#Which I am not good at after a while I worry so much over if I'm smiling correctly or not

[palettepainter]

Sometimes selfcare is drawing your OC getting hugged

Anxiety is going through the roof right now as I try to get a job. A lot is going to on with part time work over the half term, meeting up with co-workers at a potential new job, making art for a display, meeting up for a large group project outside of art ontop of trying to see my counsellor, and all of this is JUST within the next three days

The feeling of being burnt-out and disappointed in my art and stories is just the cherry on top of the stress sundae that has become my life as of late. So this evening I decided to just do something comforting with Liv

[frozenambiguity]

Fontaine hype — REAL!

[justahumblememefarmer]

Putting some positivity out there about the election

Harris has raised a record amount of money from small donors after Biden dropped out, in addition to being able to access all the funds from their campaign they already had

Trump is deeply unpopular and people have already seen the chaos that 4 years of his presidency would bring. A lot of people have been energized to vote against him, even if they're not fond of Dems

Polling showed a red wave for Republicans in the 2022 midterms, and yet they only barely had control of the House, and couldn't even agree on a Speaker for a historic amount of time. Dems also increased their lead in the Senate. Historically, midterms favor the opposition party and have lower turnout, so this is a good sign for the House in 2024

Dems are fighting back in swing states. PA and GA both put in Democratic senators in the midterms

In my home state of PA, I am from Bucks County, which is a swing county for the state. Moms for Libery took over the school board and used it to attack queer students, enact book bans, and funnel money to themselves and the superintendent. At the most recent election, Dems turned out and took back every single open seat, ousting the board and superintendent. Worry about similar takeovers in surrounding school boards also increased turnout

Abortion rights are on the ballot in many states, which has been a winning issue for Dems and increased turnout

Republicans were prepared to attack a feeble old Biden who isn't the strongest speaker. I don't think they expected him to actually drop out, and they now have to put an 78 year old convicted felon up against a prosecutor

Awareness of Project 2025 and it's contents has entered the public sphere and is being much more openly discussed on the news. While Trump has insisted he has nothing to do with it, most of the authors worked in his administration and Trump has worked closely with the Heritage foundation

Feel free to add more things on this thread, but the most important thing is to get out there and VOTE

Vote for President

Vote for Senators

Vote for Congresspeople

Vote in your local elections

Vote Blue down ballot

[rey-jake-therapist]

Very interesting conversation...

You know what, it never ocurred to me that Gil-Galad looked suspiscious... I thought it was his normal face after a long day, and he often looks constipated so it didn't occur me that there could be something else... Okay also, I admit I despise this scene with all its forced fluff that smells like cheap patchouli, so I watched it only twice lol

But watching it now, it's true that Gil-Galad looks weird here... They're in a protected space, Galadriel is fine and has acted heroically, everybody's relaxed, I mean... Why the frowning face ? If I'm being objective, I say that he could look serious and worried because Sauron's got an army now, and as he explains, he could choose to attack Lindon. When Arondir asks Galadriel what they should do, Gil-Galad gently helps Galadriel to get up, and he still has that frown when he listens to her. But then, it seems to me that he looks at everybody like that, so I don't know if there's anything more to it, tbh. That said, he could have good reasons to fear that something's wrong with her : she has been stabbed by this thing ! And even if Nenya healed her, Gil-Galad would probably know that it's not a meaningless wound.

Before I develop my thoughts on the rest of this post, I need to specify something : when I said that Sauron wanted to punish Galadriel for previously rejecting and humiliating him (that kick in the face...), I didn't mean that punishment was the only purpose of the stabbing. I don't think that Sauron chose to fight carrying Morgoth's crown for kicks and giggles, or because he believed he'd need two weapons to beat Galadriel : he very clearly underestimated her, so stabbing Galadriel with this thing was his design since the beginning of the figh, imho. I'd say he knew that it would bind her to him, because he's the one who started talking mentally to her, and he didn't look surprised that he could do it.

What I take as a form of domination and of punishment, however, is the way he repeatedly turned the crown into the wound. To me it is very obvious, from he act itself and from his face when he was doing it, that he wanted Galadriel to feel powerless, and to suffer.

It was to me a very literal interpretation of the line "turn the knife into the wound" : "look at what you've done ! See how you're powerless against me now, while you could have had so much power if you had taken my offer, just like I know you wanted.

There's also, I think to hurt her as much as she hurt him; because Galadriel DID hurt him, when she rejeted him twice.

It also echoes what he told Celebrimbor earlier : that when Morgoth tortured him, pain became a reward. He probably believes that her pain is a reward to her as well. He wants to play a battle of will with her.

Another reward would have probably been her healing, once Galadriel would have given him Nenya. If it's admitted that his intention wasn't to make her a slave, I don't think it's a reach to assume he would have healed her body. Someone told me once that it was "romanticizing Sauron too much" to say that he would have healed her, but I don't think so, because he would have healed her as a reward, and it would have become something he could have psychologically used on her, later : "remember I healed you while I could have made it worse to you". Healing her would have been just another demonstration of the power he would have over her.

I remember someone noticed that Sauron also wanted her to look at him in the eyes while twisting the Crown into the wound. And for me it's one of the things that makes this scene not a parallel, but a mirror to the 1x08 proposal, during which he begged Galadriel to give him attention :

"Galadriel, come back to me ! Look at me !! Galadriel, look at me. You know who I am. I am your friend."

It was basically Sauron's version of "I know I screwed up babe and you're mad at me now, but don't leave me please we can't make things right, just listen to me".

In 2x08 he's no longer asking, let alone begging. Now he decides she WILL look at him while he's taking possession of her (I said what I said). And him delivering this hearfelt speech to her, talking about "what you could have had" in the past tense is part of the punishment as well, imho.

Also it aligns with what Charlie revealed about the fight even before the finals aired : that Sauron was petty that she rejected him, and that he would taunt her with what could have been. I believed he was referring to this scene, as well as his demonstration of power (he was literally peacocking during most of the fight).

I don't believe that Sauron wanted to make Galadriel his slave, because if it was his goal he would have just snatched Nenya like he did with the Nine, and waited for her soul to be drawn into the Shadow realm. After she fell, all he had to do was go down the cliff (which he could do very easily, being an ancient sorcerer, something that many seem to forget even though we saw him do incredible stuff in the S2), take Nenya away from her to make sure she wouldn't heal, and waited for the same result.

Did he want to share his powers with her ? I'm not sure that he even knew it would do that, tbh, so I can't say. He probably made a blood oath with Morgoth, but did he get some of Morgoth's powers too ? Or is what we see what he always had ? I'm fairly certain that he had no intention of making her a queen anymore, to rule Middle-Earth, or the Unseen world, or anything else, so we'll have to agree to disagree about that ;) Not when he so ostensibly wants her to submit.

I mean, everything in that scene expresses how he dominates her, which once again mirrors the finals of 1x08 where they were arguing on an equal footing.

I think, however, that he wanted to be her Morgoth, which would make her his Mairon. This would explain why he wanted her to join him, still. Mairon joined Morgoth because he wanted to, he wasn't forced. He may have felt forced to stay after a long while (because as you said, he was bound to him and couldn't break a blood oath), but at the beginning, he was an enthusiast follower.

Mairon was made to be a follower, but at this moment he's deceiving himself into believing that he broke free of Morgoth, that he can be a leader in his own rights, and that everyone should bow to him and do what he says because only he can do what it takes to heal Middle-Earth. And this vision includes Galadriel as his enthusiast follower, imho.

I'm convinced that Galadriel didn't "play him", by the way, when she took off her ring and handed it to him. I think for a short time, he indeed convinced her that she wanted to join him, because she believed in his goal to heal all Middle-Earth. But she finally snapped out of it (by her own will, imho, not because of Nenya) because 1) she doesn't want to be his follower ! Being queen was tempting, but his secretary who brings him coffee and newspaper every morning, no thanks man 2) and most importantly, his methods are awful and she doesn't want to play any part in this.

Regarding the question asked by @ghostinthetumbchine,

The blood oath, to be binding, requires the actual oath being spoken by the person making it. Based on Tolkien general ideas presented in the notes and letters I would assume that it would need to be done of free will to work. Whereas what happens after being stabbed with a morgul blade is different to a blood oath - its pulling incarnates fea into unseen and trapping them so that you can command them. So, i think it is viable that he - more or less purposefully - put some of his powers/spirit/essence into her there but i think it will work differently to a blood oath, if they want to keep the spirit of "your free will matters and no one can bind you against your will" Tolkien seemed to value

I'd agree with that, I must say. We keep talking about a "blood oath", but Galadriel didn't agree to it. She refused it once in 1x08, and by let herself fall off the cliff in 2x08, I think she also clearly expressed her disapproval. There were no words spoken before Sauron stabbed her with Morgoth's crown, he just... did it.

Every time I rewatch this scene, it reminds me of all the Vampire scenes I watched, because there's something quite vampiric about Sauron, when he stabs her and looks at her the way he does... But mostly, it reminds me of this scene of Interview with the Vampire, where Lestat bites Louis, almost bleeds him out, and only then tells him, "I'm going to give you the choice I never had". It's very fucked up, because this choice is hardly a choice : it's "become whatever I propose you to be, or die".

For Lestat, it's an honest choice. But Louis has no clue what's this life Lestat proposes him to lead. He has no idea he will become a monster. There's a blood oath that happens here too, which will bond Louis and Lestat forever. Follows a very unhealthy albeit fascinating dynamics, rhymed with regular battles of will, very similar to what Galadriel would have had with Sauron if she had joined him in in 1x08 and even more after 2x08, imho. Because Sauron knows nothing else than this dynamic (that's what he knew with Morgoth, as he told Celebrimbor), it couldn't have been any other way.

I'm bringing up this comparison, because it can be said that Louis gave his consent, when he told Lestat he wanted to live, and drank Lestat's blood. But it was a dubious consent at best, because Louis wouldn't have found himself in this situation if Lestat hadn't jumped at his throat and bled him out. To me, it's a similar situation with Galadriel : I don't think it can be said that she consented to a blood oath only because a part of her wanted what Sauron had to offer.

So I'm also very curious to see how it will play out in season 3. If Sauron's surprised to see Galadriel become so powerful and if they realize it's because of what he did to her, or if he expected it, what hold can he have on her now that she's bound to him, but also, will she have an hold on him somehow ? They have many possibilities ahead of them... I hope they won't fuck this up.

Blood binding and Sauron’s intentions

My pal @rey-jake-therapist and I were in one of our usual friendly discussions about this topic in one of her posts, but since the theme digresses so much from her original intent and I’m pretty much spamming her OG post by now, we decided to move the debate to here, and invite the fandom to join in.

As customary, Rey always presents good and challenging counter-arguments to mine. Because it's possible to disagree and keep it civil and friendly. This is good fandom etiquette, and this is the point of debates, after all: sharing different ideas and perspectives on the same topic. We usually end up agreeing on disagreeing and it’s all good in the end.

What were Sauron’s intentions and goals in stabbing Galadriel with Morgoth’s crown in 2x08? 

2x01 / 2x08 parallels: “Only blood can bind.” (Adar; 1x05)

1) Binding/Enslaving Galadriel to his Will

Rey made the case for Sauron’s intention of possessing and dominating Galadriel using Morgoth’s crown. And that we should focus on present intentions, and not lose yourselves in “what if” scenarios (with this I totally agree, so, let's focus on the present time).

This theory states that Sauron wanted to enslave Galadriel to his will, by having her handing over Nenya, in submission. This would explain why Galadriel seemed “bewitched” while removing Nenya from her finger, and almost surrendering it to him.  

This means Sauron has “outgrown” his intentions from 1x08, when he wanted to serve Galadriel (due to his Maia nature; he was created to be a servant to a Vala). Now, he wants full power, and he’s not willing to share it with anyone else (Galadriel included):

Sauron only wants to dominate/possess Galadriel now: she humiliated him when she refused him in 1x08, he developed an obsession for her, so he punished her with physical pain (the stabbing), and attempted to possess her so she would follow him.

And so, if blood binding theory is true, this would work like the Nine and the Nazgûl, with Galadriel not only being a servant, but a slave to Sauron. This theory can also imply she would have, indeed, become a Ringwraith herself, as her soul was entering the Unseen world (“Shadow realm”) when Gil-galad and Arondir found her.

This is a very strong theory, and I think many fellow fans share this view, as well. Would it pass Sauron to do something like this? Absolutely not, and it would not be OCC for him to have this intention, at all.

So what’s my problem, you might ask?

This facial expression right here:

Unless Charlie was having a case of fatigue eyes due to extensive use of contact lenses (speaking from personal experience), there’s no explanation for Sauron getting all teared up when he believed Galadriel was about to join him, if his intention was to enslave her to his will, and that’s what he was doing here.

And no, Galadriel can’t deceive him. This is underestimating Sauron’s power: he’s the “great deceiver”, and only he can deceive himself, really. And if they are, indeed, blood bound, Galadriel couldn’t possibly hide anything from him. And I already made the case for how Galadriel was about to join him, freely, in another post.

