#also i thought i had cc to make his skin look a little dry like the bits under his eyes but i just had the lip and eye scars

[shigussy]

yall i got my sims to work again and i had to remake/update my simself and a few others and my tomura sim is literally so fucking hot it's actually concerning but i ABSOLUTELY WILL be getting him pregnant asap

[trixree]

“Listen to me, Kote. Are you listening? Because it is very fucking important that you listen to me right now,” 17 says. He would seize Kote by the chin and make him pay attention, if 17 was looking to get bit on top of all the other pain his body is gifting him with.

“Yes, sir,” Kote says with dry military precision.

Only the pleasure of having known the little shit at all stages of his growth allows 17 to see the bitchy insubordination just lurking behind that tone. Waiting.

Unfortunately, it does nothing to dissuade him from his current course of possible terrible decision making. Duly unfortunate, it also only reinforces his present concern.

“Your Jedi,” 17 begins and immediately has to stop when the little sheb begins vibrating. “Stop that. Stop it. I’m not giving you his name until the end of this discussion, so listen.” The vibrating continues.

There are not enough pain medications in the world for this conversation.

17 sighs and soldiers on. “Your Jedi is a fucking idiot. A Sith-fucking torture-mask half-suffocating him and muscle-eating maggots in his body, and he flirted with our captor. He was being eaten alive from the inside out and he taunted her.”

Kote goes still like a predator scenting blood. At least the vibrating has stopped.

On second thought... 17 isn't certain that this is better.

“I am assigning you to be his second because I think you’re just the right kind of crazy to keep him alive.”

“Yes, sir,” Kote says.

“Vod’ika.” This is not a word 17 uses often. He is not the type for endearments. His vode are his men, his cadets. This has and will always come first, even before the bonds of brotherhood that each and every vod to the next. It must. This is how 17 loves them. This is how he keeps them safe.

Keeping Kote at arms length will not keep him safe from this danger.

“He is a Jedi. He is not yours. Do you understand me? He is not yours. He cannot be yours. Don’t forget that.”

“Understood, sir.”

Fucking little liar.

“Get out of here, Commander.”

“Yes, sir.”

______________________

After their first ever engagement, Cody returns to his Commander’s quarters with a can of orange armor paint—orange for shereshoy, their chosen unit colors—and paints a sunburst on his armor. A sunburst in shereshoy, the exact glowing orange of his General’s hair catching the firelight as he held back an explosion with nothing but the Force, just long enough for their troops to pull back, not a care for his own safety.

(This is fine. His safety is in Cody's hands now.)

Then, Cody sends a message to Fox.

CC-2224: Him.

He receives a ping back by the time he has emerged fresh and pink-skinned from the sonic. He receives several pings back in rapid succession.

CC-1010: no.

CC-1010: absolutely NOT

CC-1010: youre fucking joking you piece of shit

CC-1010: answer me

CC-1010: aNSWER ME

CC-1010: you had ONE

CC-1010: ONE (1) JOB

To which Cody replies, again:

CC-2224: Him.

______________________

On Steady’s first tour with the 212th, his Commander—the legendary, indomitable Commander Cody of the 212th Legion, second to the High General Obi-Wan Kenobi—drags said High General into the medbay by the scruff of his neck, bodily throws him down upon a vacant med-bed, and straddles his chest in full kit.

The General squawks.

“Medic,” Commander Cody greets him. He unearths a datapad from some location unknown and begins, immediately--still sat astride a Jedi General--to attend to various forms and spreadsheets that Steady does not even want to think about. “The General is in need of medical assistance.”

“S-sir,” Steady stutters, nearly fumbling his scanner onto the floor just as the General slaps at the Commander’s armored thigh and cries, “FIEND! BETRAYER!”

Commander Cody places a gloved hand over General Kenobi’s mouth.

General Kenobi bites Commander Cody.

Commander Cody glances up from his datapad long enough to comment, “Kinky.”

“What the fuck,” a junior medic, Pielke, whispers in fear or perhaps awe.

“I reiterate,” Commander Cody says, slow and unaffected, “The General is in need of medical assistance. See to your duty, or find me another medic who will.”

Steady takes a deep breath and asks, as calm as can be, “Are you going to continue sitting on our General, Sir?”

Commander Cody glances down at his captive. His captive bites him. Again.

“Hmm. Yes. Will this be a problem?” Unspoken stands: if so, make it not a problem.

Steady sighs and gets to work.

________________________

Rex would describe his relationship with his Jedi General as… informal. He would describe his relationship with his baby-Jedi Commander as unorthodox. He’s hardly alone in that—the entirety of the 501st has already adopted the little fiend, especially the ARCS; they are going to teach her terrible things. Despite these more-flexible-than-regs-allow relationships, Rex has absolutely fucking nothing on whatever Cody and Kenobi have going on.

“I would like to see my Grandpadawan. Where is she? Where is my precious child?” Kenobi announces upon striding into the hangar, immediately wrestling command of the whole room’s attention with barely an ounce of effort. Cody is, as always, not far behind.

“You’re never this excited to see me,” Anakin grumbles at the man, somewhere between genuinely irritated but also genuinely amused. Anakin is not-so-secretly pleased by Kenobi's open affection for his padawan.

Kenobi ignores him. This is, for some reason, Kenobi’s second favorite game to play with his former-padawan. First is a game called Torment, Terrify, Embarrass.

Ahsoka skips forward, practically preening under Kenobi’s attentive stare. She rocks on her heels, back and forth and back again, and chirps, “Hi Master Kenobi! I missed you.”

Anakin gasps in offense. “Missed him? You saw him last week!”

“Bah,” Kenobi dismisses this as unimportant. To Cody, he says, “Darling, isn’t she wonderful?”

“She’s wonderful, Sir.”

“Thank you, Uncle Cody!” Ahsoka beams.

Rex does not know why she started calling Cody by this title immediately upon meeting him. Neither does Anakin. (It infuriates Anakin, precisely because he doesn't understand it and Ahsoka won't tell him.) It is especially baffling, seeing as Cody took one look at her down his nose as if he was examining gum on his boots and asked her where her armor was and who let her out of the creche.

Kenobi whisks Ahsoka away for a spar or meditation or tea or some other Jedi nonsense, Anakin trailing and grumbling in their wake. As soon as they’re gone, Rex says to Cody, judgmentally, “‘Darling’?”

“Perish,” Cody replies, not without affection.

“No, seriously. What the kriff is going on, Cody? You two flirt like it’s going to win the war, he calls you natborn pet names, you’re his second.”

Rex is, in short, worried. He’s worried about his ori’vod, who has always been prone to follow his own rules in such a way that makes it seem as though he’s following everyone else’s when, in reality, he couldn’t give two shits. But sleeping with his direct superior? His General? And a Jedi?

That’s dangerous.

(Loving him? That's even more so.)

The smallest of smirks dances around Cody’s lips. “Don’t worry, Rex’ika.” A heavy hand clasps his shoulder and squeezes. It is a threat as much as it is a comfort. The two are indistinguishable when it comes to Rex’s favorite ori’vod. “He calls me ‘cya’re’, too.”

______________________

“May I take a holo?” Cody asks as they drift in post-coital bliss. His hand draws idle patterns across his lover’s back, connecting freckle to scar and occasionally spelling out promises he can’t—will not—dare make out-loud, for both their sakes. (He will keep them and this is what matters.)

Obi-Wan hums a vague affirmative and Cody’s mobile comm jumps into Obi-Wan’s hand from across the room. Cody trades him a kiss for the device.

He angles his camera such that the holo hints at Obi-Wan’s nudity but stops before showing anything illicit. His hair—a bit long, at the moment; Cody will trim it for him tomorrow—tickles Cody’s bare shoulder. Cody splays his hand flat across the expanse of his lover’s back. Possessive. Perfect.

“Can I send it to someone?”

A curious sound. Obi-Wan shuffles around and drapes himself across Cody’s chest. He peers at the holo and smiles—not his Negotiator smile, not his Dangerous smile, but his smile. His simple one. His honest one. It makes Cody’s heart do things. Terrible (wonderful) things.

“It’s lovely. Who would you send it to?”

“Seventeen,” Cody says after a beat of consideration.

Obi-Wan laughs and laughs.

Eventually, in between slow and claiming kisses, Obi-Wan says, “Of course, cya’re. Give him my love?”

Cody thinks about this. “No,” he decides.

This sends Obi-Wan into another fit of giggles. Cody kisses them from his mouth, swallows them whole.

(They are, the two of them, whole.)

[thespookyintrovert]

When beauty calls

1,294 words ● Canonical, post S11 ● Just a short little scene ● Notes at the end ● tagging @today-in-fic

I hope this makes you smile and sigh as you read, just as it made me smile and sigh as I was writing it. I don’t pronounce it to be good, but I’m happy I wrote it. 

____

There is an exalted kind of beauty. It’s the beauty of starry nights, whether painted by divine hands or composed of swirling strokes on canvas. It’s the beauty of woodnotes, a natural symphony which exists only for the attentive ear; and the beauty found in a concert hall, made up of haunting notes rolling into a crescendo.

Then there is understated Beauty. It seldom reveals itself, choosing instead to remain enshrouded in banality, brushing only against those who dare call it by name. That diaphanous Beauty belongs only to the commonplace, weaving itself with ease into the everyday movements that make up the course of a lifetime. It is there, if only one knows where to look.

“Mulder, this is ridiculous.”

Ah, if couches were ever rewarded for being the silent witnesses to so many of these domestic disputes. If only the reliability of worn leather was ever a consideration to couples such as this, mindlessly counting on its strength to hold up their bodies and their words. But alas, an ode to furniture was the farthest thing from Dana Scully’s mind this chilly night.

She was focused on one thing with steady intensity, and that was ending a stalemate that had been going on for months. Ever since they had discovered the tiny human currently dancing around her womb was a girl, she hadn’t known a moment’s peace. It should have been simple enough to choose a mutually satisfactory name, but it turned out to be a matter in which they both had strong opinions. Opposing ones. With a sigh, she contemplated how the world kept turning and turning and some things never changed.

“Nag on me all you want, Scully, I’m not backing down.” Mulder’s smile was impish, his tug on her toe fond. She remained, however, unmoved. The bulging stomach between them, currently obscuring her own feet from view, was but one reminder that they had four weeks left to come to an agreement. Aching back, swollen ankles and perpetual indigestion added to the effect of a generally less than sunny disposition. She was no longer in her thirties, and every year of her 54 was felt this pregnancy.

Still, her fingertips traced adoring circles around her belly button, every kick to the ribs met with a grunt and a smile. Yet she kept it to herself, leveling on Mulder the stern gaze he had claimed from her as his own over twenty years ago. She did not want to let him do away with the argument this time. 

“Do you know why it was so easy last time?” He gave her a mock skeptical glance before turning back to his Sasquatch documentary, but it didn’t deter her in the slightest. “Because I picked the name, and you couldn’t argue with me about it.”

He actually laughed a little. “Scully, I’ll go out on a limb here and say that given our family histories, the chances of William having a different name were slim to none.”

She held back a longing sigh and proceeded to ignore him. “My point stands.”

A quiet snort, followed by the gentle clasp of his fingers on her swollen foot. “No, it doesn’t.”

She felt less inclined to argue as she savored the feeling of his fingers massaging the aches away, but still refused to surrender the attempt. “Don’t think you’ll distract me from this. Mulder, I’ve already proposed a perfectly reasonable solution: I get the first name, you get the second name; everybody’s happy.”

His look was wry. “Or I get the first name and you get the second name. Admit it, Scully, the second name only exists on paper, no one will even know it’s there.”

Her head fell back against the couch, for a moment fancying herself a long-suffering saint singing her frustration to the heavens. If only age had softened Mulder’s stubborn edge as it had softened the angles on his face; it was unfair, wrestling with the spitting image of his thirty-year-old self when she wasn’t even sure she’d recognize herself from twenty years ago. “Sure. Fine,” she said, head still stretched back, “you can tell your daughter whose fault it is that she doesn’t get a name until her 18th birthday. Assuming we both live to see it.” The last part was a dry murmur, meant only for God.

“Mhmm.” She felt his lips on her stomach, then, curving around its roundness with the stretch of a smile. Her gaze didn’t acknowledge him, but one of her hands landed amidst the softness of his hair, sweeping off any residual harshness with gentle strokes. This was their rhythm — the never-ending cycle of verbal spars that was as comfortable as it was challenging. No matter which one came out on top, in the end they knew their places to be side by side; with every smile and every touch the slate was once again wiped clean, no scorecards kept. Beneath the frustration, her whole being still hummed to this tune that was all their own.

And thus came Beauty, summoned by the unwitting siren call of a heart that chose love.

Finally lowering her eyes, the scene before Scully seemed to stretch until it wrapped around her entire world. She saw Mulder, face on her belly, alternating between nuzzling with his nose and sending whispers to the baby in a hushed baritone; they were not meant for her, but she basked in the vibrations of his voice, watching every crinkle on that beloved face as it shifted and pressed words into her skin. She saw her hand in his hair, noticed how it felt the same between her fingers as it did twenty years before. She saw past and future entwined around her finger in gold, glittering as it ran between strands tinged with grey. 

She drank in every detail as if at any moment she might be called upon to paint it from memory. Never before had that corner of the world seen such loving gaze; never before had the night breeze found fingers gentler than its own, or the cackling fire eyes that could match it in warmth. They were all silent witnesses to the most mundane of miracles; they, who had beheld for roughly two thousand years these rippling echoes of another miracle, one even more singular in its lowliness.

She knew they’d be arguing about this again tomorrow. She also knew they’d be lying like this again tomorrow, after all had been said and done, chasing away small everyday annoyances on the leather couch. Mulder raised his head to look at her, hooded eyes smiling, and her own lips melted into a soft curve. At the end of the day, their life together was all the more dear for being made of all these little contradictions, the seams an ever-present reminder that they were two individuals bound together by choice as much as fate.  

Perhaps it had taken them over twenty years to find their place in the world, to craft a life dictated by will instead of circumstance. And perhaps many, upon looking in through any window of the little house, would have concluded that the life they chose didn’t amount to much. But as blue met grey over the belly that protected this second chance they never thought they’d get, they both knew it amounted to everything.

Beauty left a little piece of itself in that unremarkable little house, nestling inside two hearts determined to see it in the little things, to call it by name, to touch it with the hands of love. It swept into the creaky floors and through the drafty rooms, kissed each smiling face on the mantle — each of them precious, so many gone. It blessed the little white crib and the old rag doll lying expectantly upon it.

______

Notes: 

1. I chose not to address the whole William mess because a. CC doesn’t deserve my efforts and b. this was really not supposed to be complicated. 

2. Let me know if you caught the little easter eggs sprinkled in there!

[chelsfic]

The Hot List, in which the NYC Familiar Discord Ranks their Masters - Nandor x Guillermo Fanfic (one-shot, crack!)

Summary: The familiars of New York City use Discord to connect and blow off steam...and also to rank their masters’ hotness. Nandor discovers this impertinence and throws an internet fit.

Tags: Crack with a touch of angst

A/N: I don’t know. 

---

NYC Familiar Chat #thirsty

Celeste-is-Best: nngh, have you guys seen Mr. 50ss’s’s’ss instagram story????

Celeste-is-Best: He’s so pretty! it’s like turn me, already!

Imurdad | colby: I know, right? I can’t believe he’s only 7 on the hot list…

[Gigi the great and sam teh pretty like this]

Gigi the great: Don’t forget to vote on this month’s poll!!

Best Hair!

We’re the ones who make them look pretty--but who’s the prettiest one of all? This month we’re voting on the NYC vampire with the best hair. Cast your vote!

A. Simon the Devious

B. Nandor the Relentless

C. Tilda

D. Evan

E. Houston

F. Nancy the Relentless

---

Guillermo locked his phone with a little smile. If he could he’d vote a hundred times for Nandor’s hair. It was unlikely that his master would win against the likes of Evan, Tilda and Nancy. He’d thrown Simon on there as a joke and was kind of horrified by how many familiars seemed to be into the limp mullet look. To each their own, he guessed.

On that note, it was almost nightfall and Nandor’s hair wasn’t going to brush itself. Guillermo made his way into the crypt, lighting candles and gathering the soft brush, comb, detangler spray and hair oils. Nandor was what he lovingly referred to as “high maintenance.” He was also surprisingly pitiful for a 750-year old warlord. It took Guillermo ages every night to carefully tease out and brush the knots from his hair without hurting him. It should’ve been annoying after so many years, but the chore remained one of the highlights of Guillermo’s day. 

For one thing, he got to touch his master without being scolded or hissed at. So that was nice. For another thing, Nandor’s hair was as soft as his personality was prickly. Guillermo would often drag out the task, running his fingers through the silky strands and lightly touching Nandor’s jaw to get him to tilt his head this way or that. 

He was doing just that, as well as admiring the expanse of cream and bronze skin revealed by the open collar of Nandor’s loose shirt, when the vampire opened his mouth. 

“Guillermooo...Did you happen to get any virgins for tonight?”

Guillermo’s fingers momentarily tightened around a hank of his master’s hair. He imagined giving it a sharp tug. He forced himself to loosen his grip and replied, “No, master, I’m sorry. Virgins are getting pretty thin on the ground lately. I managed to pick up a couple people from a bible study class, though. They should taste pretty innocent, right?”

Nandor made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat before answering, “You’d be surprised.”

---

NYC Familiar Chat #the-struggle

Gigi the great: I know we all jealously guard our sources, but I’ve been in a dry spell for a few weeks and my master is going to lose it and drink me one of these nights. Anyone have any new leads on virgins in the area?

Gigi the great: I’ve tried the usual stuff...LARPers, church socials, chastity clubs (surprisingly unhelpful…). I’m kinda desperate!

Direct Messages

Celeste-is-Best: only because you had my back last month when I ran out of burial sites…

Gigi the great: OMG! Celeste, please!! 🙏 🥺

Celeste-is-Best: there’s a magic the gathering tournament in brighton heights this weekend...😈

Gigi the great: You are like the virgin whisperer, Celeste. Thank you!

Celeste-is-Best: np

Celeste-is-Best: hey! Are you posting the poll results soon? I voted for Tilda--don’t tell Houston!! LOL

#main

Gigi the great: The results are in! The vampire with the best hair in NYC is……..EVAN!

Check out the Google Form for the full results...

docs.google.com...best_hair

Evan (26%)

Tilda (22%)

Nancy the Relentless (17%)

Simon the Devious (16%)

Nandor the Relentless (13%)

Houston (6%)

---

“What are you typing over there on your intelligent phone?”

