#This is really just a collection of thoughts and i repeat myself a lil. The structure of this is so shite feel free to just skim or whateve

[fumifooms]

Thistle & Falin

Just my narrative of Thistle & Falin, collection of shippy thoughts and dynamic analysis. Creating some imagery and threads, etc. What if we both made devotion to our loved ones our purpose, what if we both hadn’t lived for ourselves in a long, long time. Who are we? Beyond who we love and our powers, what are we?

Background info: a short Falin analysis touching on Faligon and Thistle + an old thistlin post, compiling most of their moments. Here I delve into further thoughts but for base analysis of what they have in canon and in potential those are good starts. If you want I also have a full Falin analysis.

Disclaimer: Beyond the nebulous 1000 years I place Thistle as a young adult, and though I agree Falin mothers him to some degree I don’t think it’s unsimilar to the way that Marcille is a mom friend that sometimes mothers Falin and Izutsumi especially. Their relationship has layers like every other one in Dunmeshi, reducing it to being incestuously motherly or age discoursy to justify it being problematic is so funny to me, hello did you miss the mind control. Ah yes I love the 1090 yo with godlike powers being groomed by his chicken slave. You can have your own interpretation but canon is ambiguous enough, and dare I say intentionally ambiguous, that I have no qualms with not infantilizing Thistle, same with Yaad at the end of canon. I do ship Thistle and Falin, and although it’s in a nebulous qpr-or-other third secret thing situationship instead of conventionally romantic way, like, I puke on anything giving them a parental framing so don’t come shitting on my doorstep, kid-Thistle truthers be warned. Only nuance enjoyers allowed on this post. It’s valid if you’re uncomfortable with the ship!! Don’t make your issue others’ problem.

I thankfully finished my Falin analysis before posting this, but besides that I also have an analysis coming on the whole Thistle age thing which I think is interesting, beyond the well being poisoned there are things to explore there, idk in how long that’ll be done though. That’s all for plans that are relevant to this, now let’s get into it.

Part 1

So my favorite Falin things are Faligon + her sense of being like a pawn/misplaced, going on autopilot to follow the wishes of others, a feeling of identity being a burden and sort of fleeing from that, and her not really caring in the way/with the intensity that she’s "supposed" to (as per the points I go over in my Falin analysis). Meanwhile, Thistle has a lot of shit going on already but then there’s also how being a dungeon lord is highly wearing on his mind. As Faligon and as dungeon lord Thistle, the way they’re both so out of touch with reality in different ways holy shit?? They have power imbalance between them and it very much comes from mind control lol, but it’s also not something Thistle is fully aware of himself, because the powers are driving him unstable and he’s not even aware there’s someone in front of him really. He’s so out of it that he can’t even recognize that the dragon has been fused with a human and she’s so out of it we can’t even tell how conscious of her actions she is.

And then the interesting thing is that they’re kind of in it together… Mostly from Falin’s standpoint. We see that he does rely on the dragon increasingly so, hanging out with it, being saved by it and embraced by her etc. When he lets them both fall after breaking the web they were hanging from, he automatically, fully and wordlessly trusts her to catch him, instead of relying on magic or anything, and she does. Falin devotes herself to him but he’s devoted to The Cause which is just chasing ghosts at this point. But despite it all there’s a weird comfort here too… From the guy who in his last moment of lucidity reached out for someone, anyone’s hand, from the guy who hasn’t felt companionship in hundreds of years probably, hasn’t taken it slow and slept and eaten in who knows how long, from the girl who feels compelled to care after him like she’s always done with others… And the beast-ness allows her to have some freedom to figure herself out in a weird way, to simply enjoy being beside someone and doing anything her own whims tell her to.

It’s very destructive and weird and layered but like…. I can see the sliver where it works out. Where her kindness reaches him and he has a moment of lucidity where he sees her and it’s like, wait, who are you, you’re not the dragon?? Where finding someone else who feels just as messed up and devoted as them, like they’re just trudging along life like it’s a dream following their loved one, heals them a bit. Where caring for the other becomes a way to care for themselves too, a dark mirror of each other that shows you, oh, this is how bad it can get and I want to choose something else for myself actually. To grow to see the person standing in front of you, instead of only searching with your eyes in what way they’ll reflect on you. In helping each other, finding some companionship that’s weirdly vulnerable and self-healing. He gets her in touch with herself and her own needs again through the arc and conflict they have, and she gets him in touch with the world and his surroundings again. They have clashing ways to be selfless, very self-sacrificial from Falin meanwhike self-centered with Thistle (he ‘knows best’, ‘everything needs to be left to him’, etc etc, he needs the control, but he does it all for others, meanwhile Falin leaves that control to others and only grabs it for herself in exceptional cases like sacrificing herself to the dragon for Laios).

Like just let yourself be, damn!!! So then them being like, zombie mentally stunted babies kind of enhances that theme in a way too lol. The way they communicate together is very… Instinctive and basic, and I’d love to see how it could develop into a functional dynamic. They’re in ‘learning to be your own person’ kindergarten together to me. Thistle looking at her coloring wildly outside the lines and being like "you’re doing it wrong" and then you look at his and he colored everything a weird color. The precision is scary but then his crayon goes 1 mm out of the lines and he blows up into tears. Ok the metaphor has run its course

So yeah like the ship/brotp is very, them being isolated and against the world together and like… Slowly regaining their minds together. Getting their sense of identity grounded into them again. In my mind they have a 50k words adventure where they hang out and he slowly realizes there’s more to her than just dragon and she encourages him to dawdle around and eventually just play in water and shit and it’s like, starting to see life again beyond the laser focus you limited yourself to… And she’s allowed to just chill out and do whatever she wants besides the whole searching for Delgal thing. You can’t tie down a dragon! They are a duo they are an unit‼️ He’d have been fucked without her and at this point in time he sort of made her and he’s her world. Traumabonded kittens do not separate but it’s onesided in different ways haha. Honestly it’s sort of reflavored mickuro wait fuck…

If nothing else, they’re a very interesting dynamic to ponder. The depths of it all… I want to use them as a social experiment. I want them to stop to smell at the flowers and learn to work together… They’re master and servant they’re owner and pet they’re mothering and mothered (in a guardian hound way, in a mom friend way) they’re both incredibly (emotionally and physically) vulnerable in different ways…… Master and monster if you will. Mostly I see them as guardian & leader. Like I said I ship them but it’s not really romantic atp I think but it’s not quite qpr either it’s truly a weird secret third thing… What if we were sort of coworkers but also ?!!!>??????! You should hate me but you fiercely protect me I should appreciate you but I only see you as a tool WHAT IS GOING ONNN IN THERE

He wants to be protected even if he can’t really admit it. Here the catalyst was emotional distress moreso than physical threat. Notice how he lays there under her wing for a bit as he (refuses to) processes what Mithrun told him about Delgal dying and betraying him. She’s becoming his safety net, his comfort hound. Somehow, the both of them find they’re soothed in each other’s presence.

It kills me. Them being so toxic at the start of it, then somehow ambiguously just hinting towards how things could have went on to be better, could have been headed somewhere nice and healing and healthier, she dies and he dies everyone fucking dies and they forget each other and it ends there they never speak of each other again. Canon wanted me dead specifically. Like remember too that I was there when the last chapters where being released, my ass really was like "Oh I wonder how Falin will react seeing Thistle after being revived!" 🤡 But yess at least that means there’s a lot of Unsaid, a lot of space for speculation, and I want to see what could have been. I want to see it so so bad. It’s so interesting

Post-canon is also so interesting, where they’re sort of recovered but not fully not really, them actually getting to know each other… And she doesn’t remember him but he doesn’t remember her either, in a way they’ve never met even though they have, even though she was the first one on his side since so long, the first hint of companionship he’s had, companionship that he’s so unused to getting that he can’t even recognize it for what it is. He couldn’t even recognize a human standing in front of him!! He is so disconnected from others and the world!! He spoke to ghosts like they had no worries in the world and everyone was ok!! He’s out of touch, tone-deaf af!! Has always been tone-deaf!! Being tone-deaf when he was younger, a stick in the mud, caused him to be more isolated than he already was… Autism4autism, anyways—

It’s them not knowing why or how to express it but being drawn together, a bond forged together by the fire of circumstances and coincidences— or is it only that? No one can know for certain but there’s a grip they have on each other there somehow. Weird distant caring thing. I dont know who you are but I feel like I should know you

It’s like my headcanon that she doesn’t know why, but on her travels she feels something when she comes across wild thistle flowers… There are just faint remnants, whispers of feelings like ghosts.

They should be remnants in each other’s lives. A deja vu of a person in the way Falin hugs small dolls to her chest, or how Thistle reminisces of something when he sees bird feathers discarded on the ground. < This paragraph courtesy of @cabinette’s huge brain

He canonically writes poems btw… Poems would be such a good way for him to get in touch with himself again post-canon, find desires in again and get creative fulfillment. He should make poems about her. To explore and vent and express all the vague feelings and memories he has, both those of during canon and after canon. He doesn’t remember her but he remembers her, slivers of kind eyes and warm gentle hands and healing magic like a blanket…

Yaad, an unlicensed therapist but the best you're gonna get in fantasy land: Maybe you should try journaling.

And too the thing is their relationship with each other in a way is ONLY about themselves, even when Falin is being self-sacrifical it’s less about him and more about how she generally is, that sort of instinct to latch onto someone and just follow along with whatever they do and ask, meanwhile to Thistle she’s only ever been a factor in his plans. Idk idk them getting to that point where they see and know each other, stumbling into that through canon or actively working towards it post-canon, there’s weird beauty in that Like. Thistle cares about her because he’ll take anyone as long as they fit the job description well enough, he’s desperate to find Delgal and will grasp at straws to find him. In a similar way that he’ll reach for someone, anyone’s hand on the verge of death, she seeks to protect someone, anyone. That’s how she centers herself, makes someone her compass and her world. Falin wants to protect someone and Thistle would use anyone, pushed to the states they were in they would latch onto anyone for comfort (caring for him, grabbing Marcille’s hand).

Mirrors truly truly. And Thistle likes to shatter those, and silence anyone who tries to talk to him about reality, so then the option left is to be by him quietly and subtly gradually, gently (her specialty) nudge him in the right direction … Nooo but actually why did he shatter those mirrors. Very interesting to think about. Would seeing himself in others anger him?

I like to call him a ghost of who he was sometimes, a ghost of the past, he’s so haunted, and I think there’s fun imagery there too. The care she offers Thistle somewhat reminds me of the one she offers ghosts. I wonder if part of it is that she sees herself in ghosts, that she wants to offer them freedom and peace of mind she can’t get for herself.

And of course meanwhile on her end, the thistlin arc is also about growing self-respect. I don’t want to see Thistle as a lost cause in saying that her efforts are wasted on him, but being so permissive and invested in him is obviously not healthy for her. She needs to learn when to put her foot down

Oooh, just realized that choosing to eat in this scene was a big character moment all things considered. By eating she faltered in her task, stood up for herself and her needs, was selfish for once (/positive go get your damn food girl). She chose to eat. Anyways

I bet he’s the one who healed her wounds after the Shuro party fight. And on that note— it’s interesting he could change her form from Falin to Faligon without touching her isn’t it? Healing by everyone else like Marcille and Falin always required touch, physical contact between the healer and healee, which some like Chilchuck say is a negative, but… The dungeon lord not needing to touch to heal makes a nice metaphor for how isolating the powers are I think. Truly clinical instead of warm. Theme of community and freely offering affection in Dungeon Meshi etc etc. Like I said, Thistle is out of touch.

The way that he has the powers to change her form and heal and like soo much magic power but he can’t even realize when he’s hurting himself and she’s the one who has to heal him. He’s so fully devoted to the cause even when he acts selfishly that he neglects himself too, and she has to remind him to take care of himself, to eat, etc. That she feeds him. Eating is an act of love to yourself and to life. The berries, the curry, the soup that Thistle refuses to eat—

Do you see the vision. Do you see all the narrative relevance and themes and parallels of their dynamic. To chase ghosts, to cling onto them so they stay with you no matter how warped and ugly they get, and to soothe souls, purifying them and helping them depart for the afterlife… Both magic prodigies whose lives revolve around protecting and caring after their loved ones more than anything else. A family member who looks elsewhere while they are their whole world. They can flee their emotional issues together 🤝 Who are we? Beyond who we love and our power, what are we? I think about the way she cradled him in her arms just before they fell down into the dungeon all the time idk idk

^ End notes from the one fic I wrote about them so far: Slivers, on AO3. For a moment, they were both slivers of themselves, bound together.

Thistle feverishly holding onto ghosts of the past and his source of power, meanwhile Falin cradles the people she can protect in the now with the powers that reside in her… Him cradling his book, her cradling her master……… Parallels

Interlude

And yess it’s important to remember too, Thistle became a mage only after delgal asked… He had innate talent, but moreso than Falin it’s through studies that he learned to actually harness his magic etc. Idk I think it’s an interesting parallel that could have interesting stuff be done on it. People often characterize him as predominantly bratty but. He’s smart and composed he’s mainly smart and composed… He’s unstable and everything during canon was happening all at once with the winged lion being freed and Laios’ party and the canaries and agh </3 He can have a meltdown as a treat he’s smart and cool-headed if it wasn’t for the dungeon wearing on his mind ok… Obvi I love my chars with anger issues but saying he’s overly childish is having tunnel vision I think

Ok so the elephant in the room… First of all how present is Falin in Falugon exactly…… We have no clue. The end sequence does show her in purgatory with a dragon foot holding her down, which can easily be read as it suppressing her personality- with how it’s shown though it feels like she’d be fully suppressed by that? And we know that’s not the case, since not only does she recognize Laios and calls out to him, she hesitates to hurt Kuro because of the dog association, she’s excessively kind towards Thistle, the latter which her Adventurer’s Bible profile confirm to be "her kind nature remaining as the chimera". Maybe it’s a dream-like state? Maybe the dragon is the driving force with the instincts, and it’s only bits of Falin and her personality that show through? A state of mind very primal and not very think-y, even if Falin has enough brains to think of sharing the berries, gesturing and oh- of course, casting magic. No issues with controlling the human half of her body as well. To some degree, her and the dragon are working in tandem. My own preferred interpretation is the driven by instincts one, a state of mind like an actual dragon’s, which in my Falin analysis I delve into the significance of it for other parts of Dunmeshi too. So yeah, dreamlike mindless autopilot… I think exploring her pov as Faligon would go super hard. Aware of her surroundings but sort of disconnected with it, and disconnected from herself too, entirely living in the present… And like with her talking to Laios— the only time she speaks in her chimera form, a simple observation, "Laios, brother", sometimes her human thoughts peek through more sharply, short moments of lucidity… I think it’d be interesting to see an arc where as the chimera, she learns to share the "brainspace" more with the dragon.

It’s also unclear if Thistle had a say in how much of ‘Falin the human’ is in control? He very well might have suppressed her somehow when he changed her form to be more dragonlike. That might also be due to just getting back the dragon meat though— and the dragon meat itself might be why/how the brainspace is shared. There is a lot less of Falin’s body in the chimera than there is of the dragon, body mass wise. Dungeon Meshi is a lot about physicality so I wouldn’t be surprised with this reasoning. But there’s the whole mind control soul bond situation too…

The mind bond is another thing that’s left mostly to interpretation when it comes to the details. She feels compelled to listen to the dungeon lord’s orders as a monster created and owned by it, like the dragons Thistle summoned during the fight at his house, but again like we see with the dragons, if the monster has a "strong will" it can disobey to some level without being punished by the bind or anything. The eyes of the magician, the small wyverns, level-of-control wise can’t be accurate examples because they’re sort of like familiars, Thistle can see through their eyes in real time no matter where they are but it’s only this species as far as we know. So otherwise the mind bond is more subtle… There’s also the question of how much the control is shared between the dungeon lord and the demon, which again Thistle’s situation is exceptional because he managed to seal his demon in a book, presumably all the power goes through Thistle without the intermediate of the winged lion, though we do see he has some reach since he reaches Laios through his dreams. ANYWAYS all that to say. I do really ponder about how a dungeon lord's monsters get their orders, like... For the fight on the first floor, did Falin just feel Thistle's agony in her bones and came clawing and barging her way in desperately and angrily to protect him because of his distress, or did he more directly demand she come, consciously or not?! Idk, since Falin is actively protective of him unlike the dragons who reluctantly listen to him, her being very fast and intense about it doesn’t have to be forced… It’d be interesting if she can sense his feelings, wants or thoughts, bc I don’t think it’s as conscious as like, telepathically communicating "hey you, do this"…? Pondering, pondering. Mind bond <3 Soulbound <3

They’re both very trapped in the past… I wonder if as Faligon a lot of her mind goes back to memories of Laios and such, if she’s in a dreamlike state and not just sort of absent, where would her mind retreat... I don’t think so like I said I think she’s mostly driven by dragonlike mindlessness, but still… Thistle stuck in the search of Delgal, thinking back to everything they’ve shared and where it all went wrong obsessively, and Falin, sort of larping that she’s still beside Laios, not unlike how Thistle treats having the corpses of the royal family at his house like them being safe. Delusions. Idk I just want more character studies.

The metaphors in this truly… It’s not literal, like def not something that happens during canon at no point are they or could be ever atop a mountain of frames and paintings of the Golden Kingdom’s royal family and fine art lmaoo, so then like the meaning behind it all… She offers him reprieve, an outsider from all the Golden Kingdom expectations and drama, just someone warm to lean on, someone who’ll stay…….. I love Faligon pushing him to rest and nap so much. Man has first nap in a thousand years. Feather duvet like a nice warm pillow. The peace she offers him man……. Live in the present bbygirl Unfortunately it doesn't help. Look at them eyebags… Man needs to sleep!!

Part 2

^ This panels drives me crazy It’s the possessivity. It’s the "my". It’s the "stealing".

What if you have fear of abandonment and think you have to prove your worth for people to stay by your side. What if belonging to someone makes you feel like you belong and you feel loved and soothed by it lowkey, feel like it makes things easy. What if I was bought as a slave and servant but I was adopted into a pretty loving family. What if ownership is what love looks like to me. What if that’s why I have no problem rationalizing keeping people against their will in a glorified kingdom-prison, because that’s just what someone with the power who Knows Better does, and… Did he always call her his dragon hello? Feelings

He is not letting it go damn He hates when people mess with what's his. Or Delgal’s.

But imagine. The dragon is like, the last thing he has. The Golden Kingdom has moved on from him, everything is shit, but his dragon is the last thing he still has some realm of like. Ownership over. But that ownership is kinda just his sense of belonging. His role, his duty.  So it’s like "Don’t steal the last thing I have" especially if post-canon… It’s thinking from his time as a jester bought into a loving family that ownership is natural in love and care. It’s thinking that’s the way you get to belong beside someone, beside earning that through achievements and being useful and capable. Everything is being stolen away from him. Control and things and people and even the importance he has to the Golden Kingdom as he becomes part of the background & past history and the kingdom switches into new hands aka Laios’…

My dragon, not the dragon. I do like to imagine especially after the berries he’s starting to feel differently about her. He keeps being like "you’re acting odd, dragon". His dragon is special. She’s not just another regular monster npc to easily replace, there’s human contact in there. His dragon just for him. <3

I do think Falin has some issues with like, asking to be with the people she loves, feeling safe in asking for that, that she’s worth that. She follows them and is quiet and just takes the crumbs of love that they offer, she doesn’t ask Marcille at the academy to spend lunches with her, doesn’t ask anything of her distant busy father and ill anxious mother… The person she did ask things of, Laios, who she always asked to go travel the world with him and whatnot, left her behind. Like how Delgal left Thistle. Theme of leaving </3 theme of family and abandonment issues </3 So she just follows and cares after them and makes herself useful and is grateful she gets to be beside them at all. So yeah what I’m saying is being owned/belonging to someone might feel yeah like, belonging. Being One Person's. He’s seen her at her worst and most bloody and raw, and still wants her? Very comforting And especially post-canon he doesn’t need her to be witty or useful or such, he just needs her love and that’s what she has lots to give.

Do you think Falin wants to be needed… Do you think she’s a little restless if she doesn’t feel like she is, like she thinks just like Laios people might leave you behind and you never see them again.  It’s also because of what she said, that she put others before herself, that she just followed/imprinted on her parents/Laios/Marcille. She avoided conflict, she wanted to be liked and live in peace. The only times she was selfish, she hurt people (left school for Laios, sacrificed herself for them, teleported them out despite possibly hurting people on the surface), so she chooses to be selfless instead. "One of the most selfish things i've ever done was barely even for the sake of myself" - Falin and Toshiro both hah Falin is often told she doesn’t care the right way or not enough, you’re cutting classes Falin, I’m upset you left me and you don’t even seem to think it’s a big deal Falin, you shouldn’t have sacrificed yourself to save me (her not noticing her ostracization in her village wasn’t told to her but I’m including it also). And with Toshiro when considering her proposal, she was worried to accept because yeah it’s have been convenient but she wouldn’t be reciprocating his feelings in the way he wants and expected her to with what he asked of her… And she’s worried it wouldn’t be right… Bc she doesn’t care about the proposal on the same level he does….. I just think that’s neat I think that Falin caring both too little and too much, with laser focus on Laios & Marcille neglecting even herself, is a big part of her. She focuses on others and their emotional needs so so much always, babygirl be selfish for a while…

Thistle’s interaction with Laios is interesting too, especiaoly when Kaios heals him. How he looks at his shoulder, surprised and confused… Guy who's used to not having his personal needs met because he's so busy doing everything for the people he cares about receives care??? Woah that’s crazy Something something being so unused to human contact and affection that you don’t know how to process it and don’t recognize it when it happens/stares you right in the face. Thistle the Toudens are gonna make you open up ur heart to humans again on god…

What if… He doesn’t want to admit she’s not the dragon. If he admits it’s not the dragon that means giving up some control… This was not in his plan, he doesn’t know how well he can control a chimera rather than a dragon, it’s weakness it’s vulnerability it’s feeling like he’s losing his grip on everything again and thus losing his place and purpose. Hmm…

Finding yourself through someone else… Because defining yourself through others is what you’ve always done… Yeah. Yeah.

I do love it tying into Falin’s arc of finding herself. Like, she doesn’t remember her time as a chimera, she just remembers this guy she has conflicted but fond feelings of for some reason, so say if they travel post-canon, traveling with him would also be a way to figure out more how she’s feeling, and then there’s how when looking at him she gets the feeling that it’s been a long time he hasn’t lived for himself either… And like for him traveling is about seeing the world a bit too. Seeing it not as something to control or always dangerous but something to explore, and just enjoy the little things instead of worrying about the court. And just. Aghhhh. He hasn’t had someone on his side for centuries. Sighs. Of course Yaad also becomes that largely but traveling post-canon with Falin… Would love to see that in fancontent

Them growing to SEE each other, with the film in front of their eyes slowly fading away. Both of them coming out of it more genuine than they’d been even before meeting, before becoming warped, growing more comfortable in their skin and with the thought of connecting with others. It’s the mutual care <33 it’s having been on each other’s side at both your ugliest <3 Unconventional caring...

Toshiro saying "you can’t tie down a dragon" is always so good… Someone should so do stuff with that. "But you can tame it" / "I tried to once" / "but she chose to stay with me anyways"… Musical theme of How to Train your Dragon starts playing in the distance

When/after they get together, I feel like their relationship isn’t something they like to label… If anything it’s like. Partner. Or calling each other by name… Him calling her my dragon, except now it’s warm and personal would be so. Aughh <3 But then that just also makes the first time he calls her by name so huge.

Conclusion

They and their relationship is weird and unusual but that’s just how they are, and how they need to accept themselves (again: as they are) and roll with it! And make a place in the world for them anyways!

Magic forced them to be vulnerable in front of each other but it’s them who have to like… Be pushed out of their passivity and do something with that vulnerability.

BROTHERSSS THEY’RE BOTH ALL ABOUT BROTHERS. LEAVING. OUT OF TOUCH WITH REALITY. OUT OF TOUCH WITH THEMSELVES AND THEIR OWN IDENTITY. In a twisted way only the other would understand what it’s like.

Thistlin is so crazy, in humanizing you it humanizes me, in recognizing you for what you are I get more back in touch with the world again.

Flighted birds have hollow bones. With freedom there are risks and drawbacks. Thistle was Falin’s.