2) “You bind me to the light, I bind you to power”

Speaking of Sauron’s intentions, we need to remember the creator of this character and what he says about him. Tolkien tells us (in Letters 131, 153 and 183) that “Annatar” still has “fair motives”: he’s a reformer who, truly, wants to rebuild/heal Middle-earth, and he’s genuine in this endeavor (nevermind his methods, that’s why he’s a villain). Rey counter-argumented this does not translate in a desire to serve Galadriel, and she’s correct.

However, what was his intention in 1x08?  

And if Sauron still has a genuine concern in healing Middle-earth, what if his intention with Morgoth’s crown was giving Galadriel his power, while harvesting her light for himself, just like he wanted in 1x08? And if this was his intention, why would he keep her soul “trapped” in the Unseen world? What if he wanted to make her queen of the Seen and Unseen world? Not a mere queen of Middle-earth, but as nearly as possible to a literal Goddess he could serve?

Because Sauron/Mairon can’t escape his nature, he was created to be a servant, a Maia to a Vala. And, right now, he doesn’t want to serve Morgoth. Even though he does it, unconsciously, and perhaps he recognized this after he killed Celebrimbor in a rage fit (something that’s completely OCC for him, because that’s not who he is; Sauron is a control freak, a mastermind).

This scene with Galadriel happened after that; and Sauron cried because, when he looked up at Celebrimbor, all he could see was Morgoth’s bounds on him reaching the surface. And that chaotic destruction is Morgoth, not Sauron. And he doesn't want that at this point on his character arc in Tolkien lore. I think this is when Sauron makes the decision to bind himself to Galadriel, one way or the other.

I absolutely disagree with the idea that Sauron stabbed Galadriel to punish her or kill her: if that was his true intention he would have used Morgoth sword (he was already using it in his duel with Galadriel the entire time), not a powerful dark magic object infused with own blood (because Adar used it to destroy his previous physical form), nor he would have carried that thing around the entire time while mentioning "binding" twice (“I never believed I could be... Until today. Fighting at your side, I... I felt... If I could just hold on to that feeling, keep it with me always, bind it to my very being, then I...” (1x06); “The door is still open”).

“Binding” (usually connected with “blood oaths”) and “enslaving” are two different kinds of blood magic. Because the Nine rings of power are pieces of jewelry meant to be worn by ring-bearers, with a small dosage of Sauron’s blood (along with other specific spells). Morgoth’s crown not only has a lot of Sauron’s blood on it, but we also don’t know what kind of dark magic it actually contains: we only know it was made to hold the Silmarils and it can destroy Sauron’s physical form (implying that, maybe, Sauron doesn’t have much control over this object?).

Sauron accidentally sharing his power with Galadriel is nonsense to me, as well. He's ancient, has been around since before the world existed (he helped create that very world), has been a master in blood magic and every sort of sorcery for thousands of years, and he’s one of the most powerful Maia in existence, but isn’t aware he would be giving Galadriel some of his power by binding himself to her? When he clearly mentions this in 1x08? "I bind you to power". Because Galadriel appears to be seeing the world in a whole new way in 2x08 epilogue (and even her eyes look off):

Besides, Galadriel is suppose to be a powerful sorceress of her own right in Tolkien lore, mastering several powers. In the legendarium Galadriel own power was amplified by Nenya, yes, but this isn’t the case in “Rings of Power”, because we haven’t seen her displaying any magical powers in Season 1. She won’t have any other powers in the show (besides healing and foresight/visions), completely cutting off with Tolkien legendarium? If the show keeps it true to the lore on that bit, where did her powers (look into others’ hearts and minds, and communicate telepathically) come from? Will they “magically” appear out of nowhere? When and how? But, if these powers came from Sauron it’s because he wanted it to happen, and that was his intention. And if that was his intention, what was his purpose with this if not to serve her?

And Sauron does share power: he does share his power with those he wants to enslave; via the rings of power. That’s why Celebrimbor tells him he’s their prisoner, and not their master. However, these are two very different kinds and degrees of magic. Because with the rings ("enslave") he can control how he wants it to go; while sharing his actual power with another living being ("blood oath") is uncontrollable. He can’t possible know the end result of it.

I know there’s a popular theory that Adar was blood bound to Sauron, but I don’t think so. Adar not only doesn't have any magical powers, but he wouldn’t be able to kill Sauron himself, if that was true. Blood binding is a blood oath, and it’s forever, unbreakable, and it prevents beings from harming or acting against one another (physically) in any direct way. That’s why “Rings of Power” introduced the clue that Sauron might be blood bound to Morgoth in 1x03; and that’s the reason he could never leave nor forsake his master even when he came to resent him.

This means, that, in "Rings of Power", Sauron, most likely, only has Morgoth as a reference to blood oaths. And he probably thinks this will go the same way with Galadriel, and he’ll keep her light to himself, allowing him to keep Morgoth at bay. Only her “light” is merely aesthetic, really. The light that shines on her hair and eyes is the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, and it shines on every Elf that was born during the Years of the Trees (and not only her). Because Galadriel is a complex and nuanced character, and ticking bomb that can turn dark at any minute.  

[exopelagic]

I am baking cake at midnight and it is going to kill me <3

[burningcomputerpersona]

also how is it that spanish love songs has such good merch??? i don't think I've ever been to a show before where I had to struggle so hard to pick just one thing, like in a lot of cases there's only really one thing that appeals to me or I just get something bc i love the band and need to have them on me regardless of what the design looks like. but i was spending ages just staring at the merch stand trying to pick one out of alllll the things i wanted

[nariism]

neuvillette is aware that he shouldn’t have let you get so close. but he did, and now he’s lamenting the fact that your hands are grasping at his soft horns — his fucking horns, of all places — and he might like it.

uptight and strait-laced, you’ve never known the chief justice to be someone so easily flustered. yet here he is with heat crawling up his neck, so warm that you can feel it against your palms as they ghost over his skin.

you can’t help but laugh at his current situation.

he was vehemently against you coming anywhere near his hair at first, grumbling about how his horns were on the sensitive side and he would rather not have to go into work feeling uncomfortably aware of their presence on his head.

however, you were hard to deny with that little smile on your face and such soft hands grabbing at his arms, tugging him closer. a sweet voice chanting, "please, honey? pretty please?"

neuvillette has never been good at denying you what you want.

it’s how he ends up sitting at your shared vanity. you comb through his long hair, watching him with amusement in the mirror as he huffs and jolts with every brush of your fingers against his horns.

the fact that he was letting you get anywhere near them was surely a testament to his trust in you. he was completely vulnerable here, at your mercy.

“sorry,” you mumble disingenuously, clearly enjoying seeing your usually serious husband falling apart with a simple action. you quickly tie off the end of his hair with a bow and he sighs in relief, thinking that the torment is over.

it's far from over.

he draws a sharp breath when you lean forward and press two gentle kisses on him; one on either side of his head just beside his horns.

neuvillette glowers at you in the reflection, disapproval written all over his face. "stop that," he scolds.

you do, but only because you're worried he might melt into a puddle before your very eyes if you continue.

it becomes a daily routine after that, with him sitting patiently in front of the mirror while you brush and tie off his hair. and you always end it the same way: two kisses, a soft "have a good day at work," murmured against him, and a mischievous little smile that makes him sigh.

he responds everyday with the same two words. "stop that," with a narrow-eyed glare.

the day you do stop, he's confused and irritated.

not only because you have the audacity to throw a wrench into routine again, which you know he hates, but also because he can't figure out why he misses your lips so much.

"what are you doing? i am going to be late."

"hm?" you peer up lazily from your spot on the bed, still half asleep.

"you have to do my hair."

"i thought you didn't want me to, so i slept in today."

your husband is eerily silent for a moment as he mulls over your words. then, he carefully perches himself on the edge of the bed, back turned to you expectantly and still wordless.

no, he would never admit he likes it just a little bit — the vulnerability, the trust, the feeling of your hands threading through his hair, the intimacy of it. hell no.

but neuvillette doesn't have to say a lot of things for you to understand; not when the way his skin heats up says it all; not when you're the first person to touch his horns in centuries; not when he’s saying stop that with such an affectionate glimmer in his eyes.

you give him four kisses that morning, two on either side.

© ALABOADOA 2023 — please do not translate or post my works to other platforms.

[frostycatblr-fandom-files]

Hey, no worries! I understand life gets in the way sometimes, haha. Sorry to hear you're feeling under the weather, Maia! ❤️‍🩹 But hey, always a good excuse to curl up and do a bit of reading, at least~

I love that there's a clone grapevine and no one is safe from it. From the shinies all the way up to Fox, everyone's going to hear about what they've done!

Yessss. I took a bit of inspiration from things my brother told our family about during his time in the service. They called their rumor mill the "PNN", or Private News Network. (I was 🤏this🤏close to calling it the 'Clone News Network' in the fic!) Using a rumor mill felt like the perfect way to start the fic and explain how Wolffe would have heard about what happened on Coruscant.

Some inspiration for meeting Fox in a diner was taken from @the-bad-batch-baroness's heart-aching and amazing Where's Mommy? series; the idea for it being Dex's Diner in particular came a bit later in the pipeline.

But it became the perfect setting the more research I put into this fic for so many reasons.

Canonically speaking [depending on the sources used], Dex's Diner made for a good meeting spot for criminals because Dex is welcoming and doesn't believe in intruding in other people's business. (He's also got his own criminal past, so, who's he to judge?) FLO promising Wolffe no one would know what he was there for was very deliberate. It essentially ensured the discussion would never disrupt or change canon.

Pointing out that Dex is a Besalisk would become the PERFECT way to bring up not just Pong Krell, but the other (in)famous instance that Fives had a blaster turned on him by his own brothers. (Something that, again using the C.N.N., Wolffe would have likely heard about at some point or another.)

FLO scanning Wolffe was not intended to be dystopian, but I completely understand why it reads that way! Somewhere in my research I did into the WA-7s said they had facial-recognition software to identify regular patrons. I felt that was something Wolffe would likely be aware of and would fit perfectly into his hypervigilant nature. (Which would make him more likely to reflect on the style of the diner and the way things change around him all the time!)

And the unease. Every little fact about Fives' death would have caused Wolffe unease no matter what. But put him somewhere that is not affiliated with the GAR (or the Jedi) in any way, and it will be the perfect breeding ground for doubt and uncertainty to grow unchecked if Wolffe isn't careful. Coupled with the fact he hasn't seen Fox in a while?

You're right that Fox would be able to tell just how shaken, how stressed out Wolffe would be over this, no matter how much time they've been apart, too. No matter how little time they've been given to work together.

Even if Fox was tired. And I mean really tired.

I imagine (headcanon?) that after killing Fives, Fox would have thrown himself hard into Guard-work in order to avoid dwelling [read as: second guessing] on his call he had to make that night. The order he was given by Palpatine amounted to "ARC trooper Fives is a fugitive. He's armed and dangerous." and he had to act on his own authority from that point. And we know the rest from there.

But we'll still say it was Palpatine who made that call, because he's easier to blame. (Between the chip and his training, Fox never truly had a choice.) The Chancellor certainly won't need to know why he can't get ahold of the Marshal Commander for an hour or two while he and Wolffe get that nap.

Force knows they need it.

Woof. This took a couple hours to write on-and-off because I had so much (sorry lmao!) I wanted to share about what went into this fic; and I am incredibly honored to hear that you enjoyed it not just once, but twice. That means a lot, truly. 🩷

Hey Frost 💙! Happy 200 Followers 🥳!!

For the event I would love to submit an idea! What about an angsty Wolffe confronting Fox after he shoots Fives 👀?

Congrats!

The Tragedy of Level 1325 [Commander Wolffe Fic]

Warnings and Information: Clones killing their own kin is always an awful occurrence, more often than not a rare and accidental thing. So when Commander Wolffe catches wind of what happened on Level 1325, he meets with the other canine-themed Commander to get answers. And none of them will be easy to get, or, to hear. Set after the Clone Wars season six episode “Orders”. Lots of angst and heavy stuff in this one, folks! Heavy references/allusions to Fives’ death. Heavy references/allusions to canon-typical death, violence and injury. Reference to Pong Krell. Star Wars and real-world swearing. Minimal Mando’a. Narrative and stylistic use of italics.  **This is not a cloneship/clonecest fic. Tag it as such and you will find yourself blocked.**

Word count: 4,287

How fast word travels in the GAR is both a blessing and burden. 

Regardless of the distance, time of day, or paint color, brothers will hear what the others have gotten up to in-between their conquest to defeat the Confederacy of Independent Systems. A rookie’s foolish notion to prank his superiors that ends with him earning himself a month’s worth of latrine duty. The terrible pick-up lines learned from holomags (and their success, or lack thereof) used on other patrons of 79’s. Brave charges lead out of killboxes and ambushes.

Clones turning on their own kin - that bitter pill was hard to stomach. 

Commander Wolffe found himself choking down one such pill upon hearing the events of the night before. 

It didn’t make a difference how many times he consulted the datafile in front of him, the mingling of horror and disbelief settled just as heavily in his heart each time. The primary commander of the Coruscant Guard had been the one behind the blaster used to end a Clone’s life on Level 1325, and it had not been an accident either. This was not another case of some sleemo stealing and wearing a Clone’s full kit; it had been, without question, a brother. 

