#and for two: I know that these crack ships will NOT become canon | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nc-vb · 1 year

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𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐟𝐮𝐥, 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐝

it is said that distance makes the heart grow fonder. instead, it only proves to make the water levels rise a few millimeters.

pairing -> neuvillette x gn!reader

warnings -> sfw, sad neuvi & reader, smooching

notes -> reader's position is a non-canon one

character mentions -> lady furina, fontaine npcs, non-canon melusine characters

wc -> 2.1k

It wasn’t so often that the paths of you and your lover could so seamlessly cross.

As one might assume, governing a nation is not a walk in the park, nor is it a part-time position. It is a twenty-four-seven, midnight-to-midnight, no-matter-how-small-the-crisis job that someone has to take responsibility for— with Monsieur Neuvillette, the Chief Justice, leading the charge of each court proceeding and Lady Furina as its grandest witness, and you, the Maison Ordalie's Directeur Général, helping them to uphold Fontaine’s values and protecting its honour from outside the marbled walls of the Opera Epiclese, Fontaine is a tightly-run ship that seldom allows for its men to enjoy much free time.

Though when it did, finally exiting the realm of your job responsibilities only then meant having to catch up on your neglected home responsibilities— tackling the towers of only partially rinsed dishes; taking out the trash you just knew would be stinking up your foyer since you’d put it there three days ago (which had been the last time you’d even been inside your home); rewashing the load of laundry you’d run out of time to hang up to dry and now was, most likely, moulding from being left in basket, still damp. Ah, and there’s probably so much more you’d been forgetting about.

This cyclic routine of yours had become nauseating a long time ago, only proving capable of transfiguring your already sour mood into something brazenly foul. Typically, there were very few things to exist that could improve it again, but the soft, muffled knocking on your front door by one of your sweet Melusine neighbours when she realized you’d finally returned home, fortunately, is one of those few things.

More often than not, she would bake once the weekend began, knowing you to be around at least long enough to be able to consume perhaps one of her newly learned confections. Somedays, you’d even been lucky enough to sit and enjoy them together whilst enjoying the views from under your shared garden’s gazebo. Being that you lived on the first floor of a three-floored pied-à-terre with three other Melusine living above you, who had also been found lucky to have much more manageable lifestyles, they often cared for the plants of the garden when you could not.

Even luckier for you, though, was having such kind neighbours that would go out of their way to take care of those aforementioned chores for you. Garden tended; garbage bags mysteriously vanished from the inside stoop; dishes sparkling clean and put away in their respective cupboards; laundry thought a lost cause having been hung up, dried, and folded, awaiting your return for them to be returned to their drawers— none of this had been you. Elsie, your second floor neighbour, had been the culprit, you learn, having rounded up her sisters Elie and Eloie two days prior to your return to surprise you.

“Have you seen Monsieur Neuvillette lately?” Elsie inquires, looking up to you from her place on your stoop. When you step aside to let her in, she shakes her head, lavender-coloured ears whipping about. “I won’t be staying. I only came to say hello and to give these to you.”

“Oh, I see,” you say, accepting the circular tin she raises toward you. Cracking it open a few inches, you smile at the soft treats. “Madeleines! Thank you, Elzie. And, to answer your question, no… I haven’t seen him lately… not even for work.”

“You’re quite welcome. Please find time to share them with the Monsieur today, then. Sedene mentioned he looked restless this morning.”

Without missing a beat, your heart skips one of its own, and your expression twists habitually guiltily. You know full well your absence from him, and vice versa, isn’t to be helped, and that the two of you have had this same conversation many times over. But it never proves to help whenever someone else points out either of your miseries.

You’d always thought the Palais Mermonia to be particularly cold, in company’s sense. It never mattered that it was always full of people, of employees, and even of Lady Furina’s raucous, nails-on-a-chalkboard cackle of a laugh, because you knew its Chief Justice much too well. In spite of his assurances that he would be alright, mind occupied by having to organize new cases and sort out the old ones, it wouldn’t be too long of a time later that you found the skies overcast, and yourself drenched by a sudden downpour.

You supposed, after saying your farewells to Elsie, locking your front door, and making your way to the other end of the Court of Fontaine, that today would be no different. Of course, you remembered to carry your parasol on you this time, accompanied by the tin of fresh-baked madeleines you promised Elsie to eat up. Today, the sky was shining blue, quite literally only minutes ago. So, either something sad or distressing has crossed his path, or, he’d been feeling sentimental again, because it’s raining again.

At the very least, you hope the cause for it to be the latter. This way, it can easily be remedied by you appearing before him, rather than him being consumed by the details of a case so heavily, and for an unspecified period of time. And there have been too many of these as of late that compared to last year’s weather, one might consider the possibility of that prophecy coming true just a little sooner.

Clutching the cookies tighter to you and keeping a firm grip on the handle of your parasol, you hasten across the bridge of the Court Region Waterway untoward the Palais Mermonia, greeting Bruneau and Liath and Plessia as you pass. The main doors are heavy, but even with your arms full, you manage to pry one of them open enough to enter the building.

You don’t both to carry your umbrella with you — it would just be yet another mess the building’s staff would have to trail after you for to clean — and instead shove it into the corner to let it drip there, telling the one guard that you would return for it, and them saluting you in acknowledgement.

Inside the Palais Mermonia has always been a plethora of people, staff and guards and visitors alike, but it is as you’d said— there’s a certain degree of emptiness to it that unsettles you whenever you visit here. Perhaps the grave amount of case files that sat in the archives surrounding Monsieur Neuvillette’s office cast such a dreary spell over the place; having been the one to compile many of them, yourself, for his records, you know firsthand just how dark some of their contents had been— to have to pass those off and share them with your lover had been your major grievance for your position. There’d been nothing you hated more than sitting in during his readings and seeing his expression change from the joy of having you appear to him, to the rage and sorrow of taking in the details of a new case. In those moments, you made sure to hold him a little tighter, a little closer, and speak just a little sweeter to him, a little softer.

The rain would, eventually, subside.

You push open the door to his office as gently as possible, and shut it just as carefully so as not to startle him. Without looking first to confirm, you know that he sits at his desk, pouring over the day’s files and records while it pours outside. His stoicism masked the obvious, though at least, this had been to you only— something was weighing heavily enough on his mind that it’d begun to affect the weather outside. Spending enough time with the man made this easy to tell.

“Neuvillette,” you softly call to him when he’d yet to look up. He jerks slightly in his seat, stiff shoulders losing their tension upon recognizing your voice, and the corner of his lips rise before his eyes can even meet yours.

“My love.”

If having you appear in a room filled with such disheartening unkindness is his relief, yours had always been the advent of a smile on Neuvillette’s face. A rare glimpse of the peace you often find yourself daydreaming over while away, the rush of pure joy you feel at the sight of your lover relishing your presence is nearly akin to the blessing of the gods— you only embrace him tightly enough and hope this feeling reaches him.

Nose pressed into the side of your head, hands and arms cradling you almost impossibly close to him, he breathes you in as deeply as physically possible— yes, his gesture promises.

You raise your chin from his chest and peer up at him, grin lazed and tired but pleased all the same.

“You were finally released from your duties?”

“If it were easy to delegate them to my juniors, it might’ve taken less time to escape,” you muse, hands sliding down his robes to claim his hands in yours— he squeezes them gently, grateful. “No one seems to know how to write a proper report anymore; I feel like I’m grading homework.” Neuvillette laments at the sudden shift in your expression, its complete opposite serving to dim the light in your eyes. By the way your grip tightens beneath his fingers, he supposes it must have little to do with your subordinates, after all.

“It’s… been raining for so long now,” you mumble into him, cookie tin forgotten atop his desk. “I tried to hurry to you, I-I…”

Neuvillette’s hand shifts along one of yours, quick to fit thin, nimble fingers in between your trembling ones. He lifts it, and presses your palm and fingertips into the smooth, porcelain coolness of his cheek— few words are found necessary, you’d both once agreed, as he’d always been a man of sterling gestures over forced sentimentality. In each glance, each touch, each curve of his lips upward, his vehemence never went unnoticed; it’d simply been his brand of love— demure and chaste, but abundant. There’d been no questioning his intention.

“I would sooner give up my position if it meant I could stay at your side at all times, if it meant you wouldn’t cry so much. If it meant you wouldn’t suffer alone.” Neuvillette sighs, a would-be defeated sound if not for remembering who he was standing with. “I… feel useless on days like these when I’m not with you.”

“Justice cannot relent so long as villainy works around the clock. It is our sworn duty to see such justice prevail, after all.” Neuvillette swipes a thumb over your lip, and subconsciously, you lean into his palm almost delightedly. “And you have done so beautifully, and without malice. Every word written in those reports from your juniors, while, written juvenilely, speak of your fairness. Your impartiality. Your ability to see both the truth and the good in all.” He turns his hand, pressing his lips into your palm. “It is admirable. It is my pride for you. It is why, as much as I wish you could stay at my side, as you said, I hope you can see the value and honour you bring in helping to protect Fontaine. I can’t imagine many else doing so well as you do.”

You raise your free hand back up to his chest, and push. A fraction of a single second is spent wide-eyed and confused until Neuvillette’s legs hit one of the many couches within the four walls of his office, and he is forced off-balanced into its plush. Your other hand gone unrelinquished, you fall with him, knees parted to either side of his and dipped deep into the cushion; Neuvillette’s breath hitches unnoticeably, yet at your sudden embolden proximity, his pale cheeks burn with vermillion.

“I’m supposed to be comforting you, you know,” your murmur.

A kiss to his temple, to the swell atop his cheek, to the button of his nose, and to the cleft of his lip— you lower yourself into his lap, parted lips dropping to slot between his and hands rising to thread into his strands of falling starlight, pulling him ever closer into you. It’s not enough, simply consuming him. You only wish to drown his sorrows, by whatever means necessary and however possible. If this means only having mere moments to appear before him, to deliver him sweets and treats of various kinds — not including yourself, of course — and holding him as tenderly as you do now for what seconds you must have left before having to leave again—

Tongue posed at his lower lip, your gaze is brought to the side and through the glass of the window. The rain. It stopped.

“And I can promise… you’re doing a fine job of it, my love.”

#favoniuslibrary #neuvillette x yn #neuvillette x y/n #neuvillette x reader #neuvillette fluff #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact fluff #crying bc i'm posting this at 445am and i have to be up for work in 2 hours but i wanted it DONE tho there was more i wanted to say in it..#hope neuvi liked the cookies tho #✦ nc vb.#neuvillette

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netherfeildren · 9 months

Text

The Cassandra Complex : Chapter XI : Lethe

Series Masterlist : Moodboard

(Din Djarin x F!Reader)

Content Warnings: Brief reference to sexual assault (none has or will occur); Hurt/Comfort; Extremely soft Din Djarin

A/N: I kinda just winged all of this, if there are any inaccuracies or any canon divergence, a great and many apologies!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Word Count: 7.7K

Read on AO3

CHAPTER XI : LETHE

At what point does one say of a man that he has become unreal?

Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

Between bouts of wakefulness, you tell him of the things they did to you in the dark. A blooming flower in the dead of winter, stunted and slow, and as if you’re pulling your own teeth in some moments, when other words come like vomit, rushed and hot and putrid but necessary, something not to be held back. And you don’t tell him the whole of it, he knows this, he can see, but you tell him the parts you can bear, and for now, it’s enough.

You sit in that bed of comfort he’s so meticulously arranged for you in the dim light of the Razor Crest, overheads shut off, only a single warm snake of glowing light falling over you from the cracked open fresher door, navcom set for the desert planet of Tatooine and the spaceport of Mos Eisley, and the thrum of hyperspace buzzes around the two of you. He sits on the opposite side of the hull, wrapped in his armor and his silence and his wanting, and he watches you ebb and flow out of sleep; soft, slow drooping of your eyes into wakefulness and then back into the depths of rest. You need so much of it, he can tell.