It’s not everyday you can have a ship where both characters are out of touch with reality and others and themselves and have this weird almost innate bond of her being compelled to protect him and care for him and him holding onto that unknowingly… Even if he didn’t need to, keeping her by himself and sitting on her while he plans and has a panic attack….. And also he owns her and robbed her of her freedom & body & full mind but she still wuvs him. Weird intimacy with the guy who horrifically changed you into something else, and yet is not even aware he has done it.

Falin loves nature and Thistle is named after a flower… Her post-canon coming across wild thistles and feeling a rush of fondness and she doesn’t know why… Thistles have thorns, but they taste sweet. Just gotta peel them off and enjoys the sweet taste of it once it’s open <3 Eat it like them honeysuckles

Slice of life 40k words thistlin sitcom I need you. Don’t make me write it myself. Sob

You are so so close sweetie…

wutiwant

I don't know what I want But I know it's not this These words don't mean nothing Once they left my lips More awake inside of my dreams Was that really you, next to me? Give me what I want, who am I supposed to please? Who am I supposed to please? Who am I? Who am I? I? Give me what I want Give me what I want

Some links, since the pair is small enough that finding stuff for them can be hard: Falin & Thistle search on pixiv Falin & Thistle search on danbooru Ao3: Thistle x Falin, Thistle & Falin Ship names: ファリシス / シスファリ. Thistlin

My own spotify playlists: Thistle & Falin, Thistle, Falin

source v

[mutantceri]

Research Note 251: Lines West

This may not pertain to our work directly, but it definitely pertains to how it affects our patients, so IMHO, it counts.

It's yearly conference time, and this year, I had to take the train home. I haven't done it in the last 3 years because I've carpooled. Well, all alone this year, planes are out of the question, and the cars in the shop. (I had a little oopsie with my tail's scales and the upholstery…)

Which brings me to my point. I never thought about how our patients would have to adapt to public transit until now. Once they're end of treatment, most would never have to take it again. But all through the process? Well, let's just use my experience and what I've observed.

So I get on the train at Penn Station. As is my new norm, I'm being stared at the entire time in the metro lounge (perks of spending my life savings on a bedroom on the train). When we go down to board, my hands have difficulty fitting the handrails to get in the car's door. I haven't grown much in height, but my 'paws' sure have.

I turn down the hall and, surprise, even with my little f'd up wings, I barely fit, sideways or frontways. I slammed my hand against the wall and frustratedly contorted myself through the door. I set down my two bags, and as I turn to sit, a cow passes behind me with her friend. A cow, at the end of her treatment. So, effectively, a cow. I poke my head back out the door and watch this poor girl try and make the turn in the hallway. Her friend ended up having to push her around the corner. Between the few words and angered moo's, I felt bad. All I had was a little discomfort, they had a whole experience. They ended up in the larger 'family' bedroom for… obvious reasons.

Once we got underway, I was able to actually enjoy the trip. The trees and towns passing by as the light flashed across my muzzle was nice. What wasn't nice, was trying to fit all 6'2" with 4ft of tail me inside this itty bitty bathroom when it was finally time. I really didn't want to know how it felt to be packaged like an action figure, but here we are. The day passed, and I started to feel a bit normal again. So, when dinner came, I decided to go eat in the dining car. I… figured out a way to sit in the booth, sideways. Due to space, everyone gets sat in every available space. The cow's friend sat across from me while she waited to take their food back to their room. They had decided to take one more trip before "they went off to live on a farm upstate." But actually, they were. That's where their end-of-care program was. A petting zoo upstate from where they lived. "Sounds perfect! So you can still go and hang out!" She excitedly nodded as her food came. "Pasta, and the double salad for my friend! Perfect!" She ran back down the car, as my steak came out. Unfortunately, I couldn't maneuver the silverware. I was really frustrated real fast, so the entire car got to watch me two-finger pinch the steak, and sling it down like a shot of whisky. Perks of having a long neck and sharp teefies. But, when the other dragon does it with fish, everyone gets hard. When I do it, I get "oh my god, what the hell?" and asked to leave. I enjoyed the night, being able to get lulled to sleep. I spread my wings out as best I could, and cuddled my tail as the red lights flashed by. Morning came too fast, and I awoke to rustling in the room beside me. The others were getting off way ahead of me. And trying to get a cow down the stairs… well… the conductor wasn't prepared for the endeavor. After shoving her out into the vestibule, they essentially had to push her back and down the stairs, holding her front hooves so her chin didn't smash the stairs. They finally got down, their bags collected, and clear of the train. They stopped to wave at the train leaving, and I really hope they saw me waving back. Even tried flapping my broken lil wing for the first time in a while. My leaving was a repeat of my entering the car. Bump here, bump there, squeeze out and nearly tripping down the stairs. But, it was worth the experience. I think we take for granted that the people who operate things like this work with therians, as we are a very fringe and unique case. Maybe one day, things will be more accessible. For most, the point is to get away from everything humans deal with, especially the discomforts of travel.

But for some, these discomforts are just as enjoyable as being themselves. And the compromise, well worth it. Maybe I'll take the train next year, too. -Ceri

(Story and character inspired by Penny and her Bovine HRT story! Find her here: https://www.tumblr.com/pennymations @pennymations https://x.com/pennscrypt)

[boxblondiecoops]

You should totally write a small thing bout the Band AU stuff, justice for the rockstar ( especially) trey and matt fr 🙏🏼 I would love to see you give your own opinions about it

-Saphari ★

As someone who literally listens to DVDA (I listen to maybe two songs) I- I'm so gay for the band AU shit. Like knowing Matt and Trey literally can sing and play shit makes me shake.

Mostly because of this. It's- you can see the energy and I need that. The neck, the hands? All it. All him.

I can not control myself, is what I'm learning. This is kinda smutty like it- it's just me being slutty for them tbh. Ok anyway idea times.

Gender neutral, mentions of slutty behavior.

✴✶✴✶

Let's see. Imma break this up the I can organize my thoughts.

If you're a fan...

So if you're just a fan, they (Matt and Trey) would both, likely, call you out if you're a "regular" at they're concert's.

And probably give you like a big hug over the railing at the like meet and greet sign bullshit after word SOULY to see you turn red and stammer.

They love you tho, I mean come on. You're adorable. Like a puppy.

If you don't understand some of the lyrics to the songs and like.. what they mean? Trey is ALL over you. Because he has that dumb stupid fucking kink.

If you have the same music taste as Matt, like Primus and shit? He's so down for anything you have to say. You could say the sky is purple and he'd look up and go "damn you right babe"

They LOVE knowing the fact they could probably tour anywhere and someone as adorable and innocent as you would just follow them and it's the exact OPPOSITE of what they're ego needs.

They give you a nickname since they don't really.... Know your name, just your face. Probably referencing the outfit you wore or your hair color or something dumb, I donno.

If you happen to bump into them just before the-the band starts? And like get blushy and explain yourself they just kinda smirk at each other and ask if you wanna hang out

It's fueling they're egos so damn much. Collectively.

Like Matt probably puts his arm around your shoulders and is like "backstage tour, just for you" and guides you back there.

And Trey's just watching you and shakes his head, tongue against cheek, because he knows it would be just so fucking easy to get you to do whatever they wanted.

But they sooooo offer to sign your chest. Or your hip. Or your thigh. Whatever, wherever.

They love it because it's like they claimed you.

Oh my god. You asking someone to take a pic of you three and it ends up being that one pic of like that lucky girl being kissed by both of them on the cheek.

Hangin out in the van with them before songs becomes a usual thing.

They also don't know your name still- anything they sign for you is made out to your nickname.

Like maybe Trey asked for it when he was drunk after a concert but he does NOT remember but he remembers moaning it as he uh relieved some stress....

And Matt definitely heard it come from your friends but he doesn't care about your name, no, he wants to hear HIS name leave your lips.

They do learn your name after a few repeats of they're concerts, they aren't total assholes.

But both are ridiculously talented. Trey's got that breath control and Matt's got those big bass hands. And Trey has the tongue technique and Matt has the ambidextrous talent. And that's all I'm saying about anything ever.

At the end of the day tho, they do find it admirable that you genuinely like them and the shit they make.

Trey can be a lil.............. self destructive when it comes to specific stuff he's not proud of, but knowing you'll give him genuinely helpful critiques makes him feel a bit more relaxed about it.

And with Matt's temper? He tried his best to keep it under control but you're like the one person he genuinely can't get mad at. Like he's tried. It doesn't work. You just make him soft.

If you're their manager...

Oh, they LOVE making it hard for you.

Like they do the most questionable shit on stage and then you have to explain it to like so many people and it basically just goes

"Who actually controls them?" "Who fucking knows. It ain't me." ".... Huh."

Example: the red carpet + dress + acid shit.

Good luck explaining that to the press....

They did try to get you to match with them that day... Maybe not the acid but they both thought you would've looked lovely in a dress like theirs.

And then you gotta yell at Trey to button up his shirt because he's being slutty for the paparazzi again and tell Matt to chill because he's about to verbally destroy a poor journalist for pronouncing a word wrong.

Also they shout out to you ALL. THE TIME.

On stage, during interviews, anywhere, everywhere.

Literally with out you, this shit can not be done. God knows they won't do it.... Maybe they will, they do kinda have control things, don't they?

Speaking of, you three bud heads a lot. Mostly because Trey writes absurd and inappropriate lyrics and Matt does his damn hardest defending him.

They get away with it tho.

Every single time.

Because they out number you so Matt will distract you while Trey cues up some puppy dog eyes because he knows he has them and they work so well on you

Also they flirt with you constantly. As a joke or for real, who knows, but they love seeing you blush and threaten to quit.

Especially Trey. He loves pushing buttons. And you're his favorite play thing. Like he loves to write dirty, fucking awful songs just to see you blush. Like he shows you one and he just goes

"Good ain't it? I was thinking about you when I wrote it."

And it's obviously about like 69ing or some shit and he has no shame in this at ALL.

And Matt loves like trying to calm you down because he knows he just has that nice soothing voice and sometimes to fuck with you he pulls you into a hug and pets you like a dog and is like

"Sshh, it's ok, baby, it's a joke. I know, he's so mean, isn't he?"

And he's all like pouty and mocking you and shit but you can't get free because the dudes fucking huge.

..... I might wanna be between them. This is such a journey for me, wow.

If something bad genuinely does come from they're teasing, they apologize so out right, serious as fuck and try to fix it the best they can.

Like they don't want you to get hurt or think they just want your body or to tease you- they do genuinely like you and find you funny as hell.

So if they fuck up and shit goes south during a concert or something, they take responsibility.

Although, with the way they can talk they're way out of shit? Psh, it rarely happens.

They do try to keep your name clean tho. They make like to fuck around and do stupid shit but they know you take your job seriously and you deserve respect for that and refuse to let you get roped into they're media fuck ups.

Also they throw you the best thank you partiest at the end of each tour concert. Like whatever you wanna do? Done. It's for you.

You planned the whole thing (the tour), had a budget, set up venues, you deserve more than a shitty lil party but fuck man. It's what they know sometimes. But it's with your best interest in mind.

They fucking LOVE you. They're just so fucking greatful for you not only helping them, but genuinely supporting them.

Speaking of- you are the one person they DO NOT prank.

If they do, it's dumb harmless shit like spraying you with silly string while you piss.

If someone does prank you or takes something too far??

Gone. Matt and Trey no longer know that person. They over stepped and gotta deal with the shit storm that's abouta knock the person's career dead.

If you're a band member...

You're fucked, bro.

The teasing from the other two scenarios gets worse because you just- you're stuck with them. All the time.

In the hotel rooms, on the bus, going to eat, sleeping, showering for fucks sake.

Privacy? Gone.

Well, not entirely. They still get you piss with out them, but they love being by you so they're glued to your hip.

You are their favorite lil band member and it shows.

They give you the best spot on the bus (the seat that doesn't hurt your ass after four minutes), you get first dibs on food during rehearsal breaks, you just-

You get the special treatment, ok?

You guys can "fit in the hotel shower and save the whales with the water you don't waste by taking three sperate showers"

Says Matt as he giggles and strips his clothes off and Trey just nods and smirks and is probably just gonna treat it like it's a casual thing friends do all the time because y'all are all adults anyway.

"It's fun." "Relax a lil." "I'll give you a shoulder massage." "I got the shampoo covered."

I think I'm just going through a lot while typing this out.

If you play the guitar and one of the strings snaps and cuts your hand, you have no idea how fast Matt while drop his bass guitar to help you out.

Trey'll make sure it doesn't happen again. And if it was the result of another band member pranking you?............. That dicks out the band. Doesn't matter. You got hurt, this isn't a joke. No one's laughing.

If it scars, the boys make a habit of kissing it as an apology. They're sweethearts when they want to be.

Trey probably lays awake at night thinking about how often you get hurt now and wants to wrap you up in bubble wrap. He thought you needed stitches.

Matt just double- triple checks the strings of any instrument you play before your allowed to touch it. He hated seeing you like that, it scared him.

If you play the drums, Matt and Trey will show you videos all the time of cool stick tricks and has if you can do them.

Also one of them makes a joke about you doing that to his dick but IDK who. You decide.

It you sit down with Trey and help him write a song he just gives you like heart eyes the entire time and he genuinely can't stop looking at you.

God forbid you have a cute mannerism when you write tho, he'll giggle and think about it for days. Literally.

And he always goes to Matt and is like "did you know they fucking do *insert thing* when they focus?" And he just sighs like "yes dipshit. This is the seventh time you've told me."

But Matt also hits him with the "dude I said my finger hurt and they kissed it for me" and sticks his tongue out at him.

Trey was pouty for the rest of the day.

They turn into idiots. Like puppies fighting for attention.

The way they CONSTANTLY make sure credit is given where it's deserved.

If you write a set of song lyrics to go into Trey's song? Guess who's singing it~ You are. Because you deserve the spot light.

Oh you wrote a riff for Matt? Shit, baby, it's yours now. Play it at the next concert and tear that shit up.

They also constantly talk about you during interviews and how greatful they are to have you and how you help make the creative process so much easier.

Don't imagine laying between them on the hotel bed and just whispering and giggling and kicking your feet at 3 am while the others are asleep and eventually you guys fall asleep all snuggled up.

These boys get handsy tho watch oouuuttt.

If you wear something revealing they just- they can't help it.

Someone's gonna call you pretty while the other just nods and bites his lip.

Compliments THROWN at you from across the room, dude. Literally.

They work really well off of each other so they rarely like fight for you.

Oh!! Oh they always go to you for help with naming songs and albums and album pics and shit.

-

Lowkey ashamed of myself because I feel like I could write more- I'm just blanking. Anyway @saphiari here ya go!! My shitty lil thoughts~

[thechosenstories]

Playing N “Traffic “

Part 7

I left Yahli asz with Pedro doing god knows what . I really wonder where the dogs be when she be asz up face down. I laughed to myself in the back of the taxi . I needed a drink , a lil pick me up to ease the pain.. I really just wanted to hear some music , sway my hips and reminisce . I hated that I didn’t have my man. I hated that I couldn’t have him fck the pain away like he’s done so many times before . I honestly can’t remember a time when I didn’t have him. The taxi driver clearing his throat bought me out my daze as i collected my bag and paid my fee . Stepping out into the warm breeze I made my way into the semi crowded bar looking around before finding a seat at the bar . As the bartender memorized my poison a dark skinned man who smelled like bad decisions and a good time took a seat next to me before turning to me and smiling .first thing I noticed was his beautiful white teeth and cinnamon stained breath as he asked how I was doing. “ I’m good thank you “, I replied and took a sip of my drink squeezing my thighs together to stop whatever this was I was feeling from continuing. “ I’ve never seen u here before you visiting? “ he said while looking at me so intense I was convinced he could read my thoughts. “ business”, I said quickly turning my head and giving my attention to the clasp on my bracelet unnecessarily. “ can I get you another drink he asked,” contemplating longer than I Intended he chuckled and started a tab. I enjoyed his company. We laughed spoke about movies and music we even danced a song or two. He was a great distraction. Looking at the clock I knew I needed to get back . In the morning I needed to be alert. Awake and coherent. I needed this fckin money . Standing up to retrieve my coat and purse I stumbled bridging the space that separated us . He quickly leaned forward to break my fall and in the process grazed my exposed thigh with his hand. I couldn’t tell if it was the liquor or the lack of sex in my life but the heat that radiated through my spine I knew I had to get the fck outta here and fast. Speed walking to the door I made my way outside and only then did I exhale. Pulling up the ride share app I secured a ride and waited in the brisk air. Scrolling through Instagram I felt a strong hand cover my mouth and before I had the chance to fight . Darkness.

“ wake up , rise and shine” , I heard as I struggled to open my eyes. Trying to gain focus to see where the fck I was I blinked excessively until the light didn’t feel like salt in an open wound anymore. “ whe-, where am I??” I said panic setting in as I looked around. “ The real question is WHERE TF IS MY MONEY” . His voice roared and echoed in this big empty room causing the liquor from earlier to sneak its way back up my throat . “ Your nicca owe me 150 stacks” Where is he???” He asked standing in front of me with his hands joined at his groin. 150???? I repeated louder than I intended to. He simply replied” interest” . “Tye is in Jail, 5 years, but I will get you your money hopefully by tomorrow “. Noticing my hands and feet weren’t bound I attempted to stand up. “ I wouldn’t do that if I were you”, I heard a familiar voice say as I whipped my head to the left I couldn’t fkin believe my eyes. Mr. Nice guy from the bar stood there looking at me with a grin and an AR-15 in his hand. The mofo had the nerve to wink at me! “ what a shame a man leaving you all alone to cover his debts . Where I’m from we take care of our women . This is a man’s game no room for no woman . You should be cooking and cleaning , but what do I know ? You Americans know it all right? He laughed causing my earlier distraction to laugh as well. “ Three days” if you don’t have my money by then , interrupting him I attempted to finish his sentence , “ you’ll dead me. “ I said. “No. How would I profit from that? I’m going to sell you”. He blurted out very nonchalantly like this mofo ain’t just say he would sell me. Before I could gather my thoughts I saw a flash and realized my picture was taken. “ for insurance , or pre-bids . Either or , he said as him and his goon turned to walk out the building leaving me as if I was where I belonged.

To be continue do

[cacoetheswriting]

a saturday ritual

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!Reader Warnings: mild swearing, a single parent home, mentions of death (death of a parent & a significant other), mentions of alcohol consumption, and a lil pining, but mainly just FLUFF Word Count: 5.6k Request: anonymous: “I love your Spencer Reid fics! I was wondering if you could write something with Spencer and a single mom reader?? Thanks”

A/N: a very brief summary: spencer is infatuated by his new neighbour, a single mom to a five year old boy who likes to wreak havoc in their shared corridor. also, this one turned out to be a lot A LOT longer than i initially thought it would be but honestly i had so much fun writing this fic, it really could have gone on foreverrrrr ENJOY and as always let me know what you think ! 

-

For about a week after you moved into the apartment across from his, Spencer wondered what would be an acceptable excuse to go introduce himself.

Having been away on a case those first couple of days, he missed the initial opportunity. Later, his colleagues told him that was enough of a justification. Much later. Too late. Now the moment has passed, and he wondered whether pretending he needed salt or sugar was a good enough pretext. Lame.

He's caught glimpses of you out in the shared hall returning from the grocery store, or by the post box downstairs collecting your mail. Glimpses. Passing fleeting seconds. Never enough time to say hello, however enough to notice you were really beautiful.

Also enough to notice the little boy constantly tugging at your clothes. From what he could see, the resemblance was uncanny. The boy was your son no doubt. And given that Spencer hasn’t seen another adult around, he came to a conclusion you were a single mom.

It was now Saturday morning. Saturday. A day he usually spent grading papers and preparing class materials for the week ahead. And this weekend began no differently.

With a cup of coffee, he sat at his desk and began working away when an odd droning sound caught his attention. Buzzing. Yet it wasn’t mechanical, no. The peculiar hum echoing outside seemed more manmade. Childlike.

Yes, the brunette doctor deducted, the buzzing sounds he was currently hearing were most definitely airplane noises made by a kid.

At first, he decided to pay no attention to what was going on outside his door. He felt bad enough for not going to introduce himself, so he wasn't about to become the mean man from across the hall who gave out about playing children.

After taking a sip of his coffee, he proceeded to bury his head in the papers scattered across his desk. The sound wasn’t too loud meaning it wasn't a big distraction. He could continue to get his work done despite the clatter.

It was then he heard your voice for the first time. The melodic tone drew him in even more than the buzzing echo. 

Dropping his pen, he instantly got to his feet and ambled towards the front door - now was his chance. 

His hand hovered over the knob, but before he got a chance to do anything, he heard a slam. The noises stopped. Silence once again filled the hall outside.

The hazel-eyed doctor felt slightly foolish. He didn't really know what he wanted to accomplish by springing up so fast. Even if he managed to catch you, what was he going to say? I heard your voice, and wanted to see you. Stupid. You would think he's absolutely clinically insane. I heard you out here, and wanted to finally introduce myself. Better. Although still a little weird.

With a sigh, he sunk back in his seat and continued with his usual Saturday routine. Hoping he would get another chance.

Sunday he heard the buzzing again. Only this time he was walking up the stairs, returning from a late afternoon stroll. 

Once he reached his floor he came face to face with the source of the airplane noises currently echoing throughout the building.

Spencer thought the young boy couldn't be more than five. He was wearing a jumper that was clearly too big on him. Probably one of yours, Spencer thought. Arms spread out by his side, the oversized garment covering his hands in full, the kid ran circles up and down the corridor. A wide grin on his face. The hoodie dragging on the floor collecting dustballs.

Mixed with the noises was the sound of your laughter, coming from inside your apartment. The honey-like harmony was like music to Spencer's ears. A small smile crept up on his features; what the hell was going on with him? How could he possibly feel an attraction to someone he’s never met, held a conversation with.

The boy stopped abruptly when he noticed Spencer. His arms fell, and he ran into your apartment. Vanished as if he’d seen a ghost. Although, he must have been waiting, looking out for when the coast was clear again, because as soon as Spencer closed his own door the buzzing resumed.

It continued on for hours.

Having spent time with JJ’s boys, Spencer was no stranger to the amount of energy little kids possessed. Often when playing he would be the one to grow tired first. He would be the one that needed a break while they continued to wreak havoc. Therefore the noises didn't bother him. He went about his evening, subconsciously listening out for your voice.

The next few days were quiet.

Not like he spent a lot of time at home anyway. Between his classes and his unpredictable work hours with the FBI, he only went back to his apartment to sleep. And that was usually really late at night.

Thursday evening, after a surprisingly short day, he was fumbling through his bag in search for his key when the sudden urge to go and finally say hello came over him. He knocked on your door and instantly heard shuffling inside. There was no turning back now.

Soon you were standing in front of him. Subtly, he looked you up and down. His grip on the strap of his bag tightening. Wow, you were even more beautiful than the glimpses he caught. 

That came off rather stalker-ish, he took a mental note.

“Hello. Can I help you?” You asked while leaning against the frame, one hand holding the door so not let the brunette stranger see inside.

“Hi, I’m Spencer. I live across the hall.” He introduced himself, examining your face for any sort of reaction. Completely blank. “Can I help you?” You repeated. The brunette doctor was slightly taken aback by your cold shoulder. He pursed his lips into a thin smile. “No. I just wanted to introduce myself and say that if you needed anything-” “Thanks.” You cut him off and closed the door in his face.

Spencer took a step back. That definitely didn’t go as he thought it would. He rationalised your behaviour as a response to his tardiness with regards to greeting you and your son in the building. Although he still couldn’t believe you were so, for lack of a better word, bitchy.

Glancing one last time at your door, he unlocked his own and stepped inside. At least now he could say he tried introducing himself. He tried being the friendly neighbour.

Saturday arrived once again in the blink of an eye. This particular morning, the hazel-eyed doctor had an abundance of papers to grade. He made himself comfortable and got to work.

Unlike last week, when the airplane noises didn't bother him, today he found them to be quite irritating. He would reread the same sentences at least twice before he even began to understand them. Not ideal.

Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his already messy curls and let out a deep sigh. He really needed to concentrate, but he also didn't want to be a dick about it. Possibly making the already tense situation even worse.

Quickly, and rather impulsively, he gathered his things. He put on his shoes, threw his bag over his shoulder, and walked out into the hall.

This time the little boy was sitting on the floor in the middle of the corridor. In his hands he gripped two toy planes, flying them around in the air. The boy looked up at Spencer and smiled, but continued to play. Spencer smiled back while locking his door, and proceeded to make his way down the stairs.