Clones were less uniform than many nat-borns would like to believe. They may look the same from the texture of their hair, to their face-shape, and the warm-brown skin, but that’s often as far as the similarities go. They found their originality in names, speech-patterns, scarring, the way hair was cut (or bleached or dyed or styled), the addition and location of injected ink. There were the occasional (minor) aberrations, too, of course; like the brothers who ended up ocean-eyed, or blond. 

(They at least knew where the blondeness came from; a dormant echo in the genetics of the man who served as the master mold for the Grand Army.)

Not to mention the paint, and the patterns. The paint job was perhaps the biggest, most important piece of their individualism (at least externally). Those working in tandem with the soldiers relied quite heavily on the personalization to their second skins when first introduced. 

So when the datafile in Wolffe’s hands tells him the armor worn by the dead trooper was not his own, a sense of confusion as well as a wave of mild horror washes over the flint gray commander. The deceased was one of the 501st Legion’s cobalt crusaders, yet the ARC trooper had been killed in an unpainted, second skin that had been stolen from another. 

Why?

So many why-s.

When asking if his brother would agree to meet with him, it had taken some convincing. Fox’s agreement ultimately came with conditions, which were thankfully simple. Find somewhere in CoCo Town - as he was due to patrol that near that sector in a few hours time - and find some caf that didn’t taste like droid oil. 

There, Commander Fox would attempt to provide as many answers to Wolffe’s questions as he could. 

Though he couldn’t promise there’d be answers for all of them.

Entering the eighth eatery, Wolffe tries putting a little more trust in this diner’s advertising than each of the establishments he tried earlier. ‘Best food this side of the Senate District!’ A tagline like that would have to do a lot of heavy lifting for a greasy diner in a dilapidated industrial area. 

Inside, the diner has been furnished with several deep booths with shiny red seats as well as a long countertop that offers a glimpse into the kitchen through a narrow viewport. The decor is a mix of chrome and neon. While it’s perhaps not what Wolffe would call his favorite style, he had to give whoever ran the place credit for a cohesive, and constant, theme. 

This place looks like it hasn’t changed in years. Too often, Wolffe finds once-favorite establishments rehauling their menus, revamping the theme, gutting whatever charm the place had between his deployments. It’s a damn shame. Corsucant changes too quickly top-side; all of it fueled on someone else’s pursestrings, no doubt. 

Noticing his arrival, a WA-7 waitress droid, idly chatting with a pre-dawn client, pardons herself to welcome the prospective customer. Assuming he’ll be subjected to a facial recognition scan, Wolffe holds himself in near-militant attention until the droid speaks. 

“Welcome to Dex’s Diner! What can I get for you, hon?”

The first question he has for the waitress is the state of the diner’s caf. 

“Is your caf instant?”

The droid’s feminine programming and friendly inflection does its best to make up for an inability to smile. (He finds it a little unsettling all the same.)

“It’s brewed in-house, every hour on the hour.” 

Wolffe regards a small chronometer on the wall, displaying what his body-chrono already knows. Just a half-hour before dawn. Perfect. Depending on how far away Fox is, it shouldn’t take long for his vod to find his way here. Coruscant had been under the watchful eye and capable hand of the crimson commander very shortly after the start of the war; if anyone knew their way around this massive labyrinth of a planet, it would be Fox. 

“Good enough.” Wolffe says with a thankful nod. “Saves me the trouble of finding another place.”

“Looking for something to eat?”

“Not exactly. I’m supposed to meet with someone.” he explains, sending the name of the diner to Fox’s comlink while the WA-7’s back is to him, asking him to follow behind. She’s got just the spot for him. 

She shows Wolffe to a booth in the back-left corner, where he can already tell at a glance that the padding under the seat material is worn thin and unevenly. (Well, he’s sat in worse seats.) It’s secluded, just enough, that it should afford him and his brother a little more privacy. He unseals his helmet as quietly as he can to avoid disturbing the other patrons, and sets the sunbonnet down on the table. 

“Your business isn’t our business,” the droid promises to Wolffe’s great confusion as he works to seat himself as gracefully as possible with the kama, “so rest assured that whoever you’re meeting, we won’t tell a soul.” 

“Okay… I appreciate that.” 

Wolffe straightens out his modified phase two helmet on the tabletop, dismissing the waitress’s offer to get him something to start with while he waits. Glass of Jawa Juice, perhaps? It’s a house special. 

A mash of bantha hide and fermented grain so early in the morning doesn’t sound particularly appealing. 

“Nothing right now, thank you.”

The WA-7 nodded. “Suit yourself, hon. Give a holler when you’re ready.”

It wouldn’t be long from now. Fox had sown the seeds for a system the Corries called ‘Zeros and Fives’ when it came to meeting their vode for non-military matters. Seeking out Fox for answers wasn’t technically an emergency, but it should hopefully be treated with a little more urgency seeing as Wolffe couldn’t wait around all morning. With the General’s help, he had to fabricate time-sensitive duties to excuse his presence on Coruscant earlier than expected. 

Some poodoo about retrieving something-or-other under the General’s orders. Records of research from the Chief Librarian of the Jedi Archives, Jocasta Nu. 

Records of what kind of research, he wasn’t sure. 

That comes later. Now, he was waiting for Fox.  Wolffe checks his comlink for any response to his choice of locale, finding only a silent ‘Seen’ status. Well, he’ll take it to mean his vod won’t be waving down the suggestion.

With little more than his comlink and the datafile to keep him occupied, the flint gray commander settled in for what could end up being a long wait in the event Fox ran into trouble on patrol. How long he would end up waiting would be inconsequential, so long as he got answers and insight to the root of this tragedy. Something to rationalize the reality of losing brothers to something other than Separatists and their sympathizers. 

He just had to ask himself why he was doing this. Why he cared so much, what he hoped to find. Maybe even who he was doing all this for. 

Was it for Fox, hoping to get ahead of the inevitable boiling point the rumors might reach?

Was it for Captain Rex, finding some shred of information that may bring closure to the death of one of his best men?

Was it for Fives, given the death of an ARC trooper was no insignificant thing? Was he hoping to find reason, or just cause?

Or was it for his own morbid curiosity, given other details of the deceased’s service file?

Commander Wolffe couldn’t be certain until his brother was dragging his over-caffeinated carcass through the doors of the diner, and down to the last booth on the left. He couldn’t be certain Fox would be forthcoming with those answers, either. Or the state the other commander would be in. 

Fifteen minutes before the next hourly pot of caf is made, Fox shuffles into the diner, quiet and wordless. Not in the sense of stoicism; rather fatigue. Ignoring the greetings of the waitstaff, he walks himself down to the booth once he’s found Wolffe in his visor. Like his fellow commander, Fox’s helmet remains over his head until he reaches the table, at which point he unseals, and drops it with a dull thud half an inch over the table. 

“Good to see you, Fox.” Wolffe says.

That was a lie. Perhaps only partially. He wished if he was paying the crimson commander a visit here on Coruscant, it would have been under better circumstances. With better beverages as well. The last time Wolffe had seen his brother, he was promised a splash of spotchka and the opportunity to properly talk about the Abregado disaster when next they met. To mourn the loss of Wolffe’s men and the change to his armor. They started this war named after members of the Canidae and painted in beautiful shades of red. 

Now they were just a couple of canines. 

Fox makes no immediate greeting. With a tired grumble, he drops into the booth, a small betrayal to the tireless façade the Corries had come to be known for. 

“Sorry to make you wait,” he says at last, propping his elbows on the table as he begins rubbing one bleary eye, “Patrol took longer to button up than anticipated.”

“That’s fine.” Wolffe replied, just relieved the other canine commander was here. 

Doing her rounds, the same service droid as before approaches the brothers’ booth and asks if they’d like anything to eat while they conduct their business. (She doesn’t suggest Jawa Juice this time.) Wolffe takes her up on the offer for the freshest cups of caf that would be ready not too long from now. Just as the droid goes to send in the order to the back-of-house, she takes another look at Fox— currently in the process of falling asleep at the table —and thinks better of it. 

“... I’ll tell Dex to make it a carafe.”

When the caf is prepared, instead of sending it out with the service droid, FLO, Dex himself brings it out from the kitchen to the front-of-house. 

And Dex had certainly not been what Wolffe imagined him to look like. 

Standing roughly 1.88 meters tall by the commander’s estimation, the owner of the diner was a heavyset Beskalisk who wore an ill-fitting, heavily stained white shirt and apron that had certainly seen better days. Making use of the four arms in his possession, Dex carried the carafe with the lower set, and a pair of mugs in a third, upper hand. 

Wolffe hides any surfacing unease after meeting the owner’s eye by fixing Fox’s helmet beside his own to clear space on the table. He came here to question his brother about an ARC trooper’s death over a decent cup of caf; he didn’t expect to be reminded of someone who put his brothers of the GAR through a gruesome campaign on the lightless word of Umbara. 

A Force-wielding Besalisk named Pong Krell had tricked the 501st and 212th into turning their blasters on each other some time ago. His style of leadership was firm, his fighting form aggressive. Krell’s war record boasted several successes at the bloody cost of countless Clone casualties; the highest of any Jedi. Having been seduced by the allure of rising power, he betrayed the Order, the Republic, and weaponized the absolute loyalty of the men under his command. 

It would be Fives, Jesse, and Hardcase of the 501st’s bravest blue to defy orders and take stolen ships to cripple enemy forces. They proved successful, though only Fives and Jesse would return. Krell had tried to order their execution as a result of this disobedience. But brothers in blue and orange mutinied against the fallen Jedi, and attempted his arrest. Once they managed to capture him, Krell had been interrogated and his treasonous plot was brought into the light. 

Fives had been faced with the business end of a blaster at the hands of his own brothers twice. 

He only survived it once. 

Wolffe could only hope Fives’ mortal remains were being treated with far more respect than whatever had been afforded to Krell. 

One thing was soon clear at least, the longer the diner’s owner was working to serve them the fresh caf: Dex was nothing like Krell, save for being a Besalisk. 

Dex was far kinder, friendlier. 

He first poured out a generous portion for Wolffe, chuckling warmly as he spoke. “You’ll want to be careful, gentlemen. Quite hot. Should do a fine job of perking you right up, though!” Wolffe was sure to thank Dex before carefully kicking his brother’s boot under the table to stir him. Fox hadn’t fallen asleep, but he certainly was heading in that direction the longer he sat in the booth. 

Tiredly scrubbing a hand over his face in an effort to wake up, Fox took hold of the mug that had been carefully pushed in his direction by the four-armed cook. 

“Thanks…”

“Don’t mention it! Matter of fact, I’ll leave the rest with you two and let you get about your business.” Dex carefully set the metal carafe on the tabletop and lumbered back into the kitchen, as promised. 

Together, the commanders would take their first sampling of the diner’s caf; Wolffe found it of decent quality, nothing more. There was nothing special that set it apart from other diners, but it was a step above the instant powder in his and his men’s rations. 

Fox on the other hand drank like the caf was no milder than water. Maker. That couldn’t be healthy. Once the mug had been lowered for a suitable amount of time, Wolffe voiced the first of his concerns. 

“When’s the last time you slept, vod?”

With a heavy exhale, Fox set down the mug and leaned against the backrest. “Same time as the rest of Coruscant.” he said, too focused on the patternless web of scratches in the table to see the displeased furrowing of his brother’s brow. 

“Coruscant never sleeps. Are you telling me you’re running on empty?”

“No. I just don’t remember, cub.” 

Wolffe grit his teeth, full lips pursing as his displeasure deepened. This was no time for the kit-and-cub routine they had developed fresh off Kamino, possessing a curiously bright-eyed quality that would be lost before long. This was serious. All of this was serious, and Fox is choosing now to be sarcastic and apathetic with him?

He has to stop and take a measured breath before acting on any kind of anger. Should he be short with Fox, Wolffe’s opportunity to get sensible answers might slip between his fingers. So instead, he nurses his mug of caf before saything or asking anything else. Maybe it’ll help him hold on to his tether a little longer if he combats his own budding fatigue. Crossing several galactic timezones in order to get to the heart of the Republic could make even the most tireless of men weary. 

Settled, Wolffe begins again. “What do you remember about last night?” A glance is cast over their helmets; the thought of scrubbing through helmet footage flickers in his mind. 

“Might need to be more specific,” Fox replies, wantonly tracing the rim of his mug with his forefinger. “What part of last night are you asking about?”

“The part that ended with a dead ARC trooper.”

For a moment, the other commander remained unnaturally still, and equally quiet. Now that the reason behind the visit Wolffe was paying him had been revealed, Fox felt the atmosphere of the diner tangibly shift. So that’s what this visit Wolffe was paying him was about. He was aware from the beginning Wolffe was coming all the way to Triple Zero to question him; not the subject matter of these questions. 

It was time to establish a baseline for the brothers. 

“What have you heard?”

Propping up the datafile, Wolffe presents the timeline as he understands it. 

