#Tired of seeing how my boys are attacked just for existing

[sweet-allien]

I will NEVER understand those “fans” (yes, “fans”) who hate a driver but pay attention to EVERYTHING he does, I'm sorry, but when I don't like a driver I just ignore him. I'm not checking social media every 5 minutes to see what he's doing and commenting that I hate him.

NUNCA entenderé a esos “fans” (sí, “fans”) que odian a un conductor pero prestan atención a TODO lo que hace, lo siento, pero cuando un conductor no me gusta simplemente lo ignoro. No estoy revisando las redes sociales cada 5 minutos para ver qué hace y comentar que lo odio

[cherry-pop-elf]

Human Nature

‘Poof’ Periwinkle Fairywinkle-Cosma x Fem! Reader

Sum: Hazel and Dev were at a cozy little sleep over at your house, since Dev was avoiding his father like the plague. Lead to plenty of talks about Poofs Peri’s childhood. So while the parents are away, it’s time for Peri to play

Warnings: 18+, lots of fluff, , first time (for Peri), boob jobs, Wholesome body positivity, Dominate Reader, it’s very fluffy and wholesome with sex because I said so, nonbinary peri rights, “Woah boobs-“ fairy anatomy vs human, kinda cracky but that’s why you are here anyway, and of course Peri Loves Them Tibbies

“Finally….” Peri gave a groan, as he would slump onto the floor. Not giving a single fairy fuck that he was laying on the cold kitchen ground. His parents can be overwhelming, and now you got to see it first hand.

Hazel, and Dev, were having a sleep over at your place. You were Dev’s neighbor, and one of the painfully few adults he can trust, so he wanted to feel like a normal kid with doing kid things. Like sleepovers.

The only friend he had was Hazel, and it’s hard to have a sleep over with out company. Has Peri’s god parent he couldn’t refuse. So the whole evening was spent with hijinx’s, and some good old parents squealing and sharing pictures a plenty.

You loved learning more about Peri, and did your best to try and give him breathing room. Being his little shield with trying to be the one to ask questions and happily look through the photo albums, while Peri was trying not to break his teeth from all the gritting.

So here you two were. Cosmo and Wanda making sure the kids were safely sleeping, and certainly knocked out themselves, as you two finally savored the peace and quiet of the rest of your home. Just away from it all.

“Say, not to still keep on topic, but I gotta ask. Your dad was the pregnant one, so um. Does that mean he’s trans?” You were curious. Could it be blamed? It would be interesting to know if such concepts like that were even existing across other beings. Curiosity is human nature, may it be for good or evil.

“Trans-? Oh! Trans! Nah-“ Given Peri was raised rather closely to humans, compared to frankly any fairy he certainly is often more aware of those concepts. There is a difference between taking care of a human, and living with a human after.

“Our genders, or is it sex-? Whatever. It’s flipped flopped. Men have the vaginas, girls have the penises. We also can shape-shift after all, so stuff like that is kinda pointless at the end of the day. Like how I was born a boy, but never really felt like a boy, so now I have a penis and go by he/they.” He explained to you, as you tossed him a soda.

“Huh….Girls have the male anatomy, boys have the female…..Woah.” Certainly fascinating to think about. It’s as if it’s a construct, who would have thought? Really was curious to you. Something new.

“And then there are different types of fairies. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Not unless you care, for some reason, or want to be intimate.” They would explain to you, as he drank his soda. Just enjoying the cold floor on his exhausted body. Even a fairy can get tired.

“So….Not to get weird, but like….Is your penis like….similar to a human penis?” You were to curious! Fairies were all so new to you! The only reason you were aware they exist was because Dev kinda made you aware. You were someone he trusted. He just had to have you involved. It’s a lot to handle after all. A kid is a kid.

“That’s one way to get into my pants.” He gave an eyebrow wiggle, as you hid behind your soda. A whine of protest, as he laughed at you. Just always the charmer. The one to lead the tango. Maybe you want to spin that dance around.

“Why don’t you show me what’s under the top and I’ll show you what’s under this bottom~” You knew he was just being all talk. They typically were, before suddenly ready for a panic attack. You didn’t want to give him one, but there’s joy in making someone squirm.

“What are you doing-?” He gawked, as he saw that you were following through. Off your shirt went, and you sent it flying over to his face. How it dangled off their crown, leaving just one big violet eye to stare at you. To watch as you unclasped your bra. It was a long day, and underwire is painful.

“I know they aren’t the prettiest things around-“ You started, only to be met with those big fairy eyes sparkling. Literally. Like his pupils were just big ole hearts and sparkles. Seemed to be utterly enchanted at your half bare body.

The fairy was quick to zoom over to you, with your shirt gone in a vanished, as he seemed to be enchanted by your anatomy. That you had to be the prettiest person in the whole world. The whole galaxy! Their eyes were just pure. Not just driven. Not sexually charged. Just admiring you like a sunset.

“You wanna touch them?” You asked, finding it all utterly adorable. We’re all fairies this cute? Had to. Just look at him. How his wings were fluttering like crazy, and their head nodding in eager need. Need to just swallow you whole with his touch.

They were hesitant, but his hands would soon cup them. They were so gentle. Not an ounce of green in those finger tips. Just a fairy enjoying the beauty that a human had. Made you wonder how different fairy’s breasts were compared to humans. Were they different at all? Not like you wanted to ask Wanda to flash you.

“So soft….” He whispered, as he soon just face planted into your chest. Had you laugh, as he seemed to have found heaven in them. Fluttery wings just going wild, as he snuggled into them. Enjoying how soft they were, and easy it was to hear your heartbeat like this. They were just perfect for them.

“You are precious.” You had to admit, as you soon would play with their hair. Gently running your fingers on the back of his neck. Didn’t want to mess with his curl after all. Just wanted to enjoy the gentle little affection. Seemed he was enjoying it plenty.

“So….Gonna keep your end of the deal?” A muffled ‘hm?’ Was spoken into your chest, as you swore he was ready to fall asleep there. The warmth, softness, heartbeat, breathing, they just couldn’t resist it. His kryptonite.

“Come on, it’s fair. Lemme see your magic wand~” You giggled, as you had to pretty much prey his pouting face from your chest. Poor man wanted more, and you’ll be happy to give him more. Such a pouty baby. Arms all crossed, and all huffy.

“Pretty please~? I promise you can play with my boobs more if you do it~” You offered the magical creature. That seemed to be what finally made him follow through. Slowly with sliding his suspenders off his shoulder, before working on his buckle.

“Promise?” He asked, and you nodded. As if you could ever say no to those beautiful eyes. Such a shade of purple you couldn’t quite grasp. As if it was just a color that the human eye couldn’t quite register. It made for such a need to look at them more.

With the zipper down, and some shimmying, you finally got to see what you were excited for. Deep down, you were kinda disappointed though. Not by the dick as a whole. It was a normal dick, that was the issue. Nothing really made it seem supernatural, besides the well groomed purple patch of hair above it. Shaped like a star no less. Ok, that was cute. You couldn’t argue with it. Was going to make your next idea all the easier to follow through.

“As promises, I’ll let you play with my boobs again. But, I have an idea on how you can enjoy them more.” You offered, as he rose a curious brow at you. What could that possibly mean?

“What are you doing down there?” He asked, as you were soon on your knees. Your face under his cock, with a devious smile. The fact he asked you gave into your theory he may be a virgin. You were certain to make this something he will never forget.

“Showing you the magical world of boob jobs.” You said, before you brought his soft cock between your breasts. Gentle you were, as you would slide his dick between them. Squeezing it between your soft tissue, with little kisses to the tip.

“Oh sweet fairy world-“ He moaned, as he held onto the counter for support. Truly an experience they never had before. Was making their whole world spin, as their cock was starting to harden with in your grasp. Mans was in heaven because of you.

“Like it?” You asked, as they eagerly nodded. Just an utter puddle under you. Luckily not literally. Just figuratively. How they were gripping the counter for dear life as they were panting hard. Those pretty eyes fluttered closed, as those thick eyelashes of his were sparkling with held back tears.

You couldn’t help but drink it all in. They looked so perfect like this. Just letting out moans for you to listen on repeat. How so little was to much. You didn’t even do much, and you swore they would cum already. Would their cum be purple too? You just had to know.

You would speed it up, with a devious grin, as he was aching between your breasts. Just throbbing for you. Such a mess from so little. Suppose breasts were their one way ticket to their own heaven on earth.

“Oh jeez oh jeez oh jeez-“ They kept whimpering. Teeth biting hard into their lip, as he just couldn’t stop his whimpers and moans. A harmony of sounds for you to dance to. Ever growing more eradicated in their sounds.

“Gonna cum? Cum all over my tits?” You asked, as that had his already flustered face even redder than ever. Just looking at the sight under him was too much. He couldn’t handle it anymore. He just couldn’t.

“WAIT WAIT I-! AH-!” His hips were soon bucking on their own, as the orgasm hit him. The way their head threw back as their body was on autopilot. Riding out the climax. Just listening to what the new burst of adrenaline in their system gave them.

You were a little disappointed, you couldn’t lie, that it was a normal color. Was hoping it was at least lavender. Didn’t disappoint in the amount though. Was Al over your breasts, your face, you swore it reached your hair even. That’s annoying, but it’s forgiven for Peri. Their first time after all. Can’t be mad at that.

Poor Peri was just trembling. Hardly able to keep themselves up, as you stood up. You were glad you were still in the kitchen, so you just dampened a fish towel to clean yourself up. Probably safer to not consume fairy jizz. Who knows what it could do to your insides. That’s for another day.

“You alright over there?” You asked them, as you would look over. Poor Peri was just a mess. Hair all over the place, still flushed and panting, legs bend and feet turned in. Thought they might faint. Had you worried, before he was soon back to trying to play it cool. Like nothing had happened at all.

“Yep! Totally! Cool cool cool-!” Pants zipped, hair slicked back, just in a blink and it was like he didn’t just have the best nut of his life. Had you giggling, before you returned to him. A kiss to his cheek, and a hug. Because after care is always vital.

“Say uh, um. Do you….Do you think we could do that again sometime?” They asked, as they avoided eye contact with you. Oh who could resist such a cute face? Not you. You gave his flushed little cheek another peck, as you laced both your hands together. Just all smiles.

“As you wish.”

[velvetvexations]

"I'm regularly astounded that one of my friends gets regularly clocked because he looks like the cissest guy I could imagine."

I actually think you're hitting on something that is one reason people struggle with the idea of transmisandry: people think "because I think you pass really well/I see you as a man, everyone must think you are cis man and therefore you must be privileged" (for clarification, I don't think you, personally, do this, Velvet, your comment just made me think of this).

It's not that. They also scream about how trans men who don't pass get doors held open for them and jackets over mud puddles for them to walk across. For transfem TRFs - and transmasc TRFs are just as sad and whingingly stupid but for the much more succinct reason that powerjacketing and the idea they're recognized by the patriarchy is gender validating - it's a pathological and entirely irrational, divorced-from-all-logic hatred of trans people AFAB that if anything is because they see them too much as cis women.

Yall are so extremely patient and generous but they aren't doing it because they tripped into anything as innocent as a gender validating perspective that they can't understand isn't in place for cis people. That's a good educated guess at working out how they may have logically walked into their position, but I fully reject the premise that they see transmascs so much as men that they forget other people don't. It's the exact opposite. It is genuine snarling, teeth-gnashing, hair-pulling, wall-punching, blood-for-the-blood-god-skulls-for-the-skull-throne hatred based on their perception of transmascs as women who identify as trans to laugh at them, and their arguments about what makes a trans person AFAB privileged changes from one conversation to another depending on the trans person AFAB at hand.

And man, it sucks to talk about it in that language, it feels like I'm misgendering people, but that is what it is, factually. Then they're like they're like "it's transmisogynistic to say a trans woman is jealous of bodies AFAB" and it's like, okay, I wouldn't really word it like that for one thing, but the amount of time and energy you spend obsessed with the myth that trans people AFAB will shed their trans status to take advantage of their nature as wymbyn-byrn-wymbn to oppress you on a moment's notice sure is something, like you really cannot seem to let go of the fact that they were AFAB and how they supposedly lord this over you. It's really internalized transmisogyny at the root of it anyway, they can't accept they're Trve Wymyn (because no one is, a woman isn't a thing that exists) without constantly asserting it to everyone around them as often as possible and reading attacks on their womanhood into every sentence another trans person says.

Plus, it's not even really about physical traits. The debate about intersex transfems AFAB has had many of them say in plain English that a person with identical genitals to them who was raised a boy and went through masculinizing puberty growing up still does not qualify for transfem status if the doctor put an F on the birth certificate because he just did a lot of coke before the delivery. Their imaginations go into hyperdrive at that point because they want that reality so badly for themselves they can't conceive of it as anything other than what they wish had happened to them. They see a trans person AFAB as essentially a trillionaire eating cheap ramen noodles for a lark going "dohohoho, so this is how the lower classes subsist? I already tire of it, Smedly, bring out the bird's nest soup."

[genderqueerdykes]

I saw a recent ask saying that both cis and queer places are alienating and it’s so accurate, I am a trans man who passes as cis and it’s incredibly lonely. I’m stealth and I seem like a classically masculine cishet dude, but I am inherently queer, even if I’m attracted to women, I’m queer, even if I’m masculine, I’m queer, I’ll always be queer and I always have been, but there’s just no real space for me in the queer places I go.

I have experienced misogyny based on the fact I was an unfeminine and masculine teenager, in-fact I pass so well because I have a masculine face and body shape, both things that were used against me as a teen, I was called a false girl, I was labelled both a prude and a slut, the teenage boys in my school would make sexually degrading comments towards me, about my body and my sexuality, mocking my masculinity and my failed femininity. There’s a specific kind of cruelty that you face as an AFAB child and teen who fails at femininity or dips too hard into unacceptable masculinity, and no one really speaks about it, I can’t talk about this with any cishet people because they cannot relate.

Both my femininity and masculinity were used as interchangeable blades to cut me, I could perform neither to a satisfactory level and everyone could see it, simultaneously both too feminine and too masculine and yet not enough, it felt like being put through a meat grinder to try and erase me because they couldn’t stand the fact I existed. Now in queer spaces my masculinity and sexuality are derided and disliked and it doesn’t feel any different than it did as a teen being mocked for it by cis people, the only thing that’s changed is some of the reasoning and language.

My fellow transhet men say they’re “unfortunately straight” or try and apologise for being masculine or even being men and I’m tired. My masculinity and heterosexuality are seen as deviant, they ARE queer, any version of me that isn’t a cishet feminine submissive woman is deviant, I have been deviant since birth and I will not lie about society accepting me for being masculine or straight because they don’t and they never have. If I have to hide my identity to not be oppressed or attacked then it’s not acceptance or tolerance, it’s silence and erasure. I did not sit through years of being called a not real girl tranny dyke prude slut bitch for me to go into queer spaces and be told my masculinity and sexuality are shameful, I’ve already heard that a thousand times from cishet people and I don’t care.

that sucks so bad you have nowhere to go because of how hostile people can be for no reason. for as good as people can be they can be that bad. some people are just hostile and it sucks. i hate that you have to feel that way. i don't get why. you're just trying to exist and care about yourself and other people and you're just being turned away. i wish you the best of luck. i support you.

[myfictionaldreams]

Family // Poly!Marauders x Fem!Reader

Summary: Sirius Black, the usually happy prankster within Hogwarts, had a special skill for hiding his emotions. Until one day, he's forced to face the realities of the troubles with his family.

Requested by: @bullets-from-another-dimension Thank you so much for the request and for showing me that Sirius needs a little more love! I hope you like this fic, and thanks for your support with the poly!marauders ♥

Tags: 18+ readers only, smut, angst (lots!), fluff (also lots!), emotional hurt, discussion of Sirius' abusive family, disowned, crying, hugs/kissing, polyamory relationship, nipple play, body worship, making out, oral sex (m receiving), happy ending

A/N: This is just a little PSA that I'll be going through my other Poly!Marauders fics sometime soon to change some bits to make sure that each of the boys is getting enough love! It won't be anything major for the overall story, just spreading the love equally as it appears Sirius may have been skipped a few times (and I don't want that!), so check for an 'edited' note on the story. Thank you for pointing this out to me!

Words: 4.8k

my masterlist 📚 AO3 Link

The last 24 hours had been an emotional rollercoaster, with both positives and negatives coming to light. It had started with the ultimate showdown game of Quidditch between Slytherin and Gryffindor; with both Sirius and James on the team. You and Remus had been nervous wrecks just for the game, let alone all the tension drowning within the two enemy houses. This escalated outside of the pitch, with wands having to remain in hands between lessons to prepare for sabotage attacks from either team.

It was endlessly tiring the days leading up to the events, and it was some kind of a miracle to be standing in the Gryffindors' stands without a single injury. Now, however, you and Remus had to live through the fear of watching your boyfriends fly around with their roles as Seeker and Beater.