Yes. He felt good about his decision to work somewhere else for the day.

That evening, as he was about to reheat some leftovers, there was a knock on the door. It was faint. So faint in fact he wasn't sure if he heard it at first. For a split second he hesitated, his attention now focused solely on the door. Another knock. Louder this time. He hurried over and opened it to greet the mysterious guest.

You.

Dressed in an oversized band t-shirt, one Spencer didn't recognise, and a pair of biker shorts - all covered in spatters of colourful paint. Your hair was up in a bun with loose strands escaping by your face. Spencer also noticed a yellow paint smudge on your left cheek, and white speckles on your forehead. Despite the dishevelled attire, you looked considerably more relaxed than the day he went to introduce himself.

“I guess I should start off by apologising.” You began in that melodic tone he first heard last week. “When you came by, I was really rude. I'm not usually like that, I swear. It’s just I have a lot on my plate right now. Benny’s grandparents, from his dad’s side, are giving me grief for moving so far away from them. Even though it’s only an extra twenty minute drive. But you know, they are Benny’s grandparents and I love them. They’re family. Anyway, minutes before you knocked I was on the phone with them, again about the same thing, and the conversation put me in a foul mood. Which really isn’t an excuse for the way I acted towards you so, yeah, inexcusable. I’m sorry.”

The hazel-eyed doctor couldn't help but lightly smirk. He’s never met anyone that rambled nearly as much as him. He’s learned more about you in the last ten seconds than he did the whole time you lived across from him.

“Okay. Okay, you’re smiling. That’s a good sign, right?” You brought your hands to your face, gently pressing your fingertips to the corners of your mouth as if to cover the embarrassment you were no doubtly feeling right now. “Because I did actually come here to invite you over for pizza. A truly lame attempt to try show you that I am in fact a good person and not that bitch you met.”

“I love pizza.” Spencer simply stated causing a sigh of relief to escape your lips.

“Great. That’s great.” A warm expression graced your facial features. “Oh, I’m Y/N by the way.” You were about to reach out your hand when you noticed the colourful paint covering your fingers. “Mom life.” You joked, cheeks flushing a soft pink, and let your arms fell back down to your side.

You patiently waited for Spencer to grab his keys and phone before making your way across the hall.

Your apartment was slightly larger than his, two bedrooms, and the decor also couldn’t have been more different to his own. Colourful, vibrant, homey. Those would be the words he’d use to describe what he was witnessing.

In the middle of the living space stood a dark green couch. Draped over it were numerous blankets, hiding underneath them were mismatched throw pillows. On the coffee table lay a stack of books, surrounded by children’s toys. The wall behind the television was decorated from corner to corner with various sized frames. Inside those frames were different movie posters, photos, random prints, and what he speculated was some of Benny’s artwork.

He was in awe as to how fast you managed to make this place feel like your own.

“Make yourself comfortable. I’m gonna quickly wash my hands to try get this pesky paint off, and then we can order food.” With that you disappeared leaving Spencer alone to examine the rest of your place.

His attention was caught by a not so white bedsheet, opposite end of the living space. It was covered in paint. On top of the sheet, stood an old pickle jar that was filled with water. It held numerous brushes. Next to it was a plastic box with tubes of acrylic paint with every colour a person could possibly dream of.

Spencer took a couple of steps towards the bedsheet. He didn't want to seem nosey, he just wanted to get a better look at the currently drying canvases. A distinct pitter of small feet caused him to stand up straight, frozen, as if he was caught doing something illegal.

“A-are, are you the pizza guy?” Benny asked curiously, tilting his little head to one side.

“No uhm, I’m Spencer. I live across the hall.” He explained. “Your mom invited me.” That felt like an important thing to add.

Benny sized him up. His eyes narrowed, lips pursed into a serious pout, nose scrunched. He crossed his little arms as if he was daring Spencer. It was rather silly, this five year old trying to intimidate a grown man, and yet the brunette doctor began to feel nervous. He didn't understand why. He was usually really good with kids.

“Benny, bunny, quit trying to scare our guest.” You returned, grabbing your sons attention and breaking the odd charade. Benny’s gaze traveled to you. “Go do a little clean up of your toys please. I saw those planes your pops bought you in the bathtub. That’s not their place, is it?” Benny shook his head and ran off with a loud chuckle.

You glanced at Spencer and shot him a kind smile.

“Sorry about that. He gets the whole intimidation thing after his dad.” “That’s okay.” Spencer replied. You could tell he was being nice, just like he could tell Benny’s dad was a touchy subject. Spencer wasn’t about to make it worse. It wasn’t his place. And you didn't know him well enough yet to spill the secrets of your past relationship. Therefore, the two of you stood completely still for an awkward second just looking at one another.

“Would you like anything to drink?” You asked, breaking the silence. “We have orange juice, water, or mom juice.” “Mom juice?” Spencer raised an intrigued brow. “Wine.” You explained giggling. Spencer nodded his head with a smile. “I’ll have some mom juice then.” “Good choice.”

As he sat down on the couch, you receded into the kitchen, returning shortly with two plastic cups in hand. “I forgot to ask which you’d prefer, red or white, so I brought a glass of each. Whatever you won’t have, I’ll drink.” You reached out your hands. Spencer took the cup with red wine, his fingers brushing gently against yours in the process. Spark. No, he thought. He was imagining things.

Unknown to the brunette doctor, you felt it too. The blood rushed to your face for a split second as you nervously cleared your throat before taking a sip of your wine.

“You have to forgive the plastic cups. One of Benny’s latest favourite activities is pretending to be an airplane and breaking everything in sight, so I locked all my nicer glassware away.” You explained while elegantly plopping down next to Spencer. “Plastic cups are nice. It’s like a picnic.” God, how dumb. He mentally smacked himself. Idiot.

However, your light giggle indicated you didn’t seem to mind. Your eyes widened a little, and he could have sworn they were glistening. “Well thank you Spencer. You’re the first person to say something nice rather than commenting on my parenting style.”

It was the first time you said his name out loud. And in that melodic tone of yours, it echoed inside his brain like a song. Leaving a permanent mark.

“My mom thinks I need to discipline him more, but no-one ever said it would be this hard alone.” You babbled on, completely oblivious to the silent commotion currently going on inside Spencer’s mind. “Benny’s dad was the bad cop per se, I’m no good at it. My son can cause all the trouble in the world, and still all it would take is for him to look up at me with those bunny eyes and all is good again. Probably because he has his dad’s eyes...” You stopped yourself, and chewed down on your bottom lip.

“Sorry.” You fluttered your lashes at the man sitting next to you. “I’ve been told I talk too much.”

Spencer brought the cup to the brim of his mouth and chuckled. “Don’t be. I’ve been told the exact same thing.” He took a sip of his wine.

“I find that hard to believe. You’ve barely squeezed in four full sentences these last fifteen minutes, while I just go on and on and on.”

“Give it time. I guarantee you’ll be sick of me by the end of the night, and I will never get invited over for pizza again.”

Without thinking, you reached out and placed your hand on his forearm. The air hitched in Spencer’s throat as his eyes briefly traveled down to where you were gently grasping. “Consider this your weekly invite.” You said in a silvery tone and proceeded to give his arm a gentle squeeze.

Just like that, Spencer’s Saturday routine was richer by one more item. Perhaps the most important item on the list. Pizza at the apartment across from his.

Truthfully, it was his favourite time of the week. 

During those weekly visits, Spencer quickly learned a lot about you. Where you grew up, any likes and dislikes, hobbies, facts about your family. He learned that you used to teach art at a high school; a job you loved but ultimately decided to leave after you became a single parent. Now, you work at an art gallery only a few blocks from here.

Spencer evened out the scale by sharing his own stories and fables. You were quite surprised to hear about the numerous doctorates he possessed, the work he did, some of the shit he went through, and honestly just how smart he actually was.

Each time you met, you each discovered something new about one another. Something that made you seem even more interesting in the other persons eyes. 

Although, an unspoken agreement was in place, the topic of Benny’s dad was off limits. For now.

When Benny got comfortable having Spencer around, the weekly pizza routine evolved into other activities involving you and your son. Movie nights. Walks to the park. Playground visits. Home-cooked dinners at yours. Puzzle afternoons at his. Spencer taught Benny and you magic tricks, while you taught Spencer how to paint.

Soon enough you were exchanging keys and before either of you even realised, six months passed.

Spencer spent Saturday morning preparing class materials for the week ahead, as usual. Through the thin walls he could hear unmistakable airplane noises and patter of feet running up and down the corridor. He smiled to himself. The echo was a pleasant reminder it was only a few hours until he would see you for pizza.

See during these last few months, Spencer fell head over heels for you. He fell hard. The ever present smile on circling your already perfect features when he was around, your honey-like laughter, your lavender scent, the way you were with Benny, the way you always watched the hazel-eyed doctor with such great interest whenever he broke out into an obscure fact.

The more time he spent with you, the more his love grew.

Spencer knew that he could never act on it. If he was a selfish man perhaps, but he wasn’t. He would never put his own needs ahead of your friendship as it wasn’t just you and him in this scenario. He had to consider Benny. What if the relationship went south and he was just another man to break both of your hearts? No. He’d never act on his feelings. There was way too much at stake.

Though he still considered himself lucky. Having a place in your life, being your friend. That’s lucky.

“Right on time as always.” You beamed as Spencer stumbled inside, closing your apartment door behind him. He ambled towards the coach and sat in his now usual spot - the left corner, with you in the right.

“Where’s Benny?” He asked, looking around for the little monster. “Benny is tucked away in his bed. He kindly requested a slice of pizza to be brought to him once it arrives so it’s really just you and me tonight. Hope that’s still okay with you.” “I mean, yeah, I guess that’s fine.” Spencer teased, shrugging his shoulders.

You rolled your eyes at him, but didn't say anything else on the matter. Odd, the brunette doctor thought. You always had a witty comeback. It was one of the many things he loved about you.

“I’m sure you could tell me how many pizza nights we had exactly, so I took the liberty of ordering our food already.” You said with a small smile.

“Thirty-two pizza nights.” Spencer stated simply. You furrowed your brows. “That doesn't right.” “Taking into account every Saturday we spent together, plus pizza on your birthday, Memorial Day, and the other few evenings we didn't feel like cooking, it adds up to thirty-two.”

“Holy shit. Maybe we should start ordering salads.” Spencer chuckled at your response. “Pizza is a lot better.” He pointed out and you couldn't argue with that logic.

Food arrived shortly after. You briskly took two slices over to Benny on a plastic plate, checking up on him in the process. While you were gone Spencer chose a movie. One that you would both equally enjoy.

You sat down again, only this time you sat beside him in what is usually Benny’s spot. Shoulder to shoulder. Spencer froze completely. Thinking if he’d move even an inch, it would scare you off and you’d shift away. You reached for a blanket and draped it over the two of you before glancing up at the hazel-eyed doctor.

“Is this okay?” Contrary to the usual melodic tone of your voice, the question came out quite croaky. Nervous. He met your gaze, losing himself completely in the colour of your eyes, and slowly nodded his head.

He’s thought about kissing you before and always managed to fight the urge. Although, in all the time the two of you spent together he was never situated this close to you. Your face was a mere few inches away from his. Oh fuck. 

The moment lasted only about half a second, but to Spencer it felt like time stood still. Honestly, if you hadn’t turned away to start the movie, he probably would have lost the inner battle. He wouldn't have been able to hold himself back. He would have kissed you. Maybe he was a selfish man after all.

Swallowing the growing lump in his throat, Spencer also turned his attention to the tv. Without breaking your eyes from the screen ahead, you handed him a slice of pizza which he took gratefully. The two of you ate in silence. Enjoying the movie, but mainly each other’s presence.

The brunette man couldn't place the exact moment you cuddled yourself up to him. One minute he peeked to ask you a question about something that now seemed unimportant and you were just there, your head resting against his chest.

A smile circled his lips. He could definitely get used to this.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m completely lost.” You mumbled. “And that says a lot considering I’ve seen this movie before. I didn’t understand it then, I still don’t understand it now.”

“If you've seen this before, why did you let me choose it?” Spencer asked. You tilted to look up at him. “Because I thought you’d be able to explain it to me. You know, using that big genius brain of yours.”

Spencer chuckled. He lifted his hand and began to gently caress the top of your head. “What if I tell you my theory and it ruins the movie for you?” He asked, but you waved your hand dismissing his question. “What if you tell me and it improves the movie?”

“That’s a fair point I guess. Okay.” He continued to run his fingers through your hair as he began to explain. “The movie seems confusing because it’s actually reverse order storytelling. It kind of works its way from the end to the beginning through a series of flashbacks and flash-forwards. Therefore, as you’re watching, you get a view into Lenny’s diminishing state of mind.”

You raised a brow. “Are you sure you haven't seen ‘Memento’ before?”

He raised his hands palms up. “I swear this is my first time.” He pledged, corners of his mouth twisting into a smile. “Hmm...” “I’m just extremely observant. Plus you know I love puzzles, and this movie is like one giant puzzle.” He continued. 

“Let’s pretend I believe you Spencer.” You said squinting at him, before turning back to look at the tv. The brunette man smirked under his breath. His hand once again tangling itself in your hair.

The sound of a delicate tiptoe approaching the living room caused you to sit up and reach for the remote. Although to Spencer’s surprise you didn't move away from him. Instead, you leaned your body into his side so that if you wanted, you could place your head back on his shoulder.

“Mommy.” Benny muttered. With a little hoist from you, he scrambled into your lap. “Mommy.” “What’s up bunny? Mommy was just finishing a movie, and then I would have come check on you.”

Benny shook his head. He gripped onto the collar of your t-shirt with one hand, the other travelled to your face. He pushed himself into you, angling your head so that he could whisper something in your ear.

Spencer watched as the smile on your face widened at whatever it was Benny said. The young boy pulled away, and waited for your response. “I don’t know kiddo. Would you like me to ask him?” Benny nodded, also now grinning.

“Spencer?” You turned to address the brunette man. “What is your opinion on pillow forts?” He saw the sparkle in your eyes and he couldn't help but smile. “I love pillow forts.”

Within the hour, the living space was completely transformed into a squashy soft kingdom. Benny joyfully screamed that this was the best pillow fort ever as he crawled inside, teddybear in hand.

You nudged Spencer’s arm before staring up at him. “Thank you.” Your eyes locked as your hand slid into his with ease. Fingers instantly intertwining together like magnets. 

“We haven't done this since his dad passed. I’ve suggested it many many times, but he uhm, Benny never wanted to.” Pause. The expression on your face dulled. Mouth quivering as you spoke. “Ehm, his dad was a pilot hence my little guys obsession with planes. He died really suddenly nineteen months ago. Benny was so so small. And I don’t really know how much he remembers of his dad, I mean I tell him stories all the time and so do his grandparents, it’s just hard to tell sometimes if uhm... Pillow forts were like their thing, so after his dad I think they were too painful for Benny.”

Spencer gave your hand a gentle squeeze. You were both now standing toe to toe, facing each other fully.

“I guess Benny just needed to feel ready again. Happy even. So what I’m trying to say is, Spencer, thank you. Truly. Thank you for brining joy back into his life.” You hesitated, biting down on your bottom lip.

“Thank you for brining joy back into both of our lives.” 

It meant a lot to Spencer that you finally felt comfortable enough to share more details about Benny’s dad. He never wanted to replace the man, he wouldn't dream of it. All he really wanted since the day he met you was to make you a little bit happier, and to hear he was succeeding warmed his heart.

You immediately noticed how his face lit up ever so slightly. A miniature smile circled your lips. “I just hope we didn't obscure your life too much these last few months.”

Using his free hand, he placed the loose strands of your hair behind your ear. Gently caressing your cheek with his thumb in the process. “Are you kidding? There is nothing I would rather be doing. I love spending time with you guys.”

Your eyes sparked with admiration.

“I love our pizza nights, overanalysing different movies with you, listening to Benny’s rendition of ‘In Summer’ from ‘Frozen’. Heck, I love that I now know what ‘Frozen’ is.” You chuckled as he carried on. “I love painting with you, and how you tell me I’ve gotten a lot better at it even though we both know that’s not true. I love that you get a long with my friends. I love that I can take you and Benny over to JJ’s for playdates. Surprisingly, I love playdates. I love how you let me read to Benny when you’re cooking. I love that he loves when I read to him. And of course I love your cooking.”

Tears formed in your eyes, blurring your vision. Tears of happiness. Tears of joy. The man standing in front of you was saying all of the right things, and he didn't even know it. Or maybe he did. You couldn't really tell. The intense emotions circling through your mind right now made it hard to think.

Spencer continued. Now that he started, he couldn't stop. He wanted you to know all of these things. He wanted you to know how he felt. 

“I love when we go grocery shopping all together, and how you give out to me for my bad diet habits. I love how that always makes Benny laugh. I love how you framed a photo of the three of us and hung it up on your wall, don’t think I didn't notice. I love building lego sets with Benny. I love how the two of you call me when I’m away on a case to make sure I’m okay and tell me about your day. I love the sound of your voice. I love... I love Benny.”

He paused for a split second.

“And I especially love you.”

Tiny salty droplets trailed down your cheeks as you fluttered your lashes. “You love me?” You asked quietly. Spencer nodded his head. “I do. I’m in love with you Y/N.”

You didn't say anything. 

Spencer thought he was done for when you let go of his hand. He thought he ruined it. His nose twitched. His stomach dropped. He was about to apologise, say that if you didn't feel the same way it was definitely more than okay. He just wanted you in his life. But he didn't get a chance too.

Instead, your hand was now holding his face. Your lips attached themselves to his in one breath. He instantly noted how they were softer than he could have ever possibly imagined.

You tasted like coconut chapstick. Like bliss, delight. Instinctively, Spencer’s arm wrapped itself around your waist pulling you as close as humanely possible. He could feel your heart beating in rhythm with his. As your hand tangled itself in his curly hair, he wished this moment could last forever.

When you pulled away breathless, your cheeks were flushed pink. You briefly bit down on your bottom lip before once again meeting Spencer’s inviting gaze - his arm still holding you in a tight embrace. 

“Tell me again.” You whispered. Spencer’s lips circled into a warm smile. “I love you.” He declared. You slowly traced along his jawline with your fingertips. A bright bream circling your features. “I love you too Spencer.”

The second those words filled the air, he picked you up by the waist and spun you around. A carefree shriek slipped out from your mouth. He set you down and gently grabbing your face, he hauled you in for another kiss.

“You have no idea how long I have wanted to tell you all of those things.” He muttered against your lips. His stubble grazing your chin.“How long I’ve been wanting to kiss you.” You giggled.

“Maybe one day you can enlighten me, but I think now we better crawl into that fort as it is way too quiet in there. Suspiciously quiet.” 

Spencer laughed. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” The two of you broke apart. Hand in hand, you joined Benny inside the pillow kingdom. 

The boy was tangled up in a fuzzy blanket, slowly drifting asleep. He cuddled himself up to you the second your back hit the ground. You kissed the top of his head before turning to Spencer.

“Do you want to finish the movie?” You asked quietly.

“It’s okay.” He effortlessly squeezed his arm behind your neck. This allowed you to snuggle in closer and rest against him. “We can just lay here.” “What a perfect plan.”

The smile on your face caused Spencer's heart to skip a beat. He placed a kiss to your temple feeling 100% content.

It was Saturday morning. Saturday. A day Spencer used to spend grading papers and preparing class materials for the week ahead. Now, thanks to the woman sleeping peacefully beside him, his Saturdays looked much different.

Gradually, you stirred next to him. Eyes fluttering open as a yawn escaped your mouth. “Mhmm, good morning.” “Good morning beautiful.”

“How much time do you think we have?” You asked while stretching. “I would say,” Spencer glanced at the imaginary watch on his wrist. “, about five minutes.” He looked down at you and began slowly leaning in. You couldn't help but let out a soft giggle. “Let’s make ‘em count.”

A clatter of fast approaching feet caused you to halt right as your lips were about to touch. Spencer groaned knocking his head back against the wooden headboard. 

“Your calculations were a little off Dr. Reid.” You teased sitting up as he ran his fingers through his ruffled hair. He looked at you once again with the kindest smile. You loved that smile. 

“My apologies Mrs. Reid.” He pecked your lips just as the door flew open, your kids bursting through.

-

masterlist

spencer reid taglist: @no-honey-no​, @calm-and-doctor​, @idroppedmygourd​​

[laurelier]

Falling. Into a half-empty glass.

Or: I’m nothing but a bitch for falling that’s all I am. Part 1.

We’re all by this point aware of the fact that everybody’s favorite shiny-shirted chaos demon Harry Styles has been teasing us with a mini baby mashup of Two Ghosts and Falling on his rainbow-bunny-bedecked tour. Yes. We know this we have all lost our collective shit about it yes. Like god, it just sounds so pretty, here have a link to a video of him singing it yep no problem ur welcome don’t mention it GOD I would do so many dirty things for a studio recording of this.

(x, x, x)

I have written this long as all sweaty hell post today because listen ok I fucking LOVE that he fucking did this. That he’s connecting these two songs like he is. Because maybe he’s just doing it because it sounds nice, maybe he’s doing it because he’s Harry Styles and he can do what he well pleases thank u very much, maybe it’s because the two songs are about the same/a similar interpersonal conflict, maybe maybe sure any of that yeah—but I also think you can absolutely damn well read both of these songs as being about two sides of himself, rather than (or in addition to) the couples disagreement thing we generally see in them, and THAT makes this really exciting to me.

I’ve had this thought for a while now and always kind of felt like I was. Reaching a bit? So I just kind of. Kept it to myself and let myself feel my own little feely feelings about it. But then H decided to link these two songs on MAIN????? on TOUR?????? with a stunning a cappella angel harmony to boot (sott anyone. only angel anyonE) and—I lost it, I’m loooosssinnggggg it, I still feel like this is a reach tbh but I'm. Losing It. And really, to be fair, I think pretty much all of H’s songs are about approx one thousand different things at the same time, and that’s probably what I love most about them, but to me at least—I don’t know. Regardless of what Harry actually means in these two songs, Falling especially and also parts of TG feel so much to me like what it is to meet yourself, realize you’ve badly mistreated yourself, feel so sorry for that, not know how to fix it, not know if you like who you’re becoming or who you’ve been—I just. Feeeeeeeel all of that. So strongly here. And then he went and ACTUALLY CONNECTED them and I just. It's so much. It's so so so so. Much.

Under the cut if you wanna get real emo with me about the ghosts inside our heads and splash around in some rainbow rabbitholes. Sound weird? Good. Let’s get wet.

I try to talk a little about chords even tho I can’t read music

This wee inkling that Falling and Two Ghosts can be interpreted to be about internal exploration if you just commit to a little bit of brainpayne began with me noticing that Harry sings the whole entirety of Falling, with all its longing and all its regret and all its paaiaaaaaaiinnnn just belts that shit out and it breaks my heart, and then—he gives us a lovely three-note riff at the end that we haven’t heard at that tempo nor featured that clearly anywhere else in the song. It’s similar to what he does in SOTT and then repeats in Only Angel. All three riffs have different notes, but a similar rhythm—just mirrored, going up in Falling instead of down like in OA and SOTT, and the off-beat pauses are in kind of complementary places too, like. It’s long been my thought that in Falling he’s not only echoing but mirroring the deconstructed chord thing that he did in these other two cryptic if you squint you can see gender here and also life is really hard songs, and the whole recent Falling mashup thing clued me in to the fact that he kind of halfway does it in Two Ghosts too (just on guitar, like, the beginning **~badada*~? Even though it’s not an exact match bc there’s some variation in it after the fact, idk). It just. It kills me. It absolutely kills me. I get so excited about this that I don’t know if any of this is gonna make sense I’m just this I’m just

—but I'll try I’ll try I’ll do my lil pepe silvia best.

I’m not like. Functionally, I’m not very musically literate, but the notes of the riffs are:

Falling: G# F# E (down)

Only Angel/SOTT: A C D (up)

And for good measure even though I don’t think the whole riff thing is quite as yoda voice strong with this one Two Ghosts: F# Ab B (up)

Really though what I recommend is to listen to the beginning of Two Ghosts and then the end of Falling and then the beginning of Only Angel and then the end of SOTT in that order and just. Get back to me on that. Tell me these little deconstructed chords don’t sound like sisters to you.