Alongside the Kaminoan Nala Se and General Shaak Ti, ARC trooper Fives had traveled to Coruscant from the Clone homeworld and met with Chancellor Palpatine at the Grand Republic Medical Facility. Shortly upon their arrival, Fives presented a potential Separatist plot that he believed responsible for the death of a trooper by the name of Tup to General Ti, the Chief Medical Scientist, and Palpatine. Agreeing to hear him out, Fives was granted limited audience with the Chancellor. 

Per protocol, shock troopers and the Red Guard remained in the room when Palpatine requested to speak “alone” with Fives. This meant when the Chancellor was suddenly attacked, the response was almost immediate. 

Under threat of apprehension, Fives would escape the Medical Facility, and remain unaccounted for for some time before making contact with a member of Torrent Company - namely their medic, Kix. Coordinates would be given to a location on Level 1325 with the request General Skywalker and Captain Rex meet him there, as soon as possible, and importantly, alone. His commanding officers would go to Hangar 18 in Sector I-9, where Fives had been spotted by a probe droid, and find themselves caught in a ray shield. 

While effectively at his mercy, Fives would tell his commanding officers he had been set up, framed, before the arrival of the Corries. 

“Did you hear anything Fives might have said when you arrived with the Guard?”

Fox, just about to take a drink, paused. “Not everything.” Once they had made it inside the warehouse, he and his men were more concerned with finding safe cover before moving into action.

A minor tell of annoyance, the twitching of the scarred brow over his brother’s cybernetic eye, did not go unnoticed by the red commander. 

“Obviously. But what did you hear?”

“General Skywalker questioned why his ARC trooper believed the Chancellor was capable of orchestrating this… Separatist plot when an assassination attempt had failed. Said the Chancellor was incapable, though his soldier insisted.” Fox replied, considering the dregs in his mug for the moment before pouring himself another serving.

“At what point did you step in?”

Not long after, his vod tells him. 

“His back was to us. Didn’t see us draw our DeeCees.”

“Why didn’t you stun him?” Wolffe nearly demands. 

Fives had been declared a fugitive, the commander understood that. When he had taken part in the manhunt for Ahsoka Tano following the declaration of her own fugitive status following the bombing of the Jedi Temple and death of a suspect, Letta Turmond, it had been under orders. Tano had been a dear friend to General Plo; the Kel Dor often spoke so kindly of her… she had saved his life in the aftermath of Abregado.

But given the evidence at the time, he believed she was the primary suspect behind the blast that had killed Clones, maintenance workers and six Jedi, and left many more injured. A belief that would be buried once he heard General Skywalker had found and brought the true perpetrator before those who put the Togruta on trial. Firing upon someone he cared about, in his own fashion, while she was dazed and unarmed, would be the last time Wolffe ever saw Tano. 

The guilt still gnaws at him.

Maybe if they had taken Fives alive, the real perpetrator could have been discovered. Like Barriss Offee had been.

“Why,” he repeats himself, determined to break Fox’s continued silence, “Tell me why, Fox.”

“We didn’t exactly have much of a choice, Wolffe. I ordered him to stand down, warned him not to do it; but he drew a nearby weapon. He was acting erratically.”

Fox had to make a split-second decision with highly volatile variables at play; the way he had been trained. The way both of them had been trained. Trained to make the tough calls that came with the lofty status as Marshal Commanders, before Wolffe had been stripped of such a rank. Robbed of the red. 

It would be replaced with gray, to honor and remember the dead. 

The innumerable, tragic dead. 

Try as they might, the Kaminoans could never hope to train the sting of a brother’s tragic death out of the men of the GAR. 

Following a break to use the diner’s refreshers and collect themselves, the commanders return to the table, making use of limited time before Wolffe is supposed to act upon new military-wide orders from General Plo. 

“What orders?” Fox asks, brow pinched in confusion. 

He hadn’t seen any such notification. Just a report from Thire and Thorn that more surveillance footage had been acquired of the events from last night; they now had an answer for how ARC trooper Fives avoided the shock troopers checking IDs in the Clone bar. A damn hat given to him by a corporal from another unit, of all things. 

“I’m supposed to report to the nearest Republic med center to receive some kind of vaccination. For a parasite.” 

Continuing to read the message on his comlink, Wolffe learns soldiers on other planets will need to await the arrival of the inoculation that was being mass-produced to protect every Clone, whether their deployment was peaceful, or on the front lines. 

“They… think some kind of rare parasite native to Ringo Vinda was responsible for what happened to Tup. For the behavior Fives displayed before you-” 

Something about this didn’t feel quite right. 

This answer was too convenient. How was it possible that a parasite was missed by the Chief Medical Scientist during Tup’s thorough examination on Kamino, but discovered by the Chancellor’s personal doctors in a rushed autopsy? (They had been thorough, right?) How did invasive organisms cause these “aggression inhibitors” to decay? How many more men of the 501st Legion were potentially infected, and how did the organism spread? Something about this wasn’t adding up. 

Maybe by asking the shock troopers who had been present during the conversation Fives had with the Chancellor, he could find something they missed; maybe they had heard something-

“ -ffe. Wolffe,” 

Failing to get the flint-gray commander’s attention, Fox has reached across the table and taken hold of his hand just as he finds it beginning to tremble. Minor stress tremors such as these have plagued him since the ill-fated naval battle, though they’ve been dormant for a long time with a combination of strict rest and discipline. And typically, they’re almost unnoticeable. 

But Fox has always had sharp eyes with even sharper ears. 

“When’s the last time you slept?”

A slow burning behind his eyes—the feeling stronger on the right—served as an uncomfortable reminder that he had been unable to find much meaningful rest after hearing what happened in Coruscant’s sub-levels. Another brother’s tragic, untimely death. Resisting the urge to rub his eyes and rid himself of the discomfort, Wolffe instead returns the steady squeeze rather than pulling away. 

Voice soft, he heaves a quiet sigh. 

“Not recently enough, kit.”

Perhaps it was his own fatigue that had him jumping to absurd conclusions. The demise of an elite ARC trooper had reminded him of his own heavy losses, and his composure was beginning to suffer for it. That was unacceptable. He needed to sleep. Both of them needed to sleep. 

But more importantly, Wolffe needed to leave. He had a set time to arrive at the med center by, and it would be imprudent to be late. Gathering the datafile, his comlink, and his helmet, Wolffe took one last gulp of caf before standing to bid his brother farewell. 

Then, he had an idea. 

“Maybe… after I’ve gotten the inoculation, we should both crash in your quarters for an hour if you’ve still got that shitty old couch stuffed in there since the last time I saw you.”

Fox chuckled, a lazy smirk settling over his features. 

“It’s still there and shitter than ever,” the crimson commander promised, “Been too busy to remove it.”

Wolffe resealed his helmet so Fox wouldn’t see the grim smile, one grateful for the meager space to sleep and troubled by the responsibilities his brother has had to shoulder that have kept him so busy, he can’t rearrange a stained sofa. 

It was no wonder Fox was sporting some silver around his temples prematurely. It probably wouldn’t be long before Wolffe’s own raven-dark hair did the same, given his own burdens and losses. This war would make old dogs out of both of them. 

Assuming they lived long enough to see the supposed end of it. After all, only the dead will ever see the true end of war. 

And that was a tragedy for the living.

Thank you for making such a uniquely heart-breaking request for this event Maia; I hope I did these canine commanders justice and made it appropriately angsty enough. I hope you enjoyed! 🩷

Fic taglist: @anxiouspineapple99 @dukeoftheblackstar @dystopicjumpsuit @msmeredithrose @lonely-day3636

[Masterlist] [TCW Masterlist] [Taglist] [Requests: OPEN]

[thinkingthingsthrough]

would it be insane of me to try and go see ed sheeran twice in detroit next month after already seeing him in toronto this month

[softspiderling]

like, ever | j.v

summary:

“Hey, I’m worried about you.”

You glanced up from your laptop screen to see Rhaena standing in your doorway, her arms crossed.

“Why?”

She gave you a look, before her eyes roamed your room: your textbooks stacked half-hazardly on your desk, two empty ice cream tubs, another half melted one on your nightstand, an empty tissue box on the floor and you on your bed, wrapped in your blanket like a burrito.

OR; You and Jace break up because of a stupid reason, but you’re both too proud to apologize.

pairing: jacaerys velaryon x reader

warnings: kinda toxic behavior from both of them, but like the usual issues in communication that’s so common in people our age idk what to tell you

word count: 4,1k

author’s note: modern au!jace is the president of the frat Alpha Draconis (it's co-ed, Rhaenyra was president during her time at uni), Jace/Aegon/Baela and their respective siblings are all cousins, but this is NOT in the same universe as can I go (where you go). thank you to my wonder sister wife beta @eldrith as usual <3

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

“We broke up.”

“No you didn’t.”

“Yes, we did.”

Baela gave you a look, narrowing her eyes at you as she pushed her Econ 1 assignment away. You dropped down on the couch next to her, leaning your head back.

“Why?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” you huffed and Baela whacked you in the arm.

“You just came home and dropped a bomb like that, you can’t just not talk about it.”

“Not talk about what?”

You internally groaned when Helaena’s voice floated from the hallway, the front door shutting behind her. An intervention was inevitable at this point. At least Rhaena wasn’t home yet, you knew she was volunteering until six.

“She and Jace broke up,” Baela told her and Helaena paused in the doorway to the living room, a frown on her face as she undid her braid.

“You didn’t.”

“That’s what I said!”

“You know, normal friends would offer ice cream if their friend was going through a break up.”

“I’d offer you ice cream if you were sad,” Helaena pointed out. She sat down next to you, patting your shoulder. “You don’t look sad.”

“Well, I am sad,” you sniffed, but Baela fixed her brown eyes at you until you threw your hands up in frustration. “Fine! I’m mostly mad, okay? Pissed off, actually!”

Baela folded her legs under herself. “Tell us what happened.”

“I don’t know, she just rubs me the wrong way. It’s like she knows you have a girlfriend and she chooses to ignore that.”

You and Jace were laying in his bed, your head on his chest. He had been telling you about the new pledges of the term, and you weren’t exactly fond of one of them - Laura, a nursing major. You were aware of her being especially touchy with Jace, twirling her hair while she was talking to him and always searching him out at every event. Which was fair, he was the president of the frat after all and at first you had told yourself that you were just projecting but the you noticed that she was laughing at all of Jace’s jokes. She was definitely into him. He was not that funny.

“I don’t know, it’s just the way she is, I think,” he said, and you frowned at him.

“Jace, come on, she’s totally into you.”

“Well, good thing I’m into you,” Jace pointed out, turning his head to nose along your neck but you pushed him away, starting to get annoyed that he wasn’t taking this seriously.

“I mean it, Jace.”

“So do I,” he answered, irritated. “Why does this bother you so much?”

“Because I don’t like another girl’s hands being all over you?”

You sat up, leaning away from him with a frown and he only sighed, laying his head back on the pillow, shutting his eyes. He was starting to piss you off.

“She’s not into me! Everyone tries to butter me up because they want to join the frat. And even if she was, why does it matter?”

“It matters because it bothers me and you clearly don’t care!”

“Of course I care,” Jace sighed. He opened his eyes, reaching out for you, and you had to admit your resolve was starting to crumble. “You’re overreacting.”

And just like that, the wall was back up.

“Wow, thanks.”

Your voice was biting as you spoke, tugging your hand out of his grasp and standing up, grabbing your hoodie. Jace was quick to follow you, brows furrowed. Great, now both of you were mad.

“You’re making a big deal out of nothing!” Jace snapped and you only glared at him.

“Thanks for invalidating my feelings, Jacaerys,” you said sarcastically. “If I’m making a deal out of nothing, maybe we’re both nothing.”

Jace’s face fell and he stopped in his tracks, letting out a huff. “You don’t mean that.”

Maybe you didn’t. But you weren’t about to backtrack now. You were a woman of your words.

“Yes, I do.”

You pulled the door open and rushed out of his room, slamming the door shut behind you. Distantly, you could hear Jace call after you and you secretly hoped he would chase after you, but by the time you made it downstairs to the front door, he was still nowhere to be seen.

“That’s…”

Baela and Helaena exchanged a look and you frowned at them. While you hadn’t expected for them to immediately spring into assuring you that they were on your side - you were dating their cousin after all - you also didn’t quite imagined them being so… Shocked.

“What?” you asked, suddenly growing insecure. “I had a point.”

“Well, yeah,” Baela started, “But so did he.”

“Why did you immediately jump into breaking up?” Helaena asked with a soft voice, the voice you knew she used when she didn’t want to hurt your feelings. You lifted your shoulders, then dropped them again, unable to answer her question.

“Did you want to break up?”

“No!”

You tucked your chin against your chest, a pit forming in your stomach. Did you maybe overreact?

“I was just mad,” you said, frowning, picking at the hem of your shirt.

“.. And you wanted to hurt him?” Baela said, finishing your sentence. Your head shot up, a denial on your lips, but your mouth closed when her words sunk in.

“… Maybe.”

“You two really are hotheaded and stubborn,” Helaena pointed out, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. You only glowered, the anger from earlier dissipating and instead was replaced by misery and a little bit of guilt? Luckily, Helaena and Baela left you to your wallowing after they realized you needed some space and you fled to your bedroom, trying to bury yourself in your assignments.