Guillermo hurriedly tucked his phone away and looked up to find his master mopping blood from his mouth with a lace-trimmed handkerchief. They were in an alleyway a few buildings down from the comic shop. The limp body of Nandor’s victim lay discarded on the dirty ground. Guillermo smiled affectionately at Nandor trying and failing to clean himself. He took the hanky from him and set about doing the job himself. The snow white fabric was quickly drenched in dark red arterial blood. 

“I was just, um...checking on another potential virgin source,” he lied. 

The familiar Discord was strictly secret. If any of their masters ever found it and saw their human servants’ uncensored discussions... The thought sent a panicked tremor down Guillermo’s spine and he thought--for the thousandth time--that he should delete the app and not look back. But the idea of continuing with this emotionally draining, thankless job without his little support system was just as disturbing. Besides, the server had really come through for him tonight.

“Well done, Guillermo!” Nandor praised him and Guillermo’s heart swelled pathetically. A small, shameful part of him imagined Nandor patting him on the head and he didn’t hate it. “That was the most delicious virgin I’ve had in months!”

“Thank you, master,” Guillermo smiled sweetly, his cheeks dimpling. Nandor watched him for a long moment and he could swear he saw his master’s eyes linger on his mouth. He shut that thought down before it could bloom into a hope that was only doomed for disappointment. 

“Well…I’ll see you back at the house.” Nandor vanished before his eyes, taking his bat form and darting out of the alley with a high-pitched squeak and a furious flap of his leathery wings.

Guillermo sighed, looked at the broken body and wondered if he’d be able to fit his car down the narrow alley or if he’d have to drag the corpse to the opening. He fished out his keys and started the short walk back to his parking spot. All the while thinking, with distracted horror, Simon the Devious beat out Nandor for best hair?!? Really?

---

Direct Messages

Gigi the great: Hey, thanks! The Magic tournament was a hit!

Celeste-is-Best: i do live to serve…

Gigi the great: Har har.

#bitch-session

mish-bish: Ugh!!! Pretty sure my asshole master is hypnotizing me again.

call-me-karen: That’s rough, Misha! You wanna talk about it? My master lets me take the car whenever I want. I can come pick you up…

mish-bish: Yeah, like...I definitely have a huge black hole in my memories from last night. Fuck.

mish-bish: Oh, that’s ok Karen. Thanks.

Gigi the great: Hey @mish-bish. Sorry you’re having a hard time. If you feel up to it, check out the #support channel. A lot of other familiars have gone through this and talked about it there. Sometimes it helps to hear how others cope!

---

“Guillermo! Guillermoooo!”

Nandor’s panicked bellow reached him all the way in the basement where he was checking his lye supply. Guillermo huffed it up the stairs and raced into the fancy room where he found his master staring aghast at his laptop.

“Wh-what is it, master?” he asked, bent over and catching his breath.

“Someone named...Rap4Unlyfe has sent me a fake news!” Nandor wailed, gesturing to the laptop as if the device was personally responsible. 

Guillermo suppressed an eyeroll and walked over to sit beside his master. He watched in dismay as Nandor scooched farther down the couch but he tried not to let it sting too much. 

The browser was open to Nandor’s Hotmail account. He leaned forward to read the open message, unsure what to expect. The blood drained from his face as he read.

from: rap4unlyfe@sassycat.com

cc:  devious@sassycat.com; nandortherelentless@hotmail.com; travelbug54@aol.com ...

subject: rofl bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahah

yooooooooooooooooOO!

Has ne1 else seen there familiars on this site??? I hypnotized mine last nite to give me his phone password and...👀 

Mierda. There were two screenshots attached. One was the survey results page from the “best hair” poll. The other was an excerpt from the chat, specifically Guillermo posting the winner of the poll and the link to the results. 

Guillermo’s face fell into an adorably distressed frown. He darted a glance at Nandor but the vampire just looked confused. It wasn’t clear if he yet suspected that his own familiar might be “Gigi the great.”

“Huh…” Guillermo leaned back and smoothed his expression into one of untroubled amusement. “You’re right, looks like fake news. You should probably just ignore it.”

Nandor punched his fist into his thigh and snapped, “But Guillermo! I cannot let this go unanswered! This...this...ludicrous insult! Imagine...me losing a hair contest. Everyone knows I have the most beautiful hair!”

Guillermo blushed magnificently, “Of course, master! This is just...a prank. Someone playing a mean trick on you. You shouldn’t give them the satisfaction--”

The laptop chimed. Guillermo dove to prevent Nandor from reaching it but the vampire simply slapped him away with a petulant whine, “Give me that! Fucking guy…”

Nandor’s lips curled into a snarl as his eyes scanned over the screen. 

“Oh, no! Now they are making a mockery of me on the ether net!”

from: devious@sassycat.com 

cc: nandortherelentless@hotmail.com; travelbug54@aol.com; rap4unlyfe@sassycat.com… 

subject: RE: rofl bahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahah

Oh! That is too delicious! Suck it, Houston and Nandor! 

It gets even better. Have you seen this, yet?

vamp_hot_list.doc 

“Guillermo, what is a hot list?” Nandor asked with a worried frown, clicking on the attachment. 

“No, master! Don’t--”

It was too late. He watched as his master’s eyes lit with understanding and then intrigue and finally outrage.

“29?! I am number 29 on your dirty hot vampire list!? What is the meaning of this?” Nandor bristled like an angry porcupine, his eyes shooting metaphorical quills into Guillermo’s soft flesh.

“It’s not my list, master!” he insisted and then, guiltily, “Not only mine…”

“Guillermo!” Nandor gasped, his eyes returning to the screen for a moment before pinning him with outraged accusation. “So, it is you!? You are...Gigi the great? Well, I do not think you are so great, little guy! In fact I think you’re pretty un-great right now! And disrespectful!”

Guillermo sank into the couch cushions, melting under his master’s ire and replying miserably, “It’s not as bad as it looks!”

Nandor turned back to the screen and began reading off names from the top of the list, “Viago! Nancy the Relentless! Evan! I suppose these are all vampires you’ve been dreaming of doing the hanky panky with! Putting them on the top of your list above your own master! That’s two demerits, Guillermo!”

“What!? No! Master, I didn’t make the list! We vote on it! Everyone gets a say. If I made the list of course you’d be at the top--”

Guillermo snapped his mouth shut. His face was on fire and he felt like crying. Nandor must have some inkling of his crush, right? After ten years of service? This couldn’t really be the life-ending mortification that it felt like. He waited, wide-eyed, for his master’s reaction. Nandor stared at him, his huge, dark eyes filled with shock and anger. After a long minute he turned back to the laptop, waving a hand dismissively in Guillermo’s face.

“Go to your room now, Guillermo! I need to think of how to punish this impertinence!”

Guillermo stood, barely holding in humiliated tears. He gestured to the device in Nandor’s lap, “My laptop…”

Nandor held it out of Guillermo’s reach and hissed, “No! Vampire only computer time, Guillermo!”

Guillermo left, trudging out of the room with a sinking feeling in his stomach as the sound of Nandor’s flop-wristed typing followed him out the door.

---

#main

Gigi the great: Is everyone okay?

call-me-karen: not fukcing great!

Imurdad | colby: Seriously! WTF!!?

Gigi the great is typing…

Guillermo lay on his little cot with the crocheted blanket his amá made for him pulled up to his chin. Tears streaked down his cheeks and the phone’s glare reflected in his glasses. He thought back to every off handed complaint, every silly photo turned into a “master-shaming” meme, every confession, every joke. All of them laid bare to the world. The Discord server started out as goofy, harmless fun. The hot list was the perfect embodiment of that. But it became so much more. Being a familiar could be lonely. You were isolated from other humans and surrounded by cold, uncaring monsters all the time. Guillermo loved Nandor. Everyone knew this...there were even memes about it on the server! But sometimes his master’s aloofness got to be too much and he needed to reach out to other humans who understood him! 

He threw his phone down onto the mattress, angrily pawing at his teary eyes and wondering if this was it. Not just the end of NYC Familiar Chat, but the end of Guillermo the Great, his long-dreamed-of vampire alias. There was no way Nandor would keep him as a familiar after this…

---

Direct Messages

Celeste-is-Best: OMG! Guillermo, have you seen this?

Celeste-is-Best: http://familiar-hot-list.colinrobinson.net

Celeste-is-Best: hey, if this is Nandor’s big revenge scheme I think you’re going to be ok

Celeste-is-Best: we miss you! 

---

Guillermo heard his master calling him and cringed. It had been a week since the hot list incident and Nandor had spent every waking moment making little jabs at his familiar and grousing about how he’d been betrayed on the internet. But to Guillermo’s surprisingly intense relief, he hadn’t been fired. After ten years of disappointment and hopeless pining, Guillermo half-expected to welcome the prospect of finally being put out of his misery, so to speak. He was kind of shocked, therefore, to feel happiness and gratitude that his master had decided to keep him around, even if only as a verbal punching bag.

He found Nandor in the library, smugly brandishing the purloined laptop. 

“Come have a look at your punishment, Guillermo,” Nandor patted the couch beside him. “This is what happens when you disrespect vampires on the ether net.”

Guillermo swallowed the lump in his throat and collapsed beside Nandor feeling like a man condemned. Their thighs pressed together but for once Nandor didn’t move away. He shoved the laptop at Guillermo and handed him a yellow sticky note with Colin Robinson’s handwriting on it.

“Colin Robinson has assisted in creating a webpage for your disgrace. We have done our own hot list! A familiar hot list. All of the New York vampires voted. So, now you can see how not nice it feels to have your hotness besmirched for all the world to see.”

Guillermo typed in the URL and blinked as the neon green background scorched his retinas. The page was a hideous callback to the internet of the late 1990s right down to the hit counter at the bottom. There was a border of pixelated dancing Draculas surrounding bright orange text.

NYC Familiar Hotness Ranking

1. Guillermo (Nandor the Relentless) - 19%

Guillermo looked at the screen, then over at Nandor, then back to the screen again.

“Master? Have you looked at the results yet?”

Nandor’s brow knit with confusion, “No, why? What does it say?”

He grabbed the laptop and squinted against the garish colors. Guillermo watched Nandor’s face carefully as he read the results. He looked surprised and almost...pleased at first, before giving in to his patented aggravation.

“Fucking Colin Robinson!”

---

New NYC Familiars Group! #welcome

Imurdad | colby: Hey @everyone! Welcome to the new Discord server. Guillermo has stepped down as a mod but he’ll still be around. We don’t have a perfect solution for the security problems we had with the last server. We’re asking everyone to be vigilant about hypnosis and if you feel like you’re losing time, please be sure to secure your phones/computers away from your masters….

---

to: nandortherelentless@hotmail.com

from: travelbug54@aol.com

subject: Something you might want to see…

Hey Nandoorman! How’s it hangin’?  

Listen, I’m sorry that your revenge didn’t go as planned. I noticed you’ve been a little short with Gizmo ever since this whole thing started. As someone who cares about my roomie, I want to advise you to knock it the hell off. Also, I don’t relish the thought of returning to the days before Gizmo came along. Do you even remember what the house used to look like? Pools of blood everywhere. Dead bodies. Melted candles all over the place...

I digress… I managed to snag this screenshot from Count Rapula. I think you may find it interesting.

Your pal,

Colin Robinson 

discord_gizmo.jpg

#confessions

Gigithegreat: Hey guys. This isn’t easy for me to share but I know I’m not the only one who’s dealt with this and if I can help one of you feel less alone then I’ll be glad. As most of you know, I recently “celebrated” my 10th anniversary as Nandor’s familiar. I was convinced, absolutely convinced, that my master was going to make me into a vampire. Well, once again it didn’t happen. He made me this weird portrait out of glitter instead. And the thing is...like, I should leave, right? He’s never going to turn me and that’s the basis for our whole arrangement. I serve him faithfully, he turns me into a vampire. It’s simple, right? So why am I still here? Why am I still burying bodies for him and making human sacrifices? Dressing and feeding him? Treating him like he’s some kind of god and not an ancient cranky baby?  It’s because I’m in love with him. Hopelessly, stupidly, self-destructively in love with my vampire master who thinks of me as nothing more than a really well-trained poodle who can talk. Why? WHY? Because he makes me laugh. Because he’s fiercely protective of his vampire family and (sometimes) that includes me. Because when we’re alone he can be so adorably, painfully vulnerable and it feels like a privilege that I get to witness that side of him. Because he does ridiculously stupid but considerate things like spending hours making me a glitter portrait. When he’s happy with me I feel like I could float and when he’s disappointed I feel like being swallowed up by a sinkhole. And, yeah, he’s also man-of-my-dreams outrageously hot and I cannot believe you cretins have him ranked #29 on the hot list. It’s a crime. 

Gigithegreat: So, yeah. That’s why I stay. I’m no longer hoping for a bite that will never happen. Now it’s a kiss, a hug, a touch, a look. Anything he’s willing to give me I’ll gladly hoard in my little closet-room along with my glitter portrait. Because I’m pathetic. That’s it. That’s the confession.

Imurdad | colby: Brave words, Guillermo. Hang in there, friend.

blood_princess: this is a mood

sam teh pretty: Sending you healing head scritches ❤️

Celeste-is-Best: look, i think i speak for us all when i say we need to see this glitter portrait!!!

[You’re Viewing Older Messages … Jump To Present? ￬]

---

Nandor looked uncharacteristically thoughtful while Guillermo readied him for sleep. The familiar guessed he was still angry that his little revenge plot had backfired. He couldn’t help but feel a little smug about his position as the hottest NYC familiar. Even if he was pretty sure it was mostly due to the other vampires messing with Nandor. Guillermo couldn’t really enjoy his victory, though, not with Nandor’s feelings of betrayal still weighing on his heart.

Nandor’s face was a stoic mask as Guillermo helped him undress. He cooperated listlessly, picking up his feet for Guillermo to remove his heavy boots, lifting his arms up over his head as Guillermo took off his brocade tunic. Finally, he placed his giant hand in Guillermo’s soft, small one and stepped up into his coffin. Guillermo stood by the side of the coffin as he always did, watching over Nandor with affection choking his throat. Nandor smoothed his hair down and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Sweet dreams, master,” Guillermo whispered, leaning across him to catch the lid of the coffin.

“Wait, Guillermo,” Nandor spoke without looking at him, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I wish to say something to you.”

Guillermo’s heart sank in his chest. Oh no...his stupid middle schooler revenge didn’t work and now he’s going to send me away… Tears pricked his eyes and he choked, “C-can’t it wait until tomorrow, master?”

“No. I must say this now,” Nandor responded, oblivious to his familiar’s internal drama. “I want to say to you that--and I think I’m being extremely gracious and lenient here--it is fine for you to have your little, pathetic familiar group on the dark internet.”

“O-oh,” Guillermo quickly swiped the tears from his eyes, “thank you, master…”

“But no more mee-mees, Guillermo! Master-shaming...very disrespectful!”

“Of course!” Guillermo laughed, delirious with relief. 

Nandor looked up at him with a final warning glance before softening, “Alright, then. As long as we are clear on that…”

There was a long beat of silence during which Guillermo found himself locked inside his master’s gaze. Nandor’s eyes were like pools of rich, melted chocolate. Guillermo imagined himself as the German kid from Willy Wonka and for a second he was in danger of breaking down into giggles. But then his master spoke in that soft, uncertain tone he only used when they were alone and he was feeling fragile.

“Guillermo...did you really vote for me to be the number one hottest vampire?” Nandor toyed with the buttons on his shirt and looked up at his familiar with a shy, open expression.

Guillermo’s cheeks burned and he wanted to laugh and hide and kiss his master on the mouth all at once.

“Yes, master, I did. You’re…” he cleared his throat and tightened his grip on the lip of the coffin, “so handsome, master. So beautiful...”

He watched his master’s chest expand with pride and his lips twitch into a haughty smirk. 

“That’s true, Guillermo. Good job for noticing,” Nandor praised him in a voice that was a little too loud. It rang with a false sense of self-assurance. After a few seconds he went on in a quieter tone, “Do you know, I--this is very silly, Guillermo, you mustn't tell anyone this--I voted for you, too. As the hottest familiar…”

Guillermo’s stomach did a little swoop and his lips curved into a blinding smile. His dumb, beautiful master thought he was attractive? Guillermo tried to reel himself in; he tried to remind himself that Nandor probably only voted for him to boost his own reputation. But--wait?--hadn’t the list been meant as a revenge against Guillermo? God, what a handsome idiot.

“Thank you, master,” Guillermo gushed and now he was certain that Nandor’s eyes strayed too long on his smiling lips and red, dimpled cheeks. 

“Alright then!” Nandor pulled the emergency break on the moment. “Time for my evil slumber. Night night, Guillermo!”

And in a slow motion moment that would feature in Guillermo’s dreams that night, Nandor reached up and put his hand over his. Nandor’s cool, smooth palm rubbed over the back of Guillermo’s warm hand and his fingers squeezed slightly. The breath rushed from Guillermo’s lungs and he could only squeak in reply, shutting his master into his coffin and moving away with a dazed smile on his face.

A muffled sound came from the coffin just as Guillermo reached the door to the crypt.

“...And I don’t think of you as a poodle…”

“What was that, master?” Guillermo called.

“Nothing, Guillermo!”

Guillermo shuffled off to his little room feeling like he was carrying a happy little flame inside his chest. For once he gave himself permission to hope without fearing disappointment.

---

New NYC Familiars Group! #thirsty

Celest-is-Best: SORRY NOT SORRY!!!! Simon can get it…

blood_princess: ummmm thirst after your own master, Celeste. Oops sorry she’s 12.

mish-bish: Lmaooo. Gross Celeste!

Celeste-is-Best: listen.

Celeste-is-Best: ...i got nothin. I want his evil dick.

…

Gigi the great: Please look respectfully at this photo I snuck of my master the other night. Do I really need to explain myself further???

Celeste-is-Best: that’s it. guillermo, ask nandor if he needs another familiar. my body is ready!

Gigi the great: Back off, bitch!!!!

Gigi the great: jk love u

Gigi the great: but srsly back off

#master-shaming

mish-bish: submitted without comment

[Imurdad | colby, Gigi the great, Sam teh Cat, and 6 others like this]

...

Gigi the great: 🙄🙄🙄

Gigi the great: I hate him I love him

#main

black-peterrr: ohohoho, has anyone talked to Guillermo lately…..?

black-peterrr: a little raven told me he and Nandor were seen HOLDING HANDS in the park the other night…

call-me-karen: WHATTTTTTTT

Celeste-is-Best: @Gigi the great, CONFIRM OR DENY!! GIIIIIGIIII!

Gigi the great: ……...I don’t kiss and tell 😉

Imurdad | colby pinned a post

Imurdad | colby: This is momentous.

