey was doing a nice job of not pressing every one of Gordon's buttons like a kid in an elevator, and being a proper friend. Best friend. More than friend? God, he fucking wished.

> And he'd shut up right in the nick of time, too, because the urge to tease is building up inside of Benrey like pressure in a flaming aerosol can. It's hard not to want to pick at him when Gordon is griping like this, just goading him on with his (strangely cute) bullshit. Benrey mentally pats himself on the back for a job well done as he glides to the edge of the island and leans carefully over the tiny expanse of mottled dirt and glittering water.

> "S'fine. You're fine. S'gonna be fine. Just cleanin' you up, makin' you pretty. Like a good friend. Best friend."

> The water bubbles against the back of his hand as he extends it, dangling Gordon over the surface so he can get a good look at it himself. Maybe, with the proper viewing, he'll realize that this will be a pleasant time all around. Good for him. Fun for Benrey. Bonding experience.

> "Gonna make you, uh, real shiny. Polished.  A, ah, regular... Casa... Casa del Nova."

> With that, he hooks a nail under one of the thigh pieces of the HEV suit and waits, eyes resting on Gordon's face in search of approval. Approval he selfishly hopes comes quick, before reflex takes over and he pops it off regardless.

Gordon peers over the edge of Benrey's hand to look down at the water, where it lies placid and clear and a vivid blue-green. Mysterious bubbles aside. It's... it's like one of those pools at Yellowstone, he thinks dizzily. They look so warm and inviting and then you step in and suddenly your flesh is deciding to melt right off of you. Gordon's stomach swoops unpleasantly.

Then Benrey offhandedly mentions making him pretty, as if he were just trying to sell Gordon on a new restaurant, and it swoops for an entirely different reason. An irritating reason.

"Don't just fucking say things like that," he says hotly, his voice pitching up and cracking from nerves.

But it becomes an afterthought in short order when Gordon feels Benrey's nail tugging at his HEV suit, and he realizes that Benrey's very, very serious about this. Especially when he fixes Gordon with that intent stare. Like he's waiting for something. Permission? It must be, since he's not making any moves to pop off the armor on his thigh. Gordon looks down at Benrey's finger, chipped black paint peeking out from the corners, then back up at Benrey.

Oh, fuck this. He hates when Benrey does this. It's one of those mind games, or something. Make Gordon be the one to make the call, like it's a game of chicken and Benrey's trying to get him to lose. Instead of, you know, not derailing his entire fucking journey in the first place with the suggestion of a bath. One where, well, it does smell really nice. And he can feel the ambient heat from the water from his perch on Benrey's palm. And Benrey's offering to pry him out of his suit and, presumably, do the washing for him. So Gordon doesn't have to move a muscle. Or even think about it.

His face twists and turns its way through a melange of emotions before he decides, fuck it. Even if this is weird, and Benrey's probably playing some kind of 4-dimensional chess, his mind's already sold itself on the idea. So Gordon's tongue darts out to wet his lips, mouth unexpectedly dry.

"I-- Okay-- You know what, fine. We're already here. Just... no, fucking, tricks or jokes or whatever, man. If you leave me on some fucking rock with my dick out, I'm going to kill you," Gordon tells Benrey.

> What Benrey wants to say is that Gordon is being a baby. A bitch, even. There's no reason for him to get all flustered and pissy when they've already done so many things together. Things that only the closest of bros do, like take down a hostile invading force and push their dicks together and make out. But instead, Benrey takes a deep and steady breath as he works his nails deeper under the chassis of the HEV suit and tugs up with a satisfying click as the latches come undone and the thigh piece flops uselessly off of Gordon.

> "Cool."

> He moves onto the next section, eyes narrowing and eyebrows knitting above his nose as he looks down at Gordon and tries to focus. Head empty, aside from trying to figure out how in the hell he's actually supposed to undo all the delicate bits with fingers as big as his human. It was easier when he was small, and he supposes he could be small again, but that would be no fun. Perhaps he could just rip it off of Gordon with his teeth like the top of a sardine can, but it would be even less fun to deal with the little guy yelling at him for hours.

> Getting Gordon's goat was fun and all, but god, did the guy know how to harp on a subject like no other person he'd ever met.

> Instead, Benrey's tongue pokes out between his fangs as he presses the tip of his finger against the inside of Gordon's other thigh and lets his fingernail search for the seam, the latch. He cocks his head like an owl and leans down close enough that Gordon could touch his face, heaving out a huge and uncharacteristically irritated breath. From here, he can smell the musky odor of sweat and dirt and grime and alien goo, and it's strangely nice. Earthy. Very Gordon.

> He'd smelled it before, when he wasn't quite this big, when Gordon was unzipping his suit and climbing into his lap and drool pools at the corner of Benrey's mouth, equal parts saliva and lusty Sweet Voice and--

> Click.

> The other piece of thigh armor falls away. The noise shakes Benrey to his senses.

> "Turn please," he orders mindlessly. His voice is a bit more husky and demanding than it had been a moment before.

Gordon watches as Benrey pops off his armor like it's nothing, like Gordon hasn't spent hours fruitlessly trying to do the same himself. It would have saved him the constant indignity of relying on Benrey to get him in and out of the fucking thing. He tries really hard not to think about the indignity of this, too - Benrey's face so close to his, a hot, irritable breath fanning over him, and fingers at his--

Oh. Gordon jumps a little at the insistent press of a fingertip against his inner thigh, and heat rushes to his face. This part's mildly embarrassing at the best of times, when Benrey's smaller and more human-sized, but now? With fingers much too big for the job? Spreading his legs apart where he sits, rubbing insistently against his inner thigh... He can't help the shaky breath that forces its way out of him.

Jesus Christ, his hands are big, Gordon thinks, mind racing. Sure, yes, he's had this thought before, when Benrey was using them to slap gunships out of the air, but it's a little more pointed when they're prodding him like this. He tenses. Not entertaining these thoughts today, thank you. The whole point of this, presumably, was for a normal, ordinary bath. In a pool of mysterious alien water. With his rival stripping him down and scrubbing him. While he's so big that he could squish Gordon like a bug, if he wanted... or pick Gordon up and maneuver him around, broad fingers all over him, sizing him up. If he wanted.

He comes back to himself when he hears a command. Turn please. Quick and insistent. Gordon's eyes jerk away from where they'd been staring at Benrey's finger.

"Turn? Like, fucking-- God, ow--" Gordon hisses through his teeth as the motion twists one of his aching muscles the wrong way. "I don't even know why I'm doing this. It's not like this was stopping you... You know, I'm starting to think you just like bossing people around for no fucking reason." Despite his bitching, he does as he's told.

> Maybe he does like it. The bossing, that is. Benrey isn't sure. It's one of the few human things he knows--his job back at Black Mesa--and it's one of those things he's good at. Usually. At least now he feels good at it, with Gordon actually listening to him.

> He watches as Gordon turns, head shifting to tilt in the other direction, watching as his human trustingly turns his back to him and displays himself in a way that makes more Sweet Voice seep from between his teeth. He sniffs, he uses the back of his free hand to wipe away a trickle of fluorescent fluid trailing from his lips, and quickly wipes his hands off on his pants. His eyes never leaves Gordon's back.

> Lower back.

> His ass.

> Benrey had told him before that it was a nice one, and it was still true... uh, even if he can't really see it with Gordon sitting and all. He can imagine it in its entirety, though, nice and small, even as he fumbles with the latches on the back of the chest piece. He hardly notices as he clicks it open and the front hits the pad of his palm with an audible slap of metal against skin. He reaches around to pluck it away, the side of his hand brushing against Gordon's front.

> Gordon's heaving chest. His soft midsection. His...

> Benrey shakes his head as if snapping himself out of a trance. An involuntary laugh snorts out of his nose as he leans down, peeking over Gordon's shoulder like a creeping dragon, breath hot against the back of Gordon's neck.

> "Cute."

> And with that, he grabs the next part of Gordon: his arm, raising it up effortlessly like a doll's and carefully searching for the next latch.

Maybe facing away from Benrey wasn't the smartest idea, in retrospect. It feels like he's closer, somehow, his breath coming hotter and faster against Gordon's back. Benrey breathing down his neck should be, like, gross. Creepy. Gordon knows by now that Benrey likes to make a big deal about keeping them clean, but it's not like he knows when Benrey brushed last. It shouldn't smell... like that. Sweet. A distinct chemical note on the underside. Like ketones on his breath, but nothing that Gordon can place for certain.

Sweet Voice, probably. It's muted and subtle. He's not belting it out like he usually does, so Gordon can only guess what Benrey's feeling. Unfortunately, he's all too aware of what he's feeling: goosebumps, pebbling his skin from the neck down. A little frisson. They crawl all the way down his arms and make him shiver.  He can practically feel Benrey's eyes on him, too, all up close and personal. Don't break a sweat, he wills himself, because he knows Benrey's watching him like a hawk.

It doesn't stop a bead from pooling at the back of his hairline, then losing the fight against gravity and slowly trickling down his neck.

Benrey snorts, and Gordon flinches, cursing under his breath. He couldn't even have that, huh. Then Benrey has the audacity to call him cute. And that makes his blood pulse, briefly flashing his skin with heat, before receding just as quickly and leaving a chill in its wake.

"Wh-- Whoa, okay," Gordon starts. His indignant response is temporarily cut off by Benrey lifting his arm between a thumb and forefinger. He offers about as much resistance as a fucking action figure, even creaking a little for good measure, and it's distracting, okay?

After a few moments, though, he regains his bearings. "Shut up, man," he says, flustered. "I'm not even-- Just-- Quit being weird, okay?" Because, frankly, this is weird. He's not used to Benrey being so... accommodating. Helpful. Nice. And he doesn't know what Benrey's endgame is, here. So it just leaves Gordon feeling off-kilter. Uncertain. A little hot in the face.

> Benrey's eyes flick up like a lizard that's spotted its next meal when he hears Gordon's words, conveniently at the same time as he finds the latch with his nail. The armor on his upper arm falls away with a clonk and his fingers move down to the much-easier-to-remove gloves and wrist pieces, which come undone with a light twist and an even lighter yank. But his gaze isn't even looking at what he's doing, instead resting on the back of Gordon's hair, now wet with sweat and the dampness of his own breath.

> His skin is raised up in little bumps, and so are his hackles. Something bright and violet and base, fluorescent, builds at the back of Benrey's tongue, and he swallows it down. He has to focus, keep his composure. Get the other arm with a few quick clicks, fingers now more adventurous than they were before. The pads trail across Gordon's back, the undersuit bunching with his touch, pressing into his side for no reason other than the urge to feel. Then, when the second arm is freed, he remembers he forgot the boots.

> "Not being weird," Benrey protests as he wrangles Gordon in his grip, sighing heavily as he pinches him lightly in his grasp and rolls him in his hand like some kind of trinket. Until they're face to face once again and Gordon is flat on his back in his palm. He takes a moment to idly scratch his chin before reaching for the metal encasing his lower legs and feet.

> "Not weird to, uh, help a bro out. Be a friend. Friends call friends cute. All the time. Every day. S'pre... pre-requi... prere..." He pauses and stills and, then, with unwarranted confidence, forces the word out and continues fiddling. "It's pre-registered to, uh, do that. Yeah."

Blunt fingers at his arm, his back, his sides, prodding and rolling him around - each investigatory touch makes Gordon cognizant of just how much he's holding his breath. Until Benrey manhandles him into laying flat on his back, that is. A startled noise bursts out of him, and then Gordon's looking straight up at Benrey, with nowhere to go to escape him. Even without a hand pinning him down, he can't help but feel like he's stuck in place, anyway.

At least Gordon can sit up on his elbows a little. Less like he's some kind of specimen that way. And he lets Benrey fiddle with the boots, the strange feeling that curls in his stomach easing up on him the longer Benrey messes with something other than his soft, fleshy, vulnerable bits. He lets out a shaky breath of... relief. Let's go with that.

"IIII don't know about that," he says. "I'll be real with you, I'm not the kind of guy who does that... Uh. Well. Except there was that one time in high school? But it kind of weirded her out and she stopped talking to me."

Gordon pauses for a moment, brows wrinkling in thought. Then he shakes himself. "Anyway, that's not even the point. The point is," Gordon emphasizes, feeling like he's trying to present a convincing legal argument to a judge with all the size and breadth of (and possibly, the powers of) some ancient Greek god, "I think you have a, uh, tenuous grasp of what friendship entails, buddy. My friends don't call me cute."

As an afterthought, under his breath, he adds, "Nobody calls me cute." It comes out more bitter than he expects.

> The boots come off, one after another. The shin guards, too. Politely, Benrey scoops up all the miscellaneous pieces piled in his palm between his free fingers and puts them to rest next to the pool of... well, "water." Liquid. Something, though he's hard pressed to tell you exactly what it is. "The Bath."

> He listens as he does so, to Gordon squawking and muttering and saying, well, things. Things that he's not really listening to as he brings his hands back up to Gordon and tries to figure out where the zipper to the bodysuit is. Technically, he knows where it is, but his fingers are huge and the zippy-uppy part is so small, and he's prodding and poking with gentle strokes along Gordon's chest and belly where he saw the seam once-upon-a-time. He feels his nail click against the metal and it's... uh, well, it's aggravating.

> And Benrey isn't used to this kind of aggravation. Fuck's sake, he just wants to see some dic... ah. He just wants to help his best friend get a nice bath and feel better. Because he is a good guy who does good things like kill gun bugs for tiny dudes who can't shoot straight and not drive off with vehicles when Gordon leaves him alone. He's a good guy who doesn't want to be bad and--

> "Uh," he drawls, his mouth moving before he can really catch himself, "fuckin'... maybe people would call you cute if you, uh, weren't such a, uh, mean. So mean about it. Mean to me, just trying to say nices. To my best friend. Being such a good and a cool."

> His voice dies as he misses the zipper again. Fuck. When he speaks again, it darkens.

> "Please unzip suit? Please? Thank-you."

Soon enough Benrey's got him down to that reinforced bodysuit, the last piece of armor sliding off his hand with little resistance. Usually, this is where this process stops: Benrey gets him out of the armor, and Gordon fucks off and does whatever it is he needs to do. Change. Wash up. Sleep. The part where Benrey starts tugging at the fabric in search of the zipper? That's new. And it catches Gordon so unawares that he can't even speak.

That fingertip strokes him, almost, warm even through the black fabric, and a harsh breath whistles through Gordon's nose. It feels him up from his chest to his belly, a warm and insistent pressure. All the words in Gordon's brain get trapped in a mental sieve. In their place is a single, repeating thought:

Oh, God.

Benrey keeps trying, again and again, fingernails scraping uselessly against Gordon's belly. And his eyebrows furrow harder with the effort, frustration evident in his frown. And his fingers. Their grasping grows rough and imprecise and Gordon's trying so hard to bite his lip because there's an ugly noise threatening to punch his way out of him and Benrey's saying something to him that he can barely focus on and then finally, finally, he's giving up and pulling away. Christ.

It takes a moment for his mental fog to clear and for Benrey's words to sink in. Unzip? Himself? Oh, no. Somehow that's worse.

"Can you, like... give me some privacy, maybe?" Gordon complains.

He immediately feels stupid afterward. It trickles down from his scalp like something cold and slimy. So he clears his throat, and admits, begrudging, "I, uh... I'm not trying to be mean. It's been a long fucking day, okay? You're... uh... Well. Thanks. I guess. For trying to be nice."

There's a beat before the silence gets to be too uncomfortable, and Gordon hurriedly follows it up by saying, "Don't take this the wrong way. I think you could still use a few pointers on being 'nice' to 'humans', you know."

> "Wha?"

> In a second, the irritation is gone. Benrey's expression turns flat. He leans in close to Gordon and inhales deeply (yup, still smells like Gordon) and exhales just as hard.

> "I'm nice," he defends, eyes flicking down the pile of HEV parts on the island. "Fuckin', ah, Mother Tuh-ree-sah. You're the one who is bein'--"

> A pause. Nice. He was being nice, and he wasn't going to pick at Gordon. He wasn't going to point out that he was the one being snippy, while he was out here undressing him, and carrying him around, and getting ready to give him a bath, and maybe touch his--

> Wait.

> "Privacy?"

> The word tastes bad, real bad. The kind of bad that makes Benrey want to scrape his tongue off on his teeth. That isn't how they'd played these games before. Is this even still a game, though? Did "nice" contradict "games" too much? He isn't sure and he doesn't even give himself a chance to think about it as he nudges Gordon encouragingly with a finger and the words just start rolling out of his mouth.

> "No? No place to private at, bro. Maybe gonna have to just, ah, suck it up, friend. Besides--"

> Benrey leans forward on the island on his elbow, chin resting in his hand. As his body tilts, Gordon raises higher up due to his shifting of positions.

> "Can't, ah, can't not look. Dinosaurs and, uh, zombies out here. Ghosts. Gotta keep my eye on you. Safe-tee."

Safety. Right. As much as Gordon doesn't want to admit it, Benrey has a point. He's... vulnerable like this. And it would be just his luck that he gets beset by a peeper puppy with his dick hanging out. More to the point, he knows that it's stupid to develop a sense of modesty all of a sudden when Benrey's seen his dick before. It's just, you know, the size. The scrutiny.

Heat lodges itself in Gordon's face and makes a home there as Benrey brings him all the closer. As if to see him better. "Dinosaurs and zombies," he snorts. He can't believe that's the justification Benrey's giving him. And he can't believe he's buying it.

"Just... fucking, okay. Don't stare, at least," Gordon tells him, as if it will help.

The zipper's nestled in the seam at his neck, right in the center. Gordon fishes it out with shaky fingers. And then, slowly, he drags it down his front.

As he does, his flesh starts to spill from the suit in a creamy sliver. He's paler underneath, skin shielded from the sun for so long that his characteristic tan has all but faded. Consequences of running around in a HEV suit in the middle of Bulgaria. The rattle of the zipper rings in Gordon's ears, louder than life. First his chest, then his stomach, prickling with goosebumps in turn as they're revealed.

Finally, he pulls it down to its endpoint, just under his navel. Gordon's face burns with embarrassment.

> That... was easier than Benrey anticipated. Usually there's more resistance or, you know, playing involved whenever he asked Gordon to do something like that. Usually he had something a little more snide to say. Something in the air has changed, though, and he dimly wonders if maybe all of that advice he'd taken from the Resistors (Resistance? Transistors? Alyx, basically) has actually paid off.

> Learning how to human does, in fact, make interacting with Gordon easier.

> His pupils widen as he stares, mouth slightly agape, as more and more of Gordon's skin is revealed to him, a pretty porcelain color that looks incredibly soft and as delicate as a china doll. Usually he's darker, tanner; Benrey didn't know humans could change colors like that, but it's an interesting development and one that requires further investigation.

> So he leans closer, head tilted, watching the zipper come undone. Curiosity grips him as he gingerly reaches up and hooks his nails into the open edges of the suit and tugs, enough to jostle Gordon and peel away the wrapper but not enough to actually knock Gordon off his feet. As he does so, he ignores the sounds of protests, mouth opening wider and lifting in a sharkish grin.

> He's so pale now, but he's just as soft as Benrey remembers. Just as warm. Hair's still in all the right places, muscles in his arms growing visible as Benrey tugs the sleeves down, then the rest, leaving the top half of the bodysuit dangling from around his still-covered waist.

> He waits a moment, drinking in the sight. He could almost see his--

> No. No. No dick thinking, not now. No. He wasn't going to say anything because he was seriously just trying to be nice. And make Gordon shut up. And...

> And...

> "Cute."

> The word comes out while his brain is still arguing with himself. For a moment, he considers apologizing, or trying to pretend he never said it, but ultimately decides to stand by what he said.

> His eyes lift to rest on Gordon's face as he silently doubles down, waiting for a reply.

"Hey, careful," Gordon yelps, caught off-guard by fingers at the edges of his open suit. "You don't have to fucking-- Benrey, I can do this myself!" But there's no fighting him off before Benrey's tugging it down his shoulders, baring him from the waist up.

Impatient. That's the word that comes to mind. Benrey's itching to get him out of this thing, Gordon realizes. If it wasn't already obvious by that insistent scrape of nails against his jumpsuit, or the way Benrey's looking at him now, eyes wide and mouth parted. That heat in Gordon's cheeks crawls down to his chest. He's staring at Gordon like he's hungry, and all the pasty skin being revealed to him may as well be a juicy T-bone steak. Being half-naked ought to be making him pretty chilly in a place like this, but for some reason, it feels way too fucking hot right now.

Thankfully, Benrey stops there, which gives him a moment to get his bearings. On the other hand, Benrey's calling him fucking cute again, and Gordon was having a bad enough time handling that earlier. Now? Jesus, the guy's barely paying attention to him. Mumbling it like it's an afterthought. He doesn't know what it means.

"I-- I'm not fucking cute, dude, we already established this," he insists, doing his level best not to meet Benrey's stare. Gordon folds his arms, irritable and flushed a bright red. "I'm too mean or whatever. I got the picture. You don't have to keep fucking with me."

> Oh, he's changing colors again. Red now, from the tips of his ears down to his chest, and Benrey snorts a laugh. Of course humans can change colors. He'd seen him do this before. A few times actually.

> But he's just turning red, and being snippy, and he's not making a move to take off the rest of the suit. Benrey's eyes flick from Gordon to the water and, with a low chuckle, he decides to take the cue. Which... was a cue, right? He's pretty sure it's a cue, but humans were weird to begin with and Gordon was odder than most.

> Has to be a cue, he decides after a moment of silence wherein Gordon doesn't budge. He grabs the draping top of the suit and gently peels it downwards towards Gordon's feet, watching it pull away from sweaty, dirty skin. Watching it expose dark curls of hair just below his stomach, and watching Gordon's dick spill out into the open air. Benrey's teeth dig into his lips as he watches, even as his hands move clumsily to strip the rest of the rubbery material off of his legs.

> He's touched that before. Wants to touch it again, wants to say something about it. But he can't because apparently it was bad form to say shit about your best bro's average-but-good meat when he wasn't specifically asking, or at least that's what his stupid, skinny doppelganger had said and--

> God. Wait. No. He shakes his head. Best to focus on anything else.

> What else had the Resist-y Squad said? To listen? Humans liked listening? Even when they were being bitchy little drama-snots?