I loooooooooOOOOOve the idea that H might use themes in the actual sound of his music thehillsaaarreeeaalliiiiiiveeeeee to hint at thematic parallels in his lyrics, and idk this might just be utter reach for the stars BS coming from somebody who has listened to both of these albums an alarming number of times, but. Either way, it gives me a starting point from which to think about possible connections between these songs, and doing that’s allowed me to explore a lot of what H’s work means to me. So: ba da daaaaaa let’s get into it.

Who tf is this man talking to anyway

Like I mentioned above, I like to listen to H’s love songs and try to see if there’s anything in them that lets me imagine they could be about internal life, different pieces of him—like, listen to him as if he’s singing to his own fragmented self, to a cast of different characters inside him—because I’ve found that so doing helps me reflect a lot of my own feelings about my own self into a place where I can see and feel them. Processing, etc. I find that doing this with Falling in particular is really really powerful (and sad be warned) so let’s take a look at the lyrics super close it'll be real quick promise just to like. Set the foundation.

For this to make any sense at all, imagine there’s two separate characters/Harrys in this song, one on the inside and one on the outside (two harrys two ghosts we see where I am going here yes showing my hand), which is a breeze if we’ve read @ialwaysknewyouwerepunk’s Only Angel and She analyses. Which is something we should all do. Right now if we have not. Yes go do that come back when you’re done.

TLDR: I’m reading Falling as being sung to us by the externally visible representation of the narrator of this song (from this point on, referred to as Harry) and directed towards the She who lives in daydreams with him (She), a queer self inside. Throughout the rest of this, I’m going to use phrases like “he’s saying” that assume some agency on Harry’s part, but keep in mind that I never ever mean to speak for Harry—especially when I’m talking about his sexuality or gender identity—like I said, this is just an exercise that I do that kind of. Helps me think about myself. And up to a certain point, in a certain way, technical rightness or wrongness of interpretation doesn’t entirely matter, right, as long as we remember that we’ll never be in H’s head—only our own—so with that in mind, here’s one way that I see Falling, a little peek into my own psyche all wrapped up in a reading of this beautiful beautiful beautiful song.

Lyric breakdown:

I'm in my bed And you're not here And there's no one to blame But the drink in my wandering hands

Harry’s alone in his bed, drinking—big strong FTDT parallel with the loneliness and the drinking but we’re not doing that today—and there’s no She to be found at the moment. He’s frustrated, blaming the drink for She’s absence: either because of the drinking itself (has something about altering his mind’s state made her retreat? In most of his songs it seems like it’s the opposite, so that’s interesting, and suggests to me that there’s something different about the (supposed) interaction we see with She here than in other songs) or because of something his wandering hands (I love that phrasing so much, it’s so beautiful) have done, She—the queer side, the daydream occupier, a self he longs to express—isn’t with him now, she’s silent. He’s done something to betray her, push her away.

Forget what I said It's not what I meant And I can't take it back I can't unpack the baggage you left

I’m hearing the narrator/Harry making an apology to She for saying hurtful things to her, to this fragile precious part of himself—and expressing desperate frustration—“I can’t take it back”—, implying a desire to return to a place where he feels connected with her. Trying to mend, in other words, the fact that he’s somehow shown her the cruelty we’ve all, I imagine, shown to ourselves at one time or another—and alluding to the heavy, heavy baggage we are left with by the most genuine, deepest, longest-denied pieces of ourselves when we are brutal and cold and cruel to them.

What am I now? What am I now? What if I'm someone I don't want around? I'm falling again, I'm falling again, I'm falling What if I'm down? What if I'm out? What if I'm someone you won't talk about? I'm falling again, I'm falling again, I'm falling

What’s so, so evocative for me here is—in these lyrics more than anything I just hear a person saying: “I’m afraid of who I’ll be when I become who I am.” What am I becoming? What am I now? And what if the person I am now, this person I’ve been all my life, isn’t someone that I’ll want to be at all in the future? What if, someday, I’m so ashamed of who I once was that I won’t want to acknowledge the life I've lived at all? What if I don't like who I am—either now or when I'm more of myself? What if what if what if I don’t ever even know who I am and now I’m falling, I’m falling, and I’m not just falling but I’m falling again, I’m always falling, this happens all the time, which way is up, the water’s all around me and I’m drowning.

This chorus, just. It's so full of this feeling of shame—it's so palpable in the way he sings, in the lyrics, everything. What if I’m awful, what if I can’t stand to be around myself? And maybe more than that, even, the chorus feels to me like self-alienation: like not recognizing yourself, like being entirely in the dark about who you are or who you’ll become tomorrow. The particular panic of looking at yourself and going oh my God, my God, what am I what am I what am I—beginning to suspect that maybe there’s nothing truly to you, because you’ve maybe unknowingly maybe not lied all your life to yourself and those who love you about who you are and—oh, my God, what am I, now? Now that all the lies are falling away—what is left of me?

And: the little change in the last chorus to What if you're someone I just want around? is just. It breaks me. It’s so plaintive, simple: all I hear is, I just want to be me. I just want her—all of me—around.

That, to me, is Harry not just asking for the space to be himself, but expressing that he just wants to be in his own presence. It’s such a defenseless, disarmed way of asking for authenticity, which is, in turn, such a human thing to want; it’s so childlike, almost, this way that I hear him asking to be around She, around himself, as if She’s a kind of caretaker, as if he’s so tired that he just wants to fall into his own arms and be protected, be accepted, because his own self is the person from whom he needs that care most, and from whom it’s hardest to earn it—and god, it hurts, because he spends so much of this song singing about this hard, unsparing distance that he feels between himself and She, and, just. Ohhhhhhhh I can’t I have to move on it's too much. Asking for your own forgiveness and love, trying to feel worthy of your own presence—how many things are more vulnerable and heartrending than that, I don’t know.

This ss is from that general part of the song, and I just. See him reaching. Reaching reaching reaching for himself, looking up toward himself, floating helplessly. And it just. Hurts. There's so much longing.

You said you care And you missed me too And I'm well aware I write too many songs about you And the coffee's out At the Beachwood Cafe And it kills me 'cause I know we've run out of things we can say

Here, I think what’s most important is Harry saying he writes too many songs about “you”, She. Like I said earlier, I like to think damn near all of his songs can be read like this: I often imagine (baselessly, again, I have no idea what's happening) that he’s at least partly writing about She, like, literally all the time, and this has given me such a useful incredible lift in thinking about myself, my own inner world and how it’s connected to literally every other part of my life, no matter how hard I’ve tried in the past to separate all of that from what I love. A model for how to talk to myself, almost.

Of note that She tells Harry that she cares about and misses him as well—all parts of him wanting him to be a whole self—and then Harry expresses frustration that there’s nothing left to say to She, and this just feels like desperation to me, that word again, desperate: the narrator's desperate reaching toward a part of himself that is so life-giving and also so, so hard to hold onto. We launch into the chorus again right after H sings about wishing he could communicate more clearly with himself; we’ve run out of things we can say, I’m not coming up with any more answers, it’s silent in my head and oh god I’m falling again, please, all I want is to know that who I am is someone I can stand being.

And I get the feeling that you'll never need me again

I hear the same shame-filled questions from earlier here—those that I, at least, have asked myself so many times as I've tried to face and know myself; I just. I hear how much looking honestly at yourself after years and years of denial and suppression hurts in his voice here, I hear him singing, what if the self I will become has no use at all for me now? For everything I am, everything I ever thought I was—what if it’s all nothing, what if I am nothing, what if I don't exist at all, what if I never did; what if, my entire life until this point, I've been nothing more than the violence it took to pretend I was not me?

I don't know. Obviously the answer is that we're all more than that, that no one is nothing, but these ugly questions do have a tendency to fly out onto the table during a personal crisis—or at least they did onto mine, when I first started to remember little ghosts in my own head that so badly needed soothing, that I had ignored and silenced for so many years.

It’s such a powerful song, and it genuinely means so, so, so much to me.

Two ghosts falling down a music video rabbithole

Returning to Love on Tour briefly, the line “We’re not who we used to be” in Two Ghosts is really the main thing pulling me toward the idea that there’s an underside to this song also that’s about, well, a self made of two ghosts, circling one another: H's, or the narrator's, current self a ghost because of all the performance it was built on, the inner self a ghost because it’s been hidden for so long. I won’t do a long lyric breakdown of Two Ghosts, because I’m less passionate about the idea of this song reflecting an inner experience of (queer) fragmentation than I am about that being the case for Falling, and also because—the only lines of TG he’s been singing in concert are: “We’re not who we used to be, we’re not who we used to be, we’re just two ghosts standing in the place of you and me, trying to remember how it feels to have a heartbeat”—which are the queerest lines anyway, to me. You’re standing in front of yourself, and both of you are ghosts; you’re looking at yourself looking back at you in this space between existence and artifice, all of you trying to remember or learn what it’s like to be a full human being. The self haunting the self; one self fading out, one self fading in.

Emotionally, right, I was doing okay with this until I rewatched the Falling music video in full and then. Then I was not ok anymore GOD it’s beautiful it’s just so MUCH it’s so much it’s so much it’s so much it makes me feeeeeeeel so muuuuuuhuhuhuuuuch. There are a couple of places in it where I just. I just can see H talking to She: he looks off toward this one specific side camera twice, first when he says “I write too many songs about you” and also, in the second chorus, when he sings “what if I’m someone I don’t want around”—and the camera goes a little wavy, almost like he’s drunk (and again I can’t I can’t go down the substance gender link path rn but I do see it here, there’s a lot there and it’s for a different day but I think it’s important).

A still from the first instance of him doing the jim halpert office thing except it’s sadgay JESUS this video is gorgeous

It feels really conspiratorial in these two moments, too, like he’s looking toward someone watching him through the curtains, or he’s at least conscious of their awareness of him, of She watching him as he sings about longing for a more genuine way of existing. Again, this could be the partner that he’s singing to, the person he feels separated from and has hurt, who the hell knows, but I just. I like to think in my own little heart that it’s part of him. I myself often feel my inner self, the self I wish I were more like, watching me as I stumble and fall my way through my life; the idea of Harry sitting at this watery piano and singing about a self he wishes he could be while he feels that self around him, pushing on him, surrounding him in the form of water, watching him from the window (which opens only as the water begins to flood out of the piano, mind)—it makes me feel seen, real or not.

To me, She is everywhere in this video: I think she’s watching him from the window, I think she’s the water itself, she’s inside Harry and you can see it on his face, She might even be the piano, too. And obviously Falling is extremely watery, ending with Harry submerged and floating in the most beautiful beautiful beautiful shot with his train unfurling out behind him and then it zooms in on his face and I just. I watch the ending of that video and. His face. The way it kind of twitches, the way he looks so sad, like the weight on and around and within him is unbearable, it just. I feel. So much. Look at him. It wrenches me, wrenches my whole heart.

GOD i wish i could gif i can’t gif somebody gif that ending for me I’ll love you forever

Water's been H’s thing, obviously, so it makes a lot of sense that it would form another link between Falling and TG—thematically it links so much of his work, so it feels a bit silly to even point it out, but. I’m still going to. Because, though I know some of the Two Ghosts visuals are technically supposedly of lava rather than water, it just. This is water to me. This is rainbow gay water to me, that's my chosen reality.

Shirt’s a bit similar to the one he’s wearing in the Falling video, too. And the thing with the rainbow water is. First, it’s water, right? Which is just so prevalent throughout H’s work, throughout everything, this idea that there’s something with him and water, him being wet in the Lights Up video everything’s on a beach or near a body of water he falls in love by bodies of water it’s just. Waterwaterwaterwater. Yes. So here the water is rainbow, and it makes all the sense in the world to me because, like, I’m so attached to the idea that there’s a connection between H being in the water and existing as a fuller, queerer self, a more loving self. Being connected to the best of himself, all of that human goodness, even if it’s painful, even if he feels like he’s drowning, even if he sometimes feels like he literally can't do it; almost like the water represents him learning to live and breathe in a different way, turn into a creature who can survive underwater (mermaid shit). And in the TG visuals we have Harry literally floating in the middle of a rainbow ocean? Standing in a rainbow maybe-lava lake? In a song that I’m wondering whether you can partially read as the narrator expressing a searing longing to be closer to who he truly is?

Ok.

And you know what this also looks like to me? The rainbow water? It looks like when you spill gasoline in the water and it spreads out and gets all rainbowy and colorful and pretty and you’re looking at it like wow that’s so lovely floating there all iridescent and shimmery even though you know it’s toxic. Especially the image up there on the left. It looks like a spill, a slick of some substance that is mixing with the water. And it just. It makes me think: is this suggesting that all the forces in the world that hide queer people from themselves have poisoned H's (or the speaker's) self-discovery, the ability to be in the water with She? Cathartic hurt comfort self-contained reading of Falling from earlier certainly doesn’t not fit with that.

And because this rainbow water is beautiful—and it is, these visuals are stunning—does the rainbowy watery thing also suggest that the things queer people have to do to maintain and nurture our whole selves in the midst of all the poisonous chemicals poured into us by the homophobic transphobic world are themselves beautiful—not to idolize the trauma and pain that so often come with existing as a queer person, of course, but—idk, is there something here about the conservation of ourselves despite so many toxins being dumped into the water that makes us up? About all our acts of self-preservation being beautiful and honorable and ocean-deep? I don’t know. In any case, it’s more than just a happyrainbowgay symbol to me. I think about it a lot.

(Relevant and of note: @swimmingleo has a thought-provoking moment with this whole. Contaminated water ~thing in regards to the pink HS1 water/all of that most beloved debut album in their wonderful wonderful post on HS1 and The Wall and I'm pretty sure I read that post ages ago and my brain absorbed the pink water thing and just like took it and ran with it without realizing you said it first so here I am acknowledging my ancestors. Read that one ASAP read it yesterday.)

And the rainbows just keep coming, he keeps doing it. He keeps fckin GOING with the rainbow water, goddammit, this is an ss from the SOTT mv that about made me spit take my coffee when I was rewatching it for this post.

God am i done yet is this bitch done yet GET OFF THE STAGE

In conclusion. The hill I am dying on today. Is that there is an undercurrent of self-exploration and self-discovery, of trying to do better by oneself—and the pain that all that sometimes brings—in these two now-mashed-up songs that are usually read to be coupley—mostly about Harry’s mistakes in relationships, or about him growing distant from another person he has loved. Two ghosts swimming in a glass half empty…….. I don't know, but I feel it, I see it. The water’s draining out, She is feeling more and more inaccessible to the narrator because the world is a poisonous intolerant place and yet he’s still drowning in her, still falling into himself even as he feels like he’s falling away from himself, he can’t get away from himself even as he tries so hard to reach himself—and oh it’s just so familiar, it’s so ambivalent. It aches so much and it’s so important.

Anyway I love Falling with all of my mopey little heart and I will love it forever until the end of time.

[todourouki]

↲ Back to my BNHA Masterlist

i crash, u crash.

SUMMARY: Being with Dabi wasn’t easy and it probably never will be, but he just wants to make sure you’ll stick around. Or in which Dabi tries his best to show you he cares about you.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: based off i crash, u crash by lil peep! lol honestly idk about this one. but welcome back gift for me, from me, to you <3

PAIRING: Boyfriend!Dabi & Fem!Reader

WORD COUNT: 5,476

WARNINGS: Explicit Content, Dabi is toxic, Angst*, NSFW [18+] including spitting, slight daddy kink, squirting, slight overstimulation.

© todourouki

Sex with Dabi was always the same.

Routinely speaking, whenever he was back from a mission was the time you were expected to be on all fours waiting for his attention. It was always rough too, nothing short of angry and aggressive even if it was a form of “love-making.” He could call it what he wanted to though, he knew the universal term for his type of sex was simply fucking.

The positions and their timings were always on schedule. No more than 3 minutes in missionary— all the time in the world doing everything else. You never really got to touch him, and he’s never let you see his face when he came.

The relationship of hot and fiery sex mixed with an unrequited form of codependency grew to an actual romantic one somehow between the days and nights spent together, yet nothing of the dynamic ever changed. The only thing you could recall is that he groggily asked of you to “finally be his girlfriend since you already acted like it.”

Dabi was a complicated person. You never knew if he planned on waking up and deciding he wanted to be single, and honestly the day he decided to do such a thing wouldn’t be a surprise to you. He was an avid participator in the league of breaking hearts and even if you had more than enough knowledge on this, you allowed his sneaky smirk to seduce you into the sheets of his bed and hours of his days.

You eventually found yourself moving in, figuring out that he refused to sleep without the air conditioner on, never wore socks around the house, used way too much salt on his eggs, and never managed to close the curtains after he got out the shower. Above all that though, he never changed the way he fucked you.

Dabi loves you, of course you never had to question it or get reassurance. He showed you in minuscule ways such as stealing bringing you your favorite snacks after a long day without you, doing things such as buying double of what he gets from store runs because you’re in his mind all day, and telling you he’ll be safe for you once he walks out the door. He never says I love you, but he doesn’t need to.

It’s hard to get someone like him to change the way they are, so when you’re sitting on your shared bed flipping through a magazine and see a couples quiz linger across the page, you can’t help but try to feed yourself crumbs of his affection you know you’ll spend a lifetime searching for.

“How long did it take for you to realize you like me?” You broke the silence, squinting at the duo-skin toned man slouched across the wooden headboard.

You heard him chuckle, blinking longly at you with amusement glimmering within his cerulean irises. It wasn’t rare for Dabi to mock you for asking such a thing, but it was a rare moment for you to glare at him deadpanned and genuinely waiting for an answer. It fucking confused him.

“As long as it took you to make me cum the first time.”

You rolled your eyes, ignoring his comment enough to make him furrow his eyebrows. It wasn’t like you to not retaliate back, you were always quick to snap back at him. Hearing nothing but his own breathing as you skipped through pages made him furrow his eyebrows. He wanted to ask if you were okay— he really did, but then you’d think he cared.

And Dabi would be a terrible person if he let you know he cared.

The silence was nearly overbearing, nearly deafening in his ears as he tried his hardest to focus on anything but your serious expression haunting him in the back of his mind. Things like this rarely bothered him. It goes to say that Dabi was rarely ever bothered.

Sure, you never asked for much reassurance and never even did as much as ask if he meant it when he asked you out mid-nap, but he really did. Sure, you lived off the whim of thinking it was, but at least the raven haired man knew it was. Right?

The sound of the magazine slamming shut and getting thrown somewhere onto the bed broke Dabi of his thoughts. “I’m gonna’ pee.” You announced, mostly to no one in particular because your soft eyes refused to meet his own. Another rare occurrence.

You lied to Dabi for the first time in your life. Did you really have to pee? Of course not. Did you have to cry in the bathroom for a quick 2 seconds to release the pent up frustration of utter confusion? Of course you did. It was annoying— living with someone and only getting treated as if you were anything in the slightest to him when his dick was inside of you. He only ever fucks you rough and never lets you see his face, and he expects you to believe he wants to be with you?

After cleaning your solemn face from dry tears, your body grudgingly made its way out the bathroom and to the bed. Your presence within the studio was clear, panties strewn across the open drawers mixed with Dabi’s briefs, shoes tucked neatly compared to Dabi’s boots tossed lazily near the door, and perfume bottles layering up against the old brown dresser. You took a quick glance at a picture of you hanging on the wall, a familiar raven-headed man’s arms wrapped around your head as he towered over your frame with his head resting across your head.

It was never worth the confusion.

“Why were you crying?” His dark voice rang out, making you slightly flinch as you dented the soft mattress with your frame.

A quick shake of the head will do, you thought to yourself as you followed your own orders. You knew Dabi wouldn’t push to find out what was wrong, he never does. And he doesn’t, lips shut as he takes a drag from some cigarette he’s smoking and giving you a longing look of aggravation. It’s even less of a surprise for him to do such a thing.

“If you have something to tell me, then I suggest you do it.” If you hadn’t known Dabi for as long as you do, you’d probably assume he was being condescending and outright rude. Because you do know him though, you know that’s exactly how he’s trying to come off to you.

You dreaded it. The eventual confrontation that was inevitable from the moment you accepted to be his girlfriend— it all led to this moment in space and time. You felt exactly how you predicted you’d feel, sick and intimidated. Not necessarily by Dabi because you know he’d never hurt you, but intimidated by the fact that it’s as easy as 1-2-3 for him to up and leave depending on your answer.

“What are we, Dabi?” And there it goes, 1-2-3.

It was like hearing a pin drop. Nobody moved, nobody spoke, nobody did anything for the first three seconds following the ultimatum. He knew he had two options: answer genuinely and reveal information he’d die before releasing, or leave you high and dry yet again for his own benefit when it comes to the mere idea of using words he doesn’t use in bed.

Staring into your eyes never scared him, he cremating people for a living, but knowing that lying behind them were tears falling for your reflection rather than on his shoulder caused a pang to hit his chest. It was unfamiliar and unusual, but looking at your body begin to leave its space in the bed in frustration with his quietness made him snap. You were serious for the first time.

“I’m not going to repeat myself.” Your words were harsh, harsher than usual and you yourself couldn’t even tell where this newfound energy came from.

You were okay. You were okay with whatever this complicated situationship was, and you probably would have still been okay with it if you hadn’t gotten too deep in over your head and let his words get to you. Him saying he realized he liked you coincidentally while you fucked should be above you, yet here you are.

“Jesus doll, relax.” He taunted, hands reaching out to grab your arm in a fit of confusion and annoyance, “just come back to bed Y/N.”

You felt it - the minute he touched your arm and released the tiniest bit of heat coming off his palm - just how tense he was becoming. He knew once you put your mind to something, it was difficult to get you to move away from it. He knew that there was no escaping this conversation.

It was inevitable really, the fact that one day (which was, unfortunately for him, today) you would question the legitimacy of his emotions for you. You were carefree just like him, that’s why he fell for you. But you were also blunt. If you felt a way, you were going to say it and that’s that.

Easily, the scarred hand gripping onto your arm slid over to your clenched jaw. You didn’t mean to give him a hard time for not looking his way—with the way his fingers squeezed deep into your skin and tilted your head towards him, you knew you did. It almost repulsed you with how obedient your body was to his touch, glancing at him with no shame other than the dried tears threatening to spill over.

“I’m gonna tell you the one time and I’ll never repeat myself,” he threatened, voice treading amongst angry waters as his blue eyes bored into yours, “I’m serious.”

You stood your ground, eyes taking away from your scowling expression as they swirled in curiosity. It didn’t take much to make you lower your frame onto the edge of the bed, a sigh escaping your lips as you pulled the t-shirt past your exposed panties.

“I don’t say much when it comes to you, or even to when it’s about you—but you’re all I am.” Your eyebrows furrowed, clear confusion written in your face.

“What does tha—” “I’m talking.” Dabi’s aggravated expression never left, not even with the joint hoisted between his lips in nothing but frustration.

“I got nothing to give you, nothing but collected calls from jail and maybe some jewelry I stole cause I got bored. I don’t have any money, anything to my name, and nothing but a spot on the police and hero department’s most wanted list.” His words made you frown, the clear self-depreciation outweighing the cocky and arrogant attitude you once knew to belong to the man infront of you.

“I can’t look you in the eye, show you my face when you milk my cock clean— can’t do shit like that,” Dabi’s smirk was quick to appear, your eyes rolling as you met his serious gaze yet again, “probably won’t be able to take you out the country either unless we run far, far away from here.”

“But nothing I say or do will ever express the way I feel about you.” And now it’s Dabi’s turn for the 1-2-3 process, because that statement in itself made your brain stop working.

Your brain couldn’t comprehend the fact that Dabi’s free hand was circling your bare thigh, moving closer and closer to where he most felt at home. His words never faltered though, only slightly pausing to smoothly slip his hands onto the soaked folds of pink lace.

His words were thrown against empty ears. You couldn’t focus on the words flowing within the room due to the ever-growing heartbeat pulsing between your thighs. Dabi’s hand sank into your leg, heat splitting between your skin enough to hiss and throw your head back.

“From this perfect pussy,” he applied pressure to the space between your legs, the wet patch inducing a smile from his once blank expesssion. The sudden contact caused a gasp to slip from your panting lips. Almost instinctively, Dabi pressed his thumb against your tongue, “to this smart ass mouth, it’s all I need to wake up in the morning.”

Your mind was now blank. All you could think about was the feelings of Dabi's heated fingertips dancing against the confining cotton of your panties. He always had the ability of doing this to you— dumbifying you with nothing but the pads of his fingertips and making you beg for his tongue.