There was only one slight problem. You couldn’t find school bag anywhere.

“Where did I leave it?” you muttered to yourself, checking under your desk for your bag, even opening the drawer for good measure. You were crawling on the floor looking under your bed when it finally dawned on you.

“Fuck.”

You had gone over to the frat’s house right after class, with your school bag. And after the fight, you must have forgotten to grab it.

“Ugh,” you groaned, dropping your forehead on the floor You’d rather crawl under your bed and sleep with the dust bunnies that have been collecting under there than go back to the frat house right now. But you had no choice. The assignment was was due the day after tomorrow and Professor Cole already was in a bad mood because his date went badly.

“Fuck me,” you muttered to yourself, turning to lay on your bad and cursed the Gods for making you miserable as you stared at the ceiling, collecting your wits.

“Oh.”

Luke Velaryon, Jace’s younger AND biological brother, stood in the doorway, apprehensive. He had always been the more sensitive one between the two brothers, but he was also unwaveringly loyal. You had no doubt that Jace had already told him everything about your fight.

“Hey Luke,” you said, giving him a wry smile.

“Hey,” he replied hesitantly. “Jace is not here.”

“I know.”

Luke pressed his lips together, his eyes darting around as if he was expecting his older brother to come out of the bushes any second. “Are you okay?”

You let out a small laugh, shaking your head. What a sweet boy.

“Yeah, alright enough I guess,” you replied, sighing. “Listen, I forgot my bag in Jace’s room and I really need it to do an assignment, could you let me in?”

“I don’t know….” Luke answered slowly. “Jace should be back soon though. Maybe you can just wait until he gets back? And then you guys could talk?”

Bless him.

You bit on your lip, running your hand through your hair, exasperated. “Listen Luke, I really appreciate you trying to look out for Jace, but I really can’t see him right now.”

Luke exhaled, shifting on his feet like he was undecided. The longer it took for him to decide, the higher chances were you’d run into Jace on your way out.

“Please, Luke, I just need to grab my bag really quickly. He won’t even notice I was there.”

With a loud sigh, Luke finally nodded, opening the door wider and taking a step back.

“He’s gonna be back soon, you need to hurry up.”

“Thanks Luke!”

You hushed past him into the house, walking the familiar way up the stairs to Jace’s bedroom, shutting the door behind you. With a small sigh, you looked around, trying to discern your stuff from his. It was harder than you had first anticipated, your belongings strewn all over the room. Picking your favorite scrunchie off of his nightstand next to a picture of the two of you during New Year’s Eve, you put your hair up as you narrowed your eyes, feeling relief settle in your chest when you saw your backpack lean against the desk.

“Thank God”, you muttered, grabbing it quickly. Just as you headed to the door, hand on the door knob, you could hear voices down the hallway through the closed door. You cursed, recognizing it as Jace and Cregan.

Fuck.

Immediately, you let go of the door knob, taking a few steps back, trying to come up with a way you wouldn’t be caught standing in the middle of Jace’s bedroom. Did you have enough time to make the climb out of the window and scale down the roof?

“- it’ll blow over. I’ll give her some time to calm down and-”

Before you could make a decision, the door swung open, and Jace entered. He was looking back at Cregan, who raised his brows when he saw you in the middle of the room.

“Wha-?” Jace turned his head, his mouth dropping open. “… Hey.”

“Hey.”

Cregan glanced between the two of you, narrowing his eyes. Meanwhile, Jace was rubbing the back of his neck.

“Did you forget something?”

“Yeah,” you answered - LAME! - lifting your backpack.

Jace nodded slowly. “Was there anything you wanted to say?”

You frowned at him, confused.

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Jace said, shrugging with his shoulders. “I thought you were here to apologize.”

Cregan groaned, leaning his forehead against the door frame as you felt all the anger from before welling up again.

“Me apologize?” You repeated, your voice shrill. “What about you? I bet Laura’s thrilled to hear we broke up.”

“You just ended things for no reason! Laura’s not even into me!” Jace snapped and Cregan pushed himself off of the door frame.

“Maybe we all should just calm down.”

“Shut up, Cregan!” You and Jace yelled at the same time, your anger very briefly directed at Jace’s best friend.

Cregan flinched, raising his hands defensively. “Jesus, sorry. I’ll never try to help again,” he muttered. “Let me give you two a minute.”

He stepped out of the room but you held your hands up, stopping him with a scoff.

“No, I’m done here,” you huffed, shaking your head in disbelief. With one last angry look at Jace, you pushed between them, running out of the house, smoke coming out of your ears.

You spent the rest of the week distracting yourself. Burying yourself in assignments and reading, eating ice cream - there was a deal at Whole Foods, five for three, your freezer was full - and you only cried once.

“Hey, I’m worried about you.”

You glanced up from your laptop screen to see Rhaena standing in your doorway, her arms crossed.

“Why?”

She gave you a look, before her eyes roamed your room: your textbooks stacked half-hazardly on your desk, two empty ice cream tubs, another half melted one on your nightstand, an empty tissue box on the floor and you on your bed, wrapped in your blanket like a burrito. You sighed, letting the blankets fall from your shoulders.

“I’m fine, Rhae.”

“Hey, did you convince her to come?” Baela skidded to a halt next to Rhaena, looking from her sister to you. Rhaena only sighed while you narrowed your eyes at Baela’s get up. She was wearing black leather pants and a brown corset; she looked like she was going out.

“Come where?”

“Alpha Draconis’ summer term opening party.”

Right that. The party you had helped Jace plan. Before you broke up.

“I don’t know guys,” you sighed, leaning back against your headboard. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to go.”

“You don’t have to go,” Rhaena assured you but Baela shushed her, shaking her head.

“No, you absolutely have to go,” she insisted. “We’ve let you wallow in your misery long enough. It’s time to put your big girl pants on and face Jace. You broke up with him for a shitty reason and yes, he was being a jerk, but you were being a bitch. Now suck it up and get your man back.”

You gaped at her, and Rhaena whacked Baela in the arm, but she only shrugged, ever the unapologetic brutally honest one.

“What? You know I’m right,” Baela only said, frowning at her twin before she turned to you. “So?”

With a groan, you closed your eyes. You knew Baela was right, in a way, and it was no use sitting around when your friends were going out. You had to see him eventually.

“Fine,” you gave in, pushing the blanket back as Baela cheered, immediately disappearing. Rhaena only shook her head, stepping into your bedroom, helping you clean up a little.

“I’m driving,” she told you. “Just tell me if you want to leave, okay?”

You nodded, giving Rhaena a grin when something soft just hit you in the face with no warning, courtesy of Baela having returned to your bedroom.

“Put that on.”

The projectile fell to floor, and as you picked it up, you recognized it as a dark red dress, tags still on.

“Hel’s headed to the party from work, so we’ll meet her there in an hour, go take a shower and I’ll do your hair,” Baela said, reaching for your hand to pull you up. “Come on, up up up!”

Begrudgingly, you let Baela usher you into the shower, shutting the door behind you very decidedly. You stared at yourself in the mirror, eyes rimmed red and hair a mess and you allowed yourself a minute of respite before you turned the shower on. If you had to go to that stupid party, you’d make sure to look the absolute best.

“Am I crazy or is it even more crowded than last term?”

You winced as you followed Baela and Rhaena through an especially crowded spot in the house, glancing around.

“No, it’s definitely more people,” Baela agreed, squeezing your hand to make sure not to lose you in the mass. “Has Helaena said where she is?”

“She said she was in backyards,” Rhaena replied and Baela steered you in the direction of the backyard. Meanwhile you tried not to let your eyes roam too much; you didn’t want to seem like you were looking for Jace, even though that was exactly what you were doing. Just as you reached the patio doors, Helaena appeared, stopping you in the doorway.

“Hey guys,” she said, breathless, her eyes flitting over to you as you greeted her. “Should we go get drinks?”

“I’m not dragging my ass back through that crowd,” you moaned, shaking your head. “Let’s just sit down by the pool for a second before we go back in.”

You nudged Helaena out of the way gently, but the blonde grabbed your arm, trying to pull you back.

“But I’m really thirsty.”

“Hel, come on,” you laughed. “You’ll survive ten more minutes without-”

The rest of your words died on your tongue when you caught sight of Jace sitting by the pool, surrounded by his frat brothers and of course, Laura. Now you knew why Helaena was so adamant to get you away from the backyard. It was too loud to hear what Jace was saying, but he must be telling an extremely funny story with the way Laura was laughing, touching his shoulder. They weren’t doing anything scandalous, but it still hurt you to see him still talking to her after you voiced your concerns. You tried not to let it get to you. It wasn’t your business anymore anyways, but you were still a little sick to the stomach.

With a scoff, you turned away, embarrassment burning your cheeks as your friends looked at you with pitiful eyes.

“Sorry,” Rhaena said and you only shrugged with your shoulders.

“Whatever,” you muttered, clearing your throat. “I told you, she was into him. Now he’s free to do as he pleases.”

Baela winced. “We can leave, if you want.”

“No, I’m not leaving because of that clown.”

The girls let out a laugh and Helaena wrapped her arm around you. You gave her a wry smile, leaning into her.

“Let’s go get you that drink.”

As Helaena dragged you away, you couldn’t help but glance back to Jace and for a split second, your eyes met. You quickly turned away, feeling a lump form in your throat. You couldn’t wait to get drinks. After getting to the kitchen, the four of you did two rounds of shots, knowing where the boys kept their expensive booze; Rhaena then mixed you some drinks before you settled on the couch in the living room. Taking a careful sip of your cup, you immediately pulled a face, looking at Rhaena.

“What the hell is in this?”

“I think Grey Goose and Coke.”

“You think?” you asked, wincing when you took another sip. “This is awful Rhae.”

“What is awful?”

Aegon, Helaena’s brother, one cousin of many in the Targaryen family, suddenly plopped down on the couch next to you.

“Oh great, Aegon is here,” Baela deadpanned and Aegon only mocked Baela as he reached for your drink.

“Sure, just go ahead and take my drink.”

Aegon took a big gulp of your drink, humming. “It’s not bad,” he said, offering the cup back to you but you politely declined. You didn’t know where Aegon’s mouth had been in the last 24 hours, there was no way you’d drink out of the same cup he had.

“So, what’s this I hear about you and our cousin breaking up?” Aegon asked, throwing his arm around the back of the couch and you scooted forward, trying to escape his touch.

“You heard right,” you said, throwing him a dirty look and Rhaena rolled her eyes.

“You’re a dick, Aeg.”

“What?” Aegon exclaimed. “’t was just a question, no harm done, right?”

You let out a deep sigh, pushing away from the couch.

“I need some air,” you told the girls and Rhaena furrowed her brows, worried.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“We can make Aegon leave,” Baela offered and Aegon made a noise, frowning at his cousin but you shook your head,

“Nah, I’m good. Just, text me if you guys go somewhere, okay?”

“Are you sure, babe?” Helaena asked and you nodded, patting her shoulder gently.

“Yeah, ‘m fine. I promise.”

With a small wave, you disappeared into the crowd, hearing the cousins starting to argue, but it was background noise to you. Instead of heading to the front door, you inconspicuously headed upstairs, past a kissing couple, and to the bathroom on the second floor. The door was shut, but unlocked and unoccupied as you opened the door. You let it fall shut in its hinges after you, walking over to the window, like you had done so many times before, but never alone. Clicking the window open, you carefully climbed out to the roof, sliding the window closed behind you again. You traipsed over the roof, before settling down on the small nook that sat right above Benjicot’s bedroom, stretching out your legs.

Jace had shown you this place when you first started dating, and sometimes when the parties got too much, the two of you snuck out here to be alone. It was probably risky to go here; but it was the only place you felt like you could retreat without having to go home.

The noise of the party downstairs could still be heard, especially the conversations in the backyard, but to you, it seemed quieter as you closed your eyes. It had cooled down significantly since you had come to the party, but you enjoyed the bite of the cold on your bare arms. A deep breath escaped your lips, your chest heavy.

Looking back on it, you knew what you had said was wrong. It was words hurled in the heat of the moment, chosen to provoke a reaction out of Jace and if you could take them back, you would. But now it was too late, it had seemed like Laura had already sunken her talons into Jace as soon as he was available - not that she had cared much about whether he had a girlfriend or not - and he seemed to be lapping it up.

“Stupid,” you muttered to yourself, wiping the tear that escaped your eye from your cheek with the back of your hand. You froze, when you heard the bathroom window slide open; not daring to look back. His steps were careful as he walked towards you, as if not to spook you, but before he came into view, a soft jacket was draped over your shoulders, engulfing you in his scent. You let out a breath you hadn’t realized you were holding, tugging the jacket tighter around your body when Jace sat down next to you.

The silence between you stretched on, before Jace cleared his throat.

“You were right.”

You let out a small scoff at his words, glancing over to him.

“You’re shitting me, right?” you asked in disbelief. “She was all over you like that and you still thought she wasn’t into you?”

Jace winced, ducking his head.

“That’s fair. Maybe I was a little oblivious. It’s just…” he paused, sighing. “I didn’t see it, because I don’t really see other girls. Ever since we met, it’s just been you. I didn’t even realize that she was flirting with me until she straight up asked me if we could go upstairs.”