> Then he should... listen, right? But... what had Gordon said? He wasn't actually paying attention. He furrows his brow and his stare intensifies as he tries to piece together enough of the words he did hear to paint a picture. It takes a moment, but soon, it clicks.

> Oh. Yeah. Not cute. Blah, blah. Something, something "mean."

> Benrey's mouth snaps shut as he struggles to tear his eyes away from Gordon's cock, instead keeping a trained eye on his face. His mind is a machine running on fumes with rattling parts, but he struggles through the distraction. He's going to be reassuring. He's a good friend.

> "Uh... yeah? Mean? Cute? You can be both. Bratty little, ah, Gordon Meanman with his nice... cute. Cute little hog."

> The words come out before he can stop them.

> Goddammit.

Oh, God, okay, so none of what he said got through, clearly. He squawks out as much. Gordon's mind spins into overdrive as Benrey manifestly does not let him take care of it himself, instead peeling the jumpsuit clean off his hips and legs and exposing him from top to bottom. His heart thunders in his chest, and he presses his legs tightly together in a futile attempt at modesty.

"My-- my cute little-- Jesus Christ, Benrey, you can not say shit like like that!" Gordon snaps. He jams his hands between his legs to cover himself, humiliation boiling over.

Fucking Benrey. Always saying the worst possible shit, the most embarrassing shit. Gordon thinks this as furiously as he can, because if he acknowledges that there's anything other than purestrain embarrassment and indignation at play, he's gonna snap like a twig. That's all it is. He's a normal guy, and normal guys don't feel their dicks twitch when their best friend calls their dick cute. And... little. That's worse. Much worse.

The thing that Gordon's still failing to understand is why Benrey's still calling him cute. Yeah, it gets his goat, but it's not like Benrey was in the habit of pulling this shit before. And... And Gordon doesn't know why it's getting to him so much, either.

The first time seemed like a prank. A bad joke. The second time, an accident. And the third - fourth - fifth? The times after that, he's not sure anymore. But each time it gets his skin burning hotter and his heart skipping a beat and Gordon's still pissed off but he's not sure exactly why. (Well, in the general sense. This time, it's because Benrey's straight up insulting his dick, thank you.)

"Why did I even agree to this," he moans, head hanging between his shoulders. "Everything's always gotta be a big fucking ordeal for Gordon. You know what, just put me down if you're gonna-- gonna make fun of my meat or whatever! I'll get myself a bath and then we can go and forget this ever happened."

> There is something about the way Gordon fusses at him that makes Benrey's heart skip a beat, though it also awakens something in the back of his mind that he's been consciously trying to tamp down. The urge to pick at him grows as large as his smile as he hooks two fingers under Gordon's arms and lifts him up and out of his palm like a claw in a skill crane. Words dance on the tip of his tongue, ones better fit for a schoolyard bully, and he rumbles a dark laugh as he contemplates what to say.

> It seems the crack about his hog got him all worked up in a delicious sort of way, judging from the way he's still bright crimson and his dick seems appreciative of Benrey's attention. He could double down on that. Then again, he was supposed to be nice in this situation, wasn't he? He'd been doing so good up until this point, and he could imagine the Resist-y People would be proud if they could see him now.

> But the reaction. It's... it's good. Seeing Gordon's dick twitch, seeing him bright as a tomato, seeing him sweating and nervously dodging his gaze. All were signs that he was interested, that he may just be thinking the same things Benrey has been trying not to think and... fuck, them's good thoughts. Great thoughts.

> Maybe there's a line to walk between. Play the game and still be "nice." Benrey wets his lips and huffs a sweet-scented laugh into Gordon's face, before gently lowering him into the water. The surface of the pool practically sparks as Gordon's bare feet make contact, and a shimmering azure mist billows into the air.

> "Nuh-uh. Nope," Benrey replies with a pop of the p. "You're, uh, tired. Gonna, y'know, get you sparkly. Clean. Squeaky. Pretty. Make you feel so good you'll, uh, wanna buy BFF necklaces after."

> Once Gordon is nestled in the pool, he leans down close and presses down on his shoulders to urge him into a seated position.

> "'Sides, ah. Not making fun. S'nice. Cute. Fun size."

> Emphasis on "fun," Benrey thinks, and his smile widens.

A tingle effervesces across Gordon's skin as Benrey slowly lowers him into the water, something like carbonation but not quite. For one, bubbles aren't nucleating on him so much as drifting toward the surface, sluggish and small. But the effect is as curiously refreshing as a cold glass of Pepsi.

In contrast, the water itself is warm and clear, and the humidity fogs up his glasses in short order. Makes it hard to see Benrey before he's firmly suggesting that Gordon sit down. With his hand. He's not expecting it, and he sinks to his knees with a splash and a quiet "whoa, shit".

Gordon rights himself, sitting back against the edge of the pool. And he opens his mouth to say-- well, something, you know, there was a lot to unpack in whatever the fuck Benrey just said to him, but he barely gets it out before Benrey's talking over him.

Cute. Fun size.

"Stop, okay, just stop talking about my meat! Can we please move on? Any other topic?" He crosses his arms in front of his face.

This is, it's too fucking much, okay, there's-- it's just-- the word was already starting to crawl under his skin, and he's just an average American male! You're not supposed to say this shit to another dude! And you're not supposed to, fucking, swallow and shudder when you hear that shit, either. Not supposed to like being talked down to like that. By... by such a big guy. Who probably does think he's a fun size right now. Probably wants to...

Gordon splashes his face with water. Then he takes off his glasses after the fact, feeling like an idiot. See, this is why he's got to get Benrey to knock it off. Too much. Gets him lost in his own head. Gets his blood pumping. And the last thing he wants is to embarrass himself by looking a gift horse in the mouth, getting a boner when Benrey's just trying to do him a solid.

Well. At least that's what he's saying he's doing. The jury's still out on that one. But either way, the most likely outcome is that Benrey never lets him live it down, and Gordon doesn't know if he can handle the psychological devastation right now. So.

"Here, look, I'll even... okay, so, what is this stuff, anyway? It feels like I'm taking a bath in a... a hot energy drink. But like, in a good way?" He cups some in his hand and lets it spill through his fingers. "Last time I jumped in this stuff, I think it fixed a bone. Is that normal? Weirdest fucking thing I ever felt, man."

> "I 'unno," Benrey answers honestly. Because, well, he doesn't know what this stuff is. Even if he knows a lot about Xen (and would be hard-pressed to tell you exactly how he knows these things), it's not like he knew much more than "this thing will eat you" and "this thing won't." All he knows is that these pools feel good and smell good and do things that are good, and could more than likely get Gordon clean. Make him have a more agreeable scent than the already agreeable people-odor he's already wearing.

> The Gordon smell. It's... a nice smell.

> "It's water. Uh. Bubbles." Benrey dips his fingertips in the pool to wet them and feels the curious, sparkling sensation around his skin; it's warm and cold and fizzy and, honestly? Yeah, kind of refreshing. Like caffeinated Pop Rocks or something. He dimly wonders what it tastes like, but ultimately decides not to drink the bath water.

> "Doesn't matter. You're thinking a lot. About wrong things. Need to focus on, uh, getting you ready. For the ball. Gordo-rella." He pauses, scowling. That was bad even for him. Quickly, he recovers, as if it never happened. "So, quiet? Please? Relax?"

> With that, Benrey extends one wet finger and presses against Gordon's chest, as carefully as he can, working in the glittering water and scrubbing gingerly at his chest hair. He works his muscles with a care he didn't know he possessed, and then maneuvers to his shoulders. He feels Gordon's muscles loosening underneath his touch and it makes him feel... accomplished.

> But his eyes keep straying down, down into the water where Gordon's dick should be, obscured by bubbles and blue. And he exhales, fighting the urge to press a button, to raise him up and see if it's still twitching in anticipation, wondering if he'll see it break the surface and greet him.

> Benrey's eyes screw shut and his fingers still as he takes a moment to force himself to be, as Gordon would say, "normal." It is a foreign feeling.

> He is not a fan.

"G-Gordo-rella?" Gordon bursts out laughing despite himself. "That's so bad, I know you can do better than that!" And the funny thing is, he does know. Benrey's got jokes. He's... good at making Gordon laugh. Even when he's clearly phoning it in.

The laughter sets him at ease for the first time since they'd set out the day before. And when Benrey reaches out to start scrubbing, Gordon flinches, but does as Benrey suggests and eventually relaxes into it.

Benrey's strangely quiet as he does it. Doesn't make any dumb quips. Doesn't start talking about video games or whatever. So Gordon doesn't feel inclined to break the silence, either. The meaner part of him insists that it's just because he doesn't want to set Benrey off on some dipshit tangent, but the truth is, it's kind of nice. The quiet. Even if it's bordering on surreal. All he can hear is the quiet sound of Benrey washing his skin, dipping his fingers into the water. His breathing, measured but heavy. And the sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his chest.

The bath itself isn't half-bad, either. He didn't expect Benrey to be this... careful. Not a word Gordon really associates with the guy. But Benrey's fingers work his muscles in tight circles, slow and firm, washing off however many days of sweat and dirt and blood, and Gordon's finds himself melting a little. Letting his eyes drift shut.

He groans when Benrey works his thumb into his back just right, dislodging a knot in the muscle he wasn't even aware of until it was gone. "Oh my God, how did you do that," Gordon breathes.

> Oh. Oh.

> That noise was a... nice one. A pleasant one. One that makes Benrey hesitate for a second and lose his smile before quickly regaining it and pretending he'd never misplaced it in the first place. And he figures Gordon likely didn't notice--his human can't see without the glasses--so he says nothing as he dips his fingers yet again and massages into Gordon's shoulders, exploring every inch and feeling how bizarre every groove and curve is underneath the pad of his finger.

> It's odd, but not a bad odd. The kind of odd that requires further investigation because, while he's had his hands on Gordon before, this feels different. Better, even, in some ways. Motivated by equal parts curiosity and mounting desire, he continues to glide across Gordon's skin and work his muscles and feel them loosen and pause to take in the rapid thudding of Gordon's tiny, tiny pulse against his skin.

> Benrey swallows the Sweet Voice pooling in the back of his mouth. He gags. He coughs into his shoulder. His voice breaks a bit as his normally flat demeanor begins to falter amid a mob of intrusive thoughts that march right into his brain like little soldiers.

> "Can do it 'cause 'm not human. Got magic fingers. Call now. For $19.99, we'll throw in a second one free," Benrey recites, but his eyes are still looking for a hint of cock. But not just that--

> "Limited time offer. Supplies going fast. Better, uh, pick up that phone."

> -- his chest, bits of leg sticking out of the water, that pretty neck, that long hair--

> "Call in, uh, next fifteen minutes and I'll... uh..."

> --that stomach, slightly soft around the middle, and arms that were too strong for somebody of his persuasion--

> "Uh."

> -- every inch that HEV suit wouldn't let him see. Gordon would look so much better in something more... breezy. Clingy. Revealing.

> "Fuck," he says breathily. Something roils inside him, and a lot of it is unfortunately roiling below the belt. So much for subtlety. So much for "nice."

Benrey keeps scrubbing, keeps rubbing his sore muscles between thumbs and index fingers, and it takes a conscious effort for Gordon not to doze off. Even the prickling of fizzy bubbles against his skin fights an upward battle to keep him awake. It's just, he's been on the go for way too long, now, and days of tension are leaching out of him, and Benrey's, like, weirdly good at this. For once, Gordon doesn't have to be thinking about parallel universes and the end of the fucking world or whatever. Somebody else can do the thinking for him.

And then he starts rambling about magic fingers like he's hosting some kind of infomercial and Gordon's laugh comes easier and harder than it has any right to. But Benrey's trailing off now, distracted. Swearing under his breath. Gordon blinks open his eyes and glances up at him.

Despite his lack of glasses, Benrey's big enough (and close enough) that Gordon can make out most of his expression, even if it's fuzzy and indistinct. His mouth hangs open a little, and his brows are knotted up under the cast shadow of his helmet. Like he's thinking about something.

"Free shipping?" Gordon finishes his joke for him. Benrey must have lost his train of thought again. Gordon's mostly used to it... mostly.

He shrugs and rolls his shoulders from side to side, grunting and making small, quiet noises as he stretches. Man, that feels good. There must be something in the water, even if Benrey was, as usual, unhelpful as to what.

Finally, Gordon decides to tug out the band from his hair, spilling it loose over his shoulders. He snaps it around his wrist for safekeeping, then runs his hands through his hair to shake it out.

"Uh. While we're at it. Think you could get my hair later? Like, I don't know where you got the soap from, but I'm assuming you can just, like, magic up some conditioner or something, too."

> Benrey doesn't know how to tell Gordon he didn't actually have soaps. He said so, but he... he didn't. If not for Gordon pointing out that he could "magic" some up, he might have been really stuck, but with a quick shake of his head to bring himself back to his senses, his face lights up once more with a teasing smile and his tone eases back into his typical taunting monotone.

> "Uh. Yeahs. Soaps and, uh, condo-stuff. Got'cha."

> There is a flash of green as he lifts his hand above him (in a dramatic way that he hopes is as cool and impressive as it looks in his head), and feels something slimy manifest in his hands. Slimy and, well, scented like a Glade plug-in. Like flowers and "summer breezes" and things that are a lot more Earth-y than the Sweet Voice. It's a nice color, too, but one that doesn't match how he feels it should look, because it smells more like blue than it does white and...

> ... You know what? It doesn't matter.

> Benrey dips a fingertip in the soap like a child about to paint and, tongue poking out between his teeth once more, sets to work giving Gordon a once-over yet again. He hopes that maybe Gordon won't notice or point out the fact he hadn't even used soap in the first place, as distracted as he was, and just accept the fact that Benrey is once more rubbing his shoulders, his chest, his arms, his legs. Lifting up limbs and maneuvering them to get into hard-to-reach places. Pushing a little firmer than before to feel for that fluttering pulse.

> God, his own heart is beginning to match it beat for beat.

> "Yeah," Benrey mutters at long last as his tongue darts back into his mouth, "I can. Do that. Get your hair."

> His hair. His hair is so pretty when it's down, already having grown out after he cut it in the Bad Ending World. Silky and nice with bits of gray that make him look like he's as smart as he thinks he is--

> No, no. Nice. Nice. He is grappling with the idea of being nice!

> "Get your hair with, uh, real shit. Good shampoo. Actual soaps and stuff that ain't, uh, the stuff. Your stuff. Head and Shoulders. Make you look real good, real nice. Nice for m--uh."

> He pauses. He snaps his mouth shut. He pauses over Gordon's body and thinks for a moment. He wants to say it, he wants to tease and pick and make Gordon flush bright red and play their stupid goddamn game, but now isn't the time. He doesn't think so, at least? Maybe it is?

> Does Gordon think it is? He hopes so, but he doesn't know how to tell. And, apparently, humans didn't like it when their alien best friends played games they didn't want to play.

> "... Mandatory hair inspection," he recovers. "Black Mesa, uh, protocol. Already fucked up the passport. Don't... don't fuck up hair day."

Blood doesn't so much rush to Gordon's face as it crawls, moving as sluggishly as his mind does, processing this. He knows what Benrey was gonna say before he snapped his mouth shut like a mousetrap. Gordon swore he could even hear the teeth click.

Maybe he didn't actually say it, but Gordon's entire system reacts as though he has, because, fucking, he did! For all intents and purposes! A bright, prickling heat surges down his spine that has nothing to do with the water. Why does he talk like that?! Fucking cooing at him, like Benrey's taking some kind of sick pleasure in teasing him in the most embarrassing way possible... but that's about what Gordon expects at this point.

So why did he stop himself?

When Benrey marshals his voice into something more flat and toneless, Gordon frowns. He's... he's really trying, isn't he. Trying to do something decent without turning it into one of their fucked up little games. Some of the mental furniture rearranges itself in Gordon's head, pictures straightened and doorways unjammed.

Unfortunately, all the dusting and clearing in the world can't change the fact that the foundation in his head is wired to make him a paranoid little fucker. And Benrey's always playing some kind of 4th-dimensional chess with him, anyway, right? He's just being rational. Wary.

That said... he's already here. He might as well relax and deal with the consequences later. Especially when... oh.

Benrey's washing him in earnest, fingers pressing into him and manipulating him. They're all over him, probing him without direction, and now Gordon's not sure if "relaxed" is the best descriptor for himself. There's just, there's a lot of touching happening, and Benrey's hands are so, so big, and Gordon can just make out the tip of Benrey's tongue poking through his teeth and something about that intense focus - on him - makes Gordon's breathing go shallow.

Christ. He can't-- He shouldn't think about this. This is the kind of sick shit that only happens in his head, not in real life. Gordon's just a normal guy with something very wrong with him, and that "something" makes him more prone than most to awful little fantasies, intrusive thoughts.

That's all this is. There's gotta be something wrong with him to want somebody ten times his size to touch him like this, but in, like, a horny way. Like some kind of freakjob doing gross shit with an action figure. Maybe it doesn't make him a bad person. So long as he keeps it to himself. He'll keep all his weird little fantasies right next to his heart, and then he'll die. That's that.

It's almost over, Gordon tells himself furiously, willing his blood to stop rushing to his dick and his stomach to stop coiling with heat. If he can just focus, he can will his boner down before he has to get out of the pool and then Benrey will be none the wiser.

"Okay, first of all, I didn't fuck up the passport," Gordon blusters, in an attempt to power through it. "I never needed one before! If anything, I think you fucked up, man. Never told me about Black Mesa Picture Day or whatever."

> Benrey's fingers do not pause as Gordon fusses at him, but his eyes can't stay focused on his own work. He's too busy watching Gordon's throat bob as he swallows around a lump, or how his blush is darkening and spreading. He's gauging the look in his eyes, looking for any indication that he can go ahead and make it weird, but--even though he's sweating and nervous and fidgety and acting just like he does when they're playing--Benrey is too nervous to make a move.

> And "nervous" wasn't a part of his vocabulary until that Alyx lady and Gordon's own downhill slide made it obvious that he actually had to think human to interact with humans. His human specifically.

> So, even though he sees the signs, he decides to bite his tongue. It is foreign, it is uncomfortable, and it's almost painful to choke down. To redirect his alien brain into more terrestrial channels. To try to figure out what a human person would do in his situation and, barring that, just continuing to do what he was supposed to be doing in the first place.

> Bathing Gordon.

> "Shouldn't have to tell you. S'in the, ah, employee handbook. Welcome packet. Folder. Right next to Warhammer 401k and, uh, ensure-ants."

> He cups a small amount of water in his palm and trickles it over Gordon's body, watching it drain down his form in sparkling rivulets. They trace his contours, weaving into every nook and cranny and crease that Benrey couldn't reach, and he watches them with an intensity that even he can feel. A warmth in his gut, a twitch of his dick. His tongue laps at his lips like a hungry animal; he wants to lick every droplet off of Gordon and explore ever inch of him as thoroughly as the bathwater.

> But... no. No, no. He's normal. He's normal and human and he's being nice, and Gordon hasn't said anything so he's going to close his eyes, huff angrily, and then continue on his merry way.

> "Everyone knows about, uh, Hair Inspection Day. And Passport Inspection. You, ah, you're just... uh."

> Benrey breathes heavily out of his nose as his eyes lock on Gordon yet again. Staring up at him, red-faced. Hair now adhered to his skin from the water. Chest heaving. He reaches out in spite of himself and presses a fingertip to Gordon's torso once more, feeling that rapid pulse and feeling it rise and fall with each breath. Knowing he could make Gordon's heart race faster and really put his lungs to work.

> He wants to feel him pant, wants to hear each heavy breath accompanied with his name and...

> No. God, it's getting so fucking hard to resist the game, but Benrey is good! Good for his best friend! He's learned and he's going to stay good. He's just being nice. He can be nice without being--

> "Missed a spot," Benrey lies as he pulls his finger away. He pretends to rinse Gordon off once more and sputters a cough. "Now, let's get those, ah, locks. Clean and brushed. Shiny. Barbie Girl, Barbie World, am I right?"

Gordon ducks his head instinctively as Benrey douses him with water, shielding his face. There's a huff from above him, and then another, breath hot and heavy on Gordon's neck. The closest comparable experience is... it's like being trapped under some kind of big fucking animal. A bear, maybe, snorting at the nape of his neck before it decides to eat him. Violently.

Cool. He loves thoughts like that. A pleasant reminder that they don't exactly carry fucking risperidone in the aftermath of a fascist takeover.

He shakes his head again to rid himself of it, then looks at Benrey in surprise when he presses a fingertip to his chest. It just rests there, warm and steady. Not pulling or pinching or shoving or any of the things Gordon expects. Gears whir to life in his head. Benrey's being-- he's being kind of fucking weird, but not in the ways Gordon's grown accustomed to, and when he's spent the entirety of their working relationship trying to get his sea legs, it throws him off just as badly when the boat stops rocking.

"I don't know how to tell you this, but it's not just Barbies who have to wash their hair," Gordon snorts at him. "You got me all worried now, man, I don't even know if you know the basics. It's shampoo, then conditioner, okay?"

After a moment, he slicks his hair back out of his face, too. For good measure. "And try not to get it in my eyes, either... Actually, uh, I'm kind of having second thoughts about this. Maybe you should just let me handle it. No offense."

> "Know what I'm doin'. I got hair. Nice hair. Better than... uh, Mr. 2-in-1," Benrey protests, masking the sudden wave of panic that just roiled up inside of him. Just the idea of not touching Gordon is too much, and he inwardly crinkles at the thought of missing his chance to feel his human again. And again. And again. Petting and scrubbing and massaging and imagining what it would be like to get Gordon close enough to his face that he could taste him.

> But... he can't do that. He's not allowed. This isn't The Game. This is A Nice Favor for His Person and, well, he's got to be normal. And chill. And calm. And this is all really too fucking hard.

> However, as long as he plays by the rules, he still gets a chance to touch Gordon, and he supposes that is a small victory. It's what spurs him on to press his thighs together and shift his weight to hide his burgeoning boner behind the Xenian island so that Gordon can't be alarmed or scandalized or angry or accusatory. It's what prompts him to summon from the ether, yet again, a new supply of nice-smelling soaps and an equally pleasant conditioner that still don't match the color his brain tells him they should be.