Watching you pant under him nearly made the expressionless man shudder in pleasure. Dabi wasnt a liar, anything and everything he's ever said being some mangled up verbal example of his brain. He was far from the type to express his feelings, show anything other than smugness and oversuimulation, and dedicate his entire life to another person.

He was far from the type, yet managed to become a perfect example of a significant other who's life slowly but surely becomes solely to live for another person. The other person in this situation, was you.

You felt him begin to leave swollen burn bubbles on the outer layer of your skin, legs shaking in a way that brought the two of you out of your racing minds.

His motions stopped, yet hands showed no intention on moving from its current place. He was staring at you intensely - as intensely as he could - to assert his egotistical dominance but you knew the truth.

And as Dabi lowered your frame into the soft, plush white sheets, he realized he knew the truth as well. Your eyes were dazed, irises looking at all of him at the same time as your body swallowed in his touch and he knew. Dabi knows deep down no matter how much taller, bigger, or dominant he ever tried to be, he would worship the ground you walked on with the blink of an eye.

Your hands found his cold cheeks, tongue still stuck to your bottom lip with Dabi's harsh finger circling the pink muscle. Not a word was said, or per say, not a single word needed to be said. The energy surrounding the one-roomed apartment was enough for the two of them.

Before you, Dabi was known to be something of a martyr. He fooled women, toying with their souls the same way he toyed with their bodies and cried trauma when they threatened to leave. He kept a string on every one he ever fucked, being cautious enough to keep them at the heel of his feet for a fun time when he felt he had enough of you.

Then, he got addicted. He drowned in your drive, finding for the first time in his life some sort of comfort. Your natural warmth, your smile, your understanding— you were someone Dabi would find himself laughing at for thinking they actually existed.

"You're gonna get tired of me one day," he bitterly smiled, eyeing you deep into your skull with nothing but sadness laced in an angry distraction, "you're gonna find some hero and leave me here all on my own."

He wanted to think he wouldn't care. If the time where you decided to go back to the better things in life, leave a lowlife villain who wants to destruct the government, and live a rich healthy lifestyle, he knew you didn't do anything less but deserve it. You were too good for him, better than anyone he's ever known in his life for as long as he'd live.

With a soft whimper, your hands turned his head from his lowered expression over to your soft eyes. He hated how quick you got him to look at you, and he especially hated how quick you made his breath stop.

"Hey," you whispered, soft smile still glowing even though you realized he had intentionally lowered his voice as well as his lips from your sight. The vulnerable expression the raven-haired man was trying his hardest to not get you to see brought a rough pang to your chest.

"You crash, I crash. Always."

Your words hit him, and boy did they hit Dabi hard. The time it took for the word always to softly slip off your tongue was just enough time for Dabi to realize the depth of your words.

They were the same ones that fell between your lips when he thought he was dying, when you thought you were dying, and now. Dabi was complex - that was evident - but he was also the simplest man you knew. All he ever really needed was some reassurance.

It was long before his fingers found their way into your scalp, slipping over the crevices of your neck and gripping onto the back of your head as if his life depended on it. All you could do was gasp.

"Can I touch you?" The words were like a record scratch, repeating through the scarred man's brain all too much to keep anyone sane.

He couldn't tell if it was the slur of your words, or if it was your soft hands running across his thick shoulders as the words whispered into his ears— whatever it was made him take up the obligation of doing anything and everything you said.

It wasn't soon before you found yourself slamming your lips against his, the sensation causing you both to moan. You couldn't tell the difference between his hands and yours, tangled limbs falling deep into the plush comforter covering your shared bed. His weight above you did nothing but encourage you to wrap your bare limbs against his now shirtless one on, hands running through the raven locks above your head.

The minute you felt the heated pads of his fingertips lower themselves down your abdomen, your head shook underneath his and caused him to part his lips from its home on yours.

"Hmph," you groaned, pouting as your hands traveled down to his jeans and began to fiddle with the zipper, "I want to feel you in me now."

Dabi was used to being in control. He was used to ordering your body around, telling you what to do and how to do it. In the bedroom, Dabi made the orders. So when he parted his lips from yours and stood over your body with his scarred hands shoving his pants down his thighs, you couldn't do anything less than moan. Knowing he was taking what you said into consideration brought chills to your skin.

"You sure you're ready for this, sweetheart?" He smirked, legs coming out of the restricting jeans he wore and leaving his tall and lean frame in nothing but gray briefs.

Dabi had a lot to brag about, in the most respectful way possible.

Your hands clawed at his waistband, giggling as you pulled his body all the way back to its original position of resting above you and let the underwear go with a loud smack. Being eye to eye with someone like Dabi was scary, no point in denying that. Her there was something about it that just drove the two of you insane— and he couldn't tell if I was anything short of love.

He silenced himself, attaching his lips to yours and preoccupying a hand into pulling his briefs down just enough. And by just enough, it meant just enough to brush your clothed clit as his painfully hard cock stretched up to his stomach. You couldn’t do anything but flinch, hands reaching out to grip his thick girth and slap it across your clothed pussy.

“Let me do it.” You smiled, eyes boring into Dabi’s own blue ones. Your free hand slipped your panties to the side, his mushroom tip dancing against the rim of your wet hole and causing the two of you to release a soft groan into one another’s face.

If there was one thing Dabi would never get tired of, it would be the feeling of your velvet walls sucking his dick closer into you. Nothing short of sensation hit him the minute your hands shoved the head in, and his almost fell inlove with the view of you watching his large length disappear into your own heaven.

It was hard for you to not cum from his entrance. Even as he bottomed out, your teeth sealing a scream from leaving your throat by pressing into his shoulder, did you realize just how big Dabi was. No matter how skinny, lean, and weightless he seemed, the girth and length on Dabi’s third leg when he was stuffing himself into you never failed to surprise you. Even through the self-inflicted pain of going into this without foreplay, you knew there was nothing that would ever fill you up as amazing as Dabi does.

“Fuuuck,” you dragged out into his earlobe, tongue licking a strip of his patched skin from your bite-mark to the lobe of his pierced ears, “you’re so big.”

He couldn’t help but whimper (another thing on Dabi’s list or shit he doesn’t do but now does because of you), the feeling of your tongue circling his ear as your pussy gripped onto his fleeting cock nearly felt like too much. It didn’t help that you were moaning and whispering in his ear with nothing but pure sex laced in your words.

“You know,” he breathed out, beginning to create a routine with his hips bottoming harshly into your cervix and slowly dragging out in a timely fashion, “this is the best pussy I’ve ever had.”

He thinks it’s a compliment, but really it stirs awake the competitive bone in your body. You ignore it though like you always do, choosing to appreciate the fact that he considers you the best at atleast something.

His hand gripped onto your neck, bringing neon stars and dots of blackness to conceal your view of cerulean eyes. Nothing but the lewd sounds of Dabi pushing his dick into your wet hole filled the room, sprinkles of your whimpers and his groans mixing amongst the darkness of the apartment.

Dabi was trouble. He never felt in control of his feelings, never knew what he would want in life, and never bothered to consider living for someone other than himself. It’s moments like these with you though, that makes him realize the God he wakes up thinking about rests between the gap in the middle of your heavenly thighs. He’d killed people before, but the power you held over him was enough to make him consider killing everyone on earth if you’d ask.

You felt him begin to grow impatient, hips pounding into your frame and causing your body to jolt up and down harshly. Words couldn’t describe how amazing Dabi felt inside of you right now. His tip crushed your cervix within every thrust, and it was Dabi’s fingers that lifted your gaping face from the trance of watching him fuck into you to his own face.

“I-I cant.” You began to slip out, tears growing against your eyes as Dabi’s hot fingers began to flick your swollen clit. You swear it’s only been like ten minutes, or maybe Dabi’s huge dick pushing against your cervix was beginning to fuck you stupid. “You’re gonna’ make me cum— make me cum too fast daddy.” You cried out, fingers dragging against the stapled back as you felt Dabi purposely drag one of the piercings located on his tip across your pulsating velvet walls. It was almost too good to be true, and you couldn’t help yourself from kicking his waist over you and forcing his body underneath you. He didn’t even have the courtesy to wipe the smirk off his sweating face.

“Get to work, doll.”

You knew why he spoke to you with such condensation. You also knew exactly why his hands pressed into your ass cheeks as you found your home on top of his bare lap. His scarred torso leaned against the black bed frame, and you decided right then and there that Dabi deserved to get his brains fucked out. So you did exactly what he told you to do— you got to work.

You were wet enough to take him some more, knees straining as you finally pushed his length deep into your stomach. The silent scream that left your lips didn’t go unnoticed though, your fingers that now gripped his cheeks pressing between his lips to keep his teasing menstruations to himself. Dabi’s eyes couldn’t come off your body, and honestly he wished they never had to.

Keeping a grip on your stomach and your ass cheek, an enflamed slap brought a powerful burn across your ass cheek and caused you to jolt against his penis.

“Jesus Dabi, a-are you trying to kill me?” You weakly pleaded, and it didn’t take long for your fucked our expression to start slurring your words.

The sound of you dropping your frame onto his body filled the room, your hips rolling against your clothed clit and bringing sensation you weren’t sure if you could handle. You were trying to focus, but the feeling of Dabi heating a hand up across your ass and slowly beginning to meet your thrusts caused your brain to jumble into a mess of nothing but him.

“Fuck, baby you look so good when you start to get stupid.” He smirked, lips running against the cleavage of your bouncing breasts and lazily sucking on the moving nipple in front of him.

You wanted to fight back, and you wanted to defend yourself against him thinking you we’re starting to get stupid. You really wanted to— the only issue being that you couldn’t. You couldn’t the minute Dabi found a way to meet your thrusts and roughly tilt your neck back up towards the ceiling.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Was all you could cry out as you began to grow impatient in your lower abdomen. It just felt too good. And as if to add injury to insult, your walls began to clamp up from the feeling you knew was coming soon. Dabi paid the price.

You’d never seen his eyes get this wide, eyebrows furrowed as his mouth gaped open in shock. His eyes found its way down, the sight of your pussy gripping and swallowing his dick back in and out being something he wishes he could see all day and that’s when Dabi realizes that he is inlove with everything about you.

“It’s like your perfect pussy was made for me, baby.” He whimpered out, smirking between hooded eyes as he struggled to regain some of his consciousness. You were way too good at bouncing on his dick, and he couldn’t help but begin to meet your thrusts with more precision as he felt himself near orgasm.

“A-all for you! Always all- always all for you daddy!” You cried out, voice struggling to come out as you threw your hands against Dabi’s chest and began to bounce as if your life depends on it.

You hate doing all the work, honestly you really do dislike it. But this has been the longest Dabi has allowed you to ride him and the feeling of you literally milking his cock at your own disposal was an offer too good to ruin.

“I know it’s all for me, princess.” He whimpered out, a hand gripping the back of your neck and pulling it low enough to slam your chapped lips against his own. “Wanna know something, baby?”

The words vibrating against your own moans got lost in the sound, your headboard forcibly slamming against the wall only louder as every other thrust from you gradually grew rougher with your urge to cum. Your brain couldn’t do anything less than feverishly nod, hands slipping back onto your body and allowing Dabi to drill into you from underneath. Gasps slipped out of your parted lips with a hand gripping his black hair and the other begging to rub your own clit.

“You crash, I crash forever, right baby?” He moaned out, the words entering your ears and making you cry out with tears finally spilling down your eyes from nothing but intense pleasure.

“Fuck yes daddy, forever!” You cried out, body beginning to hunch over as you felt the pressure in your stomach compared to the way Dabi slammed into you become too much.

“Good, doll,” he moaned, pushing you so far into him, the heartbeat in your pussy was sure to be vibrating onto the veins of his dick, “so do me a favor.”

Everything happened much too fast, your dizzy state only increasing as Dabi grabbed your body harshly and tossed you back underneath him. There you were again, tossed carelessly under him with your legs trembling and pussy stuffed with all of Dabi in his glory. His lips found our ear again, licking your lobe and sucking on it right after.

“Cream all over my cock so I can stuff you up with my kids, deal?” He smirked into you, jolting into you as soon as the last word resonated on all ears.

Soon enough, he found it in himself to thrust into you like never before. You could barely breath, gasping for air as you felt your vagina began to vibrate due to stage of pleasure you were in. And just like that, your body began to run from the overstimulation of Dabi’s hot finger rubbing roughly against your clit as he drills your frame into the crevices of your mattress.

“Da-daddy I’m gonna’....” The words just couldn’t come out— he was begging to fuck you dumb.

You couldn’t feel nothing but Dabi’s dick pound into you, and if this was all you felt before you fell into a sex-coma than fuck it. It will forever and always be worth it.

It was like you were starting to see white. The feeling of one of his hands now roughly gripping your drooling expression closer to his face made you scream in pleasure, Dabi’s smirk leaving only to release a trail of saliva from his throat into the back of yours. You swallowed it with no hesitation, some of the residue slipping through your lips in a mix with your own spit as you began to drool at the feeling of his tip hitting that one spot over and over again.

And that’s when you felt it. You felt the build up, the pressure of holding back becoming too much as you belted into a mess of tears and tried to push his body off your own.

“No baby,” he roughly said, milking his cock into you even harder and rubbing pressured circles into your clit until a strong snapped within you and you saw nothing but white.

You weren’t sure if it was a sub-space you had entered, or some fucked up version of heaven people who just for their brains fucked out go, but either option felt like fair-game the minute your pussy began to squirt a mess of cum and other liquids from the space Dabi still found himself intruding. If anything boosted his confidence, it was this right here.

“Fuck yes baby, squirt for daddy,” he smirked, rubbing you harder and harder as your felt your body stiffen at the overstimulation, “fuck, you’re so hot.”

As soon as you, Dabi found himself cumming harder than he ever had, lips only being able to cry out a mantra of your name. He knew sex with you was amazing— but this was a new high he doesn’t think he’d ever went to let go of. He didn’t even have the energy to lift himself out of you, small drips of cum able to slip out of your swollen pussy making you flinch in both overstimulation and pain. The cockwarming brought chills to your arm, body sprawled underneath Dabi’s panting frame in nothing but a fucked our expression.

You felt him lift his head up, eyes glancing over your puffy closed ones and being able to do nothing more than steal a kiss from your tongue-licked lips. He knows the difference between “fucked-out” you and “genuinely-knocked-out” you, and you knew he knew the difference too. But he acted as if he didn’t.

And before Dabi could pass out on top of your sweaty and sticky frame, words he mumbled into your shoulder nearly burned into your skin. At least, just enough to make your pussy and lips twitch in nothing but contentness.

I crash, you crash. Forever and always.

Sex with Dabi was always the same— sure. It was rough, messy, and painfully over-stimulating, but it was Dabi, and it was more than enough for you.

Your mind was now blank. All you could think about was the feelings of Dabi’s heated fingertips dancing against the confining cotton of your panties. He always had the ability of doing this to you— dumbifying you with nothing but the pads of his fingertips and making you beg for his tongue.

Watching you pant under him nearly made the expressionless man shudder in pleasure. Dabi wasnt a liar, anything and everything he’s ever said being some mangled up verbal example of his brain. He was far from the type to express his feelings, show anything other than smugness and oversuimulation, and dedicate his entire life to another person.

He was far from the type, yet managed to become a perfect example of a significant other who’s life slowly but surely becomes solely to live for another person. The other person in this situation, was you.

You felt him begin to leave swollen bubbles on the outer layer of your skin, legs shaking in a way that brought the two of you out of your racing minds.

His motions stopped, yet hands showed no intention on moving from its current place. He was staring at you intensely - as intensely as he could - to assert his egotistical dominance but you knew the truth.

And as Dabi lowered your frame into the soft, plush white sheets, he realized he knew the truth as well. Your eyes were dazed, irises looking at all of him at the same time as your body swallowed in his touch and he knew. Dabi knows deep down no matter how much taller, bigger, or dominant he ever tried to be, he would worship the ground you walked on with the blink of an eye.

Your hands found his cold cheeks, tongue still stuck to your bottom lip with Dabi’s harsh finger circling the pink muscle. Not a word was said, or per say, not a single word needed to be said. The energy surrounding the one-roomed apartment was enough for the two of them.

Before you, Dabi was known to be something of a martyr. He fooled women, toying with their souls the same way he toyed with their bodies and cried trauma when they threatened to leave. He kept a string on every one he ever fucked, being cautious enough to keep them at the heel of his feet for a fun time when he felt he had enough of you.

Then, he got addicted. He drowned in your drive, finding for the first time in his life some sort of comfort. Your natural warmth, your smile, your understanding— you were someone Dabi would find himself laughing at for thinking they actually existed.

“You’re gonna get tired of me one day,” he bitterly smiled, eyeing you deep into your skull with nothing but sadness laced in an angry distraction, “you’re gonna find some hero and leave me here all on my own.”

He wanted to think he wouldn’t care. If the time where you decided to go back to the better things in life, leave a lowlife villain who wants to destruct the government, and live a rich healthy lifestyle, he knew you didn’t do anything less but deserve it. You were too good for him, better than anyone he’s ever known in his life for as long as he’d live.

With a soft whimper, your hands turned his head from his lowered expression over to your soft eyes. He hated how quick you got him to look at you, and he especially hated how quick you made his breath stop.

“Hey,” you whispered, soft smile still glowing even though you realized he had intentionally lowered his voice as well as his lips from your sight. The vulnerable expression the raven-haired man was trying his hardest to not get you to see brought a rough pang to your chest.

“You crash, I crash. Always.”

[six-sanctuary]

Homecoming (Will Miller x Reader)

Author’s note: I’ve never written a fic before but was HEAVILY inspired by all the amazing content @lucrezia-thoughts and @charnelhouse generate (Super hope that's okay!) and wanted to try my hand at it and contribute to Triple Frontier Fr-saturday. (I know I'm a day late whoops)

Also I suck at proofreading I’m so sorry for any errors and hope someone enjoys this. Lowkey proud of myself for not being obnoxiously shy and just saving this to my desktop somewhere for eternity.

Anyways here we go no more rambling this is the fic. If I still dig it later on I might write some more in this lil universe either with Will/Reader or throw in some Benny/reader. Maybe even Santiago/reader if I can get his voice right.

Below the cut is 18+ only please and thanks!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You’d always been there, and you always would. It was the sort of realization that crept up slowly on Will. Looking back he wishes he could count the times he counted on you. He wishes he could put it into something concrete like numbers, something that he could wrap his head around, but you were there even before the numbers.

You were there before he was shipped off to war, before he had to learn to count as he breathed, in… two… three… four… five… hold… two… three… four… five…. out… two… three… four… five…. You were there before he broke and crumbled, falling into a million little pieces he didn’t know how to put back together again.

He wished he knew the number of warm smiles you’d given him. He wished he knew what number it took for him to fall in love, whether it was the hundredth or hundredth thousandth soft smile. All he knows now is that so much time was wasted, and he didn’t want to lose a second more.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You’d moved to Colorado a few months ago. It had always been part of the plan but that timeline got moved up when Will’s parents announced they were selling the house in favor of something smaller now that they were empty nesters. For a solid week, Will hummed and hawed about it, flip flopping back and forth. The thought of giving up something that was so integral to his childhood, something that had always meant home for him, was hard.

After weeks of his thinly veiled discontent, you came to a solution. After one of his talks, you sat him down in the dining room table of your apartment together and laid out the documents one by one. Rather than explain right away, you let Will take them all in, grabbing each one and skimming it before moving on to the next piece of paper.

“This is…. To buy the house?” Will’s thumbs smoothed over the paper as if in need of a reminder that they were real, that this was real. “My parent’s place?” His voice was thick with emotion, which never failed to bring it out of you. Rather than answer in words and risk your voice failing you, you nodded.

From there it was a lot of packing, a lot of hard work, but with the Delta Force boys help you two managed to get everything packed up in a hauler, ready to make the trek halfway across the country. The thought of being holed up in the car for hours on end with Benny made you the slightest bit nervous. The younger Miller was a bundle of energy and while you appreciated that most of the time, you were wary about being stuck in cramped quarters with the lightning bolt of a man. In the end the cars were split with you and Santiago taking Will’s Ford and Will and Benny driving the Uhaul.

You had a week of the gang’s help, well the gang minus Frankie. He had to head back a few days early to his wife and daughter. The others stayed, even Tom, though he was quick to point out several “serious”problems with the house that you’d need to look into. Despite that, it already felt like home. Sure it needed your and Will’s touch on the place, and a number of things had gone into disrepair as the Millers got older. At some point it had become too much for them, but it was the perfect project for a newlywed couple.

Not once did you regret it. Not when you were lugging heavy boxes up the stairs nor when you learned the roof needed to be replaced. No, each problem was taken in stride because you knew with Will by your side, you’d get through it. There was nothing the two of you could not conquer.

Soon the novelty of the new house wore off and with Benny back at his apartment down the street and Santiago and Frankie back home, you and Will fell into a quiet domesticity. You lived in pieces, your life wrapped up in boxes while you made repairs to the house.

Will, though he meant well, was not as handy as he claimed to be. After the shower incident that required a late-night call to an emergency plumber, your big Delta Force husband was relegated to the simpler tasks, or the ones that required his muscle. If a dresser had to be moved, he was your man, rolling up his sleeves and making it look easy. The same went for anything that required reaching high places (the uppermost cabinets in the kitchen were a real bitch). In the end, Will ended up spending more time turning the side yard into a garden while you turned this old house into your home.

After a month, Will had to go back to work. He’d been requested to give a speech in D.C., back to the other side of the country. As much as you wanted him to stay, you knew that this was important to him. You knew how much it mattered to him to feel useful, to feel good about what he did and so with a kiss to the cheek, you promised him that you’d have the kitchen cabinets all painted by the time he came back.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Classic rock was softly playing out of the radio you had set up on the counter. Painting was boring work, even more so all by yourself. The radio made you feel less alone and so you hummed along as you worked. Stroke after stroke of paint was rolled onto the cabinets, breathing new life into the space. It was really mindless work and so your thoughts wandered as you painted. You thought about the home, what other projects you had in mind. If you finished the cabinets quickly enough you wanted to tackle the downstairs bathroom too before Will got back.

He'd called every night but it wasn’t the same as him being here. If you were lucky, you got him on FaceTime and got to see his face light up when you appeared on his screen. Even with the small image of him on your phone he was so handsome, golden and bright. You’d called him your Apollo once, god of the sun, and he’d found that funny. Ben was picking him up from the airport tomorrow and driving him home and then you’d have your sun again.

The opening of the front door snapped you out of your thoughts, your head whipping around. “Honey?” His gruff voice was unmistakable to you. Without a second thought your paintbrush was set down, dripping slightly off the drop cloth though that was a problem for later. Your feet carried you to him, flinging yourself into his arms when you saw him standing there in the foyer. “I thought you were coming back tomorrow.” You nuzzled into his neck, breathing in the smell of him as his arms wrapped tightly around your waist. “We finished early and I wanted to surprise you.” It was definitely a surprise.

His hand moved from the small of your back to your chin, gently lifting it to place a soft kiss on your lips. “I missed you,” you breathed before stealing another. “I know.” He always knew. He knew every time he left you would miss him and he would miss you. You’d play this game and then he’d come home and reclaim you. One kiss turned into two, which then turned into three and four. Your hands moved to his short blonde hair, moving to the back of his neck to pull him closer, ever closer.

Leaving his bags at the door, you two tangled, desperate for contact, desperate for two to become one again. He picked you up, something you’d normally protest as your feet worked just fine, but instead you let him carry you up the stairs, deeper into your home, to your bedroom.

With a playful grin he tossed you onto the bed, nearly chuckling at the way you almost bounced. His amusement only lasted a moment before lust and his need to have you took over. He descended on you on the bed, lips crashing into yours for a heated kiss as his tongue grazed against your lower lip. He was everywhere at once, overwhelming all of your senses as his name repeated over and over in your head like a mantra.

Will… Will… Will…

His large hands held your wrists above your head, somehow managing the dichotomy of being gentle but firm, while his lips retraced every curve of your skin. Every time he came back the routine was the same. Will wanted, no needed to learn you again, to cover every soft spot that made you sigh to ensure you were the same as when he had left. He needed to know and so he kissed you, his trimmed beard tickling as he slowly made his way down your body earning soft moans along the way.

He only left your wrists when he got to your legs, separating them and placing one over his shoulder as you laid back on the bed. There he paused, looking down at you so bare and exposed and wet beneath him. It was hard not to move under his gaze. “God you’re so beautiful.” You felt heat rise in your cheeks as you whined out his name. He placed a less-than-chaste kiss on your inner thigh before moving closer, breathing in your heady scent. Licking your folds, he let his tongue circle your clit, smirking at the sounds leaving your lips.