You were sure you’d accidentally bitten your nail down to the cuticle by the end of the match, and your throat felt as if you’d swallowed sandpaper with how sore it was with the screaming and shouting you’d been doing in support. There was instant relief as James finally caught the snitch, and everyone cheered.

“Do you think he’ll be ok?” you shout up to Remus, who, with his height difference, could see over the crowd to where the commotion was occurring on the pitch. As James had dived for the snitch, so had the Slytherin’s seeker, who just happened to be Sirius’ brother, Regulus. However, in mid-dive, Regulus accidentally knocked into one of the goalposts, hitting his head and falling from his broom. Thankfully to the Slytherins, Sirius had been close by and caught his falling brother from gaining any further injuries.

Remus was nodding to your question, “Yes, he’s walking away, well - he’s pushing Sirius away, so I’m sure he’s just fine”, he explained, watching Regulus shove Sirius, so the man stumbled away. A pang of guilt settled heavily in your stomach at the thought of the brothers arguing. You knew that the relationship between Sirius and his brother was non-existent these days, and it only made you feel more awful for your boyfriend, understanding how difficult it must have been to lose his family in the way he has.

You couldn’t ponder on these thoughts as the entirety of Gryffindor and the vast majority of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff began celebrating the win. This included Sirius, who scooped you into an exaggerated hug, spun you high into the air, and carefully placed your feet back onto the floor.

“Was your brother alright?” You shout to Sirius over the noisy crowd forming around the winning team. For a split second, you witness sadness filling his grey eyes before he snaps out of it and a beaming smile replacing the momentary lapse in his emotions.

“Oh, he’s fine; I’m sure a quick knock to the head will bring some sense to him. Anyway, come on, let’s all go back to the common room; I have a special surprise for everyone”. Sirius was great at many things, and covering his emotions was one of them. Any attempts to open up about the situation regarding his family would change the subject within the blink of an eye. You respected that he didn’t want to talk about any of his family members, but you still kept a close eye on him, making sure that he didn’t pent up his emotions until he was at breaking point, which you feared would occur one day as there was only so much one person could go through.

The interaction with Regulus seemed to have been forgotten in the madness of celebrating, which ran into the early morning hours in the Gryffindor common room. It would have continued later, but Professor McGonagall arrived in her dressing gown and demanded everyone go to bed. Sirius needed the most help to bed, having drunk the ‘surprise’ fire whiskey he regretted deeply in the morning.

“I’m never drinking again. Who’s idea was it anyway to bring Firewhiskey?!” came the deep groan of the man lying face first beside you, his face thoroughly buried into the pillow. Your temples were pounding slightly; you’d felt worse hangovers, but it was still uncomfortable as you rolled over towards Sirius.

Your arm wrapped over his naked back, face pressed over his shoulder blade as you could feel the toned muscles adjusting to your presence as you melted into his warmth. “It was your idea. I’m never falling for your charms ever again, Sirius”, you mumbled against his skin, reminiscing on his sweet talking skills from last night that convinced you to have a drinking competition with him.

This pulled him out of the half-unconscious state as his mop of hair turned in your direction. The movement caused you to roll off him and witness the beautiful sight of his morning glow; even in his hangover, he was handsome with one eye squished closed as the room was too bright.

Sirius turned his body entirely towards you, huffing as he moved, and you refrained from trying to reach out and control the usually silky locks of hair that were now all knotted and tangled on the top of his head. “Oh yeah? I’m pretty sure my charms made you cum three times before the fire whiskey joined the party,” he commented confidently and admired the warmth that filled your face. You attempted to hide your smile at the memories but were soon fully scream-laughing as Sirius tried to break your facade by tickling your sides.

Pushing him away, you turned and nuzzled into the naked chest of James, who remained asleep even through your loud laughter, but his arms still wrapped around your shoulders protectively. Besides James, you could see Remus was awake, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Remusssss, Sirius is being mean to me”, you drawl childishly.

The man sighed, dropping his hands to give you and Sirius a pointed look, “Please, children, it’s too early, and my head is too painful for you to make this much noise”.

Sirius smirked as he spooned in close behind you, wrapping his arm around you and James as everyone tried to have a few more moments of beautiful sleep before breakfast, and class pulled the four of you from the safety of the bed.

The food helped to settle the hangovers that the majority of Gryffindor seemed to be nursing this morning, much to the displeasure of McGonagall, who was glaring at her house from the Professor’s table. Sitting beside James, you leaned across him for another slice of toast as Sirius sat opposite you with Remus next to him.

As everyone started to be rejuvenated with energy from the breakfast, the owls began to swoop in and deliver the mail for the day. An emerald-coloured envelope landed on Sirius's lap, which caught the attention of you and the fellow Marauders. You already had your suspicions about who the letter was from. Sirius mostly confirmed it, as he had hardly read the letter before shoving it into his bag and brushing off any attempts at discussing who it was from.

“It’s nothing, just some spam letter. So, who do we have first today? Is it transfiguration? I can’t imagine that will be fun with how angry McGonagall looks right now.” Sirius changed the subject, but it didn’t convince any of you as you eyed him sadly. He didn’t wait for a response as he stood, gripping his bag so tight that his knuckles turned white. “Come on, otherwise we’ll be late”.

You knew something was off just by the quipped tone of his voice, and the humour and light that always seemed to dance in his eyes had been significantly dimmed. Even as James tried to humour him with his usual party tricks and jokes, it only earned him a half-assed chuckle from Sirius. Remus even attempted to pull him aside before entering the classroom to see if he needed a moment alone to talk, but Sirius just distracted him with a quick kiss and said he was fine.

You were quick to sit next to Sirius near the back of the classroom, smiling brightly with the hopes that he would return it, but it seemed he was lost in his thoughts as he idly arranged his parchment paper and quills. Thankfully, as the class began, his hand rested on your thigh so you could link both fingers together, lifting it and kissing the back of his hand.

As McGonagall began to teach the class, you leaned closer to Sirius, savouring the warmth that radiated off him and smelling the citrusy scent from his aftershave. “Is everyone ok, Sirius?” Your voice was barely audible so as not to disrupt the class, but you knew he heard as his posture stiffened, and he nodded his head, fake smiling for a second before returning his attention to the teacher. “I know there’s something wrong. Talking might help; I mean - I want to help-”

“Excuse me at the back. Is there something more important than my lesson?” McGonagall demanded with a passive-aggressive raised eyebrow as all other eyes turned to look at you and Sirius.

As your mouth opened to take the blame, your boyfriend beat you to it, “Sorry, Professor. That was my fault I was distracting her”.

“You’re already on thin ice after last night's antics, Mr Black. See me after class to arrange a detention”.

Your mouth drops open to retort to her and tell him it wasn’t Sirius, but the hand holding yours squeezes, stopping you from saying anything. As McGonagall turns back to write on the chalkboard, you lean close to harshly whisper, “You didn’t have to do that, Sirius! That should have been my detention!”

“It’s only one detention, I don’t care”, he shrugs nonchalantly, releasing your hand to begin writing his notes. You frown so deeply that a line forms between your eyebrows as you glance towards Remus and James, who have similar expressions of worry, especially as Sirius hasn’t even attempted to have any sort of friendly banter with McGonagall like he usually did.

At lunch, Sirius had somehow managed to slip away from the group, and your head seemed to be fixated towards the entrance to the Great Hall, neck straining to see over the other students as you waited for him to walk in.

“I mean, it’s not just me, right? There’s definitely something wrong with him”, you say before nervously nibbling on your lower lip.

Remus’ hand cups your shoulder, gripping gently as he agrees, “It’s not just you. I tried to talk to him before the lesson, but he just pushed me away. He just wants to be by himself; I’m sure he’ll be just fine”.

You nod to yourself but don’t believe his words. Yes, Sirius was strong and had been putting on a strong appearance for years, but he never pushed himself away from the three of you. It was like an invisible angel on your shoulder, trying to nudge you towards him, knowing something wasn’t right.

“Have either of you got the Marauder's map?” you ask Remus and James, who then check their pockets and school bags but cannot find the map.

“Sorry, Love, he’s probably got it with him”, James reports, appearing as deflated as you felt.

Standing from the table, the anxious causing your stomach to clench with unease and unable to eat, you inform the two of them, “I’ll be back later; I just need to make sure he’s ok and safe”.

Remus and James nod in understanding and watch you go. As you stand in the entrance to the Great Hall, you’re unsure where to start and what's worse is that he could be in his Padfoot form, which means he’d be able to hear you coming and run away. There were the grounds to search, Hogsmeade, the entirety of the enormous castle; there were plenty of places for him to be.

Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you decided to search the dormitory first, hoping the map had been left in a draw up there.

Opening the door to the dormitory room that you shared with your boyfriends, you were welcomed to the sight of Sirius, lying face first on the shared bed, his head turned away from the doors but from the noticeable sniffling noises and his shoulders shaking, you knew he was crying. Your heart felt like someone had reached inside your chest and squeezed as the sight rocked you. Silently as you could, you slipped your shoes off and placed your school bag onto the floor.

You knew he was aware someone else was in the room as his cries softened, and he subtly tried to wipe his face into the pillow. As you began to crawl onto the bed, you could see he was spooning the pillow you usually used to sleep on, clutching it desperately close to his chest. You had to remember to breathe through your nose, remain strong, and not descend into your emotions.

Kneeling next to him, your hand gently met the centre of his back, rubbing slow, comforting circles into his white shirt, hoping the action would comfort him. “Sirius, what’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing's wrong” he tried to brush it off, but you could hear the thickness of his voice as he tried to hide his face further in the pillow beneath his head.

“Is it about the letter from earlier? Who sent it to you?” Even though you knew he didn’t really want to talk about it, you knew he’d also built a wall around his emotions and wanted him to feel like he was in a safe enough space to talk, like the many times he’d done the same for you. Reaching over with your other hand, you ran your fingers through the long strands of dark hair, brushing them out of his face that was still turned away from you. “Talk to me, my love, please. I want to help you”.

Reluctantly, Sirius turned over and began to pull you down to lie in the centre of the bed. You did so and spread your arms wide as he moved to lie on your chest, the top of his head resting beneath your chin as you hugged him closely.

“No one important sent me the letter, it’s fine. I just want to cuddle”, he admits with a sigh, relaxing into the hold, the pillow he’d been spooning now forgotten about as he had the real thing instead, finding comfort instantly. In this position, you could hold him close and do the same actions as before, stroking gently up and down his back whilst also playing with his hair.

You want to tell him that you knew who the letter was from, but he seemed content with being held instead for a couple of minutes until you felt dampness seeping across the column of your neck and down your chest as his shoulders began to shake once more.

“Sirius-?”

“It was from my parents. The letter, I mean. Fuck! I don’t know, it's so stupid.” he sits up abruptly, aggressively wiping away the leaked tears he’d been desperately trying to stop.

Sitting beside him, you rubbed his shoulders while trying to calm him down from his overwhelming emotions. “It’s not stupid, my love.” As you talk, you grip his twists to pull them away so he can look into your face and hopefully see the love there. “Your parents, they’re awful people, Sirius, and anyway, you’re perfectly within your right to show emotions every once in a while; I just need you to know that I’m here for you, we’re all here for you, no matter how you are feeling. It’ll be ok”.

Even though it was comforting for him to hear the words, it still seemed to break something within him. Like a crack had formed in the dam as he relented with his cries, openly sobbing into his hands. Whilst trying to swallow the lump that had developed in your throat, you pulled him close, kissing every part of him that you could reach whilst wiping away the cascading tears.

“You don’t have to tell me what was said in the letter, but I just need you to know that they’re not your real family; you know we’re all your family”. Sirius pulls back from the hug, and your bottom lip trembles at seeing how heartbroken he looks. The area around his eyes is swollen and red to match the shade at the tip of his nose as wetness covers the length of his cheeks.

His mouth opens to say something, but he’s interrupted by the door opening and James and Remus stepping into the bedroom. The two men pause, not expecting to find either you or Sirius here, but as they see the sadness and pain on Sirius’s face, they immediately drop their school bags.

“You missed it”, Sirius chuckled, trying to hide his upset behind humour, “She called me an emotional prick, and the waterworks started”. James and Remus gave him sad smiles, but neither fell for the attempt to change the subject as both sat either side of him on the bed. Remus reached for him first, stroking his scarred fingers through the strands of dark hair that had fallen over Sirius’ face, but only so he could kiss the area beneath. Sirius closed his eyes at the touch and leaned into it, releasing a deep sigh through his open mouth.

James grabbed each of his hands, lifting them to his lips to kiss the palms lovingly and rest them on either side of his cheeks, nuzzling into his hands. “Whatever is going on, you know we’re always here for you, Sirius”, James mutters against the palms on his face.

Sirius sighs even heavier as if trying to will the anxiety away through the breaths. “It’s my parents. I mean, should I even call them parents when they’ve already disowned me? But they’ve just sent me more threats today after what happened with Regulus yesterday. They say things like I should have let him win and wish that I had been hurt.”

He takes a moment to compose himself as you grab one of his hands from James, needing to link your fingers together and squeeze to know that it is a safe place for him to continue and talk. Sirius looked into his lap as he spoke, “They’ve burnt my face off the Black family tree. Not that I care; I expected it, but it just all feels so real now, you know? I feel like I shouldn’t even be using the surname Black with how much they detest me. I also kind of expected Regulus to have my back a little bit, but he’s young; I can’t expect that from him, especially as I know what my parents are like, but he doesn’t even say hi to me in the corridors anymore. I don’t know. I guess I’m just a little all over the place, and with the positivity yesterday, just to have my family metaphorically kick me to the curb again, I should have expected the joy wouldn’t last long”.

Sirius sounded empty and emotionless as he expressed how he was genuinely feeling, struggling to come to terms with the repercussions of the events that occurred with his family that continue to affect him.

“Fuck them”, James says with all the venom and confidence that he could muster. Sirius grunts half-heartedly at the declaration, not seemingly convinced, so James turns his face towards him so that he is looking into the stormy hazel eyes. “I’m being serious, fuck them. You’ve been my family for years now; you know my parents consider you their son as much as I am. Nothing has changed. You live with me and my parents because that is your home. Wherever any of us go is your home because we love you. We wouldn’t make you feel half as rotten as those scumbags, do you understand?”

Sirius nods, swallowing thickly, causing his Adam’s apple to bob. Before he can respond, Remus once again holds onto his face, turning him in the other direction to look at the calmest Marauder. “Sirius, next time you receive a letter from them, don’t open it. They are cruel humans who have no love for anyone but themselves and the prejudices that they live by. You had so much joy and love in your heart; don’t let them destroy you and ruin everything you cherish. And that is exactly what James has said. You’re our family. We’re each other's family. You’re ours, just like you’re mine. Get it?”

Sirius’ eyes have dried as he looks up at Remus, and briefly, a genuine smile welcomes across his face as he leans in to kiss him deeply but then pulls back.

Squeezing his hand, you draw his attention towards you. “You deserve the surname Black more than anyone because it’s what makes you, you—breaking the stereotypes of those evil people and making it mean something that doesn't symbolise hatred. However, if you want to have another surname, you can! Sirius, you’re your own person, and your surname doesn’t define you. You could even make up a whole new name! Maybe you could have one of our surnames”, Sirius laughs at the possibility of a name change. “I love you so much. Your family's opinions of you aren’t how anyone else in the castle sees you. You’re perfect the way you are, Mr Black”.

You couldn’t wait any more time to kiss him, needing to feel his lips against yours and reassure him further with these intimate touches.  Thankfully, to your pounding heart, he smiles into the kiss.

“Maybe we could put all of our surnames together”, he jokes as you move to kiss each of his cheeks. 

“If that’s what you want, I’d do it”, you reassure him with a kiss on his temple.

“Almost sounds like a proposal”, he casually mentions, causing your heartbeat to increase rapidly. Sirius smirks at your face but reassures, “Maybe we’ll sort out surnames once we’ve finished our exams”. You press your lips against his once more for reassurance until he looks between the three of you. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for you three. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed before coming to Hogwarts, let alone feel love like this”.

Remus could see the tears pooling along Sirius’ lashline, so he gently cupped the side of his head, wiping away any that fell. “No more tears for them”. The gap between their lips was closed as Remus kissed him passionately, holding the back of his head carefully as they breathed each other in.

Sirius’ head dips slightly, but only to whisper against the man’s lips, “Can you make me forget? Please?”

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do, Sirius”. Remus kisses him again but with more urgency, pushing his body back until Sirius is lying in the centre of the bed with the taller Marauder hovering above him. Their mouths moved together as one, tongues twirling together, heads tilting one way and then the other.

As Remus distracts and devours him with his mouth, Sirius’ hands move around the back of his head, holding him close, which gives James the freedom to move his hands to Sirius’ shirt. With a simple flick of his fingers, James could undo the buttons down the centre of his chest, releasing the toned chest and abdomen of the man whose legs you were sitting between.