> And, with fangs pressed into his bottom lip, he dips his finger into the shampoo freshly spawned in his palm and swirls it gently, watching as Gordon regards him with a mixture of curiosity and what he hopes isn't disdain. He's been working so hard to try to not make the guy angry, and he's struggling not to slip.

> Slowly, he drips a dollop of soap onto Gordon's head--towards the back, since he is honestly trying to obey the request not to blind him--followed by a few drops of glittering, warm water. He monitors the way Gordon's expression changes as he presses against his head as gently as he can and begins to work it into a lather.

> It's... nice. It's not the usual rough stuff and bullying he's used to, but there is something undeniably pleasant about watching Gordon melt into his touch as he works, careful and light, his body rocking with the movements in a way that makes Benrey feel both strangely aroused and, well... warm. As warm as the pool of water, all on the inside like a badly heated burrito. It's new, and uncomfortable, but not unwelcome, and he savors it by trying to make the moment stretch.

> From the scalp and downwards, until his finger is stroking the side of Gordon's cheek and reaching under his chin as if trying to tilt his head up for a kiss he was way too big to give. Like a true romantic that he knew, in his gut, he wasn't actually anywhere close to being. But it felt right, and the dazed and pleasant look in Gordon's eyes shatter the alien armor around his heart in one powerful blow.

> Benrey swallows hard and says nothing. He just scrubs and stares. And scrubs. And stares.

> Slow, precise, delicate circles. Enjoying the moment, and buying time as he tries to untangle this utterly alien knot of feelings that is twisting around in his gut. Feelings he isn't sure he understands or particularly wants, but addictive all the same.

"Oh, that's kinda nice, actually," Gordon mumbles distantly, as Benrey starts to lather up his hair.

It's impressive, honestly, just how delicate Benrey's capable of being when he puts his mind to it. The pressure's firm enough that it feels good against his scalp, but he's not being knocked around or given a headache or anything. It's... pleasant. His eyes drift shut again, now that he's pretty sure Benrey's got the hang of it.

That finger slips lower, lower, stroking the side of Gordon's jaw, and Gordon leans into it. Lets him work soap into the underside of his facial hair. (And that's nice, too. It's the kind of thing he figured Benrey would miss.) And if Benrey rubs a bit slower, tilts his head up just a little so that Gordon has to peer up at him through slowly-blinking eyes, well, he's not going to complain.

Benrey's eyes are so big, so close to his and so intently focused that-- that he's sweating a little, just visible at the edge of Gordon's vision. Gordon's heart beats faster, and a strange tension begins to wind itself tight in him. It's like Benrey's trying to scan him. All that attention focused directly on him gins up butterflies in his stomach.

Gordon's suddenly hit by the awareness that nobody's done anything like this for him in a long, long time. Maybe ever. And here he is, letting his frenemy (best frenemy, whispers an annoying little voice that sounds suspiciously like Benrey) scrub him clean. Take care of him. How in the fuck did he end up here? And, more importantly, why is he so comfortable with this? This is the guy who got his arm cut off, not, fucking, not his live-in girlfriend. That broke up with him a couple years ago, citing the fact that he was "a puffed-up MIT asshole". Whatever. Details.

After a long stretch of silence, Gordon breaks it by saying, "I, uh, I think that's good. Yeah. Lemme just..."

And he pushes Benrey's finger away before ducking his head under the water, hoping Benrey doesn't notice the way his voice cracks.

> It... almost feels like he's being spurned when his finger is pushed away. There's a quaver in Gordon's voice and he isn't sure if it's nerves or rejection. In an instant, a long-dormant part of Benrey's brain flares to life, leaving him mentally bouncing theories as to why his person had sounded so off. It could have been that he was having the same sorts of thoughts Benrey had been having the whole time, or it could have been that he had done something wrong. Getting advice on how to handle Gordon came with the unpredictable side effect of giving him a lot to worry about in terms of "boundaries" and "behaving," which he honestly wasn't comfortable or keen on dealing with.

> These insecurities melt away as he watches Gordon duck under the water, however. It creates a hiccup in the system, a blue screen that necessitates a reboot. There's something distracting about the way his back arches forward, muscles moving, head dipping beneath the surface. On his knees, ass lifting up slightly so he has a touch more leverage. Hair floating to the top, and then clinging tightly to his skin as he emerges with a gasp and throws his head back and slicks it out of his face and...

> ... His face is dripping. Sopping. Water trailing from his mouth and down his beard. Running down his temples, his cheeks. Like sweat. Like... something else.

> "Holy shit," Benrey mutters with the barest hint of voice. He pauses, he tries to think of something to say that would mask the fact he's not being "normal," and he's been playing The Game the whole time, regardless of what he's been telling himself. The hamster is running, the gears are whirring, but Windows is still updating and he's at a loss for anything better to say.

> So he doubles down. His voice grows louder.

> "Holy shit."

Gordon winches his eyes shut as he wipes water from them, slinging his hair back out of his face for good measure. God, he can feel how much less greasy it is now, and it's like taking off an itchy sweater for the first time. Makes him breathe a sigh of relief.

"Thanks, man, that's honestly really... uh..."

He slows to a stop, thrown off by Benrey muttering something. Almost inaudible. It gets him to crane his neck to look up at Benrey properly, about to ask, before Benrey says it again. Louder. Okay, yeah, he did catch that right the first time, huh.

Even though he's out of focus, Gordon can still see how wide his eyes are. How slack his face is. He doesn't need the finer details to notice Benrey's hand hovering in midair, like he's been interrupted in the middle of a thought. Staring at him like... like...

Heat crashes over Gordon in a violent wave, from the crown of his head to the pit of his belly. He's not even-- he's not even doing anything. He's sopping wet, and he can't fucking stand the way his hair looks when it's laying flat and slick against his head like this, and he can't exactly hide all the unseemly scars and and stretch marks and soft spots and all the other issues he's poked at in the mirror time and time again. (He had a growth spurt as a teenager, okay, and stretching him out an extra foot and a half so quickly didn't give his skin a lot of time to adapt.)

In short, he feels more naked and exposed now, half-covered by the foamy surface of this shallow pool, than he did when Benrey had him in his palm with his entire dick out. And it makes Gordon fucking throb under the surface of the water.

He's gotta be making fun of me, Gordon desperately tells himself. Defense mechanism. It's not working as well as it usually does, and he subconsciously presses his thighs tighter together.

His tongue darts out to wet his lips, suddenly dry despite the water carding down his face.

"What," starts Gordon. But he doesn't know where to take that question, and it dies as quick as it came.

> Game over. It's done. Benrey's used his final life and lost it in a valiant attempt to beat the final boss, but now he's gawking down at Gordon who is gawking right back up at him with a tell-tale look on his face that makes Benrey almost positive that he's playing just as hard. His own breath quickens as once complicated thoughts congeal into something more comfortable, something more streamlined, something more natural.

> Something that Alyx would have been disappointed to hear, especially after how good he had been doing.

> He inhales sharply through his nose and leans in close, the air coming back out at a low laugh as his mouth twists into a hungry grin. A finger extends and he presses it against the side of Gordon's face, an almost loving stroke. He can feel a burst of heat in his cheeks and he knows, glasses or not, that Gordon can probably see how red he's getting. He shifts his legs as he floats beside the island, trying to accommodate a cock that is now frighteningly hard and twitching against his stomach.

> "What 'what?'" Benrey asks, his voice monotonous but still somehow teasing. "Can't a bro, uh, admire his bro? Have a look-see? Look nice. Pretty."

> His finger drops to the water and stirs it a bit, creating a roil of bubbles that send a pleasant, tingling sensation up his hand, his arm. It seems to travel straight to his heart, which is pounding furiously in his chest.

> "You, uh... you good? Need anymore help? Getting clean? Hard to reach places?"

> A pause. He feels his stomach twist into knots. This has never really happened before while playing this game, but it's powerful. Makes him feel desperate. Needy. Makes him feel guilty and he hates it because he never feels guilty.

> As quickly as the mask breaks, he picks up the pieces and puts them back together. He slides it back on. He takes a deep breath, fumbling with his words.

> "Want to, uh... pla... pretty? Want to pretty? Want best friend Benrey to make you, uh, cleaner? Prettier? Help you? Please? Thank-you."

Two paths emerge before Gordon. On the one, well-worn and well-lit, he would tell Benrey, "No thanks, I'm good," and he would tell Benrey to turn around so he can dry off and crawl back into the jumpsuit. And then he would let Benrey fit him in the armor again, trying his best to ignore those fingers on his skin, and later he would duck away and jerk himself raw thinking about it. Swearing at himself. Wishing he could be normal for once in his fucking life and not develop questionable new fantasies about the one guy who's as out of place in this world as he is.

On the other, bracketed by brambles and dark, uncharted woods, Gordon would... He would...

He'd get it through his head that he's not the only little fucking weirdo in this relationship. That Benrey keeps staring at him like that for a reason.

And that Benrey's trying so fucking hard to play nice because... well... Gordon hasn't wrapped his head around that one yet, but he has his suspicions. Some of them more worrying than others. But the point is, Benrey's not taking the bait. He's got Gordon in a highly vulnerable position, and he could be pushing Gordon around if he wanted, playing their little game and driving him up the wall.

But he isn't. He keeps choking it back. It's unsettling. Gordon doesn't know how to handle it. He kind of wishes, in the back of his mind, that Benrey would tack on his 'schoolyard bully' demeanor again. At least that Gordon understands on some level. Push, pull, tussle.

And most unsettling of all is that downright tender way that Benrey drags a finger along his cheek. Anxiety thrums to life in Gordon's blood. No, no, that's not-- This is weird. This is so weird. There's something roiling and ugly churning in his stomach, and he doesn't like it one bit. He's not coping with it, he needs to-- to wrangle this situation, get some control over it, steer it back to familiar territory.

And in doing so, Gordon floors it directly into the woods.

He looks back at Benrey, taking in the hot flush crawling up his skin. The awkward shifting. I'm not the only freak here, Gordon reminds himself, blood pounding in his ears.

So he shifts himself. Sits back, draws his legs up so that his knees peek out of the water. Lets them fall to the sides, just a little. And he says, tucking a strand of wet hair behind his ear,

"What, and you're not even gonna-- That's some low-hanging fruit you're leaving on the vine. Startin' to get worried about you, man. You haven't gone this long without making fun of me in... uh, ever."

> Wait. Was that...?

> Was that admission?

> Benrey's pupils grow wide at the words, and his smile threatens to falter as he feels the cogs creaking inside of his head. Connecting the dots with all the newfound information he has on human people is like doing the advanced science stuff Gordon seemed to believe he was so special for knowing. There's emotional equations, rechecking the data, counter-arguments for every theory he comes up with, but in the end a little lightbulb flickers to life. The lights are on, somebody is home, and by god does that somebody want to play ball already.

> Benrey's finger stills on Gordon's cheek and he feels an uncharacteristic lump grow in his throat as his face grows redder and sweat beads at his brow. That weird emotion that once wrapped itself around its siblings, Worry and Guilt, finally cut itself loose and tangles itself in his stomach. He doesn't like it--it's too warm, and it's not the horny kind of heat that he's used to--but he allows it to stay. It feels like it may turn into something good if he just lets it incubate.

> "Uh, what? Not gonna... huh?"

> Benrey's voice cracks just like Gordon's had a moment before. He pretends it never happened and seamlessly continues.

> "Not gonna, ah, make fun of you. Gonna... gonna pick that fruit, though."

> His finger trails down Gordon's chin, down his neck, across his shoulders, down his chest. It rests dangerously low on his belly, threatening to dip lower. He grins at Gordon, leans in close, and huffs a laugh that's less malicious than it is honestly amused with its own cleverness.

> "Uh, get it? Fruit? Picked? You're, ah, you're the fruit, bro."

> A pause.

> "Laugh, please."

Gordon swallows, hard. The implications hit him like a bowling ball. That somebody's dropping on him. Maybe from an overpass or something. He's spinning out a little, alright, and losing his grip on the metaphor.

Benrey's fingertip leaves goosebumps in its wake, and his breathing goes shallow as the nail lightly catches on the crook of his neck. Lower, lower, slipping just below the surface of the water to rest on his belly, and Gordon thanks every deity he can imagine (and some he can't) that the bubbles hide... well. This, feeling it throb where it lies heavy against his hip.

Despite himself, he does actually laugh when Benrey prompts it. It comes out high and way louder than he intended, but still. Now that's a metaphor he's got a good grasp on, he thinks wildly. Oh, Christ.

"That's-- that's not really what I meant," Gordon tries to argue, but not with very much conviction. "But, uh, ha ha! Great joke! Fucking love jokes, man!"

> Benrey doesn't really hear what Gordon is saying. He does know that tone, though, from times they've played The Game before. It's a tone that speaks of permission, a sort of polite denial without the force. The kind of arguing that Benrey knows he can get away with ignoring because it's not sincere. Game talk. A challenge.

> Their own secret language of want.

> "Thank-you," Benrey purrs when Gordon forces a laugh, and his finger rubs a slow, slow circle into Gordon's stomach. He's sure Gordon notices when it bumps a bit too low, because he can feel something tell-tale just beneath the surface of the water. His grin grows at the realization that he was on the right track, tongue slipping out from between his teeth and running along his lips. A show, given to Gordon.

> A show he desperately wants Gordon to notice is meant for him. A tech demo. A promise.

> "But, uh... if that ain't what you meant. What did you mean? 'Cause you seem to be enjoyin' this, best friend."

A noise threatens to burst from Gordon's chest when Benrey starts to rub, slow and insistent, and grazes against-- Oh, God. But he clamps his lips tight, and all that escapes him is a harsh puff of air through his nose. He knows now, he knows, and it's written all over his face, a raised eyebrow and a smug smile and the slow, deliberate movement of his tongue over his lower lip.

It's fucking cartoonish, is what it is. Gordon should laugh. Gordon does laugh, again, another nervous little titter that doesn't communicate "amusement" so much as "flustered hysteria".

"I don't know," he blurts out, and it's the most honest thing he's said all day. "Fucking, God, I'm not-- This isn't what it looks like, okay, you just-- you keep looking at me like that, and I don't know what your fucking game is, man!"

He can't look at Benrey, not right now, not when he knows Benrey's looking at him like that, and so he looks down and oh, no, that's a bad idea. Because Benrey's still drawing tight little circles into his skin, unnervingly gentle. And so Gordon's eyes keep darting around, finding nowhere suitable to land.

At least Benrey's taking the bait. He's not doing that weird sappy shit anymore, and Gordon's in more familiar territory: the push and pull. The teasing. So he pulls harder, in hopes that Benrey will knock it off for good.

"If anybody's 'enjoying this', it's you, buddy! I'm just a, uh, innocent bystander, you know?"

> He doesn't sound convincing. There's fractures in his voice, and his words are stumbling like they fell down the stairs. He's looking everywhere but at Benrey, his face red and his eyes nervously darting from thing to thing to thing. But, in the end, they always come back to him, in one way or another.

> It's tells like this that let Benrey know that he's playing. The Game is afoot, he's been given the go-ahead. It's time to take the ball and run.

> "Uh-huh. Sure. Innocent. Lessee what you're hidin', bro."

> And with that, Benrey removes his finger from Gordon's stomach, instead parting his fingers into a V-shape and hooking Gordon underneath his arms. It's like a claw in a skill crane and, with a snort, he lifts Gordon out of the water. Naked, wet, and standing at attention from the looks of it; his human apparently had been playing along a lot longer than Benrey knew. He watches Gordon dangling a few feet from the pool at the end of his hand and smirks.

> But there's something different now, isn't there? Something Benrey sees in his human that makes that weird feeling he's been fighting twirl and twist. He's barely even noticing Gordon's boner more than he's looking at the way his hair is clinging to his face, and the way his eyes are flicking up at him expectantly, and how warm and small and cute he looks. He looks delicate and handsome and he wants to touch him, but he wants to touch all of him, and his heart is thumping so hard he starts to worry because... fuck. Is he dying? Is Gordon killing him just by being cute?

> Benrey swallows hard. He hopes his expression didn't falter. He broadens his grin in case it did, until the muscles in his cheeks honestly hurt. And he inhales deeply and forces a mocking laugh and squeezes his fingers around Gordon gently in an attempt to further mock him.

> "I 'unno, bro. Looks like you're, uh... you're carrying without a permit. That's... uh, an infract... fracta... infection. You're a bad boy, aren't'cha?"

Gordon yelps as those fingers hook under his arms and drag him out of the water. Oh, God, his legs are kicking out from underneath him, and his hands scrabble at Benrey's, and Benrey's just smirking at him all up close and personal and he's fucked, he's really, really fucked. His fucking dick bobs in the air like-- like-- he doesn't know, he doesn't have a simile for this! Gordon's never been in this situation before! But bob it does, until he comes to a stop right in front of Benrey's face.

"It's infraction, dude!" Gordon snaps, his mind jumping to the least important thing Benrey said. "Fucking 'infraction'! And I don't-- I don't know what you expect when you're all, fucking--"

He's cut off by a gasp when Benrey squeezes him, just a little. Makes Gordon keenly aware of those big fingers. He can just... he can do whatever he fucking wants, huh? Pick Gordon up like it's nothing? Wrap those fingers around him, so big and hot and rough against his skin, and move all his limbs around just like he was doing earlier and--

And--

Gordon blinks, coming back to himself. Face hot. Mouth dry. And Benrey's grin looks impossibly wider.

"You know," he finishes weakly.

> "Maybe I do," Benrey responds, jostling Gordon lightly. "Maybe I don't. Maybe you should tell me, bro. When I'm all fuckin' what?"

> He lifts Gordon higher, and closer. Really gets a good look at him, leaning in and running his tongue along his jagged teeth. Like a predator, like something that wants to swallow Gordon whole, though that's the last thing on his mind. He wants to taste Gordon, that's for sure, but there's... there's more to it.

> He wants to reel him in. Follow this weird feeling. Press his lips against Gordon and--

> Benrey inhales sharply through his nose. Gordon smells positively delicious. Like something fruity and sweet and earthly. And he looks delicious, too, all soft and supple and soaked to the bone, smooth skin glistening in the alien lights.

> His dick twitches, straining against his pants. He's so hard it hurts. He wonders if Gordon can see, but can't imagine he can miss it.

> "C'mon," he teases, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Tell me what I am, bro. Tell best friend Benrey what's on your mind. Bonding experience. Bros being bros."

He wrenches his eyes shut, breath coming harder and faster despite his efforts to control it. When Benrey fucking talks like that, he can't help it, okay? All-- all smug and condescending and all the shit that should get under his skin-- and does, yeah, it drives him up the wall, but. But. There must be something wrong with him, Gordon thinks desperately. Something warped in the fabric of his mind that makes a shiver race down his spine.

Then he feels warm breath puffing against his face, and he opens his eyes again. Just in time to see a broad tongue run across sharp, sharp teeth. A naked suggestion. Gordon's mouth falls open a little and hangs there, stunned speechless.

Until Benrey mutters, c'mooon, voice low and heated in a way that goes straight to Gordon's belly. And his dick twitches in the open air, fully visible this time. Fuck.

"You're," he starts, staring at his own fingertips, where they're digging into Benrey's hand.

God, this is humiliating! And he should, he should tell Benrey to fuck off and put him down, but he doesn't. That same warp in his fabric goes all the way down to his autonomic nervous system. Heart racing, blood pumping, pupils dilating and sweat beading and every other unconscious reaction he can't wrangle into submission.

Because he wants to be wrangled into submission.

Okay, Christ! He gets it! He doesn't need the color commentary from his own fucking brain!

Gordon takes a deep breath to steel himself, and then he starts again, choked and hesitant, "When you're... God, fucking, touching me and breathing on me and shit, man! Like you'd be doing any better if you had somebody's big fucking hands all over you! Okay?"

As soon as the words leave him, a fresh wave of embarrassment crests and crashes over him. Stupid, stupid, he shouldn't have said it.

> Oh. Well. That was new. Usually, there's a bit more arguing, a bit more resistance, a bit more of Benrey getting called things like "weirdo" and "freak" before they have a good "haha" about it and touch dicks. But Gordon is being so earnest and honest and talking about how he's touching him, about big hands, about doing this same thing to Benrey (sort of talking about it, anyway), and...

> ... And Benrey feels... wanted? Was that the word? Wanted?

> Yeah. He feels wanted.

> And that foreign, alien, hot-cold emotion twisting inside of him balloons and explodes, and there is a sudden, pulse-pounding sensation of want and warmth that courses through his body like a poison. He can feel drool pooling under his tongue and he swallows hard, his smile fading into something more earnest as he tries to maintain a mocking, bullying stare. Tries to keep his head in the game.

> Their game.

> "Oh. You, uh. You like it when I breathe on you? Fuckin'... secret alien power. Uh, blow dryer." He pauses and chuckles. "Heh. Blow."

> He inches Gordon closer to his face, and the closer he brings him, the more he can feel the little bit of warmth radiating off of him. Welcoming him. Blazing hot, like he is on the inside, and flushed so red he looked burned. And that warm, weird, unwelcome emotion surges again as he lets out a sigh and sits Gordon in his palm, plopping him down unceremoniously like a captured bug.

> Only he's not watching him with a childlike curiosity. He's really examining him, trying to wiggle the wrench out of the gears in his brain. With some effort, he pops it loose, and the words pour out of his mouth without any restraint.

> "Bet'cha you'd like it if I, uh... dried you off. Gentle breeze. Pick a scent. Have eight exciting flavors. Blue. Watermelon. Other blue. Tropical, uh, kiss."

> Even he isn't sure why he stressed that last word. The weird emotion spoke for him.

> His mouth snaps shut.

> Awkward.

Whatever Gordon was expecting, it wasn't "being dropped buck-naked onto Benrey's palm". His legs splay out in front of him, and he instinctively tries to draw his knees up. Doesn't change the fact that he's got his boner out in front of God and everybody.

"Was that supposed to be a joke?" Despite himself, he bursts out laughing. He does his best to choke it back down. "You really, uh, gotta work on your dirty talk, man."

Gordon doesn't manage to catch himself before he all but admits that, yeah, that was dirty talk. This is a situation where Benrey should be trying to talk dirty to him. It's breaking the rules a little. Breaking kayfabe. But it's hard to resist bringing it up when Benrey's trying to get him hot by talking about blowing on him like a spoonful of soup.