At first, you don’t let him near. No touching, please, you beg in whispers, and although it feels as though his bones are thrashing within the confines of his skin or like his teeth will fall out of his skull from the saccharine sweet flavor of want for you that sits sticky on his tongue, he obeys. So at a distance, with certainly no touching at all, the two of you talk. For hours, and then for days, and although his bones continue to shake, and his teeth continue to ache, he holds himself in temperance and restraint because he knows that to just look upon you is enough, he knows it’s everything.

The trip to Tatooine takes days, the Crest a little worse for wear than what she’d been when you’d previously been aboard. The hits she’d taken over the years, over his and Grogu’s journey had taken their toll, and her hyperdrive was no longer what it had once been. But she ramained faithful and sturdy, like any good mistress, and she’d get the two of you where you needed to be, to Tatooine and to Peli for some much needed maintenance after the long trip to the Core. And Din knew it wouldn’t only be the ship’s routine upkeep the two of you would find there, but some much needed rest in the sand port, as well, and most importantly, time. Buying himself time during the slow going trip, and then there, to figure out how it was he was going to get you to stay with him, force you if necessary.

He’d been telling the truth when he’d said you weren’t going anywhere. He would not be left again.

Din had been a stupid man before. He would not be making the same sorts of mistakes again.

Two days since he’d brought you aboard now, and you’re still not entirely well. Tired and sluggish, but he tells himself you just need rest and the closely monitored interval feedings he’s been coaxing on you. You’re sleeping again now after he’d gently cooed and shushed you into accepting some broth, and he watches the methodical up and down sway of the wing of your shoulder, hypnotizing, listening to the whistle of your open mouthed breathing that sings a song assuring him you’re alive and well. He’s been sitting at the opposite end of the hull from you, as far as he can get while still remaining in your direct vicinity, attempting to give you whatever measure of peace he can bear, silent and still, enshrouded in the dark for hours now. Counting the minutes between the sporadic opening of your eyes, the brief moments when you come to and grant him access to your gaze.

Those eyes of yours, they’d haunted him for two years. When he was trying to forget you, when he was trying to move on, stupid and horrible, insisting he could only take Omera from behind because he couldn’t bear the sight of a face that wasn’t yours. He had been wrong. He had done wrong. He had been bad. And he didn’t want to admit it, or acknowledge it, or look it directly in the face, but it was regret which lived in him. He couldn’t deny it.

He’s been scanning your heat signatures every thirty minutes, your core temperature holding normal, your vitals stable, and he’s full of sick paranoia, ravenous want, singing joy. Too many things churning within him to properly digest, and in a way, he’s grateful for this time you’re affording him to gather himself while you sleep and recover. He needs to be well collected, ready and strong and level headed to give you whatever it is you might need when you’re finally ready to leave your restful unconsciousness and come back to him.

You start to shift as he’s scanning your temperature once again. First the hitching of a knee and the nudge of your hips, and then your leg stretching long and lithe, and he watches the arch of your small foot peek out from beneath your blanket, tiny toes splaying wide, spasming and shivering with the stretch of your muscles. He swallows hard, forces the heat in his body that would like to swell to an inferno to remain cool and serene. All this, just from the sight of one small foot. He’s pathetic and ridiculous, and he doesn’t care because he loves you, and you finally know and really, what could matter after that? Nothing.

His eyes swing back up to your face, and he watches the scrunch of your spikey, dark lashes before you nuzzle your face into the cove of your shoulder, coming awake slowly, slowly, as if you’d not had any real, true and peaceful rest since the last time you’d been on his ship. He watches you with bated breath, the subtle inclination of his body towards you as if he were trying to absorb your presence, and when you finally turn back, eyes blinking open he feels his heart lurch in his chest at the first sight of them. Nothing in the galaxy compares, and he must surely know, he’s seen so much of it.

He says your name, voice low and graveled with disuse. “How do you feel?”

You stretch your arms out in front of you, wriggling beneath the covers and making the most delicious of little noises he forces himself not to fixate on. Oh, you sigh, eyes opening wide, long lashes fanning across high cheekbones, before you finally find him in the shadows he’s sitting in. Nothing but the still gleam of beskar in the dim light to give him away.

“You’re so extra shiny now,” little voice and even tinier nose scrunch, so adorable that something soft inside of him aches and snaps its teeth.

“Yes, well…” he sighs, “new armor.”

You sit up slowly, jaw shifting from side to side as you move with what looks like frightened care, like you’re expecting something to hurt, and then, yes, there it is, tiny and subtle, but a flinch. Infinitesimal scrunch of your brows, your left eye winking shut, the droop of your mouth, all of it happening so fast, but he’s watching so intently, learning forward as if he’d shoot across the space that separates the two of you to take you in hand, fix whatever it is that’s aching, that he catches it all before you can school your features into blankness.

“Your hair’s longer,” he whispers, and you freeze, arms bracing yourself up on locked elbows, they don’t tremble anymore like before, and he takes this as a good sign. You let your head fall forward to hang between your shoulders, long hair, a curtain concealing your face from him, and he wants to snap at you, for one unhinged moment, that you’re not allowed to keep your eyes from him anymore. He’s already gone too long without them, he can’t bear anymore of it. But he swallows his insanity, keeps his mouth shut.

You shake your head down at the blankets, before finally looking back up, sitting up all the way and turning to face him. Silent while you settle with your back against the wall so that now the two of you are face to face, separated by dust motes and memories and desire that snaps like lightning between the two of you. There is frision here, pressurized and boiling, and he has to behave. He won’t push you or ask anything of you you’re not ready to give or tell. You’d already shared bits and pieces with him, over your stunted bouts of consciousness over the past two days. A dark hole in the ground, a thieving Twi’lek, breaking of a kind he can’t bear to think of directly, and I hurt like I’m newly made, Din. And now, the first time you’ve been fully awake and lucid, he isn’t going to ruin this with his desperation.

“Fancy. Looks expensive,” you press about the armor.

“I did a big job.”

He doesn’t know how to handle the subject of him. He’d told you the most important fact you needed to know, that he isn’t his biological son, that he hadn’t betrayed you in that way. But the rest? The whole of it? There was so much to say, so many things, great and small to tell. Din couldn’t fathom where to start.

“Oh? What was it?” You’ve wrapped the blanket up high beneath your chin, hiding yourself away from him swathed as you are. Everything and anything you can do to keep yourself apart and protected.

“Are you hungry? You should eat,” he says instead.

You shake your head no. “What was it? Tell me.”

A sigh, and, “Stole the kid for some Imperial remnants.”

“You did what? Your kid?” You screech, surging forward all tangled up in the blankets as you are.

“Yes. Unknowingly,” he huffs. “I collected payment, and then I– I… I don’t know, changed my mind. I went back for him.” His words come to a stuttered halt, unsure and suddenly, unbearably shy, fucking with a small loose seam coming apart at the knee of his pants he’d been meaning to mend for days. There’s a part of him, irrational or untried or overprotective that doesn’t want to tell you about him, his ad’ika, and he can’t understand why when it’s you. The girl he loves, the girl he’s waited for. But it had been so difficult, so precarious, his journey with Grogu, always on the defensive, always looking over his shoulder, waitting for the worst. He’s unused to sharing him without fear or trepidation. And then his loss… for that’s what it feels like, and he’d never admit it aloud, knows he’s where he’s supposed to be, needs to be, now, but there still lives a small, sour seed within Din that whispers that that it’s wrong, that Grogu’s place had always been, and always will be, with him. And when he looks back up at your face, open and patient and lovely, it all spills out anyways. “He was a foundling, as I was. And he’s– he’s special. And after I went back for him, he was… put in my charge of sorts. We struggled so much, trying to evade the Empire, seeking out his people–”

“You found the Jedi?” You gasp.

Murky waters. “We did. He’s with them now. We traveled to Calodan on the forest planet of Corvus, we met a Jedi there by the name of Ahsoka Tano. I thought she’d take him then, help him. He needed to be with his people, and I knew that, I was prepared for that, but along the way… along the way he became– he became–” he clears his throat, for his voice has gone rough, almost choked. He shakes his head, unable to continue but you nod encouragingly, understanding without words all Grogu means to him. You’re sitting at the edge of the nest of blankets now, as if gravitating towards him, holding yourself back, marooned on an island of your own making.

“I’ve heard of her. A great legend, tragedy…”

“Yes, well… She sensed it in us, in Grogu.”

“That’s his name?” You ask softly. “Grogu?” And Din’s heart, it aches, at the sound of it coming from your mouth, all the gentleness and tenderness his ad’ika needs to be afforded. And unbidden, like flash fire, something he has to look away from immediately for his own self preservation, yours too probably, he thinks: oh, but you’d make the most wonderful mother, cyare.

“Yes,” he breathes, “Grogu.”

“And he– he’s a boy? Where does he come from? How old is he?”

“Not human. No one knows what species he is, but he was born on Coruscant, raised at the Jedi temple before the Great Purge, and then smuggled to safety and hidden away for years before I came to find him. He’s supposed to be about fifty years old.”

“But he’s–” your brow folds in confusion, “He’s a child? You called him–”

“Yes. He’s still young, still a baby. I don’t– I don’t know. He’s special. Green and– and wrinkled, with big eyes and even bigger ears.”

“He sounds… he sounds like someone my– my master spoke to me of, once. Of an unknown species, a great Jedi master. Perhaps the strongest in the galaxy, the strongest that's ever lived. Luke Skywalker was his apprentice.”

“That’s where the kid is now– with Skywalker.”

“You gave him to Luke Skywalker?” And your eyes shutter, your mask slipping briefly, showing your frayed edges.

“Yes.” He says carefully. “Ahsoka, she said she couldn’t take him, that we were too– too connected, that he needed someone more.”

“You seem to have a way with Force users,” you say suddenly, a little bashfully, a small smile spreading across your face in a half moon of laughter. “But it makes sense,” you continue, “That his connection, whatever loyalty to you he may have had,” and the use of the past tense feels like a gut punch, “would be difficult to work around when training someone so young and untried. But if he’s anything like his predecessor, then he has great potential in the Force. He’ll probably grow to unprecedented strength eventually. And from what I’ve heard, the species is very long lived, hundreds and hundreds of years.” Another sucker punch, this one even worse. Grogu would live to be old beyond Din’s years.

He clears his throat, yanks harder on the loose seam so that it splits at the side, revealing a patch of hairy knee. “We found those he belongs to, he’s with his people now. I lost him– or I– I returned him to where he should’ve always been. It’s better like this.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper from your perch at the edge of your self imposed island. “I’m sorry you lost him.”

“Don’t be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. It’s all the way it’s supposed to be.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Only a few weeks. Like I said, he was taken by Imperial remnants led by a Moff Gideon. Skywalker saved us and took him. He has a temple where he plans to train young Jedi. He’ll be with other children like him now. It’s good for him. I know it is.” He sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of it, he promises he’s not, or doesn’t mean for it to come out like that.

“I’ve heard of Gideon,” you muse, shifting to lean back, movements still slow, not as smooth as they usually are. The thick mantle of your hair shifts over your shoulder, and Din’s mouth goes dry, desperate to bury his face in all that lush splendor and take in the scent of it, feel the drag of it across his naked chest, over his cock and thighs.

“What do you know of him?”

“Only his name, and the great ambition tied to it. He took part in the siege on Mandalore… didn’t he?”

“He did. He’s in the custody of the New Republic now. Awaiting trial and judgment.”

“Tell me about the saber,” you say then.

“I won it from Gideon in battle.”

“It’s the Darksaber, isn’t it?”

“It is.”

“It’s legend.” And you look at him strangely at that, mercurial look passing through your eyes, memories or something worse. “Many great and terrible hands have wielded that blade. Clan Vizsla, who forged it, the Sith lord Darth Maul, Sabine Wren.”