Jealousy flared up in your chest at his words, and you frowned, quickly giving him a once over.

“Well, did you?” you asked, your voice tight. Jace gave you a look, his hands dropping down on his lap.

“I’m sitting here with you, aren’t I?”

Relief flooded your veins and you ducked your head to hide your face. Jace glanced over at you, his face vulnerable and you bit your lip.

“I’m sorry too,” you then said. “I didn’t mean what I said. It was petty and stupid, and I’m sorry.”

“Well looks like we both got to work on some things,” Jace said, tentatively reaching out to take your hand; out of reflex you immediately laced your hand with his. He quirked a smile at you, scooting closer to you and you glanced up at him, almost shyly before you leaned in, as he met you halfway, your lips touching. Jace wrapped his hand around the back of your neck as you kissed, and if you hadn’t felt warm before, you definitely did now.

“What’s happening?”

“They’re kissing!”

“No way! Move over!”

“You move over!”

A crash sounded and you pulled away from Jace, just to see Luke and his cousins spying on you from the bathroom.

“Nothing to see here, carry on!” Luke yelled, quickly sliding the window back down, but their bickering could be heard through the closed window.

Jace snorted out a laugh, leaning his forehead against yours and you only grinned lazily at him.

“Come on, let’s go face the circus before they break the window and we have to scale down the roof,” Jace said, offering you his hand as he got up. You let him help you up, as the two of you walked back to the bathroom window.

“You know I thought about scaling down the roof when you caught me in your bedroom?”

“You’re joking.”

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

author’s note: tell me what you think <3 also will add the taglist tomorrow bc i’m so tired but wanted to post🫶🏼

[luvyeni]

1095 DAYS ,, 방찬

pairings ‎⸝⸝⸝ exinmate!bangchan x fem!reader wc. 1.3k

genre. smut

🦢◞  including ... oral ( m. receiving ), unprotected sex, breeding kink, daddy kink

request. HERE I AM AGAIN! Ahem so I want a chan smut "he comes out of prison after 2 years for killing your psycho ex and you wait for him at home dressed in his fav way ;)" yeahhhh sounds horrible and freaky but I trust you ;)))

「 ୨୧ authors note 」 enjoy it probably one of my favs in a while !

❪ masterlist! ❫

1095 days; 16 hours, 30 minutes and 23 agonizing seconds since you could wake up to his arms warmly wrapped around you in the morning, hear his laugh when he tells you a corny joke that you laugh at just to make him smile— it was finally coming to an end.

3 years before you met chan; you were in a very physically and verbally abusive relationship with your ex; he destroyed you and everything around you— if it wasn't for chan you probably wouldn't have escaped; he saved you, and after he saved you he protected you, didn't let anyone harm you.

when your ex began to stalk you again; finding your shared apartment with chan, breaking into your home thinking you were alone; fortunately for you; you were weren't, but you couldn't say the same thing about your ex. he left out in a body bag, but the love of your life; the only man to protect you was also leaving out that night— in handcuffs.

the court process was long and stressful; and in the end he was sentenced to 5 years in prison for the murder of your ex— 5 years which you told him you'd serve right by his side; well on the outside.

it was the hardest time of both your lives; seeing him locked up in a cage when you went to visit him; sometimes covered in bruises due to fights he would get into with other inmates. only being able to speak to him for short periods of time, most of the time it was him listening to you cry about how you missed him and you needed him, which only made him upset; but he would never change what he did , if he could go back and do it again, he would.

luckily it was all over; he was released, 3 years later; 2 years before his release due to good behavior— he couldn't wait to be and to touch you, it was the first thing he thought about as he walked through those gates. “look at you.” lee know a good friend of his waited with his car. “you’re fucking jacked, did all you do was work out?” he pulled the boy into a hug. “ah! so good to be out.” he said. “and that's all i could do man, that and think about my girl.”

“speaking of your girl; don't worry we made sure she was straight the entire time, she's waiting for you at home.” he smiled getting into the car. “take me to my girl.”

staring at yourself in the mirror; you looked sexy, and it was chans favorite. “perfect.” you smiled to yourself, heart pounding, you'd finally have him in your arms again— you'd finally have him inside you again. “baby?” you heard his voice , the door closing being him. “oh my god!” you shrieked, running out of the room. “channie!” you jumped into his arms. “babygirl.” he lifted you up. “fuck i missed you so much princess.”

“i missed you too.” you said , he groaned. “seeing you and not being able to touch you was fucking torture.” he said. “it's been torture.” you whined, kissing his neck. “i needed you.” he moaned as you bit his neck. “it's not the same using my fingers.” he could feel his cock hardening in his sweats. “then how about i give my pretty princess what she's been needing for the past three years?” he hummed against your skin. “let's take this too the bed room baby.”

he carried you to the room, sitting you down on the bed, taking in your outfit. “oh baby i surely did miss this.” he sighed. “good cause you're getting this for the next few months.” you looked at him with glazed over eyes as you sunk to your knees, hold the waistband of his sweats. “yeah?” he said. “gonna suck my cock?” you nodded; pulling his pants down, along with his underwear , his cock almost slapping you in the face. “missed this so much.”

you grabbed the base of his cock; kissing his tip. “fuck baby , give me what i've been missing.” you sunk down on his length; his head knocking back as you began to bob your head up and down. “that's it baby, suck my cock.” he hadn't felt this in so long; unable to ever have privacy in a prison cell; he was force to be celibate the three years he was locked up. “fu-fuck baby , not gonna last long; take it fully choke on daddy's dick.” he grunted , your removed your hand from stroking what you couldn't fit inside your mouth, holding his thighs as you took him fully , gagging around his length. “yes fuck!” his thick accent and deep moans , shooting straight to your cunt , making you moan around his length. “fuck baby gonna blow my load , gonna take it right fuck , take it right down your throat?”

he began to thrust himself; using your throat. “fuck baby im gonna cum, gonna fucking cum?” he released over and over. “fuck im cumming!” he shouted , cumming into your waiting mouth , pulling out cumming onto your cheek. “good girl , taking daddy's cock like that.” he moaned, slapping his cock on your cheek. “time for daddy to fuck that pretty pussy of his.”

he helped you up. “as much as i love this pretty outfit, it's time to take this off so i can get a good look of your pretty body.” you slowly took off your lingerie, he watched you , stroking his cock. “you like daddy?” he smirked. “so fucking much princess , your pretty photos is what kept me sane for those three years.” he groaned. “go ahead and get on the bed for me.”

he cursed as you climbed on to the bed , spreading your legs revealing your wet center. “so wet baby, you really missed my cock didn't you?” he got in between your legs. “so-so much.” you moaned. “missed it so much.” you said , running your freshly manicured fingernails , pink with his initials , down his abs. “please fuck me.”

he wasn't gonna deny you or himself , pushing himself inside you. “oh yes.” he moaned. “this is what i've been missing.” he slowly rocked his cock inside of you. “ch-chris.” you moaned. “so-so fucking big.” the familiarity of his cock stretching you out , giving your cunt exactly what it wanted after so many years. “go faster please.”

he pushed your legs against your chest. “want daddy to go faster, fuck you deeper?” you nodded, he folded your body in half , pounding into you. “fuck!” you screamed. “this what you want?” he plowed into you. “for me to ruin this pussy?” he hissed. “yes please!” you cried out. “fu-fuck princess , daddy missed you so much.” he cursed. “missed feeling you squeezing me like this.” he groaned , the last three years were hell , now that he was out , he wasn't going back , he would never leave you for that long. “shit im gonna cum.” he moaned. “me-me too.” you moaned. “please cum inside me.”

“yeah? want me to cum inside you, give you a baby?” he cursed, he was ready to settle down with you, he had it all figured out , get a job at changbins auto shop; marry you and start a family. “please chan , give me a baby.” he kissed your neck. “channie im gonna cum.” you moaned. “gonna cum all over your cock.”

“fuck baby do it, cream daddy's cock.” he watched your mouth drop open as you came. “oh fuck that's it baby cum for daddy.” he groaned. “gonna cum.” his thrust began to falter. “fuck im cumming!” his cock twitching as he came deep inside you. “shit.”

he pulled out; watching his cum leak out. “mhm , not done baby , daddy's still hard.” he began to thrust inside you. “chan.” you shook in overstimulation. “ch-chan please fuck me.” he smiled. “don't worry baby.”

“daddys got so much more cum for you pretty girl.”

©LUVYEN

[spencerreidenjoyer]

giddy up | spencer reid x reader

Spencer gets shot in the leg. You help him feel better about it.

wc: 1.7k, rating: explicit/18+

tags/warnings: s5/jesus hair reid, established r/s, reader and spencer are both switches, riding, grinding, frottage, porn without plot, fluff and smut actually

a/n: was thinking about writing jesus reid/crutches reid for a long time and this was the only thing that came to mind. I am only a little sorry about it. (also find this fic on ao3!)

Of all the things Spencer could complain about after having been shot in the leg, not being able to fuck you properly is something you definitely did not consider.

You’d been worried sick when Penelope had called you, when Spencer had woken up after surgery. You were the first person he’d called for.

No unnecessary pressure on the leg, the doctor had said. Spencer was to use crutches at all times until the doctor cleared him. You don’t remember the rest of the doctor’s instructions, at least not now, when Spencer’s doing much better. He’s just been cleared to walk off his crutches, but he still has a slight limp in his step and starts to wince when he’s on his feet for too long. He hasn’t healed completely, but it’s enough to put you at ease being around Spencer, not having to worry excessively about him. 

While you know he’s grateful to have only gotten shot in the leg and not somewhere more risky, Spencer’s got a mouth on him, which leads you to where you are right now:

“I’m so tired of not being able to fuck you,” Spencer groans. 

You’re lounging in bed with him when he says this, and you whip your head around to look at him, shocked at his sudden admission. “Damn. What’s the matter, baby?”

“I just–” Spencer huffs in the middle of his sentence, like he needs to find the right words. It blows his hair out of his face. It’s cute, but what he says next is filthy in comparison: “I miss fucking you. Properly. Not just handjobs.”

“I thought you liked my handjobs, babe.” You pout, pretending to seem upset. “And my mouth.”

“I do!” Spencer is quick to correct you, insisting, “I like all of that, but it just doesn’t feel the same.”

“As to when you’re buried inside of me?” You whisper, resting your hand on his chest, giggling when Spencer turns red. While he was no longer the innocent, virginal nerd you’d met him as, sex talk still flusters him from time to time, and you love to fluster him.

“Baby,” Spencer whines at your teasing. “I’m serious. I miss making you feel good too.”

“You’re good with your hands, though,” you swoon, mind drifting. “And your mouth. Really good with your mouth.”

You think about Spencer asking you to sit on his face for the first time. Neither of you were exactly used to the position, Spencer typically preferring to be between your legs when he went down on you. But the way his tongue was expertly flicking at your clit, slipping into your hole, making you feel so good until you were making a mess of his face, your slick everywhere–

“Hey, focus.” Spencer taps your cheek, and you puff your cheeks. “I want you to feel good too.”

“I know, pretty,” you hum, letting your thumb trace his jaw. “I think I have an idea.”

Spencer quirks a brow in attentive curiosity. You, getting up from laying next to him, swing your leg across his hips. You sit down squarely on his crotch. 

Spencer’s eyes widen. “O-Oh.”

“Let me make you feel good, baby,” you coo. Spencer nods hurriedly. 

Spencer looks up at you with wide eyes, roaming all over your body but unable to leave it. He watches you roll your hips into his crotch. He lets out a pitiful whine. You feel him hardening between your legs already. You grind against him like this, solely intent on working him up. You know this kind of pressure isn’t enough for Spencer, pleasure dulled between layers of fabric, so you aren’t surprised when Spencer asks, “More, please?”

You smile. “Poor thing.”

“Please, darling,” he exhales. 

“Okay,” you hum, climbing off of him so you can get your shorts and underwear off. His eyes are so big as he stares at you, all of you, like he’s still surprised that he gets to see you undress. You laugh, and snake your hands into the waistband of his pyjama pants. You push them down, until his hard cock springs up, bobbing against his stomach. You meet Spencer’s gaze, before pressing your cunt to his cock.

You both gasp, feeling each other’s warmth. You’re so wet you know you must be making a mess of Spencer right about now. You don’t slip him inside of you just yet, instead grinding your bare pussy against Spencer’s length. You can’t imagine how it feels for him, but you see the way his face is scrunched up in pleasure – what you’re giving him is not entirely enough. You know he misses sinking into your wet heat, and you’re just giving him a taster, sliding his cock along your slick folds, pressed against your leaking hole.

“Spencer,” you moan, rocking your hips harder. It feels so good, Spencer’s hardness against your cunt, the tip of his cock nudging at your clit every time you press your hips down. It’s too much yet not enough, both you and Spencer needing that sweet relief, the feeling of his cock pressing into you. Still, you want to drag it out for him, and you grind your pussy against him some more. “You feel so good, baby.”