Then he actually thinks about what Benrey said. Tropical kiss. That's not-- that's not anything. That's not real. Benrey's just talking about kissing him, in whatever weird fucking roundabout way he usually does. A small part of him softens. It's... almost cute. If he were inclined to ever describe Benrey that way. Which he isn't.

But Gordon plays along anyway. "What are you talking about? Scents? Dude, I smelled your breath earlier, and lemme tell you, it wasn't any kind of fucking tropical kiss."

> "Uh, no. S'one of the other flavors," Benrey responds indignantly, façade breaking for a moment. "That flavor was, uh... Glade Plug-in."

> As he speaks, he reels Gordon in closer, sitting in his palm and still sopping wet. He looks so small, so delicate, so... cute, and the thought makes his heart flutter again. It grabs his tongue and twists it into an awkward knot that takes a moment to untie. He works fast, hoping to save face. Get back in the game.

> But it's hard. Harder than before, and as Gordon stares at him expectantly, he's suddenly floundering. While he is externally stiff, flat, and monotonous, on the inside he is scrambling to pick up his scattered index cards during a speech. He wants to play, but he wants to taste. He wants to stroke Gordon's head as much as his dick and he doesn't know why. He wants to say something naughty and nice all at the same time and...

> "Lemme, uh. Demo. Demon-stray-shun," Benrey says, interrupting his own thoughts. "Tropical kiss. Free sample. Here we go."

> And with that, he brings Gordon to his mouth. He presses the smaller man into his lips, a small and chaste kiss being planted in the first place he can reach: Gordon's throat. Only it's... not just his throat. It's basically his whole shoulder, and throat, and beneath his jaw. He practically envelops him, could literally swallow him if he wanted to, but pulls away and snorts a laugh as though this spontaneous act was premeditated as a joke.

> He sounds unconvincing.

> Even more so when he chuckles, "See? Coconut. Sea breeze. Lime. Seagulls. All the classic smells."

Lips press against Gordon's skin before he's fully prepared for it, and he lets out a surprised little sound. Jaw and throat alike find themselves enveloped, a heat and softness and moisture the likes of which he's never felt quite like this. And then it's over. Gordon's still left dizzily processing this as Benrey draws back.

"Did you just kiss me?" Gordon asks, stupidly. He touches a hand to his jaw, where there's a hint of moisture lingering.

The longer Gordon thinks about it, the more disoriented he becomes. Benrey's never kissed him like that before. All, fucking, sweet and tender. Those aren't words in his vocab. Like, yeah, sure, they've kissed before, but only in frantic, snarling bursts. This is strange and new.

But... at the same time... that's not all it is, is it. At this scale, chasteness is impossible. Gordon's so small in his hand, wet and splayed like some kind of foal, and those hands could wrap around every inch of him at once just to touch him. Lips, kissing wide swathes of skin. Hot breaths of air forced through Benrey's nose and spurring the hairs on the back of Gordon's neck to stand up. The unpleasant realization that Benrey is very, very big, and could probably just swallow Gordon whole if he so chose. You know. Normal things to worry about.

But he doesn't. He just lets Gordon go with a kiss. And Gordon flushes up to his ears, still a little dumbstruck.

> That was... new. That wasn't like the lust-fueled, rushed kisses he'd given Gordon while trying to get fingers around his cock, but it wasn't bad. It was something that scratched an itch he didn't know he had, something that made his lips tingle, something that milked an incredibly good feeling out of that foreign emotion swirling inside of him. It's intoxicating in a way human substances never could quite pull off, and Benrey feels an addiction already forming.

> It takes him a moment to realize that Gordon has spoken. It's just a tiny sound to his colossal ears, one he nearly misses from the full-body throb of lust and affection. It's not just his dick anymore. His heart is thundering against every bone, every inch of skin, and he feels almost overwhelmed. Again, like he's dying. This is new, it's intense.

> He wets his lips and furrows his brow, and with a surprising amount of clarity, rattles, "Yeah... uh. I guess I did, huh?"

> His tongue continues to run over his lips. His teeth. His eyes dart to Gordon. He's struggling to play the game properly, but there's a sudden bout of nerves involved. He can't help but wonder if this is how Gordon feels all the time, and the realization clonks him like a clawhammer.

> If this is how Gordon feels all the time, then no wonder he's always such a mess. It's latching onto his jaw and holding it shut like an invisible muzzle, it's pumping him full of drugs that don't exist, it's making him feel small despite being absolutely batshit levels of huge. And, it feels like he's learning... god, what had Alyx called it? Empathy? He's not sure how much he likes it, but it mingles well with the now-welcome warmth following the kiss in a way that feels positively, cathartically self-destructive.

> Benrey coughs. He doesn't laugh. He doesn't tease. He looks to Gordon with an intensity even he's surprised he can pull off.

> "You, uh. Like it? Wan' another one? I got, uh, plenty. Warehouses full. Best Friend Special. BOGO."

Gordon watches Benrey's tongue slide over his teeth like it's in slow motion, a reminder of what lies just underneath the surface. And he freezes under the intensity of Benrey's stare, anticipatory sweat beading on his forehead.

"What, you mean you want to..." He trails off with a nervous laugh. "C'mon, man, put me down! I know you get a kick out of, fucking, making fun of me or whatever, but I don't know what you're getting out of this!"

> Unfortunately, Benrey knows exactly what he was getting out of this. A feeling, strong and tingly that's now full of a primal need that he understands quite a bit better. And, beyond that, he was getting permission. Full permission in every movement Gordon made, every lilt of his voice, every glance up at him that was filled with a hunger that his human never got quite got the hang of voicing. It's a look that Benrey knows good and well, though, from the other time they've played their little games.

> He says nothing. He just smiles, moves Gordon to his mouth again, and pushes his lips gently against his collar bone, though it stretches down to his chest. He can feel Gordon's nipple brush against the corner of his lip, hair brushing against his mouth, the taste of the strange, glittering water and skin as he parts his lips and rumbles a laugh into Gordon.

> He pulls away. He maneuvers his human. He presses his mouth against him again, brushing his stomach with a feather-light kiss that nearly encompasses his dick. He can feel it pressing against him, feel it twitch as he pokes a tongue out between his teeth and presses the very tip into his soft flesh.

> His eyes angle up to Gordon's in a silent bid for a sign. The lick intensifies, nimbly avoiding the cock poking at the very corner of his mouth.

> He continues to say nothing. He has a feeling he doesn't have to. Gordon isn't the only one who can get away with communicating silent intent in their back-and-forth.

Of course Benrey's not gonna answer him. Of course Benrey's just gonna grin at him - like an asshole - and kiss him again, lips soft against his chest. Right over his heart. It's cartoonish, is what it is. And, unfortunately, it's also more ticklish than Gordon expects, and he snorts aloud.

"What are you doing? You're being weird, dude."

When Benrey laughs back at him, his huffed breath ruffles Gordon's body hair, and it just makes that whole "sensitivity" problem worse. Gordon tries to choke down a giggle and fails. Despite himself, it's... it's nice. He almost feels light-headed.

And then Benrey's doing it again, a soft kiss against his middle, shifting him bodily into position, and Gordon laughs again, shoving at his face. Playful. Roughhousing. Their usual.

And again. "That-- That tickles, man, c'mon!"

And again, hot against his belly. Mouth parted. Benrey's chin grazes his dick, which he'd all but forgotten about in his reflexive urge to kick Benrey away. A peal of laughter bleeds into a gasp. All the worse when Gordon feels the wet-hot tip of a tongue push into his skin.

Oh God. It feels just like he thought it would. In that dream, that fucking dream, the one he can't get out of his mind. The one that's made Gordon look twice every time Benrey grins at him, teeth sharp and glossy. He freezes, afraid even to breathe too heavily and press himself all the more against Benrey's tongue.

"What are you doing," he asks again, this time less of a playful rebuff and more of a high squeak. Then it's hotter, wetter, more of the broad side of Benrey's tongue flattening against him, and his dick twitches, hard.

Fuck.

> Alyx would be disappointed, Benrey thinks. He was doing so good and playing so nice, and now he's licking a hot, wet stripe across Gordon's belly, feeling the hairs and skin against his tongue, teeth barely grazing against sensitive flesh. But, he knows things she doesn't and will never know, about the game and the language that he and Gordon have built. He squeaks in defiance, but with a tone that shows only polite refusal: Oh, I couldn't possibly, but if you insist.

> Gordon isn't pressing against his face. He isn't pushing him away. He isn't snarling and cursing, and he hasn't made any move to extricate himself. He's parting his legs invitingly, his voice is getting higher in want and anticipation, and his dick is so hard. As hard as Benrey's, to be honest, and twitching almost as if its beckoning.

> "What'm I doing?" Benrey purrs, and he can see Gordon's body tremble at the way it rumbles through him. "M'helpin'. S'what best friends do."

> With that, his jaw opens wide, his tongue slithering out and the tip dipping lower. Low enough to catch his cock, his legs, the entire bottom of his stomach. It presses hard against Gordon and then creeps upward before coiling up politely behind Benrey's jagged smile. Drool pools at the corner of his lips and he swipes it away with his spare hand.

> He opens his mouth and dives back in again, the faintest hint of flesh and salt and soap and glittering, sweet Xen water dancing across his tongue. It fills him with another burst of primal want, though it's watching the flush on Gordon grow deeper that satiates that other, newer beast nesting inside of him.

Hot, wet, sinuous, pressing against his belly like a snake, making him gasp and jerk instinctively - Gordon's head spins on contact. And Benrey's eyes keep flicking up to meet his, like he's gauging Gordon's reaction. Looking for the go-ahead. Like-- Like they haven't been playing this fucking game for hours, glorified foreplay, you know, like he hadn't let Benrey practically feel him up behind the bleachers while he was (is) stripped down to nothing.

When Gordon's legs jerk open, though, he doesn't snap them closed again. He lets them fall open, leaving room for Benrey's face. If he wanted. To put his face anywhere around there. It's embarrassing as soon as the thought hits his conscious mind, and Gordon burns a bright red down to his shoulders.

"I-I don't know if this is what every 'best friend' is supposed to d-- oh-- oh God, Benrey--"

His voice pitches up, raw and hoarse, as Benrey's tongue flattens itself against his thighs and dick. No more games. Just what this was always building up to, this whole time, if Gordon had just paid a little more attention, pushed his glasses back up on his nose and seen the hunger in Benrey's eyes. And the full knowledge of it cracks over his skull like an egg.

His chest heaves desperately to catch his breath, but it's so much, he can't--

He can't--

Benrey's going back for more, licking him in slow, deliberate strokes and chuffing like a big cat against him, and Gordon can't fucking think. His hands clench at Benrey's, then, finding that inadequate, at his own face. His hair.

"Benrey," he chokes out again. "You're gonna-- oh-- you just gave me a bath and you're gonna get me all fuckin' nasty again, man!"

It comes out as a whine that belies just how fucking stupid he sounds.

> "I'll, uh, just bathe you again. No biggie."

> Benrey's voice is low, dismissive. There is a dark and teasing chuckle hidden just under the surface, as much of a predator as the rest of him. Waiting for a moment to strike, to snag his prey and drag it beneath the surface. But not now, not now.

> Benrey likes to play with his food.

> His alien tongue is strangely dexterous, encircling Gordon's thighs and tracing wet lines into the crease where they met his body. Faint trails of Sweet Voice-tainted saliva leave visible marks of where he's been, allowing Gordon to ogle at exactly when Benrey is doing to him even after he's moved on. Even after he's moved from one leg to the other, to his belly, to his cock.

> His own aches as he flattens his tongue against his dick and licks upwards, like an animal lapping water. His tongue curls delicately and folds back into his mouth, scraping against pointed teeth before emerging again. Hungry, tasting, teasing and growing faster, more deliberate. The taste of Gordon swirl in his mouth and he feels a heat building in his belly so hot and dangerous that it almost makes him feel ill.

> And it intensifies with every squeak Gordon makes, every pant that falls out of his mouth. It drives him onward, a leopard on the prowl, gradually cornering its next meal. His own breath is becoming ragged, his mind a messy whorl of emotions and thoughts that make time seem as though it hardly matters. He's long forgotten how long he's been teasing, eyes nearly crossed to focus on Gordon. Benrey has long been lost in the sounds he makes, the way he writhes.

> It's almost like divine inspiration when it strikes him that he should maybe push him a bit harder.

> Delicately, and uncharacteristically slow, he rolls his tongue back into his mouth. He parts his lips and fits them around Gordon's length. He can't suck, not at this size, but he hums in satisfaction, the vibrations pulsing straight from him and into his human.

> If he wasn't so afraid of doing damage, he'd have smiled.

"We don't have time to--" Gordon breaks off in a moan, that compulsive need to worry stopped in its tracks by Benrey's tongue.

He shivers from his neck down to his toes when it worms around his thighs, digging into those sensitive creases in his skin. Something like a laugh bubbles out of him, but it's also something like a whimper, with a hint of a plea.

"You can't," he gasps, fighting for breath, "you can't do this to me, man, you don't even-- ah! Fuck! Don't even know!"

Gordon turns his face to the side and buries a noise into Benrey's hand. Makes it easier to cope when Benrey licks up to his chest and swirls his tongue, his own breath loud and hot around it. Tasting everywhere he can get to.  Benrey just keeps going, salivating and groaning for the sheer thrill of it, and it makes heat pulse off Gordon's skin in waves.

Faster, harder, enveloping him in ways he had only dreamed possible, something only he can do - Benrey - just for him, he doesn't do this shit with anyone else, how could he. Gordon squirms and gasps in his grip, legs straining to arch into that wet heat.

Agony creeps into his voice, low and haggard. "Benrey," he whines, "how are you so fucking... good at this, why are you even--"

He doesn't get to finish that thought before Benrey's lips wrap around him, and he hums, smug as a cat that's gotten the cream, and Gordon cries out so hard that some winged thing bursts out from a nearby outcropping. How is-- Why is he-- what does he even get out of this, he thinks wildly, brain desperately clinging to neuroticism even in the face of sexual obliteration.

> Every time Gordon shifts his weight, whines, looks away, says a word, Benrey feels that warm, weird emotion surge through him in a way that defies explanation. A feeling he thinks he can now identify, but is hesitant to verbalize, lest he somehow break the rules. But, it's so much stronger than before, especially after everything they'd been through, especially with the way Gordon is finally saying what he really means. Instead of snapping that he's being weird, he's whimpering praise and the words hang crookedly in his head like paintings in a forgotten room.

> "Benrey, how are you so fucking... good at this?"

> The boner he'd been ignoring for what seemed like millennia is now aching, and he pushes his hips against the side of the island and grinds upwards in hopes of finding something resembling relief. Unsurprisingly, what he finds is a crotch full of rocks, and he winces even as he continues to lavish Gordon with attention, breath hot out of his nose as he continues to hum and mouth at his dick. As he unfurls his tongue once more and presses it against his entire body and pushes Gordon against the palm of his hand, something akin to a wet hug. As the tip once again finds Gordon's cock and greedily laps at it, mesmerized by how prominent it is compared to the rest of his soft body.

> There is no give. Just hardness, sinking into the sensitive muscle.

> As he continues on--gently sucking on entire hands, tracing circles into the wet skin of his stomach, tasting the inside of his thighs while grazing his junk with the side of his tongue--he grunts. He feels his hips rocking just out of Gordon's sight. He clenches his free hand when its not in use pulling Gordon's legs apart for easier access or fiddling with his arm to get access to his fingers.

> It's instinctual, and impossible to ignore. He aches, and he knows Gordon can see he's losing himself to this as much as his prey.

> He waits to see if Gordon will have anything to say about it.

Gordon grabs desperately at Benrey's face, a nasal noise forced out of him on every exhale. It's more than a blowjob, it's, it's Benrey humming through his entire fucking body, okay? He can feel it down to his bones, and the inside of Benrey's mouth is achingly warm and so, so wet, and Benrey just keeps mouthing at him, tongue unfurling behind his teeth to lap up Gordon's length in a hot stripe.

It's... it's good. It's so good. Gordon closes his eyes tight and moans aloud.

Benrey moans, too, as his lips part from Gordon's dick to envelop his fingers instead. He pants through his nose and shuffles awkwardly, and the uncomfortable motion gets Gordon to open his eyes again. And he really looks, this time.

Oh.

He's hard.

Benrey's hard, and he's rocking his hips forward into the barren earth. And he's got his hands on Gordon instead of himself. Thumbing his chest and spreading him open. The burden of that knowledge makes Gordon pant like a dog.

"Oh my God," he warbles, voice cracking as Benrey draws patterns into his stomach with his tongue, "are you-- are you not gonna--"

Gordon slaps his hands over his mouth, suddenly regretting his words. No, he's not going to ask if Benrey's gonna touch his own dick, Jesus Christ. That's none of his business. What does he even care, anyway. It's not like he wants to see it. Not like he's curious about how big it would look once Benrey whipped it out. Gordon's aware of the general, you know, size and girth, proportionally, but it looks so much bigger down there, even in the confines of his work pants. It's not really fair.

And then Benrey grunts against him and flicks the tip of his tongue against his dick even faster, and Gordon can't stop the agonized whine that forces its way out of him.

> Benrey's tongue rolls up Gordon's body yet again, and again, and again. It envelops his dick, his thighs, his stomach, and everything in between. He watches, he waits, and eventually he hears Gordon's voice small and broken from his palm. It is enough to make him recoil, to open the floodgates in his mind. That warm feeling floods the inside of his skull and drowns out every thought out but lust, who is gasping for air defiantly.

> "Huh?"

> Benrey pauses, looking down at Gordon--soaked and slimy and oh-so-small--laying with his legs parted, his face flushed, his eyes locked on the very prominent erection straining against his pants. His own trail down to it and he smirks as the weight of Gordon's almost-question hits him.

> "Oh... huh? Wha? Touch myself? Is, uh, is that what you were gonna say?"

> He leans down over Gordon, tongue sticking out between sharp teeth but frustratingly distant from his body. The hand he'd once used to manhandle his human pulled away, fingers slipping into his waistband behind his belt. He sneers, but there is no actual malice behind it. Feigned mockery, just to make Gordon grow brighter. Redder.

> "You... seem to like the idea. You, uh. You... you wanna see? That what you want? Wanna see best friend Benrey's massive hog? Wanna... wanna touch it?"

> A pause, a laugh.

> "Want me to touch it? Seems you like the idea. I can do it. Just, uh, gotta say so."

Gordon mumbles a quiet plea into his hands, begging for some higher power to-- to do something. He doesn't know what. All he knows is that Benrey's sticking his tongue between his teeth, now, looking at him as if he's some problem to be solved or some piece of furniture to wrangle into place. Instead of keeping that tongue right where he had it. Gordon squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath through his nose. He's not disappointed, actually. That would involve caring about what Benrey was doing at all. Which he doesn't.

"You can... you can do whatever you want, man. It's your life," he says, not meeting Benrey's eyes.

Not like he wants to... oh, God. That's Benrey's hand in his pants, isn't it? Slipping under the waistband before Gordon’s even finished his sentence. A sound escapes him that he really wishes wouldn't. He’s really into this, huh, Gordon thinks distantly, just as surprised by the realization as he has been all the previous times he’s figured out that, yes, Benrey actually is pretty hot for him. Like he’s still waiting for the Band-Aid to be ripped off, even now. Even after Benrey’s sucked his dick in a fucking dumpster. (You take what you can get.)

And-- And there it is, huh. Larger than life. Gordon swallows, a little intimidated. Then he wants to curse himself out for feeling intimidated by Benrey’s dick. Freud would have a field day with him.

[thebestorworstofit]

hiiiii 

so since someone is already doin the whole not minding their own business thing, just thought I’d play too, bc why not?? :)))

Soooo, I would like to know how him setting up boundaries with the people that he chooses to interact and be creative with is unreasonable in any form. Never once did he say do not write their replies, never once did he say that he’s going on a thread dropping spree, never once did he tell anybody not to post them and along with the queue future, but he mentioned — writing out a reply when you’re feeling it has absolutely not a single freaking thing with posting it, at all. He literally did nothing more than let himself be open and vulnerable with his situation, the same way anybody else would when saying “oh sorry, I’ve been slow lately bc etc etc” He just worded it differently.. how dare anybody anonymously or not try to belittle anyone else’s vulnerability; no matter how it is expressed. He is incredibly clear from the very jump about how he prefers to handle replies coming in. He’s very honest about his thread count and schedule so anybody that chooses to write with him is making that choice WITH THIS KNOWLEDGE. he has it in posts he has in his rules and I know for a fact that he is respectful enough to have that conversation with somebody if it gets to be that serious. If somebody comes in to write with him knowing how he sets his boundaries to comfortably handle the volume that he has  and makes the choice to disrespect that then fuck them, and quite frankly, fuck you for thinking that your opinion on how he does things means anything past the five minutes or whatever of his life that he spent responding to it.  everybody here has a set of rules. Everybody here has a set of boundaries. Because that is what humans need to set to feel fucking comfortable in any and every situation whether they’re fully aware of it or not. That’s what our rules pages are - they’re boundaries we set to be our best selves. The same way people will say you can’t write with my boys unless you write with my girls.  or how they will only write on discord, or only write on Tumblr. their boundaries people set to make this work for them, and I hate to be the one to tell you, but it’s all the same shit no matter how you spin it. just because his are different, it literally does not make them any less fucking valid. So with the upmost disrespect, fuck off with your bullshit that you can’t even freaking login to say. and on top of all of that, this fucker pumps out more replies to this crap quicker than most people could even believe. that’s why he asks for the grace period, because he genuinely wants to be a good writing partner to the people he collaborates with. how many people here can say that their rules are put in place to make them the best version of their self for the people that they’re writing with vs because it’s just what they want?? and how many people can say that they have over 150 threads and have WELLLLLLL over half of them done and in their queue at any given time??  because I would bet good money there are far more people with dozens of drafts that haven’t been touched because they get so fucking overwhelmed with how many replies they have. He’s figured out a system that works for him, that he is 1000% upfront about- which is nothing but respectable. So to your same logic, if you don’t fucking like how he does it... get the hell out of here. 🫡🖕

asking other people to limit their replies to you is unreasonable. if you are struggling with the amount of replies you get, maybe write with less people? when someone decides to write their replies should be up to when they have time, it's not like they're saying 'REPLY TO ME RIGHT NOW'.