#memes

Gigi the great: hot take…

Imurdad | colby: bahahaha, okay…

Imurdad | colby: 

Gigi the great: But have you considered…

Imurdad | colby: lol compelling

Call-me-karen: I mean…..👀

Celeste-is-Best: Ha...ha...ha…*sob*

Direct Messages

Celeste-is-Best: Gigi! we miss you! ur never online lately... 

Celeste-is-Best: too busy getting that ottoman empire dick, huhhh??

Gigi the great: OMG Celeste! You’re out of control!

Celeste-is-Best: that wasn’t a denial…

#main

Gigi the great: Hey guys...sorry I haven’t been active lately

Gigi the great: Quick update though....

GIgi the great:

blood_princess: OSDFJweoiflkdfaf omgggggg gggggiiiiiiigiigigig!!!!!!

Jameson: Holy shit, man. Congrats.

Celeste-is-Best: GuillerrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmooooooOooooO!O my baby! you look amazing!

call-me-karen: DO YOU NEED A FAMILIAR!!?!?!?!?

Celeste-is-Best: jesus, karen lol

blood_princess: my master is having an orgy right now. I just locked myself in the bathroom--I’M FREAKING OUT!! What is it like? IS that blood on your collar??? OMG how was ur first feeding?

Imurdad | colby: FAMILIARS ONLY, GUILLERMO!!

Imurdad | colby: I’m kidding. OMG I’m so happy for you! (And burning with jealous rage)

Celeste-is-Best: look how fucking happy Nandor is

Celeste-is-Best: i’ve been shipping you two from the beginning, Gigi!

Celeste-is-Best: …..hope you’re not going to forget who helped you out with those virgins last month…

---

“Guillermo!” Nandor’s voice was half whine, half growl. “It’s very difficult to sleep with that light filling the coffin! What are you doing anyway?”

The screen illuminated Guillermo’s grin as he answered, “Just posted that selfie we took to the familiar chat. They’re freaking out.”

Nandor turned onto his side, nuzzling his face into Guillermo’s neck and tickling him with his beard, “That’s nice. Sleepy time now, Guillermo.” 

“Yes, master,” Guillermo breathed and Nandor purred low in his chest. Some things had changed since becoming a vampire and others had stayed the same. Calling Nandor “master” had taken on a new, thrilling subtext.

Nandor’s arms snaked around Guillermo, tugging the smaller vampire into his chest. He let out a contented sigh and his body went still as he began to fall asleep.

“I guess I should probably leave the group,” Guillermo yawned--force of habit. “Since I’m not a familiar anymore.”

Nandor wrenched himself from sleep with the power of his own petulance, “Hey! What do you mean ‘not a familiar anymore’? Just because a guy gives his boyfriend the gift of eternal life he thinks he can quit being his familiar!? Who’s going to brush my hair?! ‘Not a familiar anymore’...fucking guy…”

[jj-lynn21]

Roman & Princess: You and Me and...

Notes: Spreading a little positive about Dialysis in this one. I was on dialysis 10 years before my current kidney transplant that has been working fine 23 years. I am lucky.  But I also want to share that Dialysis is not a death sentence like Hollywood movies and tv shows make it out to be, That annoys me so bad. I was patient coordinating while I was on dialysis 3 day a week for four to six hours.  The biggest issue I had was my blood pressure would drop real low. I still went out dancing after sometimes. A strict one cup a day/ 1000 ccs fluid restriction had to be followed and low potassium and low protein diet. So basically I ate pasta( LOL) I didn’t diabetes so I think that made it easier for me. I went through high school and two semesters of college while still on dialysis. I don’t think I could have held a full time job since it did make me get tired easier than most but everyone is different. I also told people if you follow your kidney diet you shouldn’t have a problem.  And way there is a dash about dialysis in this one so I wanted readers to know I was coming from a place of knowledge. No real warnings. Just lots of blood but you just expect that from a Roman fanfic.

__ _____________________________________________________________

The door slams shut as Roman tosses his brief across the table. Skin is paler than ever. He feels nauseated at the smallest sips from the blood bag in the refrigerator. As his stomach turns, he throws water on his face and that is when he hears the sounds of his girl lurching and dry heaving upstairs.  He rushes up.

Throwing the door open Roman sees the blood splatter on the toilet and floor as she is on her knees crying as she lurches again. “Oh, Hell, Princess.”

“Roman?” She looked up at him. Her eye lids heavy as she started to sway. “I don't feel so good.”

He grabbed her up right before she was passing out. Roman laid her gently on the bed.  “Call Dr. Pryce.” He screamed at his phone that he laid on the bedside table. He grabbed her some clean cloths as the phone rang.

“Hello Roman I was just about to call you about your test results.” His lack of really caring was evident in his voice.  

“I don’t fucking care about me right now,” Roman snapped. “My girl was puking blood when I came home. She passed out. I am bringing her to the white tower.”

“As you wish Roman,” Dr. Pryce’s voice had no reaction. “She is probably having a different reaction to the same enzyme I found in you. You both need dialysis treatments is my guess. See you when you get here.” He hung up abruptly before Roman could scream at him more.  

Roman finished dressing his Princess in under garments and a dark blue t-shirt dress. Then he swooped her, his phone and the car keys up to head to the white tower. He drove erratically. His eyes blurry, head heavy. He veered into the parking area hitting the wall before coming to a stop. He dented the front end of his new red Lexus SUV.  

Five men and women came out in white coats. Doctors Pryce and his assistance Dr. Galina followed them.  

“Roman you look like Hell,” Dr, Pryce commented nonchalantly. “Come with me. Dr. Galina will help your Princess.” He rolls his eyes thinking how ridiculous it is to give her a royal moniker.  

“I’m fucking living in Hell,” Roman picks up his girl. “I’ll bring her inside.”

“Nonsense,” Dr. Galina snapped. “Take the girl to my lab so I can run some tests. If she is the same as Roman, we will give her the same treatment promptly.”

“Don’t you dare hurt her or I will kill you all.” Roman threatened as the orderlies and nurses took her from his arms.

“Noted,” Dr. Galina said glibly. “You can come see her after your treatment.”  

Roman followed them until the area split where she was taken one way and he was taken another.  

“Sit please.” Dr. Pryce pointed his hand to a chair at the end of the room with a machine near it with tubing running through it. “I explained on the phone you have some foreign enzyme in your blood so we will be cleaning your blood. It may take more than one, four-hour treatment.”

Bright light pierces her eyes as they flutter open. Dr.  Galina leans over her with a clipboard in her hand. “Good you’re awake.” She checks the flow of the bag of blood hanging. “You gave Roman quite a scare. I didn’t realize he had such emotions. How do you feel?”

“A little better,” Roman’s girl said. “where? What happened?”

“You have that same enzyme in your system Roman does.” Dr,  Galina explained. “It prevented you from seeking nourishment like you should. I am cleaning your blood on this dialysis machine. And giving you blood. You may drink some when you think you can. But don’t worry, your baby will be fine. Would you like to sit up a little?”

“What?” Eyes wide as she looked at how she was attached to the machine.  

“Would you like to sit up?” Dr. Galina asked again. “You have about an hour left in this treatment. You can rest more if you like. A female upir in your condition needs her rest. And you need to drink more. Adding more beef or steak tartar might be a good idea also.”

She blinks a few times, “Are you serious? I’m pregnant?”

“Yes,” The Doctor answered her.

“Does Roman know?” His Princess pondered the reactions he might have from being angry to elated.  

“No,” Dr.  Galina set up the head of her bed. Moved the pill up. “would you like me to go do that dear?” This was not done out of kindness. She was curious of Roman’s reaction also.

“I’ll do it.” Her lips felt dry and she was getting a desire to rip into the Dr. She looked away from the vein pulsing in the Doctor’s neck. “Can I have a drink? Something fresh if you can.”

“I’ll do my best.” Dr. Galina  walked out. She told a lab tech, “Go watch over her. But I wouldn’t get to close if I were you.”  

The tech walked in the room. He smiled. “How are you doing, Princess.”

“I’m feeling better.” She smiled innocently as she heard the blood rushing through his body. “I could use the pillow behind me scooched up a little.”

The tech walked towards her slowly.  

“Is something wrong?” She tilted her head eyes big and bright. Face of an angel to the tech. “Fix my pillow please?”

“Everything is fine, I guess” He fluffed her pillow. “Anything else?”

“Yes.” She grinned before grabbing him down with one arm. Her mouth opens, teeth bite down on his shoulder to drink. He is paralyzed in fear.  

In minutes Dr. Galina  walks in with a glass full of nutrients. She audibly gasped. “What are you doing?”

Princess drops the lifeless body. “I thought you sent him in so I could have a fresh drink. You didn’t?” Her voice was calm and innocent as she licked at what got on her fingers.

Dr. Galina shakes her head, “I’ll clean you up before Roman comes to see you.’

She gets everything cleaned up. Princess stands still hooked to the dialysis machine. A chair with a blanket was put in the place of the bed. A clean white gown was put on her before she sat down. Other than being slightly tired, she felt much better than when she got there.  

Roman walked in as she was getting the 17-gauge needles pulled from the shunt the Doctor had put in her arm for the dialysis treatments. He pulled up a chair to rest beside her. ‘How are you feel, my Princess?”

“Much better.” She looked down biting her bottom lip nervously as Dr. Galina held pressure on the needle marks so they would stop bleeding.  

“The dialysis treatment wasn’t painful.” Roman lifted her chin up to look at him. “Just the needle sticks sting for a moment. So, tell me what’s wrong? Are you hungry? Is your stomach still upset?”

“I’m not sure how, I mean I know how but Roman...” She stammered not sure how to tell him the news.

Roman took her hand. “Just tell me what the problem is, and I will fix it, I promise.”

She took a deep breath, “Roman, I’m, we’re, pregnant.”  

The look on Roman’s face is a mix of worry and excitement. “Oh, fuck, serious? Of course, your serious. Hell, I am so happy. It is scary as Hell but I’m happy. I’m sorry, Princess. How do you feel about this?  

“The same,” Princess beamed.

Dr. Galina stays quiet as she put band aids on the needle marks. Princess threw her arms around Roman as soon as she could. “You are seriously happy about this?”

“Yeah, your tits are going be huge.” Roman grinned. “Not that they are not perfect now.” He puts his hand on her lower tummy. “when? How far along are you?”

“Three months,” The Doctor said. “She is ravenous. You must keep her nourished.”

“That won’t happen again, I promise.” She started crying. “I thought you sent him for me, I swear.”

“It’s okay baby.” Roman held her close. “What happened?”

“She killed Bill.” Dr.  Galina explained. “I shouldn’t have sent him in here. But I did warn the idiot.”  

“See baby.” Roman comforted his girl. “It wasn’t your fault at all. You had to drink something.” His hand patted her bag lightly. “Do you feel up to shopping? There is so much we need for our kid.”

“I would love to go shopping,” There is a new giddiness in her voice.

“It’s just you, me and baby makes three, Princess.” Roman and her both laughed.

Over the next few months, they go through there treatments side by side until there blood is cleansed completely. She goes through extra testing to check the baby’s progress. Roman cares for her and buys her things to let her know how sexy she still is to him as the baby grows. He brings her home a new gift basket every day. 

[cowboycassini]

Partners

Chapter One

Rating: Overall E, this chapter T

Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Kix (mentioned), Jotopa Kaid, Toby

Warnings/Tags: Eventual Smut, dehumanization of clones, mutual pining, a pair of idiots running around a jungle

Summary: Anakin calls up his friend and fellow Knight Jotopa Kaid to run "a little mission" with clone captain Toby and basically ruins both their lives.

--- Mission Start ---

Unlike most of his brothers, Toby looked forward to the dreamlike state of deep stasis. He did not enjoy the fact that, born and bred as he was to command troops, he was put up in storage when not in use. Ever since the first hint of beard stubble had dusted the edges of his jaw as a gangly limbed cadet, whenever he dreamed, he dreamed of her.

Dreaming was not something of which he put much stock. Often, it interrupted what could otherwise be a deep and restful sleep with things he would much rather not remember. Even when he was young, it was so. It was better to sleep hard and think of nothing than so lightly that your mind is free to plague you with nonsensical renditions of all your fears, insecurities, and mistakes rolled into some terrifying metaphor that might trouble you for hours or days after and possibly lower your efficiency rating.

But dreams of her…

Despite popular belief, there were women on Kamino. There was the female Kaminiise, of course. They were as professional and impersonal in their treatment of him and his brothers as their male counterparts. When they hit puberty, the long necks exhibited the same levels of generalized disgust at their bodily emissions as well as their frequency. The Kaminiise seemed especially horrified by the fact that their position over their human creations and overall role as oppressors did not preclude them from being subjects of crude humor and worse. As if any human male had ever been especially picky when it came time to jack it. Their trainers, who they collectively regarded with a mingled sense of hate, respect, and misplaced love, also received the same treatment.

Not even the women trainers whom he had grown up under, who were brutal and competent, terrifying and awful and beautiful in the way only Mando’ade could be, could hold a candle to her.

He dreamed of her hands most often. The first time he saw them (in what his studies and training told him must be a forest though as a gangly seven and a half-year-old he’d still never set foot off Kamino, and half that first dream he spent staring in amazement at everything around him, everything he could never have dreamed of imagining) he’d been struck by how much smaller they had to be than his own were. A deep, dark brown, so rich he immediately wanted to reach out and touch it, the bones of her fingers long and delicate and strong. Elegant, he thought, the first time he’d ever needed to use the word seriously, these must be the hands of a princess. And then he watched enraptured as those lovely, lovely hands shouldered a rifle and sniped a man from three hundred meters.

Other dreams, regrettably, were not as violent or visceral in their intensity, but as he grew, his appreciation for them increased. Toby liked to see the galaxy through her eyes. He enjoyed seeing the vaunted, columnated, and shadowed halls she seemed to dread entering a little more each time he visited her. He looked forward to dreaming because it meant he might get to watch her practice movements that were strange and familiar in a room that seemed older than the bones of the planet he had been made on.

At first, nearly bursting out of his skin with excitement, with longing, with the urge to describe each new and incredible image seared into his rib cage, he would crawl into his brothers’ tubes and tell them about her, the beautiful princess he saw in his dreams. Pyro, the oldest after him, would listen sleepily so long as Toby let him stick his face in his neck and cuddle and didn’t complain about drool. Kit would listen absently as long as he offered the blank expanse of his back as a sacrifice for her doodling while he ranted. Checkmate wasn’t interested in his princess so much as her surroundings, and he would interrupt Toby’s sometimes painstaking descriptions of the exact curvature of her hips to ask detailed questions about her surroundings. Snow only cared when he mentioned food. But that who Snow was period, so Toby was unrepentant and unresponsive to his vod’ika’s complaints about missed sleep. Lucky was his most sympathetic brother in all things, always forgiving him his many, many faults, so he didn’t often disturb his rest with this.

Bad enough to be saddled with an ori’vod such as himself; Lucky should at least be allowed his complete ration’s sleep. And of course, for Toby, there was no breaching the solid wall of disdain Joker and Blue had erected. Within a few years, he learned to keep mentioning her to himself and focused on overcoming the mountain of defects he was decanted with.

When Toby was nearly full-grown and in ARC training, he comforted himself at night by recalling the vivid flashes of her in what must have been a festival in a small village. She’d caught the briefest glimpse of herself in a hazy mirror in that thick crush of sweaty, celebrating bodies, and the impression of her body burned in his mind’s eye. But there was still so much he didn’t comprehend no matter how he turned it over in his hands. He understood the glimpses of her thigh he got as she slapped a bacta patch over a wound, the sounds of blaster fire, of measured breathing as she ran or jumped or leaped what seemed to be impossible distances. She was a warrior and a competent one by all accounts. He did not understand why these seemed to occur less and less the older he grew. Why did the sound of her laughter make his chest ache? Why did it hurt more when reproachful silence replaced her laughter? And why, no matter how hard he tried, couldn’t he explain any of it to his brothers?

Though he had very little to go on, Toby knew she was the most beautiful woman in the universe. He knew it like he knew the feel of his blasters, knew it as intimately as his face, and Toby knew that if given a chance, he would do whatever he could to hear that laugh again and ease the ache in his chest its absence created.

Neck still slightly wet, and his hair freshly shaved into his trademarked undercut, toweled dry but still damp and curling in the crisp, sterile air of medbay, CC-4267, Toby slowly pulled on his blacks and armor as his superior officer stood off to the side with the medic, Kix, and made small talk.

He hadn’t been in stasis very long this time, he thought quietly, putting away thoughts of her, watching the way Skywalker and Kix spoke with such easy familiarity and not even noticing the pang of envy that lanced him, applying himself to the ordinary tasks of cataloging his kit and body. He’d been in the stasis tank long enough for his wounds to close but not so long that his newly acquired scar had smoothed over. Several times in the scant hour he’d been conscious, Toby had to physically stop himself from fingering the thick tissue running the width of his nose, from grimacing at the way it pulled when he so much as twitched his mouth. It would take getting used to. Thankfully, that’s what buckets were for, and so far, no jetiise he had the displeasure of working with had been so desperate to see his ugly mug as to order him to part with it.

His kit was the same as the last time he laid eyes on it though someone, likely Rex for reasons Toby could never understand, had retouched the scratched and faded blue lines. All of it was standard issue infantry gear and had been brand spanking new when given to him his first days under Skywalker’s command. It had only been the work of a few missions to rectify that. His loadout hadn’t been all that different in the Guard, really, but it was more trouble than it was worth to try and blast all that distinctive red paint off the plastoid when he could be issued fresh. He was a new man. Shiny to go with his shiny new promotion and shiny new unit. In the end, all he’d been able to take from his native company was his kama and the pair of gloves a fellow lieutenant had surreptitiously stuffed in his pack.

The helmet, of course, was new and looked utterly out of place, but that was fine. It would match its owner in that regard. He’d have to go down to the armory to check out his deecees, but unless the blast that had cracked his bucket and given him his pretty new scar had also done damage to his blasters, Toby was sure he would be issued the same pair of 17s he’d carried since coming to the 501st.

He rolled his shoulders, irritated to find that they were already knotted up with tension, and started pulling his armor on.

—

When Jedi Knight Jotopa Kaid of the significantly diminished House Ordo was somewhere around twelve or thirteen years old, she began to have strange dreams. They came, as many odd dreams do to young and inexperienced Force users such as herself, right as her life was turning to shit. She found it hard to give much thought to the jolting sense of awareness of vague l o n g i n g, a hollow, itching pull in her chest that tugged with a dull sort of insistence always in the same general direction when her Master had just up and abandoned her. D’Aleric traded her away to a Corellian smuggler for a juicy piece of intel, and even with her sheltered Temple upbringing, she knew enough to be terrified by the long and considering look Choruk Vance gave her once her Master’s ship made the jump to hyperspace without her inside.