You watched with the sadness seeping away and becoming replaced with arousal as James leaned over and licked the nipples of the man who moaned into Remus’ mouth. James was calculated with his movements, making sure to leave teasing licks and bites over the areas that Sirius was most sensitive whilst then worshipping the perked nipples on his chest, his hands caressing the areas where fine dark hair was beginning to grow back from being previous shaved, mainly the snail trail leading beneath his trousers.

Smiling whilst watching them all move together, you were gifted the view of watching the tightness forming in his trousers as his cock grew hard and thick. Without any rush and admiring the desperate moans coming from the man on his back, you began to stroke up his thighs, over his crotch and pausing over his zipper.

Undoing it slowly, you waited to see if Sirius was even aware of what you were doing as he was so distracted with James and  Remus. However, with the sudden lift of his hips to help you pull the material down his hips, you knew he was very much aware of your intentions.

Freeing his cock from the restraint of his trousers and boxers, you watched as Sirius lowered his hips back onto the bed, and his member now throbbed on his abdomen, thick and hard. A pearly drip of precum had already formed at the tip, and you were quick to hold the base, lifting the cock until your lips were wrapped around him.

Your movements continue to be gentle and soft. Licking and sucking without any rush to build the tension and hopefully show how much you worship the ground he walks on by paying particular attention to him when he needs it most. James continues to tweak his nipples, and Remus devours his mouth, absorbing every little moan until Sirius needs to pull back to suck in air.

“Fuck, you’re all- Fuck!” Remus distracts him with his mouth once more, dominating him entirely and causing more whimpers to burst from his chest. The veiny length that was being leisurely sucked in your mouth began to harden further, throbbing as you knew he was approaching closer to his orgasm as your hands fondled his balls.

“So good for us, aren’t you, Sirius? Say it, tell us you’re ours”, James demands, pulling on the back of Remus’ hair so that Sirius can tell the group how he is feeling.

“Yes! I’m yours, I’m all of yours! I’m cumming, holy shit!” he shouts out desperately, face scrunching up like he is in pain but is actually experiencing the opposite as overwhelming pleasure pooled in his abdomen.

You moan around his cock, causing it to vibrate slightly against your tongue as his hot seed begins to coat your throat. You swallow every salty, thick liquid drop until you’re popping off and looking up at his half-lidded, satisfied grin.

James and Remus give you room to crawl up his body to kiss him sweetly. The three of you watch and admire as he comes down from the high, carefully tucking his half-hard cock back into his trousers and doing up the zipper once more.

“Thank Merlin that we have no classes this afternoon”, Sirius jokes as he rests back on the pillows with his arm behind his head. You laugh and collapse onto his chest, hugging him closely as the four of you sit in comfortable silence. You listened to the thump of his heart beneath your ear, but after a while, it increased in speed as he became restless.

“Can I tell you all a secret? I’ve um… I’ve kept all of the threatening letters they’ve sent to me, " Sirius admits as he carefully pulls out of the hug to climb out of bed and dig his way through the suitcase with his name on the side. From within, he pulls out a large stack of letters that are all opened and in the same shade of emerald as the one earlier this morning.

“You kept them all? Oh, Sirius”, you say in shock, only guessing what horrible, hateful words are written on those pieces of paper.

Sirius awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, looking embarrassed, “Yeah. I don’t know why. Some weird part of me thought that if I burned them all, they would know and come to the school or something. But, I want to get rid of them if you’ll all help me?”

Neither of you have to answer as you climb out of the bed. After dressing appropriately, the four of you walked down to the lake, where Remus carved a hole into the soil. Sirius chucks the letters within as you all form a semi-circle.

Holding onto his left hand, Sirius raised his wand to the right, pointing it towards the letters and shouting ‘Incendio’. The four of you stand together as the letters burn. Sirius sighs shakily as he holds back tears. “It’s weird. I know people say it’s like a weight off your shoulders, but it genuinely does feel like that”.

“That’s because you’re free, Padfoot!” James shouts enthusiastically, grabbing the boy around the waist and lifting him into the air, hollering and whooping until Sirius laughs. The two crash to the ground as Remus throws his arm around your shoulders, watching the pair finally have some fun today as the smoke billows into the air surrounding you, the ash from those horrible words written on the paper disappearing across the Scottish mountains.

[fl00mie]

ok so i want to expand on this idea that has been on my head and explain this drawing

let's just explain the situation!

we all know error ended up in spectertale when he tried to use his powers somehow, that's mainly the thing i changed for thisss.. kind of au?? i don't want it to be it's just a hypothetical scenario (coping cause i wanted error to have a better ending my boy didn't deserve everything he went through)

he arrives at the doodle sphere meeting ink who probably just returned from an adventure in some other au, blackberry (i want to call him this cause that's how cq referred to him during this stage of his life) is obviously scared bc there's someone exactly like his previous self just in front of him, ink is concerned at first but as soon as he sees how blackb's starting to have a panic attack tries to calm him down and tells him he won't hurt him

blackberry begins to enjoy being with someone else after a long time, although thanks to the isolation he wasn't a person of many words, nevertheless he was a good listener and it helped a lot that ink spoke without getting tired, he began by explaining to him where they were

he found out about the existence of alternate universes in a clearly much friendlier way, and i like to think that to a certain point he came to admire them because of the way ink referred to them :³

i'd also like to clarify the issue of his haphephobia, although by the time he arrived in another universe enough time had passed to repudiate physical contact, it's likely that ink's recklessness and ignorance have caused him to lose this fear eventually

so yea

[ryuichirou]

Why is Ortho included in ship art? He died as a child, and although he was rebuilt, his emotional intelligence and maturity level stayed the same as that of a child. Although I fully disagree, I do want to understand your reasoning. Especially since Ortho and Idia are related and I saw your art of them kissing. I am genuinely confused.

I’ll be honest, Anon: the amount of people who message us pretending to be genuinely confused while having ill intentions are more than I care to admit, and this is very tiring; this is why I might sound a little dry in my reply. But I don’t mind explaining it if you genuinely want to understand it. That being said, let this be the last time I am ranting about this topic because there is nothing new I can say.

Here is the short answer: Ortho is included in ship art because we ship him with other characters. Ortho having a maturity level, mentality and/or intelligence of a child is a myth that contradicts canon and only exists to antagonise people who view Ortho as anything other than Idia’s baby mascot with zero agency. The fact that Idia and Ortho are related is not a reason not to ship them: shipping is fictional and doesn’t reflect one’s views on irl matters. Exploring taboo and problematic dynamics and tropes in fiction is a part of natural human experience. What I care most about in shipping is characters’ dynamic that I find fun for shipping. Their relation to each other comes second, but I won’t pretend it doesn’t exist if it does exist.

Now I’ll give you a long answer. Starting with “Ortho is a child/8-year-old/5-year-old/toddler” argument.

We actually saw real 8 yo Ortho before his death in Idia’s flashback and, wow, we can see that AI!Ortho and flashback!Ortho aren’t the same Ortho. "My largest amount of birthday data comes from eleven years ago, when I was five” is the line that Ortho says in one of his Birthday vignettes, which indicates that even though he does have memories of dead!Ortho, he is not stuck in the age of 8 – he thinks and feels that his fifth birthday happened eleven years ago.

But also just in general, if you listen to him talk and compare it to how he talked in Idia’s flashback (both the voice and the manner of speech), it becomes pretty clear that he is older. He is younger-looking and has a high-pitched voice but it’s due to the fact that Idia designed him to look that way, and there are a lot of potential reasons why he could’ve done it (all non-canon and theoretical, so we won’t dive into them today), but he is definitely not 8 years old. Ortho’s AI constantly learns new information, learns more about being a human – he is clearly maturing as the story goes, thus showing that he is in fact capable of aging mentally, and he’s been doing it from the moment Idia first created him. He is naive and inexperienced, but that doesn’t make him an infant.

Plus, post ch.6 he is always being grouped with other freshmen who are also sixteen years old. This is his age group. This is how old Ortho would’ve been if he was still alive, and this is how old AI!Ortho feels. He’s a proper first year student just like Ace, Deuce and the rest of the boys, and the story keeps highlighting it in all the events that happened post ch.6.

Speaking of post ch.6. At the end of the story AI!Ortho and real/blot!Ortho actually merged a little, as far as you can remember. Blot!Ortho, wow, is also 16. He’s been stuck in the Underworld since he was 8 and he existed all those years and grew up as well despite his terrible situation and more than unusual company, so we can safely assume his age. His merging with AI!Ortho also influenced him (AI!Ortho) in a way, making him more human as a result as well.

Not to sound mean, but I think the majority of people who still insist that Ortho is mentally 8 either don’t pay attention to his character, his story and how he interacts with others at all, or straight-up choose to believe that lie because it makes it easier to attack shippers or anyone who likes Ortho in general.

But also guess what, none of that matters actually because ultimately he is a fictional boy, and fictional characters’ ages are irrelevant. Just like fictional characters’ family relations are irrelevant. Even if you don’t think it’s right, that doesn’t change the fact that it is irrelevant, and the only thing that could be done about it is that you can block people and/or tags that make you upset. There is no shame about it: I avoid a lot of ships and tropes that make me upset.

I would prefer people to stop accusing me, a real person, of actual vile crimes (or having dark thoughts about them? What the fuck is wrong with you?) because of fictional, made-up things. If I want to, I can unrelate Ortho and Idia, and my fanart would stop being incestuous with a snap of my fingers. I can make them enemies, I can make them kill each other over and over again, I can kill Idia instead of Ortho. I say this to show how little it matters, and no, ~the implications~ don’t count. People make them up and choose to believe that instead of listening to the person in question. About a real person, let me repeat myself. You (plural/neutral you, not you, Anon) cannot make shit up about another person’s thoughts, ideas, and views just because you find it convenient.

As for why I personally ship Ortho with Idia despite them being siblings, you’re in luck because in addition to this already long post I have an even longer post for you to read if you’re interested! It’s been more than a year since I’ve written that post my reasoning is still pretty much the same, so I think it’s a pretty good one to read if you genuinely want to understand us better.

But if you don’t want to read another long post but are still interested, here is a TL;DR:

I love their deep love for each other and don’t want to just explore the platonic aspect of it – there are a lot of other scenarios that I want to play with;

there are a lot of tropes related to this ship that we love (us two against the world; AI in love; causing an apocalypse for the sake of your loved one; unhealthy and codependent relationship; obsession, etc);

their story has a lot of motifs that could be read as romantic (i.e. Orpheus and Eurydice analogy) that we really enjoy;

personal reasons; relatability (not elaborating on that; not related to incest though lol);

they’re sexy lol I love robot parts, size difference and a lot of other aspects that I won’t mention here.

I hope that explained some stuff. Just to be clear: I don’t want to force anyone ship Shroudcest, in fact I don’t care if we are the only people in the world shipping them (that will never be the case though lol). I just love Ortho very much, and I think he is a very fun character that has a lot to offer, and I really don’t like that people want to create this aura of “he’s just baby don’t touch him” that stops people for getting to know his character better. He is cunning, he is smart, he is caring, he is psychopathic, he is a lot of things, and all of those things make me want to see him bossing Idia around, acting cute around Vil, bonding with Malleus over their differences and similarities, all of those things.

[cheynovak]

Fevered Confessions part 7 - Final

Characters: Soldier boy x Y/N Female character     

Summary: Y/N got hurt during a mission with Soldier boy, Ben feels guilty and tries to take care of her. But the fever makes her believe she is imagining it.

Warnings: Mentioning of fever/wounds/ fighting/... -> 18+ ish. Nothing too explicit.

English isn't my first language.

*Please do not copy my work, reblog/comments/likes are appreciated*

**Y/N’s POV**

Years passed, but Ben never left my mind.

My memories had came back in pieces—slow, fragmented, like a puzzle I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish. Some things made sense. Others felt like they belonged to someone else, a different version of me.

I went back to the man who had once helped me control my powers the second I knew his name again. He was older now, grayer, but still sharp. He said I’d made more progress than I ever had as a teenager. That should have made me feel accomplished.

It didn’t.

Because the nightmares were worse now.

I had only lost control of my power once when I was young. But now? It happened almost every night. Every time he asked me what I saw, I told him I didn’t remember. That it was just noise, static. But I was lying.

I did remember.

I was reliving that moment. The mission. The gunfire. The explosion. The heat of the blast, the radiation burning my skin, knocking the air from my lungs. And then—nothing. Flashes of an old, dirty motel. Pain. Fever. and him... Ben.

He was there.

He had always been there. And that was the worst part of all. My mentor said I needed to confront my fears, not hide behind them.

But how could I? I couldn’t confront Ben.

So instead, I hid. I found an old abandoned apartment complex, the kind no one cared about, the kind where it wouldn’t matter if my powers slipped at night. If I woke up screaming and the walls were covered in frost, there’d be no one around to see it. No one to get hurt.

During the day, I worked in a freezer, cutting meat at some factory on the edge of town. The cold didn’t bother me. It never had.

I wasn’t happy, but I was safe. The world was safe from me. And I had a paycheck. A way to exist without looking over my shoulder, without the danger of catching bullets. That was, until my boss called me into his office.

His expression was careful, apologetic. The kind that told me whatever came next, I wasn’t going to like it.

“I’m sorry, kid” he said. “We have to let you go.”

I couldn’t hold back the anger that surged when I got home. I paced around my apartment, frustration burning through me. It wasn’t enough that I’d been stuck in this place, a prisoner of my own past, but now I had no job to keep me going either.

That night, the dream came again. The familiar, haunting one. But this time, for the first time, something changed.

I saw it clearly. The bullet hitting me, the pain shooting through my chest. But then, as my vision blurred, I saw his face—Ben’s face—frozen in horror.

I heard his voice, filled with guilt and panic. I saw him rushing to me, trying to stop the bleeding, but there was nothing he could do. The look in his eyes… it wasn’t anger. It wasn’t hatred. It was horror.

And right before my eyes closed I saw our enemies come closer, Ben stood up to then and then a flash of white heat... and pain.

I shot up in bed, gasping for air. The cold sweat dripped down my back, and I looked around in a panic. My hands trembled, but to my surprise, there was no ice on the walls. No frost spreading over the floor. The room was warm.

I realized then, Ben didn’t attack me. He lost control. He saw me hurt, and it did something to him. That explosion, the chaos, the rage—it wasn’t about me. It was his desperation.

He wasn’t the monster I thought he was. He was just as scared as I was. The realization hit me hard, deeper than I expected. I misjudged him.

I wiped my tired face, staring at my reflection in the cracked mirror. The black circles under my eyes did little to hide the fact I hadn't slept good in ages. The walls around me were silent, but inside my head, everything had changed. I had to face the truth. The real truth. And it terrified me.

I still cared for him.

**Ben’s POV**

Ever since Y/N left, life had been a goddamn blur. Days bled into nights, and I drowned them all in booze; drugs and whatever else I could get my hands on to ease the pain, failure. I didn’t care.

TV blaring, empty bottles on the floor, cigarettes burning out in the ashtray—nothing mattered.

But then I heard her voice. At first, I thought I was hallucinating, just another trick my fucked-up mind was playing on me. But when I turned my head, there she was.

Butcher stood near the door, watching her, but I barely saw him. My eyes locked onto her, and Jesus Christ, she looked good. Strong. Confident. Or at least she tried, I could see how tired she ws but still. No longer the broken girl I let walk away.

She smiled, soft and hesitant. “Hi, Is Ben here?”

That voice, the way she looked at me when Butcher took a step aside—it did something to me. Something I wasn’t ready for. Then her brows knitted, probably noticing the state I was in. The mess I’d let myself become.

I didn’t think. Didn’t hesitate. I stepped toward her, faster than I should have, closing the distance between us. And before I could stop myself, I had her pinned against the wall, my hands caging her in.

She let out a sharp breath, her eyes widening just a fraction, but she didn’t push me away. I leaned in, my voice low and rough. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

I couldn’t let her do this. Couldn’t let her get in my head again, make me hope for something I didn’t deserve.

“Leave,” I said, shaking my head. My voice was rough, barely controlled. I wasn’t the man she used to know. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I was a man anymore, just a broken thing pretending to function.

But she stood her ground, her chin lifting. Stubborn as ever.

“No.”

Her hand pressed against my chest, pushing me back just enough to make me feel it. “I need to know the truth, Ben.” Her voice wavered, but her eyes burned with determination. “Did you attack me that day?”

I stiffened. My throat felt like it was closing. I didn’t answer.

“Did you?” she demanded, her voice thick with emotion.

“For fuck’s sake, Ben, did you?”

“No!” I roared, the word ripping out of me.

Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. She searched my face for something—proof, maybe.

“Then why didn’t you say that?” Her voice was quieter now, edged with something I didn’t want to name. I scoffed, running a hand through my hair. “Would it have made a difference? Would you have stayed?”

She hesitated, just for a second. Then, almost too soft to hear, she whispered, “Maybe not.” She turned for the door, and something inside me snapped.

“If you leave again, don’t bother coming back!” The words came out sharp, venomous. I hated how desperate they sounded, how much weight they carried.

She froze, her back stiffening. For a second, I thought she’d just walk out without another word, but then she exhaled, slow and measured.