Thank you for this rather unprovoked, anon critique…

Unsurprisingly, I don’t agree with you. My rules are there to ensure I can write with as many people as possible but in a way that is sustainable for me, the writer. If this is about my recent post, I think you can probably agree that 70-80 replies in a week is a lot, and yet even then I haven’t asked people to stop replying to me. I’ve simply and politely asked if people could bear this in mind at the current time when I’ve had such a high volume. 

I never like to turn people down for plotting and writing, nor do I like limiting myself to a smaller number of threads. I love variety and I love the mass expanse that RP can give. Equally, to do so, I don’t think its unreasonable to have a rule which asks people to spread their replies out for me so they’re not bunched up and coming too much at once for me. 

I’m unsure if you’re aware of Tumblr’s delightful new tool called ‘Queue’ which means people can write replies whenever they like, and then pop them into the queue for later release and a convenient time for both muns. If not, please check the Queue tool out :)

Ty xx

[vizowrites]

My BlitzStrike Twins: Headcanons and Shenanigans~ [probably with a bit of my M&M kids thrown in just for fun]

So today I got a couple of fantastic asks about Blitz and Striker as parents, and since there seemed to be a pretty positive response to them--and because @helluva-simp​ is amazing and encouraged me to be brave enough to write this up--I thought I’d go ahead and make a full post of my headcanons for these two little devils.  I really do love the hell out of them and hope you guys enjoy hearing about them too!!  <3 <3

Twist’s and Ty’s full names are Twister and Typhoon but literally nobody calls them by their full names ever so they like to make the joke of “the ‘-er’ and the ‘-phoon’ are silent”

Ty is actually the older of the two [though not by much] but everyone thinks that Twist is because his name is always called first.  It’s always “Twist and Ty” [or just collectively “Twist-Ty”] instead of “Ty and Twist”.  Ty honestly doesn’t mind that much as far as following after his brother goes, just don’t make the mistake of trying to label him as the younger of the two.  There are a lot of things Ty’s perfectly content to let Twist take the lead in, but having the title of “the older twin” is just going too far.

Twist and Ty are mirror twins, meaning that they’re mostly identical except for a few key things: 1. Twist is left handed and Ty is right handed, 2. they both have heterochromia but Twist’s eyes are Left: Red | Right: Green-Gold whereas Ty’s eyes are Left: Green-Gold | Right: Red, 3. Twist has a birthmark on his right hand and Ty has his birthmark on his left hand--and yes when you put the two marks together, they form a design not unlike the heart shaped one on Blitz’s forehead :) 

Both of the twins are incredibly agile, but Twist is faster and Ty is more flexible

Striker affectionately calls Twist “Whirlwind” because of said fastness

Blitz affectionately calls Ty “Noodle” because of said flexibility

.....Though it should be noted that it’s not all fun and games because Twist is CONSTANTLY crashing into things or tripping over his own two feet from going too fast, and Ty is so flexible that he’s able to contort himself into positions that honestly make both of his parents throw up a little in their mouths with the split-second panic of “OH GOD OUR BABY WAS BORN WITHOUT BONES!!”  DX DX  They’re both usually just fine tho!!  :D

As noted in an earlier post--but I want to say it here too--Twist’s first word was “Bang!” and Ty’s first word was “Fuck!”  Twist was the first one to talk, though, and it made Striker and Blitz second guess the context of his first word by the time Ty said his. XD

Another thing that was noted in another post but I want to put it here too is that Twist and Ty have incredibly high self esteem and both Striker and Blitz wouldn’t have it any other way

Twist is dyslexic and so gets easily frustrated when he has to read a book, but he love love LOVES the hell out of stories.....and so Ty is almost constantly making up random stories to tell him

This actually also works out well in Ty’s favor because Ty’s attention span is about as short as Blitz’s patience and he has a lot more fun telling stories than he does sitting still long enough to read the ones that other people made up unless it’s a book about something he’s reeeeeeally interested in

It’s also made Ty hella good at bullshitting on the fly, which I think most of the older/adult members of his family wish he was a lot less convincing at

Twist knows how to lie and is a natural at acting, but his flair for the over-dramatics tends to give him a way a lot easier than his twin

They both have what I’m calling a “hierarchy of obedience” within their family which really translates into a range of “eh I can think about maybe listening to this person sometimes” to “oh SHIT I need to listen to this person 5 fucking minutes ago”.  For Twist, his hierarchy of obedience is: Millie --> Blitz --> Striker --> Loona --> Moxxie.  For Ty, his hierarchy of obedience is: Loona --> Millie --> Blitz --> Striker.....and Moxxie doesn’t even make the list for him because honestly I’m pretty sure Ty just naturally tunes him out most of the time and not even fully on purpose.  As he puts it: “You just have one of those voices”. XD

Ty can sleep literally anywhere and on anything.  I’m pretty sure there have been mornings where Blitz and Striker have to play the game of 'Where the hell is my kid??' because they THOUGHT that he went to sleep in his bed like their other child did but NOPE they go into their room in the morning to get them out of bed and are just like, “.....Twist where the hell is your brother??” and Twist just gives an innocent shrug and says, “I don’t know--probably on the roof or something.” u3u and goes out into the kitchen to make himself breakfast--and then two seconds later Blitz and Striker hear him calling out “NEVER MIND!  HE’S IN THE OVEN!!” and that starts off a whole new kind of panic because they know damn well that Twist’s favorite thing to have for breakfast is cinnamon rolls XD

Twist’s laughter is infectious--this really cute witch-like cackling that just bubbles out of him in the most adorably genuine way when he’s that delighted about someting

Ty does this adorable thing where--when he sticks his tongue out at someone--he flicks it in a very snake-like fashion and even gives the tiniest of hisses in lieu of a raspberry when he does it

Ty also manages to twist himself into the most uncomfortable-looking positions when he sleeps but rest assured, he’s never been more comfy

Twist’s tail never stays still.  It is constaintly flicking to and fro, back and forth, swishing and swirling like a cat’s tail, and he loves flicking it in front of people’s faces to get their attention

Twist in general doesn’t really stay still very often but the one time he did was when Ty broke his arm--and then he spent almost every moment of the day and night plastered to his side because he knew it was driving Ty crazy not being as mobile as he usually is while having to wear a cast

The twins really don’t ever go that far apart from each other.  If you look and only see the one, you can rest assured that the other one is around somewhere nearby and it’s probably not a good sign for you if you can only see the one.

Ty is much more of a biter when it comes to self-defense and Twist always goes straight to using his claws

Twist is the outwardly more protective twin and is vicious with his words when defending his brother.  He will force every last ounce of moisture out of your body from how hard he makes you cry.

Ty, on the other hand, will fuck you up hard physically if you try to hurt his twin--and Lucifer himself would not be able to save you if you actually do hurt his twin

As they get older, and their sexualities and gender develop and grow, Twist would discover that he’s a nonbinary he/they homosexual panromantic and Ty would discover that he’s a genderfluid he/she pansexual homoromantic

The above being said, both Twist and Ty wholeheartedly say “fuck you and your gender norms” from a very young age and well into their teenage and adult years, with Twist enjoying painting his nails and Ty carrying all of his stuff around in a purse--and they both have a preference for wearing high heeled shoes [Ty because he just likes being tall in general and Twist because he likes being specifically taller than his parents because it drives them crazy XD]

Twist and Ty’s best friend is “Missi” [Moxxie and Millie’s eldest daughter, Missile] and she’s honestly an absolute hero for putting up with as many of their shenanigans as she does

Whenever they go out on family outings, Twist is that kid who just NEVER wants to leave--and so Blitz usually, after spending ten minutes of trying to get him in the damn van and Striker even using his Dad Tone (TM) and that not working, will just be like, “Alright kiddo, I tried playing nice.  You asked for this.”  And he puts his fingers to his mouth and whistles with a, “Loona Sweetie?  Fetch.” >3 And Loona gets the BIGGEST grin on her face and Twist gets the biggest “oh shit I’m so fucking screwed” look on his face and Ty--who’s honestly probably very awkwardly coiled up in Striker’s arms because after a long day of family fun he’s tired af and decided that he doesn’t want to use his limbs anymore--just kind of looks over at his twin and says, “I believe in you, but also maybe try to run faster than last time” u3u

I think that they would both love their Auntie Barbie a lot and she would have soooooooo much fun teaching them different circus tricks--especially how to yeet each other back and forth on the trapeze XD

I also think that their Auntie Barbie would really love just how close they are.....and probably inspire her to make up for lost time in her relationship with her own twin too

For some reason I can’t shake the thought of the twins being great at acapella and I have no idea why but I’m also ttly here for it XD

In school, I feel like Twist’s favorite class would be Art [he loves to paint and happily makes all kinds of messes with his “expressing creativity”] and Ty’s favorite class would be P.E./Gym [because he loves testing the limits of his physical body]

Family game nights are always fun in their household because usually what happens is Twist and Ty team up against Blitz and Striker, and while they’re in the middle of duking it out, Loona ends up getting a monopoly on every street and is just like, “Pay up fuckers.” u3u

Moxxie and Millie both love and hate babysitting for the twins because on the one hand, they love them to pieces and love seeing how well they get along with their three kids, but on the other hand.....the twins keep finding Millie’s strap on and putting it on their middle child [Mark]’s head and calling him a “cockicorn” XD

Ty’s favorite food is ramen noodles and Twist spent three weeks [and probably set their kitchen on fire at least twice] learning how to make them with JUST the right flavor profile that he knows his brother likes the best

While I think both of the twins know that they can talk to their dads about anything, I think that they still keep their most personal thoughts reserved only to themselves and each other

Twist’s favorite type of weaponry tends to be more of the flashy ‘sharp and pointy’ kind whereas Ty’s favorite type of weaponry tends to be more of the aggressive ‘point and shoot’ kind.  However I honestly kind of think that in terms of what they’d use themselves in the field, Twist’s primary weapon of choice would be a whip [though he would definitely have some throwing knives and handheld revolvers in his back pocket too] and Ty’s primary weapon of choice is honestly poisons.  Assume that everything this kid has that he throws at you--be it a knife or a bullet or even a fucking cannonball--is poisoned somehow.

They both definitely play wrestle like Blitz and Barbie did as kids.....and just like Blitz and Barbie, they also get their horns tangled together more than once and need to have someone come rescue them.  There’s almost always a photo taken that gets posted to Voxtigram first tho. XD  

There are plenty more headcanons where this came from but I feel like this is already waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too fucking long so I’m going to go ahead and stop here for tonight!!  If you guys are interested in hearing more about these two, please please please feel free to let me know and I’d be happy to write up a Part 2 to this, or just overall write up a quick little oneshot with them in it, or if you want to send me specific questions about them that I can answer, feel free to do so!!  Thanks so much again and I hope you guys have as much fun reading these as I did writing them up!! <3 <3

[fandom-thingies]

We Exist In Parallel (But We’re Not The Same)

Working title: Dream face reveal NOT pog

Dream is everything Tommy refuses to become.

He’s seen so much more of him, so much more of what he’s made himself than any other member of the SMP.

He knows Dream’s quirks, knows his ticks and unconscious gestures and nervous habits he never managed to break, and it hurts because Tommy has so many of the same.

He’s not sure why, to be honest.

He suspects it might be a kind of influence, all the time he’s spent around the bastard creating a distorted reflection of that famous smiling mask.

Or maybe it’s just coincidence, just two people similar in only the most ironic ways, echoed in all the least comfortable places.

Dream hates it too, he knows. When Tommy reaches a hand up to scratch his chin the same way he might if most of his face were covered, when he takes up a battle stance built for agility rather than the bashing Techno’d taught him…

He knows Dream, yeah? He knows what a flinch looks like from him.

Especially when they flinch the same way.

But they aren’t the same, no. Couldn’t be less similar, in a lot of ways.

Tommy stakes everything he has on his ability to care, Dream throws it all away for just one iota more control. Dream gives someone a gift and expects them to pay it back, Tommy gives someone a gift and expects them to dismiss it.

Tommy sacrifices everything he has for his friends, Dream sacrifices his friends to keep his power.

Fucking funhouse mirrors, they are.

So Tommy knows him and Dream are a lot alike, yeah? He’s uncomfortably fucking aware.

That doesn’t mean he’d ever have predicted this, though.

Because who would, right? Who could?

Tommy points his axe at Dream and tells him to put his stuff in the hole and it’s a triumphant moment because finally, finally, he’s got an assured win.

He’s got his friends at his back, Tubbo safe and sound, the discs away from Dream, and there’s nothing left to hit him with, nothing left that could destroy this perfect victory over the one who’s tormented them all so long.

Dream leaves some of his stuff on, so Tommy tells him no, all of it, and Dream complies and something about the action feels off and Tommy doesn’t figure out what it is until Dream’s taken everything off and has his hand in the claps of his mask, saying,

“Are you sure?” With that horrible false sympathy he specializes in, and Tommy says

“Yes, I’m fucking sure, or I wouldn’t have said it! Unless you’re that fucking ugly, why’s it even matter?” And oh, how he eats those words.

Because Dream just laughs, undoes the clasp, pulls his mask away from his face as gently as you tell your child Santa is only a story, and his face-

He’s got Tommy’s face.

He-

They could be twins, if not for the scars on Tommy Dream put there himself.

“Wh- The fuck? You ‘sposed to be my long lost brother or some shit?” And he says it sarcastically, but he’s only half joking.

Dream laughs again, like it’s all some fucking joke only he’s privy to.

“Oh, Tommy, that would be fun, wouldn’t it? I think Phil might have mentioned it, though,” And Dream tilts his head to the side, and it’s such a damn cold expression, not an ounce of fucks given, like he doesn’t even care and the worst part of it, Tommy thinks, is that he knows Dream does care, in his own fucked up way, and he does all this shit anyway.

“No, I’m not your brother.” And what the fuck does that mean, anyway? Vague ass answer, just so the fucker can drag the conversation out a little longer, just another fucking power play and Tommy is so tired of it all.

So he doesn’t play Dream’s game.

“Look, asshole, I don’t give a shit if you’re my evil twin or whatever. It doesn’t change shit, yeah? You still suck and the server would still be better off without you in it, so spill or don’t but do it fast because I’ve had it up to here with your shit.”

And Dream looks surprised, for a moment, the calculated shock looking utterly foreign on Tommy’s face, before he wipes it away and smiles in a way that looks perfectly at home on his face because that’s Tommy’s smile, and he says,

“I thought it would be obvious, Tommy. I named all my armor and weapons Nightmare, of all things,” and Tommy doesn’t know where Dream is going with this but he hates it already and Dream continues “I figured calling everything Clementine would be too much of a giveaway, but maybe I should have just gone for it, if you’re going to be this oblivious,” And the pieces are fitting together in Tommy’s head but the picture they create makes no goddamn sense, the hell-?

“What are implying here, Dream?” It’s Tubbo who says it, voice still ringing with the blankness it’d held when he’d told Tommy this is checkmate, I suggest you resign-

“Well, the future is a dark place, you know? Just ask Karl. Shit sucks, so I left,” and he’s saying words and they aren’t really registering because he’s changed his accent just a bit, pitched his voice two centimeters to the left and altered his vocabulary and when he says that sentence Tommy nearly feels for his own throat to make sure he hadn’t said the words himself.

And just-

What. The fuck.

“Fuck this.” Tommy says in one of the deadest tones he’s ever mustered, and he raises the Axe of Peace over his head because this doesn’t change anything, not really.

“Aw, Tommy, you wouldn’t kill yourself, would you?” And here’s where Tommy sees the situation for truth, sees the utter fucking lack of comprehension in Dream’s (his) eyes, and he just,

Tommy just laughs. 

“Wouldn’t I, Dream?” And Dream flinches.

“Because I’m pretty fucking certain that I tried, several times,” and there’s a soft gasp behind him he can’t identify but it doesn’t matter because he is at his wits end.

“I’m pretty fucking sure I stood at the edge of a lava pit and tried to jump, and you pulled me back and said it wasn’t my time yet, and that makes so much more sense now because you really can’t grasp your own goddamn mortality, can you?”

He lowers the axe, but his grip doesn’t loosen.

“I also remember the time after you blew up Logstedshire, left everything me and Ghostbur’d built as a fucking burning ruin, I remember kinda fucking clearly when I towered up until I could see past what you’d done to me and only landed in water by chance,” And his hand on the axe hurts but he needs the grounding it provides because these memories aren’t painless.

“And that’s not- That’s not even mentioning all the times I woke up breathing seawater and I’m still not sure whether you fucked with my bed somehow or whether I just wanted it all to end that goddamn much, but you say I wouldn’t kill myself?” He feels like he can’t get enough air, the recollection of the sea in his lungs hitting almost as hard as Dream had, all those times.

“Don’t fucking pretend you’re me. I don’t know if you’re telling the truth, to be honest I don’t really care, but either way you’re not me and you never will be,” 

Dream takes a step back, hitting the blackstone wall he built himself, and there’s something poetic in that, but Wilbur is dead to Dream’s machinations and Tommy doesn’t have any fucks left to give.

“Because you know the difference between us, Dream?”

Dream looks at him, two inches taller than Tommy, five years older, and not an ounce of wisdom to show for it. Dream is taller but he’s not the one looming here, not the one who holds the scene in his hands and shapes it how he sees fit, and Tommy knows now the real reason Dream always wears a mask, because he’s doing nothing to hide the fear in his face.

“What’s the difference?” He asks, and Tommy knows in an instant that Dream really, genuinely has no clue where he went so wrong.

“I care.” Tommy says, and swings the axe.

[honeysofte-archieve]

birdsong.

rating: teens and up. suggestive themes.

pairing: cremisius aclassi/female lavellan.

word count: 2,559

summary: Lavellan stays the night. Or rather: a morning.

haven’t written anything in a long while so this might come off as really clumsy & cringy, but here it is, anyway! <3

* * *

She is wearing his shirt.

She is sitting by the wide window sill, leaning against the wall and reading a leather-bound book while balancing a cup of herbal tea on one of her folded knees, and she is wearing his shirt and--

not much else, to be honest.

This is naturally the first thing Krem notices once he opens his eyes because he’s surprisingly one-track minded when it comes to Lavellan to his greatest embarrassment. Not that her appearance is the only thing that he cares about, far from it for he would adore her no matter what, but it certainly makes her all the more distracting to him.

The boys like to give him shit about it, too -- how utterly obvious and showy his affection and desire for her is. Krem would shut their faces permanently with his fist if Lavellan didn’t find it so endearing and smile at him sweetly whenever the topic comes up. Sometimes she even gets on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek in front of all of them like she’s not ashamed at all of his affection for her and isn't afraid to show she returns the sentiment just as wholly.

And isn’t that the most amazing thing in the world for someone to have? To love and be loved so genuinely and kindly that one can feel it all the way inside their spine and lungs, a comforting presence no one wants to lose, ever.

in ao3.  ♥

But of course, the topic of love has never come up, at least in spoken words. Everything is still quite new and wonderful, but Krem knows it's true. He loves her. And he's pretty positive she loves him too. Or he hopes she does, the other option gives him way too much anxiety so he's trying not to think about it. Like, ever.

But anyway, Krem can’t help but stare with no words to describe what he is feeling. He can feel the faint flicker of red on his cheeks. He can feel how his heartbeat quickens two-fold. He can feel a weight loosening free inside his chest as he watches this beautiful creature that is somehow his.

Inquisitor Lavellan looks open and vulnerable and beautiful in the morning sun, the light dancing on her neck and chest-- the old scars on her face, the faint stretch marks and moles littering her thighs and arms more prominent this way. She is frowning slightly as she reads, her teeth tugging her lower lip in concentration at whatever is happening in the book, before she licks her thumb and turns another page, oblivious to Krem’s gawking.

The shirt, of course, is not the main reason he can't keep his eyes away from her, though, even if she looks very attractive in it.

No, the very thing that has Krem astonished is that she's still here. In his room. In the morning. For the first time since they've started doing this, kissing and laughing and having sex, and Krem… isn't entirely sure what to make of it.

Lavellan is a very busy woman after all.

A few moments pass before Lavellan glances in his direction and takes a double-look when she notices him awake. Krem kind of does this awkward finger-wiggle sort of thing at her because it's quite impossible for her not to figure out he's been staring at her quite intently for a while now.

"Good morning, Cremisius,” Lavellan murmurs with a small smile on her heart-shaped face and does a finger-wiggle right back at him, making it look somehow elegant and not idiotic as hell.

No one, not one person, calls him Cremisius. No one except for her. And he likes how the name forms in her mouth, likes the look on her face as she says it aloud. His heart always skips a beat when she does it and he doesn’t think he will ever get used to it. He is so easy for her.

Lavellan looks unusually relaxed this morning, Krem has not often seen her like this-- probably no one does. She works and works and works and rarely takes time for herself and it’s always rubbed Krem off the wrong way how much people demand of her, never giving her a break, never letting her just be. Sometimes he feels like fighting every fucker who makes her feel like she doesn't deserve time for herself, but he desists. Mostly.

But here she is. Here she is this morning; still with him despite her duties and demands of others. For the first time during their relationship. It's almost astonishing.

“Morning.” Krem’s throat is slightly dry and his voice catches just a little when he meets her bronze coloured eyes. Maker, he hopes it’s not too obvious.

“Did you sleep well?” Lavellan asks gently, closes her book and takes a sip of her still steaming tea. She mustn't have been awake for long though the morning seems already later than normal. Krem is usually already long awake at this hour, doing drills with the boys or eating an early lunch.

Krem blinks and blinks again before finally realises she’s expecting an answer and he ends up nodding. And for a while, they just keep staring at each other in silence before Krem can’t help but beam at her in something like happiness.

“I like your shirt,” he blurts out, feeling absolutely moronic today for some reason. It makes Lavellan lift her eyebrow and for a while, Krem is sure she’s going to ignore the comment as she often does, but this time she only shrugs and says:

“I was feeling a little cold.”

It’s summer and it’s not true, both of them know that, so Krem grins, his lips wide, and Lavellan rolls her eyes in something like fondness. She scratches her leg, the shirt collar dropping downwards as her body moves and Krem has to swallow hard.