He’s shocked by the seemingly great well of knowledge you possess on the figures he’s spent the last two years dealing with. “I’m familiar with the Clan. Paz Vizsla. How do you know all this?” He asks.

“He–” You turn away, brows hitching high, and he watches a swallow pass through the delicate column of your throat. “My master, he was a lover of knowledge, information gathered everywhere, always. He made it his business to know things, and my purpose to collect it for him.”

He wishes you’d let him go to you at the mention of that scum. He wishes he could resurrect him from the dead just to send him back to the deepest pit existing, at the look on your face, small and frightened and childlike. Din’s stomach turns, and he changes the subject. “Wren– she… I think I’ve heard of her from my friend Bo, as well.

“Who?” That brings you back to attention, and he’s grateful for the concealment of the helmet for the small smile he can’t help at the look that comes across your face.

“She’s a Mandalorian. Bo-Katan Kryze.”

“Your friend…?”

“She helped me with the kid. When Moff Gideon captured him, her and her followers aided me in his rescue. It got complicated–”

“Between the two of you?” You cut him off with a little huffing scowl.

“Before Skywalker showed up to help us, little one.”

“Oh,” you huff again, turning your nose up at him haughtily. He can’t help the breath of air he lets out at that. Silly, gorgeous thing. He wants to kiss you so badly.

“The saber’s rightfully hers.”

“Oh,” again, and he laughs, again. “Oh, yes. Yes. The–” you frown, “The legend is that whoever wields it can rule all of Mandalore. I’ve heard that.”

“And that sure as fuck isn’t me. Her family ruled before the siege, it’s hers.” The entire business of it still scathes and prickles at him.

And you laugh at that, “No?” Head tipping back, that mantle of hair sliding again, provoking him again. “Why not? It could be–”

“No. Definitely not. Never. That isn’t something I’d ever be interested in. I would never suit such a role. And this– this thing…” he motions to the crate where the Darksaber sits discarded. He’d found he hated wearing it on himself for too long. “It doesn't suit me well. It’s difficult to wield, something– something leaden and sucking about it.”

“You wielded it just fine from what I saw.”

“You were doing something.”

“Me?”

“Yes. I could feel you, when you attacked me–”

“I didn’t attack you,” you scoff, affronted. Haughty nose back up in the air, and the soft thing inside Din snaps its teeth together once more.

“Don’t start,” he admonishes, voice deep and rumbling and speaking of all the things he’d like to do to you that he cannot even give thought to right now. You roll your eyes, and he can’t help but smile. Sass is good, sass means you’re feeling better, more yourself.

“I could feel you, almost as if you were feeding your energy into me.”

You turn to look at him sharply at that. Tiny frown marring the space between your fine brows he’d like to smooth away with a kiss. “What? I– I didn’t mean to, or– or I didn’t know I was doing that…” You look away again, pressing fingertips to your mouth in concentration. Everything about you, every movement, gesture, frown and sigh and inflection, mesmerizes him. Din didn’t think it possible he could have been worse off than he was before, but he comes to the sudden, startling realization, that he’d had absolutely no idea how much deeper he could fall. The admission that you love him in return, the sound of it, had done something to him, set something off or opened something within him. Some sort of yawning, hungry maw that would only be satisfied once it’d swallowed you whole.

He needs to bide his time and temper his actions. He won’t scare you off.

“I was out of control…” you continue in a small whisper. “I didn’t know. I didn’t–” And you look nervous, frightened suddenly. Din leans forward, immediately on alert, ready to rush over to you if you need him, just from the look on your face. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” You’re all wide eyed fright and concern and an innocence about you, about the question, your worry that you’d hurt him. His heart thumps and thumps and thumps, the rush of blood through the mass of organ so hot it burns.

“Never, cyar’ika. You could never hurt me. I just feel you.” And it’s the truth, it had merely been an extension of yourself feeding him, strengthening him, emboldening him like nothing he’d ever experienced before. Something euphoric about the feeling he was not keen to experience again for the mere fact of how it’d left you, weak and fragile and exhausted, almost at a breaking point.

The two of you need to be careful, he realizes. There was a connection between the two of you, stronger and more easily traversed than either of you had previously realized, be it fate or love or the Force, but there was something that lived between the two of you and connected you and Din needs to be absolutely sure that whatever it is never becomes a detriment to you in any way.

You tilt your head sideways, some truth he knows he should fear churning behind your eyes. You bring your knees up to fold tightly against your chest, wrapping your arms around your shins, and lay your cheek against the small cap, hiding away from him again. “I want–” you say in a very small voice, “I want to tell you things, but I’m afraid of–” a swallow of breath.

“Afraid of what, cyare?”

At the tremble of your spine as you hitch with nerves, Din wants to go to you so badly. This is the most difficult thing he’s ever endured in his life. “Afraid you won’t see me the same again after I tell them.”

“Didn’t I already tell you there isn’t anything you could ever do that I wouldn’t forgive you for?” He presses forward just a millimeter.

You peer up at him at that, and there are no tears in your eyes which soothes him, in part, but worse, still splintered with so much sadness or hurt or the terror of time, and it’s like he’s bellyful of grief. There is something acutely unfair about the distance sitting between the two of you right now when you’re holding that look in your eyes.

“But what about respect?”

“You could never lose that from me either.” You shake your head, propping your chin on your bent knees and wrapping your hands around your feet to pull them up and rock back and then forward, thinking of what it is you're trying to say.

“Don’t you think there are certain things that a person shouldn’t be forgiven for?”

“Perhaps. But there are certain people the rules don’t apply to. That’s you for me.”

“That isn’t fair.”

“To who?”

“To you!” You say incredulously.

“Why not?”

“You–” And there are tears now, swimming in your eyes, his heart thump, thumping in agitation at the sight of them. He gives a growl of frustration that ends on a choke as you squeeze your eyes shut, a single tear sliding over the slope of your cheekbone. “Maker, Din. This is all wrong.” You sound as full of frustration as he feels, and he wants to say that he’s sure if you’d just let him come to you, you’d find the right way forward within each other. “You want to touch me.” He bites down on his tongue hard enough to taste blood.

“Are you looking in my head?”

You give a soft laugh. “Don’t need to.” He huffs, well, he isn’t going to deny it.

You turn away again, laying your cheek back atop your knee, and he can see the tension in your arms as you squeeze yourself tight, tighter. “I– I can’t– I can’t have sex with you,” you say in a smaller voice than he could’ve imagined possible.

He’s silent for a moment, trying to measure his breathing, and there’s violence thrumming within him at what he’s about to ask, but his voice is nothing but gentleness. “Did they– did they hurt you like that?”

You heave a long sigh, “No, but the feel of skin, I cant– I– I hurt everywhere, Din. Everywhere. Inside and– and–”

“It’s alright. It’s alright, cyar’ika.” He tries to push his voice out in gentle, measured notes. Something that’ll soothe you from afar. And the sight of you, all twisted and squeezed up into a tight little ball like you are– Maker– Din feels afraid, for a moment, of what might become of him, of the sort of violence he feels capable of in your name. “If it hurts, you don’t have to tell me anything now or at all.”

“I want to. Is it–” You look up, brow folding, squinty eyed as if you’re rifling through your head for the words. “How do I– how do I tell you that you deserve to know the full of it, but don’t deserve to carry the burden of it? That I wish I didn’t have to, but that I also want to tell you.”

“Just like that.” He presses another half a millimeter forward, feels like he’s hallucinating the scent of you from over here. “Tell me anything you need just like that. But don’t say it’d be a burden, you could never be anything even close to that to me.”

And still, with your eyes not on him, you say that which he’d already been expecting: “I let them keep me.”

He’d known.

“Are they dead?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't leave even one for me?” Your cheek rolls against the hill of your knee, eyes swinging up to spark at him, and Maker, as long as he’s still able to pull that look from you there’s hope. He can fix anything if only you continue to look at him like that.

The trip to Tatooine takes about ten days. Bouts of sleeping and eating and his gentle but insistent caring for you. He won’t let you pull away or into yourself; kept at a distance, but not pulling away, and the distinction might not be obvious, but he sees it. That’s enough.

Days later, when you wake again, a little stronger, but still sleepy and soft and beautiful, your hair is even longer. Seeming to grow a yard a day, incredibly. “It’s the Force; healing me, reconnecting with me. It works in strange ways,” you tell him as it pools around your waist. He says nothing, catalogs everything, and later, you come, moving slowly up the ladder into the cockpit to join him in the co-pilot's chair, bundled in a blanket. He’d left some of his socks for you warming on a pipe, just like before, and he sees the thick weave of them droopy over your toes, the part where his heel is supposed to go coming up to your ankle. He swallows and looks away and breathes and breathes and reminds himself he is strong and patient and entirely at your service in any way you might need. Din reminds himself that he must be good.

Your wounds heal slowly over the days, and he gripes and groans that all your energy is funneling into that damn hair and not the more important bits of you. He perches you on a crate, after having urged you into the fresher, pacing outside anxiously, hands on his hips, a huff and a sigh a minute while he listens for any bump or movement from within, making sure you don’t need him. He sticks a bowl of soup in your hands after, kneeling before you, gloves fitted over his hands so that you won’t have to feel his skin and shows you the bacta patches slowly, movements intentional and measured so that you’re not taken by surprise or touched in any way that you might not like. You eye him suspiciously, brow hitched, nose scrunched when you sniff delicately at the broth and then promptly discarding the bowl beside his medical kit, watching for what he plans to do with you next.

“That bit on your elbow isn’t healing.”

You give him a tiny frown, tucking the sore little wing tight into your side protectively. He presents his palms towards you, moves slowly. “It’s fine,” you pout.

“You know it’s not, little one. I’m going to put a single bacta patch over it. That’s it. No fuss, I promise.” Still moving slowly, watching the look in your eyes, opening the packet gently, he reaches for your arm, index finger and thumb taking hold of you first, a barely there cuff of his fingers just above your joint. He gives one slow stroke of his thumb, feeling you lock up, makes a low noise deep in his chest, something to soothe and coax you as he pulls your arm gently forward, untucking it from your side. “It’s alright, cyar’ika. Just a little bacta, nothing scary.” Your eyes go a little glazed, head tilting sideways to look down at him, mass of your hair shifting around you. That hair and those eyes and that face, Maker, but this is where he belongs, this is where he should always be, at his knees before you.

You give a soft sigh verging on a breathy little moan, your eyes fluttering shut as he smooths his thumb against the inner slope of your elbow, just there at the vulnerable dip, but when he slowly starts to lift your arm to get at the back side where the wound is, raw and red, a burned and angry looking thing, you wince, a little screech warbling in your throat, before jerking back trying to get away from him, quick and violent in your incoordination. That damned shoulder you haven’t let him look at yet, he knows it’s bad. You flail, little foot coming up to stub your toes against his stomach plate, bum scooting precariously over the edge of the stool. He reaches for you on instinct, his hand cupping the curve of your bottom to keep you seated, shit, hold on, stop, he grunts, but when you shove him away, loud slap of your palm against the curve of his helmet, he loses his balance, momentum taking the both of you toppling, unintentionally taking you with him. He falls splayed on his back, helmet dinging hollowly where his head knocks against the steel floor with a tangled mass of soft limbs and too long hair and lush tits sprawling over him. You wriggle and flail, an indignant squeak of his name, and then you go tense realizing all the places the two of you are suddenly pressed together. He feels a shudder of painful terror lock your limbs into shivers, the trembling hitch of your chest, and he holds frozen still, waiting for you to make the first move. But Maker, the feel of your weight on top of him. He widens the stance of his legs, slowly brings a knee up, trying to keep the heft of you away from his cock. He dips his chin to watch your face, eyes wide, frantically swinging across his chest, to his hands held up in surrender at your shoulders level, up to the face of his helmet.