“Fine,” she said, just as irritated. Then, with a glance over her shoulder, she added, “Then get some sleep, and we’ll talk when you’re sober.”

"I'm sober enough."

"No you're not."

I clenched my jaw, staring at her. She wasn’t playing my game this time. No yelling, no storming off—just standing her ground, like she always did.

I hated that she still knew me so well.

**Y/N’s POV**

I looked over at Ben, passed out on the couch, his chest rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm. He looked different—tired, worn down, like he was carrying the weight of something too heavy to bear.

"How did he even get this drunk? Nothing would ever effect him like this." I murmured.

Butcher sat on the other end of the table, sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "Gallons of the strongest stuff we can get. 100% alcohol, straight. Ain't even mixed anymore. Some fucked up drugs no one would ever survive. He takes it like it's candy"

My stomach twisted. "Why?"

Butcher shot me a look like I was daft. "What do ya think? It's his way to numb the pain. He don’t talk about it, but it’s clear enough—he’s been drinkin' himself to death ever since you left."

I swallowed hard, guilt creeping in. I should have believed him. Or at least, I should have pushed harder for the truth instead of running. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be like this.

It took hours of listening to his breathing. Butcher got tired and said if I needed anything I'd give him a ring and left us alone. I walked to the kitchen to pour myself a drink.

Just as the door closed after Butcher, I heard Ben.

"Finally," he said, his voice rough. He ran a hand through his messy hair, watching me with those dark, tired eyes. I set my glass down, gripping the counter. "Finally, what?"

"You've been sittin’ there for hours with Butcher, I was waiting for that ashole to leave. Figured you’d leave too." He took a slow step toward me.

I shook my head. "Not this time, I said I'd wait." Ben let out a dry chuckle, but there was no humor in it. "Yeah? We’ll see."

He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, looking at me like he was trying to figure out if I was real or just another dream he'd wake up from. I could see the exhaustion, the anger, the hurt—all of it simmering beneath the surface.

Yet, I couldn't wait anymore, I took a deep breath. "I want the truth, Ben. All of it." His jaw tightened. "And if you don’t like what you hear?"

I met his gaze, steady this time. "Then at least I’ll know. But maybe I should start by apologizing."

Ben shook his head, stepping closer. “Don’t. Don’t apologize to me.” His voice was low, rough with emotion. “You didn’t do anything wrong. I did. I let you believe something that wasn’t true because I was too much of a coward to face what I did.”

I swallowed hard, my throat tight. “I should have stayed,” I admitted. “I should have pushed for the truth instead of running.”

He let out a breath, his hands flexing at his sides like he wanted to reach for me but didn’t trust himself.

Ben let out a rough breath, raking a hand through his hair as he paced the small kitchen. He looked wrecked—tired, strung out, but there was something else there too. Something deeper, something breaking.

"You wanna know the truth?" he said suddenly, his voice raw. "Fine. Here it is—I don't deserve you. I never did. And I sure as hell don’t now. But that doesn’t change the fact that from the second you walked through that damn door all those years ago, I was done for."

I blinked, my breath catching in my throat as he pointed at the front door.

Ben kept going, his hands clenching into fists like he was trying to hold himself together. "You didn’t even look at me like I was a monster. Like everyone else always did. You looked at me like I was… just Ben. And it scared the shit out of me. Because I knew—I knew—that I was gonna love you. And I did... I do.” His voice cracked, but he didn’t stop.

"I screwed up. Over and over. I lied, I pushed you away, I let you believe the worst because it was easier than admitting I was afraid of losing you. But I lost you anyway. And I’ve been paying for it ever since."

He let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “You wanna hear something pathetic? Every time I closed my eyes, it was you. Every time I got so damn drunk I couldn't see straight, I still saw you. Every time I was high, I heard you. Like it was some fucked up lesson."

Tears welled in my eyes, my heart hammering in my chest.

Ben exhaled sharply, finally meeting my gaze, his expression desperate, vulnerable in a way I’d never seen before. “I know I don’t deserve you. I know I don’t have the right to ask for anything from you. But I love you, Y/N. And I don’t know how to stop.”

The room was silent except for the rain pattering against the windows, for the sound of my own unsteady breathing.

I swallowed hard, stepping closer, my voice barely above a whisper. "Then don’t."

I must’ve misheard her. I had to have misheard her.

But then she said it again, her voice softer this time, like she was scared I might run. “Don’t stop loving me. Because I sure will never stop loving you.”

A tear slipped down her cheek, and I just stood there, frozen.

I couldn't hold back anymore. The second my body caught up with what my heart already knew, I stormed toward her, knocking over the chair I’d been leaning on.

Before she could say another word, I grabbed her, pressing her against the counter, my lips crashing into hers. It was needy, desperate, a kiss that spoke of years of longing and regret.

She gasped against my mouth, and I took the chance to deepen it, my hands cradling her face like she was the only thing keeping me tethered to this world.

Without hesitation, I lifted her, her legs wrapping around my hips, she belonged there, she always had. Her fingers tangled in my hair, nails scraping along my scalp, down my back, pulling me closer.

Her breath was deep and quick, her body moving against mine with the same urgency, the same hunger. It wasn’t just passion; it was relief. Like neither of us could stand another second apart.

I pulled back just enough to look at her, to memorize the way she looked in this moment—lips swollen, eyes dark with want, chest rising and falling as she fought for breath.

“Say it again,” I rasped, my forehead against hers. Her hands slid over my jaw, her thumbs brushing over my cheekbones as she whispered, “I love you, Ben.”

I groaned, "You have no idea how long I wanted to hear you say that." Pressing another kiss to her lips, then her jaw, then down her throat, savoring every sound she made. If this was a dream, I’d burn the world down before I let it slip away.

I carried her to the bedroom, my grip firm but reverent, like she was something sacred. Laying her down on the bed, I took a second just to look at her—more beautiful than I ever remembered, glowing with want, with something deeper than lust. Something I didn’t deserve but would spend the rest of my life worshipping.

Patience was never my strong suit, and I sure as hell didn’t have any now. My fingers curled into her shirt, and instead of taking my time, I just ripped it clean off her.

She let out a surprised laugh, eyes bright with mischief before she grabbed my shoulders and yanked me down against her. “Impatient, are we?” she teased, breathless.

I smirked, my lips tracing down her jaw, her throat, the curve of her collarbone. “You have no idea.”

Her nails scraped down my back, her hips shifting beneath me, seeking, needing. I lined myself up, my hands braced on either side of her, my body practically shaking with restraint.

I looked into her eyes, needing to be sure. “Are you sure?” My voice was rough, unsteady. “Because once we cross this path again, there’s no going back. You’re mine.”

She reached up, brushing my hair back, her fingers lingering on my face like she was memorizing me. Then she kissed me—slow and deep, leaving no space for doubt.

“I’m already yours,” she whispered.

Her heel pressed against my hip, pulling me closer, and that was all I needed. I gave in, completely, finally, and there wasn’t a force on this earth that could tear me away from her now.

I guess my hard and needy thrust spiralled us quicker than we wanted towards the orgasm. Her moans I heard so often in my dreams where real. her scent, her touch all of it was to real.

But then she begged me to stop, I was confused. but I saw the fear in her eyes. "It's ok," I said, "you won't hurt me."

"Ben... I..."

"I don't care if you freeze me, this room or the God damn world. all I care it for you, to enjoy and have a fucking orgasm that I fucking gave you." She started to laugh, I held her close my lips on her neck and her laugh changed to moans again the second I moved my hips again.

A high pitch "Ben" left her lips before she came.

She came... and it was the best feeling i've ever felt.

**Y/N's POV** The next day I woke up.

Feeling a pleasant warmth under my cheeks. I looked up and noticed how Ben lay beneath me, holding me in his arms. His warmth was a nice feeling against my freezing skin, I looked closely to see if he was ok, but I hadn't froze him and the room was clear.

I leaned in to make sure he was breathing.

"Staring is rude sweetheart", he said, eyes still closed.

I felt my cheeks heat up as his raspy morning voice reached my ears. Caught in the act. His arms tightened around me, keeping me pressed against his chest, his warmth steady and grounding.

“I wasn’t staring,” I muttered, but even I didn’t believe that lie.

Ben finally cracked one eye open, smirking. “Liar.”

I huffed, trying to push myself up, but he didn’t let me go. Instead, he rolled us over effortlessly, pinning me beneath him, his face hovering just inches from mine. His hair was messy, his lips slightly swollen from last night, and damn, if he didn’t look ridiculously good like this—half-asleep, content, mine.

“Room’s still intact,” he murmured, one hand brushing down my arm, stopping where his fingers met my bare skin. “No ice, no frost—just you and me.”

I swallowed, glancing around, realizing he was right. No frozen sheets, no crackling frost creeping up the walls. Just warmth.

Ben must’ve noticed the realization on my face, because his smirk softened. “Told you, sweetheart,” he whispered, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to my lips. “You’ve got this.”

I let out a shaky breath, wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling him back down into me. “Only with you,” I admitted.

His lips curled into a grin against my skin. “Then I guess I’m never letting you go.”

--

Taglist: @jackles010378 @libby99hb @winchesterwild78 @suckitands33 @mostlymarvelgirl @deans-baby-momma @ancles @tulipsvanilla @thesilmarillionblog @jays-bonnie-on-the-side @kr804573 @kamisobsessed @hobby27 @globetrotter28 @kindollss @muhahaha303 @shadysoulangel @lyarr24 @spxideyver @impala67rollingthroughtown @panickedbitch @deansimpalababy @livya99 @yvonneeeee @ladykitana90 @stoneyggirl2 @imsiriuslyreal @panickedbitch @roseblue373 @n-o-p-e-never @ariasong11 @lmpala1967 @sherlockstrangewolf @spnaquakindgdom @writtenbyhollywood @mishkatelwarriorgoddess @healojane @star-yawnznn

[celis22]

DC x Marvel AU

"Gotham Dynamic Duo" AU

Okay...this crack-ass AU was born from one of my wildest dreams to date! In essence, Gambit and Spider-Man end up in Gotham together!!

After watching X-Men 97, my mom telling me she was obsessed with Gambit in her youth, and reading a ton of "Spider-Man in Gotham" fics...I had a weird dream where a lot of different concepts were mixed together! It was seriously a freaking weird dream.

How did Gambit and Peter end up in Gotham?

• After Gambit's death, there was a glitch in the universe because at that moment Doctor Strange was casting the spell that would erase Peter from the collective memory (but as happens in many fics) instead, Peter was erased from existence and sent to Gotham... Gambit's soul got caught in the middle and traveled with him!

Where do our two unfortunate victims end up?

• In a Lazarus Pit! Yep! Rage pit for Remy and Peter >:D I like to think that the regenerative properties of the pit basically undid Gambit's lobotomy and gave him back, at least partially, his original powers! While Peter is more spider-like than before!

• The rage pit presents itself differently in Gambit and Peter! For Peter, it's like his spider-sense goes haywire, putting him in a fight-or-flight mode... while for Gambit, it's more mental; he doesn't become animalistic like Peter or lose control like Jason. Instead, Gambit suffers from not having a way to stop violent intrusive thoughts, like... instead of attacking senselessly, he plots murder!

Relationships and Interactions!

• Between Peter and Gambit: Since they're both kind of trapped together in Gotham, they stick together! With Peter creating false identities for the two of them (with Gambit assigned as his legal guardian after Peter's parents "death") and Gambit being the responsible adult who brings home the bread!

• Between Peter/Gambit and the Rouge/villains: I'm a sucker for the aunt-nephew relationship between Peter and Harley (plus Ivy) so...yeah, just silly stuff between them! While Gambit has more of a working relationship with some villains. Example: he works on the iceberg lounge for the Penguin as a waiter...and dancer!

• Between Peter/Gambit and the Batfamily: Gotham's favorite stalker bats mostly interact with Peter, since (surprise surprise) Peter goes to Gotham High and has more opportunities to interact with them. Gambit, on the other hand, is more of an afterthought to the bats; he's only Peter's legal guardian...but not for Jason!

Here we enter the strangest part of my dream...a crack ship! Please don't hate me

• Peter/Gambit’s relationship with Jason: Since our pit boys are broke as hell, they both live in a small apartment in Crime Alley…Red Hood territory! Peter is another alley kid to Jason, an interesting one since he’s caught the attention of his family…but Gambit? He’s love struck with our favorite Cajun man! After seeing him leaving Penguin’s nightclub and getting jumped by some drunks, Jason springs into action to protect him (keeping in mind his code of looking out for the sex workers/escorts in Crime Alley…though I’m not sure WHERE that iceberg is…so just roll with that!) he determines that, as a dancer, Gambit falls into that category…but who knew that Louisiana charm (and accent) would end up giving Jason a crush!

Ages & Timeline!... only for some though!

• Gambit: 27 years old. I know in the series (X-Men 97) Gambit is supposed to be between 30 and 35 years old, but I wanted to make him a little younger... That and because I thought he was around 25 when I saw the series! So... yeah...

• Peter: 17 15 years old. Following the movie canon (NWH), it's speculated that he's between 17 and 18 years old! But continuing with the cliché of Peter being younger, he physically and mentally regresses at the age of 15... the same could apply to Gambit.

• Damian: 13 years old... because I like the idea of Damian being a dangerous little pre-teen!

• Bruce: 40 years old... listen! Old and tired dad, Bruce! Besides, the life of a vigilante is stressful. This man has aged quite a bit due to the stress of fighting crime... and being a father to wild children!

Extras & concepts I don't know where to put!!

• Gambit and Peter are permanently trapped in Gotham! Peter because of Doctor Strange's spell...and Gambit because he died and his soul is no longer in his original universe, so...no Deathbit for X-Men 97!

• John Constantine!...listen, I love Constantine, my mom is a huge fan of his movie and she recently started reading his comics, so I wanted to include him. Plus, I have an AU with Constantine I'm working on.

He's just Gambit's drunk friend. The two met by chance and Constantine smelled the "this guy doesn't belong here" vibe as soon as he met Gambit, so...they just see each other from time to time to drink and shit.

• Gambit's powers, while not at the same level as pre-lobotomy, are quite strong! managing to charge things (and living matter) with kinetic energy without touching them if he concentrates enough.

• The relationship between Jason and Gambit was the main reason for the existence of this AU and an important part of my dream. I think... since Gambit is still heartbroken because of Rouge, Jason would have a hard time trying to win him over...and if we add to that Jason own conflicting feelings about being in love after so long, Jason and Gambit have a complicated relationship, like friends-to-lovers kind of thing but also puppy-love!

maybe i'll do art for this AU later, but it all depends on my motivation...also, i don't know too much about DC or Marvel, so pls don't hate on this AU! it's all harmless fun!

[heizenka]

𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

♆ Luke Castellan x f!reader

𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

— content warnings: mentions of blood, semi-gore, use of y/n, angst, death, chiron being a father figure to reader

— word count: 2.0k

Luke Castellan and I Had been inseparable from the moment our eyes locked during my first day at camp. I had been new to camp, and unclaimed by any godly parent, leaving me with only one cabin to stay in, Hermes.

That was almost 6 years ago, and nothing much had changed. I’d remained left in the dark about my godly origin, as my 'parent' had made no attempt to claim me as their own, even after so many years.

Though all else remained the same, my feelings towards the boy I called you best friend did not. Of course I’d made other friends during my stay at camp, but my friendships with them could never come close to the one I held with Luke. It was all the small things he did that truly made me see him in a different light so suddenly; how he always saved a seat next to him at dinner just for me, how when I spoke all of his attention was on me, as if nothing or no one else existed, and how he would instantly smile when he saw Me.

Me and the son of Hermes were inseparable, but ever since I'd been the first person at his side when he'd gotten back from his quest, something more had blossomed between the two of us. It was something sacred, yet it remained unspoken.

"Y/N L/N, your presence is requested by Chiron at the big house." I immediately looked in the direction that the... tired.. voice had come from.

There stood Dionysus, the look on his face showed nothing more than complete uninterest. I looked back towards Luke, who merely shrugged, the faux training armor moving stiffly around him. I swallowed my nerves, and began to take off the armor I was wearing during me and Luke's sparring session, quickly placing it in its rightful place before waving a quick goodbye to Luke and jogging towards the big house.

"What do you mean I've been assigned a quest? I haven't even been claimed by my godly parent, how is this even possible?" voice heightened near the end of my sentence.

Chiron simply put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a saddened look. It wasn't one of pity, it was one that came from a place of understanding.

After spending 6 years at camp and still being left unclaimed, Chiron had made it his place to act like the father I was never given. Oftentimes I found myself spending extra time I had with him, whether it was in his office simply talking about our days, or if it was in the arena.

"I don't know Y/N, truly. But I do know this is an opportunity and it’s one that not many others see, and you should take advantage of it. I know you Y/N, with or without a godly parent to guide you, you know how to take care of yourself."