The moment isn’t awkward, per se, it’s just new and it seems like neither of them really knows how to fill it. It doesn't feel like the place for empty chatter.

“You look good in it. Comfortable. Very.... stimulating,” he dares to comment and suppresses a lewd grin that threatens to slip out.

“Hmm,” Lavellan answers. She seems amused, however faintly, which Krem takes as a victory. He feels an urge to do something with his hands-- pull her closer across the distance and touch the soft skin of her thigh. Or something.

“So,” Krem says slowly. The scratchy sheets are bundled around his waist and he scratches his abdomen. His chest is bound, but he doesn’t feel self-conscious around her, not anymore. For she knows him; she knows most things about him. He knows a little less about her, but he’s determined to learn every piece of her in time.

Lavellan opens her book again.

“So,” Lavellan answers and even though she’s not looking at him, the corners of her mouth are twitching. It makes Krem braver than he is.

“I kind of didn’t expect you to still be here.”

His words are casual and not accusing, not in the slightest, and he’s glad that Lavellan notices it as well because her expression doesn’t change.

“I’m taking the day off,” Lavellan replies and flips a page forward in her book, though she’s not reading it as far as Krem can tell, just staring at the words since her eyes don’t move on the paper.

“Can an inquisitor take a day off?”

“Who could stop me? I am the Inquisitor,” Lavellan kind of scoffs, kind of laughs. Krem’s gaze is focused on her pink mouth because, Maker, he is apparently just as bad as most other men are when it comes to a pretty face. He really hopes Lavellan doesn’t notice, that’d be quite embarrassing. Not that he has ever pretended to know something about words like honour or chastity.

“... Fair point.”

Lavellan hums underneath her breath, a breathy sound that is filled with something untraceable to him. He wonders what she’s thinking about.

“What are you reading?” Krem asks casually as he can, feeling slightly idiotic because he doesn’t know what to do at this moment. He wants to stand up and go to her, he wants to kiss her and pull her back to bed and do things to her that makes her body wet with sweat and pleasure.

Still, he does nothing except grip the bedsheets into this fist and takes a deep breath. He can be patient when he wills so-- he can be patient for her.

“A romance novel. Or rather a bodice ripper, I would say.”

“Shit,” Krem replies. Or more like mumbles as he still feels a little tired after the night despite having slept so long this morning. He's sort of surprised the chief hasn't come barreling through his door yet, the big damn oaf.

“Josephine gave it to me,” Lavellan continues casually. She is combing her long blonde hair with her fingers as she speaks and Krem wants nothing more than to touch her right at this moment. He aches with it, his fingers cramping at how hard he is gripping the bedsheets.

“She apparently got it from Vivienne who got it from Cassandra who got it from Sera who got it from... somewhere." Lavellan pauses. "Josephine called it the ‘the most beautifully written love story of this age’ so naturally, I needed to read it.”

“So, how is it?”

Krem doesn't want to talk about books.

He wants to pull her back into his bed and do things to her with his mouth and sleep some more afterwards.

“Mildly entertaining and educational. Considerably smuttier than I expected truth to be told, but I don’t mind. See, I had no idea qunari could be so incredibly... bendy.”

Lavellan grins at him, her mouth in a wicked bow, and Krem is not blushing. He is not. He is a grown man and doesn't flush at the mere mention of sex, that would be ridiculous considering he spends most of his time around Iron Bull and the other boys who hold nothing back.

"I'm certain you could ask the chief about it if you're really curious."

Lavellan huffs. "No thank you, that is definitely not the kind of conversation I want to have with my lover's superior."

Krem's heart jumps into his throat. Lover, he thinks. He likes the sound of the word. It feels fitting for them.

“Come here,” he requests throatily, changing the subject to something he is more desperate for. “Please.”

Lavellan spends a moment only looking, or perhaps studying, him with her piercing eyes before she sets down the book and her now empty teacup on the window sill and comes to him, all gentle smiles and cold fingertips. Just before he lays down, she takes off his shirt and Krem feels a tiny bang of disappointment before he realises that the sight of her bare frame, her charming curves and soft belly and generous chest, the constellations of freckles, moles and scars on her skin, are a marginally better sight.

Lavellan lets him look at her a moment that doesn't feel like enough time to drink in the picture she makes before she settles beside him on her stomach and Krem closes her delicate hand inside his own sword-callused one.

“You look so beautiful,” he confesses, perhaps too honestly, the words escaping his mouth like a bird out of its cage For a short moment Lavellan looks almost impossibly surprised like this is something she didn’t expect him to say at all. Her eyes are wide and sweet with something like utter fondness for him.

“And you are looking very handsome,” she counters, never quite knowing what to do with a direct compliment and this time he definitely blushes quite visibly but finds himself not minding it that much at all anymore. She could see all of him, naked and laid bare, and he would let her, always. No secrets, no fears.

Lavellan cups Krem's cheek and peers at him with an unflinching look, her thumb stroking the curve of his moist mouth. His tongue peeks out of his mouth and he swallows hard.

“Your freckles have grown bolder under the summer sun,” she comments aloud as her fingers explore every nook of his face, tracing the bridge of his nose with her long nail and thumbing the fragile, blue skin underneath his eyes that are still puffy from sleep. He feels invincible, confident beyond explanation. That's what Lavellan does to Krem.

Krem licks his lips. He licks his lips and the tip of it catches on Lavellan's fingertip, just before she presses her tender mouth to his own and kisses him for the first time for what feels like forever.

And it's a very good kiss. One of the best he's ever had.

Not overly gentle, but intense and sweet, and it consumes him entirely with its depth, making him feel thoroughly light-headed and happy.

So happy. Being with Lavellan makes him the happiest he's ever been. He's a lucky son of a bitch and he’s the first one to admit that.

"I'm glad you stayed tonight," Krem whispers, his voice husky with need and she looks straight into his eyes before murmuring: "Me too."

Afterwards, a comfortable silence surrounds them for a long while. They fill it with kisses and hungry caresses, but they're not in a rush to start anything more. They continue until Lavellan breaks apart and searches his eyes with her own brown ones. For some reason, there's a touch of sadness in them.

"You know it's nothing personal, don't you?" she asks hesitantly, her fingers drumming against his chest as she talks-- a habit that tells him that she’s genuinely nervous about his answer. She swallows before continuing: "If I could, I would wake up in your arms every morning, it’s just-- "

"I know," Krem murmurs, shushing her words with a small peck. And he does, but fuck how he hates it. Sometimes he would just want to bury her in his arms and hide her from the rest of the world. Not that Lavellan would ever let him, but a man can dream.

"Good." Lavellan nods, satisfied. She brushes his forehead with the back of her hand, sweeping off a drooping hair strand that's been tickling his brow for a while now. Krem isn't sure if he deserves such tenderness from her. Or anyone.

"Good," Krem repeats with the biggest grin that flashes his teeth and Lavellan rolls her beautiful eyes before kissing him again with a fierce sort of enthusiasm that takes Krem off guard.

But neither of them are leading it to anything more. They're perfectly content just like this, with rush or impatience for nothing.

It's a new feeling and it's lovely.

"This is nice," Krem says after they pull apart again with their mouths wet and red, her doe-eyes almost swallowed up by her black pupils.

Lavellan looks entirely fond. She presses her lips to his forehead, the gesture not overly sweet but close enough. "It is."

"Maybe you could… take a day off again some time," Krem suggests making Lavellan sort of snort in surprise. Though before Krem can feel too bad about asking, she murmurs acceptance in his ear.

"Mm. I'll see what I can do."

It's as good as a promise.

[subwalls]

Tales from the SMP Presents: The Haunted Mansion

An ongoing exploration of how the Inbetween drives my Kingdom Hearts brain crazy with paranoia! Less of an analysis this time, because we got confirmation (VALIDATION!!), and more of speculation, but yeah!

First of all! I was right not to trust this fucker.

Just kidding, that’s not the first thing we’re gonna talk about here. First of all, a gentle recap!

As I’ve mentioned before, the Inbetween has some uncanny resemblance to the Kingdom Hearts world known as Castle Oblivion. Castle Oblivion is known for being the place where the main series protagonist lost all of his memories, and even had false memories implanted while he was getting deeper and deeper into it. 

You might be curious as to how the Kingdom Hearts protagonist escapes.

He doesn’t.

He needs outside help, and a lot of it, to get him out of that situation. Even then, it takes a whole year. He drove his own heart into the bottom of the abyss in his desperation to save someone he was tricked into thinking he knew, and he didn’t even regret it, because he was saving someone.

... A lot of people on Dream SMP have different ideas on what it means to save people.

Also, the castle also had a very plot-twisty secret where it used to be the lush and wonderful home of these three friends before they fell apart; one was lost to the Evil Dark Side™ (not real name), the other was trapped in the Realm of Darkness (real name), and the last one fell into a coma for TEN (10) YEARS and his body was left to be protected in the heart of the land, which was then locked and turned into Castle Oblivion.

So, pretty fucked up place! Not inherently evil, but the place of great misfortune and just... not very good for everyone there.

Let’s start at the beginning!

Welcome back indeed. Take notice of the wither rose in the pot, by the way, I’ll come back to this in a bit.

The first thing that stands out to me on this page is the smiley face, of course. It’s not the ever-iconic, ever-evil “:)”, but it’s similar enough that I think the callback is intentional. The smiley is c!Dream’s icon, of course, which... honestly makes me think that “:]” might be DreamXD, but that might be because I’m very very biased for the server god who simps for a dangerously apathetic cottagecore once-king.

Of course, it does also look kind of like Quackity’s face, and cc!Quackity has said something about big lore coming for him, but until further evidence is presented I’m disinclined to draw a connection there.

The Inbetween, as we’ve come to know the author of some of these books to be, being happy that Karl is continuing—it reminds me of the KH protagonist being told yes, good job, keep going, as he stumbles deeper and deeper into the castle that strips away memory after memory from his heart. Why does the Inbetween think that Karl’s time travel is important, his careful documentation of every story? Is it because the more he does it, the more he becomes attached? The more he becomes reliant on the Inbetween to feed the missing pieces of his memory?

Is it because the Inbetween, in parallel to c!Dream and c!Wilbur, prioritize the concept of story over the characters?

Things to think about. 🤔

Also kind of interesting that the Inbetween thinks Karl will eventually uncover “all [he] needs to”, which continues to make me think that the more c!Karl comes to the Inbetween the more he becomes... either dependent or over-trusting of it. Not sure. But weird things happen when it’s magic that tampers with memories, rather than trauma.

Basically, I’m getting “there is no war in Ba Sing Se” vibes.

The book continues to say that Karl probably has a lot of questions and that it would love to answer :] but never actually does. It’s trying to come off as helpful without actually being helpful. All it does is tempt him with the prospect of answers, and then draws him in deeper. “Continue onward, Karl.” But why?

Another wither rose pot.

Sidestepping the very innocuous, very surface-level information offered here (because that’s it, it’s nothing about the workings about the Inbetween, it’s just a little sweet carrot to distract with), I cannot even begin to convey the absolute terror that consumed me at the word “sleepy.”

I mentioned earlier that one of the original characters who lived in the land that would become Castle Oblivion went into a coma, right? But it’s more commonly referred to as sleeping. The game is even called “Birth by Sleep”, and there’s a whole thing about trying to get him to “wake up”. So the idea that time travel can take something out of the traveller that makes them tired, the idea that there is one specific room for sleeping quarters within the Inbetween, paired with that not-quite-right smiley face—I am traumatized, I tell you.

Yes it could be a “haha look what I did with the sentence, because day is a form of time and they time travel so long day is a funny term” kind of smiley, but. Kingdom Hearts has trained me to be suspicious of any talk of sleep.

There’s something just mildly unsettling about the way it continues, with the references to the “many Karls” and the “many many great stories” that sounds borderline condescending.

And now we get the, uh, “other” author. Notice how this one actually did not have a corresponding wither rose in a pot. I’m starting to think that the flower might actually be an indicator of the not-this-author-pictured-above, the probably-Inbetween-itself, so the fact that this book was found separately from a wither rose pot and it was tucked away under a tree... A tree, under which c!Karl will later find a bit of a refuge... yeah, different author. Or at least an author from a different time.

I’ll elaborate in a moment, but I do think that there’s three (3) mindsets/authors happening here: the sickly sweet Inbetween pretending to be good, the person trying to get c!Karl to distrust the Inbetween, and... someone who desperately wants c!Karl to stay in line.

This is the third... I don’t want to say author, because it too has the wither rose pot and is trying to keep c!Karl playing along with the Inbetween, but it’s much less coherent and much more desperate.

No “:]”, either.

Some possibilities I’m considering:

the Inbetween, but it’s like, a security subroutine or a glitch in the system,

the Inbetween, but it’s from a future wherein c!Karl has fucked it up to the point of desperation,

Karl / the other author, but it’s from a future, where trying to stray from the Inbetween resulted in something traumatic happening and they don’t want it to happen anymore.

Some fun possibilities to keep in mind. Anyway!

Ooh, the return of the wither rose pot.

For this part, the only thing I really have to say is that the repetition of the Inbetween trying to present itself as “a place to feel at ease” is... Well, as the lovely Fear has said in this post linked here, a place that tries and makes itself seem safe probably isn’t, because a genuinely safe place wouldn’t need to announce it all the time.

Very much sounding like a Ba Sing Se thing.

More importantly, the book actually says that it’s “wild” how the Inbetween is “so beautiful that even time travellers who go anywhere at anytime ever and they still choose here” with a good old “:]” tacked on at the end. That’s... that’s not just me thinking like that sounds kind of threatening, right? Like, time travellers can see anything anywhere, and they keep coming back to the Inbetween. Why?

Is it because they forget the beauty of anything else? Is it because it’s not beauty, but rather attachment and emotion that keeps someone going back to a place? If someone forgets their loved ones and precious things, then why would they go anywhere but the place where they’ve put all their stories?

Why did KH’s protagonist keep going deeper into Castle Oblivion even though he knew that the castle was taking apart his memories? Because he had one thing left: the fake, implanted memory, which told him that in order to save someone, he needed to push on no matter the personal cost.

So the real question is: are the time travellers coming back to the Inbetween because they want to, or because they no longer have a choice?

It regards all the different Karls with such... distant affection, too. “How beautiful,” it calls them, for wandering the blank halls with blank stares and blank hearts, none of which react to each other. It says that they “choose” to walk the halls, uncover mysteries, and tell stories. But what was the other choice? Was it really a choice at all?

Hmm.

Karl goes on to explore, and finds another book that does not have a wither rose pot, which tells him he has to go Under The Tree.mp3 and informs him that he “can’t afford not to”. Cool. Not ominous at all.

He finds another, which says the same thing.

Definitely not ominous. /s

The phrasing here is interesting, because it’s also phrased like a threat. Usually, when someone tells you that you “can’t afford not to”, you’re either looking at a scam or at the business end of a weapon. But the empty pages tell you that the author is trying to keep it down low. That’s one of the ways Minecraft players have found to express tone in the very limited form of Minecraft books, and it works splendidly.

Not to push my DreamXD agenda, but like... the door was iron. Iron doors are a weakness for Dreams and dreamons and, mayhaps, Dream’s dreamon.

I know it’s probably just because the iron door keeps in line with the color palette of the build but let me dream, alright.

Anyway, book content! And an interesting point of order: there is a wither rose pot. I said earlier that it might be an indicator of the Inbetween as an author, but that doesn’t make much sense now, does it? This is meant to be a place hidden from the “it” that I assume to be either the Inbetween itself or the one/s controlling it.

So why the wither rose pot inconsistency?

Unless it doesn’t mean that. Unless it’s just a metaphor for, say, memories withering away or something. Or maybe it’s just a pretty plant, for funsies! Who knows. If I had to guess, I’d say that (after much reflection) it’s likely less a mark of author and more a theme of, mm, memory status. The withering away of memories. It fits in with the Inbetween, because that’s what might be responsible for it, but the author/s of the book aren’t immune, either. They get blinks of clarity, with the hidden, tucked-away tomes, but they might not be completely free.

The next book, however, again lacks the wither rose pot. It might not be a coincidence that the one without the potential mark of a withering memory is the one that actually divulges some more information.

This book goes into slightly more detail about the warning, though not about whatever actual threat it is that the castle (which... Castle Oblivion, you know) presents.

It says that 1) it’s not what it seems, 2) the "truth about the other forms of you”, 3) this place “is not okay”, and 4) get in that portal we saw that was blocked off before.

We know that the Inbetween isn’t what it seems, but the “truth” about the other forms... Hm. This is, in fact, another Kingdom Hearts Thing. There’s a running joke that everyone on the very large cast of characters in KH that in the end, every person is actually either secretly a version of the antagonist (through possession or body splitting or whatever), or a version of the protagonist (through similar concepts). Multiple bodies and other forms is definitely a Thing in KH, though it’s not as oh-god-not-again definitely-bad as the sleeping thing.

I think the other forms have either become reliant on the Inbetween or have forgotten everything but the Inbetween, or both. Maybe more of the prior, since the warning is against trusting the place.

And, uh, this? Fucking terrifying. I love it to pieces.

Every single one of these books has a wither rose pot, and this is kind of why I think that the Inbetween or its master/s is, in some way, possibly functioning via routines and like... an AI. Or a genius loci kind of thing.

But good news, there aren’t 13 books, there are 14! This is important for Kingdom Hearts reasons, because Kingdom Hearts has a big thing about the numbers 13 and 7 (13 is the number of pieces of darkness, and 7 is the number of pieces of light, and this is equal somehow, don’t question it).

Now, 14 is an important meme number in the MCYT fandom, of course, but I don’t think it has terribly too much to do with the lore beyond a fun easter egg.

The books themselves trying to tell c!Karl to, essentially, go with the flow and the path that the Inbetween has set up for him is... something. I like the idea that it’s some future version of something trying to stop something from happening, but we all know it’s probably not going to work. Fun times.

And finally, this.

The Inbetween is a bit of a narcissist, huh? It won’t shut up about how it’s so pretty and irresistible and the whole definition of, like, a honey trap. Oh my god it even describes it as ~mysterious~ as a good trait, that’s hilarious.

More pertinently, it also calls the Inbetween “a time traveller’s dream”.

A time traveller’s. Dream.

Again, not to push my DreamXD agenda, BUT—

But! Getting back on track, the book expresses its eagerness to see Karl again, says their relationship is gonna be great, reminds him that his stories are important, and then tells him that he needs the Inbetween/author just like the SMP needs him.

Uh. He’s going to need the Inbetween?

Hello?

Why? How? So far it’s presented itself as being pretty and perfect but it never said anything about necessity! What’s going on!

Very much reminded of how Castle Oblivion was presented as “you need to keep going in even though it takes your memories away because there’s someone you need to save [fake but you don’t know that because you don’t remember anything]”, and I am afright.

Talk about subtle strings being tugged at here. I’m really seeing the beginning seeds of a dependency thing being sown, and if it weren’t for the side books painting giant neon warning signs everywhere, I don’t know if it would’ve caught on. An artificially cultivated concept of how important and great the Inbetween is, and don’t you just want to take all those stories from that messy world elsewhere but come back here in the end to take a break and exist and explore and oh, isn’t the Inbetween great, isn’t it wonderful?

Man, c!Dream wishes he was this good at subtle manipulation.

tldr; there are multiple authors trying to tug c!Karl in different directions via those books. The Kingdom Hearts parallels predict that his memory will be at stake, and he might not be able to escape without help.

[rose-blooms-red]

Significant Others/troopers under their command react to Edee's latest volley of obnoxious gifts :D

Did I start this 3 months ago? Yes. Did I also write over 2k of it Today? Also yes. Productivity is a Relative Term. 

[read on ao3]

Fox twitches as he reads the clearly handmade voucher. Says, pleasant as anything, “I’m going to fucking murder him.”

Ponds hums, looking over Fox’s shoulder, “It’s sweet. Probably.”

Fox makes a noise in the back of his throat that isn’t entirely describable by any known language. 

Does he still have that clock he found during that one shopping trip? The one with that awful fucking peach, mustard, and grey-blue combination that spat out an eeopie’s mating call every half hour? He’d been planning on saving it he remembers but—

“Telling you to take a break like that,” Ponds continues, like he can’t hear the way Fox’s higher reasoning is currently dying a slow painful death, “very considerate.”

Fox grits his teeth. Needs must, and Fox needs to crush the little fucker’s spirit thoroughly under heel. He’ll have to take it out of storage tomorrow.

“No.”

Ponds giggles, “I’m sure it’ll be entertaining at least.”

“Hondo,” Fox reiterates, digging his elbow back into Ponds’ stomach. 

Ponds drapes himself over Fox’s back, knocks the side of his head against Fox’s, “As I said,” he simpers, “entertaining.”

Fox makes a disgusted sound, sneers down at the offending…. Gift.

‘All expense-paid cruise on the Hondo Ohkana ‘Sights of The Galaxy’ tour!!!!!!’ It proclaims in neon colours and excessive exclamation marks, ‘Very Romantic and Exciting!’

“When’s it say it’s good for?” Ponds asks, like he’s actually contemplating it.

“No.”

Ponds snatches the voucher out of his hands anyway, “Oh good! We aren’t busy that ten-day.”

Fox’s hand twitches, “I am not getting on a fucking ship with fucking Hondo Ohkana, Ponds.”

“Mhm, ‘course not Fox.” Ponds responds absentmindedly, pats his arm lightly in the way that means they are definitely getting on the fucking ship with fucking Hondo Ohkana, “We’ve got a ten-day to pack and get everything in order, that should be enough.” He nods to himself, breezes out of the room with a vague sense of purpose as he flits around the house, presumably for things to take on a ‘very romantic and exciting’ trip.

Fox is going to murder somebody, preferably Hondo, or Neyo. 

He hears the sound of Ponds grabbing the DC-15A’s and he grimaces, ugh, time to find the fucking holdout blasters, those things haven’t been serviced in at least a ten-day, and he needs to check on the blaster packs for the DC-17’s. He can’t remember if he restocked the things after the last time he used them. 

If they’re going on the fucking trip, they’re gonna be well fucking stocked.

(Fox manages not to murder Hondo, but it’s a very near fucking thing.