You’re full of unsure fear and desire, yes, he can see it just there in the farthest glimmer of your eyes, the one like a scream, bright and hungry. Your brows fold together, confused, a frustrated noise slipping off your tongue before you give one more tense, strained jerk, and then seem to suddenly lose the fight and entirely melt into him. Your temple landing with a soft thump on his chest plate, arms wilting from their tensely held position over the outsides of his arms. Just a melted little thing of a girl, finally letting go of all that anxious strain you’ve held yourself in for two long years.

Din dares not move, not even breathe. He holds so still for so long he’s able to watch the change in the cadence of your breathing, the rickety little patter of nerves into slow and deep sighs, all relaxation and trust. And the bright light-like realization dawns on him while he lays beneath you, feels your chest press into his, the fire of your heart seeming to melt through beskar, the two of you know each other too well, too intimately. The two of you love each other, and he wants to live in it and experience it so badly. He wants to rush madly through the whole thing of it, live the rest of your lives together fast and in the blink of an eye first, and then be able to go back and do it all again slow and precise, taking each lived detail in his hand and learning the shape of it entirely before he’s able to move on to the next moment. He wants it all, the whole of a life with you.

So he doesn’t touch you, but the two of you lay like that, pressed against each other for hours, and the moment is enough.

Days later, he asks because he cannot help himself, because if you have to bear the truth of it all, he will too: “Why did you do it all?” And he doesn’t know precisely what the root of the question is.

Why did you leave me?

Why did you stay gone so long?

Why did you hurt yourself as you did?

You don’t answer immediately, and he wonders if he’s stepped where he shouldn’t have, pushed too far too soon, but then your face goes smooth and serene. Honest. “I didn’t think it would happen as it did. I thought I’d see you again, I thought it would all be sooner. I didn't think I’d be gone,” gone, “for so long. I thought I’d get a chance to make up for my mistakes with you.”

You sit in the co-pilot's chair, slightly behind him, and he doesn’t turn to look back at you, but he can see your reflection in the gleaming curve of the front of the cockpit, the rush of hyperspace zinging around the two of you, it’s quiet and thrumming and he can hear the soft cadence of your breathing. Your tunic is high necked, sitting just below the soft point of your little chin, every square inch of you wrapped away and sealed tightly in dark fabric, little pearlescent buttons that gleam blue crawl up to your throat and seem to strangle you. It’s as if you’d donned your own suit of armor, and he can’t understand how you still look so fucking good after everything. But as if he could peel away the stitching of you to peer beneath, he sees all that is wrong, all that is missing and all that is still echoing hollow. He thinks if he could only fill you with himself, all of everything would be set to rights.

You rest your head on the seat back, rolling it side to side slowly, thinking on what is is you’ll tell him next. “Because in ways, it felt good, better, than the alternative.”

“To be free?”

“Yes.” And the truth of that sits heavy and cloying between the two of you. An animal, hurt, will return to what it knows, no matter how badly it’s treated. It’s in its nature to seek out its familiar habitat. “Because I saw no other recourse, nothing better for me to do. Because I was stupid. Because I wanted to see how long I could last.”

He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood, thick and metallic rolling over his tongue. “I don’t want to be selfish. I’ve been trying to– to not be that, to not make this about me.”

“It is about you.” Maker.

And he still doesn’t turn, says through his honest shame: “But I have to tell you that I don’t know how I can live with this, knowing this. I feel like– like I… I don’t know. I feel like if I go to sleep tonight knowing this, I won’t wake up tomorrow. Like it’ll crawl up my throat and strangle me in my sleep. And it shouldn’t– it shouldn’t be about me.”

“It’s not selfish, Din. It is about you,” you say again, and he wonders if your intention is to hurt him or yourself. More of that painful honesty like a blade through a lung.

He finally turns in his seat. “The way you live is the way I live. Do you understand me? The way you live is the way I live and your breath is mine and your hurt is mine.”

Your eyes are heavy lidded, watching him through the thick screen of your dark lashes, one eye seems to glow, the other to swallow him. “That’s why I know it’s about you too now. It started with nothing, with stupidity, and a wanton desire for– I don’t know, for destruction or something. But it ended with the realization that I’d have to tell you of all this one day. That it would be yours too eventually. And I regret it bitterly for that.”

“How am I supposed to move past this? What– what am I supposed to do with it?” He worries he sounds very like a child asking, but he has to anyway.

You shut your eyes, going so still, made of adamant and glass and smoke. He knows a thing like you could do nothing but survive, but at the same time, it seems a miracle you did. That you let yourself. He tracks the slope of your nose, the lush of your mouth, dry, you won’t drink enough water and it pisses him off, little chin and delicate throat, all that hair, the round of your breasts and the dip of your waist. Those little blue glowing pearl-for-buttons. He wants to steal them and swallow them away.

“Do you think,” you start, eyes still closed, face still calm. He leans forward, elbow braced against wide spread knees, and watches closely at the way your mouth forms the shapes of your words. “Do you think that– I don’t know how to say it, I think… but do you think it’s wrong to ask someone you love to just let a thing go? As much as it might’ve hurt them or bothered them or– or I don’t know… ruined everything. But to just ask them, for your sake, to let it go? Forget. Do you think that’s wrong?” Your eyes open. “Or selfish?”

“Is that what you want from me, cyar’ika?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to be selfish with you.”

“Neither do I. You said before that you don’t want me to forgive you. You don’t want forgiveness, you want forget.”

“Yes.”

He nods once. “And I have nothing to forgive you for, and asking me for the things you need is never selfish.”

And you say again, once more like before with your face still calm, “You want to touch me.”

If he were a beast made only of flesh and bone and not a man he would snap his teeth. “Yes.”

You stand slowly, hair a cloak around your shoulders, and step to him, between his wide spread thighs. He should beg, but he only stays frozen, and you bring your hand up to the face of his helmet, palm splaying along the side, he wishes you’d rip the thing off of him. He wishes he had never taken a Creed at all. Your palm on his face would fix everything, like him filling the hollow place within you. It would all be well if only the two of you could come together. Din knows it.

You lower yourself to perch primly on one thigh, slow like thaw, bringing your knees up to curl into his chest, little socked toes braced against beskar. One hand smoothing up his stomach and chest plate, other curled over the pauldron of his shoulder, you reach the lip of the helmet, close your eyes, and start to lift the weight of it from his face.

“I’m not going to open my eyes. I’m not going to look.”

The rush of hyperspace reflects off your skin in silvers and blues, makes you more dream than girl, and then his face is uncovered, and he listens to the symbol of who he is supposed to be, who he has been all his life, roll from your fingers discarded on the ground, the loud clang of history ringing in his ears, but all he cares about is, “You kept them.” He brushes a thumb, careful of your skin, against the glowing gem of your earring. The way it twinkles and sparks and exists as a monument to your shared history.

“Something shiny to remind me of my shiny.” A tear slides slow and clear down the slope of your cheek, coming to rest at the corner of your mouth, and he watches it quiver and shake there in anticipation, much like his heart does within his chest. You take his face between your hands, animal sound from his tongue, one hand at the curve of his jaw, cradling him like he’d be something precious and fragile if only the two of you let it be so. Not animal, not man, only loved.Your other hand spreads, glides and cups and soothes, his forehead, his brow, little fingertips pressed to the outside dip of his eye socket, running along the rim of bone beneath hot skin. He watches your face, the tear at the corner of your mouth, and you come towards him very slowly, the fold of your hips, stomach, breasts, and then your mouth on his.

And then your mouth on his.

He takes the tear into his mouth, holds it on the surface of his tongue. He could swallow it like he would the pearls. This is enough.

It’s soft as a whisper and then hard. Your nails digging suddenly, scratching and searching for a crack in his surface where you’d find purchase to pull him closer, burrow your way inside. You press your closed mouth hard against his, shoulders hitched high, and he grips the arms of his chair so hard his fingers ache. A sob in your throat that turns into a broken sort of moan, giving him permission to break too.

He circles your waist in his hands, takes hold of the shape of you, and it’s just like in his memories and dreams and nightmares. Hands sliding up the slope of your back through all of that glorious hair, still growing, right to the edge of your tunic covered nape.

“Din.” He swallows the tear. He touches your skin.

You moan for him, mouth shaky and wet, vibrating into him, the tip of your tongue tasting the edge of his lip, and then he’s swallowing you whole. Shifting you further onto himself, the soft round of your bottom over the thick of his lap, tits pressed against his chest, he needs to taste it all, your nails digging so hard into the skin of his face you’ll surely draw blood, and he will surely thank you for it. “Yes.” He says in return, finally, he draws onto your tongue. Full upper lip slotted between his, and it’s wet tongue and sharp teeth and a very dark place you should have never been, too much time wasted, a promise to forget because that’s what you need of him.

He hitches you higher, tighter, forces himself not to take it further, press you too hard. Groans rough and ragged when you whine soft and small. Sucking on your tongue, tugging at your lip. And your hands move to his hair, little fingers wrapped in his curls, dragging down the front of his face, over his eyes and nose, finding the seam of a scar there. “What’s this?” You follow the faultline of old hurt, and he grips your wrist, directs your hand to the other, thicker weave of scar tissue along the back curve of his skull, wanting to show you all the places he was broken that you were not there to mend. “Din,” on a frightened little gasp he soothes away with his tongue along the back of your teeth and the drag of his palm down the slope of your spine, stopping just shy of the curve of your ass.

“Explosion.”

Din, again, Din. You press your fingers along the rough knit flesh, and he feels your tears slide along his own cheek and perch at the corner of his own mouth now.

“It’s okay, little love. I’m here with you.” Tugs you back close and safe and tightly pressed, seam of him woven into the seam of you, mouth to mouth.

“And I understand.” He cups the back of your head, pulls you back, opens you and tastes and tastes and tastes. “I’ll promise to let it go. But you have to promise too.” Changes the angle, the flavor of you still the same, the sound of you still the same, the feel. “That you’ll never do it again.”

“I promise, Din.” It’s enough.

Chapter XII

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saintsenara · 5 months

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More ships! Severus Snape/Charity Burbage, Severus Snape/Petunia Dursley, Narcissa Black/Lily Evans, Narcissa Black/Remus Lupin

thank you very much for the ask, anon! lots of delicious ships here to get into...

charity burbage/severus snape

i'm going to start this one by pointing out something which features a lot in discussions of snape's relationship with dear old chazza b, and which i have elected to find annoying even though it's spectacularly minor:

in the book [or - certainly - in the original edition, which is what i have] of deathly hallows, charity does not say that she and snape are friends while pleading for her life. this is an invention of the films, which are rather more heavy-handed at hinting that snape isn't really a loyal death eater with blood-supremacist views than the text is.

but, nonetheless, she does still beg him to spare her... and so she must retain some belief in snape's capacity for goodness even though she must be aware, as a hogwarts teacher, that he murdered dumbledore only days beforehand...

which is to say that i love the idea of a bit of snarity [snurbage? burbape?] in a story which didn't deviate from the canon timeline. it is just exquisitely nasty to imagine the two coming together during the goblet of fire to half-blood prince period, initially just for something casual - since snape knows he can't commit to anything given his role as a spy - which then turned into something deeper he was occasionally driven to allow himself to imagine might be able to become a real relationship after the war...