He knew your body like the back of his hand and it took no time at all for him to bring you to that peak of pleasure. Closer and closer, more and more you felt your body respond to him, your hips rolling up against his tongue, hands fisting in the sheets or his hair whichever was closer. “C’mon baby,” he coaxed, slipping a finger into your slick heat, curling it to stroke the soft spot that made you cry out and shudder around him.

“That’s one.”

And you knew your husband would follow through with another. He collected your orgasms like some collected baseball cards, counting each and every one. No night ended with just one, leaving you spent exhausted and so satisfied at the end.

Wiping the wetness from his face, he kneeled next to you, watching as your breathing rate came back down, waiting for the sign that he could have you again. As you blinked the haze away, his hands trailed up and down your side, drawing absent patterns against your soft skin. The look in his eyes of restrained hunger made your mouth go momentarily dry, reigniting the flames of passion within you. Propping yourself up on one elbow, you used your other hand to reach for him, pulling him over you.

It was all the encouragement he needed. After tossing his shirt away, his calloused hands move to your thigh, hiking it up over his hip. You had only a moment to take in the sight of him, the well-toned muscle, the scar on the left side of his stomach, before you two crashed together once more. Your hips ground against the hard bulge in his pants, leaving a dark patch in the denim. You needed more, more friction, more him.

He pulled away only long enough to unbutton his pants, kick off his boots and rid himself of the rest of his clothing. Standing at the edge of the bed, he stroked his impressive length a few times as he admired your naked form. Then the wait was too long and crawled over you, lining himself up and so agonizingly slowly pushing himself into you. You tried to be still but it seemed your body had something else in mind as your legs wrapped around his waist pulling him ever closer.

“Someone’s eager,” he breathed, both of you knowing full well that neither of you had the patience to wait much longer. Pressing his lips firmly against yours, he moved, hips snapping into you at a quick pace, his size stretching you in ways no one else ever could. Your body molded to fit around him, your leg wrapping around him once more in an effort to guide him ever deeper. He bottomed out in you before pulling out and pressing into you again and again and again. Each motion put stars behind your eyes, the fireworks building to another crescendo.

You felt him get closer, the rhythm of his hips losing itself as he continued to thrust into you, hips stuttering as the pleasure overwhelmed. “One more honey, I know you have one more.” His low throaty growl in your ear was enough to push you over the brink, your hands clamoring for purchase on his back and shoulders as you cried out once more. Your core clenched down on him and it took only a few more hurried thrusts before you felt his hot seed shooting into you as he let out a low grunt.

His forehead rested against yours as he remained where he was, not wanting to pull out of you just yet. A thin sheen of sweat covered the both of your bodies and despite that you didn’t think either of you were finished quite yet. You had a full week of time apart to make up for. Will pulled his head back from your forehead to give you another soft kiss, this one lacking the passion and lust but more than making up for that with the love and affection he poured into it. “It’s good to be home.”

[gaming-thoughts-by-an-idiot]

The call of cthulhu

Chapter 7:

I got my brother to play the shambler part, it took 4 months before either remembered it, but it's done, thank god.

*the nameless bookstore *

"Alrighty bois, here we are, what's up"

"Uh oh, blood on the window"

"Oh yeah, let's close the door aggressively, surely that didnt make a noise and potentially alert whatever or whomever is in here"

"Ugh, sigmund Freud. Or I, dont really know anything about him, just the whole sexist something"

"Yeah because, walking around with a lighter around all these books seems like a brilliant idea"

"Eww, wtf is that?? Looks like a huge bug"

"Bleeeh i hate it ew ew ew"

Pierce, picks up a book: how many volumes are there in this collection?

*Also pierce picking up every red book and repeats the same thing*

Game: wanna read the book?

Me: since you're asking I feel I should say no

Game:

Me:

Game:

Me: yeah alright

Game: this will affect your destiny

Me: well fuck. I hope it's for the better

"Ooooh, I had to listen to the tube things, and now the red books are interesting"

Pierce: a strange amulet... I have a feeling that I'd better not touch it

Also pierce: *picks it up*

"Oh? I got an achievement for picking up an occult thing"

"I'm stuck"

"9th volume, I'm looking for the 9th volume"

"He said he cant stop reading it... so it should be somewhere he could sit"

"Ew the bugs"

"My amnesia lamp is dying fast"

"The ghostly fog around the lamps are so creepy"

"Am I looking for a book that doesnt exist?"

"Oh wait, it says that they're numbered, the tube sound things"

"  'Order is the pleasure of reason, but disorder is the delight of the imagination'  huh, I like that quote"

The game: the clues of the combination are to be found in three cylinders, each hidden where life and study combine in the greek world

Me: I got them

Game: each cylinder is numbered-

Me: yeah

Game: yeah :)

Me: what?

Game: :)

Me: sir-

"OH OH WAIT OH OKAY, NUMBERED! AS IN NOT JUST 1, 2 AND 3, BUT LIKE SERIAL NUMBER, OH ALRIGHT I GOT IT"

"I'm such a smart cookie"

"Gotta find myself a cookie monster"

"Wait.. no no nevermind I take it back"

"Asdfghjkl Hannibal is the cookie monster"

"Alrighty gang, first thing"

"One= 10342

Two= .. wait, okay I thought I was onto something here but they're all labelled the same number?"

"No wait"

"Oh no, yeah, the same, ffs"

"Let's try anyways"

"Okay but, theres a glowing star there, it pushed the love child of cthulhu away, and you're like? 'Hell yeah lets touch it'??? This entire game is just Pierce being insane"

"When me and Odin (lil bro who helped me) talked about this game, both would've just gone nah, and just, ya know x.x

Not that we would ON PURPOSE investigate here at all, but after all Pierce have seen? Nah, nah man"

"Didnt work, I mean ofc it didnt"

"I dont have that many brain cells to solve anything with numbers"

"I can do this, I'm sure..  I mean I cant, but let's pretend"

"I can get pleasantly surprised"

"Okay, I have to be missing something"

"Oooh, maybe the love child of cthulhu took book nr 9?"

"If this is as easy as the globe one? I'm gonna go cry"

"Aaaa idk the codddddeeeee"

"So code 666, 616 and 404, does not work"

"I gotta Google "

"Excuse me??"

• Cylinder 1 - Cylinder 1 - regards the Goblet from this room. Indicated number 5. "How??? How does that indicate 5???"

• Cylinder 2 - regards chessboards on the table and the chess pieces defending the queen. Indicates number 3.

"???? WHAT IS THIS GAME"

• Cylinder 3 - regards the books you can find on the counter and to the total amount. Indicates number 9.

"WELL WO-FUCKING-HOO"

"This game is difficult"

"Cthulhu is mocking me, I'm sure"

"Yay. I opened it to find the forbidden book"

"And now he's gonna read it, wow, sure, toss all that stuff down to the floor"

"Oh great, eye of sauron"

"Ooo, floating books and?? Weeeee~"

Chapter 8: Institute

"Yaaaay... more hospital insanity, woo"

"Oh, his mind was projected into another body? Oh yeah because Pierce needs body dysphoria added to all his ptsd"

"Oh cool, I'm a woman now, and my name is... Marie Colden."

"Okay so this dying dude, got something in his body, they joked about him being pregnant.... yoo"

"Oh ew, hes mutating"

"The extra nurse is just watching them talk about illegal things"

"I hate first pov"

Me, whispering: i dont know what that word means

"Nightmare city"

"Eaugh the food looks like... I dont even wanna say it"

"Oooh, I get to see from her pov. I thought this was like a new thing"

"Oh damn, Pierce is down there living through hell, and I'm running around looking at books"

"I got an achievement for healing all the patients"

"I'm just looking for a tool"

"Aha!"

"I'm calling it, the young woman who wash the bathrooms are gonna die"

"??? I WAS STABBED"

"I'm back as the idiot detective!"

"The book dealer guy! Drake! Got a gun on me!"

"I got an achievement that said I fell into Fuller's trap :("

"I only think of Brian Fuller "

"I got a rare achievement because I keep reading the cursed books, oh jesus why am I like this"

"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back"

"If I was pierce, I'd invest in shoes that doesnt tap"

Pierce: enough time wasted-

Me: I AM TRYING TO FIND THE WAY OUT YOU SHIT

"Oh fuck oh wow"

"Oh, ah.... hh... scary scene... I wish I could record my scream there hahh, it wasnt a AAA it had two sets in it, wow ooof"

"Okay okay, I managed to get past the ??? That was, and I'm finally back to normal, I'm just gonna see if I die, and maybe I'll just game more another day"

"I'm in a hallway... no matter where i run, theres no end"

"Who's singing?"

"I even tried to run backwards"

"What if I stand still?"

"Or I'll close my eyes and run into every door"

"Okay okay uh, inside the patted room"

"Going insane !!"

"Ah, okay so, surgery, fun"

"W h a t  T h e  f u c k "

"SHOOT HIM, SHOOT HIM FOR FUCKS SAKE JUST SHOOT WHY ARE YOU HESITATING????"

"???? Marie, zombie??? Marie just knocked me out, wtf is this"

"OKAY SO"

"Crazy painting woman is alive, alright. Husband is the cthulhu love child, the doctor is clearly in love with her... we're running from guards.... and I think??? We're gonna gas them...."

"Okay.... uh.... so, Sarah is... the key to get cthulhu.... and her husband, tried to "protect" her, and hes dead, combined effort... and now we're in chapter 9.

[youvebeenlivingfictional]

I’m Always Curious Part Thirty Four

Previous Part | Next Part |  Masterlist Notes: I hope everyone’s having a good week 💕

Warnings: Cursing, a lil fluff, a lil angst. Y’all know me. Summary: I already knew that whatever my fate in this time, it would be different from my own now.

“This doesn’t seem such a bad place to be. I’m an Admiral here,” Eli smiled.

“Well you’re technically not you, so someone that looks and sounds like you is an Admiral,” I reminded him, “You would not be an Admiral if we got stuck here.”

“Have you looked yourself up yet?” 

“No.”

“Why not?-- Maybe you and Pike are loved up somewhere.”

He was teasing, or trying to, but I couldn’t take the jest in stride. I hadn't told him what Mr. Spock had told me about Christopher in this universe; I hadn’t told anyone. I was trying not to let it cloud my mind. I wanted to focus on the task at hand: returning to our universe. But how could this new insight not make that mission all the more urgent? “...Hey,” Eli frowned, “What is it?” I glanced at him, considering. I couldn’t tell Eli— I’d hardly gotten Spock to tell me. Besides, if my hunch was correct and the same events didn’t occur in our universe, it could sound an alarm for nothing. I just shook my head, excusing, “Just...Can’t believe I didn’t attend the Academy in this universe— at least, not with Spock. I can’t imagine going to the Academy without him. We practically lived in the long-range sensor lab together our second year.” “I didn’t know that.” “...Eli, this has to work. We have to get back.” “This Spock says there’s a 12.31% chance that our plan works. That leaves an incredibly large margin of error—” “Durling, you are the Captain of the Pinnacle. What is a pinnacle? It’s a successful point, a culmination. You were over the frickin’ moon when you became Captain— and you’re just going to roll over because there’s a version of you that’s become an Admiral in some universe? Why not focus some of that smugness into your work, get us home, and become an Admiral where people that really know you will be able to see it?” Eli was quiet for a moment, watching me before his eyes darted to the doorway behind us. “I thought that the captains were meant to make the rousing speeches,” Came Kirk’s amused voice behind us. I turned to look at him and Mr. Spock and cleared my throat. “Yes, well… Sometimes Communications officers have to drum up a speech or two to get a captain’s wheels turning,” I grumbled, tucked my hands behind my back. “The occasions are far and few between,” Durling added. -- “Commander, a word, if I may.” “Yes, Mr. Spock?” I turned from the transporter bay with Durling and the rest of our crew was preparing to return to the Pinnacle. “I took the liberty of looking into your existing whereabouts in this universe.” My stomach swooped in fear and anticipation. “Oh– You did not have to do that.” “I must admit that I found it quite curious that you were so adamant about learning about Captain Pike’s future and not your own.” My eyes lowered to the floor as I considered my answer, “Well… Perhaps I care more about the fate of my friends than my own. Is that terribly suspicious?” “I believe I used the word curious, Commander.” “...I guess you did,” I conceded. Spock nodded a little, bringing an envelope out from behind his back. “I cannot force you to come to terms with your own fate in this time,” He said, “But I will allow you the opportunity, should you choose it.” I looked at the envelope for a long moment. I already knew that whatever my fate in this time, it would be different from my own now — my beginnings were already different, my day-to-day existence was entirely separate. I hesitated before I reached out, taking hold of the envelope. “Thank you, Mr. Spock,” I nodded. “Have a safe journey, Commander.” “And you,” I raised my hand in a Vulcan salute. Mr. Spock arched a critical brow, tipping his head toward me as he mirrored the gesture. “Live long, and prosper.” -- 

I held my breath as we dropped out of warp. We all held very still and quiet for a moment, but as the moments passed without a hail from Captain Kirk, the Bridge collectively relaxed and began to whoop with relief. I had never been so relieved to not see the Enterprise anywhere in my periphery. I turned to my station, opening the channels to try and get a hold of any ships in the area. I raised my hand to my earpiece, scanning the array of sensors and monitors in front of me. As I waited, I eyed the envelope on my console, as I waited. I shivered a little, shaking my head. While I hated knowing what Christopher may be in for, I hated the idea of my own potential fate sitting just inches from me nearly twice as much. 

-- When I heard that I was receiving a message from the Enterprise, I was expecting Christopher. I had, instead, been greeted by Una. “Before I ask where you’ve been, let me begin with my purpose,” She said, “Thaleh is leaving the Enterprise. We need a Communications officer. You can, of course, decline.” “I’ll need time to pack,” Was my quick answer. “Well, then you can tell me where you’ve been once you beam aboard. And we’ll have to find someone to replace you with for the Pinnacle.” “....Right, that,” I muttered. Una smiled a little. “I’m sure Durling will be disappointed.” “A little, maybe, but he won’t be surprised.” 

“And I should warn you, Pike has been more than a little...harried with your lack of communication.” “Understandable. If one of you suddenly blipped elsewhere, I would be concerned.” Una arched a sharp brow. “Blipped elsewhere?” She repeated, “Well… I’m certainly looking forward to reviewing that log.” 

-- “Door,” I ordered. I didn’t turn away from the box of things that I was unpacking. I could’ve sworn I’d left more notebooks on the Enterprise— “...Finding the new quarters alright?” I stilled at the sound of his voice. So much had happened since we’d warped through the singularity: the Discovery had beamed to an uncertain future, Spock— my Spock, had returned to the Enterprise...And so had Christopher. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Christopher since Mr. Spock had told me of his potential fate. It had been on my mind since I beamed aboard, and it had lingered, even as I settled into my new quarters and unpacked the boxes of my things that had been saved and stored. 

“It’s certainly larger than the last time I was aboard,” I conceded, lowering a notebook and brushing the dust from my hands as I turned to face him. I found Christopher looking around, and I took the chance to look him over. It was nice to see him in Command gold again, especially after that jarring experience of seeing Kirk in Captain’s chair of the Enterprise. Christopher’s eyes drifted to me, finally, and he smiled, “Well, you weren’t a Commander the last time you were aboard.” “That is an excellent point.” Christopher was quiet for a moment before he took a couple of steps deeper into the room. His hands were still tucked behind his back, and I found myself wishing that he would just reach out; I wish that I felt like I could. “What happened out there?” He asked, “Una used the word blipped.” I sighed softly, scrubbing my hand over my brow. I’d explained to Una exactly what had happened as I’d unpacked what I’d brought over from the Pinnacle. “Oh… Sometimes you accidentally warp through a singularity and wind up a universe where you never went to Starfleet. Typical Thursday, you know.” Christopher’s brows rose, his head tipping forward. “An alternate universe?” He repeated. I nodded. “I know you’ve some experience with that. Una told me about the Terran incident before I became part of the crew. It’s uh…. Jarring.” “It certainly is.” “We were only there for about three days but here, it was… It was months.” Christopher nodded as he came to a full stop just in front of me, looking down into my box from storage. “Everything you needed in there?” He asked. “Um— … Could’a sworn I had a couple hundred more notebooks aboard, but it’s been a while, you know. And Pal might have a few, I used to lend them to him all the time for conjugations and stuff,” I leaned back against my desk, folding my arms across my chest, “You’re um… You’re alright?” “Fine. It’s nice to see that you’re in one piece. I was concerned.” That warmed me more than it was surely meant to, and I had to duck my head to hide the smile that crept up at his admission. “I didn’t mean to concern you. I can point you in the direction of the singularity that we warped through, if you’d like to pick a fight.” Christopher huffed a soft laugh, shaking his head a little bit. “How about I just...See you on the Bridge tomorrow?” “Sounds good, Captain.” “Don’t be late.” “I wouldn’t dare, sir.” I smiled, watching Christopher leave my quarters. I sighed softly, sliding off of my desk and into my chair, looking out of my window for a few moments. I had a warm feeling swirling in my chest, something safe and soft. It felt like home. Tag list: @angels-pie​​ ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta​​  ; @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo​​ ; @how-am-i-serpose-to-know​​ ; @onlyhereforthefandomandgiggles​​ ; @inmyowncorner​​  ; @tardis-23​​  ; @paintballkid711​​ ; @katrynec​​ ; @hypnobananaangelfish ; @elen-aranel​​ ; @blueeyesatnight​​ ; @hotchswifey​​​

[cosmicak]

Baby Ward

So! Here’s a Mom! V Drabble based off a conversation I had on discord about our collective RiVer Cyberpunk oc - baby Jackie Robert Ward. I threw some angst in there because of course

Prompt:

“River you’re not taking our child to a bar Ward”

1.3k words

Enjoy!

River wasn’t sure what was worse, He wouldn’t be around to keep an eye on his young son or that his beloved wife was heading into a bar with said son.

“Babe..can’t you just let Joss take him for the day? Even Panam or-“

“We’ll be fine Riv! isn’t that right Jackie?” V cooed to their son, currently strapped to her chest, eyes wide in wonder. He was almost one and V thought it was a better time than any to introduce lil Jackie Ward to El Coyote.

“He’s only 10 months V! You can’t take him to a bar!” He argued, cases left forgotten on his desk as he stood. V only waved him off as she put baby Jackie’s own little set of aviators - courtesy of Johnny Silverhand.

“He’s a Welles child, it’s in his namesake to go River, he’ll be fine” V grinned, slapping a ‘baby on board’ sign to the chest strap “Johnny will be there and Mama Welles will be around anyway”

River was still apprehensive, he knew their son would be in great hands, considering the about of aunts and uncles the kid had in Night City, but the cop part of him always knew just what could happen. “Tell me you weren’t going to take the Arch into town”

“Well..”

“V!”

“Alright alright..I’ll call the Hella..”

-

“Ayy..look at you, cute as can be eh?” Pepe cooed to the wide eyed baby playing with his cross necklace, V smiled down at her son.

“Still weird seein’ you with a baby, V” She heard Johnny to her left, peeking over her shoulder at the boy. “ ‘s preem your tits got bigger though”

“Fuck off Joh—“ V smiled before a sharp slap hit the back of her head. “Ow!”

“Watch your language around the baby, Mija” Mama Welles warned, taking a seat at the bar next to V. “Give me my grandson if you’re going to keep cursing”

She heard Johnny and Pepe chuckle to themselves as she unstrapped Jackie, handing him to his Abuela, posture straightening as the weight was taken off her front.

Jaquito “Jackie” Robert Ward was a big boy, much like his father and over the months V had been knocked up her back ached, so any relief on her back was a blessing in her eyes. V unstrapped the baby carrier and threw it over Johnny’s shoulders.

“You’re just usin’ me as a baby carrier now” He complained as V tightened the straps around his torso. “After all we’ve been through”

“Oh grow up Johnny, not even a week ago you were boasting how much pussy my son got you”

“Touché, V”

-

“Alright Kid, repeat after me- Daddy says oink!” Johnny exclaimed to the infant currently strapped to his chest, looking innocently up at him. Big brown eyes oblivious to the antics.

“Give me nothin’ why don’t ya” He sighed, sliding his own aviators over his eyes, scanning the room for V. She’d gone upstairs with Padre a while ago and left the kid to the worst possible babysitter. Johnny sighed, not one chick in sight he could use the baby against to get laid, and he couldn’t even smoke.

A whimper interrupted his sulking, a glance down saw that lil Jackie was about to scream his little lungs out. Johnny stood and quickly stormed his way upstairs, an ear piercing cry starting as he locked eyes with V.

“Take the fuckin’ kid V”

V rolled her eyes and said a quick goodbye to Padre before making her way over to Johnny and her son, lifting the boy from the carrier.

“Shhh, hey..hey it’s alright Jackie baby..I know his ugly mug is upsetting to look at..” she cooed, hot tears spilling from the boys eyes gradually slowed, Jackie only whimpered once V held him in her arms long enough. “See you’re fiiine..Mommy’s got you”

“Take him downstairs V, doubt the smoke up here will do him any good” Padre called, V nodded and gestured for Johnny to follow her downstairs as she cradled the boy in her arms.

Once downstairs V took him to Jackie’s ofrenda, still the same even years after the funeral.

“Little Jaquito, meet Big Jaquito..” She smiled to herself, kissing the baby’s forehead.

“Jack..meet my son, Jackie Ward..sorry it took me so long to uh..introduce him to you, choom..” V sighed, swallowing the lump forming in her throat. She felt the ‘ganic hand of Johnny rubbing circles on her back, staying silent. “You would’a loved him Jack..he’s the splitting image of me..‘sides the tan skin he gets from his father”

She held her son to her chest, the sound of her heartbeat lulling the boy to sleep, one hand came up and wiped her eyes, still finding herself getting overwhelmed with grief about his death. Jaquito’s weight and Johnny’s hand on her back kept her grounded enough to continue.

“You um..you’d like his pops, Jack..He’s a real family man, stuck by me even when I was dyin’” V chucked softly, thinking back on the earlier days with her husband. “Not bad for an ex cop either, bet you’d never have thought I’d get hitched to one of NCPD’s finest huh?”

“I don’t think anyone would have seen that one coming V, don’t exactly have a sparkling rep with the boys in blue of NC” V spun around to face one Panam Palmer.

“Panam? What the fuck are you doin’ in NC?” V asked, handing Jackie to Johnny to dab at her eyes.

“Weeeeell, I stopped by your place to demand some Aunt and Baby time but River told me you had taken our boy to the Coyote” Panam gestured to the uncomfortable looking Silverhand with Jackie pulling at his dog tags. “So here I am! now give me the handsome lil guy”

Johnny quickly exchanged Jackie from his hip to Panam’s, visibly relaxing as he did so.

“And here I was thinkin’ you meant me, you wound me Panam” He sighed, V rolled her eyes, moving over to the nomad.

“I know what kinda lil guy you got Silverhand, I ain’t interested” she shot over to him before diverting her attention back to the boy in her arms. “Aren’t you jusy the cutest little man! Oh yes you are”

Jackie woke up with a startle as V burst out laughing, soon screaming his displeasure to his aunt and mother as Johnny swiftly crossed the room to the bar for a stiff drink.

-

V pulled up to the trailer park just as dusk started, pulling a sleeping Jackie from his car seat and making her way up the porch stairs with the softest steps to avoid waking the sleeping boy in her arms.

Once she was inside, V sought out River who was talking with Randy about one of his cases. Upon seeing his wife and son he excused himself and crossed the room to gather them in his arms.

“Big day huh?” River asked, watching as Jackie didn’t so much as stir at the movement, clinging to V’s tank top.

“Oh fuck yeah, He was a hit at the coyote, between Mama Welles, Panam and Pepe, I barely had him to myself” V kissed their son’s tuff of hair before letting out a yawn. “and defendin’ him from Johnny’s bad influences really drained me too”

River smiled down at V, a warm feeling taking spreading in his chest. He gently unhooked Jackie’s little fingers from his mother’s clothes and held him close, giving V a kiss to her own head.

“Go take a nap V, We’ve been due for some Father Son time today anyway” He murmured into her hair, making her laugh before she headed for the bedroom, waving to Randy as she did.

“Alright little man, wanna hear about what dad’s been up to today huh?” He chuckled as Baby Jackie stired and squinted up at his father.