But the Force, and Choruk Vance, had something else in mind when the smuggler looked into eyes that, though frightened, still bravely met his own. It was not long before Jotopa found herself handed off again, this time to the Mandalorian, Asha Kaid, herself and her sabers swapped for some previously agreed-upon amount. Asha Kaid would bestow her clan name upon Jotopa. But in those early days, it remained a mystery how or why a Mandalorian would want a discarded padawan.

These events kept her from thinking about her dreams, but as weeks then months went by, it truly settled in that her Master had abandoned her. She may as well get the grieving process for her old life over with sooner rather than later, she began to retake note of them. They were nothing to write home about initially, impressions more than anything: of being submerged, of pale, statuesque beings walking to and fro, their forms hazy, a sleepy sort of awareness over everything. It was strangely soothing and familiar in an almost primal way. She paid it no mind, and the dreams were not such a frequent occurrence that it was worth interrupting the daily rhythms of learning what being Mando’ade meant, especially for her.

It was not so different in its way than her early years at the Temple had been though the lessons were learning her way around various types of blasters and blades, detonators and when to use them, when to stand and fight and when to save your strength for another time. Though, she knew better than to say so to Asha Kaid! Her mentor, quickly her buir, was a typical Mandalorian and would not have appreciated the comparison for all its accuracy. She kept her sabers and the skills associated with them sharp because the Force was another tool in her arsenal, and only a foolish warrior did not use every tool at her disposal.

The years passed with slow surety. Jotopa fought, she meditated, grew in the Force, and her murky dreams gradually expanded. Now there would be startlingly vivid flashes of the same group of identical faces, their brown eyes wide and old in their young faces, and when she would wake, something about the sight of their still baby soft hands disassembling rifles would disquiet her for the rest of the day. A week would pass or perhaps a month or two, or maybe she was seventeen now, a time when once again her life was going to shit. Her memory is a bit chaotic, but she sees them again, older now, but she’s sure it’s the same set of identical faces, the one that she knows lying down and humming soothingly to another one. Somehow, she knows that a live-fire exercise killed one of her special boy’s brothers.

She carries his grief on the back of her tongue, its weight as heavy as the presence of her Master come to reclaim her.

You don’t have to go, her mother said with the resigned air of a lifelong inmate. You don’t have to go back to the Jetiise, kebii’tra.

And just as resigned, looking not at her Master but through him, thinking instead of the golden-eyed boy in her dreams, she said, No, but I want to.

But going back to the Jetiise did not make her a Jetii. Not to her, and not to them. To be sure, to the Council it did, and in the end, it was their opinion on the matter that most counted, but in the final long year of her apprenticeship in which she and her Master did not pretend to have any illusions with one another, it was not so.

Do you think me cruel, Kadijah? D’Aleric’s question, like so many she could recall put to her as a young learner, did not warrant an answer, and yet the use of her birth name encouraged her to do so regardless. Her Master used it so casually, as though he was still worthy of the honor of knowing the young girl to which it belonged. As if that girl still existed. Typical Jetii bullshit, she thought, looking steadily into the crimson eyes and rich sapphire face that had looked into her own and found her wanting.

I think nothing of you at all, Master. She’d said with a small, deprecating laugh. Who am I to challenge the will of the Force as interpreted by my elders? She paused then, eyes dark and hard as unworked beskar. And you will call me Jotopa from now on.

A series of whistles and chirps from her astrodroid shook her from her half-dreaming, half meditative state. From the wide span of the viewport of her standard-issue starfighter, Jotopa could just make out the ruggedly elegant outline of the Resolute breaking up the uniform blackness of open space around it. Her droid, R6, well used to her mistress's ways, had dropped out of hyperspace farther away than was usual for most Jedi, and Jotopa didn’t think she imagined the wearied tone the droid took with her.

“Yes, thank you, R6; I can see we’ve made it. I wasn’t sleeping; I was meditating! Please, please: don’t let me stop you from hailing them! I don’t want to be on the receiving end of their guns either.” She said with a laugh in response to R6’s messages. The little astrodroid was a delight to a life spent so much skimming the surface of other’s turmoils. She rather hoped that she would be able to take her along on whatever “top secret, super special, you’d be doing me suuuuuch a huge favor, JaJa, pleaseeeee” mission Anakin had called her across the galaxy for.

The Force prickled across her skin, grew thick and heavy in her blood. A sense of anticipation that weighed almost as heavily as her curiosity as she landed in the large bay. Jotopa sat for a moment with the feeling, breathed deeply even as her eyes scanned across the familiar armored forms moving here and there a respectful distance away from her ship. Clone troopers, she thought, has it been that long since my mission with Lieutenant Thire? Maybe I’ll get to talk to one or two before I leave and find out how he’s doing. The feeling settled to a manageable level, and she opened the hatch, releasing R6 from her place. The little blue and pink painted droid wheeled around to where she was indulging in a full-body stretch on the wing of her fighter. Jotopa noted the trooper who seemed to be waiting patiently for her and tilted her head at R6.

“I don’t have to tell you, but see about getting a tune-up while I’m busy? Who knows what sort of trouble Anakin has in store.” She said to her droid before jumping down from the wing of her ship and approaching the trooper. She bowed to him in greeting, a move that, though he was completely encased in his armor, surprised him because when she asked if he was there to escort her to General Skywalker; it took him several seconds to process the question and answer in the affirmative.

The walk was mostly silent, which was fine by her; there was plenty to see. Boarding the Resolute was her first time on such a large ship, and the immensity of it, its incredible smallness in the grandness of the universe, was startling. The life energy of the troopers pulsed around her, bright as any star, and when she caught a look at a few of them without their helmets, she saw the same freshness of face that had unsettled and humbled her in Thire. And permeating all, the sense of anticipation thickened so that she could barely breathe around it. This is it, the Force whispered as they walked down hallways and took lifts. They were going to medbay, the trooper was kind enough to explain. He was fresh, she thought around the shouting in her blood, too young and earnest to die in a war like this. This is it. This is it. This is it, thisisitthisisthisisitthisisitthisisitthisis itthisisitthisisitthisisitthisistthisisitthisis

“We’re here, sir.” He said at the entrance to medbay, and behind the impassive face of his bucket, he was eyeing the details of her serene face, the rich dark brown eyes only outdone by the hue of her skin, her lush mouth, and the black, coily cloud of her hair framing it all, and he sighed, inwardly jealous of the vod who was assigned to accompany her on her mission.

“We certainly are. Thank you for guiding me, kotep’ad. I can take it from here.” Jotopa said absently, completely missing the subtle double-take the trooper gave her. Were her steps hesitant? No, nothing scared her, not since that night. Her steps lengthened. She could hear the low tenor of Anakin’s voice and could tell that he was in a good mood as he spoke to two others. His Force presence was as it always was: a red giant, swollen and pulsing. No. A more apt description would be a star on the verge of going supernova. A star could go millions, billions of years in that state, existing just on the edge until something tipped it over, and the resulting blast destroyed everything in its wake.

The medbay of the Resolute was moderately full, which told her that their last battle was recent but not terribly so. Most of the troopers in the beds were either sleeping or busying themselves with their datapads, but she could see sabacc cards and even a few poorly concealed dice bags. A few were well enough to sit with each other, a fact that one with heavy beard stubble and a healing slash across his eye seemed to regret as she noted him being bombarded by his very chatty bedmate. Jotopa was still stifling her laugh into her hand at the longsuffering look he shot her way when she passed him when she finally approached the row of bacta tanks and beds next to them.

Anakin was standing with his back to her, talking with a clone dressed in medical scrubs who she assumed must be a technician of some sort. Behind them was another clone, but she could only see his boots and the blue paint of his shin guards. This is it! Her blood was singing with the strength of the Force’s exultant song. This is it! Finally! Finally! It crackled over her skin, and her fists clenched around the wild desire to run and dispelled it. A sense of questioning, a tendril of sentience that most wouldn’t dare speak of: This is it, are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure?

Those armored legs, the nervous tapping of fingers in a curiously red-painted gauntlet as he shifted slightly forward and a knee came into view.

Yes, she answered. Yes. Yes.

“I could’ve killed you ten different times by now, Anakin.” She said, grinning when he spun around, lively blue eyes wide and startled.

“Sleenspit, JaJa, you scared the hell outta me! Is it your mission in life to shave years off of my life, huh?” He asked, bundling her up in a friendly side hug. She rolled her eyes and tilted her head up.

“It wouldn’t be so easy if you weren’t so trusting.” She said pointedly, and now it was his turn to roll his eyes. Anakin was one of the few who had not shunned her when she returned to the Temple. Perhaps because of his pariah status, or maybe because they often ran into each other in the same deserted halls of the Temple, despite the vast gulf in their training though not their comparative years, the two of them had become fast friends. When she had been Knighted and took on the mysterious work of the Sentinel, he was one of the few she kept in contact with.

“Yeah yeah, you’ve said it a million times: a friend is quicker with a knife than an enemy. I hear you, O wise Jedi Master, I hear you.” Jotopa barely refrained from scoffing and instead glanced at the medic, who was watching their interaction with undisguised curiosity. Anakin still had her tucked loosely against his side, and his sturdy form blocked her view of the other trooper, the one the Force was leaping for joy around. Couldn’t Anakin feel it? Couldn’t he tell how special, how important that man was?

“Aren’t you going to introduce me? I know Master Obi-Wan taught you better than that!” She jabbed him gently in the ribs. With his flesh hand, he rubbed the spot where her elbow had dug into his side, his face relaying his usual crack about her sharp elbows. He nodded toward the young clone in the scrubs, a smile of pride lighting over his features.

“This is Kix, my Chief Medical Officer. He oversees any time any of my guys comes out of stasis, and this,” he said, (Finally! This is it! Finally!) stepping back so that the trooper sitting on the bed could be fully seen, “is Captain Toby. When I heard about this mission, I knew he’d be the perfect one to help you with it, JaJa. He’s great.” Anakin’s words seem to come to her from a long way off. She heard them, and she was sure she was saying something, but Jotopa couldn’t tear her eyes away from the man sitting on the bed. He was sitting at attention, his shoulders stiff with a tension that wasn’t noticeable in the politely attentive expression on his face. The thick scar that stretched across his nose looked fresh, still shiny in a way that explained the faint twitching of his nose, as though he wasn’t used to how it pulled at his skin. He didn’t look thrilled to see her. There’d been something akin to horror on that achingly handsome face for the briefest of moments, but when she queried, hesitantly, of the Force, she was nearly bowled over by the certainty of the response.

This is the one. This is the one you’ve been waiting for.

Well shit. At least she could breathe a bit easier now. After accepting the datapad with the mission details from Anakin, Jotopa turned and watched as he and Kix walked away with only the slightest hint of rising hysteria. Leave it to Anakin, who did everything from the seat of his pants, to use her utter shock against her and dump a mission and a strange man on her. She didn’t even know if he’d requisitioned a ship for them to travel in, and the mental image of her attempting to stuff the captain in her starfighter nearly made her choke.

“Ah, excuse me…? Knight Kaid, sir?” He asked, and Jotopa closed her eyes and inwardly swore. His voice! It was just like hangar bay trooper’s and like Kix’s, and yet neither one of their voices made the fine hairs on her arms stand on end. Perhaps from being in stasis? It sent goosebumps rippling up her bare arms. Hopefully, he wouldn’t notice. She forcefully released her anxiety into the Force and turned to face him. She’d met countless handsome men in her lifetime. He was no different, Force shenanigans or no, and she would not ogle him; she would treat him like the competent soldier he was, complete this mission, and that was that.

--

When General Skywalker told him the Jetii he would be working with was a good friend of his, Toby wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse. He liked his General and admired his courage and fighting spirit, but it didn’t take an incredibly smart vod to notice how much of a disaster the man was. And with Jetiise in particular, like attracted like, so he couldn’t help nor dispel the nervous jiggling of his leg that started up when it came through that the Jetii, Knight Kaid, had arrived and was making her way to medbay. At least in the Guard, you knew what you were getting into day to day with snooty senators. Each Jetii was as different as a fingerprint. Skywalker, kind in his awkward way, noticed his show of nerves.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing with Jotopa, Toby. She’s excellent; you won’t have any problems. If you two don’t come back as best friends, I’ll file my reports on time.” He said with his usual confident smile.

Kix snorted. “Better not then, sir. If the General starts filing his reports on time, Captain Rex might keel over from the shock to his system.” Toby huffed a laugh at Skywalker’s indignant exclamation.

He would have thought they would announce her presence over the ship’s comms, but she slipped in among them silent as a ghost. His first glimpse of her was around the startled twist of Skywalker’s body, a flash of dark skin and a cloud of hair, and then her voice, soft and husky and sweet even in the chiding tone she took with her fellow Jetii. There was a feeling, overwhelming and strange and familiar. He swallowed his heart back down where it had lodged beneath his jaw, unsure where to look and even more unsure why, and then there was nowhere to look but Knight Kaid because Skywalker was stepping back and introducing them. It was all he could do to sit at attention and keep the blank face that hid all feeling because it was her, the woman with the elegant hands, the princess he saw in his dreams, and dead stars; she was even more beautiful in person. Like Skywalker, she didn’t wear the traditional Jetiise clothing; instead, she wore a sleeveless black leather vest brightly detailed in red and pink embroidery. It was half unzipped and revealed a mesh undershirt. To keep himself professional, he looked instead at the well-cared-for utility belt around her hips. Toby noted her black spandex shorts covered by a delicately detailed kama made of sturdy cloth. Her boots ended at midcalf. His eyebrows twitched in surprise when she turned to watch Skywalker and Kix leave, and he spotted the cleverly hidden handles of two knives on them.

Now that the full force of her gaze wasn’t on him, he ran a gloved hand through his hair and reasoned with himself. Calm down, di’kut. You’re still loopy from stasis. It can’t be her. She’s a figment of your imagination, a product of getting knocked around too many times as a cadet. Don’t start acting like a karking lunatic around this Jetii and get sent off for reconditioning. It made sense. It made a ton of sense, just as it had when Joker, sick of hearing his talk about his dream princess, had first sat down and said it to him. Lucky had told Joker to leave him be. It was a harmless fantasy, a coping mechanism. Just his luck that his coping mechanism manifested herself right before his eyes. She was still turned, the datapad held loosely in her hand, her head tilted. He got the impression that she would be content standing there until the last star burned out.

Against his better judgment, he got her attention. She turned to face him, a soft frown pulling at her full lips, and panic surged up his spine. Had he already managed to upset her?!

“Captain? Would you do me a favor please?” She asked, and now she was at the edge of his personal space, just enough that he could log away in the back of his mind that she smelled like jasmine and vanilla and had to tilt his head up just slightly to meet her eyes. Her eyes were an even darker brown than her skin but just as rich, he thought. From a distance, they appeared black.

“Yes, sir. If I can, I will.” He liked the way her nose crinkled around the smile she gave him at his answer.

“I know it’s probably in your regulations, gotta respect rank and all, but at least when it’s just you and I, do you think you could call me Jotopa? I would appreciate it a lot.”

He didn’t know who the brave soldier it was who rumbled, “Elek, think I can manage that, sir,” in reply but if it earned him more of those looks, a look he wasn’t sure she knew she gave him, he was fine with the vod seizing hold of his faculties every now and again.

She cleared her throat and looked down at the datapad in her hand, her brows furrowing as she scanned the details of their mission. Suddenly, she laughed, the sound vaguely disbelieving.

“I pity the trooper tasked with putting this briefing together. They might as well have not bothered. The barest details are here: the planet name, coordinates, and our objective. I’ve done more with less, but this is ridiculous. And I still don’t know if Anakin got us a ship.” Toby bit the inside of his cheek to control his expression. She was grousing like an old field sergeant! And had the face to match! He recalled his earlier sentiment about Skywalker and his friends and bit his cheek harder.

“May I see the datapad, sir? I may be able to see if the quartermaster requisitioned any supplies for us.” She handed it over easily enough, an annoyed glint playing around her dark eyes, another fascinating expression Toby memorized and logged away in the back of his mind before quickly focusing on the pad. It was interesting having her eyes on him while performing one of the simplest tasks he knew. Something about the heaviness of her eyes, her gaze almost a physical weight: it scattered his focus like water through open fingers. But still, it wasn’t more than thirty seconds before he had the pertinent information pulled up.

“Here it is, sir.” He said, muting his amusement as much as he could.

“Where?” She asked, and now she was entirely in his personal space, bent over to scowl at the screen, her hair and its thousands of tiny coiling ringlets brushing his jaw.

“Ah, see? Right here, it says you were issued a small ship, one ARC-rated clone, and two months’ worth of rations, plus weapons.” He said, only daring to breathe again when she pulled back, a sheepish expression on her face. She half-turned, her hands clasped in front of her. He had the fleeting thought that she was upset. The surety of the notion prickled across his skin, and Toby shivered, unsure of what to do with the feeling or why he was feeling it. He cocked his head, considering. Should he say something…? But she was smiling at him, her posture calm and assured again, and he dismissed it as more stasis nonsense. She was fine. She was a Jetii, wasn’t she? Wouldn’t appreciate the undue concern from the likes of him, of that Toby was certain.

“I’m glad to see that our supplies are in order, Captain. If you’d like to say your goodbyes to any of your brothers and gather whatever else you need, I’ll meet you on our transport when you're ready?” Toby knew a dismissal when he heard one, so he nodded and stood. It wasn’t important for her to know that there were no brothers on board who cared much about his comings and goings, so he followed her out of medbay, went right when she went left, making his way to the armory to check out his DCs. They were the same ones. The armorer, Oops, held him for about fifteen minutes because she wanted to know just what he’d gotten into for the blasters to need the kind of TLC she’d had to put into them to make them serviceable again. Since she loved his babies probably more than he did, he did her the solid of telling her the story blow by blow. They needed to let the kid out to see a little action now and then, but she had the magic touch when it came to breathing life into weapons that looked beyond saving. He made a note to bring her something nice back from wherever the hell he was headed if he could.

“All set?” Knight Kaid asked when she spotted him heading up the ship’s ramp with his weapons and pack. He paused halfway up to see her walking his way, a backpack and cloak slung over her shoulder, and a pink and blue astromech droid following after her.

“Yes, sir. Ready to go when you are.” He said, still studying the droid. It was of the same type as Skywalker’s R2-D2 though he doubted Knight Kaid’s was near as modified. The little droid’s casing was mainly white and pink with blue detailing. As the droid and her mistress walked up the ramp, the droid beeped at him in a distinctly disapproving manner. Knight Kaid laughed.