He does come back from the trip in a much better mood though, other than the twitch he’s developed from listening to Hondo all day. Ponds is annoyingly amused and smug about it. Fox ignores it, like he does every other fucking annoyance in his life. 

He shuts down the talk of another trip like it happening any time in this fucking century before Ponds even opens his mouth to respond. Once was fucking enough thank you.)

__________

Colt closes his eyes, casts a net about his mind for a sliver of patience and finds his supply has dwindled something awful.

When he opens his eyes again both nuisance and potted plant are still there. Gree smiles winningly and Colt smells danger. 

Or maybe he just smells the plant, because that is the thing overwhelming everything else right now. He glares down at it, it looks harmless, mostly, in it’s large pot but already Colt can hear the sounds of flies swarming around.

“That is not a houseplant,” Colt says, relatively tamely in his opinion, given that the overwhelming smell it emits is decay, “that is the type of plant one shoots and hopes doesn't survive the encounter.”

“It’s a very rare and endangered plant,” Gree lies, grin earnest and eyes bright with humour.

“It’s a pile of banthashit dressed up in vegitive form.”

“It’s an Amorphophallus titanum,” Gree corrects, “and it’s very rare, it’s one of the largest unbranched inflorescence in the galaxy that isn’t also carnivorous in any shape or form.”

Colt gives the plant a dubious look, “I’ll believe that when it doesn’t smell like it just ate and digested something.”

Gree shrugs, “It’s possible it’s a type of carrion flower…. but in the name of protecting it from extinction there’s no one I’d trust more than you.”

Colt twitches, he has no clue what a carrion flower is or how that accounts for the way it smells like Colt has a pile of corpses rotting away on his front step, but he does not like it at all.

The worst part is that he can’t actually tell whether this is Gree being serious or him pulling a shithead move. Because this is exactly the type of thing Gree would genuinely do and also the type of thing Gree would do just to fuck with him.

Behind him someone gags and Colt twitches.

“Fine,” he grits out, and Gree’s smile tries for sunshine and comes up partly cloudy and fully shiteating.

“Wonderful, thanks Colt.”

“Please leave.” 

Gree laughs as he leaves and Colt closes the door with a sigh.

“It smells like someone died over there,” Blitz calls out and Colt groans.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

Havoc sniggers, “It really does sir, we might have to keep the Little’s away for a few days, wouldn’t want one of ‘em puking.”

Colt winces, that image does enough to convince him of the necessity, the only thing that could be worse right now is over a dozen Little’s sicking up from the smell. “Might be for the best.”

Blitz hums, looking at the now closed door in interest, “How likely is it that he was pulling your leg?”

Colt slumps into his chair, “50/50” he admits and Blitz raises his eyebrows.

“That is almost more concerning. What the kriff did they put in your batch.”

“Mistakes,” Colt grumbles back. This is why he’s the oldest, he’s the only one in the entire batch who managed to wrangle any sense out of his tube and keep it all the way through.

Havoc laughs and Blitz snorts, then looks like he immediately regrets it, “Ugh, Colt your batch is full of sadists I’m not gonna get the smell out of my nose for weeks.”

“It’s probably seeped into the clothes at this point,” Havoc agrees and Colt groans.

(When Shaak comes home she takes one look at the plant and can’t seem to decide whether to grimace or smile.

“Apparently,” he drawls, “it’s a very endangered plant that’s been entrusted to my care.”

A burst of laughter ripples out into the room and Shaak smiles, hand covering her lips as her shoulders shake minutely, Colt forgets about the death plant for a second as he looks up at her, heart stopping for a moment in the split second it takes her to swallow her laughter back down and he wants nothing more than to pull that sound out from her again.

It takes him a minute to realize that at some point he’d started smiling. He can’t seem to stop it, but there are worse things to find himself unable to stop doing.

“It’s commonly known as a type of carrion flower,” she tells him finally, laughter lacing her tone, “otherwise known as a corpse flower for the smells they produce. It is not endangered, though there are those who agree that it might not be too much of a loss if it was.”

Colt groans. Shaak giggles and Colt finds himself forgetting for a second to plot his revenge.

Maybe Gree will get off a bit lighter this time, if only because Colt got to hear that bright laughter. 

He hums, “Plant it far, far, far away from the house?” Shaak smiles, presses a kiss to his forehead.

“That, my dear Colt, sounds like a brilliant plan.”)

__________

Gree gives the box a look of suspicious distrust that makes Barriss giggle and Decker snicker. 

It’s a big box, about the size of his torso and Gree has seen that bland, even smile too many times before to trust the contents of the box.

“Fox,” he warns and Fox’s grin goes sickeningly sweet.

“Gree, Baby Brother Dearest,” he drawls and Gree can hear the capital letters what the fuck, “I put my heart and soul into this you know, I’m hurt, really I am.”

That, Gree thinks sourly, is the worst load of banthashit he’s ever heard, and he’s had to listen to ‘scientific lectures’ given by people who read maybe one Edupad and then promptly forgot all of the information in the Edupad and decided whatever half-remembered thing left was Fact and Truth and refused to listen to Reason…. or sources and cited works.

Gree was very annoyed about that one, he’d put Effort into that paper thank you very much and he’d taken the class to learn things, not whatever that had been.

Fox wiggles the box in his hands around, expression pleasant and smile sharp.

Gree sighs. At least, he assures himself as he takes the box, it won’t be as bad as whatever happened after Fox and Ponds had come back from Neyo’s…… Gift.

Maybe.

The box is squishy. Boxes are not supposed to be squishy.

Gree has a Bad Feeling about this. He raises an eyebrow, Fox doesn’t even twitch.

Behind him Barriss is watching the exchange with wide, mirth filled eyes and a hand covering her mouth. Decker has long since lost the battle of keeping his snickering quiet and the rest of Gree’s so called loyal troopers of Green company watch with rapt attention.

He sighs again, loud and long-suffering, Fox’s smile never shrinks a shade less than serial killer pleased.

Gree unwraps the wrapping flimsi with ease, and then stares with distant horror at the plasti-cling underneath it. Not a box, no, plasti-cling.

It’s layered.

Gree twitches and reaches for one of his vibroblades.

“It’s very delicate,” Fox informs him, just as he gets the vibroblade out of it’s holder.

“Oh?” Gree asks, really quite pleasantly given the plasti-cling is so layered he can’t see a damn thing through it.

“Extremely,” Fox confirms, deadpan. Behind him Barriss giggles uncontrollably and Decker is flushed with laughter and gasping for air and the others aren’t much better. 

“Do they always do this?” one of them whispers incredibly poorly, Gree twitches, Fox eyes him with that malicious amusement that cements his place as youngest forever in Gree’s head.

“Always,” Barriss whispers back, giggling still and Gree’s heart warms for a second before his impending humiliation via gift settles in again.

“I knew the Commander wasn’t only, you know, learny, but I always thought he was sane.”

“Oh he’s sane,” Cooker reassures, “far as we can tell their entire batch is just, Like That.”

“But this is Torrent lev—” Fox’s face gives an unpleasant twitch that Gree sympathizes with.

Torrent, ugh.

“Shhhh,” the rest of Green hisses and Barriss hides her head in her hands as she laughs.

“We don’t compare them to Torrent, makes them touchy,” Draa mutters, as if he isn't half the reason Gree goes into interactions with Torrent prepared to have engineering go on another crazed building spree. He has a hunch that they feed on each other, the engineers, and it's their own special kind of crazy that Gree is half fascinated by and half resigned to.

“My point stands.” 

Gree grits his teeth, narrows his eyes at Green Company as a whole to no avail, turns a raised eyebrow to Barriss in a last attempt at gaining control of a situation he’d lost all hold over the moment Fox had walked up to him with a ‘gift from the bottom of my heart, Gree’.

His cold dead heart maybe. Gree is plotting his revenge already.

He puts the blade back with mechanical motions, feels around for the beginning of the despised plasti-cling, seriously who made it Gree has complaints for them, and begins the arduous task of unwrapping it all.

Who let Fox have this much plasti-cling.

(Over 10 hours of nonstop focus later the last of the plasti-cling has finally been ripped away and Gree stares at the new puzzle cube. Ugly and about the size of his palm. Much, much smaller than the wrapping he’d been given, nearly the size of his torso.

Gree makes a strangled sound that he will forever deny, Draa. 

The plasti-cling sits around him tauntingly, viciously victorious in all it’s piled glory.

It takes 3 days for Green Company to stop laughing about it. It does not take 3 days for them to stop sharing the holopics and vids they took, that takes much longer.

Barriss is Gree’s favourite now, everyone else is awful and everything they say is lies, and Fox has been demoted to all the way to being the baby.)

__________

Neyo tilts his head, grin bordering manic, “That, is the ugliest piece of garbage I’ve ever seen.”

Colt smiles, “It’s high class art.”

“It looks like someone took cans of paint and dumped them on the nearest patch of dirt they found.” 

“The texture adds value.”

“It’s chunks of dirt and grass.” Neyo hisses in delighted outrage. 

Colt waves a hand, voice disinterested and all ‘above all this nonsense’ like, “Very classy. Made with only the best of intentions.”

Neyo giggles, “It looks like actual manure, I hate it.”

“I got it just for you,” Colt simpers, like the little shit no one ever believes he is, “I saw it and just knew you’d connect to it.”

Neyo cackles, “This is awful, you’re awful, I’m hanging it on the wall and telling everyone you painted it.”

Colt raises an eyebrow, “No one will believe you.”

He’s right, it’s awful. Neyo pouts, “I could convince them.”

No he can’t, but that’s besides the point.

Colt hums, “mhm, I’m sure you could kih’vod.”

Neyo flicks at Colt’s wrist and wilts, “This is harassment.”

“Whatever you say Ney’ika.”

“You’re a bully.”

“Mhm.”

“I can’t believe anyone thinks you’re responsible.”

“That is because I am.” Colt says, putting Neyo in a headlock, they both ignore the way Neyo tenses up for a fraction of a second before he relaxes, sulks, digging his elbow into Colt’s side.

It’s the first time Colt has given him such a blatantly awful gift. Neyo cackles and something shakes loose in his chest. His throat feels grossly tight and the stupid shitty canvas covered in dirt and paint sits leaning against the wall innocently.

Colt makes the same even face he uses on the Little’s when they’re being hilarious and he can’t afford to tell them or when he’s about to say something completely karking stupid because no matter how much he likes to tell everyone he’s the oldest he totally isn’t. 

Neyo slips out of the headlock, giggles through the knot in his throat and rolls his eyes.

“You’re deluding yourself and everyone around you.” he tells Colt. Colt has only ever been responsible by necessity, and never once in all of Neyo’s memories of him, has he been anything less than an absolute shithead just like the rest of them when there was no necessity.

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“I’m not arguing with you like a first-cycle.”

“Are too.”

“Neyo.”

“You’re the one who gave me the shitty painting.”

“It’s high class art you bastard.”

Neyo preens, “Thank you, still the worst thing I’ve ever seen though. Might hang it up in the front room, just to really bring it all together.”

Colt sighs, aggrieved. Neyo has no sympathy for him, really if you’re gonna play the game you gotta be in it to win it. It’s not Neyo’s fault that the trashy, awful, horrible dirt, grass, paint mixture splattered onto canvas happens to be horrifyingly tasteless. Neyo loves it. It’s gonna make Fox so mad.

(“Neyo,” Vaughn asks, staring at the wall, “why is there a, what even is that, dirt? On canvas?”

Neyo straightens up, grins wide, “Colt painted it. Out of the love in his heart and the limited talents he was decanted with.”

Vaughn raises an eyebrow, “That’s lovely and everything, why is it hanging in our front room.”

“It is horrifically awful and I love it and Fox and Ponds are coming over tomorrow.”

Vaughn laughs.

The next day, Ponds takes one look at it and giggles, “Fox, Fox come here, you’re gonna hate it.”

Fox takes one look at it and walks right back out of the house, Neyo cackles the entire time.)

[letsfluxshitup]

we're like a family of divorce (ao3)

Techno dragged up the metal tub from his basement, setting it in front of the fire. He filled it with warm water, setting out clean warm pajamas and a towel on a chair. He laid out all the fancy soaps he had, gifts from when he first arrived.

He saved the shampoo and conditioner, setting them aside for later.

Tommy entered the house, loud and abrasive and a lot.

"What's up, Big Man?" He shouted, tugging at Techno's loose braid, poking at his tusks, forcing Techno to witness him.

He was always so high energy, demanding attention, positive or not. Techno didn't understand it but it made Tommy happy to be the center of attention, something Techno more frequently than not shied away from.

He blinked back into the present, gesturing vaguely at the tub.

"You stink." He deadpanned, and it wasn't necessarily true, but the kid needed to sit down for a second. 

He'd been high energy since he arrived, and seemed perfectly fine. But Techno knew Tommy, knew his quirks and his tells. Saw the dead look in his eyes, the way he flinched away, his fear and sadness.

Techno didn't know what happened, but he knew something did, and he needed to protect him and care for him.

So he guided Tommy towards the tub, nitpicked at him about his hair, and disappeared upstairs. 

--

"Do you need a haircut?" He called from where he was sitting in his rocking chair, glancing through a book Philza had handed him when they last met. 

It was a potions guide, and he was quietly happy that Philza had taken the time to carefully draw out visuals and diagrams, tucked into the book at relevant intervals.

He glanced towards the stairs, catching the tail end of a mumbled response.

"What?" He called, looking at the stairs so he wouldn't get distracted again.

"Are you gonna cut it?" Tommy shouted back, punctuated by a splash. Techno flinched, there was no way the kid wasn't making a mess down there.

"No." He responded, looking back towards the book. 

Quackity could cut short hair, he knew. They weren't exactly on talking terms but surely he'd set that aside to help out Tommy?

Maybe? Probably? 

It's not like Techno couldn't just make him cut Tommy's hair, but threatening him was probably not the best fix for their already rocky relationship.

"Then why'd you ask?" Tommy shouted again, "And where's the shampoo?" 

"I have the shampoo," Techno said, eyeing the bottle where it sat across from him, "and Quackity can cut your hair." 

"Quackity? Isn't he trying to kill you?" Tommy's voice sounded muffled, sloshing denoting him getting out of the tub and Techno cringed again thinking about his floor.

He wasn't sure what to say to that, actually. 

"Are you… Ok with Quackity coming by?" He asked instead, maybe it wasn't the best idea to invite someone with so much... Violent intent into his home with the kid. 

"Big Q's great! I mean, he tried to kill you and stuff but I'm not, like, scared of him. As long as you're ok, y'know?" Tommy fumbled up the stairs, hair still dripping and fluffy pajamas noticeably damp. 

Techno didn't comment on it.

"You don't have to worry about me, Tommy," he said lightly, hoping his tone conveyed comfort. 

Tommy really shouldn't have to worry about his brother's potential murderers, he was just a kid and Quackity wouldn't try to start anything if he was around.

"Anyways, I'll message Quackity, see what he says, alright?" Techno pulled out his communicator, picking at the layers of stickers on it. Tommy had helpfully redecorated it after his previous one had gotten destroyed in his execution.

Attempted execution, that is.

It didn't take much to convince Quackity to come over. It didn't take anything, actually.

Quackity? Techno typed, and almost instantly got a reply.

no

Tommy needs a haircut

fuck off

You remember how to get here?

yes

--

"Well? Where's Tommy?" Quackity huffed, shivering as he rubbed his arms. He should have worn a heavier coat but he didn't have any because he didn't live in the middle of the fucking Arctic.

"Big Q!" Tommy shouted as if on cue, barreling down the stairs at full speed. Quackity's wings flared out to steady him as he caught Tommy, squeezing him tightly.

He didn't say anything about Tommy's clinginess, chalking it up to the exile and the only other source of comfort around being Technoblade.

Fucker probably didn't even hug Tommy.

He was almost instantly proven wrong when Techno cleared his throat slightly, the hug lasting a second too long, and Tommy disappeared from his arms and tucked himself under Techno's.

He firmly reminded himself it was stupid to be jealous of Techno's little brother, but also he was really fucking cold and he knew Techno was really fucking warm.

"So!" He hoisted his bag, "You need a haircut?"

--

It took some finagling but he finally got Tommy to sit in front of the sink properly, and went to work on washing his post haircut hair.

The water was a soothing backdrop as Quackity lathered shampoo into his hair, absently asking Techno for a hairbrush.

Tommy was quietly amazed at how easily Quackity bossed Techno around, his brother instantly responding to any command.

He'd successfully bullied Techno into handing over one of his capes, at Quackity's insistence that it was fucking cold. Techno was now tending to the fire at Quackity's request, and it seemed almost natural.

He knew Techno was more than happy to help the people he cared about, but he'd never really considered that Techno cared about Quackity.

"Are you and Quackity broken up or something?" Tommy blurted out without thinking, interrupting Quackity's soft chirping.

Quackity made a choking noise before accidentally dumping water on Tommy's face, sending him into a fit of painful coughing as it went up his nose.

"Sorry, Toms," Quackity cooed, carefully running his fingers through Tommy's wet hair.

"Is fixing people's hair like a bird thing or some shit?" Tommy asked, leaning into Quackity's hands, "Philza does the same thing and he's like a bird." 

"Yeah, kind of. I think so." Quackity stuttered slightly, straightening Tommy's pajama shirt and dabbing away the spilled water on his face with a towel.

Tommy's face scrunched up in concentration for a second, before he let out something that sounded pretty close to a happy coo.

Quackity cooed too, and they cooed back and forth. Techno couldn't help his pleased snort, happy they were getting along and safe and content.

Tommy's head snapped towards him, instantly reciprocating the snort, and while still unnatural for him he managed to replicate it a lot better than the coo.

Techno watched, vaguely amused, as Tommy nudged his head against Quackity's chest. Growing up around hybrids gave him a weird mix of behaviors, but Quackity was quick to catch on, and he lightly nudged Tommy back.

--

As Techno set up for dinner Quackity and Tommy sat at the table, heckling him and generally being a nuisance.

"You're burning the fucking bread!" Tommy shouted, far too loud in the small space, but his energy seemed slightly more subdued. Less manic, more... Genuine.

Techno rolled his eyes, tugging open the oven door.

"No, see, look it's fine." He squinted at the bread. It did look a little too brown around the edges but he definitely wouldn't tell Tommy that.

Instead, he reached into the oven and grabbed the bread pan with his bare hands, smirking slightly at twin panicked shrieks from behind him.

"Techno what the fuck! You're going to burn your fucking hands, dumbass!" Quackity appeared in front of him, snatching his hands to check the damages after Techno set the pan down.

Quackity blinked at his unharmed hand in confusion, wings settling from where they'd flared in his panic.

"What's the diagnosis, doc?" Techno deadpanned, prompting Quackity to look up. 

They were nearly nose to nose and Quackity was staring directly into his eyes. He shifted slightly, uncomfortable, but didn't look away.

"Are you two going to kiss?" 

Trust Tommy to ruin the peace, Techno thought as Quackity shrieked.

"No we're not going to fucking kiss!" 

--

Quackity was leaning against the arm of the couch, Techno sat on the other side, Tommy flopped across the two of them, trapping them.

"So, you're in exile, right, Techno?" Tommy said, lifting his head slightly from Quackity's lap.

"Yes," Techno sighed, shifting slightly under Tommy's bony legs.

"Huh." Tommy said, before saying more quietly, "I like exile with you a lot more than when I was with Dream." 

Techno tried not to let his expression shift, he'd picked up bits and pieces of his exile but nothing concrete. He still didn't know what happened.

"Oh?" Techno said, voice carefully even.

"Yeah." Tommy responded, tilting his head away from Quackity to stare at the fire. "He- I- he wasn't as nice as you are, y'know?"

Techno didn't, didn't think he'd been doing a good job of taking care of him, but he nodded anyways.

"He..." Tommy sniffled suddenly, furiously scrubbing at his eyes.

Quackity quietly ran his fingers through Tommy's hair, a comforting croon soft in the air.

"He was a real dick, y'know?" Tommy said, desperately high energy, like he could forcibly will away his bad feelings. His voice gave him away, though, thick with tears.

"Tommy?" Techno said, voice soft, "what happened in exile?"

And Tommy broke.

He flung himself into Techno's arms, burying himself in his arms, as he babbled about what had happened, incoherent and a mess.

Quackity tucked himself against Techno's side, curling his arm around Tommy's back and stretching a wing out to cover them both. He pressed himself close, face carefully neutral, but Techno noticed. 

Noticed the twitch of his eye, the tension in his shoulders, how he barely held back a snarl.

Finally, Tommy cried himself out, face tucked into Techno's neck as he fell asleep. Techno carefully scooped him up, Quackity a step behind him as he walked up the stairs and laid Tommy in the bed. 

He tossed Quackity a pair of pajamas, and before he could turn away to change into his own Quackity grabbed his arm.

There was a long moment of silence as they stared at each other, dying fire throwing Quackity's features into sharp relief, fury evident.

"You'll help me take down Dream?" Quackity said finally, leaning closer. 

"I owe him," Techno warned, voice soft as he studied Quackity's face. 

Quackity blinked, then leaned ever closer, noses touching this time.

"When it comes down to it, no matter what Dream says or asks for, you'll be on my side? On Tommy's?" 

Techno sighed, leaning forward to press their foreheads together.

"When you put it that way, how can I say no," he deadpanned, arms coming up to wrap around Quackity's waist, comforting and solid.

Quackity snorted, holding up a pinky.

"Pinky promise?" He murmured, and Techno linked pinkies with him, foreheads pressed together, swaying slightly in place.

"Are you two actually going to kiss now?" Tommy whispered loudly, voice slurred with sleep.

Quackity jerked away, startled, as Techno snorted loudly.

Tension dispersed Techno quickly got ready for bed, putting out the fire and flopping onto the side closest to the stairs. Quackity was forced against the wall, Tommy sandwiched between them. 

Techno fell asleep with Tommy's head tucked into his neck, his arm thrown across Techno and his gangly legs sprawled across Quackity. 

[lochrannn]

Warnings: Sexual Content (M Rating)

Characters: Lila Pitts; Diego Hargreeves; Allison Hargreeves; Klaus Hargreeves; Hargreeves Siblings (background)

Relationship: Lila Pitts/Diego Hargreeves

Roommates AU; Fake Marriage; Slow Burn; Mutual Pining; Emotional H/C

Chapter 5/?