...and then him having to look a woman he's fallen in love with in the eyes and arrange his features into a malevolent smirk while this is happening:

Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table, and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds. “Do you recognize our guest, Severus?” asked Voldemort. Snape raised his eyes to the upside-down face. All of the Death Eaters were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said in a cracked and terrified voice, “Severus! Help me!” “Ah, yes,” said Snape as the prisoner turned slowly away again.

and then to have to pretend to be completely unruffled as voldemort kills her in front of him.

delicious.

petunia dursley/severus snape

this is one i really, really back.

i’m fond of petunia, who i think is one of the most interesting characters in the series because of how full of contradictions she is.

and who i think is also a victim in fandom spaces of how the adult cast was aged up for the films [in canon, she’s only in her early twenties when lily dies, and the implication is that vernon is a good deal older than her]. her inadequacies, such as her inability to truly care for either child in the household, seem much more nuanced in a woman of twenty-three, who has a toddler and whose entire family is dead, than they do if she’s pictured as a middle-aged woman with considerable life experience.

and like snape, petunia teeters on a knife edge between various chasms: she's a working-class girl from the midlands made good in middle-class surrey, he's a working-class half-blood boy who spends most of his life in pureblood circles; she ends up with her whole life wrapped up in a square little house when she’s barely out of her teens, he ends up with his whole life wrapped up in spying at the same age; she hates the wizarding world and yet covets it, he hates the muggle world and yet cannot escape it; she loves lily and she hates her and she loathes her for dying, he… well, you know the rest.

all of these similarities - especially when combined with the long history of resentment between snape and petunia [she thinks he stole lily from her! he thinks she was the first person to try and keep lily from him!] - makes snetunia just so compelling.

and if you're convinced and desperate to really get into the mess, you're in luck - because you can read the magnificent regretfully, yours by @maria-de-salinas, which takes snape and petunia's bitterness and awkwardness and grief and guilt and remorse and turns it into something really quite beautiful...

narcissa black/lily evans

ok, so i'm afraid to say that narlily is one of those marauders-era ships which i don't fully get the increasingly popularity of - and so, if you do ship it i would be thrilled to get your recs and manifestos as to why.

my objection doesn't actually have anything to do with narcissa being a blood-supremacist [although i don't think i'd vibe with a story which didn't address this at all - and i'm not compelled by a common version of fanon!narcissa which has her as not sincerely holding these beliefs: she is just as much of a bigot as lucius] - i think something quite interesting could be done with narlily [as in all death-eater-with-a-non-pureblood ships] as a vehicle for an examination of the hypocrisy of blood-supremacy; and with narlily as a femslash ship specifically as a vehicle for an examination of how sex with a non-pureblood which has no chance of resulting in pregnancy would be more acceptable in a culture which is so obsessed with heritage and lineage than sex which could.

why i don't really think it would slap for me, though, is that narcissa always comes across in canon as someone who is conformist and a bit staid - largely, as i've written about elsewhere, because she feels a desire to perform according to the gendered conventions expected of a woman of her class background as a way of deflecting the shame brought upon her family's standing in polite society by bellatrix and andromeda's behaviour. lily - on the other hand - is famously a bit bolshy - cheeky and adventurous and argumentative and stubborn.

and so i simply do not imagine their personalities either working well together in any meaningful way or clashing spicily [they'd clearly both regard the other as not worth their time popping off at].

please change my mind!

narcissa black/remus lupin

this, on the other hand... yes. hook it into my veins.

they both live behind masks - hers of gendered social convention, his of self-loathing - which have, at their core, the idea that a proper witch and wizard must be "civilised". and while they both seem to prefer to embrace these masks, there is the potential lurking beneath them for both of them to break free and be wild and raw in the realities of themselves.

plus... imagine if you've also got the post-1981 context of lupin trying desperately to understand how sirius could have become the death eater who would betray james to voldemort and narcissa and lucius trying to establish the fiction that he was under the imperius curse during the first war with the ministry, well before they feel comfortable becoming as complacent in their conviction that voldemort's not about to return as they are at the start of the canon narrative.

lovely misery.

#asks answered #asenora's opinions on ships #unhinged and deranged ships #including...#snetunia #petunia dursley #severus snape #narlily #narcissa malfoy #lily evans

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wileycap · 11 months

Text

[spoilers for ATLA]

I have this fanfic story idea for Avatar, and I want to write some of it out.

The basic premise is: What if Iroh had gone the other way after his son's death, becoming more warlike instead of more peaceful - but Ozai still executes his power grab, and they essentially end up ruling two opposing kingdoms?

After Lu Ten dies, Iroh subjugates Ba Sing Se in grief. He doesn't go full villain, no massacring the civilians on purpose or anything, but he does lay waste to the city, takes the young King Kuei hostage and, as a treat, kills Long Feng. (I really dislike Long Feng.)

Meanwhile, Ozai goes ahead with his plan. Azulon reacts much the same, but he does the ever-popular fic thing of giving Ozai's heirs to Iroh. "You must know the pain of losing a firstborn son!" And, furthermore, he manages to get a hawk out to Iroh, that both of Ozai's children have been written out of his lineage and into Iroh's.

Ozai conspires to kill Azulon by blackmailing Ursa. For her treason, Ursa is banished, as in canon, and Ozai takes the throne.

But the balance of power has shifted. The Earth Kingdom, bolstered by Iroh's legions, is now a contender for total world domination - and that's not exactly a disagreeable state of affairs for a lot of Earth Kingdom kings and generals, who pledge loyalty to Iroh.

Meanwhile, Ozai's Fire Nation controls the seas, but they are quickly losing ground in the Earth Kingdom. The newly crowned Ozai is facing immense amounts of domestic pressure, and responds by cracking down on the homeland, making the already totalitarian state even more totalitarian. The Fire Nation still holds the advantage in the war, but their edge is shrinking more and more by the moment, as many of their best legions were in the Earth Kingdom and are now loyal to Iroh.

To legitimize his rule, Ozai spreads the story that Ursa had been working with Iroh to murder Azulon, and that rather than being a conqueror and a ruler, Iroh is now a hostage for the Earth Kingdom - a puppet to exert influence over the Fire Nation. And furthermore, as she fled, the traitor Ursa had done the unthinkable - kidnapped a member of the royal family!

Meanwhile, Ursa does make it to the Earth Kingdom and to Iroh. And true to the story being spread in the Fire Nation, she does have one of her children with her...

Azula.

Who, upon seeing the Earth Kingdom subjugated under Iroh, isn't actually very upset about the whole thing. In fact, she's excited: with Zuko stuck in the homeland and her here at the side of the leader whom she now views as the stronger one, with Azulon's letter proving that she is meant to be Iroh's heir... her prospects of becoming the ruler of the entire world, not just the Fire Nation, are beginning to look pretty good. And all she has to do is make sure to kill dear old Dad and Zuzu at some point. And help Iroh win the war. And stay in Iroh's favour, because if Iroh is anything like her father (he isn't, but Azula doesn't know that), he's more than ready to cast her aside if she proves unsatisfactory. So, bring on the tea and Pai Sho: Azula is both patient and an excellent liar.

Iroh, however, is beginning to feel his character development. He would now be content with pushing the Fire Nation back and ruling the Earth Kingdom in the name of his lost son. But Ursa pleads with him: Zuko is still in the Fire Nation. He is in danger. They have to win the war, or at least rescue Zuko.

And what about Zuko? Zuko looks at the situation: his mother and sister disappear, his uncle and father are at war, his dad probably had his grandpa killed, the Fire Nation is slowly going to hell and now his dad is acting suspiciously nice to him. (Well, he is the only heir Ozai has left.) He thinks about it for a while, and decides to get going while the going is good, and just so happens to run into a recently disgraced Lieutenant named Jee, who thinks he might be able to get them a ship and a crew, and hey, the areas near the South Pole are supposed to be pretty far from the war, and what's that huge beam of light on the horizon?

Any thoughts?

#story ideas #atla #avatar the last airbender #iroh #atla ozai #fanfiction #fanfic #plot bunny #zuko #azula #atla ursa

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aida-sparks · 8 months

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To 9-1-1: Just Take One REAL Step Toward Buddie. See What Happens.

Hello fellow 9-1-1 buddie fans! I've been mulling over season 7 and a topic close to our hearts: the possibility of buddie sailing into full-on canon territory. We've heard people say the show can't give us buddie, using the unfortunate reason that it's because the larger general audience doesn't "see" buddie as a thing. That while the buddie fandom is huge, it doesn't compare to the size of the overall viewing audience, most of which don't even engage online in the fandom and might not know about the potential of buddie as a ship.

So that's the reason we may only ever get a love story that's written entirely in the subtext of the show? No, that's not good enough. I want to believe this show of ours is daring enough to let the general audience in on things and let them make up their own minds on the matter. Give the idea of buddie canon a fighting chance. Sure, the subtle nods and secret messages woven into the show might be crystal clear to us. But casual viewers probably don't pick up on those messages nestled in the nooks and cracks where buddie has been written up till now. We need to aim for more than subtext. And definitely don't settle for that color theory. If we are to get anywhere, we need to see them start spelling it out with explicit dialogue and storyline moments for the entire audience to interpret on their own.

By this season's end, the show needs to step out of the carefully crafted, unspoken undertones they always give buddie fans, and instead they need to explicitly spell out to the casual viewing audience, 'Hey there's a strong potential that Buck and Eddie might just be more than buddies (no pun intended). It has to be well done with clear hints leading up to it, of course, not just something in a single scene that's dropped on the casual viewers' heads like a piano. But it's more than possible to do, especially using flashbacks to buddie scenes and stolen glances throughout the seasons. Think about it. Eddie wrote Buck (and Buck alone) into his will; that's no small gesture! They can weave and layer these past moments into a current storyline, building up to a revelation from Buck and/or Eddie that feels like a "Whoa!" moment for all viewers (not just the buddie shippers), like, "I didn't see it before, but it makes sense. I can see those two as something more now."

And there are many different paths the show can take to get Buck and/or Eddie to this revelation. (I have my own idea of how it might go. The options are as diverse as all our fandom theories.) But how they get there isn't the important piece. What matters is that the possibility of something potentially happening between Buck and Eddie is CRYSTAL CLEAR in the narrative! Actually written into the dialogue and storyline, in a plausible way.

The show doesn't even have to commit buddie-end-game. They just have to give them a fighting chance by putting the possibility of it out there in the plain light of day, in front of the entire audience and see how it sticks. They could shift course in future storylines if it doesn't go over well, but my honest guess is that a majority wouldn't mind buddie becoming canon at all once they're exposed to it, especially if it was written/produced well; Oliver's and Ryan's on-fire chemistry is already there to carry it through. Many would come to root for buddie, especially over another new love interest introduced so late in the series that can't match all we've seen Buck and Eddie build together. Some viewers might not care one way or the other; they might just be in for the crazy emergencies each week. So then if we the remove this perception that buddie canon would not take well with general audience, what else is stopping it? I can't think of anything.... full steam ahead!

Now, am I prepared for the heartbreaking possibility that buddie might never go full canon in the sense we hope? That we may only ever get a love story buried in the subtext, if that's the best the show is allowed to give us? Sure, but it's much harder and so unfulfilling to come to terms with that outcome if the show never gives them a real chance at it in the first place.

This long ramble is all simply to say that I'm not demanding that buddie become canon. I'm asking that the possibility of it becomes canon.

If nothing else, it would take the "delusional" and "clown" stigmas off of buddie shippers' shoulders because addressing the potential of buddie in the show tells the audience that hey, maybe there could be something there; they didn't just "see things that weren't there". I don't see this as such a heavy thing to ask for. Please let this make sense to everyone. It does in my head. lol.

#buddie #buddie canon #buddie thoughts #911 buddie #911 abc #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie meta #buck x eddie #buddie 911 #tv: 911

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herbs-and-poultices · 3 months

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More plotless self-indulgent stabbing...

(I actually finished writing something in a reasonable amount of time?!?!)

@silvercap wrote this lovely piece and it got stuck in my brain, and they were so kind as to let me run with it a bit :) so uh... now available with extra plotless self-indulgent stabbing?

Graphic description of blood and injury, hurt / not much comfort, character death.