“Captain Toby, this is R6-D4. R6, this is Captain Toby. He’s a vital part of this mission, young lady, so be on your best behavior. Captain, if you don’t mind raising the ramp? I’ll get us into hyperspace while you’re getting settled in your quarters, and then we’ll try and puzzle out what the kriff we can do.” She called from within the ship, and Toby was halfway through following her orders before the rest of her sentence fully registered in his conscious mind.

“Skywalker, what the hell have you gotten me into?” He murmured as he watched the ramp close and felt the rumble of the engines warming. The ship shuddered slightly as it became airborne, lifting up and away from the Resolute. Toby put his hand against the hull and closed his eyes, breathed slowly and deep to attune himself to the hum of this ship and these engines, breathed out again when he felt the gentle lurch once they made the jump to hyperspace. Only then did he find the empty room that was his and dump his helmet and pack. Toby would have to be careful. More careful than he usually was. There was something…

He hovered just inside the doorway of the cockpit. His steps were light and near-silent, but Kaid still spun around in the slow, measured way of someone who’d sensed his presence a long way off. Her expression was not as animated as it had been on the ramp or even in medbay. Still, he thought it was softer and more genuine now, the tilt of the faint smile on her lips more real than even the playfulness she and Skywalker had openly displayed with one another. He rested his weight against the frame, at a more relaxed position of parade rest, and the faint smile widened.

“Our objective is a world called Cassios-7. The scans are centuries old, the latest intel just as ancient. There are Temple ruins there, and you and I have been asked to recover the important artifact that has been minding its own business all these long years. Sounds delightful.” She said dryly, and he didn’t know what to do with the odd desire he had to laugh at her tone. Rather than heed it, he tilted his head slightly in acknowledgment. The beautiful Jetii’s lips quirked curiously at him before she continued.

“Luckily for us, Anakin wasn’t too terribly far off from Cassios-7 to begin with. We should be there within five hours. A few days, a week at most, and I’ll have you back with your brothers and all the comforts of civilization, Captain.”

“I can’t wait.” He said in much the same tone she had just used. She smiled widely and motioned for him to sit in the copilot’s chair. Toby moved to obey, masking his surprise. None of the other Jetiise he’d had the displeasure of working with since leaving the Guard had ever offered him a seat. As he gingerly eased into the chair next to her, he realized he’d relegated all Jetiise barring Skywalker and Kenobi as being on the same moral level as the snobby senators. They treated him and his brothers as little more than well-trained animals.

“I love your enthusiasm, Captain,” she quipped, her gaze casual but somehow probing even as she threw her legs over the arm of her seat, careless of the way the edges of her kama splayed around it to display the bare skin of her legs from mid-thigh to the tops of those sturdy boots.

“It’s one of my better traits, sir.” He said, proud of how evenly the words left him and glad for his helmet and the way it hid the direction of his eyes. It would have been harder not to look at the dark brown of her legs when they were in such close quarters. The only way to avoid it would be not to look at her at all, which would be rude. And obvious. Behavior like that would land him in the stasis tank, and he was so tired of that, so tired of being put in storage when he wasn’t in use, like a rifle that didn’t have an owner.

It was just that she was so pretty. It was just that when she used his name, it felt like she meant it. And that must be a trick, right? Some Jetiise power he was only just encountering: this ability she had to make him feel important just by looking at him and saying his name.

In his lap, his hands flexed as he tried to dispel the unwelcome tension in them. Just a few days. You can handle that, can’t you?

Their first view of Cassios-7 was as they dropped out of hyperspace and settled into lazy orbit around it to complete a few scans to update their intel. The planet was a sapphire jewel flecked with shards of amethyst and emerald, whispers of white clouds swirling at its poles and trailing like wedding veils behind the sparsely located but dense and steaming jungle island chains that were the main landmasses. The purple was floating remnants of destroyed Temples, this planet having, as Jotopa theorized with a furrowed brow and an exhilarated light in her eyes, been part of some ancient war and then lost to obscurity.

“I can only imagine that it’s all this fighting that’s awakened the artifact inside the remaining Temple structure,” she said pensively.

“So, we’ve been called here to retrieve it before the Separatists do and possibly weaponize it against us, sir?” Toby asked as he watched her hands move over the controls. She had slender, elegant fingers. Her movements were competent, the fingernails blunt and bitten down, though this did not negate his preceding opinion one bit. She had hands that looked like they knew their way around a blaster. He jerked his eyes up to her face, flushed to see her smiling at him with seeming pleasure at his comment.

“I believe so, Captain. You and I may be able to save a lot of lives by securing this artifact.” She answered, and he didn’t think he was wrong in identifying a note of melancholy in her voice. He filed the observation away, shifted his focus toward the glittering shards of Temple ruins sedately hovering on one of the floating rock isles. Jotopa locked in a course towards it and stood up to stretch.

“Alright, then! We’ve got a few minutes until we land, so I’m going-”

There was a strange jolt; that’s what the both of them would later recall. A jolt and a winding down sound and then the s i c k e n i n g lurching of the stomach as it rammed up past the heart and made a home next to the brain stem.

Falling, free falling.

Heaving breathing. The sound of his blood pounding in his ears drowning out everything for a terrifying moment before everything snapped into laser focus.

Knight Kaid’s hands grappling with the controls. Her eyes, fierce, determined, focused.

Silence loud with the sound of turbulence and rushing wind.

Green, so much fucking green, rich with brown and purple and the azure blue of the sky, and Maker’s tears, they were going to die, they were going to die, they were going to -

[ranger-of-estel]

The More the Merrier

My CC Secret Santa gift for @personinthepalace

Hope you enjoy it lovely!

Captain Canary - Established Set in a world where we got Len back, people didn’t die, and Sara & Len semi-retire somewhere outside of Central.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

               Sara wakes with a groan, instinctively searching out Len’s warmth as her body aches. She feels the amused chuckle rumble through his chest as his arm wraps around her. “Morning.”

               “I hate cold weather,” she grumbles in response, pulling the blankets up to her chin.

               He hums in agreement, “it’s supposed to be quite a storm. Temperature is pretty low, even for this time of year.” She looks up, knows without asking that he’s hurting as well. One of her hands slides under his sleepshirt, gently rubbing over old injury sites. He sighs, head coming down to rest against her shoulder. “I turned the heat up last night, but I’ll get the fireplace running when we get up.”

               “Thank you,” she tilts her head to catch his lips in a soft kiss.”

               “We could be somewhere warm,” he drawls, heads still touching.

               “I told you, I’m not celebrating Christmas in the tropics somewhere. I’ve had enough warm holiday seasons for a lifetime.” Her gaze narrows, “besides, you promised Lisa we’d be here this year.”

               He offers a hum of acknowledgment, shifting toward the edge of the bed; laughing softly as Sara whines in protest. “I’ll start the coffee.”

               She lets him go, but remains curled under the warm sheets a while longer. Eventually she drags herself to the edge of the bed, slipping on fuzzy socks and one of Leonard’s sweaters before padding through the house. When she reaches the kitchen Len’s pouring two mugs of coffee. The shades are drawn, but she can still see the telltale glow of snow outside.

               “So…” she walks over, gratefully accepting the offered mug. “Movie day?”

               “I think I can make room in my schedule,” he leans against the counter.

               Sara scoffs, “I hardly think the Flash is going to be needing Captain Cold today.” He smirks motioning toward the living room, her trailing behind him. He moves toward the fireplace and Sara takes a moment to admire the small tree lit in the corner. Reminded each morning what a gift it, and many little things of the season, are after so many years denied them.

               “What film did you have in mind?” Len glances back as he kneels to begin arranging the wood.

               “Don’t know yet,” Sara settles on the couch, mug on the end table beside her. “Let’s see what the wonderful world of streaming has for us today.” She logs in, pausing her scrolling to admire the view of her lover as he leans in to get the fire started.

               After a moment he glances back at her, brow rising as he offers a knowing smirk. “Something you like?”

               She just grins back, offering a little shrug. “What about Year Without a Santa Clause?”

               “Lisa & I always liked that one,” he nods, body protesting audibly as he rises to his feet. He retrieves his coffee mug from the mantle, dusting his hands on his pants as he makes his way over. Sara starts the movie, tucking into his side and throwing a blanket around their legs the moment he sits down.

               One movie turns into two, both of them dozing off while curled together. Sara wakes to Leonard shifting, pulling back enough to look up at him. “Everything okay?”

               He nods, motioning toward the front door. “Just going to go clear the drive.” She must make a face, because before she can reply he adds. “Don’t want the pizza guy to slip later.”

               “Ooh, pizza does sound good.” She straightens, blanket pooling at her waist.

               “I thought it might,” he tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

               “You want help?” She puts her feet on the cool floor, fighting the urge to curl back up once more.

               He shakes his head, “shouldn’t take that long to clear a path.” He gives her an amused look. “You don’t have to leave your nest, little bird.”

               She rolls her eyes, tilting her head to look up at him. “Actually, I was thinking I’d start a pot of cocoa?”

               He brightens, “I won’t talk you out of it.”

               “I know,” she grins, shifting up for a lazy kiss. She releases him reluctantly, remaining in her warm cocoon until she hears the front door shut behind him. She sighs, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders as she makes her way to the kitchen. Once the ingredients are mixed she makes her way to the window; watching Leonard shovel the near foot of snow. She shakes her head, chuckling to herself. Who would have thought Captain Cold & the White Canary could be domestic.

               She’s back to stirring the cocoa when she hears him come back in, quickly putting the lid on the pot and making her way toward the door. Len is hanging his snow-covered coat, pieces of tread shaped slush scattered across the rug. “That won’t stay clear long, but it’s a start.” He toes off his shoes, and she notes how the light reflects off the few resilient snowflakes caught in his long lashes. “You’re staring again, Lance.” He smirks, eyes sparkling with amusement against his flushed cheeks.

               She wants to comment on how unfair it is that he can manage to be ridiculously attractive no matter his environment. Instead she just tugs at the damp sleeve of his sweater, “you should change into something dry.”

               While he does so she ladles cocoa into the now empty coffee mugs, sliding his mug and a bag of marshmallows across the counter as he enters. She puts a healthy serving of whipped cream on her own before lifting the mug to her lips. They remain in the kitchen, leaning side-by-side against the counter.

               “You know what the best part of not sharing space with a team is?” She grins, moving so she’s standing just in his space.

               “Not sharing a bathroom?” he raises a brow.

               She laughs, “yes, but also.” She rises on her toes to kiss him, this one less chaste than the last. She hears him set his mug on the counter, hands settling at her waist as he deepens it until she tastes the sticky sweetness of his marshmallows. She takes a moment to recover her breath as they separate, grinning up at him. “No one to stumble in and interrupt us.”

               “Are we thinking of doing something you don’t want interrupted?” he smirks, thumbs brushing just under her shirt.

               She places her mug next to his, fingers lacing together behind his head. “Maybe…” she presses closer, “unless you object?” In answer he shifts them so she’s pressed against the counter; followed by her startled laugh as he lifts her to perch on the edge.

               Her legs hook behind him, head tilting as he leans in to kiss her soundly once more. Her fingers play at the nape of his neck, and he begins trailing slow kisses down her throat. She’s just tilted her head to give him better access when he stops, chuckling against her skin. “So much for no interruptions.”

               “What?” She shifts, following his gaze to where snow is violently blowing against the glass door. “You have got to be kidding me!” she groans.

               “To be continued then,” Len places one last kiss to her lips. Then steps back, motion to the door. “You get our guests, I’ll make more cocoa.”

               Sara sighs, slipping off the counter and straightening his sweater as she walks. By the time she reaches the glass door the snow is settling, jumpship cloaked aside from where the team is stepping into the yard.

               She watches in amusement as Mick glares at the increasingly deep snow. The girls pulling their coats a little tighter as they make their way across the yard. On the other end of spectrum Ray is bounding through the snow like an oversized puppy, nailing Constantine in the shoulder with a snowball while laughing.

               As the girls approach Sara opens the door, stepping aside so they can escape the frigid temperatures. Mick is the last one through the door, pulling it shut and offering Sara a short nod in hello.

               “Surprise!” Ray quickly makes his way up, pulling her into one of the crushing hugs he’s known for. “Merry Christmas!”

               She smiles, returning the embrace, “Merry Christmas, Ray.” When he released her she glances around at the crew. “This is a social call, right?”

               “That is correct, Captain Lance.” A new figure steps forward, as Ray shifts to greet Leonard.

               “Gideon,” Sara grins, stepping forward to embrace the android. “It’s good to see you.”

               “You as well,” Gideon returns the brief hug, smiling back at her. She glances to where several of the group are pestering Len in the kitchen. “You and Mister Snart look well.”

               Sara nods, “we are, and you?”

               “I am enjoying the freedom this form offers.” She smiles, “and the Waverider is holding up well, it is being touched up by the time agents while we are here.”

               “I’m glad they are still playing nice,” Gideons face tells her it’s not without complications, but then it never was. “And the team, are they behaving?”

               “Behaving, love? When have you lot ever worried about that?” Constantine comes forward, grinning at both women. “If they aren’t unruly, are they really Legends?”

               Sara shifts her attention, brow raising as she regards him. “I didn’t know you were back on board.”

               “Oh, I’m not.” He waves the idea off, inclining his head toward the ship. “Was visiting Gary at the office when this lot came in.” He shrugs, “figured I’d join for a visit.”

               Sara smiles, doesn’t comment on how he looks sober, showered, and a little less like the world is on his shoulders. “It’s good to see you, John.”

               He offers a small smile of his own, “yeah.” Then the glint of mischief is back in his eyes, “now where’s that handsome lover of yours?” She motions to the kitchen and with a wink he bows out.

               Gideon watches him walk away, “he may not travel with us, but he frequently helps out.”

               “Good,” Sara nods. “I’m glad he’s found something, someone to ground him.” She returns her attention to Gideon one brow raising. “Speaking of finding people, how is Rip?”

               The other woman softens, and Sara is again baffled at how human she looks. “Captain Hunter is busy as always, though he sends his regards.” She gets a playful smile, “he has invited me to stay with him over the holiday while the crew is on leave.”

               Sara grins suggestively, “Merry Christmas indeed.” Gideon offers a little nod, face heating only slightly.

               “Cocoa’s ready!” Ray calls excitedly, and everyone begins making their way toward the kitchen.

xxXxx

               It’s not long before everyone has a cup in hand; people spread between the den and kitchen as they settle into groups. Sara makes a point of briefly talking with everyone, smiling as she enters the kitchen to find Len and Mick leaned opposite against the counters as they talk. She loves watching the men reconnect whenever they get the chance. In the time since Len’s return they have both grown into different men; and yet they always remain a complementary pair.

               She’s not sure which notices her first, Len offering a half smile while Mick inclines his head. The pair shifting to make room for her as she approaches. “Dinner, we still thinking Pizza?”

               Leonard raises a brow, “for the whole crew?”

               He looks over at Mick, who rolls his eyes. “I’ll have Gideon transfer funds over to you later.”

               “Good enough for me,” Sara grins before motioning to the other room. “I’ll find out what everyone wants.”

               As she returns with the list the doorbell rings. They look at each other quizzically, Len motioning for her to order while he makes his way to the door. She’s just dialed the number when she hears the off-key caroling from the front of house. Followed by Len’s resigned, “better add to that order, Asassin.”

               She covers the receiver with her hand, “who is it?”

               Before he can answer Lisa dances into the room, the rest of Team Flash on her heals. “The people apparently crashing a party you failed to invite us to.”

               Sara rolls her eyes, “do I look like I planned to have a party today?” motioning to her fuzzy               pajama pants and Len’s sweater. “Get over here,” she motions Lisa closer to give a one armed hug to the other woman.

               Once the pizza is ordered she looks at Len quizzically. “Everything good?”

               He nods, arms crossing over his chest as he settles back against the counter. “Apparently the storm has knocked out the electric in Central. Since cold isn’t exactly Barry’s strength, my sister suggested they come out for a visit.”

               “They know you have a backup for storms, and a fireplace.” Sara chuckles.

               “Most likely,” he nods, running one hand over his head. “I should probably clear a path for pizza again.”

               Sara snorts, “why?” She motions toward the crowd of people, “get them to do it.”

               He smirks, “perhaps.” His gaze narrows at Mick, who’s standing close enough to overhear. “No fire,”

               “Your loss,” the larger man replies gruffly. Kicking the leg of Ray’s chair, “come on haircut, grab the others so we can get this over with.”

xxXxx

               They clear the full driveway, as well as the walkway to the door in short order. When the delivery boy arrives with a tower of pizza, Leonard tips him handsomely for braving the storm.

               Sara’s not sure how everyone manages to cram into the den, but they’d insisted on watching a movie together. She is perched on the arm of Len’s chair, hand over his shoulder as his fingers rub soft circles at her hip. They’ve made it about half through Die Hard when the lights flicker and then the electric goes out entirely.

               The room fills with a mix of swearing and disappointed sounds. Leonard just sighs, Sara moving as he rises. “Mick,” he grabs his phone, stepping between sitting people to meet the other man at the fireplace. Soon the fire is roaring, bathing the den in a warm light.

               While a few of them go to get the generator running Sara heads to the kitchen for their stash of flashlights. “Hell of a storm.” Charlie states, helping her check batteries.

               “Yeah, think the last time we had one like this was when I was a kid.” Sara flips the last light in her hand, shutting the drawer of batteries. “Luckily this is house full of survivors.”

               Charlie nods, and they make their way back through to pass flashlights out while Lisa and Iris set up the handful of powered lamps around the house.

               Once the generator is running the lights come back on, but no one releases their alternative light sources. Mick, Len and Barry return, coats white with snow and faces red from the wind. Once they’ve shed their outer layers they approach. Gideon rises, stepping up to meet Sara as Barry breaks off from the other two.    

               “How do we look?” Sara asks, watching Len rub his hands together.

               “The generator works fine, but I think we should limit power usage as much as possible. It will be a while before they are going to get things up and running again.” He replies with a shake of his head.

               “I must advise we remain here,” Gideon looks between the three. “The jumpship was not built for flight in these conditions.”

               “She’s right.” Mick nods, looking curiously at his partner. “If that’s okay with you?”

               Sara shrugs. “We’ll figure something out.” She smiles at him, “that’s what family does.”

               Mick gives her a small smile, then motions to the team. “I’m going to go update them.” Gideon following behind.

               Sara steps closer, taking Len’s hands in her smaller warm ones. “You okay with this?”

               He shrugs, looking from her to the rest of the house. “Not like we can force them out.” He shakes his head, “I’ve spent enough winters without heat, wouldn’t wish that on any of them.”