-

They meet at city hall just after midday.

Lila worked a half day shift and Diego had already been out of the flat when she got up. She doesn’t know where he’d gone, but now he’s strolling down the pavement to where she’s waiting for him outside the building with a thick folder under his arm.

“Shit, how many documents did you bring? I thought all they needed was a passport and birth certificate? Did I forget something?” Lila asks hurriedly, already rummaging through her tote bag, half hoping she’ll unearth some missing documents that she accidentally packed in without realising it.

“Huh?” asks Diego as he stops in front of her, “Oh no, I brought some work, I kinda assume we’re going to be in there a while.”

Lila looks up at him in annoyance but the angry complaint about how he didn’t warn her and therefore she didn’t bring anything to keep herself busy dies on her tongue as she realises, she’s never really seen Diego out and about before. But here he is, looking confident and like he belongs, in a way she doesn’t really, with his brown skin, dark hair, mahogany coloured bomber jacket, and black pants all warm and earthy, creating a complete contrast to the gray cityscape and sky.

Taken aback by how quickly her anger melts away, and not quite sure why, Lila just turns towards the steps of the building in a huff of mild embarrassment for how irrational she’s being.

Inside, Diego takes a number and sits down on one of the uncomfortable looking wooden benches at the back of the waiting area, and after giving the space and the smattering of people in it a cursory look, Lila decides that there clearly isn’t a better alternative, so she settles in next to him.

For a little while, she tries not to let the boredom get to her, but it’s quite hard, especially considering that she also doesn’t want to let her mind wander to what she and Diego are about to do. It’s not like Lila’s trying to repress the idea that she’s taking the necessary steps to get married to him very soon, it’s just that she’s very strenuously avoiding actually thinking about it too hard. She’s not too sure why this is the balance she has decided to strike and can apparently live with, but knowing her and Diego will be married, in those words, that’s okay. Thinking about what that entails and what it means, instantly makes her heart rate spike in so many different and indescribable ways, that she’d rather not touch that thought.

So she starts nibbling on her nails. But very quickly she has a niggling memory of her mother chastising her, grabbing her wrist firmly and saying, Stop that, you’ll end up looking like some trailer park hussie!

Irritated she pulls her finger out from between her teeth and folds her hands in her lap and starts bouncing her knee instead.

After a little while she notices that Diego who, she registered out of the corner of her eyes, was leafing through his file, has gone still beside her. She turns to look at what's up and is startled by the way he’s watching her intently. For a moment his eyes bore into hers and they are so close that shadows of memories of Diego leaning in to kiss her lips, her neck, and all the way down her body right after looking at her like that play out before her mind's eye, but then he says something and Lila feels completely foolish when she has to say, “Sorry?” in a small voice to get him to repeat what he said.

“I asked if you’re nervous,” Diego says in a very gentle voice, one, she presumes, he would probably use if he were dealing with a skittish animal.

Lila feels like this situation can’t get any worse, but just as she’s pulled herself together and is about to scoff at him, Diego goes on in a very serious tone, “Lila, we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to! And if you’re worried about taking back the money, don’t be! I’m not cashing that cheque till you get your visa, okay? You don’t owe me anything.”

This is just too much, so Lila shakes her head, mostly so she can close her eyes and doesn’t have to look at how sincere he’s being, or at the deep, brown softness of his eyes, and says, “I’m not nervous, Diego, I’m just fucking bored!”

“Oh… uh… right,” Diego answers a bit sheepishly and now Lila feels guilty for apparently making him feel awkward. So again she’s just about to speak, tell him, she appreciates his concern all the same, when Diego gets there faster than her once more and flips open his file again while saying, “Uh... if you want... but you really don’t have to, just it might keep you occupied—” he cuts himself off when she levels a raised eyebrow at him, expectantly, “You can help me look through these files,” he finally finishes, holding roughly half the stack of papers that he was going through out to her.

They are searching for a name. It’s barely any less boring than sitting around doing nothing. It’s just a seemingly endless list of unalphabetised names with addresses, a copy of a magazine subscriber list from the 60s. Diego’s apparently helping some genealogist with a project and though he agrees with her that it’s a bit tedious, he also argues that he is apparently being paid very good money.

For a long while they just sit in bored, if oddly comfortable silence, while searching through the names until Lila breaks the stillness, “I got him!”

She’s weirdly excited as she leans over to Diego with her page, finger just under the name Carl Cooper written in slightly faded typewriter letters.

“Show me?” Diego says reaching for the page but not pulling it out of Lila’s grip, they’re hands brushing as he tries to take a closer look at the corresponding address and Lila is suddenly very aware of the warmth radiating off of his body as he leans in so very close to her. She thinks she can even smell his soap.

“That’s our guy!” Diego says delightedly, picking up the biro he’d clipped to his folder and circling the name before taking the piece of paper gently out of her hand and smiling at her, the corners of his eyes crinkling distractingly. “Thanks!” he says with genuine gratitude.

“Yeah, whatever,” Lila grumbles, but she’s not able to hide the smile in her own voice, so to gloss over it, she asks instead, “Is your work always this boring?”

She almost regrets asking him instantly, because only the other night she got to see what it’s like when it’s less boring, but Diego leans his head back against the wall and his expression turns contemplative.

“Well, no… I mean, I guess, some parts are this boring. A lot of looking through files or going on stakeouts in my car. This one, yeah, this was tedious, but usually this kind of work is all part of the bigger puzzle I’m trying to solve. And then, when I get to find the people I’m looking for, it makes it all worth it, you know? Sometimes that’s loved ones who got separated somehow. Totally worth a couple of hours slogging through some files.”

He’s looking down at her, head still tilted against the wall behind them and Lila finds she can’t look away but also hasn’t got anything to say about what he’s telling her. She never took any interest in what a detective does, wasn’t even really ever into cop or detective shows, but somehow, the way Diego tells it, it’s quite fascinating.

“I’ve got a knack for finding asshole dads who are trying to get out of paying alimony as well. Definitely less noble work, but also necessary, if you ask me. And those often end up being the least boring of my cases,” Diego goes on and Lila wonders whether he’s just trying to keep her entertained now that they have no more files to search through. “ ‘s how I got this,” he says, pointing a finger up towards the scar in his eyebrow.

“Oh yeah?” Lila asks, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible about it.

She’s been massively intrigued by all of his scars, but at no point has she felt in a position to ask. Afterall, what if there’s a really traumatic story behind them. But he has a bunch of them. There’s the one in his brow and another behind his left ear. One on the top of his left arm, and one more on his right hip. Lila quickly stops thinking about that one and why she could trace it exactly on a piece of paper if she were given something to draw with, and also doesn’t think too hard about the long scar that reaches from his cheek all the way along the side of his head above his ear. Lila is genuinely a bit wary of what the story might be behind that one.

But she quickly draws her thoughts back to the present and the fact that Diego seems happy to tell her about the scar in his brow and so she asks, “What happened?”

“Asshole father who didn’t want to pay his alimony,” Diego offers with a light chuckle and a shrug, “Fucker faked his own death and then when I found him, I’d barely said a word before he smashed a bottle in my face. Apparently I was lucky I didn’t lose an eye.”

Lila hisses in sympathy at the image.

“Guess we’ll have to talk a bit more about shit like that before our interview with immigration,” Diego says casually and Lila looks at him quizzically as she’s not quite sure what he’s talking about. “Interview?” she asks.

“Yeah, we’ll have to do an interview to prove that this is not just a sham wedding,” he starts explaining, brows drawn together, then his eyes drift off to the side, “Lila, did you not know that they’re gonna want to see proof we’re, like, actually married? … Shit! Our numbers up! Come on, let's go!”

Diego touches her elbow gently and Lila follows him in a bit of a daze, not to one of the windows that are situated all along the long hall that they walk down, but to a small office that they are ushered into by an equally small man, who asks them to sit in the two chairs opposite his desk.

The next fifteen minutes during which they go through all of the proceedings of applying for a marriage license do nothing to settle her nerves, because again she’s getting to see another completely new side to Diego. She guesses this is what he’s like when he’s really on the job and considering how good he is, she misses half a minute of conversation wondering why his business is failing.

He’s commanding, not letting anything slide, but he’s endlessly cool and charming all the same. And for a second Lila is concerned it’s just the fact that she’s slept with him and maybe in this moment would like to sleep with him again that’s making her see him in this way, but she notices that the clerk they’re dealing with seems at least as flustered and is hanging off every word Diego says as much as Lila.

At one point she almost jumps when he confidently takes her hand out of her lap, laces their fingers together, and says, “We were planning on getting married next year but circumstances have changed and my girlfriend can’t continue her degree, so now her visa’s running out and we discussed it and decided to pull the wedding forward, we didn’t want to end up getting separated by this!”

The clerk nods understandingly and Lila could kick herself for not having put even a fraction of the amount of thought into their plan as Diego seems to have. It’s brilliant. This explanation for why they need a license now is believable but also contains enough of the truth that they have very little to prove at this point, except for the fact that they are, indeed, in a relationship.

At that thought, Lila’s heart skips a beat and her focus zeros in on their joined hands for a moment.

When they are walking down the steps after all the application forms have been sorted, Diego offers to give her a lift home, but Lila makes up an engagement with a friend on the spot and quickly heads away in the direction of the bus stop. She needs some time to clear her head after that whole experience.

-

Diego gets into his car, lets out a very long breath, and then tips forward, pressing his forehead against the steering wheel in frustrated exhaustion.

How can hanging out with one person be both something that is so enjoyable and so painful at the same time?

Lila was fun and sparkly as ever, but she also helped him out, took an interest in his job. And even if that was mostly out of politeness, she asked all the right questions and listened so attentively. And, god, her beautiful, lively face is so distracting, he hardly knew where to look.

Diego’s certain now that he is royally screwed. He’s done a lot of dumb shit in his life, but this takes the cake. Spending time with Lila is so fucking close to the real deal and within the next couple of weeks they will be married, and he thinks, maybe a bit overdramatically, this’ll probably be the death of him.

He sits back up straight, turns the key in the ignition, and moves his car into traffic.

But he can’t back out now, they’ve actually put their plan in motion, and Lila is relying on him to get it together, so the very last thing he wants to do is let her down. Even if it kills him, he mentally adds with a wry smile.

[multiverse-in-archive]

((Hello, I know I said I was going to talk about Vegeta and the cycle of abuse he went through growing up, but first, I want to talk about something that’s been bugging me recently that’s related. And it’s got to do with the fandom perception of him.

Admittedly, part of it is from me still feeling heated from not only the Yamcha bashing that set me off, but also the thing that brought about the Bulma and Chichi post [A certain someone knows what I’m talking about], but over all, it’s something that’s annoyed me for a long ass while. Especially because this shit has bled into the Super manga;

Stop idealizing Vegeta!

Stop bashing the other characters to boost him up!

Stop condeming them for their flaws [or what you perceive to be their flaws] and ignoring his!

It’s not only a diservice to the other characters of the series, but a diservice to his character as well.

“Oh he’s just a victim of circumstance! He’s a result of his trauma!”

Yeah, you know who else is?

Practically everyone else in the series, and he was a reason for the trauma of the majority of the main cast. Hell, Krillin had an episode where he was confronting his trauma in Super.

Yet he and most of the other characters don’t act like dicks.

And while all of their trauma is different and everyone handles trauma differently, there are healthy and unhealthy ways to do it.

And his way of dealing with it, especially back in Z, not only hurt innocents, but hurt those closest to him.

He is a victim of Frieza’s abuse yes, but it’s also implied that he abused his subordinates. One of who raised him, and the other who genuinely felt close to him.

And if you think I’m making it up, why do you think they’re afraid of him? They wouldn’t have a need to be unless he’s made it clear he’s willing to hurt or kill them.

And in their last moments, when they needed him most, he turned his back on them.

With Raditz, he didn’t even cut in via the scouter to tell him that Raditz ain’t gettin’ bailed out. Vegeta just let him continue to believe and say it and essentially quietly abandoned him. Raditz would have no way of knowing that he wasn’t going to be saved until at least a year later.

And then with Nappa, not only did he kill him, but he got his hopes up by leading him to believe he’d be helped, and then dashed that hope to pieces by throwing him into the air. And his parting words to him before blowing him up was just mocking him. Reminder that Nappa essentially raised this boy. Even before Frieza.

And funny thing, even after being free from Frieza, he’d go on to abuse Future Trunks.

I could go on about this subject, about his relationship with his abuser[s?] and his victims, but saving the details for Vegeta’s cycle of abuse analysis post.

Oh and don’t even get me started on the Majin Vegeta shit! If I were in Shin’s shoes at that point, I would have slapped Vegeta silly for this.

And iff anything, I think this is genuine proof how much Bulma loves this man. Anyone else would have dropped his ass like a stone for that stunt.

Point is, he was hurt, but he’d also hurt people himself. Don’t ignore that.

“Vegeta is a better husband and father than Goku! He raised Goku’s kids! And Vegeta saved Bulma from Yamcha!”

lol the fuck!?

We gonna ignore how Vegeta admitted to never even holding Trunks as a baby? And keep in mind, this was post Cell Saga when he learned to apprciate his family. He literally watched his son grow up for all those seven years and not once held him. Not to mention, again, he was abusive to Future Trunks up util the Cell Games.

Meanwhile Goku has no problem showing affection to his kids and grandkid. And have we ever seen him lay a hand on any of them to hurt them? He trained with Gohan sometimes when he was younger, yes,, but his training was tame compared to training with Piccolo. Who left toddler Gohan to more or less fend for himself for a while and then would later beat up on said toddler.

Gohan was four, five by the time the Saiyans came along, you fuckers-

And yeah, Goku was missing throughout the series, with him being dead for Goten’s early life, but those circumstance were either out of his control, or he felt was best for Earth in the case of post Cell Saga. Now, he did sometimes go off to Beerus’s Planet to train, but between then, he did his obligations. And plus, Vegeta wormed his way into going there to train first. It was not on Goku’s mind until he overheard Bulma talk about it.

Also would like to point out that Chichi made Goku promise to ge a job right before the Cell Games, and when he came back, he did! As a radish farmer!

Meanwhile, Vegeta has no job, and Bulma’s only condition is to spend time with her and their family. Which she usually has to twist his arm into doing. Remember her birthday in Battle of Gods?

And let’s not forget after his fling with Bulma, the first thing he did when he found out Bulma was pregnant was fucking dip. And you know who stepped in to help Bulma with the baby?

Yamcha.

And not only did he willingly step up to help raise present Trunks, but he was essentially Future Trunks’s support when Vegeta wouldn’t provide.

Yeah, he was notably huffy, but from his behavior in the arc, it’s safe to say it’s at Vegeta rather than Bulma or Trunks. And understandably so.

Now, in fairness to Vegeta, he’s an introverted, emotionally constipated man that has not been in very many healthy relationships, while everyone else is very much warm and affectionate, and to expect him to express love the same way is unfair.

And deep down, he is a loving husband and father, who immediately steps in to protect him, and occassionally does find ways to show his care for them.

But let’s be honest, in real life, he’d be a difficult husband and father to live with.

And this is just the short list of issues I have with what the fandom seems to think about him. But I’ll stop there, because it’s getting long as is.

I think the main point in all of this though, is that ignoring his flaws mistakes and woobifying him honestly hurts his character.

Toyotaro.

Not only does it downplay his growth, but it also ironically takes away what makes him a complex and interesting character in the first place.

It makes him feel 2D and less like a person. A person that isn’t bad [anymore], but isn’t wholly good either.

Do better, Vegeta fans. Do better.))

[synchlora]

pspsps spare karl hcs? 👀

YESS hell yeah !!! sorry i did not see this earlier jxascjjcsvksjcskv. gonna try and split it up so it somewhat makes sense

interdimensional form:

this is his normal form

he is literally not from this dimension, god knows where he's from honestly

this form is difficult to describe bc the laws of his dimension don't apply here so he kinda constantly appears to be shifting in ways that don't make sense to anyone seeing him

but he is generally about 9 to 11 ft tall, various bright neon colors, and always seems to have energy (maybe electric but almost appearing magical as well) crackling off of him

can't really express much human-like emotions in this form bc his face doesn't allow for it (technically he doesn't have a face, what u see is something he has projected in order to mimic human emotions and show how he is feeling)

still feels these emotions, they're just hard to express in ways that humans would understand

travelled a lot through dimensions and timelines within those dimensions

ended up overexerting his abilities and crash landed in the dream smp's dimension (this is where his portal is currently and he hasn't tried to move it yet)

can no longer leave that dimension, though he can still time travel throughout it

sapnap was one of the first people he met after crashing and, while he was shifted into human!karl form, he was still very unstable and it was quite obvious he wasn't entirely human

fast forward a lot of time, but i like to imagine that he does eventually show both sap and q this form, though he was very afraid they wouldn't love him

but ofc they still do

these fuckers love their 10 ft tall interdimensional being of a boyfriend

shapeshifting & "possession":

karl can shift to other forms in order to hide his actual appearance

one of those main forms is human!karl, which is what we see most of the time and how most people on the smp know him to appear

this form is difficult for him to maintain but it is manageable

but because he is losing his memory often, he slips up on the details occasionally (hence the inverted spiral hoodie a few weeks back)

it is a very cramped form because he is fitting ~10' tall of weird energy that should rly not be confined to a ~5'10 human form

but he feels obligated to continue to keep himself in this form because he genuinely doesn't want to scare off any of his friends or god forbid his fiances

possession on the other hand is a whole different ballgame

i hinted at this in an older drawing but he can basically possess people in a way

we see it in the lost city of mizu where he basically becomes the person known as issac

i imagine this works similar to the stranger in tma where he becomes the person and those around him still believe they are the same

not quite as sinister as that though because while he does take over their body, their thoughts and beliefs and decisions are still based upon who the person was

so like. karl becomes the person in a way because he acts how that person would have

he gains all of who they were while still managing to maintain his own self as well

which is why it can be very taxing and extremely dangerous for his memory

because he essentially became this person for a while, he ends up garbling his memories up with those of the people he posesses

normally, he can de-possess people and they will have those memories of what happened while they were possessed but it'll just be a little foggy to them

but obviously that did not happen with issac which leads to the next point

death:

this is the interesting part because he has gotten killed multiple times now during tales from the smp

i think that when he got killed while possessing issac in mizu, he basically left his body and scrambled to escape through the portal before any really bad consequences happened

because he had to leave so suddenly, he ended up losing a good portion of his memory there because he wasn't able to smoothly transition out of possessing someone and back into his home form

his intention was never to get issac killed and he still feels incredibly guilty over his and the other fishemens' deaths

when he was killed in the masquerade, i don't think he was possessing anyone (considering his appearance and name) which is interesting

but we also don't see him actually die which makes me think he teleported out through his portal before he was killed

either that or the in-between is a place where he goes when he "dies" during travel and has to recuperate

it's hard to tell because we don't really know at this point and i have a feeling canon will very quickly disprove this ahvishcksgkcs

to me, i think the in-between is either where he goes when something very bad happens during his travels or it is just generally an in-between dimension he travels through in order to make it to another dimension

his husbands and recurring characters:

this is basically just me being sad but i believe that karl recognizes people through his travels who act/appear like his husbands and friends

i have two theories here so bear with me

first theory is that he meets their ancestors / descendents or even what's considered reincarnations perhaps and recognizes them as such

this one's a little more realistic whereas the next one is more sad

second theory is that karl is slipping so badly in his memory that it seems like he is seeing the same people over and over as various different people

so for example, maybe james from the masquerade reminded him slightly of sapnap so he ended up seeing/hearing him like sapnap

and this is where it gets fuckin sad because, in the end, these people don't know him

he may trust james like he trusts sapnap (though it's hard for him to remember who that even is anymore) but james doesn't know him at all

but seeing these people die is so intensely emotional for him, yet he doesn't fully understand why he feels so attached to someone he met less than an hour prior

anyway that is all bc i don't want to make this ungodly long ajfgksjcgskc so here u go !!

[sophiamcdougall]

The thing that really bugs me about the whole “Booker is suicidally depressed and feels all alone in the world and that’s why he should be forgiven”. He throws his loneliness at Joe&Nicky. But realistically they’re ALL in the same boat. Joe and Nicky are shown to be extremely empathic and the ones to give others emotional comfort. They might have one another, but they’ve also lost everyone they knew too (inc Quynh). being so empathic and surrounded by mortals they want to love must be so painful

Indeed. Now, to be fair, I do think the pain of losing children belongs in a special, terrible category of its own (although in-universe I don’t think it’s actually worse than Andy’s knowledge that Quynh is not simply dead and at peace but in unending torment). So, yeah, I do think Booker got a shittier deal on immortality than Nicky and Joe. But not only does he apparently think his bad luck gives him the right to hurt them in the first place, he actually doubles down on that, using their relationship as a weapon against them when they’re still tied to the slabs he put them on. He apologises to Andy, but we never see him apologise to Nicky and Joe. I’m not saying we should assume he doesn’t, ever, or that he isn’t genuinely sorry by the end of the film, (although ... actually, doesn’t the line about Nile wanting to let him off with an apology rather imply that he hasn’t made one???) but anyway, he sees Nicky and Joe in that condition and despite having already expressed regret for shooting Andy, he makes it clear his regret does not extend to them. Instead he continues to argue that he is justified, that the imbalance between their (relative) happiness and his pain is excuse enough. It’s terribly close to “well, you had it coming.” Incidentally - someone mentioned frustration about how Andy’s anger is erased in these discussions and while she does get an apology, it’s specifically for inflicting a wound she may not heal from. Nothing else. It’s not for sabotaging her rescue mission (when he knew how much saving Joe and Nicky meant to her) and still less for adding her to Merrick’s collection, even though he knows she considers that a fate worse than death -- even though he’s got her, Andromache of Scythia of all people, crying and terrified on the floor while he fucking ties her up with his own hands. No, that’s all fine. Only when he sees she’s still bleeding does he express any doubt at all. If she had healed normally -- when would he have started to realise he’d done something wrong? We have no idea, and nor do the other characters. We just know seeing that seeing, with his own eyes, three friends trapped and bloody at his hands definitely wasn’t enough to do it.  And they’re so nice they still want the little fucker back!   Fuck, I’m committing Booker Discourse again. You were supposed to stop this happening. Somebody hit me.