Resident Evil characters, there's a kiss at the end but it's more whumpy than anything, possibly a bit of implied past relationship (?) of some sort but I kept that whole thing fairly ambiguous

A bit outside my usual aftermath/caretaking content, but I do love a good ol' knife between the ribs. Ship stuff is definitely outside my usual, I just (mostly) left in what Silver wrote.

I don't actually know these characters (only from hurt/comfort fanfiction and a cursory glance through fandom wiki), so things probably won't be accurate to canon/fanon for those who are properly familiar with it.

Silver's original / close-to-original is in italics. Silver, let me know if you want me to change anything about how I did this, since it includes your wonderful work.

With a ruthless twist of his wrist, Krauser sends Leon’s knife clattering to the floor. Leon follows an instant later, aching legs swept out from under him. But the hard crack of his spine on the concrete is dull compared with the bright white pain that cuts suddenly into his chest.

His free arm flails desperately against Krauser’s shoulder, scrabbles at his wide throat, but the pull on flayed muscle ignites a fire that flares from sternum to fingertips, turning the limb frustratingly weak and uncoordinated. The rest of him is well and truly pinned, Krauser’s meaty fist heavy on his other bicep so he can only claw ineffectually at the sleeve of his camo uniform, one knee between his legs with the thigh pressing his hips into the rough warehouse floor, the other leg planted wide in an unshakeable stance.

Many things have changed in the years since he trained in the military with Krauser as his CO, but some things remain the same. Krauser is a mountain of a man, and, skilled and combat-hardened though Leon might have become, in a position like this his agility is no match for the Major’s sheer bulk. When the knife digging into him was rubber and he was - if not exactly fresh nor well-rested - at least not exhausted from two days trying to survive another goddamn mission gone ass-up, he had tried a few times to find an opening in Krauser’s stance or force him to shift his weight enough to take back the offensive, but it never once ended well. And now, even if he could somehow power through the pain long enough to get his muscles to obey him… The blaze of agony is abated - or perhaps simply concentrated - enough that he can feel with terrible clarity the blade of Krauser’s knife, cold metal sunk into the muscle of his chest, the fine tip resting neatly between two of his ribs. Pinned, indeed. Like a butterfly in a biologist's display case. Any resistance could only hasten the inevitable.

Even as the recognition settles in his mind, his limbs continue to struggle, searching instinctively for any leverage, until Krauser leans ever so slightly forward. The pointed blade drags roughly through the gristle of muscle and tendon protecting his rib cage; his already clenched jaw knots in tooth-crushing tightness and his head slams back involuntarily against the floor, eyes scrunched tight as a keening sound escapes his throat. And then with an awful tear it slips free, gliding into viscera. His eyes fly open, head lifting off the floor again to take in the sickening sight of his own blood spilling across his chest and staining Krauser’s hand where it grasps the knife, but all he can do is gasp in a slow trickle of dank air.

Their eyes meet. Krauser pauses for a moment. Then one corner of his otherwise hard-set mouth twitches up by a hair’s breadth.

Leon coughs a spray of blood as the knife sinks deeper into his breast, eyes widening and breath catching in a wheeze as the wicked blade carves remorselessly into his chest cavity. The chill of sharp metal through the warmest, vitalest core of his body is beyond his mind’s ability to accurately comprehend. Above him, Krauser's ragged expression has twisted into something unreadable, scars blurring as Leon feels him force the knife another inch deeper to settle it fully into place, the guard pressed flat against his skin through the blood-drenched fabric of his jacket and shirt which are far too thin to offer any protection against the chill creeping into him. The tip scrapes bone somewhere under his shoulderblade; static runs up and down his spine and out to the ends of his fingers and toes, and nausea pools in the back of his throat. His head falls back, hands loosening where they'd been desperately trying to stop Krauser's attacks. He's---he's failed. And he knows - from the frantic fluttering just below his sternum every time he tries to take a breath, from the way the burning pressure in his chest cavity builds and builds like a volcano about to erupt, suffocating him in a tide of blood and crushing him within the cage of his own ribs, from the way Krauser’s lip curls in grim satisfaction - there will be no coming back from this one.

The knife shifts a fraction of an inch as Krauser releases it. Leon gasps another agonized sound, unable to feel anything but the radiating, piercing pain skewering his major organs. A moment later, Krauser removes the other hand from his bicep, evidently confident at this point that he's in no position to try anything. Krauser's knee brushes over Leon’s leg where he'd jammed it in the fighting, his broad chest emanating humid heat as he props an elbow next to Leon's head and lets his weight come to rest partly against Leon's uninjured side.

Leon finds himself leaning into the contact, unable to deny that it is perversely comforting. The man’s body is solid, feels almost protective as it curls around him. And warm, so warm against his cooling skin, a blissful shelter from the chill which has been soaking through his limbs. Everywhere that isn't an inferno of pain has turned to ice, and he feels like he'll never be warm again. He won't, he realizes. Sudden memories of happier days make his heart ache in a different way, tears starting in his eyes. Warm sunshine and cozy rooms, smiles and laughter, back-slaps and tight embraces. Many of those people are dead. Some have been corrupted, bought out, turned traitor. The rest he fervently hopes are far away from here, safe from this nightmare. It's silly, to be crying as the life slowly stutters and drains from his broken, exhausted body, but Leon doesn't have the strength to stop himself.

Krauser rumbles from somewhere deep in his ribcage, like the purr of a lion. "Give in, soldier. It's useless to hold on like this." His voice is the gravelly rasp that Leon once thought was caring. He knows better, now.

"F-fuck you," Leon wheezes, blinking heavily to fight off the black spots encroaching on his vision. He can't breathe right, and God it hurts to try. A rough hand cards through his hair, the sensation lost in the sudden numbness that's begin to tug at his consciousness with a gentle insistence that makes it impossible to want to fight. He struggles for a moment, overwhelmed by the panicked fluttering caged beneath his ribs, only to sob and let himself go limp a moment later. "I'm s-sorry."

He’s not quite sure who he’s saying it to. To the many people he couldn’t save from so many tragic, horrific hellholes. To the mentor who for so long he could never seem to please no matter how hard he tried, throwing himself into training until he was worn down to the bone but never good enough for the stern-faced Major. Or to the bright-eyed police academy recruit from so many years ago who thought he could somehow put the world to right. Maybe all of them.

"Stubborn." Krauser sounds almost fond, blue eyes fading in and out of focus. He strokes Leon's hair again. He seems to hesitate. "I'm sorry, too."

Leon’s body convulses weakly, some primitive instinct still struggling in vain against the raging sea of agony. Each breath is shallower than the last, a great weight pressing down on his chest until he's sure his ribs must be buckling in, choking him on mouthfuls of hot copper.

“Let it happen, Rookie.” Krauser’s hand brushes a last strand of hair from his forehead and tucks it behind his ear before curving to cup the back of his skull, tipping his head up slightly. “I’ve got you.”

His mouth finds Leon's somewhere in the darkness that's settled over the world, hot and sharp with the acrid tang of blood and smoke. It's shockingly nice. Scarred lips brush softly against his own, the soothing sensation of mingling tongues and skin on skin easing Leon's distress. Krauser is here, with him, kissing him. It's steadying, comfortable. Bittersweet.

Leon can’t breath, could barely anyways, but he finds this way he doesn’t mind so much. His throat spasms once, twice, three times for air he cannot have, before the shuddering muscles are quieted by a heavy palm on the crests of his collarbones.

He exhales, and the world ends.

#my pen slipped #and slipped and slipped

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hazbinsponsoredbyvee · 2 months

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I mean I understand why Radioapple is popular. The Enemies to Lovers trope is like one of the hottest tropes there is, and while Alastor and Vox were technically enemies everyone could tell Alastor didn't take their rivalry very seriously, likely because he didn't view Vox as an actual threat, but Vox was very quick to instigate and was easily shut down by Alastor which is also why Radiosilence is very popular, people love the one-sided thing between them and the bits of past lore we were given. But with Lucifer it's easy to see there's actual angry tension between the two, it's not a one-sided rivalry, Lucifer pisses Al off just as Al pisses Lucifer off so them and their dynamic fit the actual Enemies part perfectly and from there it's much easier to make scenarios in which they would become lovers. Hate sex being very popular because they have a lot of hate for each other, and if they were to have sex it would end in a lot of blood and tears and most likely a very torn up room. That's just my take on it. Tbh the only Radioapple I like is the Berryverse Radioapple which was a thing before the first season, it's kind of an AU where Alastor is a way better version of Al and is Angel's pimp and Lucifer is Vox because he sells Apple mac products.

As someone whose lifeblood is enemies to lovers, I totally get that. And when I first saw that people shipped radioapple my first thought was 'Oh yeah, that makes sense - enemies to lovers. Probably if I look at it close enough, I'll start shipping it too, cause I can never help myself with that trope.'

But then I did start to look at it closer, and I just... don't see any romantic or sexual tension between them. It seems a very superficial enmity because it's just the two most prideful beings being jealous of each other with no real heart behind it. No hate to them as enemies, cause enemies doesn't need to be a complicated thing, I just don't see enough there for anything to develop out of it. Maybe if Alastor wasn't aroace, but as it is, I think it would have to be very special circumstances for him to be interested in anyone like that.

As for radiostatic, I respectfully disagree about Alastor not taking their rivalry seriously. I think he just does a much better job of hiding it. This can even be seen in the (admittedly non-canon) comics, where Vox tries to get a rise out of Alastor, he rolls his eyes and walks away, but the second he's out of earshot starts grumbling and even swearing.

In the show itself, I went in knowing nothing, and in the first episode when Alastor and Vaggie were making the commercial, I was immediately convinced that he had been hurt by/had a grudge against someone in the television industry. Then, when he came out of his tailor's shop (which he knew was right across from Vox's shop, and why did he have to repair a coat that already had so many tears in it?), he stops to pose, cracks an eye open, and then gets all irritated when he gets no reaction. And then what does he do? Immediately goes on air to antagonize Vox right back. (I also saw a post talking about how he references the first part of the song, that Vox wasn't even on air for, implying that he also spies on Vox, but that's shaky evidence, I feel like.)

And the end of that episode really sealed it for me, with him waiting in the shadows, then picking up the watch and powering it on just to taunt Vox. Cause yeah, my first watch of Stayed Gone, I got the same impression that Alastor didn't take the rivalry seriously, but then here he was, going out of his way get a rise out of Vox. It suddenly showed that whatever was between them was very personal, and fuck, the only trope I like more than enemies to lovers is friends to enemies to lovers.

Well, sorry for this soapbox. I'm a big proponent of ship and let ship, so this is in no way trying to put down anyone who views these characters differently, I'm just sharing my opinion!

#anon #mel speaks #radiostatic

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onewingedsparrow · 10 months

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WIP Game

Tagged by @mistresslrigtar, and @zeldaelmo, thank you both!! <3 This is the WIP game where I have to post my wip titles and you can ask after them. Most of these titles are final, but a few of them are still being workshopped :) I did a Read More because this was getting long, as usual :P I'm also gonna tag @prismicnexus @afaroffsong @silvercaptain24 @sunburned-cyborg and @skyyknights but no pressure! And if you've been tagged already that's all right, you can ignore this. ❄️ Over the Edge (Original Work) This is the tale of an illustrious creature residing in a high tower—and the secret of the broken, bloodied bones scattered about the dungeon floor. 🦋 I'm Coming After You (Robots in Disguise 2015) Why is there a sparkling on the prison ship Alchemor? How will Lieutenant Bumblebee fare when said sparkling interferes with his work in capturing dangerous Decepticons at large? Where is Steeljaw's new base, and what in the Allspark is he plotting now? Bumblebee would also like to know.... ⚔️ When Push Comes to Shove (Hyrule Warriors) Link and Zelda return to the Temple of the Sacred Sword to seal away the darkness, and Link is forced to face his insecurities, whether he's ready for it or not. 🐝 To Bee a Leader (Robots in Disguise 2015) Bumblebee knows that Optimus Prime chose him to be leader of the Autobot team on Earth…but he's tired and he misses his dad.