               “Saving the day as usual,” Sara smiles, reaching up to frame his face in her hands.

               “Someone has to look after this lot.” He softens, “like you said, they’re family.” He sighs, pressing a soft kiss to her palm before motioning through the house. “Come on, we’ll have to find blankets and pillows.”

xxXxx

               Sara doesn’t think she’s ever seen so many people in a house. Still, they manage to find sleeping bags and blankets for nearly everyone. Bodies stretched out in the den, kitchen & spare room. Flashlights and spare batteries have been handed out, Mick staying in the den to keep the fire burning overnight.

               Finally Sara and Len make it to their room, changing into even warmer sleepwear before making their way toward the bed. Sara is perched on the side, phone in hand as she glances up at him. “What do you think?”

               She turns to show him a picture of the living room. Sleeping bags and blankets spread over every flat surface. One group playing cards by flashlight, Mick feeding the fire, & several pairs asleep curled under blankets together.

               “I’m surprised you got one so clear.” He moves to grab a lamp from the desk.

               “Took a few tries.” She concedes, then chuckles. “I want to send it to mom; add a note saying we already have a house full of kids.”

               He snorts, pressing a kiss to her crown. “Not sure that’s what she means when she asks you about them.”

               “Yeah well, it’s the best she’s going to get.” She shakes her head, putting the phone down before sliding into bed. “I have my hands more than full with them, even if it’s only part time now.”

               He slides in behind her, smiling into her hair as she curls into him. “She does seem to like Lisa and Mick well enough.”

               “Can you imagine her with Gideon, or Constantine.” She giggles at the thought.

               “I’m not sure she’s ready for that quite yet.”

               They fall quiet for a few minutes, content to just enjoy the warmth of being together. Len’s just starting to dose off when she speaks again. “Did you ever imagine we’d have something like this…so many people who care surrounding us?”

               “No,” he replies softly. “Didn’t believe I’d like it either.”

               “Aww,” Sara pulls back, and even in the dark he can see her teasing smile. “Has Leonard Snart gone soft?”

               He smiles back, “just a little.” He shifts to press his forehead to hers. “but I’ll deny it if you say a word to anyone else in this house.”

               She laughs, “of course.” She reaches up, hand resting along his jaw. “I love you, Len.”

               “Something else I’d never expected to have, especially from a badass hero.” He whispers, kissing her slowly.

               She laughs before snuggling into his chest once more, “that makes two of us.”

               It’s quiet for a beat, then he leans in to speak near her ear, “still sure you don’t want to spend the holiday on an island somewhere?”

               She groans, offering a half-hearted hit to his chest. “Will you just go to sleep.”

               He laughs, “Whatever you say. Goodnight, Sara.”

[unmanageable-day]

Merry Go Round

The nickname 'stone face' wasn't earned by Hwang Minhyun for nothing. Yet with such a handsome face, the cold image was still lingering all over him because he was well-known to be very quiet. This didn't stop Jung Yesoo from confessing to him 2 years ago. Standing before Yesoo, who was anxious waiting for his answer, Minhyun still maintained the facial expression that makes everyone reluctant to approach him. But slowly he showed his little smile. Great amount of shyness was unexpectedly oozed from that little smile that slowly got wider. Yes, he accepted her.

Both Minhyun and Yesoo were a shy couple in the first 100 days. It felt like riding a roller coaster for children. No big, scary, nerve racking ups and downs, but the excited feeling was there. Aside from that, Yesoo's friends could tell that she was genuinely happy. A fresh smile was always attached on her face. She barely had a bad day. Because seeing Minhyun itself had become her main source of happiness, although Minhyun didn't talk much or do sweet things to her.

And so the days went on. The ride had changed to merry go round. The happiness was still there, but it just went round and round with constant speed although the view was beautiful. Minhyun still had his usual smile. Yesoo still smiled, yet she felt different. The fond feeling of Minhyun didn't change. Yet she couldn't help thinking that something was a bit off.

Yesoo was too afraid to spill it on Minhyun.

"Chuseok holiday is coming. Do you want to go somewhere?" Yesoo asked. They were enjoying a lunch date in Hongdae. Lunch date is a must on the weekend since that's the only time they have to see each other.

Minhyun nodded. But Yesoo couldn't tell if he was excited, if he was anticipating about it, or maybe if he was at least interested. They were going to one year and 9 months together, and Yesoo couldn't believe herself that she didn't know much about Minhyun. She can't even read his mind or his expression. She wouldn't know if Minhyun probably was the opposite who knows everything about her since he never really talked about it. "Where do you want to go?" he asked back.

"I was thinking about Deukryang Island. But that would be too far, I guess."

"Well, we can make option list."

Yesoo nodded.

After paying the bills, they were ready to go outside when Yesoo almost reached out her arm to hold Minhyun's hand. Suddenly her mind was full of thoughts of her relationship. She just remembered, after all this time, she was the one who did the moves first. Confession, first date, second date, third date, and even holding hands.

"Yesoo?" he called, already several steps ahead.

"Yeah, coming up." She finally grabbed her beloved boyfriend's hand.

~~~~

Yesoo stomped her steps as she finished her work early. Her colleagues already bid her good bye. The time showed that it was only 2 PM. Suddenly it crossed her mind that Minhyun's office was nearby. A visit once in a while would be harmless, right?

She tried to call him but no answer. Her lips pouted as she redialled her phone. This time he picked up, which enlightened her expression.

"Hey, I'm near your office. You know, that cafe across your office building."

"Oh, yeah."

Yesoo's smile slowly faded. She could imagine how Minhyun was on the phone, with his plain, expressionless face, and his attention all over to his computer screen, working on anything he was working on. She continued speaking, "I was thinking if we could meet for a minute, or two. I'm buying you coffee and some snack."

"Sorry, it's not that I don't want to meet you, but work is piling up right now."

The smile was completely gone on her face. She just faked one when talking. "Oh, okay. It's alright. Let's meet once you're not busy."

"Mm-hmm. I'll text you later."

"Sure."

"I'm hanging up."

"Okay." She glanced at the coffee and bread she had bought. Fortunately, she only bought what she liked, so she could have them later.

 Meanwhile at the same time, Minhyun who was concentrating on his new project got startled by Jisoo who suddenly popped up out of nowhere. "Was it your girlfriend?" he asked with excitement oozing out of his eyes.

The word 'girlfriend' successfully attracted everyone's attention and they started to cheer. Because who would have a thought that this stone-face actually has a girlfriend?

"What? Hwang Minhyun? Girlfriend?"

"Really? Heol, daebak."

Thanks to Jisoo, now Minhyun couldn't focus on his work.

The chattering went on until his supervisor showed up and joined the crowd. "Your girlfriend is here? Then you should come down and meet her. I suppose you haven't had your lunch break."

"No, Raina noona, it's fine. I'm almost finished."

"Hwang Minhyun, do you want me to turn off your computer this very moment?" Raina bend her body and put her thumb on Minhyun's computer's power button. She didn't seem to play around, especially recalling how eccentric she was. "Then go down this instant. Your work can wait for a while."

"Yes, Ma'am." He quickly stood up before Raina started rambling again, or worse.

Minhyun stopped by in rest room to wash his face. His face and body muscles got stiff from not moving from his workspace. He massaged his wet face before he got tissues to dry it.

His eyes landed at the mirror before him, gazing at his own reflection for a moment. Fair skin, not so thick eyebrows, squinted monolid eyes, fine nose, and thin lips. Not to mention a sharp jaw. Stone face, huh? Well, he always put a serious expression that he never realized. His sense of fashion also matched the 'stone face' concept, as his closet was full of plain black, grey, white or brown colored outfit. Whenever he went out with Yesoo, whose clothes were mostly colorful or have patterns, the contrast of their outfit was very clear.

Before leaving the rest room, he once again took a look at himself who was wearing black shirt and grey trousers. He gave himself some pats on his shoulder and chest, probably to brush off some dust sticking on his clothes.

He dialed Yesoo's number as he speeded up his steps to go after her girlfriend, who he assumed was still in the restaurant she mentioned. Or at least if she had left, she wouldn't be very far. Yesoo not picking up his call finally made him run through emergency stairs from the 5th floor instead of using elevator. He headed to the restaurant across the street right away.

At least Minhyun was right about his girlfriend not leaving the restaurant yet. But who she was with there apparently poked his curiosity.

"Yesoo!" he called her. Yet she didn't even flinch. Minhyun could tell that Yesoo finally recognized him after given signs from her 'friend'.

At last, Yesoo turned her head to where Hui's eyes stopped. An instant smile grew on her face and she immediately got up approaching the tall guy. She reached her arm to link to him. "Did you have lunch? Do you want me to order something for you? Coffee?"

Minhyun, smiling and looking at his girl in the eyes, shook his head. "I'm good. But coffee would be great."

Yesoo smiled back. She escorted him to her seat, where Hui awkwardly waited for his friend to come back. "I'll be right back," she said as she patted Minhyun's back when he sat across Hui. "By the way, this is my friend, Hwitaek, or Hui for short. Hui, this is boyfriend, Minhyun."

Both guys bowed their heads and said hi. Once Yesoo left to the cashier, only awkward silence lingered around them. Thank goodness she didn't go away for long.

"Here's your coffee." She handed the tall cup to Minhyun and took a seat between the guys.

"So, I assume we work in the same building." Hui started conversation when he noticed the same access card hanging on Minhyun's neck.

"Yeah, I'm on the fifth floor."

"Oh, cool. Seonho and Guanlin are there too, right? Anyway, I'm on the second floor."

"Yeah." Minhyun calmly sipped his coffee. Then he didn't say any single word.

Having finished all the food, Hui finally excused himself leaving the couple. Just because. "Anyway.. It's nice to meet you guys, but I have to go back." He continued, "Yesoo, it's great to see you again. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

Yesoo nodded, waving her friend a good bye, alongside Minhyun who was bowing to him.

"Yesoo, I think I should go back too."

She pouted. "Already?" She was not usually clingy. But there were times when she wanted to be that clingy girlfriend. She never tried it though. It would be weird if she was being clingy out of the blue, especially to the stone-face guy like Minhyun, who was her own boyfriend, who didn't seem to be able to spoil his own girlfriend. "But I want to stay longer," she mumbled.

"Sorry," he replied. His expression didn't change a bit. "I'll call you later." With that, he got up after patting her head twice. He threw a little smile at her before leaving.

 ~~~

 Fall season was approaching very soon. Yesoo couldn't wait for the falling leaves all over the street. Autumn was Yesoo's favorite season, and Minhyun's too. This year was going to be their second time enjoying autumn together. Last autumn they went to Han river almost every weekend, having a picnic. Sometimes they went for a hike too in nearby mountains.

Yesoo had finished putting her summer clothes in a box after taking out all her autumn clothes. She had spared a few pieces for the last days of summer. Just in time when she had to find her cocktail midi dress and her only one high heels. She was getting ready for accompanying Minhyun to his company dinner, which allowed the workers to bring their plus one. As for Minhyun's case, his colleagues were the one who encouraged him to bring Yesoo. They seemed to be very enthusiastic to meet Hwang Minhyun's girlfriend.

It was rare for Yesoo to attend those fancy events. Her outfits were mostly smart casual. Or just casual. She didn't have much make up kit and tools too. She only had basic skin care, some BB cream or CC cream, foundation, and mascara. And, of course, some lipstick or lip tints. That day was going to be her very first time dolling herself up for Minhyun. By dolling up, it meant that after doing her base, she was just going to add blush and eye shadows using lipstick she had. That should be enough to give some colors.

She decided to leave her hair untied after she tried curling it a little. She brushed her hair with her fingers for the finishing touch. Just in time when Minhyun called, saying he was already in the apartment lobby. She quickly put on her heels and grabbed a coat lying on the couch.

Minhyun greeted with a warm smile. Without words they just set off and headed to the dinner venue. As usual, there were not much conversation on the road. Yesoo used to like every moment with Minhyun, including that long silence moment between them. But now, this silence had a different feel. Yesoo couldn't even look at him the way she used to when they were drowned in their own moment of silence. One-hour trip from her apartment to the restaurant felt like one year and somehow it was killing her inside.

Finally they arrived and dropped off Minhyun's car. That Minhyun didn't take Yesoo's hands hadn't changed. Yesoo had to reach his. So she could walk by his side, not behind his back. Wearing their best smiles, they headed straight to the venue and were jolly welcomed by Minhyun's coworkers. They were so delighted to see Minhyun's girlfriend, who they found her a bit odd for having Hwang Minhyun the stone face as boyfriend.

"Yesoo, thank you for today," said Minhyun when they were on their way home.

"It's okay. I had fun. You have nice friends. I'm sure the office environment is good."

"Yeah." Minhyun paused for a quite long time. He pretended to search for songs on the radio. "Actually, there is something I've wanted to say."

As much as Yesoo got flustered, she wouldn't show it. She knew sooner or later this time was going to come. She had no idea what it is he was going to say. But she had feelings. "What is it?" she asked, smiling.

"What do you think about us?"

Still maintaining her smile, she asked back. "What do you mean?" She tried hard to combine words that scattered in her head. "I like us. I like that you are with me the past 2 years." Her voice was getting softer and a little bit shakier, as she continued, "And I wish we can stay together for... more years to come?"

"I see." He looked at Yesoo, who just turned her head and kept her eyes to the front.

"What about you?"

"I..." Minhyun forced a smile. "I like it too."

This time Yesoo forced a smile as well. She knew Minhyun buried his honest feelings deep inside. Although he had his infamous stone-face, she could easily tell that the smile wasn't genuine. Why he wouldn't say it out loud was still a question to Yesoo. Frankly, it bothered her. But she didn't want to push him to tell the truth.

As the time passed, Yesoo's behavior towards Minhyun started to change. She no longer reached her hand to hold his. She no longer asked where they were going to go on weekends. She no longer gave suggestions on where they should go on weekends. She also no longer had that genuine happy smile when with him. The smile she wore mostly was forced. And no one really knew if Minhyun was aware of this. If this continued, fall probably would just pass without any good memories between them.

[artistic-writer]

Good Girl, Nell :: A CC Fic :: Rated F (for fluff)

Title: Good Girl, Nell [AO3]

Word count: 1341

Rating: F for fluffy domestic Captain Charming!  Don’t judge me.  I needed this today.

A/N: So, @hencethebravery and I were chatting about how it would be cute to have Dave and Killian in a snowball fight, being all cute and domestic in a log cabin in the woods.  And this is none of those things because instead, my CC have adopted a puppy! 

Taglist: @hencethebravery @mahstatins @spartanguard  @hollyethecurious  @katie-dub @phiralovesloki

“Let’s get a puppy.”

And just like that, the Nolan-Jones household became three.

At first, Dave was almost as in love with the idea of getting the dog as Killian was.  It was worth it to see the smile that adorned Killian’s face every time the ball of fluff ran clumsily into the space between them, eagerly jumping up and desperately trying to lick the faces of its new owners.  At first.

But then it had begun to grow - the shelter assuring them that she wouldn’t get ‘too big’ - and they had soon realised that their wonderful, adorable, special little bundle of joy was, in fact, the by product of some idiots personal goal to breed the largest dog he could.  After a little internet digging, Killian had realised that their ‘baby’ was some sort of Irish Wolfhound hybrid, gaining all of the good looks of their shaggy ancestors, including their gargantuan size.  

In short, Nell was huge.

At a stand, she came in well over the height of Dave’s hips and when he returned home from work, standing on her hind legs to great him with a wet, sloppy kiss, Nell dwarfed him coming in at over seven foot tall.  When she leaned against him, the muscles in his legs burned to stay upright, but secretly Dave was thankful he didn’t have to shell out extra money to go to the gym.  Hell, they needed that extra income just to feed her!

Nell ate everything she could.  Above and beyond her usual intake of what seemed like Killian's weight in dry kibble every day, Nell had also found time to gorge on some of the more refined items on the Nolan-Jones menu.  Like Dave’s socks.  Ever since she was a puppy, Nell had taken an interest in Dave’s socks, even working out how to pull open his dresser drawer to fetch her favourite delicacy.  Of course, Dave blamed Killian, who constantly taunted her as a puppy by tossing balled up socks at her scruffy features, but smiled each time the young pup had obediently returned the offending sock ball to Killian for another round.

It seemed there was no end to the amount of frustration laced cuteness Nell could inflict on Dave’s heart.  Combining the giant fur baby of a dog with the rugged handsomeness of his boyfriend was too much sometimes, and Dave often found himself overwhelmed with cuteness that would have blown up his ovaries, should he have had any.  Like now, when after slipping from their bed to silently create magical wake-up juice, Dave had returned to their sunlit drenched loft apartment bedroom to find his space occupied by the huge, hairy blonde.

“Nell,” Dave whispered sternly, the two cups of coffee in his hands steaming and the wisps of condensation dancing through the rays of the sun.  The tags on her collar jingled as she lifted her head lazily, her ever expressive eyebrows twitching about her face as she nervously averted her gaze away from her master.  “Move,” Dave ordered with a raise of his eyebrows, but with a sigh, Nell flopped her head back down onto his pillow and grunted a sigh.

“Let her be,” Killian mumbled into his pillow, the muscles on his back flexing as he tensed and stretched beside the huge, shaggy hound.  Killian peeled an eye open and was met with the warm, almond shaped brown eyes of his favourite girl, who, despite her size, would always remain his ‘little love’.  “Stay,” he smiled softly, a smirk spreading across his lips.

“She is not a baby, Killian,” Dave chastised gently as he placed both coffee mugs down on Killian’s nightstand.

“Of course not,” Killian agreed weakly.  “She’s far too obedient to be a child,” he grinned.

Dave leaned down, his naked torso brushing against the warmth of Killian’s shoulder.  “For you maybe,” Dave whispered in his ear, eyeing the oversized puppy that had taken up residence in his residual warmth beside his boyfriend.

Killian’s skin prickled, Dave’s hot breath behind his ear sending shivers all over his body.  He reached behind him and cupped Dave’s prickly cheek in his palm, snaking his hand behind his neck and into the softness of his ruffled locks.  “She’s a good girl,” Killian defended Nell with a pout as Dave tucked his chin into the crook of his neck.  “Aren’t you, Nell?”

Nell’s ears pricked up at her name, her long, slightly curled eyebrows bobbing up her face once more.  She didn’t move, more than content to stay where she was, except for her rope like tail which had begun a rhythmic thumping beat against the comforter.  With a stiffening stretch, she pawed at the thatch of Killian’s chest hair, gently clawing her nails down his torso in a move that so often gained her a well enjoyed ear scratch.  

“She has you wrapped around her little finger,” Dave teased, assessing Killian’s side of the bed to see if he could squeeze two grown men into the space left by their pet.