I left out a sigh, and nodded. I looked up at the only man I'd even seen as a father and waited for him to carry on."The oracle is waiting for you. Everything is going to be fine." His voice was gentle as he spoke, but something about his words twisted my gut.

you shall delve in the darkness of an endless maze, you shall rise or fall by no other hand than your own, the child of the unknown's final stand, and death unleash

'I guess everyone was right, the oracle is never wrong' I laughed at my own thought while laying in a warm pool of my own blood.

...

I was on my way back home, to camp, to Luke, when I had been struck from behind. Fear ran through my veins as I remained on the brisk forest floor, no more than a mile from camp. I looked around me trying to spot where or what the attack came from.

Without warning or was grabbed by my legs and pulled, further from camp, but worst of all from my sword. I let out a shout, twisting my body to get a view of the creature that no doubt planned to end my life right here and now.

A harpie.

Its long talons dug deep into my calves, I could feel each layer of muscle tearing as its grip tightened from my attempts of trying to get away from the creature. Suddenly it's movements stopped, and its grip on my legs released.

I let out a grunt of pain as I felt each talon being pulled from my body. I turned onto my back, holding myself up with my arms, to get a good look at it. My heart dropped, along with any hope I had at getting away,

It stood at least a foot taller than me, with huge gray wings, and sharp talons on each finger.

I looked down at my legs and a small sob left my mouth. I was in no condition to run, but even if I were, this thing was without a doubt going to catch up to me. I calmed my breath and pushed my body up and made a run for it.

My vision went white with the pain coming from both of my legs, but I couldn't afford to stop, not if I wanted to get back, not if I wanted to see Luke again. There was so much I needed to tell him, there was no way this was going to be it for me.

I was stopped once again, A gasp leaving my body at the new painful sensation being spread through my body. looking down I saw the sharp tips of the harpies talons, sticking through my body. Tears gathered in my waterline, the pain was unbearable, unlike anything I had ever felt before.

I was sure nothing could have felt worse until the harpie pulled its long talons from my back, causing even more damage within my body as they left.

I could hear the harpie walking away, most likely bored with me as I was no longer able to put up a fight to entertain it any longer.

I fell to the floor, my body left a bloody mess on the forest floor.

There was truly nothing I could do any more, I had no energy left in me to call for help, nor any left to carry myself back to camp. I looked at the sky, it was clear of clouds, yet full of stars.

It was beautiful.

Tears fell down the sides of my face, and I didn't mind at all. I cried. I cried at the fact that I was never going back to camp, that I was never going to see my dad again, and that I was never going to see Luke.

Sobs racked my body, and with each breath I took the pain in my body doubled only causing more tears to fall from my body.

I felt the life draining out of me, each breath a struggle, each heartbeat a painful reminder of what was inevitably going to come. I wanted to scream in anger at what was happening, but my voice failed me, leaving only a hoarse whisper.

My vision blurred, and I did nothing to fight it. I looked up at the sky for a final time, wondering if he was looking at the same stars as me. Though I was alone in the forest for what were becoming my final moments, I was grateful that I was still under the same sky as Luke. In a way he was still here, and that was all I needed as I closed my eyes.

News of Y/N's death traveled soon after her body had been discovered by a camper patrolling the woods.

Chiron was the first to be alerted of what had become of the girl he proudly called his daughter, His heart shattered into a million pieces as he realized he would never see her again. The pain was unbearable, like a knife through his chest. The void in his heart was unbearable, as he mourned the loss of his little girl who had left too soon.

He did his best to keep the word of her death between him and the young camper, unfortunately, news traveled fast.

Luke had been in the arena sparring with some kid from the Ares cabin when a camper from Apollo cabin gave him his condolences?

Something painful twisted in his gut as you were the first person to cross his mind. You'd been gone for a week, but there was no way this kid was talking about you... right?

"Y/N was a great-" That was all Luke needed to hear before he sprinted to see Chiron.

...

"Chiron!" He burst through the doors, not caring about anything but finding out if what he heard was true. Gods he prayed it wasn't...

Chiron looked at the young boy, his heart felt like it was breaking all over again. He knew he would eventually have to tell the boy about Y/N but he'd hoped he would have had a little more time to prepare himself.

"Luke..." that look Chiron gave Luke told him everything.

He gripped the door frame, to steady himself, the boy's heart ached with a pain that seemed to have no end. Tears gathered in his eyes as he thought about Y/N.

His now tousled hair and tear-stained face were a stark contrast to the vibrant soul he once was when he was with Y/N. He had lost the girl he loved dearly, the one who made his heart skip a beat with just a smile.

"You.. you're wrong. She's not.." He sobbed and he tried with everything in him to convince himself this was merely a cruel joke from the universe.

She was the one good thing he was ever given, and she's just been ripped away from him with no warning, or a final goodbye.

He fell to his knees, the tears streaming down his face, as he let out a gut-wrenching scream. The pain was unbearable, a constant ache in his chest that he knew would never go away. He had lost the love of his life, and with her, a part of himself. 

Chiron could do nothing more than watch, he knew no words would help. All Luke truly needed was you, but now he didn't even have that.

...

Days after Y/N's death all Luke was left with was an empty void, a constant reminder of the love he lost. The pain consumed him, but he couldn't let go. She was his everything, and without her, he felt lost and incomplete.

As he sat in the dimly lit room, he closed his eyes and whispered her name, hoping that somehow, she would hear him and come back to him. But she was gone, and he was left with nothing but the excruciating pain of losing the one he loved.

copyright 2021 heizenka, all rights reserved. I do not allow my creations to be published of translated anywhere else so please do not repost.

[quonah4dead]

Closets may feel safe, but they sure are lonely

Word count: ~8.5k Rating: Teen+ for language, probably Pairing: Nellis Characters: Ellis, Keith

Edit: I wrote some follow-up things: WS: Prologue WS: Part 1 WS:Part 2 WS:Part 3

Summary: For a while, Ellis had been giddy like a little girl with a crush, running around in secret with whatever chick he'd fallen for, refusing to share any details with his best friend… Denying her existence… Confirming her existence before keeping it all hush-hush anyway… And it's been a bit over a month since she must have dumped him. Since then, to Keith, it's been like watching a corpse replace his partner in crime, and nothing Keith does seemed to get the life back in his brother's eyes. Keith's a stubborn man, but even he has his limits.

This is inspired by Primum, Non Nocere by ladyred and is set after Nick and Ellis mutually (miserably) agree to back off seeing each other, because they both suspected that people around Ellis were getting way too suspicious of him having a secret relationship. OR Nick broke it off 'cause he got scared of… something, idk what ladyred planned for them. I just know I was tormented with visions of this scene somewhere way down the line, and the cure for cursed visions is writing it. Proofread by self, if you see a typo either ignore it or let me know (gently).

warnings: angst, hurt/comfort, panic attack, brief reference to gay conversion horror stories but it's like one sentence, fear of abandonment, keith's got finger stumps, boy's a little confused but he's got the spirit, also keith uses the r-slur once. it's 201X and these boys probably grew up t-bagging in COD lobbies, you can't tell me Keith would be terribly delicate with the gamer words

CONTEXT and CREDIT for inspiration: First, Nijuukoo's art came across my dash during Gravity Falls brainrot hours, and it was delicious, so I feasted upon their blog. Then, I noticed they kept tagging shit "bmb," and saying things I didn't get, like there was a fanfic or something. Then bmb took over my life. Then I read ladyred's OTHER l4d shit, and all of it's been living rent free in my head, nellis brainrot restored after a decade of lying dormant. Then I wrote this.

"---, y'know? HA!" Keith lurched his body forward with a shout and smacked the steering wheel with his pinky-free right hand as he wrapped up whatever the hell he was saying. Honestly, if you asked him two seconds after he finished yapping, he wouldn't have been able to recall any of what he just said. The words didn't really matter anyway, Lord knows he said plenty more than he ever needed to.

What was far more important was how his words were affecting his passenger, and how few words he was getting in return. The issue was, the person next to him was being painfully quiet, compared to normal. He turned to point a lopsided grin at the man riding shotgun, only slightly forcing the expression through his worry, and slapped his best friend's shoulder with the back of his hand.

"Am I right, or am I right, brother?"

The impact jostled Ellis in his seat. If he jolted to awareness, the blow masked it, and he immediately snorted, shook his head, and pointed a slim, but genuine, smile out the rightmost corner of the windshield. "Yeeaahh... When you're right, you're right, man," he drawled, sounding slow and tired.

Keith kept the smile on his face as he scrutinized his buddy. Ellis' eyes squinted up with affection, warm and true, but there was also a sad distance to his expression that he couldn't quite hide. Maybe he could've hidden it from anyone else, but sure as hell not Keith. That look had seemingly taken up permanent residence on his friend's face a while ago, foreign and out of place. He was getting fuckin' sick of it.

He'd BEEN fuckin' sick of it. For like two weeks at least. The first two (three?) weeks of it were sad, but tolerable. Sure, it was hard to drag Ellis out of bed for literally anything for a few days there. And sure, he'd regularly space out while working, just slouching there looking like death while elbow-deep in car guts. And sure, it was fucking obvious that he was suffering from heartbreak.

The guy had been giddy and eager and happy and excruciatingly secretive for like a month or two, using Keith as cover regularly while running off to meet some sweet piece of ass (Keith assumed), while vehemently denying the existence of the girl. It was like watching a puppy try to hide how exited it was for treats. He was so obviously smitten that everyone, Keith, Dave, Ellis' Mom - hell, even Paul groused about it once, and he hates minding other peoples' business... Shit, everyone was wondering if anyone else had heard anything about who was making Ellis sneak around like a lovestruck teenage girl who fell for the bad boy. It wasn’t like they were all gossiping about it constantly or anything, but Ellis’ behavior had become a source of unspoken tension in the background of their lives, popping up whenever he was acting weird.

Eventually he admitted that she existed (in a private conversation with Keith aided by beer), but withheld all details about her, and then a while later he just started moping out of nowhere like he had no reason to live. And even though Keith had never actually seen Ellis bring a girl home or get upset over a breakup before... It was so obvious. So. Fucking. Obvious.

Keith felt the willpower for his upbeat façade wither, and his smile tightened and wilted into a stiff, frustrated frown. Air escaped his slightly-scrunched remainder-of-a-crooked-nose with a harsh and extended huff, and he let his head loll hard to the left, glancing out the driver’s-side window in exasperation, before directing a slightly-absent gaze back onto the road. Keith’s right hand began whacking the car’s gear shift, creating a crisp tap-a-tap-a-tap-a-tapping as his wrist flicked between hitting his knobby thumb and ring finger on the clutch handle.

Pinching one of the radial spokes of the steering wheel between his left hand's ring and middle fingers, the single-phalanx stumps of his index finger and thumb were unable to do much more than brace against the base of the bar where it attached to the central hub, weakly supporting his guidance of the car. He raised his eyebrows, spread his the fingers of his right hand conspiratorially, and angled his head vaguely toward Ellis. "So," he started with a glance toward his passenger, "Tomorrow. We go into the city proper. Laser tag?" He waited a beat before getting a better idea. "Ooh! Ooh! Or we could check out one'a them like, arcade-y wall climb-ey places, like whut Tom was talkin' about! Y'know?" Keith kept glancing over at Ellis, hoping for something to light up in his eyes.

Ellis' eyes lost a portion of their glaze as Keith's words reached him. He took a breath and shook his head sluggishly, looking despondently through the passenger seat's air conditioning vents. His response was quiet, seated low in his chest, “I dunno if I’m—”

“— Feelin’ up to it right now, yeah, yeah…” Keith finished for him, trailing off and sighing. His voice lowered to just the barest mutter, “Never feel up for anything anymore.” He wasn’t entirely sure if Ellis could’ve heard that, and he wasn’t sure if he wanted him to. It was a little bit of a bitch thing to say, but Lord forgive him, he was gripped with an urge to be a bit of a bitch about it. He found his head shaking in tiny, quick jerks, lower jaw grinding forward as he suppressed whatever words were trying to throw themselves out his mouth on impulse. Sayin’ more bitch shit prob’ly wouldn’t help nothin’. His tapping against the clutch briefly got louder.

The hardly-winding rural roads provided little distraction. There was no traffic, beyond an occasional guy driving a junker, with whom Keith would exchange a slow chin-dip and leisurely salute with whatever left-hand fingers he could spare. Spiffier-looking vehicles didn’t get any such pleasantries.

The terrain was flat and predictable. Each side of the road was flanked by a lush, dense mixture of deciduous trees and swampy shrubs unique to their humid and subtropical climate, brought into a deep and vivid green by their typical 70-something-degree March rains. In the summer, the roadside ditches were practically always holding stagnant water, and frequent downpours made low-water crossings a regular chance to test the mettle of his latest preowned vehicle. Now, though, the water line was safely below his tires by a few feet, even at the lowest and least-maintained crossings. Boring.

And there were no turns that Keith could take at inadvisable speeds. Fucking boring.

Aaaaannd Ellis was still staring blankly out the window to the right, looking as dead inside as ever. Keith felt his chest pinch a little from… something that wasn’t exactly annoyance, but he wasn’t going to bother figuring out what it was. Fuckin’ annoying, he thought to himself.

Keith’s wide-open eyes darted rapidly below his furrowed brow at the greenery and straight county highway ahead of him, not really looking at anything. His gaze flicked to the right again, and he felt some kind of thought rise up behind his teeth.

His jaw ground a little tighter, and his right knee started wiggling left and right with the effort of withholding whatever the hell he was about to say. He felt his tongue rub the chasm left by the absence of his small left incisor tooth. The dam was breaking and his willpower was faltering, so he inhaled a hissing breath through his missing tooth, letting the breeze chill his bare gum, and just blurted out, “D’you know how much it sucks to see yuh like this, man?”

Ellis tipped his head back into the headrest and let out a delicate stream of air through his nose. His eyes rolled upward and then closed, irritation pinching at his brow while exhaustion slanted the corners of his lips downward. This did not deter Keith. He slapped and gripped the clutch with a bit more force than was necessary to emphasize his point. "Fuckin' sucks, dude."

Ellis directed a despondent gaze off to the side, a weak attempt at avoiding Keith's gaze. He dully shook his head, just a little, and sighed. "'M sorry, man. I..." His voice came out tired and husky. "Don't mean to be a downer, you know that."

Something in Ellis' tone suggested he had more to say, but Keith jumped on ahead before he had he chance. "It ain't that! You bein' a lil' sad ain't the problem! You bein' sad ain't--!" Keith smacked his hand on the clutch once, then another time, "--a problem! It's the fact that you've been like this for a month--,"

Ellis' head shaking intensified and his voice harshened as he tried to speak over Keith. "I don't got it in me for this right now, man--"

"-- and I ain't been able to do shit fer you, and I'm--"

"Keeeeiiith--"

"--startin' to feel like--"

"You don't gotta try to cheer me up, man!" That got Keith to shut up for about half a second, just enough to sneak in, "It ain't your job. If--" Despite the frustration Ellis put into the jerking of his head and the further raising of his voice, he felt like he was pleading with Keith to just-- he didn't even know. Just something.

"Uh, yes it is??" The interruption didn't stop the steamroller's inertia, apparently. "'S kinda how bein' a best bro works? Kinda in the job description?" He flared out all seven remaining fingers for a brief moment, at a loss. "I mean, what's even the point'a bein' a best friend if you can't do shit for your boy, y'know?" Keith started stammering out, "I-I-I-" as his mouth tried to buy time for his brain to come up with something to follow it with.

It was as close to stopping as he was going to get, and Ellis took the opportunity.

"It ain't got nothin' tuh do with you, man."

"Yes it does!" Keith struck his right hand on the steering wheel with a full-body jerk that bounced him in his seat, Ellis' contribution easily jolting his brain out of its stall. "It's got everything tuh do with me! You're miserable! Yuh look dead all the fuckin' time!" Keith furiously smashed his right index finger into his own sternum, sending staccato thumps rippling through his ribcage. "That's a me problem, man!"

Ellis punctuated every word as much as he could as he let his eyes close again, anger crinkling his nose. "No, it fuckin' ain't, Keith."

"Uhhh, yes, it fuckin' is, El!" Keith mimicked his deliberate cadence before falling right back into his agitated pace. "Why you actin' like this is just a you thing? Like ain't noooooobody got the right to worry 'bout'cha, like ain't nooooooo-one gonna-- fuckin'--" Keith's brain stalled out again, for a handful of seconds, but Ellis didn't try to get in a comment, so his mind could only resort to the program it had been running since this dumb moping started. "Why you actin' like-- like nothin' ain't gonna ever be worth doin' again if you can't keep runnin' off and playin' with yer special little lady friend?” His head roughly tilted left and right in a frustrated half-mockery. “It's been over a month, Ellis! I know breakups suck, but I--" Keith took one, maybe two seconds to pant and find words through an abrupt wave of anguish, powerful and alien and out of place on his face where it twisted his expression into one of pained desperation. The small choked sound of emotional pain, too, was alien in his throat, and his brow furrowed, lowered, as if some weak macho facsimile of anger could force the tension out of his voice. His eyes, however, would have betrayed his sorrow, had Ellis been able to glance at him.