🐺 Enduring the Twilight (Twilight Princess) As regrets from his past failures haunt him, Link finds an unexpected counselor—and ally—in a mysterious golden wolf who regularly crosses his path. 🍃 Deku Tree Link AU (OoT Canon Divergent) When the future Hero of Time was adopted by the Great Deku Tree, he inherited more than a home and a family among the Kokiri—he also received the Great Deku Tree's abilities, as well as the mantle of Guardian of the Forest. 🎭 When the Dust Settles (Miraculous Ladybug Apocalypse!AU) Paris has fallen. Two survivors roam the wreckage, spared only by the Miraculous they themselves carry. 🪽 Under My Wings (Transformers: Prime) Arcee never wished to join Team Prime. Optimus never planned to raise a sparkling during the war. Bumblebee never meant to change the course of history. The road ahead of them is not at all what they expected.... 🧣 All I Am (Skyward-Sword-and-Hyrule-Historia-manga-inspired) The captain of the Knights of Hylia has been tasked with holding back the demon king’s forces. Aware that he is out of his league, Link struggles with coming to terms with the gravity of this command. Fortunately, Hylia is watching out for him. 🌙 Moonquake WIP (Original Work) Kaya is tired of the power going out. Tarka Sevan seeks a light from beyond. ❤️‍🔥 Tripled Threats (Transformers Crossover) Three road-raging warriors and one cheerful ray of sunshine share what is perhaps the strangest plot twist of their lives. 🥠 Sandwiched (Age of Extinction) Bitter from the battle of Chicago, Optimus Prime holds strong opinions about humanity's profane treatment of his people. Trapped by convention with a group of humans, in addition to another equally unwanted ally, the Autobot leader turned war criminal is forced to consider the deepest truths of life...even that which he has been running from for ages untold. 🏴‍☠️ Overboard one (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) On the voyage to Far, Far Away, Kitty falls into the sea. 😇 [The smile one] (Rise of the Beasts) Mirage points out something that Bumblebee can never forget. 🧵 [It's Official] (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) Puss and Kitty don't appreciate how stinky Perrito's sock has become over their long voyage, and plot to expand his wardrobe. 🌌 [Fire Emblem Megafic] (Three Houses / Three Hopes / more) Two new professors arrive at the Officer's Academy—and the fate of the World is forever changed. A single crack in a castle of glass is enough to shatter the structure of time...now imagine what one could do with two.... ...this isn't all of my WIP's, of course. :D But, these are the ones I'm either in-the-zone-working-on right now, or I'm gearing up to get back into, so ask away! ✨

#long post #ask away #wip title game

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achaotichuman · 6 months

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Random Ramble

I think it is hilarious how some people are so aggressive about sticking so thoroughly to canon, and not allowing for any room for imagination, because like, my brother in christ, canon does not exist.

None of these are real, the characters are not real, the story is not real. There is no such thing as canon.

There is only such thing as the op. The one who originally made the story and the characters, which is why we have copyright. So that no one can *make money off of these characters and the story*

But so long as you aren't plagiarizing the story in order to make your own money off of it. Once these characters are published and, in the world, everyone has free reign with them.

Once they are in your head, they are your characters. Which is why people interrupt their actions differently. Because the characters will appear different in your head compared to anyone else, including the author.

Idk the origins of the term canon, nor have I done any research on the topic (I'm just rambling) but tbh in my eyes it appears like we as a society have allowed money to ingrain itself so deeply into us as people, that we allow to dictate what we think. And this goes for the idea of canon.

Because the actual author is one making money off the books (rightfully so) it has become a sort of, is their way or the highway (this is just a half-thought through theory btw don't take it too seriously)

Which is why I personally love to take said characters and do whatever the fuck I want with them. Because whatever I make them do is in character for me, and even if it isn't, it might be for someone else. Because while they are in my hands, they are my characters.

Consider this a freedom post. You are free to think whatever the fuck you want, none of these people are real. Make Elain a villain, give Kosechi a love interest, make Feyre and Tamlin get back together after she divorces Rhysand. It doesn't matter what the og author thinks, so long as you aren't making money off these characters, you can do whatever the hell you want with them.

And I don't mean make theories crack, I mean you are allowed to genuinely believe this is the best course of action, even if you know the og author won't take it that way.

Cause personally, I do think Tamcien is a plausible ship, and I hope it happens in canon. Do I think it will? No, but Tamlin and Lucien are my characters when they are in my head, so I am allowed to think whatever the fuck I want about them. And same goes for people who disagree with me.

Like some people want Lucien to take over the world, I do not. Some people want Tamlin to die, I do not. Some people want a myriad of things that I do not, and both of those ideas are in character, so long as they are in your head.

Make elriel your canon, make elucien your canon. Fuck it, make Rhysand/Beron your canon.

The only person judging you in the voice in your head, and people on the internet and who gives two fucks what they think. Get as weird as you want, it's all canon, cause none of this is real.

#this came from the depths of my soul #as an avid fan of crack ships and crack theories they are my canon #oh but that just means FANON #no #canon #cause none of this is real #the og author gets their hard earned money #and i get to sit here and make stupid stories about imaginary people #its all canon #its just that one person gets the money from it #acotar #acotar headcanons #acotar au #no one take this too seriously i suddenly started ranting

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inkformyblood · 1 year

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i lose all (but not him) #2 CWW2023

Codywan, slowburn, canon-verse with some divergence @codywanweek Prompt: Tea, Caf and Flimsiwork (Day 6) Ao3 link here

The war is, perhaps, the easiest part of Cody’s job.

And he is Cody now, truly and properly, no longer having to tuck the name he has chosen for himself in the hidden compartment of his vambrace along with a scrap of dark fabric stiff with dried blood and a nearly full tube of paint used to mark the corridors bolted on Kamino. He would tap his fingers against it now to reassure himself that it is still closed and he hasn’t wandered away from the quartermaster with the equivalent of his spine hollowed out and exposed, but his arms are currently full. The training simulations had never covered the intricacies of carrying Jedi robes (slippery), a packet of tea (it kept crinkling) and a datapad (liable to be classed as a projectile). Obi-Wan’s lightsaber is the least worrying thing on Cody’s tray at that moment.

The lightsaber bumps against his leg as he walks, holding onto his belt through a combination of emergency tape, which is quickly becoming routine tape, and sheer willpower.

Cody doesn’t think about it.

He can’t stop thinking about it.

Cody pauses, feeling the sharp stab of tension between his shoulder blades, and presses his shoulder against the metal wall to try and alleviate the pressure from his armour. They were all based on the same template so their armour is similarly fashioned and shipped out from four clone-manned facilities on various satellite stations tucked on the wrong sides of planets orbits, and then two others that Cody technically doesn’t know about.

Query: order status?

Answer: on track for fulfilment in two weeks.

In the factories, Cody wonders, are they lonely? He had seen one of the factory squads from a distance, noted the perpetual stoop to their shoulders from the ceilings built to be manned by droids three-quarters of their height, the easy way they pitched into each other as if their shoulders had been made to be held instead of holding. Fox had been standing next to him, his helmet resting on his hip, fanning at the fresh paint with one hand to try and stop it from smearing. They had been so close but the act of reaching out, of leaning his head against Fox’s shoulder, was impossible. It hadn’t ever been meant for them.

His fingers ache as if he’s cold, trapped inside the treated fabric of his gloves. It doesn’t rustle when he moves like the earlier versions, but Cody finds himself missing the sound. Everything rings hollow inside the maw of a spaceship in a way Kamino never had.

(He is tired.)

First, he needs to return Obi-Wan’s possessions to him. It isn’t a strict part of his role as if he follows the chain of command as it is laid out in Form 44.949 which had only gone into effect a week after their deployment — and that is its own issue that Cody can’t dwell on, can only cut his teeth into fresh points arguing about it. According to the protocol, Cody should give the items to a lower-ranked shiny and direct him to return them to Obi-Wan, with no contact necessary. But he wants to. And he can.

Cody presses his shoulder further against the wall, scraping the plastoid against metal. It still doesn’t sit quite right, pinching at the joint where his altered patch had slipped over the past few hours of battle. He’d likely have a bruise there, an exploitable weakness, a crack for sunlight to spill through.

Footsteps.

Cody is alert in an instant, not moving, barely breathing. Sound carries strangely in a starship, echoing off of the enclosed walls and carried by the pipes tucked just behind the thin plating. They had made use of it, knocking out messages against the exposed metal and waiting for a response with their hands pressed against the chill, waiting for the reverberations that meant an answer rather than the shivers that the temperature drop would bring. Everything is cold, all the time.

He knows the sound of those footsteps specifically, the almost graceful dancelike quality to them despite the scuff of a heel used to brace more often than it is used for anything else.

“Sir?” Cody calls and hears Obi-Wan’s footsteps pause and then continue, moving sideways with purpose rather than the careful creep sideways.

“Cody,” Obi-Wan answers, warmth brewed with every syllable of the name, meticulously flavoured and treasured because it is Cody’s. It is indescribable and it takes Cody’s breath away each and every time. He isn’t wearing his helmet to hide the sudden flush to his cheeks so, instead, he busies himself with tucking the trailing sleeve of Obi-Wan’s robe back into his hold.

Obi-Wan looks battle-worn, his inner layer of robes scorched along one edge and it still carries with it the heady iron scent of the battlefield, blood and anticipation twined together until one cannot be parted from the other. There’s not going to be an end to this, there will always be another battle. But, Cody can help in the quiet moments in between.

“I looked for you earlier, sir.” Cody doesn’t look at Obi-Wan fully, stealing glances out of the haze of his peripheral vision as he keeps his gaze fixed past Obi-Wan, boring through the hull into the void beyond. He can’t study the other man to the extent he would like, not like the first moments on Kamino or the rush after that, so he makes do with fragments. He doesn’t know why.

(We were made for them.)

Obi-Wan blinks, breaking into a grin. He’s slightly off balance, dignified despite that or maybe, because of it, a network of carefully applied bacta patches peeking out from beneath his sleeve. Cody should take him to see a medic. He’s within his training to do so.

“My apologies, Cody.” Obi-Wan bows slightly, his grin never wavering and only growing fonder, building upon a well-worn foundation. “I was just on my way back to my room. Would you like to join me?”

A thrill flickers up Cody’s spine and he thinks of the simulations, of information burning into his neutron pathways and rearranging him from the inside out until he cannot remember who he had been before, only what he had always been. Obi-Wan’s invitations feel similar and, at the same time, like nothing Cody has experienced before. It’s a choice he wants to make just because he can.

“I’d appreciate that, sir.”

“Here, let me.” Obi-Wan’s voice isn’t aligned with his mouth, the sound arriving a handful of seconds before his mouth moves (three seconds exactly, the count inside Cody’s head still ticking down and down and down just as it has been all along). It’s still off-putting, a whisper of the universe leaning forward, head propped on their fists and an unknowable look in their eyes as if this is a test Cody is undertaking and he isn’t aware of the parameters just yet. He swallows against it and squares his shoulders. He isn’t about to kneel for anyone, universe or not.

“I can manage, sir.”

Obi-Wan is unperturbed, reaching for the bundle in Cody’s arms and plucking the hang of his robes free, folding them into his own arms with practised ease that spoke to years of habit. Cody knows the slant of shinies, limbs too long and decorated with bruises instead of paint, but it doesn’t seem to fit Obi-Wan correctly like he’s trying to pilot a command module with an engineering base. He must have been shorter at some point, bare-faced and delicate like the little Commander allocated to Rex’s squadron, but Cody can’t picture it. Obi-Wan’s fingers brush Cody’s, his skin warm and a little sticky from the bacta residue on his palm. There’s a ragged edge to one of his nails, the skin torn and protruding and something in Cody snaps into sharp relief, a knowing that he cannot explain.