“She does not,” Killian argued, reaching out to drag his fingers through the velvet soft fur just behind Nell’s ear.

Dave laughed a hearty chuckle and shook his head.  “Any fool with an eye can see she loves you more.”

“That’s not true,” Killian said quickly, bopping Nell on the nose as he pulled his hand away to drag his fingers through the length of her slightly stained beard.

“Even her beard is better than mine,” Dave huffed in jest, rubbing his chin over Killian’s shoulder.

“But you have the best socks,” Killian smirked, rolling over onto his back and flattening his hand to the side of Dave’s face.  He curled his fingers through the curled stubble on Dave’s cheeks, stroking his face as he had just done with Nell’s.  

“Don’t say the ‘S’ word,” David warned as he moved to straddle Killian’s duvet covered hips.  He shot a quick glance at Nell who had lifted her head at the mere mention of the word.  “See?  Now, look what you've done?”

Killian rolled his ruffled hair against the pillow as he turned his head, Nell eagerly looking between both of them and her tail picking up speed as it pounded the bed.  Her ears twitched and she licked her lips, letting out an excited whine that sounded far too sweet to be coming from such a large dog.  She shuffled her weight, laying on her elbows and shifting her entire weight forward until she could rest her head down on Killian’s chest and look directly into his eyes.

“Awww,” Killian fawned, giving Dave a boyish smirk.

“Great,” Dave said with feigned annoyance as he dropped his hands on either side of Killian’s head and loomed over the man he loved.  “Now the dog has stolen my boyfriend too,” he purred, the wispy hair of Nell’s shaggy fur tickling his torso.

Killian stared into Dave’s eyes, the softness of his expression filled with so much love and warmth for the man beneath him, he thought he might combust.  Dave inched his hands closer to Killian’s head, his thumbs darting out to trace the edges of his pointed, elf like ears that he had always had an affinity with.  Killian felt his skin flush again, the tiniest touch enough to set him afire with the passion that so often burned inside of them both.

“Nell, move,” Killian growled, the timbre of his voice changed by his rising lust, the words leaving his mouth with a gravelly undertone that make Dave grin darkly.  Ever eager to please her master, Nell jumped to her feet, rocking the bed with her massive bulk as she bounded onto the hardwood floor with a loud thud, spun on her feet and sat obediently at the foot of the bed.

Dave quirked an ‘I told you so’ eyebrow at Killian.  “Good girl, Nell” he whispered through his smile, finally pressing his entire body to Killian’s as he kissed him senseless, the dull thud of Nell’s tail against the loft flooring making them both chuckle.

[littleladysongbird]

Feeling Slightly Overboard: A Gwenvid Fic

Hey! I’m back from the dead! While I’ve been busy at work with papers and other really cool writing projects, I realized I missed Gwenvid week and decided to write something to make up for it. So, inspired by @zippybot‘s wonderful Gwenvid art for Day 5 & 6, here’s a very short fluffy fic!

(Oh yeah and I don’t own Camp Camp)

-xoxo Diana 

***

It had always been a really bad idea at its core.

After all, despite having free reign over the camp with Campbell off and gone to god-knows where, it was still...inappropriate to be in a public relationship with one another. Technically they were employees of the local government, and inter-department relationships were absolutely out of the question.

But the kids had passed out early and it was way too hot to stay in the cabin and watch a movie. So David and Gwen stole camp supplies and a canoe and literally pitched themselves a date in one of the isolated coves of Lake Lilac.

Camping and late-night canoeing was David’s idea from the get-go,  though he certainly didn’t expect to be taking her out in the middle of camp season. She was determined to make it work, though, and all but physically dragged him out the door in order to enjoy some peace and quiet together outside the confines of screened windows.

And he wanted to.

Lord, he wanted to.

But even two hours in without a single mishap, his stomach was tripled knotted with anxiety, and he wanted nothing less than to be back at the cabin fast asleep on his own cott, even when Gwen was relaxed and happy in the opposite end of the boat.

It had already been a few weeks since they had made the relationship official, and he was still as nervous as he was the first night they had kissed. He tried to chalk it up to the threat of being fired, but deep down, even David knew that there was really no reason to worry about getting discovered.

Mostly because it still felt like they weren’t even a couple.

The initial decision was quickly decided, and despite a consistent pattern subtle flirting and stolen kisses and late-night conversation, there was little to show for them as a couple. For the first time, David had begun to look forward to the end of camp, since it meant he and Gwen could spend time together as a couple. And yet, in the hollow of his chest, the fear of losing her before summer’s end continued to strike him with a sharp, brutal blow. It was frustrating, and despite all his attempts to-

“David?”

He snapped his head up, hair flouncing in the breeze as he focused his gaze back at the woman sitting across from him. She was frowning, slightly biting her bottom lip as she reached out to grab his hand.

“Hey,” she smiled, “you okay? You look super stressed.”

“Nope!” he laughed through a strained smile, “I just...I haven’t been on a proper date in a while, you know?”

“Don’t worry; it’s going great so far.”

“Thanks,” he blushed, giving her hand a squeeze before grasping the paddle in hand to guide them back to shore.

Their temporary campsite was tucked out of the way, hidden from nearly every angle and shaded by small limestone formations and tall pines. It lacked proper starlight and the shoreline was a slightly unforgiving bed of pebbles, but it was a good sanctuary from the outside world.

“So,” Gwen yawned, letting her hand dip into the clear water as the boat floated on the edge of the cove, “how exactly did you find this place?”

“I can’t remember, honestly,” he sighed, leaning back to look up at the rim of the moon, “I think it was during district training; I was taking a summer class at the community college while also doing my training, and I just needed a quiet place to study. As far as I can tell, nobody ever comes over here since it’s kind of rocky and the tide can flood camp if you don’t know where to pitch it.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Thanks.” David sat back up, watching Gwen lazily draw patterns on the cold surface of the lake. For a moment, everything was calm.

Then a tree branch snapped.

Anxiety blew him backwards like a bullet to the face, causing the canoe to dip and toss both Gwen and David into the freezing water.

“Jesus!” Gwen gasped, her entire body turning a stark shade of white as she scrambled to her feet in the freezing water, “what the hell David?”

“I’m sorry!” He choked, “I thought...there was something.”

“Did you see someone?”

“N-no,” he avoided her gaze, pushing the boat onto the shore as quickly as possible, “I just...it scared me. I’m sorry.”

“David-”

“Just, go dry off.” He mumbled, skin burning with humiliation. “There’s some blankets in the tent if you want.”

He braced himself for what she has to say, but she was silent, quietly moving past him and ducking into the tent. David sighed, peeling off his own shirt and trousers and laying them by the fire before sitting by the flames himself. He was the very definition of humiliation: drenched in cold water, red-faced, and wearing nothing but his boxers and make-shift bandanna.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and losing himself to sound of nature until the sharp scratching of a zipper drew his attention.

“You okay?”

David looked over his right shoulder, surprised to find Gwen beside him with a gentle smile on her face. Her hair was down, a blanket draped across her waist to avoid the complete exposure of her undergarments. David turned back towards the fire, dropping his gaze to the ashes that burst before him.

“...I’m sorry, Gwen,” he sighed, “this was supposed to be a fun date.”

“David-”

“But I ruined it.”

He let the words fall into the open, his own heart heavy with self-loathing and doubt. His chance with her had been slim, and he had completely ruined it. He could hear her awkward breathing and apologies in the back of his imagination, and felt tears boiling under his eyes.

“David-”

He shook, breathing sharply as he prepared for the impact of her words.

“No you didn’t.” He blinked, turning to find her gazing up at him, leaning against his shoulder and taking his hand in her own. “I’m having fun.”

David stared at her, turning a vivid shade of pink as her fingers began to trace along his wrist.

“You’re not...mad at me?”

“Come on, David,” she snorted, rolling her eyes and tucking herself under his chin, “I know we haven’t exactly been the most romantic couple with all these little shits running around, but it’s gonna take a lot more than falling out of a boat to get me to actually break up with you.”

“Oh.” He bit his lip, trying to prevent the stupid smile sprouting on his face. “So...you still, like, want to do this with me?”

“Of course you idiot,” Gwen laughed, “it’s been killing me that those little shits won’t shut the fuck up till one am! Why do you think I’ve been so adamant about you sending those fuckers on an eight hour hike to God-knows where?”

David chuckled under his breath, wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her close. “Thanks, Gwen.”

“No problem, David!” She snorted, locking eyes with him. David dug a little tighter into her ribs, eyes unflinching from her own. He was feeling jumpy and anxious again, but this time it made him feel...good. With a deep breath, he gently pushed her hand a bit farther behind her, hovering over her with a slight hesitation.

“Hey, Gwen?” He blushed. “Can I...kiss you?”

To his surprise, she laughs, leaning in until she nearly brushes her lips on his own.

“Hell yeah!”

Their lips are locked within seconds, his arms winding themselves around her waist as her own hands knotted behind his head. It was a lot...rougher, than what he was used to, but it was by no means bad. He quite liked the feeling of her tongue pressed against his own, weight shifting ever so slightly and heat rising with the friction between their skin.

“G-god,” Gwen moaned, rocking back on his lap ever so slightly to catch her breath, “that’s...that felt good.”

David bit down on his entire bottom lip, trying to ignore the sudden rush of warmth to his hips. But the bulge began to grow, and, to his complete humiliation, she began to snicker.

“You good, David?”

“J-j-just fine,” he gulped, “sorry, I-”

“It’s not a bad thing. That is, unless you don’t…” she looked up, leaning back to support herself on her own arms, “do you...want to?”

“Want to what?”

“You know; do it? With me? You know...right now?”

“Oh.” David froze, slightly flustered and unsure. “I mean, I want to, but I’m not...I haven’t…”

“Oh, well, we don’t have to-”

“No, I want to!” David grasped her waist, pulling her back into his arms. “I just...I might not be good at it.”

“David, nobody’s good at it. We just...we do it.”

“Okay.” He nodded, kissing her deeper and deeper until she was sprawled out below him. He smiled at her, sheepish and still slightly nervous.

“Is this okay, Gwen?”

Gwen looked up, trying to keep her eyes focused on his own instead of the discrete trail of freckles that crawled down his body. Sweating slightly, she grinned. 

“Perfect.”

***

(PS: In case you were wondering my other CC fics, reader; yes, I’m still working on Bastard Valley. I have a personal project I need to complete in the next week, but then I will get to work and probably upload chapters 4 and 5 relatively soon)

(PPS: PLEASE FOLLOW @zippybot THEY DESERVE THE BEST!)

[hencethebravery]

Title: “Alive,” (1/1)

Summary: Killian Jones kisses David Nolan for the first time in late spring. It is now summer, and he’s not quite sure how to pencil in the second.

Notes: Very romantic CC for my love, @phiralovesloki, who actively encourages all of this for some unknown reason. Please note, I’ve written a Killian Jones with mild PTSD and anxiety, so if you think you might find that triggering at all, read with caution. Could very well be part of a series involving CC and other seasons, but have not yet decided. Stay tuned. Also on Ao3. For all the other CC beans: @the-reason-to-sail-home @abbadons-little-witch @dassala​ @mahstatins​ @katie-dub

One day, I plan to love so loudly, my body abandons every demon harvesting me. — Arati Warrier, “Alive”

+ It’s a tricky thing. Once you’ve known the taste of someone’s lips and found it to be a far more momentous occasion than you had initially anticipated. Beforehand, one might think you’ll only know it the one time, and the odds of it happening again are unlikely, so… you do it, aye? Curious. How do you not do it again? That’s the question, isn’t it? Especially if it was a little bit unexpected, let’s say—it had failed to show up on the calendar for the month of June, and now the rest of your life is totally fucked to hell.

It’s not possible that anyone else’s lips could throw such a wrench into his schedule. Not even much of one, to be fair. Working freelance as he did, odd hours and odd jobs, one unexpected, life-altering kiss does not a fucked up schedule make. If anything, there was an added flair to his rather mundane existence that hadn’t been there earlier. Spike the coffee, eat an egg, walk the dog, kiss your mate, do the shopping—and what was that last thing?

You: “What was the what thing?”

Your Brother: “Kiss your who?”

Doesn’t matter. Point is, when you’re talking to your brother about sharing an all too brief kiss with the bloke you once rode the bus with, you try and keep it casual. After all, Liam Jones has no reason to know that you’ve circled June the 5th in an expensive black ink that’s bled through the page—all the way through to August, in fact, when there’s supposed to be a boat trip scheduled for the whole lot of you, and you have to ask yourself, “How do you not do it again?”

The answer to that question is that you bloody well don’t. You keep that tongue of yours firmly ensconced inside your own mouth unless you’re shouting down bar maids or showing up your know-it-all brother at trivia night. You manage to live your life for a whole two months without screwing anything up. Well done, you.

You manage to abide by the calendar you’ve kept since naval training—the calendar that, for all intents and purposes, saved your life once upon a time. Being the roughed up, dramatic younger brother had its perks, but in the end, rampant alcoholism, a suspicious rash, and a series of exceptionally burned bridges had taught him the benefits of following a careful schedule. It hasn’t managed to buff out all the sharp corners; rum tastes too sweet and his memory is a little too good, but no price is too high when you’re trying to avoid the odd skin allergy. Which is what it was.

Regardless, August arrives and it’s hotter than the East Coast has any right to be. He’s quite confident in his assertions that even Afghanistan wasn’t this hot, and considering the fact that Afghanistan was actually hell, he’s not sure what to make of the temper tantrum that the state of Maine seems to be currently throwing.

“Just last week you were complaining about how cold it was,” comes David’s muffled voice from below deck, “enjoy it.”

David Nolan is of an optimism so profound it’s certain not to be believed. The man has thought exceedingly well of almost everyone and everything in their lives since they were children, which, to Killian’s mind, can only end badly. He’s not written it down, but it has been inscribed within the gelatinous valleys of his brain somewhere, this unspoken responsibility—don’t let it ruin him. Having people like David Nolan in the world is a very important thing, and the only way to keep them around is to have people like Killian picking up the pessimistic slack.

“It’s my boat, mate,” Killian shouts down the hatch, “I’ll complain where I like.”

On the side of his monthly calendars there’s a designated “Notes” section, set aside for various odds and ends. He’s been known to put some poetry there on occasion, either verses he’s written or found, a phone number or two, an exceptional cocktail, what have you. For the month of August there’s a sailboat at the top (nothing too fancy), followed by wave, after wave, after wave, and then, down at the bottom, there’s a capsized sailboat. Hence, pessimism.

The heat is physically uncomfortable, to be sure, but it’s also demanding. For example, it demands that two men working on a boat out in the hot sun remove some of their clothing in order to avoid fainting or otherwise feeling ill in such unreasonable weather. This, however, requires him to confront the somewhat uncomfortable question of how he avoids doing the thing he had done only the once—with no intention of repeating said thing. His calendar said so.

David Nolan in a t-shirt is not unlike David Nolan wearing nothing at all. If anything, it might be worse. Without the shirt, it’s almost as if he’s existing in a moment of unreality, wherein there’s nothing especially remarkable about that chest over there other than the fact that it is one. He’s got one of those too—if anything, his is better, covered in a masculine dusting of hair as it is. David’s white t-shirt looks like it’s been run through the wash a couple hundred times. There are barely-there tears at the sleeves and around the collar. Today it is stained with sweat beneath his arms and lower back.

The heat is overwhelming, like the desert, only there’s a wetness in the air that makes it harder to breathe. For a moment, he misses the feeling of having a gun in his hand so he grabs a beer from the cooler and holds it against his neck, his pulse tapping against the glass like machine gun fire. Interrupt.

“You see those clouds?”

David’s voice is soft at his side, his own mouth wrapped around the lip of a bottle and he has to say that no, he hadn’t even noticed. The poorly drawn “ship” sailing on the pages of his calendar starts to sink in the wake of poor weather and his heart aches—keeps beating quickly in his chest and he knows a panic attack when he feels one. Inconvenient things, they seem to be.

“Killian,” David says, apparently for the second time, and he puts a hand on his shoulder. Definitely not in the calendar.

Killian doesn’t much feel like answering. Killian wants to write about the sky in his notebook. Not any sky, mind you. This sky, because it’s somewhat of a nightmare to behold. Even with the boat tied to the dock and the sight of safe, dry land in the distance, the sky at this moment is a wild thing. Moments ago, the air smelled like salt and bubbling yeast. The sun was a large, imposing spotlight on the deck of his ship, making the wood warm, their skin sweat.

In June the air smells like earth. Certain parts of the farm are freshly turned at this time of year, and no matter where you go, it emanates over the property. Through the fields, over the lake, between the trees. Over hill, over dale, point made. June is new. They are, the both of them, new. When Killian kisses David, it’s because he can no longer bear it.

“The wanting.” Answering the question, what was it he could no longer bear? Because he was starving in his little house by the sea full of dry, winter air that had given him nosebleeds. It was probably all that dirt in the air—all those trees in bloom. All that pollen in his hair, the perpetually dirty state of his hands.

The answer is a little bit dramatic, but David seems to take it in stride, either because he’s known Killian for most of his life, or maybe because he understands, either way, he smiles. When David smiles it’s a thing you don’t need to see, and sure, you should, of course you should, but Killian is exceedingly grateful that in this moment, he doesn’t need to open his eyes.

It’s his gut that’s empty, not his gaze. He is, quite frankly, sick of opening his eyes. All he needs to do is feel it, and he knows that his friend “wants” too—just as frantically, as hungrily, as poetically. He plays the follow-up question in his head on a tortuous loop the next few days. He even writes it down so he can stare at the shape of the letters and hate himself even more than he already does.

“How is it you smell like that?”

Because it is something… indescribable. He can wax poetic on the state of the air in June all he likes, he has words on words on words to describe it, but all of a sudden, the smell of this man is the scent of which he cannot seem to describe. And he answers, “Like what?” and Killian can only answer with his mouth against his, because it’s not about the words suddenly—it’s about the breath. It’s about David’s forehead against his, their lips barely touching, and he answers with a kiss because he’s a fucking idiot.

August doesn’t smell new. It smells tired. Or maybe he’s just tired. Either way, the bright, overbearing sun is lost behind a sky of heavy, dark clouds and the man at his shoulder smells like beer and sweat. Like the moth-eaten blankets he had kept below deck all winter. The trees are gone but he can still feel the bark against the skin of his back.

“We’ve got to tie the lot of this down,” he answers suddenly. He had wanted to avoid the inevitability of turning around to face him, the tree at his back—with that concerned look on his face. Killian smiles, but it’s not like David’s in June. You’d have to see it, or you wouldn’t even know it was there. “She’ll be fine tied to the dock, but I don’t want to lose any of this gear.”