“You’ll only bore him back to sleep with that shit Uncle Riv” Randy called out, prompting River to shoot his nephew a mean look

“Randy!”

“Yeah yeah, language, like Aunt V’s friends aren’t as bad” River could only sigh and cover his son’s free ear, taking his seat and settling the boy in his lap, smiling down at his son.

“Yeah I know”

-

[felassan]

Thoughts on Dark Fortress #1

(This post is under a cut due to spoilers.)

NB, my thoughts on the first pages that came out in the preview are collected here [spoilers at link], so I won’t repeat myself.

Okay here we go :D I’ve posted up my fav panels but always want a space where I can burble at length.. (I’m late in posting this bc recently for the last few days I’ve been obsessing over politics in my country as it’s the run-up to election time.. I haven’t read anyone elses’ thoughts on it either so I could be behind on prevailing speculation or whats known or something) The preview pages ended at the panel when Aaron says “Vaea is right”, so that’s where I’m beginning.

I can’t put my finger on why but I really like the “don’t tell me I’ve had too much to drink” panel showing a Tevinter street. It’s a neat blend of “Tevinter is advanced relative to much of the rest of known Thedas, but also ominous, but also a place where people live and go about their lives, and also not going too heavy on the cyberpunk angle”. I dig the composition ‘leading’ the eye up the street and the consistency with the recently-seen DA4 materials that have red lighting in Tevinter buildings, similar building shapes etc. ig I’m pretty obsessed with the idea of the DA4 PC & party walking up streets like these.

I wonder how Aaron felt witnessing Tractus’ drunken scenes in the pub :(

Tractus’ attitude towards the barman here shows the influence and power Magisters wield in Tevinter, and the fear of them common among the mundane populace

digging the Tevinter-y motifs & design of the bartop, bar shelving etc. it feels like thought went into it

I’d watch a spinoff show or read a story where Marius and Ser Aaron have to team up in order to achieve something

Vaea is so badass and agile! I appreciate that the shot of her up high was tasteful and didn’t like, weirdly contort her body, have a weird leering angle or emphasize things in that way comic art often does for women at moments like these

so in Tevinter, lamps give off red light (seen in the bar scene). are the windowpanes themselves also red?

good thinking Vaea grabbing the staff. great sense of snappiness and motion in this panel. her landing reminds me of squirrels doing the superhero pose landing actually :) 

tfw you and a dog burst out of a wardrobe

Tractus recognizing Fenris, it seems - did they encounter each other when Tractus was young, or does he just know of him (distinctive markings and all that)? if the former, I have a feeling we might get a flashback scene to that time in a future issue

cutting to look at Francesca when Tractus talks about Fenris murdering his father is GENIUS. look at the sadness on her face here; “you murdered your father” is exactly what she’s been telling herself and struggling with all this time

nice to see staff-less magic in action

Tractus seems to have drawn power from the red orb set in his staff. he reaches out to it and it responds by glowing and the staff moving, but he wasn’t doing a Jedi ‘use my Jedi powers to make my thrown lightsaber [staff] return to my hand’, as you might expect, he was instead charging up and drawing magical energy/power from it [the orb], as seen by the red light in his hand in the next panel. this reinforces my earlier wonderings that the red orb is notable and that there’s some connection between it and his red eyes. later in the panel when he’s trying to cast on the floor his eyes seem lit up (altho it could just be lighting & dramatic effect)

I wonder if Fenris thinks of Anders and Justice when Tractus says “justice”. There was once a mage in Fenris’ life who was really focused on justice..

the combat scenes are beautifully drawn, thought out and colored

Fenris’ lines here are really metal, badass and impactful. I could hear Gideon Emery’s voice in my head as I read these bits - the word choice of “hounded” helps with that I think, it immediately recalls Fenris talking with anger about how Hadriana denied his meals and hounded his sleep. they nail how Fenris speaks, the pattern and words he tends to use, etc

PHASING POWERS in action!! this is very cool to see, this ability of his didn’t get touched on much at all in DA2 outside of combat or a few scenes

I enjoy the contrast between the red and blue glows

Fenris is understandably merciless 

“Perhaps if you had it carved into you” feels like foreshadowing for the ‘red wraith’

:( the reminder that the very thing Fenris struggles with feelings of hate and fear towards is carved into his skin for the rest of time and always will be

Vaea is brave to step in, standing up for what she believes is right and also re-centering focus on the critical mission at hand

;___; Autumn helping keep Tractus on the ground. she is such a good girl. she Help

“You’re lucky the mabari is here” - having Fenris in a dark light here relative to the rest of the panel is nicely symbolic

oh shit!! some plot advancement in terms of the ongoing story of the wider world. The Antaam have now reached Neromenian!! the invasion is progressing further and further into Tevinter. how far will it have come by the time of DA4? will there be an active war front not far from Minrathous? I appreciate the comics from this team a lot, here and there they push forward the ‘story of Thedas’ not just the story of the comic’s focus. also, I like that the Qunari soldiers here aren’t clones of one another but all look different. different hairstyles, sizes/bodies, clothes

love how our group work together, everyone has a strength and a role to play, the teamwork, the delegation, they’re like a DA basegame party or a D&D party

the way Fenris’ hand and arm glow in this sequence has been drawn/colored is smart - calling to mind the image of blue veins running through someone’s arm or below the skin on the backs of their hands

Fenris has surely picked up Fereldan sayings from Hawke.. stop .. my heart ;__;

the Fenris/Autumn exchange

this is so intense.. why do I get the feeling that Fenris has used this sort of torture technique before in his hunting and extermination of Danarius’ adult children campaign and/or his hunting of slavers as the BW with Shirallas campaign. it feels like he has done this sort of thing before in the time post-Kirkwall. I like that they didn’t hold back with a bit of gore here and there in this issue (phasing a hand and then solidifying it inside someone’s body, the Qunari attack portion in the street etc), while at the same time not being excessive with it.

this miniseries so far has good pacing, things moving along nicely and not being too slow or meandering

it’s smart having Tractus’ explanation of how to get in stay off-screen to the reader while we follow Francesca calling the alarm. It means we get to find out as we watch them infiltrate

omg those puncture wounds from his talons

when Fenris is about to kill Tractus after he tells him what he wanted to know, I’m strongly reminded of how he promised to let Hadriana go then killed her anyway, regardless of player choice. he has his ruthless streak and it feels like a callback. and before, when he was standing over Tractus when he was on the floor, echoes that scene in A Bitter Pill when he stands over Hadriana on the ground, who also reached for her staff

Tractus pale with bloodloss and fear

lmao @ Fran and Autumn’s faces when they walk in on this scene

Fenris listening to Vaea is nicely consistent with his character too imo - there are times in DA2 when Hawke can be like “Fenris no don’t do the Thing” and he doesn’t do the Thing

I have missed the way Fenris’ nose bridge crinkles when he’s angry

I wonder what the consequences of leaving Tractus alive will be. [tv announcer voice] FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON DARK FORTRESS

so the ritual will only take minutes to complete huh 👀

wow Neromenian has truly fallen, reeducation of the people of Tevinter continues as in Three Trees to Midnight in TN

explaining that they are speaking in Qunlat is a nice immersive touch and shows attention to detail of the lore of the world

bobbly-shoulders Qunari, Legolas hair Qunari, septum piercing Qunari, bobbly-brow Qunari, undercut Qunari. I wonder if the shoulder and brow protrusions are aspects we’ll see in the Qunaris’ latest design in DA4?

poor Tractus can’t catch a break lol. it has Not been Tractus’ day

Karasten: an infantry field commander

bit of Tevinter lampshading, lil fourth wall break with “This land and its obsession with magic. There is always a forbidden ritual with them” hhhhhh

Ringwraith on a horse moment at the end there

strong ending, can’t wait for next month weww.. 👀

[thespianbooks]

A Court of Nightmares and Starlight //Chapter 16//

Masterlist

(tags: @thron3ofbooks, @df3ndyr, @courtofjurdan, @art-e-mis, @herondamnn, @the-third-me, @im-still-trying-here, @emikadreams, @paytin77, @mis-lil-red, @sleeping-and-books, @lucieisabooknerd, @amandaraey-sunshine, @easy-p-lemon, @azymondias05) *bold tags don’t work ;-;

Happy Winter Solstice everyone! In honor of this day, and our girl Feyre’s birthday, here is chapter 16 to celebrate! I hope you all have a fantastic week celebrating the holidays! Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and an overall Happy Holidays! ❤️

X

"Rhys?"

My soft whisper was met with silence; my mate remaining in the depths of slumber, an arm draped over my waist as we lay entangled in our plush sheets. It was still dark outside, only a couple of hours having passed since we turned in for the night and yet I awoke; overcome with an urge I had never felt so intensely before.

"Rhys?" I whispered again, touching his cheek gently and saw a flicker in the muscle of his jaw.

"Rhysand…" I pressed, my heart racing in hopes I could coax him into consciousness as tenderly as possible.

"Yes…?" He muttered, voice thick with sleep and eyes remaining closed.

"Rhys…" I hesitated, moving in a little closer to him as I murmured sheepishly. "I'm...hungry,"

His dark brows pulled together in confusion, "Hungry?" he asked.

I nodded, my head rubbing against his shoulder with the motion. "Starving, actually," I admitted as I traced circles along the dark whorls of his tattoos.

I grinned as he opened his eyes, still perplexed as he turned to me. "You didn't eat at dinner?" He asked, concerned, and I giggled.

"I did. You were there remember?"

"That's right," he closed his eyes again with a sigh of relief, the hand on my waist drifting to my rounded stomach pressed against his side. "We went to Sevenda's with the others and you had the prime rib special."

My stomach growled at the memory, and I choked back a rising sob. "Yes…"

He opened his eyes again, alarmed at the sound of unshed tears in my voice. "What's wrong, Feyre?" he asked, fully alert now as he shifted onto his side to look down at me.

I felt my eyes burn, suddenly overcome with guilt for making him worry and for waking him up, but I couldn't resist the ache in my stomach.

"I want more," I whispered.

He blinked, taken aback as he stared at me. "Of the prime rib?" He clarified.

I nodded with a hiccup. Cauldron damn these hormones. "I need it Rhys. We need it." I said, placing my hands on my stomach.

Rhys breathed a sigh of respite, laughing breathily as he dropped his forehead against my collarbone. "Oh Feyre, you scared me."

"I'm serious, Rhys, I'm so hungry and that prime rib was so good. I need more of it, or else-"

"Of course, my love, whatever you want," he hurriedly reassured me, kissing my cheeks before pulling back to meet my gaze.

I sniffed as I stared into his violet eyes, sparkling with amusement. "Really?"

My heart lifted at the feline grin on his lips, "Yes. Would you like everything that came with it too?"

I brightened and nodded, "Yes. Please."

He chuckled and pressed a chaste kiss to my lips before pulling back and climbing out of bed. "I'll be right back, then."

I beamed as I pushed myself up slowly, a month of growth on my abdomen now weighed me down and I required a little more effort when rising from any laying or sitting position. In the month that passed since the summit, since Eira's birth, we had all fallen into a sense of ease. Prior to the summit, Rhys and I did our best to compose our nerves over the rising coup, but now with the full support of our friends at our back, we finally felt a sense of solace. We were still in a period of waiting—of gathering more intelligence on Keir, Kallon, and now Beron. Thanks to Azriel's continued spy work, we were assured that no advancements were being made on either front, so we all allowed ourselves to breathe easier—for now at least.

The only wild card that remained was Eris, but after a brief meeting with him at our moonstone palace above the Court of Nightmares, things seemed...placated, for the time being. The eldest of the Vanserra sons, and heir to the Autumn Court, assured the earlier theory Rhys had—that the male wanted our support in overthrowing his father. What surprised me, however, was that it was all he wanted. He swore he played no part in his father's plans with Keir, and to prove it he provided us with detailed, secret, reports from his father's general; whom he had rallied to his side as well. The reports accurately lined up with the intel Azriel's network of spies had collected, and as of recently divulged a lack of movement as well.

It seemed the trio of traitors were biding their time, presumably attempting to adjust their plans now that the entire continent was aware of my pregnancy. We knew better than to assume they would reel back on the coup because of this; instead deciding to strike before my child had a chance to be born. The threat still haunted us all, but until we had news of any change in plans, we had to wait. In the meantime, Rhys, our family, and I were making the best of it. True to the promise I made myself, having seen how curious and eager Cassian had been in learning about my pregnancy, I spent as much time with them as I could. To aid in our efforts, Rhys and I hired a personal assistant to help balance our workload as High Lord and High Lady; agreeing that we needed the help while we transitioned into preparing for parenthood. That assistant was Clotho, the mute priestess who served in the library of Velaris, and one of the only other fae Rhys or I could trust outside of the inner circle. The priestess humbly agreed and now split her time between our estate and the library. Despite not being able to outwardly express herself, Rhys assured me that she was ecstatic to hear of my pregnancy and wanted nothing more than to help us balance our work between ruling and parenting.

In the month that passed, not only were we able to de-stress a bit and enjoy leisure time with our family, but I had also observed a notable change in myself. While my belly, now an impressive, rounded mound that was pronounced no matter what I wore, continued to grow with the promise from Madja that our son was still as healthy as ever; I noticed a myriad of developments in my emotions. While I did find myself with more energy than I had in the early days of my pregnancy, that frequency in fatigue now seemed to trade places with erratic mood swings. One minute I would be as happy and content as ever, and in the next beset with unexpected gloom. However, everyone seemed to take it in stride—especially my mate, who simply smiled and listened to me rant or just held me when I needed to cry.

Along with my renewed energy, my appetite returned with a vengeance. The same three meals I ate everyday no longer sated me, and I found myself snacking on various things throughout the day. There had been an incident a few weeks ago where I watched in total envy as Azriel snacked on dried meat in between training with Cassian and Rhys—something the brothers had picked back up in part due to the looming threat, but also as a means for entertainment. It wasn't until Cassian noticed me on the verge of tears and snatched the meat from Azriel, casually offering it to me, that I realized I had officially started with pregnancy-related cravings. The cravings hadn't been so intense; until tonight, when I had been ripped from sleep by my growling stomach and the desire to have another helping of dinner had me waking my mate from his sleep.

"Do you think she still has those leftovers?" I asked as I watched him dress.

"I'm sure she has plenty left reserved for you, Feyre darling. She saw how much you loved it," he replied with a knowing grin.

My face warmed as I recalled how the restaurateur offered to pack up extra servings for me to bring back to the estate, but I had been too embarrassed at the extra helpings I already consumed during our stay and politely refused.

"I didn't want to look like a glutton," I admitted sheepishly.

He walked over, resting his hands on the bed as he leveled our gazes. "No one would think that. You're pregnant and feeding the heir to the Night Court. They know he needs to eat, even in the middle of the night," he said and gave me another chaste kiss before stroking a hand along my stomach affectionately.

I smiled. "That's true. It's just hard to keep up when I feel absolutely ravenous every few hours."

He smirked appreciatively as he rubbed my stomach again, "Is there anything else my son wants?"

"Strawberries," I answered quickly. "With chocolate, or whipped cream."

Rhys laughed and pressed a kiss to my forehead. "Whatever you want, my love," he repeated and stood upright.

I waited for him to return as patiently as I could, pacing between our bedroom and balcony every few minutes before finally pacifying myself by sitting with a book on the cushioned bench of the balcony. In order to keep myself distracted, I read a book of plays aloud in hopes that my growing baby would be patient in his insatiable appetite. The sound of my voice must have appeased him, because as I continued to read, my hunger seemed to dull a bit. However, after a few minutes passed, I felt his kicks of protests and rubbed at the spot.

"If you have such a problem with my reading, then talk to your father. He's the one that taught mama how to read," I said, and my heart warmed at the memory of my lessons with Rhysand in my early days at the Night Court. "Maybe he'll teach you to read too."

"We both could," I heard Rhys say from behind me and I whipped my head around to see him holding a bundle of food.

I pushed myself up unceremoniously, eager to eat as the smells hit my nose. "That's so much food!" I exclaimed as he walked over and placed the bundle on the small table we kept on the balcony.

"Sevenda might've given us some more food she thought you might enjoy," he answered with a laugh before snapping his fingers and the food instantly displayed out before me.

I gasped in admiration before Rhys pulled out a chair for me and I happily sat, digging into my meal immediately and moaned with relief as the savory juices of the prime rib hit my taste buds.

Rhys sat next to me, casually grabbing a strawberry from the bowl he had also laid out and snacked on it as he regaled me while I indulged myself. "You truly are a sight to behold, Feyre darling."

I felt my face warm and dread filled my chest as I swallowed a mouthful. "Do I look like a pig?" I asked, that dread beginning to ebb into shame.

"No, no." He quickly reassured me, moving closer until our knees were touching. "I meant the sight of my expecting mate enjoying herself, of nourishing my growing child, is one I never dreamed I'd see," he explained. His hand came to rest on my stomach again as those beautiful amethyst eyes grew tender.

I squeezed his hand gently, "You deserve it Rhys. This child is a culmination of everything that is good about you; of all the good you've done in your lifetime."

His eyes were lined with silver as they met mine, and I moved my hands to cup his face. "He will be all the best parts of you, Rhysand."

"And of you," he swore. "You brought out the best in me Feyre. Everything that I am, that I have now, including this child, is all because of you."

My heart pounded with joy as I beamed and pulled him in for a kiss. He returned it with just as much fervor and heat began pooling in my core. When he pulled away too soon for my liking, I kissed him again-slowly, and nipped at his bottom lip.

I felt the fiendish smirk of his lips on mine as he muttered, "I thought you were hungry?"

"I'm hungry for something else now." I whispered, staring at him with half-lidded eyes.

I shrieked with a laugh as he scooped me up in his arms, my legs easily hooking around his waist as the food from the table suddenly disappeared and he carried me over to the nearest wall.

XXX

The following morning, I was pleased to see Rhys still in our bed and even more delighted to still be wrapped in his arms. He had a tendency to wake before I did these days and often got a head start on his work, allowing me the opportunity to sleep in and get the rest my body needed. However, after the night we had, I wasn't too surprised to see him needing the extra sleep. I smirked mischievously as I lightly traced along the tattoos on his chest with my own tattooed fingers, relishing in his scent as I recalled the details of our night that extended into the early hours of the morning.

It was a welcome change of pace after the stress that weighed on us; one we needed now more than ever with a youngling on the way. The days of just the two of us were set to expire in a few months; soon to be filled with a new life we would have to work together to sustain—all while balancing our duties of presiding over the Night Court. I often tried not to let the weight of that responsibility stress me out; knowing we had our whole family to rely on, but now that I was nearly halfway through my pregnancy, I wanted more of this time alone together.

I felt dark talons gently caress my mental shields and I smiled as I lowered them enough for my mate, who kept his eyes closed despite now being conscious. I allowed him into my thoughts; letting him know of my yearning for the quality time we had just experienced together as a lazy hand caressed my stomach.

"Let's go to the Cabin for a few days," he said after a couple of minutes passed.

I pushed myself up on an elbow, staring down at him as his sleepy violet eyes met with mine. "Really?" I asked, already keen on the idea.

He nodded in affirmation. "Cassian and Azriel are keeping the appropriate tabs on everything, and Clotho is set to meet with Mor and Amren today to go over some paperwork from the Palace Lords in Velaris," he explained.

I nodded. "My sisters also have their own agenda," I added. "Elain plans to drag Nesta to the market, or one of the palaces, today."

"So, we can get away," Rhys said. He brushed a stray lock of hair out of my face and I nodded again.

"Let's go now." I said, eager to escape with my mate.

It had been months since we set foot in the Cabin together. There were times he or I visited alone to let off some steam, sometimes meeting each other by the end of the day, but it was the first time we would go together since Winter Solstice; the first time since I fell pregnant, and I couldn't help but feel a little nostalgic.

Rhys smiled languidly. "Right now?"

I nodded and pushed myself up carefully, staring down at him with a grin. "Right now," I confirmed.

His smile shifted from lazy to determined as he sat up in the bed. I reached over to pull on my silky dressing gown and robe as he climbed out of bed and dressed. I laughed as he scooped me up in his arms and I wrapped my arms around his neck.

"We'll have to bring the baby too," I said in mock disappointment.

He chuckled as he walked over to the balcony. "That's all right. We'll consider it our first trip as a family."

The next thing I knew, we were in the sky, Rhys's powerful wings easily propelling us from our balcony and into the air in a matter of seconds. I held onto him as I felt the warm breeze encircle us and whoosh through my hair as he took us to our destination. I watched his wings as they moved; strong and beautiful, and felt a kick from inside my stomach.

"Do you think he can tell we're flying?" Rhys asked.

"Maybe," I said as I felt another swift kick and rested a hand on the spot. "It's okay baby, daddy won't drop us."

"Never," Rhys affirmed.

I looked up at him, "Do you think he'll have wings?"

The corner of Rhys's lips twitched upwards. "Of course he will. Maybe not at birth, but they'll come."

"Were you born with your wings?" I asked, admiring how the sun reflected off the iridescence of them as they moved in unison.

He shook his head. "My mother was hopeful they would develop as I matured, and a day after my eighth birthday they appeared," he said.

"Just like that?" I asked with a smirk.

"Magic."

I laughed and traced a finger along the membrane of one as it moved within my reach. He stiffened at my touch and I grinned playfully.

"Illyrian baby," I teased.

"If it weren't for my son in your belly, I would demand you fly us to the Cabin and see how you fare while I stroke your wings," Rhys taunted.

I giggled and pecked his cheek, keeping one arm draped around his neck while the other rested on my stomach. I paused as realization struck.

"Is that when your mother brought you to the mountains?" I asked.

Rhys nodded, already knowing what I referred to. "I think she was going to bring me regardless, but she was eager for me to fly and learn the Illyrian traditions."

The silver in his violet eyes flecked with a hint of sadness as he recalled the memory of his mother. The current status of our relationship with the Illyrians put a strain on his heart. He grew up with them, found his brothers amongst them, and their participation in the coup was the last thing he ever wanted. I laid my head on his shoulder in order to provide him with some comfort, not wanting either of us to dwell on that heartache during our little getaway.

His fingertips brushed the side of my stomach lightly as he held me closer. "I want him to learn, to train, like I did," he said.

Although he didn't ask, I heard the question in his words and I nodded. "He's Illyrian, just like you."

He pressed a kiss to my temple and landed on the steps leading to the Cabin, setting me on my feet carefully and I smiled reassuringly at him before taking his hand as we both walked to the entrance. As soon as we walked in, the fire in the hearth ignited and the rest of the house sprang to life with a wave of Rhys's hand, immediately accommodating us. A second later, platters of food appeared in the kitchen and I beamed.

"I love it here," I said as I strolled over to the counter, picking up a piece of perfectly crisped bacon and took a bite.

Rhys smiled roguishly as he joined my side, taking a slice of bacon for himself. "It's just what we needed, especially after your ravenous cravings kept me up all night. In more ways than one," he said with a wink.

I threw my hand up in a vulgar gesture. It's not like you were complaining. I said through the bond.

Indeed not, my love.

I sat at one of the raised chairs beside the counter, looking over the paintings I had filled in the room all those years ago—when I escaped here for the first time after learning he was my mate. I ate as I reflected on the last decade; at how it had brought us here, with our son now growing inside of me.

"I want to give birth here," I said after a comfortable silence had befallen us.

Rhys paused. "Really?" he asked.

I nodded, resting a hand on the apex of my belly. "It feels right. This is where I accepted our mating bond; where we decided to start trying for a baby, and I'm pretty sure this is where he was conceived too," I said with a smile, having done the math in my head. By the time I realized I was pregnant, on Starfall, I was already a couple of months along; meaning our attempt to conceive on Winter Solstice—as we did every year, had been successful

He smirked in return at the memory; it was somewhat of a tradition he made of bringing me here on my birthday. "My mother gave birth to me, and my sister, in this cabin," he said. "With the help of some Illryian midwives and some camp-mothers."

"Then it's perfect," I said softly.

He reached down to stroke my stomach gently. "I want to be there," he said. "In the room, while you give birth. Through all of it actually. I know it isn't traditionally done, my own father waited outside the room both times, but I want to be there and hold your hand when my son comes into the world. Just the thought of you going through labor, of enduring all that pain alone," he shook his head as if to erase it from his mind. I squeezed his hand reassuringly.

"I wouldn't want you anywhere else, Rhysand." I said, not at all surprised at his declaration.