"I miss my friend."

The statement hung there alone, for a minute or two. Neither man could bring himself to look at the other. Keith stared at some distant point through the asphalt in front of him. The raw admission narrowed his vision, and he didn't notice the days-old smear of raccoon on the highway's shoulder, even as it bumped underneath his tires.

Keith found himself deflating. He had all the fight in the world under the right circumstances, but without Ellis fighting back, all he had was... Being sad.

He reached for just a shred more of energy, tried to find something else to say to accomplish.... Something. Anything.

"I know you're hurtin', Ellis, but I--" He felt the last of his steam run out. There was no hot air left to blow. There wasn't even enough energy to complete the thought in his own head. A thin, tired wheeze escaped him as he slouched forward. His next utterance was just a whisper.

"Fuck."

Keith's mind went quiet. It was a weird feeling, having no schemes or jokes or anything running across his consciousness, nothing vying for his attention. Usually his head felt like a high school cafeteria pre-, during-, and post-food fight all at once. Right now, it was just a blank grey haze, somehow dulling all of his senses while the sound of the road seemed to roar in his ears. It was unfamiliar, and weird, and painful. Felt like broken ribs and black bruises, but in his heart and stomach and lungs. Internal bleeding. He sat there with the ache and the emptiness for... however long. A mile or two, maybe, before a miserable, hollow voice quietly piped up from the passenger's seat.

The sound was muffled. "... Ain't a girl, man..." Ellis had buried his face in his hands. Keith wasn't sure when it happened, if it was during his waning outburst or during the silence that followed. What he did know is that that phrase had, for quite a while now, been an inconsistent way for Ellis to terminate every conversation Keith tried to have with him. The shorter man oscillated between denial and admission, and Keith knew which one was true.

Keith's head shook slightly, and his reply was delicately soft in volume, but deep with the tone of his disappointment.

"And there yuh go, lyin' again."

He didn't really have anything else to say. They'd rehashed this small bit of dialogue so many times in the past few weeks. Keith didn't know which canned reply Ellis was going to pull out next, but he did know it wouldn't get them anywhere. But when Ellis replied, face still solidly planted in his hands, Keith stepped to his tune, anyway.

"Ain't a lie, man.

"If it ain't a girl, then whut is it." Not even asked as a question, really. Just a droll repetition of bullshit they've already been over.

"Can't tell yuh."

At this point in the exchange, Keith was supposed to say Why not? and Ellis would say Because I can't, man, and then they'd bash their heads together until they were both tired of it. But Keith was already tired. And so, instead of fighting, what came out of his mouth was--

"Sure."

And for the first time since the adrenaline and hype of their graveyard-dirt-bike parkour wore off, for the first time in miles during their drive back home, Keith felt Ellis' eyes on him.

That sky-blue gaze was flicking around the profile of his face. Something in Keith's chest tried to make some kind of feeling, but he was tired. And sad. And angry. So nothing in his posture or face changed in response to the new attention. He just kept staring out at the road with the tension in his brow.

Another something in Keith's chest tried to make a leap when Ellis actually re-engaged with the opening in the conversation, even if it was just more shit he'd heard already. "I--I really can't, Keith..."

"Sure."

Ellis jerked his head back in the bewilderment that surged up underneath his misery. His mouth flapped open and closed like a dumb fish, and true to form, apparently, he started desperately floundering for something to placate the wiry man next to him.

"I- You know I'd tell yuh if I could, right? You- I- Keith, I... Yuh can't-" Hurried breaths huffed out into the car as he kept searching the turbid conversational water for some kind of godsend. "Keith, please don't do this, man. I can't. Tell you."

Now that one managed to bring back Keith's temper, just a little. The sensation of being pissed came easily, even if the heat of the emotion was dampened by the exhaustion that had seized him previously. He let himself lean into it. His shoulders gave a harsh, quick shrug, he ran his tongue over his front teeth, and he jerked his jaw firmly forward.

"Sure."

He spat out the word like it was acid.

And like acid, it began burning a pit into Ellis' stomach.

"Keith..." Ellis pleaded. "I--," he gasped in a breath through his teeth, "--I can't! I'd tell yuh if I could, but--," a little grunt escaped him, "--I just-- can't!"

Ellis had tilted his face upward, hands palms-up in his lap as if he could collect droplets of apology and truth and forgiveness in them. His last words had come out as a near-whine as his throat tightened around them.

Keith didn't even respond.

The taller man kept his eyes fixed on the road, hands clenched on the steering wheel, and all Ellis' supplication seemed to do was make his friend's face pinch up further with a cold, stony anger.

He didn't even glance at Ellis.

The brunet's head flopped back against the headrest, pushing his hat slightly onto his forehead.

This is exactly the kind of thing he wanted to avoid.

Sure, Keith didn't know, because Ellis couldn't tell him, so it wasn't exactly the same, but the slim, scarred man next to Ellis wasn't even talking to him. Couldn't even look at him. His best friend hated him.

Was disgusted by him.

Was done with him.

It was all fucking over. Ellis did his best to keep his damning secrets and it didn't even matter, because now Keith was going to give up not only on cheering Ellis up, but also on their entire damn friendship. He's going to lose his best friend and it's not even--

Ellis' vision narrowed, whited out everywhere except for a tiny pinprick of red at the center of his vision.

His limbs went numb, needles piercing his fingers as his organs felt like they began shutting down.

It's fucking over.

I'm gonna die sad and alone under a bridge.

Keith didn't hear his friend's waffling, not really. Sure, the sounds hit his ears, but aside from, "I'd tell you if I could," nothing else registered. His mind filtered out everything else, and that little bit he did hear just pissed him off more. Lie after lie after dodged question after lie. He knew Ellis wouldn't tell him anything if he could, because Ellis could tell Keith anything, and he hadn't. He could tell Keith anything! How could that not be clear after how long they've been attached at the hip? How much they've done together?

Keith just kept his eyes locked to the road, his hands locked to the wheel, and his jaw locked down tight.

And then he heard a little stuttered breath, just loud enough to break through the fog of his cold seething.

Fuckin' great, now he's cryin', Keith thought to himself without looking over toward the other seat. I push him, he gets upset. I give up, he starts sobbing. Lord help me, I'm 'boutta lose it.

He heard another rushed, wheezed inhale.

Air leaked out of Keith's nose, and he felt the square of his shoulders soften a little.

Fuck's sake.

"El, I'm-- Okay, no, I am mad. I am. But couldjuh just-- put yerself in my shoes fer a second on this?" He glanced over at Ellis for a moment just to emphasize his point. In that brief second, he could see that his friend's head was planted into the headrest, eyes closed, with a weak grimace wrinkling his features.

"Wh-whuddya think my, fuck, my per-spec-tive is on this? How'd you feel, if I just shut'ya out've everything 'n' then kept givin' yuh shit excuses?" He looked over for a second longer, now, and saw the same thing. It hardly even seemed like Ellis was listening. Keith directed a frustrated glance to the sky, willing something to give him patience, 'cause Lord knows he wasn't born with any.

His thumb started tapping on the clutch again in a slow, irregular rhythm. "Y'gotta give me somethin', man. Y'can't get upset with me fer keepin' quiet, then pull this silent shit."

Keith found himself frequently peeking at Ellis, now, searching for any sign of engagement. Across the span of several quick glimpses, he noticed that Ellis wasn't really taking great, heaving breaths from crying. Hell, there weren't even any tears running down his face.

Actually, it hardly looked like he was breathing at all.

"El?" He started suspiciously, training a critical eye on his passenger.

Nothing.

Keith took a breath. "Ellis?" His attention was more fully on his friend now, the speed meter gradually dropping on his dashboard due to his diverted scrutiny. He was practically going the speed limit now.

Still, Ellis didn't respond at all. Didn't even budge.

What the hell...

A firm urgency entered Keith's voice now. "Ellis, c'mon, man, this ain't funny." He clasped his hand onto Ellis' forearm, gripping firmly. It made Ellis jolt, but all that accomplished was making him heave in a great, gasping breath, followed by panicked, shallow wheezes that bounced his ribcage in and out.

"Ellis?? Ellis, yer scarin' me, man, quit it!" Keith shook his friend's arm with an increased urgency. He rapidly flicked his eyes ahead and to the right, trying to avoid crashing while being far more concerned with the fact that his best bro was hyperventilating next to him.

The breathing wasn't slowing down, wasn't evening out. Keith kept his foot on the gas for just a couple moments longer before cursing under his breath, smashing the hazard lights button, and pulling over halfway off the backwoods road so people could pass him. He was unbuckling his seatbelt before the car had finished bumping its way to a stop, and the moment he was able to engage the emergency brake, he threw himself over the center console bin to wedge his torso between Ellis and his seat. He pressed Ellis tight to his chest, wrapping his long arms over and around Ellis' shoulders, and planted the side of his head against the back of his best friend's neck.

Ellis' hands jolted up to grip Keith's arms where they crossed ontop of his chest, white-knuckled grip pulling at the taller man's skin.

"C'mon, Ellis, c'mon. Breathe, brother, yer fine... Shit, man, breathe..."

Keith had no clue what to do. He just held fast to the compact, sturdy chest in his arms and ran his mouth with the hope that something good would come out. How do you convince a guy to breathe when he can't even hear you?

"It's alright, man, it's alright. Yer fine. I gotcha. 'S okay, 'm here. I gotcha... Jesus..."

Over the course of several minutes, Ellis' breathing became deeper. Gradually. His chest was still heaving and he still seemed unsteady, but at least the breaths were deeper now. He was getting air, at least. His hands started grabbing at Keith's arms with a bit more firm presence, and a bit less clawing desperation.

And then Ellis flopped his head onto Keith's left shoulder and shuddered throughout his whole body.

And then the waterworks started.

For a second, Keith was struck with the fear that Ellis had forgotten how to breathe again. He had gripped his friend's shirt and rubbed the thumb-and-a-third he had against his friend's stomach and chest, tension entering his grasp when Ellis' ribcage surged under his arms.

The feeling of a warm, damp droplet falling onto his forearm produced within him a morsel of sorrow, but also a surge of relief.

Crying is better.

He can handle crying.

The other thing made Keith feel like he was being dragged under by a gator, but crying was fine. Keith knew how to handle crying.

The slope of Ellis' seatbelt slid off his shoulder as he listed over to the left, and Keith's spine shifted to match him. Nothing needed saying right now. He just had to let Ellis collapse into him and ride out the tears, so that's what he did.

Ellis had always been a bit of a crier. He was tough as anything, resilient as hell, but movies, video games, and passings in the community had all gotten the shorter man anywhere between misty-eyed and bawling at some point. This was familiar territory.

Keith didn't have to see Ellis' face to know that this was some ugly crying.

He heard keening and groaning, sounds that were probably stifled wails. Little anguished chokes bubbled up around phlegm in Ellis' throat, accompanying what Keith was pretty sure was a line of watery snot dripping freely onto his forearm. Whatever. He'd covered himself in grosser. Couldn't fucking care less.

They sat there for a long time, rocking gently in their car seats. The sobbing came and eased in slow waves, repeatedly fooling Keith into thinking it was tapering off before something in Ellis' head reopened the flood gates. Three vehicles had driven by them, and Keith was grateful that none of them stopped to offer any kindness.

It had been thirty minutes, maybe? An hour? Keith had no real grasp on time. He just knew he'd sit there hugging his friend forever if that's what it took.

Slowly, finally, the flow of tears and snot ebbed for more than a few scarce moments. Keith directed his gaze from its previous position over Ellis' right shoulder, and glanced at the back of his friend's jaw. He let himself hope for the best, and kept his voice at its softest possible rumble when he decided to speak.

"Y'with me, buddy...?"

He heard a little hissed gasp through teeth, and Ellis pushed his head into Keith's left shoulder. It was something, but...

"Don't gotta talk, just-- just lemme know yer here."

Another sniffle met his request while Ellis managed to grind a nod back into the taller man's collarbone.

"Okay," Keith whispered. "Good."

He nervously plucked at the material of Ellis' t-shirt, pinching it up and smoothing it back down again, mind helpless and blank. When Ellis breathed as if to speak, Keith's spine tensed with unwavering attention.

"Duh-don't-," Ellis panted out, interrupted by another sniffle and a gasp. "- hate me."

Keith froze.

He was mortified. Maybe a little offended, too.

"Whut the hell are you on about, Ellis? Whuh-- How--"

The calloused hands on Keith's forearms tightened their grip.

"D-don't. Please," Ellis begged, "Keith, I-"

"Ellis, man, what the hell's got you thinkin' I hate you?"

"I s-saw it on yer-- face."

Bewildered, Keith's head shook a little on its own. He tried to keep his volume gentle through the shock of Ellis' assertions.

"Ellis, I- I just got a lil' pissy..! That ain't... I don't hate you, man. I could never hate you. What's gotten intuh you?"

A small mewl accompanied the agonized head-shake on his chest. The friction of the movement finally pushed Ellis' cap off his head and into the gap between the seat and the median, but neither man reached for it. Ellis knew Keith was bit of a bull-headed prick sometimes. How could this possibly have gone so far down shit creek? He followed the compulsion to smooth over... Whatever the fuck this was. Maybe he could find a paddle. Reverse course.

"I'm sorry, man, I didn't... I didn't think--" He couldn't figure out what to say next. I didn't think you'd go'n start dyin' if I stopped fighting you on your shit.

Ellis's thumb started gently rubbing back and forth on Keith's arm. It was a bittersweet feeling that pulsed through Keith's heart when he realized that Ellis was trying to make him feel better.

"'S'okay, Keith... I get it."

He sounded so defeated.

What the fuck is goin' on that makes you think I'd ever hate you? What the fuck do you think could make me hate you? Keith squeezed the man in his arms, let the silence drag on a minute. His tongue darted out to wet his lips before carrying on.

"So... Okay, y'don't gotta tell me nothin', man. You don't, honest. I'm done pushin' yuh." He didn't actually know if that one was true. Seemed like the kind of claim he'd forget about in two days. "It's just--" Keith bit his scarred lips between his teeth and jostled Ellis slightly in his embrace. "I just gotta get somethin' straight, okay? And y'don't gotta answer me on these, neither. I just- have to get this straight."

The only response he got was a little press of fingers clasping harder to the lean meat on his arms.

"So- you can't tell me what's gotcha all upset. Can't tell me why yer all fucked in the head." It was a half-statement, half-question. He gave Ellis space to say something, but the opportunity was left untouched.

"And you can't tell me why you can't tell me why."

At this, Ellis shook his head and made a pathetic little negative mm-mm sound in his throat.

"And you can't tell me, 'cuz you... Think I hate'cha?"

Ellis shook his head again. "Y-you-- will."

If it weren't for what was coming out of Ellis' mouth, Keith would've been ecstatic at how much more he was getting out of the brunet right now. As it stood, however, he kinda wished he wasn't hearing it. The relief and the pain, the disbelief, mixed together into something that was almost numbing. Almost.

"You can't tell me why you can't tell me... Because you think I'll... hate'cha. If'ya do."

Ellis nodded his head weakly and squeaked.

Keith shook his a moment after.

"El?" Keith started gently.

"... That's gotta be the dumbest fuckin' thing I ever heard'ya say in my life."

Ellis made a little huffing noise, and Keith didn't know what it meant. He didn't ask about it, though, and he certainly didn't let it stop him.

"I'm serious, man, that's fuckin' retarded." Affection bled from his voice as he said it. He tried to infuse every word with as much gentle passion as he could, though his voice was ill-suited to it. "Ain't nothin' in the world you could do or say to get me tuh stop bein' your problem, brother. You're stuck with me fer life, whether you like it'er not." He jostled Ellis a little, trying to make sure what he said made it to Ellis' mind. "Feel like that's pretty obvious. But, okay, fuck me. You can't tell me what's got'cha all fucked in the head. And you can't tell me why you can't tell me, 'cause you think I'll hate you."

He couldn't stop himself from tacking on a small indictment.

"Which is stupid."

His thumbs just briefly tapped on Ellis' arms as he tried to figure out what to say next. God, he was so ass with delicate shit.

"... Can you tell me why you can't tell me why you can't tell me why..."

He felt like it was the wrong thing to say. He also felt like it was a stupid thing to say. Self-consciousness furrowed his eyebrows as his mind began to parse what his mouth put out there, and he started slowly counting the number of 'whys' in that question on his fingers, getting the words all mixed up in his head and having to restart the finger-count at least twice.

He could not see Ellis' dam breaking. He couldn't see the built-up reservoir of the misery of hiding, of years upon years of the fear of being known. Being caught. The perception that being discovered would simply end his life the moment anyone found out.

He also couldn't see that at that moment, for Ellis, the fear of losing his best friend was far greater and seemed far more imminent right now, due to Keith not knowing. A feeling had settled within him, that he would lose Keith, closet or no, and there was some kind of weird peace in the sensation of standing on train tracks over a pit of spikes. He would be impaled if he jumped, and crushed if he didn't. It was freeing, in a way. He'd die no matter what, so why not give Keith an olive branch? Just a little something, to ease the pain of being discarded. Or maybe it was to revel in being vindicated while he burned on the pyre.