He’d savor the refreshing feeling of the breeze if there were any time for it, but they seem to have run out of it, and thankfully for him, David seems to have adopted a similar sense of urgency. Moving around deck as he is, his hands wrapped deftly around thick rope, one knot after another. The thunder continues on in the distance, unperturbed, and there’s a flash of lightening that leaves an echo across a purple sky.

There’s another crack followed by a second flash, and the sky opens. Despite the maddening anxiety he has contended with all day, there is something undeniably satisfying about knowing he was right about the “shirt on being worse” thing. David pauses in his run about the deck to enjoy the torrent of rain that’s been unleashed on the two of them, a loud yell of relief passing his lips, and Killian wonders what they taste like in August. At sea, in a storm—like salt? Like rain? Like the beer they’d been drinking earlier. Like dirt, like himself, lingering on his tongue for months.

When David dashes across the deck, clothes clinging to his form, every muscle carved beneath wet fabric as if he were a statue, Killian is busy trying to forget about the sinking ship in his calendar. He’s trying to remember what it was his therapist had said about “being in the moment,” and suddenly David’s lips don’t taste like June. They taste like August, in the rain. Wet and messy and just as hungry as before.

“Aren’t you sick of it,” David not quite shouts against his lips, the rain and wind lashing against the deck, “that ‘wanting?’” He’s smiling again, that wide, sunshine-smile that he has worn everyday of his life and Killian can see it out of the corner of his eye. In between the heavy, wet drops hanging from his lashes and the hair falling against his forehead—of course he can see it.

“Yes!” Killian shouts over yet another thunder clap, both of their faces turned towards a manic sky. “Bloody exhausted!”

The sound of the storm is softer below deck, as if it were a record playing in another room. The ship tugs on her moors but she’s steady, tied against the dock as she is. The only other sound is that of the air heaving in and out of their lungs, heavy with anticipation and adrenaline.

“You smell good too,” David admits between each, tired breath, “I’m sorry I made you wait.”

“Sometimes the waiting is the best part,” Killian answers gently, and there’s something in his tone, a note of understanding that he’s impressed to find he actually believes. “I’m good at waiting.”

As David moves closer he peels the wet t-shirt off his back and chuckles, shaking his head. “No, you’re really not.” The shirt falls with a decisive, wet splat against the ground, but Killian is too distracted by the return of David’s forehead, his hand against his neck. His fingernails are short and blunt against his skin, the scratch of an almost, but he feels his skin prickle all the same. Standing still in wet clothes, the warmth of the sun a fleeting memory, he knows he should feel cold but there’s this heat inside of him—flickering and alive.

“If that’s the case,” he whispers, his own hands hovering at his sides, “what are you waiting for?”

The kiss is gentler this time, the shelter of the cabin urging slowness, carefulness. Here, they are beyond the reach of the whipping wind and stinging rain. The gaze of a seaside town, the towering pines. Their breath is softer, less like they’re running out of time, and there’s a drag between each pass of his lips. He feels as if he’s being savored and it’s not a thing that you deny yourself a second time.

“You should—” David’s voice is rough, like he hasn’t spoken in years and Killian’s pride does a little victory dance at the thought of its return, “You should change.”

Logically, Killian knows that David means “change clothes,” he knows this unequivocally. But he also has a tendency to err on the side of unnecessarily meaningful and he takes it to mean something else. Not in a negative way, he does not, by any means, feel that David wants him to be somebody else. This he also knows, unequivocally. What he also knows, what he has come to learn, is that his heart in its current state? It’s not sustainable. “You should change,” his heart speaks in David’s voice, “you need not want quite so much, when you can so easily have it.”

He shivers at the sensation of cool air hitting his bare flesh, but there’s hardly a moment to feel uncomfortable. There’s David’s hand against the soft skin of stomach, his fingers trailing through the fine hair beneath his belly button, and the warmth, it feels as if he’s slipping into a soaking tub. The rain continues it’s harsh pitter-pattering against the side of the boat as they move towards the small bed, clumsy step after clumsy step.

It smells like dust as they land, like the attic in the farmhouse, but the pile of blankets manages to catch them just fine. The cotton, washed one too many times, coming up to swallow their legs and shoulders, keeping them in a soft, dry place. He secures his own lips against David’s jaw, that sharp corner just beneath his ear and the moan that follows is more of a feeling than a sound—more of a sob than a gasp.

When he returns to his lips to catch yet another, quiet moan, it tastes even better than it had in June, then it had above deck moments earlier. Again, indescribable, and he feels a bit frustrated by the fact that words might fail him sometimes. After all, they do sit so well on his tongue, they feel manageable in a way that his thoughts don’t, that his heart doesn’t, and without them he worries that he’ll lose any sense of control he might have.

At some point the rain must stop, but it’s hard to notice, what with the hands and the lips and the feeling of his stomach as it moves against his own, in and out with every breath, sometimes quick and sometimes so slowly he’s worried that he’s holding it. At some point, in between the feeling of David’s lips against his rib cage and his hands at the button of his jeans, the sun very briefly returns before evening falls.

It’s his favorite time of day, those few moments before twilight. The rich, buttery light of the setting sun falls through the porthole over the bed, warming their entwined bodies atop the mussed blankets. The darkness behind Killian’s closed eyes turns a muted red color, and he can feel the warmth of the sun as it slowly sets against his skin, the fleeting light of day a gentle goodbye.

The water is calm against the boat, rocking them carefully back and forth, and his mind has never been quieter. The steady torture of a mind that refuses to settle, that must be shaken up and poured out over each and every month, everyday—that must be considered and thought over and applied and re-applied. Where no one means what they say, where he rarely means what he even says, but here, in this moment between sleeping and waking, it is blessedly silent.

He hears David mutter something against the back of his neck, and he knows, even without being able to see. He smiles.

[hanibata]

march favorites

beauty: it cosmetics cc cream, secret key two tone glow

food: cava, the pokéspot

music: lofi hip hop radio, bohemian rhapsody - pentatonix, andrew huang

other: fitbit flex, pocket plants, power rangers, angry asian girls tee

beauty

it cosmetics your skin but better cc+ cream with spf 50 in ‘light’ ($15, sephora) on days when i have time to wear foundation, this is what i’ve been gravitating towards. my skin has improved a lot so i’m mostly dealing with residual redness and light scarring here and there. it’s advertised as full coverage but i use a beautyblender, which sheers it out a little bit. still, it gives me enough coverage so that i don’t feel the need to use an additional concealer (except for under my eyes). it’s lightweight, blends nicely, and the color is a perfect match for my skin. (the full-sized version is $38 - i bought the travel-sized one.)

secret key sweet glam two tone glow in ‘dry rose’ ($7, ebay) i’m a bit late to the gradient lip trend, mostly because i didn’t think it suited my lip shape. i thought it would be gimmicky but this lipstick does actually make it a lot easier to achieve the look. the color i picked out, dry rose, is pretty subtle. it’s also very moisturizing and feels like a balm on the lips. i bought mine on ebay but you can probably find it on other sites that sell korean products, like korea depart or testerkorea.

food

cava cava is a chipotle-style mediterranean grab & go restaurant, where you can build your own rice or salad bowls with toppings like hummus, falafel, tzatziki, etc. i had a rice bowl with chicken, topped with a bunch of stuff. it’s been a while so i don’t remember everything i got but i definitely got hummus, harissa, eggplant, cucumbers, and i think i got two dressings. the food was really good, but tbh my favorite part is their soda fountain, which has maine root sodas. the blueberry soda has been a favorite of mine for years now.

the pokéspot somehow both of my food favorites ended up being build-your-own-bowl places near union square lol. the first time i went to the pokéspot, i wasn’t impressed, but i came back a couple days ago and really enjoyed it. i liked the tartness of the mango contrasting with the rest of the bowl, and i also really liked the sauces i picked (sriracha aioli and sesame shoyu). the portion was also pretty generous compared to some other poké places i’ve tried.

music

lofi hip hop radio calming, chill beats that are great for studying or just relaxing. i've played this while doing work, sleeping, and even when i’m getting ready in the morning.

bohemian rhapsody - pentatonix

andrew huang i’ve known about andrew huang since his pink fluffy unicorns song went viral while i was in high school, but i recently rediscovered his channel and had his videos on autoplay one day as i was doing other things. this guy is just so ridiculously talented, creative, and entertaining to watch.

other

fitbit flex ($80, fitbit.com; i got mine on sale at modell’s for $25) i think this is the original fitbit model, so it doesn’t really have any of the fancy features that the newer ones have. honestly i’m the least active person ever, but i’m also petty and competitive, and i bought this so that i could compete with people to get more steps than them. there are other things you can track too, like your diet, weight, and water intake, but i didn’t want to be overwhelmed and get caught up in the numbers, so i’ve just been using it to track my steps and amount of sleep.

pocket plants (free, android/ios) this is a cute, relaxing game where your goal is to breed plants to unlock new species and clean up the gardens. i started playing this before i got my fitbit, but you can actually connect your fitbit to the game and convert your steps into energy/gems that are used in the game. the fitbit isn’t necessary to play, but it can be helpful when you’re farther along and it costs more gems to unlock new plant species.

power rangers movie even though i didn’t really watch power rangers as a kid, i still really enjoyed the movie. i wish more entertainment was this diverse - four out of five rangers are poc, one ranger has autism and explicitly states “i’m on the spectrum,” and another one is supposedly lesbian, but it was hinted at veeery subtly.

angry asian girls t-shirt ($20, teespring) i actually got this shirt in february but never got around to wearing it until recently. it’s not available at the moment, so you just have to give them your email address and wait until they’ll make more.

[stillthewordgirl]

LOT/CC fic: Close Quarters

Written for the @ficcingcaptaincanary prompt of the week: “Stuck in a small space.”

From some nebulous time in the late first season, or a “Destiny never happened” timeline. :) Thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta! I own nothing.

Can also be read here at AO3.

"Crook! Come on, Snart. Wake up." Sara draws a ragged breath as she moves her right hand just a little again, wincing at the pain in her arm as it catches on the rough wood of the beam propped over them. "Come on. I know you're in there. Please..."

Her fingers brush against the incongruous softness of his close-cropped hair, but Leonard doesn’t move. She swallows, hard, as they also encounter a warm stickiness that is unmistakably blood, but it's not like that's news. She's been feeling it against her skin since she'd first regained consciousness after the explosion.

And she's pretty sure it's not hers.

Somehow, he'd twigged to the impending blast seconds before she had, rounding on her abruptly and sweeping them both into the shelter of one of the old house's more solid walls. She can still see the determined look on his face in the fraction of a second before she realized what was happening, just before the wave of sound and force and the moment everything went black.

What she can't see is his face now, not with the way her head and shoulders are wedged into the debris. She can just feel him, solid and still and between her and most of the wreckage. His head's cradled into her collarbone, his arms still loosely wrapped around her, and if he was conscious, she'd be giving him grief for the somewhat intimate way they'd managed to get trapped here.

But he's not conscious, though she can feel the steady beat of his heart against her stomach. And he's bleeding; she can feel it on her fingertips and under the palm of her hand, tacky on her costume, and trickling onto her other arm where it's trapped at her side. Very slowly, thank god.

Between Leonard's weight on top of her, the dull ache of her left ankle, and the precariously balanced beams over both of them in this tiny sheltered area in the wreckage, she's not sure how they're going to get out. She's hoping the others will get here soon to help, because otherwise she's going to have to find a way to power through... and this whole house of cards might come crashing down.

If things don't shift and bring it down anyway.

It's uncannily still, now, silent except for the faint shift of the beams. Too far out in the sticks for anyone to call for police and rescue... except for the people who used it as a lair—and planted the explosives—to begin with.

And then, finally... is that the tiniest of moans?

"Snart! Leonard." Sara worries her bottom lip with her teeth, shifting a tiny bit. "Come on. You have to wake up. We need to get out of here so I can give you shit for playing the hero and saving me."

"No," he says indistinctly into her collarbone, lips moving against the battered white leather of her costume, and the rush of relief makes her tone just a trifle sharp.

"Oh, you damn well bet I will..."

Another mutter, and he moves again, just a little. "Dad, no..."

Oh.

For moment, they're both silent, Sara as she ponders what to do and Leonard as he lapses back into dreamland.

"Len," she whispers finally, running her fingertips along his hair again. "Ssshhh. It's OK. You're not... damn it. You're hurt, but you're not there."

She''ll never, ever tell him – or anyone else – but the next noise might even be a whimper. "No..."

She maneuvers her hand down so that her fingers actually rest against the inch or so of bare skin at the top of his collar, keeps talking. "Somehow you figured out Savage had a bomb planted in here and you, you tackled me right before it went off. We're stuck here at the moment, but we're gonna be OK."

The skin under her fingers shudders as he lets out another pained noise. "I...no... don't..."

She knows he has his demons. He's started alluding to them, even, during their card games, fragments and references concealed by a dry or mock-joking tone. She can tell when he's doing it, dropping in the tiniest fragment of personal information, because he'll never, ever look her in the eye at that point, and the tension in his shoulders will be visible even from several feet away.

"Yeah, my old man sucked as a cop," he told her one day after she'd told him a little about her father. "I think he went into it because he liked to hurt people.” He’d shrugged, looking at his cards. “Imagine his surprise to find out that, on a well-run force, it didn’t take long before he was out on his ass.” A half-shrug. “He had to take it out on his family instead.”

"Shh," she tells him again, now, moving her hand in an almost-caress. "I’m here. You're not there."

He stops twitching again after a moment, but she keeps up the motion, reassuring herself as much as him that, in spite of the tackiness under her palm, he’s still warm and breathing.

It feels like hours, but by her best guess, it’s more like 10 minutes before she feels his breathing change and realizes he’s struggling toward true wakefulness. And a minute or two after that, she feels him stir again, muscles tensing just a bit as reason returns.

"Sara." He almost slurs it, but it's definitely her name, and she can't help smiling.

"MmHmm. Right here. Welcome back.”

"Wha..." He moves a little, turning his head... and freezes as, she guesses, he realizes how he’s lying. But she doesn’t say anything and neither does he, although he carefully returns to his original position.

“Careful,” she tells him then. “You’ve only got two inches or so of clearance above you, far as I can tell. We’re wedged in here pretty tight. Can you feel your feet? Full range of motion?”

“I can…wiggle my toes, if that’s what you’re asking.” She can feel him shifting his lower body a little, breathes an inward sigh of relief. “Just have a hell of a headache. How long?”

“I’m not sure how long I was out, but I think it was seconds at most. So at my best guess, we’re just now getting to the point where the team could get back here after the comms went dead. Yours is…?”

“Yeah.”

“I figured. And that’s if everything went well with their mission.” She moves her fingers across the back of his neck again, almost involuntarily, and is surprised to feel him shift into the touch. “How did you know? About the bomb?"

He’s silent, and she gives him a moment, knowing him well enough by now to realize that he’s probably sifting through a variety of factors that include pure instinct.  

“Wasn’t sure it was a bomb,” he says finally. “Just…a trap. It was too quiet, but there were too many telltales that that house wasn’t truly abandoned. Someone wanted us to have enough reason to go in there.” He sighs, and she feels the warm breath against her skin. “Then I heard the click. Too late to do more than…”

“Save my life.” She keeps her tone quiet and serious, this time, thoughts of “giving him shit” aside. It’s too important. “Thank you.”

She expects a comment deflecting the thanks. Instead, though, he just says quietly, “Welcome.”

The silence stretches, but it’s not an unwelcome one. She gently rubs the back of his neck, the touch tentative, but not apparently unwelcome even though he’s no longer drowning in dreams. He moves a little, shifting with a sigh, and she can feels his arms tighten on either side of her.

“So,” he says finally, “what are we going to do if they don’t…”

The unmistakable sound of the jump ship breaks into his words, and they both breathe a sigh of relief even as Sara, a trifle giddy, giggles at the timing.

“Shit!” Jax’s voice, loud after the relative silence, is still distant but clearly audible a few minutes later. “What happened? Do you think they’re…?! Guys, can you hear us?”

Sara starts to drag in a breath to respond, but then: "Snart!" A new voice booms out, nearly on top of them. "Sara! Where the hell are you?"

"Mick!" She can't quite get enough air in her lungs to really yell, but she does the best she can. "Jax! Here!" Then, as she can finally see them shifting wreckage away, "Careful! Snart's hurt."

"We're coming, Blondie!" A few minutes later, a few beams shift and she can see Mick's concerned eyes peering down at them. After a moment's consideration, he actually grunts in amusement.

"Hey, Boss. Blondie," he tells them, "getting pretty cozy, ain't you?

The words get a string of muttering profanity from Snart, who shifts as though trying to rise on his own, but Mick only laughs, carefully moving one beam, then another out of the way, joined by Jax, who slithers down into the sheltered area as soon as there’s room. He helps to support the framework from below as the other man continues to shift things.

“What the hell happened?” Jax asks them worriedly. “The comms went dead and we got back as soon as we could. It looks like a bomb went off here.”

“Pretty much what happened, kid.” With a grunt of pain, Leonard moves to the side as more space opens up. Sara immediately starts to rise, only to think better of it as her head swims and pretty much everything from head to toe gives a pang of protest.

As Jax moves to her side and gently helps her sit up, she gets her first good look at Snart since the bomb went off. He’s propped himself against a beam, covered in dust…well, so is she… and blood’s crusted across his forehead and his left cheekbone from a nasty-looking—but probably not too dangerous—gash on his temple.

“You look like hell,” she tells him cheerfully, so pleased to finally be able to see him that she can’t help grinning. And he’s grinning—an actual grin, not a smirk--back at her.

“I bled all over your outfit,” he tells her nonchalantly. “Sorry.”

“I should make you do my laundry, Crook.”

“Hey, I saved your life, Assassin…”

“Can you two can the flirting for five minutes so we can figure out how to get you back to the ship?” Mick, peering down at them, shakes his head. “I’m going to move the jump ship closer and try to use it to pull some of this crap away so you can get out. How the hell you were lucky enough to end up in the one place that didn’t get annihilated by hundreds of pounds of half-rotten timber and 1950s siding, I’ll never know. Jax, gimme a hand…”

Jax climbs out and, arguing with Mick over the best way to get their two battered teammates the rest of the way out of the wreckage, heads back to the ship. Sara, listening, shakes her head, then looks back at Leonard, who’s closed his eyes and leaned back against a beam.

As if he feels her eyes on him, he opens his own and regards her.

"Next time we're in quarters that close, I hope I'm a little more conscious," is all he says, the gleam in his eyes and that familiar smirk reassuring her. She grins back at him.

"You keep dreaming, Crook," she says as she reaches out and lets her fingers brush his hand. "You keep dreaming."