“It would feel better if you let me fuck you, darling,” Spencer grunts with gritted teeth. You can tell he’s desperate, his hands antsy by his sides, nails digging into his palms. 

“Mm, not yet,” you hum, feeling a little bratty, enjoying the feeling of building tension, growing arousal between the two of you, between your legs. It’s heaven grinding against Spencer like this.

And maybe you’re too wet, or Spencer is too convincing, because by some act of God, when you roll your hips down against him again, the head of his cock is breaching your entrance, and you moan when you feel his tip pressed inside of you. “Oh–!”

“Fuck,” Spencer moans, long and drawn-out. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

You can’t blame him, since you’d put a stop to sex with Spencer as he recovered. You’d only started giving him handjobs and blowjobs once you were sure an orgasm wouldn’t break him – “I promise an orgasm won’t hurt. It’ll be fine. I’m a doctor.” “You’re not a medical doctor, idiot.” – even then, penetrative sex was off the table.

Until now, as Spencer’s cock pushes deeper inside of you, and the rolling of your hips only serves to remind you just how good Spencer feels. You’ve missed this, his thick cock pressed inside of you, splitting you in half, filling you up until you don’t know anything other than his name. 

“Spence,” you whine. “Feels good.”

“I know, darling,” Spencer groans. “You feel tighter than I remember. Wetter too.” 

He sounds so nonchalant saying these things, and that only serves to drive you more insane. When did he get so confident, so cocky? You want to say something witty but you can’t find the words. Spencer just continues, almost bored to the untrained ear, but you know Spencer’s barely keeping himself together, “So, are you going to ride me or not?”

You grumble, your thighs flexing as you push yourself up, shifting from a rolling, grinding motion to bounce on Spencer’s cock instead. You don’t think you’ve done this before with Spencer, always content letting him get on top, so the new angle makes the both of you a little crazy. He moans, and so do you.

Like this, Spencer’s cock fucks you deeper, harder, the weight of your bouncing thrusts driving him into you until you feel positively ruined. You cry out, desperate, “Spence– Oh, Spencer, oh my God–”

“You’re riding me so well, darling,” Spencer says in awe, slack-jawed. His large hands come to hold your waist, feeling you bounce on his cock, helping you with the laborious movements. “You look so fucking hot right now.”

You whine, thighs already feeling the burn, but the way Spencer’s using your weight to fuck you down onto his cock has you feeling lightheaded. You think you like the feeling, being pushed around like a warm, wet fleshlight for Spencer to fuck into. “Spence, so deep–”

“I want to fuck you so badly right now, my love,” Spencer groans. You feel his hips bucking up into you slightly, right when he pulls your ass down against him, but you know his movements are restricted because of his leg. Still, his desperation to bury himself into you is wild, and your head spins. “But I can’t, and you’re doing so good fucking yourself on my cock.”

You tremble, using all your strength to fuck yourself on his cock, sobbing because you just feel that good. Spencer’s filthy words and the intensity of it all has you weak, and you wish Spencer could just flip you over and finish the job.

“Come on, darling,” Spencer encourages, his hands squeezing your ass and your thighs. It makes you feel wanted, a desperate Spencer’s way of feeling you. “I’m so close too. You’re doing so good.”

“Spencer-!” You sob, clenching around him as you come, your orgasm wracking through your body like electricity in your veins. It’s so good, too good like this, Spencer pressed up inside you like he could split you in half. 

You’re frozen as you feel him inside, his cock twitching as he blows his load. It’s warm and wet and sticky, as you feel it drip out of you. You almost can’t believe it, feeling Spencer buried to the hilt of you after months, and you wonder why it hadn’t occurred to either of you to do this sooner. 

You whimper as your emotions rush over you, and Spencer is quick to pull you close, his lips pressed to the top of your head. “That was crazy. You’re amazing. And perfect. I love you.”

“I love you too,” you say, still a little breathless. “We should do that more.”

“Until my leg is better? Then I can fuck you the way you want,” Spencer soothes, his hand petting your hair, and that certainly sounds like a good idea.

“Yeah. But we should also just do that again some time,” you giggle, resting your head on his chest. You feel his heart pounding under your ear. “I like riding you.”

Spencer laughs heartily, a warm sound that is like music to your ears. “Giddy up, cowgirl.”

[fuxuannie]

Hey girl, I LOVED YOUR HEADCANONS. Specifically abt Ken x Reader. If you can write about headcanons abt maybe when he's jealous? You covered literally almost everything in your headcanons, so I have nothing to request except this 😭

❥﹒kenji sato x gender neutral reader

✦. synopsis — part 2 of the kenji sato headcanons because i am totally normal <3

✦. love mail — i swear i promise ill post hsr guys 😞 just let me have my moment w sato i beg. i’ve decided to just do this req + add some more hehe. thank you sm requester for enabling my brain rot! (pls more ppl do so)

✦. tags — NO SPOILERS, fluff, dadgirl kenji, non-intimate/sexual kissing, kenji sato x reader, i wrote this w my brain off again ( ´͈ ᗨ `͈ ;; pls

Jealousy was not fun for the Kenji Sato. Before Emi came along and changed him, I can see him being the type to get jealous easily. Why would you need to talk to other people anyway? You had him, he was the best. He’d make it real obvious too, suddenly wrapping his arm around your waist and pulling you close, or the following days he has you wear his iconic jacket while you’re out with him so everyone knows exactly who and what you two are. If it gets to the better of him, he’ll get all pouty about it. He wants all your attention, your eyes all over him and him only. Maybe even hands but that’s a different thing. But I think after Emi’s influence, it’s less possessive and he’s grown to trust you with others instead of letting his feelings get in the way. Of course he’s not immune to jealousy, but you notice it a lot less. It’s less suffocating for you and you’re grateful he’s grown. You did love the pouty face he’d make though, it was cute.

Now if you were jealous, which is really no surprise.. Kenji had thousands of admirers, he had gifts on his doorstep like every other day. He’ll do everything to prove and reassure you that you’re the only one who has his heart. He’ll post you on his social media, take you out on dates, all those things to wash your worries away. Lastly, he’ll hold you in his arms at night and whisper everything he loves about you. Everything you were silently insecure about, he loved. Every date you thought he forgot, he remembered. And to meet a guy like that? How lucky can you be? (He tells you he’s luckier of course. <3)

I think he’s a messy kisser for the most part 🧐. (Forgive me in advance for this part. I am not very good at these things.) When he can take his time, he’s slow and gentle. Genuinely just trying to show you that yeah, he loves you, so damn much. And he’s going to show that through his passion by taking things slow so you can really feel his devotion. Other times, because he’s always in a rush, he’ll do a messy but clearly desperate kiss. He doesn’t like leaving without one, and you can describe him kissing you like it’s his last, (because it’s really not a far-fetched guess considering his line of work) his hand behind your head and pressing your lips against his in an almost ravenous manner. He does give you a very quick kiss on the forehead and runs off after finishing, leaving you a little dazed.

He LOVES to take you out on night rides. If ever you get a little nervous/have a fear of motorcycles, he’ll talk you all the way through via the cardo he put into your helmet. He’ll take you to some nice cafes or restaurants around Tokyo, other time’s he’ll bring you to some favourite childhood spot of his. When you arrive, he’ll tell you about his mother and the memories he’s made in this very special spot. It warms your heart to see his expression be so fond when he talks about his childhood – he truly misses it.

Before you knew of Kenji’s identity, I think it would be funny if you hated Ultraman. You just LOATHED the guy, Kenji asked your thoughts on Ultraman on the first date and you went on a rant about how he threw your car at a Kaiju only to miss. (He felt so embarrassed). It would be funnier if afterwards, he began to actually do his job as Ultraman properly.. and avoided cars on your street and avenue. He wanted to make sure you didn’t utterly hate Ultraman before revealing that he was him.

It would be cute if you and him knew each other like, much earlier. And you called him Ken. And then he made that his alias while he was becoming an All-Star baseball player. :) He’ll brag about it all the time in interviews too, that you’re the reason he uses it. <3

He’s the typa guy to have a picture of you in his room, behind his phone case, in his wallet, in his car and literally anywhere he can get his hands on. He bought a polaroid camera just to take pictures of you, he could care less about the price of film or the camera itself.. he just wanted to have as many pictures of you as possible. He’ll brag about it to his baseball teammates too, considering he also keeps one in his pockets for good luck. :)

You're his goodluck charm. <3

[cutielando]

thinking about lando’s streams where he played fornite with angryginge and imagine the reading joining in and being better than everyone, and lando being proud n shit. can just imagine angryginge’s comments about it

fortnite | l.n.

a/n: i've never played Fortnite, so I don't really know how it works and i'm using the right terminology, but just bear with me

my masterlist

You had heard his booming laugh from the moment you entered your shared apartment. Lando was talking to someone and laughing his heart out in his gaming room, which led you to believe he was most probably streaming.

You had been out and about doing some grocery shopping, leaving Lando at home to work on some simulator runs.

That, apparently, had transformed into streaming with his friends.

You smiled and shook your head, starting to organize your groceries before changing into something more comfortable.

Settling down on the couch after you were finished with everything, you had just put your hand on the remote to put on a show when the door to Lando's gaming room suddenly opened, his eyes immediately landing on you.

"Hey baby" you greeted him, giving him a smile.

He grinned and hurried over to you, taking your face in his hands and kissing you.

"I thought I heard you come in" he mumbled against your lips, making you nod.

"I could hear your laughter before I even opened the door. You streaming?" you asked as you pulled away, fixing the curls that had fallen into his eyes.

He nodded, taking your hand and leading you back to his room with him.

You weren't a stranger to being in his streams. The fans often requested to have you on there with him because you were a much better games than he was and they enjoyed seeing you destroy him and his friends.

The moment you were in the frame, you saw AngryGinge on his screen, laughing and groaning once he saw you.

"Lando, you dirty bastard. Can't compete with me on your own so you have to bring your girlfriend to help ya" he joked, making you laugh at the unamused expression on Lando's face.

He settled in his chair and pulled you down to sit on his lap, letting you get in a comfortable position.

"I don't need Y/N to beat you at Fortnite" Lando argued, making you arch an eyebrow at that.

You and Ginge exchanged a look before you burst into a fit of giggles, something that did not impress your boyfriend.

"I can go if you want, let you prove to Ginge just how good you are without me here" you argued, making a move to get up, but Lando wasn't having it.

He quickly wrapped his arms around your waist to keep you in place, which made Ginge huff and you laugh.

The chat was flooding with comments about you two, warming your heart at how much his fans loved and accepted you being with him.

You had been very worried at the beginning about how his fans would take the news that Lando was in a relationship and actually kept it a secret for the first few months. But thankfully, they have been nothing short of supportive ever since you announced it on the internet and after you first interacted with them at the Silverstone Grand Prix.

You felt very thankful for their acceptance, knowing how important Lando’s fans were to him.

Coming back to reality, you watched as your boyfriend and Ginge played a round of Fortnite, cringing every time Lando would mess something up which would always make Ginge laugh.

At one particular point, Lando had got Ginge killed, prompting a rant which sent your boyfriend into a laughing fit, clutching his bell with one hand and your waist with the other.

"Lando, I swear to focking God, you're the worst player I've ever seen" Ginge groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.

You laughed, which made Lando pinch your side.

"I'm not that bad, am I?" your boyfriend asked, looking at you expectantly.

You turned to face him and cringed, giving him a sheepish smile. Lando scoffed while Ginge's laughter got even louder. "Can't believe my own girlfriend doesn't believe in me" Lando grumbled under his breath.

Giggling, you wrapped your arms around his neck and gave him a loud kiss on the cheek, feeling the blush coming on under your lips.

"You're not bad, baby. You just sometimes lose sight of the big picture and lose focus" you explained, trying to make it sound like you didn't honestly think he sucked at Fortnite.

"Y/N, you play with me. Let's show Lando how it's really done" Ginge suggested, and you turned to look at Lando to see his reaction.

Even though he was partially mad because you and his friend insulted his gaming skills, he wanted to see you kicking Ginge's ass and show the ginger head how it's really done.

"Only if Lando wants me to play" you reasoned, smiling at your boyfriend.

"Oi, Y/N, leave the lad. His ego can take a little beating, that bastard" Ginge commented, making the fans in the chat comment on how funny the whole dynamic between the 3 of you was.

Lando huffed, straightening his back more determined than ever.

"Babe, show him how it's done" he solemnly said, making you nod.

You got more comfortable on your boyfriend's lap, cracking your knuckles as you prepared for the match to start.

Lando couldn't help but admire you as you skillfully dominated the game, looking so effortlessly hot that he felt pride blossom in his chest.

While watching you play with Ginge, his eyes kept shifting towards the chat where fans were literally screaming at how cute you guys were and how good Y/N actually was at the game.

"Y/N! That's not fair, you're cheating mate" Ginge shouted in frustration as he was, once again, beaten by you at his best game.

You giggled, clapping a little as you leaned back against Lando. "You're such a sore loser, Ginge. Just admit it that I'm better than you" you teased, eliciting a laugh from Lando.

Ginge was fuming while the two of you were laughing at his antics, the fans having an absolute field day with the three of you.