It took Ellis speaking to break Keith out of his linguistic counting loop.

"If anyone... Finds out," Ellis started, sounding mournful, sure, but sounding a whole lotta resigned, too, "... I'll lose fuckin' everyone, Keith."

He left a space for Keith to interrupt, but he didn't. Keith waited.

"I'll lose you. Paul. My job."

"... Mama."

"You guys are my everything, man. If I lose y'all, I ain't got nuthin', and I can't--"

Ellis sighed here and let his head roll forward, just a little away from Keith's embrace. He didn't care to finish the sentence, and he also wanted to skip past any protesting Keith might try.

"And don't tell me I won't, neither. That nothin'll happen. Y'can't know that, Keith, I've heard more'n enough stories to know that- that people lose people over this shit. Some people get--"

Ellis didn't want to finish that one, either. Some guys get sent away'n' tortured for this kind'a shit.

Their own mothers do it to 'em.

"So that's why I can't tell yuh, Keith. It ain't got nothin' tuh do with you, 'n' I'm sorry. But it just can't-- No one can know."

Keith was struck with a roaring urge to contradict Ellis, and he accidentally blurted, "Well that ain't--," before managing to stop himself with a herculean effort. That was exactly the thing Ellis specifically said not to do.

He took a deep breath and tried again. Lord, this was hard.

"Okay, so- y'said not tuh- tell yuh- that you won't... That yer mom'n everyone'll stick around if yer big dirty secret gets out. So I won't. I guess." Keith lowered his voice and narrowed his eyes. "Even though you're bein' a shithead."

"But I ain't goin' nowhere, El.” His pace started slow and deliberate as he tried to come up with things to prove his dedication. “If yuh killed someone, I'd help you hide the body. If yuh robbed a bank, I'd get pissed at'cha fer not invitin' me, 'cause that'd be sick.” The prickle of a scheme poked at his mind demanding attention, though he was mercifully able to stay on topic. “You pulled me outta so much bullshit, man, and you still keep draggin' me to the doc, even though yuh don't gotta. I ain't makin' you."

While Keith misinterpreted the reason for Ellis cringing at the mention his medical mishaps, he certainly didn't miss it. He waited for a second, and Ellis took the chance to protest.

"Well that's- all that was..." Fun. Funny. Necessary to save your life. Different.

"That was all 'cause we're bros. Ride or die, together forever, tuh hell'n'back. You— lookit me, Ellis, c'mon, look at me." Keith pulled himself out from behind Ellis, still leaning over to clap his hand on his friend's shoulder and shake it.

When that didn't get him any eye contact, he snatched Ellis' left hand up in a crushing, pinkyless grip, and planted his other fist on his left thigh.

"Lookit me," he enunciated heavily, meaning to leave no room for resistance.

He only continued when Ellis' miserable look met his fiery stare.

"I ain't goin' nowhere, Ellis. An' that ain't a promise, that's a threat. I know I get a bit weak about promises sometimes, so-," he cut off there, feeling slightly guilty in that admission. He was a bit surprised at it, too, because he'd never really thought about it before... But then he snapped his attention back on track and threw himself right back into whatever the hell he was saying.

"But Keith don't make no idle threats! I ain't a pussy, man, and- everyone- so, I--" So many different things were trying to come out of his mouth, now, he couldn't out get a single coherent phrase, but god damnit he had so much to say and he was so close to some kind of breakthrough, he knew it, and he just had to- fucking- say something, and-

"So I am threatening you, with bein' stuck with my exploded ass, forever, no matter fuckin' what you do, 'cause you're the worst, and the only righteous punishment God has for you fer bein' too goddamn nice is- is-- is havin' tuh deal with my bullshit for the rest of yer stupid life."

Keith let his eyes settle on Ellis' after his outburst, and he felt... Weird. Felt like rugburn in his guts. He felt like he was clawing his way to the surface of whitewater, and he felt like the air had been knocked out of him. Kinda reminded him of panic. Was he panicking?

"Y'hear?"

Yeah, maybe he was panicking a little. Or something else close to it. Fear? Was he about to cry? His voice wobbled when he wrapped it up. That was weird. Not normal.

And he felt more pressure build in his chest when Ellis fixed him with an intense, scrutinizing look. He was looking for something on Keith's face, and Keith wasn't sure if he'd found it.

But whatever he saw, it must have been enough, because the next thing he said made Keith's heart fly into his throat.

It came out quietly, and cautiously, starkly contrasting with the tension of their eye contact.

"... Yuh promise...?"

Keith was flabbergasted. Desperate hope exploded in his chest.

"Uh- A'course. Of course...! Obviously? Dumbass?"

"No, Keith, I-- do you promise??" Ellis gripped hard and shook their clasped hands for emphasis. It was so important. It was so important.

Keith steeled his expression with all the grim determination he had ever felt in his life.

"Ellis? You ain't never gettin' rid'uh me. You can't, 'less you let me bleed out on the pavement."

And he fucking. Meant it. He proclaimed it into existence, into truth. So he hath threatened, and so it shall be.

Ellis held his gaze a little longer. Keith couldn't tell what he was thinking, but that didn't matter. Keith could feel in his bones that they were on the verge of something great. His boundless confidence had come surging back in a great swell, and with bright, brimming gold lining his vision, he couldn't imagine any outcome other than unadulterated triumph shared between himself and his best friend.

Which is why it kinda confused and deflated him when Ellis's face pinched up, chin trembling just a tad. He cradled his head in his other arm, his right arm, to hide it, and muttered, in shame, "... It ain't a girl."

Keith... Didn't know what to do with that. He kind of just stared, brain buffering and jaw tightening. He thought Ellis was gonna start spilling the beans, and instead he just repeated the same line as always...?

He sat there, silent and unmoving, for however long it took for Ellis to pause, take a deeeep breath, and hold it until it puffed out in a different answer.

"It's a guy."

Ellis kept himself folded over, arm pressed against his eyes. Keith was at a loss. It took a moment for the words to register, and he immediately began puzzling out what the hell that could mean.

It's a guy...?

What, like he's gettin' bullied or somethin'...?

Is someone threatening him...?

Ellis didn't follow up the statement very quickly, but Keith was so busy being confused that there was plenty of room for him to continue when he piped back up.

"We... People were startin'tuh... Get wise that I was up'tuh somethin', seein' someone in secret, so he- we thought it'd be best tuh... Break up. Before anyone found out."

Break up

It's a guy

Ain't a girl

Seein' someone

All the words bounced around in Keith's head like ping pong balls. It took a few moments for the right wires to connect in his many-times-concussed brain. But when those neurons finally fired properly, it was as if a thousand pins dropped at once.

Oh.

He felt like a deer staring into headlights. His words came out like molasses, like he was processing them as he was saying them.

"So, you were... Datin' a... guy...?"

Ellis didn't respond at all. He just sat there, hiding from Keith while holding onto his hand. He didn't really need to say anything, though. The silence was confirmation enough.

"Oh."

A gentle thumping began sounding out as Keith's left thumb stump set itself to tapping against the driver's side window controls. When that didn't seem to be enough stimulation, his fingers started pushing and pulling the window levers with minds of their own.

He had nooooo clue what to do with that information.

A gentle mechanical vrr-vrr-vrr sounded out from all four corners of the car as he clicked the controls up and down.

It wasn't like that was a problem, not really. It's just...

Well, shit, that kind of thing had never crossed his mind before. He'd never had to think about it.

He knew it was a thing that, like... Happened? Guys dating guys wasn't unheard of. It was a thing he knew about, in a vague background awareness kind of way. But...

It just never mattered. There was no reason to bother thinking about it, turning that fact into a part of his worldview. Nobody he knew was like that, and nobody he knew had friends who were like that, and it just... Was a blind spot.

And now that that blind spot was being smashed, he didn't know what to think.

Did this change anything?

Was this supposed to change anything?

Was he supposed to feel some kind of way? Was he supposed to say something? Was there a user's manual for... This situation?

vrr- vrrrr- click- vrr- click- tap-a-tap-a- vrrrrrt-

Keith almost didn't hear Ellis speak over his fidgeting, so quietly and slowly he began.

"I... get it, if you don't- wanna hang out, anymore. I really do." Keith felt his stomach give a panicked jolt, kicking hard against the static that had been occupying his mind. "It's fine. You just- wanted--"

"Woah, woah, woah, hold on there!" Keith put his left palm out, placating. "I said I ain't goin' nowhere, an' I meant it, I just- uh..." He scratched the back of his head with his free hand. "Well, shit, man, I just wasn't expectin' that answer, that's all."

With the windows still open, the roar of car tires on pavement filled their space for a brief moment as another vehicle passed them by. He floundered.

"I just don't know what tuh..."

The uncommon sting of awkwardness prickled across Keith's back.

"Shit, I'm fuckin' this up... Dammit, Keith, yuh dumb asshole, stupid, stupid, stupid..."

Keith rubbed at his eyes in frustration. He was too busy cursing under his breath to notice Ellis lift his head and look at him, but when Ellis started speaking, his eyes snapped over to the right. The brunet seemed like he was bracing for something.

"You... Aren't disgusted, or... Gonna- yell at me, or...?"

"No! No, hell no! Why'd I do that?! That's dumb!"

The scrutiny Ellis directed his way was uncomfortable. "Yer... Not weirded out by it...?"

"Whuh- no! It ain't-" Keith couldn't stop a little bit of truth from leaking out in a little awkward admission. "I mean it's- a lil' weird... B-But that ain't bad'er nothin'!" He quickly amended. "I mean, hah, I'm a lot weird, 'n' I'm the greatest! So..."

Keith didn't even have to look at Ellis to know that that had to have been the wrong thing to say. He immediately flopped his face into his free hand again.

"Dammit."

The silence that settled between them felt excruciating to the taller man. It was such an unfamiliar thing, to feel like so much was riding on the words he chose and how he assembled them, and to actually be concerned about it. To have to mind his step when normally he just bowled into every conversation the way he bowled himself into junkyard obstacle courses. He was not built for delicate situations. When put in delicate situations, he usually just accepted that he'd break shit, leave shards lying everywhere, and step on 'em. Usually, that was fine.

Right now, getting cut up on emotional glass shards and rusty nails didn't feel very badass at all.

Kinda felt like shit.

Abruptly, Keith dragged his palm upward against his forehead, pushing back his coarse, ashy-blond bangs to bare the text underneath. He tilted his face to the right, though his eyes stayed averted, and shook Ellis' hand urgently where they still held their grips.

When Ellis didn't react, he pressed harder. Shook their hands harder.

Tired blue eyes looked up from where Ellis was slouching, head moving loosely as if it was only just attached to his neck. He was quick to notice it.

I'm a moron

The sudden dryness in Ellis' mouth didn't keep his throat from constricting around a reflexive swallow.

Uncovering that tattoo was something Keith only really did under two conditions.

Either he was bragging about something absurd he'd done, was doing, or was actively planning to do, wearing the tattoo loud and proud like a battle standard of badassery. That was actually a rather common occurrence.

The other condition was that… He was so desperately at a loss that he resorted to the text on his forehead like a lifeline.

It was Keith showing his belly, and he was asking Ellis to witness it being bared.

It was an apology, a plea for help, and a request for forgiveness all wrapped up into one gesture. Once, a year or so ago, when Keith had pulled this move before, he'd said he felt like he was getting his dick ripped off. The guy was struggling.

A sad kind of compassion softened the tension in Ellis' face. Air blew out his nose as he found something to say to ease his friend's fear.

"S'okay, man. I ain't gonna be mad atcha for- feelin' however you do. Not gonna pretend..." He shook his head, redirecting to what was more important to get out. "But'chu wanted to know, and now you know. That's why I been so lame lately." Ellis picked at a loose thread on the seam of his jeans. "I just- I just gotta ask one thing'a you. Even if yuh can't bring yerself to- even if you end up thinkin' different'a me."

A deep sincerity, firming Ellis' expression despite the gentleness of his voice, pierced straight through Keith as he held the eye contact.

"Y'can't tell nobody. This can't get out. However you end up feelin', whatever you're gonna do, no one else can know. Okay? I- I can handle losin' one person, I think, but if I- if I lose Ma over this, I misewell just throw myself under a car now'n' save us all the trouble."

Horror washed over Keith, a churning sensation rising in his stomach. He didn't have the awareness to hold back what he started blurting out.

"Ellis, she would never-"

A sudden surge of anger rose to meet him, abrupt and shocking, and Ellis' tone demanded compliance. "Dammit, Keith, I ain't playin'! You don't know that, and’ya can't know that. I know ya wanna tell me that it wouldn't change nothin', but I heard enough horror stories to know that it ain't worth riskin'. I can't lose her, man. This can't get out to no one."

Those blue eyes flicked between Keith's golden brown ones, and Ellis thumped their hands, still clasped, against the arm rest between them. "Okay?"

Agreeing to this felt like the wrong thing to do. Keith knew Ellis' mom would never abandon him or hurt him or whatever the hell Ellis thought would happen. The woman was too good and too smart to ever do that to her son. There was nothing so certain as the breadth and depth of her goodness, passed down directly to her son and cultivated with more love than mankind was meant to contain in their frail bodies. There was no way in hell that telling her could be a mistake, and yet... Ellis made it sound so dire. The shorter man was certain of his conviction, and... Hell, what the fuck did Keith know about this? Discomfort pinched at Keith's brows and he bit at the inside of his bottom lip a little. Unfortunately, it felt like there were no other options.

"Okay," he conceded with a heap of regret that lingered even as cautious hope entered Ellis' posture.

"I ain't gonna tell no one. I'll keep it to m'self. I still think you're wrong, but..." His mouth moved around his face after he gritted out the word 'wrong,' jaw flexing and nose crinkling, as he wrestled with the bad taste that had taken up residence there. "I'll keep yer damn secret."

Relief and disbelief both were tangible, then, emanating from the passenger's seat. Didn't really make him feel better about any of this, though. He started rolling up all the windows, and he could tell he caught Ellis' attention as his left hand grabbed for the keys in the ignition, right one still locked in its nine-finger embrace with Ellis' left.

The car rumbled to life, and he took a second to crane his neck, checking his mirrors and blind spots.

"But'cher stayin' at my place. You walk intuh Ma's house with your face like that, she's gonna know somethin' went down."

Gawking greeted him at that, Ellis' jaw slack and eyes wide, though a furrowed brow betrayed a still-guarded element to how he was feeling. Like it was too good to be true, and he was waiting for someone to leap out and beat his face in for being so stupid as to believe it.

Keith didn't feel like humoring it with kid gloves.

"What, you wanna go to yer mom's place, lookin' like that? Y'look like shit. I toldja, man, you ain't gettin' rid'a me. I'm still yer damn problem. Best bros ferever, ride'r'die, tuh hell'n'back, and I'll hold yer damn hand all the way home if I gotta," Keith said, drawing back his upper lip aggressively and shoving his left index finger-stump in Ellis' face with shoulders high. "Fuck you."

He turned harshly back in his seat, shifting into gear and then slapping the steering wheel into position with one hand. He pulled back onto the road with way more gas than was needed, as usual, and as he floored it back up to twenty over the speed limit, he vaguely noticed the way Ellis's eyebrows raised out of their skepticism and into incredulity. He ignored it.

What Keith missed was how Ellis' lower lip trembled briefly, and how dampness touched his eyes when he looked off through the passenger's window. Ellis let his eyelids drift closed, and his shoulders rose and fell with slightly-hurried breaths. But this time, he was not going to cry from distress.

This time, his eyes misted with a flood of relief.

Pressure was applied to Keith's sinewy hand, gradually ramping up to a firm squeeze before relaxing into a soft thumb-rub of probably-gratitude.

Keith gave a quick, bone-crushing double-squeeze in return.

They didn't talk at all for the remainder of the drive, beyond the driver's occasional muttered cursing at people driving reasonably. By the time they got to Keith's apartment, their palms were gross and damp, shared sweat turning soil into gritty, thin mud.

But, true to his word, Keith didn't let go once the whole way there.

[super-hero-confessions]

Y'know? After looking around and seeing all the insane white privilege shit people who "hate" Garth Ennis comics say about him or his comics and how attacked they feel when anyone tries to explain what satire is?

"A-Train is less redeemable than Homelander" "Hughie's mom is irredeemable but Homelander is redeemable" my fucking ass.

I can in 100% confidence say that they don't understand satire or storytelling in general and have no sense of basic reading or media comprehension. Without a doubt.

Most of them are just racist misogynistic ableist assholes who hide behind minorities and refuse to confront their internal bigotry. So they blame everyone else for it.

Ennis is a guy who wrote two whole comics where criticism against British transphobia was a whole ass feature and where boundaries and nuance and grief was such a important theme too. All while deep diving into how fucked up the U.S. military is and how even more fucked up weapons corporations are.

Oh and he also added a couple arcs criticizing homophobia and queerphobia and the people who hate on and make victims of queer people. In the same comics.