“There.” Obi-Wan smooths his hands over the robe once more and Cody keeps his gaze lowered, watching the other man out of the corner of his eye as he tucks the datapad under his arm and holds the roughly folded packet of tea on the same side. He straightens up, settling back into the easy position that feels like his bones have been reshaped to fit. His elbow bumps against Obi-Wan’s saber and he draws it free with his other hand, pulling the tape free.

It’s warm, clinging to the remnants of Obi-Wan’s touch, and still heavier than Cody expects, each and every time. “I believe this is yours, sir?”

“Ah.” Obi-Wan brightens, his smile rueful. There’s a faint flush of colour to his cheeks, more noticeable thanks to his pale complexion, and he covers it by smoothing his fingers over his robe once more. “You truly are a wonder, Cody. I knew my saber would be safe with you watching out for me.”

Compliments had been few and far between on Kamino for the command track clones, limited to a dull glow of satisfaction at a posted score or an envious glance at their other brothers who could grin like it was easy because it was for them. Cody keeps his breathing even, hoping the flare of colour in his cheeks isn’t as noticeable as he feels it is despite the chill that permeates every inch of the ship. “I’m just doing my job, sir.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head slowly, reaching up to run his fingers over the side of his neck, his grip curling over something that is no longer there before he lowers his hand once more. When he speaks, his voice is heavy with a gravity that could tear a planet in two. “Even so, Cody, thank you.”

Obi-Wan takes his saber, his fingers brushing against Cody’s, his hold casual for a weapon that still gives Cody pause despite the number of times he has handled it. He spins it over his palm, a flash of darker calluses bisecting the base of his fingers and the pad of his thumb, a rough touch that Cody knows and he wishes he doesn’t and craves it all at once.

(They were made for us.)

Cody nods, sharp enough to cut, his gaze lingering on the pale green cast of bacta over the gap at Obi-Wan’s wrist. The air hangs heavy, the fans above and below thrumming through a circulation cycle and the scent of iron clings to the back of Cody’s teeth. He wants to suggest that they continue forwards, down the corridor and around the corner that would open to the solid door that blockaded Obi-Wan’s rooms, but he can’t. It’s too close to an order, his mind too tired to work around the logic jumps that would let him justify it as a suggestion. He stands, silent, his breath catching on every ragged piece of the scars on his chest, his gaze fixed on a single distant point.

Query: help

Answer: This is temporary. Wait for orders.

Cody is a good soldier. He waits.

“Shall we continue, my dear?” Obi-Wan says. There’s something about his voice that reminds Cody of the incubation rooms, cast in dull blue light and necessitating hushed voices just because.

Cody nods, exhaustion adding several pounds to his armour as he waits for Obi-Wan to begin walking and he falls in place next to him. There’s an itch at the nape of his neck, a wisp of hair caught between the fabric of his blacks and his armour, and sweat pooling in the divots of his spine and beneath his arms. Over the rest of him, he can still feel the grit of the battlefield and he knows he will never be able to be free of it. Yet another thing that had never been covered in the simulations.

Around them, the ship groans and settles into an evening cycle, the lights flickering to a darker hue and Cody glances up automatically, searching the ceiling for the tell-tale watchful eye of the security system. He wouldn’t see it, the cameras were something that he had left behind on Kamino and he had scrubbed over every inch of the ship’s systems and every single regulatory form searching for the equivalent that the Jedi would hold over them. He hadn’t found it but the fear is always there. He checks every so often, and he knows Fox does too.

Settling back into an easy pace, Cody thinks over the recent battle, the developing report he is transcribing in his mind for it, the supply list for the ship, anything and everything to not think about the lingering warmth from Obi-Wan’s touch that still burns over the dull fabric of his gloves. He knows what Obi-Wan’s hands feel like on his bare skin and that is somehow worse.

They draw to a halt, Cody stopping half a step behind Obi-Wan before he corrects himself, moving level. A small smile tugs at Obi-Wan’s mouth, fond in a quiet way, and he taps over the control panel to open the door and he steps inside. “Would you mind closing the door after you, Cody? I find there’s a certain chill that comes with the evening cycle.”

“Yes, sir.”

It’s a choice to obey, the deliberate phrasing of not an order that Obi-Wan had fallen into whenever he speaks to the clones, the same way he would keep the world stable somehow with nothing more than a gentle word and a smile. Cody taps over the door control and it hisses closed behind him.

Inside, Obi-Wan’s quarters are similar to Cody’s own, one room slightly larger than the standard plan outlined on the ship’s blueprints, the ceiling sloping down towards the bed hollowed out of one wall due to the swell of pipes and wires and Obi-Wan stoops slightly as he moves towards a set of hooks just above an alcove. Against the opposite wall, a desk sits, bolted into place and covered in a mess of datapads and flimsiwork roughly shuffled into piles and bound together with broad straps and a pulse of pain spikes behind Cody’s eyes in sympathy. His own desk looks similar, if more organised. He can’t not. Not yet.

Cody steps forward, watching Obi-Wan out of the corner of his eye. His heartbeat is unsteady, a rattle in his chest making his teeth ache. He had told before that he doesn’t have to wait for Obi-Wan, that he can sit down when he wishes, but he can’t here and now. He needs an order.

Obi-Wan keeps his head lowered as he reaches into the alcove, pausing only to throw his robes towards the bed. The angle isn’t right, meaning to land the robes on the edge of the bed, dooming them to pool into a crumpled unregulated mess. But it doesn’t. Because the mystical energy that governs the universe bends itself to Obi-Wan’s commands because it loves him — like Cody thinks he might, a choice he’s making for himself alone — and the robe folds itself neatly on the bed, one sleeve dangling free like it’s waiting to be held.

“Please sit, Cody.” Obi-Wan isn’t looking at him but Cody can feel the easy pressure of his gaze regardless. There’s almost a release, a switch flicking in his brain, and Cody gratefully sinks onto the single chair offset from the low table. His back is still straight, his elbows tucked into his side, and he holds the datapad and the tea on his lap, keeping it level. His back is to the curved corner, the brief scrap of wall between the desk and the door to the private fresher Obi-Wan is allocated. It makes sense, distance to stop familiarity, a layer of separation that the Jedi seem determined to sidestep whenever possible, however they can.

The single bed is a rarity that keeps drawing Cody’s attention like a neon sign flickering out of step with the world around it. He’s used to sleeping alone now, his own separation from his brothers, his world blunted behind thick leather and heavy plastoid to keep him moulded as he was intended, but he can remember the dormitories when he had been barely bigger than a shiny and he was no different than any of his batchmates. He can barely remember their names or numbers now, a deliberate forgetting Cody forced himself through after the first casualty report landed in front of him, his hands bound in bacta from his blaster shattering in his grip, bloodied and yet it hadn’t been enough.

It would never be enough.

“What tea did you select for us, Cody?” Obi-Wan pulls out the kettle from the alcove, his head bowed in quiet contemplation before he rests it in midair, returning to the alcove for two mugs dangling from his crooked fingers before he picks the kettle back up.

Cody doesn’t think about the word ‘us’. He’s getting better at doing that.

“Picked it up last rotation.” Cody’s voice cracks at the final word, stumbles into cowering compliance as his knuckles ache with the desire to do something (ERROR: it isn’t time yet). He swallows, swings his gaze from Obi-Wan’s bed to the rough sheen of the kettle, non-regulation modifications packed beneath the innocuous surface so it has its own transfer form for whenever Obi-Wan brings it onto planet-side with him for the longer campaigns. He’s allowed, as is his right, to bring more items than the standard clone trooper. Cody is similarly allotted a slight increase in his cargo allowance and he has no end of brothers who are willing to pick up a maintenance slot here and there in exchange for some of it.

It’s strange.

He’s a little jealous of them, he thinks. It comes easier for them.

“Oh? What about it caught your eye?”

Obi-Wan doesn’t reach for the package, waits for Cody to offer it. Instead, he watches Cody beneath lowered lashes, ostensibly scooping and re-scooping the same amount of sugar, letting the granules tip back into the rustling packet at each attempt. There are choices to be made, but Cody falls back onto old habits, open-palmed and offered up like a sacrifice to a deity they manufactured themselves out of scrap metal and the scent of salt and the hopes of what the Jedi would be like, their unknown purchasers. It had been old when the Alpha batch were shinies, decaying by the time Cody had grown, but it is still there, still watching.

(Interesting. A side-effect, perhaps?)

“It was the picture at first.” Cody doesn’t shift his gaze as Obi-Wan steps closer, impossible not to watch him in such close quarters but Cody focuses on the delicate embroidery covering a burn mark on Obi-Wan’s tunic, the sharp scent of bacta rising. “Reminds me of Kamino.”

Obi-Wan scoops the packet up, cradling it in his palms as he raises it up to the dull glow of the light. It breaks against the planes of his cheekbones, turns his hair golden at the edges to replace the whisper of silver throughout, and Obi-Wan hums in answer. “Good flavours too, I’m particularly fond of wild cherry, it’s a shame the crop itself will be in short supply this year due to the change in agriculture. Not even just because of the war, but Stewjoni—“

The kettle whistles and Obi-Wan turns back to it, the sound of his scuffed footsteps not aligning with the fall of his boot. He ducks his head and returns to the alcove, still speaking, still animated with a flush to his cheeks.

“—Stewjoni is my home planet originally or, at least, that is what was put into my records. But they are the main exporter of this type of wild cherry and they’ve had a higher-than-expected amount of rain in recent years and a significant number of the trees haven’t produced fruit because of it. We won’t feel the effects for a while, modern food storage being what it is, but there’ll be a shortage in a year or two.”

Cody can’t make out what Obi-Wan is doing, but he can hear the kettle taper off into a low rolling boil, water splash into three cups and the scent of something Cody can’t name fills the air. It’s close to the memory of the market stall at the edge of a decaying town, the flat space loaded with numerous packets and they had smelt slightly sweet behind the industrial tang of the packaging and the lingering ash of battle. It’s a nice smell and Cody breathes in deeply.

“Here you go, Cody.” Obi-Wan balances two cups on the small table in the centre of the room, sweeping the handles round to both face the same direction before he straightens and pulls the desk chair out, sinking into it. One cup is immediately familiar as caf, sweetened to the point of thickness, and something in Cody’s chest twists at the thought of Obi-Wan remembering, of not needing to ask because he knows, and it takes a moment for him to assess the second cup. The liquid inside is paler by a few degrees, tending towards a deep red shade, and it is the source of the new scent.

“Have you any plans for your leave? I believe I’m going to be stuck at the Temple for the duration.” Obi-Wan crosses his legs whenever he sits if he isn’t restrained by the arms of the chair. In those situations, he will often sit sideways, throwing his legs over the arm in order to sprawl. He’s sitting like that now, stance wide and somehow stable despite the deliberate tilt to the chair.

Cody reaches for the cup as he twists his thoughts into an answer. He feels almost like a cadet again, strapped into an armour that’s too big for him, stumbling around in search of something that makes sense. “I picked up some supplies to try knitting,” he offers, his back straightening before he can stop himself. He might as well have carved through the plastoid on his chest and offered Obi-Wan his bleeding heart and it would feel less personal.

But Obi-Wan brightens, turning towards Cody like a flower searching for the sun, and it’s okay, it’s going to be alright.

“That’s wonderful to hear, it truly is a rewarding skill to have.”

Cody nods, wishing in vain for his helmet to hide the flush on his cheeks, and picks up the tea instead, lowering his head to sip at it. It tastes sweet, like the warm sensation of his fingertips brushing against Obi-Wan’s and Cody drinks more, craving something he can’t fully name. Not yet, at least.

#codywan #cody x obi wan #commander cody #obi wan kenobi #star wars #codywanweek 2023 #codywan week 2023 #my writing #fanfic

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