"What were you saying about my ego, mate? Seems like you're the one whose ego can't take a proper beating" Lando said, laughing once he saw Ginge flipping him off.

"I hate you guys" he mumbled, while you and Lando were in your own little bubble.

Oh, the sweet taste of victory.

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[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Yandere Creepy Bunny Hybrid

After a criminal conviction, the claimed hybrid shelter responsible for sourcing most of the beloved species of hybrid is set to shut down

It’s employees pleading with the public to take in their hybrids who’d be otherwise left on the street

Enough for your parents, who you’ve come to live with, to worry

While they were undecided about the morality of owning hybrids

Humanoids with some animal features

They were determined to be helpful 

whether they truly felt such justice or enjoyed the good samaritan role they’d take in a low-maintenance hybrid

A White rabbit with crimson eyes 

In your opinion one of the more beloved species that would’ve found a home somehow but you couldn’t complain

“Welcome Hori! We hope you can find a home with us!”

“Yeah make yourself at home. Don’t mind our kids they’ll be happy to explain anything you need.”

“I appreciate it.”

“Come come I have to show you all the cool things I have!”

Your family takes to him like metals to magnets 

Hovering near him and waiting on him like he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread

But he’s just so incredibly…quiet

Not just because he doesn’t speak unless spoken to 

But because he just doesn’t move

You’ve peaked at him sitting in the living room on a chair with no book, no TV on, windows closed, no music playing

What kind of bunny sits in the dark and does nothing

His large red eyes are huge, his ears incredibly long and upright

Skin  so pale, he could pass as the undead

Hori won’t even eat like other bunny hybrids

When your parents first gushed over his photo too many evenings were spent looking up what a bunny hybrid would need

Vegetables, fruits, bunny-hybrid pellets were what they filled the cabinets and fridge with

But he ate none of that 

Barely nibbling when your brother excitedly presented the spread

“This looks…good.”

Barely a quarter of the plate was gone

Before he claimed he was stuffed

The second your family slipped up though and handed him a plate full of steak 

he left nothing on the plate

“I thought bunnies weren’t omnivores?”

“...Maybe the original animal doesn’t but I am a hybrid. Things are…different.”

“Yeah (Y/n), things are different! Stop bullying Hori!”

It oddly feels like Hori is not all he seems 

Constantly seeking out hotdogs over the fruit you offer

Or spending unusual amounts of time staring at the passing neighbors

Or coming home at unspeakably late hours

But every time you tried to bring this up your family would scorn you

Writing off your observations as you being nitpicky

Or even jealous of the newest member of the family

“Just know (Y/n) you still hold a special place in our hearts.”

“Yeah no need to whine, we won’t forget you.”

“Just don’t take it out on Hori he’s been through so much.”

So you settle to avoid him

Just let him be in his parts of the house and you in yours 

But that doesn’t seem to work with his edition

“(Y/n)...will you accompany me on the grocery run?”

“I thought my older sib was taking you?”

“Originally…but I’d like for you to take me!”

“Uh…”

“Come on (Y/n)! Take this time to bond with Hori! Maybe you’ll find something’s in common between you two.”

It’s annoying that he insists on doing things with you

But it’s just some things

And of course, because he’s so creepily quiet it almost feels like you’re by yourself

It just gets worse

“I want to sleep with you, (Y/n).”

It was way past midnight and Hori was above you 

Caging you between his arms as he practically laid above you 

There was blood around his mouth and if you had the space you’d check over you body for a wound

“W-wh-what?!”

“Hori? (Y/n)? Please?!”

“T-t-that’s not even a real sentence! Please get off me!”

Once he does reluctantly give you space

You flick on a lamp or use your phone’s light to light the room

Hori’s hair is much longer, flowing past his tail 

Which was no longer a small puff ball now bloomed into something larger

His ears were incredibly long and twitching as though it was filled with joints of its own

His teeth seemed like they had no end, just rows and rows of spiny teeth all coated with the gunk and gooey mess of a carnivore’s meal

“All that blood?!”

He licks an abnormally long tongue around his mouth

“The left-of-overs from dinner.”

“Dinner was hours ago!”

“Not your dinner my dinner.”

The implication made your stomach twist

“Uh was it good?”

“Very. Now, sleep with you?”

You hoped he’d forget but if only to get some semblance of control and maybe be able to fall back asleep 

You relent

“Fine, but I’m not going to share my blanket…you’re a lot bigger than before.”

“It's okay those covers are not the heat I am after.”

You decided not to comment on it, wrapping yourself in your comforter

Letting Hori’s much larger limbs wrap around you tightly

This creepy bunny continued to surprise you

You could only hope that you’d figure him out soon 

Or your family might be the one to pay the price

[lavenderchqn]

"TO PRACTICE FREEDOM"

synopsis — You're the biggest scaredy cat living amongst the people of Scions of Canopy. You try to get over your fear of heights... by trying out bungee jumping under the watchful eye of your partner. Let's just say... it doesn't go according to plan. pairing — kinich x gn!reader warnings — near death experience (falling from heights), minor character death, spoiler warnings for kinich's story and voicelines, ajaw is a lore accurate menace notes — I've had an idea for this as soon as we learned that Kinich has interest in extreme sports... reading his story felt weird (the longer I am in genshin fandom, the more stuff I predict right...)

The People of Huitztlan believe in the concept of absolute freedom. That’s why so many youngsters throw themselves into dangerous sports with a lack of safeguard measures. Perhaps having nothing securing a person allows them to experience said freedom. 

To practice death is to practice freedom, after all. 

“We’re here,” Kinich says, looking in your direction. He has held your hand ever since you started your trek up the higher regions of the Coatepec Mountain. “Do you want to take a break?” 

“Y-Yeah… I need to… sit.” You slowly get down with the help of Kinich. Only after he signalises being opposite of you, do your eyes open.

Kinich has taken a sit too, still holding onto your hand. He’s slowly rubbing circles trying to ground you as best as possible. 

Well… here you are — the biggest scaredy cat, who decided to try and work on your fear of heights by trying out bungee jumping. It’s quite ironic really. Not only are you a resident of Scions of the Canopy, which literally is suspended off the cliffs, but also in a relationship with a guy, whose second name could be ‘extreme sports’. 

To say your mind felt pressure to get over it would be quite an understatement. 

“We can still get down. Just say the word.” Kinich says, keeping his eyesight directly on you. Even if you had asked him to help you with your fears, he’d never force you to do so. Sure, it’d be pretty cool to share interests with a partner, but it should never come at the cost of their mental health. 

You shake your head. You have to try. Maybe it won’t be as bad as you think? Kinich will do everything in his power to keep you safe. 

“I can do this.” You answer, taking a deep breath. 

“Well then, chop chop SLOWPOKE!” Ajaw zooms right near your face, spooking you to bits. “Stop wasting MY precious time!” 

“Just how loud can you be…” Kinich sighs, getting up to shoo Ajaw away. “Tone it down a notch, will you?” 

The tiny saurian starts arguing with your partner, although you can easily tell it’s one-sided. No matter how much he would try, the most he could bring out of Kinich were insulting comebacks. Ajaw could try and rage the male in multiple ways… and yet, unfortunately for the dragon, your partner was too resilient to die from anger. 

In the meantime of their dissing match, you slowly get up on your legs. Ajaw is right… You don’t want to waste Kinich’s time because you’re scared and worried. He takes notice of your sudden movement, once again getting close to you. 

“Do you want to try now?” He asks, holding his hand out. These are obvious signs, that he will lead you step by step. 

“Yeah… I think I’m ready.” 

“Alright. Hold still. I’m going to put the climbing belt on you now.” 

As he says, he does. Kinich does it slowly, explaining his movement every step of the way. You’re aware, he’s doing it to ease your mind… and it’s working well. In the blink of an eye, the sound of a snap-hook getting attached brings you back from a short daydreaming session.

“All done.” He takes another look at you, checking if the equipment is snug against your body while making sure it isn’t digging into your skin. “Can you move for me?” 

“Yeah, sure!” You do a slow spin, followed by kneeling on one foot. “Although I can feel the harness… it’s not uncomfortable.” 

“That's good.”

Once again, it’s another series of your partner explaining the next steps. All you need to do is find a point to connect your line to. He already connected the rope to your belt. The other end is currently sitting tightly in his hand. 

“You’re not going to hold me when I jump?” You ask, growing worried. 

“I know you’d feel more comfortable with me doing that,” Kinich starts answering, his eyes wandering for an anchor. “I don’t want to also fall down the second you jump.” 

He even explains the physics behind it, ending his speech by saying it’s best you move further to look for a good place to jump from. 

You’re walking next to Kinich, admiring the scenery. With the rope in his hands, you’re feeling much more comfortable. Although he’s trying to talk here and there… his eyes are still locked on finding a stable anchor. 

Unfortunately for the both of you, an anchor is nowhere near. Curse you lunatics with no regard for their safety. 

“So many jumping platforms, and yet not a singular anchor?” He questions, closing his eyes. 

All of a sudden your eyes land on a ruffed pheasant that just landed on one of the platforms. You’ve never seen one so close! Without thinking about your safety, you start inching closer towards the bird.

Your steps are slow and cautious. The bird, a magnificent creature with iridescent plumage, seems utterly unaware of your presence. Its feathers shimmer in the sunlight, creating a mesmerising display of greens and oranges. An odd sense of calm wash over you, momentarily forgetting the anxiety that’s been gnawing at your insides.

"Careful," Kinich warns, his voice seeming distant as if muffled by the pounding of your heart.

The platform beneath your feet is uneven, its surface worn smooth by the countless jumps of those, who came before you. With no warning, Ajaw jumps from behind your shoulder, screaming right next to your ear. The bird, startled, flies away. You try to also get away when your foot catches on one of the loose boards. The world tilts violently, and suddenly, you're weightless.

A scream tears from your throat as you plummet downwards, the wind rushing past your ears, drowning out all other sounds. The landscape blurs into a mix of greens and browns, the ground below rushing up to meet you at an alarming speed. For a split second, your mind goes blank — pure terror seizing every thought, every instinct. You’re going to fall to your death. 

Back on the hill, Kinich’s body goes numb for a second. He’s seen this happen once before. He cannot allow it to happen again. You’re not his drunkard gambling mess of a father, and he’s not his seven-year-old self. Kinich will save you, even if it’s the last thing he ever does. 

The blood is pounding in his ears when he shifts all his weight to his legs. Only when he cannot feel any force trying to get him off the cliff, does he start pulling up. With a sharp tug, he jerks you backwards, the rope connected to the harness snapping taut. The force of the pull knocks the air out of your lungs, but it stops your descent abruptly. You swing wildly in the air, the ground still far below, the rope swaying and creaking with the strain of holding your weight.

Above, you can hear Kinich shouting your name, his voice frantic, barely audible over the sound of your racing heartbeat. You cling to the rope, your hands shaking uncontrollably as the realisation of what just happened crashes over you. You almost fell to your death.

"Hold on!" Kinich yells, his voice breaking through the fog of panic in your mind. "I’ve got you, just hold on for me!"

Tears sting your eyes as you try to steady your breathing, every muscle in your body tensed and trembling. The rope holds firm, and slowly, agonisingly slowly, Kinich begins to pull you back up. Each inch feels like an eternity, but his strength and determination never waver.

As soon as your body reaches the ledge, Kinich grabs onto you, pulling you up with a force that nearly knocks you both off balance. He wraps his arms around you, holding you close as you collapse against him, shaking uncontrollably.

"I'm so sorry," he whispers, his voice unusually tight with emotion. "I should have been more careful. I should have—"

You shake your head, unable to speak, still trying to process the fact that you're alive, that you're safe. Kinich's arms tighten around you, his hand cradling the back of your head as if to shield you from any further harm.

"You're okay," he murmurs, repeating it like a mantra. "You're okay, and I'm here. I'm right here."

For a long moment, you stay there, clinging to him as the fear slowly ebbs away, replaced by a deep, overwhelming sense of relief. The world around you, once a blur of panic and chaos, begins to settle back into focus. The mountains, the sky, the distant sound of birds—all of it feels surreal as if you’ve been given a second chance to experience it. In your state, you don’t notice the glare Kinich is giving to his companion. 

If looks could kill, Ajaw would be dead. 

After a while of sitting idly, Kinich pulls back slightly, enough to look into your eyes. His face is pale, his expression filled with concern, but there's also a deep, unspoken resolve in his gaze. It’s quite different considering the death stare he was giving the saurian just a second ago. 

"We’re done here," he says gently but firmly. "No more extreme sports for today. We are getting you home.”

You nod, still too shaken to argue. As he helps you back onto solid ground, you realise how much you’ve relied on him, not just for safety, but for the courage to face your fears. And even though the experience was terrifying, there’s a small part of you that’s glad you tried, that you didn’t let fear win entirely. You can clearly say, you did indeed practice freedom today. 

In a moment you’re seated on his back, Kinich deciding you’ve had enough walking for today. He’s in absolute control now — and he’s picking the safest route possible. 

“Oh and Ajaw,” Kinich’s voice is laced with coldness. “Don’t think you’re getting away with the stunt you pulled today.” 

"WHAT?!"

date of posting — september 5th 2024