But "he" (said from the mouths of blatantly homophobic people that are constantly fetishizing and heteronormalizing gay people) is the one who's homophobic?

Interesting theory.

Exactly as convincing as the one claiming "Eric Kripke thinks women on top in a relationship are evil" despite that the literal first sex scene we get in the show (The Boys) has Becca Butcher on top. It's not like Billy's entire dynamic with her was highlighted with his being happily and consensually submissive to her and how perfectly fine and happy they were with this arrangement or how toxic masculinity is part of what was ruining it and hurting her. I'm sure...she was a villain right?? Queen Maeve also got on top and took control so she must have been a villain too!

This level of DUMB and self righteously full of shit and bad faith nonsense and lies makes me want to vomit.

I'm getting so tired of seeing so many stupid and arrogant people that very obviously come from a place of white privilege projecting their own insecurities and internalized prejudice onto artists and writers who are just trying to tell a story full stop. I'm so tired of it.

The Boys (comics and show) makes a lot of really phenomenal points but these dipshits can't actually be bothered to listen to any of them because they're too busy looking for things to be outraged at so they can virtue signal about it and how "superior" they or their ideas or whatever are to the author (who isn't even trying to broadcast what their views are they're trying to tell a story) when in reality they're just showing how fucking ignorant and privileged they are.

"gArTh EnNiS iS a EdGeLoRd"

No y'all are just some snobby and clueless outta touch privileged assholes that want the people around you in neat little bubbles that fit your perfect little world views so you don't have to think about confronting any that might be wrong.

If the existence of someone like "Big Bobbi" would make you uncomfortable because she's not a "uwu perfect little trans goddess girl" that fits the mold of what you think a trans woman should look like (as if all trans women should look act and think exactly alike cause that's not trans misogyny at all)?

The problem is you.

Get off the dead horse you forgot to feed and bury it already.

I'm so fucking tired of "brunch liberals/democrats". We need real fighters and people willing to listen and argue in good faith if we want actual change or progress. We need people willing to grow from being wrong instead of doubling down on it. It must be so nice to only have to focus on first world problems while you get to step on everyone else you pretend to champion for but I'm not that lucky and the same assholes would judge me and others for liking something unconventional that actually does pay attention and gives me a little comfort.

These people need to fuck off and leave us alone and stop using us as humans shields for their bullshit.

[natelawtism]

THIS IS ALL IN MY OPINION BUTTT what I think the xod characters would be in dnd... the ssb server inspired me to make this post ( @/sunstream7 's art to be exact) and I kind of went crazy.

For clarification! This is WHO they'd be if they existed in dungeons & dragons, not what they'd play as.

Nate- Paladin. Don't fucking play with me. Oath of either the Crown or Devotion. Because of the fact he upholds the rules and... a lot of the things that happen at SSB, I could see the Oath of the Crown being similar to that. Enforcing the rules of the kingdom and the royalty- but on the other hand, he's SUCH a stereotypical oath of Devotion paladin. Even though I don't think he'd care much for the devine aspect of devotion, (which is why crown is also an option), he is absolutely devoted to being a bringer of justice to EVERYONE. He's also the very stereotypical "knight in shining armor". He has honor, strong morals, and logical decision making.

He would also be an aasimar- which are a race descendant of angels/celestial beings. Don't ask me why I just think Nate would be an angel boy.

Pran- druid. If you've taken one look at his younger OR older design you'd understand why. HIS BIRTHDAY TRADITION IS PLANTING A TREE (even if it isn't "his"). ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? DON'T PLAY. He'd be Circle of the Shepherd or the Land. (I don't know much about Pran, but I DO know about druids, so hopefully this is accurate.) Druids of the circle of the Shepherd commune with the ghosts of nature- mostly animals. They use the aid of spirits to guide them on their adventures. I could see him using spiritual powers like this! Druids of the circle of the Land (which I think is more accurate to him) have a strong connection to the land of which they were born. They safeguard ancient knowledge and pass it down from each generation of druid- which is very fitting for his behavior. Their strong connection to the land and to nature gives them special abilities.

He'd probably be an orc, and I realize now I'm just turning him into my current DND character. But I could see his insecurities and behaviors translating to him being an orc!! He doesn't want people to point out his height, which orcs are very tall. He's also quite stoic and often has an rbf- and orcs are quite intimidating.

Jeremy- I think he'd be a ranger!!! Not only because of his connection to cats, but also his skills in archery as a hobby. A ranger is your go-to bow user. Any ranger knows how to lurk and make good use of a bow! Jeremy would not be a fan of close combat, and I think he'd MUCH prefer to go unnoticed in the distance until it's his time to strike. Jeremy finds people tiring, and people find HIM tiring in tandem. He probably prefers animal companions over people- as they aren't as troublesome. Cats understand him when no one does... His conclave would be gloom stalker. The name was made for him. Gloomy boy lurking in the gloom of the world- the underdark and alleyways. Attacking things hiding from society before they can present themselves and become a threat. THOUGH. I could also see him having the fey wanderer conclave because it's just like him to accidentally forge a connection to the feywild and gain fey magic.

He'd be a human. No other explanation I just feel it in my bones.

Everett- THIS STUPID TWINK WAS THE HARDEST FOR ME. But I think he'd be a sorcerer! I don't think he'd EVER be a close-combat type of person, so I think he'd be a magic caster of some sort. But, I also didn't think he'd be willing to study to be a wizard LOL. I think he inherited his magic from his bloodline! Most likely his mom. She probably taught him everything he knows about his magic, and guided him until he became an adventurer. This is probably due to a draconic bloodline origin- one of his ancestors making a pact with a great dragon to grant them and their bloodline power.

Sun elf (high elf). He's a pretty boy and he KNOWS it, as high elves often do.

Shiloh- Rogue. He's a sneaky bastard, I can't give him anything else. Rogues aren't JUST limited to stealth and sneaking around physically- it also means sneaking socially. It means knowing your opponent and being able to understand their vulnerabilities to use them against them. What does Shiloh do? LEARN PEOPLE'S VULNERABILITIES, AND USE THEM TO HIS OWN GAIN. He's shown to know his group mates VERY well, even if they don't like him. He's good at studying people to properly manipulate them and get what he wants, which is a very rogue thing. Rogues can also be proficient in insight, performance, deception, and persuasion. He'd probably have the Inquisitive or Mastermind archetype, for reasons said before. For Inquisitive: has a sharp eye and a good ear- and he's able to break someone down quite quickly. Mastermind wise, he is VERY good at changing himself to be what someone wants to hear. At level 3, mastermind rogues can mimic the speach patterns and accent of a creature they hear speak for at least a minute. I think he'd use this skill so evilly.

I think he'd probably be a changeling just because of the fact you always see the face you want- and not his real one. You never know what Shiloh fields is actually like. He will never let you in. I could see him changing his features, but always keeping the name "Shiloh"

Bae- warlock. This sweet talker DID talk his way into a deal with a diety/higher power to lend him magic, are you kidding? And he thinks his pact makes him better than everyone. He wants to know arcane knowledge, and why do that alone when he can have the help of a higher power? His patron would probably be a fiend, as I could see him working with a VERY powerful archdevil (like Asmodeus, the Lord of the nine hells). He doesn't care about having a patron that's "good" or "holy", just one that will get him where he needs to be.

As for race... the one calling to me is tiefling because he's a demon in xobd. I mean, it was kinda already laid out for me.

[kathbunny]

I rediscovered a magical boy au of mine in the discord, so I decided to write something for it! This isn't the one on ao3!

The ficlet on this is just some VR-LA trying to hide his identity while a very tired boy. MR-SN and Maxim are both there, don't worry about why. Magical boy stuff is sadly only hinted at.

To explain it, just give quick context (oops it got long):

VR-LA is our titular magical boy, with his magical mascot/adoptive daughter/mildly eldtrich being Emi (powers gifted by Mystra mid monster attack, agreed to in a panic). He's some kind of performer, very glittery, very much so a pretty boy who needs to keep his mouth shut. He adopts Emi after a few months of being a magical boy, didn't realize she was just wandering around without a place.

Maxim is his manager, older man but in like a, in his forties, way. Saved enough to retire early, but at this point only has VR-LA under him. Thinks VR-LA is dating MR-SN and thinks MR-SN is possibly abusive (due to VR-LA being continuously bruised, burnt, or frostbitten from magical boy stuff), until VR-LA adopts Emi, at which point he teams up with MR-SN in spite of the non-existent abusive partner to try to investigate the situation.

MR-SN is in a band! More famous than VR-LA. Having a great time. The epitome of "Quit your job." "Why?" "Join my emo band." He thinks VR-LA is with Maxim, same assumptions as Maxim, until Emi comes into the picture. Possibly also a magical boy with his band as his team. Him trying to recruit VR-LA to join his band does mean he eventually would've also recruited VR-LA to be a magical boy, but he also starts trying to recruit VR-LA magical boy identity as his own magical boy identity.

ANYWAY THE FICLET!

---

VR-LA stopped outside the door to the little room set aside from him, taking the moment to let out the yawn he had been holding in from the moment he had entered the building. Maxim always tended to prod at him when he seemed too tired, but VR-LA couldn't exactly take a break like suggested right now. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, just quickly checking the time as he stepped into the room, double checking how long he'd probably have. He only looked up as he started to shut the door, spotting one extra person besides the usual.

MR-SN was sitting on a table, smiling at VR-LA very warmly, lazily leaning back. Maxim was with him, frowning as he glanced between the unwanted guest and VR-LA. "VR-LA!" They both called, voices overlapping slightly. Maxim's voice sounded calm and gruff like normal, and MR-SN sounded excited to see him, like he was totally supposed to be here. VR-LA is pretty sure MR-SN gets away with this by saying VR-LA invited him, which Maxim couldn't deny without it possibly being one of the times VR-LA actually did. Not that VR-LA minded the extra company.

"You don't look well." Maxim said, taking the first steps towards VR-LA. "Are you sure you can work tonight?"

"Not like we'd be able to get out so last minute if I couldn't." VR-LA mumbled, before speaking up. "I'm fine, just had a rough day and didn't sleep well."

"You've been having a lot of rough days, my friend." MR-SN said, receiving a glare from Maxim for it. Maxim must've really not wanted MR-SN here, VR-LA thought. "If you need any help, any help at all, you can call, you know?"

VR-LA thought about Emi back at his house, how she was probably watching cartoons on Netflix while waiting for him to get back. He isn't sure if babysitting is what MR-SN means, he hasn't even mentioned her to either yet. "I'm fine! I'm going to the doctor about my sleep problems soon!" He lied, both giving him an unreadable look for that. "And subscribing to a grocery service so I don't have to go shopping and can rest more..?" He added awkwardly, not lying about that one. He just hadn't decided which one yet. He'd probably have to get a new first aid kit every week with it though.

Maxim sighed. "You should start getting ready." He said, eyes glancing down towards the side of VR-LA's stomach, where one of VR-LA's fairly bad bruises has been last time. "And you should leave." He added, shooting a glare at MR-SN.

MR-SN returned the glare, frowning. "...I'll call you after VR-LA. Break a leg!" His smile returned the second he looked at VR-LA.

VR-LA smiled back, nervously. "Thank you."

[justallihere]

SHES BACKKKKK!!!!!!!! Welcome back bestie!!!!

Let start off by saying, the first line was just Xaden being so down bad. I will fold every single time i read the line "his wife" bc I too love your wife

Xaden wasn’t sure how he was supposed to stop touching his wife long enough to let her out of their bed. 

at this rate, everything is going to remind him of Violet 💀 and I love that he's obsessed

Brennan huffed, and he sounded just like Violet as he did it. “Let me see.” 

Same Sloane, same

He heard Sloane say, as he left, “Who was that and what did you do with Xaden Riorson?” 

Even though we only had a glimpse of Mira and Drake, I was foaming at the mouth for the scraps we got. Drake was so funny in this. He's a lethal dude but doesn't act like it until necessary. Mira is trying to pretend he doesn't exist 💀

Love the detail that Mira and Vi wore gowns that weren't black!!!! I love black too but damn, they probably looked amazing

Sgayel is so funny and i love her so much

“You’re useless,” Sgaeyl snapped “I will incinerate anyone who dares to look at her wrong,” Sgaeyl said to Xaden

Tairn being the bad bitch that he is, swooping in to lift Violet. They way he GENTLY placed her down. That's a girl dad right there

Xaden is scary but Violet is terrifying and I love her for that. Scary, powerful violent women are my weakness. Vi is probably the only person X will yield too

Xaden.” That voice was softer, familiar, the only voice that had ever truly cut through his tumultuous thoughts and anger

Questions:

Were you intentional with Xaden's injury?(i remember there's a scene were Sgayel was joking that Xaden could survive being a rider without his arm)

I want to give you all the flowers in the world Miss Ali 🖤🖤🖤🖤

I'm back!!! Thank you!!

I told you guys Xaden's whipped and they're insufferable 😭 there's some more bits of Mira and Drake in the next chapter!! I love them!! Drake is so tired, he knows Tecarus is an idiot, and until he's needed he's going to mind his business and have a drink.

Sgaeyl's like boy if you'd DO YOUR JOB you wouldn't need me?? You DON'T need me?? Get it together.

Tairn is the baddest bitch in this place and he deserves all his flowers.

Xaden is big and scary but Violet is little and scary and she's much more terrifying because no one expects it from her. That's my girl 😌

Yes, Xaden's injury was a nod back to that and a reference to him almost losing his arm in canon to the gryphon attack!

Thank you 💕💕💕

[the-catalogue-burs777]

And I'll listen to the memories as they cry, cry, cry...

Cw: grieving, spiraling, isolated thoughts. No fluff, no comfort, only angst. Also major charecter death. Suicidal thoughts

Quite often I would come here, To the cemetery, alone.

The wind is cold, the sun almost set, and the crickets already started singing. It's getting late, i shouldn't be here, but who cares it's not like there is anyone waiting for me at home. Maybe an alternate would come around, but in the cemetery, i suppose even alternates respect the mourning.

i come here quite often, it's not like I got anything else to do, besides work, buy food and stuff, and stay indoors all day.

It's quite around here, the wind is cool, and the crickets started to chirp. I'm sitting infront of my brother's grave, with my journal. It is currently 6.30 pm and I'm all alone. A while ago there were a few people but they left.

I forget alot of things, but i didn't forget my brother. How could I? It's been, what,? 4 years?

Yes, it has been exactly 4 years, since i saw him.

I remember that day, the day i lost him. It was night, almost midnight. At that time we were struggling, to live on our own for the first time. My father passed away. It wasn't natural, the way he actually died. Neither was Tommy's death.

I was tired, dead tired, I fell asleep while trying to study. Tommy was downstairs, watching the late night Burnham talk show. His favourite show of all.

I remember, i woke up after midnight and went down stairs. At that time dad wasn't around and I had to be more responsible, i always am responsible, I do know how to take responsibility, i always have! Just not that time.

When i went down stairs, the room was dark, the TV blared static, and Tommy was no where to be seen. I went to the kitchen to look for him. He was not there. I went to his room to look for him. He was not there. I called for him everywhere. Tommy was not there.

I was panicking, at that Point i was no longer calling, i was shouting. ''Tommy!....TOMMY!'' I didn't even know i could be that loud. i ran to the backyard, I ran to the front lawn. I circled the house, inside and out. At that point an hour or so had passed. Tommy was not there. Tommy. Was. Missing.

I came back to the living room, defeated, where tommy last was, and then i realised, the TV no longer blared Static. It was all white. All blank. I didn't pay much mind untill i called the cops.

The person on the other line picked up, but before i could say anything, something moved in the TV. I looked to see, A face. A face in black and white. "Hello?....hello?" The person on the other side said, waiting for a response, but i was too awestruck by the TV. I kept looking at it. And it felt like as if it was looking at me. All of a sudden the TV glitched, and the man smiled. A smile eerie and wide, it was the most frightening thing I've seen. The screen went black. And then it was back to static.

....

I don't remember much after that, the police came, they investigated, or whatever, and left. I should have guessed that the man I saw was a real alternate. Of alternates can copy a human being, or even attack the ones praying, or even trick people into getting killed, then what were the chances of alternates traveling through the screens.

Maybe it really was my fault. I left him a attended, and now his existance has completely been wiped out of the earth. All places except his room and my memory.

Stupid Wilbur! I knew that kids were abducted! I knew that! It's not like i didn't know those 300+ cases of missing children across county. I did...

and i left him.... Alone!

A 12 year old boy. Missing. Because of me... And now presumed dead.

I can never go back to the TV room, nor my brother's room. I can't stand to go back, I hate going back home, but i can't stay outside. I just can't, cuz if I did, then I'd be dead cuz of an alternate.

Oh....but what's the use....i shouldn't be alive too.

I don't have friends. I'm not good with friends, never was. But who cares? We all die eventually.

....

I should go back home. It is getting cold now. Goodbye Tommy, I'll see you next week.

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

Song: fireworks

By mitski