A week after Eira's birth, Viviane and Kallias had both sent us letters-informing us of their daughter's arrival, fawning over her beauty and detailing how infatuated they already were, but also informing us of their own accounts of what the birthing process had been like. At the summit, Viviane expressed that she knew what to expect, but in her letter, she elaborated just how excruciating it really was. Luckily, Kallias had also been there with her, providing her with whatever support she needed and relieving as much of the pain as he could through back massages, also letting her clutch onto him for dear life as she suffered through pain after pain. I wasn't sure what Kallias had told Rhys in his letter, but shortly after my mate had summoned Madja and asked the healer to guide us through exactly what to anticipate.

"Are you nervous?" He asked.

I chewed on my lip in thought, recounting the gruesome details that both Viviane and the healer had laid out for me. The pain alone would come in constant, violent waves, and could last as long as a day.

"A little," I admitted. "But I know I'll be much more comfortable here; with you there."

"I'll be there every step of the way and do whatever I can to ease the pain." He promised, taking my hand and pressing a lingering kiss to it.

I smiled. "It'll be just the two of us, Madja, and the midwife."

The healer had told us that she worked with her sister, who served as a midwife for just as long as she had been a healer, when delivering younglings. Rhys and I readily agreed to have her along and made a plan to meet with her once I came closer to the end stages of my pregnancy.

I squeezed the hand that held mine, staring at the new tattoo that had formed from his renewed vow he made at the beginning of my pregnancy—when he promised not to let his male-bonded instincts shelter me unnecessarily. I ran my thumb over the crescent moon design.

"Do you think," I hesitated, mulling over my words. "Do you think...I'll be good at it?"

He paused. "At what? Giving birth?"

I laughed humorlessly, "No, not that. At...being a mother?"

I avoided his gaze, feeling the weight of those smoldering violet eyes as I continued to stare at the blue-black ink of his tattoo. After a few seconds of silence, his other hand came to grip my chin gently, tilting my head up so that I could meet those beautiful eyes.

My heart skipped a beat at the sincerity in them. "You will be an amazing mother, Feyre," he swore, his voice earnest.

My eyes burned as I thought of my own mother; of how imperious and cold she had been towards her daughters. I often wondered how she had felt when she was pregnant with us, because once we were born, she hardly bothered caring for us at all. Did she ever love us? She worshipped my father, her "one true love," but how could she not dote on the fruition of that love? Perhaps she had loved my father for what his wealth provided her instead, and the lavish lifestyle she lived-before she died.

"You are not your mother, Feyre." Rhys said, his hand moving from my chin to my cheek. "I already see the love you have for our son in your eyes, in your actions, every day."

I sniffed as I looked down at my stomach, heart swelling as I thought of my son—of how eager I was to hold and cherish him, and I couldn't fathom pushing him away. I nodded lightly as I wiped at the few tears that managed to escape.

"I just worry sometimes," I admitted.

Rhys nodded in understanding. "I worry about myself too," he said, and frowned. "I worry about being like my father; that I might be too hard on my son, and that I might age as cold and calculating as he did."

I shook my head, taking hold of the hand still on my cheek. "You could never Rhys," I said with the same smile I had given him last night—the same emotions in my eyes as I reminded him what this child meant for us.

I felt the tension leave as he sighed in content, resting his brow against mine as we both stared at my stomach; our thumbs caressing either side of it, holding our baby. I felt him move, sending kicks at both our hands, and we laughed; my chest swelled with hope that perhaps he could feel the love between us—at the love we shared for him.

[pizadowa]

I'm a bit curious: do you have any other ideas related to that fic idea of Ivy being captured by Goldlove? I understand if it's a fic you're not really gonna write because you're busy/have other ideas at the moment, but have you had any other thoughts to share on the concept since you first shared it a while back?

:D ..... I feel called out LOL jfhgndgf I admit, I’ve been rather distracted lately :(

It’s kind of hard to add to this without just going right into fic, buuuut here’s a lil sum sum [marking 🔞 to be safe but this is NOT explicit text]:

Context is from this ask. Also, please excuse how mindless this is. I’m trying to get the ideas out and it’ll probably read poorly lol orz;;

The divergence happens when Goldlove falls from seemingly outta nowhere like a spider monkey to knock Ivy to the ground (if you hadn't noticed, she's smiling the WHOLE time because she's a ドＳ freek). As she’s about to complete her defeat of Carmen, Ivy winds up her kick to no avail—Goldlove straight up catches that shit between her hands and twists Ivy to the ground so hard she's down for good. Without Ivy to help her, Carmen is left for capture.

After Goldlove ensures the thief is properly restrained this time she returns her attention to Ivy, overflowing with a mix of contempt and curiosity over the redhead's stubborn tenacity.

"You surprised me, tiny pistachio. But you should know..." She crouches down real low to get at Ivy's level and grab her jaw. "I hate surprises."

Goldlove personally blinds and binds Ivy, then orders the others to do the same to Carmen and ready the car. Puzzled but not willing to argue (especially Dash, who’s only here to collect his check and peace out lmao), Hugo and the lackeys move to comply. Meanwhile Carmen watches on in exhausted anger, doing her own attempt at escape while rapidly informing Player of the dire situation, which of course is cut short when she’s knocked out.

Once the car is ready and Carmen is carted off in the back by the others, Goldlove scoops Ivy up despite the girl’s awkward flailing and tells her in a way only she’d be able to hear, “I look forward to cracking open that silly little shell of yours.”

With both pistachios in the car and the bullion operation resuming as normal, Goldlove is driven back to her hidden residence. She carries Ivy toward one of her private rooms and gives Hugo one last order for the night, “Keep Sandiego under lock and key. I need to go blow off some steam.”

“Ehh, but what about that...one...over your shoulder?”

“Do not make me repeat myself, Hugo, or I’ll be using you as a demonstration!”

“Y-yes, Madame.”

They part ways. Disappear behind different doors. When the covering over Ivy’s head is finally removed, she’s met with a face full of Goldlove and all her sinister intent. “No more surprises, meine kleine Pistazie.”

.... Aaaand that’s all I want to share for now :^) Spoilers: Ivy is extremely conflictedly turned on by the whole ordeal and does indeed have plenty more surprises in store for Goldlove ;^)

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Since houses with teeth is shelved what will be fostered 7. Also how is FD coming along, i miss the updates😢😢

I’m not sure! I think, honestly, that the “main series” side of Fostered is done (so it ends at 6 books). It’s unfortunate because HWT came at the wrong time in my writing journey. I was in my last year of high school when I finished book 6 of Fostered, which I ended prematurely because I was in “writing puberty” lol where my genre, and how I approached writing greatly changed. I managed to finish a majority of book 6 balancing the older parts of my tastes with the newer, but by the time I got to writing book 7, I just couldn’t balance out these tastes anymore without having a headache or overthinking everything. The problem is that Houses With Teeth is a literary fiction novel with a genre fiction past/cast, and to write it properly, I would essentially have to completely overhaul every single Fostered character, which I do not want to do. I’d have to change backstories, even names, and I want to keep these things the way they are. There isn’t a collective story for the Fostered “squad” anymore! It really died when the dystopian elements died in the series. This is why I prefer the spinoffs more because they’re more intimate character studies. I could see myself writing HWT as a novella or something that follows Reeve, because it would be nice to give her a proper goodbye, but I doubt I will do that. This is a really emotional topic for me tbh because it really panics me to think Fostered will eventually end, but I’ve realized lately the series could be done soon, or at least for the foreseeable future. I really want to start writing things outside of this series, namely other novels, and while I love this series very much, I do think I’ve relied on it in recent years as a crutch to handle my anxiety about writing/in general. I struggle with anxiety when writing any novel that isn’t Fostered, which is weird because I write tons of short stories outside of that universe, but when the work is longer, I just freeze up! I want to work on this, and to do that, I need to take a break from/finish the series, even though the thought of that is terrifying (I think that terror comes from the anxiety)!

As for Feeding Habits, I had to take a huge break from this book this semester, not out of choice, necessarily, but necessity. At the beginning of the term, I was having a hard time writing this book, honestly. I had to switch POVs because I was... miserable lol! But then I got so busy with the term that I couldn’t even write anyway! I’ve been writing it actually in the last few days, and it’s going okay! This book is kind of torture to write sometimes because I am actually incapable of not hating or disliking the writing??? Sometimes I’m not even actively trying but my brain is like no u hate this! Like today, I wrote a good chunk of it, was like this prose?? gross lol, but I’ve made it a policy not to let that mindset stop me from writing because it has done so in the past, and when I go back, the writing is fine, and it was all my shaky perception. This is the only project this happens for??? Don’t know why!

The reason there aren’t any updates for FH is because I haven’t finished the next chapter yet, haha, it’s been months haha university as a writing major hahahahhaa

But here are some recent excerpts if you’re interested!

I wrote this at the very beginning of term. Lonan hitchhikes in the car of Lydia, who’s just picked her children up from school:

They stopped fifteen minutes later at a hospital in Portland. The children were mostly excited about its in-house pizza parlour called Zekes, which blinked in neon red letters. Esther and Jensen barrelled toward the revolving door while Lonan fumbled for his seatbelt, and in the end it was Lydia who had to click the release for him. When the grey belt slinked across his chest, back into its holder, he stared at her for a moment—how her red curls haloed in the sun, how a blot of ink stained her index finger (a paralegal, she could’ve been, a teacher, an accountant) how she smiled, this stranger who trusted him, her face this wide, unsuspecting plane—and then he sobbed.

Not sure if I’ve shared this already? But this is Lonan seeing his ex-girlfriend Glenne for the first time in a while:

She was filling two plastic bottles at the motel’s water fountain when he pulled up. The image of her this suspension of ink-soaked particles. She could’ve been a photograph, bent over the metal box, one hand dialled around the fountain nob, the other guiding a bottle to the greedy blip of water. The sun had settled like a yolk in the sky, frescoed her cheeks in persimmon. This is the same image Lonan stared at as he fumbled into the parking lot, mesmerized, trying to distinguish pixel from skin cell.

Glenne was smaller than he’d remembered, something new about her. Maybe a slyness, or a decomposition, or both. She wore a bleached grey pair of cotton overalls and no shoes. Against the mahogany motel door her blonde hair sparked. A woman on fire as she noticed him, her hands jerking so suddenly, the bottle she was filling disengaged from the tap and the contents splashed to the floor.

(TW: gore) I wrote this in a writing sprints weeks ago where Lonan in this chapter’s fictive present is in this super disconnected space to the point where he *tries (doesn’t really get that far lol) to kill Harrison with a butter knife?? 

Slit or swan. The knife across his throat like a block of Jenga reslotting. Him in the fridge lightbulb’s reflection, staring at a sealed block of gouda. It would be so easy, his arterial spray like the rays of water splaying the motel’s walkway. Him unsure when the pigment of the cheese’s red wax begins to come from him. Slit or swan. The refrigerator’s hum like the drone of cars dicing the freeway just beyond the parking lot. Remember it. That noise like caribou running.

I also wrote this during that writing sprint and LOVE the radio commentator’s dialogue:

Across the room, Glenne leaned over the nightstand, fiddling with the clock radio. In bursts, what could be heard from the room was this: the microwave whirring, then a jab of 6 o’ clock news, the microwave beeping, then a blast of electropop, the microwave slamming, then a radio host saying Tell me why I should care about almonds, Eileen, literally, tell me why. The microwave beeped again, then finally, a lick of violins pulsed through the speakers.

Wrote this description either today or yesterday??? what is time (TW: body horror-ish)

So much of his face had dried violet after the crash that it was difficult to find a patch of untouched skin. His eye was still bloodshot from where Eliza had burst the ventricle, and a scattering of cuts, small, like grains of rice, constellated his temple. His hair beamed from his head in different lengths. He looked more bird than human and even then, worse than a bird.

^^ confirmation that lonan IS a bird

I also wrote this today! Lonan takes care of Glenne’s baby, Olivia and it is so PURE I cannot handle it! At one point in time, I had a separate Fostered spinoff called ALANNIS planned out where Lonan actually takes on a fatherly role of Olivia who would be older at that point (he’s in his late 20s, I think she was like 7 or 8??) and so it’s so fantastic to see this role come to fruition here since I never thought it would!

The grocery store was a fifteen-minute walk away. With Olivia clinging to his shoulder, Lonan was acutely aware that she could feel his heartbeat. Open valve. Close. Repeat. Hers pulsed right above his heart, a miniature drumming. The sky had bruised purple, misted with clouds.

just imagine my terrifying bird man carrying this lil munchkin it’s SO CUTE!!

working on this chapter right now, so hopefully I’ll finish it and update you soon! <3

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Cyprus brings shampoo to Rotterdam 2021

I FELL IN LOVE, I FELL IN LOVE, I GAVE MY HEART TO PRODUCT PLACEMENT.

Though I do see where they come from. Everyone from Panik Records, from her to Eleni Foureira featuring Perfectil on the “Fuego” MV, gonna need that sweet sweet money all of the time. But has Greece’s economy not really recovered for them to constantly need to advertise products on music videos or am I just losing my mind overthinking things?

Eitherway, this review may or may not appear before or during their rehearsal day, so see how do I make a fool of myself by trying to estimate Cyprus’s chances!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

This year we have a 26 year old Elena Tsagrinou from Greece here (the way they were last represented by a somewhat Cypriot on 2017?). She did music early on in her age, also participated in the Greek version of Got Talent. Though, before breaking out as a solo pop sensation in ways you cannot imagine, she used to be in a pop band OtherView. Strangely enough, I’ve heard of them because of this song below but I could’ve NEVER estimated it was her and never could have I predicted she would land herself a Eurovision entrance all alone:

The band has had quite a few successful enough singles with her, she did some music shows participation and hosting, her band switched labels midway through (guess into which one they eventually landed, hint: some of the screenshots in this review have this peculiar logo), and in 2018, she had to “withdraw” from the group to go ahead and pursue the aforementioned solo career, somewhat. She continued doing a lot of shows (particularly seen on the MAD music channel related events), and doesn’t have as many singles as she had with OtherView right now, but she’s possibly well on her way to blossom as an artiste. Some of those reading (lol who am I kidding who even reads these) may be familiar with this little song of hers:

You’ve heard way too many things about “El Diablo”, her 2021 entry, so idk if I feel like explaining the technical side of things all by myself or you already know everything. But in these reviews I repeat everyone else regardless, so let me just say that “El Diablo” is an obvious pop song, with a lot of Swedish related touches to it, because at least one person on this song also worked on Alvaro Estrella’s Melodifestivalen 2021 entry that glorifies at least a handful of the same cliches that “El Diablo” does lyrically. Dear Eurovision lyricists, you can use more foreign languages than Spanish for your obligatory foreign language incorporations, thanks~

Although I’m not sure about whether it is more Laurell Barker’s fault as much as it is Joker Thörnfeldt’s, but it’s easier to blame them equally, because the former probably came up with “ta-taco, tamale” and the latter couldn’t get enough of the word “mamacita” they used for the aforementioned Melodifestivalen entry. Anyway, the lyrics, from what I get, is that she’s in love with an eeeevil guy because he’s sweet talking her, they do some sexy stuff together (presumably), pour sauce on their bodies for no explicit reason other than “obligatory-foreign-reference-itis”, she’s breaking the rules (and idk if it was “mama-mamacita” telling her to do it), got the icy edges that the spicy is melting for her, throws eyelashes on the floor when she’s got no wigs to throw (but that doesn’t matter because even without a wig, she can flip her hair and make him look twice), and there’s as much as you need to know about the song’s lyrics as I feel like I should show to you, because eh. Eurovision has suffered from worse cookie-cutter lyricism through the years, “El Diablo” is painful but not the worst.

REVIEW

But I do like the song somewhat!

“El Diablo” was initially compared to Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” upon release, and I totally kind of see why, because in all the right spots you can absolutely hum over the chorus to that over the one of “El Diablo”’s, it just exchanges gratuitous French translation of one of the already sung lines on the bridge for obligatory inserted Spanish terms just for the sake of being trendy with the crowds of the nowadays, because as we learned nothing these days, having a lot of Spanish in your song is apparently trendy. And Elena does nothing absolutely batshit insane on the music video (other than advertising) - no lapdance for the devil Lil Nas X style, no being forced into a bath, no person to sell her body to (not even the titular diablo), no dancers that rise out of their Christian sleep pods. Just Elena singing behind lots and lots of trash bin bag wrap.

Honestly the bigger issue for me than the song being “sAtAnIc because it is called “the DEVIL!!!”, aside from the lyrics, is that the MV does not come with any forewarning whatsoever for the people that are seizure prone when they see strobe lights? And that happens for some extended periods of this clip? I know you are indulged in your advertising and good for you but don’t just care for the companies that pay you if you use their products, do care about people’s wellbeings too, sometime.

But enough about the MV.

The song is decently sounding. It has interesting uses of what sounds like hi-hats during the verses (e.g.: a moment when this happens for the first time on the song is after Elena sings “tonight we’re gonna burn in a par-tY” the second time, and then there’s something that sounds soaring - that’s what I think that the hi-hats did.). It also has some sort of a synth piano on the second verse to boost the song’s sound rather than just relying on 808s and beats. I quite like how the chorus is so instant somehow, idk why but it is for me. Might have a gripe with that childish choir singing “I LOVE EL DIAB-LO” in the tune of standard kindergarten children teasing tune (aka ”NA NA NA BOO BOO”), as well as the constant breathing sounds, but they don’t distract me from generally “fucking” with this song, lol. It’s just that likeable imo.

I just can’t cope with the fact that Cyprus can’t seem to dare to go at least a little bit original with their song, yanno? Ever since 2019 they were called out as being a ripoff of something... hell, everyone since 2016 except Eleni was a ripoff of something. Alter Ego? “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers. Gravity? “Human” by Rag’n’Bone Man. Replay? “Fuego” itself. Running? “Lose Control”, Meduza x Becky Hill. Now we have a Lady Gaga song wannabe that even caught the attention of another singer that the music video looked like it was ripping off, and the Eurofandom caught up in hysterics:

Heads up, folks: not EVERY short haired blonde with messy hair, silvery tank top and shortpants that writhes on the floor is a Zara Larsson clone. And I don’t know who stirred controversy first - her or the fans - but this was ridiculous to see, even for me.

Although for a second I saw where they were coming from.

Now see why I want Cyprus to go original for at least once? Because I guess that the way “Fuego” was conjured up, it brought Cyprus so much success with how the package was, how Eleni sold it, and how the song sounded. You know the first thing of everything potentially going wrong for you later on is if you find the formula you’ve been looking for, but you proceed to be using the exact same formula that got you this far in the first place, without realizing what was it in the formula that you needed to bank on to further to make it click, but instead proceed to copy everything like it was an easy, fill-in-the-blank form. You can and should do better than that.

Though that doesn’t stop me from ranking it 11th this year.

Thing is, I really expected it to be the one female pop song of the year I would have the constant impulsive need to replay, replay, yeah. Ever since the chaotic entry MV drop that occured on some random-ass Cypriot TV show where three guys talked a lot (and before that, we got a cooking show), and kept growing increasingly agitated that no one is liking their show, until at some point one of them erupted in “IN TWU MEENETS... EL DIABLO... ON UR TEEVEE”; I was really devastated I couldn’t be able to break the replay button because of Panik Records deciding to rather benefit for themselves to have the MV on their app, then on Youtube, THEN on Spotify in that order. So I listened to a few video rips that I received / had for myself, and it was a fun time... until I realized the desire to play it declined much faster than I thought it would when it actually dropped on Spotify, oops. So I can’t really let myself rank it higher, when there are at least some catchier female bangers with better overall sound, better lyrics, and better multiple-replay factor. But I can’t really settle for a much lower rank for her than 11th, anyway. Girlbanger 2021 power y’all!

That and vocally she’s actually not that bad, even if she has shown up singing her song drunk in a handful of Instastories for some event of some party house, and at the time people overreacted, but I think that at least a large audience of those same people has collectively dropped their “Cyprus obvious NQ” talks come the pre-parties.

Panik Records, when will you put the yeehaw El Diablo on streaming? Now THAT’S a version that has replay value, and I might never get bored of it instead :(

Approval factor: Yeah, there exists some for me in it Follow-up factor: CyBC did one of the nastiest in terms of following up their 2020 arc of “Bring Your Artist Back for Revenge Year” that was 2021, straight up ditching Sandro probably right after Eurovision was done (well it doesn’t look like the case because CyBC published a statement later, but I sense that it might’ve been the case), because “Running” wasn’t doing so well with the “YAS QUEEN” branch of the Eurofandom. Which sucks because Sandro would’ve actually been down to be asked again for Eurovision, as he revealed it to NikkieTutorials during many of her interviews with last year’s class of. “Agreement from both parties” my ass, unless Sandro secretly realized that like Tom Leeb, he was too busy for 2021 Eurovision, which I doubt. It actually sucks imo that Sandro can probably be considered as even a forever non-returnee, because Sandro is more of German roots than Greek, and if we learned anything about the Mukuchyangate 2021, is that Germany will never send a returning artist, at least one that didn’t represent their country first and foremost. So Greece could only ask Sandro nicely only if the contest comes on to Germany, I guess? How do you think they decided on getting Stefania, who still ever so regularly appears on Dutch music, to represent them this year? So on that regard the follow-up from CyBC stinks, eventhough I think that entrywise the follow-up was rather decent, at least in the usual Cypriot way of sending female pop (going from “Replay” to “El Diablo” which I like more than “replay”), and eventhough I’m falling out of the hype for Cyprus I once used to have, their 2015-2021 entry streak had entries that I largely feel positive for overall, so in that regard, the follow up is decent. Qualification factor: In a year of Semi 1 Female Banger Slaughterhouse, Elena goes out in my eyes with several scratches, but not enough to completely kill her chances. If anything, given the divisiveness of Ireland’s rehearsals, Elena is likely to obliterate any last memory of Lesley Roy any first time viewer has ever had, except for her stage graphics. Even if Elena’s staging will not be as mindblowingly cartooney as the last, once a bop comes on, everyone forgets the slower song and gives into the bop, at least that’s how the draws work when choosing what insignificant song to put on 2nd and wedge in between the opening banger and some lesser-key banger, right? I know that “Replay” barely qualified, but I find “El Diablo” slightly better, and it all goes well, it will barely just as qualify as well. Because in a Semi 1 Female Banger Slaughterhouse, she can’t be the losing one, really.

INTERNAL CORNER

I already told everything that was noteworthy about Elena’s journey in previous sections, honestly.

• That I said that CyBC likely ditched Sandro right after cancellation just like Hooverphonic ditched “Release Me” should they have had a chance to keep or toss their entry. It doesn’t present itself as the case, but I just feel like it is.

• That the song was revealed on a Cypriot talkshow where three dudes were aware that we were waiting for “El Diablo”, trying to throw some gratuitous English our way, hating that we didn’t like our show, but promising that “El Diablo” MV will be shown in “TWU MEENETS”, which wasn’t but worth the wait eh?

• That people were cackling at Zara Larsson joining in the talks of Elena’s MV having aspects of her own song’s MV plagiarized.

• That Elena performed her song in a private-ish event when drunk and having heaps of fun and people cried that it was gonna be a NQ.

And do I really need to elaborate about the local Cypriot church scandal? It just so happened that a bunch of people read into a song’s title so much, thought it was rude of their country to sing about the devil (eventhough the bigger offenses made here is the gratuitous Spanish more than anything), and hoped that the broadcaster will disqualify the very song they okayed to be internally chosen because they are displeased with it - and if it’s not disqualified, they even threatened to burn the headquarters down. No, really. That’s like the most amusing part of that whole spectacle. Imagine burning a broadcaster headquarters down for a song... if I did it for every favourite of mine that lost to other broadcasters, the broadcasters would run out of locations to rent, because everything else good is pre-occupied or the ashes of their lost headquarters staring back at them.

Imagine being toxicly Christian in 2021... How long until Elena’s face gets photoshopped on the main protagoniste of The Unholy?

ANY LAST WORDS?

Even if I’m with this song, part of me kind of wants me to fail to make Cyprus realize that their formula is starting to wear thin and they got to be somewhat of a versatile nation in Eurovision if they want to be on the radar of not just one specific niche. But then again, they learned nothing when they flopped with Tamta, because she sneakily qualified as opposed to failing even harder than Tulia, ah well. Will they ever learn?

But why would I openly wish this to a top 11 song of mine, oh dear. Good luck Elena, may God be on your side, I guess. :P